AdamJensen's Revised Rule Set for all Human in Equestria FanFictions! · 9:20pm Jul 30th, 2012
Hello folks, today I come to you with friendly advice. I didn't really know where to put this, so I stuck it in my blog and will continue to post it everywhere I see fit. Originally, I found this list in a comment on a fic I read a few weeks ago. I don't remember the original author, but credit goes to him for the original list. All I did was add/subtract a few things, and made it more polite. (Less usage of the word "fuck"). Enjoy!
(Disclaimer: This is just a general rule set, not made to offend anyone or their works of literature. I revised this list solely for the purpose of helping HiE writers succeed in creating a successful story. Please don't be offended if your story breaks some of these rules.)
My Revised Rules for writing HiEs:
1. Self-inserts. Just don't do it. Trust me. Also known as a "wish fulfillment story". This is rule number one for a reason. Don't write a story where you (the author) is the protagonist. Especially don't do it if you aren't going to give us any back story. Nobody wants to sit back and read about how you became Equestria's resident badass/protector who gets all the mares and is best friends with all the stallions. Bonus anger if your human becomes an Element of Harmony, or some other prophetical icon or chosen one.
2. Manticores and timber wolves are so over used, I feel insulted whenever one makes an appearance. Bonus anger if one shows up in the first chapter.
3. Try to skim over the awkward meet n' greet scene that all these stories have. No one wants to hear about how bad Earth is for 7 paragraphs.
4. Don't have one of the Mane 6 fall in love your character. This is highly discouraged, but can work if done right. If you think you have what it takes, wait for a lot later in the story.
Nothing is more unrealistic than members pf two completely different species falling in love at first sight.
5. "Is that grass?" Dumb questions are NOT allowed.
6. Cell phones, laptops, cars and other human devices shouldn't be used. (If you try to make an exception, do it right.)
7. "I am going to save the world, sacrificing everything I have in the process!" See rule #1. Bonus anger if the human has magical powers that he pulls out of his ass.
8. "I instantly love this world and would never hurt a fly in it." This makes me want to cough up blood.
9. "I will adopt Scootaloo." NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.
10. A "mary sue". There is a special place in Hell for authors that make these. Nobody will give sympathy to a cookie cutter character.
11. Spelling. You don't want to sound like an idiot to your readers.
12. Grammar. Refer to rule #11.
13. Format your story properly. Wall of text is an absolute No No.
14. Don't have Rarity make your human any clothes. Don't have your OC ship with Rainbow Dash. Don't have Applejack give your human a job at Sweet Apple Acres, and don't have anypony be totally fine with a strange creature from another planet staying in their house for free. I know ponies are happy/generous/innocent, but they aren't completely ignorant to danger.
15. Don't give your character a small arsenal of love for ponykind right in the beginning. Make it realistic. We bronies would love to visit Equestria, but could you say the same for someone who has never seen the series or fantasized about the characters? I'm all for a little compassion, but it should at least take an emotional toll on any human character that can never see his former friends/family again.
16. Create your character with a realistic level of intellect. Don't make him Einsteins lost brother, nor an incompetent tit.
17. Don't have your human turn into a pony upon arrival. Bonus anger points if they somehow immediately adapt to walking on four legs and manage to not look so awkward while stumbling into Ponyville. Extreme anger if your OC pony is an over-powered Alicorn.
18. Falling into unconsciousness for stupid and arbitrary reasons (i.e., Applejack/Rainbow Dash bucking the protagonist, hitting head into a tree root, etc.) In real life if you get hit on the head, and remain unconscious for more than a few seconds, you will suffer extreme brain damage and maybe even death. If you must have your character pass out, be creative. Maybe he has an existing medical issue, or some side effect of his mode of entry into Equestria.
19. Absolutely NO extremely wangsty teenagers who hate their life, family, society, and everything else. Bonus anger points if the teenager either: a) falls in love with Fluttershy, b) wants to live in Equestria forever and disregards planet Earth for good, c) complains about how Earth is a malefic planet full of war, chaos, economic disparity, etc.
20. Pace your story. Details are your friend. Talk about the differences and similarities of Equestria to Earth. Make Equestria seem like an actual place that a real life human could travel to. A picture is worth a thousand words, so pick up your paint brushes and draw some leaves on the trees.
21. Don't make the reason your human is in Equestria an indistinct portal. Get creative. Bermuda triangle anyone? Ancient magical writ or tome? Remember how they never found any of the ancient Mayan people? No more afterlife entries either.
22. No more car crash entries. It doesn't make any sense whatsoever.
23. Amnesia. Don't do it or you will seem lazy. Give your character a face, name, and back story. If not, he is just another nobody off of the street that we could care less if he ends up in a dumpster with a bullet in his head.
24. Brony in Equestria. 'Nuff said. If you want to try one of these, make it UNIQUE. Nobody wants to read the sob tale of a human in distress that finds his utopia in Equestria. The problem with these stories is that there is often no conflict, and if there is it is very weak.
25. Drug usage. I don't care if you smoke weed and crystal meth, snort crack, take fisstech, and dope up on med-x and mentats; but I hate it when a human unintentionally brings/finds cannabis or other drugs in Equestria. Bonus anger if Fluttershy hits the herb.
26. Don't excessively use capital letters, ellipsis, italics, bold font, or underlining. Like most formatting, they are tools to be used to convey things. An entire sentence in bold capitals comes off as shouty and annoying. Using ellipsis (...) too often is annoying as well. Get a few decent pre-readers/editors to help you decide if it reads correctly and fluently.
A lot of people out there believe HiE is an inferior medium of storytelling. I, however, believe that many of the best fan fictions bear the "human" tag, and shouldn't be discredited for being what they are. I worked on this list to help stop the flow of boring, unoriginal HiE stories that I come across on a daily basis. I'm sure the site moderators are sick of them as well. Some of the best stories I have ever read were Human in Equestria based, and I believe that if it is done right it is very effective. Remember that uniqueness is the key in a good Human in Equestria story. Use your creative writer's minds, and take your readers into unexplored territory. That's what writing is all about, isn't it?
-AdamJensen
I agree with this one hundred percent. Nothing makes me more pissed off than a story where it's like "Oh, you're a random guy who just suddenly appeared here! You can stay in my house, since you're so friendly, and so obviously know ALL ABOUT US! Here, have some free clothes and money!"
Even more so when it's like "OH NOES, [x enemy] APPEARED! Turns out Mr. Marty Stu Main Character is another Element of Harmony and is the only person to save the world!"
Rules to live by, man. Rules to live by.
259678 True words, very true. I'm going to try to spread this around so we can see less of that shit.
I almost choked on one of my cheeto's at #7. Laughed so hard.
259754 I'm just fed up with stories that have the human possessing anal magic abilities
259808 I spent the last two days on /gif/... I have 3 or 4 different things I want to post here... and I'm pretty sure I'd get perma-banned for each and every one of them...
Regardless of random, ass-magic...
Yes. We need these to stop...
...
...
However, I do kind of want to make something that breaks all of these rules on purpose... just to see what happens...
Yeah, my human in equestria moment is going to be very short in the fic I'm working on.
Arrives in an explosion, hits ground at terminal velocity, breaks lots of bones and has a chunk of wood going through a lung. Lives long enough to pass off small pony to other, very confused, ponies. All in the first 400 words!
Human gets burial by confused ponies, who are wondering what the hay is going on.
And yes, I've always hated when the human shows up and somehow gets away with everything. Free stuff (sort of works with Rarity, but only after you've earned her friendship. Or extorted it out of her. The one time I saw a reasonable "free stuff from Rarity day 1" was when the human taunted her into making it, because he said he could just go somewhere better. She was fuming) should be something shows up when everyone knows you.
Or, if they're the not-too-bright ponies *cough*snips&snails!*cough* revering the random creature with seeming knowledge of everything as a god, and eventually getting the human in bigger trouble.
Also, we need someoen to be discovered by somepony other than Fluttershy (random landing in Equestria), Twilight (she brings them here with spell failure), Applejack (falls into tree on Sweet Apple Acres. Unless it's a Zap Apple tree, because I haven't seen that entry yet) or the CMC, although they tend to give the realistic response of "RUN AWAY" followed by "Wait, it's not trying to eat us. Cutie-Mark Crusaders New Species Discoverers yay?"
That I could see them doing in all honesty.
261694 The one I always see is they fall into the god damned Everfree forest. And one of the mane 6 finds them every time.
261771
yeah, still waiting for the only actual inhabitant of the Everfree (Zecora) to be the first to spot the human.
261774 Haha yeah, seriously. In my first story he stumbles into Nightmare Moon. Second one, all the mane 6 have died.
261780
?
I'm reading the second one. When's next update
261783 As soon as possible! I'm workin on it.
261906
Alright, can't wait!
The Crossover tale (stories about somone from our earth crossing over into a fantastical ream) is prolly the most abused kind of story there is. The frustrating part is that there's some good potential there, at the very least it allows for a viewpoint character with a familair frame of reference, useful in exploring a weird world.
The problem is that pretty much everything that could make for an interesting conflict in such a story get handwaved away cus it would get in the way of the story as a personal fantasy for the author.
Take language for eample. in reality, that's prolly one of the biggest hurdles for someone changing location drastically, it can take years just to earn enough to get by in normal conversation, and even then your strange way of speaking is always gonna brand you an outsider.
But that'd get in the way of interacting with your favorite characters, so that's out of the question.
Also, even just moving within a country can be harrowing having to create a whol new context for yourself, you'd prolly find yourself observing that awesome fantasy world from the outside. but in bad stories the author will just give the character context as the Chosen One or somesuch. Because noone want to fantazise about being poor, destitude, lost, friendless, without a job and with no useful skills to speak of within the context of this world.
Question, did you even do your research for #18? outside of a medical condition, the worst you get from falling unconscious from a blow to the head is a concussion if it was hard enough. but you can be knocked unconscious without any brain damage occuring. and if it's just a few seconds, you're perfectly fine just gotta treat the concussion or manage the pain till it heals.
cuz when unconscious, you're still breathing, so your brain ain't gonna get damaged. so yeah, that was my only real problem with it. the rest of it is bueno
I came upon this when looking for guides to Human in Equestria Fics.
First, uncounsciosness doesn't give you brain damage unless you're not breathing or your heart stops. I once fell down the stairs and lost counsciosness for half of hour and I'm still a healthy guy... Was in lots of pain though.
Second thing I don't like about what you said is the Rarity making clothes for human or Applejack giving them a job. It actually is good if the human proves himself to Applejack, it is a job that human can do better because of his body structure. As for Rarity... If the Human pays her enough, why not? She is a dressmaker or to be more exact, seamstress. She MAKES CLOTHES! If she is paid for it, she will make them.
And the sacrificing everything part. If it is out of nowhere and it is for the world in general, yeah, it is bad. If it is towards a single pony or someone they care and they actually HAVE a reason, it depends on how it is done. Would you do everything for your girlfriend?
I came to this to see some tips for the progression of a HiE story I'm writing and these tips have called into question the direction I wanted to take the story in. I'm not angry, I'm just a helluva lot less confident about the merits of the story. So I've got one question: Is it Sue-ish if a. the human character has magic but has to work and train like every other creature in Equestria to do anything with it? And even then it isn't "POWER THAT DEFIES EVEN THE ALICORNS!!