The Writer's Conundrum

by Nugget

Rating: teen
Tags: Anthro, Applejack, Slice of Life, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Original Character, Comedy, Random, Sex
Length: 2509

A Meta Story - What if our own stories could talk back to us?

To certain writers, the world of story writing is often hard and plagued with uncertainties towards how well they write their own novels. With each word written down, they wonder about certain aspects towards what makes their story amazing. To which, those questions are bothering the mind of a Canterlot author named Pen Name. After a recent story of his flopped, he begins to question himself until he gets an idea in his head;

"What if our own stories could talk back to us?"

Pre-read & edited by tommal

This story was created out of the shenanigans of the writer. Enjoy and remember the random tag! :pinkiecrazy:

Published 2017-02-14 00:20:01 UTC
Last updated 2017-02-15 01:18:45 UTC

They Do Have Something to Say

Inside a writer’s office, located in the beautiful and bustling city of Canterlot, an author stared down at a giant piece of paper laid out on his desk. Pen Name, a writer well known for his impeccable skills at conjugating words to convey the most interesting of stories, had just recently received the results of how his latest publication had fared with the general crowd. To which, he wasn’t thrilled by it one bit.

The story had flopped. Hard. Less than twenty-five ponies had picked up his story and actually read it, according to the consumer’s report. Thus, Pen instantly knew the return results had to have been worse. They were. Barely anybody had commented on the piece or favorited it within the polls. Also, almost nopony had tagged it with the newspaper, asking the company to send them a reminder when the author had updated his story.

This spun Pen Name into complete distraught, wondering about what he could have done better. Was the grammar in check? Was the story convincing? Were the characters interesting to read about? Was the plot worth the payoff in the end? were some of the questions, racing through his mind one-after-another in a constant, paranoid stream of thought.

What made things worse though, was the fact that he alone couldn’t answer those questions. Pen didn’t have the slightest clue towards what the audience thought of the story, therefore how could he be sure if his answers were correct? Or if they were wrong? What evidence did he have to go off of?

Certainly, his comments on the story didn’t count since he was the one who wrote it in the first place! While his years of experience in fully writing out novels had given him the basic idea towards how the audience might react towards his new work, they still remained unpredictable. Pen knew that sometimes a good idea in his perspective might not translate over too well with the mainstream public; such as writing about the existence of another black and red alicorn, or just another alicorn in general.

Groaning to himself, he placed his hooves on the desk and buried his head into them. He wished he could find another way to get some feedback for his stories, or rather from his stories. Hmm… What if our own stories could talk back to us?, he thought, scratching his chin. That doesn’t sound like a bad idea, I mean, I have always wondered about what my characters would say to me in regards towards how I wrote them and the story.

He turned his head to the side, peering his eyes at a nearby bookshelf. Illuminating his horn in a velvet aura, he levitated a spellbook towards him and laid it out on the desk. On the front cover, the name of the author, Haycart, was etched in golden treading. Upon opening the copy of the sorcerer’s journal up, Pen Name turned the pages until he came upon a particular spell which allowed him to turn his writing into an manifest form of itself.

He read, “Note: The appearance of the object will usually be in the form of the character mainly focused on in the story.”

Nodding his head, he placed the book off to the side has he pulled out the most recent manuscript that failed to gain any attention with the public. Laying it out on the desk, Pen’s horn began to glow as he read off the instructions on how to cast the spell. With each sentence he spoke, the horn’s light grew brighter and brighter as the words on the manuscript slowly morphed into a two-dimensional image of an anthropomorphic character.

By the time the spell was completely casted, the definitions of the image on the paper were extreamly detailed and well drawn out. It was of his friend, Applejack, but in western attire. She was fully decked out from the bottom of her boots, all the way up to her signature brown cowboy hat. While chaps were worn tight around her legs, her chest was covered by a white, cutoff t-shirt and leather jacket. Her face, neck, cleavage, and midriff were all that was shown.

She gasped, “I’m. alive?”

He smiled, “Yes, my dear. You are-”

“WHAT IN TARNATION WERE YOU THINK’N WHEN YOU WROTE ME LIKE THIS?” she shouted, nearly scaring Pen off his stool.

“But, I-”

“No buts!” she commanded. “Whenever you put me back in that story, please give me more normal clothing. I don’t want to parade around in there like Friday Night hooker!”

"Certainly-"

AJ then fondled with her chest, "...And why am I an anthro anyway? Is it just so you can use the sex tab for this story?"

"No!" Pen firmly claimed. "It's just that I think it would make more sense in the context of what you have to handle within the story."

"I AM NOT HANDLING A STALLION'S-"

"I mean, guns. Real guns like Winchesters, Colts, and Smiths," he exclaimed, rubbing his temples. "You know?"

"Yeah," she tapped her foot, "...and with all this gun talk, I certainly wish I had one right now to shoot you with!"

“Ok, ma’am,” he cleared his throat “Why are you-”

“In such a- upset mood?” she crossed her arms. “I don’t know, maybe ask the person who wrote me!”

He lowered his brow, “Ok, look, I am very sorry that I wrote you and that story the way I did.”

“You mean when had those bandits kill my parents straight off the bat!?” she huffed. “How the heck would you think I would react!?”

He gulped, afraid of answering the question as truthfully as he could. He picked his words carefully, “I thought you and the rest of the family would be incredibly upset at first with the news. To which, with that information, it creates an internal, bolding turmoil that spews over into giving up your rational thought.”

“Which is why I chose to abandon my family to go after the crooks who killed my kin folk?” she asked with a brow raised. Applejack then sarcastically remarked, “...because that certainly sounds like something I would do.”

Pen stuck both of his hooves out at the paper, “Ok, look. Yeah, that might be just a little bit out of character, but it’s within good reasoning!”

AJ scoffed, “Like?”

“Well…” It took a moment for the author to collect his thoughts. “It shows how mentally tough you are!”

“You mean, stubborn?” She placed her hands on her hips.

“Sorta,” he waved his head around. “However, it all shows that you are very willing to stand up for wha’s right!”

“By facing down the guys who have the means, and the will to kill ponies… That certainly sounds like something I would physically fight against!” AJ proclaimed, throwing her hands up into the air.

“But,” Pen facehoofed. “I equipped you with the ability to defend yourself and how to shoot a gun!”

“Yet, looked what happened to Cogburn, Doc, Earp, and Wilson. They were fighters, yet they all died as well. What’s saying that you won’t kill me too?” she turned her head away from Pen, who contemplated on the answer he wanted to give.

He chose the most obvious. “Well, I’m the writer. I narrate the events and everypony’s dialogue while dictating the actions and choosing the consequences since my role is to literally play God in your world.”

There was a momentary silence between the two as Pen Name laid back in his chair. He was angry, almost on the verge of giving up with what he intentionally wanted to do. The author had no idea his character would give him such trouble. Applejack was being an absolute prick to him as she spewed out as much sarcasm she could muster within her words. Yet, some of the points she did bring up were true.

He had sorta written her out of character, to which he assumed that might have been one reason as to why people weren’t reading his story. Inaccurate character portrayals did typically enrage the critics and the reader alike. They love when the story remains accurate to the source material, maintaining a sorta faithful bond between the two mediums. Thus, it makes it all the more interesting to see how a certain character would accurately react under different circumstances.

Pen Name concluded, maybe that’s what was wrong with his story.

He sighed, staring down at AJ. “Look, I am sorry for my outburst.”

She had turned back and faced the author, “It’s ok. I’m sorry too for being such a prissy farm pony.”

He nodded. “Alright, if we can forgive each other here for just a moment, can you help me out?”

AJ looked around her and saw nothing but the blank, white page, “Does it look like I have a choice?”

Pen huffed, “Anyways, from what you have experienced in the story so far, would you say that the time and pacing was good?”

Applejack could only shake her head in confusion, “I live in the story! The time for me goes by the minute, hours, and days! How should I know what you’re record’n down?”

I guess I can strike that off the list, the author said to himself. “Ok, so what about the action? Do you think it’s engaging and exciting?”

“If you mean to say that risking my life is exciting and fun to read about, then you obviously need to go see a doctor.” She crossed her arms once more, “Or a priest.”

“Alright…” Discontent with what she said, Pen placed both of his hooves back on the desk and sighed. “What about your supporting cast? I mean, the ponies you interact with in the story?”

“Besides the ones try’n to kill me?” Applejack asked, not exactly thrilled by what she said.

He nodded, “Yes.”

“I suppose they an’t too bad,” she admitted, rubbing her forearm. “...If it weren’t for the fact that some of them made the dumbest decisions for me as well.” AJ groaned, “Again, it’s not like my life would be put on the line or anything.”

Well… That’s true, I will admit. He took in a deep breath before he exhaled, frustrated once more with the completely honest answers. Pen should have expected this in the first place since she was the Element of Honesty after all. It was sorta the trademark to her character’s personality.

“Alright,” he sighed. “Can you at least tell me that the adventure aspect of your story was good? I mean, you do love to travel right?”

“Well…” Applejack tilted her head towards the side, “I mean it wasn’t all that bad, unless you count the number of times I got shot at, bitten by pesky mosquitoes, got cold, hungry from the lack of food, and injured from the random obstacles with your story that kept beating me up. Meanwhile, I’m missing my family that I should, in theory, have never ran away from in the first place!”

Pen Name could only deadpan at the anthro before he threw his hooves up into the air. He was done, absolutely finished with the conversion. By the way he had written Applejack, the author concluded that he wasn’t going to be able to extract any more decent information from her that could help him out. It was at this point he concluded, Applejack was useless to him.

“I’m done!” he shouted.

“You’re done?” Applejack cheered, “Great! Can you-”

Pen Name lit his horn and cancelled the spell upon the paper. All the words that were used to form Applejack’s body had returned their proper sentences and paragraphs. It was now the same manuscript was it was before. Meanwhile, Pen wasn’t going to be the same pony as he was after that experience. If there was one thing he could take out of it, at least he got this message clear;

He needed to hire pre-readers instead.

The Epilogue

One Week Later…

The next edition to Pen Name’s story had hit the local book shops in Canterlot. To his surprise, the update did a lot better than the previous content already published. Grinning, Pen knew he had a certain character to thank for their harsh, yet honest advice.

As he sat back on his seat at the front of his desk, Pen couldn’t help but think about his interesting, although annoying experience with his own character practically roasting him alive for the choices he made in his story. Although, a part of him admitted that he deserved what Applejack said while another side claimed it shouldn’t have mattered what she thought about the story as long as he had fun while writing it. This conflict erupted into a debate within his head.

Isn’t the point of writing supposed to be having fun with our imagination? Or should I be taking this seriously? I mean, the ponies do want quality content, right? Otherwise, would they just simply ignore it? Then again, some of them do like troll stories. Pen scratched his chin, pondering upon those questions.

He never understood troll stories and why they are constantly written. Absolutely nothing guided their plot's structure, thus they are usually their own free standing tale with the most obscene, weird, crazy, and far-fetched ideas. They are sometimes, without a doubt, stupendously insane with a side of ridiculousness. The only explanation Pen could come up with was maybe they did the same thing to the writer that he liked to do with his stories.

Pen liked to have fun with what he wrote since his own imagination sometimes gave him exciting ideas, motivating him to write them down to the best of his abilities. Yet, he also knew that when he began writing them down, not a single aspect about it needed to be completely ridiculous, unexplained, or just plain confusing. Thus, that was when the seriousness within his writing would kick in.

However, Pen sorta had a short attention span, with a patience to match. He wanted the story to be written down and finished as soon as it was started, yet Pen unfortunately knew that wasn’t ever going to be the case. Most of his stories took a lot of time to be completely written out before they are even sent through the editing process, to which that could sometimes take even longer than writing the novel itself.

The complete writing process constantly frustrated Pen until he finally asked himself, Then why am I even doing this in the first place when I could be spending my free time elsewhere?

He then stared blankly at the wall for moment until he moved his chair away from the desk. Getting down from the seat, he kept his blank expression as he walked over towards his door. Opening it up, Pen Name decided to not dwell inside his home anymore. Instead, he went outside to enjoy the beautiful day.

Then he remembered, Oh Celestia! I’m getting paid to do this! Crap!