The Pink Party Pony

Recently, I wrote a story for the Writeoff Association called Contradictions. It can be found in its first draft stage here, and I'm looking to publish the cleaned-up version sometime in the next fortnight, along with the edited version of my other Writeoff story, The Sunset Room.

In Contradictions, Rainbow Dash investigates Twilight Sparkle with the help of Pinkie Pie after Twilight starts acting strange after dusk. While I copped some criticism for pacing and structure, everyone seemed to agree that the interaction between RD and Pinkie Pie was spot on.

Basically, everyone loved Pinks.

That got me thinking, what had I done in writing Pinkie Pie that made her parts so enjoyable? A lot of authors complain about how hard it is to write Pinkie Pie's parts. They claim she is random or annoying or that they just don't get her.

I'm going to try distil what I did to make Pinkie Pie work.

Here goes.

As I said above, I've seen many authors describe Pinkie Pie as random. From an outsider's perspective, they are right. Rainbow Dash, in the show, even remarks that Pinkie Pie is random. But if you want to write a character right, you can't be writing them from an outsider's perspective.

So what do authors who have written Pinkie Pie say? Let me direct you to a blog post of Bookplayer's titled "Who is Pinkie Pie?"

Take a gander for yourself, but essentially, in her blog, Bookplayer gives several FiMFic authors a set of questions about the pink pony, and they offer their views on her character. There is a lot of interesting stuff there, but some of the recurring points are:

-- Pinkie Pie works by her own internal logic system. Every action she does makes sense to her, even if it seems random to outsiders.
-- Pinkie is concerned with spreading happiness. Her own sense of self-worth is tied up with her ability to make other ponies happy.
-- Pinkie is intelligent on an emotional and intuitive level. Thoughts come in the form of insights, sharp bursts of inspiration.
-- The Pinks presents a facade of simple, uncomplicated happiness to the world, but beneath that are complex motivations, which are often determined by author preference.

A lot of characterisation is personal preference in fan fiction, and a lot of it is determined by the role you need the character to fit in the story. But here we have some key points which ring with universal truth. If you took all of them and used them to build yourself a Pinkie Pie, you would have one that acts close enough to the show version for most people to be content.

My own opinion differs slightly.

It is great to weave a web of motivations for Pinkie Pie. It is great to flesh out her backstory, to create events which have made her the mare she is. But I have to ask: is that necessary?

You can have all the history in the world, but what matters with Pinkie Pie is how she is written. She is meant to be funny, humorous, sweet, surprising. Writing her well depends on how well you can write her, and so I think it's more helpful to understand her behaviours rather than her history.

How did I write her, then?

Well, I wrote her with these three things in mind:

One, Pinkie Pie is extraordinarily perceptive and highly intuitive. She is quick to determine when someone is feeling unhappy or torn up inside, and she is excellent at figuring out what it is.

Two, Pinkie Pie likes making games out of things. This is the biggie. She turns everything into a game.

'Sneaking into Twilight's House' becomes 'Pretending to be a Ninja'.

'Stopping Spike from Alerting Twilight' becomes a 'Noir-esque Tie-up/Interrogation'.

'Find Twilight in the Basement' becomes 'Sneak into a Necromancer's Stronghold'.

Even her speech is a game. She enjoys puns, word-play, matching words for their rhyme and rhythm, tasting how they sound. She enjoys confusing and befuddling others, and sometimes she makes a game out of how much she can confuse them while still, technically, making sense.

Tie these two points together, and you have a working Modus Operandi for writing Pinkie Pie. Emotional intelligence and immaturity blend together in the purpose of making others feel better. One gives you her long term motivations, and the other gives you a set of tools by which to handle her.

I'm not saying it's perfect or all-encompassing. Hell no. I made this up on the fly, and it's only by coming back later and reading through what I had written that I crystallised what I had been thinking. Other interpretations are just as likely to help you write good Pinkie Pie.

But by focusing on behaviours rather than history/character/motivation, I managed to write a Pinkie Pie that was well-received, so the same techniques might work for others.

I think I'll wrap up this blog post now. Those are my key thoughts, although there is plenty more I have to say -- especially about her core motivations, what guides her behaviours -- but those are not the point here.

If you'd like to hear them, shoot me a PM or leave a comment. I'd be glad to chat.

Comments

[Corejo]

I like this analysis of Pinkie Pie. This is a wonderfully boiled-down insight of her character that far too many people miss. I'll definitely be checking out your stuff.