Interview: Birthday Wishes

After the sad Scootaloo fic Birthday Wishes was posted on EqD, I interviewed the author, ShootingStar159. He says that the key to evoking a sense of loss is to make the readers appreciate something before taking it away.

This interview contains spoilers; if you don’t want to know, you can read the spoiler-free version instead.

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Amacita: What inspired you to write Birthday Wishes?

ShootingStar159: After reading a lot of orphan Scootaloo fics, I found that most of them didn't really touch on the tragedy of losing a parent. They always start after the fact and tell us basically, “her parents are dead, and she's very sad.” But that never really struck me as being truly sad, since we never get to see what she really lost. So that's what I set out to do: give Scootaloo the nice family everyone wants, so that the loss she suffers is felt more deeply by the readers.

ShootingStar159: Of course after I started writing, and seeing how much people like her parents, I did start to wonder if that is something I should even do. Bottom line, it isn't 100% certain her parents will both die.

Amacita: That's a brilliant answer, actually. One weakness I see in a lot of sad fics is that they don't properly build up to the sad bits: we learn somebody's dead right at the beginning, but there's no emotional impact because it’s too soon. It’s important to make us care about the characters before we feel anything when something bad happens to them.

Amacita: What do you think makes Scootaloo such an interesting character to read/write about?

ShootingStar159: Compared to Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom, we know next to nothing about her beyond her personality. There are several underlying themes to her character that are never addressed on the show and leave us guessing and theorizing about her. Why can't she fly, does she have parents? We want to know. It also gives us many freedoms when it comes to writing about her. Personally, though, I just love her daredevil attitude and lack of “girliness”; it makes her more interesting for me.

Amacita: I thought it might be something like that. Luna fics written before season two had the same appeal for me: there are powerful themes in her character from season one, but we knew so little about her. It was always interesting to see those themes fleshed out in different ways by different authors.

Amacita: How did you come up with your version of Scootaloo's mom and dad?

ShootingStar159: To be honest, they sort of came into being as I was writing. But there are some important things I wanted to get right about them. They had to be not just likeable, but realistic. I wanted Cypress and Scootaloo to have a strong relationship; the father-daughter relationship is very important, and it’s one of my favorite kinds to see explored. Unfortunately, most of the times when we see Scootaloo's father in stories, he's some abusive lowlife who at best ignores her. Her mom, Dawn, came about as a foil to Cypress – a more grounded character to complement his more lively nature. I plan on expanding more on her character in later chapters.

Amacita: Why did you choose to start the story in the hospital?

ShootingStar159: Two reasons: first, it answered the question of “why can't Scoot fly, and will she ever be able to.” Second, it was a good way to introduce Cypress as the devoted and loving father. An unfortunate side effect was that by answering that first question, some people believed Scootaloo's lack of flying to be the whole purpose of the story, when it isn't.

Amacita: That’s interesting. If it’s not about whether Scootaloo will be able to fly, what is the central conflict/theme?

ShootingStar159: At this moment, loss, and how we deal with it.

Amacita: How do you explore the theme of loss without just hitting her with one tragedy after another? She's got to be able to put up a fight to make the conflict interesting, right?

ShootingStar159: For one thing, there is only going to be one tragedy. Loss is one of those tragedies you can't really fight. That's what causes all the emotions, the despair, the anger, the grief. It's those emotions that are the real source of conflict. It's easy to say Scootaloo is an orphan, but if she suffers that kind of loss, it is hard to imagine her as the upbeat child she is in the show. In a way, you could split my story into three parts: the build up, the tragedy, and the recovery. The recovery is going to be where the main conflict takes place, and it will mostly be internal.

Amacita: Speaking of conflict, one scene I really liked was the fight between Scootaloo and the bully. What were you trying to do when you wrote that?

ShootingStar159: In my mind, conflict can come in several varieties. There is conflict that drives the plot, and sometimes you have a plot driving you towards a conflict. I would have to say that this is an example of the latter. The fight between Diamond Tiara and Scootaloo is important because it deals with her own feelings of self-worth.

Amacita: Okay. I was trying to figure out what made that scene so effective, and I think what it comes down to is that there’s something significant at stake. For Scootaloo, if she loses the fight/argument, she suffers a loss to her own feelings of self-worth, as well as making herself a target for more bullying in the future.

ShootingStar159: Exactly.

Amacita: What do you think makes a good sad/tragedy story?

ShootingStar159: The different ways in which characters express sadness is very important. Often the prospect of loss is far more effective than the actual thing. In my opinion though, the best sad stories have bright endings, because life is never only our lowest points. I know from experience that to really enjoy the good times in life, you have to go through some pretty bad stuff.

ShootingStar159: As for tragedy, I like the utter hopelessness of it. Sometimes it feels cheap, because there literally is no way out, but that comes with the genre. I prefer dark fics though, since they have all the fear of a tragedy, but the possibility of success makes the suspense much higher.

Amacita: One guideline I heard was that tragedy is permanent whereas sad is transient. I know FimFiction makes a distinction between the tags, but I'm not sure if there's any agreement on what it is. EqD doesn't have separate tags for the two.

ShootingStar159: You can have sad without tragedy, especially in the more slice of life stories. I suppose you could make distinction between degrees of sadness. Tragedy in my mind always comes with an irreplaceable loss though.

Amacita: Alright. One last question: what's your favourite Scootaloo fic?

ShootingStar159: At this moment, I would have to say What's Really the Most Important. I also really enjoyed Scootaloo's Family as an alternative to all the sad fics she's a part of. It's also what I hope too see in season four, despite my own story.

Amacita: Well, thank you for taking the time to do an interview with me. I'll probably have more questions after you've finished writing the fic. Would you be willing to do this again?

ShootingStar159: I'd be absolutely fine with that.

Amacita: Anything else to add before we finish?

ShootingStar159: Not really; just that I promise to not let this story die. I will finish it!

Amacita: Thanks again for the interview. Good night, and good luck with the rest of the story!