An UNNECESSARILY in-depth look at the process of writing The Enchanted Library · 8:29am Sep 19th, 2018
GUESS HOW OLD THE TEL ONESHOT IS TODAY
I wasn't originally going to write a blogpost because it's been a bad week, but then LILFUNKMAN spent an entire night doing that GIF so now I had to.
So, to celebrate a fic that has changed my life in many ways, to thank its readers, and because this is my 100th blogpost, I've decided to write what is essentially THE ART OF ENCHANTED LIBRARY, the most complete guide there will ever be to the writing tricks and tips and methods I used to pull it (and most of my stories) off.
But before I do that, and just to be safe, LET IT BE KNOW THAT BEYOND THIS ARE LIKE MASSIVE SPOILERS. MASSIVE. HUGE.
Though I know perfectly well what I did to write Enchanted Library, translating this into words is another matter entirely. My thoughts, much like everything else in my life, are a jumbled mess that make sense to me but no one else. Organized chaos, as Rarity would eloquently put it.
But, as I said, considering what day it is, I will now go about the daunting task of trying to explain just how my writing style works.
The first thing to know is that I see story-writing in two layers: micro-writing and macro-writing. Micro-writing is here defined as scenes and moments in a story, the details and the like. Dialogue, descriptions, all that.
Macro-writing is defined as the grand scheme of things, the interweaving plot that in itself encompasses themes, motifs, character and plot arcs, etc.
I myself think that my strong suit lies with macro-writing, whereas my micro-writing still needs to be refined in many ways.
Anyway, now that we know these two terms, the single most important thing I do is to interweave these two together. Or, well, I say that, but really it’s more like the micro-writing must always serve the macro-writing. A scene, a moment, an exchange of dialogue must in some way or another advance my larger scale themes.
Now, let’s go to Enchanted Library.
When EL was first conceived four years ago, I had two story lines: the Princesses/Past and the RariTwi. Essentially, the adventure plot and the romance plot.
The adventure plot encompassed many things, ranging from what happened for Twilight and the others to be trapped as spirits, as well as what Rarity would have to do to free them.
The romance plot, in a nutshell, was basically how did I get Rarity and Twilight to want to smooch.
It’s very common, from what I’ve read and been told, that many stories often end up neglecting or putting down either the romance or the adventure. Adventure stories have the common unfortunate tendency of having a romance subplot tacked on, and this more often than not ends up feeling forced, rushed, and a plethora of other negative words.
I knew from the get-go that I didn’t want that. Mostly because EL isn’t an adventure story.
EL was, is, and will always be a romance story.
The focus of the story would always be the romance, not the adventure, which means that Twilight had to be the reason why Rarity went out into the wild to figure out what happened [to Twilight]. The entire core of EL isn’t finding out what happened in the past, but Rarity trying to understand Twilight.
In other words, a mix of adventure and romance because she couldn’t find out more about Twilight if she didn’t go out and adventure, but wanting to be closer to Twilight is her entire reason for adventuring.
Now we have our grand theme, or the macro-writing if you will: Rarity getting to know Twilight, be it in person or by investigating what happened in the past.
But, how do we go about writing that?
To explain that, I have to explain another key method in my writing, which is the fact that I write towards scenes.
I don’t conceive a plot as a whole, I conceive a moment and then all I do is figure out how to get to that moment.
Four years ago, I had a fragmented backstory which I extracted from my friend’s drunken rambles (for those of you who don’t know, EL was first conceived during a very drunken conversation with a friend). Truthfully, at the time, I didn’t want to invest much time into the story. In fact, when I originally wrote the one-shot, all I wanted was this cute scene between a ghostly Twilight and Rarity. No lore, no backstory, nothing. Just Raritwi.
So, I wrote it out, and something terrible happened.
I didn’t reach 1000 words, so I couldn’t post it on Fimfiction.
In order to solve this, I sighed and decided to do one simple thing: come up with random lore.
This was the plot I salvaged from my friend’s drunken rambles: Discord trapped Twilight, Celestia, Luna and Cadance in different parts of Equestria. A thousand years later, Rarity stumbles into the library and finds Princess Twilight Sparkle, an ancient recluse spirit. Somehow, they fall in love.
In the span of an afternoon, my friend and I bounced ideas on why Discord would have done this and where he would have trapped the Princesses. Thus was born the legend we see in the original one-shot. Once upon a time, four Princesses defeated the Spirit of Chaos. They lived in peace with him for five years, until finally, he asked for something they couldn’t agree to, and when they didn’t agree, he stole the Elements of Harmony, trapped three of them throughout the land, and cursed the other to never be able to find them.
All of that, just to make the word limit.
And, unexpectedly, it was these little rabbit holes, these echoes of something unexplained that resonated when I released the one-shot. The walls scorched from unknown explosions, a map filled with circles marking locations of ‘L’s and ‘C’s.
The strong desire of readers to know what happened is what convinced me to actually expand on the story with the core idea that this was, first and foremost, a shipfic.
So, now that I had the backstory, this led me to five key moments that would mark the path I had to follow:
- The necklace scene, or the scene where Rarity discovers she likes Twilight
- Rarity finding out the truth of what happened a thousand years ago.
- Rarity being somehow deprived of Twilight and realizing she’s irrevocably in love with her
- Twilight realizing the same but deciding she can’t go through the pain of living through Rarity dying and thus locking Rarity out of her life to save herself the pain
- Their reunion after the separation and Twilight’s liberation after forgiving herself
Essentially, I wanted juicy, juicy angst.
Those five points are essentially the plot of EL minus the details and lore and world-building. There is no mention of adventure, no mention of the other princesses, just the framework of a love story.
Anyway, these were my constraints, or my guidelines, and furthermore, I had the original legend to follow. True, when I made the proper multichapter, I could have discarded the entire original one-shot and come up with new lore, but I love to work within the constraints of something already established.
It’s been four years, so you’ll have to forgive that I don’t exactly remember how or why I came up with all the details of what happened in the past, but after months of planning, our summary ended as thus:
Once upon a time, Discord wreaked havoc over the land. Princess Celestia set out to find a way to stop him and enlisted her unicorn student to find these mythical objects called the Elements of Harmony. Twilight failed to do so, finding only one, and yet she and the others tricked Discord into thinking only one was necessary and thus ‘defeated’ him. Despite the fact that he and Twilight became friends, he learned about the ruse and, knowing they had no means of defense against them, plotted out his revenge, specifically targeting Twilight for tricking him. He then trapped them as Spirits and, according to the legend, left the land.
Now, we have all the framework set and our five core plot points.
What comes next for me is motif; a distinctive feature or dominant idea in an artistic or literary composition. Motifs and, in some ways, foreshadowing, is the staple of my writing. Macro-writing meets micro-writing. True, sometimes I do it too much and it’s less foreshadowing and more me being bad at being subtle, but anyway, buildup and expectation is what I thrive off.
I made a point earlier of explaining what macro-writing and micro-writing is for me. Here is where we’ll see how the micro-writing informs the macro-writing.
It’s also important to add that even though our 5 KEY MOMENTS all happen in order in the story, they are ALL being built up at the same time and in different ways. Moment 5 doesn’t happen until the last chapter of EL, but the buildup towards it starts as way back as chapter 1 of EL. In order for me to effectively pull off the emotional reactions and settings I want, I need to be establishing them over and over and intermingling them with one another, even if almost unnoticeably.
To explain this, I’m going to start with the simplest thing: the beginning.
Rarity meets Twilight, and she starts trying to befriend her. The first thing she does is go to Canterlot where we meet Princess Denza. Or rather see her.
But Mono, let’s pretend you say in this quick aside, how can you build up their relationship if Twilight isn’t there? In fact, Twilight isn’t in almost half the chapters in the fic!
I did this by setting a rule. In every single non-Ponyville chapter, if I could have Rarity think of Twilight, I would. Be it a small thought or not, Twilight had to be a presence in these chapters, as much in the mind of Rarity as she would be in the readers. Twilight is and must always be the motivation. I’ll go more into detail later, but for now let’s return to Canterlot.
So, Rarity and Fluttershy are in Canterlot trying to talk to Princess Denza and simultaneously collect the books needed to free Twilight.
While they’re in Canterlot, they attend a Disney-like parade where Princess Denza and Prince Silver Lance wave at ponies all graceful-like. On the surface, the purpose of this scene seems to be simply to introduce the characters and have Rarity fantasize about Prince Charming.
In reality, this scene was added just for two lines.
The Princess and Prince waved with all the grace and finesse expected of them. Prince Silver Lance leaned in to whisper something to his wife, and she laughed, nuzzling against him for a second.
With this brief mention, I have immediately squashed any idea that Denza is not physical. In fact, the entire parade is only to completely discard the notion that Denza is in any way anything but real, thanks to the aid of her trusty changelings (which were mentioned in relation to Cadance as far back as the first interlude of EL).
And here is one of our motifs. Denza and the changelings that keep reappearing over and over, in references in Professor’s Awe house, in what happened in the past, and then in Heart’s Haven, everything to the point that a large part of the readerbase was convinced Denza was Chrysalis. Or an immortal Cadance, true, but not a ghost.
It’s also why it hits Twilight so hard. Over and over, it’s established that Twilight finds salvation in the idea that Cadance was spared from her fate. All these little things serve to strengthen her ultimate meltdown when she and the reader and Rarity too all find out what really happened.
This is essentially what I do, or how I see stories.
Going on from that, let’s take Twilight’s mental trauma. I’ve already talked at length in another blogpost about the mental abuse plotline in EL, so here I want to discuss it a little more from a writing perspective.
From the get-go, I knew this side of her had to be present always, in some shape or form. In how she reacts to the world around her, how she reacts to Rarity, how she reacts to everyone she meets. A criticism I’ve garnered of EL is actually Twilight’s guilt being too much. While I can understand how someone who has never gone through that ordeal might not be able to relate, this was ultimately a choice I made (as a survivor of mental abuse myself).
Anyway, the fact that this was something that we were being constantly reminded of also served to enhance the final scene when Twilight breaks free of the library by forgiving herself. This moment, which you’ll remember is Key Moment #5, was only powerful because it had been built up to from the get-go.
Another way to do this is by association, or again, motifs.
Let’s see these three romance examples.
To begin with, I mentioned earlier that Twilight from the beginning of EL was serious and very no funny business. I knew that in order for Rarity and Twilight to be romantic partners, they first needed to be friends, and I needed to make sure that we could see, feel and be enthused by said progression.
I decided that I wanted the first time Twilight smiled to be important, in the same way I wanted the first time Rarity started calling Twilight by her name to be important. Thus, I knew buildup would be vital.
For the first seven chapters of EL, not once does Twilight smile. Anything that could be a smile, even a smirk, was strictly forbidden. Thus, when she actually does smile in chapter 7, it feels important. It is! It’s a change, intensified by the added excitement of Twilight letting Rarity call her by her name (a privilege she has not extended to anypony else).
But that was only on the surface.
For the first seven chapter of EL, the narrative never drops Twilight’s title. Everytime she is mentioned, it’s either “said Princess Twilight” or “said the princess”. However, the second Twilight verbally gives Rarity permission to drop it, so does the narrative and thus the entire story becomes more intimate, more friendly and more inviting. Just as Rarity is allowed to enter Twilight’s circle of intimacy, so is the reader.
Another example of motifs.
The teleportation.
Twilight trying to teach Rarity teleportation was one of EL’s running jokes. Almost every chapter up to Heart’s Haven, Twilight pesters Rarity about it and Rarity relents because she loves Twilight. The entire thing is wrapped in an air of comedy and joy, just a silly thing to giggle at.
Stop here. Let’s flash-forward to the curse arc. Rarity is injured, unable to see Twilight, and she’s been having these awful dreams/premonitions where she’s an old mare and not only is some younger mare the one to free Twilight, but Twilight and this mare are also in love.
During the last of these dreams, an elderly Rarity is finally able to meet up with a Twilight who has not aged a day. They banter, they talk, and they’re joking around until the following exchange happens:
Twilight laughed, and how Rarity had missed her laugh. "So, have you been practicing teleportation?" she asked, drawing a smile from the unicorn. "You must be an expert by now, right?"
Rarity sighed theatrically. "I fear I haven't practiced teleporting in decades.”
"You haven't?" Twilight asked, her brow furrowing, like time had rewinded and they were back in the library so long ago. "Why not?"
Rarity smiled again.
"Isn't it obvious, my darling?" She lifted her hoof and, without hesitation, brushed Twilight's bangs back, allowing her hoof to later travel down the length of Twilight's face and caress her cheek. She was soft. Princesses, she was softer than Rarity had ever dreamed she'd be.
"Is it?" Twilight asked, and though she tried to look stern, she sounded subdued, closing her eyes and leaning into Rarity’s touch, relishing it, the coveted first contact they had once dreamt of.
"What was the point of practicing teleportation," Rarity whispered, "if you weren't there to be impressed with my progress?"
And suddenly, the running joke is stripped of its familiar, usually happy context and placed in a sad one. Now here’s the thing: I came up with this interaction first, and all I did was just build up to it.
AND! And if you want to be really meta, all the dream sequences are modeled and staged after the very last chapter of Injuring Eternity, the other fic I’m well-known for. The last chapter of Injuring Eternity features an elderly Rarity coming face to face with the idea that her time with Twilight is well and truly over. The very first paragraph of the last dream sequence is actually a slightly modified version of the very first paragraph of Ch6 of IE.
However, if there is really one thing that both simultaneously advanced the romance and the plot in EL, it would be my favorite plot device ever.
The necklaces.
The necklaces came about during my quest to find some way for Twilight and Rarity to communicate over distances. I went through a dozen different ideas for it, from some stone that would holo-project Twilight a la Star Wars, to some magic book a la Tom Riddle / Sunlight, and eventually I settled on necklaces that would allow them to communicate.
Once I had that, I had to settle on what exactly this spell would do.
I didn’t want it to be the cheesy, stereotypical communication thing where you hear the other person’s voice in your head, mostly because this would lead to a lot of talking head dialogue and that didn’t feel like my kind of A E S T H E T I C.
Instead, I went back to my trusty rule: how can I make this spell inform the romance, and what better way than to have them literally share a mind.
A, it would force them to grow closer together, B, it would force Twilight to be less able to keep secrets and advance the plot, and finally C, it would provide a way for them to communicate over distances.
However, this was not the only thing I wanted from the necklaces. What I wanted these things to be is the manifestation of the ship. So, like everything else, I built up to it.
In almost every chapter or scene where Twilight wasn’t present, mostly in the adventure chapters, every time Rarity thought or spoke of Twilight, I would have her play with the necklace. A very subtle thing, but it already served to link the necklace to Twilight and their relationship. Every time Rarity was afraid or concerned or worried, she would on instinct grab the necklace. It’s very likely this was a detail that went unnoticed consciously, but if I did my job well, this minute detail played its part.
I wondered for a long time if this was actually working, and I didn’t find out the answer until the curse arc, specifically the very first dream interlude where this exchange happens:
"I think she likes me," Amethyst said, and in her voice rang a feeling Rarity had not experienced in a long time. She giggled, and whispered, "I think Twilight loves me, actually. Maybe. I hope. I want to talk to her all the time, but I can't! Uuuuuugh!" She groaned and buried her face in her hooves. "Why can't I be with her all the time?" She giggled at the impassive stare Rarity fixed her with. "Sorry. You must think I'm silly."
Rarity laughed. "Hardly, darling."
With her magic, she levitated a jewelry box from a nearby shelf, and placed it on the table, right between them. Carefully, she opened it up, extracted a broken necklace she'd not touched in a long time and floated it over to Amethyst.
"Take this to her," Rarity said with a soft smile. "She'll understand."
And there you go. The painful act of Rarity giving up on the relationship.
Of course, I sit here and write this like everything was all plotted out, when that is not entirely true. Many things I plotted out in advanced, but there are many others where I did so retroactively. Remember how I mentioned working better within constraints?
A great deal of EL was me liking an idea, and then adapting it to what I already wrote so as to make it seem like I planned it all along. This would obviously be avoided if I actually finished a story entirely before posting, BUT WHO HAS TIME FOR THAT, ANYWAY.
There is actually a lot more I could explain regarding this, and even more seeds I planted, but that would unfortunately go into spoiler territory for people reading TEK since many of the seeds I planted have yet to be revealed.
In fact, remember my five key moments? I lied.
When I was first planning out EL, I came up with seven key scenes, not just five, and it’s the last two of these three missing moments that are the real payoff of everything in Enchanted Library.
Anyway, I think this is a good place to end.
Ultimately, EL is a story made from allusions, expectations and subversions, and lots of foreshadowing. Details that weave into a larger story, so that even if ultimately the minutiae of the words is forgotten, the essence of the fic isn’t.
So, thanks for sticking with me through this journey! It’s been four years since this ride started, and through good and bad moments, I probably would not be who I am now if it weren’t for it.
- Mono
P.S. I'm gonna do another one of these this weekend to feature fan content, also. So BE EXCITED FOR THAT.
🎉
Wow. Thanks for the BTS for writing, because I knew it's a tough thing but nobody really explains the process much.
So...Correct me but most of the time you build on micro-writing? You ensure everything is there just so you can add in the
romance interactionsmicro-writing(s) without it being out of place?Edit: Then you squeeze in everything else of course, to keep the story going in the correct direction...right?
Just want to say I'm really glad you expanded the original one shot into what it has become, which is honestly one of my favorite stories I've read in a long time. Thank you for writing such an amazing story and showing me the glory that is RariTwi.
I love those Hashtags at the end.
Happy anniversary Mono.
That gif reminds me of the old desktop pony sprites. Is there a set of those for Library Twi and Rares?
Yup. Hard to think so many years since then has these two went from such a niche ship on this site:
"Oh, another Raritwi fic? Mono must be hitting that moonshine again."
To:
"It's been two whole days since we've had any Taritwi! I can't live in this cruel, unjust, uncouth world any lon--oh, there's one right now! What a lovely world we live is. Sigh~"
All those multiverses and so many new faces over the years being shown how fun and passionate these two as a couple.
Happy 4th Anniversary, TEL!
Wow, it's been four years already
Certainly the queen of rarilight by now
Happy anniversary Mono!
That gif is ADORABLE.
Injuring Eternity / Last Train and TEL should be part of the fanfic bookstore at BC next year, so that I can throw them at you and shout HOW COULD YOU DO THIS TO ME.
I still haven't forgiven you for any of that.
A useful reminder that there's actual craft involved here; Mono doesn't just take a blank page and vomit Raritwi onto it.
This was a fascinating read and there are a couple of things I will try myself. The effectiveness has been amply demonstrated in your story and in how you were able to manage the connection we readers felt with the characters. It actually made me reevaluate my previous opinion about romance, which was that it wasn't something for me.
Thank you for this and thank you for TEL.
Thanks for the insight, mono. It's great to see that amazing stories, have amazing processes too
This was a really cool blog post. Just seeing the amount of thought put into the story, and how you crafted it.
What a wonderful little peak inside the cover.
I may have even learned something I can (attempt to) apply myself!
Awesome! It's my birthday and the anniversary of this incredible story, today just got 20% cooler, well more than that but Rainbow Dash quote :D Your writing is amazing and it's inspired me to focus on my own artwork. Thanks so much for creating this and sticking with it!!
I enjoyed every bit of it. I took pretty much everything presented at face value, and didn't engage in speculation. You kept me interested, and kept me from predicting what's going to happen next. More often then not, if I can predict what's going to happen next, I'm usually right. My own writing method is by the seat of my pants. I can look at a cause, and predict the effect so well that I'll often figure out what's about to happen in a story long before the author gets there. You kept me from doing that, and that's why I love your stories.
But...
why don't they kiss at the end of your gif?
Reading this I suddenly feel woefully inadequate. All of this micro and macro, deep thoughts about writing and dialogue... Makes me feel like I'm bad <.< But still, it's interesting to see what thoughts went into the interactions and such. I could use some of those thoughts myself
I'm still so new to the story (about half a year since I'd started keeping up with it?) but tbh this blog post just makes me want to cry. I love how much care you take with each step of the story and how excited you to both build up and show payoff, and it's so concentrated here it makes me emotional
Happy anniversary to TEL, and to many more stories to come!
Why can't I upvote blog posts?
Thanks for sharing. It's interesting to read how you developed the story. I've been pondering writing something short for NaNo this year. This post will help.
The Denza reveal was wonderful; I had to stop reading and restart the story with my wife because I couldn't not share it. My son got hooked from overhearing—amusing because he has been rejecting stories with description that hint at romance. The Enchanted Library is one of my favorite books. I look forward to TEK once it's done—or sooner if I can't help myself.
I was eager to read this until I read the "Spoilers ahead"bit.
I'm super sad now, I suppose I'll just have to leave reading this until you finish...