Pinkie Pie's got a relatively minor part in my story right now, but her role will eventually expand significantly. I need to work on capturing her personality to the point where it's in character, but not look like I'm trying too hard to make her seem "wacky". Got any tips?

1277083
Think Discord only female, powerless, less mental games, and party obsessed.

Try to be as logical as you can. Then, tell that logic to go fuck itself, and you've got Pinkie Pie.

Drink about a hundred energy drinks and you can view the world through her eyes.

Really it's not hard, just go with "silly" and "random" with a very minor touch of seriousness.

1277083Alright, so here's what you gotta do:

-Take some pills.
-Snort some cocaine.
-Smoke a shit ton of weed.
-Eat a lot of sugar, and I mean A LOT.
-Try not to die.
-Profit.

Hope this helped! xD

take your brain and throw it in the blender with sugar and you got pinkie

1277083
Have her act seemingly normal when she's seen about town or across a room, with her wackiness only showing through when she's interacted with. Example:
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Character McStandin is going about his day, just perusing some food in the market. Pinkie sidles up next to him. They both reach for an apple at the same time. He asks her if she's grocery shopping. She says no. He asks her if she's hungry. Another no. He asks her what she's buying apples for, then. She informs him that she's working on edible confetti bombs for her party cannon and figured apple flavored sounded good. She grabs a few apples, pays and walks off, leaving behind a very confused and/or afraid Mr. McStandin.
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Obviously there'll need to be scenes where her trademark perpetual sugar rush is in effect, but little things like that should work fine for keeping Pinkie "Pinkie" without having to write out protracted nonsense for her every time she rears her head.

Find your inner Joker and then tone it down to kid-friendly levels.

1277083 Think kid friendly deadpool " I have a plan! A plan? its called improvisation! Its my jam!!!!

Pinkie is obviously a greater power then Discord + Celestia + Luna + Twilicorn + Chuck Norris.
She's just has too much fun to realize that she could rule the worl- Oh shit, I think she's watching us.. HIDE! RUN AWAY FROM THE LAMPSHADES! DONT EAT ANYTHING THAT HAS SUGAR IN IT!!!- *Choking sounds after I run into the dark with accompanied giggles*

1277083 Take a bunch of downers, and study accounting for two hours. That';s how I think like PInkie Pie. (If you've read my stuff, you'll get the joke).
Figure out what you want Pinkie to accomplish. Throw out the most rational method and consider the hidden, PARAMOUNT goal of making as many people smile as possible. Want to make an omelet? Toss the pan out the window. Get a tennis racket, a bowl of eggs, a cup of milk and a red hot rock. Go outside wait until the pan is ready to land on the rock, toss the eggs and milk in the air, 'catch' them with the tennis racket over the pan on the rock. Everybody starts off , then realizes . And Pinkie:
Remember if people around her aren't happy: If she can't make them happy:
Pinkie can be incredibly observant and methodical. She remembers huge amounts of details about her friends and she took a series of random pains and twitches and worked out what they mean in the environment around her and it became her 'Pinkie Sense'.

1277083 There was literally a thread like this just like a week or two ago. I'm gonna just cut-and-paste what I said there.

There's a couple of Golden Rules I keep in mind with Pinkie.

First of all, I despise "fourth wall Pinkie" with a passion. Pinkie can not make pop culture references that she would not realistically know about. She can not pull advanced technology from just off screen (yes I'm aware she does this in the show--which is part of why canon-Pinkie annoys the beetlejuice out of me). She CAN be funny, silly, or cute, but never to the point of breaking suspension of disbelief.
My second Golden Rule is "Pinkie is the cute one." So she's the one most likely to be lovable and adorable. If you want a pony who would, say, curl up on top of a stack of books and go to sleep--Pinkie's your gal. Want a pony who would play fetch with a human? Again, Pinkie's the one to do it (she'd be the one doing the fetching).

Personally, I actually kind of try to forget Seasons 2 and 3 of the actual show when it comes to Pinkie, because IMO they only succeeded in turning her into an annoying, obnoxious, one-note Mary Sue who exists only to disrupt the flow of the story with her irritating Animaniacs antics. A fanfic writer should do much better, and treat her as an actual person who would actually exist within the bounds of Equestria. Which means a significant scaling back of her negative traits with a reinforcement of her positives. She shouldn't be the friend of every pony (how unrealistic is that?) but she should be a pony who doesn't set out to hurt anybody and genuinely is good natured. Not to mention adorable. The one pony who WOULD let a human rub her tummy and not feel debased at all.

I also tend to despise Pinkie being portrayed as just a one-note party machine as well. If parties are seriously the only personality trait she has, then she's a worthless character (I'm okay with her throwing parties, but I never cared for the suggestion that she'll "throw one for every little thing." It has to be something worth SOME merit).

That's my thoughts, take 'em or leave 'em

1277083 You know that thing authors like to do with Pinkie Pie? Mashing her dialogue like 'OHMYGOSHTHISISSOUNORIGINALANDREALLYANNOYINGWHYAREYOUPEOPLESTILLDOINGTHIS'? Yeah, don't do that.

I think its important to realize that Pinkie Pie has more traits outside of fourth wall breaking and being a cloud cuckoo lander. those two traits should be more understated because her "cartoony-ness" doesn't come across in writing as well as in animation.

however, it is important to have her do some funny and silly stuff . A good way to do that is just have Pinkie interpret or view something in a way nopony else did. A good example is the chase scene in "The Last Round up." Pinkie's imperative is not catching AJ, but getting her to apologize. She's a non-linear thinker. She'll always seem like she's one step removed from reality.

Think of her other traits and motivations. Pinkie wants everyone to be happy, and sees it as her personal responsibility to get to know everyone.

-She wants to prove that she can be responsible (Baby Cakes)
-She's prone to insecurity (party of one)
-Likes Pranks (Griffon the brush off)
-adapts well to unusual circumstances that others would be unsure of how to act (every episode ever)

Remember, whatever the reality of a situation is, Pinkie

You have to remember that a lot of what she does is to make people smile, so while making her hyper and random is a must, she also must focus her craziness on making people happy or just having fun

Looney Tunes meets Dave Allen. That should give you some idea.