Why I Wrote My Most Despised Story · 7:21pm Jul 12th, 2017
About a week ago I published my twenty-fourth story. It has gone on to become the lowest rated story I have ever written. I sense I have some 'spainin' to do. Why did I write "...And I Will Name Him George!"?
I wrote it for the Barcast Group's "Make Spike Suffer!" contest. Now, I like Spike; I like him a lot. But picking on him has possibilities.... and this spawned an idea. Well, many writers got ideas - some of them did truly heinous things to Spike, others did touchingly sad and tragic things to him, and I split the difference. In the interest of comedy I did the worst thing I could to poor Spike without actually hurting him (give or take a few crushing embraces).
More on that later.
I got a lot of down thumbs for this story. I suspect they came for two reasons. I was being very mean to Spike, and I had Twilight Sparkle do them for me.
I actually hate OOC Twilight, particularly when she's a mean little tyrant. But I think she, more than any other character, can be written this way for comedic effect. You have to write her out of character with precision, but but handled carefully it can be very funny. If it's hamfisted then it's just awful. I don't read stories with Twilight written as the villain. But I did write one.
You see, I got an idea and I took that raw idea to completion and submitted it by deadline. For someone who has been in a slump as I have been that's huge. It's EPIC! I needed this, I really did.
And it seems to have worked. My job has stifled my time to work a bit, but when I can write I do, and that's just wonderful to me. And I owe it to this one little story.
More to come, watch my unfinished stories, they might just me finished soon (-ish).
It's an interesting thing... I've always said that I write stories just for me*, but I publish them here for everybody else; for the attention, for the upvotes and the comments and so on. It's something I think that's often overlooked here in pony land, where "publish" is as easy as clicking a button. Writing and publication are completely separate things. You can wildly succeed at one, and wildly fail at the other.
I find it one of the most frustrating things, actually, when the two get mismatched. It frustrates me both ways! When the ones I think of as amazing, as my best writing, get published and flop, it's very sad. It also drives me nuts when the ones I think of as crap I just churned out for some stupid reason get wildly successful. Like I want to go and reply to every single notification I get with "Don't put this on your favorites, it sucks!"
I'm probably rambling. I also need to actually read "And I will Name Him George" one of these days. My read later list is atrocious right now.
*Well, these days I also write 'em for paying customers. That's a whole 'nother ramble there.
Sorry. I deliberately avoided every entry in this contest. I just have no interest in making Spike suffer.
Hey, sometimes you just need to write something to get things moving again.
It's actually not the worst story I've ever read about Spike. In the long run, there are worse ways to treat him -- and some of them have happened in the show. Don't be afraid to stretch yourself as an author. If it doesn't work out, at least you've learned something for the future.
4599805I've hear this before from other authors, but I've only experienced half of this. I've never written anything that I considered "just churned out." On the other hand, I have many, many stories that I'm surprised how little respect or attention they've gotten.
4599807
I understand. I still think my story is funny, but I understand (though if you change you mind and check out the contest entries, you should be careful with the Rated M's).
4599830
Yes, sometimes a writer's gotta do what a writer's gotta do.
:D
Dude. You know what? Good for you, that is awesome. I hope you get out of that slump.
The red thumbs might be from the lack of a crossover tag. Although, I rather liked that surprise cuz damn, that is a terrible fate. It's quite high up there on worse things to happen to anyone XD
Wonder if anyone's done anything with Elmyra and Fluttershy. It seems like a match made in hell 😈
I thought your story was enjoyable. Just wanted to put that out there.
4601494
Why, thank you, that was quite a gracious thing for you to say. Encouraging. Not that I need the encouragement (and some say encouraging me is a dangerous thing to do).