Building stories - Supermare or how Scootaloo did her math homework

Those are actually some notes I took while re-reading that story (with some points I had to correct because I had forgotten about them). Mostly because it reminds me of all that was going through my head when I come back a few weeks/months later.

It isn't really meant to be read, so the form is very simple.

***

Basic structure :
- State the problem
- first RD (1)
- Then DWhooves (2)
- Then Twilight (3)
- Then DWhooves (2)
- Then ending
Repetition of the structure everytime with the running joke of Supermare being stopped in her attempt to help Scoot.
1) Supermare comes
2) somepony prevents her to help Scootaloo
3) the pony fails to help Scootaloo
4) pony goes away for some reason
=> begin again
Three different protagonists (beside Supermare) because we can't really remember more in very little time and four appearances to make the impression of a crowd and of a lot happening.

Title:
I was having so much fun making Supermare fail that I told myself: “The story has got to be named “Supermare””. And I did name it that way of course. Now the problem is that the title doesn’t reflect the content of the story as it is not Supermare’s story.
So I decided, the next day, to call it “Supermare or how Scootaloo did her math homework”. Just to keep the “Supermare” part.
I wonder how many titles are made the way this one was, out of a pure feeling or inside joke.

***

Chapter one

and out of this world ugliest day in Equestria,

I remember somebody who said that saying that “It was a beautiful day in Equestria” is the worst way to begin a pony story. It had been a private since to always begin with a variation of that.

But Scootaloo was certain of it: this day, between all days, was the very worst.

I used a transition from the narrator’s perspective to Scootaloo’s perspective to justifiy the difference between the introduction and the reality.

I’ve got to go help Applejack make Twilight stop drinking so much coffee!

Didn’t know where else to put that foreshadowing of Twilight’s appearance in the future.
Fun thing, I had forgotten to make that reference to Twilight drinking coffee, so I had to come back and add it afterwards, which explains the weird place it occupies and that feeling the line doesn’t belong there.

Cheerilee passed before the trio

I made Cheerilee pass there to show that she heard the fillies talking (as, in my mind, Cheerilee is Supermare, as the story says pretty clearly).

“By adding them up of course.” explained Sweetie Belle, without understanding why Scootaloo had so much trouble with such an easy concept.

At first RD’s counting in Wonderbolts and Twilight’s explanation about the different base when counting were just jokes. And then it became a way to show how bad we are sometimes at explaining something, wether it is because it is too simple in our mind (Sweetie Belle), too complicated in our mind (Twilight) or because the way we do it doesn’t work for the learner (RD and all of 1,2,3 Testing).
Ah, those two years spent learning pedagogy.

and most of the current geometrics calculus because of her work on the farm

Private reference. Two of my uncles are farmers and they understand geometry better than I do because they happen to use it a lot for their work… It was frustrating for me when I discovered it. Stereotypes are fascinating.

brings us gifts, well, presents,

I had forgotten about that one. I made her say that only because "gift" in german means "poison", so I have some fun with that word.

Well, my big sister told me she was originally named Sciremare

The story had two problems.
1) explaining why Scootaloo would welcome a masked stranger knocking on her window (so many quotes, so many indications to prepare the reader)
2) make the name “Supermare” work for the reader, as it has nothing to do with a hero that teaches stuff to ponies. And I was frustrated not to have a better name. The correct name would have been “Sciremare” (“the mare who knows” or “the mare of knowledge”, something of the sort), but I knew it would be too ugly to read. I just couldn’t go the whole story without telling the reader I knew about that problem and that he would have to deal with it.

The very quiet and rational debate between Applebloom and Sweetie Belle that ensued might

I love using that figure of style where things are hinted but not said. It makes a pleasant break from the direct narration. I tend to abuse them however…

Chapter two

How much makes seven plus five?

I spent so much time trying to figure out how you count in english and google wasn’t helping as much as I would have liked. I’m still not sure I did it right… Here it was “make” or makes”?

you are a mathematician and you should know that I hate mathematics.

I was stuck between my will to congratulate knowledge and the casual reader who wouldn’t like to be put aside. So I decided to tell the casual reader: see, I hate math too, we are the same.
I happen to love mathematics. Statistics on the other hand… not so much.

“I don’t get it!” shouted the filly with anger, throwing the piece of paper away and sulking for a bit, as there was not much more she could do.

This sentence is very particular. Usually parents don’t accept a child that gives up on his/her homework. We tell them to do it, to stop complaining, etc… But even if I have to admit that a lot of times, it is maybe just laziness, I’ve seen more than once a child who just didn’t know how to do what was asked from him/her.
And once those children had acquired the skills to do it right, they actually enjoyed it.
Cognitive conflict is a great way to learn, but it shouldn’t go against the zone of proximal development described by Vygotsky… In other words, make sure your child has the necessary information to solve the problem.

“Rainbow Dash?” said Scootaloo, both surprised and overjoyed

I had no idea how the fact that Scootaloo would always ignore Supermare’s disappearance or well-being would be taken by the reader. As I didn’t want to lose time about it or risk raising the question by trying to answering it, I decided to ignore the problem in the hope it wouldn’t be too much of a problem.

“I was top of my class!” Dash bragged. “It’s actually very easy.”

At first, I thought Rainbow Dash would be the usual “I have no idea how math work” and it was boring. One of the trigger for me to write that story was the idea that Dash was actually a math genius. And that she was able to count in Wonderbolts. I was under the shower and that made me laugh so hard I almost tripped over…
Good memories…

“Seriously?” asked Scootaloo,

And that was my way to tell the reader “yeah, I know, it’s not very original to link RD and the Wonderbolts…sorry.”

“Who is Firefly?” asked Scootaloo

I needed a way to show Scootaloo was as lost as the reader probably is with RD’s reasoning. Also, I will never lost an opportunity to make a Lauren Faust reference if it fits in the story.
And that’s a Lauren Faust reference.

Chapter three

She probably wasn’t a unicorn after all, as her cardboard horn had broken because of the fall.

In the end I didn’t exploited that idea very much. I knew it would become very clear very fast that Supermare was Cheerilee, so I made the whole “unicorn” thing to try to lure the reader on a false path (Sweetie Belle talked about her big sister and Rarity happens to be a unicorn).
The idea was that the story would be more enjoyable if Supermare’s identity wasn’t known, or at least if there was a doubt.
I don’t know why I wanted that so much…
Maybe because there isn’t much reason for Cheerilee to come in disguise to help Scootaloo.
Actually, the whole concept is ridiculous.
I love suspension of disbelief.

a very weird wheezing, groaning noise

I had to go find the history of the tardis’s sound: http://www.themindrobber.co.uk/tardis-sound-effects-materialisation.html to have the words to describe that sound. Still don’t know what wheezing and groaning really means in french…
I’m sure it’s not important…

“And not the professor as you thought I was when we met. Just the doctor.”

I had completely forgotten that one. Just went to correct it in the story.
First by making Scootaloo ask “Professor” and not “Doctor” when she sees doctor Whooves for the second time (I was way too drunk to remember I had planned that trick).
Second by adding the “monster in the wall” reference to later in the story.

Because at first, I had planned for DWhooves to come in chronological order. And that was boring. So I decided that he would come two times, but the first time was actually the second, so he would have already met Scootaloo (who wouldn’t recall his exact name because doctor and professor are similar enough) and would have already “fought” the monster in the wall (which reference might make the reader think something big is going to happen). And in hindsight, no, no reference to the crack in the wall.

The adjective “confusing” sometimes loses most of its ability to accurately describe a situation.

I’ve got no English vocabulary, so I run out of words to describe stuff very quickly. I was lazy, didn’t want to look for synonyms, so I just used a figure of style to go around the problem.
It’s also less boring than a synonym.

where Supermare was

I decided to show that Scootaloo wasn’t heartless (just a child) by making her ask about Supermare, but also didn’t want to focus on that, so I hid it behind all the questions I could think about.
Of course, most of the questions are about Rainbow Dash, because not only have I no imagination whatsoever, but Rainbow Dash is awesome. There.

Chapter four

snorted

I’ve still got no idea if that’s the right word… The internet translator I use tell me it is, but is sort of feel wrong.

Twelve. The princess of friendship hadn’t counted, of course, but she had teleported twelve times

Twelve is actually the answer to seven plus five. I usually need stuff like that in order not to get bored by what I’m writing.
Little details, but great details for me.

and one trip to Vynil Scratch’s house where she had accidentally turned on the music and woken up the entire area.

Just wanted to make a reference to some of those videos I enjoy so much. Vynil brushing her teeth with wubs, making the dishes with wubs… I just like Vynil I guess.

“Okay. The first thing to know when it comes to addition in mathematics is in which base you are calculating.”

And here is a call back to the introduction I had used in chapter two:

If you reply that you don’t have all the necessary information to answer that question, my deepest felicitations,

The necessary information was in which base the problem is set (which is ten by default).
Yeah, honestly I just needed three appearances to stop Supermare. Rainbow Dash was obvious, because of Scootaloo. Doctor Whooves was easy to do (because he can appear without much reason at all). And Twilight came to mind because she likes to explain stuff. So I imagined how she would explain it in the most complex way possible and the only way I saw for her to explain it that way was to make her crazy and hyperactive, which explains the whole coffee thing.

Also, I don’t really know how the whole “base” stuff works. I’m not even sure if “base” is the right word (it is in french…).

It actually wasn’t. Supermare had had way crazier dreams. But this is hardly the time and place to speak about those.

I almost made a NSFW reference there, but I wasn’t that drunk yet.

“No!” she shouted in despair before disappearing into the mass of the telephone police box.

I wish I could have made that vision come to life in a better way. The idea of Supermare panicking, trying to avoid the tardis and ending up at the exact wrong spot after having run pretty much everywhere just cracked me up. (laugh. I hope that crack me up does mean it made me laugh…)

As for how she had happened to find a clogged pipe, nopony there could explain it

Sometimes, you are just tired and you don’t want to explain everything in your story anymore. I was tired and I certainly wasn’t in any shape to justify a clogged pipe.

“Hello Rainbow Dash.” were her last words as an awakened mare.

Easy transition is easy.
In reality, it took me about ten minutes to find out how I would make the transition from the doctor/Twilight thing to Rainbow Dash appearance.

Chapter six

“What are you talking about? I took the pool away years ago!”

“Hey, you won’t believe this: I’ve actually still got a pool! Who would have known?” he joyfully shouted.

It’s such a cheap joke, but it made me laugh so hard when I thought of it. The pool thing came naturally because it is sort of a running thing in doctor who (even if I can’t remember any doctor who episode where we actually see the pool). And as I had lacked creativity, Supermare had come two times into that pool. So I thought I had to make something with it.
Don’t know if it works for the reader. I certainly does for me.

Actually, that type of cheap joke is something I always appreciate in any kind of entertainment I watch.

The proposition surprised the filly.

I’ve always found weird how much we accustom the children to just tell them how to do stuff right instead of first finding out why the way they do creates the wrong result.
On the other hand, teachers do lack time in a big way.
And parents have never learned how to teach stuff, which is perfectly natural.

She answered thirteen, explained that five plus five was making ten and that she had taken what was left to go to thirteen as Cheerilee had explained to the class.

This took a long time to develop. I wanted to show the kind of weird error a child can make. The kind of error we usually don’t understand because it seems natural to us to do it right.
Here Scootaloo had heard that she should go to ten and then take what was left and add it up to ten (5+7 = 5+5+2 (because 7=5+2) =12). But Scootaloo didn’t pay enough attention, got it wrong and added up the difference from ten to seven (5+7= 5+5+(10-7)=13).
Now that is a mistake probably no child has ever made. But it was realistic enough. It shows how a child can misunderstand an explanation, apply it through a very logical structure and therefore be stuck with a wrong result.
And as long as you don’t understand how the child reasoning actually is, there is pretty much no chance that you can help him or her (because the child is usually blinded by frustration and you need a lot of luck for him or her to have the patience to understand what YOU are doing).
In fact, it’s incredible that we await from a child to analyze what WE are doing, and not from us to analyze what HE is doing.

Once again, all a matter of time I guess. And patience. And maybe it helps the child learn how to analyze stuff. Maybe. I don’t know.

“Is it right?” she asked Supermare.

I’ve even had adults ask me if the answer was right when I was teaching stuff (a friend of mine and the subject was accounting). It’s interesting how we focus more on getting the right answer than actually having the right method (because the logic behind “is my answer right” is probably “if my answer is right, then my reasoning must be right” as well as “the important thing is for the answer to be right” in the same line of reasoning as “the important thing is to pass the finish line first, no matter how you did it”).

I usually reply that the answer is wrong, which forces the person I’m teaching to challenge me on the answer until he or she feels confident enough to tell me that I’m actually lying.
I also like to make them explain how they got that answer to check if the reasoning is correct.
It takes so much time to do it so (and it is highly frustrating for the one who is learning).

And for a good reason, as it was almost midnight on Scootaloo’s alarm clock.

Originally, the sun was raising on the horizon (with Supermare panicking to get ready for the day, having to make her class). It was sort of one last joke. And then I decided that I wanted Scootaloo to be able to sleep a little.
I guess I was too tired and I wanted to create a more “kind and heartwarming” atmosphere without all the running around that had happened in the middle.

Chapter seven

Cheerilee smiled for all response.

Originally, Cheerilee was supposed to reply “Maybe I do” or something like that to hint that she was actually Supermare. But I felt like it was already too obvious that it was her and I wanted to leave the possibility open that it maybe wasn’t her all that time (actually, there is no indication in the whole story that it has to be Cheerilee).

“I wonder what she wouldn’t do to help one of us.”

I really hesitated before writing that. It was making Cheerilee looks kinda creepy. Even if we are talking about ponies. I ended up with that anyway.
Originally, the story was supposed to end with a:
“You don’t think Cheerilee is actually Supermare, do you?” asked from one of the CMC, as they would all three look at Cheerilee walking away with her everlasting kind and caring smile.

Something in those lines.

I just didn’t have the right words to make it work (and I was tired and drunk, so it certainly didn’t help).

And a whole lot of now friendly numbers.

I had forgotten I had finished with that.
I guess it is there is something deeper than me having fun in that story. It wasn’t only about craziness happening, but also about a child learning something.

The moral? Well… it’s that I’m not so bad when I’m drunk I guess.

Yeah, I seem to make an habit to finish on a wrong moral. My bad ^^.