New story! Childhood's End · 3:20pm Sep 29th, 2016
Not much to report this week. I finally published a story that's been sitting in my files for a few weeks: Childhood's End, a WriteOff entry from the last pony short story round.
I've been accused of abusing dreams as a vehicle for storytelling. To this accusation, I say: you are correct. Dreams are the lazy author's way of inventing a fantastical scene that could never otherwise exist.
But damn me, I love writing them. They overflow with potential for story ideas.
What happens when a pony earns their cutie mark in a dream, but can't remember what the dream was about?
Childhood's End
It's every young filly and colt's dream -- the moment they get their cutie mark. It is the instant they leave childhood behind.
For Firecracker, getting his cutie mark was a dream come true. Literally: he woke up, and there it was.
Now if only he could remember what his dream was about.
That sounds frustrating. Can't wait to read it!
Much less foals evolving to the next stage of mentality than I expected, but a good read nevertheless!
... so what's the non-lazy way of inventing a fantastical scene that could never exist? That's sort of a rhetorical question, but I want to ask it as a non-rhetorical one.
Like any trope, dreams can be horribly misused, such as with the twist ending of "it was all a dream!" or (somewhat less awful, but still badly done) as cheap exposition devices, but they've got a legitimate use in storytelling which I'll go to the mat for.
tbf, this has pretty much been my entire shtick since I started here, and I've yet to be called out on it. Heck, the clue's literally in my username!!
Story sounds really interesting. I'm not gonna have a chance to read it tonight, but certainly sometime this weekend
I read the original and very much enjoyed it. Is there any significant change to the FiM publish?
4232709
Magical realism?