Let’s talk about the thing that is f***ed up in the outcome of a story most of the time: Conflict. (This will be extremely long, but it’s because I talk extremely in depth.)

Conflict is the main problem of the protagonist in the story. It might be a disability, an evil antagonist, an evil inside the protagonist’s mind, or anything of the sort. But there is something giving the protagonist a problem, and it’s up to them to fix it. Most of you can think of what your story’s conflict will be almost instantly; conflict is usually the first thing thought up when you come up with a story. First, we shall delve into the many kinds of conflicts.

Alright, there are millions, billions, TRILLIONS of different conflicts. You can have something completely original, or a spin-off of an older idea. (Looks at My Little Dashie spin-offs) Okay, so let’s talk about original ideas first. For this, get some inspiration. Random can be just something stupid from a dream or a weird thought, if that works for you. It’s basically the same for comedies, also. When writing a dark story, think about dark topics. Exorcism? Ghosts? Zombies? Think of something from a horror movie, if that works. Romance? SHIP TEH PONIEZ! Or turn it into a cloppy-clop, if you like that… weirdo. Just think of something while thinking.

Now, there are not-so-original stories. You see a lot of My Little Dashie stories, switching Rainbow Dash with some other pony. Or Cupcakes remakes, sequels, alternate endings, etc. *Shivers* I advice trying to stay away from these two, since people don’t like them that much. Also, Fallout: Equestria. THERE ARE A TRILLION F***ING SIDE STORIES TO IT. WE DON’T NEED MORE. (I still need to find time to read the original.) If there is anything going on with the 3 stories, have it be a story based off of it, instead of basically replacing roles in the story or an unofficial side-story. No. Also Rainbow Factory. I see that quite a bit.

Okay, I am getting really off-topic. Let’s get back to conflict instead of remakes/side stories. I should do a post about that later. Okay, so there are bad conflicts. I really hope you can figure out a bad conflict. If not, as the meme goes, ‘You’re gonna have a bad time.’ But, let’s talk about cliché conflicts. First, human in Equestria fics. They get sent to Equestria. They want to go home? That’s cliché. They want to become a pony? That’s cliché. They f*** every mare (and stallion, for some reason) in Equestria? That’s not even a conflict, you idiot. Now, romance. And yes, I shall do every damn tag if it kills me. Two mares love each other but don’t know how to express it? That’s cliché. Two mares hate each other but you somehow get them to be shipped? What the f*** is wrong with you? (And yes, that is cliché… I think.) Next: Tragedy. Everypony dies in the end? That’s cliché. Something ends the world? That’s cliché. Basically, if you see any major correlation to the song “September” by Mic and Tombstone (also preferably the animated version by BronyDanceParty), that’s cliché. The song’s special because, well, it’s a song. Next up on my lists of f***s I’m supposed to give: sad. If somepony dies and somepony else is sad about it, it’s cliché. HOWEVER, if it has a special, unique format, it’s good. For example, “Never Stop Smiling” (a fic that was featured recently), is a perfectly sad story. I seriously cried harder to that than My Little Dashie. *sniff*. Okay, another cliché sad story is ANYTHING that is My Little Dashie replaced by a different pony. GOD DAMMIT NO, THERE ARE ENOUGH OF THESE. Next is dark… I have no examples of cliché for this, actually. It’s simply because many new users tend to stay away from this tag, since it’s not a good first-story tag. You actually have to be pretty experienced as a writer to make a good, dark story. If any of YOU have an example of a cliché dark story, tell us all. Next is comedy. (I’ll also include random, since it’s basically the same thing.) I swear to god, Celestia, and Luna, if you make an unoriginal comedy story, that story deserves to be sent to the moon for a TRILLION years. NEXT! Ooh! Crossover time! The following crossovers are done a bit too often: Team Fortress 2, Portal, Mario, um… crap, it’s taking a year to load anything on FiMFiction right now. Damn 502 Bad Gateways. Others are… I give up. The server’s being really laggy right now, so I just give up. If you see a few crossovers of the same thing, consider it cliché. Next is ADVENTURE. First, for conflict, NEVER, EVER EVER EVER EVER EVER MAKE IT BE IN ONE DAMN PLACE. NEVEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEER! IT’S CALLED “ADVENTURE” FOR A REASON! MAKE THEM GO ON AN ADVENTURE, GOD DAMMIT! Okay… so… um… don’t make somepony go somewhere to bring another pony back to life. It’s been done too many times. Um… crap, I give up. I really hope you can figure out a cliché adventure story. Next is Slice-of-life… I actually, again, can’t come up with anything. I really don’t know if there is such thing as a cliché slice-of-life story… MY WHOLE LIFE IS A LIE! Last, and kind of least, since it seems extremely unpopular, is ALTERNATE UNIVERSE. Anything about a “Solar Empire” and a “Lunar Republic” is automatically alternate universe, and, yes, highly cliché. Second, something where it’s a change in an episode’s plot. For example, EVERYTHING where Discord, Nightmare Moon, or Queen Chrysalis won. Those are highly cliché.

Well, that’s every tag, BUT. We are not done, young grasshoppa.

Now, let’s talk about the “disability” conflict. If a pony is blind, deaf, mute, is in a wheel chair, has diabeetus, has cancer, is mentally retarded, or, if they just so happen to be Bad Luck Brian ponified, all of the above, then that’s a disability. I really hope you can understand what a disability is. If not, you are officially dumb and need to go back to fourth grade. Also, this is highly cliché.

Natural Disasters is another one. If a hurricane, earthquake, typhoon, volcanic eruption, etc. ruins a pony’s life, well, that’s a conflict for ya.

Go to an older post by TehAlphaGamer for antagonist tips.

Also, the stuff inside a pony’s mind stuff. You want a perfect example? Look up… *gulp* … Rocket to Insanity. *shivers* You know, like when a pony goes psycho. Yup. Also, like Dead Space 2 hallucination (holy crap, I spelled that right.) stuff.

This is just scraping the tip of the iceberg. There’s a whole universe of conflicts, so let your mind find the right one! With the right conflict, maybe something can be made up for the piece of crap fic you’re writing!

Nah, I’m kidding.

That won’t make up for horrible setting, character development, speed, plot, grammar, and spelling.

So have fun!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Also, I am officially a teacher today! It shall be marked in history! The day, me,the Golden Eagle, became a teacher!

You know what this calls for!

A party!

*gets demoted*

Okay…

Also, does everyone else hate 502 Bad Gateways? Or is it just me getting those? I mean, like, every other page I go to gives me the error. I hate it.

I get error 502s all the time. ALL THE TIME.

Seven notifications for this xD Also, I've been getting a lot of 502s and 504s recently.

Anyways, a good lecture as always ^^

(Got one trying to post this; pro tip, always copy messages/fictions before posting and what not.)

357147 By the way, you have five of these up currently.

You want cliched dark? One word there buddy: Cupcakes spin-offs.

WHY U POST SEVEN TIMES?!

357834 The website was being laggy as hell, and I thought I didn't post it, since there was no loading, so I clicked multiple more times... worst mistake I've ever made.

I actually like characters with disability. I hadn't see any fics with blind or deaf issues though.
However, as long as the authors use that type of conflict correctly, I might not throw a tantrum in my dreams.

467784 Blind? I'll give you a friend of mine's story about a blind pony. I liked it, you might too.

It's called Cold as Ice.

467794
Thanks!
My "read later"s are piling up suddenly though.

To be fair, nearly every sort of scenario is cliche.
I think the main issue is that people focus on one of these 'cliches' and it just becomes so transparent the audience gets bored just like when a new show on TV airs and it tanks before the first season is done because there was nothing about it that deviated from the typical setting to give in interest.

Like... imagine... Game of Thrones without the political intrigue!
It'd be John on a friggin wall against an army of the undead that are about to savage the land and nothing else. Pretty sure you can throw a dart in any movie and bookstore and find a few stories about a person that goes against the undead.
What makes GoT different is all the insane amounts of lore, the characters we can relate to, and the never ending plots and schemes that have nothing to do with the main plot line.
Like.. Tyrion and his time as Hand of the King or Jaime's trek across Westeros with Brienne of Tarth.
"Oh, the undead are gonna come down from the north and kill everyone? Hell no! John, stop them! Aria is still out there lost and scared and Sansa is finally learning what it means to have a brain!"

While I understand that this post is meant to make authors think twice about the sorts of stories they ant to tell, I don't think this is meant to be absolute.

On the one hand, I do tend to avoid stories that resemble overused plots, and it's fair to say that using one such plot may make your story less likely to be read. On the other hand, however, there is something to be said for how you tell an otherwise overdone plot.

Shadow of the Colossus is a game about a boy trying to bring a girl back to life. He has to kill 16 giant monsters to do it. What follows is one of the most beautiful, terrifying, and even heart-wrenching tales in the modern era. This game took an obviously cliché plot and damn did it make it work.

Incidentally, why are disabilities cliché? Sure, there are plenty of character archetypes involving disabilities that are deeefinitely overused, like a blind prophet, it seems pretty unfair for you to make a blanket statement like that. I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you meant that disabled characters should be crafted with just as much care and complexity as the non-disabled, and not that they should be avoided outright.

357147 and that's how you get countless interesting ideas that are either 1) badly done by inexperienced writers 2) featured already

TBH, to help a new writer, one must first write something cliche, in order for them to know WHAT's cliche, you understand? It's not like somebody can avoid writing shipfics, NLR/SE stories if those stories were the compelling factors for their existence on fimfic.

However, to add on to what you've said, having ONLY cliched conflicts and characters will make yours seem unoriginal. Like someone once said, "Originality is a stolen idea that no one discovered you stole yet." Think of the chords of 'Canon in D'. Now think of the graduation song. Is it a copied idea? Sort of. But is it original? Yes, because -inserts billions of reasons why it's original-. But people still hear 'Canon in D' when listening to that song. Heck, I know I do.

Think of a heterosexual ship fic of TwiMac or FlutterMac. Cliched? Quite. You see that a lot. But what makes a good story different from one is how you tackle this idea, and what kind of conflicts you have them. Distance? Quite common, but work well. Difference in race? Not so common, recently featured. Mac turns out to be a changeling? GTFO. Said-character-is-a-changeling is just a sad excuse for you not being able to come up with a better storyline... unless dealing with psychological conflicts inside the changeling's head. NOW that's a better conflict that romance with a changeling.

Of course, how you write it determines the cliche-ness of it too. Show, not tell guys :)

In conclusion, write what you think is best for your story, not because you know it works. You may have a Cupcake spin-off, but instead, delves within the psychology of said-victim's head... and if anyone is doing that, please just let RD die. Don't let RD somehow break out of the chains and run away... or let Pinkie free RD... No no no.

357147 Another apparently clichée dark story would be something along the lines of "Slendermane" I have been told, since my very first fic has been compared to those.

On the other hand, this is the School for new Writers. Writing is a craft. You don't become a good carpenter if you invent new furniture before having mastered the creation of a stool. Unique ideas are cool, but if you don't have the necessary tools to make them work you'll get discouraged and end up writing exactly nothing.

I must say I didn't like this lecture at all. You could have gone really in depth with internal conflicts, external conflicts, etc. There is really much to tell about the topic, but instead of constructivity, this is a list of "don't!"s. Also, please use dem paragraphs. That wall of text about supposedly bad conflicts for each genre is an abomination.

1123366

I must say I didn't like this lecture at all.

Sorry about that, this was like my fourth post here and I was still getting used to writing in general. Also, I feel that this covers enough, and if I need to do more, I would make a part two to this.

1123668 Just realized your inital post is nearly a year old, sorry about that.

As to what it covers: I think it covers conflicts from a readers perspective. As a reader of stories, you don't want to read the same thing over and over again, yet if you look at your lecture from a new writers perspective it doesn't cover anything but discouragement. If you can't think of an original conflict, don't write. This is poison.

Look at Transformers, Avengers, Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter. Same major conflicts: Fight against ultimate evil, abuse of a power that is too great to be wielded by anyone and has to be destroyed. Seen one, seen all, aye? No! Because it's not only the main conflict that makes a good story.

A good storyteller can turn almost anything into an entertaining story, and to learn that you need to get your ass writing, not looking for that one unique idea.