Director's cut: The Princess of Ear Scratches

A story with ponies getting ear scratches was something I’d wanted to write for a while. I had read several stories that have stuff like that, but I had trouble thinking of a way to do that myself in a story with my human OC Eric Reed. 

Up to around 2 months ago, the best I had was Eric scratching Twilight’s or Sunset’s ears while they hung out, but I didn’t think that alone would make for a very interesting story. Worse, it honestly felt a bit too self-insert-y -- not in a good way --, especially if nothing else happened to add more interest. I even wondered about writing a one-off human OC or using an anon for a story with ponies having their ears scratched, but I had even less luck with ideas from that angle.

When the idea of Twilight wanting to test her friends’ enjoyment of their ears being scratched finally came to me, I latched on to it, but I still had to figure what to make Twilight even want to study ear scratches; trying to let it happen randomly because of her curious nature didn’t feel good enough. I needed something to trigger it, which is where Eric scratching Sunset’s ear’s prior to the story came in.

Now, the scheme Twi used I think fits Starlight a little more, but I don’t see Starlight having the know-how to whip up her own version of a “scratchogragh”. Thus I stuck with using Twilight in the role she had. I feel it fits her well enough to not make Twilight on the OOC side.

In the early stages of planning this story, Twilight was originally “testing” to see if ponies or humans like their ears being scratched the most. This version had Eric himself being tested, and Spike would have done the scratching. However, because this idea wouldn’t work right if only one human could be tested, so I quickly scrapped this angle and instead modified it to Twilight testing which of the mane 6 & Starlight liked it the most. Since this new version didn’t have a real role for Spike, not even to take notes for Twilight (since Twilight was pretending to be writing stuff down) I chose to have him be somewhere else.

One of the things I had the most trouble with when writing/editing was keeping the story going without it feeling dragged. I attempted to help with this by trying to improve the interactions with the characters to try to keep things interesting, though it was a good idea for me to do that anyway. Trying to keep the time between each test at a minimum was another thing I tried to do.

Next up is the notable cuts & edits in the story. Compared to many of my stories, there are a lot. For this reason, to keep this blog from becoming too long, a few edits I would normally mention will be left out.

The first notable change was to some of the lines after Twilight said studying ear scratches would be a great help for Equestria. My blog giving a preview of the story would show what it looked like, but in short, she originally said that testing ear scratches could be a great help for ponies. Eric then remarked that he wasn’t a pony and asked why she needed his help, but Twilight countered by pointing out he has hands, and later explained that Spike’s claws are “too sharp”, so she “needed” Eric. This was partly there to show why Twilight didn’t ask Spike (who has hand-ish) to do the test scratching, even if Twilight was lying about her true reasons for the tests.

However, when I was trying to shorten the story, taking out the above shaved around 100 words or so, and the whole part of this story was replaced with this paragraph.

The rest of us looked at each other; Rainbow groaned and I shrugged my shoulders. Pinkie just stood there smiling as she usually did. When Twilight Sparkle gets on her research kicks, it’s usually best to let the mare have her fun. Wasn’t in the mood for the mayhem that resisting can trigger.

The second change was about Rarity giving Eric “tips” on scratching ears. Early in editing, she didn’t suggest doing it, but doing so felt like a Rarity moment, so I put it in. Before this edit, after she tried to assure Eric that she liked the scratching more than her “6.4” suggested, she left it at that. Another, smaller edit that I wouldn’t have even mentioned, but it’s too fitting to not say it: Rarity putting her helmet on carefully to not mess up her mane was added in editing.

Edit #3 was to Twilight’s reason for wanting her ears scratched. Originally, it was that Shining Armor sometimes scratched her ears (as a filly) and she loved it. The happy memories were sparked when she saw Eric scratching Sunset’s ears, and both her boundless curiosity and missing Shining’s scratches made her form her scheme.

However, TheBrokenPony suggested it might be more adorkable if Twilight just simply really wanted Eric to scratch her ears to know how it felt. I thought the same way, so I made the edit. 

The fourth edit worth mentioning is Starlight’s score of “8.1” right after Eric returned her one-hoof hug. This was an add-on and wasn’t there in even the story’s second draft. There was also no hug between them, but Starlight still assured that why she didn’t like the scratching wasn’t his fault. On a side note, the Starlight in my Caught and Punished story did like ear scratches, but that version of Starlight (near the end of the story), while overall similar to the Starlight in this story, isn’t 100% the same.

The fifth edit is about a cut made. Once Twilight was lying beside Eric on her couch, Eric half-warned that if she started kicking her leg like a dog, he would push her off the couch and wouldn’t touch her ears again. Twilight protested by saying that ponies don’t do that. Unfortunately, I wasn't sure if that was the case. I even tried to look it up, but I couldn’t find if ponies would kick their legs from being scratched like dogs can. For this reason, I first chose to change it to Eric thinking about saying it, but because he wasn’t sure if it might be an instinct or reflex that she couldn’t control, he kept the thought to himself. Late in editing, I cut the paragraph about Twilight’s leg possibly kicking entirely to shorten things.

Lastly, there was an edit to the name of the story. Its first name was Who Likes Ear Scratches The Most?. It didn't sound that good, so I changed it to Equestria's First Ear-scratch Testees. It sounded better, but then I thought about its current title, and after asking TheBrokenPony their thoughts, I changed it again to The Princess of Ear Scratches. Another idea I wondered about at one point is Twilight's Scratchogragh, but didn't give it too serious consideration.