Interview with a Non-Changeling: Nekonyancer vs. Horizon · 3:17am May 24th, 2014
If you ever find yourself in a position to take a safari through Rambletown, hire Nekonyancer as your guide.
Seriously, Neko — who has a YouTube channel for interviews of ponyfiction authors, and has featured awesome authors like Pascoite and Eakin — made the mistake of chatting with some crazy schlub who scribbles incomprehensible yet inexplicably appreciated fics. In a desperate effort to capitalize on this error, I made myself sound interesting for like an hour, and he had to work for a solid week to edit it down into a coherently flowing interview. This is a feat roughly on par with watching me fire a shotgun and then locating all the shot and reassembling the shell.
I sound intelligent. How did he do that? There's some magic at work here.
To give you some sense of just how wide-ranging the discussion was, here's a guide to the topics you can hear. (I'm not going to tell you which ten-or-so of you I namedropped, though. You'll have to listen to find out!)
0:15 "Not a changeling"?
1:30 Which is dearer to your heart, poetry or prose?
3:00 Has poetry helped you become a better prose writer?
3:30 When did you first get into poetry?
6:00 What got you into writing?
7:00 So, about that Babscon drunk-writing …
8:15 Did you write Social Lubricant while drunk?
9:45 (I tangent into my general writing style and "show, don't tell")
12:00 Are you still writing the non-pony fiction you link from your userpage?
13:00 How does writing original fiction differ from fanfiction?
14:00 What other published works have influenced your writing?
15:04 (My obligatory opinion on Terry Pratchett)
16:30 On writing from limited vs. omniscient perspective
17:15 What about limited-perspective narration appeals to you?
18:00 Is it hard to balance between telling readers too much and too little?
18:30 (On finding that balance in Hard Reset 2)
19:30 Do you use prereaders?
20:30 Why don't you explain the premise of No Regrets until the bonus material? Isn't that essential rather than "bonus"?
22:00 Was it hard for you to get your head around the temporal complexities of Hard Reset 2?
23:15 What challenges were there in limiting the perspective of Hard Reset 2 to only what Twilight sees?
24:30 Have you read the fan guides that have been made for Hard Reset 2?
26:30 (In which I admit to guiltily appreciating the mental image of me as a Celestia-like chessmaster)
27:15 You don't seem to have a set style; do you write experimentally?
28:15 (In which I exhort listeners to get all they can out of MLP fandom)
I'd like to thank Nekonyancer for the opportunity to ramble, and can vouch for his interviews being full of awesome and insightful questions. His interviews are excellent additions to the tradition started by the late Pony Fiction Vault (and continued by the Royal Canterlot Library and amacita), and I will definitely be keeping an eye on him.
As a video editor, I can confirm this level of difficulty.
Congratulations!
Nekonyancer's work is definitely an exciting new development. I'm calling it now: Before too long, every scribbler on this site will be hoping and praying for an appearance on the Nekonyancer show.
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Whoa...
I often get praise when I play the piano, but eh, who's gonna tell me I played badly, right? But all this praise, in this context... no praise has ever meant as much to me, and I am deeply humbled.
Also, while I'll admit this was my best interview so far, I'd hardly call it magic. It was mostly elbow grease, and I couldn't have done anything without Horizon's fantastic answers.
I was highly amused by this, and second the suggestion to write about that Kaleidoscope fella. :D
2140857 Reading about Kaleidoscope would be cool, but I got my fingers crossed for Sir Lucky and the Dragon!
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Rest assured, you're on to something. This is still the fandom of opportunity. All you need is a unique angle, and, as you say, elbow grease.
2140657 It's true though. That was an impressively engaging interview. Normally my mind wanders long before I can sit through half an hour with a single guest, even on The Daily Show or other major news programs, but this one was different, and kept my attention much longer.
Nekonyancer, great job with the interview and editing. It felt really professional. That said, what it reminded me of was this weird interview of the band Bright Eyes. I think it was mostly that your (interviewer) voice came in as extremely energetic compared to Horizon's speaking voice. I think that was mostly due to edits. My apologies if that sounds like an insult. It's not meant to be, it was just something that stood out as different.
On the topics discussed, I think I mostly have to agree. Horizon, I knew I'd like your style from halfway through the first story of your's I read. Having met and now worked along side you, I feel that's only confirmed. I love the fact that there is an entire niche of pony fiction (of which you're a part) that hits upon the deep, serious themes my own muse demands be seen.
So that said, please take this next statement as the loving, constructive, and minor criticism it is intended as.... you need to work on cutting "and, uh" from your interview vocabulary. *Dodges totally-not-evil, and completely-not-a-changeling magic bolts*
Seriously though, it really was an engaging interview, and you both did a great job with it!
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You think what you heard was bad … the uh original was uh like full uh of uh them, seriously uh every other word. That's one of the things that impressed me so highly about Neko's work. When we're paneling together at the con, you'll have to whack me on the wrist every time I say That Word.
And, uh, thanks.
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As it turns out, I just searched my hard drive, and I actually still have a copy of the original Sir Lucky story, in Word 5.1 format no less.
I may have to hold that as a raffle prize or donate its release to a charity auction or use it as stakes in a bet or something.
… ooh. Or ponify it, release it anonymously, and see what kind of comments people leave on writing from an actual 12-year-old.
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Considering the makeup of this fandom, just the usual kind. :V
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Or don't... if you, umm, don't really feel up to it.
Needs a hiss filter. Those S'es are killer on my ears. But it's overall a good interview.