Another new year is here. That means lots of new beginnings, looking forward, etc. All those platitudes and cliches we've come to know and possibly tolerate. But just as important as looking to the future, perhaps even more important, is examining the past. Learning from our mistakes and critiquing our own work is crucial if we want to grow as writers (and as people).
Those who have been following me for a while know that I find pony kinesiology and biomechanics to be an interesting topic for musing. Because ponies are so physically different from humans, any and all of their technology and day-to-day objects would have to be fundamentally different to work for them. Designing something as simple as a door handle or pair of scissors requires a completely new approach and mindset when dealing with ponies.
The more fiction I consume, the more I notice patterns. Pigeonholing subjective art is never going to be perfectly accurate, but there are generalizations that have some truth. Today, I’d like to talk about a pattern that is present in all fiction, but is more noticeable and more identifiable in fanfiction.
Broadly speaking, fiction can be divided into two types; those that are designed to conclude, and those that are designed to continue for as long as possible.
For today’s worldbuilding exercise, let’s look at something that is at once universal and distinctive. Everyone eats food. At the same time, eating unfamiliar food can be a very alien experience. Food is a big part of cultural and geographic identity. Real life cuisine has countless gradations and variations. The ingredients and resources available give each real life culture a distinct history and evolution.
The Royal Canterlot Library is a website that endeavors to provide curation to our fandom. It is run by a handful of fanfiction authors and reviewers. They try to highlight MLP fanfic that exemplifies all the best the fandom has to offer.
I have often been told that dialogue is one of my strongest areas as a writer. I find this compliment a bit unusual, because dialogue is often one of the areas that I spend the least time on. My dialogue technique involves a lot of instinct and guess work (I suppose a lot of my writing does). There is one area, however, where I did have to learn and research, because I am quite bad at it in real life.
Lying.
My previous LDC post was about a very omnipresent cliché. Today, I’d like to discuss a similarly common, and no less frustrating trope; the phonetic accent.
What is it? The phonetic accent is when a writer attempts to spell a word how it sounds. There is (usually) no guidelines or reasoning to it, and it’s often far disconnected from normal spelling.
Today's discussion is about a very old cliche. It is so ubiquitous that I'm many of you have encountered it in multiple places before. Just because it is commonplace, however, doesn't mean that we can't examine it and try to do better.
I am only operating at a fraction of my total productivity – I got almost nothing done yesterday – but I did manage to get another review set done (well, apart from Read It Now #100, a very special read it now).
There’s so much more I could do if only I could focus myself better.
Today’s stories:
Silver Spanner gets her Cutie Mark by Admiral Biscuit
In a previous musing post, I covered the idea of pony playing cards. In another, I discussed magic pony sports. Both of these are the sort of things influenced by tradition and simplicity. Today, I'd like to discuss a type of game that is the opposite: something that is explicitly constructed and designed. That's right, today we're discussing the cultural fixture that is the Trading Card Game.
It is almost Christmas, and that means that it is time for me to get off my butt and get people stuff to read for the holidays. I have been remiss in getting review sets posted; hopefully the rapidly approaching end of the year will encourage me to get more done.
This is a rather eclectic set of stories in some ways, but in another way, all but one of them manages to capture a lovely little sentiment. I wonder if you can guess which one that is from the titles?
Page generated in 0.051 seconds
Total duration
1,044 users online
1,873,075 hits today, 2,054,621 yesterday
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
Designed and coded by knighty & Xaquseg - © 2011-2024
Support us
SubStar
Chat!
Discord
Follow us
Twitter
MLP: Friendship is Magic® - © 2024 Hasbro Inc.®
Fimfiction is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by Hasbro Inc.®
