Afterthoughts: The Pinkiemian Rhapsody · 12:27am Sep 7th, 2014
AFTERTHOUGHTS
THE PINKIEMIAN RHAPSODY
Ahhh... my best story. Too bad its writing is so bland! Uhg. Looking back, I'm not surprised that many couldn't stick around long enough for the actual good parts: the last two chapters.
*****SPOILERS AHEAD*****
How did it all start?
After browsing around FiMfic for a long while, I've come across plenty of topics and fics that completely thrash Mary Sues. While that can be very fun and all, a lot of people tend to forget that most Mary Sues are created by young authors; ones who simply don't know any better and would appreciate a helping hand over a helping backhand. On top of that, plenty of these Mary Sue bashers tend to go overboard and pulsate with a euphoric sense of superiority, as if they’ve never committed any similar writing crimes. At one point or another, we all have written dumb things.
When I was a Key Strix Jr., I made a couple Mary Sues and Marty Stus that I thought were the coolest. Hell, I even had one that bridged the series of Dragon Ball Z and Sailor Moon. Yeah. Not proud of that one. But hey, I was a kid. It was a while till I figured out the error of my ways, but at least I eventually did. Now and days, I'm a natural riffer; meaning I continuously make fun of stuff in stories of all kinds. However, when it comes to Mary Sues, I remember how guilty I was and tended to add some constructive criticism after some joking around.
I then had this idea to create a fic that's meant to be fun, but a learning experience in the end as it actually shows (and even talks about) how Sues can really harm a story, but at the same time... not all Sues are inherently evil. Their creators are often just misguided and are looking for the right direction to better story making. In the end, I hoped that this new story would somewhat bridge a gap of understanding between Sue makers and Sue bashers.
Problems...
First off, the whole intro of the story was rewritten. The first draft featured Twilight ordering the cakes from Pinkie, which is a scene I ended up completely scrapping due to it being nothing but fluff. I then had one of the most frustrating things happen: The second chapter got fully deleted. I don't remember how, but I had to re-type the whole thing. That was no fun. Other than that, there weren't any other notable issue behind creating this story. Now, as for the actual writing of it? Yeah. Looking back, I really see how this whole story needs a lot of fat trimming.
Stuff you might have missed
Plenty references are littered around the story, but I'm not going to go into all of those.
-The name of the dragon, Madronis, is an anagram for "is random". Why? Well, his introduction was completely random, hence the title of the chapter: Fighting is Random.
-The title of the previous chapter House of Cards does indeed refer more to the house of lies built by the intruding OC rather than Rarity’s actual house.
-The letter that Pinkie wrote to Celestia is word-for-word the story’s description.
-Pinkie actually does mention having seen a “nopony” before in the chapter Thorn in a Haystack.
Positive feedback
I’ve gotten some amazing feedback from people that have read this story to the end. I even had several harsh critics get side-swiped by the plot twists. One of them is actually the famous father of FiMfic riffing, RatherHomely, who actually inspired me to write this story in the first place. I hope he doesn't mind me posting up the comment he left on the story’s gdocs page because I actually kinda cherish it.
“Overall impression? I really enjoyed this. It isn't the typical bashing of Sues that I usually see, which is refreshing, and is a good teaching aid for novice writers as angel mentioned. I must admit, I didn't actually expect that ending, I was thinking Twilight's "evil wizard" idea was what was going to end up happening. So, despite knowing full well this was an anti-mary sue story, you still managed to catch me off guard. Congrats. The story was an entertaining light read and I'm glad I read it.” -RatherHomely
Negative feedback
Time for me to crawl out of my ass now, get off my high horse, and post EQD’s reception.
“Unfortunately, I am unable to recommend your story for posting. This is its first strike.
Reasons for rejection:
Smart quotes curling the wrong way (e.g. ‘im)
Hyphen vs dash
Repeated punctuation* (e.g. !!!)
Misused apostrophe* (e.g. fer’give)
Typos* (e.g. ready!””)
Awkward sentences
Tell-heavy narration
Some Pinkie dialogue is overly long and pointless
The opening before the guy shows up, nearly 2,000 words, is too long for the amount of value it adds
*only one or two instances found
You can find many of these issues explained in our Editor’s Omnibus.”
Yeah, that sums my well-deserved errors (at least, for the first chapter). I think the thing that hit me the hardest was the “tell-heavy narration” bit. I really need to be better than that.
Final thoughts
I dunno if I’ll ever get around to remaking this story. I really want to, but I don’t think I’ll find the time in the near future. It’s sad to know that, if I don’t, my one really good story idea will be lost forever in the void of MLP fiction, thanks to my poor writing skills.
But if I do release it… expect it to be titled:
The Pinkiemian Rhapsody
HD Release
IN 3D
(Director’s Cut)
