Interview: The Trouble with Phoenixes

The Trouble with Phoenixes takes an absurd idea and makes it funny without breaking suspension of disbelief or resorting to random silliness. It was probably the easiest post decision I've made as a pre-reader.

In this interview, Cold in Gardez shares some tips on how to write a great comedy. Bold text is me; regular text is CiG.

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What inspired you to write The Trouble with Phoenixes?

Most of my comedies start with a kernel of an idea, something absurd but that makes sense in the world of MLP. For The Contest, it was the Quiet Game that Fluttershy claimed to be the world champion of in the episode Stare Master. For Naked Singularity, is was wondering what kind of metaphors Twilight Sparkle would use to write a novel – an idea that naturally evolved into Twilight Sparkle attempting to write a trashy romance.

With The Trouble With Phoenixes, it occurred to me one night that we didn’t really know all that much about phoenixes, and from what we saw in the only episode
to feature one, they can be a bit annoying. That’s bad enough for Fluttershy, but how would another, less flexible pony deal with such a poor guest? How would Rarity deal with a phoenix that wouldn’t leave?

What if phoenixes gathered in flocks? How would Rarity deal with that?

Probably not very well.

Do you have any advice for people wanting to write a good comedy?

I think comedy is the most difficult genre to write effectively. Too many authors resort to vulgarity or have Pinkie Pie do something silly, followed by Twilight saying, “Pinkie, you’re so random!”

There’s certainly potential for that kind of comedy to work. As The Hangover (parts 1, 2 & 3) have taught us, there’s a large and active audience for tiny naked Asian men who jump out of car trunks. In fact, a quick look at FimFiction reveals that Princess Molestia is currently the most-viewed comedy on the site.

But let’s say you don’t like that kind of humor. You want something a little more thoughtful, a little more sardonic, a little – dare I say it – more British. With that, I can help you.

I think the best comedy comes from a situation or condition that is obviously absurd to the reader or viewer, but to the characters in the story seems absolutely believable. They have no choice but to accept the absurdity as genuine and attempt to deal with it. Think of the Soup Nazi from Seinfeld, or any episode of The Office.

So we start with an absurd premise – Rarity’s home has been infested by that most unexpected of pests, a flock of adult phoenixes. The beauty of working with an open world like MLP:FiM is that for all we know, this sort of thing really could happen in Equestria. In fact, let’s go a step further and say that it does happen fairly often, so often that the Equestria Department of Fish and Wildlife publishes a trifold on phoenix nesting behavior that warns homeowners not to attempt to remove them.

The reader can laugh at this situation, but the characters – especially Rarity – can’t. To them it is an utterly real situation and they have to deal with it according to their character traits. Knowing Rarity as we do, we can see her growing more and more desperate to get rid of the damn things until she’s finally about to shove them into a woodchipper. The comedy is in portraying the absurd responses of our characters to these absurd situations.

In Naked Singularity, we learn that while Twilight Sparkle is a great reader and scholar, she is a terrible writer. Just atrocious. But, like any human author (again, as FimFiction will demonstrate), she is absolutely convinced that her stories are the best ever written. Also, like most smart people, she tends to underestimate the intelligence of the people around her. The resulting story she writes and attempts to publicize creates an absurd situation for our other characters to deal with (which, because this is a comedy, they do poorly).

How much revision did you have to do with this story, and what was the hardest part to get right? Can you provide a specific example?

The Trouble with Phoenixes was written in two bursts several months apart. The general premise came to me back in March or so, and I wrote out the first few scenes, but then something distracted me and it languished on the backburner for a while. Eventually I cleared out the backlog and remembered I had a half-written comedy waiting to be finished.

The hardest part of writing comedies is knowing which scenes are essential. If you find yourself writing a scene that isn’t funny, but you feel obligated to include it because it advances the plot, chances are that scene needs to go.

As always, having a good reviewer helps identify the parts that are essential to the story, and the parts that need to go.

Can you explain one specific technique you used to make this story funny or effective?

It’s hard to identify any one thing. I’ll usually have a list of ideas I think will make for good jokes (the woodchipper being repackaged as a “Phoenix-B-Gone,” Sweetie Belle’s innocent belief that all the Phoenixes are Flappy’s babies, Rarity’s increasingly unstable reaction to the loss of her Boutique). The trick is to work them into the narrative in a way that is logical and consistent within the world you have created. You’re aiming for absurdity, not simple randomness. (Incidentally, I try to avoid Pinkie Pie in almost all of my stories, largely because I have trouble relating to the random nature of her character.)

In this story, you have a somewhat outrageous premise, but there's never the feeling that random, stupid stuff is happening for no reason. Was that intentional? Can you tell us what you did to achieve that?

I think I answered that above. Most of my comedies start with an absurd premise, but one that makes sense in the context of the show. From there, the comedy is in how the characters react to that absurd situation.

Can you elaborate on how to identify a non-essential scene in a comedy?

To use The Trouble With Phoenixes as an example, it originally had a much longer scene featuring Rainbow Dash and Scootaloo, during which Scoots brought the phoenixes up to Dash's home. It had some background on why Dash was tired, why she was taking a nap, etc, etc. It wasn't until my reviewers got a hold of it and pointed out that a) it wasn't funny, and b) wasn't necessary, that I realized I could re-write the entire thing, much shorter, entirely from Scoot's perspective. Ultimately, it doesn't matter when Dash got home, or why she's tired, or why she's napping. All that matters to the reader is that she is asleep when Scoots arrives, and things proceed from there.

Writers tend to overestimate how essential any given scene is to a story's plot. Chances are, the reader is smart enough to figure things out on their own. This applies to any story, not just comedies – most new writers can instantly become significantly better simply by going through their story and cutting out everything that explains the backstory. I forget who said it (Vonnegut, perhaps?) but most new writers can simply cut the first three chapters of their novels without any loss, and often with significant gains.

Comments

[DeftFunk]

Incidentally, I try to avoid Pinkie Pie in almost all of my stories, largely because I have trouble relating to the random nature of her character.

So that's why he writes so little Pinkie Pie. I knew it! I knew it!!