Notes on "Lyra's Human" - Chapter 4

If you've read Chapter 4, please read these end notes, otherwise there are spoilers.

So my challenge for this chapter was to give the characters a little more movement, less just sitting and talking. This is more difficult in my view than dialogue. I definitely think in speech patterns as opposed to concepts, so dialogue is easier to write. I’m not entirely happy with some of it, specifically where they don’t realize that going out of the house will put them in danger of being caught. It’s kind of cliché.

But I am happy with how I dealt with the carnivore/vegetarian issue. When I started this I hadn’t realized that there were so many human-in-Equestria stories already out there. I read a few, but none of them had “HIE” as an acronym anywhere so I thought they were rare. After I finished my first draft, I did find out and more than one had the human defending or disclaiming meat. I wanted mine to stand out, and I think that reversing the concept worked. I like that sort of conceptual “judo.” (In fact, one of the characters is going to use that same term in an argument later on.)

Speaking of those HIE fics, after reading them I conclude that they were exactly what I set out to write when I started this, but that I hadn’t succeeded. This story became something else entirely, and I’m not entirely disappointed. I have all those other HIEs for me to read, and those looking for something different will have this.

I hope to have the next chapter posted in a few days. It’s the one I got the most out of writing.