Writer's Training Ground #006: "Pinkie Pride"

I still can't believe they pulled off a Weird Al appearance. These people are all amazing. I'm going to put "Albuquerque" on loop until I can remember everything that happens after the first 7 minutes. In the meantime, have at this week's WTG prompt!

Author, Equestria is in peril! Assemble a team of one Mane Cast member and their foil with attitude!

You couldn't keep me on theme if you held hot pokers to my hooves.

Right. Foils. Not the kind you tent over a pan-seared steak while it rests on your cutting board, but the character device. We've seen a bunch of foils to the Mane 7 come and go over the seasons, from Twilight's Trixie to Rainbow Dash's Gilda and Lightning Dust, and now Pinkie's gotten herself one in Cheese Sandwich. A basic recipe for any character-driven story out there involves putting an existing character alongside the character they could've been had a few "what-ifs" in their life had gone differently, at which point you run after them to take notes.

So go ahead and do that this week. And feel free to make somepony up for Rarity, AJ, Fluttershy, or Spike -- even if it's your super special OC or whatever. We've got a good commenter gallery here. I didn't see Suri as much of a foil for Rarara, but forgetting Twilight dueled Sunset Shimmer is pretty dopey of me. I'm forgetting all the things already.

Whoever you choose to write this week, just be sure you make them fight something cool.

Da Rulez:

• Keep the content appropriate as defined by our submission guidelines.
• Keep it between 1,000 - 7,000 words. >Greentexts and doorstoppers should apply elsewhere!
• Keep it to two genres maximum. For the roundup, fics will be grouped by their primary genre.

When you finish working on your fic, use this form to submit it to the Training Grounds. However, we will require much of the same information as if you were submitting a regular fic as follows, and this document explains what these requirements are.

1. Story title
2. Author name
3. Story description (~1 paragraph maximum)
4. Word count
5. Genre tags (2 tags maximum)
6. Character tags (3 tags maximum)
7. Story URL (must be hosted on FimFiction, GDocs, dA, etc.)
8. Email address

The deadline for submission is Thursday, February 6, 11:59 PM PST.

As always, please continue to leave us feedback with what works well for these events, what's not working well, your general satisfaction with these, etc. etc. and so on. Go, go, Pony Rangers! *sicks a 90's guitar riff*