The Cutting Room Floor. · 11:31pm Apr 10th, 2015
The problem with being a creative mind is that there are so many ideas to toy around with and, unfortunately, some of them will be left on the cutting room floor (or whatever equivalent a particular medium has). And it can be for a number of reasons, from lack of continued interest to external conflictions.
And as a human being, I am not immune to this. I’ve got a whole bunch of stories in my head just wanting to get out, but not all of them will see the light of day.
But since I’m still working on my next very real, very publishable work, I figured the next best thing to you guys getting a story is getting story concepts that, on their own, are interesting, but for whatever reason just cannot be written. (But if anyone here would like a shot at them, I wouldn’t mind.)
My Little Human
For a time, I considered taking a stab at the humanized pony angle. The twist: it would feature both the regular, pony Mane 6 and their human counterparts. The story would have involved Human Twilight accidentally pulling the ponies out of Equestria and into the human world. The characters would spend the rest of the story getting to know their alternate selves and eventually facing off against a revived Discord (and his counterpart), who was the reason H!Twilight’s spell went badly to begin with.
Complication in writing this story arose soon after I started typing the words out. One of the main things was naming the characters; I couldn’t very well just call the two Twilights Human Twilight and Pony Twilight, now could I? And while characters with two names would have been easier, characters like Rarity make it all but impossible.
And that’s just the presentation; the story itself also needed a lot of work, in that I had the beginning and the bare minimum of an ending, but not much in the way of happenings in between. It was like an Oreo without the creamy center. And then Equestria Girls was announced, so the whole story just felt superfluous. After Hasbro beat me to the punch, a story about ponies going to the human dimension kinda lost its novelty.
Rainbow Dash and the King’s Scepter
Yet another story that was ultimately ruined by canon. Although the title namedrops Rainbow Dash, the story is also about Daring Do. I was one of the few people who considered the possibility of Daring Do being a real pony, and this story was meant to be my contribution to that idea. It also would have built on my headcanon of the Royal Sisters.
The story is basically “Daring Don’t” (and by now, you’ve probably figured out why this won’t be a thing anymore), but with fewer characters (Rainbow, Daring, and Twilight) and closer to Ponyville. Daring (under her pseudonym, Paper Back) comes to Ponyville under the pretense of a book signing, but with the intention of looking around the Castle of the Royal Pony Sisters for the King’s Scepter, an artifact that belonged to the force that created Celestia and Luna. Rainbow accidentally discovers her and, with Twilight in tow, goes after her to find out how a fictional character can exist in the world of reality.
But I was working on it too slowly (only about three chapters) before “Daring Don’t” first aired, and while I liked that episode, it officially killed any momentum I had for actually writing my story. Such is the peril of fanfiction, I realize, but it still comes as a disappointment.
Trivia: Although the story is now completely dead, I still ended up using the name Paper Back in my Backgroundverse info sheet blog about Twilight Sparkle.
Poker Night at the Okie-Dokie-Lokie Corral
After discovering Poker Night at the Inventory, I decided I wanted to do a My Little Pony variant. The premise was a simple one: each chapter would chronicle the events of a game of rodeo hold-‘em between a few MLP characters with Pinkie Pie acting as the dealer. For example, the first chapter would have been the Mane 6 (sans Pinkie) and the next would have been Celestia, Luna, Cadence, Shining Armor, and Discord (I had planned on calling that chapter “Royal Flush”) with another after that featuring the CMC and Babs Seed (with candy as the betting stakes, of course). And, true to Poker Night fashion, there would have been comedic banter and fourth-wall shattering throughout the whole thing.
It was also going to be written quite differently. My plan was to actually use a deck of cards and play the game out with the characters, fudging the results from time to time to move the story along. In other words, Rarity’s winning hoof would have been cards I had literally dealt for her.
But then the entire thing started to drag. Multiple paragraphs ended up being variations on the same actions, and entire rounds would go by without a single line of dialogue beyond somepony calling. Eventually, the project was scaled back to just being the Mane 6 game, but even that didn’t help. So the entire story was finally scrapped.
Princess Flight Class (not official title)
Back when Twilicorn was still very fresh in people’s minds, I had put together various ideas about Rainbow Dash teaching Twilight how to fly. The story would eventually culminate in the two going to Cloudsdale and enrolling Twilight into a beginner’s class taught by a former Wonderbolt, “Major” Windstorm. The story would be a very simple one, probably four or five chapters at most. I even had a few ideas on what the two would do while in Cloudsdale.
The only thing holding me back from actually writing this story was the fact that Twilight’s flying capabilities were more than likely to be addressed during the then upcoming Season 4. And after watching the entirety of Season 4, the plot point of Twilight’s teacher being a former Wonderbolt would have slightly conflicted with “Testing, Testing, 1 2 3.,” in regards to Rainbow’s apparent lack of knowledge of her idols.
But then, that’s just it; these points only “slightly” conflict with the show now. Given enough time to iron out the details, I could still feasibly write this one up. I mean, this wouldn’t be my first time reworking a story to fit new details as presented in the show. So, treat this less as a “this story will likely never happen” thing and more of a “keep your eyes peeled” sort of deal.
Luna’s Second Nightmare Night (not official title)
I started toying with this idea as I was getting my fimfiction legs. It’s Nightmare Night once again, and this time, Princess Luna intends to enjoy herself, with the citizens of Ponyville once again playing host to her visit. But something is happening and Nightmare Moon is back in full force, ready to make this night a true nightmare. And, if Luna is to be believed, she’s not the one behind the armor.
The idea behind Nightmare Moon’s return for this story was that she was a dark force looking to conquer Equestria by placing it in the shroud of night. Does this sound like anything we’ve heard of before? Maybe a particularly well-known comic book that presented us with the same basic premise?
Like the Daring Do story, this one came down to me being too late to actually write it. By the time the “Nightmare Rarity” arc was a thing, I already had plenty of stories on my plate, MLP or otherwise. So writing this one felt like a waste of time on two fronts.
That’s all that comes to mind, and I don’t think there’s much else to talk about, if at all. Not every story I write or plan to write will see the printed screen page. The best I can do is figure out what’s worth writing and whether or not I can make a story worth your time.
This is CF signing out.
