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Ponibius

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  1. Ponibius
    Thanks for having us! It has been fun. I hope everyone had their questions sufficiently answered.
  2. Ponibius
    That is ultimately a question you have to answer for yourself. Because it's largely a judgement call. It might help to write a few chapters before publishing so that you have a better idea of where the story is going and prevent this from happening to start with. It also gives you something of a buffer to run on should you have a period where you're not writing much.
  3. Ponibius
    For me, the worst episode is Spike At Your Service, an absolutely wretched and cliche episode that made everyone look like an idiot, and whose only redeeming quality was Pinkie with a mustache.
  4. Ponibius
    I would say Season 2. Overall I think it had more episodes I liked, introduced Discord and Chrysalis, and had a lot of high notes. A strong season all around. One I'm going to write in the future. I do have plans for what I hope will be great stories, and I'm really looking forward to writing.
  5. Ponibius
    I would say David Weber, Jim Butcher, and R.A. Salvatore. Weber for the worldbuilding, intrigue, and storylines. Jim Butcher for characters, interweaving story, and getting down first person and great action scenes. R.A. Salvatore very much influenced my way to do action scenes also and got me into the whole high fantasy genre. Throw two characters into a room together and have them interact. That's a pretty quick and dirty way to just get practice with dialogue and interacting. Look to my previous post to see where I get inspiration. Namely, from everywhere I can.
  6. Ponibius
    Oh we've batted a few ideas around. The issue is that none of us are overly wild about Equestria Girls (or at least I'm not). The problem is that the high school genre is a plot wasteland of overused cliches and zero inventiveness. Once you've seen one high school movie, you've seen 95% of them. For the first movie, you had the interesting bit, the magic, the mystery, the ponies, and they cut all that stuff away to have a very generic, by the numbers high school film about beating the local school bully to win prom. So we aren't rushing to get into the EQG universe. There are things we can certainly do with it, but it would take going off in directions EQG wasn't originally intended to go.
  7. Ponibius
    Oh certainly. It can be especially glaring when one aspect of a writer can be very good, but others are not good. For example. I think David Weber is great at making stories, but his characters tend to be relatively flat and same-y. While R.A. Salvatore can make some really interesting characters, but some of his plots can really fall flat, especially some of his later works where he clearly didn't want to write a specific character anymore, but was told to by his editor.
  8. Ponibius
    That comes down whether that person is a good writer or not, and a person in general. I do think you should write what you want to write and stick to your guns. But also be aware that once you put something into the public sphere it will get criticism, and that people are allowed to have their opinions. For myself, I do listen to what my readers say about my story. Now how I take what they say depends on what they say, and I judge it by a case by case basis. Ultimately, it's what you're happy with when you're writing fanfiction, just be ready to reap the whirlwind of what you write.
  9. Ponibius
    Shorter stories are easier to read and carry a smaller investment. Especially when you see a story that is over 100k and still unfinished. So naturally people are going to gravitate towards those. I know I'm more reluctant to dive into something like Game of Thrones, a very large series that is yet unfinished, versus something like Heart of Darkness, a relatively short book. I think it just comes down to the investment on the part of readers and reviewers.
  10. Ponibius
    Write the story you want to write. At the end of the day, it's your story, and you own it. If you're not happy with how the story is then you have a problem. It's okay to take suggestions from readers if you really like them and can work them into your story smoothly, but don't feel compelled to do so by any means. If you wrote the story you wanted, then you can hold your head up high for that. At least for myself, I would feel a lot worse caving to reader demands and it messing up my story as a result. You know the story your writing, where it is going, and how it will end. Stay the course as you desire. I would say whatever works, works. Though be very careful when you break with conventions. You better know what you are doing or you will fall on your face in a very messy way. The English language is a messy, disfigured hybrid of an abomination, so you can get away with quite a bit.... technically. So stick with conventions unless you really know what you want.
  11. Ponibius
    When the narrative demands it. Find the best places in your story to break and switch to different characters. On cliffhangers or when a miniplot point have been reached are good places to switch perspectives. Look at some of the stories you have liked that had multiple perspectives and see how they handled it. See what type of events happen that percipitated shifts in perspective.
  12. Ponibius
    I tell myself to sit down and write. I'll turn off the TV, close Youtube, turn off my music, and so on until I'm in a dark room with nothing but the GoogleDoc in front of me so that I can concentrate and write if that's what it takes. For me, writing is all about momentum. The first word is always tougher than the next five hundred. I try and write at least a little bit each day, with my daily goal being 500 words a day, but I prefer to see 1,000 words a day. Noramlly I try and set aside a period of time to write, though it can depend how the mood strikes me. Some days I just don't feel like writing, and so don't. I also spend my breaks at work writing, considering there are few distractions then, and I can normally get out 300 words during my lunch break, which slowly adds up.
  13. Ponibius
    Living with them, eating with them, working with them, and holding full conversations with them. It's a very crammed place in my head. I can think of numerous instances where I've put down logical arguments by straight up villains, and make it sound reasonable from a certain perspective.
  14. Ponibius
    But I do like a little bit of everything! But seriously, I like classical, metal, some rock, and some pop. At least that is what I listen to most of the time.
  15. Ponibius
    Some writers whose work I enjoy are shameless self promoter Trinary, AestheticB, Capn_Chryssalid, Ponydore Prancypants, Cold in Gardez, Paleo Prints, The Descendant, Eakin and Visiden Visidane.
  16. Ponibius
    I do that during the planning phase for a story and during the editing process. I like to make my readers think now and again with my stories, and I have to make sure that my stories don't have content that is inappropriate for the story. So that necessitates looking at it from the readers' point of view now and again. And yes, there have been things that I've written that I've worried wouldn't go over well with readers. Especially when I'm challenging them with one concept or another. I'm very aware where the safe areas of writing are, but I like to challenge my readers, which means going into areas that are likely to make them uncomfortable. I think taking risks now and again is good for a story, but that can also lead down a path where you fall on your face if you fail.
  17. Ponibius
    It's certainly flattering for so many to read my stories and really helps keep me motivated to keep writing. I get a little bit of fan mail, but not too much. Mostly one or two messages a month. I do get a number of requests for assistance which I try and follow through on. Overall it isn't too bad at all. I generally mull over an idea for at least a couple of weeks to over a year, depending on how things like up. I have a list of stories I want to write for a reason. Mostly it comes down to when I can fit a story/chapter into my writing schedule, and then spending time developing it with an outline and then actually writing the story. Looking at my bookshelf, I would say Jim Butcher, David Weber, and R.A. Salvatore are all writers I thoroughly enjoy to read. I've also been getting into Terry Pratchet as well as reading several classics as of late to increase my own diversity.
  18. Ponibius
    It depends on the type of story you're writing. The biggest thing is to make sure the OC is a well developed and thought out character on tier with the characters s/he is interacting with. If the character isn't of the same quality in terms of personality, goals, motivations, appearance, and so on as those in the show, then you need to rethink what you're doing. You also need to make sure to avoid all those nasty Mary Sue tropes. Really, it comes down to creating a solid story, and a solid OC. If you have those down, you should be good on that front.
  19. Ponibius
    I've read and thoroughly enjoyed a number of crossovers. I think the biggest problem with crossovers is the writer knowing the source material for both pieces of fiction thoroughly. If the writer is weak in either area then their story will likely suffer in characterization or plot. It's tricky balancing the tools you get from one show, much less two. Especially when they can often have very different tones and worlds. The best crossovers are the ones that tell a good story. Whatever premise you go with, it's the execution that is key. I've seen ponies crossed over with the nuclear wasteland of Fallout, the noir style adventures of a Chicago wizard in Dresden Files, the story of an alien invasion slowly crushing human civilization in XCOM, and even actual historical figures crossed over for very entertaining stories that I thoroughly enjoyed. It's all about the writing and how the concept is pulled off.
  20. Ponibius
    I would say that my all time favorite would be This Platinum Crown. It has a ton in it, and is a wonderfully written. Great antagonists, politics, humor, intrigue, very good OCs, mystery, and amazing characterization. Nothing not to like in my opinion. For my co-panelists: I would go with The Lunar Rebellion by Chengar Qordath, and From the Mouths of Fillies by Comma-Kazie. Not easy picks though.
  21. Ponibius
    I would say Midnight's Shadow. It's the most original of my stories, and is well liked by those that read it. That and I really enjoyed writing it. I generally use the em dash and no spaces.
  22. Ponibius
    If you put that question into Google, you will get a lot more material and probably better advice than I can give quickly here. In brief, the difference is that showing is more implying things to the reader, while telling is straight up telling someone what something is. There is a big difference between writing something like "Rainbow Dash stomped her hoof onto the old photo of her parents, tears welling up in her eyes" and writing "Rainbow Dash was angry at her parents." The main times you can get away with telling it when you want to quickly get through details that readers already know. Like there isn't so much point in having a PoV character retelling what happened in the previous scene in great detail if it doesn't add to the story.
  23. Ponibius
    There are so many things that can make or break a story. Ultimately, what I think makes a successful story is if it entertained the reader in some way. When someone reads a story, it should do at least one of three things. It should either give them something new to think about, make them have a fuller life in some way, or just be entertainment for entertainment for entertainment's sake. If it doesn't do any of those three things, then the story is probably a failure.
  24. Ponibius
    Only a little bit, for the most part. It helps when I can ask the other writers of the Winningverse for help on certain things like canon. I would say the hardest part is doing the same scene from multiple perspectives. That is a very tricky thing to do, and do in an entertaining fashion. Why I mostly try and do scenes that haven't been covered in another story.
  25. Ponibius
    A few short things. Try and have the first line in your story hook your reader. I often quote the start of one of Jim Butcher's Dreseden File's book as an example. "The building was on fire, and it wasn't my fault." Also, try and get to the conflict of your story as quickly as possible. I grow worried when I read a story and I have no idea what the central conflict of the story is after reading the first chapter. If it takes ten chapters for your story to meander around to what the story is actually about, then your story probably has issues. Basically you need something to invest your reader into the story from the get go, and there are a variety of ways to do this. Such as a good first line, starting the story in media res, or getting a strong conflict story being among those ways.
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