Interview: adcoon's Uniformity

Uniformity is one of my favourite adventure stories in this fandom: epic scope, a conflict-filled romance, and a mystery that only deepens the further you read.

For me, one of the most intriguing parts was how adcoon took old fandom tropes—Lyra, humans, and a Lyra/Bon Bon ship—and told an entirely different kind of story. Yes, this story has a “human” tag, but it’s like nothing you’ve seen before. And the ship is the opposite of the typical fluff we usually see: it’s slow and rocky, and at times you wonder if their relationship will survive at all.

In this interview, I asked adcoon how he made his story so awesome, and he gives some thorough and insightful answers.

Bold is Amacita; regular text is adcoon.

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1. What inspired you to write Uniformity?

I can't remember what inspired the original idea about Lyra, perhaps it was just a random brainwave, but at some point I got the idea that I wanted to write a story about Lyra having this particular secret and Bonbon finding out about it. It was originally thought to be a very different story, less adventure and more sad.

But I seem to get way more ideas than I can write, so I had a bunch of other story fragments at the time that I wasn't sure what to do with. For example, I wanted to write a story about Rainbow Dash and Lightning Dust in the desert, with Dash writing back to Twilight about the experience. And I wanted to write a story about a young Celestia adventuring to find the great firebird Roc, and how that led to her controlling the sun and getting Philomena as a pet. I had no idea how Luna would fit into that, which was a bit of a concern, admittedly.

As I was trying to flesh out the Lyra story, I got the idea of incorporating and refitting these other stories into it, and that's how it all came together to become this grand adventure. It took a lot of thinking to get all the different pieces to fit together and make sense, but it was certainly worth it.

2. Could you tell us what you did with Lyra and Bon Bon to make them more than just the same ponies we see in fanon all the time? What did you do to "make them your own"?

Bonbon has a few scenes in the show, and she's usually a bit of a jerk. I tried to keep that. Lyra has even less canon personality, but she often comes across as very emotional to me. Along with the fanon of a potential romance between them and Lyra's human interests, this was my base for them.

Beyond that I treated them like I would an OC in the same roles. Lyra was shaped a lot by her secrets and her past, which automatically made her somewhat different from other Lyras in the fandom. I also gave her a slight tendency to talk in questions, especially when she's relaxed and happy. It's not a strong character trait that I enforce strictly, but I try to keep it in mind as a bit of occasional spice.

Bonbon had less of a past to shape her personality, so she was mostly defined by her stubborn pursuit of Lyra and her tendency to be a pushy jerk, but I knew that deep down she had to be extremely dependable, loyal and caring, a true friend who just doesn’t always know how to be tactful.

3. How do you see Lyra and Bon Bon's relationship in Uniformity?

Their relationship is a tragedy. By all rights they should be together, but then it would be a very short story. Lyra likes Bonbon too, but she's terrified of letting anypony get close to her, and Bonbon's pushing only makes her more defensive and desperate. Lyra never intended to become such a close friend with Bonbon, but her heart betrayed her, and now she's getting frightened and feels she has to end it.

But Bonbon is nothing if not stubborn and loyal to a fault. She won't be turned away by anything. She will stay by Lyra no matter what, even if Lyra doesn't want her to, like Samwise to Lyra's Frodo. It's tragic, but perhaps there is hope that they can overcome the barrier between them.

4. With Uniformity, you didn't just cave in to the urge to just to put Lyra and Bon Bon together and write fluff: there was a lot of serious conflict between them. What can you tell us about using conflict in a romance story?

Romance without conflict is like making love in several layers of winter clothes. It may be nice and warm and above all safe, but it's not going to get anyone very excited, and no one believes it's what people do in real life.

No love was ever easy, and all relationships are fraught with conflict. Moreover, conflict is what really drives a story. You can only read so many words in which nothing ever really goes wrong, where every potential danger or conflict turns out to be a dud or easily won, before you get really, really bored and stop reading.

Constantly challenge your characters. Don't let them have what they want without a fight. Take off your gloves and put on the brass knuckles instead. Don't pull any punches. Let them rise to the challenge and show you what they're really made of. Only that way can they truly shine, even if they fail.

5. One of my favourite parts of Uniformity was the sense of deep lore and mystery. What advice can you give to authors trying to do something similar? How do you do great worldbuilding? How do you evoke a sense a mystery?

Look for inspiration in the real world, in existing mythology, as well as in other fiction. It's famously hard to be truly original, but there's a world of ideas out there to be used. Be original in how you pick apart, reassemble and paint over existing ideas to make them your own expression.

But more importantly, make sure you tell these myths and legends like they're supposed to be told, not like an encyclopedic entry or listing of facts. Myths and legends are stories too, just like the rest of your story. They were told or even sung around the fire or in taverns by friends and strangers alike. They brought people together in the telling. Treat them like stories in their own right, put some meat on them and give them life. Have an interesting character tell them, and have other characters listen and participate in the telling, not just passively receive the facts.

6. Uniformity hooked me by continually raising questions and, instead of answering them right away, raising new ones. I had some vague hints about things as I went along, but it wasn't until the end of the first plot arc (some 45,000 words in) that I really got some answers. Can you talk about the techniques you used to do this?

The characters are key. If you know your characters really well, then the mysteries tend to unravel naturally of their own. Make sure every character knows something, but not everything. Give different characters different secrets, different knowledge and roles, different motivations, different levels of willingness to share their information with different people. If one character knows everything, then it becomes a simple question of when said character spills all the beans, and if you want to maintain any sense of mystery then that has to happen near the end, which may require a lot of heavy-handedness to ensure. Not to mention that a character who knows everything is a boring character.

Try not to force a mystery to stay a mystery if it wants to be revealed, it'll just feel artificial. Let answers come when it's natural for them to come, and instead let those answers lead to different questions and new mysteries. I think it's best to keep focus on a few major mysteries at a time, but they can have some overlap, and sometimes one will take a backseat for a while.

In Uniformity there are probably six or seven major mysteries so far, but some of them only appear or take focus as others begin to unravel, and some of them are obviously related. Most of them focus around one particular character. What's going on with Lyra, and what happened on Hearth's Warming Eve? What's Dash's reason for being on this journey? What's up with Trixie, and what happened in Manehattan? What are Scootaloo and Luna up to? What's up with Bonbon's dreams? Who or what is following them in the mountains?

The key is to keep things fresh.

7. Uniformity is one of the few human stories that I actually like, and it's way different from most HiEs. Why did you do it the way you did, and what advice would you give to someone who wants to write a human story that's "different from all the other HiEs"?

I knew I wanted an epic adventure of the classic sort, the kind of story where a bunch of mostly clueless friends venture into the unknown on a quest for faraway lands. And I knew I wanted a story about Lyra and humans.

But I'm not a huge fan of the HiE concept myself, except as comedy, and I think that helped. It's the "I can do better" thinking. By writing something which you're not a great fan of, you try not to do what everyone's done before. You automatically attempt to see it differently in order to make it work for you. If you make something you normally don't like work for you, then almost by definition it will be different from the rest.

8. Uniformity is pretty epic, as is appropriate for an adventure story. We have haunted tunnels, snow-swept mountains, and there's tons of danger. What advice do you have for people who want to write an epic adventure?

Look at a map. Look at the places that aren't marked with many names, or which don't feature a lot in other stories, and think to yourself, "I wonder what amazing things someone would see if they went there."

I remember when reading Lord of the Rings and looking at the included map of Middle Earth, I always found my eyes wandering off to that big lake north of Mordor. Rhûn, it says, and that's all it says, and as far as I know it's never mentioned. I just stare at that mysterious lake and say "Whoa!"

Adventure is all about exploring the unknown, the hidden places. It's pretty easy with a blank spot on a map, but the trick is to apply this same sense of wonder to any place, even the middle of a bustling metropolis. What is behind this old door? Beyond this wall? What is hidden from sight, possibly in plain sight? If you can imagine that, then you have your adventure.

It's easy for an adult to look and say, "well, there are some mountains there, and that's just some old man living there." But as a child, even that hedge over there is a mystery. What is behind that hedge? And maybe the old man is secretly an evil wizard who summons dark spirits in his basement! Try to look at the world you're writing in and think like a child.

Ignore the easy answers. Forget your first impulse.

9. Could you share a bit about your writing process? How do you plan and edit something like this?

I like writing to be an adventure in itself. I want to be surprised just as much as the reader by what happens and where the story goes. The greatest moments of writing are when the characters take you by the hand and lead you on an adventure that you never could have planned, and I think that will shine through and feel more authentic for the reader a s well.

The one thing I try to do is to know my characters, because they will be driving the entire story. I work out what they each know (and don't know!) about the world and about each other, and what they each want. What are their goals? Their driving force? How do they feel and react to things and situations? Once I know that I just have to provide them with a scene, and they'll take over from there.

I plan how the story begins, the events leading up to the opening scene, the first few moments, and what it's all about. I also make sure I have a working idea for a resolution, an ending to work towards, but how that actually plays out will depend on the characters and their choices along the way. Hopefully everyone will be surprised.

I usually start each chapter with a rough outline of events, just two or three lines describing each section to myself. Then I just start writing from the beginning. I can’t write out of order, I need to write one section before I can write the next one. I don't pay attention to mistakes or whether something doesn't work, I just keep writing until I hit the end of the chapter.

Then I go back and start editing from the beginning until I hit the end. I repeat that process, rereading and editing from start to finish until I find myself only fixing minor mistakes. Then I send it off to a friend for review and do a few more passes based on their critique.

10. Do you have any advice for aspiring authors, especially those trying to get published on EqD?

Write the whole thing before you start publishing chapters. This is a mistake I have made and is making, and so that's the one piece of advice I'd like to give to fanfic writers in particular.

It's tempting with fanfiction to write a chapter and publish it right away before moving on to the next, but I'm a firm believer that you can't really know your story before you've written it to completion. Once you reach the late chapters, you will find yourself wanting to go back and change certain things based on what you've learned in the process. Doing so with chapters that have already been published is no fun to anyone.

It also ensures that once you do publish the first chapter, you're going to actually finish the story. Who hasn't started reading a great story, only for it to go on indefinite hiatus in the middle? No one likes that.

I could give a lot of advice, but bottom line is this: Be persistent, be observant, and be thoughtful. Read a lot, including what people have to say about writing, and think about what you're reading. Look at the world around you, and think about everything you see. Listen to people and yourself, and think about everything you hear or say. Seek out art and music for inspiration, learn or practice new skills, fill your life with new impressions.

If you do this, then pretty soon you can make your own list of advice.

I've submitted eight stories to EqD now and had six of them published. Two of them got rejected twice, one of which finally made it through on the third attempt, and it was a painful experience in both cases. But the one thing to keep in mind is that it's a chance to get better, and if you're truly passionate about anything, then pain and hard work is unavoidable.

Making mistakes is part of life, part of experience. No one ever stops making mistakes, because never making mistakes is a mistake in itself, meaning that you've stopped trying at all. Keep at it, see through the pain, and you will come out in the end as a better you.

Comments

[djthomp]

I've been thinking about starting in on this story, but at 70k+ words it'll probably be a while before my read-next queue gets empty enough to get to it.