Ah, Twilight, what is there within you not to like? You’re smart, funny, beautiful, and connected to royalty, and soon shall be royalty yourself (if the writer wants you to be). What’s not to want? That there aren’t more guys in the library looking to open your book is a mystery.

Oh wait, there isn’t a mystery, there’s no guys with personality around!

Oh, uh... no offense little guy, but you kind of have the whole underage thing going against you.

But that’s okay, because us writers are here to make sure Twilight doesn’t die – or live on into eternity – without having tasted the same joys of love as her sister-in-law/fellow royal, Cadance.

That’s right folks, it’s time for a discussion on developing a partner for everypony’s favorite bookworm... Twilight Sparkle!

Let’s start with getting the obvious things out of the way, avoiding Mary Sues. For helpful resources on avoiding Mary Sues, you can check out Ezn’s Guide to writing fanfiction, Tricondon’s Guide to Avoid Mary Sues, and the Universal Mary Sue Litmus Test.

Now, when avoiding making a Mary Sue, you also have to avoid the extreme opposite, which might very well be even worse. Making a boring character.

How do we avoid a boring character? By giving them something off of which their relationship can work off of. Something that drives the plot of the story, makes people relate to the character, and/or is just plain interesting to see.

In creating a character specifically for Twilight Sparkle, we’ve got a lot of material to work with which means a lot of different ways you could come up with for your two would-be lovers to get together!

Let’s start off with what we know about Twilight, and work our way from there.

Twilight was a Canterlot filly raised by her parents, Twilight Velvet and Night Light (according to most of the fandom). She spent lots of her child(foal?)hood with either her older brother, Shining Armor, or her alicorn babysitter, Cadence!

When she was still young, (they never tell us her age at the time), Twilight was entered by her parents into Princess Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns. After the Grand Poo-bah of magical outbursts, Twilight hatches Spike’s egg, turns her parents into cacti, and impresses Celestia so much that the Princess of the Sun takes on Twilight as a personal student.

Flash forward to the distant future of the show’s present, and Twilight is a studious bookworm with possible OCD and social shyness who has had the good fortune to meet five great friends in addition to her amiable assistant, Spike.

Alright! Her amiable assistant/best friend and voice of reason.

So the first process in developing a character to pair with Twilight is a believable “in”. Something must occur in the story that makes your characters spend time together. Lots of time, because love takes time to develop. At least an entire day’s conversation if you want to be hyper realistic. (Seriously, I’ve asked a few couples, and most of their first encounters with each other were day-long conversations.)

So what do we know about Twilight that might allow our character a way to interact with her on a regular basis? Well, she works at the library, our character could visit the library regularly. She also has her friends which she spends time with, the character we create might start out spending time with another of the Mane 6, but then finds Twilight to be particularly attractive or intriguing. Other ways that we can get Twilight to spend time with the character outside of a relationship status is that they might be the fellow who provides all the gems Spike eats, a guard assigned to her as protection after one of Equestria’s disasters, or possibly some guy she shares a train compartment with as she goes to the Crystal Empire to visit Princess Cadence and Shining Armor. If you decide to go with Princess Twilicorn, you could also have your character be some prominent political figure.

So, Twilight and your character are together for a lengthy amount of time. What next? They each find something that they like in the other. We have a few options, we could say that they both have a love for magic, love Daring Do books, have a fondness for relics like Twilight’s doll, or that your character reminds Twilight of someone else she cares for (Military colt like Shining Armor, a stallion with a personality a bit like one of the other mane 6, etc.)

“But wait!” you say, “Aren’t opposites supposed to attract?” Well, in a story you have to go for believability, and it’s believable that people with something in common by which they begin to learn more about each other will develop a relationship, rather than just smacking two people together who have nothing in common.

So, we have ways for our original character to initially meet Twilight, and how to get the two of them interested in each other. Are we done? Heck no, because you’re telling a story, and a story needs conflict!

There are a lot of ways to introduce conflict in a story: it can be personal conflict, in which some trait in each of the characters rubs off against the other in a bad way, or the circumstances of life for one of them prevents or obstructs their relationship.

Let’s start with personal conflict, we know that Twilight can become obsessive over some aspect of her studies, such as no wanting to be late for a friendship report.

Yikes.

We also know that Twilight can become engrossed in her studies to the point where she ignores others, such as when Spike tells her that he has pledged loyalty to the greatest of background ponies, Applejack. Twilight’s need for meticulous organization can also rub against your original character to create conflict. So, to have conflict your character could be a bit of a slob, take life in a non-chalant manner, or not take things as seriously as Twilight.

Hmmm... I guess now we know why that ship is sailed so often, eh?

Moving on to circumstantial conflict, in which events outside the couple threaten to keep them apart, we can have a magical accident require Twilight to work on fixing it. If you’re going for the angle that Twilight’s partner is involved in politics, you could have a rival political faction attempt to interfere. With this partnership, there is a lot of room, because Twilight is the wielder of the Element of Magic, Princess Celestia’s student, sister the Captain of the Royal Guard, Sister-in-Law to the Crystal Princess, and a Princess herself. For enemies of the Equestrian state, Twilight has the proverbial equivalent of a “shoot me” sign on her back. This can be used to great effect if the partner you come up with for Twilight is involved in having to protect her, so long as he really struggles to keep her safe.

These are just a few possibilities, and this lecture is by no means a comprehensive list, so feel free to offer other points of contention, prominent traits of Twilight, or other such insights which you believe will lead to more rounded characters to ship off with that crate of adorkable bookworm goodness, Twilight Sparkle.

To find a directory to all the other OC/BG character development guides, click here.

Who next? Pinkie?

990517 Fluttershy actually, the stickied thread that has links to both this thread and the Applejack one has "Coming Soon" next to Fluttershy.

990517 pinkie is nearly impossible to ship in a serious relationship in her base personality. a second and third dimension to her character have been shown, but not explored. with only what we KNOW about her RIGHT NOW and ONLY FROM THE SHOW, putting her in an actual relationship is absurd. as she is an endlessly powerful, energetic airhead in her current capacity.

990590 All the more challenging to work with; And thus all the more needy of a guide.

990664 hey, i like thinking up all the different ways pinkie could be under that mask up for myself, thank you very much.

990590 990664
"No problem can withstand the assault of sustained thinking."
- Voltaire

990700 of course, but that is why i like it to be personalized. for the thoughts are all my own.

990904 I think it's pretty heavily hinted that she's a bit obsessive about being on good terms with everyone. That's a start.

990907 yes, but that could stem from so many different things that it is insane.

it could be a self-confidence thing, craving for attention (Which would make insane amounts of sense), etc, etc. and then there's wondering how in the fuck she got her powers.

990907 990953 Alright, that's enough, keep the conversation to OC or BG character development for Twilight Sparkle on this thread. I'll be sure to begin work on a Pinkie Pie thread after the Fluttershy one.

991012 Okay.

Garsh, I would so go for girls like Twiley.

991030 agreed. but there has to be a way to get rid of that childish ignorance...

I actually find Twilight a lot less appealing as a character than the rest of the fandom, and, as such, I find myself rarely pairing her.

I did hear of a stallion called Comet Tail, who apparently is shipped with her frequently (top google image results). However, when I joined the group and asked for his personality, I couldn't have got a more vague answer. All I know is that he's Ponyville's astronomer.

I like the stories of Twilight-as-secretly-wanting, the ones where she wonders why nobody looks at her or wants her.

Probably just my nerdy high school experience talking, but I can identify with a character who has no idea they're standoffish.