Behind the Story: One Mare Story

This story went through several permutations before reaching its final destination. Also, apologies for lateness.

A lot of ideas went into this, and I’m prepared to talk about it. First, we need to go back a few years.

I have dabbled in original fiction before. I used to write for the Authors’ Academy Wiki, which is a Wiki meant for original fiction, and I thought some of the stories I wrote for AA were some of my best. The wiki is still technically around today, but it’s pretty much dead, and you won’t get much out of it.

One of the stories I wrote for the AA wiki was a story called Story of My Life basically exactly what it says on the tin. I run through my life from square one until the period I wrote that story, or as much as I could remember, speaking of myself in the third person.

Now, I’ve migrated 100% over to FiMFiction, and write my stories here.

My original idea for my February story was quite literally “Postmodern nonsense”, having heard about the eras of writing in English, I thought that would be fun to replicate. So, I took notes about the characteristics of Postmodernism: awareness of the medium, heavy focus on reality, and disintegration of genre barriers. I decided that I could perhaps utilize these characteristics to create something, but what?

I eventually decided on something simple, I was just going to write Story of My Life again. However, this time, it would be from the perspective of a pony quite literally writing out her life story as if it were fanfiction. I still think this idea could work, but I didn’t have enough substance so I decided to pivot a little.

I still thought that the life story was a good idea, but I needed a pony.

With the basis of this being Story of My Life but a second time, I figured I could use a ponysona. I don’t know how many people know this who read One Mare Story, but I actually have 2 ponysonas. There’s Reinn, who’s my AD/HD ponified, a drummer, and more focusing on an ideal version of me, a musician who’s funny and trails off on random odd tangents. Reinn is also a mascot of sorts.

Then there’s Rose, from the Raining. series. She’s based around my kindness and willingness to help others.

But Rose is for a very specific series that I only write when I have a really good idea based around my life. So, that left Reinn.

Reinn (and Rose, but Reinn is important here) is trans. So, I started writing from her perspective, but it felt like it wasn’t going anywhere.

So, after scrapping it, I realized that I could make a Raining.-style story based around Something About a Violet. Within Something About a Violet, Reinn mentions what made her realize she was trans, and mentions in fleeting detail what happened, before immediately getting distracted, because she’s Reinn.

So, One Mare Story was going to be about precisely that moment. Reinn hears an album, debates for the next couple days, and then realizes she’s trans. The album in particular is a shoutout to Transgender Dysphoria Blues by Against Me!. In One Mare Story you hear fleeting descriptions about a couple songs, but I do know one in particular is an allusion to Drinking With the Jocks from that album.

Reinn’s situation is something I’ve found myself in several times. The idea that I’m not “trans enough” and that I have no real signs (besides a lot of signs, but sometimes I feel this way), and therefore can’t be considered a trans girl. Why didn’t I just use Rose, well… Reinn has a particular quality to her that I think elevates the story.

Reinn has AD/HD. I have AD/HD. It has not been implied that Rose has AD/HD. In my experience with AD/HD, we can focus a lot on one very minor particular thing that’ll gnaw at you for the next several days. When we’re trying to figure out that thing, it’s suddenly focus time because we need to find out what exactly this thing is.

So, in One Mare Story, Reinn seems like she’s focusing a little much for somepony with AD/HD, but I personally think she fits this story very well because that AD/HD has caused her to fixate on this one very minor thing, and she needs to focus to figure it out.

In One Mare Story that process involves Reinn looking over her life several times in succession until she figures what exactly is wrong. When she figures it out, she collects herself, becomes her bouncy self again, and finishes the thought.

There isn’t much substance to the story besides her inner workings. However, I feel like those inner workings are exactly how someone with AD/HD would feel while trying to figure this out.

Some remnants of the “Postmodern nonsense” still remain at the end, where I write Reinn writing a brief summary of her life as if it’s a fanfic, but that original idea was mainly burned off by the time the story hit print. In fact, most of what she writes utilizes FiMFiction formatting to seem more natural for someone rethinking themselves over and over, however, as mentioned, that is not the focus anymore.

There weren’t many influences I can name for this one. It’s mostly spinning off my stories I consider good, but I do think that lesson was cool. I have another idea for utilizing these “eras of writing”, but that probably won’t ever see the light of day.

And until next time; be awesome!
-Dashie