The Savage Way: Postmortem · 10:40pm Jun 22nd, 2012
Originally, The Savage Way would have ended quite differently.
The second-to-last scene would have begun much like it turned out, but after trying to fool Caramel for a while, Alex would have yelled, "You're making this a lot harder than it has to be!" A cat-and-mouse game would follow, with a progressively more desperate Alex promising a quick death, if only Caramel would stop delaying the inevitable. Caramel would then overpower Alex and feed him to the fish.
When I ran this by a friend, he suggested the ending I ended up going with. This is why it's important for writers—even fan writers—to have people they can bounce ideas off. It turns out I like writing twist endings, so I hope my followers don't get tired of them.
"My followers"—what a concept. There are nine at the moment, and looking at their "Following" lists, I see Horse Voice among big names like JasonTheHuman, Cold in Gardez, shortskirtsandexplosions, Pen Stroke, and Vimbert the Unimpressive. Some of the lists are pretty short, too. This really is the fandom of opportunity.
(Of course, if I'm making a mountain out of a molehill, and this isn't actually unusual, I must look quite silly now.)
Here's the thing: I can't promise I'll be around forever. Horse Voice's fandom experience has always gone like this:
1) Horse arrives in fandom.
2) Horse makes some fan work, which a small following praise for its originality.
3) ????
4) Horse gets in a fight with a brittle oldster, and possibly also mods.
5) Horse is finally chased out.
6) Horse finds a new fandom, assumes a new handle, and begins the process again.
"But maybe," said the drifter, "this town will be different." I'm older now, and I've realized life is too short for online drama. Besides, if I leave before all my stories are told, I'll be disappointing at least nine people.
A number of commenters mentioned Savage's originality, and how refreshing it was. The source of this was simple: I wrote the story I wanted to read, but couldn't find. I can't resist a story about castaways, or one with a twist at the end, or one depicting humans through alien eyes. While the latter has plenty of quality entries in this fandom, there don't seem to be any one-shots among them, unless they're part of shared universes.
(If this method doesn't work for you, you can always follow Hayao Miyazaki's advice: figure out what the audience expects, then do the opposite. This informed my choice of protagonist: I'm not aware of any non-shipping story with Caramel in the lead.)
I wrote it because something compelled me to, and sent it to Equestria Daily as an afterthought. I doubted it would get through, since the pre-readers' official policy is to examine human stories more harshly than others. Imagine my surprise when they passed it with only minor stylistic changes, saying how glad they were to post "non-crappy HiE."
Right now, I want to make two promises to my fledgeling readership.
First, I will always strive for quality and originality. I want people to be able to sit down with any Horse Voice story, and feel like their time was well spent when they stand back up.
Second, I will not release a story until it's completely done. This means there will be a longer wait for longer stories, but ensures against people getting into a novel-length thing that dies halfway through.
I've already begun laying the groundwork for my next story. It will be longer than the first, and necessitate the creation of lots of original ponies. There will be no humans present, so more people will probably read it.
And if I get it right, it will make your mane stand on end.
Until next time, be excellent to each other, and pony on.
Sincerely,
Horse Voice
There's plenty of good HiE out there, but I haven't seen any that tell a story where first contact has already happened(save for one parody that didn't do anything with it), much less one where its been long enough that culture shock isn't a theme in the story. That's half of what made this implementation of Human in Equestria so original, from my perspective at least. And yet still, the fact that there IS a human involved becomes part of the core premise, something that couldn't easily have been replaced while keeping the plot intact, but in a way completely foreign to most writers here.
So yes, for coming up with that and giving it the execution it deserves, you got my watch. You deserve it.
There is some good HiE around. My personal favorite is Heat and Desire, which is easily the most unsettling fucking thing on this entire website. Oh, God. But I'm not going to lie to you: "Humans in Equestria" is almost as old hat as Cupcakes spinoffs, and I hate the fuck out of those. If you can do it right, then more power to you. But for your sake, don't rely on it.
As for getting chased out of this fandom, unless you're someone absolutely irredeemable like Yamino or Wesdaaman, then I don't think you'll have much of a problem. This is a very accepting fandom, but not to an unhealthy extreme like the furry fandom. We have standards, albeit loose ones. Play nice and you'll fit right in.
190482
That makes the effort worthwhile. I hope you like my next story too, because comments like these will probably make me write faster. If I ever get discouraged, I'll re-read them.
(Uhuhuhuh. You said "plot." Uhuhuh.)
190528
Fun fact: I would never have gotten into ponies if I hadn't stumbled upon "The Thessalonica Legacy". I still think it has the best "first contact" scene in any human story yet written. So you'll never see me throw the baby out with the bathwater. Now "Heat and Desire" goes on the ol' reading list (#335).
It's funny--though human stories (good ones) are among my favorites, I don't have ideas for many. And I assure you, if I ever wrote anything "Cupcakes"-related, I would make it as original as this one (key word: "if").
Re: avoiding a falling-out, I'll do my best not to start any fires.
191058
Let me know what you think of it. It's... Oh god, the more you think of it the more intense the fear gets. That shit is serious nightmare fuel.
191113
Alright, but be patient. I'm booked solid for at least the next 24 hours.