Any Advice for An Aspiring Writer?

[darkabomination]

Hello everyone.

I'm fairly new to MLP in general so apologies for my newbishness in advance. I started off with g4 and quickly went to the original specials to see where it began. I loved Firefly's Adventure and watched the other special, the movie, and have gotten through the bulk of My Little Pony 'n Friends. Needless to say, I very much enjoy the franchise and have been inspired by the episodes. To make a long story short, I have a few questions about fanfics:

1: What are some cliches I should avoid? Overused plots, contrived situations, etc.

2: Are there any concepts not covered by most fics? From what I've seen, retellings, the ever-present shipping/rule 34, and darker deconstructions seem to be popular.

3: Are detailed descriptions of the scenery and characters to be expected? This may sound a bit obvious, but I have very poor vision so I have a hard time picking out a lot of ponies and objects. Thus, I'll need to look at wikis and books if I can find any for information.

For the record, I plan to write in the Dream Valley continuity and perhaps g3 in the future.

Thanks in advance.

[sunstar]

This should probably be in Brainstorming.

Write what you want. Myself, I tend to try to avoid the mary sue/gary stu OC, and give your characters believeable flaws as well as talents. By this I mean no celestia type character able to move the sun in Dream Valley. Alicorns tend to fit in better in G4. G3 is difficult for many authors to write. Me included. I can't wait to read what you come up with.

Discriptions are nice to have. Don't be worried if what you discribe isn't exactly what it looks like on the shows.

[Zero]

As kinda newbie myself here’s some tips I’ve learnt:
There’s nothing really cliché, if you read a lot of stories you will see there are a lot of plots that are widely used, often adapted to suite the theme of the story, so don’t worry with that. If it feels good with the theme then go with it.
Fanfics are just that, they are what people would either like to see but cant due to restrictions. If you are going to do something like shipping or rule 34 find out what restrictions the site you wish to upload to has in case it’s not allowed, but the rule on that one is only do it if you feel comfortable to do it.

What Sunstar said is true. There will be some sections that do require detailed descriptions but it will always depend on the situation.
Hope that helps and please show us what you can do

[Dr. Pain]

I would but hey what do I know?

[darkabomination]

Hey, everyone. Thanks for the encouragement.
I don't have anything set in stone yet, but I know I plan on an adventure in similar spirit to the 80s series. Some nightmarish creature is threatening Dream Valley, and it's up to a group of ponies to put a stop wto it, with some help from the Moochick and sundry friends.
I'll do my best to keep the dialogue and characterization as close to original flavor as possible. In terms of dark content I'd put it a little above Firefly's Adventure so some ponies can be expected to get injured.
Some ponies I'm pretty sure will be in the main ensemble include Fizzy, Heart Throb, Wind Whistler, and Morning Glory.
However, I will break away from the basic template with strong characterization, delving into some psychology, and adding some metahumour and poking a bit of fun at some of it's tropes and cliches.
I know that sounds pretty basic, but I'm still coming up with a plot. So if anyone has anything they'd like to see in the fic, characters you'd like to make an appearance, or give any suggestions, fill free.