Failed Fanfics

[SharpWit 2,647]

There have been many times during my 11 years as a fan, where I've come up with an idea for a story, even gone so far as to write a few pages, but I've never actually finished and shared one of them. I suspect several of you have experienced something similar.

So forum members and fellow eternal procrastinators! Writers successful or otherwise! What are some fanfics you've come up with but have never brought to the light of day?

[Jackleberry 1,921]

Once upon a time (~10 years ago) I went through a phase of planning and writing Skyrim romance fanfics of my characters. Now I've never been a writer and I have zero romance experience, so needless to say, they were quite awful and I never managed to finish any of them, maybe like a couple chapters at best. Also tried doing one for MLP but, same thing.

I haven't tried writing anything since then, just simple backstories and timelines in my head for my gameplay scenarios.

[Splashee 28,563]

I would probably fail writing a fanfic since I can't write

 

I never found it interesting to read fanfics either, mainly because I was against anything non-canon back in the Sonic fandom days. And that has kept me from accepting reading other fanfics as well.

[ExplosionMare 18,062]

My first fanfic was about the Rainbow Factory and while it was more about meeting a word count than making something amazing, I still wish it was a little better. I’ve edited it way too many times now so I’m just gonna let it be since I have other things I’d rather be writing on.

[SharpWit 2,647]

To share my own, now that I have the time, I've made four attempts at actually getting words down.

The earliest i typed out a few chapters on the memo section of a butt dial phone back in 2012, and revolved around a super soldier in a not too distant future equestria. Essentially fear mongering after a 9/11 type of event takes the ponies to a new extreme and they heavily militarize with biomech suits and drug/hormone injections. Initially the story focuses on the PTSD the soldier suffers from because of the fighting and augmentation he goes under. Part of his program is directly supervised by Princess Luna who becomes a sort of therapeutic figure for him. The story expands into civil unrest, and an elitist upper class forming a false narrative that the royal sisters hate each other, planning to oust Celestia after assassinating Luna and saying she gave the order so they can be free of both and rule as they like. This fails however, and the elites choose to give up good PR and unleash an AI army that ends up being a double edged sword, and creates a no man's land that eliminates everything within it, including them. Half of Equestria belongs to war machines, while the rest of pony society lives on the fringes. This was meant to be the finale of a 6 part series.

[SharpWit 2,647]

My second and third attempts were meant to be the first in the series. Again, they would focus on a pony turned soldier, this one being a direct ancestor for the main characters that would follow in the others. It began shortly before Luna became nightmare moon, and had Equestria suffering from things like plague, famine, and general mismanagement. War would be added to the list with Luna defecting after Celestia had made her feel like she was living in a shadow, and then claiming one of her ideas for her own. She starts out wanting to help those in need, but eventually goes mad with power and an increasing want of vengeance against her sister. Civil War breaks out and our main character is forcibly recruited into the army of Nightmare Moon after his town is annexed. He arrives at a spartanesque training camp high in a set of mountains with canterlot just in view on the horizon. One recruit speaks out and the stallion in charge responds by setting him on fire. I went on to describe the scene in vivid detail for about a page or so, and kind of scared myself, deciding to scrap that version.

Disappointed in my lack of progress, I decided to try things differently, and telling the story in a journal style. I would tell it day by day, and write at least a paragraph with an accompanying picture everyday. This got the most writing out of me but the least amount of story, as I wasn't taking the time to research anything or really develop characters, so it dragged on feeling like it was going nowhere.

The story was supposed to go to have two massive cannons inspired by the Schwere Gustav of WWII, built into the mountain side, with Nightmare Moon intending to destroy Canterlot from afar. The guns would be completed, but she would be defeated and they never used, until the main character's journal was discovered by his ancestors and tracked them down, still in full working order a thousand years later.

I thought the idea was fun with connecting it to the other stories, and demonstrating that Celestia came very close to losing her throne without ever knowing. And to turn it all around with the sheer power of the cannons managing to save the day at a later point. However, having modern artillery during ancient/medieval times didn't sit well with me, so I moved on.

[ZiggWheelsManning 10,272]

You start writing it, you didn't finish it, THAT if fail  

[Clawdeen 14,083]

All of my fanfics are failures lol. I’ve never finished one. 

[Whirlwind 1,057]

Oh boy! I've been trying to write a fanfic surrounding my OC Whirlwind for years, but could never crackdown on a fully composed story in literature.
I think part of this is detailed progression over time has been hit or miss to what I was happy with. 

However. (Shameless Promo) I can finally bring this fanfic idea to light but in the form of music. I've taken all of these ideas and lore tied with my OC over the years and 
composing them into music. So my end goal is to have an album length of music detailing whirlwind's story which I call "A Windy Story"

[Courageous Thunder Dash 7,824]

I started to write a fanfic about the mane 6 coming to earth reverted as fillies because of discord and then I abandoned it. Most of my failed fanfics were about an MLP character coming to earth. 

[ZiggWheelsManning 10,272]

On 2022-11-15 at 2:35 PM, Whirlwind said:

Oh boy! I've been trying to write a fanfic surrounding my OC Whirlwind for years, but could never crackdown on a fully composed story in literature.
I think part of this is detailed progression over time has been hit or miss to what I was happy with. 

However. (Shameless Promo) I can finally bring this fanfic idea to light but in the form of music. I've taken all of these ideas and lore tied with my OC over the years and 
composing them into music. So my end goal is to have an album length of music detailing whirlwind's story which I call "A Windy Story"

There's sure lots of courage from your OC  

[TBD 17,254]

I write short stories fiction so finishing it wasn’t a huge problem for me. The only “fail” is that most of my professors said they got lost in the story due to my ‘grammar’ and along with some suggestions that they wanted me to rewrite the whole thing. They say I got some good ideas but sadly they can’t seem to “uNdErStaNd It”. I have them know that I did happen to visit writer workshop for editing twice before turning it in. My guess was my stories may seem a bit controversial for them to comprehend. So to them it’s considered a ‘failed’. 

[Splashee 28,563]

Even to this day, I am writing nothing. I don’t find writing fanfic any interesting whatsoever, and that can be seen as failure to some.

[ZiggWheelsManning 10,272]

You have a snowboarding signature.  You prefer snowboarding over writing?  

[Clawdeen 14,083]

Yeah I’ve still not finished any story I’ve started writing