Another bright and sunny day was dutifully waking the residents of Ponyville. Its splendor was greeted with early morning groans of disgust and anger and caffeine-less grogginess, all of which were equally waking those who had blinds that protected them from the violent rays of the early morning sun, and were very unhappy with the nuisance. A unanimous sigh was heaved. Having nothing else to do (with the exception of those who indeed had blinds, who tossed in their beds and went back to sleep), all bleary souls fell from their beds and wandered off to other parts of their houses, respectively beginning their day.
One such pony, known affectionately by her students as Miss Cheerilee, rose from her bed with the knowledge that today was a very important day. Tossing the thin sheet of fabric laying atop her aside, she leapt out onto the cold hardwood floor, cringed at the shift in temperature, and proceeded to gingerly trot to her bedroom mirror. She came to a halt around five paces before the mirror and admired the sight. In that mirror was a stunning, gorgeous, sweep you off your hooves beauty that put the term “single” in such a positive light that you would think abstinence is for everypony. At least, this was usually the case. On this particular morning, Miss Cheerilee’s lumpy mane was messily falling about her face. Her eyes were red, her coat was mussy, and her visage screamed more “homeless” than “teacher”. Miss Cheerilee frowned, knowing full well that this day carried much prominence, and that on a day such as this, she needed to look her best. She hastily trotted into the bath.
Emerging from the bath (it was a rather uneventful shower scene), Miss Cheerilee looked like an entirely new individual. Her mane was now proper and stylish, resting atop her head in a professional looking manner. Her coat was now shiny and polished, looking like something you could eat off of, though it is advised that you don’t. Her eyes were relaxed and breath-taking, easily capable of making the first stallion she came across to swoon pitifully. Most importantly, in any sense-
Miss Cheerilee looked ready to teach.
This was important, for today was a very big day. It was a very big day indeed. The amount of repetition in the story to this point about this day being big should lead you to believe that this day is, indeed, extremely big. With Miss Cheerilee looking her best for her students, she grabbed the supplies necessary for her lesson on the day:
some chalk.
Satisfied, Miss Cheerilee happily swished her mane from out of her eyes and bounded out the door with a skip in her step.
o----o
Sweetie Belle sat in the classroom, bored out of her mind, listlessly toying with her pencil and paper. Applebloom, Scootaloo, and all of the regulars were sitting there with her, idling while they waited for their one and only teacher to show up. They hadn’t a clue how important this day was. They hadn’t a single hint to think that this day would be more important than any previous day, nor think that this day was “special” in any way. It would come as a complete and utter surprise.
As Sweetie carelessly fumbled around with her pencil in hoof she so happened to accidentally brush it off of her desk and onto the floor. Now, knowing full well the pony anatomy and such, Sweetie silently cursed, for it was impossible to look casual and at the same time retrieve an item she had dropped. Sweetie looked about, catching the eyes of the others fleeting away as they became aware of her notice. Sighing, she leaned down to snag it, but merely struggled to clasp it in both hooves. Several minutes passed where Sweetie could only get so far as to smash the pencil between both hooves, but despairingly have it elude her in the coming moments. Everypony began to chuckle.
At that moment, Miss Cheerilee burst through the door, cheery as usual. A slightly less cheery Sweetie Belle resorted to picking the pencil up in her mouth, sheepishly spewing it out back onto the desk as everypony looked on. She frowned and hung her head on her hoof.
“Morning, class!” Miss Cheerilee said brightly, her soothing disposition infectious.
“Morning, Miss Cheerilee!” the class replied in unison.
“I’m sure you all had a pleasant weekend?”
“Some of us did,” Diamond Tiara snickered, jeering specifically at Applebloom, who had had a “cutie mark discovery session” fiasco the day previous. Silver Spoon joined in on the laughter for a spell, playfully elbowing Diamond Tiara in the shoulder.
Miss Cheerilee paid them no mind. Today was too important.
“Good,” she said, not acknowledging the blank look on Applebloom’s face. “But today, we need to dust off the weekend rust and put our learning caps back on! Today is important!”
Diamond Tiara snorted once.
“Okay. Let’s begin with the lesson plan, shall we?”
Miss Cheerilee, chalk in mouth, pivoted to face the chalkboard. The class looked on as she began to write in neat, tall, legible chalkmanship. When she was finished, the words splayed out onto the board read:
How to, and How Not to, Write a Story
Miss Cheerilee set the stick of chalk aside to admire the faces of her audience. They all looked on in fascination. Never had they had a topic such as this before.
“Now. Who can give me a few pointers on the subject?”
Nopony raised their hooves. They certainly hadn’t written a story before. How could they tell what to and what not to write in a story? This seemed to be a subject only eggheads needed to learn. Nopony in the classroom was striving to become a writer. Nopony had the need to learn how to write a proper story. Why was this the topic?
Miss Cheerilee chuckled. “Don’t be shy, there are no wrong answers. It’s entirely open for discussion.”
A few more cautious moments passed before, timidly, Scootaloo raised her hoof into the air. Miss Cheerilee called on her with no hesitation, catching Scoots completely off guard, and making her immediately regret her decision.
“Uh...” Scootaloo stuttered. “I suppose, one thing... uh... don’t make your story be... lame?”
“A valid point,” Miss Cheerilee replied, starting to pace about the room. “But how do we not make it ‘lame’? Any takers?”
A few brave souls raised their hooves. One of these souls was Sweetie Belle. This time, she was called on.
“You could make your main character a superhero?” Sweetie said with uncertainty.
“Yeah!” Scootaloo chimed in. “Make him all powerful and stuff, and he could get all the bad guys and save everypony and be totally awesome!”
Miss Cheerilee smiled, Scootaloo’s words jostling around inside of her head. She crossed back over to the chalkboard. “Hm. But would that make a good story? Just an all powerful superhero randomly saving ponies and catching bad guys?” she asked, her face plain and serious.
Scootaloo considered this. “Maybeeeee... make him a bad guy then?”
“Sure,” said Miss Cheerilee, “but plot-wise, where does the story take you? Something has to happen to the main character, no?”
“Give the main character a sex scene with Twilight,” somepony in the audience called out, getting raucous laughs from the rest of the class.
Miss Cheerilee frowned. “Who said that?” she asked.
Suddenly, the classroom became deathly quiet. Not a peep was to be heard.
“No. This is something we must avoid at all costs,” Miss Cheerilee admonished, getting strange looks from her students. She didn’t appear cross with the vulgar nature of the joke at all. She picked up her stick of chalk and wrote no random sex scenes under the title of the lesson.
Something clicked inside of everypony’s head at that point, and more of the class started to raise their hooves. Miss Cheerilee called upon a mare in thick rimmed, purple glasses and curly red hair, comparative to the “Annie” of ponies.
“Make your characters believable!” Twist lisped, her confidence in her answer pouring out into her voice.
“Very good, Twist!” Miss Cheerilee praised, turning to write the point down on the board. After writing it, she turned back round to find more hooves wavering proudly in the air.
Applebloom was called on. “Don’t just jump around from place ta place, give everythin’ some time ta develop!” she declared, smiling sweetly.
Miss Cheerilee was succinct. “Care to elaborate a bit more?”
Applebloom thought about it. “Ah guess, like, say ya got one scene where your main character is tryin’ ta wreak havoc on a small, defenseless village somewhere. Suddenly, he finds a mare in town and falls in love and next thing ya know, they’re kissin’!” This last line was followed with a chorus of ‘ewwwww’s’. “It just don’t make sense!”
Miss Cheerilee, slightly disturbed by the example Applebloom offered, turned and wrote the point down on the board. No longer was she calling upon anypony, they all just blurted out what they thought would go into a storyline.
“Do something original,” Silver Spoon stated, “Nopony wants to see something that’s been done a thousand times before...”
Miss Cheerilee wrote it on the board.
“Don’t write something out of your comfort zone!” a mare in the back shouted.
Miss Cheerilee wrote it on the board.
“Make sure you tell everypony exactly what’s going on so it’s not all confusing. Gotta make it clear, and you have to set up the story right!” another one interjected from across the room.
Miss Cheerilee wrote it on the board.
“Give it a sex scene!” the same foal from before shouted.
That one was not written on the board.
Having come up with several solid points, Miss Cheerilee felt obligated to move on to the next portion of her lesson.
The students watched as Miss Cheerilee erased the board, and briskly began to write another word on it. After Miss Cheerilee turned away, the students could see that the title written now read:
Grammar
“Now, what can we say about this?” Miss Cheerilee asked, getting a few blank looks from her class.
Nopony raised their hooves this time around.
“Allow me to provide an example, then,” Miss Cheerilee proclaimed, turning again to write something on the board.
Two sentences were written on the board. When Miss Cheerilee turned back round, these two sentences were entirely similar, with one small detail making them different. The class had absolutely no idea what the exercise was supposed to accomplish. All sat in their chairs with dumb looks on their faces. One of them picked at their nose.
Ultimately, in their minds, these two sentences were brought to the forefront of their brains.
Let’s eat, grandpa!
Let’s eat grandpa!
“Nopony can tell me the difference between these two sentences?” Miss Cheerilee asked.
Everypony shook their heads.
“Okay, let’s put it this way.” She pointed to the first sentence, specifically the little mark thing that came directly after the word ‘eat’. “What is this called?” she asked.
“A comma,” Twist blurted out.
“Right,” Miss Cheerilee said, “and what does it do?”
Twist hesitated. “It... puts... pauses where pauses should go?”
“Yes,” Miss Cheerilee nodded to the board. “So read the first sentence aloud. With the pause, please.”
Twist read it.
“Good. Now read the second sentence, if you would.”
Twist read it. The gravity of what was occurring was fully sinking in. These two sentences had adopted entirely different meanings.
“Oh.” Twist muttered.
“Is that why there aren’t any grandpa’s in Ponyville?” Scootaloo asked, referring to the second sentence.
“I highly doubt that. But anyway, can we see why commas are important?”
The class nodded in agreement.
“Good. Because otherwise we just have this stupid sentence with no pauses that makes the reader think it a rather strange read reading it in his/her head whereas if you had commas or periods you could really make the sentence not completely run on forever and it would read more fluently and poetically.”
The class grinned and nodded, feeling confident in their storytelling.
“Grammar is important, because otherwise, the whole thing is an eye-sore. Take this, for example. What’s wrong with this?”
Miss Cheerilee took a while to write everything down, but when she was finished, foals in their first day of kindergarten could have produced something better, the class was sure of it. It read:
I wnt to teh markt won day and saw a mare tht I wonted to date so i wakkd up to her and sed “will yu go out wit me” and she sed “yes!” and I was hapy and she was hapy and we all livd haply evr aftr cuz thats how storeez end.
The class was appalled at the nature of the text. Do ponies actually write like that?
“What’s wrong with this?” Miss Cheerilee asked.
“Everything,” Scootaloo said. “They should just give up.”
Miss Cheerilee gave Scoots a look.
“They really need to work on spelling,” Sweetie Belle cut in. “I can hardly tell what any of those words are.”
“Spelling, right,” Miss Cheerilee said, simultaneously writing the point down on the board. “Because nopony wants to look at a page and see so many errors that it just completely takes them away from the story, right?”
The class agreed.
“Anything else?”
“It’s just a wall of text!” Diamond Tiara called out. “Even an idiot could see the formatting is all wrong! They didn’t even make a new line for each speaker!”
Miss Cheerilee shook her head. “Now, now, is it nice to call each other idiots?”
Diamond Tiara smirked. “When they deserve it!” she cried. Both she and Silver Spoon giggled.
Regardless of Diamond’s ignorance, Miss Cheerilee wrote the point down.
“So we can all see how grammar is just a big a part to storytelling as the story itself sometimes, right?”
The class was startled to find how much they were learning.
Miss Cheerilee erased everything. The class eagerly awaited what was to come; they clung to the edge of their seats in anticipation, anxiously craving the next topic of discussion. When Miss Cheerilee set the chalk down and stepped out of the way, the title for the next section read:
What Else Goes Into a Story?
“A sex scene with Twilight!” the same foal yet again shouted from the back of the classroom.
“That’s it!” Miss Cheerilee said, fed up. “You can leave my classroom! I’ll be calling your parents!”
Everypony watched in horror as a hideous looking pony gravely rose from his chair. They were shocked to discover he was a black alicorn with red stripes covering the full length of his body, and, for whatever reason, had been sitting in Miss Cheerilee’s class. He morosely trudged to the door and dejectedly flung himself outside, away from class discussion. The door slammed behind him. How’d they miss that?
“Tune back in, my little ponies,” Miss Cheerilee said. The class immediately tuned back in. “Now, what can we add to this one?”
“Well...” Applebloom started. “I guess ya should focus on the ending.”
“How so?” Miss Cheerilee inquired.
“Well... ya can’t just end a story awkwardly and randomly somewhere. Ya gotta have it make sense.”
“Yes, make sen-”
At that precise moment, Pinkie Pie came barreling through the doorway, skipping gleefully up to where Miss Cheerilee was standing. Miss Cheerilee was taken aback, finding the presence of the playful pink mare curious. This was not a part of the lesson.
“Hiya Teach!” the party mare said in a perky tone. “Whatcha teachin’?”
“Oh, um,” Miss Cheerilee stammered, “I’m just teaching everypony about what goes into a story.”
“Everypony?”
“Yes.”
Pinkie Pie suddenly sounded hopeful. “Oh, good, then maybe we might start getting some good ones out there!” she said. Everypony looked on as if the mare had lost her marbles. She seemed to be staring at something that wasn’t there.
“Oh, no, this story isn’t one of those, is it?” the pink mare suddenly proclaimed, randomly and absurdly. She frowned. “Seriously, the whole, ‘me breaks the wall’ thing is so old.”
With that she bounded out the door.
There was momentary silence.
“Now, back ta what ah said ‘bout random story endings,” Applebloom started.