Almost three years now.

As I was writing my little rant/status update (can be read here ) I realized that in few months it will be three years since I published the first chapter of my first pony story, In the broad daylight.

However I actually started to ponder the idea of writing a pony story in April 2012 and begin active plotting of the story in May, so the concept of In the broad daylight actually began this month. I'm an unconventional guy, so I'll be reminiscing about this now almost three year old story now instead of in June.

Quite honestly the whole point of writing that story was just to see if I could. I am not a stranger to fan fiction and was active in the TMNT community (still sort of am) and wrote a lengthy series there called the Assassin series (plus few other stories), I'm actually in the process of re-uploading that series and intend to finish it eventually. However at the core I've always been a writer of original fiction, however I've always been too much of a chicken/perfectionist to publish it, I've tried occasionally but always ended up pulling those stories because I just wasn't happy with them.

So I really just kept things... simple? People who know me would laught at that idea. No what I mean is, I kept my writing style in check, introduced few of the basics I use normally but didn't really go full out. Frankly I don't think my usual complex style is fit for a pony story, then again I could be wrong considering some of the brilliant stories out there by other authors.

I'm not calling myself a brilliant author, I am too well aware I'm not even close.

But you can really tell in this story that this is my first time writing for these characters. I'm still feeling my way in the first few chapters and it's telling that I'm just filling in gaps between various points in the plot I had already set out and there are several points where I went "oh I'm an idiot, I should do this instead of that."

My biggest mistake in my opinion was not fleshing out the police ponies immediately in their first chapter. Honestly they went unnamed for far too long, to the point I actually had to ask for help naming them. That's just a rookie mistake and one I am really ashamed of. I'm still considering revising the chapter they first appeared in with their names introduced and not just acting as a faceless authority figure.

When it came to writing for the Mane 6, I actually made a mental check-list what not to do with them. Now Fluttershy was the easiest because I honestly did not have a role for her in this story, so I gave her a short cameo and small role of comforting upset Scootaloo, then she is no longer in the story because she really wasn't needed. Frankly for the purpose of the story I only needed Twilight, Pinkie Pie and Rainbow Dash. Twilight because I could see her help with organizing the search effort, Pinkie Pie because of her reputation of knowing every pony in Ponyville, past and present and I needed someone (aside from Diamond Tiara) to know who Snow Heart was and finally Rainbow Dash because she was Gilda's old friend and would theoretically know how to find her. Rarity and Applejack got some more screen time simply because it was unavoidable having them considering I was using Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle so prominently.

As for my check-list. It was mostly that I wanted to avoid the typical clichés with the characters or at least try to avoid the worst of them. I think I did an adequate job of it. Rainbow Dash is for the most part doing her part in the search effort and when realizing she might have a possible lead goes to check out on it and turns out to be right, I give her a small scene where she is showing off but only to lead into her finding Gilda finally. Rarity simply gets to be an over worried sister since the whole fillynapping has the whole town rather rattled. Twilight is active in helping leading the search effort and I honestly wish I had done a little more with her.

And I just realized that the season four episode "Somepony to watch over me" actually makes Applejack out of character in this story, or maybe the episode had her out of character, I don't know any more. Because I honestly saw her as the most level headed character and as such wouldn't be a helicopter parent over Apple Bloom. Now I suddenly realize what a twist I could have made by having Rarity the level headed one and Applejack all in panic. Damn you show canon, why must you change things so.

The most problem I had with was Pinkie Pie. I'll be honest, Pinkie Pie unnerves me to no end. I'm this sort of semi-anti-social guy who does not like hugs from strangers, especially hyperactive ones. Pinkie Pie is the kind of character I would be running away from screaming in fear. I go to parties if invited, I go to social gatherings if the mood fits me, but you'll find me in the corner just enjoying the treats and listening to the music, not bouncing around and definitely trying to keep a good distance between myself and the one most hyperactive. However I needed Pinkie Pie so I really just tried to write her like she is from episodes where I like her and ignored episodes where she just freaks me out and no Party of One is not one of those episodes, it's more like Friend in deed where Pinkie goes to unnerving territory for me. Or Filli Vanilli, yeah.

As for the Crusaders. I'm not really happy with how I wrote them, I think I could have done better, then again I often have problem with writing child characters, I always worry I have them too childish and maybe not childish enough. The thing about the Crusaders is that they really are typical 6-10 year old kids of either gender so it really shouldn't be that hard. However it still can stump me. Also, I toned down the search for cutie marks a lot. I just don't like them when they are fixated on their cutie marks, I like more the episodes where their obsession with cutie marks takes a back seat. I'm an adherent supporter for them to get their damn marks already and star in episodes where they don't have to worry about that anymore, because I really love their childish antics and their child logic to life and I think there is tons of potential stories with them, without the focus being cutie marks. Give them their damn butt marks already.

Now for Gilda. People might actually think I'm a Gilda supporter after reading this story and I wouldn't blame them for that. However here is the truth. I'm not in fact a Gilda supporter, I do not think she was simply misunderstood and anything like that. In fact at no point in the story do I make any effort in trying to justify her behaviour from Griffon the Brush Off.

However, I still to a point could understand some of her attitude early on in the episode. She had just come a long way to meet a friend she hadn't seen for a while and mean while this pink hyperactive pony keeps interrupting this meeting. Personally, if I were to go and meet a person I hadn't seen in a long time, I wouldn't be terribly amused over these interruptions either. However I wouldn't go to Gilda's level of trying to deal with it, I would more likely just leave and hope to meet that friend later with more privacy.

So I make no effort of necessarily portray her as some misunderstood person. However I still feel she would never go the lengths her cousin Paul did for some easy money.

Time Turner was a lot of fun to write and because I had so much fun with him I started writing The Time Keeper of Ponyville. I had originally no intention of using him or any other pony, the fillies were just supposed to stumble up on the cottage with Big Mac bursting into the scene to help them. I'm actually glad I changed that.

Now for my non show characters, or OCs if you want to use that term. Silver Axe was created first, when I was messing around with Pony Creator and actually edited it so he was fighting Big Mac and from that moment on I just knew I had to write that scene and there you have the genesis of In the Broad Daylight. I wanted to write a fight scene for Big Mac.

From the start I knew the real threat was not Snow Heart, it was the fact that they had a... oh wait just a second.

Just in case you haven't read the story.

As I was saying, the villain that sets out the plot is Snow Heart and the main focus is on her and for a good reason. She does after all mastermind the foalnapping and by all intents and purpose is the story's antagonist. However the real threat was always that they in fact had a crazy serial killer right there amongst them. Someone who just needed the right trigger to start killing again.

Honestly, if I had this story truly in my full writing style, the story would be longer and Silver Axe would have begin killing more than just Paul. This story would have gotten that much darker as if the ending didn't make it dark enough.

There are many hints scattered around that Silver Axe is not all there and yes his back story revealed within the story has unreliable narration.

People might argue that the twist was unnecessary that it adds nothing and could be easily just cut out with Snow Heart no longer being a distraction from a hidden real threat. In some ways that might be true, however I did want to show how little actual threat Snow Heart was and what a poor judge of character she was and it wasn't just enough for me to hint at it, I wanted that to crash and burn on top of her. Having accidentally hired a serial killer was just what I needed to show how idiotic Snow Heart was being in her petty dispute with Filthy Rich and Diamond Tiara. Sure I could have done it another way, but that's just not my style. I wanted Snow Heart's epic fail to top on "I hired a serial killer??"

And well I couldn't really have a serial killer around unless revealing the twist, "holy crap, one of them kills other ponies." I let it be enough though to just let Silver Axe kill Paul.

Poor Paul, only created to be killed. Yes I shamefully admit that Paul only exists to die in the end. I knew already that Silver Axe was axe crazy... I'll go sit in the corner.... and I wanted to keep Snow Heart around. So poor Paul was created so I didn't need to kill a canon character or some random a background pony. I really didn't want to resort to killing show characters in my first pony story. So yes I made all the blatant obvious hints that Paul was not a nice guy so people wouldn't care that much when his neck was snapped.

Snow Heart, she was actually rather fun to write. I showed a lot of times how ineffectual she really was and how easily everything just crumbled around her. I gave few false leads that she was actually more competent than she appeared but in all honesty, she's no criminal mastermind. I originally envisioned her talent as being good at strategy but as time has gone on I've come to realize her talent is more in making up convoluted stories, if someone forced her to just sit in front of a typewriter, she might actually be an adequate author of fiction.

Tango and Mulberry, ack, if only I had done proper job with those two, especially in the beginning. Tango was already there just not named because I knew Snow Heart would need someone on the inside to check on things she couldn't check on personally without rousing suspicions. Mulberry was added because even if it isn't showed, Ponyville seemed like a town with at least two police officers. I really had nothing more for those two, I just wanted a police presence in Ponyville and then made fun of it it how they never appear since the Mane Six are the ones solving all the problems in town. Then I went ahead and had the Royal Guard comes making them further useless and it's something when the guards famed in the fandom for their uselessness make the police useless.

Well this got a bit longer than expected, but hey that's reminiscing for you. All in all I enjoyed writing the story and was pleasantly surprised by the positive feedback I got for it, I appreciated all the corrections sent my way and tried to fix them accordingly. There are probably still tons of them there and I might one day go through each chapter and re-edit them a bit, not rewrite because that would implicate a heavy change.

I would not say this is one of my best works, far from it, if anything it's rather mediocre. But still it is a good example of what kind of twists and turns can be expected from me when the mood hits me.