Lose Yourself
From the journal of Pen Name…
What. a. year!
It’s considered the signature writing competition, the Super Bowl of story writing. It’s the Canterlot Herald’s annual Write Off, a competition to find out who is the best writer in Equestria. Oh! It’s no joke as well. According to rumors around the kingdom, if you’re a writer, then you’re automatically going to participate in the contest.
Why is this event so important?
Taking the top prize is an achievement only a few ponies have claimed. If you won, it’s guaranteed that you will go on to become a household name within the writing world. That’s how important this event is. Winning this contest meant you were the best writer that year. Since that sort of reputation was on the line, along with a one-year publishing contract with the Canterlot Publishing Firm, anyone and everyone submitted stories for the competition.
With so many writers mailing their narrative work into the office, hoping they might be lucky enough to win the entire contest, it takes a team of professional editors, including myself, to read over and judge all accepted short stories. Genre and prompts didn’t matter in this contest. If the narrative was over the one-thousand words minimum, while under the five-thousand words maximum, then it be would enter the competition.
Within the first week after the submission box was opened, stories would come flooding into our office in waves of mail deliveries. The first ones were always small, containing at least twenty to thirty stories per basket. However, after about a month, those deliveries would pile up from forty to sixty new stories per basket! By the time the deadline came around for the contest, about two to three hundred short stories stuffed the entire office! Then, once the deadline has passed, the judges will begin to read through each story and measure them against a single aspect.
Skill.
In the first round of the competition, a story deemed to have multiple issues with grammar, spelling, and word structure was eliminated on the spot. How can one prove to be the best writer in Equestria when their work is incomprehensible? “A writer must be able to clearly convey their narrative without their words getting in the way,” as I always said to other ponies. Unbelievably, this round usually eliminates half or more of the submitted works while causing our shredders to be continuously working in our office at a high rate.
...sigh.
We lose so many good ones each year.
Once the wasted papers have filled up our dumpster to the brim, along with their writer’s aspiration and our burned-out shredders, the second round of eliminations begins. At this stage, we rate each story based upon a simple one to ten scale. After a peer review between two or more judges, if the story scores a seven or above it passes into the third round. Otherwise, the narrative will meet the same fate as their first-round counterparts.
Oh, yes! Those shredders never get a break until the end of the competition! In fact, throughout that entire month we are judging stories for the competition, our offices would smell like burning paper from all the shredding we do. It’s an unpleasant smell, like inhaling black fumes from a burning fire. While we’re reluctant to not start an actual fire within the building each year, we constantly made sure to never overload our precious shredders as they continued to do their job throughout the rounds.
It’s in the third round where things do get tough. At this stage, the author’s raw ability to write a convening narrative plays into whether they make it into the fourth and final round or not. It’s the time when judges will scrutinize the writing and dialogue of each narrative. While each judge may have their preference towards how they wish certain narratives were written, they unanimously agreed to judge each story based upon one single question.
“Does the narrative help enhance the story beyond just telling a tale?”
If it does, then it’s a candidate for the final round. If it doesn’t, then it meets the shredder, but a little bit of sympathy is expressed for some eliminated stories since making it this far does mean it’s a delightful read. Around our office, nobody likes to see a wonderful story go, but we all know it’s a competition at the end of the day and we can’t keep records of the ones who didn’t make it. With that in mind, I hope these talented writers have saved a copy of their work. Some of them were absolutely fantastic ideas in my eyes.
From what I could remember, The Iron Horse was about a blacksmith who didn’t have a working heart. While his physical heart was fine and beating inside him, his visual heart was torn down the middle after a tragic relationship. The ironic thing is that he was a smith who worked on and repaired broken hearts for other equines, but he could never fix his own heart. It was special, made from gold while others were all the same.
Sadly, there was no equine in Equestria who could fix his heart until a mare named Rarity came into his shop one day and saw it broken, lying on the shelf. With determination in her eyes, she swore to fix the heart by doing what she could to smith it back together. However, after hours and hours of sweat and perseverance, she ultimately failed. Rarity couldn’t fix the heart with her own white, dirty hooves. With a sigh and a whimper, the lady decided to kiss the heart goodbye as she made her way out the door of the blacksmith shop. It’s the least she could do to make it feel better.
Then, a miracle happened.
The heart began to repair itself from the magic of her love. The crack, once visibly seen, filled itself in and vanished. It left behind a complete and glowing gold heart! Overcome with happiness and joy, the young blacksmith hugged and kissed the lady, thanking her for the hard work she put into it. He learned that a broken heart repaired by those willing to love and care for it know its true value. Therefore, in time, it will heal itself.
They both lived happily ever after.
The next story, which was a runner up from last year, was titled The Filly Dancer. It was about a young filly diagnosed with cancer. Her conditions weren’t optimal, but she remained positive despite the fact that she had to live at the hospital while undergoing treatment and therapy. Unfortunately, her conditions weren’t improving, and the doctors estimated she only had about three months left to live.
Her parents asked the doctors if there was anything they could do save her, but unfortunately, not even the strongest magic in the world could help heal the damage left from cancer. The doctors recommended two things to the parents; The first thing was to arrange for her funeral at a local gravesite while the second thing was to collect a wish from her. This wish was to help her fulfil something in her life that she always wanted to do.
To everyone’s surprise, the filly wanted to be a dancer.
However, she didn’t want to dance in front of a crowd, instead she wished to dance before an Equestrian Ruler. She wanted to dance for a princess since she overheard one day that Princess Twilight Sparkle wasn’t the best dancer in the world. The little filly with cancer wanted to teach Twilight Sparkle how to dance!
It didn’t take long for her request to be sent directly to Princess Twilight Sparkle, who obviously obliged to fulfill the wish without hesitation. The princess showed up at the hospital, meet the sweet little filly, and then learned from her on how to do simple turns and twists, moving to the beat of the music. It made the filly’s day and life. According to the parents and doctors, they have never seen smiles as wide as they were on those two girls while they had fun.
Then, the little filly who taught Twilight Sparkle how to dance passed away about a month later.
While the filly’s casket lowered into the ground, The Princess of Friendship promised to never forget her. Fulfilling her promise, she erected a statue in the little filly’s honor. It stood directly in front of Ponyville's dance studio. Every day, it reminded each and every pony that the gift of sharing your talent can make somepony else shine bright with joy even when conditions aren’t in your favor.
Oh, and yes! The statue depicted the filly as a cute, little alicorn.
After going through another round of eliminating the bad from the ones that could be easily talked about, like the examples I just wrote out, the final round begins with just ten stories! These ten stories are read out to the staff within the office before all personnel voted on them. Then ten stories go to six, four, and lastly, two.
The final two stories this year are titled In Your Wildest Dreams, by a newcomer named Sweet Lock, and Daisy, Roses, and Other Colorful Flowers, by a veteran writer named Glow Heart. It rare for a young talent to make it into the final round, including the final two. That’s an achievement within its own right! However, In Your Wildest Dreams was story to behold in of itself! In my own opinion, it’s one that I consider be something I wish I wrote myself. It’s just too darn good!
The story’s premise was simple. After a stallion hung himself to death, he meets the spirit of death within a misty void. The ghost is Princess Luna. She asks the stallion why he killed himself, to which the young equine then begins to explain his reasoning. In short, he killed himself because he didn’t feel like he had a place in this world anymore.
No pony loved him, including his family.
Princess Luna shook her head upon hearing his testimony before she used her abilities to access his memories. She walked with the stallion and explained to him about the important aspects of how his existence affects those who are around him. For example, after he killed himself, his mother would go straight into denial while his father had to comfort the mother in agony. Meanwhile, he would internally suffer from the pain of losing his son.
The stallion's sister would see her brother’s death an opportunity to finally change her life for the worst. She always looked up to him as a role model. Some role model he was if he turned around and killed himself, eh? The sister would eventually run away from home and join up with a local gang. Afterwards, they would make her suffer through years of abuse and mental torture. Eventually, once she reached her breaking point, the mare would die from a drug overdose.
The visions of which the stallion saw, including how his friend Fowl turned out, terrified him to the point where he was begging for his life back. Princess Luna then stood in front of a mass of ponies and declared how taking his life was not only a loss against him, but against others as well. Then one-by-one, those bodies, including the princess, mother, father, sister, friend, and everyone else he knew or interacted with, turned into dust as they blew away from his memory.
This left the stallion to cry all by himself until he saw a light shine brightly down upon him.
He woke up, immediately seeing the rope which he was about to hang himself with. It was all a dream, a really realistic dream controlled by Princess Luna. Then, with a burst of emotion, the stallion left himself to cry on his couch inside an apartment. He then swore to never consider death or suicide ever again. Afterwards, he called up everyone he knew, trying once more to reestablish his broken life.
It’s a toss-up between that story and Daisy, Roses, and Other Colorful Flowers, a battle between the judges on whether or not one story is superior to the other. While In Your Wildest Dreams had the heart and emotional turmoil of dealing with depression and the thoughts of contemplating and actually going through with suicide, Daisy, Roses, and Other Colorful Flowers dealt with another aspect which contributes to the hardship of life itself. It dealt with abuse, deception, and a murder.
From what I read, Miss. Daisy was some backwoods, hard-core mare. Also, she was blessed with beauty, but cursed with a poor upbringing. Her and the rest of her family were poor, forced to live their lives on a farm outside of Appleloosa. Day in and day out they would tend their corn fields and raise enough crop to sell in the local markets downtown. They hoped to make enough money to one day build a real home out of bricks, getting themselves out of the log cabin they currently used.
As for Miss. Daisy, since she was quite the looker herself, mama and pa would let her come into town and use her looks to sell the corn. Daisy didn’t mind this exploitation since it meant to help her family get back on their feet and somewhere closer to a better life. What she didn’t expect was the attraction of a local businessman from Manehatten. He was a stallion who took a particular interest in the mare. Love at first sight perhaps?
About another month passed and the same business pony kept come back again-and-again to buy the family’s corn and talk to Miss. Daisy about his life and future plans. One thing led to another, and the next thing everyone knew was that they were falling in love with other. “It looks like Curly found Laurey,” as one pony said.
After a marriage proposal with red roses and a wedding a few months later, the two began to live their lives happily ever after, or so Mrs. Daisy hoped. What was meant to be the greatest day of her life soon turned for the worst once she realized everything related to the marriage was a hoax. There was no real love involved with the stallion since he faked his interest in her from the start. Upon further investigation, she found out that the only reason he married her was so that he can get legal ownership of her farm once mama and pa passed away.
With vengeance set in her eyes, Mrs. Daisy decided there was no other option but to kill her husband without law enforcement finding out she did it. To help her go undetected, she waited until they were a high-end party in Manehatten. While her husband wasn’t paying attention, she slipped a pill into his drink. One sip later, the stallion Miss. Daisy once knew was dead.
With an arrangement of colorful flowers adorning his black casket, Miss Daisy watched her husband be lowered six feet below the ground. While the preacher said the final words and testament to the life of the business pony, Miss. Daisy swore to never marry into money ever again. She learned that not all ponies want to be with you because of your beauty and personally, but for things they wish to gain at your expense.
“Watch out for those you trust, honey. They might end up being the ones who really stab you in the back,” her mama said.
It was a hard battle between these two amazing stories, however there could only be one winner at the end of the day. At first, the judges, including myself, were all for selecting Daisy, Roses, and Other Colorful Flowers to be grand winner of the competition. It has an elegant writing style to it, perfect narrative descriptions, and flawless flow of words which could easily get some ponies choked up on the emotional side of the tale.
It felt personal, as if it was really based on a true story. However, it did have some faults as well. It was in the character development. While the details were all there and well explained, the main protagonist did come off as almost too perfect. Was she really a Mary Sue this whole time? Well... She had amazing good looks, married a rich stallion, enjoyed the good life until the truth was later uncovered, and then got away with murder with almost no evidence against her. What?!
I’m sorry, but that isn’t plausible.
If the story was shooting for something more realistic, then Miss. Daisy wouldn’t have the kind of luck she seemed to naturally possess. Not only was she beautiful, the mare was now rich after getting away with murder without a trace leading back to her. In a more realistic situation, the mare would have been thrown in jail for life after somepony spotted her slipping the pill into the drink. It happened at a party, so some pony would have seen it happen. Also, and I had to wonder, what was the business pony even doing out in a town like Appleloosa to begin with?
Here’s another question as well…
Where did she get a drug powerful enough to kill an equine on the spot after it was slipped into a drink? As far as I’m aware, there isn’t a legal substance out there which she could get a hold of in order to make a silent move like she did. According to the story, she had to use a small pill in order for it to quickly dissolve and have it not be seen by other party guests or the husband. That way, nopony could potentially prevent the stallion from drinking the spiked drink.
...sigh.
It’s those types of questions which are considered before a winner is chosen.
In the final round, the biggest factor between what story wins and what story loses is how sound and bulletproof their plots are. In this case, Daisy, Roses, and Other Colorful Flowers had a few missing gaps in the timeline of the story. It could clearly be seen that some details were needed in order to help justify the actions which took place. Why did it happen? How did it happen?
This story almost failed to answer those questions. There were a few spots throughout the narrative where the writer could have written in some explanation towards why certain things happened. However, they were used to entertain the reader with visual details that painted a lovely picture in the reader’s mind. While it’s pleasant to visualize your story with artistic value splashed between your narrative lines, a writer still needs to convey a convincing plot.
In Your Wildest Dreams did that a little bit better.
It covered it’s plot well and didn’t leave itself open to any sort of shortfall. When it comes to writing about dreams, logic and reasoning can be thrown out the window since its all made up within a pony’s own imaginary realm. Dreams are malleable, controlled only by the creature whose mind is currently painting the pictures it sees. However, when Princess Luna enters your dream, then the rules to the dream do seem to change.
She takes control of the situation within somepony’s head and then uses it to her advantage. In the story, In Your Wildest Dreams, the writer describes Luna using her dream powers to teach a harsh lesson to the stallion who thought he killed himself. To me, that’s an ingenious idea for a storyline and it doesn’t seem like the writer had trouble with handling how the story progressed.
It got darker and more sinister as the plot continued, as if the young writer was trying to put pressure on the reader. It seems as if the author wanted to make the reader felt the same pain and weight of the situation that the stallion experienced, while being shown the consequences of his actions. Often times I found myself expressing sympathy for the poor stallion. It’s a story that makes you want to rescue the colt while he’s in the middle of a traumatic and scarring experience.
However, you had to remind yourself that there was no other way he could learn this lesson. The story explains that Princess Luna would be the last pony who was able to save him before he took his life. The fact that he fell asleep prior to putting the noose around his neck proved detrimental to his survival. It gave Princess Luna a chance to intervene within his situation, scare him to bits, and then make him realize how precious the gift of life is to not only himself, but for others around him.
Princess Luna had him realize how good he has it. This poor stallion had other ponies he could turn to in his desperate time of need. He had his mother, father, sister, and friends who could help him out with his thoughts of depression and suicide. He wasn’t alone in real life, and Princess Luna made him realize that him being alone was all in his head.
Everything that happened was all in his mind the entire time. “It’s a mental battle we face every single day against ourselves. Luckily, we’re capable of overcoming it since we are aware of that fact. If we can defeat our own selves, then what’s really going to hold us down?” Princess Luna said while she walked with the stallion. I’ll admit, it’s a great quote.
This story did have some shortfalls as well. It wasn’t so keen on the buildup to the point where the main character decided to take his own life. Instead, it jumped straight into the moment before the stallion fell asleep and unknowingly woke up in the dream realm. The process leading up to suicide is long and complicated, yet it needs explanation. I’ll admit, the demand for the whole scenario’s narration helps to not only establish the character, but make his motives seem much more believable and understandable.
So, between the two stories, with one having plot holes and another having no significant buildup, it came down one decision on who won the competition this year. It wasn’t easy to make, but we did have a winner since this one story did something right. It made some of us cry or re-evaluate our lives. It made us take a moment to think about how precious life is. It’s a gift to us, and its purpose is to live each day that we can. If we were to take ourselves out through whatever method we might use, then how can we continue to fulfil that purpose?
That’s right, In Your Wildest Dreams won.
But, wait! Wasn’t it written by Sweet Lock, a rookie writer? Well… yes, it was. The story written by the newer writer beat the old veteran, Glow Heart, since In Your Wildest Dreams had the better narrative and message. The problem I mentioned earlier was actually solved by the writer. Instead of building up the action, he jumped straight to the suicide and then used the dream sequence to explain the entire backstory prior to jumping back into the present. Controlled by Princess Luna, it was a complete rewind of the stallion’s life.
Thus, the story was actually flawless! Also, it proved that an older, experienced writer can still be trumped by anypony who is willing to put more effort into their story. Sweet Lock clearly made sure their story was as perfect as they could get it. Meanwhile, Glow Heart’s work seemed to strive towards the same goal as well, but not at the level as the newer writer. The experienced writer did seem to try, but the professional eyes saw right through his missteps. Therefore, the Canterlot Herald declared the newer writer, Sweet Lock, the winner this year.
“Just because you’re on top or popular doesn’t mean you're considered the best at what you do.” - Pen Name