The author sits at her desk, staring at a blank expanse of white pixels. She knows what she wants to write, but not how to write it. She has a story in mind—short, with some vivid imagery and a strong philosophical theme. She's not sure what characters she wants to use, though.

She looks out the window, admires the morning fog rolling in from the sea for a moment. The scent of wet earth mingles with the dark Columbian roast coffee sitting beside her computer. She thinks.

A metaphorical lightbulb appears above her head.

Pinkie Pie strolls out the front door of Sugar Cube Corner and into the bright morning sunshine, carrying a bag of muffins in her mouth. She looks to the left, and then to the right. She seems conflicted about which way to go.

Then she sets the bag of muffins on the ground, sits, and stares in a third direction.

"Narrative choice is a funny thing, don't you th—"

The author frowns at her screen. She closes her eyes, takes a deep breath, and begins again.

"What do you mean, 'again'? I wasn't done. I was telling you a story."

Pinkie huffs, tosses the bag of muffins on her back (she's always had a keen sense of balance), and turns left—toward Rarity's boutique.

"Now like I was saying, narrative choice is a funny thing. Readers know they don't have any choice in what's going to happen to the characters that they read, but they can still feel surprise. Even though everything's predetermined by the time they read it, they still feel like they somehow participate in the story being told."

This doesn't sound like Pinkie at all. The author was never very good with Pinkie's voice. But she feels like she's getting her point across, so best to just keep typing. Character voicing is one of those things that's easy to fix in editing.

She runs a hand through her sleep-tossed hair, takes another sip of her cappuccino, and resumes typing.

Lyra walks down the street and waves to Pinkie. Pinkie waves back.

"I feel like you're not paying attention yet. You see, everyone knows the reader's experience of narrative choice is illusionary. Even in a Choose-Your-Own-Adventure story like the one Chris wrote, everything's predetermined. There's no way to escape that."

Pinkie knocks on the door of the Carousel Boutique. Rainbow Dash opens the door. Pinkie delivers the muffins.

"The super-duper interesting question, on the other hand, is whether the writer has any choice."

No. No, that's definitely not where she'd been intending to go with this. The author should have known better than to try doing stream-of-consciousness philosophical exploration. That never works out well. She uses her mouse to highlight the last few lines and delete them.

"'Mouse' is a funny name for a computer peripheral, don't you think? I've always thought it would make more sense to call them—"

C'mon, get your head in the game. You only need to write 400 words. That should be easy, right?

The author holds down the backspace key until she gets back to a place where things haven't gone off the rails. How about where the muffins got delivered? That makes sense. That's... wait.

"I told you to pay more attention, Silly Willy. Don't blame me if you didn't listen. And you can bop that backspace key all you like, but it's not going to change the story I'm telling. I've already told everything up to this point. You can't just—"

Pinkie waves her hooves in the air like a ghost.

"—erase things that've already happened, you goose."

The author looks over her shoulder, but doesn't see anyone. She curses under her breath. "Damn it, this is one of those stupid meta stories. And I'm stuck in the middle of it, aren't I?"

Pinkie smiles. "That's the spirit! You gotta take whatever life gives you and make the best of it, I say. You should really enjoy that morning air and the coffee I gave you. I liked when I did that part."

The author rolls her shoulders uncomfortably, but when she breathes in the cool morning air, she finds that it tickles her nose with the exhilarating sharpness of a perfect fall day. The coffee—the author feels a moment of disorientation when she looks down at her cup—is similarly wonderful.

"But this is all just a metaphor. I mean, obviously authors have choice over the narrative they construct, right?"

[quote]The author puts down her coffee and