Monday 23 February 2015

New story by me: Ever Let the Fancy Roam

Cover picture for "Ever Let the Fancy Roam" showing Fancy Pants
Adapted from Fancy Pants by The-Smiling-Pony; CC by-nc-sa 3.0
It's been a couple of months since I published a full-length story, so it's time to end the drought. This was written as a bit of an experiment: the "Characters That Need More Stories" group is running a contest called Making the Most of the Mundane, and I've also found myself writing quite a bit of Slice of Life ponyfic recently. So, I decided to put the two together and make this as slicey a Slice-of-Life story as I could manage. No-one gets murdered, or married, or in a sticky situation over a pound note. Here are the basics:

Ever Let the Fancy Roam by Loganberry
Fancy Pants and OC
Slice of Life; 3K words; Feb 2015; Everyone
Fancy Pants' place in Canterlot's social hierarchy gives him certain obligations. One of these is the hosting of a number of balls, dinner parties and so on. Tonight he will be putting on a small, intimate "At Home" affair for just a few guests. Sadly, Jet Set and Upper Crust will be among their number. Before all that, though, Fancy Pants and his faithful butler, Silver Cloud, need to make the final preparations.

Reaction to this fic has been muted but interesting. Slice of Life is never the easiest genre to write in if you want to attract attention; combine that with a side-character-plus-OC focus and I'm not startled by the fact that it's gaining views more slowly than anything else I've written. So far, I've had three commenters, two going into some detail. First there was a guy called Dzerzhinsky, about whom I know nothing; they were fairly brutal in their assessment, and hated the dialogue. Then there was the rather better known Themaskedferret, who made some pertinent criticisms but loved the dialogue! :P

Weirdly enough, neither Dzerzhinsky nor the two people who upvoted the aforementioned negative comment actually downvoted the fic itself. As I type, it has a +8/-0 thumbscore with a couple of people favouriting it, which I'm fairly satisfied with. It's not my best story, but I think it has some nice elements to it. Don't read this if you're looking for utter hilarity, wild explosions or spine-chilling terror. If you like fics of the "window on somepony's world" variety, though, you might enjoy it.

4 comments:

  1. Well, I'm more than happy to give this story a try. It is actually sitting in my "to read later" notifications, but hopefully I may have the chance to give it a read later this afternoon. I'll have to be honest, Fancy Pants isn't a character I'm all that interested in but I'm more than happy to give the story its chance. I'm glad that someone is able and willing to write a story about a character who, I've no doubt at all, has got fans out there. Just because he might not be in the same league as, say, Celestia, doesn't mean he should never have any fan fiction written about him. So I'm glad he's been given the chance!

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    1. And I see you now have left a comment over on Fimfiction, so I'll go and read that in a minute. :) But that's the great thing about the "Characters That Need More Stories" group -- it's specifically set up for those characters who aren't all that popular. So there are fics about Cherry Jubilee and Sapphire Shores and Little Strongheart and Suri Polomare and... oh, you get the idea. I actually have a vague idea for a Blossomforth fic one of these days, too. Though most of the ideas I have do involve more prominent ponies. :)

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  2. Right, well I've just written a review for the story over on FimFiction, and apologies in advance if it seems woefully more textwally than expected!

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    1. *Grins* I noticed! Just off to reply to it now, though probably not in so much detail. :P

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