Happy Discount Chocolate Day - Georg’s Story Ranking · 5:23am Feb 16th, 2018
(Credit to the amazing DM29. )
For starters, welcome to Discount Chocolate Day, the annual celebration of Feb. 15, and one of my favorite times. In honor of that, and due to the fact that I’m slower than a sloth in winter, I’m going to list how I rank my stories, much like many authors did… um… about four months ago.
For starters, I’m going to break my rankings up by genre, because each family of story has a different audience. In short, I’m going to categorize my favorite posts by:
Kids - Containing only content that is suitable for the target audience, up to Grade School.
Romance/Shipping - Romantic, or just plain contrived relationships between characters.
Humor - Dark, light, and all flavors between, including the Prankster Princesses.
Drama - My weakest link, because I can’t write a funeral without a whoopie cushion.
Other - Some things just don’t fit in one pigeonhole, or any for that matter.
There will be crossovers. For example, Drifting Down the Lazy River is both Kids and Shipping, and The Adultery of Princess Twilight Sparkle occupies that fuzzy spot between Drama and Humor (Seriously, don’t read it while drinking… tea). Some stories may not get mentioned because they’re just not all that good, while a few of my single chapters out of compilations will be highlit. (Sniff. That poor piano.)
But since today is Discount Chocolate Day, let’s start with Romance, in order of my preference.
The One Who Got Away
Drifting Down the Lazy River
Daring Do and the Dance
The Traveling Tutor and the Librarian (series)
Twilight Sparkle Makes a Coltfriend… Literally
Changelings, Love and Lollipops
Her Royal Morning Coffee
Buggy and the Beast
Child of Nightmares and Everfree
Flim, Flam, and the Little Lost Apple Scam
Genealogy — or the Mating Habits of Nocturnes Pegasi
Now for the fun part: Why rank them in that order?
The One Who Got Away is short, solid, and punches above its weight. It only lasts a week, keeps the wordcount down, and in fact is not a complete ‘love story’ by the ending. Between the shy seaponies, the energetic Ripple, and the stodgy baron finding his anchorage, it covers the most appealing part of many romances. “How did you and Mom first meet?” Add in the wonderful reading done by Neighrator Pony and Scribbler and company, and it dominates my whole catalog. If I’m ever asked by a publishing company, “Do you have a good example of your work?” I think this would be the first story I would suggest.
Drifting Down the Lazy River - For people who would like a longer ‘Huck Fin’ type story that holds together fairly well on its own or can be treated as a sequel. It has less romance in it than what would normally be considered in a true ‘Romance’ story, but I’m sticking that label on anyway because I can. After all, they’re kids, romping around the river and trying to deal with their own heartbreaks. A nice, comfortable read for sitting outside in the sunshine and remembering what it was like to be young again.
Daring Do and the Dance - A very short humorous ride through the strange kind of love that exists between a proactive archaeologist and a career henchpony who find themselves in constant percussive conflict. Love hurts. A lot.
The Traveling Tutor and the Librarian series - Four related stories (Three humorous ones tied together, one serious one related loosely) that deal with the the stalking and capture of librainiaus vulgarius, or the Common Purple-Coated Librarian by an unsuspecting hunter who does not realize he is hunting until it is far too late. This was my stab at the concept of far too many Mane Six romances that seemed to go “Hi, who are you, I love you, let’s bang.” One of my more popular writings that I have a warm spot in my heart for. Over the three linked stories, we cover introductions, breakups, indecision, inadvertent pregnancy, the changes in life that relationships cause, and a successful wedding in far more detail than I expected would be popular. The whole series still has a very high First/Last chapter ratio, so I count this as a wonderful success.
Twilight Sparkle Makes a Coltfriend… Literally - This whole comedy/romance story jumped out at me when I saw the cover art, and after begging Little Tigress for permission, I plowed into it with gusto. When I wrote Changelings, Love and Lollipops, I had some (justified) criticism with the abuse that I put poor Pops through. By making the romantic pairing against Twilight to be a stuffed plushie/Type Six Golem, I was able to use some of the comedic violence bits that I could never have put a changeling through without a mop. Which brings us to
Changelings, Love and Lollipops - More Comedy/Romance than Romance/Comedy, it involves a hapless changeling who is trapped in Ponyville after the wedding and finds himself dragged into Pinkie Pie’s orbit. At first, he would do anything to get away, but as time (and confetti cannons to the face) go on, he finds something in Ponyville that he did not realize he needed. Something pink and happy.
Her Royal Morning Coffee - Twilight Sparkle has been getting early morning coffee and kisses at the local coffee house for nearly two years now. Too bad she has no idea she’s been sleepwalking. Once her friends find out about her morning kissing, the situation spirals out of control, made only worse/better by Princess Luna stopping by to help fuel the fires of romance between them. Somepony’s going to need fire insurance.
Buggy and the Beast - Romantic comedy between two unlikely subjects, the ugliest and crankiest unicorn in town and a bitter, crippled changeling who he saves from death. This was my second attempt at ‘unlikable protagonists’ romance, which I think went pretty well, all things considered. It’s difficult enough to get readers engaged with likable characters, and making them unlikable only makes the hill steeper. Still, the river Denial is a nice swimming hole for an author.
Child of Nightmares and Everfree - More of a Drama with romantic overtures in the background, this marks a (in my opinion, of course) a slight dip in quality over the eight or so stories above. Eight? Ye, gads. My High School English teacher would have heart failure. Getting a page out of me back then was like squeezing a tax collector for some sympathy. Anyway, there have been so many stories about motherhood and sisterhood on this female-dominated fandom that I thought a story about male and female parental bonding would be nice. And Flutterbat, of course. The problem is that readers are reading a Drama, with Parenthood and a little Shipping, which is a lot of topics to squeeze into a coherent story.
Flim, Flam, and the Little Lost Apple Scam - Here we get into more obscure and rare shipping between Flam and Applejack, which explains the lower ranking that I’ve put it in my list. This is less a story I felt driven to write, and more a story I wanted to write to see how it went. Now that I know, I’ll probably stick more to my passions. Still, it did not turn out too bad, and having two liars in the story makes it a lot of fun to keep their stories straight.
Genealogy - Or The Mating Habits of Nocturnes Pegasi - This is one of my first attempts at ‘unlikable protagonists’ with two of my favorite batpony characters, Pumpernickel and Laminia. Just because I have it at the bottom of my list doesn’t make it bad, per se. It’s an earlier story, and shows my lack of experience, as well as an inconsistency in the way I used the nocturne. Be aware that the two mobile disasters from this story wander into quite a few of my other stories, including…
Special Mention: The Empty Crib - Where my two favorite oddballs face the most fearsome challenge to their marriage: childbirth.
Like something more or less than I did, or find one I missed? Feel free to explain in the comments, please.
YAY! A FlashLight pic in your journals!
I usually struggle with unlikeable protags (who doesn't, I guess) but in Buggy and the Beast I felt that you managed to make these unlikeable protags incredibly endearing and I personally would rank it higher if I had read the ones above it minus the ones taking place on the river. I still can't hear "Won't Say I'm in Love" without seeing Sultry singing it accompanied by the MLP writing staff as the muses.
I couldn't quite get into the Traveling Tutor series.
The first one went fine, but the second with the Diplomat's Daughter failed to grab me and I don't know why.
Might've just been reading fatigue. I'll have to give it another go.
I'm also a fan of Her Royal Morning Coffee, as I felt you managed to express a genuine affection between Luna and Dry Roast.
Changelings, Love and Lollipops was also great.
The first two in your list deserve to be there though.
I'd easily rank The One Who Got Away as one of my top X stories.
I like that word. Gusto. I think I shall use it more often in my own writing.
I personally loved Drifting Down the Lazy River. The characters were engaging and likeable to me, the dialouge was amusing and thoughtful, and I really liked how you built the world around Turpentine. It's one I look to as an example of high quality writing. :)
Now, to get to reading the rest of the list...
I really loved Flim, Flam, and the Little Lost Apple Scam. Probably because I'm a sucker for redemption stories.
(points at username) I'm not really the best judge of relative quality past a certain point of excellence, and you're so far north of that point that you can't see it on a clear day. Suffice to say, anything you write is cause for dropping everything else and picking up the new story.
That said, I probably should do some self-ranking of my own. Especially given this subcategorization idea. Hmm...
Twilight, sentry, did you spike your chocolate with anything?
4798076
Also you love Applejack
4800230 In a strictly platonic fashion. No tongue.