Help getting unstuck in Pinkieviduality · 8:55pm Apr 29th, 2017
So anyway! I'm trying to get myself unstuck in writing Pinkieviduality;
Seeing how I wrote everything in random order, progress on writing has been... inconsistent. 
Some stuff late in the story is already well-fleshed out, other stuff early on is missing some vital bits or has scenes that just ... stop somewhere, where I don't know how to write them to their logical conclusion.
Woopsies! 
Well, fortunatelly, unlike "Daring Do and the Secret of the Fourth Wall" - next chapter coming "soon", by the way, and also, I finally felt the story was ready and cleaned up enough for an Equestria Daily submission and actually got around to send it in... and where was I? Ah yes.
Fortunatelly, unlike "Daring Do and the Secret of the Fourth Wall", "Pinkieviduality" is not a mystery story and I don't have to shy away from spoilers so much. 
So, here are three future chapters where I'm stuck.
Vague description without spoiler tags, some more specific details in spoiler-tags.
Warning for some mild spoilers for some upcoming chapters for those who absolutely don't want them. Then again, for the most part, these scenes are less about the "what happens", and more about the "how does it happen".
Difference between saying "Rarity goes bald" and actually describing the scenario in detail. 
Mild spoilers for some upcoming chapters in Pinkieviduality below this point
1) Mirror-Pinkie makes another huge mess. Only this time, it costs the circus a lot of money.
She tries to make up for it - and really puts up an effort - but ends up making everything even worse.
Tight Rope (the 'nice pony' who better understands Pinkie child-like nature) comes up with a scheme worthy of the Flim Flam brothers to turn things back in their favor...
Where I'm stuck at is, that a "positive outcome" in terms of "money gained back" just flatout feels unrealistic and contrived. Yet things staying super-bad would just be too cruel to poor Mirror-Pinkie.
So, either I change how "comically over-the-top" Pinkie messes up so it feels less contrived to resolve the problem, or I just gloss over the solution after explaining the plan, and then have Zenya (the zebra with anger-management issues) fuming about how it was pure chance that they got out of this mess, and how it is all Pinkie Pie's fault - but THAT feels like it needs to lead up to ANOTHER conclusion to resolve the tension between HER and Pinkie, and then I don't know how to continue from THERE.
Specifics:
Mirror-Pinkie walks past a candy-store. Things get messy.
Pinkie tries to make up for it by making pancakes for everypony - not that she's had practice making pancakes herself... or any clue what should and shouldn't go in a pancake.
In typical Pinkie-fashion, she goes all out - and ends up depleting the ENTIRE food storage of EVERYTHING. So now the circus is not only low on money, but out of food.
Now, Tight Rope has to somehow sell, among others, chocolate-tomato-banana peel-fish flavored pancakes as "exoctic flavors". About 500+ of them. She hatches a plan...
....A plan that actually makes SOME sense and might make them a few bits - but anything more than "a few" to at least restock some food still just seems extremely improbable and makes the story unbelievable. -_-;;
2) Pinkie did something "bad". Something, that angry ponies would be yelling about, had she not run away and hid. And indeed, she got away - nopony at the circus knows about it, either... So why can't she stop thinking about going back and fixing it?
Pinkie (mildly) injures a filly by accident (a scratch on her knee or something). Scared of her mother's wrath, she runs away and hides in her room... And indeed, the mother never finds her. No one at the circus knows she did something bad.
So why can't she get that filly out of her head, and why are things less fun than they're supposed to be?
Then, Tight Rope says it is time to leave the town.....
....aaaaand that's where I'm stuck. Obviously, Pinkie should have an inner conflict about telling the truth and go find the filly and being scared of consequences. Also, I need more than one example for Mirror Pinkie trying to do something that "should be fun, but somehow isn't" than the single one I currently have.
3) Mirror Pinkie is lost in a forest at night, and then... ... ... something happens. I dunno what. Err.
I already wrote up to the point explaining HOW she gets lost - but don't have any good ideas what happens once she IS lost.
What COULD happen in a dark forest with a happy-go-lucky pink pony with the mind and naivity of a child, and some leniency for cartoon antics?
This scene is part of a chapter in which Pinkie retells various things that happened to her, so its completely written from her mind's eye, and time skips are easily done. Heck, Pinkie could just go "I was lost... but then I wasn't anymore, and we went to the next town". Though that'd be a tad boring.
Good luck on the EQD submission!
...Hm. No ideas for the first one, sorry.
On the second, I understand the example issue (though no ideas there either, I'm afraid), but I'm afraid I don't get what the main problem is. It sounds like you already have the solution?
And no ideas for the third. Though that sounds less like a problem to be solved and more an opportunity you're not sure how to best use. After all, you could have her quickly find her way out, or just not get lost in the first place. I'd say what you do with that depends on what results you'd like, if you don't have events you want to have happen for their own sake.
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It's like with the third one; This is an "opportunity I don't know how to use". I know the basic concept of what should happen, what has to happen as a consequence of the earlier scene, but I don't know how to fill it with any details. Really, I guess all I need here is some brainstorming to get my thoughtprocess started.
I need some "situations" in which Mirror Pinkie reacts nervous / twitchy / guiltily; like, for example, heh, I just had one idea already, the circus is doing a show, when Pinkie suddenly realizes "What, if that pony is in the audience?!" and she completely freezes up in the middle of her act and has, I dunno, juggling balls fall on her head followed by awkward silence when the audience expects her to go on but she's suddenly too terrified to do so. Yeah! Stuff like that, only more of it. More small setups like that that I can then fill with more and more detail as I go. Just talking to other people about it helps already.
Story of my "writing career"...
I have like 7+ other stories besides these two, lying on my harddrive, that I still get back to every once in a while and do actually intend to finish, where there are just ... scenes missing. Most of the time, I know what should happen, I just don't know how to write it.
Well, that, and transitioning between two scenes that shouldn't take more than "two sentences" I just can't think of, those are the two "bains" of my story-writing.
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"Just talking to other people about it helps already.
Ah, good. :)
And thanks for the clarification.
Sorry about that. Not sure how to help, though (when I don't have ideas I can give to you to fill things in, that is). At least what you do produce is good?