A Devblog About Cider, Plushies, and Cutie Marks

So with the semi-close releases of Cider With a Side of Friendship and Night of the Living Plushies, I figured I'd just smoosh the random thoughts I wanted to share regarding the development of both into a single blog, as well as give a brief update on my plans for Different Events.

So, starting where I'll end this blog: Different Events. Shortly after releasing the previous chapter (Chapter 4) of Different Events back in December, I started work on Chapter 5, but pretty quickly I ran into writer's block, all because of one thing: comedy. For those who've read Different Events, you'll know that comedy is a little on the low side, and that's primarily because I struggle with writing comedy (I basically need my editor's assistance in actually making stuff funny). So, naturally, a chapter that'll be focusing on (literally just a spoiler for the focus character) Pinkie, needs comedy, but for someone who struggles in writing comedy, that'll lead to writer's block. As a result, I set aside Chapter 5 for the time being and focused on some other stuff.

Then came April. Some of you may recall that Derpibooru and Equestria Daily teamed up to do an event focused on "A Canterlot Wedding"'s 10th anniversary, where you could make art and/or a fic focused on Shining Armor, Cadance, Chrysalis, and I think Flurry Heart? Don't fully recall if the lil' wrecking ball with wings was included. Regardless, I decided to use the "prompt" to try my hand at creating a comedy-focused fic; the result was an idea for a Shining & Flurry fic - which I then scrapped because the idea wasn't funny enough and came up with a different idea still featuring them. That idea was the basis of Night of the Living Plushies; Flurry tries to steal cookies using an army of plushies that she's brought to life using her magic. It also served as the basis for my art submission for the event (and for the fic's cover art); a teddy bear sitting atop Shining's helmet and pulling his ears. Unfortunately, the fic was in terrible shape by the deadline, so I decided to just scrap submission, work on it some more, and then shelve it for later. This let me focus my attention on the art piece, which I did end up uploading.

At this point, a mini-meme on Derpibooru caught my eye and spawned an idea for a new multi-chapter fic, which I immediately cranked out a conceptual first chapter for, and then began refining the idea into what is now an alpha-stage fic that I'm looking to make my next title release. A little while after that I returned my sights to Chapter 5, trying to figure out how to proceed with it. Eventually I figured out a way that I could, and got down to what I feel is a good endpoint for it. The only problem still was comedy. I was still failing to really grasp how to go about it for Chapter 5. So, once again, Chapter 5 got set aside as I went to focus on other things.

It's now September. I see a sitewide announcement here on FiMFiction that AFanOfMostEverything is running a contest dedicated to parental characters in the MLP franchise. At no point had I really considered bothering with contests until I was a lot more seasoned with writing, but for some reason this particular prompt - to make a fic about parents without their foals - really interested me. So I decided to tumble around some ideas. One idea I kept coming back to was to involve the Apple parents in some sort of comedic situation. Their story really didn't give them much of a comedic spotlight, but through the little silly moments between them during "The Perfect Pear", I knew they could work in a comedic situation. Plus, since I'm not great at writing comedy, not only would I be giving myself practice, I'd also be sort of gimping myself in the process (really putting a challenge to my writing abilities). The thing is though, when you've got characters who lack the same kind of heavy characterization as ponies like the Mane 6 and CMC, it's really difficult to determine a situation for them to naturally be in. And really this applied to all the Parental 12 (and beyond). Eventually though, I settled on a rather simple, yet comedically opportune idea, that also featured another set of parents (which made me feel a little better, as I had some reservations in using the Apple parents, since them acting as parents wasn't much of a part of their story at all): Hondo Flanks and Pear Butter have a drinking contest. Between Mac & Pear, I've always felt Pear was the zanier of the two, and with Rarity's parents, both are basically crazy, so combine two crazy/silly ponies with Apple cider, and you get the basis for what will likely be a fun time. There was only one problem. Hondo, Cookie, and Pear are all crazy, and Mac is just barely a semblance of a straight-man (him being a little slow-on-the-go doesn't help); there needed to be a fallback character to express negative reactions to the drunken craziness in case Mac & Cookie would be naturally on-board with a given thing. Nebbie, my editor, had originally suggested a younger Rarity, but I didn't like the idea of Rarity's parents - the ones who fall more in line with the contest's intent - to be the ones who got essentially "invalidated". But, I then remembered Honey Belle (Aunt Orange); she'd be young enough during the fic to still be at the farm, and she clearly has a preference for the Manehattan lifestyle over the farm, thus making her the perfect straight-man...or rather, straight-mare. And so, with that, I put fingers to keys and cranked out the fic in only a few short weeks. This time, I was actually very satisfied with my work, and Cider With a Side of Friendship officially became my second fic.

During that time though, I had realized that Nightmare Night was coming up shortly after that contest finished, and so I made the decision to return to Night of the Living Plushies after wrapping up Cider. Since I had previously worked on improving the fic since I initially wrote it, I only needed a few polishing elements to add. That being to fix a little plot hole in that Shining should've done something to the cookie jar when he left the room (that resulted in the cabinet shove), and to add a little bit more to the combat scene (the spear-bridle stuff came out of that). So, I made the changes, and bam, submitted.

Which brings us to today, Nightmare Night, October 31st, Halloween 2022.

Now that I've put a couple of comedy focused fics in the bag (especially Cider), I think it's about time to return to Chapter 5 and either polish what I have or rebuild it with a bit more comedic potential. My hope is to get that out by the end of the year.

Beyond that and into 2023, I'm either going to work on that alpha-stage fic and get it into a more solidified concept to release the first chapter ASAP, or I'm going to do a couple more chapters of Different Events before switching my focus to the new fic for a bit. Either way, I plan to focus on that new fic for a little while after I finish Act 2 of Different Events. Hopefully, with more comedy writing experience behind me and better focus for the next couple chapters of Different Events, I can start getting writing done quicker.

That's about all I have to say for this update. Glad you all have been enjoying my fics so far, and I hope to keep releasing quality work for you all to enjoy!

(Also, I wish I got more detailed comments like the ones Knight of the Raven and crowscrowcrow made on Different Events. Those are my absolute favorite form of feedback; I can really feel that I've successfully shared my story ideas with people.)

Until next time,
-Bloom