An in-depth guide to better writing
My adventure with a finicky fairy
There’s nothing like getting lost in a good book. Unless of course you’re quite literally lost in a good book with your only chance of escape hinging on a finicky fairy, in which case I’d imagine there’s nothing like that either. It’s times like these, when I’m tied to a stone slab, about to be sacrificed to fulfill a prophecy and bring about the end times, that I wonder about things: like, what have I done with my life? Why would Twilight even have this book in her library? I wonder what fairies taste like and how I should prepare them when I inevitably cook mine up and eat him?
I don’t think this day could get worse.
The blue ball of light wizzes past my ear and hovers above me.
“I untie the ropes,” I say.
The fairy shifts into letters saying, ‘show, don’t tell’. I try to squirm out of my bonds to strangle the fairy before giving up and lying back down again.
“I use a piece of coral I picked up on board the pirate ship and carefully cut the ropes with it.”
The fairy shifts again to say, ‘establish context; don’t bring in new elements without mentioning them earlier’.
A Chekhov’s Gun, right. What did I mention earlier I could use for that? Something falls out of my saddlebag. My eyes widen.
“The diamond I took from the pirate ship, I use it to cut the ropes.”
The diamond whizzes through the bonds, reducing them to single fibers. I hear the voices of the cultists returning. I turn toward the fairy, quizzically.
“I use the diamond to kill them?”
The fairy forms the words, ‘too fantastical. Make it more down to Equestria’.
I grind my teeth at the fairy.
“I feel like this would go faster without you, fairy.”
The fairy shifts again ‘faster, not better written’.
I hear the voices closer now and bolt down the cave passage in the opposite direction. I turn to the fairy while I run.
“Can you make this passage lead towards the surface?”
‘What fun would that be?’
While I run for my life down seemingly ceaseless cave tunnels, I ponder on how I got in this situation.
I remember it like it was this morning, I had just hit a writer’s block on my novel and after a while of rereading previous chapters, I started to sicken of my earlier work.
“Worthless, worthless, worthless, it’s all dry nonsense. I can’t believe I wrote characters this bland and boring and this dialogue is appalling, it’s all just worthless.”
After I had gotten some of my temper back, I sat back down to do more writing. The writer’s block hit me again, harder. After that, I trotted over to the books and branches library to pick up a cozy mystery to bury my thoughts in. I trotted in and was greeted by the mare of the house and now alicorn princess, Princess Twilight Sparkle. I briefly consider it a shame we hadn’t had many interactions before because I’d imagine it’s interesting to have an alicorn princess as a friend and Twilight’s a nice mare, besides.
“Is there a particular mystery you’re looking for?”
I nodded my head, no, and trotted toward where I knew the mysteries were. I was startled when I reached the shelves of mystery novels to find a book out of place. Sure, I didn’t know Twilight all that well but I do know she likes to keep things organized. So why would she have a book called ‘An In-Depth Guide To Better Writing’ on the shelves with the mystery books?
I was about to place it on the shelves with the self-help books when I was possessed to open the book. I had hit a snag in my writing so anything could help and maybe this was fate.
After that, I woke up in a jungle with this useless fairy, announcing himself as my ‘proofreader fairy’ and told me I had the power of story to alter things in this world. But when I tried to narrate myself out of this book – or as I was inclined to believe, hallucination – the fairy complained about the length of the story and how that wouldn’t make a very long or good one and that was around the point I got the gist of things: I can do whatever I want as long as whatever it is makes a good story.
Then there were pirates.
After the pirates, I was kidnapped by a group of mad cultists who told me they were going to sacrifice me to bring about the end of Equestria. They tied me up and then I started wondering what I had done with my life.
Coming back to the moment, however, I’m finding it increasingly difficult to tell these cave walls apart. Sometimes it seems like they’re getting rougher but recently they’re all getting smoother and shinier. Every once in a while, I hit rough rock again and wonder if I went in a circle but they always even out eventually.
After a period of continued evenness, I begin to see panels with blinking lights appear at regular intervals. My sense of foreboding increases as the frequency of the panels does and eventually the entire cave wall is covered in the blinking panels.
“One of the panels opens up to reveal a passage to the surface.”
The fairy remains quiet – thank Celestia for small favors – but a passage opens up ahead, the wall sliding away to reveal the stairway to sunshine. I run up the staircase, almost giddy with excitement that it actually worked that time. But after running up the stairs for a few minutes I’m still no closer to the top. After deflating like a cheap balloon and then glaring at the proofreader fairy for a bit, I stand up and buck the panels beside the staircase.
“My buck short-circuits the wiring to the stairs and they stop moving down whenever I stand on them.”
‘If you say so,’ the fairy forms.
The stairs start moving down at a tremendous rate without my touching them. I look up at the proofreader fairy.
“I wish for more wishes.”
The fairy shifts to form a question mark and I shake my head and walk down the hall again. After what seems like hours, I hear hoofsteps coming closer down the hall.
“Whoever these ponies are, they see me as a god because I have the diamond.”
‘You already used the diamond, pick something else.’
The sounds are coming closer.
“Et tu proofreader fairy?”
The ponies are almost on top of us.
“BecauseIalreadyfacedabunchofenemieslettheseponiesbenicetoestablishcontrast,” I say, garbling the words in an effort to get it out before the ponies get here.
The ponies turn the corner and I see they’re not technically ponies at all, but robots. The robots pick me up and open a door in the panels next to them, placing me gently inside – the fairy follows. The door closes and before I know it I’m zoomed through halls and doorways and more blinking panels until it just becomes a blur, which, if this doesn’t stop, is soon to be a greenish blur. I choke back the urge to throw up, I’m pretty sure it would make my captors upset, but the scenery rolls by faster and faster the more time I spend in here. Just when I think I can’t take it anymore, I decelerate and come to a stop.
One of the robots rolls up to me.
“May I take your saddlebags?” it asks.
I reach behind me and tug, self-consciously, at my saddlebags. I turn back to the robot.
“No, thank you. I think I’m going to hold onto them for a little while.”
The robot does a sort of half bend that was definitely either surveying me before he kills me or a nod at my response.
I suppose it could have been both.
In any case, the robot rolls away. Excepting the fairy, I’m now completely alone and utterly lost – just in case I had any idea of where I was before. I look around at the expansive room I’m standing in. For a room with a number of blinking lights so as to seem compensational, the room itself is rather bare. The only thing of note is a giant metal pillar in the middle of the room about three pony lengths wide, extending up into the ceiling.
“Fairy?” I ask.
‘Yes?’ he forms.
“I think I have an idea for a story.”
‘I thought you might. Do you want to make your last command?’
I nod.
“A beam of light shines through the ceiling and pulls me back into Equestria.”
The beam appears and I wave goodbye to my proofreader fairy. The fairy responds by forming the word, ‘*wave*’. After that the fairy and the rest of the world fade from view and I’m in the Books and Branches Library again. Princess Twilight trots over to me.
“Did you find the book you wanted?”
I laugh.
“Yes. I think I did.”
I trot off to my Quills and Sofas store and head into the back to write a story. One about pirates, I think.
*******
The proofreader fairy hovers in the large room until the pillar in the center of the room slides open.
‘Greetings, Princess.’
Princess Luna steps off the stage and looks up at the fairy.
“Thank you, proofreader fairy. I’d like to work on my overuse of semicolons, today; I’m really having a problem with them.”
‘Very good, let’s start with the cannibal tribe, shall we?’
Princess Luna nods. “Surprise me.”