Yo, I'm gonna make a wild guess here and assume y'all are writers. Like, sure, I don't know if any of you are professional writers or anything, just fanfic aficionados, but then again, who wants to be a professional? Look at them. With their money and their dignity and their fulfilled dreams. Disgusting. Real artists write ponies for the sake of disappointing their families, man.

Anyway, so that aside -- we're all writers, let's talk about writing, chums.

Y'see, there's something that's been -- well, I won't say "bugging" me, but it's a thought that's been buzzin 'round my brain like a particularly fat fly. For a really, really long time, I avoided writing Pinkie Pie and Fluttershy, because holy crap were they hard for me to write.

There are reasons for this, of course -- Pinkie Pie is hard to write, I'm fairly sure a lot of people think the same. Fluttershy is not that tricky, but I mainly write comedy, and it's hard to land a joke when the character prefers to be quiet and smiling and acting cute instead of, you know, doing funny stuff.

Have in mind that I'm not talking about characters you dislike. I really like Pinkie Pie, she's probably my favorite from the M6. And Fluttershy is also really nice, I believe. I'm talking about characters you find hard to write. Discord tends to be a strong contender, as well as Zecora (for obvious reasons).

Do you guys have any of those? Are there any reasons? Notice how I used the past tense when I mentioned how Pinkie and Shy were "hard to write", because I eventually got the knack of them. Right now I don't feel like writing any of the M6 is particularly hard to write, because I eventually saw the reasons why they were so difficult, and worked around them.

So! Thoughts about that? Characters you hate writing, and reasons why you do so? You might even realize a way to solve the problem, who knows. This is a free country, dog.

4514612 Personally? Pinkie Pie is tough, but not too tough. I've had some troubles with Rarity and Sunset before, but I feel I'm getting the hang of them. Rarity because half of the time I'm on thesaurus.com to look up fancy words for her, and for the other half I'm struggling to avoid use of the words 'darling' and 'dear'. Sunset because she actually has one of the most complex characters in the show, and I'm caught between her past self and present self when writing her down.

I also find Celestia to be hard, due to the fact there's so much you can do with her. Millions of years of sh*t you can write...

I was always a bit cautious when I wrote mane 6 characters later in my writing due to how salty people could get over their waifus being even slightly OOC. It's manageable for all of them, but it takes a bit of thinking about what they would actually do in a situation. The hardest I would say to write (for me, anyway) would be characters that have a little to no character development (background ponies, correctly writing OCs, etc). With them, it's mainly up to your interpretation on how they should be written, and sometimes people don't like that interpretation. It's either a hit or a miss.

4514612 Before I write anything, I gotta say that I love the way your wrote this message. It's obvious that you're a comedy writer and it's beautiful.

Anywhooves, I do agree that certain characters are a Kentucky Fried pain to write for. I excell (for my standards anyway) at writing the likes of Doctor Whooves or Twilight Sparkle but there are times I have trouble writing for certain ponies.

For me it stems from the story itself and the character's involvement. Meaning that I can write Rainbow Dash as a secondary character well enough but when she becomes the main character I struggle finding the right words for her dialogue. Hell, I got a story where I made up a totally different Rainbow Dash and slapped her into first person because....well I must have thought it was a good idea at some point...and I'm having problems making her dialogue sound like more than:

"Well, look everypony. There's a plot point. I'm reacting in a predictable manner. Gotta love my character depth."

As for character like Pinkie Pie and Zecora, I actually enjoy their dialogue a great deal. It's fun writing in rhymes or writing like I've snorted cocaine. It's a nice break from writing serious dialogue or stuff that's normal. I've not written much Discord but I imagine it's much the same. There's just an odd freedom that comes with writing Pinkie Pie. The ability to make tiny jokes and references, and to just be generally off the wall. I find Zecora as a challenge to try to come up with rhymes that work and still carry the meaning I need. It's also fun to read aloud while proofreading. Fluttershy, while not as fun to write, does come quite easy to me when writing. Although this is due to me sharing a lot of personality traits with her. I do have to note that I haven't written for every character so their probably are a few that I would have trouble writing. At this point I don't know if I could write them correctly. I avoid characters like Cadence and Celestia for that reason.

There's also accented characters like Applejack that say certain things in certain ways. Forcing me to take Grammer out by the tool shed and beat it with a shovel for a while. I find it hard to try and balance how much the accent should be represented against how hard it is for the normal person to read. This problem gets worse when I have to write a character with an accent that isn't country. I end up curled in a ball trying to figure out how many apostrophes can fit into an Italian mobsters mouth.

Not sure if there was any point in that message. I write like I think sometimes and I don't always think in a straight line. Kinda wibbly-wobbly if you ask me.

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With them, it's mainly up to your interpretation on how they should be written, and sometimes people don't like that interpretation. It's either a hit or a miss.

Hah! For me those are the best ones to write. If somebody gets salty at how you write a character with no actual canon personality, then that somebody is either a chafing bottlesnuggler, or a particularly schizophrenic writer with a strong headcanon. In any case, ignore the heckle out of them, man.

I literally created an entire series with all the major background ponies in it just to fuck with their usual interpretations, turning then into sociopaths, and people kind of liked it, so I'd say don't worry for that. Background ponies are useful in the way they're just an OC that people can recognize and will like. Allegrezza's Octavia and Vinyl were fine once. After seven hundred thousand fucking fanfics with the exact same personality, they get more boring than a jaded comedy writer trying to come up with a joke to end this paragraph.

In other words: I actually think you should face that problem with the opposite mindset: they have no canon personality, so go wild. Even people who only write BG ponies like seeing different interpretations, and as a result the fanfic feels more like it belongs to you.

As per the M6 being OOC -- yeah, some people get salty? But part of writing is finding your own voice. The characters should always be recognizable, and you can't have Applejack saying the word "rendezvous", for example, because that would be preposterous. But you need to find your style, and maybe that means having the ponies be a little more sarcastic than usual, or maybe a little more thoughtful, or maybe more prone to anger and drama. Sounds like bad advice, but look at any fanfic with a character you think it's particularly well-written and you'll see that it's not exactly like canon. Canon is too much of a blank space. You need to add some personal flavor.

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"Well, look everypony. There's a plot point. I'm reacting in a predictable manner. Gotta love my character depth."

Dash can be tricky, because if you're not careful she just ends up saying the words "awesome" and "cool" all the time, but she has a couple tricks to make it work. It also depends on your particular intepretation of her -- I usually write her as an idiot, except for when she has one or two moments of brilliance. Think a really smart kid who also happens to be the kind of insufferable brat that you hate with a passion. That's Dash's mentality; from there on, it's a matter of finding the words.

Guess it's all about practice, after all. Dash always came natural with me. I just imagine her as the most immature of the M6 and give it a go.

And hey, having predictable reactions from characters is not bad. It's all about practice, as I've already said a million times, so I'd just keep doing that till she came around. Heaven knows the day I try to write Discord I'll have to toss aside at least seven drafts before getting something my prereaders won't set on fire after just one look.

(I have an advantage with Applejack, though, in the fact that my main editor is from the South himself. Motherfucker can nail her good ol' sayings like no other, I tell you).

I'm finding it surprisingly hard to come up with any advice on how to write Dash, to be honest. She acts first thinks later, and has a particularly harsh way to talk -- doesn't talk like an idiot, but she goes straight to business if she can. Braggy, but in that insecure way that makes her check everybody's reaction twice to make sure they all think she's cool. Prefers fun to work, and she's kind of lazy too. I think that's all? Get a couple fics that have a particularly good Dash and read 'em, that should do the work. No need to get long stuff, just a couple one-shots or somethin'. That helped me with Fluttershy, for example.

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Hmm. Does Rarity use any particularly complicated word in any moment of the show? I see her more like a sassy character with a good education, but she doesn't go out of her way to use thesaurus-worthy language, if I recall. Or at least I've never bothered with her. She talks classy, for sure, but nothing Dash or Applejack wouldn't get, unless she's talking about something completely out of their field (like fashion or Canterlot nobility or whatever). I actually think Twilight is more fit for technical, complicated language -- but only to a point.

As per Sunset, I've never really written her, so I can't tell. I'd definitely write her as a bad character gone good, which means she thinks like a villain, then tries to do good things. She plans to stop Dash from revealing their musical magic or whatever the fuck that was, but instead of just unplugging the guitar or asking her to stop, she tackles that motherfucker and then screams at the audience or whatever.

Something like that, maybe? I gotta try her some time.

4514836 For Rarity, it's not really speaking with fancy words.

I've written her in first person, so I think she, well, thinks, with a wide variety of words. Sure, she may not speak with them for Rainbow Dash and Applejack aren't exactly the most educated, but I imagine when she thinks she can use a whole variety of "fancy" words and such.

But that's just my interpretation.

4514612 I understand how Dash works in the most basic way. I just can't write her in the first person. It might also be that I hate first person. I see her as a lazy bragger that's quick to anger. Like if a changling walks in and is all like:

"Hello. I am Frank the Changling. I'm totally not going rape for village and pillage your women."

Then Rainbow Dash's response is probably to punch him or act really skeptical...and punch him at a later point.

Also, I love having that Southern advantage. I don't have the accent naturally but somehow being born in Louisiana gives me the ability to go into the most stereotypical redneck voice. I don't even understand why. I freakin' know like 2 people with a slight accent yet I know how to do it off hand.

The hardest character for me to write has to be Princess Celestia. I used to not be able to write Fluttershy but as time went on it became easier the more I used her in certain stories.

I personally find Zecora to be a challenge, but a fun one, not an inconvenience at all, if I choose to write her it's because I want the challenge. I won't say it's not hard, but its the fun kind of hard.

I just can't write Princess Celestia to save my life. I've tried and it's always ended up horribly lol. I'd like to say I can pretty much nail Dash on the head perfectly, same with Scootaloo, and most certainly Sweetie Belle. I find Apple Bloom and Applejack to be a bit of a challenge though, more Applejack than Apple Bloom, I just can't seem to get Applejack out of that character 'hat' I have for her (Pun totally intended) that she's a stereotypical farm-girl in every sense.

I think my favorite characters to write are the Apple Family, Fluttershy, and Celestia.

I've lived in the south all my life so I can pretty much read or write anything and hear a southern drawl in my head. Hell, I used to to have a drawl myself, but I broke myself of it at a young age. Writing the Apple's allows me to tap back into that accent, that voice I once had. The fun also comes in the subtle differences. Mac has a very deep tone which lends itself to shorter words and shorter sentences. When Mac says a sentence longer than ten words, then you know shiz is going down. AB is the youngest and thus has the lightest tone. She's also far more prone to slang and country shortnin's. AJ is that happy balance between deep and light, but also just a touch of hidden sophistication. Remember; AJ wanted to get away as a filly. Deep down, Apple Jewel is always lurking.

Fluttershy naturally talks very gently. She never raises her voice, and when she does (like with Mac) you know you messed up something fierce.

Oh, Celestia. Regal and powerful but also aged and wise. She's every wicked queen and fairy godmother in one perfect package.

I have yet to master Pinkie Pie. When her voice rings true, it's incredible. But more often than not, it just comes off hacky and forced.

It's a major reason I killed her offscreen in the Continuity.

I find the hardest to be Pinkie Pie, Rarity and Discord, as they're all quite alien mindsets to me.

I haven't even come close to nutting down a consistent headcanon for exactly what Pinkie is capable of, but her and Discord have the same problem in my mind - they're full of visual gags, and visual gags lose an awful lot of flavour when they get transposed into text. I can write them, but I need a serious running start to get into a chaotic mindset first, and unfortunately that tends to lead me into a somewhat stilted set of 'Dialogue, visual gag, dialogue, visual gag' 'and then this happens, and then this happens' which I have a bit of trouble making... flow. I have tendency to be very restrained and orderly in real life, and that tends to bleed over a bit into my writing.

Because of this I do tend to lean a little bit towards the 'obfuscated wisdom' interpretation of both characters - I don't necessarily believe it's the best canon, but it is the easiest for me to write.

The same issue comes with Rarity's overdramatisation, since it's something that I have a lot of trouble wrapping my head around. The degree of passion she puts into reasonably unimportant things is borderline alien to me, and her profession/talent is the one that really requires the greatest actual knowledge to be able to accurately portray (Twilight is higher but her speciality is magic, so you can just make it up - wheras dresses and horse anatomy are real things.) And unlike Pinkie and Discord, you can't hide her under foolishness and visual gags. Rarity is probably my least favourite of the mane six - though I'll quite enjoy a lot of her actions on screen, her personality would grate against me within seconds in real life.

Finally... I should probably add Fluttershy. I'll admit I've never really actually written much of her. The only scene she's had (or rather, Butterscotch has had) in any of my fics so far, s/he spent almost the entire time curled into a ball of pure terror. Which is reasonably in-character, but still... I tend to see a lot of pieces which overuse the "if that's okay with you" style suffix on every statement, and when I actually do find some reason to use her I'm going to be trying quite hard to avoid that. Like Rarity and Pinkie - and to some degree Rainbow - it can be kind of difficult to find that balance between losing the quirks that make the character unique, and blotting out everything BUT those quirks.

Hmmm... I should really try putting together some more character-driven pieces...

As if I don't have enough ideas going through my head already.

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As far as Rarity's vocabulary, I don't see her as a mare who would use a ten-bit word when a plain one will do (Twilight might, if she's caught up in a moment). After all, she isn't trying to flaunt her sophistication in a fashion that makes ponies around her uncomfortable. A word that's easily understood is more easily appreciated, n'est se pas? However, if the moment calls for an incisive bon motte to carry the day, a proper lady is always prepared with precisely the word that's called for, whether simple or more erudite.

And my answer to the original question is probably Applejack. It used to be Fluttershy, but I've come to appreciate her ability to play the straight mare against some of the show's more bombastic personalities.

4514612 I find Fluttershy difficult to write without her becoming scenery decoration. OF course, Fluttershy not saying much is in line with her character. I tried to sidestep this the last time I wrote her by having Pinkie lick her ( comment was made that she looked like a half-melted butter stick) and then she didn't protest... or rather encouraged the strange behavior. All this while the actual things that drove the story continued, it worked pretty well.

Apple Bloom can be difficult because I feel she doesn't stand out as the other two Crusaders. I think last time I had to write a bunch of her I managed to keep her entertaining by having her consume things that could loosely be described as candy and more accurately described as "powdered drugs" and "sweetened tar".

Other than that, I've only done Zecora once in a sort of cameo role, 'cause I don't want to have to mess with her rhyming everything.

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For me, Rainbow is the hardest to write. She's about as opposite my personality as it's possible to get, and in canon she's kind of an interesting mix of strong and weak.

Applejack is a bit tricky, too. The dialect is no problem; i's getting her to believably do something that's the challenge. She's the character who is closest to having all her dreams fulfilled, and she doesn't have to change what she's doing to get what she wants. On the other hoof, she's the perfect straight man mare in comedies.

Zecora's also tough, but just because of the rhymes. I don't think I've ever given her more than a line or two of dialogue (if even that much).

Luckily, the bulk of my writing involves background ponies or OCs as main characters.