Probably a few days until the new chapter gets out · 8:50am Oct 27th, 2017
I always have this feeling in the back of my mind when I think I know a chapter's "done"
Not perfect. true, but that can never truly be. But with my half day of writing and today- i.e. the 26th. I have about 4500 words- not the 5k I wanted true, but let's just say my life is weird.
Hopefully the chapters out by the 30th or before- I can never plan around a holiday, especially one where children could ruin my concentration by asking for Halloween candy. I've never liked Halloween myself. Too focused on the candy. If something comes up though- I will say something. I mean I didn't expect chapters to ever hit 5k or more and here we on a decently consistent basis.
I absolutely found a way that Zecora does say lines in this chapter but I was planning on having a scene or two of banter between Dash and her trying to get medicine. Yes, this was going to be a thing- Zecora always seemed to be the alchemical version of medicine- or the flip side to the Ponyville General approach. And since Dash and Shy swapping bodies is probably a bad thing to get out- home remedies or over the counter easily accessible medicine would be for the best.
Zecora won't be used much for dialogue probably after this chapter and even then she only says like five lines max in this chapter- it'd be far easier to just say "Dash went to Zecora's to pick up X" or "Fluttershy walked to Zecora's to talk about the possibilities of Y" and if I put the word "talked" or "said" or any other direct action word related to speech, then there'd be a scene where Zecora speaks briefly.
But alas and alack, I've always had a preference for the dramatic wordsmiths of the Elizabethan Era and Victorian age, Charles Dickens and Shakespeare, less poetry and rhyme and yes Shakespeare was a poeet, but you'd hardly ever know it- its a way to tell a story true but so is the lovely haiku. The problem is that my general ability to write such sensibility is pardoned by a warden of my mind. Therefore I may only think of the problem without a big reality chem unless I have a little thyme.
A silly little poem. But that's the issue- I can do poetry true with colors and hues, but dialogue is a real slog for me. Translating with my mind is generating is much easier when I don't need to plot a song. And sure some of that didn't probably rhyme perfectly or at all- slant rhyming stuff among other rhyme schemes can be hard. I don't have a rhyme dictionary.
So while my favorite writers tend to write with purplish prose- I cannot bring myself to presuppose- that is I really suck making Zecora's dialogue sound good. The weird thing is I can shift my mind into writing Victorian prose or something slightly aping it- that why I like using Luna. She makes sense. Zecora's just all rhyme and like shaman stuff and the magical witch doctor like do I want to touch that often? No.
This probably sounds bad but I try to rhyme in character voices if they ever had a poetry spell activate cause why the hell not. It's Twilight. I had an idea once where she did that. Thought it wasn't a decent idea to string out beyond a short gag so I scrapped it.
Mane 6 totally fine- Pinkie is my favorite to rhyme with in my head since I tend to rhyme like Doctor Seuss then. Zecora's rhyme scheme and voice? Just her normal voice? Nope, can't really pull that off too convincingly. I could try but like does it always matter outside of short scenes? Not really, Zecora tends to be almost divorced from the show itself rarely showing up. I mean it doesn't really hurt to be like "Well I got this stuff from Zecora's, 'Shy" and Fluttershy's all like "Wow. That's nice." And then Fluttershy writes more fanfic and ponies love it.
But looking at my word counts of my stories this one is now my longest if I add in my current progress.
Well I'm looking forward to the next chapter.
And yep, Zecora is a bit of a nuisance to write. I try and stay away from her too.
4710120
I mean I see people using her in stories every once in a while so it never seemed that difficult, but actually writing her is a different story- she has a weird rhythm to her sentences that I still can't pull off, like sometimes her sentences are jumbled around to make rhyming easier or use more cryptic language to make rhyming easier. Sure that isn't too hard, but even the show dislikes using her so there's only so many examples of her even speaking.