>>98342
I put this request I'm about to make in the previous edition of the Training Grounds, before I realized the new thread was up. I'm reposting it here to make sure it gets seen. I would like my story, Giggle at the Gespenst, removed from the queue. I'm going to take one more look through it to make sure all the plot holes are fixed, submit it to FiMFiction, and then put it back in the queue.

Regards,
Conchshellthegeek7

>>100776

It has been done.

Author: Jake The Army Guy
Tags: Dark, HiE
Synopsis: Albert Pomeroy is a psychopath who has been terrorizing Houston for the past two years. Now, he finds his was into Equestria, a world that has not known violence like his in centuries. Hot on his heels is Detective Robert Barlow, who is determined to stop this mad man no matter what the cost. As the authorities refuse to believe that anything is amiss, it's up to The Mane Six and Barlow to stop Pomeroy. But not everything is as it seems...

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1fjlnV3sAAi5v6WN9bOXK8KFHq6KASGhraltiCQVp89g/edit

Note: Okay, I've had my prologue and first two chapters pre-read, and the plot is finalized. I'd like whoever claims this to read all three, and tell em what you think, plot wise. If you see any grammar errors, let me know as well. I'm almost ready to resubmit this to EqD, jjust want one more set of eyes on it. Thanks!

>>100781
I haven't looked at this one before, so I can take a look at this with fresh eyes. Plotwise, you say? I can do that.

>>100784
Thank you, kind sir! Be warned, the prologue has no pony. It's just to set the tone and get them to Equestria. If after reading the whole thing you have tips on how to shorten it, so it's not as long as the normal chapters, I'm all ears.

>>100781
Well, my heart's pounding on my chest like it's trying to escape. I think that's a good sign. Here are my thoughts:

Bloodline has a good premise and a good execution of that premise so far. Yours is a very suspenseful story, and you've done a very, very good job of making your villain seem like a legitimate threat. Berry Punch will be missed. I can only assume you plan to treat her death with the proper amount of reverence and respect. My sympathies are where they should be, and I'm eager to see how the story plays out. Plotwise, Bloodline looks to be an intense thriller, and it certainly held my interest. I'm not a pre-reader for Equestria Daily, and I don't know what standards they have there, but this reads like an Equestria Daily-quality work to me. In my opinion, this is ready for submission. (Once you go through and get rid of all those reviewers' comments, that is.)

>>100790
>pic

Wow, thank you! Seriously, somebody likes my story.

Day=Made!!

Did you happen to notice any big grammar issues? I've been told I have problems with "Show, Don't Tell" as well.

Some links in the OP are broken. Could a mod please edit this thread OP's code, and paste in the contents of this file:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/57284761/TTG-Template.txt

What it looks like, without Ponychan's CSS:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/57284761/TTG-Template.html

That will help fit more helpful links above the cut-off point as well.

Dear sir or madam. Regarding your story:
At first, I was like: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OC-EPsvdi6E
But then I was all: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S8GsDRGLEsc
And in the end, I enjoyed it. I laughed. I cried.* I gasped.
*No actual crying occurred. Really. (sniffle) Shut up!

Here is the review (once again longer than the work being reviewed):
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1xAO3shJpd1byamdC_wkOCeOzE28cS9R_eCUGAZQulkg/edit
And here is the line-by-line commentary, in a copy of the original document:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ReYBeoX3Wvy6iJCeaJyszozPnLXsvOtuy7wkU6o76ao/edit

Also, for some reason, this story gave me an awesome idea: get a bunch of writers to collaborate on a series of short stories, all of which take place within the same one-hour period and all of which chronicle ponies trying to deal with the Changeling Crisis. Each writer would call "dibs" on a specific plot-idea or theme, and then whomp-up a shared timeline of agreed upon events. You could have cross references between all of the stories, and have characters and events viewed from all sorts of different angles. Writers could pass characters back and forth, and make references to a common pool of recognizable... stuff. There could be a major plot-twist or macguffin that doesn't appear heavily in any one story, but that makes terrifying sense once you've read all the stories. It would be a hell of a lot of work, but it'd be awesome.

I mean I think it'd be awesome.

...Maybe.

>>100808
I didn't notice any big grammar issues. I think the other reviewers handled that pretty well. As for Show vs. Tell... well, I've been told I struggle with that myself, but I didn't notice anything. Glad to hear I could be of help!

Title: The Zodiac Ritual
Author: CyborgSamurai
Email: [email protected]
Tags: Adventure

Synopsis: Set two months after the defeat of Nightmare Moon, Twilight is informed that due to her and her friends' association with the Princesses and the Elements of Harmony, they may be in danger from forces that seek to subvert the Nation of Equestria. Left with little choice, the Mane 6 agree to being placed under the protection of a squad from the Royal Guard, who will monitor them in secret.

However, all is not as is seems, for the members of the Guard sent to protect them carry a secret of their own, as well as a motive brought about by a tragedy two decades prior.

Links: http://www.fimfiction.net/story/24125/The-Zodiac-Ritual

Chapters: All

Comments: I received some amazing feedback on the prologue already, and I'm looking to get more both on it and the rest of the chapters. I have the Prologue and Chapters 1-3 done and posted. I will be updating the story every Wednesday.

This is the first real story that I've written. Don't hold back. I welcome any and all criticism. I desperately want to get better. For the love of God, if it's bad, tell me so I can fix it!

>>100839
There are /fic/ standards?

>>100842
Beyond the creation of an OP and the global rules, no.
I believe he means Minty's standards. Minty rejected it out of hand since it wasn't good enough for even him.
Looking at Minjask's post, I can already see some of the reasoning behind it.
>“Sounds like somepony loves you very much.” she said.
“Sounds like somepony loves you very much,” she said.
Pretty basic error, that. The syntax of his message also leaves something to be desired.

>>100843
Standards? That wasn't why I rejected it though.

It's number 39 on my queue. I remember why pretty clearly as it's one of the few fics I rejected while screaming 'Nope!' and recoiling from my screen in terror.
It might be fine now. I can't say.
But you really didn't warn anybody about what you put in the story.

So no, it wasn't a bad story. It had potential, and could have been cleaned up.

>>100846
By standards, I meant that I got a message saying that it violated the rules of /fic/ and had been removed. I even got a one hour ban from the site just for submitting it. I accredited you for showing me my ridiculous goof. Even my close friends didn't tell me it was that bad. Anyways I've cut the scene in question and removed any other questionable material I could find without butchering the story too much. It should be fine now.

>>100846
Right, so apparently the story is about Derpy's eye problem. With your reaction, I'm inclined to guess it was a sort of Minority Report moment (the bit where he replaces his eyes).

>>100848
Er... nope! But there's no real reason to harp on what was in that story. Suffice to say it wasn't kosher.

>>100847
Though, I'd have to point out you're still:
You need permission to access this item.

You are signed in as mintyrest @ g mail.com, but you don't have permission to access this item.
Which could cause issues for other readers.

>>100850
How about now?

>>100839
I'll take this.

I would like The Sixth Age removed from the queue. It's now queued up for another review and doesn't need to be here any more.

>>98992

This has gone on for long enough.

I've watched this thing sit for I don't know how long. I kept thinking that because it was so close to the top, someone was going to step up and do what needed to be done. I watched and waited.

Well, I'm done watching. I'm done waiting. I'm not the reviewer you asked for. I'm not even the kind of reviewer you would've wanted. But from the looks of things, I'm the best bet you've got.

I don't know how this is going to turn out, but I would rather go down in disgrace than just sit and watch this injustice go on any longer. Here, tonight, I claim Pony Effect!

>>100873

Real quick: Even apart from the fact that I'm intimidated by your fic's length, even apart from the fact that I'm not really confident that a lowly scrub like me will have anything to contribute... Fluttershy is not a pony who's close to my heart.

I'll do what I can. I'm starting to skim through your fic, but that hardly seems fair, especially because I feel like I might want to slow down and enjoy this thing... Perhaps I'll give you a cursory look, then go back and read the whole thing for context and review a second time?

>>99015
Claiming this. Why? Oh, I'll tell you why:

>Well, I'm done watching. I'm done waiting. I'm not the reviewer you asked for. I'm not even the kind of reviewer you would've wanted. But from the looks of things, I'm the best bet you've got.

I salute you, Sir! Or Ma'am, if the portrait is any indication! Equal rights for FemShep!

But this is no hollow accolade I offer. You have inspired me to review a story that is A) Way long, and B) not a story I would typically read for fun. But we're not about fun here! We're about broken pencils, sprained wrists and crushed dreams!

Rest assured, gernon with a lower case "g", that I will not be prejudicial. I may not especially like [Dark] or [Humans]. I may not like long stories. I may dislike the CMC. I may even hate your name and especially your eMail service provider, but...

I'm sure there was a point to all this. But what was it? Ah yes: I will judge the merit of your story based on the quality of it's writing and storytelling instead of it's characters and tags.

In any case. Freakin' HotMail! Grr, snarl!!

>>100203
I've started reading this anyway (<3 Daring Do), so I may as well give you a proof-reading sweep.

Have a reviewer statement: http://derpy.me/uQgc1

>>100824

Review acknowledged. I'll get to the line by line tomorrow, thank you.

>>100824

Also, I like that idea. Anyone else interested? We could start a different thread to lay some ground rules for it.

>>100203
I've made a fair few comments about grammar and such in your docs. Your mechanics are pretty solid, provided I haven't overlooked anything. Have a few general thoughts.

Writing

You're awfully fond of very short, simple little sentences, and while they are certainly wonderful things that shouldn't be looked down on, an overabundance of the wee things can wreck havoc on your pacing. Areas of your writing feel stilted because you've decided against joining related sentences with a dash or a semicolon, and you occasionally make the mistake of forcing a hapless little clause to stand on its own as a sentence without a verb. Be bold! You have the skills.

Be careful of putting full stops (periods) at the end of dialogue which precedes a "Character said", and use a few more "said Character"s (you tend to use "Character said" almost exclusively). Also avoid tacking "and verbed" onto the end of "Character said"s.

Story

You've gone a long way towards addressing Hyperexponential's qualms with Ms Derring-Do, but I can't help but feel a shadow of his own concern. Derring's snap seems a little too sudden and a little too unprovoked. From what I can gather from your previous review, it's nowhere near as bad as it was, but it's still there, at least to me.

I think you need to draw out the scene before she snaps. Not by much – you just need a few more lines of her trying to keep control and Dash getting overexcited about the novels. It might be an idea to try something like this:

><Derring tries to keep her cool.>

>"My favourite part book in the series is the one where Daring Do finds the THING at the PLACE!" said Dash. "It was really cool when..."

>"For your information, RAR RAR FACTUAL INACCURACY RAR RAR DAN BROWNED RAR RAR!"

><Derring snaps.>

Other than those little things, I don't have any criticisms to make. This was an enjoyable read, and I look forward to seeing it on EqD. Good luck, author!

>>100896
"a dash or a semicolon or some sort of conjunction" I should have said. Come to think of it, it mightn't hurt to replace a few of your colons with conjunctions.

>>100890

I'm totally up for this. I've never done a collaborative work before.

>>100896
Thank you very much for the review! I shall give it another skim over, and keep your suggestions firmly in mind.

>Be careful of putting full stops (periods) at the end of dialogue which precedes a "Character said"
I have forgotten the face of my father. I know this rule... dunno how it slipped past me. Thanks a ton for pointing it out.

>(you tend to use "Character said" almost exclusively).
I do, actually. I didn't realize this was a problem. Is there any guideline as to when "said character" or "character said" is the better choice?

>Derring's snap seems a little too sudden and a little too unprovoked. From what I can gather from your previous review, it's nowhere near as bad as it was, but it's still there, at least to me.
Actually, the snap itself is unchanged. What I modified was Derring's backstory: she changed from a genius celebrity to a bitter and undistinguished pony.
The problem here is that she isn't really snapping because of anything Dash did: She's just got a lot of emotional baggage. Imagine that you dislike earthworms. When you were little, your big sibling used to chase you around with earthworms just to make fun of you. Years later, as a well adjusted adult, someone holds an earthworm in front of your face. You freak out. Not because you hate earthworms, but because you spent an entire childhood being taunted with them.
Dash is stepping on a big red button she doesn't even know about. It's not really supposed to be her fault. I'm not sure if it comes across at all, though... I don't want the link to her backstory to fade away.

...My god.

This is what the EQD Prereaders must feel like... all the time.

I hope you have a strong stomach, Gernon. I've never had to write such a negative review (although I haven't written very many). But if you didn't want the truth, you wouldn't have posted it here in the first place.

Full review is here:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1AvP_HujXLA45ozJ-h5skU9OxYOXi09bJnmU61GkPVBY/edit
There is no line-by-line commentary because it's not hosted on Google Docs, it would have taken a week to write up by itself, and it wouldn't have been very useful to you.

Title: A.C.
Author: Pastel Ink
Email: [email protected]
Tags: [Adventure] [Grimdark]

Synopsis: A grim future in a world ruled by slave drivers and monsters. A pony born as a slave sets out to find out what went wrong with the world and what he can do to fix it.

Links: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1eYYK8lMsgfkAbP_ztWNWxS7e_3rpZ9pJ8DmXYj_oLaE/edit?pli=1

Chapters: All

Comments: Hokay, so, I put this on here a while ago and got great tips for refining every aspect of it. I would like to know if it's ready for resubmission to EqD. I am mainly concerned with the spacing, I've tried so many different methods of spacing that I've lost count. Though a general grammar check would also be appreciated. Thanks to whoever decides to take this on!

>>100933
You've already got a spot in line. Check row 11 of the queue spreadsheet:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AuAQzDU7RlujdHRrclhMemtIT2txM19xbEtHOUQtMGc#gid=0

We can just update that entry if there are things you want edited/added so you don't go to the end of the line.

>>100902
>Is there any guideline as to when "said character" or "character said" is the better choice?
Not that I know of. Just try to use both. I think I tend to use "character said" a bit more, but I don't apply any kind of formula or rule to it.

>Actually, the snap itself is unchanged. What I modified was Derring's backstory: she changed from a genius celebrity to a bitter and undistinguished pony.
A bad choice of words on my part. Basically I meant to say that the backstory changes were a good idea and I'm glad they're there. The story's probably quite fine as-is, and you feel it's better to make it not Dash's fault at all, do that.

>>100937
Oh, cool. I compiled everything into google docs rather than fimfiction, I hear you guys like that better.

>>99753

Story:

Let's start with a plot summary:
Chrysalis muses about some things during a normal day at the hive.

That's it. That's all 5,000 words of your chapter. Now, I'm certain the plot will get thicker as time goes on, but that's not going to cut it. This story needs to have something interesting happen. The most interesting thing that occured was some scouts reporting in. There needs to be more substance to this story, more intrigue. It doesn't take 5,000 words to say 'and life was good'. There's no conflict in this story. There's no reason to read further, which is a shame because I really enjoyed reading about the design of the hive.

Grammar:

First, I'll recommend getting a different editor to check your work. I tend to automatically correct things that are written incorrectly subconsciously. Second, read your entire story out loud. Sometimes the ears can catch what the eyes miss. Nothing beats a dedicated editor, though.

Your word choice is... interesting at best. You have a strange attatchment to 'bug-terms', like 'carapace'. I'd recommend using these interchangeably with 'normal' terms, like 'body'. Only break the flow by using unusual terms if you want to break the flow to point something out.

My prescription:

Add some conflict to the story. Maybe a fire in the stores or an issue in manufacturing? A challenge to her power? Something to break up the monotony of 'Chrysalis did this. She liked it. She went for a walk.'

Second, don't worry about having to be poetic or innovative about descriptions. Phrases like 'the two were of a unique situation' is awkward and confusing. Another stinker is 'Your jest outranks you'. Just use the figure of speech, especially if you want to paint Chrysallis as a semi-formal queen.

The premise has a lot of promise, but if things worked on promise, we probably wouldn't need this thread.
Keep writing.

Title: The Diary of Morning and Dusk
Author: Lynked
Email: [email protected]
Tags: [Sad][Slice-of-Life]

Synopsis: Twilight isn't feeling well, and unfortunately, that's all anypony knows. Her best friends try to understand, but even they are at a loss. That is, until a petty theft of Twilight's personal diary leads them on the track they least expected.

Link: http://www.fimfiction.net/story/23725/The-Diary-of-Morning-and-Dusk

Comments: The EqD prereader suggested I ask for a grammar, punctuation, and plot review. So...thanks to the person who takes a look at this!

The links to the Submission Guide and its TL/DR are both busted. May want to fix that.

>>100958
They have an extra semicolon on the end. Remove it to get the correct link. We're aware. See >>100818. We're just waiting on a mod.

Whoops. Sorry, busy writing my stuff and I felt too lazy to RTFT. ^_^

>>100927
I thank you for being honest. I will try to make the story better. I will do as you say and start a major rewrite and hopefully within a month or so it will be far better.

Tags: Human in Equestria, Sad
Synopsis: A human in Equestria reflects on his past life.
Link: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1QtPFaEH-DgmKYUBhZSxJMEjT-LMc1ZURVx8waBZBC_Y/edit
Chapters: One-shot
Comments: The biggest issues with the last pre-reader were purple prose and weird paragraphing.

>>97822

Posting to say I completed the review of this. Comments are left in the document.

Nothing much to add here, save that you seemed like you have an idea where to take this story.

Title: Great
Author: Broadway
Tags: Sad, Romance, Adventure
Synopsis: The life and times of The Great and Powerful Trixie.
Link: http://www.fimfiction.net/story/11103/Great

Alright, so I submitted this to EqD a while back, and now, after much editing, I'm thinking about sending it back in. Most of what my pre-reader said had to do with show vs tell, along with character development.
My weak-point is the beginning (chapters 1-4), so I'd really appreciate some feedback on that (well, I'd appreciate feedback on the whole thing; that's kind of why I'm here). I always struggle with the start of a story, though once I get the ball rolling, I get substantially better.

Thanks!

Tags: [Grimdark][Sad][Adventure]

Synopsis: A simple Hearth's Warming Eve for Rainbow Dash changes her life forever after a series of tragic events.

Link: https://docs.google.com/document/d/12GgOQlzHZ6KdoTOdDkf-Z5bhJM7hrQeeX0VdRcslAIg/edit

Equestria Daily comment: I cannot recommend your story for publication. It has garnered enough marks against it for basic, non-stylistic grammar problems that it has been automatically rejected. If you choose to resubmit this story, please ensure that you have thoroughly vetted it beforehand, as this is the second strike out of three.

Author comment: I would love for someone to say exactly what this vague rejection message means, and comment on what I should change on the Google docs document. I already have an editor, but I have no idea how he could of missed anything since he seems to be a good editor.

When Duty Calls

Chappy Hooves

[email protected]

Random

Before Big Macintosh married Fluttershy, he had a love affair with Cheerilee, who move to Canterlot and bore a daughter, Scarlet Glade.
Scarlet has now grown up, changed her name to Scarlet Gala, and has joined the Royal guard. She is loyal to her job, but still wonders about her father, whom she has never seen, and who is oblivious to her birth.
One day, while on duty, Scarlet sees two fillies in the marketplace, and realizes they are her half-sisters.

http://www.fimfiction.net/story/7728/1/When-Duty-Calls/When-Duty-Calls

Short story, interested in getting on constructive criticism.

TITLE: Rainbow Typhoon
AUTHOR: Nonsanity
EMAIL: Add [email protected] and .com to name
TAGS: Adventure, Slice-Of-Life, Light-Shipping

SYNOPSIS: As Equestria is threatened by the unstoppable storm of storms, Rainbow Dash is shaken to the core by one event after another - from the heights of joy to the depths of sorrow - and led upon the hardest adventure of her life: fulfilling her dreams. But in the end, will she still have the strength she needs to save her friends, or will this powerful hurricane break her spirit, crush her hopes, and herald the end of all that she was... and could have been? How far can you push a rainbow?

LINK: http://www.fimfiction.net/story/22148/Rainbow-Typhoon

CHAPTERS: all so far
COMMENTS:
This story is written in restricted third person (mainly limited to what the main character experiences) and historical present tense to emphasize the adventure's tension. Shipping-wise, the current chapters don't include much more than the setup for a later romantic connection that may or may not be fully realized before the conclusion of the work, hence "light" shipping. The synopsis can probably use some work - I'm open to suggestions. Aside from that... HAVE AT ME! :)

~ Nonsanity

>>101055
I posted the above here after finding out I had posted to the old list right after it closed. (First time user here... missed that.)

The queue link for my story still points to the old thread's post. I'm not sure how to update that.

~ Nonsanity

>>101059
fixed

>>101062
Thanks!

>>101055
I've also made a copy of the story so far in Google Docs here:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1-52T-bN2BHBDwnu6cmZVB4e_zJ-g16ikdOqAfakOBMQ/edit

In case whoever reviews it prefers to annotate in that format. I'm keeping the FIMFiction site the "definitive" version however, but until a reviewer descends upon it, I'll keep the Gdocs in sync as well.

~ Nonsanity

>>99762

>>99705

>>99560

I expect to have all done by the end of the weekend.

>>99941

You can actually drop this one from the queue. After a rather scathing review from Golden Vision, I've decided to shift this story to my perpetual/permanent back burner pending the release of my next comedy.

This thread moves really fast. I just went back into the old thread investigating something, when I came across this: >>99088

I will add to it by saying this: If you have submitted a fic more than once to TTG, it would be really nice if you could do some reviewing, so that way you offset the addition of more reviewing work by helping out, and the queue won't overflow. Also, it'd be great to have some new friends helping out in this thread.

I'm sorry, Demetrius. I think it's time to activate Friendship Protocol Zapper X. Alrighty then! In an attempt to help clear the queue, I shall claim the following stories:

>>99672 Crescent Ellipse
>>100081 Battle Royale: Friendship Program
>>100378 The Edge of Harmony
>>100754 The Five Ponies You Meet in Heaven
>>101031 I'll See You in The Sky
>>101051 When Duty Calls

Buck yeah! Let's get it on!

>>101112
You've got nothing to apologize for as far as I'm concerned.

May the authors of those fics notice your efforts and benefit.

>>98073 >>98128
Detailed comments in doc.

We've had extensive discussions via in-doc chat, so I won't be writing up my usual summary post here, as it wouldn't add anything new.

Review is also acknowledged via chat.

>>101112
Thanks for taking on my fic along with those other fics.

It would be interesting to know why people don't review after reading the original post.

You, the newcomer, why don't you review?

>>101083
Thanks for choosing my fic. Im assuming your going to be doing these in the order you have listed. hope to see a review sometime soon

>>101110
I agree with this idea and will gladly do some reviews once I become more confident in my own ability to write. I don't believe I have the right to try and critique another persons work if my own writing is simply horrible; I don't think I would be of much help to them if that was the case is what I mean. Once I get the review of the first chapter of my fic and have a chance to look it over and see what my strengths and weaknesses are when it comes to writing conventions/rules and all that I'll happily try and join in on reviews.

>>101083
Speaking of the review of the first chapter I wanted to thank you for taking your time to review this and I look forward to your opinions/criticisms.
Also, after reading through the thread it appears that Google Docs is a preferred form of viewing so here's a link to the story in Google Docs form:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/14c1ncaNuOImh2YUk5ox61bSAwa1b3j6TxR6nuXzA6WU/edit

You have to excuse me if I did something wrong with that, I don't particularly know how Google Docs works, like I said, new to all this.

>>101141
Writing ability =/= Reviewing ability.

Many good reviewers are not good writers. Many good writers are not good reviewers.

You won't know until you try.

http://www.ponychan.net/chan/fic/res/100769.html#i101112
Thank you for claiming my fic for review

>>101148
Hmm, I see your point, best to at least see if I have what it takes to review anyway, that way even if I don't write well I can at least help out others. Guess I'll try my hand at reviewing then, going to start off with a short one for now though.


>>100949
Going to claim this story. I'm going to apologize right now, I might miss small spelling/grammatical errors because of how I read (brain auto-corrects small mistakes as I read them) even after multiple rereads. Expect a review posted in a few hours.

>>101141
I started reviewing because I wanted to find diamonds in the rough and felt bad doing nothing constructive in /fic/. Not because I felt confident enough in my own ability as a writer. I've always been a terrible writer - not in that my writing is shitty (though it can be) but in that rarely am I able to actually get any writing done. But I am (or at least was) rather good at editing and noticing things.

Also, consider short_skirts_and_explosions. He's a fantastic writer / storyteller, but will at times fail spectacularly when it comes to editing/proofreading his own stuff - which might preclude him from being a good reviewer.

So, what Pascoite said.

>>101161
Fail spectacularly is an understatement if there ever was one.... One of the best writers, but thank god he has people checking his work, it can get pretty terrible otherwise...

>>101161

>but in that rarely am I able to actually get any writing done.

So much this.

Synopsis: Twilight and her friends donate blood for the first time.

Links: http://www.fimfiction.net/story/16450/Red-Shield

Comments: Here's what the prereaders at EQD said:
====================================
Errors:
>Poly-chromatic
polychromatic

Dialogue punctuation- This is a big one. More than half your attributions are incorrect. Examples below:
> "Hello Cheerilee!" beamed the receptionist.
As one cannot "beam" a sentence through speaking, this should be "Hello Cheerilee!" The receptionist beamed.
> "Uhh... pardon me." said Applejack.
When linking a dialogue attribution, a comma is used, like so: "Uhh... pardon me," said Applejack.
> "Did we need to bring one of them fancy cards?" She asked
Like the previous example, the first word of the attribution (unless it's a proper noun or name) shouldn't be capitalized. "Did we need to bring one of them fancy cards?" she asked

There are many more beyond these three, but hopefully these help you fix them.

This is a style issue, but I saw too many phrases like "the lavender unicorn" for my taste. Generally, it's better to just use the character's name or a pronoun.

In a few places, a space was forgotten. A simple spell-check should fix this.

You use single quotes for emphasis a few times. As they're not in dialogue, they should be quotation marks.

Direct thoughts, when used, should be formatted similarly to dialogue. Example follows:
> "I wish I didn't have to do it" she thought.
I wish I didn't have to do it, she thought.
There is some disagreement over the correct way to do this, but this is the most accepted method I know of. Personally, I find putting direct thoughts straight into the narrative as indirect thoughts to be more effective, but I digress.

In a few places, it was difficult to keep track of who was speaking. When more than two characters are present and speaking, it's good practice to attribute dialogue as much as possible to avoid any confusion.

I found the setting to be very neglected. I often had only a vague idea of where the characters were. Sure, we know what Twilight's library like, but what did it look like on that day? Smell like? Including little details like this will help you avoid the story being a series of talking heads, as it occasionally is.

Aside from that, I chuckled a few times. This is good, but it needs to be just a little bit better to be posted. I look forward to seeing this again. This is your first strike, but so long as you're diligent in editing and possibly get a little help, I see no reason why this shouldn't be posted.
====================================
I already went through and tried to correct what they suggested. Speed is not as important as quality. I want to be able to have this go through EQD.

>>101173
Disclaimer: Not claiming this. Just pointing out an incorrect correction on the pre-reader's part.
> "Hello Cheerilee!" beamed the receptionist.
> As one cannot "beam" a sentence through speaking, this should be "Hello Cheerilee!" The receptionist beamed.
Beam can in some cases act as a transitive verb. See: http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/beam
> Examples of BEAM
> "We're getting married!" he beamed.

However, there should be a comma before "Cheerliee" to indicate an address.

>>101148

I agree with Pascoite. In addition to that, the ability to review your own mistakes is different than reviewing someone else's. You'll notice things that they might not simply because you're a fresh pair of eyes. But hopefully reviewing will at least help you improve, even if just a little bit. The biggest factor is the motivation as well as time and energy to look over your own work. Yes, it's a lot of hard work and yes, it sucks when you get critiqued. But it's a necessary step in the process of improvement. So even if you don't think you can help, or that you can't see your own mistakes very well, why not try giving reviewing a try anyway? You'll learn something in the process and come to appreciate the reviewing process, since you'll now get a piece of what it's like.

>>101118

Arby Works, I can't seem to find the post you had for your story. Mind giving me another link or any comments or concerns? Sent you an email just in case.

>>100997

I'll claim this, could you please activate comments on your Gdoc?

Okay, let’s see if I can do this or not. You'll have to excuse me, I don't know how posting here works that well (never really been on a chan board before), so I have no idea how to make sentences blue and such like I've seen in other reviews when quoting lines from the story.

Overall I really like the premise of the story and I felt the story flowed rather well. I didn’t find anything particularly wrong with the plot, just a few spelling and wording problems.


>” This is great, especially after I began to get a tad bit lonely.” "After all...even with Spike, things were getting a bit lonely.”

First of all, the first line here just feels wrong, I can’t tell if there’s something wrong with the tenses or what(I’m not very good with that stuff) but the wording just doesn’t sit well with me. Maybe something like, “, especially because I had begun to feel a tad bit lonely.” instead?

Also, these two lines are very similar and state practically the same thing but are separated by just a few lines(even if one is in another paragraph it is the following paragraph). They get the point across but maybe try and change the phrasing a bit so they aren’t so close in wording.

>"My head began to pound, and I began to lose my train of thought."
I would change the second began into "started" or something similar to avoid repeating words so close together.

>"Aw loose the scowl you," the mare beside her scolded.

Other than loose instead of lose I can’t help but think that wording is a little off. When I see Aw starting something I imaging poking fun or something else lighthearted following and never really associate it with a scolding; maybe use Oh instead?

>"I don't know what's gotten into you, but you need to put a cap on your attitude," Rarity said with a grimace.

While this is purely personal preference, what Rarity says is something that I wouldn’t really associate with a grimace. A grimace is an expression of disgust, and while it is also used to express disapproval this seems more of a slight reproach which I don’t connect with a grimace. A scowl is the expression I image would fit better.


>"The grotto breeze always had a soothing effect, and was known for its romantic tendencies. But is tasted bitter and smelled sour"

In addition to the small spelling error here (is instead of it) I can't help but think the second sentence could be worded better. What I’m assuming you meant was that the breeze was not normally bitter and sour but was today because of what they were doing, but here it seems as if that bitterness and sourness is was just always part of the breeze. Maybe change the line to something like "But today the breeze was tainted by a bitter taste and sour smell."

>”I can hold a steady though, but the more I do”

Though instead of thought

>"On the ball I say," Rarity said.

Just a small wording error, a possible way to fix it would be either “Sounds right on the ball I say,” or “On the ball I’d say,”

>Applejack stuttered for a second, before finding actual words. "Then what do y'all suggest we do? We already asked to help her, and she said no."

I can’t be completely sure on this, I just don’t like how these lines feel. Just a little before Applejack wanted to rush off and go help Twilight because they all agreed something was wrong but now she’s holding back wondering what they’re supposed to do because she already offered Twilight help and she refused; that unsureness just seems out of character for Applejack. One of the lessons Applejack learned personally was that even if a friend says they don’t need help they might anyway. (Yeah, the severity and situation were vastly different but the basic concept has similarities)
There’s nothing implicitly wrong with this, I just feel it’s…off.

>”and galloped after them, with but the diary in her magic.”

Something is just strange about the wording after the comma. Maybe “, with the diary floating along beside her.” or something along those lines instead? I just feel the wording doesn’t work that well there.


Now onto a more positive note, I felt your setting and action descriptions were amazing, particularly the scene with the breeze blowing through their manes. The image and feeling of that scene were just so clear in my head.
The other scene I really like was the ending with Twilight and Pinkie. I could practically feel the emotions between the two of them as Twilight finally broke down and Pinkie began comforting her. I could see Twilight shaking in Pinkie's arms as the emotional dam broke. I just loved that scene.



Again, overall other than a few errors here and there I felt this was a nice story. The story kept a good pace and escalated to a climax without rushing. Every Diary entry showed another small step towards a breaking point for Twilight and even showcased mental instability because of how they shifted sometimes; like how in one entry she gets flashes of an image, but that doesn’t happen again for a long time showing that this isn’t some completely predictable problem but one that changes. So all in all a good read.

I hope this review is helpful, if there is anything specific in the story you want me to look at feel free to ask, happy to try and assist.

>>101189
Hmm, looks like I guessed right when it came to quoting lines from stories (making them blue I mean). Yay, I learned something today.

>>101189
Just taking a quick peek.

>"Too who?"
To

>Though my friend's are still really busy
friends

>expectant stares fueled with angst
Something inside of me died a little. "fueled with angst" feels like a ridiculous descriptive, for uncertain and entirely unsupported opinions.

>It's calligraphy handwriting was blotched and messy, thus making it hard to read.
Its; the "thus making it hard to read" is redundant, as it only repeats what the reader can perfectly imagine for him/herself.

>"Well hold onto your gut and listen to this. May fourteenth..."
Fluttershy saying this is out of character. "hold on to your gut" is a liberally-toned phrase, whereas Flutters is reserved.

Glad to have you join the dark side bandwagon of reviewing, mate! Here's a muffin.

>>101189
Thank you for that! I hadn't realized just how repetitive I was at times...
Also, thank you for the kind words.

I did have a question about the ending. I'm not sure, but I think it's a bit too compacted, or maybe rushed. What do you think?

>>101193
Thanks for pointing those out, knew that I would miss things. Now I have a better idea of things to look for when reviewing.

>>101198
I personally don't really think there's anything wrong with the ending. At that point things have reached their peak and dragging things out wouldn't work that well. You have quick confrontations between the group and Twilight. Then you have Pinkie approaching and helping Twilight. But you don't just end it there, you build it a bit more, explain a bit of why what's happening is working, connecting the two of them emotionally through a piece of information you gave just a little while ago, not something you just threw in as a quick fix. And then, ending it with a heartwarming flourish with Pinkie singing. Also, you don't have things just being fixed at the end, which is good. I mean if after Pinkie hugged and talked with Twilight she was suddenly working her way through her problems and it was implied that she was already far along in her recovery because of that one thing I would say it was rushed, but that wasn't the case. Instead you imply that with that last action the road to recovery is in front of her and she's taken the first step; not better by a long shot, but now on her way.

So like I said, I can't really find much wrong with the pacing of the ending.

Comments in doc

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1XJD9v8fRTtrkxz2EfZTdD-UvIoDC1OQZGdp9pGMR-yM/edit

General thoughts, suggestions are at end of doc.

Moving on to >>99762 next.

I just got a response from the EQD prereaders. I worked so hard for so long, and did my very best, and...

And I... got... rejected.

(a floc kof doves flies throuh an explosion of rainbows and fireworks, choreographed to a live orchestra performance of the immortal Beethoven's Ode to Joy)

I get to write some more! I love writing!!

In any case, this makes for round three in the TTG. I am in need of an experienced and professional hard-ass to help explain the prereader's advice and point out where in the story I can apply it best. I could just try to fix it myself, but I'd rather be clear on what needs fixin'.

I feel like the review wasn't just talking about what was broken so much as what was missing. If so, this will be an interesting experiment in self-improvement.

Tags: [Normal]

Synopsis: Twilight sparkle has been called to Canterlot for routine bit of royal business: a university's archeology department needs help with a tricky translation. All very hum-drum for her... but for Rainbow Dash, it's a chance to get an inside view of the exciting and fast-paced world of ancient history! But how much does she really know about the field? A chance meeting with a larger-than-life pony teaches her about the difference between reality and imagination.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/18FzvCGmTEQPwtXA53eccOXjz8j6U4hDE0t__J78Vkrk/edit

EQD Prereader review:
>Dear author, thank you for submitting to Equestria Daily! Unfortunately, I cannot accept your story for posting at this time.
>While it's not a *problem*, I believe that it's unnecessary to have a quote at the top of your fanfic.
>To start off, much of the fanfic is very tell-y and not enough show-y. This is most evident in the first section of the story. It is almost all dialogue with bits if telling thrown in. The writing does get better as it goes on. Getting someone from Ponychan to look at this will help a lot. You can also check out the
>Omnibus<https://docs.google.com/document/d/1WMMs8H-GpFIXPsQeC0RNu8V-Cq6uyGl_UERpOUK_6KY/edit>for help too.
>Overall, I think the story would benefit from more explanations and better descriptions. I believe that your fanfic would greatly improve with a little more help so consider going to Ponychan or finding an editor.

>>101232
I'm feeling the hard-ass. Claim.

Title: Brony
Name: Markarian
Email: [email protected]
Tags: [Human in Equestria] [Mystery] [Drama]

Synopsis: When a contemporary human stumbles upon Equestria and makes his presence known in Ponyville, he believes he is living his most cherished desire. But reality soon begins to intrude upon his Hub-tinted vision of this magical land and he starts to question his most basic assumptions about life, Equestria, and what My Little Pony means to him. Ultimately, the characters he knows and loves could end upinfluencing the most important decision he will ever make.

LINK: http://www.fimfiction.net/story/5106/Brony

Comments/Requests: I've submitted this to EqD pre-readers over a week ago, but have not heard anything back. I am eager to get feedback on this story, both in its structure and characterization. This story is incomplete, but I do have the minimum required length for a submission to the pre-reader queue. I'd also just like general opinions and impressions of the story too. Thanks!

>>101239

Brony In Equestria gets autorejected. Which is not to say I don't believe in your writing from the looks of your synopsis. An actual maturely written story in the genre that concerns the character questioning what it all means and coming to grips with the twisted reality of living a cartoon might be interesting. I'll claim this I'd it's still unclaimed by the time I'm free.

>>101229
First of all I want to thank you for the review. After reading through the review I've got a lot of thinking and rewriting/reworking to do. All of this is going to be very useful. Hopefully I can adjust my writing style to avoid the same mistakes now. I can't wait to get back to work on this.

I knew I was bad with commas (over and underusing) but damn, lol. I think this problem stems from me thinking in a stream of consciousness format. I just keep going with something until I run out of ideas, then I put the period. I tried to avoid this as much as I could but that apparently didn't work out so well.
Also thanks for pointing out my problem with punctuation when it came to characters talking.

Thanks for pointing out the violet unicorn syndrome, I really see your point there. I think this was my brain wanting to describe when there was no reason to.

As for the thoughts in quotes comments; quite honestly I had no idea what the correct form for writing out the thoughts was. Some things I read had them italicized and some had them in quotes of some kind. That is going to help immensely.

Concerning the Pinkie and Discord scene, yeah that's what I was expecting. The whole reason for the scene was to show that even while she was with Discord Pinkie still acted like her old self, albeit a bit darker. And that Discord wasn't a completely murderous monster, he just really didn't like Twilight. I can rework that scene and put it in a later chapter though, one where it would fit.

Thanks for telling me about the all caps yelling thing, that's good to know.

>"When the story is reaching a climax, it has to SLOW DOWN..."
This is very good to know.

>>101244

If Brony in Equestria gets autorejected, what about Celebrity in Equestria? As in a real life person who's quiet famous etc..

>>101248
It's basically the same, IMO. Only now you take some dude, duddete and write a HiE.

>>101179
>>100997

Nevermind, i'll just review it like this.

First off, except for a uneccessary comma here and there, your grammar is mostly spotless.

>trudged, haphazardly, coruscant, reminisce, apex , zephyr

Ok, is there any reason to use such a fancy vocabulary when normal words would have done just fine? Unless there is, using such "big" word just comes off as purple prose. Overcomplicating a simple sentence just for the sake of it.

>Every muscle involved in locomotion burned insatiably, the joints in my legs were more than a little bit hesitant to bend in single-digit degrees.
>The image burned into my retinas.

These aren't quaint metaphors, they are torture, especially for the reader.

While you made a break to show the change in story telling, the passage from present to past fell pretty abrupt. Try switching out most of the third paragraph with the fourth one.

>As my body numbed, one thought was at the forefront of my mind: I could have tried harder. If I had been an ounce more sober, I would still be home, laughing and having fun with my friends. But that doesn't matter, now it's all just water under the bridge. I pledged to myself long ago that I would forge for myself as good a life as I could, no matter where I ended up. I wouldn't have a life, I would have an adventure.

Alright I found it pretty funny that some sort of interdimensional lovecraftian portal lurks in a trashcan. But this part makes no sense at all, why is he blaming himself? A normal person would question his own sanity or the quality of the booze he consumed. I'm also confused about which tense you should using here, since your character seems to have the ability to already predict his future destiny.

And the last break is even worse. So there's a funeral... whose funeral? And then (s)he complains about nobody caring, are the ponies (s)he encountered not having any sympathy for him/her? Are they really that cruel?


I find it pretty hard to rate this story in any way. The only thing I understood from it is that someone landed in Equestria and is sad about it because he misses his old friends and family. Okay not the worst concept ever but you also have to expand on it.

In this whole fic there is neither any character-- the only thing I know is that your OC likes to show off his vocabulary and seems to be rather self-victimizing -- nor any action to resolve his situation.

Work further on your concept, for example, provide anecdotes of his friends and why he misses them so much, show if he found any new friends in Equestria, how was his reaction towards the ponies? how did they react to him? what does he do for a living? has he ever tried to do something to escape? Whose funeral was it?

I'm sorry if I seem rather harsh but you seem to have the skills to write something worthwile, instead of such an un-story.

>>101249
...And I believe you'd need the real person's permission. Good luck with that.

>>101055
This is an updated version of my story entry. More accurate in its tags and with a new synopsis. If it's possible to update my queue entry with this new information and link, that might save some confusion. :)

TITLE: Rainbow Typhoon
AUTHOR: Nonsanity
EMAIL: Add [email protected] and .com to name
TAGS: Adventure

SYNOPSIS: As a mighty hurricane descends upon Equestria, Rainbow Dash is sorely tested in an exciting tale of ambition, love, pride, and loss. She must learn to find the strength inside herself to overcome her limitations and save friends, strangers, and perhaps all of Equestria.

How far can you push a Rainbow?

LINK: http://www.fimfiction.net/story/22148/Rainbow-Typhoon
GDOC: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1-52T-bN2BHBDwnu6cmZVB4e_zJ-g16ikdOqAfakOBMQ/edit

CHAPTERS: 1-6 (all so far)

COMMENTS:
This story is written in third person limited (except for a few spots in chapter one) and present tense, to emphasize the adventure's tension. Pinkie has some fourth-wall parenthetical moments – for comedic purposes – in chapter 1, something that doesn't continue in later chapters.

In the final chapters, there may or may not be a romantic element between Rainbow Dash and Soarin, but if there is, it will be very light and preliminary - nothing hard-core. (And they are an almost-canon couple...) Chapter 2 sets up that potentiality.

The synopsis can probably still use some work.

A reviewer has given it the once-over on FimFiction, and I've been using comments in other reviews to try to improve it myself. But this is the first fiction I've written in, oh... twenty or so years. So I'm interested in all comments, even the "Yeah, the dashes aren't wrong, but you should use semicolons instead," type of thing. :)

(I prefer spaced en dashes over semicolons or non-spaced em dashes, now that I've researched the options. They just look cleaner and are common enough in English-speaking countries to not be "wrong".)

Looking forward to the reviews. (More than one would be excellent!) I've done my very best not to make reading this a chore! :D

~ Nonsanity

>>101251

The person I'm thinking of is either high or drunk 90% of the time, which would help if I even bothered with it.

>>99762
Comments in docs.

Chapter 1:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1BWNRzXdeEiLNM3Rqq8FvNhUcG-sFRMqD01TRG1hEjEo/edit
Chapter 2:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1UQMyc_2kv4ZzwmbKcXJO74QRHlKOIh3yYXDrn_JJz8I/edit
Chapter 3:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1QyHZx0ELexQJ_yA4h5w1Rs1-vw0R19C_JGR3GZfrUlE/edit
Chapter 4:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1h9Phls4h3JX7Op4kENAQnccqF4amTfa1L3scCSc59-c/edit

Your first two chapters were much more error-prone than the last two. I will recommend, however, that you get a proofreader before submitting to EqD again. I'm not an expert on all the technical points of the English language, so I probably missed a couple of items.

I don't have any further comments on each individual chapter, but here's my general thoughts:

-Your flow still needs work, and the erratic flow you have now is caused by your Point-of-View problems. You have a *really* hard time sticking with one POV per scene. Some have 3 POVs you swap between with no warning to the reader. This is really hurting your story.
If you want to use 3rd-person omniscient, you need be narrating. You can't just write like it's 3rd-person single-perspective but swap between characters all the time. I would highly suggest you stick to the 3rd-person single POV and fix the story to accompany that, as it works much better for this story.

-Prose isn't bad... but the moments where it's really meaningful are few and far between. It's only slightly better than average---but for a slice-of-life/romance fic like this, it *needs* to be better. Otherwise, the story just isn't interesting enough to hold on to the reader throughout the early parts of the story. To make prose more interesting, more enthralling, it needs to play on empathy, and having it be a bit exaggerating probably wouldn't hurt either. Figure out what aspects of these characters would really connect with the reader and amplify them.

One last comment: I don't know exactly what you're planning, but please tell me the Fluttershy/Rainbow Dash storyline is going somewhere. I think it would be really interesting to see a more subtle, slower romance dance between those two as you're developing the primary storyline. That, I think, would set your fic apart from other shipfics.

Until next time... write good.

I've got a story I'm working on over on fimfiction.net and I want to get some constructive criticism about it. And I mean some straightforward honest to the point of tactless stuff. A hard look at it is VERY much appreciated.

http://www.fimfiction.net/story/7177/The-Nexus

>>98386
Have at thee, I have claimed thy story for my own.

Okay, having given the PR concerns (very bloody valid ones at that) a once/thrice over, and in the presumption that you genuinely want to get published on EQD, take the following commentary as a flak jacket would a ballistic. Then brush that shit off, and learn to avoid getting shot. Neh? Understand this—I will be every bit as harsh and blunt with you as the Pre-readers are unable to be, for their own variety of reasons, personal and professional.

First page - stream o consciousness -

“First I did this, then I did that.”
Firstly, you’re starting way too heavily in your sentences with “You”. This at once is your attempt to get the reader to relate, and poor imagination. Perfect example (of which there are many)-
>You go from solid dirt clacking underhoof, to fluffy cumulus that squishes however you want.
No. “I went”, or “Some ponies”. Even more apropos, given the unusual transition (because most ponies *won’t* ever experience the severity of this dichotomy, would be “Most ponies can’t imagine/fathom/understand/begin to relate to…”
In short, drop most of the “you”’s and replace them and the corresponding sentence structure with something that actually flows, is relatable, and is designed to engage the reader empathetically.

>or sink in and go "beep beep, I'm a cloud!"
And what is this? You’re trying to establish a tempo, not get cheap lol’s from a meme reference. Right? Are you? Kill it, and any others that may follow. (Backing up to type in a sort of shocked disbelief at how many of these there are.)

>I was screaming the whole time, of course.
Yeah. You have an entire paragraph dedicated to a colt/filly too young to fly properly, and it comes off as dry as Byron. You know why Byron isn’t relatable? Because he’s trying too hard, and overextends beyond a readers ability to find him anything but superfluous and rigidly predictable. And the emotions? They’re merely an afterthought to your text. This may as well be written in binary coding.

Your little colt… filly? I dunno, sounds like a colt, go figure, reads like cynical ass, which totally destroys any suspension of disbelief. You can’t write from the eyes of a 10 year old and give him the observations of a 40 year old.

>You know how in stories like the Daring Do serials,
Cheap. Why would you do this? You’re just grasping for straws at what you think the most people are going to recognize. You’re better than a trite appeal to the popular damnit.

>"Next time, hold your wings out like this." He curved them a little.
Your punctuation indicates a separation. Yet, there is an obvious connection, so make instances like this flow appropriately, and personalize them with visuals-
>"Next time, hold your wings out like this." He demonstrated, curving his own (insert color/wing span) a little.

>And he went,
This is amateurish. First, never, ever start a narrative sentence with a conjunction. And “he went” is a poor opening.

>I was angry at the stallion who'd just saved my life.
Lines like this should be followed by reflection of your characters actions, preferably in his own analysis. As it is, it’s too objective, horridly impersonal, and dry as a Cambridge report on the european cheese industry’s growth by demographic quarters.

You have far too many words ending in -ly. Show us what that means, what is actually happening with actual descriptors.

>I was afraid to say things like
Why? Why is he afraid? Is this pegasus scary? Does your character think he may do it again? These are things that the reader needs to know. needs you have a duty to fulfill.

>He said, "I've seen a pegasus or two
Okay, fine. But *how* did he say it? Was he frowning? Smiling? Raising a hoof to slap the bejesus out of the colt?

… Look, what’s the first rule of active listening? To paraphrase. You rephrase what you’ve heard, ask it back, and then seek confirmation as to whether or not you’re analysis is correct. Now take that, and apply it to the interaction between your MC and this pegasus. Make it real.

>I did what any colt my age would do when they got a mark that awesome: bounce around like an idiot and shout, "Aww YEAH!"
Stop breaking character. Do you want to tell this colt’s story, or your own? You need, with absolution, to be able to perceive the difference.

>My jaw came loose
Okay, you’re going for a feeling of revelation here, when nothing untoward has happened. A guy implied his name has to do with flying. If you’re going for a moment where something clicks in the kid’s mind, you need to actually elaborate on what that is.

The “I said this, then I said that” thing is getting incredibly tiring. So, go back through, and every other time you encounter “I said”, add some context or descriptors to it. Maybe even a verb here or there, by god! Tell me *how* it’s said, and *why* it’s said that way.

Thematic points with potential that you should really do your best to bring to life:
Rainbow Dash’s internal dichotomy- She could join the bolts, but that would mean leaving her friends (bonus points for giving some insight on how the others feel about it).
The elite para-military nature of the bolts (there’s a great deal of tension and backstory you could tap from this, given the appropriate angles being played).

Kill this entire paragraph-
>And that's what I'd thought, for years. Dusty Roads had a "barnstorming" show where he'd do these crazy stunts like skimming along the ground at top speed; dodging past the quarray eels of Ghastly Gorge; pretending to fight a dragon that was just unicorns in a low-budget costume; or buzzing through the Tannhauser Gate. Silly stuff. I was focused on studying and working out.

I can’t tell if you like Dash are not, and that’s a problem because you’re *writing* her. Everything she does and says is just so surface level and down-right robotic, like you’re just taking her through the motions based on algorithmic notes of her scenes in the show. It doesn’t feel like you actually understand her character, or even particularly want to.

Okay, I’ve been holding onto this thing for… what, four, five days now? Largely, it’s because every time I open it when I have a few minutes to attend to it, I feel like I’m just going to be repeating myself as I run across more of the same issues. As such, the following here is going to be more generalized and less specific mistake notation. So go back over, and every time you see a sentence of less than six words, 9/10 times you need to work it into a previous or following sentence. Your attempts to insert tension simply come off as flat, as they tend to be minimalistic dialogue without any reference points as to *why* people should care, then reach absolution in the next few lines without lending any momentum to the story’s progression. References to the show: you have them everywhere, and 9/10 times they do you no favors. I suggest you take them all out. A great many of your sentences are just completely nonsensical. I’ll give you a quote of one, but it’s not going to serve you much good if you don’t develop an aversion to writing them - “Dash winced as she got zapped with a healing spell.” Develop a sense of what level of intensity you want to go with, and stick with it until your theme calls for a change. This means that you shouldn’t apply the same level of intensity that you would for taking Dash into the “this is what we kill shit with” section of their base, as you do when Spitfire gets all pissy cuz Dash fucked up a move. Currently, it’s all just a ubiquitous application, and you need to understand that it’s the ebb and flow that engages a reader. Reflect and review your perspectives mate. I don’t feel like I’m reading this from Soarin’s angle, I feel like I’m reading it from a fan of the show. Your most serious issue is, again, your tone and emotional vibrancy (of which there is next to none), to such an extent that if it weren’t for the identifiers, I’d hardly be able to tell who the hell is who. In fact, here’s an exercise that I think you should try - Write a scene. Say… a Pegasus losing control, and going into a crazy spin from two thousand feet. This pegasus thinks he/she is going to die. Now write that same scene from Soarin’s perspective. Do it again from Spitfires, then Dash’s, and then Fluttershy’s. Each one should be so different, that only the physical event should follow any semblance of repetition. Neh? Another point, is that nothing actually happens in this story. It breaks down to a theme I’ve seen a thousand times: RD joins the Wonderbolts. That’s really it. You attempt to work in an alternate progression with this Dusty Roads character, but it’s so ancillary that it tends to be more distracting than relevant. All in all sir, I’m afraid to say that this needs a complete re-write to address the issues that were given you. I'm genuinely sorry I could not be of more service.

Cheers mate, keep writing.

Tags: Going to have a bit of most everything but Grimdark.

Synopsis: The end of the show that started a phenomenon. Familiar faces return, new players come to the field, and the powers of friendship will be tested as the entire world is plunged into its greatest danger yet...

Links: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1adcS_EBZJJLsSnFz4vppLkmciK8R-7MDwE5EFlFDrE0/edit

Comments: Hello; it's me again. I was wisely advised by several reviewers to chop this into more bite-sized pieces, and I also did a bit of trimming on the side. The above link goes to a google doc with separate links to each chapter(as the collection links will not allow you to comment for some odd reason). It's still a long fic, but I hope some of you will try and do what you can for it. Even if you can only get a few chapters, instead of the whole story, I can't imagine some advice won't go a long ways.

When I submitted it to EQD I got the following email in reply (Here is another link): https://docs.google.com/document/d/1aLAbp6K4W83dMjFAHWq4CiEwCRPCiTFx0w8g1PecC0I/edit

Most problems seemed to stem from various details I overlooked, and the fact that it was an 80000+ document(submitted all in one piece) at first did not help matters, I'd imagine. This is the first in what hopefully be a line of episodes if I can get these to work.

Do what you can, I certainly appreciated the previous feedback I got from here, and I wish you the best of luck.

Tags: Going to have a bit of most everything but Grimdark.

Synopsis: The end of the show that started a phenomenon. Familiar faces return, new players come to the field, and the powers of friendship will be tested as the entire world is plunged into its greatest danger yet...

Links: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1adcS_EBZJJLsSnFz4vppLkmciK8R-7MDwE5EFlFDrE0/edit

Comments: Hello; it's me again. I was wisely advised by several reviewers to chop this into more bite-sized pieces, and I also did a bit of trimming on the side. The above link goes to a google doc with separate links to each chapter(as the collection links will not allow you to comment for some odd reason). It's still a long fic, but I hope some of you will try and do what you can for it. Even if you can only get a few chapters, instead of the whole story, I can't imagine some advice won't go a long ways.

When I submitted it to EQD I got the following email in reply (Here is another link): https://docs.google.com/document/d/1aLAbp6K4W83dMjFAHWq4CiEwCRPCiTFx0w8g1PecC0I/edit

Most problems seemed to stem from various details I overlooked, and the fact that it was an 80000+ document(submitted all in one piece) at first did not help matters, I'd imagine. This is the first in what hopefully be a line of episodes if I can get these to work.

Do what you can, I certainly appreciated the previous feedback I got from here, and I wish you the best of luck.

Tags: One-shot, sad, dark

Synopsis: Luna returns with a vengeance. An execution of royalty in the city of Canterlot.

Links:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1p3yWDCtqXJiMYAkF2zqu0SwOHridecQ4HBFJcJOi8j4/edit

Comment: The synopsis is rather shoddy at the moment but I'll be making changes to that once this has been developed properly.

This is my favorite Daring fic ever. It's really subtle with the ideas without being abstruse, and it's definitely a "thinkers' fic."

Get rid of the epigraph though. Unless it's also an epigram, it just comes across as pretentious.

That's your problem. EqD is for the thundering unwashed herd - and I don't think there's anything wrong with being able to appeal to the thundering unwashed herd.

See, it's actually more of a challenge to write something engaging than it is to write something smart. The first requires practice, while the second only requires being smart. You should put in the time, since the very best fics (and this one is headed in that direction as far as I'm concerned) succeed on both levels simultaneously.

Notes, not as much editing as I thought I'd do: https://docs.google.com/document/d/13FVSS4GY2r5M8gAUJSJglhiKK3C-CsAgflhLPDUL-Ro/edit

In a nutshell, I marked some scenes for deletion or reduction when they're made redundant in the next scene. You should spend less time focusing on how the ponies get in and out of Canterlot (They take the train. Further detail is irrelevant.) and more on bringing the University to life in the sensory imagination of the reader and of Dash. On the whole, your fic will probably grow. If I were revising, I'd punch out the things that aren't working and patch in new writing written longhand on a blank page.

Please take a look at some descriptive writing exercises. I love Word Painting by McClanahan. This is the skill that will make or break this story. And best of luck. This one is a real gem in the rough.

>>101351
Excuse me. I need to take off my T-shirt and put on a button-down long-sleeved dress shirt.

So that I can roll up my sleeves. Thank you very much for your time and advice alike.

>>101298
Thanks for reviewing my fic. I'll take everything you've said into consideration.

Though, I'd like to know if you can clarify your final thoughts a little more, I don't really understand what you're saying about the empathy, exaggerting, and connecting with the characters and all that.

Also, I'll see what I can do about single POV's. Would it work better if I translate some of the alternate POV's into spoken dialogue, do you think?

Good job picking up on the fact that I'm slowly seeding some other relationships here. My plan is for Sweetest Gem to be the first in a line of slice-of-life romance fics that'll all be connected to each other in certain ways. All I'll say for now is that yes, Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash shall see some progression with that later on.

One more thing. Do you or anybody else know where I can find an online proofreader? Is there another place on /fic/ where I can take it to be proofread? I don't have someone to do that for me IRL.

>>101351

Eustatian Wings: Before I go too far into this rewrite... am I going in the right direction with this whole description business?

>Grand Central Station was the very heart of Canterlot. The roof of the terminal building formed a sweeping lattice of steel beams and glass windows angled to catch the cold light of dawn. It's vast interior was divided only by rows of bench seats and slender vertical girders, affording an unbroken view through the entire length of the hall. The concrete floor was inset with marble pathways and short stairways that divided the hall into shallow tiers and levels. It was nothing like the rest of Canterlot... though perhaps it resembled a network of fountains and reflecting pools left to dry. It was a warehouse of steel and glass and featureless grey. A too-large greenhouse stripped of it's moist soil and crisp greens.

>Ponies from all walks of life and from every corner of the civilized world ebbed and flowed. Crowds moved to and from the platforms, parading past each other as they arrived or departed. The lines for the terminal counters were long but swiftly moving. Station attendants marched about in crisp blue uniforms and mingled with the crowd to answer questions or offer advice. Some attendants pulled long trains of luggage carriers through the hall. Others led long trains of bright-eyed fillies and colts on tours. Even their schoolteachers gazed up at the architecture with childlike eyes. The heavy cargo trains were only visible from the very end of the departure platorm: tonnes of crates and boxes were being loaded and unloaded, many plastered with multi-lingual labels and ink stamps. Food and raw resources from the country traded places with crafted goods and furnishings.

>The station itself was a work of negative space. The endless expanse of grey and white gave contrast to the brightly colored sea of coats and manes. The sterile air came to life with the exotic perfumes and colognes of foreign visitors. The cold stone and metal did nothing to hinder the warm, tearful embraces of friends and families... whether united or divided. It was said that Canterlot's "soul" was more resplendent in it's theatres and galleries. But this terminal pulsed day and night without rest. There could be no argument that Grand Central Station was nothing less than the beating heart of a vibrant nation.

I think i got carried away. Seems long for an introduction to a short story. It doesn't even introduce any characters.

Tags: [Normal][Comedy]

Synopsis: Following Rainbow Dash screwing around with a set of magical horseshoes that change the shape of the wearer, she and her five best friends change species for real. They're forced to deal with the consequences of the change, with both its impact on their careers and the more subtle impact on their identities.

List of links to the story:
Chapter 1: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1y76BUrHyNzSmoyidCS65wam5mT-DyWDaUPQPasS5emE/edit
Chapter 2: https://docs.google.com/document/d/15J19p2Sux8I6jc-PBv6wO5WRZ_InykZz9GQtLI5bnCA/edit
Chapter 3: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1M8KZUg99CVrme01SAf5f8pSqRhL4e3Rg-G-QbcUhuMo/edit

Comments/requests:
The pre-readers of Equestria Daily said:
"Look for errors in the following areas:
Gender-specific terms
Comma use
Capitalization
Dialogue punctuation
Unclear phrasing
Hyphen use
Spacing
Use of quotes for emphasis
Tense confusion
Spelling
This also has some issues with telling versus showing, an overuse of adverbs, and a neglect of setting to some degree. The Omnibus should help with this.

The perspective of this story is also unclear and changes at the drop of a hat. Unless there's a very good reason, perspective should stay the same in a story. You begin this story in a sort of third person objective viewpoint, then switch to a variety of third person limited viewpoints, often changing perspective from paragraph to paragraph. This is both confusing and not necessary.

The use of parenthetical asides (like this one) are both frequent and distracting in this narrative; the story would likely be stronger if most of them were removed.

Rarity also feels a bit out of character here. Yes, she likes to sound "upper crust", but she shouldn't be throwing around more intellectual dialogue than Twilight."

My personal thoughts:
"The most major issue is perspective, I believe, and it is probably key to my further acceptance. I've put a fair chunk of work in trying to separate out the problem. I'm going for a Third Person Omniscient stance, but I don't want to be excessive about it. I want occasional access to others' thoughts and information the focal point character cannot know about, primarily. I want to have one consistent perspective throughout, however, so pointing out the spots where this is flawed would be great.

The specific issue of Rarity's voice has baffled me, if anyone could nail some specific instances (and maybe suggest fixes) that would be great. I've had some people point out places they had problems and think I got it sorted out, but if the pre-reader found it distracting, I want it dealt with.

I dealt with the parenthetical asides, none should be left. Please let me know if I left one in on accident in some fashion.

Lastly, cleanup: aside from any grammatical errors, if someone could flag these areas, that would be great:
1) Telling rather than showing
2) Places where setting could be established better

I'm worried about bloating the chapter lengths a lot, but I'm more worried about passing the EQD challenge."

Reposting from earlier thread.

Alright then. When I first saw this story, I claimed it at random without checking it first. I thought it was odd that I couldn't find the post, but after reading your story, now I know why. I'm sorry to say, but this story is not going to make it to EqD. You can go ahead and submit it though, just be aware that I told you in advance. I wasn't familiar with the crossover material, but if I was, I would have been tipped off immediately as to what was going to happen. Most reviewers would have dropped this immediately, but I kept reading the rest anyway. So I watched the video and found out that it's a lot more brutal than I anticipated. Although it's an interesting concept, it doesn't mesh for ponies very well. For what it's worth, I liked the concepts when it involved humans but when it involved ponies that I care for, the concept suddenly turned me squeamish.

There is gore, brutality, out of character characterization, implied rape, remarks about underage characters and their attractiveness(Apple booty) as well as death and concepts that will make most readers squeamish. All of that explains why your ponychan post was deleted. It was probably reported because those subjects are not allowed on Ponychan nor EqD. Crossovers already don't do well on EqD anyway and most crossovers are automooned depending on what it's being crossed over with. After seeing the movie and reading your fic, it sounds like the typical find-and-replace type of fic. That's when you take the characters of other television shows, movies, or other media and replace them with pony characters. When you do that, you completely ignore the characterizations of the canon character's personalities and what they would do in that situation. Claiming that it's an alternate universe doesn't allow you to completely change who the characters are, deep down inside. It only affects certain effects. But I really can't picture this happening.

Now, that doesn't mean that you have to stop writing this fic. It all depends on what your goals as a writer and for this story is. More than likely, it will never leave FimFiction. I'm sorry to sound harsh, but it's kinda the truth. Just from the subject matter, like stated before. If you're okay with that fact, then go ahead and keep going.

If you have kept reading so far and you still want help for your writing, then keep going. I will list a few of your system errors that are present through your entire prologue.

SYSTEMIC ERRORS:

Your fic is very confusing and awkwardly worded. I'm not sure if it's because you chose to write in present tense, but it feels very off-putting. Many readers tend to hit the back arrow when they see that kind of thing. Especially when you have all of the tense shifts which make it even more jarring. Many people have the argument that fics are "more exciting and urgent" if written in present tense, but they really aren't. Hunger Games got away with present tense, but they probably would have sold more if it was in past. It's not the same fic I know, but it's the same idea behind it. Using present tense just leads to you making more tense shifts, throwing the reader out of the story immediately.

The only reason I know what's happening at all is because this story follows the movie (or book) really closely. Of course, doing that leads to another host of problems, which I will explain at the end of this review. For now, onto the systemic errors.

Tense Shifts:

Since you decided to use present tense instead of past tense, be sure to be consistent. You constantly shift to different tenses while writing. Here are some examples.

>"For real!? Thanks!" Pipsqueak exclaimed

>Pinkie Pie giggled as they sat in the booth opposite to us.

>"Um, yes, I did... but Pinkie told me what to do! I can't cook at all!" Twilight covered her face as she kicked the floor.

>"For real!? Thanks!" Pipsqueak exclaimed as he snatched the bag up and opened it, gobbling down a cookie.

>I looked at the camera and smiled while Pipsqueak stood up on the bench and laid against the back of the seat and atop my shoulders.

>We all let out a giggle and laughed, smiling as the camera flashed and took the photo.

>Stepping forward as Pinkie's stepping aside, she walks up as both Pipsqueak and I looked at the lavender mare.

Missing Commas or Misuse

Many of your sentences are lacking commas or are put in the wrong place, thus making many strange sentence structures. Some examples are:

>“Please withhold questions until the lesson is over, class. I apologize for the inconvenience,” she replies only to be met with silence.

In this example, put a comma between "replies" and "only." You also need to put a comma when you have a sentence that sounds like this:

"Blah blah," she said, picking up a tire iron.

Many of your sentences are missing that comma that follows the "said" which is supposed to separate the action verbs.

If I pointed out every example in a line by line review, I'd point out way too many, so I'll just leave you with this helpful resource.

http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/607/1/


Telling Problems

You have some issues with telling over here. That's when you write something that a character feels, but you aren't actually saying anything. Here are some examples of them.

>with sadness on her face.
>asks with a tone of worry.

When your characters feel or act a certain way, you keep telling us which is bad. Look at the below document and scroll down to Show vs Tell.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1WMMs8H-GpFIXPsQeC0RNu8V-Cq6uyGl_UERpOUK_6KY/edit?hl=en_US

Dialogue Punctuation

>"No thank you, go ahead." I replied.
>"No, it's... hah, not that guys. I'm just not hungry." I said, calming down.

Your dialogue punctuation is wrong. I could copy and paste all of the stuff involving dialogue punctuation but instead I'll just link to Ezn's guide. Scroll down to the "Dialogue - Said Tags" section and look at it. It's a much better explanation than what I could do.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1xemG7BLk2rvAmQCREIaj5wX2ubvmVt7WziEvh7xXV9g/edit

Awkward Sounding Sentences

A lot of your sentence structures are awkward, confusing, weird, etc. There's no real way to help with this besides reading more books/fics and reading your story out loud. Being a nonnative English speaker means that you have more obstacles to move across when it comes to this, but still possible. I wish I knew how to help, but I'll offer some examples of strange-sounding sentences.

>We took a look at it Pipsqueak let out a gasp while Twilight and I snorted, holding back a fit of
giggles.

>Looking up to the caretaker, who just walked in, stared at her with wonder in my eyes and asked a question.

>I asked as my friends in the room all thought the same question.

>I don't know why she was sad, but later in life, I had discovered.

>After a few steps, I finally trip on the friction of the ground unable to keep sliding backwards.

>The projectile in question impacted Twist; a small knife easily penetrating the fur coat, the skin, and the thick skull of the pony directly impaling the shocked pony. Instantly, my classmate, one of my friend's friend, the friend who always enjoyed sharing sweets, the pony who, like all of us, is innocent, ceased to be.

>"What do yo-" I said only to have the caretaker's hoof placed over my mouth preventing me from asking.

>Twilight is chasing the pink mare full swing with a blush creeping across her lavender face, almost panicking at Pinkie's choice. All around, chatter goes about as the entire class excitedly conversed about what they will do on the trip, how much fun it will be, Pipsqueak went on about how happy he is, and Pinkie and Twilight are the only ones not indulging in excited chatter. Pinkie zipped by the ponies as she dashes into the next train car with Twilight dead on her tail. She practically stops dead in her tracks, Twilight slamming into her from behind as if Pinkie were a brick wall.

Here's another example of the confusing sentence thing. Look at the following two sentences. In the story, they follow right after another. According to what you're saying, Twilight is inside the bag of sweets.

>"Hi, boys! Twilight made this for you, Spike-wikey and Pippysqueaky!" Pinkie said, tossing the bag of sweets onto my lap.

>Twilight recollects herself before actually realizing she is in it.

Hmm... yeah.

Misc. Notes

>then it's like somepony injected me with an aphrodisiac.

I don't think that word (aphrodisiac) means what you think it means. Unless you're implying that Spike became aroused. after he saw some other pony die in front of him, I would change that word.

>"I'm sorry, I'm late and..." Twilight began to say. "... and I don't know what's going on...?"

Multiple punctuation marks are bad, cut them out. In this case, remove the ellipsis at the end of the second sentence. Also, the ellipsis in the beginning of the second sentence is also pointless since it's continuing from the last one, so cut that too.

"Began to say" is also strange. That makes it sound like she was about to say something, but she didn't. So then, she didn't really say anything and the sentence is moot. It's better to just replace it with an action indicating what she did. In this case, let's try:

"I'm sorry, I'm late and..." Twilight paused when she saw the empty classroom.

See? Doesn't that sound better?

>"Hey Twilight, lets go!" a pink mare named Pinkamina, better known as Pinkie, said, nudging Twilight as both ponies sat at the back of the train car.

To make this sentence grammatically correct, add a comma before "hey." But still, that sounds like a weird sentence.

>Twilight hid her face behind her hooves, a small bag of sweets in her hand.

Hehe, looks like you missed a word there. Twilight doesn't have hands.

>"For real!? Thanks!" Pipsqueak exclaimed

Axe the first exclamation point in the first sentence.

>Next to Scootaloo sits colt-killer Sweetie Belle; widely known for her good looks and amazing voice... and finally, one-of-the-colts, Applebloom; widely known for... having an "applebooty".

Semi-colons don't work like that, those ellipses don't belong there, and the applebooty thing is just creepy. I'm going to have more words about the applebooty thing later on.

Ellipses Abuse:

You overuse the ellipses way too much. When you do that, it sorta loses impact. Yeah, you did it to indicate pauses and the stream of conciousness, but it is extremely annoying to read. You can substitute commas and dashes for ellipses as well. Do a Ctrl+F for "..." and see how many you have, because you have way too many.

FINAL CONCERNS:

Let's see, since your fic seems to be a find-and-replace fic, then if we match the characters from the show with the characters on here, then it looks like...

That can't be right. The main male character is Spike and the main female is Twilight. But that would mean SpikexTwilight? Nonono, that can't be right. Celestia is the teacher, who apparently kills ponies maliciously, curses, sounds nothing like herself, and raped Cheerilee? Nonono. Spike curses and calls Twilight an egghead too. My headcanon cannot allow these characterizations to exist.

Yea, no. This fic isn't going to work if you want to get on EqD. There are too many subjects in it which are inappropriate. Let's go over what exists in this fic. Gore, violence, brutality, implied rape, implied pedofilia (Making attractive comments about underage characters = do not want), death, and much more. Not to mention that none of the characters really act like themselves. They are very OoC (Out of character). Great idea for humans, but not for ponies. EqD puts up fics for the mainstream and most people hate to see their ponies killed off unless it's justified.

Ugh, I'm sorry but I can't really help you that much with this. The subject matter is rather squicky. Still, I hope the other stuff I mentioned can help you with improving your writing. If it does, this review would still be helpful. Like I said, you don't have to stop writing your fic. You just won't be able to get it onto EqD unless you changed a lot of things. A lot. Anyhoo, I hope this doesn't discourage you from writing completely, but I didn't want to give you any false hopes for this particular piece. If you felt I was unfair with this review, feel free to tell me so. As always, keep writing.

Tags: [Grimdark] [Crossover]

Synopsis: Coping with amnesia, a colt struggles to rediscover his true self in a world where danger lurks around every corner. He will soon find out though, that the truth may have been better off left buried in secrecy forever...

Links:

[Story] - http://www.fimfiction.net/story/2437/Into-Darkness

[EqD e-mail (Only applies to the prologue, but I'm sure the problems are shared between chapters)] - https://docs.google.com/document/d/1t3mUoZtV6yJH6HEz32Q6SKbZ2cjLIMivV8hviJdjGQQ/edit

[Comments, et cetera] - I know this is a lot to go through, but I've already gone through it three times on my own, and I've still managed to miss out on a bunch of really small stuff (As you'll notice in the e-mail), and it's all in just the prologue. I'm looking for somebody who's willing to nitpick and get rid of all those nasty errors that are littered across my story. I don't think my character is a Gary Stu, though it would help to get a second opinion. Thanks for your help, and I look forward to your criticism.

>>99444

I'm not sure why I'm doing this. It's awful long and the grammar is kinda thick. I'm also not laughing as much as I wanted. Oh well, I said I would, and I will. I might not do this very quickly, as I've got a lot of other stuff I'd like to do, but I'll get this done.

Is my entry being reviewed by anypony? I noticed somepony claimed it but I've seen no review posted for it. It's been four days.
my story submission>>100839
claimer(?)>>100860

>>100946

Thank you very much, Dromer. I'll have to think about what you said, perhaps change how events unfold. I suppose it's difficult to make boring peacetime interesting.

Hooray~ I have to write another scene before I can edit Chapter 2. Maybe I'll just condense the two chapters into one. There is a little bit more to Chapter 2, besides establishing character.

Ah~ I'm just thinking out loud now...I'll stop rambling...

>>101431
I don't see a record of it in the queue. Did you fill out the submission form?

AzuNyan is around enough that he knows what he's doing. 4 days isn't a bad wait. Depending on the fic, a review can take upwards of a week. Plus it's finals time for many of the reviewers.

>>101431
Give it time. Most reviews take more time than you think. We put a lot of blood and sweat into them, well most of us do.

>>101433
No I thought that form was optional. And four days is normal?! Well I guess I'll be more patient then, I try to respond within a day to stories in my queue so I guess I'm just not used to that.

>>101433
Or, like the samurai, weeks. But they are pretty good to read...

Shadow of Dreams

Author: Keyframe

Tags: R63, OC, Mild-Shipping, alternate universe, normal

Synopsis: The third chapter of an earth pony who moved to Ponyville. She dreams of flying and is building a flying machine with the residents of Ponyville, but with the rodeo in town and a broken robot things will get out of hand.

Links:[Storypage]
http://www.fimfiction.net/index.php?view=category&search=Shadow+of+dreams
Chapter 3:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1INpkJ0bqz04ovm6qjUgWhqXx43GWSSR5SkXYGahxQ5I/edit {Comments enabled}
Just chapter 3 please.

>>101423
Understood, thanks for the reply. I am still trying to get used to writing present tense so it's nice to see how bad a writer I am still. Some things in the review I understand while several other aren't necessarily true; every character who is underage is written as if they're of age (the Cake's twins appear).

Some of the darker accusations are true, since the original novel this is based on is pretty damn dark with many implications (I toned it down a lot).

Thanks for your review and I'll take into consideration what you said.

Mr. Masato/Arby Works.

Title: Excerpts from a Filth Diary

Author: SR Foxley

Tags: normal, bittersweet, slice of life

Synopsis: Have you ever wondered what kind of parents would name their foal "Filthy?" Just what happened to Applejack's parents, and why is Diamond Tiara such a mean little filly, especially to Apple Bloom? Some speculative answers on this and more in this different take on Ponyville's richest citizen.

(Filthy Rich writes a letter to his daughter Diamond Tiara describing some of the events in his life which have made him into the pony he is today. In the process we discover more about the Apple family and the way the Rich family has also helped shape Ponyville's history.)

In the chapters for this review: Young Filthy Rich's introduction to the other foals in school in Ponyville could have gone better, Filthy participates in his first zap apple harvest, and we learn a lot more about Filthy's grandfather Stinking Rich when Filthy decides to ask Honeycrisp Apple to be his very special somepony.

Link: http://www.fimfiction.net/story/20575/Excerpts-from-a-Filthy-Diary

Chapters I'm requesting to be reviewed: 1-3

Author's note: These first three chapters are the beginning of a complete rewrite of the original diary (which was only diary) I had written and submitted to EQD.

EQD pre-reader comments (those that may still apply): Through the entire story, I was thinking to myself, "There's not nearly enough here. If it weren't for the 'Excerpts' part of the title, I'd consider this unfinished. The author needs to make these time jumps less wide." Then I got to the end, with the last will and the short bit of narrative, and was less sure in this appraisal. That Filthy is actually compiling bits of his journal for his daughter gives this purpose; however, it still feels stretched, abrupt and purposeless until one reaches the end. So I'm going to say you need to add in more, and I have two suggestions for you, both of which stretch my place as a pre-reader. First, you could just add in more journal. Give us extra backstory during the large jumps, both temporal and eventful. Second, and this is where I'm stretching myself, you could try integrating the narrative into the journal. Set us up from the opening with Filthy writing his will, going back through his diary and picking pieces out. For the shorter entries, give us his thoughts on them; fill in with flashbacks what isn't in the diary itself. This ties in with the previous bullet point because, if he's cherry-picking excerpts, he may also be rewriting them to add in detail. Or, again, you could put the dialogue into the flashbacks so that the reader lives the events which occurred.

This was a very good look into Filthy Rich as a character. I feel like you tied up a lot of backstory very nicely and the characters were all believable, not to mention you used the journal format in a purposeful
manner. Please forgive me for suggesting you add more and change your approach, but this sort of story is very popular right now, and I think this could stand out from the crowd with a bit more work. I hope you'll take my suggestions under review, and I look forward to seeing this story come back.

>>101467

>every character who is underage is written as if they're of age (the Cake's twins appear).

Ah, that would make more sense then, yesh. Just imagine what someone else would think if they read the Cake Twins being killed. They'd probably jump to conclusions. Especially if you have your ponies kill themselves like some of the people do in the movie/book. Not saying that this happens to them specifically, though. I'm guessing that the Cake Twins would be gunned down for calling for help (Now I must finish watching that movie and pay attention to any group of two ponies). This topic is very dark and may be toned down, but it's still ponies so some people might be... indifferent. But yea, it's very toned down in comparison. Something I didn't mention before was the sort of Infodump in the beginning in italics. It completely makes sense when it comes to the crossover, but for the fic, it might seem like a rather unimportant block. It paints a picture of a society that is out of control. I guess if I picture Celestia as Tyrant Celestia, it might work sans the dialogue.

Also, I should probably clarify something. Although I didn't like reading it as much as I thought I would (Not your fault, it's mine), that doesn't mean that everyone else will dislike your fic. However, the majority of people will find it off-putting. At least on FimFiction, you'll have a few fans there that will enjoy your writing. The present tense isn't a problem per se(I apologize if I put it in the wrong section) but many readers will get turned off by it. This fic has a lot of shock value though.

And don't fret about the bad writer thing. The more you improve your writing, the more you'll end up criticizing yourself. Even if you take away the tl;dr version of "this story isn't appropriate for EqD" I'm hoping that the rest of the review concerning your review is informative enough for you to get started. Mainly, working on dialogue punctuation, tense shifts, and excessive ellipses first would be a good idea.

>>101482
To be honest, I'm not one for trying to get onto EqD, sending fics in to EqD is just a nice way to know where you stand in terms of writing and editor choices. This fic, although will never see the light of day on EqD's grounds, will enjoy the fanbase it has right now and will get with subsequent updates. Your insight is valued and as I said, every bit counts in the long run if it makes me a better writer and the fic better overall.

Thanks for your review.

This isn't a review request, but I thought it would be best to ask this question here.

I'm not a reviewer, so I guess I'm asking for a little bit of a reviewer's perspective.

I've been writing fanfics for about a month. While I had been writing original fiction very off and on for 8 years, this is the first time I'm received significant feedback on my work. Simply put, I'm trying to learn as much as I can.

My main concern is if I'm ever wasting a reviewer's time. I tend to think over my stories very elaborately and I like to know exactly what I'm doing wrong. As such, I find it hard to resist the temptation to ask my reviewer to elaborate on many points; I also tend to have many questions on writing style and technique in general, such as the more complex elements of show, don't tell.

Case in point: yesterday I tossed my fic in the IRC chat for some feedback. I ended up talking with my impromptu reviewer for over two hours about the story, mainly concerning characterization and show don't tell. I felt a little bad because I didn't fully grasp the concepts right away. I'm someone who learns by example, so often a blanket statement of what I'm doing wrong isn't very helpful; I need a specific example of where things went wrong. This is why I often ask reviewers to elaborate on their points.

Is this wasting a reviewer's time? I hate to feel like a burden, but asking tons of questions is how I learn. Is the review supposed to be done after it has been typed up? Or do you guys honestly don't mind if I come knocking on your door in the IRC? What makes me feel the worst is that I don't have anything to offer myself. I'm not a good reviewer, so I can't give detailed feedback on my reviewer's work should they request it.

I don't want to give the impression that I ask my reviewers tons of questions just to indulge in my writing or seek approval of my concept/ideas. I'm just trying to learn as much as I can about how to execute these ideas.

So if other reviewers could give me their perspective on this sort of thing, it would hopefully put these concerns at ease.

Thanks :)

>>101492

I'm glad you feel that way and aren't giving up on writing. Since you still want to improve, I'm going to write up a post on showing vs telling as well as how to spot it and other misc things. I'm sure others could find that post useful as well, so that's why I'm posting it here instead of just emailing it.

>>101495

The only way you could waste a reviewer's time is if you stop writing completely or outright tell them to shut their face. Many reviewers are willing to elaborate on said points if you ask them too. The reason for being general at first is because we aren't sure if the authors care about their story enough to improve their writing or if they just want to be hugboxed. If you get a review and you come back later and want to know more, that means you're willing to improve and we're more likely to help you. So don't fret, you're not wasting our time.

Besides, asking questions is how people learn. If you didn't learn, what would the point of coming here be? Some people learn at different rates, some slower than others, but if you're willing to learn, that's all that matters. Just a small warning though, help for fics usually happens on #ttg. It can also happen on #fic (despite what some people say), but it's more likely to derail into a different conversation. If you really want help, you could always PM a specific person as well. Never be afraid of asking questions though. <3

>>101495
>I felt a little bad because I didn't fully grasp the concepts right away. I'm someone who learns by example, so often a blanket statement of what I'm doing wrong isn't very helpful; I need a specific example of where things went wrong. This is why I often ask reviewers to elaborate on their points.

When I do a review there are usually two parts to it: A review that summarizes overall problems, and a line-by-line commentary of the original work. Each half is equally important.

I try to be very thorough with the line-by-line. It's a great deal of work, but I believe it's important for the writer to know what they did wrong and where. I believe that 90% of the problem is seeing what's wrong in the first place: because I point it out every time, it reinforces the presence of the error in the writer's mind. I don't really edit for the benefit of a single story. I am investing in the writer's future works.

Unfortunately, my brother pointed out that this might not be productive at all. If I point out the problems every time, the writer is never forced to search for them on their own. I've done all the work myself, and thus removed the need to learn. As much as I want to disagree with him, I have to admit he's probably right.

I know that when other reviewers do a line-by-line, they'll sometimes point out an error three times, and then say "I expect you to find this on your own from now on." I don't agree with this. If the write could see their own problems, they wouldn't need an editor in the first place.

I'm still thinking about how to deal with this. Ultimately, the purpose of a review is to improve the writer. Not the story. On that note, I've only ever felt that one of my reviews was a waste of time: my review of Gernon's "Stranger from the North."
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1AvP_HujXLA45ozJ-h5skU9OxYOXi09bJnmU61GkPVBY/edit
The story was really really bad, but that had absolutely nothing to do with my complaint. I felt I had wasted my time because the writer never got back to me. Never sent a thank you note, nor did he acknowledge or argue the advice I gave. I honestly would have been happier if he'd cussed me out i na frothing rage. Anything at all would have been better than nothing.

So that's what it takes to waste my time: learn nothing.

Note: If someone here knows that Gernon really did try get back to me, and I just never noticed, please let me know. I'll gladly apologize for my complaint.

>>101504

Psst Duncan, he did get back to you. Look at the below post.

>>100995

Anyhoo, there have been many debates about the value of a line by line vs the time it takes to write up a review, as well as whether reviewing is the same as editors or if pointing out every mistake helps or hurts the writers. I could discuss more with you in your review doc if you'd like.

>>100995
It has been pointed out to me that Gernon did get back to me, but I never noticed his post.

*ahem*

Gernon: I totally apologize for what I said, and I admit I was wrong. I take back everything mean I said about you. I hope you found my review useful and wish you luck as you continue to write.

>>101506
>Anyhoo, there have been many debates about the value of a line by line vs the time it takes to write up a review, as well as whether reviewing is the same as editors or if pointing out every mistake helps or hurts the writers.

I would say, emphatically, that reviewing is not the same as proofreading. Those are two entirely different things.

But in both cases, it's important for the writer to learn to self-edit.

>>101499
>>101504
I used to do full-on line by line, but then I took awkward word choices OOC moments plotholes to the knee found out that the more attention I paid to missing commas, the less of the big picture I saw. I'm going for a "point out every instance until you get bored of doing it" stance, now, and then adding a link to resource material, or useful copypasta, in the summary post in TTG.

>>101511
Imo, line by line is nigh indistinguishable from a proofread/edit.

>>101499
Alright, thanks for your effort.

>>101519
Tags: Going to have a bit of most everything but Grimdark.

Synopsis: The end of the show that started a phenomenon. Familiar faces return, new players come to the field, and the powers of friendship will be tested as the entire world is plunged into its greatest danger yet...

Links: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1adcS_EBZJJLsSnFz4vppLkmciK8R-7MDwE5EFlFDrE0/edit

Comments: Hello; it's me again. I was wisely advised by several reviewers to chop this into more bite-sized pieces, and I also did a bit of trimming on the side by getting rid of some unneeded plot-points. The above link goes to a google doc with separate links to each chapter(as the collection links will not allow you to comment for some odd reason). It's still a long fic, but I hope some of you will try and do what you can for it. Even if you can only get a few chapters, instead of the whole story, I can't imagine some advice won't go a long ways.

When I submitted it to EQD I got the following email in reply (Here is another link): https://docs.google.com/document/d/1aLAbp6K4W83dMjFAHWq4CiEwCRPCiTFx0w8g1PecC0I/edit

Most problems seemed to stem from various details I overlooked, and the fact that it was an 80000+ document(submitted all in one piece) at first did not help matters, I'd imagine; the pre-reader couldn't even get through page ten. This is the first in what hopefully would be a line of episodes, but only if I can get these to work.

Do what you can, I certainly appreciated the previous feedback I got from here, and I wish you the best of luck.

(P.S., if I am making a mistake in how I am posting this on the thread, please give me a little patience. I am extremely new at this.)

According to your comment, you want "constructive criticism." Since that's really vague, I assume that means you want a basic review of your story and some of the aspects regarding it. Well, let's get started then, shall we? Since you're using FimFiction, I'll just copy and paste your review here.

The First Scene:

>“I said you may stand at ease, Lieutenant.” The princess said calmly.

This is a dialogue attribution error and they pop up throughout your fic. Let me explain what that means with a copy-paste.

You need to learn how to punctuate dialogue. Remember, if a variation of “X said” follows the line, you need a comma or other special punctuation mark (not a period) to link it to the phrase. There is no capitalization of the beginning of the phrase in these instances. Standalone bits of dialogue get solid endings, and the next word is capitalized. If you reverse the order, place a comma before you go into the dialogue, and end the spoken line with a period, exclamation point, or question mark.

If you'd like more information regarding dialogue punctuation, check the Omnibus and Ezn's guide in the links below.

Ezn's Guide:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1xemG7BLk2rvAmQCREIaj5wX2ubvmVt7WziEvh7xXV9g/edit?hl=en_US

Omnibus:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1WMMs8H-GpFIXPsQeC0RNu8V-Cq6uyGl_UERpOUK_6KY/edit?hl=en_US

If you'd like to see more information about dialogue punctuation or anything in this review, let me know and I'll give you some more examples.

>“Thank you, Your Majesty, but this posture keeps me quite at ease.” Scarlet said back in a crisp, polite tone.

First, saying "back" is redundant and makes the sentence awkward. There's usually no need to have characters turn to face each other, talk or respond back to each other, or any variation since it's implied. Also, telling the reader what the tone of voice is more telling. Imply the tone of voice through dialogue and it won't be needed at all. If you can't do that, axe that phrase altogether.

Also, like mentioned above, it has dialogue punctuation errors. I don't need to point it out except to say that you need to go back and specifically check for this yourself. I would do it but it's not Gdocs.

>“Very well,” Celestia said using her horn magic to levitate up a scroll.

Missing a comma after "said." Also, delete "up." It's usually implied when stuff is levitated to fly upwards, right?

Looking at the rest of your story, if you have an action after a speaking verb, there must always follow a comma. Here is an example of a missing comma.

"Wow, that's huge!" she said levitating the book from the floor.

It should say this:

"Wow, that's huge!" she said, levitating the book from the floor.

>the princess

You say "the princess" about six times in a very short time period instead of just saying her name, which is Celestia. This is a variation of Lavender Unicorn Syndrome, except that instead of using a descriptor, you just use the noun instead. Here's the definition of Lavender Unicorn Syndrome (LUS).

Avoid Lavender Unicorn Syndrome. Lavender Unicorn Syndrome is what happens when, instead of using your characters name or a pronoun, you repeatedly use other descriptors for them. You only have to describe your characters once, and again if something about them changed. Just
remember that “Lavender Unicorn Syndrome” affects hundred of ponies every year. Symptoms include cyan pegasi, white alicorns, and of course, lavender unicorns. But there is hope. Ask Nurse Redheart if new and improved PRONOUNS® are right for you. Side effects include better writing, love and adoration of fans, acceptance to EqD, glitter cannons, and dry mouth. PRONOUNS®. Because having a lavender unicorn is no way to go through life.

Instead of saying "the princess" so many times, just say "Princess Celestia" instead. If she's doing a bunch of actions in a row, then feel free to use pronouns for variation. If you can't do that, some rewording of your sentences are in order.

>After a few quiet moments, the princess placed the scroll it on the table next to the grand fireplace, and looked up at her.

You have an extra "it" in the middle of the table and that comma next to "and" doesn't belong there. So delete both of those and you're good.

>Scarlet Gala stood at attention in the luxurious private quarters of Princess Celestia.
>She knew the princess's request to see her this late in her chambers was not a good sign.

>“I have read your superior officer’s report.” The princess said glancing down at the scroll she had just put down.

That first period should be a comma and the "The" that comes after it should be lower-cased. There is also a missing comma after "said." Also, I don't think the "she had just put down" part of the sentence is necessary. Consider deleting it.

>Scarlet said not dropping her posture.

I've noticed that many commas are a bit misplaced, so I'll leave you with this helpful resource.

http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/607/1/

Unfortunately, sometimes commas can be a stylistic choice so the line can get blurred sometimes depending on the meaning of the sentence you want to convey, so you may want to double-check whether or not you actually mean what the sentence said. Of course, many of them are used incorrectly, so give that webpage a look.

Some more examples of misplacing of commas are:

The princess said turning towards the fire, her back to Scarlet.
Celestia turned around to face her, and sat back on her haunches.

>Celestia looked down at Scarlet with a soft look.

There are only two ponies in the room, right? So "at Scarlet" can be cut and the sentence means the same thing. However, the remaining sentence is still telly when you look at the rest. It also repeats itself with "looked" and "look." In my opinion, I would just cut this line and replace it with a line that describes what her face actually looks like.

Second Scene:

I feel like a lot of your events are rushed or telling. An example of this is:

Scarlet did not argue or say anything about her post during the briefing, she was always calm and patient. Her mother, since she was little, always laughed at her about her calm and quiet demeanor. She told Scarlet it was a trait she picked up from her father, along with his tall and strong build.

>he was calm and soft spoken pony (just like her)

Try not to use parenthesis in narrative. Find a way to reword it into the sentence instead. You can usually convey the same information by setting it off with commas or dashes anyway.

>Cheerilee as a teacher at a unicorn academy

It seems a little weird that an earth pony is teaching at a unicorn (I assume) school. I assume you did that because you needed her to move to Canterlot, right?

>Scarlet was a Canterlot filly through in though
Scarlet was a Canterlot filly through and through

>The entire scene until Scarlet hears Applejack

Okay, this entire scene is telling and not engaging at all. Instead of just telling us traits she has, show them in action or don't mention them at all. Show some flashbacks of her past or something, don't just say "she was like this and this."

Here's a copypaste from Logician that can help explain this a bit more.

Readers want the play, not the script. "Showing" is incorporating the characters' feelings into their actions, thoughts, and dialogue instead of that boring old coot, The Narrator, telling us what they're feeling. If a scene is tense or sad, the characters should seem anxious or grieved. And for Celestia's sake, stop explaining everything! Readers aren't idiots, and some actually have the capability of abstract thought, believe it or not. With the exception of imagery, implicit is better than explicit. It sinks in better if they have to think about it for a second.

Alright then, let me try to explain it another way. Since you are telling us most of the events that are happening in the story instead of showing us, I'm kinda feeling a tad uninterested. It's like when your friend tells you about his day, but he talks for the next three hours about it.

>Scarlet’s thoughts seem to scream at her.

"seem to" sounds superfluous, you can cut it.

>Scarlet turned her head towards the marketplace, finally breaking the frozen position she had been holding for nearly three hours.

>She could not see Applejack or anypony in the marketplace showing signs that anything was wrong.

This sounds very strange for a sentence.

>The child molester plot device.

Meh, this plot doesn't really seem that interesting to me. It's not really a dilemma if the two kids were being chased by a threat. Is she really having issues with not knowing which was important? I can understand if she took issue if she really did just wander from her post because she saw her family and wanted to connect with this, but this is just silly. She's a guard, she's supposed to help other ponies. Besides, she left for like 5 minutes after staying there for 3 hours. I guess I just don't understand why Shining Armor exploded before hearing a reason first. I understand him being mad, but you make it sound like she stabbed his wife.

Sorry, I went off-tangent. It just doesn't seem like she should have anything to worry about.

>He said very sternly.

More telling, implied by dialogue so it isn't needed.

Last Scene:

>“What I wanted to tell you is, if I had to face that choice again; between my crown or my sister.

You're misusing that semi-colon. A semi-colon connects two independent clauses. "between my crown and my sister" is not a complete sentence, so a bit of rewording of this is in order.

>Scarlet had finished her story to the princess, telling her the things she had witnessed, leaving out all personal feelings, and more importantly leaving out her own discovery of the her family connection with the twins.

That explanation would probably only last a few seconds then. "I saw someone shady run after two defenseless fillies, so I followed them."

I'm glad that you didn't decide to make Celestia scold Scarlot for making a choice, because that would have been really stupid. She did what she thought was right, and that's all that matters. Even if it wasn't Applejack's kids.

Anyhoo, same systemic errors appear through the entire fic, so keep a lookout for those. Dialogue attribution errors for everything, more telling, commas, everything I basically mentioned. In my opinion, the story premise is sweet albeit I still think it's weird that Scarlet acted that way. Perhaps because I haven't seen her in action before and I wouldn't know what she would do in any given situation. Perhaps if there was a scene where she made a decision based on something similar, but she chose differently this time for whatever reason, I could make a justification for her characterization. But it's harder to feel for her because the majority of this story is very telling. So the premise is fine, but the execution is lacking a bit.

That being said, don't stop writing. It's still a nice story, it's just that it could become much better, should you choose to do so. If you want more examples on how to fix certain problems or you want me to elaborate more, please let me know and I will do my best to do so.

>>101601
yes! yes! yes!

Thank you for your review. What I meant by constructive criticism was I wanted a review that told me things to improve and not just tell me positives. You did just that. Thank you!

Commas are becoming the bane of my writing existence. Thank you for your examples these are a big help.

You've given me some good things for me to consider on fleshing out Scarlet. Why not throw some a flashback in there? It could not only build up Scarlet as a character, but give a more justification and urgency to decision.

Honestly the story was written back in January and I changed Scarlet's CO in to Shining Armor just recently to keep a little cannon. I know he's out of character.

Thank you again. Your review has given me good skills and pointers I can carry over in to my other works!

I'd love hear anymore comments or suggestions if have anything else to add.

-Chappy Hooves

>>100490
I already have my story up in the review queue, this is just an update. I have moved my story on to Google Docs, as it seems to be a convenient for the reviewers. I would also like to point out that I have added Part 4 since my original post.
Part 1: https://docs.google.com/document/d/13tsRe9R4_Mi3CZDIQjWMmmUwkAmBUt5wmyGebxRfbnQ/edit
Part 2: https://docs.google.com/document/d/11ZZ9boSfTHjheMV0T8AA3gsL28K5C6tlBxfq2Tq3kqQ/edit
Part 3: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Ghc2d51fITrxJZSc7UYrQGmzc6z_rCBLJLC8N9bmbB4/edit
Part 4: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1YqwPN4knonE3lkV8YEkubAEPHl-Ps3bxDDNoz9BGE9I/edit

Thank you in advanced for whoever does end up reviewing my story.

I finally figured it was my turn to try my hand at fanfiction after so many years of absence at writing one, but I'm running into a bunch of roadbumps, and I was wondering if you guys could give me some pointers on my fic so far, and more importantly, some suggested solutions.

Title: The Conversion Bureau: By The Sword

Tags: #Human, #Sad, #Tragedy(?)

Synopsis: A man who has stared into the dark abyss of humanity never hopes to see any more than he has to. This man in particular wants nothing more than to escape after taking a look himself. In the kingdom of the blind, the one-eyed man is cursed.

Link: http://goo.gl/gfszL

Notes: Based off of Chatoyance's ideas and sub-fanon for the Conversion Bureau universe. I already have a few ideas for what the problems for my fic are already: The pace is too fast, for one. I just can't seem to stay focused on any plot point for the amount of time each one deserves without running out of material or repeating myself. Two, since it is a piece solely driven by narrative, and delivered by a narrarator with a casual tone, there is no room for eloquency, which I think drags the work down from the start. Third, there are a couple plot holes that need patching up, but I'm not sure how to do so without burdening the reader with an inappropriate exposition dump that would easily break the story's flow, which is all the more disastrous to a narrative piece. Also, one more thing to mention is that this fic is not finished yet, but it is relatively close. I am planning a big twist ending, and I had even written one out, but I was unhappy with how it came together, so I scrapped it.

Anyway, any and all comments about my fanfiction would be greatly appreciated! :)

-Ristar, the Shooting Star

>>101615

Yea, commas are very subjective and an endless debate in the writing world. They can get very annoying indeed. I think a flashback would be wonderful as well, give me some more as to her character. Maybe I'm a bit weird, but I felt that it was short and could have been extended to give us a bigger insight. Make us care about the character, you know? I am also curious as to if she meets her mom again but from the looks of the story, it's a one-shot and we'll never know. That part was just done to show that Scarlet is starting to care about her family again.

As for being written in January, I did see the date on your document. That was before we knew about Shining Armor, I believe. I would recommend changing that to an OC, because him being out of character just makes me feel slighted because the Shining Armor from Canon is nice and kind-hearted.

Anyhoo, good luck and keep writing. Let me know if you would like any more elaboration on anything or if you want to discuss something. I'm always glad to help.

>>101431
Sorry that I took so long. I've been busy formatting an Ebook for Kindle. I'll take a look at your fic right now.

Alright, this is the review for the Prologue of Crescent Eclipse. Hello and welcome to the Training Grounds, my name is Dublio. First I'll start with addressing your pre-reader's concerns, followed by a line by line of your prologue that mentions many examples of your mistakes followed by a general review section which lists my thoughts and other concerns. After you go through, you might also want to recheck your own work and see if you can point out similar errors on your own. For now, the review just contains the prologue. Chapter 1 will be in the next post, but since I didn't want to keep you waiting, here's the prologue review to keep you satisfied.

PRE-READER CONCERNS:

If you have spelling problems, use a spell-checker. Those are normally available when using Firefox or Microsoft Office Word.

As for semi-colons, I don't really use them much, but they are normally used to put two independent clauses together if they're related. All I can offer for that is this resource.

http://depts.dyc.edu/learningcenter/owl/semicolons.htm

As for the tenses and missing letters, that's something that has to be done through proofreading. Here's a good resource for that.

http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/601/01/

I didn't notice any tense shifts in the prologue though.

As for the comma usage, I'll mention some examples below and link to yet another resource that can help you. I'll put it in the general review section.

>emdash use.

This is an em-dash. ----> —

Copy that and paste it over every place that you have "--" or "-"

Although sometimes a dash separated by spaces sometimes depending on the kind of English you're using. English is such a confusing language, sheesh.

>use of tildes in fiction writing

I assume that's the "~" I saw that you deleted the "~" mentioned, but you left a space there. Don't forget to delete that. Some people will just recommend that you say "Twilight..." instead. So the sentence should look like:

"—light. Twilight... Twilight!"

>Dialogue Punctuation

There's a good resource located in Ezn's Guide and the Omnibus. I have listed it below in the general review section. Take a look at it, would you?

LINE BY LINE FOR PROLOGUE:

>breathe-taking

breathtaking

>his face set in a blank and unblinking mask that effectively hid whatever inner machinations may have been running thought his mind

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KNZSXnrbs_k

>In truth his thoughts had been turning to darker and more sinister paths, much as they had been doing more and more often as of late, but thankfully before such worries could consume his mind the sharp sensation of morning's light snapped his focus back to the world around him.

This is a very wordy sentence and a bit confusing.

>Given his special talent he was sensitive

comma missing between "talent" and "he"

>In light of recent events he was surprised she was still holding together at all.

comma missing between "events" and "he"

>In light of recent events he was surprised she was still holding together at all.

What would that be? Them settling in the town or something else?

>Truth be told he was glad to have her along.

comma missing between "told" and "he"

>He eyed her appraising, and when she noticed she offered a small but reassuring smile that put him at ease.

I'm not really sure what's happening here according to the first part of the sentence. I assume he's looking at her, and then he looked back, but I'm not sure.

>The pegasus was a fierce, tough and bold sort of pony, always able to handle whatever came his way in stride. As strange and incredible as recent events had been, he was the least likely of the three of them to be seriously affected.

All of this is telling the reader how somepony is, but it's usually a better idea to show off a pony's traits by their actions in the story. If you can't find a way to incorporate this into the story, I would suggest cutting it as it leads to telling vs showing problems. When I write the general part of the review, I will explain more about that.

>I can't just let you have all the adventure without me now can I?" He said,

This sentence is missing a comma and that "he" at the end should be lowercase. It should look like this.

"I can't just let you have all of the adventure without me now, can I?" he said

>sceptically
skeptically

>the unicorn
>the pegasus

Just use their names, because the reader will be confused otherwise as they try to keep track of which character was which race. The longer a reader spends trying to figure out something that can be avoided, the more likely they'll be booted from a story. This is a variation of Lavender Unicorn Syndrome, which I'll mention later.

>The red pony

Watch out for descriptions + type of pony because it can get confusing in your story real fast as to what's happening to who. Using too many descriptions (usually color + pony) leads to something called Lavender Unicorn Syndrome. Here's a copy paste from Vanner that explains it better.

Avoid Lavender Unicorn Syndrome. Lavender Unicorn Syndrome is what happens when, instead of using your characters name or a pronoun, you repeatedly use other descriptors for them. You only have to describe your characters once, and again if something about them changed. Just
remember that “Lavender Unicorn Syndrome” affects hundred of ponies every year. Symptoms include cyan pegasi, white alicorns, and of course, lavender unicorns. But there is hope. Ask Nurse Redheart if new and improved PRONOUNS® are right for you. Side effects include better writing, love and adoration of fans, acceptance to EqD, glitter cannons, and dry mouth. PRONOUNS®. Because having a lavender unicorn is no way to go through life.

>"What?" he asked, trying to determine the cause of her perturbence.

Just cut it off at "he asked." Otherwise the reader will just go "Wut?"

>He chuckled lightly at her indignant reply before responding,

An unwieldy sentence. Just say "He chuckled" and it means pretty much the same thing, does it not?

>She lost her perturbed expression

Did she check the lost-and-found?

>Cress felt somewhat more relaxed after their small back-and-forth, his mind welcoming the distraction of idle banter with friends over the alternative of dwelling on the unhappy events of late.

What unhappy events? I'm not sure what that is yet. From reading the entire thing, it sounds like they're leaving their home for whatever reason. Did something happen to it?

>"Are you both ready?" he asked, to which they replied in the affirmative

Hmm, that second part just sounds so odd. I would suggest cutting it or just saying "they nodded" or something.

>As they walked the solitary road Cress looked over his shoulder at the only town he had ever known one last time.

Comma between "road" and "Cress"

>"Goodbye," he whispered under his breath, the sound not even loud enough to make it to his own ears.

I'm not sure if it's even possible unless there's a lot of noise around. This just sounds unnecessarily wordy, yet means nothing. Isn't this what mouthing the words is?

>And so they marched onwards, toward their destiny. They were fully aware that they held the fate of the world in their hooves but little did they know - for better or for worse - nothing would ever be the same again.

I'm not really sure how this logic makes sense. They're leaving their home, supposedly forever, right? Unless they were just leaving on a pilgrimdge and they did plan on coming back, it seems like it's obvious that it wouldn't be the same. I guess it depends on what caused them to leave in the first place, of which I have no idea.

GENERAL REVIEW FOR PROLOGUE

After reading your prologue, I noticed that there might be concerns with something called Lavender Unicorn Syndrome (LUS). To fix this, use names and pronouns only. If your sentences are still confusing, you need to reword and rewrite them. This might be a bit harder because you're missing many commas, which makes your sentences sound like run-ons sometimes. Sometimes your sentences are a bit wordy too, which adds to the confusion. As for the commas, here's a good resource that can help with that problem.

http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/607/1/

I'm also worried that you're telling us about the character's personality types instead of showing them in scenes. It's less engaging and kinda uninteresting to read. I'm not really sure if it's a problem present in only the prologue or if it extends to the rest of your story though. I'll have to read the rest to find out.

I'm kinda wondering as to the point of this prologue in itself. It doesn't really tell the reader anything at all and I'm not sure if it becomes important later. If it's not important, why write it in the story at all? If it is, why not call it "Chapter 1?" In my opinion, I don't believe the prologue is strong enough to make readers want to keep reading as it's vague and I don't really want to find out what happened in terms of the "terrible" events. But what do I know? You're the writer and knows what's going to happen in your story, you tell me.

My opinion is that the conflict in a story (not necessarily physical, just something exciting) has to happen on the first page and I would just cut the prologue completely. If you don't, readers will get bored and backspace away. Readers have very limited attention spans after all. At the very least, it has to happen in the first chapter.

Anyway, you did mention that this was your first fic. Because of that, here are a few good resources that could help you improve your writing. If you don't want to, you don't have to check them out of course, but they really do help.

Ezn's Guide:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1xemG7BLk2rvAmQCREIaj5wX2ubvmVt7WziEvh7xXV9g/edit?hl=en_US

Omnibus:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1WMMs8H-GpFIXPsQeC0RNu8V-Cq6uyGl_UERpOUK_6KY/edit?hl=en_US

CartoonGeld's Showing vs Telling Examples:

>>89502

Since this is your first fanfic, you have to be aware that I'm not writing the review or pointing out the mistakes to be mean. It's only because I want to make the story the best I can. I'm aware that I've only read the prologue so far. This review isn't over yet. It's only for the prologue because I don't believe putting both Chapter 1's review and the prologue in the same post would fit. However, before I get started on Chapter 1, I'd like you to take a look at what I have so far and acknowledge it. It's not much so far, but since it does take me a while to make these reviews, I want to make sure that you're paying attention first. That way I know that you're actually finding the review useful and I'm not just shouting into a void. Hope that's alright.

It sounds like this story contains OCs, which is opening a whole other bag of worms when it comes to fanfiction. You have to worry about not making them Mary Sues or making them too overpowered when it comes to being next to the canon characters. But we'll tackle that problem when we get to it. For now, I hope that I have mentioned enough to at least get you started with improving or fixing some of the mistakes pointed out. If you're serious about improving your writing, give me some feedback and I'll be more thorough in my next part of the review (I also admit it's a bit harder to be thorough because it's on FimFiction and not Gdocs).

If you have any other questions and concerns, or if you would like me to elaborate or find more examples for you, I'd be glad to do so. All you have to do is ask. My email's in my name. So here you go for now. Enjoy. Also, like always, don't give up on writing. Never give up, never surrender!

>>99705
Comments in doc. Sorry it took so long, real life got in the way.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1LAvVNqR2ViIqM6IxQrXAIixJZ_bE93lhGe6PRVdm1DQ/edit

I need to make a few comments in addition to what's in the doc.

First, you need to study up on punctuation. You missed almost all of your apostrophes. If someone owns something, you need to add an apostrophe + s to the end of the subject. So if Trixie owns a cart, it's "Trixie's cart". You had too many commas. They weren't a terrible problem, but still a problem.

Second, your story needs conflict. You need to stop going easy on/feeling sorry for your characters and PUT THEM THROUGH MISERY! Well, misery may be going too far... but your characters need to clash. You effectively side-stepped every source of conflict you had in this chapter.

Third, your characters are out-of-character. Celestia seems a little harsh at first, but then is very trusting of Chrysalis. Luna is pretty well-done. For Chrys, it seems you have a hard time making up your mind about her. She starts out defiant and angry, then gets really sad and defeated. Either one is fine (I think the former would work much better) since that's up to you as the author, but pick one and stick with it. Trixie is MUCH more arrogant than you portray her as.

Lastly: holy plot devices, Batman! You Deus Ex the heck out of Chrys. This story needs to flow a lot more smoothly and every plot point needs a proper prompt and explanation. The story should not be bending over backward to accommodate you as an author; it should be difficult and time-consuming to accurately and appropriately weave a convincing plot. You will almost certainly end up with a much longer prologue if done correctly.

You've got a lot of work ahead of you, but it's certainly salvageable.

Until next time, write good!


>>101365
I see your question, I'm cooking up an answer for it.

>>101626
Yeah, finally. Thanks for the assistance. I'll fix up my grammar and continuity of characters. I'll also try and make it a little more tense, and hopefully should have a revised copy ready soon. Thanks for your assistance.

>>101332
Hello there, Pinkamina. My name is Professor Hugbox, and your story will be the first story I will ever review here on Ponychan. Don't be alarmed though, I've had plenty experience over on FimFiction and I sometimes review stories for a friend of mine who so far has gotten two stories onto Equestria Daily, so you are in, at the very least, adequate hands.

I'm not entirely sure how this whole process works, I'm just following the Reviewers Guide, and step 3 is mentioning to the author that I am reviewing their fic. I hope I'm on the right track so far. Your review will be done within a matter of hours. Sorry if this post somehow is incorrect, just trying to get myself out there. I'm very new to Ponychan itself as well.

>>100873

Your line edit isn't finished yet, and even when it is finished it will be in no way comprehensive, but I know pretty well what I want to say about your fic, and it's kind of important.

First off, you have serious tense derps and other problems that I think you should be able to catch for yourself now that I've drawn your attention to them. Your writing quality and grammar are otherwise not bad, so this is sorta surprising to me. Whatever-- Work on it and I'm sure you'll get it done.

Your m6 voices aren't bad though I'm not crazy about your Twilight voice. Your Tali and Liara voices are in-character, but they fall rather flat. Your Garrus voice is okay. Your Wrex voice has its moments.

Now on to the worst problem with your fic.

This is the very definition of a "find and replace" fic. You faithfully take us through the Noveria sequence, including every major side-plot and combat. Why? Half of it wasn't important even in the game.

Find-and-replace fics are problematic for reasons that you already know, and taking an honest look at this, there should be no doubt that you have written one. And it's a little late for me to be telling you this. So, um... I guess what it comes down to is I don't like it. It's Mass Effect with an amusing fanmade mod slapped on it.

A crossover fic should take the setting of the crossover material or ideas from the crossover material.

Example 1: Using the Mass Effect setting; Equestria is just a planet behind a newly discovered relay. How does the galactic community feel about ponies? How do ponies become important to the fight against the Geth/Collectors/Reapers? Or maybe the story doesn't follow Shepard, and we have a story about the m6 saving Equestria from a Collector raid or a Cerberus plot.

Example 2: Using ideas from Mass Effect. Uniting the two setting's ideas rather than making them coexist. There's a galactic community, and the aliens are griffons and Dogs and Changelings and maybe some stuff you just made up or maybe there are humans and turians and nonsense too. There is a cycle of annihilation, but instead of Reapers they're called Nightmares. Commander Sparkle leads the galaxy in ending the cycle in a way that involves the Protheans and whatever but the Catalyst is NOT the Citadel and instead of a villainous militaristic organization, Luna and her godlike powers have been indoctrinated... You get it.

I'm not sure if the usual sign-off of "Keep writing" really applies here, because... um... This is far, far, far gone. Like 100k words gone.

If I remember any other stuff I wanted to say I'll post more. If you want to talk to me about stuff, add comments to the doc or send me an email or post in this thread, whatever.

>>101638

Oh, yeah, one more thing. I said this in-doc, but it bears repeating: The way you skip action scenes? Don't. Find a more graceful way to do it. The way you've done it right now is bad, bad, bad.

>>101618
>>100490

After finally getting my own fic published, I feel I should really start contributing to the reviewing process — a place that has helped me so much.

DISCLAIMER: I am a very new author myself, with the recently published fic being the ONLY thing I have ever written. This will also be my first 'formal' review. I totally understand if you would prefer someone more capable and experienced; just let me know and I'll gladly relinquish the claim.

>>101641
Also, requesting that you enable commenting on your google.doc links.

>>101332
Hello again. Have a review!

Plot: I say very well done. You leave us with a little bit of vagueness at first while we learn the story which I like. The problem I had is that you didn't explain enough by the end of the story. I could speculate why Celestia's ponies would suddenly turn on her, but it was increasingly hard to. Luna and Celestia bicker back and forth about lies and murders, but this isn't enough to quench my need to actually know what some of this is. What actually constitutes the fact that all of this is happening? Without reasonable explanation this just seems like a vague attempt at something sad.

Characterization: You portrayed Celestia and Luna as biter rivals, which was all there was to this really. Luna's antagonistic ways were fine, but Celestia's thoughts were sometimes confusing. Did she still love her sister or did she despise her?

Grammar: You had a few things here or there. Not much to complain about. Most of my concerns are labeled in the docs

Formatting: Some of the dialogue needs to be switched to their own paragraphs, seeing as something the previous sentence is talking about different nouns than the dialogue one. Also indent your paragraphs. Important.

Writing style: Beautiful. My only complaint is that you don't explain enough actions in between Celestia's thought process, which makes it seem dull after a while.

Overall: 4.6/5 Very well done. Fix up some of the plot mostly and you have an EqD worthy fic.

Additional little things are commented on in the doc.

It's the first story I have ever written, so it may be a bit rough.... fimfiction.net/story/17370/Darkness-Incarnate

>>101661
Please read the Sticky (the post with the rainbow and shinies) and the original post in this thread, that way you will see why people are unlikely to help you. I know it looks like a hassle, but it keeps the place running and these people are so nice to help us with that, so could you do that?

>>100836

My story has not been claimed yet, but I wanted to update a few things.

-I have added a [Dark] tag. While the overall feel of the story isn't meant to be, it does have a few elements that could be considered so, specifically in the Prologue and in one particular upcoming Chapter. *No Spoilers!*
-I moved all the chapters over to Google Docs. This has made it considerably easier to work with italics, which my story has a lot of to illustrate a character's thoughts, and occasionally dramatic emphasis.
-I have added a new chapter, and the word count has been updated to 26,938. There are now 5 chapters counting the Prologue. I request that all of them be reviewed.
-I aim to submit this piece to EqD. However, I do not wish to do so until I can get some more critical eyes on it.
-A thing I am struggling with so far is if I am revealing too much to the reader, or not enough. I want to make sure the reader has the right questions going from chapter to chapter.
-I am working very hard to avoid massive info dumps, which is going to be a challenge in Chapter 5, which needs to fill in some holes I've purposely left open until now.

Some things I'm aware of:
-Due to the nature of the story and it's theme with color, the OC's descriptions are purposely left somewhat vague. I tried giving them more description with different colored manes and eyes and found myself getting confused as to who was who.
-I had a blunder with Find/Replace and didn't realize it until it was too late. I went through and fixed as many as I could find but there might be one or two odd words hanging around. Let me know if you find any.


I look forward to hearing feedback when my story is claimed.

Thanks!

>>101641
Ah, sorry about that. I'm new with using Google Docs, but I believe commenting is now available.

I have no problem with this being your first 'formal' review. More power to you for taking it upon yourself to review the works of others. I'm sure you will do your best, and thanks again.

>>101173

Hello, p0n00b. My name is Professor Hugbox, and I will be claiming your fiction today. Please expect for this to be done today, very late at night at the latest. I look forward to reading this. While FimFiction is fine, I like to be a bit specific at times, so I will take the liberty of putting the story into a Google document for you and commenting on that. I will try the best I can to address EqD's problems with your fic the most.

By me, AidanMaxwell

I will finish this thing eventually!

Dark, Sci-Fi, Fantasy, Crossover

Sergeant Rainbow Dash has graduated at the top of her class and has been given the exclusive honor to join the Wonderbolt squad, an elite team of SpecOp troops stationed on Ord Mantell. To her, this is just a new opportunity to fight for the Republic (and a little personal glory, as well) but she soon finds out that the battlefield is not for the weak of spirit. Will she need to rely on the help of a shady smuggler type, who won't seem to leave her alone, to stay active on the field? Or will her personal pride prevent her from performing at her best, leading to her untimely death?

>>101644
Thanks for the review. I really appreciate your style of reviewing just so you know. The trademark 'this is what is wrong' seems to grow old quickly, however you told me how to fix the issues as well.

All in all, I am very appreciative of this, it will definitely help me. Even if you are 'new' to this process this was a highly beneficial review, Thanks again.

Here's a good one. What are yalls consensus on accents and how the are written?

Specifically I have a character who's drunk, and I wrote her speech as such:


"Aw, yer jusht jea-*hic*-jealoush of mah shingin' abilitiesh. Yew know I'd win that karaoke contesht!"

Is that annoying enough to get a negative mark?

>>101470
I'll take this one! Expect your review within 36 hours, my good author! Have a reviewer statement so long: http://derpy.me/uQgc1

I'll probably do an audio review of this one, unless that's not good for you. Say something if that's the case, and I'll type instead.

Notes for reviewers
- The most used section of http://derpy.me/EznGuide now has its own shortlink – http://derpy.me/EznGuideDialogue
- I also wrote this article http://derpy.me/EznLUS on Lavender Unicorn Syndrome a while ago, in which I detailed why it's annoying and emphasised the importance of varying your sentence structure instead of lazily slapping descriptors around – LUS's biggest crime is stunting authorial growth by "hiding" repetitive sentence structure. That may be of use/interest to some folk.

>>101691

Awesome! Thanks! An audio review will work just fine. Note that I'm leaving on holiday for a week starting tonight, so might not be able to get back to you for a while. In any case, I'll have a look at your reviewer statement and LUS as well, eh!

Thank you!

>>101673
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1iLtpCXTB31MRXdHveE4lyPDoo1pWmA7-_Jb_FMcCk0U/edit

I knew I forgot something...

Oh boy, I really am slacking… it even caused that Demetrius had to do the thread updates. Anyway, the updates are done lickety-Split with the new system. Thank Demetrius for that.

For the up-to-date statistics, you can follow the links in the OP.

Unclaimed: 10
Reviews awaiting acknowledgment: 13
Reviews In Progress: 11

Unclaimed Stories
04/22/2012 ❖ A.C. by Pastel Ink (>>100933)
04/28/2012 ❖ Black Equinox by JDude (>>99727)
05/01/2012 ❖ Beneath the Fields of Heaven by TheGreekDollmaker (>>100285)
05/03/2012 ❖ The Zodiac Ritual by CyborgSamurai (>>100836)
05/04/2012 ❖ Rainbow Typhoon by Nonsanity (>>101254)
05/06/2012 ❖ Brony by Markarian (>>101239)
05/07/2012 ❖ Into Darkness by Golden Hoof (>>101425)
05/08/2012 ❖ Shadow of Dreams by Keyframe (>>101464)
05/08/2012 ❖ MLP:FiM the final season, Episode 1, "Nightfall" by Writer's Block (>>101546)
05/09/2012 ❖ My Little Old Republic by AidanMaxwell (>>101673)
 
Reviews Awaiting Acknowledgment
The Refugee by Hazencruz (>>96961) submitted 04/14/2012 ❖ Reviewed by Timefly on 04/18/2012 (>>97786)
The Solar Enigma by Lionheart07 (>>96994) submitted 04/14/2012 ❖ Reviewed by Vanner on 04/20/2012 (>>98140)
Borderline by Lucefudu (>>98175) submitted 04/20/2012 ❖ Reviewed by Grif on 05/01/2012 (>>100275)
Shattered Prism by Ponyman (>>98377) submitted 04/21/2012 ❖ Reviewed by Baron Von Clop on 04/22/2012 (>>98554)
Dusty Roads by Kris Schnee (>>98386) submitted 04/22/2012 ❖ Reviewed by Seattle_Lite on 05/06/2012 (>>101310)
Reconciliation by Rlogic1994 (>>98012) submitted 04/22/2012 ❖ Reviewed by Golden Vision on 05/05/2012 (>>101050)
Water Under the Bridge by Rock Farmer (>>98723) submitted 04/23/2012 ❖ Reviewed by Casca on 04/24/2012 (>>98846)
The Winter War: Part 1 by Anrichan (>>98776) submitted 04/23/2012 ❖ Reviewed by Raharu on 04/25/2012 (>>99163)
Pony Effect by Grif (>>98992) submitted 04/25/2012 ❖ Reviewed by Commander Tactical on 05/09/2012 (>>101638)
Crescent Eclipse by InfiniteBrony (>>99672) submitted 04/28/2012 ❖ Reviewed by Dublio on 05/08/2012 (>>101625)
Upon Wings of Sacrifice by Rated PonyStar (>>100172) submitted 04/30/2012 ❖ Reviewed by Golden Vision on 05/06/2012 (>>101238)
Water Under the Bridge by RockFarmer (>>100997) submitted 05/04/2012 ❖ Reviewed by CommissarCC on 05/06/2012 (>>101250)
Biased and Incomplete by DuncanR (>>101232) submitted 05/06/2012 ❖ Reviewed by Eustatian on 05/07/2012 (>>101351)
 
Reviews in Progress
Pascoite: reviewing Fluttershy’s Shadow: Chapter Two - A Doubt Of A Shadow - Part Two by Broken Logic (>>98837) submitted 04/24/2012
Raharu: reviewing A Mile in Her Shoes by Ether Echoes (>>99444) submitted 04/26/2012
Casca: reviewing Flying a Kite by Kirdus (>>100183) submitted 04/30/2012
Umbra: reviewing Contact by Digi (>>100200) submitted 04/30/2012
TheGreekDollmaker: reviewing The Radical Adventures of Daring Dash and Derpy Do by CommissarCC (>>100251) submitted 05/01/2012
Dublio: reviewing The Edge of Harmony by Alazak (>>100378) submitted 05/01/2012
herpyderpy: reviewing Bearers of Nature by TwinQuasars (>>101618) submitted 05/02/2012
Dublio: reviewing The Five Ponies You Meet in Heaven by p0n00b (>>100754) submitted 05/03/2012
Dublio: reviewing I'll See You in the Sky by ToastiestZombie (>>101032) submitted 05/05/2012
Professor_Hugbox: reviewing Red Shield by p0n00b (>>101173) submitted 05/05/2012
Ezn: reviewing Excerpts from a Filthy Diary by SR Foxley (>>101470) submitted 05/08/2012

>>101704
I think you forgot to add my unclaimed story:
>>101620

>>101705
Did you fill in the submission form in the OP?

>>101709
Whoops; I knew I must have missed something important. My apologies.

I see that Minjack's fic has been removed from the site. But I spent too long reading it to not post a review of it here, so...

>You don't capitalize and punctuate every sentence.
>You don't double-space every paragraph.
>The writing in the first act was too dry.
>Your fic violates headcanon bringing something better.
>Your entire fic is based around the idea that Derpy is like she is because of foal rape. THIS SHALL NEVER FLY ON EQUESTRIA DAILY! Not even FimFic will take this.
>Your third act is unbelievable and contrived.

I'd suggest writing a new story, something about ADULT ponies. And learn the difference between [sad] and [depressing] (I mention it in the doc comments.)

>>101709
Hold on, I'm not done with my fic yet, so I don't want to submit it to EqD or anything; I just wanted some pointers on writing it. The way the submission form is worded makes it look like EqD prereaders will read it as a finished fic for submission, is that right?

>>101712
>Your fic violates headcanon without bringing something better.

>>101713
no it's not submitted to EqD. It's for our own administration. keeping track of claims and the such.

>>101704
Yeah, Golden reviewed my fic. I'm already rewriting it.

>>101724
mind giving me an >>##### to his review?

Psst Split. Here.

>>101238

>>101173
Hello again, p0n00b, I have a review for you! Also, I took the liberty of putting your story in a Google doc to further make comments on specific passages.
Here's the doc: https://docs.google.com/document/d/175TMIJl-GukLfo4Q5rs-l1S_ejCPr6iIDP58cpUrI7Y/edit?pli=1 I've only allowed viewing of this document so that nopony can just come in and do what they wish. You'll have to make corrections on your own document. Deeply sorry about that.

Have a review!

Flow: It was pretty fast paced. While this is fine, sometimes I wish you would have slowed down a bit to clarify everything that was going on.

Setting: Your pre-reader was spot on with this. You sometimes don't specify where we're at. For example when the doctors are doing tests on the Mane 6. Where exactly are they? I can infer some sort of doctors room or such, but you can never be so sure. Putting in more setting will also help your issue with talking heads. I'll get to that here in a second.

Visuals: I know 'visuals' isn't really a word that fits when it comes to literature, but I think it fits. As writers we all paint a picture in the readers mind as to what is going on. Your problem is that when you had a scene you wouldn't describe enough. Often times you had talking heads, and based on the dialogue I had to figure out exactly what was going on. Not only clarification on the scene itself, but also there didn't seem to be much body language. Is twilight is frustrated, show us that. If Rarity is freaking out over all of these questions, show us the body language! This will cover your pre-readers issue with clarification on who's speaking naturally.

Plot: It's simple, and you take the characters and put them into a regular scenario. You do a good job, I just wish you would have done a little bit more with Twilight. You focused on Twilight a bit in the beginning and then you completely forgot about her. You introduced her again a bit with Fluttershy, but not much. You didn't do enough with Fluttershy either, now that I think about it...

Characterization: I felt that Rarity was a little more irrational than she needed to be. Her rage for these questions were completely out of character for her, UNLESS she had something to hide about her sexual life, but you hint nothing of this. Twilight: Good. Fluttershy: the small part she had, good. Rainbow Dash: A little overbearing, but it's justified. You made the characters a little more irrational than they usually would be in my opinion. Applejack: Fine. Pinkie Pie: I loved her in this, honestly.

Style: I feel that some of your words were just unnecessary for the scene. It's liked you kept trying to find more terms JUST to avoid repetition.

Overall, my friend, this was pretty good. It doesn't exactly catch the readers attention at first, but it's fun once you get a little into it. I feel that it was a little too quick, but it wasn't a big issue. I give you a 4.4/5. I hope this has helped you, and good luck with your second attempt at EqD!

>>101620
Hi, Ristar from Ristar, my name is Professor Hugbox, and I will be reviewing your fic today. I don't know why your story isn't on the queue posted above, but it's in the 'List of unclaimed requests' document, so I'm taking a crack at it. Your review should be done sometime tonight. I would ask though that you enable comments on that document. I like to comment on specific passages in addition to the overall review.

>>101748
Thank you very much, Professor Hugbox! Your input would be a huge help; I really appreciate it! :) Also, like you said, I enabled comments on the Google Doc where my fic is stored.

>>101744

Thanks for the review. I'll try and fix it up like you said.

>>101754

Yeah, I'm working on another fic right now that's higher up on my TODO list. Unfortunately, said fic is a 10+ chapter story. It just needs a little bit of TLC. Yeah! that's it!

Someone please post a fic I'm willing to read.

>>101753
Alright, thanks! That will make everything much easier for me and more beneficial to you. I've already read through some of it so far, but I'll make sure to go back and add comments
>>101765
You're welcome, but it's a shame that this one isn't on high priority at the moment. It is rather silly and I like that.
>>101776
Well maybe you should expand the range of what you're willing to read then! Not to sound rude, but beggars can't be choosers. Open up a review thread and tell people what you're willing to read.

On an unrelated note, this image suits my name I think.

>>101365

Sorry it took me so long to get around to answering this, but here goes.

Since you're writing a slice-of-life fic, you're relying on a couple specific things to grab the readers' interest. The first is somewhat of a gimme: characters. The readers have already invested in the show and they're reading because they want to invest in further stories about these characters. So, if you keep everypony in-character, this is one thing you've got going for you. When I say amplify, I mean you should demonstrate the most prominent character features that your audience knows from the show.
For Twilight, that's being an egghead and socially awkward.
For Rarity, that's being a drama queen yet extraordinarily polite.
For Sweetie Belle, you show work the relationship she has with Rarity and her shyness (about her singing talent).
For Spike, he should be cocky (a silly kind of cocky) and helpful. [I think you have the helpful part down fine.]
While you're still working on the interest in the story to take over (as in, you're developing the romances), you need to really bring out these traits. They show the reader that, 'Yes, these ARE the characters I know on the show.' Now, you can't rely on this for long, as the characters will become 1-dimensional like this. The story should naturally steer away from amplifying these traits once the plot is in full swing.

The second item that will keep readers interested (this is also the more important item), is empathy. People will continue to read your story after chapter one because they feel a connection to your characters and have invested specifically in the events/world you've presented. This is the emotional side of the story. When people read about Sweetie Belle being laughed at in school for failing a project, they will naturally feel sorry for her and want to read about how she reacts to it as well as how she overcomes it. When Rarity struggles to finish a dress on time, the reader should feel the pressure she is under as well. Not only that, but they will feel rewarded when Rarity does complete the task on time.
[Notice: all forms of empathy are a result of conflict. That's why it's so important!]
There's one example of this that comes to mind. I was reviewing a fic a short while ago, and the scene I was on included an OC, Rainbow Dash, and Scootaloo. The OC and Rainbow Dash were arguing about how best to teach Scootaloo to fly. Both ponies were arrogant and set in their way, so the argument was, predictably, going nowhere. Scootaloo wasn't mentioned for a while, she was just witnessing the argument. Then she cried. It wasn't a loud cry either, since Scootaloo didn't want to show weakness in front of RBD. But the author completely ignored the argument and just focused on describing Scootaloo. It was a very powerful moment and really helped both my interest in the story and immersion.

These two items (characters and empathy) go hand-in-hand. Take your time with the story; really flesh your characters out and put them through conflict.

Now, how does this relate to dialogue and POVs? You seemed to have figured it out on your own by asking the question. When you are limited to a single-POV, the only way for you to communicate other ponies' perspective and thoughts is 1) actions and 2) dialogue. I, personally, am a dialogue junkie. With these two tools you can properly execute character development and build empathy.

>>101779
>beggars can't be choosers
Glad to have your expert opinion, but... yes. Yes they can. I've reviewed 32 fics in this thread and have earned my stripes. One of the appeals to TTG is that nobody has to take fics that don't suit their tastes. Another is that an individual reviewer's pace is fairly irrelevant. So, I like it here, thankyouverymuch.

In the meantime, feel free to take all the HiE fics you like. I ain't touchin' 'em.

>>101790
Just wait, all the competition fics should be coming in soon. They'd be posted quicker if Roger would post the winner already.

>>101790
I feel that in this thread it's 'you take what you get'. I might not have been here as long as you, and I certainly don't mean to offend, but this thread seems to be atoned to reviewers who are ready for almost anything. The reason why I suggested making your own thread is so that you get what you want instead of your talents being wasted by watching the thread and just waiting. Plenty of people out there I'm sure that would appreciate your experience, and that's truly what I was getting that, knowing your actual experience or not.

May I inquire what it is you DO want? Maybe I will be able to provide you with something if you're willing to take it. I'm Professor Hugbox, meaning I'm trying to be as helpful as I can. Well, I hope it means SOMETHING like that.

>>101779
> beggars can't be choosers
Implying TTG is begging for more fics to be posted in it.

>>101794
If I may interject here, I think I may be able to clarify a couple of key points for you.

>I feel that in this thread it's 'you take what you get'
Yes and no. It’s in this thread that aspiring reviewers learn what it is they prefer to work with. Not to mention, there’s no small amount of choices to make, so this is hardly a scarcity-driven scenario these folk are working in. Quite the opposite in fact (I mean shit man, just looked at the Unclaimed doc).

>making your own thread (to cater to your reading interests)
Now, I’m taking a position here that some people get a touch sensitive about, and it’s that TTG is just that. A training grounds for aspiring reviewers. This is a place where those who feel they may be inclined to get into reviewing throw their hat in, and get some experience under the helpful eye of their more experienced fellows. Making one’s own review thread is no flippant thing—you’re talking about a 400 post commitment. Frankly, a look in the last 6 pages from the top will show how many weren’t able to sustain such a thing (and that’s not meant to be offensive in any way to said individuals).
Now if we’re talking Pasco? Sure, I’d say he’s more than ready and able to hold one up having looked over his work. But that’s a serious time commitment that he may not be ready or able to make right now. Another alternative would be to pop into other reviewer’s threads (who don’t take issue with it, and most don’t) and snag a fic that catches your interest if there’s nothing in TTG.

>>101620

Honestly, I don't really know what to say about this fic. It's not 'bad' per say, but it's definitely not EqD material either. No matter what you do to this it's pretty much you scrap everything except the plot and just start over if you're planning to EqD it. Honestly, Ristar, I skimmed a lot of it, which I don't do often. It's written like a journal or like a primary source for a war I'd study in class. It's not really interesting. Your character just tells us everything that happened mostly. While there are some parts where we get a pretty good look at his thoughts through it, it just isn't enough. His accent is also pretty annoying to read through. I'd suggest only doing accents for dialogue; after all, I bet someone from Texas doesn't WRITE in a texan slang/accent (For the most part). The concept is... okay. I didn't get much of the plot because, again, I just skimmed through it. It wasn't enough for me to really care. That's not the plots fault per say, because it could have been the plot of Atlas Shrugged and I wouldn't read it. Your grammar is okay, but again it was a little hard to tell with the accent at times. It's also formatted a little oddly and I'd suggest trying to make it a little nicer. You have big walls of text that just make me go 'ugh, that's a big wall of text thar.' You only have 9 paragraphs in a 10 page story, not to mention the font is pretty big to begin with. I'm sorry Ristar, but I'm going to have to give you a 2/5. I'd suggest going with a story that doesn't have a journal feel to it.

>>101798
That's pretty much what I'm implying, yes.

>>101799
While I do agree that this is a way for reviewers to not have to make such a large time commitment, I don't think that it's much of an excuse to just pass over fics that are waiting to get reviewed. I am being a bit hypocritical though, because I took the smaller fics, but the reason I did that is to give it a shot first rather than waste a bunch of time reading that 80k fic that's laying in there. I just feel that reviewers are being a bit too closed minded to certain fics instead of trying to give them a chance. There's fics that have been sitting for a long time, and that can be rather frustrating for the author to put in so much time and effort to realize no one wants to review it.

What I'm trying to get at is a sense of equality. If we try to give everyone a helping hand who enters this thread then I think things would go a lot more smoothly. People can learn if we teach them, (Or at least point out what's wrong with their methods) but it seems that we seem to be neglecting some, regardless of the content matter.

>>101776
>>101779
>>101790
>>101794
>>101798
>>101799
>>101802

Oh goddammit. Not this shit again.

For future reference, Pasco, try to keep the bitching in the IRC.

>>101802
If I'm honest, that reminds me to the original reviewers of /fic/. That was their motto or something.

>>101803
Chill, this place is one tenth derails all the time anyway.

>>101803
I think a friendly discussion shouldn't be out of the question. The conversation isn't really hindering the thread's ability to provide its function, seeing as most of the needed materials are in a google doc and things can be found easily in the thread through that.

>>101802
Well mate, as you say, you're throwing stones in a glass house. Why not get pro-active with the situation you feel needs to be addressed? You've identified a concern. Why not go into the IRC, and see if anyone would be willing to take that 80k fic and break it up with you into more sizable? Then not only does the author get his work reviewed, it's done from multiple perspectives.
Least, that's how I remember the IRC being useful.

>>101803
>Not this shit again
I'm sorry Cass, what's that now?

>>101808
I wasn't aware of these functions and their intentions, and I thank you for letting me know. I'm still very new to Ponychan and I'm trying to get my bearings, thank you for suggesting that. Believe me, I don't wish to just sit back and complain.

>>101810

>>101807
>>101808
>>101806

Whatever. If you guys want to discuss the merits of a system that I would hope at least two of the participants are already fully aware of, then that's your prerogative. I would hope that there would be some sort of realization that the chatting is really intended for the IRC which doesn't see any productive use because people use the thread for this sort of thing instead , but I can't force y'all to use it for its intended purpose.

I also call NOT IT for making the next iteration of this thread.

Here's a response:

---

"...but by a familiar looking pink Earth Pony mare who beamed when she saw Rarity standing there." / Neither earth nor pony would be capitalized.

"Well, this year, the Cakes are turning the bakery into a haunted house!" / Relevance? What does this scene have to do with the story at all?

"It appeared to meant to look like it was made from the cutie marks of ponies, along with severed pegasi wings and a necklace made from prop unicorn horns." / Breaking the illusion. Also, correct me if im wrong but is this not a Normal fic?

"'And the Cakes approved of this?' She asked, incredulous. She didn't think that the Cakes would allow something so morbid to be done for Nightmare Night." / Redundant. The first sentence is an indication of the second, but without having to be explicitely told that.

"Rarity smiled sheepishly. She still thought the idea was far too morbid. But, she wasn't about to deny her friend her happiness." / Three sentences that can easily be one.

"The Cutie Mark Crusaders had been tired from a long day of playing and trying to ear their cutie marks..." / Typo.

"...going to *sob* crunch me up..." / If Scootaloo sobbed, it should be done outside of dialogue.

"...what if there's some kind of terrible side of her that's going to come out someday for no reason at all." / That's a question.

"For a night that had started so horribly, this was the perfect way to end the story." / Breaking the illusion.

I'll be blunt, the story needs a lot of work. The entire thing does far more telling than showing, from character actions and reactions to settings and locales, all of it is told to me very specifically and makes the writing very dry. There's also some Short Sentence Syndrome, many sentences can easily be joined with others and the flow of the story can benefit from it, as is the story has a lot of stop and go. The Normal tag is misappropriated, it's hard to tell what it should be but I think the story comes closer to Sad despite the happy ending. I'd recommend the author look over the Editor's Omnibus and find an editor if possible, this being the first strike of three, I advise the author to put as much work into the story before resubmitting.

I'm requesting a review for this fic in light of a failed attempt to submit to EqD.

First it's time for me to walk the walk after I talk the talk

>>100933
Hello, Pastel, your fic has been sitting there for a while, and I hope that you're still active to realize I'm acknowledging you. Honestly because of the length I will only review part 1 and 2. I will try my best to make what I say specific enough to carry out throughout the rest. I'm still fairly new to reviewing, so I don't think I can take so much on at once. Please bear with me. I will have your review done by the end of tomorrow.

You know what? I had revoked my submission from Kurbz thread but I realized I need an official review still, cause I'm bipolar or somethin'. Even if it's small.

Title: Red Sky

Tags: Adventure, Sad

Synopsis: It has been years since Equestria last saw an imminent threat to the kingdom. The peace that ruled over the land is shaken when an unnamed stallion marches to Equestria, destroying everything and everypony that is foolish or unlucky to stand on his way. With his army, he conquers the land, finding near no resistance once Equestria finds that the Princesses have vanished and cannot save them. The ponies of Equestria are thrust into a reign of fright that even Discord, the God of Chaos would frown upon. All seems lost, but an ancient and seemingly-forgotten prophecy regarding the Bearers of Harmony brings hope to their hearts.

Chapter 1: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1WAUPCFE0NeWDHnUR-JFNqoLl6JWhUOcd9_KuEzKw2HE/edit

Chapter 2: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1htiI4lKVoswu5g4HZ2ynA0Ir9-bhZNHui_3Q_y1Xf1A/edit

Also a list of concerns from my pre-reader at EqD: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1FXd0xDmqe-AekHWoAKqkUyTkYEURxS_V_c1qYqIh6cM/edit

A little over 8k words. Thanks to anyone that would like to take a crack at it. Comments enabled on the docs.

>>101704

>>100251

He wrote his review on the GDoc. Thanks Again!

>>101641
Alright, I have just finished going through part one. Line-by-line are in the comments on the doc.

I will mention the major issues here.

1. Punctuating Dialogue
This is something you need to work on. I'm not an expert myself, but I've pointed out all that I can in the document.
Read this: http://www.be-a-better-writer.com/punctuate-dialogue.html
Also, you don’t always have to address the dialogue with a speaking verb. You can have the character do an action instead. This goes for thoughts as well.
One more thing about punctuation: ellipses need to be a space after them; you seem to just link them right onto the next word.

2. Overuse of commas
This is a problem I had myself. Sometimes dashes and colons can do the job much better, and other times you should really just end the sentence.
Read this: http://www.chompchomp.com/handouts/csfsrules.pdf
And this: http://www.myenglishteacher.net/dashes.html

3. Tense switching
There were a couple instances of this. Stay in past tense, since that's the way you're telling the story.

4. Double Spacing
Now, I have no idea why you double space after a period. Don't do that.

5. Paragraphs
You have several issues here. Firstly, you don't have a blank line between paragraphs, which you really should. Next, you have a few instances where more than one character speaks within a single paragraph. You'll need to split those up. Also, you seem to have some unnecessarily long ones, split those up too. And lastly, a paragraph cannot contain two sentences and two dialogue objects. So again, split them up.

6. Italicizing thoughts
It is the standard. If you want to get on EQD, I strongly suggest that you start doing this.

7. Word choice: missing words, redundant words, and repetition of words
The majority of these aren't 'wrong' per say, but they are... strange. I've provided as many examples as I can on the doc.

8. Sentence structuring
Quite a few of these either read very strangely, or are just plain wrong. I’ve provided examples as best I can, but you need to go back and restructure many of your sentences and paragraphs. Even if they are not technically wrong, restructuring will make your story flow much better. Also, try stay away from those super short sentences that state one single fact – they usually hurt flow. Expand upon them, or combine them with others.

9. Show vs. Tell
This is not something I'm great at myself, but I did notice quite a lot of telling. Don't just tell us that Soul was taken aback; show us this by his actions. Have him rear back, have him gasp. Anything that will show us that he is taken aback. Another good way to show stuff is to let the dialogue and punctuation do it for you. Have a nervous character stutter, have an excited character talk fast and use exclamation marks – anything to show us the characters’ state of mind.

10. Descriptors
This is another big problem I had, and you definitely need more of these – I had no idea what the scenery was like. Use descriptors to set the mood, as well as build a world that the reader can immerse themselves with.

11. Pacing
There are scenes that felt very, very rushed.
'It wasn't until several hours later that he fell asleep'.
Expand on that! Tell us about his research process. Tell us his thoughts on the book. Show us how his head started to feel weary from the hours of reading…. Anything.

12. 'Talking Heads Syndrome'
Again, this was a problem I had too. Mix in some actions while the characters talk. Show some facial expressions and let them interact with their surroundings. Have them nod, look around, jump around, and whatever else that you think might be appropriate. This is also a great way to do some scene building, so you can address two issues at once!

12. Identifying speech
You have places where it’s purely dialogue, and we are not even sure who is speaking. You need to attribute the dialogue to a particular character, especially when there are more than three characters.

13. Characterization
The biggest issue I have here is the same as the pre-reader’s. Why are the main 6 – especially Twilight – instantly friends with him? He is still a stranger, after all, and Twilight just invites him to stay over at the library?
Also, the part where Soul shouts at Twilight. I really don’t see Twilight tearing up when someone shouts at her, especially when it’s not even an insult….

Well, that’s about it. I would like you to take these points, as well as the comments on the doc, and go through your following chapters before I start on them.
While this may seem daunting, I actually know exactly how it feels. I made most of these mistakes the first time I submitted, so keep at it and you’ll get there in no time!
I wish you the very best, sir. Send me an email when your next chapter is ready and I’ll get on it.

>>101800
You know, I'm afraid I'd have to agree. I was not happy with how this one turned out at all. I think I tried too many different things at once, while never really being able to keep any of it in the air, and it all just came off as rushed, confusing, and distasteful. I know I can do better; I HAVE done better. Worst of all, I just didn't have a clear idea of where I was going this entire story. I think it's best if I just scrap the thing and try something completely different, in a narrative style I'm more comfortable with. Thanks for the input; next time I come back, I'll have a respectable fic worthy of reading. :)

The only thing that I'm not clear on in your comment is the formatting issues. What font, font size, and line spacing do you recommend? I was using standard 12-point font with double-spaced lines, just because that's what I have been used to. Do you have a recommendation to make it look more professional?

>>101836
A good font is Times New Roman 12 point font with double spacing. This looks nice and it is also a good habit to get into since most colleges will want you to write in this for papers and such.

>>101844
Alright, I'll switch to TNR as my font, then. I've started on a new fic already; this time, I'm going to plan everything out before I write a single word of the fic, so I'll know exactly what I'm doing. I'm specifically going to address the issues that caused problems in my first attempt so I can make something tolerable this time. :P As for the old fic, l I doubt I'll ever go back to writing that. The more I look at it, the more I see how unsalvageable it is. It's better just to start on something completely different.

Thank you again for your review; it really helped me figure out what I need to work on in the future.

>>101845
'Twas my pleasure.

>>101833

Thank you for going over my work so thoroughtly. I appreciate the effort you put towards your review. I will go over the comments and take into account the points you have presented. It seems I have quite a bit of editing to do, but I will let you know when I am ready for your services once more.

>>100933
>Pic
Hm, I'm faced with a predicament here. I was going to count this as my 4th review, but I really can't call this a review. Calling this a review would be an overstatement.

This has nothing to do with FiM. I read a few pages and started to skim, trying to find any real correlation to the show or the world it's set in. OC driven stories are fine, but you just say 'pony' and mention Equestria here and there without actually saying anything about Equestria itself. If you replace the word 'pony' with 'person' and 'Equestria' with 'Earth' then you would have never guessed it was a fanfiction; you would think it was an original work. I mean, you never even explain what happened to Celestia, nor do you even say 'A.C' means After Celestia, I had to kind of assume that. Please keep in mind that this is only the first 2 chapters.

What did EqD have to say about this work?

Couldn't get my pic to work for some reason. Should be fixed now, sorry if anyone saw that multi post there.

>>101470
I was going to do an audio review, but then I took a "this would work better in text" to the "my 'review' of a story that's already pretty damn enjoyable and probably beyond my meager abilities to improve very much".

https://docs.google.com/document/d/115p_JEuX9PvfiIVGym_s-U-gDqdg5AFBgA4eXZcsEsc/edit

Your review is in the GDoc above. I downloaded your story in HTML, copied it to Google Docs and made use of comments and highlighting to point out (relatively few) mechanical errors. I also made some general comments at the top of the doc, in a different font.

tl;dr: This is one of the few stories that I've really been absorbed into while reviewing. I enjoyed it and you seem to have already addressed the PR's issues. Good job, SR Foxley!

>>100285
Hi, Greek, I am Professor Hugbox, and I will be your reviewer for today. Sometime tonight or early in the morning I will have your review done. I look forward to working with you.

>>101546
The Great and Powerful Trixie will do you poor commoners a favour and take a chunk out of this mess.

You there, author! Listen to The Great and Powerful Trixie's rules!
1) Do not expect mercy, do not expect kindness. You will get what Trixie feels you deserve.
2) Trixie will review as much as she pleases, and for you, that's not that much.
3) Trixie might be willing to answer questions via email, if you ask nicely and show you have half a brain.

Expect a review shortly, if the first page is any indication.

>>101239
Alright, I know that no one else is going to take this on, so I will. Just be warned though, I won't hold back from telling you that this is pretty much one of the most generic things in the fanfiction part of this fandom. Be warned, this most likely will not go well for you. This one will be done within 48 hours of this initial post, seeing as I have another one in my Queue as well. I usually can push out stories pretty quickly though.

Goodness gracious, the queue is ridiculously small! Time to get in on this while I can...

1) Title: W.O.M.P.

2) Author name: Josh Meihaus

3) Email: [email protected]

4) Tags: Comedy, Random

5) Synopsis: Twilight Sparkle knows better than anypony an exam is serious business. Particularly when the exam in question is a final exam. Particularly-er when that final exam determines whether or not she graduates from the Canterlot School For Gifted Unicorns. Join Twilight as she treks through a test filled with acronyms, insults and general insanity.

6) Chapters: It's a one-shot.

7) Link: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1t0R6HqmfVQ_AgZXDR6yn2N2BPPy2BQ310j-77kAwaHY/edit

8) Note: the AI character's dialogue is funniest when read in this voice from Portal 2:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JgAjsI_d2eU

Anyway, thanks a lot to anyone who'd like to take a look at this!

>>101864

Note: This was also posted in the LunarShadow/Kurbz tag-team thread.

>>101862
Well then, all I can say is... come at me brony.

I await your review with baited breath, and we will see if you must be anywhere near as brutal as pre-reader A1X3 was in their(albeit brief) analysis.

If your review is as sound and well reasoned as I would expect of you and the other reviewers here, then I shall [i]certainly[i/] look forward to working with you on improving this together.

Best of fortunes go with you. And, if you have any luck to spare, I would ask you to send me some as well.

Hello and welcome to the Training Grounds. This is your reviewer Dublio speaking and this review is for the story "I'll See You in the Sky." Well, let's get started then, shall we?

I definitely see what the pre-reader meant by "basic, non-stylistic grammar problems." A lot of your sentences are redundant and repetitive, you have comma splices everywhere, most of the sentences are telling, and the semicolons and colons are used incorrectly. Most of the comments have been added in-doc and the general review going over your problems will be listed here. Without further ado...

Showing vs Telling

Am I trying to paint a picture for my reader or am I trying to tell him everything that happens? Many of your sentences are telling and that makes the story very hard to sit through. Unfortunately, showing vs telling is a hard thing to fix simply because many writers have trouble with this. My fellow reviewer CartoonGeld has a post that explains showing versus telling better than I can. Look at the below link and there you go.

>>89502

Adverbs are a crutch for weak verbs and don't do anything except add to the telling in your story. Occasionally, it's okay to use them but you tend to overuse them and it does nothing except making it a bit harder to read through. Some of the actions can be determined from context, but not everything.

Misuse of commas, semicolons, and colons

I'm not sure if semicolons and colons are used differently in British English or not, so you'll have to check and see. But those grammar problems that the pre-reader mentioned involve those punctuation marks as well as awkward sounding sentences. In most of the instances where you're using semicolons and colons, you're using them incorrectly. I don't really use them myself, but generally colons are used for lists and semicolons are used to link two sentences that are similar in theme. I'm not that great at explaining, but here's some handy resources that can help.

Semicolons, colons, and exclamation marks:

http://owl.english.purdue.edu/engagement/index.php?category_id=2&sub_category_id=1&article_id=44

Commas vs Semicolons:

http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/607/04/

Narrator as a Character

Some of your sentences in narrative are opinionated, which makes your narrator sound like a character. If that's what you're going for, good. But if not, you may want to rethink your sentences.

Here's a good resource to read up on:

http://www.bewilderingstories.com/issue212/narration1.html

In the beginning, it feels like you're trying to beat the reader over the head with the fact that Rainbow Dash is lonely. The problem with that is that sometimes you tell us her feelings instead of showing them. Describing the way she got out of bed and went on with her life is showing, but saying she was hit with a wave of loneliness is telling. By this point, you mention loneliness about six times. If you're going to keep telling us her feelings, at least use a thesaurus so that it doesn't sound as repetitive. This doesn't mean that you should always show of course, there are some places where telling comes in handy.

Thought and Dialogue Tags

Any time you have a thought tag that says "thought to herself," then delete them. Thinking to yourself is redundant because you are the only one there. Do you have italics for the inner thoughts? Yes, so you don't need to make it redundant. Delete the thought tags.

Be aware of what dialogue tags are for. They're for clarifying who said what. If you have a tag that says "said the distraught pegasus" then I still have no idea who is talking. It's another way to make what's happening confusing and the harder you make your story to read, the more likely a reader will bolt. You also want to watch out for Lavender Unicorn Syndrome as it seems to pop up occasionally. If we already know their name, then use that or pronouns. It's not that it's bad to use it period, it's just that when you have so many characters on the page, keeping track of which color belongs to which pony will take the reader out of the story very fast. You said that you already know what LUS is, so I won't mention what it is.

Final Notes:

Be careful of adding words that add nothing new to the sentence or repeats something that is obvious. You spend lots of time spent describing unimportant things, so I wasn't sure what was important and which was just a part of the setting. Most of the story-related questions are in-doc, and I did my best to cover most of the important parts, but I don't believe I caught everything. Consider this a preliminary review if you want and show this to the next person that reviews your fic. I'd consider getting another editor if I were you. But I'm not, so...

I also question why the first part is even in there because by skimming the rest of the story, it seems like it turns into just an excuse to get Rainbow Dash out of the house. I thought it was going to be a story about the bonding between Rainbow Dash and Scootaloo, but it completely switches gears in Chapter two towards Derpy and Dinky. It kinda sounds like ideas for two different stories slapped into once. For one, I'd like to see a nice story about Rainbow Dash and Scootaloo bonding, because she doesn't seem to get very many happy stories about her. This is one of the few stories where she actually has both parents. But it would be unfair to poke at the other chapters since skimming is not good enough for reviewing's sake. So for now, I can't judge any of the story aspects quite yet, since I only looked at chapter one and that wouldn't be fair. Just know that most people won't bother to go through the rest because of the following systemic errors.

A lot of your sentences are redundant and repetitive, you have comma splices everywhere, most of the sentences are telling, and the semicolons and colons are used incorrectly. Your story has much greater problems that pop up later on that pertain to the story. But most readers will never get that far because most of your grammar and punctuation is very very off. It's likely that the pre-reader didn't really even get that far in the first place. I only read chapter one yes, but this fic is going to need a few more reviews before EqD will take it anyway. You have to go back and fix these grammar problems first, or else no one will even read the rest.

When you fix them, then you can come back for another review and get the story part worked on. But as of now, picture this. Your fic is like a beautiful floor covered in garbage. In order for you to let others see it, first you must clean that floor. If you need more examples of why something looks and sounds awkward and you want to know how to fix it, feel free to let me more and I'll go find some more resources for you. I apologize if the review sounds harsh, I just want to help you improve your writing the best I can, and I don't believe that will happen if I hugbox you.

If you want me to, I can read the second and third chapters more in-depth and provide feedback on that too. The only reason I stopped at chapter one was because I wanted to see what your writing goals are and what you're planning to do for your story. If you're going to quit because of one review, then I'd rather not waste my time going over story stuff. But if you still want to continue with your story, I'll be glad to read the rest. Just be aware that the grammar and punctuation exist throughout your entire story.

Since your story has two strikes against it for EqD already, it's going to be much harder to fix this story up and get it submitted. I'd recommend getting as many reviewers to look at your story as possible and link them to this review. Just be aware that Ponychan rules state that you're supposed to tell other people when you ask for a review if you've given your fic to someone else for a review. I think the max is two threads at the same time, but I'm not entirely sure.

As always, never give up and keep writing.

>>100836

>In the vastness of infinity, filling it in totality for the first time in one hundred years, were twelve brilliant sets of lights, better known as constellations of the Zodiac, that chased each other in an eternal, circular dance.

Five commas? Seriously? I'm so claiming this!

>>101883
I'll keep an eye out for your review.

Thanks in advance!

>>101863

I know it's probably unrealistic, but it would be nice to hear feedback on the story unencumbered by the baggage of the genre in which I've kind of fallen into. I'll admit that I didn't take a very close look at the state of the MLP fanfiction selection when I began writing. Now I'm realizing that HiE has been played to death, but it would be nice if you could take a fresh look at it. However, if the writing needs help, please, by all means let me have it ;) In any case, thanks for taking it on.

>>101898
The thing is that it's very hard to take something seriously when everything else that has followed the path didn't end up well. There's a few exceptions, but those are ones that are usually by authors with a lot of work under their belt already and engulfed into the fandom to such a high level. I am going to give it a shot with an open mind, but I won't be afraid to point out the tropes you commit.

>>101712
Aww and I thought we were having fun. seriously those smashed computer images were hilarious, and the heated debate was so exciting and enjoyable. i would ask you to do this again, but i have the feeling you'd rather not. I'm going to rewrite the story without the whole kidnapping sch-peal, and ask a mod to approve the changes before sending it back through here. thanks for your time and it really was very helpful dispite our disagreements.

>>101899

I hate being unoriginal, so this would help a lot, thanks.

>>101712
Oh yeah, one more thing, what is the head cannon of most people? I have never heard an explanation for Derpy's cutie mark, so I made one up for my story. If you know of one that's popular, let me know and I'll gladly incorporate it into the story.

>>101856

Thanks for the feedback. I realize it's slow to start, but that was the intention. The ties to FiM really start getting heavy around chapter 5, more and more so from then on. Is it that I put too much mystery into the first 4 chapters? Something to fix?

I'm pretty everything the EqD readers said needed working on was worked on. I haven't sent them this version yet.

And you're right! A.C. does stand for After Celestia. None of my friends have been able to decipher that.

>>101909
I'm very sorry I wasn't able to read enough to actually get to that part. I would suggest you make it more apparent through starting chapters. you can lose readers pretty quick if you don't introduce what they want when it's appropriate to do so. I have learned this first hand, honestly. Fics that take place a significant time in the future can be hard to correlate at first to FiM, but you simply must.

>>101858
>>100285
Hello again Greek. I had told you within these 24 hours I would review your fic, but other things have come up that I will be unable to read and review it tonight when I usually do those things. I WILL have your fic done before/at Saturday morning for sure. I promise you this.
>>101863
>>101239
Ditto for above. Very sorry that I won't be making the deadline I stated before.

>>101911

What about punctuation, grammar, or spacing? I'm mainly concerned with those. Or is that not your area of expertise?

>>101913
I'm fine with those, but you have to fix your main and biggest issue first. I was going to comment on that, but I seemed to forget about it once I started realizing it wasn't what it needed to be all together. From what I gather however it's pretty good grammar and formatting wise.

>>101864

Yeah. I saw the reviewing guide. I'll take this and review it.

I'm busy all day Friday, but I'll probably look this over when I'm at work on Saturday. I'll probably have this done by next Saturday, but it could take longer.

I'm going to be using The Elements of Style by Strunk and White for my review. I'd think that would be good to know.

Cheers! (What have I gotten myself into?)

Well I haven't been in one of these threads for a while. I sort of feel like reviewing something, but I'm not too sure how this new system works... do I have to call "dibs" for something?

>>101950
It's optional, but preferred. That way, two reviewers don't review the same thing. (I once had LlamaLlumps put his review post between my two-parter. As we reviewed the same fic, it was extra awkward.)

>>101902
>>101907
You already read Bubbles, you should know. It's the most well known one-shot, we don't need another Derpy origin story.

There's a very large list of background ponies on the MLP wiki; write an origin for one of them.

Also, read some of the writing guides in the op.

>>101956
*ahem*
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/1509/
Currently the 14th most-viewed fic all-time on FiMFiction.net.

Not to self-promote or anything.

>>101857

Thank you very much Ezn! It really means a lot to me that you enjoyed the first three chapters of my story, eh! Also thank you for your "Ezn's Guide to Writing (Fan)Fiction" and LUS. I've read and re-read these a couple times in the last few days and will try to keep these guidelines in mind as I continue to write. They are very helpful, and spot-on, IMO, eh!

Thanks also for the suggestions on fixing the mechanics and grammar problems. This is something I struggle with just because I've been out of the habit of writing for so long. (For example, I didn't know that a single space after a period is considered proper now. And I especially had no idea about the proper use of em-dashes. The article you link in your guide on the proper use of dashes is an excellent resource!)

I also really like your suggestion of hanging a lampshade on the whole accent thing. Getting the accent right is also something I find really challenging, and I usually end up re-reading dialogue I write ten times at least to see if if "feels" right. I personally speak with a bit of an Idaho-redneck accent (which is mostly run-of-the-mill American), with some Southern and Canadian flourish thrown in from times I used to make fun of these people so much that the speech patterns stuck hard enough to become part of my regular speech, eh. But I do worry that I screw up the old-timey western (Granny Smith and Stinking Rich), the Texan (Apple family), and Southern (young or flustered Filthy Rich) so much that I'm breaking reader immersion. My attempts at actually imitating these accents when I read my dialogue aloud are so laughable that I often times break my own immersion at how silly I sound (part of the reason I end up re-reading these passages 10+ times). Hmmm...

Anyway, the lampshade idea (which I'd never heard about before--thanks for that link) also allows me to address the voice I'll use when Diamond Tiara actually shows up as a character in the story much later on. Since this is a letter to DT, it would make sense for Filthy to shift into the second person (or at least return to the letter format) when that happens. But I think the shift in perspective would be too jarring for the reader, and also wouldn't allow me the flexibility I'm going to need to tell the story at that point. Using a lampshade at the beginning to address this seems like a good way for me to be able to continue to treat Diamond Tiara as just another character in the story, which is supposed to be a letter addressed to her.

One other note: This is actually the fourth revision of the story thus far, and the second revision in this extended format. There's been another author on fimfiction.net who has been commenting on every chapter I've posted whose suggestions have been really helpful in the areas I think I'm weakest. "Impossible Numbers" also helped me avoid an embarrassing bit of purple prose I wrote into chapter 2 at one point...

Anyway my point is that although you've said I may want to consider getting a more critical reader, from the looks of your writing guide and the suggestions you made on my story thus far, as well as those pieces of pony fanfiction you've written that I've had the time to read thus far, I think you do have a pretty solid grasp of the elements of writing where I'm pretty weak. Would it be okay with you if I requested your help reviewing / editing later chapters, or did you have a suggestion for someone else from which you think I ought to be requesting help? (I'm sorry to be such a noob at this: I'd never even really heard about the world of pony fanfiction before a month ago.)

Anyway, thank you again both for your help in improving my work, as well as for letting me know that you enjoyed it!

SR