Writing Pinkie · 11:11pm Aug 2nd, 2014
I think one of the biggest challenge fanfiction writers have a lot of the time is characterization. It's one thing to brainstorm an awesome plot with romance and tears and happies and sads and epicness, but it all comes to naught if the characters aren't, well, in character. It irks me the most out of anything when I read a story. If Twilight isn't acting or sounding like Twilight, or if Rainbow Dash is suddenly talking like she's a college graduate, or if Applejack has an overly-written southern accent, I immediately lose interest in that story.
In other words, the most important thing when it comes to writing (arguably) is characterization. Improper grammar can be annoying, a predictable story can be a snore, but if the characters are wooden, cardboard cut-outs of themselves, then I seethe silently in my little corner of the internet.
I've found that, out of all of the characters in the mane six, the one character that people seem to have the most trouble with is Pinkie Pie.
More often than not, people try to write Pinkie to make her random, like she is in the show... which is kinda bogus. Yes, she's random, but everything she does has a purpose. She always has a reason for doing the crazy stuff that she does. She's spontaneous, funny, and wants nothing more than to make ponies smile. Writers, however, tend to frequently confuse this with her simply being random. I'll say right now that this isn't limited to fanfiction writers. The show writers forget this sometimes, too. Now, what does this result it? Well, to put it quite simply, it results in a Pinkie that's just annoying. She isn't fun, she just intrudes on the story when she doesn't need to be there and throws all of the immersion out of whack.
A good Pinkie will still have a degree of that randomness that we all love her for, but it'll have a good purpose in the story. It won't just be for having Pinkie being there to do random shit 'cause that's all Pinkie's ever good for. No, a well-written Pinkie will be enjoyable to read. Her antics should bring a smile to the reader's face, not make him/her grimace.
Zaphod just published a short little SpitPie fic that demonstrates a well-written Pinkie Pie wonderfully well. If you plan on writing Pinkie Pie, I'd seriously consider looking at this story to see how Zaphod makes Pinkie random, spontaneous, but more importantly, fun.
Check it out for a cute l'il shipfic that shows a Pinkie Pie written right.
"Yes, she's random, but everything she does has a purpose."
This reminds me of one of my favourite Pinkie gags, from the Daring Do episode. We get the classic cut of a red line being drawn on a map to represent our heroes' journey across Equestria...only to find that Pinkie has been painting a red line behind them the entire time. Past the initial funny shock of seeing that, you realize that what she's doing makes sense and no sense at all at the same time. I think Pinkie's random moments work best in that slight grounding-yet-distortion of logic: the reason is logical but the action isn't.
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Yes. This. All of my yes.
Pinkie is great if you base her actions, or at least the purpose of, off actual logic, so basically what this guy said;
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She's a blast and a half to write though if you get her right, especially the rambles she goes on from time to time. Her speech pattern is very much stream-of-consciousness, which keeps it both semi-random but on-topic if followed closely enough. Of course, that doesn't mean you can't make the occasional gigantic leap, but they have to be few, and the smaller, faster ones are more preferable.