Oct
19th
2016
So I Made A Structural Mistake · 12:02pm Oct 19th, 2016
About thirty-forty chapters back. This story really needed a Corporal Carrot, and the lack of one has made my narrator and protagonist far too action-hero for his role. I now have a better idea of how Marty Stus develop - conservation of characterization can pull you over cliffs if you're not careful, and I wasn't, not sufficiently.
Now, I could go back and do major surgery, re-writing about a half-dozen chapters to focus the action around a new meathead hero instead of Sawbones, and I'm thinking about doing that. Or I can figure out how to introduce my Private Carrot Dog or Recruit Zucchini Bread now, and leave an awkward period of "Sawbones does uncharacteristically heroic nonsense in the middle chapters" hanging out there.
Maybe I should make *another* mistake. Maybe *two*...
Just how old are the Cakes? And do we have canon depictions of them being explicitly cowardly? Because I'm having evil ideas about ideas I've mentioned in passing about earth pony genetics on Tambelon, and the shifty half-explanations of how two earth ponies happened to have unicorn/pegasus fraternal twins...
Just do the Pratchett thing and hang a lampshade on it.
4261906 I've done it, several times. But I'm not happy with my narrator being all Schwarzenegger.
Corporal Carrot's purpose in the Guard stories is to be the heroic foil to the actual protagonist, Vimes. At least, that's how I've always read it.
And I'm starting to talk myself into doing a B-story about the Cakes meeting in the Company and retiring to Ponyville after a mis-spent youth as cut-throat mercenaries. I just have this image of a younger, incredibly gangly Carrot Cake peering out from under a ferocious Frazetta helmet with a big ol' battleaxe across his shoulders.
I haven't actually committed to when this story is happening relative to Equestria, but I've been operating as if it's roughly ten years prior to the thousandth Summer Sun Celebration.
So I did the research last night, nothing seriously precluded it, so I pulled the trigger. Boom, second non-OC character. Although I figure I should go with a light touch. Carrot Cake will be another supporting character, comes and goes. But next time I feel the urge to have my protagonist play hero, Carrot Cake can take the axe-shaft.