//------------------------------// // Chapter 1 // Story: Stranger Than Fan Fiction // by ThatOneWriter //------------------------------// It was a quiet afternoon in the library. Spike and Twilight were going through their twice-weekly book sorting. This time, it was by author, then genre, then subject, then title. Twilight began the spell to levitate all the books at once when something crashed through her window. As might be expected, the sudden noise caused her to lose focus and drop all the books. Frustrated, the unicorn turned toward the window, where a cyan pegasus was sheepishly smiling at her. “Sorry Twilight,” she apologized. “I was trying to land right outside your door, but my wing’s still not completely recovered.” The unicorn approached her friend, feeling both frustrated and concerned for her friend. “You know Dash, your wing wouldn’t be injured so often if you would stop crashing into my window.” Dash’s ears drooped. “Yeah, I know. But I was just so excited about the newest Daring Do book!” Twilight’s eyes widened. “Newest book? I thought that wasn’t until next week!” She ran over to her desk, where her weekly to-do list was currently neatly folded, between her daily and monthly to-do lists. Scanning the list, the librarian groaned. “I’m sorry, Dash. I didn’t order it yet. It’s at the very bottom of the week’s list, right under re-reorganize the books and give Spike a bath. Speaking of which…” The baby dragon groaned. “Ugh. You just had to remind her of that.” His sister smiled with false sweetness. “Oh, that will happen, but later, when you least expect it.” Dash cleared her throat. She hated to be ignored. “So, there’s no Daring Do?” The librarian shook her head. “Not for another week.” “A whole week? That’s like forever from now!” Ponyville’s fastest flier did not like waiting. “How do eggheads like you wait so long for books?” Twilight had to stifle a laugh. “Well, ‘eggheads’ like myself usually read more than one series. Or we write fan fiction.” The pegasus tilted her head. “Fan fiction? What’s that?” Twilight paused. “Well, it’s kind of like writing another book for the series, except that it’s not canon, usually contains OCs and might be better or worse than the original story.” Dash blinked. The unicorn sighed. “It’s a fan-written story, basically. It might not match up with the original, like if you make up your own character, or if you make your own storyline. Plus, it’s usually written in a different style than the actual author’s. Dash’s multicolored mane bobbed as she nodded. “Okay, I think I understand.” Her friend smiled. “So do you think that’s something that you might want to try?” The azure mare grinned. “Of course! Anything I write would automatically be 20 percent cooler than the rest!” Her ears drooped again. “But I might need help getting started. I’ve never written anything before, other than a few Friendship Report letters.” Twilight’s lavender cheeks turned a darker shade of violet. “Me?” Multicolored locks bounced once again as Dash nodded emphatically. “Oh, I don’t know.” Dash rolled her eyes. “Oh come on, an egghead like you must have a list of ideas for the series.” The studious unicorn visibly brightened. “Now that you mention it…” She pulled a rolled up list out of her collection on a shelf. “I did have just a few…” The list unfurled and rolled across the room, bouncing off the hooves of the cyan pegasus, who groaned and facehoofed. “Okay, the first step of fan fiction is probably to pick which characters you’re going to include.” Magenta eyes widened and stared incredulously at Twilight. “Probably?” The bookworm’s cheeks returned to the same darker shade of purple. “Well…I never actually got around to writing a fan fiction, despite all my ideas.” Rainbow Dash facehoofed again. “Now you tell me…” “Well, whichever characters we pick, they have to be ones that we understand the characterizations of.” Seeing Dash’s blank stare, she added, “We have to be able to write for them.” “Oh, well why didn’t you say so?” Rainbow paused to think about all of the characters in the Daring Do universe. Other than Daring Do and her friends of course, she didn’t think she could really write for them. Wait…Friends! Inspiration struck the pegasus. “Hey, Twi, didn’t you say we could make up our own characters?” Twilight stared back in confusion. “Yes?” Grinning, the pegasus voiced her idea. “Why don’t we include our friends as characters? We know them pretty much inside and out. And,” she said, cutting off her friend’s protestations, “I’m sure they would love to be in our story.” Thinking about it, Twilight did have to concede those points to Dash. Admittedly, a lot of characters in Daring Do were fairly shallow. It would be nice to have characters with depth to them. “Alright, that’s true. So what should we call them?” “Fluttershy could be called Whisperwind. Or maybe Windwhisper. Cause flutter relates to flying, and so does the wind, plus shy ponies whisper a lot.” “Their speech patterns more closely resemble murmuring,” the librarian countered. Irritated, the pegasus flared her wings. “You get the idea, Twi.” Rolling her eyes, Twilight said, “Okay, so Fluttershy’s character is Windwhisper. So what are the rest called?” “Hm…Well, Applejack, um…Jack is a type of alcoholic drink. And apple is a type of food. So, what’s another type of alcoholic drink?” “Scotch!” Twilight immediately blurted. She blushed again when she saw Rainbow’s look. “Right. So…Scotch. Orange Scotch? Chocolate Scotch?” Dash thought hard, until an idea popped into her head. “Butterscotch!” Twilight paused. “So…Butterscotch.” Dash nodded, feeling proud of herself. “Okay, sounds a little generic though. So, what about the rest of the names?” “Hm. Rarity’s a hard one. I can’t think of any good words for hers.” Although she was not quite a walking dictionary, Twilight had a wide vocabulary. Even so, the bookworm found that she couldn’t come up with a particularly good synonym for a rarity. Oddity? No, that sounded mean. Unique? Eh, didn’t quite work. “I guess Scarcity would be the best name.” Dash shrugged, and the unicorn wrote that down. “What’s Pinkie Pie’s name? “Purple Cake,” Dash responded immediately. Blinking, Twilight asked, “Don’t you want to put any more effort into it than that?” “Nope,” was the swift reply. Facehoofing, the scholar wrote down the overly simple name. “And what about my character?” Frowning, the pegasus asked, “What exactly is twilight?” Thinking of how to word her response, the mare explained her name. “It’s pretty much the time between the princesses setting the sun and raising the moon.” “Oh,” Dash responded. That was such an oddly specific word. “How about…Dawn Glimmer?” Twilight shook her head. “Daylight Glitter?” Twilight shook her head again. “Maybe…Sunset Shimmer?” Celestia’s student shuddered, recalling a strange dream she once had. “I think that name’s already taken,” she said quickly. Dash focused her mind on something that would reflect Twilight’s personality, since her name was so difficult. Something came to light, some historical artifact that the bookworm once read about. “Ponetta Stone?” she said aloud. Furrowing her brow, Twilight asked, “What does that have to do with my name?” “Well, you told me about it once. Something about it being an important find to ponykind and all,” Dash stammered out. The unicorn smiled. “Awe, you think that I’m an important find,” she teased. Now it was the pegasus’s turn to blush, folding her wings awkwardly. “That name will do. But who’s your character, Rainbow?” Feigning hurt, Dash replied, “Daring Do of course!” Facehoofing, Twilight sighed. “Dash, you can’t be Daring Do!” Her normal ego returning, the pegasus stated, “Yes I can. She’s 20 percent cooler than everyone else, and she’s a pegasus, and she’s awesome!” Staring at her friend, she added, “What more could you want?” Sighing again, Twilight decided to let Dash be Daring Do. She was only going to edit the story anyway, since she hadn’t planned time for writing. Speaking of which…The unicorn made a mental note to make a paper note, which would remind her to plan time for editing. “Okay then, Dash. Now you have to plan out the plot of the story.” Dash laughed. “Stories have butts?” Twilight facehoofed again. There was probably going to be a bruise on her forehead later. “No, that’s what they call the events of the story. The plot,” she continued, glaring at her chuckling friend, “is the series of events that shapes the characters and either brings about a sad and happy ending. For Daring Do,” she paused, making sure that she avoided that word. “That would probably be fairly simple. She travels to a temple to find a thing and gets out by the skin of her plot.” Dash burst into laughter at the use of the word again, and Twilight facehoofed. Sighing once again, she gave Dash some paper, ink, and a quill, using her magic to put it in a saddlebag. “Just write a few chapters, and I’ll make time the day after tomorrow to read and edit it.” “Thanks, Twi!” the pegasus said, adjusting the saddlebag. Using the front door this time, she left the tree. Sighing, Twilight made a paper note to remind herself about time for editing. Looking at the scroll with her daily schedule, the unicorn remembered something else she needed to do. “Spike!” she called. The baby dragon walked into the room. Smiling mischievously at her brother, she said, “Guess what time it is!”