Utter Order

First off, lemme tell you how Nano is going!
As of writing this I'm at 44 thousand words which means I only have to do three thousand the next two days and I will have written a whole novel. Heck, I think I'll even finish the novel since I seem to be at a good wrapping up point. Soon my name will be in published lights!

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Second! I just published another contest story if you didn't notice. This one, goodness, this one is doing number and because I don't love commenting on my own stories too much (I find it discourages discussion if the author can pop in and tell you if you're wrong or not) I wanted to make a blog post with all my thoughts on Utter Order. I like talking about my own thoughts. I find it highly fascinating.

Because this is a story submitted for a contest if you're a judge in said contest I need you to get out of here! Can't have you be influenced by my rambles.

This month I challenged myself to participate in every contest available but when I saw this prompt I honestly got nervous. How I write characters is actually influenced a lot by their species. I feel like what they are influences who they are in such a strong way that I can't easily divorce one from the other.

(Which is why I've always had a problem with the popular Pegasus Pinkie alternate. Like, it's fine, it's just not Pinkie if she can fly. One day I'll whip up my How I Write Pinkie Pie Blog and explain my full reasoning.)

So I was nervous about getting the characterization right and I think I was right to be nervous. I really like the characters that are in the story but they don't really feel like Discord and Pinkie. Discord is too nice when he isn't an all-powerful god and Pinkie came out very baby. (I did have immense fun writing them and I think it turned out great, don't get me wrong. But I pride myself on pretty dang good characterization so the fact it was inconsistent was a mental hurdle I had to get past.)

Twilight came out the exact same, though. Being an extremely powerful creature that's riddled with anxiety is who Twilight is in canon anyway.

Anyway, that was an interesting thing to watch as I wrote. I love how it turned out and I'm glad I didn't force myself to try and make their characters more canon.

The plot came from the idea of Discord being a Scientist of Chaos in a World of Order. In addition to the idea of What if Someone Knew Changelings Were Starving. Everything else was a lot of adding and tossing to make the story I wanted while also keeping it streamline enough to finish in time. Who was going to be Chaos? Fluttershy? Were they going to have a helper? Would Discord have friends?

(Shout out to BeastofGilchrist for figuring out the thing about Spike and Murderleo for understanding the themes behind it. I was going to have Pony Spike be around as Twilight's assistant but this felt better for the theme.)

Eventually everything fell into place, leaving the lovely story as it is.

(Though I have no idea why Pinkie sees Discord as her dad. That happened while I was writing and I was just as confused as anyone. Dang it Pinkie stop getting father figures. )

Do I think the story is going to win the contest? (I'm serious Judges you get out of here now!)

Nah, not really. I think the premise is really good and my characters are excellent as always but the story definitely has some wrinkles I didn't iron out. The beginning is Discord literally telling the audience the world building and the end is extremely quick with a bit of an about face by Discord. (Endings are my greatest weakness). I've glanced at a few other entries and they're really good! FanofMostEverything always writes amazing stuff (though I am beating him at in the feature box. Cue the maniacal laughter) and Scyphi's is over 50k long? They wrote a novel for this contest??? I do think I'm a shoe in for that third place spot, however. I'm great at getting third!

Some people have also been asking about squeals! (They're asking a lot of entries about squeals which I can't blame them as all of these worlds are really cool!) I can confidently say maybe on that possibility. I have no plans for anything else in this world but I didn't have any plans for Spark Visions either and now look where we are. I have a printed copy of that thing.

(If I did have plans it'd be something something Starlight's cutie mark is really close to Discord's. Something something what happens to the world when Twilight leaves the forest. Something something more changeling.)

Let's see... is there anything else to talk about...

Oh yeah, the mentos and coke thing was just me being dumb. I don't know what a chemical reaction is. I majored in film and creative writing!

Comments

[Turbotune]

Some people have also been asking about squeals! (They're asking a lot of entries about squeals which I can't blame them as all of these worlds are really cool!)

Oh, no, we are the ones to "squeal" about your story, and you shall give us a "sequal" to that world of yours, got it?