Director's cut: "When Dating a Sunset..." chapter 8: The REAL date · 4:35pm Nov 20th, 2019
As you might have guessed, I got the name "Hay and Shake" for the restaurant Eric and Sunset had their date from the real restaurant "Steak 'n Shake". But at first, it didn't have a name and it was simply called "the restaurant" in both narration and dialogue, but during editing I gave it an actual name.
One of the things I thought of doing was to have Twilight Sparkle and Starlight Glimmer hide in Hay & Shake by holding up newspaper or something, have Eric notice but just let them be, but scratched the idea. I even thought about having "Sci-Twi" sneak along to help keep Sunset Shimmer calm -- without Eric knowing -- and have him accidentally discover her hiding somewhere in Hay & Shake. But later I scratched that idea too. The line where Sci-Twi suggested coming to Equestria in chapter 4 was even meant to be foreshadowing for this. If I kept this idea, it would have been a one-time thing, and Sci-Twi would not have went in Equestria again in the story. As I tried to think of how this story would go, I thought about giving Sci-Twi a bigger role in the story, potentially even using the "Sci-Twi" tag if her role got big enough, but couldn't think of a good way to do it.
Out of all the chapters so far, chapter 8 was the biggest pain to edit with the cuts and little changes. Before editing, this chapter was over 5,500 words and I even gave thoughts into breaking it into 2 parts, similar to how Eric's and Sunset's "pseudo date" was in 2 parts.
Oddly, most of the cuts aren't that noteworthy. The most worthy ones had Eric (kinda) roast Twilight some more, such as commenting how he didn't expect Twilight to help him prepare for his date, such as picking the "best" restaurant for a date. But I felt those were along the most expendable, but If the chapter was shorter, I probably would have left them in.
There was a big edit change I did near the end of this chapter. Originally, Sunset didn't spend the night in Twilight's castle and left through the portal after she and Eric finished talking in the castle, but changed it to her spending the night in one of the castle's extra bedrooms. Then I changed it again so Eric and Sunset slept in Eric's room. I was torn on which of those three options to go with.
