Hello, y'all! I've been in the fandom for a long time, and in fact, Fallout: Equestria was one of my gateways to it. I read it through a couple years back, and have been encapsulated with many other related fanfics. Though, I still need to finally get around to reading Project Horizons-- it's length somewhat intimidates me. However, in the meantime, I've been considering an attempt at writing a story of my own. I don't have any ideas set in stone for it as of now, but I wanted to seek some advice.

If you've read a lot of Fallout: Equestria fanfictions, or written one yourself, what tips and tricks do you have? So far, I know the story I am going to be writing is one of redemption and vengeance (somewhat typical themes I think). Was probably going to go with a wild-west type of inspiration for it.

Thank y'all!

I don't think I have any advice, but I wanted to say good luck, regardless!

Share your work around with others whose opinions you trust to get good criticism and keep your motivation up.

Also, having themes be super broad things like redemption and vengeance can somewhat harm the story. Wording your theme as a question can help. For example: Can a quest for vengeance REALLY bring redemption to someone who needs it? Just an example there since I dunno anything about the story.

I'll try to put into words the things I would have wanted people to tell me when I started writing my Fo:E fic. Hopefully my schizo rambles make some amount of sense to you.

First and foremost: make sure you have decent fundamentals before you try breaking rules of writing, be it grammar, pacing, perspective, etc. I've seen many stories that try to be clever or fancy about certain things, only to completely fall flat.

Second: ask yourself what you're trying to convey every time you write something (sweet fuck do I wish that someone had told me that when I started writing). When writing a chapter, ask yourself what the point of the chapter is. Is it to show how X or Y thing that happened to your protagonist affected him/her? Is it to reveal a crucial backstory element about your protagonist? Is it to show how your protagonist and his/her best friend just got closer?
If Z or W happens to your protagonist, ask yourself why it's needed for the story. And yes, it's rarely a clear line in the sand. And yes, cutting scenes is hard, at least if you've put effort into them, but it's usually worth it.
In other words, try to distill your story to what makes it work. That doesn't mean the bare minimum (because that would probably make for a terrible story), but it does mean everything needs to have a purpose.
That said, it can be hard to tell why something might be needed. If you really love a scene you've written, but can't figure out why it's necessary to the story, chances are that it does bring something.
Yes, I realise this is very nebulous and wishy-washy advice, but my point is to just give it some thought. Many Fo:E stories could be cut to half their length and be exactly as good as before.

Third: try to pay attention to the pacing. It's very hard to get pacing right, especially as a novice, but it's also so damn important, and can make all the difference. I can't really give you much advice apart from "it's hard, but important"

Fourth: avoid stupidly long chapters. For one, it's more convenient to read. For two, chapter breaks are a godsent when it comes to pacing and timing. A scene break can be very limiting in terms of how much time it implies has passed between two scenes. A chapter break, however, is a full reset of your reader's mind (at least in certain ways)

Give each of your characters a goal. They don’t have to know what it is right away, and they don’t even necessarily need to achieve it by the end of the story, but they need to have it. Consider why they do anything they do. It doesn’t need to be any grand scheme to save the world or make everything right; it can be something personal and simple.

Avoid excessively frequent and/or lengthy fight scenes. A fight needs to serve a narrative purpose. It needs to have stakes, rather than serving as just another bump in the road. Your characters can wind up in hairy situations, but these lose impact when you have one every chapter. It’s okay to have quiet chapters. In fact, I would encourage them.

Avoid having your characters rely on healing potions and other instant-fix buttons to the exclusion of all else. Even if you have access to these bottled miracles, your characters are not video game protagonists: They bleed, they hurt, and they have survival instincts. They shouldn’t run into a fight expecting to come out of it unharmed, and they shouldn’t take risks they know are obviously unnecessary. They should be wary, tense, even afraid. Similarly to above on fight scenes, injuries lose their narrative impact and meaning when the wound disappears three minutes later. Instead, if they suffer an injury and walk away from the fight, have them visit a doctor and get stitches and bed rest.

Avoid excessively grimdark things, including, but not limited to:

• Ultraviolence: Pointless gore and wanton acts of viciousness and cruelty. The post-apocalypse sucks, but it sucks for plenty of reasons already without adding psychotic murder hobos around every bend in the road.
• Slavers and brainless raider types: Unless your story is set in an area where there is both a demand for and instigating organization behind slavery (ergo, Fillydelphia and Red Eye’s army explicitly), the presence of slavery serves no purpose in the plot beyond having a punching bag for the “good guys,” and, again, other authors have done this to death, beaten the dead horse, resurrected the corpse, and beaten it again.
• Cannibals: They aren’t viable anywhere, ever, unless you’re literally a rodent or insect or other small animal, and other stories have done the idea to death already, usually to the setting’s detriment. It takes more effort to hunt prey that is not only as intelligent as you, but will fight back, than it takes to grow vegetables; you can write your story someplace other than under the Enclave’s perpetual cloud cover, and indeed, someplace other than Equestria.

Which brings me to my next bit of advice:
The world can recover. You do not need to write your story in crumbling ruins or blighted, poisoned badlands. There can be civilization. There can be agriculture, industrial growth, countries, borders, laws, etc., and all of this can happen before or after Sunshine and Rainbows if you so choose.

You can write your own version of events, including the war and even what happened in the original story, or pick and choose which things you want to use as reference.

Speaking of references: You don’t have to make them. Your story doesn’t have to tie into anything from the original unless you want it to. Especially don’t think you have to use the original story’s characters. You have your own characters: Use them, instead.

Also, read this short book, The Elements of Style

Also also, ADD YOUR STORY TO GROUPS.

Expect to be met with despairing silence. You want to improve, you crave feedback and you will not get it. Learn to deal with this frustration as it is going to be most of your time.

Don't take stupid criticism nor dumb praise too seriously.

Do whatever you want. Chances are your interests align to someone else's. Don't try to force yourself to write things that don't make you happy.

Expect what you think is your best work to not get recognition.

Outline > First draft > clean up, make sure plot works > beautify > fancy it up > spell-check > review > publish.

I don't like that, but a lot of people will hunt the site for any group where there fic fits and will post them.

Don't take a failed expectations as a defeat. Take it as a lesson, and speaking of that, read more.

Well, this fandom needs more stories, so by all means write away, but yes, as others have pointed out, get your story into a form that makes a competent amount of sense. Please try to avoid filler, you don't need long chapters for long chapters sake, you want chapters that make sense in regards to the story as a whole. If they do then length won't matter, be they short or long, how they fit will be what matters. Other than that, you will have your own style, go ahead and write in it. Best of luck!

7918777
My best advice for all writers: Have purposes in every of your decisions. Why do you choose 1st person POV? Why do you have this scene here? Why do you describe the hat? Ask yourself those kinds of questions all the time.

For more advice, you should join some writing groups such as The Writers' Group. There're rarely anything of substance on there nowadays, but if you search back a few years ago, there're many good discussions that help you learn a lot.

There're also many editor groups, such as Looking for Editors, Proofreaders, Editors, Authors, and Idealists, Editors-R-Us. They're less active now but I think there're always people who are eager to preread for you, especially when you provide them with a comprehensive and engaging summary of your story. Editors and prereaders usually provide much more detailed feedbacks than the general readers, that would help you learn if you're a new writer, so you should get some.

7918804
Hiya! So, I got a lot of great feedback and I can't get to everyone, though there was one part of yours that touched on something I really am trying to do with my story! In regard, specifically, to portraying a world that's recovering. That's one of my favorite things to portray in post-apocalyptic series, and that's why Fallout: New Vegas is my favorite of the series. I've actually been putting a decent bit of thought into this for my story. I've made the creative decision to explore an area outside of Equestria, for two reasons;
a) I love worldbuilding, and I want to examine what other parts of this world could look like pre- and post-war. Specifically, I was interested in exploring; 'What's going on with the Kirin, in the Fallout: Equestria universe?' So, Kirin are going to be a pretty big part of my story. Likewise with Zebra, because seeing the other side of the war has always been interesting to be.
b) I feel less constrained or beholden to the source material, and feel less pressured to be 100% lore-accurate. That isn't out of a dislike for Khat's work, of course, it just makes me more comfortable with blazing my own trail in terms of narrative and themes. The only thing I was going to really remotely touch on, in aspect to the source material, were maybe the Ministry of Wartime Technologies and Ministry of Awesome, but even those things aren't certain yet.

7918786
Thank you for your feedback! I've been working on narrowing it down a bit, as I iron out more details about my setting and my protagonist. I think I've shifted focus a little bit, with the main theme I want my protagonist to wrestle with, is her relationship with and views on violence. Specifically, in using it as an outlet for coping with/retribution against things that have hurt her. And, if redemption through a violent act (or many) is even redemption at all.

7919912
Very interesting! I'll give you a follow, and read it when I can. ^^

If you need someone to go over things with you and edit after you get your rough draft out, I'd love to help