I have been struggling a lot with my writing for a number of reasons, the most common being my self doubt. I hope to make new friends here and to find someone to discuss ideas with, both horror and non horror. I’m also more than willing to hear about your own ideas and read your stories if you are interested.

7125881

I’m also more than willing to hear about your own ideas and read your stories

I have plenty of those to offer you:
https://www.fimfiction.net/blog/854045/free-story-ideas-for-you

7125899
Lol seems like you and I both have too many ideas for our own good. I would be happy to take a look. Maybe I will finally get rid of my writers block.

7125899
Do you want to discuss our ideas in more detail over messages?

7125881
Feel free to let me know if you ever need to discuss something. I’ve got quite a few years of editing and writing under my belt

7125939 I don't mind discussing them publicly on this forum. But if you prefer via PMs, that's fine, too. Whatever suits you best.

7125955
Glad to hear it!

7125963
Okay good. So the basic plot of the story is that Twilight gets taken over by an alien parasite and start eating and turning other ponies into flesh eating zombies. The infection spreads all over equestria and beyond and Starlight ends up leading the resistance after the princesses are also turned. However all they can do is buy time in order to find an ancient all powerful spell to wish everything back to the way it used to be, including bringing those who died back to life and preventing the alien parasite from landing on the planet in the first place.

7125971 I never managed to wrap my head around zombies. Do they want to eat their prey or turn them? You can't have cake and eat it at the same time.

As for the story, I don't like the Deus Ex feel to it. If there was such a spell, they could have had it ready for such occasions.

Another thing is that the spell is exactly suited for the occasion.

7125985
I understand your criticism. The zombies main drive is to infect others but they eat them if they put up too much of a fight. As for the spell I agree with you when you call it a deus ex machina but that part doesn’t have to be final. The basic idea is that they managed to turn everything back to normal but there was still a horrible price to pay. I was thinking that they would be at the mercy of an entity far more powerful than discord and that is the reason for why it has never been used before.

7125985
So basically a deal with the devil 😈

7125993 Even if the spell isn't 'fix everything', I still have issues with it. Stories are fun to read because the characters struggle and grow. But because you introduced this spell, in principle, nopony has to struggle and grow. All they need is this spell and everything is all good and dandy.

This isn't the story about prevailing against zombies anymore. It's a story about finding a MacGuffin. And the thing about MacGuffins is, the readers don't care about them.

7126013
Again I understand. How about this? It’s the journey and the surviving that the story focus on and when the character activate the spell everyone still alive will remember all of the horrors they went through, not to mention that there’s now an entity more powerful than discord constantly watching them. The character growth will remain and they still have to go through horrific things before getting their happy ending and it still ends up being bitter sweet since they still will be emotionally scarred for life.

7126029 Why do you insist on a happy ending? Trying to justify it by throwing in some bitter-sweetness doesn't solve your problem. Why don't you just cut out that useless part of the story?

If the story is about zombies, make it about zombies, not some boring MacGuffin.

And if the story is about MacGuffin, do you really need to complicate and go as far as introducing zombies into the mix?

My advice is, do one or the other. Trying to merge two stories together might make both stories suffer.

In other words:
-Fighting zombies is hard. Characters struggle and grow.
-Finding a MacGuffin could be challenging, maybe.
-Fighting zombies with a MacGuffin is boring.

7126122
Hmmm I see your point. The reason for why I insist on the ending is because that’s what I have been imagining for a long time.

How about this instead? The infection is contained within ponyvile and the story focus on a group of survivors trying to stop Twilight from turning everyone in equestria into her puppets. Although they lose many they managed to kill her and without her control the rest of the zombies stop working. Most of ponyvile population has been killed and the survivors move on and remain close as they rebuild their lives in another town.

Would that be a satisfying conclusion?

7126122
Btw I really appreciate your honesty because it’s really helpful.

7126147 The biggest problem with everything you suggest is that it feels forced. The bad things that happen, the good things that happen, everything. It feels orchestrated.

Also, a bit more complicated than it needs to be.

And another thing, you have no problem going into extremes. Before you do that, you should ask yourself, is there really nothing in canon that could also work? Flutterbat infecting others, for instance? Cutie pox, maybe? Is bringing in zombies really the only way to achieve what you want?

Your latest idea is really out there. Zombies, puppets, evil Twilight. It's all a bit hard to swallow.

My advice to you would be, keep it simple. Make multiple stories if you have to, but don't just mesh everything together. It might not fit.

7126157
Yeah my biggest problem is definitely that everything gets to complicated. This idea of mine has been in my head for a long time and it has snowballed out of control. However one thing you need to understand is that it is meant to be a crossover with an already existing horror movie. The whole thing started out as a joke but once thought about it I decided why not? The movie ended pretty much like I said previously, with the characters beating the main monster and then moving on with their lives afterwards. This is of course oversimplified but I hope you get the point.
This story isn’t meant to be a masterpiece it’s just meant to be my first story.

I have several original story ideas that I could also start with but I still don’t want to leave this one unfinished.

7126164 I suggest you try to pull it off as a one-shot. You can always come back to it when you become more experienced.

The mistake I made when I started out was that I started big. I turned my main idea into a novel and wasted a lot of time with it. Every time I learned something new, I had a lot of fixing to do.

7126632
I feel like I was about to do the exact same mistake. I have these enormous ideas and I want to make them real even though I have nowhere near enough experience to do it.

Thanks again for the criticism because it has been extremely helpful so far.