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No. 110624
>>110623 Now we have an outline of what we actually write. So we can try to write the actual paragraph. I'll put the outline spoilered approximately where it relates to the passage. These wouldn't be in the actual written text, but should allow you to see where each piece of writing comes from.
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"That insolent—" Rarity cried, her voice cracking. She ensures that the letter is crumpled and stomps around, while mumbling about how he is unappreciative and leaves her when she needs him around. Rarity's horn flared as she crumpled the letter and threw it to the floor. "How dare he? After all I've done for him!" She stamped over to the crumpled letter and screamed at the unfortunate parchment, carefully-aimed hoofstomps punctuating each word, "One. Measly. Sentence! It's the busiest week of the year and he leaves me with just one measly sentence? And what happened to giving a little notice? To think, I thought he was a gentlecolt." A final kick sent the flattened lump of parchment out of sight. Breathing heavily, Rarity returned to her desk and picked up the next letter.
After bitching for a bit and possibly abusing the letter, she returns to Pinkie's letter. Two more letters lay strewn on her desk. Rarity grabbed the first—a pink, brightly speckled envelope with an unmistakeable scent of cake frosting. Rarity sighed and her frown receded. "An invitation from Pinkie Pie. How thoughtful," she said, turning the invitation over in her hooves. Because she is angry, she rips the letter open. "Now that is a true friend. She would never leave me with nothing but a—" She ripped open the envelope. "—letter."
She reads Pinkie's letter. Her eyes lit up she read the letter. "A Gift-Giving Eve party? How wonderful!" Pinkie's letter distracts her from her previous anger as she thinks about how she will enjoy the party and what gifts to give. Soon, fabric and dress moulds flew in every direction, propelled by Rarity's new-found enthusiasm. "Party outfits would be magnificent gifts for this. Like the Gala dresses, but with holiday flair. Oh, Rarity, you are brilliant. This will redefine Gift-Giving Day fashion as we know it."
She giggled as she began sketching her ideas. "I'll need dresses for each of my friends and, of course, I'll have to make one for myself." Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed a white flash scurrying away from the growing mess of cloth. "And how could I forget you, Opal? You would look just fantastic in— That's it! I'll make outfits for our pets too. It'll be so adorable!" Flitting around the room, she began sculpting her designs. Soon, brightly-coloured fabric draped over every surface.
"Oh, I can't forget Spike. He'll be there." Grinning with every stroke, she sketched a quick design. "He'll look so handsome in this darling suit. I should make something for Al—"
She is still thinking about Alphons and resolves not to give him a gift. She might knock over or crumple something along the way. The pencil she used fell to the floor and her smile followed suit. "Ponies that ditch their friends don't deserve a gift," she mumbled, trudging back over to her desk. Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed the unopened envelope remaining on her desk. It was a letter from her family. She returns to her family's letter and slices it open with a letter opener. She picks up her letter opener and with a glance toward the crumpled letter in the corner, slices open the envelope.
She reads her family's letter. Dear Rarity, I hope everything is going well for you at your boutique. I just wanted to remind you that we'll be having our typical holiday celebration at your Uncle's house in Buttercup. I know you're busy with all your fashion stuff, but it would mean so much to your mother if you can come up and be there to celebrate the holiday with us.
She reacts positively, saying something about having a party with Pinkie and spending time with her family will make her holiday fun. Rarity looked up from the letter, chest fluttering. "Are you excited, Opal? Pinkie's party and then next day, we have a celebration with my family. This will be the best holiday season ever!" She squealed with delight.
Also, your grandfather has been talking with the hospital for the last few months and he got them to agree that he could be at the celebration. He'll need a full time nurse, but he gets to spend all of Gift-Giving Eve with us.
First, she is incredulous and checks that the date is correct. Rarity shook her head, blinked, and re-read the sentence. Gift-Giving Eve? Surely he's made a mistake. We usually get together on Gift-Giving Day or a little bit afterward, she thought.
So if you can only make it one day, please be here for Gift-Giving Eve. There might not be that many more holidays we can spend with your grandpa.
Send us a letter when you know when you'll be getting in. We'll make sure your room is all cleaned up and your mother will make your favorite quiche. Love, Dad
PS. I know you'll be busy this season, so don't stress yourself out over making a gift for me. Just being here is enough for me.
Rarity stared blankly at the paper. She read it over again. Then twice more. She tried flipping it upside-down, then flipping over to the back. Nothing would change those words. "Why did it have to be Gift-Giving Eve?" she moaned, head in her hooves.
"You're a resourceful pony, Rarity," she said, fixing her posture. "You can figure this out." She rejects ideas like going to part of each one, getting one or the other to reschedule, and trying to learn spells that could let her travel quickly. Levitating a pencil over, she scribbled down whatever thoughts came to mind. "Maybe I can go to both. After all, a chariot will get me to Buttercup in only—" She paused, lost in thought for a moment. "—four hours." With a sigh, she crossed the first item off her list. The next item met the same fate. "There's no way Grandpa can reschedule," she mumbled.
The next point was her best hope. If Pinkie could reschedule, she could make both. Her thoughts travelled back to her last conversation with Pinkie and she remembered how Pinkie had to spend several days negotiating to reserve Sugarcube Corner. "No, no, no!" she cried, tossing the list to the floor. "Oh, this is just horrible. I can't miss my grandpa, but they'll hate me if I miss the party." At the same time, she begins pacing and mentally going over what she needs to do. Lost in her thoughts, she began to wander and found herself in front of the mirror. The pony staring back at her looked nothing like the well-groomed image that was familiar to Rarity. "Oh, Rarity, you've gotten yourself all worked up and now you're a mess. You'll figure out how to handle it," she said, raking a brush through her frazzled mane. "Everything will work out just fine." Her pupils contracted to beads and her eyes opened wide. "You just need to make sure everything is in order."
She begins trying to prepare for both events by packing and organising her stuff. Soon, her cluttered workroom achieved a new level of chaos from her artistic packing methods. "This scarf has just the right— panache for the family celebration," she said, dropping the shawl onto the growing pile of cloth. "Oh, that colour would be perfect for Applejack's outfit." A bolt of similarly-coloured fabric dropped onto the shawl. "I need to let my parents know that I'm coming." Rarity grabbed a pencil and paper, and weaved her way through the clutter, shawl caught on her hoof. "And talk to Pinkie. Now where did I leave that letter?" She began rummaging through her piles, tossing fabric in every direction. "Why can't I find this letter? I just had it. Oh, this is so horrible!" As she flailed about, her hoof snagged in the snarled web of fabric, sending her to the floor.
She breaks into tears and starts moaning about how she can't decide and how she's going to lose her friends or family because of the conflict. There is a little reference to missing Alphons. "It's not fair!" Her complaints flew fast and free. "All I wanted was a nice holiday, to spend a little time with family and friends without everything coming down on top of me." As if on cue, her writhing pulled the pile of clothes onto her. "What did I ever do to deserve such a thing? I've been good, I give beautiful gifts that nopony else could dream of making, I take my friends to the spa and teach them to have real class. I don't deserve all this!" She finally managed to extricate herself from her clothy trap, but wavered and flopped back down immediately. "Everyone is going to hate me, I'm such a mess and this is such a mess and I'll have to clean everything all by myself, if only Alphons—" At the mention of his name, she abruptly stopped her complaints and stamped her hoof. Immediately after the Alphons comment, she mumbles something about not letting him get to her and continues. "I will not allow that ruffian to ruin my holiday," she mumbled, straightening her posture. She wobbled her way over to the a nearby mirror and plastered makeup over her smudged mascara and her reddened eyes. "There, I'm beautiful again," she said through her clenched smile.
She is still shaking and indecisive, but attributes it to clumsiness and unknown fashion parameters. Taking a confident stride forward, she slipped and stumbled into the mess. "Goodness, Rarity, you are always so clumsy. Now where was I?" She grabbed a familiar shawl from the pile. "Now this scarf would be a brilliant addition for Applejack's dress." She began to toss it away, but stopped. "Although, I could bring it to the Buttercup for the party." She shook her head and sighed. "Oh how silly. How can I decide what to bring with me when I don't know what the weather will be? Everypony knows that this would be completely passe if it were snowing lightly. Now where should I put this?" Scene exits with her trying to decide between two things as a lead in to mentioned scene with Opal.
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Note: This passage isn't perfect. You can probably tell that I'm not a particularly accomplished nor active writer, I haven't had a ton of time to read fiction, and I don't really like Rarity as a character. There are some systemic issues here that I'm not good enough of a writer to fix Wooden narration, contrived use of self-dialogue, and, oh god, repetitive sentence structure and this probably isn't consistent with your story. However, the only reason I provided this is to give an example of something that shows how Rarity feels without telling anything directly, and how the outlined process generates such a thing.
I don't expect you to run through this process everytime you want to show an emotion, but this gives you a way to think about it that you might not have tried before.
As an overview of the entire process: - Outline what you want to have happen - Then make a note of what the character emotion from each part is. This may involve taking some things out of the what is supposed to happen list. - Now brainstorm ideas for hints that might tell you someone is experiencing that emotion. This might include facial expressions, body language, how their mannerisms might change, how their speech patterns might change, etc - Finally, choose a few of your ideas for hints and weave them into the story in place of directly saying the emotion. You can make another outline if this would help.
Next, I'll discuss pacing. Pacing is how fast the events of the story occur. There is lots of general advice about pacing, but the main thing to note for your story is that you are in general pacing everything too slowly. I realise that a romance tale will naturally be paced slower than an action story, but you still I would recommend compressing as much as possible. For example, you have Rainbow Dash talk to Rarity entirely to just tell her that Twilight wants to talk to her. Then, a couple pages later, Rarity finally talks to Twilight. Cut out the middle man as much as possible. Another one of Kurt Vonnegut's rules states, "Start as close to the end as possible." If you can eliminate the large extraneous sections, then that will make the slower pacing that suits the story more bearable since there will be a shorter section.
Along similar lines, be aware of what events you spend time explaining. For example, you left Rarity's panic over the letters to two sentences. By covering this only at the most superficial level, you make it seem unimportant, when in reality, it is one of the more interesting events of the chapter. Similarly, I would tone down the amount of time you spend having her ruminate and pack granted, I'm not a Rarity fan, so that type of story does not particularly appeal to me since that type of action typically has slower pacing and requires much more showing to be effective.
You have some redundant descriptions in there too. These are simple to fix: just keep in mind that your readers will have seen MLP, so if the detail is something that they would know already, then you can omit it, or if you're really worried that they won't remember, mention it exactly once. If you follow this, you'll get rid of the vast majority of redundant descriptions that you mentioned.
Also, keep in mind what details you use. You seem to include a lot of random type details that don't really affect the story. I will admit that I am terrible at knowing what is useful for setting the scene, but these seem like details that don't affect that. My typical heuristic is asking, does this detail come into play later or if I remove/change this, does it affect the story? If the answer to that is no, then consider omitting it.
You have a few mechanical inconsistencies. For example, it is recommended (especially for posts on fimfiction) that you don't put a double space after full stops.
Chapter Specific Stuff: This is my thought progression as the story unfolded, written one chapter at a time.
First Chapter: I a little bit concerned about some characterisation bits in the first chapter. In particular, Pinkie Pie has more of a hair trigger than should be expected. You have her start crying because Applejack and possibly Rarity—it's not clear whether or not she is aware that Rarity won't be there aren't going to be at the party. When Pinkie broke in the show, she had hints that her friends didn't enjoy the party from the night before, sketchy excuses from all of her friends the next day along with pretty obvious lying reactions, then seeing that her friends weren't actually following excuses and most of them mentioning Pinkie Pie explicitly as somepony they didn't want around at the time, and finally, although you could argue that she'd cracked at this point Spike telling her explicitly that her suspicions were correct. These circumstances aren't exactly on the same level. Also, using Pinkie breaking as a device seems like you are trying to artificially create drama and, to be honest, it is mostly unnecessary. The only reason I see for including it is you want to give extra motivation for Rarity to stick around and make something for Fluttershy. Except the scene with Rarity sticking around is only a few sentences and she leaves and doesn't go with the others to visit Fluttershy, so you could omit it without much difficulty. Plus, if you really wanted Rarity to stick around, just have her friends guilt trip her into helping.
Also, Rarity comes off a lot more like Twilight than Rarity. In particular, her following a list and scheduling every moment don't seem like the kind of things a creative personality would do. While she is a perfectionist in some things, she is also an artist. I would argue her obsession with having the kitchen clean and other household chores done the right way stem from an idealism for high society and keeping up appearances more than a desire to be particularly organised. When it comes to stuff that doesn't matter for manners and appearances think her workroom in Sisterhooves, she doesn't bother keeping it perfect and neat; she lets it go as it will and leaves herself open to her creative whims. Keeping a long todo list and scheduling every moment don't fit with her creative personality, nor would they be seen as something she would do to imitate the higher classes.
I mentioned this above, but this could really use a paring down. Basically all that happens is the introduction of the situation, a mention of Alphons, Rarity having her flip-out as a way to make the situation seem interesting and then the visit to Pinkie/Fluttershy. The rest is mostly fluff.
As an aside, Alphons doesn't seem like much of a pony name. Especially if he is going to be the shipped character which early indications point to you may want to consider a more pony name that has something to do with his occupation/color scheme/personality, instead of just picking something that sounds vaguely foreign and exotic.
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