To those who write. To those who read. And to myself.
Our unspoken words, given form.
Twilight placed down one of her favorite books after a long night of reading. Her vision had been blurred by the unending focus she’d given it, and those annoying visual squiggles from eyestrain now rested in her peripheral somewhere only slightly out of her direct sight. She yawned and thought of nothing in the blue-dyed landscape of the quiet night.
It had been a long time since she was afforded this level of levity in the bustle and busyness of her new royal duties. Ever since she’d taken responsibility of that decorated mantle, she found she had less and less time on her hooves to do the thing that came natural to her. The art of words. Reading them, at the very least. She could not be denied them for long however, and so it was that Equestria would face a full day without her careful watch.
Just as her circadian rhythm was reaching the cycle of sleep, she had a thought. The words a certain purple dragon had given her in jest.
“If you love books so much, why don’t you write one?”
Maybe the little dragon was miffed due to the responsibilities of her vacation being left abruptly on his shoulders, for he’d also added at the end of that statement that he would not help her write one either like he’d always done before with her letters to Princess Celestia. Now the tables had been turnt. So to speak.
This led her down a rabbit hole of questions that would take up the rest of the night. She’d always read all manner of books in her life, so she was positive that she could write a good one of her own. But with each thought of what and how she wanted to write that book, a sea of questions replaced each answered one.
It began as an innocent thought, which lead to the greatest turmoil Princess Twilight Sparkle had ever felt or would ever feel again.
What would she write about? How would she go about writing it? First Person, Omniscient/Limited Third? Maybe even Second? Why would she write her book, for what reason? Who would she include in it? Should she write truth or fiction? Should she embellish truths or downplay lies? Should she describe every detail as she saw it in the most painful, articulate way she could or skip them to get to the important parts? Which would be better to read or lend to her points being made that much more?
Wait hold on, that was a pretty good question there in the middle of that. What would be her first book to write? A truth, or a fiction?
Her life read like a fiction after all, so it would be easy to take a direct representation of her adventures in her point of view as a pseudo fictitious truth. Though the more she thought about it, the more redundant that thought became. You see, Twilight had grown quite the renown in her life. From the moment she was pledged to Celestia’s tutelage, she had, had many a watchful eye on her travels and adventures.
Twilight wasn’t the only bright mind amongst the ponies who could see the stars aligning from the very start. Not by a long shot. There were hundreds of individuals all throughout Equus who had painstakingly went on a journey of their own to write down the chronicling of her rise to power, in almost every way you could think of.
Sure, while her direct testimony of those events might be a breath of fresh air and new insight into the happenings of old, it would just be like one more drop within the sea of sparkles in the twilit sky.
And Twilight, well... like most new artists and authors to their craft, she aimed to make her Magnum Opus right out the gate. She was knowledgeable, worldly, and well-read. She’d written many a letter to the Princess before (well mostly Spike). And she was absolutely positive she could write the most impactful piece of literature to ever grace Equestrian libraries on her first try.
For all of three minutes that was, until she sat down to think of a single good idea to write about.
She could write truths and would either have to borrow her own friends' and enemies’ words directly from their mouths, or put herself in their shoes and speak on their behalf. Which presented all manner of logistical problems when writing about those events. Memories are not perfect and writing isn’t a science. Even if they could recall everything exactly as it went, some artistic liberties would have to be taken to make the story more colorful, more impactful, and more vibrant to an average reader’s mind. An extra layer of grip in an otherwise played-out tale.
At the end of the day, how would she go about writing a truth better than the theatrical way others had described those events themselves? Even if historians would appreciate her relativism, she wanted her story to reach as many minds as possible. To touch as many hearts as she could. She wanted a deeper connection with her readers outside of scientific and historical study.
After all, she’d grown up reading books herself.
She knew books were a window to a soul. A wordy illustration into the mind of another, whether truth OR fiction. Even the longest epics and sagas were but a single snapshot into the life and mind of some other pony who she, as new Princess to Equestria, wanted everything to believe they mattered just as much as herself. For she’d been shaped by those written words. Her personality, her beliefs, her sense of self, and her love for the world around her.
All of the books she had ever read had contributed to what she was.
And every time others agreed to her rule without question, and every time pleasantries had been spoken her way saying things that implicated that she was the most important pony in Equestria, she couldn’t help but want to fight back those accusations by saying she would not be before them all like this had it not been for her friends and for those who had shaped her life with their words.
So it was that Twilight was distraught.
She did not want her Magnum Opus to be a hollow expression of who she was as a pony. She did not even want to write about herself in fear that other growing minds could not connect and relate with her words, much like she had as a filly with stories of the average pony. Even if her own life's story had begun normally, she knew there was an inherent disconnect to how everyone saw her in the present day.
She wanted to represent her philosophies but not by stating them outright. She wanted to incite thoughtful discourse with every question posed indirectly by the narrative. She wanted to write something truly profound and poetically beautiful that showed who she really was without ever so much as stating her name. But most of all, she wanted to write in a way where she could connect with her readers meaningfully and share with them the wisdoms of her life in order to help them along their own paths.
She wanted to write of moral lessons to be taken to heart so that both old and young readers alike could learn and grow from her words, in much the same way Princess Celestia had always made her write to her about the lessons on the magic of friendship, and all the young fiction novels she’d read by authors who interspersed those ideas throughout their written adventures.
Taking pages from her own history, she wanted to write about the growing pains of being a fledgling in life even as grown as you’d become. In an effort to show that even as an adult, you were susceptible to the wiles of life. That we were not infallible in our design.
She wanted to write about the eternal condition of sentient life as a whole, whether you were a pony, yak, bovine, umbrum, crystal, zebra, dragon, kirin, griffin, changeling, something else entirely or even non-sentient animals. All of us, all wishing, yearning, hoping and moving along with Fate’s machinations in order to live. Always looking for the immutable hope in life. The idea that we are all born free to find our happiness. Even if some of us get lost in the way. All wanting to love and be loved.
She wanted to write a true expression of love, not in the form of hugs and kisses like those often seen in normal romances, but one defined by the deep desire to grow together. One that showed the work and maintenance that went into creating those relationships. A mother to her child. Friends who would always stick together. Eternal sisters rend apart for millennia. Even unlikely souls being drawn together. Relationships that showed a deeper understanding of what love really means. To inspire each other to live for tomorrow.
“Help me learn how to live.” She’d often recite to herself the singular line that stuck to her like glue from one of her all-time favorite stories, having resonated so strongly with her.
Eventually, Twilight fell on wanting to write her first book as a fiction. The avenue she needed for the creative freedom to write about everything in her head.
But that was just the first of many, many questions.
What would this fiction story be about? What race would the protagonist be, if a pony at all? What if it wasn’t any of the races of Equestria?
Could she write a book about a small changeling wishing and learning to love and be free for what feels like the first time? Her tale being one of growing up and learning to take all of her feelings in stride. A story of self-discovery and heavy responsibility.
Maybe one of action and adventure, with creatures so outlandish and strange that could be trained and fit inside one's saddle pockets. A long sprawling saga shrouded in mystery and constant tension. A story of redemption and sacrifice.
Perhaps maybe even one where you are something else entirely, so alien and unlike anything in Equestria. A story where you have to make a life for yourself in this world after a transformation, and having to fight your very self...
Well, she didn’t rightly know how to begin her story. There were a million ways to start one. A million ways to describe what she wanted to say. A million ways to speak on those things.
It took ages to choose a topic for her to begin writing about something. Something indicative of everything she wanted to express. It took hours more to think of a catchy title for the book, as she was hell-bent on making a triple entendre with the symbolism in its meaning while also making it appealing at just a glance. And perhaps just as long to think up a short description that could reel in a random reader’s attention instantly. She also needed a cover illustration so vibrant and representative of the story while not giving away anything major in its plot, as well as needing to write the first chapter as best as she possibly could in the most gripping way she could think to write it to hook ponies into its premise just from its introduction alone.
It was hard work and it required a level of thinking she’d never given anything in her life. A mulling over of every possible sentence and word structure in all of literature twice, thrice over. She couldn’t help but think that writing truly was an art unlike any other. The level of depth that could be injected in it... those deep sentiments and ideals that go into carefully selecting each word... these were all things that perhaps for the first time, she was seeing in the work of others.
And for a while, she is reminded of all the passages from some of her favorite books, and some of the passages from her least favorite books too. She is inundated with the idea that all these careful considerations of symbolism, hidden meanings, foreshadowing, catchy displays, theatrical verbiage, and other literary elements are something that will never get to be seen by the readers.
A story was more than just the written words you see on a page after all.
How many of them had she truly missed out on reading because of this? How truly infinitesimally small was the size of the picture painted of the mind that wrote them? In much the same way she imagined a single sentence going up against a one-hundred-page book, she envisioned the reaches of that vast, vast depth that readers like herself could never understand simply from scratching the surface of what had been jotted down.
Like unspoken words.
Finally, as she began to write, she struggled to maintain more technical things like past and present tenses. She struggled with average grammar which threw her for a loop because Celestia only knows why language has to be so tricksy and difficult all the time. It was hard work! Real hard work. It felt like she was physically taking chunks out of her mind and draping them over the pages slowly and painfully. Every paragraph felt like a mound, a hill, a cliff, a mountainside she needed to overcome. Then, as she’d gotten to the peak of each, she would have to take a careful look back at the rest of the road traveled to make sure it all just somehow made sense, that it all connected well.
Quite a living nightmare, it was.
She needed to make sure her highs were as high as her lows were low. She needed drama at almost every step, emotion in every other, and symbolic parallels at every third.
By the end of her first chapter ordeal, she felt more exhausted than she’d ever felt before. But it wasn’t over. Oh no. You can’t call yourself a writer if your misadventure stops there.
Like Sisyphus, she was bound to hell. Or whatever the pony equivalent of that was.
Over and over and over again she’d go back to make micro-changes left and right. She’d find she had glossed over some of the words she forgot to write in. Small grammatical mistakes, antiquated colloquialisms not used in the modern age, and even problems with her syntax. She’d find that she could express some sentences in a much more eloquent way after reading them over again. Found that she needed to restructure entire paragraphs because they just wouldn’t make sense or read well once she'd read the full thing top to bottom as they’d disrupt the reading flow for a brief second too long to feel comfortable leaving it in as it were. She even had to do a lot of chronological restructuring of the events in the story so as to feel more impactful when they landed after all had been said and done...
Hundreds and hundreds of changes, perhaps thousands if not more so. By the end, it could no longer be called the same story it was when the night had begun.
But the night had come and gone already, and she was finally done.
And even with the monumental labor that had gone into creating her craft... she could not feel that it was her Magnum Opus.
However, much to her surprise, once ponies from across all walks of life started reading and commenting on her work, she found new purpose in wanting to write the rest. From their wonderful praises to their scathing criticisms, she found delight in being able to discuss what she’d so lovingly crafted with every ounce of her heart.
She understood writers a bit more now.
What they must feel like to experience that themselves. To know that they etched a part of themselves into others who will walk away from their words with a little of themselves in tow.
Readers will never consider the unspoken words that a writer will consider. All they can do is read what has been written. Insinuate what only they can insinuate with their limited knowledge. Be led along with your foreshadowing and false narratives. Your carefully constructed literary plans and traps. Your symbolisms and expressions of your thoughts and the scenes that play in your head when you write about them.
Despite all of that...
Readers will also never truly understand how important they are to a story. For if there is no one to read your work then it might as well fade to the annals of time never having been written to begin with. If even a single soul walked away with something from that experience you gave them, then it would have been worth the effort.
For there is power in words, no matter how small. You might find that the next ruler of Equestria might carry a single sentence from your work throughout the rest of her life in her heart so strongly and prominently, it shapes the rest of the outside world.
Every life a product of circumstance. Every soul a culmination of our realities. What we are is written in ourselves.
And so,
Twilight ends this first chapter of her life having learned of the power of words.
After a long career of storytelling, Twilight sits down to seriously contemplate the style of her writing and the purpose of her stories. She wonders if she did good, or if they were just misplaced efforts that no one ever took to heart as much as she had with the stories she’d grown up with.
She guessed she would never know if she never asked anyone directly. Regardless, as she looks back on her tall tales throughout the years, Twilight is reminded of a few sentences she'd written. Sentences so relevant to her feelings, she walks away from them etched into her own heart.
If for no one else, she wrote that story for herself alone.
If a person's life could be read like a book, I wonder what it would say about me?
What would it say about my work?
For whom were those stories meant for?
Of course... I know the answer to that. With a big smile and overwhelming pride in my chest, I yelled into the silence with all that I could muster my unspoken gratitude to every soul that had helped shape my life.
"For everyone's sake!"
