At BronyCon, and Still Panicking · 2:43am Aug 11th, 2017
Horizon and I managed to arrive at the Baltimore airport:
At nearly the same time Wednesday even though he was supposed to get there an hour before me. We rode the light rail to downtown, checked into our room, and he promptly had to spend what seemed like an hour refribbing my little laptop so it would recognize the hotel's wireless signal.
Today, a group of us did this escape room thing before joining a larger group to go walking all up, down, and through the National Aquarium, then I went back to the room rather than go out drinking with another bunch of folks. Friday, there are panels to see and hallways to wander, then horizon, bookplayer, and I will be talking about going "From Pony Fic to Original Fic" at 9:30 in the evening. So much potential for panicking, and I like to think that I realizing a fair percentage of it!
Mike
Have fun!
Sounds like a thing. Did you win the escape room?
Hope you guys enjoy yourselves!
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Thanks!
In the linked-to blog post above, Horizon put up a photo of us after we saved the train from being sabotaged, so yes, we undid the escape room successfully with 16 minutes to spare.
I'm still not used to this whole "meeting people" thing, so i don't recall who all I've actually been introduced to so far: Horizon, of course; Morning Sun, Jykinturah, and Arcshod while saving the aforementioned train; Themaskedferret, Archonix, Noble Cause, Professor Plum, Skeeter the Lurker, Yamgoth and a bunch of others at the aquarium; and Corejo, Wanderer D, ROBCakeran, Jake the Army Guy, and a fellow with a banjo across his back and a badge that I believe said Scrunchy in the scrum of picking up all our registration accouterments.
And so much more panicking awaits!
Mike
"From Pony Fic to Original Fic"
Is this one of those non-pony panels that BronyCon starts having this year? I think a panel like this really shouldn't be at a pony convention.
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It's about:
How writing Pony fic can help you if you want to try writing original fic, too. So there's a definite connection to Pony in general and to this website in particular.
Mike
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Hmm..... Guess that can be seen in two ways; it can advertise writing ponyfics by getting everyone who wants to write a book one day to start writing with ponyfics first or it can pony authors lure away from ponyfic writing.
Would have to see how they handle it and where they put the focus. Do you know if this is a panel that will get recorded?
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I don't know if they:
Recorded us, but I can tell you that my emphasis in my remarks was on how fiction is fiction whether you're writing Pony fic or original fic. The stuff that makes a good story doesn't change whether authors want to write their own books someday or if writing Pony fic is perfect for them. I mean, I was selling and publishing my own fiction years before Friendship is Magic ever showed up on my TV, and I've been selling and publishing my own stuff the whole time I've been writing here on the site. Authors don't have to choose one or the other, and doing one can help quite a bit with the other if authors want to do both.
Or something like that. Fortunately, bookplayer and horizon kept me from rambling on too incoherently.
It was good panel, I thought, and I hope folks got some information they can use out of it.
Mike
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I realize that, but my concern here is the output of pony fics getting reduced by people deciding to ditch pony and writing original fics.
As the brony fandom, we have built up something unprecedented here; while other fandoms write fanfictions about their shows and franchises as well, the numbers are rather small in comparison with us. The fact we can afford having an own, dedicated fiction site for MLP: FiM gives enough testament of this impressive feat.
I don't think there is too high of a risk of this ever dying down with this massive amount of creativity and talent that comes together in the brony fandom and with that huge passion for MLP: FiM that is there (even the smaller number of new fics lately has different reasons than decreased interest in MLP: FiM, I mention that in a bit), but there is no good reason why we should do or offer anything that could make this unlikely occurrence more likely.
Especially considering the fact that new background ponies (Season 4 onwards) get massively ignored and authors only write for the older, popularly established background ponies still, even though the former bring in a fresh breeze and have tons of potential, while the latter have really run their course because literally everything has been written about them already (which is the aforementioned reason for the decrease of new fics, it just gets boring to write for the same ponies all the time, but authors still largely ignore the new ones), I don't think we should have anything at a pony convention that encourages authors to try their hooves at original writing and to let the potential of pony writing lay dormant in favor of those original fics.
If someone really wants to write original fiction after they gained a huge skill at writing from their ponyfics, nothing stops them from doing it, but in this case, there are other places to go where they can learn how to write original fiction. It's nothing we need or should have at a pony convention.
To maintain our culture of creating high-quality and creative pony fiction, we should rather host writing panels at cons that show pony authors how to get more ideas out of MLP: FiM and where hidden potential lies they haven't seen so far (Example: That bored filly with the brown coat that was lying motionlessly on a sofa in the background in S4E19 and that barely anyone paid any attention to, among others), than directing them to original fiction.
TL;DR: We should have writing panels at cons that help pony authors get new ideas and inspirations for ponyfics, not original fiction, because the former helps our fandom and ponyfic community grow, while the latter pulls pony authors away from us.