> Ponystuck: Play.

by MrTimms

A Plethora of Pitfalls

> Pony: Wake.

What?

You are already awake. You've been chatting with your personal teacher Princess Celestia, and honestly, you'll never look back. Getting this IRC client was the best decision you've ever made.

Never mind that Canterlot is only a couple of kilometers away by hot-air balloon, you're socializing, and about time, too. Your friendship reports have gotten a bit dry lately.

Wouldn't want to be TARDY.

Anyway, your conversation's just about wrapped up. After gossiping about the goings-on of various members of Canterlot and Ponyville society, the exchange took a... slightly geekier turn. Specifically, the subject was that of the new "immersive simulation" game STBLE, being released TOMORROW by the up-and-coming games company in Equestria, EA Entertainment (the EA doesn't stand for anything). Even more specifically, you chat-squealed about it for half an hour like the little fanfilly you are and the Princess just took it.

She politely dismisses the subject in turn, instead bidding you a good day. This surprises you, but then you get a bigger shock as you notice that it's actually very early instead of very late. You'd been at the computer for a lot longer than two hours before that. Oh well, sleep is for the weak.

Boy are you glad there was a short and simple summary of that two-hour long conversation. If you hadn't been participating in the chat yourself, that probably would have been the most tedious piece of writing to ever pass under your eyes. Summaries are Celestia's gift to ponykind.

You chuckle to yourself, then sit on your bed. You may as well take a little breather before getting ready for the day. It certainly is comfortable...

> Pony: Sleep.

OH, FOR THE LOVE OF-

You blearily open your eyes to a bright... day. You aren't quite sure what time it is, but it is definitely bright. Slowly moving to a standing position, you crack your spine in a way that probably isn't very healthy. Sleeping in a computer chair sideways is inadvisable on most occasions.

Either way, it is time to move your little purple tushie. Things to do, friends to meet, games to play, all that jazz. You're hyperventilating all of a sudden! So much to do, in so little time!

You hoof it through your (should-have-been) morning preparations, quickly showering and magic-drying your mane into something presentable, using the... facilities, and heading down the library stairs.

Suddenly, you stop, nearly falling. You forgot about breakfast.

Or lunch, or... whatever meal it was supposed to be. Whatever it was, you missed it, and you are hungry. Sleep, maybe, but food is definitely NOT for the weak. Or, it is, but it's also for the strong too, and everypony in between.

It's Spike's day off, you gave it to him specifically because STBLE was coming out today and you thought there would be breakfast...

Oh well. The only thing you can do now is to prepare your own. You think that nicely seasoned mushrooms on a bed of oil-braised grains will do. The cookbook hovers in front of you as you gather the ingredients to you using your magic. This will be a cinch, just like alchemy class at the university...

Several minutes later, you remember just why Spike does all of the cooking around here. You glance around with the smoking, sizzling pans in a panic before diving for the sink, raising a scalding cloud of steam.

That was close. You're pretty sure you're off cooking for life, with an experience like that. You remove all evidence of the mess in a matter of seconds. The burnt foodstuffs are catapulted into deep space with your magic, while you pile the pans in the sink, scouring the surfaces of any leftover residue. Hot water jets from the faucets, creating yet more clouds of steam. If anypony walks in, you can just hide them somewhere that can get wet and say you took a long shower.

Then again, no one comes to the library anyways. Sometimes you feel like a squatter here. With accidents like what just happened, you're quite sure that your lease would not be renewed. No one has to know. But you still have to eat.

You step outside the library with empty saddlebags in tow. You can pick up the game at the post office after real breakfast. Normally packages are delivered to the library, but you'll be out for a while, and this parcel is too important to leave to Derpy. Poor mare would probably muddle everything up, what with all the orders sent to Ponyville today. Yes, this is going to be one good game...

...

You realize that you've been spacing out for several minutes. You've gotta get going! Stuff to do!

You take off at a gallop, before embarrassingly remembering that you are not in that much of a hurry. You have at least twenty minutes to kill after breakfast, you could drop in on one of your friends and double-check if everyone's ready.

You're pretty excited for today. This is the first gaming session you've been able to get all five of your friends to participate in. You do a little jig standing in place, and the server waiting to take you to your table gives you a funny glance. Oops.

Lucky for you, this restaurant has nicely seasoned mushrooms on a bed of oil-braised grains at the top of their menu, and you know from experience that their cooks are much better than you. Your meal is out in a few minutes, and you chew quickly yet orderly, contemplating your life. You would have to say computers changed a lot, the impact that they've had on Ponyville alone is unprecedented. A whole generation, technologized out of nowhere. This would probably cause an influx of jobs, allowing Equestria to expand its economy and refine its border towns into stable, growing cities.

You sigh in contentment. Your waiter passes by; a contented sigh is much more socially acceptable than little jigs. You pay and tip, but as you step outside you're suddenly paralyzed with indecision. Where should you go, what should you do first? Which friend should you visit, who would be the best one to make sure everypony's ready? AUGH!

> Player: Answer.

Comments

[Strangeknot]

Hmm, I see I'm not the only one to have this idea, but it seems like it doesn't work so well as a purely literary story. Images do go a long way, in part because it gives the readers something visual to interact with, and also because this writing style doesn't seem as gripping in large chunks. How is this even going to work unless you either write really short chapters or keep reader influence to a minimum?

Now I kind of want to work some more on my own Homestuck crossover. Wish I could draw worth a carp, though, since it definitely needs to be a comic. You could probably make it work as a literary story, but I don't know that reader input or second person narration will work so well in that regard.

That being said...

> Pony: Go see somepony who is HARDWORKING and DEPENDABLE.
> Pony: But first check your placronym so you can remember your name.

I hope you have a plan for this story. Homestuck is very complicated and has tons of foreshadowing (some of it admittedly retroactive), so if you want to do the original justice then you'll need to have a long term plan. Also, STBLE needs a vowel somewhere in the middle, I think.

[RTcondraconian]

> Pony: Go see somepony who is WHIMSICAL and just a little bit CRAZY, because you know that she has SKILLS when it comes down to planning LARGE and SEEMINGLY DISORGANIZED events.

:L I'm not entirely sure what to make of this story right now! I mean, it's all well and good in starting, but I want to see where it's going to go.
Pretty good starting point though, yessir.

I do think some pictures would be nice, but that is from a purely unbiased side of view on my part fc01.deviantart.net/fs71/f/2011/261/d/2/applejack_lying_face_stamp_by_xxnintendorkxx-d4a9mxt.png

[MrTimms]

355951

Well, I certainly have a plan for the overarching plot, how the game goes, etc, but now I'm wondering whether it's a good idea at all. My point in trying this was to post small updates frequently, interacting with the reader base. Better than writing large chapters and never posting, which I do a lot. Those 5 downvotes really got me down for some reason, but I realize now there's no real reason to succumb to peer pressure. I don't think I would have a reason for doing this without reader interaction, and I'm not sure that it would work with any other POV than second-person.

I'm going to continue doing this. There's (possibly) people who will like this; for the people who don't, good for them. I wish they would state their reason for doing so, as it kind of makes me insecure about the whole thing. Silent (and theoretically absolute) disapproval... Yeah. I'm thinking around 300-600 word chunks, with reader interaction being more of stating a plan rather than immediate actions. Each chapter will be posted in parts and when it's finished I'll condense them into one. I guess if more readers don't start interacting in the first... 50 or 60 posts, then I could just give up and do something not as entirely pointless to me. I would like this to be an experience.

It's kind of disappointing that everything I've tried to make involving reader interaction has died from lack of both readers and interaction. So, I'll write the next chunk (I'll probably put it up tomorrow, it would have been today but thur-sat has involved long periods of time away from the computer), and for now, I'd like to ask two questions:

Should I really change STBLE? I wanted to keep it about as short as SBURB/SGRUB, but there aren't many good horse puns starting with S, and STABL looks weird. I was trying to follow a letter-removing precedent sort of thing.

Could you critique any parts that look particularly bad in second-person present tense (or possibly suggest some method of interaction in a different POV)?

[Strangeknot]

359231

I'm no literary expert (I think I'm more visually oriented), but on rereading the chapter I noticed some general things. First, I'd start it off with the player (Twilight) waking up in the middle of the day and refer to the events of the previous night. As you say, summaries are Celestia's gift to ponykind. Second, both the cooking scene and the lunch scene seem unnecessary, and could be skipped or otherwise summarized, or referred to more implicitly without actually walking through them. Basically, you've got a lot of words, but nothing interesting is happening.

Now, I don't know where you're going with this, so I don't know if some of this will be relevant later in the story. If they are then you can't very well just skip them, can you? Format is also an issue, as you could probably get away with all of the above if you did it in the MSPA style. The difference is that MSPA presents the reader with much more manageable chunks of text along with pictures, not uncommonly animated ones. Instead of tackling a full page of text at a time, the reader only has to deal with a few sentences (except in the case of troll romance exposition) along with a distracting picture. Then they go to the next page and repeat the process.

I think the main problem here is show vs. tell. You're telling us. "You try to cook, and mess it up." That sounds like the description of a comedic scene, but you drain the comedy out of it by simply stating the facts. If this were a comic, you'd naturally be inclined to show, not tell, so it would work a lot easier. (As I said, I think I'm more visually inclined, so I think I have the same problem when I try to write.) Of course, not everyone can draw, but even crappy pictures might help.

If you have a solid idea for a plot, then you don't have to make this reader driven at all, either. You're pretty much only doing it because Homestuck did it (and it doesn't anymore, though it still maintains the illusion of it). You might consider writing this like most other pieces of fiction: in third person past tense. It would just be a story about ponies playing the Equestrian analog of SBURB. I can't guaranty that it would be any better, because I don't know what sort of writing skills you have. Either way (second person present or third person past) will work, but one might work better or come easier to you.

As for STBLE, it sounds too ordinary. SBURB and its analogs, from what we've seen, seem to be deliberately ugly and difficult to pronounce words. STBLE is pretty much "stable". I thought up SCLOP, and just a few minutes ago SNEIGH (which has one too many letters, if anyone cares). I'm not really sure, I don't have a lot of ideas there.

I want to encourage you not to give up just because some people don't like your story. That said, however, you may want to rethink the way it's being presented. I think you can touch it up and make it work in its current style, but you might find it preferable to switch to a different style. There's not really enough to judge whether the story itself is good or not, but I prefer to remain optimistic.

[MrTimms]

370028

SHIT LET'S BE BORING

Well, okay. There are only a handful of things like these, and I've tried to make the general plot very twisty. Better than yet another Trixific. I'll try to write a different first chapter from a better perspective, but right now is somewhat difficult, I've suddenly been handed a heaping barrelful of life. That'll probably die down in about a week. I will also try for as hard a game name to pronounce as possible.

[Bitness909]

I was waiting for my story to be submitted, and, I decided to search up "STBLE", because my story is STBLE and SHIVE. I found this...
and...
oh my god, this is an odd coincidence, I must say XD
My story is in the same, MSPA-like formatting, the game is even called "STBLE", oh my god, what the heck.

P.S. One of the tags should be "Crossover" as well.