Nothing Is Simple -- An Equestrian Gentlemare ... · 7:31am Jan 18th, 2016
I've come to realize that it's very hard for me to write "simple."
My original concept for An Equestrian Gentlemare ... was "Sunset Masturbates." It's become, instead, "Sunset Falls Madly In Love With Flash But Gives Up Her Happiness For Ambition and Fails To Get Either." It's morphed into a major romantic tragedy.
I guess I actually don't find a woman masturbating, with no particular backstory to the event, at all fascinating.
In the process of doing this, I have come to realize that pre Heel Face Turn, Sunset Shimmer is the most complex protagonist I've ever written. She has so many mixed motives, so many conflicting goals and ideals, that it's a wonder she can function. She is highly intelligent -- Twilight's rough mental equal -- yet is in a situation in which almost all her assumptions are wrong. Because she's going about Ascension ass-backwards ("no offense meant, Matilda"), and Flash -- who she imagines an obstacle to her becoming an Alicorn -- is one of her keys.
In other words, she's messing up her life for nothing. And doing so through the expression of Heroic Virtues -- Courage, Determination, Discipline and Self-Sacrifice -- which she is aiming at the wrong targets. Worse, she's on the path that is leading her toward Nightmare.
Cherry on the sundae of tragedy -- Celestia's not actually mad at her, not any more. She's more worried about her. The Pool of Truth is starting to show Celly Sunset's Nightmare form.
As we know, she's going to have to lose everything before she can start climbing out of the metaphorical hole she's digging under herself. And the real one she winds up in, at the climax of Equestria Girls.
Warning: story is M-rated, and contains lots of explicit sexuality.
DUDE! I CAN NEVER WRITE SIMPLE EITHER!
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It seems to be a problem for many a high quality author...and some not so good ones whose ambitions outstrip their ability to create.
I think you and Jordan are on the high quality side of this idea.
I look forward to this with interest: your Sunset is proving a fine (villianous?) protagonist thus far, and she is one of the few canon shadow wars characters whose ultimate fate is unknown, at least to the best of my knowledge.
I find simple writing is the product of speed. If I get the idea, write it out, and don't give my brain time to tinker with it, I get a Dueling Keyboards short. If I sit on the idea for more than a year, incorporate new canon as it comes, and rework it until it's nearly unrecognizable, I get Oversaturation.
Honestly, I find the complex ideas far more artistically fulfilling. Simple's good for some quick fun, but complex makes me feel like I'm actually achieving something.