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[Interview] Cudpug's Hospice · 10:16pm
Originally posted to the Vault on 3/23/12.
This is slightly different fare than our usual ponyfic. It's a little harsher, a little darker, a little more adult - not in the cloppy sense, mind you, just more... seasoned than most of the fiction in this fandom. As one of the people who recommended it to me said, it will stay with you for a few days after reading it.
[Tragedy] • 64,700 words
Have you ever loved someone? I think that love is a universal theme that defines us all, and is really the ultimate satisfaction in life above all else. Hospice details the relationship between Rarity and an unnamed narrator, and how their relationship rises and falls in the wake of choices that they both make and forces outside of their control. The intention of the story was always to engage with the theme of relationship breakdown; view the story as distinctly metaphorical as these two tortured lovers do everything in their power to remain together.
Hit the break for an interview with Cudpug, and links to Hospice out on the ponynet. You can get ebook copies hot off the presses over at the Vault's Downloads page, of course!
deviantArt • Pony Fiction Archive • FIMFiction • Equestria Daily
Where do you live?
England.
What kind of work do you do? (i.e. are you a student, do you have a career/day job, etc)
I'm a student of history and literature, and I write for an influential publication called BeatsPerMinute.
How did you discover My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic? When did you realize you were a fan of the show?
My memory is a little blurry as it was quite a long time ago. The first thing that I ever wrote about Friendship is Magic was in July 2011, and I know that it was after the entire first season had aired, and so I imagine I got into the show sometime in June of that year. I was pretty much a fan from the beginning. I didn't have any major objection to the show based on its subject matter; I forget where I heard about the show from, but I do know that after watching a couple of episodes I thought it appropriate to continue watching them. This leads me to believe that I was a fan pretty much from the first time I watched it.
Do you have a favorite episode?
Picking a favourite episode is quite difficult as, like most people, I like different episodes for different reasons. At the moment A Friend in Deed is really high up on my list given the incredibly varied animation on display (the felt; the silhouette; the lens-flare effect; Pinkie's head showing up about a million times pursuing Cranky; the black-and-white film near the end) and Smile Smile Smile.
Who is your favorite character based purely on the canon of the show itself? Would your answer change if you considered the fandom in its entirety (i.e. art, fanfiction, memes, etc)?
In season 1 it was always Applejack. Sadly, I can't say the same for season 2 because they haven't really used her very much. It's hard to keep a consistent favourite when the show barely does anything with them. My favourite now has to be Rarity, as every new episode seems to make her more interesting and amusing. I don't much care for what the fandom chooses to do with these ponies, and I'm certainly not a fan of stuff like Lyra/Bon-Bon shipping. I like to keep the canon of the show separate from the fanon, else I might one day shoot myself in despair.
How did you come up with your handle/penname?
Been using 'Cudpug' since I was 11. No idea where it came from.
Have you written in other capacities (other fandoms, professionally, etc)? When did you first start writing?
Never in a fandom. Friendship is Magic is something of a unique example for me in that respect. I have been writing at a professional level since 2010 in matters unrelated to My Little Pony. In answer to when I first started writing, I have folders in my cupboards of shitty stories that I've written from when I was very young indeed.
What do you like to do when you're not writing?
I listen to a lot of good music.
Who is your favorite author (published or fanfiction)? Do you have a favorite story or novel?
It must be rather disappointing to hear, but I don't personally read fiction. I'm content to write it, but reading fanfiction doesn't really interest me. I do read a lot of non-fiction, however.
Stephen King believes that every author has an "ideal reader" - the one person who they write for, the one person whose reactions they care about. Do you have one, and if so, who is it?
I'd say anyone who is able to identify literary allusions and to grasp greater meanings behind words. I target my fiction at a mature market who want to read stories full of metaphors, moral philosophies and dark, often taboo themes. I am certainly not directing my writing to the clopfiction crowd.
Do you have any tips for aspiring writers, or writers who are struggling with their own stories?
It's in my nature to be rather harsh with people. While I'm often happy to help people out if they need to make something read in a more academic way, some people just aren't very good at writing. If you have a talent for writing, use it by coming up with something original, rather than flooding an already over-saturated market such as pony erotica. If you require ten people to edit your text for you and it still reads like crap then you probably shouldn't be writing. Oh, and make sure to go and read a lot of literature if you do plan on contributing something worthwhile to the literary world. It gives you an appreciation for how beautiful linguistics can be.
What is your typical writing process? (Do you work through multiple drafts, do you have any prereaders/editors, etc?)
A solitary affair. I would find it incredibly invasive to have other people editing my work. Generally, bar minor edits in large texts where mistakes are prone (authors from William Langland to Samuel Johnson have applied frequent touch-ups to their classic texts after they have been published) I don't think that any decent writer would really require anyone to extensively edit their work for them. While an idea can be good, if you lack the technical prowess to commit it to page then that becomes a considerable issue. I write during the night in conditions as silent as possible. I don't write drafts; whatever I write I commit to the page, and rarely do I have to go back and change anything.
What inspired you to write Hospice?
The Antler's Hospice album and wanting to carve a particular niche. A lot of people have approached me asking if I have personally experienced a loss such as that featured in Hospice. My response is that I do not have to be a carpenter in order to accurately describe a table.
Did you run into any tough spots or challenges when writing Hospice?
A few people telling me that I was mean for killing off a pony. That hurt, man.
When you set out to write Hospice, did you have any specific messages or themes in mind?
I set out to write a tale about relationship dissolution, to scratch the surface. However, there are many readings to Hospice. The story is an attack on popular culture and the fashion industry; it is a satire of the pony fandom in general, arguing that if you attempt to sexualise these characters, you arguably kill the subject matter. It is a literary allusion to Medieval fins amor; frequent references to "Sir Orfeo" and an "Owl and the Nightingale"-style of rhetorical debate are prominent throughout. Furthermore, it is indebted to literary tropes of the Middle English period; particularly 13th century notions of Lady Fortune and the later Calvinist doctrine of predestination; this ties into the way in which the text, from the very beginning, establishes what will happen.
It is a homage to The Antler's lyrically outstanding Hospice album; it is a way in which my criticisms of liberal consumer culture can be emphasised through a show that I like. It is an analogy of love, allegorical and didactic in style and execution, steeped in the bathos of high and low culture. It is a criticism of the upper class, of sexuality and of indulgence. It is, first and foremost, a tribute to unrequited love and the romantic tradition of 'love sickness'. People have applied many readings to Hospice and, given its deliberately ambiguous nature, many of these can be supported by the text.
Where can readers drop you a line?
You can contact me at my DeviantArt: cudpug.deviantart.com.
If you want to send a general email, send it to: mlphospice@gmail.com]mlphospice@gmail.com.
Is there anything else you'd like to add?
There is a follow-up to Hospice in the works at the time of writing/I am also putting together a soundtrack to accompany Hospice that can be found here.
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Comments ( 39 )
It's always interesting to see different writer's approaches to their writing. Also, I think Cudpug has some issues with cloppers...
Damn Cud, a bit harsh don't you think?
"While an idea can be good, if you lack the technical prowess to commit it to page then that becomes a considerable issue."
This line jumped out at me. I've always believed I had the purely technical prowess to get the words in some semblance of proper order with as few syntactical errors as possible; what I suspected I lacked -- and I'm beginning to think I was right -- was the ability to translate imagination into text on the fly. Since my text doesn't look that bad, I presumably must question the quality or depth of my imagination.
Yes, because delivering yourself to a perfectly acceptable fiction genre makes your work automatically worthless.
It's a really a good story. One of the best first person's I know.
Whoa, the first thing I thought of when clicking the link was "That's an insanely sad album, wonder if this fic's based on it," AND IT IS. Really moving album, so perhaps I'll give this a read.
I've got to say that I find the work to be... rather pretentious.
I've never read the fic, but from this interview, it looks very interesting. I don't agree with everything Cud is saying here (the editing process is a big one), but I can definitely see his view on sexualization.
Hospice is a well-constructed story. It is a very deep, meaningful work, and I love it for that. It's been a while since I re-read the story, and I really should give it another look.
But am I the only one who finds Cudpug's remarks about the clop community rather pretentious and annoying? I mean, I don't read clop either, but I'm not going to write off anyone who enjoys the genre as being worthless or detrimental to the fandom at large.
Anything based off of Hospice is worth looking into. It was easily my AOTY back in 2009, and continues to provide me with deep feels every listen.
>>297129
Nope, you're not the only one. It just reeks of "Look at me on my high horse. Look at how high it is!"
As you said, It's one thing to just not like/read clop (which is a perfectly legitimate stance to take) but it's another thing to start crusading against it and damning all that participate in it. One of the nicest Tumblr Pony artists I know draws gore, violence and porn, but as I said, he's a real nice guy with a great attitude.
As for the fic, if it got into the Vault, then it must have some merit, but I'm not the biggest fan of out and out sad stories.
Heh. I'm much happier workin' in clop because it really brings out the characters' issues and explicitly shows moments of extreme vulnerability between them that can be exploited for story purposes. If I get a non-clop idea that's as personal and affecting as the clop stuff that comes up, I write it.
I think Cudpug just doesn't like sexualization- and he's perfectly correct that if you unwillingly write for a 'market' you perceive to exist, your work will suck, because you are slumming and don't mean it.
What he DOESN'T mention, because he doesn't see it, is this: if you don't have authentic love for whatever genre you're scorning, somepony will eat your LUNCH and absolutely destroy you (in a competitive fashion) when they have both technical facility and a love of the genre you're 'lowering yourself to'.
This is true for music, it's true for writing, and it sure as hell is true for clopfiction.
I myself leave some stuff alone, as there are fetishes within clop that do nothing for me, and I know folks who are really gifted who dive into that stuff and get some flak for being a lil' too into certain angles. My challenge to them is this: MAKE me understand. Make it impossible to ignore. That's more or less what I'm trying to do with th' clop, and doing that I've managed to get to around a mid-level featured author celebrity- without EVER having any features or publicity, apart from a non-clop Equestria Daily story that was butchered in its initial publication and then deprived of an update post when it got finishing chapters.
That's my challenge to capable writers who think it's unfair to maintain a clop ghetto, too. If you figure folks should be allowed to handle topics of all types, is there a characteristic within that which you would like to see? With me it's the striking difference in personalities and the way that we all must translate and communicate our personal worlds for the benefit of those around us- whose worlds can be astonishingly different, and who may put up a front and then reveal their true selves at vulnerable moments. I have done this within explicit sex scenes SO MANY TIMES. If there's something of that nature you'd like to express and you've got the technical facility to handle it- write it!
As for Cudpug and 'Hospice', I skipped to the last chapter to see how he handled intense, powerful emotion, and this piece is getting exactly the type of recognition it deserves. He hasn't the technical facility or emotional depth to grab and hold large numbers of readers- but THIS is clearly what he was born to write, and there's a deep truthfulness to the work. It's not a coherent picture of mortality, it's not especially wise or insightful, but people are often neither wise, coherent nor insightful, and it is a kind of self-portrait down to the first-person viewpoint.
It is not how _I_ would experience mortality- but it makes me experience Cudpug's experience, viscerally, and that is why it is art and worthy of all this Vault-listing and FIM-featuring. If you want to experience what it is like bonding with and losing Rarity AS a rather uptight pony who hates clop and feels superior, but cannot be superior to death itself- this is your story.
First we have: "I don't personally read fiction"
a couple of lines later: "make sure to go and read a lot of literature"
then there is: "It's in my nature to be rather harsh with people"
and soon after: "telling me that I was mean for killing off a pony. That hurt, man."
In my country, we have a specific word for these kind of people: humanistisika (a humanities pig). The story might be good, though.
"...then you probably shouldn't be writing."
Well, shit. I can't be the only one dying to see what the first thing he ever wrote was (in particular since he himself said "I have folders in my cupboards of shitty stories that I've written from when I was very young indeed"). I'm not going to sit here and defend whatever authors you people might think of as examples, because I know that there's a lot of crap on this site. That said, telling people that they shouldn't be writing, while they clearly enjoy doing so, doesn't just make you "harsh." I'll keep the rest of this paragraph to myself, for fear of causing an argument.
If your story still reads like shit after having ten different people look at it, you should first of all find a competent editor. Second of all, you should educate yourself on basic grammar. Storytelling is in no way the same thing as having decent grammar, but fixing the latter will (in my experience) get you a lot further with fixing the prior.
>>297170
The last quote was sarcasm.
>>297875
Ha! You wish!
>>297674
That line seemed really distasteful to me.
Writing shouldn't really be about being the best of the best; not everyone can be Shakespeare. It's about doing something you enjoy and expressing yourself. Writing is about practice, if you don't succeed at first, keep trying until you get it.
>>298542
Believe it or not, what you just said is exactly what I needed to get myself out of a certain... unpleasant train of thought. Thanks for that.
>>298548
So it's true, I am a mind reader.
>>298558
Nah. You're just correct!
When I was little, I didn't want to be an athlete, didn't really want to be a rock star- I wanted to be a writer, specifically R. A. Lafferty.
You probably never heard of him- not exactly Stephen King- in fact I'm not sure he ever made a living.
The entry about him in a book on fantasy/SF writers (a book I stole from my school library- still have it, too, and I'm not sure if I ever made amends for this) describes some of his stuff and says in the 'writers you might like if you like this writer' section, "Nobody writes like Lafferty, so if you like him, go find some more".
I wanted THAT. And it's true- partly because Lafferty is so weird that nobody else can get away with it. His tone is really peculiar and reads like someone writing fanfiction of his own peculiar fantasies, it's often sloppy as hell, rather stilted, yet with this strange poetry... almost EVERYTHING would be fixed or just thrown out by a strict editor. To my adult eyes, he's a bit crap. (though I still love him none the less)
And yet, Lafferty is the one that inspired me as a kid more than anybody. I'm going to quote how he opened the book "Fourth Mansions": consider the poison it describes to be this idea that your uniqueness has its own value. In context it is about a mind-weave of hideous power through seven striking people who end up endangering the world. This is from a published book, folks: Ace published it in 1969. I grew up knowing this writing was possible. Ahem...
1: I THINK I WILL DISMEMBER THE WORLD WITH MY HANDS
"For there are all these obstacles for us to meet and there is also the danger of serpents."
Interior Castle- Teresa of Avila
There is entwined seven-tentacled lightning. It is fire-masses, it is sheets, it is arms. It is seven-colored writhing in the darkness, electric and alive. It pulsates, it sends, it sparkles, it blinds!
It explodes!
It is seven murderous thunder-snakes striking in seven directions along the ground! Blindingly fast! Under your feet! Now! At you!
And You! You who glanced in here for but a moment, you are already snake-bit!
It is too late for you to withdraw. The damage is done to you. That faintly odd taste in your mouth, that smallest of tingles you feel, they signal the snake-death.
Die a little. There is reason for it.
There once was a man who had very good eyes but simple brains. Nobody can have everything. His name was Freddy Foley and he was arguing with a man named Tankersley who was his superior...
>>299179
Wait....what?
>>299283
That's a published author AND one who's been totally inspiring to at least one person. Thank goodness I was young enough to not pick apart the many huge flaws of it all, so I could 'get it' as it was intended to be experienced. And yeah, I was a stoner kid, but I still like it even now, so there
>>299179
This Lafferty fella reads like an insane genius. I'll have to check him out.
>>299314
But what does that have to do with what I said?
So, if I'm understanding the interview correctly, Hospice is a criticism of... well just about everything.
He's got a superiority complex that would rival Trixie's.
Not having to edit anything because he apparently only write the purest and truest of prose on the very first go, only write if you're going to be the next Joyce with your amazing experiments with languages instead of feeling you have a story you want to tell, don't write anything that is seen as 'distasteful' to the moral majority and all the medieval name dropping exclaims 'look how refined I am'.
I've got a degree in Literature (four year course) and I did damn well in the course but I would never discourage anyone from writing because they think they have to make something that is packed with allusions, metaphors and language experiments. Writing is having people and yourself thrust into a new setting and watching carefully how the characters interact with each other and their settings. It is all about how it makes you feel - excited, sad angry etc. You know a good piece of writing when for example : a character is headed down the wrong path but can't see it while you the reader know it will end badly and it makes you have a sense of tension and fear for them. It is not about linguistics, it is about what experience you feel while reading the story, it is about the happy moments that warm your heart, the parts that make you laugh and gut wrenching but compelling drama.
Stories may all be about human experiences and speak on a deeper level about friendship, trust and hope for the future but it is all the moments, the big and the small ones that make up the story and those come from the characters and the plot. Frankly I think that throwing in too many obscure references just ruins the involvement when I have to break away from the narrative and research it to get the whole context. If you're going to preach about an issue then you better damn well have interesting characters to hide behind so the audience don't feel like they just sat through a lecture on the problems of the class structure. The trick is getting the audience to only realize the deeper meanings at the end of the story. You can't hit him over the head with it or they will feel used. They trust you to entertain them while maybe teaching them something about human existence but the audience can't know the extent to which you manipulate them. You should be able to hit the reader hard and fast when the critical moment comes or they won't response as much if they need to work out what exactly happened. It is all about involvement and immersion in this made up world and you need to pull the reader in to keep them reading at a consistent flow and experiments with language and overdone metaphors will only serve to distance your reader from your characters.
This quote says it better than me :
"Find a subject you care about and which you in your heart feel others should care about. It is this genuine caring, not your games with language, which will be the most compelling and seductive element in your style.” ~ Kurt Vonnegut
Also this:
"You may not be a Picasso or Mozart but you don’t have to be. Just create to create. Create to remind yourself you’re still alive. Make stuff to inspire others to make something too. Create to learn a bit more about yourself"
^It's not at all about grammar or linguistics at the end of the day.
TL:DR Write because you feel you have a world you want to share with others not because you want to play around with ancient references and linguistics.
Writing is serious business yes but it's supposed a good experience not a draining existential thesis.
Leave academics where they belong and enjoy the experience, try listening to your characters and not listening to literary theories such as post-structuralism. Leave the 'various' interpretations up to the college students writing dissertations and critics, you the author need to tell a good story that will make your readers feel they invested their time wisely.
>>299816
You have no idea how much I want to hug you right now.
>>299816
This.
One of my favorite stories, this is.
>>299314
You.
You have introduced me to the absolute AWESOME that is R.A. Lafferty, and for that, I am eternally grateful.
Now off to read everything he's written.
Hi cna you fix the Publish proment i am having plaese ok
I wanna tackle a few things.
First off, is this guy's supposed expertise. As others have pointed out, Cudpug starts out by saying he doesn't read a lot of fiction. He then proceeds to tell people to read a lot of literature. This is advice I received in elementary school. As for his ideas on literary allusion and metaphor? Good for him, but there's a problem. Clear prose takes precedence. It may not be pretty, but you're out to tell a story, not show off your ability to beat around the bush with pseudo-intellectual parables. You'd be better off just stating your point if that's the meat of your endeavor.
As for his writing style, yes, it's quite clear he specializes in non-fiction. The passive voice litters Hospice. He also seems to have trouble conveying emotion. As well written as this story was, I felt nothing by the end of it.
" I don't think that any decent writer would really require anyone to extensively edit their work for them." Wrong. Editing means more than just correcting spelling errors, improper structure and syntax. Anyone who is in the literary world can tell you editors remain very busy. Writers will often have entire rooms filled with boxes of manuscripts covered in red ink. These same people will also tell you neither they nor the author know it all. When it comes to the use of language in literary fiction, rules can be broken sometimes, and it isn't always clear when.
"... read in a more academic way..." Could you be clearer? Stephen King's style has been praised for being laid-back, and his prose has been hailed for its "everyman quality." Mark Z. Danielewski's style of writing in House of Leaves was also fairly straightforward, as was the style of Ernest Hemingway. Do you mean non-literature? Do you mean "academic" in a style similar to J.R.R. Tolkien's? Or are you referring to correct grammar and structure?
"...wanting to carve a particular niche." What type of niche are you looking to carve? There's two ways that could be taken based off your tone in this interview if one was being overly critical.
"...it is a satire of the pony fandom in general..." I've seen better inside and outside this fandom without all the autofellatio.
I'm going to stop before I say something that gets me kicked off this site.
Cudpug, I like a few aspects of your style. I don't like you. I haven't seen anyone in this fandom come off as pretentious as you have presented yourself in this interview. You admittedly know more about non-fiction, but proceed to lecture about technical prowess in literary fiction. Were I an editor, entire sections of this story would be scraped simply due to their lack of necessity. You would spend a great deal of time rewriting sentences due to your use of passive voice. And that's if I just didn't decide to tell you to throw it away because your narrator's about as interesting as a particularly grey looking pebble. Hospice is not a perfectly written story. Your story has appealed to a niche within this community which has earned Hospice 2,143 views. In other words, you've appealed to a market. You have not created a new one, if that was your goal. All of this coming from a guy who wouldn't even glance at a clop fic.
Use this criticism on your next work, if you decide to write one. While you're at it, use it to adjust your attitude.
P.S. There's a difference between being harsh and being an ass. Trust me, I know.
Edited: Needed to clarify a few statements.
>>299816 I agree with a lot of what you say. I really did get the feeling of hipsterdom and superiority complex all over the interview but I also acknowledge just because I take issue with the author thankfully does not mean they can't write a good story.
That said your TL;DR came close to sounding a lot like cudpug himself. Surely writing is worth it regardless of reason. To say you shouldn't write because you want to play with some sort of writing style is no more valid than saying you sholdn't write if all you want to write it clop.
Writing is all sorts of things. It is many things to many people for some it's silly and relaxing for others it is a very serious draining thing. That doesn't make one more valid over the other.
Yes the college students can do great things when interpreting but it's human nature to want to try and understand and quantify our experiences. To want to read deeper into things and get more out of it. It's not just limited to one stage of life.
Tl;DR Write for whatever reason you choose to say one reason is more valid than another simply means you're falling into the same camp as the one you're criticizing.
Merely mean to be an opinion by no means trying to flame, simply to open debate.
Hospice was one of the first and very best stories I'd read in the MLP universe - it also stands as a very prominent writing on its own.
It still makes me cry, sadly. I am such a girl.
Wow. Don't think I've ever seen an interview generate this much, uh, rebuttal.
Honestly, though, a part of me is glad we have authors as discriminating as Cudpug sounds. Someone needs to set a high bar for standards, even if we may not agree with the bar.
>>316160
Well... you did miss My Little Dashie while you were deployed...
Ya think?
>>297129
No your not the only one.
That is some ego on him... And that's coming from me, one of the high lords of egotism.