The Unoffical Guide to Failing at Fanfiction

by MasterFrasca

Rating: everyone
Tags: My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Original Character, Comedy, Random
Length: 3979

You are reading this from the archive right? Look at the title. 'Nuff said.

This is the unofficial guide to failing at fan-fiction in the My little Pony Universe. With guidelines on how to write out your very own fan-fiction and with hints on how to boost your name to the top of the list of all those people who said you wouldn't amount to anything in this drab, dying society, this is your reference in a sea of stories!

This was something I wrote as a spur-of-the-moment idea. Nothing in this "guide" should be taken seriously, and I just wanted to give someone a good laugh. This pokes fun at nearly every story type out there, so please don't be insulted if I say something that relates to a work of yours.

Read, Comment, Enjoy -MasterFrasca99

Published 2012-01-28 08:09:56 UTC
Last updated 2012-11-19 23:24:24 UTC

Choosing a Topic

Welcome, humble readers, to the unofficial guide on failing at creating your very first My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic fan-fiction! This one and only guide was created on the sole purpose of helping out all of the aspiring writers planning to make it big with their own version of “Cupcakes.” This was also created for those few who have the talent to actually come up with an original idea of their own, although the people falling under this group are few and far inbetween. This wonderful, glorious, stupendous, eye-popping, stomach-churning, head-turning, original, new, terrible, different, one-of-a-kind, authentic, genuine, prototypical, and all-around-weird guide will help you on your long, twisting path towards a nearly unreachable goal in which few have succeeded in reaching.

But, I digress, as enough of these tedious introductions and such have been announced. We have a long way to go before you, wonderful reader, become recognized as one of the many talents in this world capable of writing a My Little Pony fan-fiction that will literally blow away the community with its shear radicalness. This guide is to be your friend. Remember to refer to it in any way possible if you are to get stuck or seem to be dragging at any point in the creation of your first fanfiction. I hope all of you will gain from this magical addition to this amazing site!

Choosing a Topic

One of the most challenging things to a new member of the community is trying to choose the topic they would like to write about. The amount of mind-blowing, pure essence of awesome that the average person receives usually will overcome said person, making this time far from ideal when choosing a topic. After letting your mind cool for a few weeks after being melted by the god-like colorful ponies that forcibly teach all who gaze in their direction a key lesson in the controversial realm of friendship. Once the hype has died down, and thoughts other than praising your idol, Rainbow Dash, as she flies circles around your head, making “sonic rainbooms” with each passing are allowed to slip into your mind, you may want to consider a topic on which you want write about.

Choosing your topic is the most important step in writing a fan-fiction, because without a topic, all that would be accomplished is drooling on a piece of paper as you daydream about making out with Pinkie Pie and stuffing you face with one of Applejack’s many apple related creations, while Octavia plays some awesome tunes on her contrabass and Princess Celestia gives you a wink indicating that she would require some company tonight in the royal bedroom. You would sit staring at the wall in pure ecstasy, and, while I recommend this for slight depression and any case of taking a break, as I have indulged in that world as much as the next aptly named “brony” has, this act will get you no closer to the goal you’ve

been trying to reach: thinking up a topic to write a full-fledged fan-fiction.

A common theme to write about during a writer’s first story is romance. Romance is usually very sappy and long, usually going through many pages of filler of the main characters simply basically saying “I love you” to each other for paragraphs on end. While very easy to do, as most relationship fictions are just a bunch of unnecessary drama that can be avoided normally, yet the characters choose to go through with every half-baked idea that they think will impress the other, usually resulting in failure leading to another terrible idea that will fall under the same circumstances as the first, romance fictions have already been done, and every relationship that can be made has already been done.

Another common theme most people think to write about for some strange reason is dark stories usually involving massive amounts of gore or sexual themes. This end of the spectrum is a dangerous territory, as many great stories have been spawned from this hell of colorful-ponies-turned-psycho. Although a dark fiction can be written, the end result nearly always comes to be a silly “Cupcakes” rip off, as Pinkie turns into a monster and goes on a killing spree, mutilating her friends with various torture devices and large blunt objects. The other spectrum of the dark genre of fan-fiction usually depicts erotic acts done by one pony to another. Unless you happen to be a top class lesbian porn writer, this genre should be avoided.

Comedy and random fictions usually go together like eggs and bacon. You write something, and someone, somewhere laughs at your horrible attempt to make a funny joke that turns out to be no better than the old chicken crossing a road. Scootaloo would not appreciate your efforts. Leave the randomness to the professionals who sit in their basements believing that writing at three in the morning and relating it to ponies instantly makes every word the print onto a page funnier.

Another popular topic many young writers love to do is putting ponies into an alternate universe. Nearly everyone has written themselves into the Equestrian world as a new pony, and this usually results in a run of the mill story of a human discovering what it is like to magically be a miniature horse all of a sudden. Most of these types of alternate universe fan-fictions are written while the author is still having heart attacks while Fluttershy attempts to yell “yay” to an annoyed Rainbow Dash. Other alternate universe stories usually place the ponies into a world that they could never survive in, or we do a switch-up of a confused human in Equestria to a confused pony in New York. This may not be the topic to choose as it has become as cliché as saying everything is twenty percent cooler than every other thing that isn’t.

Now we come to the last general topic of the simple “slice of life” genre. While seemingly easy to write as this could be anything from Twilights decision that she wants a new haircut to surprise all her friends, to Princess Luna deciding she wants to get as drunk as possible before trying out for the Wonderbolts. As interesting as it may seem to you, the decision to write in this topic is an outright crime to humanity and equestrianity, as these stories are always boring until the supposed climax, where they decide that whatever they did wasn’t good enough and that they’d rather just revert back to the way everyday has been.

An adventure is always a way to draw readers in from far and wide to witness the amazing trek that your cast choices will go on. While it will attract a large audience, this type of work is the most difficult as your readers will expect to see a heart-wrenching moment where rarity forgets about her luscious locks of hair to save the trustworthy and hard-working Applejack. They expect pages upon pages where you invent new worlds and watch as your readers bask in the irradiated light emanating from these mystical worlds. This, of course, puts pressure on you, the author, to amaze and shock them every time an update is released, as well as making chapter after chapter within days so you can constantly update your stories to make all of your readers happy. While a good adventure fiction will definitely launch your image to the top of the scales in the community, this type of work is tiring and demanding. This is obviously the wrong choice to make while trying to make it to the top easily, as honest work is overrated these days.

After taking all these into consideration, we must decide what topic we want to trick ourselves into believing we can write in. Whichever topic you choose will be the wrong one for you and you will most likely regret it as you bore yourself to death after about three pages of writing. At this point it is no longer the problem of choosing a topic as much as it is picking the poison you want your fantasy story status to burn to a crisp in. The world of fan-fiction is not for the weak of mind and soul, and posting anything can affect your delicate status. The most important thing to remember while choosing a topic is not to write what your heart gives you, but what the public demands from you.

Writing the Plot

Writing the Plot

After we have finally finished the ordeal of choosing our theoretical topic that may or may not fall under any or all of the categories listed in the previous chapter, we must get right down to the actual text, the actual substance of the entire novel, granted you are willing to stick it out until the very end. Although you may feel as though you are prepared to tell of Rarity’s rise to fame in Canterlot as she invents dress after impossible dress, while in reality, Rainbow Dash is supplying all the designs while hiding in the shadows of the common ponyfolk, you can always run into a roadblock if you don’t tread carefully

over the icy surface of the literary threshold.

A mental check is necessary to solidify your stand on proceeding down the perilous path many writers fear to tread, as fan-fiction is set in a controlled environment in which the author has limited control. Pinkie Pie suddenly deciding to settle down and go into accounting would be a hazardous step forward, just as having Fluttershy fighting a full-grown dragon without batting a precious eyelash goes against all the rules of those character’s personalities. This act would not only ruin the entirety of your story, but the resulting post would most likely catch you computer on fire and send a message to space satellites telling them to launch the missiles of every country currently in possession of any, big or small, to correct this horrible mistake on humanity.

But I digress, as I have gotten a little off-topic in the last few sentences. Once more, a mental check is necessary to begin. First we check to see what topic, if any, we have thought about choosing. Once that is done we mentally dump every idea about that topic and forget we ever thought that we, as writers, could think of anything near what many believe to be a “successful topic.” Once all thoughts have been cleared from your head, we must proceed to the wonderful and mysterious “internet” to scout for different topics to rip off. Creativity, although made out to be the best thing to have since your top of the line pony toys in which Celestia is an odd pink color that no human on earth has ever made her out to be, is something to avoid, and, being so, requires an extensive rip-off of another famous story.

Remember your place, however; as the internet is a dangerous place that even the one and only, great, and supreme ruler of the land, Celestia, fears to allow public access to; one of the only reasons ponies in Equestra are void of such technological advances. Every type of plotline can be found, from a simple meeting of the ponies discussing whether or not to have Derpy help in the next winter wrap-up due to her nature of accidentally setting various buildings on fire while searching for birds hidden in chimneys, to the more complex battle for Equestrian prosperity in which Dr. Who comes in and helps his counterpart, Dr. Whooves, invent a new machine to turn the cute cutie mark crusaders into war machines with the push of a button.

Once you’ve found a good enough story to completely rip “your” ideas from, start a new draft that nearly copies the original manuscript except for a few minor details that don’t affect the overall plot arc that is occurring in said story. Changes such as having Fluttershy volunteer to test out a new love potion for Zecora instead of Rainbow Dash are ok, as this can be resolved by having Dash steal the potion and revert the story back to its intended path. Major things, such as which pony will have to give their life to save the rest of Equestrian society to stop Discord’s tyrannical takeover of Celestia’s revolting empire as society collapses around everyone, should  be left as is, as trying to change any of these around will result in the same scenario as trying to actually writing an original work.

Remember while writing the story to be grammatically correct, as this aspect can be the difference between you’re story being great or horrible. Using punctuation properly is another thing to watch so that you dont make any runon sentences and people can understand what it is you are trying to get across to them as it is very hard to follow when you have one sentence after another with no breaks or pauses in between them. Leanring to sepll words corrcetly as they appaer in the Engrish dictionary is anothre thing to watch for, as seplling words rihgt makes you seem more intellegent than otehrs arund you.

After finally preparing yourself with another story to follow closely so that yours may be perfect in the creation of the next big fiction, and you have written the first chapter of a minimum of three hundred words, you should post it immediately onto the site, not bothering to proofread it one iota, as a rough draft is always the best thing. Once your story has passed moderation by the almighty knighty (or one of his trusted minions that feed off the wasted hours of helpless souls trapped forever browsing the site), you should sit back and bask in the glory of readers looking at your content. Remember once you have posted to never go back and change any aspect of your story as your first draft will always and forever be as good as Pinkie Pie’s iconic cupcakes.

Do not try and add onto the story, as people need to become aware of its existence, and so you need to give them at least a night to read and tell you their brutal honest opinion. Whatever they suggest you do next you need to do regardless of how ridiculous the request. If someone wants you to have Fluttershy brutally murdered by Cheerilee for suggesting a fieldtrip to Sweet Apple Acres so all the little fillies could get drunk from the immense stores of hard apple cider that Applejack hides from the rest of the world, then you do it, even if your story deals with a loving relationship between Luna and Twilight. The context is no matter when it comes to fan changes; you must always respect your fans whishes as they praise you and erect giant statues of you in their backyard next to all the mane six that they hand-built themselves from imported marble from Greece.

Finally, once your story inevitably derails from all of the idiotic suggestions that all the readers feel it is necessary to give you, you must then turn and make everything a rushed version of “Cupcakes,” because once you put that into the fiction, your story will quadruple in ratings, and that type of writing requires no skill from the author. Every “Cupcakes” rip is successful in the end regardless of who dies, because, by mere association, even a passing mention of the fiction is a popularity booster.

Dealing With Writers Block

Dealing with Writer's Block

Now that you have a successful story under your belt, there comes a time when you need to start thinking of new ideas and whatnot to add to your story that may or may not make sense in the long run. Writer’s block is a serious illness that affects a writer’s mind in ways unimaginably horrible ways that involve the rotting of the outer inner earlobe and other nasty things like the changing of one’s gender. This illness once it hits stage three is incurable and will probably result in an addiction to television and salty snacks.

My job, however is not to teach you of the many deadly illness that can be caught from sitting in a basement alone looking up questionable things while slacking off in story-writing. I’m here to help make sure you loyal reader never catch any illness and keep writing grade A- material for your loyal fans who are all just robots designed to make you feel happy in life. Dealing with writer’s block is a tough thing, almost as hard as trying to have Applejack buck down some zap apples three months before they’re due and then forcing her to go make solid gold out of them that will transform into grape jelly whenever someone makes a Molestia joke.

One way to help deal with writers block is to go to your local Pony-market and buy essence of intelligence at the cost of a limb or three. If you are unwilling to give up one of your limbs or do not have the required amount and are forced to write your fiction by smashing your face on the keyboard until words start to form, then there is an alternate solution or two that may work for you.  These solutions may cost part or all of your fanbase, so make sure to think twice about the limb-loss solution before you decide to try these for the fate of all the figurative and non-existent characters you force to do pointless and possibly dangerous tasks along the insanity of forty three and a half Pinkie Pie clones.

The first of these questionably dangerous and insane solutions is to take a break for about a week or fifty. The longer you stray away from the literary world and stop thinking about Twilight gazing into your soul demanding that you write more about her Saturday so she isn’t left hanging off a cliff as Spike runs an endless distance, never quite reaching her before she falls, the less you worry about updating your stories. Unfortunately this solution leads to extreme cases of laziness and can subsequently cause heart attacks when you remember that you used to be a someone in the Literary realm when you told of Lyra and her problems of trying to flip the Earth upside down by standing on her head.

This course of action is deadly due to the substantial heart attacks and brain clots that form from the laziness threat ensues with a free life and nothing to do with it but vegetate in front of a TV wondering why Blues never talked in the show, but the safest way to proceed with writers block compared to the other solutions. The percent chance of death is lower than 10% in this course of actions. However this is a risky move to try as your hyper, candy-induced, spasmoid fanbase with an attention span of about three minutes will forget that they ever tried to read any of your pathetic stories and liked them. Your name will be back off the charts and you’ll be back at square one with the only proof of writing you have is a copy and pasted story about Pinkie pondering what it would be like to be a cupcake for three minutes near a hungry and rabid Winona.

Another solution to the problem of writer’s block that is a trite more painful than simply dropping off the face of the Earth for a few months involves a bat and the Writers head. A simple jog of the noggin can always produce ideas better than trying to drink until Ponies inhabit your vision so that they make you paranoid that they’re going to steal all of your pencils and sell them for various baked goods at the nearest crack dealer. Give yourself a little whack on the head, gripping the bat with both hands and swinging as fast as your muscles allow. If you don’t see ponies yet, then keep trying until a creepy version of Twilight comes and tries to convince you that everypony will die because of your negligence to the winery and keeping Berry Punch’s demonic mind under the wraps of hard liquor. If you are seeing blood, stop and call the police immediately, as you’ve taken an overdose of the bat treatment, and this may result in death by hyperventilating and pony overdose. Only when you lie bleeding on the floor may this occur.

This solution may get you hospitalized, and this is the perfect way to force you to write about how you are exactly like Rainbow Dash when she decided to take up reading. However this solution may affect your ability to think at certain times and may leave you not remembering where you are at certain times. Panic is sure to ensue, but when it does, calm yourself by imagining that Fluttershy is giving you a foot massage. Imagine that her hooves are running up your toes getting all of the stress out from your body, and she slowly and sensually rubs your legs to calm you down and make you feel happy and complete once more. Imagine that her hooves run up your leg and start to unbutton your pants as she reaches forward to... I’ve said too much.

The final solution that is an alternate to imagining Fluttershy naked on a bed, which is the only logical solution to choose in the first place regardless of what your original problem was, is to actually fight through it. This is the most dangerous solution of them all, as it requires an original thought to be produced and written down on paper as well as force you to solve mundane problems that can’t be fixed by typing it into google. This solution can cause productive thought and originality and must be avoided at all costs. Although it is effective, you will be regarded as an original who is constantly trying to come up with unheard of  ideas like Luna hooking up Chrysalis who is actually disguised as Big Macintosh and they manage to go all the way and Luna becomes impregnated with Chrysalis’s baby changeling.

This solution is dangerous as you have to try and put humor and sadness into various creations and think up different scenarios for various things in your stories. You may even revert to adding to a previous story and trying to be creative while the public doesn’t even recognize your name. Sometimes you may even try to write a guide and fail horrifically to get a point across and know what it is you’re even talking about. This is the lowest stage a writer can sink and it is best to avoid this if it is possible, as it’s the equivalent of handing Luna’s power to raise the moon to say Pinkie who just decides to make it go at light speed and have the nights last for twelve seconds so that ponies can sleep for entire days without realizing it.

All in all the best solution to dealing with writers block is to make up some random shit that people will eventually read and maybe laugh at due to your ability to ramble and make up millions of different pointless scenarios in your mind. Good luck readers at dealing with this challenging illness that plagues humanity and which will probably kill us off before someone discovers a viable way to travel to Equestria and have us blow our minds by staring at the endless amount of female ponies available on the market that are too creeped out by our sloth-like and screwy ways to actually consider dating or talking to.

Remember that writer's block doesn't mean the end! it just means that you are a terrible person!