Your favorite fanfic passages? · 6:46pm February 12th
Lots of cons have panels where people read bad fan-fiction for laughs. But they never have panels where people read good fan-fiction. So I'm going to propose one, at every con I go to.
I can't very well read nothing but ponyfiction if I'm not at a pony con, but I don't know much fan-fiction outside ponydom. So: Have you got some favorite passages from any fan-fictions, especially outside ponyfic? If so, please put them in a comment, quoted exactly, with quote marks indicating start and end, and the fandom, the author's fandom name, and a link to the story. The passage must be:
- Short. The shorter, the more-likely to be included (EDIT: Turns out there is such a thing as too short. Let's say the passage should take at least twice as long to read as it takes me to say the writer and the story's title.) I can read about 180 words per minute out loud, so try to stay under
360500 words. I'll also read some entire stories under 1000 words. If you want to propose one, just link to it instead of pasting the whole thing in here. - Understandable to someone who knows nothing about the fandom. For entire stories, you can include up to 60 words of necessary background information.
- The excerpt itself must be impressive in some way. It might be well-styled, or very funny, dramatic, experimental, or good in some other way I can't think of right now. I don't want an excerpt from a 100,000-word story just because it's a great story. If its greatness doesn't show in those 500 words, I don't want it. Conversely, I'll use a great passage from even a bad or incomplete story.
- If it's a story on my Favorites shelf, the odds that I'll include it go way up.
- It makes it potentially awkward for both of us if you propose lines from your own stories.
...why?
(From We Are Each Our Own Devil, straight-up Tanya the Evil fanfic, no crossovers. By victoria_kay)
There is a wonderful quote in the Cadence of Cloudsdale series by Skywriter that was inspired/created/dreamed up by Murcushio. It inspired the entry paragraphs on Chapter 73 of Letters From a Little Princess Monster. Found it (and the details behind it as written by Murcushio which I think you'll appreciate
Arrgh, I can't find the line in the Cadence of Cloudsdale series but I know its there somewhere. I'll keep looking. (Edit: See below where Skywriter responded. It's glorious.)
Most of the rest of Really Good Lines are Wham Lines after a few chapters of setup, which doesn't work well for convention readings. Most of Pinkie Watches Paint Dry are exceptional standalone lines. Small Town Charm has some doozies.
“Oh, that.” Pinkie smiled. “Don’t you know how star spiders work, Twilight? Every five years, all the star spiders in the world come to Ponyville to find a special somespider, get cozy, lay a few eggs, and then go back home! It’s like a single’s cruise, but with more webs.”
There was a pause.
The pause lengthened.
It became uncomfortable.
Eventually, Twilight picked up the field guide again and flipped forward several pages to the “Behavior” section of the star spider entry.
Twilight put the book down. She took another deep breath, held it as long as she could, and slowly let it out.
“Pinkie,” she said. “How many star spiders come to Ponyville?”
“Hm.” Pinkie spent a distressingly long amount of time in thought. “What’s the biggest number?”
A favorite bit of comedic dialogue from Postnuptial Disagreements:
A favorite dramatic scene from Of The Stars:
Perhaps I'll think of more later, in which case I'll try to come back and deliver it here. In the meantime, hopefully at least one of these is vaguely in the style of what you're after.
Sometimes, within stories I've written, I have one or more especially favorite lines, but I don't know if anyone but I would feel that way about them.
Edited to add: inb4 some rule-blathering nattering twit starts shouting, 'Kill your darlings! Kill your darlings! I know all about writing, and several other phrases!'
I mean, yes there are circumstances in which one has to remove or alter something that one likes that doesn't work well where it is, but sometimes one likes something that DOES work well where it is.
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If you're self-conscious, send them in a PM. Just please don't feel bad if I don't use them. I've got very limited time; I'm planning on the passages being just half of a 50-minute session. And I have some constraints other than just quality.
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I was thinking of reading that whole story out loud, if I can find a copy of the pre-EQD 2000-word version.
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HAHA HAHAHAHAHAHA I can think of so many possible critera for a flower arrangement other than 'is the flower pretty?'
I mean, I would not feel bad. There are probably hundreds of hours worth of 'good lines' and 'good short passages' in fimfic (and even that specific number of hours is just an arbitrary cutoff.) I also know that your presentation has to work AS A PRESENTATION, not just as a 'top ten thousand' list.
Also noting: There would not be time to read ten thousand.
I know it might be cheating, but the line
literally changed my life.
I have a couple. All ponyfics, unfortunately—I don't have much experience in other fandoms.
1.
Biblical Monsters, Horse Voice
The beginning of Biblical Monsters is a classic. It’s efficient and effective.
You probably knew already, but in case you missed it, Inquisitor M once called up a small panel of authors and asked for their opinion on different story beginnings. They were unanimous that this was one of the best.
2.
Equestria:1940, ch.3, Georg
This was an important piece for me as a writer. After I'd first read this (especially that single sentence paragraph in the middle), I understood that descriptions are better when they carry tone. And tone was something I’d failed to grasp before.
3.
Quiet Boy and Moon Horse, Horizon
I confess. I’m lazy. I nicked this from the comment section of CiG’s blog on writing paragraphs.
4.
Administrative Angel, ch1, Horizon again. Because we need more Horizon dagnabbit.
Some of these may have benefited from additional context, but I wasn't exactly sure what context I would've added.
I'll come back to add more examples if I can come up with any.
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EDIT: I had to delete this reply because I misremembered the passage, which was actually mine. Apparently I don't remember what I wrote anymore.
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Sorry, disregard the previous reply. The actual paragraph that was basically written by Murcushio was Cadance's brief vision of the gravity of Cloudsdale from atop the mast of the airship:
There is thunder in my ears and lightning in my mouth. This is one of the hinges of the world, the last and proudest stronghold of the pegasus nation, which devours air and water and produces rainbows and storms, light and dark in equal measure. Their lives spin around me in a whirling tornado, reaching back to their near-mythical progenitors, the Hurricane and the Flower, and forward to a fate I cannot see but can almost touch. I smell bread, and salt, and rain, and sweat, and tears, and love, and hate, and rot, and growth, and I know that I can take this bit between my teeth and pull, it's right in front of me if I only want it enough…
I tend to recall phrases from fics I read, like 'the ponderous inevitability of continental drift', but as it happens I recently talked to some friends about a section in Cast-Iron Caryatid's Sharing the Nation (specifically, chapter 8) where Twilight is talking to Fluttershy about her forcible ascension to demigod-hood. There are a bunch of quotable bits in just that one conversation, but I'll restrict myself to one that should make sense without any context:
There's also this quote from Jeff Hosmer and John Biles's Sailor Moon Z (TV Tropes link because the main site for the fic is apparently flaky, and backup links are here):
If I think of any other good ones, I'll post again.
I've read so many fics that trying to remember truly memorable quotes is a bit hard, but if you don't mind me tooting my own horn, one of my best ever (IMO) is:
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https://fimfetch.net/story/1008053834/pinkie-watches-paint-dry
They have a Fanfiction version with a few hundred fewer words here, maybe this is it?
My favorite chapter in all of fanfic has no words! Botched Lobotomy's blank chapter from "A Life Lived in Hundreds" deserves a shout out for achieving maximum efficiency. Additionally, the below quote from "Look Before You Leap" (also by BL) is pure jazz:
Gotta also shout-out one of my favorite GaPJaxie stories:
And of course this gem of an opening line from my favorite Cold in Gardez fic:
5767885 Yes, I kept looking for that at the *beginning* of a chapter, and it's in the middle of Spa and Order. Thank you!
I should list some of Estee's bits here for suggestions, but most of those are longer bits. Ok, just one.
Cold in Gardez deserves some attention, but I can't remember anything right off the top of my head. GhostOfHeraclitus has some doozies despite being offline for quite some time. Orbiter Dicta has quite a collection, but my favorite (since we are entering politics season again, which is much like flu season without the option of getting an immunization against it) is Civics in its entirety.
A nicely poignant snippet from the inimitable Cold in Gardez:
—Childhood's End
Dramatic:
Poetic:
Hilarious while reading as a story, not sure if hilarious while reading as a passage:
Great name-as-a-punchline:
Humorous for taking something mundane so far:
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I'm a bit annoyed at myself that that's the best I could come up with for First Hoof Account. It has several exceptional passages, but they're not that short, and they don't have clean cut-offs.
Maybe this will work, under "good in some other way I can't think of right now". Same story, Sunset is buying flowers to ask Cadence out on a date. She's at a shop getting help from a filly Wallflower Blush.
As I read through the recommendations and the replies, I see an inkling of a useful structure to your Con panel: dividing it into themes. Such as: opening text that sets the scene and tone for the entire work of fiction (like "Billy Pilgrim has come unstuck in time." Slaughterhouse-Five); dramatic passages; lyrical passages; humorous passages; passages that are a complete story within the story itself; nested double-enterdre passages; clever word play; culture shock passages where a character does something natural to them and jars the reader into remembering that it's an alien's life story that they're reading.
That passage Anonymous Potato quoted from Quiet Boy and Moon Horse makes me want to read Quiet Boy and Moon Horse. Good quote.
Bad Horse, you might want to fix a typo in bullet point 3, especially if you might copy/paste and reuse your proposal elsewhere: the 2nd word should be excerpt, not except.
Sorry if I'm a bit terse, I have the brain fog, result of an exciting week of dying llama and the eternal rat race at work. Back later with quotes, I know there were some short stories in the For the Love of Faust anthology that made me cry. I only cry if it's awesome.
Right. Back in the saddle, as they say. Who? Shush, you.
Much of which is a great passage of text is in fact highly dependent on context. As in the entire short story. This will not do. But I might have something from https://www.fimfiction.net/story/207379/the-brief-reign-of-princess-twily by Forthwith which stands up on its own. The context is Princess Celestia needs a vacation and young Twilight Sparkle is hell bent for leather to give her that vacation. The passage:
It should be easier to find a quote in something I wrote. I had several descriptions of the moment, as one would do when describing one's life in a journal, for oneself and for a larger unseen audience. It gets interesting when a reader replies from the void and quotes what you wrote right on back to you, not as a question or a correction, but because it moved them. Let me see what's there...
The following quotes are from https://www.fimfiction.net/story/510229/twilights-blog which I wrote over a three year period (and haven't finished). The context is slice of life, minus laundry and shopping lists, in blog form. Mundane, or as mundane as it can get in a magical land run entirely by fantasy horses.
TasermonsPartner liked this from https://www.fimfiction.net/story/510229/28/twilights-blog/xxviii-april (April 28, Spring Rain)
TwilightPB liked this from https://www.fimfiction.net/story/510229/8/twilights-blog/viii-august I too am fond of this passage. (August 12, Look At The Stars, See How They Shine For You):
OK, only two. If there were others, they weren't moving enough to quote right back at me. I don't think there is a way to search all the comments on FiMFiction for moving/clever/outstanding requoted passages. This reminds me that on LiveJournal/Dreamwidth there is a community called "Metaquotes" that is dedicated to just that, celebrating good prose and clever thoughts. I think the Metaquotes communities have been silent for a few years now. Thus do all things pass and fade away.
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Do you remember what chapter that quote comes from? I'd like to see the context around it, & maybe read a longer excerpt. But the story's 350,000 words, and I can't find it with Google.
Re. HPMOR, it's well-known, great at what it was meant to do, outside of MLP, and I don't want to read the whole thing again to find a good quotable passage 'coz it's really long.
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Chapter 24. I chose the passage because it was the most recent one I'd quoted in a discord server's recs channel that wasn't a pony thing. I think I tend to quote comedy bits more often than serious drama.
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Should I ask how it changed your life?
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I'd already decided to use "The Hayloft Song of J. Alfalfafed Poolrock By T.S. Celerybit" from Twilight's Blog. No rule saying I can't use 2 quotes from it, though.
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Made me big in the fanfic community. Published books, wrote dozens of stories, went to conventions... lots of stuff that I don't think I would have done if that line hadn't drawn thousands of readers in to read about my silly Celestia punching human.
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I think so! Thanks!
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O M G Really? Even though I mispronounce 'wood sorrels' as 'wood soar-els'? And even though it's way long?! Wowsers! I've toyed with replacing 'soured by wood sorrels' with 'fouled by rotted smells' but the double meaning of soured (taste and spoiled) by a sour plant is hard to match, even though 'fouled by rotted smells' conveys the general malaise and sense of decay I'm looking for. 'Smells' is weak. There's funeral bells (mushrooms) but they grow on wood, not pasture. ... This is a deep rabbit hole full of dead ends.
Meanwhile,
remains... except - ional. *drum-de-dum-drum rimshot*
edit: ah! fixed! I can rest easy now.
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It changed my life by inspiring me to punch my boss in the face! That convinced the execs that I was management material.
Seriously, that's a fascinating story. Now I want to write about a writer who thinks that she's famous only because of one line she wrote. Or maybe a guitarist who thinks he's famous only for one riff. Mind if I steal a piece of your life like that? If I do, that won't mean it's supposed to represent you!
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Go nuts. Let me know what you come up with.
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Ah, sorry. I began timing readings yesterday, and I don't think I can read the whole thing. I'm puzzled over how to read just part of it, though.
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Just quote the parts you can remember as they will probably be the best parts. Like with Prufrock. I don't know the entire thing by heart, just bits and pieces, such as:
I grow old … I grow old …
I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.
and
... Do I dare to eat a peach?
I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.
I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.
I do not think that they will sing to me.
Thus, I would choose a part that I remember (which for me, ha ha, is where I mispronounce soar-ell, which is another reason why . it . is . so . hard . to . fix ), crop it to illustrate flow and context and go with that. The poem has several parts, several scene changes, it should be easy enough to choose one. ^_^
I still think that FiMFiction should have a Megaquotes Community.
I'm thinking about treating this blog post as a dumping ground for any fanfic snippets that I really like.
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I really like that last line, "Did sunset have what she wanted now? She hoped not."
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I can't say I get chapter 1409, but the ending of 1410 is golden:
Which GaPJaxie story did you quote there?
5771874 I like to read 1409 as grief beyond words. There's something magical to me about expressing thoughts with only context in a medium where everything has to literally be spelled out. And the gapjaxie story is If Only, If Only!