Stuck In The Middle With You

by CoffeeMinion

The Inevitable Clopfic - [Drama] - NaNoWriMo 2015

Inky Quills touched a dark, shaggy hoof to his head. He leaned back, letting the hard wooden chair bite into his deep purple coat and folded wings. “C… could you just run that by me one more time?”

The light-blue, grey-moustachioed earth pony stallion threw a sheaf of manuscript down on his desk, jostling the small sign that read, Cold Shoulder - Print Submissions. “What, you want me to say it’s unsalable crap again? Because I’ll say it again—it’s unsalable crap!” He hoofed through a couple of its pages. “I mean, what’s this part at the end where the mare and stallion just sit side-by-side, staring at a lake together? For Celestia’s sake, give our readers something they can chew on!”

“It’s symbolic,” Inky Quills said, brushing a strand of mane out of his eyes. “Not all relationships turn out the way you think they will. Even true love sometimes fades…”

Cold Shoulder barked a laugh. “See, and that’s why I’m rejecting this, Quills. I don’t care if you and some foreleg-slitting emo teens think ‘depth’ and ‘nuance’ are interesting; I’m here to do exactly one thing, and that’s sell stories.”

Inky pursed his lips. “First, I feel like that’s a gross mis-characterization of an untapped demographic that would flock to stories speaking to their issues…” He paused, noticing Cold Shoulder’s eyes had glazed. He cleared his throat. “...But more to the point, I think it’s in both my interest and yours to publish stories that are different. You know; things that can stand out in a competitive print market?”

Cold Shoulder rolled his chair back away from the desk, shaking his head. He stood and walked to a nearby window. “This is a time of change, Quills. Equestria’s seeing more magical disturbances than it has in living memory, and it’s got more princesses running around than anypony knows what to do with. You heard about the new one that was just born in the Crystal Empire, right?”

Inky nodded. “Yes, but I don’t…”

Cold Shoulder glared at him. “My point is that Equestria’s got more than enough ‘new’ and ‘different’ going on right now. Ponies turn to fiction for—” he made a gesture with his forehoof “—relaxation. To escape from everything that’s going on out there. The only ‘new’ and ‘different’ that they want right now are just new variations on the things that they already like.”

Inky frowned. “And that is…?”

“Clop!” Cold Shoulder beamed, and started walking around the desk toward where Inky was sitting. “Kid, each time you come into this office, I keep having to think of new way to explain this to you: Ponies read clop.” He stopped next to Inky and put a hoof on his shoulder. “They want it. They buy it. Every author writes it, at least every so often. This isn’t complicated... though I get the sense that I have lost you once again with this.”

Inky looked at Cold Shoulder’s hoof with suspicion. “Well, I don’t read clop.”

Cold Shoulder chuckled. “I don’t care if you do or don’t, kid; I just think you oughtta write it. I mean, you’ve got the chops to make it as a writer; no question about that. It’s just… ” He paused. “I like you, kid. I really do. It’s why I’ve bought a few things from you. But you gotta get your head out of the deep and moody stuff that you keep sending me, or I’m gonna start to think I’ve done you a disservice by supporting it, even as little as I have.”

Inky sighed. The paychecks were small, though he still felt lucky to have found an agent in Manehattan who was willing to give him the time of day. But they were really, really small, which sometimes led to other problems…

“I don’t know,” Inky said. “Let’s say I was… considering it. How would I even get started? I mean, again, it’s not something I read, or care about…”

Cold Shoulder snickered. “Come on. I mean, you’re married, right? Just start with some of what you’re up to with the missus!”

Inky blushed, but not for the reason Cold Shoulder might have expected. “Uh… I don’t know if anypony really wants to know that.” He straightened in his chair. “Or what she would think about it!”

Cold Shoulder turned away and started walking back toward his chair. “Well, I dunno, kid. Honestly, it’s up to you what you want to do about this. But at some point, don’t you feel like you should’ve been able to take the talent you clearly have and parlay it into a bigger audience? And doesn’t it mean something if you’re not willing to give up your pride, or whatever it is that’s holding you back, to write a thing that’s gonna help you make that leap?” He settled down into his chair, and pointed a hoof at Inky. “I guarantee you, if you do this, I will pay top-bit for it. This will be the story that gives your career the kick in the rump it so desperately needs.”

Inky furrowed his brow. “That’s a rather… lofty promise, don’t you think?”

Cold Shoulder shook his head. “Not at all, kid. I will stand by what I’ve said: You’ve got the talent; I’ve got the audience. If you want to get those two together, you know what you need to submit to me.”

Inky bit his lip. He really didn’t want to take the offer seriously. He feared what his wife might say if he did. And he didn’t want to take the time away from projects he was passionate about to work on something so... well, it was clop! He had his reasons for disliking it.

He looked up, meeting a glance from Cold Shoulder that came as close to plaintive as the older pony’s rough face would allow.

Inky sighed. “All right. I guess… I’ll think about it.”

Author's Note:

If you haven't heard of NaNoWriMo, it's a delightful way to help motivate people to write 50,000 words of novel in the month of November. I've participated since 2007 and I highly recommend checking it out.

Of course, by the time NaNo 2015 rolled around, I'd been writing and enjoying MLP short stories for most of a year. So I decided to throw convention to the wind and write 50,000 words of short pony stories in November instead. While I didn't make it anywhere near 50K, I did write and release this little thing, so I think it worked out OK.

I also wrote this piece as a warm-up for that story. And by "warm-up," I mean "contemplating how far I felt comfortable pushing a Teen rating." If it saves time, I'll just self-identify as a prude now and be done with it. Nevertheless, I could tell I was sitting on an idea that needed to be written. My only regret is leaving Inky here with just a single chapter; I've got about half a plot-arc in mind for this, but I haven't had much luck developing it in the intervening year.

Comments

[MisterNick]

Honestly you could get away with a lot of silly stuff here and never get explicit about the content of the story because it doesn't matter. What matters is how everyone else reacts to said content including himself. He could be really embarrassed that he's even attempting to write such a story and so it becomes a whole to do to hide it from say the kids and all. He could be really bad at writing such stories. Not in the bad harlequin romance way where it's unrealistic stuff. Bad in the way that it's just bad. Something his wife discovers and hilarity ensues. Stuff like that.

The point being you never ACTUALLY have to say what exactly he's writing or really go into the details though the occasional comment could let you know all you need to know.

[Just_Me123]

Ha, ha, missed this earlier, at last a "clop" fic I can actually enjoy. Thumbs up 👍

I've always found part of the charm with MLP is the fact that, because it's aimed towards younger children, it avoids more "adult" topics (clop), and also has to develop it's themes without getting too "adult level" about them, ie: dark, but not "grimdark" (Tanks for the Memories), a hint of passion (special someponies) without "in your face" shenanigans, and anything hinting at that ends up being more background to support another story (ie: in "Hearts and Hooves Day" the main story, while not denying romance is a thing, is mostly about the CMC meddling in both magic, and the affairs of adults, things that should be better left alone by little fillies). Not sure what to make of Sugar-Mac, it's skirting with taking the series up to a more teen level, not bad, but it's not G4, will be interesting to see what level they actually reboot the series to when G5 makes an appearance.

[Georg]

When you used this line, my mind immediately went to the logical conclusion from my own experiences: “Come on. I mean, you’re married, right? Just start with some of what you’re up to with the missus!”

"Are you done yet?"

"Not quite," called out Green Grass. "Almost."

Twilight Sparkle gave out a frustrated huff of exasperation and pawed the ground. "It's unfair! I haven't even had a chance to get started yet!"

"Tough."

"Errraaaahh!!!" Twilight hopped up and down while flapping her wings. "I'm a librarian! I'm supposed to go first!" She hammered on the bathroom door with one hoof, making the entire castle shake. "Come out here right this minute or I'll... I won't let you sleep in the bed tonight."

"You're going to be reading the book anyway," said Green Grass. "Look, if I tore our copy of Hairy Trotter in half and let you have the front--"

"No! Don'tyoudare!" Twilight gave another stern stomp to the bedroom floor, adding to the depth of the pothole she had started several hours earlier. "I don't understand! I promised to give Derpy a blueberry muffin when the new Hairy Trotter book came in if she gave it to me first."

"I gave her two," said Green Grass. "And a head start."

[CoffeeMinion]

9438509
This is absolutely delightful!

...what are you doing reading my old unfinished shorts?!

[Georg]

9438611 Because I had not gotten done reading them yet. Only 24 hours in a day and all that. It's a good distraction when I need a couple of minutes away from Farmer Bruener Has Some Ponies.

[CoffeeMinion]

9438768
Well then, I have a few more that I shall relocate here from the dark depths of my Google Drive—including one of my (IMO) better “Starlight Glimmer Fixes” entries.