Unclaimed: 7
Reviews In Progress: 13
Reviews awaiting acknowledgment: 24

Unclaimed Stories
07/22/2012 ❖ Snake Tales P by OrckDorck (>>112662)
07/27/2012 ❖ Their Otherworldly Grace by MonoGlyph (>>113641)
07/30/2012 ❖ Grand Prix by Arbarano (>>114028)
07/30/2012 ❖ Void by Damocl (>>114119)
08/01/2012 ❖ Not Exactly Green; No ODST Is by SpilledInk (>>114297)
08/01/2012 ❖ Draconequus by cheezesauce (>>114313)
08/02/2012 ❖ Twilight Alone by Tridus (>>114424)

Reviews in Progress
Still Waters: reviewing Friendship is Aura by KangTheSpartan (>>104728) submitted 05/31/2012
Grif: reviewing Ideas Live On by Dromer (>>106740) submitted 06/14/2012
Filler: reviewing Schism by melknin (>>108342) submitted 06/23/2012
AzuNyan: reviewing Nopony's Innocent by Eyeclops (>>110818) submitted 07/11/2012
Minjask: reviewing Wish I May, Wish I Might by JC Borch (>>113703) submitted 07/17/2012
NumberNine99: reviewing Mines of Equestria by LunarShadow (>>112645) submitted 07/22/2012
Halcyon: reviewing Twilight's Odyssey by DemPonies (>>113541) submitted 07/27/2012
Doseux: reviewing The Cost of Utopia by Doctorfreedom (>>113638) submitted 07/27/2012
"The_Incredible_Blunderbolt
: reviewing Acquiesce by Equ-us (>>113650) submitted 07/27/2012"
AzuNyan: reviewing A Leaky Roof by SterlingNomad (>>113837) submitted 07/29/2012
alexmagnet: reviewing Clover's Creed by Your Antagonist (>>113950) submitted 07/29/2012
Casca: reviewing The Devil And The Dunce by Your Antagonist (>>113951) submitted 07/29/2012
Anonymous: reviewing Days of Their Lives by alexmagnet (>>114116) submitted 07/30/2012

Reviews Awaiting Acknowledgment
Pinkamena: The Dark Descent by Wolokai (>>106197) submitted 06/10/2012 ❖ Reviewed by soundslikeponies on 07/04/2012 (>>109628)
Friendship Ends by BristleWings (>>107705) submitted 06/18/2012 ❖ Reviewed by Pascoite on 06/22/2012 (>>108159)
In Flame by SteelEagle (>>107639) submitted 06/18/2012 ❖ Reviewed by Johnfreemanwepon on 07/24/2012 (>>112995)
The Road To Ponyville by GlueFactory (>>107841) submitted 06/21/2012 ❖ Reviewed by Randomnumbersgohere on 07/16/2012 (>>111662)
To Endure by Shamus_Aran (>>108303) submitted 06/23/2012 ❖ Reviewed by Conchshellthegeek7 on 07/13/2012 (>>111037)
The Reach by Gearbox (>>108446) submitted 06/26/2012 ❖ Reviewed by Writer's Block on 07/04/2012 (>>109651)
Pinkie Pie's Phenomenal Ponytech Party by Still Waters (>>109247) submitted 07/01/2012 ❖ Reviewed by Kirdus on 07/17/2012 (>>111929)
Nightdreams and Daymares by Mareinthemoon (>>98882) submitted 07/03/2012 ❖ Reviewed by Minjask on 07/20/2012 (>>112391)
Epiphany by Yourmainbrony (>>109457) submitted 07/03/2012 ❖ Reviewed by Umbra on 07/08/2012 (>>110391)
Neon Labyrinth by SoundofRainfall (>>109589) submitted 07/03/2012 ❖ Reviewed by Minjask on 07/18/2012 (>>112109)
My Little Old Republic by AidanMaxwell (>>109810) submitted 07/05/2012 ❖ Reviewed by Minjask on 07/28/2012 (>>113690)
Out of Fashion by xjuggernaughtx (>>109838) submitted 07/05/2012 ❖ Reviewed by Umbra on 07/07/2012 (>>110152)
Blessed Ones by Hollyfern (>>110251) submitted 07/07/2012 ❖ Reviewed by Conchshellthegeek7 on 07/10/2012 (>>110719)
The Wanderer's Wife by Arbpw (>>110767) submitted 07/11/2012 ❖ Reviewed by bronyZ on 07/31/2012 (>>114291)
Harmony's End by JawJoe (>>110907) submitted 07/12/2012 ❖ Reviewed by Seattle_Lite on 07/19/2012 (>>112167)
The Canterlot Music Competition by TheOrchestralBrony (>>111571) submitted 07/15/2012 ❖ Reviewed by cheezesauce on 07/22/2012 (>>112647)
The Miracles of Harmony by Cody The Kirby (A.K.A: Ghostwriter the Scribe) (>>112371) submitted 07/20/2012 ❖ Reviewed by Figments on 07/21/2012 (>>112876)
Daring Do and the Power of the Goddess by Ponyman (>>112769) submitted 07/23/2012 ❖ Reviewed by NumberNine99 on 07/27/2012 (>>113442)
A wrinkle of light by James Caudry (>>113006) submitted 07/24/2012 ❖ Reviewed by Your Antagonist on 07/31/2012 (>>114153)
Of Chaos and Harmony by Monster Hunter Brony (>>113057) submitted 07/24/2012 ❖ Reviewed by Pascoite on 07/31/2012 (>>114295)
Chain Of Memories by AlphaNova (>>113090) submitted 07/24/2012 ❖ Reviewed by Doseux on 07/30/2012 (>>114014)
Last Chance by The_Incredible_Blunderbolt (>>113664) submitted 07/27/2012 ❖ Reviewed by Pascoite on 07/29/2012 (>>113998)
A Scribe's Work Chapter 1: Scribes Are Weird. by Cody The Kirby(A.K.A: Ghostwriter the Scribe) (>>113721) submitted 07/28/2012 ❖ Reviewed by Seidio on 08/02/2012 (>>114373)
Nothing is Scarier by DuncanR (>>114018) submitted 07/29/2012 ❖ Reviewed by Bronius Maximus on 07/30/2012 (>>114026)

Is it just me, or does nopony acknowledge reviews anymore?

It's been a while since I've tossed this one around /fic/, and seeing as how there have been some decisions to keep it as a oneshot, I'm circulating it through once again for a couple last times before sending it to EQD.

[Title] Paradise Lost
[Author] Xelor
[Tags] Dark, Alternate Universe
[Email] raptorsenior@gmail.com
[Synopsis] "A lie begets a lie, and the world must be protected by one."

Skyward Arrows, a simple author on the run from his own city, is faced with a decision that will change the course of history forever. Yet with every power comes a hefty price.

[Link] https://docs.google.com/document/d/1TdsANlCc0vmWww6ykXzkjh9tUIMeo0psSARkOsUDI_Q/edit?pli=1

[Chapters] Oneshot

[EQD Stuff] Thank you for submitting your story to EQD... and for stumping me. I'm really not entirely sure what to do with it! It's well written, but you've left me with many more questions than I started with.

The magical book was a nice idea... but I'm wondering a lot about the world of the Author. What's going on? Why is the Empire so cruel? Where did this book come from? What's this sect he seems to be working with?

And once the world is re-made, where in time did 'Our' Equestria start? Was it pre-Celestia? Pre-Discord?

So many unanswered questions... I do think your story would do better if this were re-written and fleshed out.

Honestly? It's also a good start to a MUCH longer story.

Regardless, the choice is yours.

I'm sending this back to you for editing; you do need to firm up your formatting and add in a few tweaks here and there. You can do that, then resubmit... and it ought to be ready to post.

I would however offer a plea to you to consider re-writing and expanding upon this. You've left me with questions... and that can be a very good thing if you choose to answer them.

-Pre-reader 23-ish

---------------------------------------------------

Thank you for your submission to Equestria Daily. I cannot at this time recommend it for posting, due to numerous errors in the writing and tone:
The writing in general is very awkward, with poor word agreement and missing words not making it any easier to read. There are formatting errors as well, including extra whitespace and un-italicized thoughts.
Do not use asterisks in prose. Sounds can exist on the page unaltered, or in italics.
The dialogue is very poor, especially between Diamondback and Skyward. The former sounds like a pat villain, spouting lines I've heard numerous times before to poor effect. Furthermore, the conversation serves only as exposition and is thus very dry.
Use of the phrase "a single tear" is generally frowned upon as an over-the-top attempt to force emotion out of an otherwise emotionless scene, as it is in this piece.
Finally, I was not entirely convinced of the ability of one seemingly normal unicorn mage to rewrite his world into Equestria, especially as I assume the 'successor' he spoke of is Celestia.
I anticipate some explanation forthcoming, and as such request that you include a first chapter upon your resubmit.

This is the second of three strikes for this story. Please take your time rewriting. Consult the Editors' Omnibus and get at least one reviewer from Ponychan to look over this and anything else you write to make sure it is suitable for the blog. There is something worthwhile in this -- starting in medias res was a good thing, and the general concept is interesting -- so I would hate to see it strike out.

Good luck,

-Pre-reader #6EQUJ5

------------------------------------------------

[Comments] That's pretty much it. I want to know whether or not I should expand it, or keep it as is.


Oh, this is also in SLP's queue and Minty's queue

Thanks.

>>114439
>>114434
I know that feel. Still, we press on, right?

>>114439

No, it doesn't look like it. =(

>>114439
It's their loss.

Acknowledgement is asked for to signify an end to the finished review sitting in the active queue. It sits in the active queue to make it easier to find, because otherwise (and before the advent of the spreadsheet) you'd have to Ctrl-F back through all the threads to find the review, and most people don't have that patience or gumption.

I stopped advocating removing unacknowledged reviews from the active queue because the main reason for removing them was to make it easier to find unclaimed stories. That's not so much of an issue now that there are filtered sheets displaying only the unclaimed stories and recent reviews.

Wellp, I just Bcc'd over 20 people about their reviews.

Hopefully having an email address column in the autosheets will encourage communication.

>>114013

DemPonies!
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/55001004/TwilightsOdyssey-Prologue.doc
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/55001004/TwilightsOdyssey-Chapter1.doc

Wanted to post this yesterday, but Ponychan was down when I went on. Sorry about that.

And sorry for being picky, but:
>>114424

Claim.

>>114435
>Dat pic
I just saw that movie for the first time the other night

The review for My Little Old Rebublic was acknowledged on Fimfiction, sorry I forgot to mention.

just want to acknowledge my review. First, thank you, second, I will take everything you said into account and work on resolving it.

Very sorry for making you wait a whole goddamn month. Hopefully, this makes up for it. Unfortunately, I didn't cover everything, only what I saw.

The last time I did (what I suppose can be considered) a proper review was well over two months ago. You have my sincerest apologies if I've said anything unhelpful or incorrect. Please take what I say with a grain of salt; except for most of the grammatical things I point out, everything I say is simply my opinion. Also, sometimes I make things up. If this seems disproportionately long, it's because I copy and paste a lot of your words. Also, I am wordy.

I might use words that might not make sense at first, and you probably won't find any meanings of those with Google. That's because I use words in ways they aren't actually meant to be used. Hopefully, you'll understand what I mean when I say things like “you give part of this sentence too much weight”, where “weight” means something like “the amount of attention you want the reader to give something relative to other somethings of the same kind”, among other things.


Initial thoughts
-Good god, this is long. And this is only chapter one? I suspect either too much fluff or that this chapter can be broken up into two or more smaller chapters. As it stands, it's twenty-two chapters in LibreOffice.
-Good god, text wall. The two-spaces-for-paragraph-indents thing is for physical page printing, where space matters. You pretty much get infinite space on Google Docs, so don't worry about that. Use the tab button if you're going to indent. Alternatively, put a space between your paragraphs, like in the picture I've attached to this post. Common formatting standards say to choose either indent or the space, but it's not uncommon for pony fics to do both.
-Your synopsis seems fairly dry, and you seem to recognize that. Looking at it:
>Luna's return should have heralded a new golden age for Equestria, but as Luna and Celestia begin working together, Luna starts to question the wisdom of her sister's governance. When Luna confronts Celestia the princesses' division erupts into a conflict that threatens to divide all of Equestria and even pit friend against friend.
First, these two sentences both introduce an idea. Look at the thread >>114003, where it has a nice screenshot from that-video-everyone-who-writes-something-should-watch. (You can find the video at >>114009. If you haven't watched it yet, do so now. Think of it as required reading.) Now, imagine if that curve's first two bumps were pretty much at the same height. That's what happens when you have two sentences that sound like they're both introducing something. (Of course, all sentences introduce something, but these sentences sound like they're fighting each other for position of “first sentence”. It's because... I'm not sure what it is exactly, actually. Probably has something to do with the second sentence not actually building upon something introduced in the first. The part in the first sentence that connects it to the second seems more like an afterthought in that sentence, given the amount of weight in-sentence that you've given it.) Also, good god are those sentences long.
>Friendship and family will be tested as everypony is forced to take sides in an Equestria split in two.
-This sounds like you're trying to hype the depth of your story... in Ben Stein's voice. It's just so nonchalant.


Stream of Consciousness
>Luna paced around her bedroom, retracing the same path she had been following for the past several hours.
-Several hours? That seems a bit much, even for She-Who-Raises-The-Moon.
-Style note: You appear to not use “that” before your dependent clauses. While grammatically correct (and fairly common), I'm not a fan of that in narrative. What you have now also sets a less serious mood for your fic chapter, which you may or may not want.

>She made a passing glance toward her bed but made no move toward it.
-Consider “glance at” over “glance toward”. “Toward” means “moving in the direction of”, but glances are fairly static.
-”Toward” is used twice in this sentence. It sounds repetitive.
-Likewise, “bed” sounds repetitive, given the “bedroom” from the sentence prior.

>Instead she heaved a heavy sigh and returned to her endless walk about the room.
-Unless you're writing in some variation of UK English that I heavily dislike, when you begin a sentence with an adverbial phrase, you require a comma after it. For example: “After this phrase, there is a comma.” Or in your case, you need the comma after “Instead.” Because this issue seems systematic, I will repeat it in bold several times to try to stress the importance of this comment:
When you begin a sentence with an adverbial phrase, you require a comma after it.
When you begin a sentence with an adverbial phrase, you require a comma after it.
When you begin a sentence with an adverbial phrase, you require a comma after it.
That is hopefully enough to make you remember it, but not too much so that it's all you remember.
-You spend two sentences (this and the one before it) describing what is effectively one action: not going to bed. By giving one action undue attention, you mess up your pacing, and that's notably bad this early in your story.

>It was the middle of the afternoon, a time at which Luna would normally be asleep and gaining strength the strenuous act of raising the moon.
-I think you accidentally a word between “strength” and “the”.

>But this afternoon Luna was struck with a case of insomnia, a problem which had started to become a recurring problem for her.
-You need a comma after “afternoon”. Note how you use a comma after “afternoon” in the last sentence. That's correct. This is not.
-While it's not grammatically incorrect to start your sentences with a conjunction, doing it here is awful because it messes with your pacing considerably. There's no reason that this can't be joined with the sentence prior—any length problems could be solved with A. splitting the paragraph, making the paragraph less heavy or B. shortening the sentences by cutting out repetitions. For example, here you say “this afternoon” in this sentence while saying “the afternoon” in the last one. Alternatively, C. replace “But” with “however”. (And don't put “however” at the beginning of the sentence should you choose to take that option. It'd be a sideways move rather than forward, or so I think.)
-You use the word “problem” twice in this sentence. “Recurring problem” indeed.
-On that note, you also use the (noun) (adverbial phrase modifier) structure here as well. “problem which had...” and “time at which...” sound pretty repetitive. Vary your sentence structure.
-That can be solved by cutting some things. You don't really need to say call it a problem when you describe just what it is. ...Using the word “problem”, no less.

>And of course, Luna reflected in bitter irony, the anxiety caused by her sleep deprivation was only adding fuel to the problem.
-Consider changing “was only adding” to “only added”. Here's the thing about “was verbing”: It's usually better off as just “verbed.” Take, for example, the following:
>Twilight Sparkle was sitting at a table, reading the book she bought yesterday.
>Twilight Sparkle sat at a table, reading the book she bought yesterday.
And assume that Twilight Sparkle is the focus of the passage. Now, if it was the first example, it would read awkwardly. This is (or so I think) because when I say “Twilight sat”, you can assume that she remains seated until I state otherwise. There's nothing stopping her from ceasing her sitting, barring a sudden swarm of bees, or Spike calling to her and telling her to get up, or some other external force. Sentence one means that at that moment in narrative, Twilight was seated at the table and reading. Sentence two can mean either that she sat down while reading the book and kept reading it after sitting down, or that she was already seated and reading the book. One is “was verbing”; two can also be “was verbing” or it can be “began to verb”. That is, assuming “beginning to verb” doesn't need to mean “stop verbing” at some point. This is comparable to verbs like “stood” or like the “was … adding fuel” in your sentence here. (You can move onto the next hyphen-point if you think you've read enough words on why you should use “only added” instead of “was only adding” in this sentence.)
Compare that to this:
>Twilight Sparkle was eating her sandwich.
>Twilight Sparkle ate her sandwich.
Contrasting with sitting down, eating a sandwich can't be done forever—or at least, Twilight has (or can reasonably be assumed to have) no intention of eating forever. Because of that, we can assume that Twilight stops eventually. Thus, the first sentence here means “was verbing” while the second sentence means “began to verb, then finished verbing”. This is comparable to verbs like “ran” and “slept”.
Also, “verbed” has less words than “was verbing” and means pretty much the same thing most of the time while keeping the simple past tense that narrative is usually written in. On top of that, as a fellow /fic/ regular stated:
>[04:20:07] <[name withheld]> [. . .] "was verbing" sounds boring and uninteresting, but that "verbed" is lively and engaging.
That's pretty important, too. That's my theory, anyways. I stand behind my suggestion because it sounds better to me, but everything up there is an attempt to justify that position.
-Consider “fueled” over “added fuel to”.
-When you use “of course”, you assume that everything in the sentence is already known. That's what “of course” tends to mean. In this case, I as the reader did not know that Luna's sleep deprivation gave her anxiety.
-You've used “the problem” very often. It's become extremely repetitive.

>Even though it had been some time since she'd returned from her exile on the moon Luna was still struggling to with her homecoming.
-Consider a comma after “moon”.
-You accidentally a word after “struggling”, it seems.
-Consider changing ”was still struggling” to “still struggled”

>It wasn't just figuring out the new societal norms or technology, though there were certainly no shortage of problems for her to overcome there, but it was also figuring out what she was meant to do with herself in a kingdom she didn't fully understand.
-You seem to be rather... scattered with your narrative, like you don't have a single focus. I suppose the best analogy I can think of would be driving. You drift the car from side to side, occasionally crossing over lane separators and making your passengers inside fairly dizzy.
-On top of that, your sentences are pretty verbose. For example, “what she was meant to do with herself” says very little (“her purpose”, perhaps, or that with some added modifier) in a lot of words. While verbosity slows down pacing, an effect that you appear to want here, it seems like you're going far overboard with it.
-“Didn't fully understand” doesn't say much—it says the what, not the how. The how—the connection between “didn't fully understand” and “societal norms or technology” (or at least, I assume that is the connection you're trying to make)—is tenuous at best.

>Celestia had ruled Equestria for a thousand years in Luna's absence, so Luna had had no need to step in and take away responsibilities Celestia had been easily managing on her own.
-”Had had” is awkward to read. Consider replacing with “Luna had never needed to...” or something of that sort.
-”Step in” is redundant. If she's taking responsibilities away from Celestia, the intervention is implied.
-The “so” implies a cause and effect, but without some kind of addition, it requires a leap of logic to work. You seem to require something like “had ruled Equestria alone for...”. As it is, you're lumping part of the cause with the effect. In fact, as it is, you could manage with deleting everything between “Celestia had ruled” and “so”.

>And even if Luna had wanted to return to Celestia's side, she was certain she wasn't yet ready to take on a task as monumental as ruling Equestria.
-Well, it's not like she'd be doing it alone.
-You imply that Luna does not want to return to Celestia's side. I do hope you have justification for this, since Luna looked pretty happy in both of the episodes she had actual roles in.
-Try to avoid starting sentences with “And” when adding them to the previous sentence as a dependent clause makes it sound the same.

>However, the meaning behind Celestia's words became all too obvious as Luna realized just how much Equestria had changed in her absence.
-Try not to open sentences with “however”. It's like starting a sentence with “but”.
-”All too obvious” sounds... corny? Forced? Forced. In your current narrative voice that sounds like the narrator is speaking to the reader (due to the constant telling), you're elevating something—the obviousness to Luna of what Celestia meant—that doesn't really deserve elevation. It's minor, but there nonetheless.
-You've spent three paragraphs effectively saying what's going on inside Luna's head. That's a bit much, I'd say.

>So instead of ruling side-by-side with Celestia and she had before her exile, Luna instead spent most of her hours just trying to catch up on Equestrian history, which as it turned out, was no easy task.
-”Celestia and she had”? You mean “like she had”?
-”Just” is one of those words that should be used sparingly in narrative. I had a list of them that I can't remember at the moment, but “just” was at the top of it. You lose nothing by cutting it.
-Consider making this the first sentence of the next paragraph.

>“Foals spend years learning modern Equestrian history in school, and you've got over one thousand years of detailed economics, laws, society, and history to catch up on; you're not going to do it in one night.”
-It sounds like either of the two could have said this.

>She knew Celestia had meant them as words of encouragement, but every time Luna had misgivings about the slow progress of her studies Celestia found a way to repeat this mantra.
-”But” is used when you're trying to present a conflict between two ideas. I'm not seeing the conflict here, where the two ideas are “using them as words of encouragement” and “repeating the mantra”.
-Consider a comma after “Celestia”.
-Unless it's like “Love and Tolerance” or “Om mani padme hum” or something else that has philosophical/spiritual meaning, it's not really a mantra.

>Taking a pause from her pacing, she sat on her haunches and directed her eyes over all the books on loan from the royal library.
-“Directed her eyes over” makes it sound like she's looking at something above the books, not actually at the books. Consider “at” over “over”.

>the books covered every conceivable topic Luna had thought might be relevant to ruling Equestria.
-Capitalize “the”.

>And for each topic she had tried to track down records and studies spanning the whole one thousand years of her absence.
-The “and” makes the sentence look incomplete.
-Consider a comma after “topic”.

>Nearest her was an impressive tomb that stood out from the others: Feather Quill's A Written Catalog of Equestrian History.
-”Tome”, not “tomb”.
-Use italics for book titles. Underlining is best reserved for when italics are unavailable, or when you're doing MLA citations or something.

>Celestia had recommend it to Luna and she could see why. It was an impressive omnibus of Equestria's history, citing back to even before Celestia's war with Nightmare Moon.
-I don't think you used the word “cite” properly: http://machaut.uchicago.edu/?resource=Webster%27s&word=cite&use1913=on
-These two sentences can easily be combinable. You say that she could see why, and then you say why.
-You also call it impressive, effectively spoonfeeding your readers with opinions that they may not hold.

>And even though it was slow going, Luna was making some progress working through the book, tracing back through the centuries of Luna's missed time.
-Dem “And”s.
-”Through the centuries of Luna's missed time” sounds repetitive, given similar phrases in the sentences prior.

>Luna was pleased to see that modern Equestria appeared to be a land of true peace and prosperity.
-You just say that Equestria is a “land of true peace and prosperity”, which is infodumping.

And because you've been kept waiting long enough, this is the end of my line-by-lining. Hopefully, I've said enough for you to get an idea of what you can do to improve your story on a more detailed level. Everything else in this section will be just basic notes and responses.


>But as she sat looking towards the book, her focus waned and her eyes began to glaze over.
-Conjunctions at the beginning of sentences. Bluh.

-Reads kind of like “And then this happened.”

>After a minute of staring a hole through the book the princess shook her head, resigning herself to the fact that she wouldn't be making any meaningful progress on her studies.
-You break narrative voice here by using informal speech (staring a hole through the book) in what was pretty formal narrative.

>so that she could read the writing on the parchment.
-This is a really clear-cut example of unnecessary. There's really no reason for you to say this—it's like saying “Luna opened the door so that she could walk through it.”

>and after learning of the episode
-what episode?

-You're using “had verbed” more often than “verbed”. That means you're talking way too much about things that had already happened before what your narrative considers “the present”. That means you're infodumping.

>her quiet words ringing loudly in the silent room.
>quiet
>loudly
Wha?

>Although the castle was home to the princesses during the day, it was was also a central hub for the entire Equestrian government.
>was was
-Avoid saying “it was”. There are usually more elegant ways of getting facts across.

>Fall
-is not a proper noun.

>Her ears swiveled towards the ruckus, curious about the source of such raised emotions, but didn't slow her pace towards Celestia office all the same.
-Her ears are not curious, nor are they... Well, I suppose they are not-slowing her pace, but it sounds odd regardless.

>she nearly barreled into a three ponies
>a three

>Her advancement temporarily halted
-Don't use big words if they don't fit—i.e., “advancement” and “halted”.

>“Luna!” Celestia greeted. “I would have expected you to be asleep at this hour. What brings you all the way down here?” she asked as Luna turned around and stuck her head back out the door. She cast a nervous look left and right down the hallway before turning to face Celestia again. “Is something the matter?” Celestia asked.
-Don't use unnecessary speech tags. You have three in this paragraph alone.

>No matter how dire a situation or tense a room, her sister's small always had a calming effect on the ponies around her.
>small


>Tia
-God, I hate that nickname. It reeks of Fanon Luna. And I do hope your Luna doesn't go down that path—it doesn't sound much like Luna Eclipsed Luna so far. I suppose that's natural, since your Luna's not quite at that... age, I guess I would call it.

-You use the word “Luna” a lot. Past Sins had less instances of the word “Nyx”.

-You mention Luna's eyes and Luna's gaze a lot, too.

>Luna posture relaxed

>They all gave her a kind greeting, a small blush of embarrassment appearing on the face on the white-maned stallion that had first noticed Luna.
-Allow me to copy and paste something I'd written before regarding this structure of (subject) (verbed) (object), (object) (verbing modifier): http://fillerarc.tumblr.com/post/28620583027/ (tl;dr: it's usually bad)

>we could avoid–
-This—is an em dash. Use it when you want to show a line of thought being cut off. This is not a style choice; books that use en dashes use em dashes for this purpose as well.

>she had never seen Celestia betray any evidence
-Odd choice of verb, “betray”.

-Why is Celestia involved with a petty larceny case?

>twelve month imprisonment
-Well, that seems draconian. Considering how Gilda stole apples from Granny Smith without batting an eye... Oh. This is missing an [Alternate Universe] tag, isn't it?

>The sentence for this case is to be twelve months imprisonment
-Oh god. This is going to be about NLR/Tyrantlestia, isn't it? I'm just going to assume this is [AU], because my suspension of disbelief has been shattered like pots in a Zelda game.

>Luna surprised even herself when she audibly gasped in response to her sister's words.
-The focus should be on her gasp, not her surprise at the gasp.

-See “overall” for general comments about this trial scene.

-And the scene after that.

-Why are the castle dungeons right outside of the castle gardens?

-Lily Petal is dungeoned already? Well, that was fast.

>pony living in relative comfort
>dungeon
-Only one theft in three months? Not buying it.

>Worst of all, Luna realized, was that the mare's ribcage was clearly visible every time she breathed out.
-My ribcage is clearly visible... =(

>Her mane too was soaked with dried mud and was covered in tangles.
-So the guards are beating her?

>It's because of Celestia that I'm in here! It's because of that horrible pony that this had to happen.
-Questioning her rule? In North Korea, that's shooting squad material right there!

>but now she's sure to keep me in here for the rest of my life.
-If that's life imprisonment material in Equestria, then why in bloody hell would she shout it in the presence of a guard? If political dissent is that bad, she'd either know better and stay her tounge or not actually care about what happens next.

>It went against every instinct he had
-POV shift.

-You probably might want to bring the kid up earlier.

-Most of my objections to this scene are largely political, but Lily is not a sympathetic character to me. Lily's been shat on by life, and now she can't even feed her daughter (despite there being shelters). If the government puts her daughter in a better home, her daughter is both fed and no longer homeless. And Lily doesn't want that because it means not being with her all the time. Eh, I dunno.

-He's a pegasus. Why not pour water on the fire?

>This poor mare had had her entire life taken away from her, one loved one at a time. And in a final act of indifference Celestia had sentenced the mare to spend the next year of her life in this cell without so much as hearing her story.
-This sounds like you're trying to hammer in the sads.

-I'm kind of skimming this last conversation between Luna and Celestia, but it looks like it's coming out fairly nicely.

-Why does Celestia have a cabinet? Eye candy? Luna asks her that question, and Celestia never answers.

Overall:
-Comma placement. They go after adverbial phrases if those phrases begin sentences. Likewise, they also go between addresses and addressees, as well as between those two and any other part of the sentence. For example: “Twilight, put down that chair.” “Sorry, Mr. Davenport.” “No, I cannot.” “So glad you could join us, Mr. Anderson.” “Yes, Celestia.”
-Unnecessary verbosity. Look for where you could use less words to say the same thing with the same effect.
-Repetition of similar words or phrases.
-Prepositions and (as the SAT calls them) idioms. There's not much you can do here on your own besides learning them. Google “SAT idioms” or something—there's a reason one use is correct while the other is not. For example, “she was now glad for Celestia's suggestion”--compare that with “she was now happy for Celestia's suggestion”. If you're happy for something, then that something should be the object that's receiving your mirth, not the cause of it.
-Beginning sentences with conjunctions. All things in moderation.
-It sounds like you've got a case of thesaurus abuse.

-Bland writing. You use big words, but simple sentences. There is very little variation in your sentence structure, and you use the phrase “was” too often. This deadens your mood. There's nothing sad or tragic about this, and your first chapter should set the mood for everything else to come. (This is why some people use prologues for setup, as cheap as they are.) What you have sounds like “Luna eases her way back into society a la Luna vs. the Microwave”, not “Luna tries to upset Celestia's rule”.

-Unfocused paragraphs. The idea of a paragraph is to hold together a bunch of related ideas, but the sentences should flow into each other easily. Sure, you can spend six sentences talking about a room, but when you jump from Celestia looking at a paper to Luna looking around the room to Luna's prior experiences in the room to the room's interior design, you have sentence-to-sentence cohesion issues.

-Standardize your scene breaks.

-This Steel Magnate bit—I really don't know what to say, so I'll just be honest—I don't buy it. Even North Korea has trials before shipping off their criminals to labor camps (though they usually try to beat confessions out of suspects first). Even Jean Valjean had a trial before he got sentenced to seven years in prison for stealing a loaf of bread. And in neither case are/were Kim Jong-il/un or whoever-was-in-charge-of-France-at-the-time involved in petty criminal cases. They have countries to lead, not criminals to jail. I'm going to skip the fact that you're dealing with magical ponies here whose grand leader has her subjects send her friendship lessons and can overlook the complete destruction of a city by tennis ball locusts. (It's the destruction of an entire town. She had to find out eventually.) Celestia's tyranny you're setting up here looks ridiculously strawmanny—not because she's pretty much going “one year dungeon” a la Lemongrab, but because she's personally involved in a petty trial. If you're trying to make it seem like there's only one case of theft every three months and make it seem like this is a proportionate response in-universe, you need to at least hint that this isn't the Equestria we're familiar with, and Celestia had better have an intricate network of spies and informers to keep the citizens scared and in line. (And even then, it'd be a tough sell. If one pony is desperate enough to risk one year in prison over food, you can be certain that there's more where that came from, especially if they serve food in prison and the guards don't beat them or there's no fear of getting shanked in a shower stall. Fuck, if there's only one non-violent crime every three months, there's probably less violent crime than that. That'd mean prisons (if there are multiple prisons) are ultra-empty.)

-Getting rid of corrupt officials by replacing them with herself doesn't seem to do much, either. Those who are susceptible to corruption aren't going to stop being susceptible to corruption after they're no longer officials or whatnot. If twelve years prison is good enough of a deterrent for theft, whatever comes of corruption should be just as good.

-This is not Luna Eclipsed Luna. This is not Luna Eclipsed Luna at all, and it doesn't sound like it's going to turn into Luna Eclipsed Luna any time soon.

-So your Equestrian government has:
1. Twelve months of prison for theft.
2. One theft every three months.
3. One supreme leader that oversees all judicial cases as well as legislation, tax, etc.
4. Shelters that should be able to keep its citizens fed.
5. Child services that take children away from “unfit parents”.
6. Trials that aren't really trials because they want to cut down on wasted time.
7. Lots of red tape to prove that a single pony can be considered a “fit parent”.
8. No fire codes, apparently. Or fire departments.
9. No government subsidized healthcare, either, even if the leader thinks so.
10. A cabinet consisting of overglorified yesmen.
It sounds like of like North Korea, except North Korea fails everything besides propaganda.


Closing thoughts:
Consider using a space instead of or in addition to the indents. When I linked your story to another reviewer, he said he wasn't going to look at it because of text walling.

You're not a natural speaker of English, are you? It would explain a lot. If you're not, this is fairly impressive. If you are, well... I'm confused as to where these unnatural sounding bits are coming from, then.

Society... doesn't work that way. If crime is uncommon, you can't have that many prisoners. If crime is common, you can't have Celestia oversee everything. There's a conflict of possibilities here. If you haven't already, I suggest reading 1984 by George Orwell or Nothing to Envy by Barbara Demick. Considering all the parallels your Equestria has with North Korea, I recommend the latter.

If I ignore the societal inconsistencies and that this appears to be Tyrantlestia, this appears to be moving in a fairly interesting direction. However, the writing itself is not strong enough to make this seem like more than yet-another-Tyrantlestia story. (Disclaimer: the only Tyrantlestia story I've read is the story lampooning the other Tyrantlestia stories.) On top of that, that's a pretty big “if” up there. I have an easier time buying what's said on Fox News.

If you have any follow-up questions, you can just put them in-thread or contact me in the Training Grounds IRC channel at http://derpy.me/ttgirc (#ttg on irc.canternet.org).

My apologies if I sound incoherent or inconsistent at any point. Since I did this at something-or-other-AM and with a headache, that's a distinct possibility.

>>114465
Thanks for the review!

The things you brought up will definitely be looked on and you're review is sure to help me with my future writing.

Seems I still have a lot to do before these chapters are ready for publication.

"Just some small notes I took while commenting on this (I will expand my comments come the next section):

-Look to adjust Smart Cookie (AJ)’s dialect to better fit her accent (I’m pretty sure she kept it in that episode; if not, disregard)
-The content is a bit dry so far (needs more description and less “talking heads”), but it’s still reasonably engaging
-Don’t let thoughts and narration mesh
-Be attentive toward singular/plural agreement
-Reduce run-ons/unnecessarily verbose sentences/phrases" - you.

Ok, the reason Smart Cookie doesn't have AJ's accent is because she's not AJ. That episode, Hearth's Warming Eve, was a play while this is the actual historical meeting. You might also notice that this Puddinghead doesn't share Pinkie's cloudcuckooland-y behavior. Same reason.

That's also why the prologue might seem a bit dry, as you say. I intentionally avoid describing the characters' appearances because they don't look like the mane 6, how they look in the episode, that is. Yet, describing their actual appearance would mostly be confusing, so I decided to leave the appearance of the actual historical figures up to the reader's imagination.

I will take a look if this can't be improved though, or made clearer. And I'll try to fix your other points to the best of my ability.

"More notes:

Don’t mix narration with thoughts. When the text becomes much less formal, it’s typically the latter, which should be italicized/written in a way that clearly distinguishes the two types of prose.
Your dialogue is very strong, aside from punctuation errors; you may want to make a stronger focus on that within this story.
Cut down the number of shadow appearances or condense them. It gets very tedious having to read shadow after shadow prophecy.
I was under the guise that the filly Trixie was conjuring the shadows all that time.
Don’t hedge on whether something happened or not. It’s typically “it did or it didn’t,” and there is no middle ground.
You need more context leading into this whole scene. You’re dropping a plot bombshell without anything to fuel it. It feels like a foreshadowing dump more than something that’s cohesive with the plot.
Read more fics so that you get a better gist for punctuation, run-ons, and general phrasing. It will help you mold your own writing style and freshen up any dullness within passages.
Overall, an interesting premise that needs a bit of refinery. It has the potential to become a much better read if you’re willing to put in the effort to get it there." - you

I suppose this is my queue to admit I'm not a native English speaker. (hangs head in shame)

All your critic has been very helpful! I love your detailed analysis of each chapter.

If it's not too much, may I ask if you would be interested in reviewing any future chapters as well (please)?

>>114516
Darn it. Shouldn't write things on the internet directly after work. I probably didn't need to tell you that English isn't my first language. That post would've given me away anyhow.

Sorry for the incoherent mess that was my previous post. I wish this site had an edit button...

Still, I'd like to know if you would be interested in reviewing my future chapters (when they're done)?

Also:

>>114465

That image! Poor Twilight... it really wasn't her fault.

Tags: Normal (Darker towards the end of the story, I'd guess, but I don't know if it's enough to cancel the Normal tag. I'd argue it's not.)

Synopsis: Sometimes, the past is best left buried. However, sometimes it can also be dug up by the most unexpected means.

Fates will be determined and the unknown past revealed, all as Twilight Sparkle searches for the answer to the crucial question: Who is Knight?

Links:

Prologue: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1n6KD2LCOExeHFhq7ocEG6XBCKcCWm8jsbiyJxkkSZgI/edit

Chapter 1:https://docs.google.com/document/d/15yn7ueXwOa6hjMTUDpUyGjH5YjxkvrJ2HRuKNBNktvc/edit

Comments:

Well, here it is again. Casca, if you're not busy, I'd like you to take another look at this. Tell me if it's better this time around or not.

The prologue wasn't altered way too much, though I hopefully added some better details in it for readers, but I've certainly changed chapter 1 (it especially reads much, much different from about the middle to the end this time around).

Part of my problem was too many plot threads, so I've tightened the focus much more. I'm already going through the remaining chapters, throwing out useless or overplayed bits, and replacing it with what I hope is a simpler and enjoyable story. I kinda like the new direction you sent me in. It's much more in line with my original vision for the story.

Now, if you don't have any interest, please say so and let this be open game in that case.

(P.S. Also altered title and made a new synopsis. Let me know what you think.)

>>114436

Hi, Pup Tent-
I'd picked a chapter for you to look at, but have kind of gotten carried away editing (taking into account your, and the pre-reader's concerns). Let me get back to you tonight or in a couple of days. :)

Thanks again!

Review time with alexmagnet. Pro reviewer by day and masked vigilante by night. So pro in fact, that I skipped the prologue and went straight to chapter one. Because, screw context! I played Assassin's Creed! I know what I'm talking about! Desmond is best pony!

Pic is related due to my objections that I'll get to later.

First off, let me apologize in advance for my particular brand of humor and all the lame jokes I made in the comments. I didn't plan on doing the review line-by-line it just kinda happened. Soooo, whoops. Anyways let's get to my actual review.

Pros: I quite like the story, and despite the fact that the prologue is pretty much the same as the game I enjoyed it very much.

I also liked how you included game mechanics such as eagle vision and parkour but made them magic spells. That was kinda cool.

I also like Clover's characterization so far, even thought you changer her gender in the prologue.

Your actual writing isn't too bad either. I never felt the need to tear my hair out screaming "why can't I read this!" so that's good.


Cons:

Objection! You use colons and semi-colons like they're commas. You had like 3 colons in less than 200 words That's way too many colons. And the same thing goes for semi-colons. They are supposed to be used incredibly sparingly. In fact, you should rarely even find yourself pressing that key. I should also point out that you didn't even use them correctly.

The amount of comma splicing was absurd. Especially during the prologue and early parts of chapter one. I know how easy it is to do. I am a frequent offender myself and I constantly have to go back and edit the hell out of my commas. And another thing with your commas. Every single proper noun that somebody says is preceded by a comma. Why? Why would you do that?
>“Your hesitation says everything, Clover.”
You see that? That comma has no business being there. That's just the first example I found, there are many more.

Moving on. Your grammar, outside the comma splicing and overuse of colons and semi-colons, isn't too bad. You have some real awkward wording sometimes. But, only once or twice was it actually confusing enough to were I had to read the sentence multiple times to understand what was going on.

Some of your dialogue can be a little clunky as well.

Overall:

I'd say this is a decent retelling of an Assassin's Creed story with ponies added. Clearly you're going in a somewhat different direction than the source material because Clover already has a pair of apprentices. But, I get the feeling that Starswirl isn't entirely forthcoming with Clover. That old bastard is probably hiding something. Which reminds me of another old bastard who was the head of an assassin's guild.

So, I guess that's it for my review. It wasn't all that great, my review I mean, so sorry about that. First time I've ever really had to review anything, besides my friend's college essays. But that's different.. Anyways, I'm interested in seeing where the story goes and I'd like to keep reviewing stuff for you when you get new chapters. I imagine you'll probably want someone who doesn't suck though. Either way, I was overall fairly pleased with what I read and I wish you luck.

P.S.

I would suggest getting another person to review your story as well. Just to get another pair of eyes on it. Also, take everything I say with a grain of salt. Remember, I'm not the best writer around.

So, apparently I'm a huge idiot. I did not realize that in speech commas had to go before the addressee's name. I take back everything I said regarding that, and I apologize for being ignorant of basic comma rules. I suppose I'll go ahead and hang my reviewer hat up and just cry myself to sleep or something.


Still had a lot of comma splicing though, I think. Now I'm questioning myself on that too. Excuse me while I return to 6th grade English class.

>>114604

>So, apparently I'm a huge idiot. I did not realize that in speech commas had to go before the addressee's name. I take back everything I said regarding that, and I apologize for being ignorant of basic comma rules.

Well, it's a good thing you changed your mind. That particular problem comes up a lot in your own story.

>I am a frequent offender myself and I constantly have to go back and edit the hell out of my commas.

Hehe, your review is almost done and mentions a lot about commas. Looks like we have some work to do. Sit tight, while I finish up the rest of the review of your story. Muwahwahwahwah.

>>114604
Well, this is is the Training Grounds, for writers or reviewers, so don't sweat too much about it.

>>114607
yep, saw that one coming.

Look at me, classic pot calling the kettle black, or whatever. Crap...

>>114571
Sure thing. Just let me know when. I'll be watching the thread.

>>114604
Whoa! whoa, there. hold your humans.
This is the training grounds after all. the point is to get you into the reviewing game. The more experiences reviewers ought to help you out if you're new and apparently I ought to lurk in this thread more. Don't sweat it, you're new. You'll get it.

>>114119

Claiming work from last thread.
>>114028
Title: Grand Prix
Author: Arbarano

>>114509
First of all, I want to express a sincere thank you for doing this review (especially since I perceive it was not the easiest review to get through). I think your comments are correct and warranted. I'll go through the specific comments/corrections in my own time (particularly grammatical issues, which I try to be a stickler for, but unfortunately one can't know what one doesn't know; I believe that is half the point of getting an outside reviewer), but I thought I'd respond to a few things immediately.

> Consider using a space instead of or in addition to the indents. When I linked your story to another reviewer, he said he wasn't going to look at it because of text walling.
Ack, this was the default formatting exported from my type-setter. Indentation and paragraph spacing is just a variable at the beginning I could have reset. I'll definitely change that for anything I post in the future.

> Good god, this is long.
I had certainly realized this. Even I was quite surprised at the length when I finished the first draft (and to think I did that first draft in one sitting). I think this mostly stems from the fact that it had been sitting in my head for an extended length of time, so I just had a lot of scenes already laid out in detail before I even started writing.

> this chapter can be broken up into two or more smaller chapters.
The intention was to change perspectives with each chapter break. The purpose of the story would be to show how the conflict effects each character. For example, the second chapter is written in Twilight's perspective, who stumbles into the conflict (which has implicitly grown in the time between the chapter breaks).

At any rate, the point about the length is taken.

> Your synopsis seems fairly dry
I definitely realized that after the initial posting and tried to take a second pass at it. An attempted revision is here >>112635. (Still not great perhaps, but at least an improvement, I think).

> This is not Luna Eclipsed Luna.
Yea... I'm not sure I have any defense to this one. I can't remember if I originally conceived this before I saw Luna Eclipsed (I'm relatively new here), or if I simply built her up differently in my head (I know it's a weak excuse, but one episode only gives you so much head-canon to start from). Either way I'm not sure how I would revise the chapter to capture her correctly and achieve the same premise. (Alas this probably just means my premise was flawed to begin with; more on that below).

> I'm confused as to where these unnatural sounding bits are coming from, then.
I think this probably stems from the fact that I haven't written anything but technical writing/documentation for the past 10 years, which tends to prefer unambiguous (and generally bland) writing with simple sentences. I certainly haven't written anything designed for entertainment value in that time. So I *tried* to break out of that (and be very glad you didn't see the first draft; I could barely make it through that one), but I'm willing to believe it came across (accurately) as writing by someone who hasn't written natural prose in years. I clearly have a ways to go.

> Repetition of similar words or phrases.
> It sounds like you've got a case of thesaurus abuse.
Well, I suppose I was trying to fix the former with a bit of the latter, but somehow wound up with the worst of both.

> If I ignore the societal inconsistencies and that this appears to be Tyrantlestia, this appears to be moving in a fairly interesting direction. However, the writing itself is not strong enough to make this seem like more than yet-another-Tyrantlestia story.
As I mentioned above, the intention was to see how the conflict would effect others, and do so in their own perspectives. To do so, I wanted to 1) setup a division which was clearly polarizing, but 2) try not to define either side as the "bad guy." However, I think you've identified that it was both insufficiently considered and poorly executed.


While I can certainly improve (a lot) on the points you've laid out, I'm not particularly convinced I have the skill to retell this premise in a way that's substantially more believable. All things considered, I think this was just too ambitious as a first writing attempt (did I mention it's been a decade since I last wrote fiction?). At the same time, it was also a bit inevitable that I would attempt it (there's something about these ponies that sparks an artistic streak I didn't even know I had). I'll try to learn from the things you've pointed out and fix what I've got so far, but I think after that I'll table this story for now and start anew with a shorter one-shot (probably a much better way to gain some footing).

Again, thank you VERY much for the review. It is very much appreciated, and I'm going to make a sincere effort to learn from it.

From over here in the previous thread: http://www.ponychan.net/chan/fic/res/110790.html#111929

Thank you very much! You've been most helpful ^^

This guy was quite awesome, incredibly helpful feedback and stuck around to chat on gdocs a couple times, and through the comments.

It's only just occured to me that I didn't post an end to the review for >>108802 by Grayshift. For the record, I completed the review in doc.

Apologies to thread maintainers for my incompetence, and also to Grayshift—just in case you were expecting anything more from me.

I'll claim >>113641 as penance for my stupidity. I promise I'll post it here this time.

>Nothing is Scarier by DuncanR (>>114018) submitted 07/29/2012 ❖ Reviewed by Bronius Maximus on 07/30/2012 (>>114026)

Just a note: I'm pretty sure I acknowledged this review.
http://www.ponychan.net/chan/fic/res/110790.html#i114054

>>114602 Thank you for taking the time to review this, your review was informative and it let me know that the points of the story I wanted to make intriguing and stand out, well, stood out. I'll be sure to remove the semicolons, I've been meaning to anyway. Besides that I totally think Clover the Clever is a dude.

>>114604 And you are not an idiot. You just got a certain grammar mechanic mixed up, no big deal. Besides, I didn't ask you to edit for me, I asked you to review and you did a fine job of that. The editing was a just a cherry on the top. Don't beat yourself up about it.

>>114735
>Besides that I totally think Clover the Clever is a dude.

Okay. I guess. Well, at least keep his/her gender consistent. In the prologue you referred to him/her as 'he' and then in chapter one as 'she'. I was fairly confused and I thought you were talking about Starswirl and not Clover at some points.

Also, Clover is totally a girl's name. Just sayin'.

>Don't beat yourself up about it.

Too late. I've already challenged myself to a one-on-one death match in The Octagon. Don't worry though. I'm a real lightweight. I'm sure I can take me.

It was a pleasure reviewing for you.

Now, I just have to wait for anon's review of my story. I'm scared and excited at the same time.


(it's weird how much fan art there is of Franziska as a baby)

Synopsis: "Future Wonderbolt, coolness incarnate, and all-around awesome. Is it any surprise that everypony wants a piece of Rainbow Dash?

Not that she wants anypony to take a piece, mind you. All she wants to do is live her life. That's something she finds relatively hard to do when everypony she meets falls in love with her on sight, though."

Inspired by the perception that RD has been shipped with everyone, I made everyone want to be shipped with her. Hilarity (supposedly) ensues, as RD tries to have a somewhat normal life whilst avoiding anyone who might try to seduce her.

Tags: [Comedy]

Word count: 6703

Chapters: All three currently uploaded (and if anyone wants to volunteer to at least glance over however many more chapters I can do of this when I write them, feel free. You will be rewarded with my eternal gratitude and love and a packet of peanut M&Ms).

Link to story: http://www.fimfiction.net/story/39790/Everypony-Loves-Rainbow

Comments: Equestria Daily pre-reader said:

"Author, I grinned like a fool all through reading this, but I can't recommend it for posting just yet.
Look for errors in the following areas:
•Awkward shifts to second person
•Semicolon use
•Hyphen/dash use
•Ellipsis use
The grammar remains the only thing that's stopping this. This is the story's second strike out of a possible three."

I tried to solve these problems (thus the two strikes), but I don't think I'm a particularly good self-editor, so I thought I'd try consulting some actual professionals. I’d love some help fixing these niggling issues of mine. Though, obviously, any additional help that can be thrown in would be immensely appreciated.

34,302 words total means I’m gonna be posting this piecemeal. Here’s my thoughts on the first ten-thousand:

General:

This doesn’t read like a journal or memoir. I think that’s a pretty important thing to tell you right off the bat. I’m not saying I didn’t enjoy it or that it ruined the atmosphere. Right now however, I want to talk about stuff like this:

>I could see it glisten in the weak light of the sun behind the clouds. Wait. Glisten?
>As I did so, a dim light fell on my eyelids.

These sentences have no business being in a journal, and I’m very much taking your story as being styled as one. Given your opening, I’d expect this to read less like Twilight’s narrating it to me and more like she’s recording her memories. You want to reduce the ‘stream of consciousness’ style you’ve got going on: it jars horribly with the passages that are done in the journalistic style.

As for the atmosphere, you nailed it perfectly. Theirs a slow, gathering build to the tension and darkness: just the right feel for a Lovecraftian horror. So much so that, at times, it stops feeling like a MLP fanfic. You may want to watch that. Your inclusion/adaptation of canon works in interesting ways: I’m looking forwards to seeing where you take it.

There are other, minor things as well. Stuff like this,

>I did not yet regret obtaining the Volumes.

Make no sense when, after Twilight tells us that her journal’s caught up with current events, there’s been no hints that she regrets having the Volumes. Abandoned plot point, perhaps?

Or it might just be the slightly OOC nature of your Twilight. I think the point when I cottoned on to her acting highly out of the ordinary was when she decided to create life from scratch without a single qualm in the world. And whilst we’re on that, talk about jumping in at the deep-end, author. I know you mentioned/established that Twilight was unstable, but I still think that’s a leap too far. Well, that and her just casually burning a timber-wolf’s body. That’s... well, that’s psychopathic.

Another minor things is this:

>Like something had chased him… I continued my investigation and found some really scary tracks and uprooted trees… I think something big moved in from the heart of the forest… I’d like your help in chasing it off. If you’re able.”

Way too many ellipsis in there. All the emphasis just vanishes.

> When I asked her what she was doing she told me in a roundabout sort of way that she was building home-made fireworks. When I asked her why she needed the fireworks, she told me they were probably for the New Year celebration.

Repetitive sentence structure here. I’m not quite sure if it’s deliberate, but that thumb sure looks sore.

Tense:

I can see what the pre-reader meant. You’re tense is... erratic. Again, it doesn’t read like Twilight writing a journal. If anything, it’s Twilight telling a story. And that leads to tense issues, for example:

> However, over the course of the past few months, I had noticed that Equestria is changing. I had decided to document this process and record my thoughts, for future reference.

Your tense here really confuses me. Is Twi writing a prelude to her journal, after she’s finished it, or starting said journal off? Your choice of tense implies the former, but context/what I’d expect suggest the latter.

If she’s starting it off, use have instead of had in both cases here. If she’s adding a note towards the front of a completed journal, make that a lot clearer.

>A gentle breeze wafted through Ponyville.

This is another confusing point. We’re just entering a paragraph and then, out of nowhere, you jump into a description that’s completely out of place for a journal. ‘Was wafting’ clears some of that up.

Although to be completely honest, it still feels out of place. The preceding sentence mentions that Twilight understands why Celestia likes autumn/fall. I’d expect the sentence after that to contain a reason why Twilight understands it.

Commas:

I noticed a fair few comma problems, mainly in the earlier chapters. In later ones you have an overt preference for periods/full stops. Not that there’s anything exactly wrong with that, but, at times, it can break up the flow. As for the commas:

>scrolls and books lined the walls and shelves dividing the floor like some maze.

You need one after shelves here, otherwise it can be read as “scrolls and books lined the walls, and shelves dividing the floor...” which clearly makes no sense.

>I was stocking up on a certain something, myself.

I can’t classify what the exact error is here, but it reads to me like Twilight’s stocking up on Twilight. I’d consider revising it.

>I lost myself in the building for hours on end reading various treatises and making the most of my time there.

Comma could come after building or end here, depending on where you want to attach the ‘for hours on end’ part. I’d personally go with after end.

Quotations:

Here’s two mistakes I noticed, though there’s probably a few more:

> we’re meet’n there. “
>“S-sorry. Applejack, maybe you should get some rope while we’re here.

And the other thing: how exactly is Twilight remembering what her friends are saying so well? We know she’s writing after the event (quite a while after) so quotes near ad verbatim are... surprising, especially when given without explanation.

Random:

>I stumbled quietly off to the side so I could vomit. The rest of the ponies waited patiently until I was finished.
>The days went on, as they are wont to do.

These are parts which... well, broke me away from the atmosphere and mood of the fic by making me giggle. I'm guessing that wasn't your intention. Either way, they completely killed the mood. I’d watch out for stuff like this.

Anyway, I’ll try and get the next section in by tomorrow.

Sorry for the wait, I’ll spare you my list of excuses as to why this took so long.
I left some comments in the doc. There would be a lot more but I’ve run myself into the ground this weekend, and am not very up to par at the moment.

Okay, this is quite a mess you’ve got here.

First of all, I’m wondering if you even looked this over after you finished typing it. There’s a lot of missing words, and other obvious errors that could be easily fixed.

Your phrasing is all whack! I can’t even count the number of lines in there that sound like a pair of unmeshed gears.

You’re also very telly. More than half the story is trying to tell the reader exactly what they should be thinking, rather than leading them there.

Your emotional moments are very dry, and the rest of it… is also very dry. The whole thing is a dried cracked desert.

The characters don’t make a lick of sense, and you never explained how they supposedly ‘absorbed’ Pinkie Pie.
>“That is without a doubt the single most ridiculous thing that I have ever heard,” he said.
Couldn’t have put it better myself.

I can’t really say I enjoyed this one. It actually nearly bored me to death, and I had to put it down at least four times.

This is nowhere near ready for EQD. You’re going to have to do some pretty serious tweaking before you even think about resubmitting it to them.

>>114751
Uhh... are you actually going to mail peanut M&Ms to reviewers?

>>114774

Alrighty, thanks for your help. I was actually beginning to wonder if 30k was too much for you guys, I know I'd be hard pressed to review something that long. But you're doing a wonderful job, and you have my admiration. Some of these things did occur to me while I was writing, but I didn't bother to fix 'em... Now I'm paying for it with some considerable editing down the line.

I gotta say though, the overused ellipsis was a conscious decision. It's Fluttershy's dialogue, and she's not one for emphasis. If you still think it subtracts from the work, I'll gladly revise it.

I think that everything else was spot-on. I'll be making these changes once you've finished looking through the story. Just so that if you find something in the later chapters that clashes with the earlier ones, I don't have to edit twice.

Thanks again! I look forward to hearing more of your feedback. Cheers~.

I'm afraid this story needs huge amount of work and rewriting. It's littered with basic grammar and tense errors, so much to the point of making the story painful to read. Let me pull out some examples.

>>He was still warm, but I couldn’t knew if he was alive

>> The human’s back was already barely visible. Fixating on it, I made myself a target. I need to follow that back for half of hour.

And punctuation issues...

>>If she had something to say about a mess on my ‘workplace’, - the cup was lying on its side, with the fork and the spoon on top of it, and all that was between the two plates - she kept it to herself.


And sentence fragments...

>> Layer of ice was melting.

>> Heroine and her team were growing stronger, looking more and more powerful.


I'm not sure why you are sending this for a review when you haven't even named your characters.

>> I knew for sure %managername% won’t show up for another four hours.

>>%cookname%, our family’s old cook, once again bested himself and made something spectacular

Many of these errors would be pointed out by Microsoft word or other similar programs, so you could write out your drafts on that instead.

There are a few plot holes and logical gaps around. Like how the character knew what a ‘human’ was and how he trusted the human without any hesitation. You also linger too long on the character’s thoughts, sometimes stating the obvious or repeating information to the reader. I don’t see how the title is linked to the story too.

I do see a few good points from your story though. The plot sounds promising, at least till the red line. And you seem to be quite comfortable writing with the first person perspective.

Oh yes, one final point I want to make. Get rid of those massive pictures in the middle of your writing. It’s annoying, it breaks the flow of the story, and it restricts imagination. It shows that your writing isn’t good enough, so you resorted to using pictures to help your description. I can tolerate hyperlinks to music pieces, but having a big, colourful image shoved in front of my face is just too much. It feels a bit like reading one of those picture books for preschoolers, actually.

That’s about all for now. Correct all those errors I’ve pointed out in the document, download the document into Microsoft word and correct all those OTHER errors which I missed, and then have a thorough look at everything before sending it to an editor.

>>114825
One thing, my dear friend, have you considered that the lack of names, and the usage of symbols might be done for effect due to the disconnect which the main character has with the rest of the people around her?

Carry on.

>>114827
Thanks for that tip. I had a good look at the story but I don't think that's what the author is trying to do.

It's being used in dialogue as well. That can't be right...

>>“I’m glad to see everything is fine. You don’t want to cause your old %managername% any problems, don’t you?”

>>114516

Yeah, that's my bad there; I didn't remember the episode in its entirety, so I wasn't sure about the accents.

And of course, I can continue to review this for you when you have new material for me. Message me on FimFiction, where I have the same name as here.

Also, Tridus, I'm still working on my review for you, so sit tight.

>>114810

Whoops, forgot the subject. The 'Review Acknowledged' thing. Is that a requirement? Regardless. There we go.

>>114751
Well, since you need a very specific kind of help...
I'm a huge stickler for grammar and one of the most experienced reviewers of the regulars. I can get your story scrubbed of all mechanical problems. However, my schedule is booked solid for a while. I can get to it around the 14th. If that's not too long a wait for you, let me know, and I'll claim it.

Also, please fill out the submission form (link at the top under "For writers") so your story will be in our queue.

>>114808
Well, you'd have to be willing to give me your postal address, and they might be a bit crushed up by the time they get delivered... but the offer stands.

>>114856
Thank you very much for the offer, that would be wonderful.

>>114871
Someone give this good man a claim already! [/jk]

>>114546
I'm wary as to how quickly you've come back, but it's nice to be proven wrong. Claimed for the record, though be informed that I won't be able to get to it until I-don't-know-when. Also, please disable comments so that it forces me to do a read-through instead (commenting is a twitch reaction for me). I can get a better grasp of the thing as a whole that way, to see how it's come along.

>>114810
Thanks for the feedback. As for the ellipsis thing, I'd still consider revising it. Even if we discard the loss of emphasis, it could still break a reader's immersion pretty badly. Any part where the story obviously feels like a story does that. Using that many ellipses in that small of a space counts as one of them. (For me, at least.)

>>114842
I haven't finished the review yet, so I don't think you need to acknowledge it. Thanks anyway, though: you're more awake than I was.

>>114834

Roger that, thanks a ton for working on it. :)

Thanks for time spent there, hope it wasn't too horrible.

Now,about that comment

>It takes a while to be able to write well. You can start by having a look at several writing guides...

Thing is, it seems not working for me. I've studied a plenty of guides, and just the time spent on writing and rewriting is not helping at all. I've been at it for more than a year, with breaks here and there Still just cant determine when its good and and when it isnt. Also how do i gramar. Anyways, since I see I wasn't able to improve in the slightest for yet another time, I'm out of ideas and taking another break. for another year, yep

And to clear things out:
About the plot holes; these two pieces of text are not supposed to be one after another, I just wanted a review for them specifically.
And about the names, there is no any effect meant or something. Just the placeholders. I was planning a certain thing with the names, wanted to make some sort of a pattern for future plot use, but couldn't get to it before deciding on another thing, which was still somewhere very low on my priority list. Something like that.

>>114892
If you're feeling frustrated about your writing not improving, read more books. Take a look at the most downloaded/popular things on http://www.gutenberg.org/ or maybe visit your local library. If you must pony, check out http://www.ponyfictionvault.net/ or the top-rated fics on http://onemansponyramblings.blogspot.com/p/6-star-reviews-by-star-rating.html

Read a lot of different books and you'll slowly internalise the way practised authors express things. A year of writing isn't really that long (I'm still wet behind the ears after ~5), so it's not like you're slow or anything. Your brain just needs time to absorb writing in its many facets.

As for grammar, well, a lot of that will sort itself out as you read more. Not all of it, but that's why we have Google and TTG.

This is general advice to everyone and anyone, by the way. The written word is beautiful and can tell great, in-depth stories that just don't work in any other medium. That, and no author can write in a vacuum. If you're serious about writing, you need to read.

Finally! This post's mostly formality, I'll be keeping up with the author whenever he returns from being MIA.

My review's in gdocs for the author to browse and tweak at his leisure. Overall I did enjoy the fic, seems like there were one or two somewhat consistent grammatical mistakes, though that's no biggie. I'd really love to see more depth to these characters, both personality-wise and more depth to the situations.

As they are right now, it feels like I'm reading Dragon Ball Ponies. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing, just adding that depth would eliminate that 'old hat' feel to the stereotypical anime feel it has. (And it would help eliminate the "Perfect Character" feeling that Lucario has. I'm not going to say the overused term for it, lol)

>>114209

You should probably know that you're not in the spreadsheet. Did you submit to the queue via the form?

>>114874

Thank you, I look forward to it as usual. Comments have been disabled.

To address your concern about this being put back up again so soon: this newer version was being thought of and roughly planned about half-way through your earlier review.

I refrained from making the changes as soon as I thought of them, because many of them were major and I felt would affect the very structure of the story. It felt rude to me to simply scrap everything and really mess with this while you were still working. It's like asking someone to look at your drawing, and start erasing it halfway through. They can't tell you the good points to keep from the last one, or what was wrong with the last one, if you just start monkeying around with it before they're finished thinking about it. So, I wanted to wait until you were done, made sure we'd found whatever issues were really plaguing me, and then I'd go through and give this a kick in the teeth.

What you told me about one of my characters especially disturbed me, on so, so many levels. That wasn't what that character should have become, and it's embarrassing that I let them slip so far from their very identity and purpose for the sake of being "big and grand".

They're strong, that hasn't changed, but that isn't supposed to be their commanding quality. I pushed them too hard, trying to establish some things too early and make that character as imposing and dangerous as possible at the expense of everything else. The more I look at the way my story reads in its now older form, the more I find that I was pushing things into levels of stupid beyond acceptable.

Most everything about this story is about to change, including its overall length. I still believe I have a good story buried under here somewhere, but I'm finding it's buried under entire chapters of moronic, useless self-pandering and poorly thought-out actions. Oh, I always had a reason, but now I can see they were excuses so I could enjoy my character. I know them, no one else does, and that was one of the biggest problems.

I won't be surprised if this whole thing gets at least another 10000+ words shorter.

So, I hope this reads a little better. It might have some flaws again, but I tried to keep your review in mind as I worked it over. I believe I've chained in what were supremely over-the-top moments, so now they're hopefully interesting without being stupid and pointless.

I hope you enjoy?

Please?

>>114871
Seeing as how you have two strikes already, I guess it wouldn't hurt for you to get two reviews (Unless Pascoite objects.) I'll start on it after I finish my write off entry.

And I'm definitely willing to review the later chapters for you, as well.

>>114917
Doesn't bother me to have another reviewer, particularly since it's a FiMFiction link.

Still not in the spreadsheet, though. Author, please fill out the submission form.

>>114930
Huh, could've sworn i'd put it there yesterday...

No matter; I've got access to a fully-functioning computer now (for the first time today), so I'll do it immediately.

.>>114930

Well this is odd. According to my monitor, it's now in the queue. Three times.

I... I have no idea what's happening. Is this just me? Can anyone else see this, or do I have yet another complaint to send off to BT in the hope that I can shift the blame of yet another problem to them?

>>114751
Alright, it's in the spreadsheet. Claimed.

>>114834
Great!

Thanks, I'll do that!

Title: Homework is for Home

Author: Moi

Tags: Normal, Would-be-Slice-of-Life-if-the-Submission-Form-Had-That-Option

Synopsis: In a kindergarten for unicorns in Canterlot, a young blue filly called Spark participates in an average school day. After reading repetitive sentences in a textbook, however, a subject is taught that may make the school day not so average. Homework is meant to be done at home, after all.

Link: https://docs.google.com/document/d/18caTjPOW9XxvcoLnX715DcQPtNSk_1h37HM2c--wZ9o/edit

Comments:
Nothing, really. I'm mainly concerned that I have a lot of telling.

Thanks!

>Would-be-Slice-of-Life-if-the-Submission-Form-Had-That-Option
Heh, I misread this and thought you had submitted a story with a taboo subject matter.

Two things: One, Use the submission form. Two, Double space your fic. Right now, It looks like a wall of text.

Tags: [sad][slice of life] [romance][tragedy]
Synopsis: The thing about loyalty… the thing about loyalty is sometimes you don’t know where your loyalties lie.
Have I always been loyal to my friends… no. There are things that they didn’t know about me. All these things of my past have been kept from everypony.. I had a past full of disgrace and shame, and loneliness. Things that I wish had never happened. Only a few ponies knew these secrets ...
Links:
Introduction: http://www.fimfiction.net/story/39635/1/Hope-in-the-Storm/Introduction%3A-Loyalty
Chapter 1: A miracle http://www.fimfiction.net/story/39635/2
Chapter 2: Off the Streets http://www.fimfiction.net/story/39635/3
Chapter 3: The Storm Begins http://www.fimfiction.net/story/39635/4
Chapter 4: Goodbye Canterlot http://www.fimfiction.net/story/39635/5
Chapter 5: Foal Trouble http://www.fimfiction.net/story/39635/6
EqD review: http://www.fimfiction.net/blog/53541
Comments/requests:
I have found, and done away with the obvious mistakes made and acknowledged in the EqD review, now I’m looking for specifics. I want any specific mistakes you can find, of any of the mentioned errors in their review, as well as anything that doesn’t sit right, or needs to be changed. Pre-reader Seattle of EqD recommended I request Dublio for evaluation.

>>114965
Huh. I guess it does kinda sound like that. Oops.

I didn't think of double spacing it. I guess now it looks less scary :P Thank you!

Also, I did submit a submission form. Did it not show up or did I do something wrong?If so, I'll make a new one as soon as I can.

>>114892
I think you should focus on the basics first, like grammar and sentence structures for example. Reading helps, but it takes quite a long time.

I'll keep an eye on your story for a while and help out where I can. Don't feel disheartened! Hardly anyone starts off as a good writer. :)

>>114975

Sure thing. I'll claim this story. :D

>>114617

Hi, Pup Tent-

I've finished up a pretty intensive round of re-writes, edits, and proofreads to chapter 4 (Harnessing Unbridled Power [IN EDIT]). If you wouldn't mind giving that one a read (down to where it says "---/reviewer stop here/---", I would really appreciate it. I think you can work out the context from reading, but if there's any confusion, let me know (or maybe skim the chapter before). Should I fill out a proper review form for it?

Link to the story on FIMFiction: http://www.fimfiction.net/story/33137/Rocket-Powered-Pony

Thanks again!

>>98837

After months of procrastina- I mean, editting, I'm finallly pleased enough with its state to get a final review. I think I'd like just one more quick skim before I actually move on to the next chapter.

Title: Fluttershy’s Shadow
Chapter: Two
Author: Broken Logic
E-mail: bystraufi@gmail.com
Tags: [shipping/romance][comedy]
Synopsis: Fluttershy has just recieved a bouquet of flowers from none other than her shadow. Or so she thinks. Twilight Sparkle, always the skeptical pony, heads out to investigate and eventually all her friends get involved with miscellaneous schemes of finding who the mysterious sender is. And things were already busy enough with Nightmare Night only a few nights away.

Links:
Google Docs: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ylOSxfH9XWOEvx8Xn6gcpGmpXbUigB_InYREIbPLlvc/edit
FimFiction:http://www.fimfiction.net/story/10932/Fluttershy%27s-Shadow

Comments: As per usual, I'd appreciate it if Pascoite took this back up. But its probably been so long that he doesn't remember it. Thus, I'd be thankful for anyone's input.

>>115127
Sure, if you don't mind a substantial wait. It'll be about a week and a half before I can start on it.

>>115098
Sure thing! I'll get to it soon as I can.

Now I get to see what lengths Whirlie Gears will go to artificial maple syrup, tinfoil, cardboard wings and a telephone booth to get off the ground.

Title: The Twilight Hours
Tags: Romance Slice of Life
Word Count: 3866
Synopsis: Applejack's got a secret she'd kept hidden for many years. She's become a master of deception in regards to it. Nopony would ever have guessed what she and Twilight were doing in the library late at night, once Spike had gone to sleep. That is, until a jealous Rainbow Dash decided it was her business to find out just what in the hay was going on.

Link: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1TacOT75S-vD8N_Nb7HlyJrrd7Q6uirqTdUmfwn5E4RY/edit

Notes: As of right now, it is a multi chapter fic, but I'd like an opinion on whether or not I should just write this as a oneshot or as a multi-chap. As well as the normal reviewing stuff. Thanks to whoever claims!

I'll go ahead and claim >>114961.
Your review will be done in a day or two!

>>114889
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/55001004/Twilight%20Alone%2C%20Chapter%201.docx

Tridus!
Okay, so I reviewed only the first chapter at this point because a lot of the stuff that needs revision is done again in the second chapter. It would not be beneficial for either of us for me to review something that I know you will be able to make much better on your own. I want you to take a bit of time to edit both chapters for this issues; give me back the second chapter (and the first if you like) once you do so. I recommend reading some more literature (pony or not) so that you get a better gist for grammar and writing mechanics. Also, be sure to look up general punctuation information. I like the intentions of the plot and the dialogue you have going, but I've pointed out what is currently in need of improvement.

>>114961
How about we get this done today?

Alright, I like to start with the good:

CHARACTERIZATION:
For the most part, Twilight was her usual self, concerned with grades and being liked by her teachers. The OC of yours I couldn't really comment on, since it was of your own creation. My notes on some of Twilight's behavior I found off putting are in the google doc, but other than that, it wasn't bad.

GRAMMAR AND PUNCTUATION:
Overall, this was your best area. Grammar and dialogue punctuation were spot on, and I don't think I found a single error in that regard.

So from a technical standpoint, it was quite good. Now let's move on to the not so good:

PLOT: overall, the plot was a bit dry. When I say that, I mean, I've never wondered why Twilight is purple. For the most part, most fans accept that she was born that color. Obviously, fics don't have to conform to canon, but the fact I can't see anyone asking themselves "Why is Twilight purple?" may detract from your audience. As in, not many will come away from this fic saying "I'm glad I read that, and that theory is totally realistic." is it plausible? I suppose, but it is a bit farfetched.

SVT (Show vs Tell): There were a few parts where you could have been a bit more descriptive, but there were only about two or three sections where this could be applied. Other than that, this was not a bad fic, but I feel the plot and main idea may lose a few readers.

Anyway, I hope some of this helped you!

Tags: Sad, Romance

Synopsis: I'll tell you a story. It's a tale about a unicorn with wings. I'll tell you about the Princess that kept her alive, the filly that taught her to care, and the stallion she loved. This is her story... it's my story.

Link: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1L-YDdQXu-NGrZZWzXeQU3GT5MeYb3GMjghxTAcDIGmY/edit

Comments: Issues with comma splices, word repetition, passive voice, tautological issues

>>115180

Thanks Halcyon! :)

That is a daunting list of comments. :( It'll take me some time to go through it all. Looking through them all this morning there's two questions that pop up immediately.

1) What's "narration/thought mesh" mean?
2) You've suggested in a couple of places that I need more background from the wedding itself, but wouldn't anybody reading it already know all of that? Isn't it just repetitive to explain it again? Not saying you're wrong on this, just trying to understand why I'd want to do it.

Thanks again.

>>115181
Thank you so much for looking over this... wow, that was fast!

I did think about how bronies accept the fact about how she was born purple, so I was trying to go for, "Hey, wow, I didn't think of that." I guess it might be a little unappealing if somepony doesn't like to think of her being blue. I was told that it is a love-it-or-hate it idea, so I guess I hoping for the best! It is a little far-fetched... but aren't most fanfics anyway? :D

Phew, no SVT :P I tried to be as "show-ey" as possible, because in a previous fic I've had a lot of trouble with that.

Thanks again!

>>115205

1. You're letting what should be unbiased statements become less formal and slanted with the mindset of Twilight. Wherever I pointed out those instances, I meant that the phrase or sentence should be changed so that it's either actual thoughts of Twilight or regular narration of an action or something.
2. Yes, anyone who watched the episode would be familiar with how Twilight had to stand alone against the fake Cadance. However, since this is a story, you're writing everything that takes place after, which is not established, and you need to follow up with what could have happened in the two weeks after the wedding. There could have been a lot that soured Twilight Sparkle in that period of time as well.

>>114803
Many thanks for taking your time with it, Minjask. I will honour your dedication by correcting the mistakes you pointed out. Other than that, I probably won't work this story any more. I hoped I could get the feeling for it as I progressed, but I'm into chapter three and still nothing.

>>114028

Right, sorry for the delay there. Comments are in doc.

You have a great deal of mechanical errors in there mate, and not just the kind limited to grammar issues. You have a serious issue with awkward phrasing and superfluous narration that really hampers reader immersion. You need to learn to streamline things to keep up a consistent pacing and flow.
Go over your work, and ask yourself two questions for every passage:
1) Does this part move the plot along?
2) Does this part give insight to the characterization?
If you can't answer yes to either question, then odds are your looking at a section that either needs to be cut or heavily streamlined.

Cheers mate, keep writing.

[Title] A Bit of Riddles, A Riddle of Bits
[Name] Karach
[Email] karach.mlpfics@gmail.com
[Tags] Normal
[Synopsis] Twilight Sparkle goes on another rampage when Cutie Mark Crusaders ask her a mathematical riddle she can't solve. As usual, it's up to her friends to try to stop her before her magic frenzy causes serious damage. But... among her friends, is there anypony more skilled at math who could hope to solve a riddle even Twilight has trouble with?
[Links] https://docs.google.com/document/d/1syuQZiuaaO5ZHMuL5wx4j2Dt5esUctyJvrB-7LDp7Gw/edit
or
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/32714/A-Bit-of-Riddles%2C-A-Riddle-of-Bits
[Chapters] One-shot
[Comments] I won't lie here--this story is short and simple with no deeper meaning behind it. :) I would very much appreciate it, however, if anyone decided to review it, and point out any flaws in it that could help me write better in the future.
As a personal request of mine, I would like to ask the reviewer to be absolutely ruthless when it comes to grammar. Whether it's a spliced comma, incorrect tense, wrong spelling or some other mistake I overlooked, I'd like to be bashed with metal baseball bat over the head for it. ;)
Thank you in advance for taking your time to review the story.

>>114810

Aquillo's internet is down, and it won't be back up for another few days. Because of this, the rest of his review will be delayed. If you need to get in contact with him, let me know, and I'll make sure he gets the message.

>>114751
>>114871
Here's the first chapter.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/15zpJWtRt--akGccQhSJo7WUp9NKX7SoqDiCPHrp_Gew/edit

>>115255
Derp!

However, what if there was a ship fan fiction that included a love triangle between the cutie mark crusaders? Probably the most pedophile thing I've said, ever. (That was terrible grammar.) If one has been written, somepony show me it. I kind of want to read it.

>>115261
Oh, and show me a Skyrim Fan Fiction that was fantastic.

>>115261

>Story Forge
http://www.ponychan.net/chan/fic/res/106451+50.html
>Recommendations and requests
http://ponychan.net/chan/fic/res/88527.html

>>115195
Pre-readers also wanted an outline of the entire plot so I want to finish that up and get that reviewed as well. I'll be back when that's finished

>>115261
Seattle (divergence guy, read Divergence, read it now) is going to write one which has at least one threesome, but I don't know about a love triangle, and they are ground up, and I don't really like the story too much.

Also, read the damn sticky.

Where is that gif when you need it?

>>115253
That's alright, thanks for letting me know. I'm perfectly willing to wait however long is necessary.

Yeesh. Really tricky to keep up with these posts. Thank Celestia for Ctrl F.

>>115270
Thanks... I forgot about the sticky... I'll go read that quick.

>>115275
Odd, I can't access it. 404 not found apparently.

>>115265
Ah, thank you. I'll go there later. Sorry for wasting everyone's time.

>>115277
didn't waste anyone's time, maybe except your own because you are less likely to get the answer you want. Place is a bit uptight, but they mean well.

Title: Colorful
Tags: [Slice of Life] [Comedy]

Synopsis: An experiment gone right has left Rainbow Dash's rainbow mane in a vial of Twilight's. But when Pinkie stops by for a visit and mistakes the vial for a drink, she decides that all of her friends have to try this amazing creation, sending Twilight and Rainbow Dash onto a more-than-colorful chase...

Link: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1RDpFMrPcL9bSLc5kMkj340947Nyz_24eb41fgqbKGNU/edit

I've been told it's missing something. Also, I'm not too good at comedy, so some help there would be appreciated.

Tags: Sad, Romance

Synopsis: I'll tell you a story. It's a tale about a unicorn with wings. I'll tell you about the Princess that kept her alive, the filly that taught her to care, and the stallion she loved. This is her story... it's my story.

Link: Chapter 1: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1L-YDdQXu-NGrZZWzXeQU3GT5MeYb3GMjghxTAcDIGmY/edit

Outline: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1xEolagJkW5YtVT2cPfqPUukKJonr05BZ9Wi1MwXQoXU/edit

Comments: Pre-readers mentioned issues with comma splices, word repetition, passive voice, and tautological issues. They also requested a plot outline which I have also included a link to. Thank you once more for helping with the story

GREAT GOOGLY-MOOGLY.

This is going to take a lot of explaining. I’ve grouped some case examples of issues I’ve been seeing into categories, and have distinguished them with ✸. You have a story here that needs to be made less bland and have more originality in it, but you also have a Mary Sue of sorts here. This is the last I really care to read of this story unless you can deliver, so in this review I hope to give you as many criticisms and helping suggestions as I can as a sort of send-off.

✸ Technical fluff that has no bearing on the plot, or serves no purpose other than to show off the protagonist’s knowledge or otherwise draw attention to her:
I get the impression that she knows a lot. Okay. She knows a lot in multiple fields of material sciences and construction/design. Okay. Ever think this might be too much? I think you’ve got a bit of a Mary Sue going here. She’s going into this story with so very much preexisting knowledge. Isn’t part of the adventure towards a great discovery/invention the whole learning of it?

(ch 1)
> The lantern she carried in her teeth, and used a combination of her own magic and a backpack contraption to light the way. While the lantern looked normal on the outside, inside it contained a small glass sphere attached to a cable that ran to the backpack. With a bit of concentration, Whirlie manipulated the energies in the machinery on her back to cause the small orb to glow white-hot. Path thus illuminated, Whirlie made her way into the town square.
That’s a really long way of saying she lit a lantern and began making her way off to town to buy groceries.

> That pony, a curly maned pink earth pony, spotted her quickly and charged toward her. Whirlie froze in her tracks and went wide-eyed, dropping the lantern and losing her concentration, then braced herself for the inevitable, she assumed, collision. “Force is mass times acceleration,” she began muttering to herself. She opened one eye in an attempt to judge the onrushing force, “or is it momentum here?” She screwed up her face in thought, forgetting the bracing, and flopped on the ground, grabbed a stick, and began scratching the equations into the dirt at her feet.
Apart from the obvious, I’ll first call your attention to something rather strange here. Think for a moment about how far away you can spot something in the dark, or at least in an area that is illuminated by urban lighting. Now think of how far away, in these conditions, you can spot something and recognize it as being pink, with a curly hair, and recognize it as a plain pony and not a pony with wings or a horn. Now take that distance and divide it by the velocity that this object is traveling towards the protagonist. Is that enough time to drop the lantern, “brace” (which means pause and tense up for an indefinite period of time), start muttering to herself about Newton’s second law of motion, second-guess herself, and then flop to the ground and begin to scratch equations in the dirt?

This brings me to an important point, boys and girls: don’t smoke crack.

> “What do the gears mean?” Pinkie commented, indicating Whirlie’s cutie mark. This caused Whirlie to pause and examine her flank for a moment. She had always thought the intricate clockwork was a little strange herself, considering she’d never tried her hoof at building a clock and spent most of her time hammering metal.
All of a sudden, Pinkie Pie pointing to her rear causes to her look back at it, despite it’s something she’s lived with most of her adult life (which I assume means that she knows what it looks like). Also, it seems I’ve identified another telltale sign of OC-comes-to-town story: everyone look at my mysterious cutie mark so we can find out what it means.

Exactly how often are cutie marks brought into the spotlight in the actual show? Three times in the first season as I recall, since I too have indulged in ponies. When ponies are introduced to each other, do they ask each other about what’s on their haunch? Did they do that to Miss Sparkle when she first landed in Ponyville? Exactly how important is it to know what a cutie mark means to understand a pony? In the show, it is a sort of artistic means of quickly tossing in subtleties or information by hinting at a background character’s vocation or lifestyle without needing them to say a word. Here, in fanfiction, we have them as a storytelling crutch. In all such formulaic fics, the cutie mark is the all-important contrived opportunity to blab about a character and where he/she comes from and what their destiny is — and if that isn’t clear, and the cutie mark’s meaning isn’t totally obvious, then ooh boy, we’ve got a show-stopper here. It’s gotta be really big and amazing, because the character has a mysterious cutie mark that doesn’t mean anything obvious, so the story is probably about said character finding a great destiny. YAWN.

> “I’m not a train engineer. I build things,” she explained.
> “Ohh! Like clocks! I get it!”
> “Not clocks, exactly. I’m usually more of a blacksmith or tinker. I build tools, reinforce parts with metal fittings, that sort of thing. I’ve cultivated a talent for channeling unicorn magic to power devices.”
> “Like that lantern?” Pinkie indicated the small backpack on the floor attached to the lantern.
“Exactly. I learned it from my father, but I think most unicorns could learn to do it; it’s not that hard.” Whirlie walked over and pulled the device out of the pack: a metal canister with the cable coming out of one end. Popping open a hatch on the side, Whirlie showed Pinky a coil of glass that was faintly glowing. “This thing is a phase coil; my magic can superheat matter inside of it to convert it to plasma; that goes out the cable and into the glass sphere in the lantern. See?” Whirlie concentrated and the material in the glass began to glow brighter, followed shortly by the lantern illuminating. Pinkie watched, mesmerized.
I thought we were done with the lantern by this point! Why must you inflict the reader with the lantern yet again?!

(ch 3)

> Whirlie found the library, which she found to be curiously built into a tree. Neither arbormancy nor archimancy were among her abilities, but she paused to admire the structure.
Does the reader need to know this? Does the reader need to hear these these words “archimancy” and “arbomancy”? It seems you began a chapter with this unnecessary bit here just to say those words, and have it sound all epic.

> “You must be the new pony in town...the blacksmith?” she asked.
> “Well I’m a blacksmith by trade,” she began explaining, “but I’m really more of an engineer, or a tinkerer. I’m actually interested in magic theory, or rather putting magic theory into practice...”
This is a redundant introduction to what her life’s passion is all about. Does the reader really need to read it a second time?

> “What is your idea, anyway? And what are you good at? I would have assumed you were a clockmaker, judging by your cutie mark.” Twilight interjected.
> “Well...I design things, and work with metal. I’m...pretty good at math, but you kind of have to be to build anything worthwhile. The idea is pretty simple, really,” Whirlie explained, pulling a notebook out of her pack and opening it in front of Twilight. The pages were coated in of diagrams, formulae, and notes. “You see, we siphon off our unicorn magic...” she pointed to a diagram of a ring with some sort of cable attached, looped over a unicorn horn. “That’s the real hard part, I think.”
This again? AGAIN??? By this point, you’ve already used the cutie mark as a crutch for introducing her and her hobby/vocation, TWICE. Once is bad enough. Three times is certainly bad, and certainly in itself sufficient motivation for not wanting to post it on a high-traffic blog (Equestria Daily).

> “Rainbow!” Twilight responded in a harsh tone. “There’s nothing wrong with her idea, it’s theoretically sound...assuming it doesn’t blow up,” she amended.
Miss Sparkle barely knows her, immediately defends her from mean old Rainbow Dash’s taunting, despite how utterly and completely obtuse one would have to be to spend the time, money, blood, sweat and tears to build a massive tower out of stones, when the goal in mind and life’s passion is to find a way to fly and one’s talent (again) is engineering (which type of engineering, I can only guess).

> “I’ve played with rockets since I was a foal, and I think that part will be easy,” she explained, pages of notes fluttering by. “And I’ve even done some work on transferring the plasma out of the phase coil array,” she went on, pulling more notebooks out of her pack. “But, I haven’t figured out how to efficiently transfer magic power in such a way that I can drive the coil. You don’t happen to have any ideas that might help with that, do you?”
More of what I’m talking about here. Also, she’s been playing with rockets since she was a foal? Wow, she’s really, really gifted. Also, ponies know how to build rockets in the first place?

(ch 4)

> Today was a big day. Twilight had uncovered and had been studying a method for siphoning energy from a unicorn’s horn. The text from which she derived it was an old one and had been under lock-and-key deep in the Canterlot special collections. The reason for the high security was that the text in question was the journal of a unicorn sorcerer named Darkmane, and the purpose of the device was not to power machinery, but rather to render powerless a captive unicorn. Twilight had been working on adapting it, because the device drew out magic efficiently, precisely what they needed. She had been poring over the text for weeks, being an avid academician, and collected notes on the parts relevant to their work.
For the most part, to me this just appears as fluff and nothing more than a very non-subtle attempt to give prestige and a high-profile air to the whole venture. If you want to convey that it’s important and whatnot, wouldn’t there be outsiders spying on her? Characters trying to interfere?

Furthermore, I’ll call your attention to this: she did all this for a stranger. Where were her existing friends during these weeks of study?

The rest of the passage wherein the quote I just made was found is more technical fluff. It’s okay if it’s there, there just needs to be less of it. More meaningful things happening, less of the following things:
- Whirlie Gears just listing off items from a scavenger hunt that will serve as the components
- Whirlie Gears just doing stuff to stuff and making it all come together
- Materials, materials, materials. While I do like shiny things, and a tinge of purple prose is okay here and there, you’re lingering too long on the construction of the thing and and less about what it represents.

Now, regarding the remainder of chapter 4 up to the point. Here’s the issue: it all just comes together, and the tiniest inkling of a setback or something interesting happening is all at the very end of it all (the passage, not the construction) due to some unforseen factoid about magical theory, which makes it seem just a bit contrived.

✸ The protagonist emoting about past mistakes or spelling out her needs so that characters from the show can then assuage her fears and welcome her, even offer her help:
This one I believe deserves some explanation. You want your readers to avoid thinking you wrote it as wish-fulfillment. Thus, if you lavish your character with hospitality from the main characters, you run the risk of just that.
(ch 1)
> “I guess you’re supposed to evict me? Word travels fast. I haven’t even moved in yet,” she replied.
> “Evict you? Nononononono! Welcome you! To Ponyville! Your new home, silly!” Pinkie announced, as she stood up on her hind legs and tossed confetti into the air, the smile on her face not once flinching.
Pinkie Pie must always be the welcome machine in Ponyville. That’s the way it is in every fanfiction about some new original fan-made character coming to town. If it doesn’t involve this, it’s not a fanfiction about some OC coming to town.

In all seriousness, however, this is a prime example of what the pre-readers meant in terms of the story following the same old tired clichés.

(ch 2)

> “Did they forget to bring your forge?” Pinkie asked after glancing out front.
> “No, I’m going to have to have one built. You can’t really move them,” Whirlie explained. “I’m also going to need to make a number of modifications to the house if I’m going to get any work done,” she said, holding open one of her notebooks. Pinkie eyed it intently.
> “Well, I know where we can get plenty of rocks!” Pinkie explained. “Tomorrow we can go to my family rock farm and get what you need.”
This one here is a bit different: it’s a very, very plain set-up for the events of retrieving the rocks for her forge. Thank goodness that whole lot of boring labor is totally skipped over in the time-jump that happens soon afterwards. At any rate, it seems almost like a contrivance that was stuck there merely to answer the question of where her new forge comes from. Now, granted, we actually do need that question answered, but considering how few things happen in this story, it stands out as a contrivance all the more strongly.

(ch 3)

> Whirlie was getting nervous now, and started to back slowly toward the door. She thought to herself, “Darnit, Whirlie! Why did you have to let that slip!” Out loud she replied, “Umm...I just failed to account for the amount of wind up there is all and I didn’t realize that clouds didn’t support any un-flightbound weight. The whole thing just kind of got out of control.” She sped up with, “Please don’t kick me out of town and throw me in a dungeon!”
> Twilight looked at her with one eyebrow arched. “I don’t think I could do that. And besides, what somepony did before she came to town is no reason to judge her now,” Twilight explained, nearly growling at Rainbow Dash. “The news said you built the whole thing by yourself. You did the design work and the construction?” She looked shocked.
> “I always do everything myself,” Whirlie explained, blinking. “I mean...I don’t think anypony else is really interested in getting into the clouds; except the pegasi, but that’s like their whole thing,” she glanced at Rainbow. “Besides, most ponies avoid me once they know who I am. I guess they’d rather be injured as bystanders than in the line of research. I was the only one in the hospital for four weeks after the...err...incident...so I guess the math is on their side.”
> “You know, Whirlie, I’d help you out. Have you ever asked anypony if they wanted to help?”
> Whirlie responded by staring at her blankly.
> Twilight went on, “With some help, the work probably won’t be so dangerous...”
> Whirlie continued staring, her head slowly tilting to one side before she regained her senses. “Umm...I guess no pony ever offered and I never thought to ask,” she responded, blushing. “Working together would be...an honor. And probably considerably less dangerous,” she said, looking up.
Prime example of what this category is all about. I initially thought of quoting just the first three lines here, but the entire thing is relevant. Twilight immediately admires her for her skill, and then two lines of dialogue later offers her help. To top it all off, unnecessary blushing. Again. It’s like flying moves in an old kung fu flick. To kick someone’s ass, flying moves are totally not necessary, but still the wires are there. However, the distinction to make between Jet Li and this story is that blushes don’t make the story more awesome, they make it seem more contrived and forceful.

>>115152
Sure, thanks for taking this up again. You the man. Sorry, sorry. You're the man.

Final suggestions and whatnot are at the end.

✸ Miscellaneous oddities and things I didn’t completely agree with:
(ch 1)
> “Of course...” Whirlie’s ears perked up at this “...not!” and then drooped.
You need to have actions on different lines/paragraphs if the character acting is different than the character speaking. Also, being the pink ball of energy that she is, I’m inclined to think that Pinkie Pie talks a little too fast for this sort of thing here to happen. That is, unless....

I just remembered another important point: don’t smoke crack.

(ch 2)

> the whole thing with the “gray moving pegasus with a bubble cutie mark” and the anvil that she drops, and how the pink pony predicts it all happening.
I swear, I’ve seen this thing before. Thus, you writing it into this story doesn’t seem very original.
> “Don’t worry,” Pinkie explained, “she’s always dropping anvils on ponies. Good thing we were inside!”
Oh yeah! How could I have forgotten. This pronouncement makes it all better, so you don’t have to worry about it being totally unoriginal.

> Some weeks later, Whirlie was settling into life in Ponyville comfortably. Although she had met a few local ponies, she spent most of her time at home. Being on the outskirts of town, most of the ponies she met were there specifically to do business (either selling her materials, or commissioning repairs or manufacturing).
Attention: this is a lazy gloss-over. Noticed I haven’t sugarcoated my words by saying “this appears to be a lazy gloss-over” — because it actually is a lazy gloss-over. Here, opportunity exists for introducing more of the conflict (see suggestions at the end) and story development story interspersed with her getting settled in, which might actually give the story more tension, i.e. her contending with new issues (hell, even characters from the her hometown whose property she damaged) while having to adapt at the same time. This stuff here makes me sleepy because it’s just so ordinary.

Also, I must say, you seem to have a fetish for parentheses. Lest you accuse me of the same, I’ll have you know that I’m not the one writing prose here. Save those things for when there’s absolutely no other way to slip in that interruptive or appositive, because it makes your writing look really amateurish.

> Her business was up and running. She spent most of the day repairing tools and tinkering. Her neighbors only occasionally complained about the hammering noises; and most of those problems were solved by her convincing herself to quit working after dark.
> Before too long, she was ready to begin her next personal project. “To the clouds, Whirlie,” she sighed to herself, looking up. She noted Cloudsdale floating by in the distance. “This time, I’m going to make it up there.”
> She set off for the town library to research unicorn magic.
It’s just so plain and glossed-over. You’re not giving any detail. Who are her neighbors? What are they like? They are, after all, characters she’ll be spending a lot more time around, considering she lives on the outskirts of town. Here’s an idea: spend some time thinking about how the neighbors will be. Give them all histories and personalities and quirky, memorable behaviors. Oh then you’ll have something to do while setting the stage for what comes next, instead of skipping over important things like who lives near where she lives. She’s developing revolutionary new technology for crying out loud, or so we’re lead to believe. So, I ask you: write like that’s actually the case. Are her neighbors spying on her? Are they curious? Does their annoyance drive them to contact law enforcement to get her in trouble for violating noise ordinance?

(ch 3)

> “You don’t happen to know somepony who could help me with that do you? Pinkie Pie mentioned that Princess Celestia’s magic prodigy was around here somewhere, and I was hoping to meet her.”
> Blushing, the purple pony replied...
Why would Miss Sparkle blush? Did Whirlie Gears just tell a subtle dirty joke? Why would Twilight allow herself to feel flattered by being identified? It’s overkill and looks like it was inserted just for effect, i.e. to have a pony blush.

—---------------------------------------------------------

Summary, and suggestions for improvement:
For everything, and I mean everything before chapter 4: it looks like a story about an eccentric hobbyist who moves into ponyville and continues her hobbies. Don’t get me wrong, you’ve spelled out quite clearly how you intend for her to build a device for unicorns to be able to fly, but for something of this nature, you missed the starting gun in terms of building up conflict. Presumably there would be some opposition? Pegasus luddites who work in Pegasus chariot airline companies maybe? I expected a story about ponies without wings attempting to fly, not a story about a pony who goes to Ponyville and makes friends with all the characters from the show. If I wanted that, I’d re-watch season 1, episode 1. Needless to say, I was sorely disappointed as I read.

I really want to see a story with this premise succeed, so I’m going to go out on a limb and make some suggestions as to how you could get this story on the right track: first, I suggest that you take some time and really contemplate this single question: if you had one sentence to explain your entire story, what would you say in that sentence?

Next, strip your idea down to its barest kernel of conflict-climax-resolution and work out from there, performing the following: two things: foreshadowing and introducing introducing important conflicts. By important conflicts, I don’t mean her contending with technical difficulties, I mean conflicts with other characters and forces at work that are actually sentient.

Thirdly, if you haven’t seen the movie October Sky, then you need to, and before continuing work on this story. Note how it’s all about four boys back in the 50’s who just want to get their rockets to fly. They try and try and try and fail and fail and fail, but they also had to contend with stubborn and closed-minded parents, heckling bullies, an antagonistic school principal, and a helpful teacher passing away. The story is not just about how they do what they can with what they have and who they have (although that whole aspect of it was really great); it was about them facing the odds against them to rise above the status quo, rallying friends to their cause (mind you, by demonstrating their persistence, not merely showing their faces the way it goes with Whirlie Gears[/i]) and attracting naysayers along the way. Think about all that.

All in all, just remember this: don’t use your idea for a story merely to tell us about this pony’s technical knowledge and how she intends to use it, or about how she automatically wins the favor and hospitality of the locals who’d gladly welcome a “menace to society”. Even though those, especially the technical details, are going to be part of the story, you want to make sure that’s not all there is to the story. If it were, then that would make it like a story written about a rerun of Mythbusters that merely describes what happens in the episode.
> “They took the pieces of cheese and placed them on the table, where they would sit until ready for loading into the cannon to see if they would work as cannonballs. Then Kari ate a piece of one of the cheeses because she was pregnant and getting hungry, and it was close to lunchtime anyways.”
(sorry, couldn’t resist)

From the first four chapters, it definitely seems to be the case that you haven’t introduced enough of your story soon enough. Make a good first impression is all I ask. It takes all the way until the middle of chapter 4 to get something of interest going, and even then it’s still pretty heavily-loaded with technicalities not properly balanced out by characters and/or substantive plot.

Keep writing.

>>115274

Great, I've let him know. According to him, it'll probably only be two or three days at most.

Applejack' Little Secret
Applejack, Funny, Normal, Family
Everypony has a secret. This is Applejack's little secret.
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/42016/Applejack%27s-Little-Secret-


Just a lot of the same things all the way through it seems. Most of the errors I found are just repeats of issues I pointed out before, nearly all of which can be easily fixed. Problems with spelling (typos, redundancies), punctuation (misuse of semicolons, dialogue punctuation, lack of commas where needed), and show versus tell (character actions/reactions) are still present within the story and should be addressed during the editing process. This being the second strike of three, I must advise you to find an editor and/or head over to Ponychan's /fic/ board for additional help, the story is closer than before but you mustn't squander your remaining strike, please take your time and dont rush. -prereader 12



This is a fanfic I wrote. I am currently trying to get it posted on EQD, but am on my last strike. I have had it preread before, but new mistakes keep popping up.

Looking for someone to read it, and find the mistakes so that i can fix it. It should be near finished because of all the proof reads and corrections already made.

Thanks to whoever takes up this task, I can only offer mention in the story for your hard work.

I didn't see anything in the sticky about this, so I'm just gonna ask.

If I posted a story, got a review, and fixed my problems, can I post that same story again for another reviewer? I want to make sure my fic is spotless before I send it to EQD, and yes, I know I have three strikes.

Thanks!

>>115335
I can't speak on re-posting in this thread, but there are several dedicated review threads, and I know you can post in more than one of those.

If I've read correctly, though, it is courteous to let the thread-maker know if you have/are/will posted/posting/post elsewhere, and if so with whom.

>>115335

Yes, yes you can. It certainly doesn't hurt to have something double checked, or even triple checked, as long as you've made an effort to improve it since last time.

>>115335
Nothing's stopping you. In fact, posting after you've had it cleaned up is the best way to go about it, imo.

>>115338
>>115337
>>115336
Thanks all ya'lls! For that, here is the new and improved Homework is for Home, re-posted and hopefully better than last time.

Tags: Normal, Still-is-Slice-of-Life

Synopsis (also shiny and new):
A young unicorn called Spark has always loved school, though she's only in Magic Kindergarten. Reading, basic spells. math, you name it. Though, potions has never been her favorite topic. Of course she aced it - she couldn't fail if she tried - but after a certain day she never exactly enjoyed the class. That certain day, a not-so-average school day, the teacher let the class try a little something special. That special treat, however, may ruin the class for Spark forever. Homework is meant to be finished at home, after all.

Link: https://docs.google.com/document/d/18caTjPOW9XxvcoLnX715DcQPtNSk_1h37HM2c--wZ9o/edit

Comments: I hopefully cleaned up all of the telling, now I just want an opinion on whether you enjoyed reading it, or if it's just another far-fetched theory.

Thanks for dealing with my persistence!

>>113638
>>114124
I'll most likely get done before the end of the week (by August 11). It's been a crazy one, to say the least. I don't know if you're watching this thread, Author, so I might end up PMing you a link to the review once it's finished anyway.

>>115330

Sure, I'll take this one while I wait for my own review. Hopefully it'll be finished in a day or so.

>>115330

Sure, I'll take this one while I wait for my own review. Hopefully it'll be finished in a day or so.

>>115344
>>115345
Ugh, sorry about that

>>115306

Thanks, Pup Tent, your reviews are much more clear and honest than anything else I've gotten. Might just be this is not my calling, but we'll see.

I've considered replacing the mane 6 characters with OCs just to avoid those concerns altogether. But Twilight works really well as the even-headed scientist and Dash as the devil on the shoulder saying "just go do it now!"

I guess I should have just left the assembly bit as it was before, which was pretty much "and they worked all night...next morning..."

Thanks again!

>>115255
Thankee kindly. I had a feeling that some parts of RD's narration were a little off, but I'm almost shamed by how much of it is wrong after looking at your review.

I'd put up an argument for 'learnt', but I can accept that most readers won't be sticklers for British conventions.

I'd much rather keep the part about Dash's thoughts over the sink as it is, though. I'm guessing you thought I should cut it down to let it flow better with the rest (since the whole thing is Dash's thought process anyway), but I'd really prefer it separated like it is now. In my mind at least, it just suits that passage more. I just can't think of a way to express what I mean by that.

I can only hope that it gets better in the next chapters.

(P.S. I'll need a postal address and possible allergy information if I'm to send you these M&M's. Feel free to redirect them to a charity of your choice instead if you don't want them, though.)

>>115393
I mostly just wanted to see if you would actually mail them to me, so you could just donate to the Brony Thank You Fund— which is currently collecting for Marine Toys For Tots.

http://www.bronythankyoufund.org/

>>115349
> I guess I should have just left the assembly bit as it was before, which was pretty much "and they worked all night...next morning..."
Heck no, the assembly part is decent writing, and I enjoyed it the most of the piece up to chapter four. You've got some nice descriptions therein. I'm just saying it's not great story telling. You need to balance it out is all, so that it doesn't seem just like technological wet dreaming. Don't get me wrong, that sort of thing is fine, just not on its own.

Just focus on getting more foreshadowing and plot development done. And yes, you do run the risk of being perceived as unoriginal if you stick with the show characters. That's because everyone wants a piece of them and so having them interact with fan-made characters is as common as mud where fanfiction is concerned. On the other hand, if you use original characters, you'll just really have to work at making them interesting and getting the reader to care about them. It might be an interesting challenge.

>>115393
I'm still on track to give you a review starting Tuesday. There won't be any bad grammar in there once I'm through with it.

Brace yourselves, because you are looking at someone who has been given a FOURTH chance at getting this story on EQD.

So naturally, I need some help, because with each successive pass, more stuff keeps cropping up that I somehow missed, or just didn't think of in the first place.

[tags] Comedy, Dark, Crossover, Adventure

[Synopsis] After an unplanned total eclipse of the sun, Fluttershy discovers an unusual plant and decides to take it home. But what she doesn't realize is that this plant could quite possibly spell the end of Equestria as we know it.

[Story Link] http://www.fimfiction.net/story/36681/Little-Fluttershop-of-Horrors

[EQD Stuff] https://docs.google.com/document/d/1_UgL7UqRKmM8ajqdKHAUoHuR079_zU5AI81coC8CwkU/edit

Thanks in advance

>>115425
You're one lucky son of a bitch, you know that?

>>115415
I know, and I'm looking forward to being lambasted.

>>115409
But they don't take peanut M&Ms...

>>115435
Lucky? Not lucky, just very eager, willing to work to make his story better (well, make it into EqD, those two aren't the same thing if very similar and I don't want people to make a shitstorm out of it), and in general the sort of newbie people enjoy to work with because they know they will get the satisfaction of seeing him succeed.

That said, whomever claims it, make sure you are very good, and you author, make sure to have more than one person check it out, and make sure that person is known for down his stuff good.

*back to lurking...*

>>115288

Haven't done some reviewing in a while, and I always love a good chuckle. So, let's see what we can do.

Sorry for the long delay in your review. I participated in Roger's write-off and then got sick, so I haven't been feeling too well for the past couple of days. I hope that my review here makes up for it. Anyhoo, let's delve into why the pre-readers weren't interested in posting your story. Sometimes it's not just mechanics that need fixing in stories, it may also be the premise and sometimes it's just the execution. You can have a cliched storyline with tropes if your writing is so amazing that it's better than the rest of the stories. However, since this is your first attempt at story telling, it makes sense that the writing comes out as forgettable.

Since this subject has been done so many times, you have to work that much harder to interest readers. Let me put it this way. Your writing is very dull and dry, and treads over old ground with nothing new to show for it. As a piece of writing done just to get your writing out there, it's a good thing, but be aware of the purpose of EqD, which is to showcase stories. Writing this story was still a good thing just so that you can improve your writing skills and see what it's like to have your own story. Just because EqD doesn't want it doesn't mean you don't have to keep writing it. But that depends on you.

Since it's been many times before, and the writing is kinda telly and boring with nothing that really stands out, I can see why the pre-reader said those things. Perhaps he should have said it with more tact, but let's say that your story needs more "oomph." Your story is also filled with basic punctuation mistakes, as if you didn't bother to proofread your own story. If you want to hook readers, your introduction must be strong enough. Judging from the first few paragraphs, where you deliver information that everyone already knows, I'd say that it's a terrible, telling, introduction. It's packed full of Lavender Unicorn Syndrome (I'll address what that is in my review later) and the way the characters speak is weird. The characters already know stuff that happened, so having them say it through dialogue to inform the reader sounds heavy-handed. That's like going around in real life and telling people stuff they already know. They'll just look at you funny.

This story is marked sad and they're reminiscing about their lives. For some reason, I have a feeling in the back of my mind that says something sad is going to happen. I wonder which of the common tragedy tropes it will be, but I guess I'll just have to wait and see.

tl;dr listing of errors:

Missing commas after introductory phrases
Missing commas after direct addresses
Dry writing
Lots of telling
Dialogue that sounds off
Lots of Lavender Unicorn Syndrome
Bland Hook
Cliched premise
Looks like it wasn't proofread. Missing punctuation.


Commas:

A lot of your sentences are missing periods and commas, you sometimes have periods where commas should go, you're missing commas before direct addresses of names, and you're missing commas before introductory clauses.

Borrowing a blurb from Filler here real quick.

>Comma placement. They go after adverbial phrases if those phrases begin sentences. Likewise, they also go between addresses and addressees, as well as between those two and any other part of the sentence. For example: “Twilight, put down that chair.” “Sorry, Mr. Davenport.” “No, I cannot.” “So glad you could join us, Mr. Anderson.” “Yes, Celestia.”

Judging by your last response, I'd say you already learned this, but I thought I should mention it again anyway. Just in case, here's another resource for you to read because your story is missing a lot of commas.

http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/607/03/

Here are some examples of missing commas in your story.

>"How could I forget my hero Lyra?"
>"Congratulations Lyra. I'm so happy for you," said Bon-Bon.
>Without waiting for any sort of reply Lyra helped her up and waved a hoof to let Bon-Bon know to follow her.
>"If I hadn't met you I never would've gotten my cutie mark."
>"You really like bonbons don't you?"
>After a small amount of deliberation (the) pink and blue maned filly pointed at a small box of candies determinedly.

There are many run-on sentences in your story. I didn't list all of them, only a few examples.

Boring Writing:

This has to do with the fact that you outright tell the reader all of the emotions that the characters are feeling. It's not very engaging and doesn't allow us to really feel the emotions of the characters. Combine that with unnatural sounding dialogue and I'm kinda wondering why should I care about reading this story. There is a time and place for telling vs showing, but I believe you are utilizing them at the wrong time. I wish I could describe it better, but I feel like your characters are puppets. Yes, technically that is what you're doing, but you have to hide the strings.

I'm just going to post a few links that will help you with your telling problems and dialogue issues. Perhaps they will help, should you choose to read them.

Links for Showing vs Telling (First Three) and Dialogue (Second Three):

http://victoriamixon.com/2010/12/01/the-6-degrees-of-show-vs-tell-rated-by-quality/
http://www.coffeehouseforwriters.com/fictionfix/0505Grossack.html
http://jerz.setonhill.edu/writing/creative1/showing/

http://fictionwriting.about.com/od/crafttechnique/tp/dialogue.htm
http://blog.nathanbransford.com/2010/09/seven-keys-to-writing-good-dialogue.html
http://www.noveldoctor.com/2011/05/04/how-to-write-good-dialogue/

There is also a lot of Lavender Unicorn Syndrome (LUS) that gets extremely distracting. It makes it really hard to tell who is doing what because I have to keep stopping every five seconds to figure out which pony is which. Anyhoo, here's the definition of LUS (provided by Vanner):

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.

<end quote>

The most common reason for saying other things besides their name is because they don't want to be repetitive. Well, that's what pronouns are for. Besides, you're still being repetitive but when you use names, at least it's less confusing. If your writing is still too confusing with pronouns or you can't get away without saying their names dozens of times, then you have to rewrite your sentences and reorder them to operate from a single viewpoint. That way, the pronouns refer to that character and you can stop with all of the "cream colored pony" and "mint colored pony" jazz. Not convinced that Lavender Unicorn Syndrome isn't a bad thing? Then have some more links!

Links for Lavender Unicorn Syndrome:

http://eznwords.tumblr.com/post/21010451863/ellyewess

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/mind-your-language/2010/jun/02/my-synonym-hell-mind-your-language

http://trickster.org/arduinna/epithet.html

Examples of Telling:

Don't be so direct with the feelings! Here are some examples of telling sentences in your story.

>Lyra, still looking at Bon-Bon with both love and sadness in her eyes
>"I remember like it was yesterday," answered the green mare, her fake smile still hiding her true feelings.
>Bon-Bon's face couldn't hide her sadness.
>A terrified look came over the unicorn leader.


What Makes This Story Stand Out?

Moving on to the next thing now. Most readers nowadays are very finicky with their stories and will drop one as soon as they get bored. There are many reasons why people stop reading, but it most commonly happens when their suspension of disbelief is broken. When they open your story, you have at most three sentences to capture their attention or they will bail. Just look at your introduction. It's kinda bland and not very interesting. Telling readers information that they already know is not going to make them want to stay. Judging by how the rest of the chapter went, I can see the inklings of what you were going for, at least. You're trying to write a sad story, but you want the reader to feel sad by giving them a glimpse into the past. Although that is what you're supposed to do, the execution comes off as underwhelming. The dialogue just feels weird and the telly writing isn't really interesting. As I said, I've read so many different stories just like this before. Since EqD is a showcase, they want something different than the others.

Not saying you shouldn't write this story, that's not it at all. I'm simply saying that you should use this story as a stepping stone towards your later writing and perhaps not worry so much if it doesn't go on EqD. Because the premise is cliche, it's that much harder to make people read it.

Missing Punctuation

The last problem, which is a very glaring one mind you, is the fact that your story looks like you rushed through it and immediately after writing it, you stuck it on fimfiction. There are many missing bits of punctuation after the sentences (missing commas not withstanding because you didn't know about those). I'll provide some examples for you. Can you spot the missing periods and commas?

>“Bon-Bon, my name’s Bon-Bon”
>"And I'm so glad you did" she whispered back.
>“No thanks”
>“Just take the cupcake”
>“I’m not hungry”
>“Really now, I want you to have it”
>“I appreciate that but I’m fine”
>“Maybe some other time”
>“No thank you”
>“… okay”
>"Maybe there was something special about today" Bon-Bon suggested.
>"I don't want anything, thank you. I only came here for Bon-Bon." Lyra responded, politely refusing the generous offer.

In the above example, that period should be a comma.

>A terrified look came over the unicorn leader,

This should be a period, not a comma. Also, this is a telly sentence.

>“That was…,” she said, “the most beautiful thing I’ve ever heard.”

In this example, the first comma doesn't belong there, so delete it.

>"Good luck" said Lyra long after the other pony had left the room; it took her that long to say the words.

Missing a comma after luck, not to mention that the phrase after that sounds weird. I can guess as to what you meant to say, but it could have been said better.

Also, there's this one odd line I found.

>Pointing at a particular photograph the earth pony said to the unicorn,

Why is your dialogue separated? If anything, you should have pushed this line down with the dialogue, otherwise it looks like formatting went and ate your story.

Final Thoughts

It's at this point where I realize that I'm doing too much editing work and that is why your review is taking way too long. Once again, I apologize for the delay. I should have sent this earlier. Hopefully I have provided enough input as to why your story needs a lot of work. It's just not interesting enough for me to keep going. I'd only be lying if I did, because most readers stop at the first two paragraphs anyway.

>Slight author's note here. I may have decided to finish and publish this chapter after writing for several hours while sleep deprived and slightly intoxicated. In short, I have edited about half of the chapter and thus I may need to go back and finish editing later. I just wanted to get this posted. So, if you notice any errors (anymore than normal) take solace in the fact that I'll fix them, eventually, probably... maybe...

If you don't want to put forth the effort into proofreading your story first, I don't really feel the need to force myself to point out constant errors, so I'll stop here. I believe it would be in your best interest to find an editor. Reviewers aren't editors (I tried, but eventually went insane) so... yeah...

Anyhoo, please don't be disheartened. This review was merely an attempt to help you see some of the common errors in your story and give you an insight as to why the pre-readers might not have been so enthusiastic about your story. I do hope you'll continue writing and learning from your mistakes, though. Have a pleasant day.

>>115457
Don't worry about taking so long. Since you did it gave me time to think. I looked at my story and honestly asked myself if it sucked. Yes, yes it does. I agree with everything you said and I appreciate you being honest with me. My story is boring, and it is cliched, and it is very telly. At this point I feel like I more or less need to completely scrap it and start over. But, honestly, I'm so bored by my own story that I don't even want to start over. At least not right now. I almost was going to ask you to just not bother to finish the review. I decided that I it would still be good to hear everything you had to say, however. So, now that I have, I want to reiterate how much i appreciate you taking the time to thoroughly dissect my story and not just say that it's crap,ut also why it's crap.

I haven't given up writing though. This is just a stepping stone towards improving my writing, and making it not suck. I'll probably have another story up for review soon. Hopefully it isnt nearly as boring, or riddled with grammatical errors. Anyways, thanks again and I hope my story didn't bore you to tears or anything.

looking for critique on the first chapter of my story being written for the NaPoWriMo

[Name] Bountiful Rainbows
[Author] dawningark (morning_angles here)
[Tags] Adventure, Crossover, Slice of Life
[Synopsis]: When the very nature of the seasons begins to fall into disarray, it falls to one unicorn to awaken the Princess of the Harvest, and undo the damage, before it spreads to all of Equestria. But does a New Yoke landscaper have what it takes to start a new life in the farming village of Marelot, turn the withering fortunes of the town around, and really get her hooves dirty?

Hub Page: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1V9cP9FZAwdvB37xTyj-Be3ipyGaYdwEk-o-l-BCZMKk/edit
Chapter 1: https://docs.google.com/document/d/19jkDuArI-n_LIxMFbsInEyyaSb37WAU3KENZCA2S76o/edit

looking for any and all feedback, positive, constructive, or otherwise on characters, story pacing, word choice, you name it. I fancy myself a good writer but I've never actually submitted anything anywhere before. wish I could take a story off the queue myself, but most my free time this month is going to be spent writing this monster for the NaPoWriMo =_=

>>115446
>Feel free to redirect them to a charity of your choice instead if you don't want them, though.
I assumed from this that you hadn't bought them yet. (And I don't know of any charities that accept candy.)

The address I sent you is my postal address and I don't have any food allergies.

>>115462

Good, good. I was afraid that you might want to quit writing completely just because I didn't like your story. Since it was your first attempt, of course it wasn't going to be great, but it's a necessary part of your improvement as a writer. I'm glad to hear that you didn't quit and are still willing to improve, so I shall look forward to your next story. Thanks for being reasonable. <3

>>115252
8/7, belongs to Karach, gonna grab this and take a stab at reviewing. Hope I'm doing this right.

also, a gracious anon informed me I left my comments off on >>115464 like a derp. So, fixed that, as well.

Sorry this took longer than expected, I wanted to make sure I didn't miss anything.

You should know, this is my very first review of a pony fanfic, so if you want, you can totally ignore anything I say. Well, you can ignore anything anyone says, but now you actually have a reason

If it were a GDoc, I would do the review in-doc, but it isn't, so... Have some review!

First of all, her "big secret" is very... anticlimactic, and a lot of people in your comments agree with me. I'm guessing this is what you were going for. But not only is the secret itself very tiny, how you lead up to it is, too. I get that Applejack is excited for it, but when she gets to the clearing, it's just like, "Oh, I have a horrible dreadful secret that everyone would hate me for." And suddenly, oranges.

You also have a thing with weirdly phrased sentences.
>Sixteen rows of apple trees had been bucked, the leaky pipe had been fixed, and the pigs had been fed, a busy day indeed for the young mare.
That one just sounds off. Maybe:
>Sixteen rows of apple trees had been bucked... and the young mare was exhausted.
>Applejack had to secretly dress up and slip into town under cover of a different name, Berryjill, and purchase this assortment of fruits without getting caught.
replace "and" with "to"
>no obsessed with her next orange meal
^ doesn't really make sense to me
>Apples were good, but after so many years of nothing but apple related recipes would drive any pony crazy
Another that sounds a little odd
Finally:
>Especially her.
I used to do this all the time, but than I realized that hacked-off sentences are just obnoxious. If you really want to make a point of how much AJ hates this pony, you could smoosh it into the previous sentence.

You also have a problem with lavender unicorn syndrome. Using "She" or "Applejack" isn't a sin, and it seems like you try and avoid using those two words a lot.

(Here's my pathetic little continuation to the previous review...)
A couple examples:
>The orange mare kicked a hoof against the ground, dust and dirt puffing up into the air.
>An orange pony called out to her older brother. The young mare whistled to herself as she marched along the dirt path leading from the apple fields to the cellar underneath the barn. The sun beat down on the blond haired cowpony
(That last one especially- its the first couple lines and Applejack's name isn't mentioned once.)

You have a couple sentences that just drop off here and there-I tried to find them, but I gave up. Really, your only problems are grammatical errors. I get that it's supposed to be a big deal over one little secret, but I didn't really feel how big of a deal it is.

One last thing: though the last line is cute, it is so cliche. I have a feeling you wrote the fanfic based off of that line and that one picture.

Despite all the above, this was really a good read. I'm just the kind of person that gets hung up on errors like these, all it needs is some TLC and an experienced reviewer, since my review really means nothing. Hope I helped!

>>115494
You did fine. All you're being asked to do is give your opinion and point out any mistakes you might find.

That said, this author is at two strikes, so I'd recommend getting at least one more detailed review before trying EqD again. It's usually good practice to get at least two.

Review's in the doc: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1fRa8e9YXV00rrsO6TRigIMApMp1iPmsORIWgAkph5sc/edit

Okay, this is my first review. Ever. I'm going to try and be gentle and constructive about this, but I'm going to apologize in advance for any bruised egos or hurt feelings. I don't really have any formal or technical expertise when it comes to writing, but I fancy myself good at it. Sort of a blue-collar writer. But I'll give it my best shot.

Let's begin with the grammar.
Straight from the beginning I noticed a struggle with comma placement that continued to precipitate itself throughout the piece. In particular, commas on the end of quotes, and within the transition between quotes. Quotes are very rarely viable sentences in of themselves, unless a significant pace of dialogue has been reached between two characters. So, quotes are often partnered in a conjoined sentence with narrative; some sort of action the speaker takes, in order to identify them. You have that part down pat, avoiding what I've seen other reviewers call 'talking-head syndrome'. The characters are moving and acting as they speak, as any pony would. Are they acting as they would? I'll cover that later. But back to quotes. They should be part of the sentence of the action of the speaker. You nailed the execution in a few areas:

>"Tell you what," proposed Scootaloo, rubbing her hooves with a sly smile, "how about we dump the problem... I mean we ask someone smarter about it?"
>"Well, yeah, if ya think it's alright," said Applebloom, a hint of uncertainty audible in her voice.

The quote should flow into the action, and back into the quote as needed. You did well here, but stumbled in more than you succeeded.
Moving on from quotes, there were also a few run-on sentences and a few dropped words that need addressing. None of them were particularly detracting, but cleaning them up will only serve to better the piece. Here's one of the worst ones:

>she had finally calculated the right amount of energy needed to transform an ordinary slice of bread into a perfect toast.
>an ordinary slice of bread into a perfect toast.
>a perfect toast.

Cheers? Here's another one, same paragraph:

>The librarian quickly emptied the water from the nearby flowerpot onto the burning paper.
>the water from the nearby flowerpot
>water
>flowerpot

Last I checked, flowerpots had dirt in them. Admittedly, dirt would still suffice, but it jarred me on my second pass though. Anyway. One of the best ways I've found to find and correct run-ons and other general grammar faux-pas, is to read your work aloud. No, seriously, read your work aloud. It might seem silly, but writing is, fundamentally, speech committed to paper, and it should read as such. When you're reading your own work in your head, your head'll have a habit of filling in blanks that your mouth won't. Anywhere you stumble in speaking your story, take a closer look. Sometimes, it's not even a grammatical error, but you just come up with a more natural way of saying something, by speaking it aloud. My favorite trick is something I call the breath test, which will help with run-ons. Read through a line aloud, and where ever you naturally pause to take a breath, stick a comma.
Finally, word choice. I'm going to ignore the onomatopoeias, because I have a personal bias against them, and that wouldn't be fair to detract for something I simply dislike. There's nothing technically wrong with them. Just not to my taste. Otherwise, your vocabulary was diverse and robust, with only a handful of repetition. Excellent work in this regard, but there is some work to be done.

Tl;dr – grammar was consistent and understandable, but felt a touch dry and pieced together, like a jigsaw. Smooth out the edges and put in a little polish, and you should be good to go.
8/10

Moving on to the plot. Hopefully I won't be quite so long winded with this one. This reviewing stuff is hard.
The story started off well enough; crusader's causing mischief. Typical, and familiar, which is good to open a story with. But you begin to hit some rough patches later in. Perfect slice of toast aside, (which I'll admit I got a chuckle out of) there was some continuity issues that gave me pause. Not within your story, or even within canon, but simply within logic. It's the Ponyville Public Library. Yes, Twilight lives there, but why would the crusaders knock? If there is a reason (say, it's Sunday, and the library is closed to the public) it should be established at some point prior. Moving forward – now brace yourself, I don't have a way to put this lightly – the story felt like a quick one-two punch of old plot clichés and quotes. To rub salt in the wound, the Elements are a tad quick to accept that Twilight has gone mad. “Again”. How many times has Twilight really dove off the deep end? I count twice in the series. Barely. Fluttershy has gone crazy more times than the resident bookworm. But everypony has just nodded their heads and accepted that Twilight's gone wonkers. At the behest of the CMC, no less, who, let's face it, are not the most reliable source of information. (Especially after episode 2-23) The story stepped up a peg with the continuity nod to Episode 1-15, Rainbow having not been privy to Twilight's Rapidash impression. Spike being gone felt as though it came out of left field, but he has been known to vanish from time to time, so I'm willing to give a pass on that. The conclusion felt decidedly deus ex machina, but it was Pinkie, after all, and I found it appropriate that a baker would solve a riddle based around units of measurements. Kudos there.

Tl;dr – plot had an obvious, linear path it was following, which is good in a short story, but I think Pinkie jumped a few pages in the script somewhere. Aside from the critical flaw of pigeon-holing the cast toward the library, the plot is solid. Pad it and patch it up, and run it past another reviewer.
7/10

Gotta take a deep breath here. Your characterization is next and last, and I don't have nice things to say, unfortunately. Sorry. You... may want to skip to the tl;dr.
Let's run through a checklist, in chronological order. I'll admit I'm running out of steam at this point. Scootaloo: rambunctious tomboy? Check. Sweeite Belle: thoughtless doof? Check. Applebloom: ringleader? Check. Twilight: odd experiments? Check. But blasphemes? No check. I can't see her doing it. She has too much respect for her teacher, mentor, and sovereign. CMC: deafening? Check. Twilight: prideful and determined? Check. Lying to the CMC? If Twilight has ever lied, it's been through omission. No check. CMC again: wrecking balls? Check. Applebloom: condescending in the face of failure? Check. Instigator of a new direction? I think she stole Scoot's line. Twilight: mad hatter? Eeeh, half-check. It has happened before, but under the most extreme of duress. Her reaction seems a tad overblown, which is hard to swallow, as it's the crux of the story, and happens so suddenly. Explosive backfires? I'd really like to know where this tread in Twilight fics originated from, because I don't think it's ever happened. Ever. Someone please prove me wrong. I feel like a monster at this point. Applejack: straight to the point? Check, if a little railroaded. Rarity: snippy with her sister? Check. Fluttershy … didn't really do much. Rainbow: cocky and casual? Check. Railroaded, but check. Pinkie: outta nowhere?! Over-check. Her obtuseness is played so hard and heavy it felt like a literary back hand. Twilight: PHENOMINAL COSMIC POWER, itty-bitty problem? Check. Rainbow: easily insulted and hotheaded? Check. Applejack: rational and calm? Check. Rarity: simpering little quitter? I know she has no record of being anywhere near as powerful as Twilight is in the magical department, and it's generally accepted that Twilight could wipe the floor with Rarity if she saw fit, I don't see it in Rarity to just roll over like that. Also:

>"They are very good with dispells."

I can sense I'm beginning to get cranky, and I imagine you get my point by now, assuming you didn't take my advice and just skip right to the score at the end. Which I wouldn't blame you for. I've been a royal bastard for this part, and I dare anyone to say otherwise. But I am not impressed by your representation of the show's characters. Remember that these are established characters, with detailed backgrounds and a wealth of experience within the confines of the show itself. Characters that readers are familiar with, intimately so, and the slightest deviation from that familiarity will turn the reader against the story. It isn't impossible to craft a different or perhaps even an entirely new persona for an established character, but it takes time. Time that isn't available in a short story. With just over five-thousand words, you have maybe five-hundred to impress me and keep me reading, and things did not go as planned. This wasn't the Twilight Sparkle I was expecting, and for only five-thousand words, I can afford to be discerning in my tastes. Pinkie suffered similarly, but in the opposite direction.

Tl;dr – characterization of canon characters has to be near flawless to succeed in short stories, in my humble opinion. And trust me, it is very humble. I'm sorry, but I think this is your weakest area. Rewatch the series some. Spot pick some episodes and follow characters for a bit, get a feel for them.
4/10

God, I feel like I tore this poor story to pieces. Please don't hate me... T-T

Yo! I finally finished this damned fanfic! So, off I go!

Title: Before the Dawn
Author: Figments
Email: figments.science@gmail.com
Tags: Dark (Maybe?), Adventure (Still kinda iffy)

Synopsis: Plagued by visions of a mysterious figure, Twilight sets out to find a creature that calls itself Iliad. Yet after one of her friends is taken by the very being, the Elements are in for their greatest challenge yet. Can Twilight solve the riddle of her dreams, or will she be forced to confront the biggest decision that she never wanted to make?

Link:

Requiem: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1yP7df1jrmYRaJsPgh-x973tU1EvPJrL6sMpgIiti-pI/edit

Comments 'n' stuffs: I've been really unsure whether or not I should start the story a few days prior to this one, to kind of set it up a bit. An input on this is really appreciated.

okay, I'd be grateful for any impressions on this:

title: the chess master (part one)

word count: 5k

genre: comedy

synopsis: a work of satire inspired by "May the Best Pet Win". Rainbow Dash enters a chess tournament at Ponyville Elementary to help out the CMC in a pinch, and prove once and for all that she's got what it takes to be a chess master!

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1UjpBlq3GT5Efr_LfKjit_so_lWsfBP-FcmTzV01yMVI/edit

my e-mail: theheavymole@gmail.com

>>113951

This took around 12 days. Eh, I've done worse. =

Disclaimer: the following review is the sole opinion of yours truly. Yours truly is not an authority on the art of writing by a long shot; you're free to apply as much or as little of this as you feel like, and the one thing I hope is that you take away from this something that'll aid you in your future projects. I won't lie: this is largely personal preference, and I'm finding it hard to be objective as I type this up.

Trivia: the original review, V1, was a beast that looked far too deeply into it, trying to apply analysis and comparison to a lot of aspects of this. It took me an hour and a half to write until I realized that I was being silly, hence, the V2 up there.

Most of my comments are in-doc, and you've seen them already. Here's a couple of tangentially-related things that you might find interesting:

1) There is no re-read value
Because the impact of the fic is in the over-the-top action, the craziness of the premise and the punchline, which dies as soon as it is revealed (e.g. the punchline for Blueshift's "Two Peas in a Pod"), re-reading it only serves to dull the action. At the end of re-reading it, one find the punchline which ceases to be a punchline. I think this fic can be classified as the same sort of tale accompanied by the phrase "You had to be there" - immersion is heavily reliant on the reader hanging on every word, and when it's over, I left with the feeling "well, that was nice", but no more. And it's very hard to squeeze any more out of readers without establishing Akuma a lot more, and by doing so you change the overall mood and even thesis of the story, and then...

2) Serious reading is the bane of reader immersion
It's a light-hearted romp that doesn't stand to cold analysis. I'll give you an example, quoted from V1 of the review:

>Kurt Vonnegut's 8 rules of writing fiction: Every sentence must do one of two things—reveal character or advance the action.
>There's a lot of action, but it doesn't actually advance quickly per se. I can summarize your story into, like, eight sentences. That's how much you harp on "THIS IS FIGHTING", but that's because your sentences are there to paint a picture. There's not a lot of revealing character, but if generic fighting-game character profiles are anything to go by, there isn't a lot of character to reveal in the first place.

Most readers don't analyze like this, but for the few who do, questions like these will start popping up into a bubbling pool of discomfort. And that usually has them signing off to brood more.

Your plot:
Akuma fights Ryu. Akuma defeats Ryu. Akuma looks for stronger opponent and is sent to Equestria. Akuma attempts to fight Pinkie and is overcome when Pinkie hugs him. Akuma returns to his own world with a figurine; cue sunset ending.

Simple enough, wacky, and I can't really complain.

Your characters:
Akuma's all right, though he feels like a cardboard cut-out, as is most of the cast of these games (close-minded generalization warning). He's angry and evil, and is played more for comedic effect than a point for reader empathy. That's what your premise requires. Pinkie is done pretty well, too, though I feel that you should build-up her warming up to him more gradually.

What I felt after reading this:
To be blunt? Not much. I mean, it's fun, it's action-y, and there were some legitimately funny moments in there. But the end wasn't really heartwarming for me (that could just be me and my lack of feels, or maybe it wasn't meant to be heartwarming) and I daresay that it didn't really stand out. And really, this type of story doesn't - it comes and goes like the wind because of the lack of events and character to empathize with.

Refer to the part titled "Your plot". That is literally what happens after 4k+ words. There's a lot of actions, yes, but nothing actually happening, if that makes sense. There doesn't need to be; just saying. And the part quoted above sums up my insignificant gripes about Akuma's character - he functions, but is nothing more than that.

Conclusion:
I feel rather bad because I don't think I've managed to help you much. This isn't the sort of story that I can subject to standard analysis, since it's supposed to be light-hearted, and to be honest, it actually isn't my type of story. I want to enjoy it, but trying to pick apart what makes it work and what doesn't has killed that for me. It's definitely better than the majority of fics out there, but on its own, it's adequate. I'm not sure whether that's what you want, or whether you want it to be something more - if the latter is the case, then I'm sorry that I can't help you achieve that without major changes to your style and premise.

Your style, tone and premise have resulted in your fic being quite a different beast compared to Generic Pony Fiction X. It's unique in these terms, I'll give you that. But that's because this, I believe, is a SF fanfic with ponies, and not an MLP fanfic with SF - it's centred on a lot more SF elements than MLP's, even though non-fans should be able to enter it easily.

In conclusion, your fic does what it set out to do, and does as much justice to the premise as it can, and that's the best anyone can ask for, really. Any negativity or weariness you may sense in the above isn't because of you - it's because I've been trying to figure out how to improve this, and I ultimately can't come up with anything. And that, I'd say, is a good thing. Keep writing.

>>115515
You did just fine - you told him what you thought of as a reader, what he needed to hear, and gave him advice on how to improve. You've even got a nice section-by-section formatting complete with score.

>>115494
It helped a lot! Thanks for taking the time to work on this.

I will work on this and i plan on using your suggestions. again thanks!

Hello ttg. Its been a while hasn't it. Indeed, despite the warnings of numerous medical professionals I've decided to continue my endeavors to become the worst writer here on /fic. So without further ado I give you the lastest abomination to come from my ill mind.

Title: To Be Young Again
Tags: Slice of Life (I do a lot of these)
Word Count: 3101
Synopsis: Feeling pushed away by her fellow crusaders now that they are grown up, Apple Bloom is willing to do anything to get them back together.

Link: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1geV0SF-1VDNfLEv89dLOYoJRaGvZ8PTuT59-GLlS6Ec/edit

Comments: I'm a shit writer so expect problems. Also my partner Seidio has agreed to look at it but he's got business to take care of before I want him to even consider looking at my fic.

>>115531
I can take a look at this for you. I should be able to get back to you before the weekend is over, if not a little after. excelsior!

>>115531

>>115547

>>115547
>has a story titled "Moving On"
>>115531
>story title implies not wanting to move on

I find this more amusing than I should...

>>115525
Thank you so much for this review. If it had entertainment value for someone who's never played the Street Fighter series, I'm certain it will thrill the die-hards. And I can't disagree with you when you say this was a Street Fighter fic with ponies, I think you hit that square on the nose. Aside from that, you were an awesome reviewer, but the Dark Night Rises is still a terrible Batman movie. Not a terrible movie, but a terrible batman movie.

Greetings, I have a challenge for you:

Title: Living the Life
Tags: Slice of Life, Awesomeness

Synopsis: Once upon a time, a pegasi asked her friends why they worried about the past or the future so much, and if they couldn’t just live their lives without worrying so much about trivial things like that.

They said no.

So she rode a motorcycle and fucked cute fillies, and drank cider, vodka and wine, and broke some tables in bars, and came and kicked Rainbow Dash’s sorry ass, and joined the Wonderbolts while wearing pants, and went to concerts with people half her age, and dance with those that were twice, and told everyone to stop begin such sorry crybabies because time passes or they were going to die or you don't think anyone understands you, and went around without having to worry about angst, and she rode into the sunset because fuck you artsy pony and your gay wings, and left the toilet seat up because fuck that too.

These are her stories.


Comments: I can be silly at times. Rarely, but yes, it is possible. And yes, I did have help with this, apparently I am "too reserved."

Apologies to everyone.

Also, just in case it is not clear, this is Scootaloo we are speaking of.

>>115572
>Also, just in case it is not clear, this is Scootaloo we are speaking of.
>pic

>>115572
>someone posting as Samurai anon
>forgets link to story
So much conflicting feelings, I don't even know.

A nice concept and nice ending. However, yes, it does need work on execution.

This is full of ideas, practically bursting with them, but you need now to go back through and tone some of them back because while some ideas work, others really don't.

Here's a bigger review:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Y8HrHblKg8Zt4BqYWwsCMdiGGYf0YyPGZrh2WtwHGDE/edit

>>115578
Wow. Well then, I have my work cut out for me. I'm making a mental note to stick to shipping.

Thanks for this, everything makes good sense. I'm off to sort through it all.

This is a kinda-sorta update for my fic, Homework is for home (>>115340).
I was feeling pretty confident so I decided to send it in to EQD to get their opinion. Long story short, my fic falls short of their minimum words by 300, so I told them this in the comments section. I got an email back saying that they do make exceptions to the minimum words for amazing fics, which mine isn't. I don't know if they think it's the worst thing they ever read, or if it could be posted if it met the minimum words, I don't even know if that counts as a strike (but I'm guessing it does).
If you want to review my story, or if you just looked over it, I would be so grateful if you could tell me how to A) add 300 words or B) Make my fanfic perfect.

Thanks for dealing with me!

>>115340
That sounds awfully short. Why not simply introduce a new challenge?

Manga, at least, follows stages in its storyline:
Introduction of conflict -> challenges to solving conflict -> resolution of conflict

where each new chapter that prolongs an arc is based around the introduction/development/resolution of said challenge.

I did a skim-through and it's basically class slice-of-life. An antagonistic, attention-seeking boy colt who sits behind Spark who tries to distract her? Somepony who keeps on passing notes in the corner of her eye? Daydreaming? I'm sure there are a few ways for you to add to your story, each bringing their own strengths to your characters and the overall situation.

>>115340
This looks cute, and I'm in a reviewin' mood. I'll see what I can do to suggest ways to make it longer for EqD, if that seems necessary. Claiming!

Your fic is short, so expect my review shortly. Reviewer doc: http://derpy.me/uQgc1

[Shipping][Comedy][Human-in-Equestria]

Synopsis: Bored with high school, Lyra's life changes when she's brought to Equestria and turned into a mint-green pony with a magical horn bulging out of her head. After an embarrassing incident, Bon Bon decides to help Lyra adjust to life as a pony.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1RbahWiTAo5hs7agHgG6I-y8aaHW7b_v7zg493SrueMQ/edit

From EqD: The concept of Lyra being an inexplicably transformed human is novel enough on a basic level, and that's a good thing, as it means the story as a whole is salvageable. However, novelty will wear off quickly without a strong narrative and engaging characters to revel in it, and so far those seem to be what this piece is lacking. We get no real sense of who Lyra is as a character, nor of why her parents might've chosen to give her the name Lyra in the first place, a moniker that despite Bon-Bon's protestations still sounds more appropriate for the MLP universe than ours. And beyond that, each of the experiences she has within Ponyville that might've helped develop her is rushed through too quickly to hardly even understand what's going on, let alone why it's important to the plot. The lack of any noticeable transitions certainly doesn't help to make the narrative any easier to follow.

>>115425
I'm gonna take this, run off for a little bit, and come back later today. A few hours at most. It sounds like your issues are primarily mechanical, and I'm decent at catching those.

However, since I am in not a reviewer in any real capacity and you have a precious chance for a miracle, I'm going to recommend that after I'm done you pass it off to one more person. This is an opportunity I'd absolutely hate to cause you to waste.

Nobody touch this. I'll be back soonish.

>>115585
>>115604
Thanks to both of yah!
Casca, that really helps and I just might use one of those ideas :D

>>115340
That was cute and I liked it. You took question about a small detail from the show that most people probably hadn't even noticed (why does Twilight look so different from her parents) and gave it a sweet, funny backstory that also goes some way to answer a question that people probably have asked (why's Twi so traumatised by magic kindergarten?).

Your writing had a bunch of odd tense errors, some awkward and verbose wordings of a few things, the tiniest strain of Lavender Unicorn Syndrome (but, in fairness, you made that work for you because of how important coat colours were to the plot) and a few other miscellaneous errors, but it didn't make me tear my hair out in anguish. In any case, I've discussed all this language and style stuff at length in http://derpy.me/EznGuide

On making it longer: I'm afraid many of my wording suggestions probably chipped away at your fic's length, rather than adding to it. But here are some suggestions for extending the fic:

1. This bit:
>Their discussion was like a ping-pong match, Dream Charmer tossing out a positive, Twilight rebounding with a cynical twist. It continued for a while, during which the custodian came and cleaned up the mess on the floor and the rest of the students continued with their work.
It's rather telly. Consider, if it wouldn't overextend the joke, showing us more of Twilight and Dream's banter (it sounds rather entertaining.), perhaps interspersed with the custodian grumblinh about the mess.

2. Casca's suggestion of daydreaming is a good one – perhaps there's something you can do to subtly foreshadow Spark's true identity?

3. This bit:
>The yellow filly rolled her eyes.
>They sat at their cleaned desks,
I feel like there should be more of a transition between these scenes.

4. Apart from that, you could also extend Sparky and Dream's pre-class conversation, and even include a few snippets of the teacher's droning in the different lessons. You could have Dream ask Sparky for help with maths, or any number of other things. Just keep it light and have fun making jokes and letting your characters interact with each other.

And that's all I've got. Good luck with your fic, and I do hope this was useful!

>>115613
Thank you so much! That was very useful and pointed out a lot of stuff I didn't notice. I added a little piece about two ponies passing notes Sparky ratting them out, and I think I will add something about daydreaming.
Thanks again!

>>115607
I return. I have words about words.

>on a world elsewhere in the cosmos not too dissimilar to our own
This is awkward because we have no reference frame from which to look away and find any elsewhere. The word elsewhere works a lot like "meanwhile" in that you can't just say meanwhile Y. You need an X first.

>the Equestrian race
I'm not personally a fan of this, but I don't think it's especially in need of changing.

>in the seemingly most
I haven't got any suggestions for what to do here instead, but seemingly most strikes me as an unusual combination of words. It doesn't look wrong, but I did stumble over it.

>another adjective...panic
Your prereader had two problems with this. Susceptibility to panic is not an adjective. It's a phrase or a trait. The other complaint was the way you broke this apart with a colon and a fragment completing the thought as its own paragraph. I feel less strongly that this is problematic. It's a stylistic choice that bends or breaks some rules, but it can work. "Adjective" though? Yeah, no.

>Such was the case
What was, the description of the ponies? That doesn't work well like that. "X is a nice guy. Such was the case when..." doesn't really flow. Also, such was the case is a bit of a stuffy, passive phrase. Looking ahead, I'm seeing several more passive passages. There were one or two above as well.

>weather teams from Cloudsdale has no
Teams has. Plural noun doing the verbing needs a different form of the verb.

>to their heart's content
This could be argued, but I would tell you that you should use their hearts' content instead. Each of them has a heart, so the plural hearts are the collective to which the content belongs.

>and a odd high pitched
You want an odd, not a odd. You also want to hyphenate high-pitched. You ALSO probably want a comma between the two so that you end up with an odd, high-pitched result. I notice that high-pitched was pointed out in the latest prereader's notes, as well as a few other things that haven't been touched yet. I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you just haven't combed back through with the latest feedback YET and that you didn't miss it after it was already pointed out.

>quirked an eyebrow
The ol' eyebrow quirk is a fundamental sign of confusion that definitely works here. HOWEVER, I'd actually suggest using something else because I'm ridiculous sometimes. I say that an eyebrow quirk is more of a social signal than a natural response. Something that's done to illustrate to the other people/ponies around you what you think. Since there are no others around... This is really, REALLY minor and safe to ignore entirely, but something to consider nonetheless.

>And she was certain
Starting a sentence with an and or an or or a but is all well and good, but only if done sparingly. One good way to check whether or not you have a candidate for it is to ask yourself if the sentence in question has any impact. In this case, I would say no. It's a plain description of a simple fact that isn't particularly surprising. Fluttershy doesn't know this plant. That's okay, and it's important that we know this, but it's no grand revelation or anything. This little bit of information isn't significant enough to warrant a special case like the period space and you have going on now.

>the seeming smile
Who are you, Shakespeare? The seeming X is... purple and flowery aren't quite the right words, but something like that. It's forcefully erudite.

>was so...nice
An ellipsis used as a pause is generally accepted as needing a space afterward. When it's used to omit unneeded text from something more like a quote, the waters get murkier, so ignore when I do that here. What YOU'RE doing is pretty well agreed to need a space on the tail end (and some would argue at the head as well.)

>she cooed, setting
Careful. You already said cooed just a tiny handful of sentences ago. Not too egregious, but if I see a third one before long it'll be upsetting.

>–
As long as you're consistent (and we shall see if you are...) this is okay, but this is a strong scene break and a single character doesn't feel very strong to me.

>chided with a small
Your prereader claimed this was an example of an inappropriate direct object. Poppycock! There IS no direct object in play here. Celestia chided. She did so with a smirk on her face. Whether or not the direct object is specifically required is supposed to depend on the transitivity of the verb, but not being a grammar nut I say this is fine as is.

>thou...I mean
Again, space after this pausing punctuation.

>Twas not the moon
As with the scene breaks, I will not argue specifically against this (though I do think it should be 'twas) but I will berate you for any lack of consistency on the matter... like the 'Twas an inch down the page. Select one and stick with it.

>'Twas not the moon
As I just said.

>Celestia rose form the
From the, yes?

>surprised herself by
This one is a bit sticky. Being surprised BY something tends to be more passive or past tense. I was surprised by X. I don't think this is technically wrong, but I personally would use something more like "surpised herself with" instead.

>for centuries, Luna
And has Celestia? If so, who ruled in her absence? Who maanged the sun and moon?

>that wasn't a meteor or asteroid
How can we logically conclude this? Sure, if it wasn't the moon it had to have been a different heavenly body and hence something from out there, but where do we get that it couldn't have been a meteor or something like that? If the argument is based on how complete the eclipse was or how long it lasted, then that's still a problem because unless the object was HUGE or REALLY close to the planet, it wouldn't have been anything like a lunar eclipse.

>once again you are the only one
Once again? While Luna was gone, somepony else was capable of it? Who and why?

>Celestia opened her mouth...returned the nuzzle
This paragraph is a list of actions. X then Y then Z. Structurally repetitive.

>Which was why
Like before with the ands and ors and buts, this can be done but needs a good reason. This is a logical next step. Ask the farmer. It's not powerful or surprising enough to warrant such a bold step over the bounds of the language.

>'cutie mark crusading,'
You'll want double quotes here not single. The siren song of double for dialogue and single for... whatever the linguistic equivalent of airquotes is... is quite powerful, but it is incorrect. Note that when you make airquotes with your fingers, you DO still use two on each side.

>With the speed available
Mmm... not sure here. I don't want to recommend adding extraneous words, but "the" alone feels off to me. I keep thinking something more along the lines of "the sort of speed."

>glad to...After the badgers
Your prereader seemed saddened by the lack of this scene, but I've got a separate complaint. You didn't use a scene break, strong or weak. It looks exactly like the difference between any other paragraphs.

>like a flytrap, so I figured
How does that figuring make any sense? Calling attention to a thing and then saying so-and-so might be of use implies so-and-so is an expert on that thing. What does Twilight know about flytraps that'd cause any of her friends to turn to her for advice? She was used because books, not because plants.

>in her saddle bags
Just a minute ago you used saddlebag as one word. Pick one and stick with it. Consistency is sometimes even more important than correctness.

>lost in "research mode."
So you DO make proper use of this... then earlier was just one more in a long line of difficulties with consistency?

>when you found it...since I found it
Definitely too close together. Repeating a word isn't always a sin, but it's best to cut back whenever possible.

>going to...die?
Space it up.

>and offering their own
They knew and offering. The tense here flips. Since you clearly want to progress into the offering rather than just state they ofered (it wasn't long before...) I would say you need a glue verb in the right tense. They knew and started offering or knew and began offering. That smooths it over.

>Although...brand of logic
The although sets us up to expect a closing clause. Although I hate X, I love Y. The two things here don't match up quite right for that kind of sentence. Either strip out the although, reform the second clause, or break it into two sentences. I realize this might not even have been the structure you were going for here, but that's how it reads. Using although for something besides what I've described here is possible, but your two clauses hide the original intent.

>I'll get...something.
Spaaaaaace.

>stabbing pain...scratched herself.
Silly and nitpicky, but whenever I cut myself on a sharp edge by accident it feels... I don't know, but not really like a stab. A cutting pain or a scratching pain don't sound too good, though. Not sure what to recommend other than ignoring this because it's silly.

>to it's normal dormant
It's is a contraction of it and is, not a possessive dealy.

>more vibrant and beautiful
If space is so great, why was Celestia worried about Luna going there earlier?

>still early days into the
Awkward. Less awkward if changed to still IN the early days, but still not perfect.


Okay, so you have quite a few minor errors, the beginnings of both chapters were a bit too passive, and you definitely have a few consistency issues. The passivity is something you can fix without too much trouble, but given how many times little things crept up and slipped by you, I'd advise you to recruit a team of one or more willing editors to help you catch these things. I won't comment on the similarity of the blood scene to the original, since you're already planning to rework that anyway.

But that's really it. Mechanical errors aside, your writing is generally enjoyable. There were a few bits between Celestia and Luna that I might question, but I did and you could address those. Really, you're doing pretty well. I've pointed to the specific problems I see here now so you can fix them, but you also want future chapters to turn out good. The issues I'd describe as systemic are the overly passive openings and the consistent consistency problems. The first is easy enough to fix if you just pay special attention to your work and count the number of times you say had or was or were. For the second, I guess you either need to quadruple check your work or hire some help.

Fix what I've pointed at, then run the result by someone else. Let's make a miracle.

>>115613
>>115585
Thanks to you guys, I know have 2,599 words, which is 99 over the one-shot minimum! Thanks so much for your help!

>>115516Before The DawnFigments

Well, been a while since I did in depth critiques, used to be a mod over on the WTG on DA. Want to start giving back to the writing community again, so I'll give this fic a shot.

Hope I can be helpful.

>>115250

Sorry for the delay in getting back to you; I was kind of waiting for you to take a look at the second chapter.

Thanks for your comments :) I'll keep that 'two questions' idea in mind for the re-write :)

(Although, I'd just like to point out that those double quotes are something I was told to use when one of my other stories was edited... by an EqD Pre-reader.)

>>115630
And your picture just gave me a heart attack. I need to know where you found it.

Before I begin, I'd like to say that I've basically started over on this story thanks to the advice of one Khakispony. I came to the realization thanks to his advice that one of the crucial characters was miscast. Subsequently, I've decided to make a kinder, gentler, and saner character the voice of reason. That being said, this chapter is virtually unchanged. So let's not waste any time, shall we?

Title: The RED Cataclysm
Tags: Comedy, Crossover, Dark, Human, Tragedy
Synopsis: After angering a magician (again), the RED Engineer, Medic and Pyro are sent to an alternate universe (again) where they must survive among the confused and scared natives until the portal is able to return them home (again). All in all, just an average day on the job. Or it would've been, if it hadn't been for a certain cunning, manipulative and dashingly handsome spirit. (A crossover with Team Fortress 2.)
Link: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1KeevDXxQNb_lirZ1hswQIr4URtVogLUsgrxV7vLA-Do/edit
Word Count: 4861

Thanks in advance!

>115516

So yeah, been a while since I reviewed. Hope this helps.

> “No living soul was present”
I’m not sure the ‘living soul’ is really necessary in there, just a ‘no one’ or ‘no pony’. The ‘living soul’ makes it sound overly dramatic for so early in the fic.

Mom and Dad don’t need to be capitalised.

>”Twilight nodded, and followed him out”
Comma shouldn’t be there.

>”Big brother?”She came up to his side
Space needed between the quotation mark and ‘She’.

>”She came up to his side, and looked up at his face.”
Same as before.

By about the point the fog began to appear in the fic and you made certain to mention how alone they were and how odd Shining Armour was acting, I immediately thought of Silent Hill.

>”It wasn’t a big shop, at least from what she was expecting it to be.”
“It wasn’t a big shop, at least compared to what she had expected it to be like” – Not perfect in itself but your version is worded awkwardly.

>”A heavy stench loomed in the air, and she tried to prevent herself from vomiting.”
What does it smell like? What is it? Blood? Rot? Vomit? Faeces? ‘Heavy’ doesn’t accurate convey any form of terror or dread because it could really mean anything, from body odour to too much sugar.

>”Shining looked down at her, and smiled”
I’d advise you to check out this website, it’s pretty useful for this kinda thing: http://www.getitwriteonline.com/archive/020204whencommabfand.htm

>”He stood frozen in time, his jaw fixed slightly ajar as he stared straight head”
I’d end the sentence there, the unwavering is implied by ‘frozen in time’.

>”Big brother?” she nudged him gently,”
Should be a capital ‘she’.

>”Shining, why aren’t you answering me?”
Dialogue feels forced, Twilight does talk more formally than a lot of characters, even as a filly but it feels awkward. Something as simple as “Shining, what’s wrong? Speak to me!” or if you want to continue the same kinda set up, just go with a ‘why won’t you speak to me?’.

>”Twilight stared up at the black mass, backing up slowly towards the door”
‘Twilight stared up at the black mass as she slowly backed up towards the door’ or swap the ‘slowly’ before the ‘backing up’ to make it read better.

>”Who…?” was the only thing that escaped her trembling lips.
Before what? The sentence feels empty, like it’s missing the ending where it says what the creature did to stop the rest of her speech.

The description of Iliad’s claw across her seems too blunt, for it being seemingly the first time the villain really makes an approach and outright touches her, there is little description. You point out his smell but we don’t know what he smells like. He has a claw but we only know its colour, not its feel or anything that might imply the danger that comes with it or the beast beyond.

>”She opened the window, expecting the warm comfort of daylight to fill her home. Instead…”
The two sentences could just be connected by a semi-colon.

When Twilight is writing, I think it shouldn’t be in quotation marks, go instead with simple italics.

>”undisturbed – peaceful, even.”
Doesn’t need the comma.

Tartarus is the prison for monsters from what I remember, it seems odd to threaten to send ponies there instead of somewhere like ‘The Canterlot Dungeons’.

>”Because for the past week, you’ve always had that book with you”
That line just feels really expositional and forced, try and think of the character, if you can’t imagine Spike saying it, he wouldn’t. “Because you’ve had that book with you all week!”

Twilight denying having the book just seems odd, denying having the dream, fine, but the book is just sitting around, seems like a weird thing to deny having.

>”Twilight, tell me the truth.”
You have a habit of making characters seem quite formal which makes the dialogue feel forced.

Why did the plate smash? Did she press too hard on it or something? It’s implied but it just comes out of nowhere when you don’t mention any magical surges or anything.

Spike describing the report of the newspaper is weird, about the last area being completely empty? I don’t really get what he means. They were last seen in an empty place? Who spotted them? How? Why were they there? Why was an important, noble pony like Octavia randomly in an ‘empty’ place? Was it empty of people? Then who saw them? Empty of… everything else? What kinda place was this? It just seems a very awkward thing to say.

I realise the descriptions are meant to be vague, it’s a horror, horror plays off imagination more than real facts for a lot of people, but a sentence like “something in her eyes, something that looked like it was trying to grab me”. What’s that meant to be? It’s simply too undefined for me to feel anything about it. Spike also brushes it aside quite easily for his friend and ‘mother’ throwing herself across the room in fear at what she saw when Twi used to be so controlled.

It’s just hard to accept characters acting like this. Spike is so offhand about Twi’s hallucinations and such, even telling her to not worry and not bother Celestia even though she apparently gets hallucinations for hours and is driving herself insane, and he recognises that. It just seems kinda awkward and out of character for Spike who shows regularly that he really adores Twilight.

>”You promised her that you would help out today”
“You promised you’d help her out today.” – they’re lifelong friends, make it more casual.

>”I gotta reorganise the library like you asked me to”
She knows she asked him to do that, he doesn’t need to randomly tell her that, it feels pretty weird.

She’d hidden the truth from Spike? How? He seemed to see everything and know everything when they were talking a moment before.

>”That thing,” she said aloud. “I have to see it again.”
This is awkward. If you saw something weird in your newspaper would you say this out loud to yourself? You might say “Where are you…?” As you scan the paper or something like that, but you wouldn’t say that.

Twilight’s personality seems to bounce back and forth, from her being stunned one second that she can’t find the magic demon who lives in her newspaper and the next has her remarking it was probably a hallucination. She swaps randomly from being rationale to being outright insane. I realise madness is not a set personality but it seems goofy.

You claim Luna’s talking to the ‘northern warring nations’ but earlier you said the nations were to the west. Minor complaint.

>”You look absolutely flushed, as if you’ve seen a ghost.”
“You look like you’ve seen a ghost, darling, you’re positively flushed.” – as if you’ve seen a ghost just seems forced.

>”for reasons beyond even Twilight”
I assume you mean beyond Twilight’s grasp or something, just leaving it there makes it look weird.

I honestly would prefer Rarity to use a word like soirée instead of party, it just seems too crass for her.

>to stay awake, she all but ceased its usage
“to stay awake, she had all but ceased its usage.”

>”It was such a delightful time in Fillydelphia”
“I had such a delightful time in Fillydelphia”? Is that what you were aiming for? Also, I can’t imagine a strong independent mare like Rarity saying she almost cried when she had to leave, that’s very unladylike.

>”Ever since they had left the station…”
You have this paragraph highlighted yourself, so you know you need to work on this. The whole thing just seems awkwardly worded.

>”That’s not good at all, Twilight.”
This whole dialogue line is awkward, especially regarding needing rest.

The story on a whole wasn’t bad, the structure was fine enough and the pacing was pretty good, but the problem is with dialogue and character interactions. It feels forced a lot and the characters generally seem to act pretty strangely to each other especially when you connect it to the show. Spike seems uncaring about Twilight, Twilight’s good sense and intelligence seems gone when dealing with the problems. She’s not Applejack, she doesn’t hide her problems, she tells folks when she’s in trouble and worried like in Lesson Zero. You could argue that she’s losing her mind so not thinking straight, but she still thinks clearly enough to keep a neat, orderly journal about it.

This appears to be the opener for an epic adventure fic, but this chapter is a weak set up. The foreshadowing with the creature doesn’t give us much of an impression on him at all and we only really get to see that Twilight is tired and weak. Her friends seem pretty clueless about it which isn’t a good thing for them, she doesn’t seem interested in asking her brother about the dreams and Spike appears uncaring when he pretty much refuses to let her contact Celestia.

The hallucinations have no punch because we can’t see them and they aren’t explained to us so she could be having a hallucination of bunnies and kittens for all we know. The dream is pretty vague and Silent Hill like, could be anything so far. I realise you plan to expand upon it as she remembers more and whatever the creature is affects her more, but the first chapter needs to be really enticing for your readers so they’ll want to stick around for the following chapters. This is too empty to really make me want to find out more.

I don’t have a problem with you including Octavia like the other person did. She doesn’t NEED to feature at all because you mentioned her by name. You mentioned her as a kidnap victim, pointing out that it’s because she was well known that they drew attention to her. That’s fine. You don’t need to have her play anymore role except showing her as being kidnapped, that’s all. She doesn’t really have to do much else apart from being a named victim.

But yeah, I think a simple rework is all this needs. Just add more information of her hallucinations, the villain and the dream to give it more punch, and watch how formal you make your characters. Try to imagine the characters saying the lines, if you can’t, they probably wouldn’t.

>chided with a small
>Your prereader claimed this was an example of an inappropriate direct object.

"Chide" is a transitive verb. it requires a direct object. The speech doesn't count, since the object should be the person that gets chided, not the words that do so. "Chide" cannot take an indirect object, so there's nowhere left to attach the speech syntactically. That's why it's not a proper speaking verb.

>>115647
Greetings, good sir, I will kindly suggest you look up chide in a dictionary, it might make you see why this is not... quite correct.

>>115650

I'm gonna have to work 'chide' into one of my fics now, I'm digging this word.

Title: Trixcord
Tags: Adventure
Description: In a desperate and costly bid to escape from his stone prison, Discord is left weak and helpless. Luckily for him, there is a nearby unicorn that he can hide in while he regains his power.
Links: Chapter 1: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Aqly26Lcyf0BSTmB-Ipko5kIzDkL4Yhk3RFt4BQr6cc/edit
Pre-Reader Response: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1MFB05RPEsge5UaxiaJ9dpX6ja-4IkEYUa1UiY5dXX6k/edit
Past Training Grounds Review: http://www.ponychan.net/chan/fic/res/94251.html#94304

Comments: I'm still just looking for a review of the first chapter to make sure that all the things pointed out to me were fixed. If anyone is feeling adventurous, I would love if someone volunteered to review the rest.

Thank you!

>>115647
I noted that it was dependent on the transitivity of the verb, but then admitted to not being enough of a grammar nut to cite for certain what the answer was. I only called bull on your reference to an entirely absent direct object and used that as a basis for saying you were wrong. I closed by stating that I felt the sentence was okay as is, but the note before about transitivity should have left it clear that I could be wrong.

Anything else I said about anything you said that strikes you as off? I don't want to be running around spouting nonsense.

>>115650
If he's not quite correct, is the sentence fine as is? I'm asking because I really don't know for sure. It LOOKS right to me, but again, I'm not too deeply involved in the proper grammarings.

>>115653
Wait until this is resolved so you can be sure you use it correctly!

>>115646

Ho boy, I got a lot to say about this one. Let's hope 3 weeks of planning, writing and Battlefield: Bad Company 2 have let me keep some of that ol' writing stuffs.

>Mom and Dad don't need to be capitalized.

Um, if they're addressing someone, then they have to be capitalized. At least, that's what I was taught. If it's wrong, DAMN YOU, ENGLISH TEACHERS, but I'll wait and see what others have to say before I go about changing it.

>Faeces?

Two things:

1) That is the most awesome way to spell 'feces.'

2) A villain smelling like crap is just ... weird.

I'll figure out what Iliad, uh ... smells like.

>Check out this website

Done and done. Do note: I write what comes naturally to me, so if something seems like it needs a pause (to me), then I add one.

I'll fix whatever I feel needs it.

>Dialogue feels forced.

You said several times that I should envision the characters saying this stuff. And you're right. But that's the thing: I already do. It seems natural to me, and therefore I write it. Then again, I can see characters saying most everything, so watching the show a few more times wouldn't hurt.

>Iliad's description

Hm. All right, I'll give it to you: Iliad is what I would love to think as my magnum opus of villains. Yet my problem seems to be that I really don't know much about him. And I created him!

I'll take any criticisms on him. I want him to be a great villain, and that's going to take a lot of work on my part.

>Dialogue is formal

Damn myself. I tend to lean towards formal English when writing expository/narrative sections. Sometimes it translates to the dialogue. I'll get through it like I usually do: separate dialogue from narration/exposition and streamline it like a script.

>It's a horror

... it is? Really? I wasn't even aiming for horror, just ambiguity, especially considering that everything about Iliad could never possibly be revealed in this story. It's just the first episode, man. I need to stretch it out a bit.

>Spike being uncaring

I actually had an idea in the back of my mind where Spike and Twilight head to Zecora to try and find out what's wrong, as Spike doesn't think Twilight should bother Princess Celestia because she's preoccupied with overseas politics.

>Rarity scene

I've already been told to fix it, and I will.

>Self-highlighted paragraph

... I did? *checks the doc* Nope, that was Endless. I left it there anyway because I know it needs fixing, so I'll get to it.

>Epic adventure fic

"...spanned over multiple episodes." Yep, that's the fic. Iliad isn't going to be entirely revealed in this, the first episode (the chapter you read is the first part of episode I. Episodes are structured like very short and to the point books, but since they're not books, I call them episodes).

>Twilight tells her friends when she's worried

That may be true, unless something is preventing her from doing so. For instance, what if she thought they would think her crazy BECAUSE of Lesson Zero? As intelligent as Twilight is, being called crazy is the worst possible thing.

But, I might be wrong. Dunno. I'll take a look at it again.

>Hallucinations

Two things:

1) The only hallucination I didn't show was the one in the newspaper because the scene wasn't from her perspective

2) I never said that he didn't try to help her during the long hallucinations. The reason for them being there was to hint at what Iliad can do.



Welp, I'm off. Thanks for taking a look, and I'll be going through the revisions as I work on chapter 2.

Cheers!

-Figments

>>114124

I’m unsure how to begin this review. I’ve kept you waiting for a little more than a week, yet I have only read and will only review the first three chapters of your fic. “Why?” you’re probably asking. I couldn’t bring myself to read any further. I will, to the best of my ability, tell you my thoughts on your story. Most will be negative, some you might find harsh, but everything I say is for your betterment as a writer. I see something of myself in you; I too was once a novice. I still am, but that doesn’t keep away the delusions of grandeur Microsoft Word’s spelling and grammar checker has instilled in me. Brevity is the soul of wit. If this is the case, my review will not be very witty. I wasn’t one for humor anyway.

A Note on Author’s Notes
Let me disillusion you to the notion that prefacing fan-fiction is in any way a good idea. There is never a circumstance wherein it is appropriate to do so. It appears you have avoided the “disclaimer,” yet in its place you have stated, outright and in no uncertain terms, this is your first fan-fiction. You claim that it is “not really [your] first time writing fiction,” but this is a sordid comment I could cast into the trash as soon as I read it. I don’t care how new or how old you are to the art of fiction, but the quality of the piece speaks volumes more than you have. Which brings me to my point: Your work should show within the piece itself, not without it.

If, for some reason, you believe that it is absolutely necessary, put them in the comments section. This piece of functionality has, in my opinion, made authors’ notes within the work obsolete. Not only that, but it allows for interactions with readers. If you find yourself with many favorites of a story, blog posts are also very a convenient method to get meta-information about the story to the readers. When I want to read a story, I want to read the story, not an apology or explanation from the writer. Now that that tirade is out of my system, I’ll continue on to the review proper.

Plot
I would like to point out two absurdities within the first three chapters that stuck out to me vividly. They are not the sole offenders, but they caused me the greatest backlash and kicked me out of the story (more so than even the myriad mechanical mistakes). The first is Princess Luna’s reaction to being back in Equestria and her sister’s presence. Her amicability is outright disturbing considering you tell in the narrative that Celestia attempted magical torture via disrupting the natural movement of the heavenly bodies and, essentially, mind-raped (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MindRape) Luna in order to turn her into Nightmare Moon to give herself reason to banish her. Considering Luna was supposedly already mentally unstable before the psychological torture… What the hay, Hero? I can understand the appeal of Tyrantlestia, but that might be taking it a bit too far.

The second was Twilight’s conclusion regarding the guard inquiring about Snips and Snails’s disappearance. She immediately concludes that their disappearance is a conspiracy because “his response to her not knowing their location seemed almost... mechanical, as if he had the response ready,” when it’s far more likely he’s been doing this for most of the early morning and even last evening. Why wouldn’t he have such a response ready and habitualized if he’s been door-to-door getting the same answers? Answer: He would. This incident seems to be a driving force for her to call her friends to a meeting and from there, I’ll assume, the rest of the story takes off. Such fallacious logic driving a story is a very, very bad sign.

You have a workable premise, but that premise is overshadowed by incompetence in almost every area, mechanical, stylistic, systematic, or otherwise. The pacing was too fast. Your constant telling (i.e. stating outright something which should be inferred from action and dialogue) caused it to read far too fast. There was neither time to get immersed in the story nor any dynamic action to pique interest. As you have admitted in your A/N, this story doesn’t start where it should. A first chapter, a first paragraph or sentence, even, should make me want to continue reading. Your story needs to start on an engaging note, which brings us to our next topic.

Hook
A good hook is readers gained. I have no desire to keep reading a story that doesn’t give a reason to from the outset. Good books have good hooks. Bad hooks spell bad books. Are you getting it yet? Your story has a bad hook. It isn’t dynamic. It isn’t well paced. It presents no basis for the story to be a worthwhile read. The first words are just as important as the last. Make them just as memorable.

Characterization
I don’t think any of the characters really felt “right.” As this is an alternate universe fic, I’ll accept them being out of character, but what I won’t accept is them not being believable characters. Celestia has implemented some kind of theocratic dictatorship. She’s done awful things to her sister and lied to her people, yet she seems to have nary a remorseful bone in her body or a qualm in her head. Her only concern is how Luna will react to the changes in the governing of their subjects. Luna, as stated above, is quite chipper for one who’s been mentally unstable, subjected to who-knows-what by Celestia in order to transform her into a villainous effigy of herself, and trapped, wrongfully, in the moon for one-thousand years.

The mane six are flat and uninteresting. I would go into details, but there’s not much for me to point out in regards to exactly what made them flat, aside from Pinkie and her constant giggling, which stuck out to me.

From what I saw, you named one OC. You named him Dom. You named him Dom. “Dom” does not fit into normal pony naming conventions. Unless you’re making a convoluted reference to Benedictine and Carthusian monasticism and/or Anglo-Saxon law in which case, stop being smarter than me, I’d advise changing his name to fit within the (([Verb]|[Noun])|([Noun]|[Verb])) constraint.

The physical descriptions of your characters are plain and unmemorable to the point I completely glossed over them. Original characters who are not main characters can have one defining characteristic and the description be sufficient enough to invoke an image of that character if that character’s personality is well-developed. There is more leeway and ambiguity regarding characters from the show. Generally, one need only mention a named character’s physical appearance when it’s relevant to the plot and necessary to set the mood or tone. The error to avoid is commonly referred to as “Lavender Unicorn Syndrome.” LUS is a term coined to indicate when narration uses a description of the character instead of their name or a pronoun. So “Twilight walked down the street,” becomes “The lavender unicorn walked down the street.” Your story has major issues with LUS where a pronoun or the character’s name would suit the situation just fine. In dialogue tags, if it is clear who is speaking, the tag can oft be omitted entirely.

Point of View
Third person will be the best choice for most stories. So, you made a good choice there. However, it appears your narrator is fully omniscient. He can see everything that’s going on and hear everything that’s going on—even the characters’ thoughts, all characters’ thoughts, all the time. This is actually more difficult to pull off than first person narration. The inevitable or, I should say, inherent head hopping involved is jarring. It will break immersion more often than not. The PoV best suited for the story you’re trying to write is limited third person, where the narrator tells the story from the perspective of a point of view character whose opinions and thoughts color the narration, or a complicated PoV I’ve heard referred to as “limited omniscient,” where the narrator doesn’t know anyone’s thoughts or opinions and can only relate what’s happening.

Style
The piece contains so many mechanical errors that the reflexive, stilted, humorless chuckle that rises up from somewhere within me when I see such mistakes has caught in my throat. There are so many, in fact, that I couldn’t imagine marking them all. I suggest you sit down, open up that smooth melon you call a brain, and read these:
http://derpy.me/EznGuide
http://derpy.me/EditorsOmnibus
http://www.equestriadaily.com/2011/02/pony-writing-guide.html

While the above guides can give a far better lesson than I ever could, I’ll try to express the flaw I saw stand out starkest. You exposit (tell) in such a manner it feels like grating one’s fingers between bricks. Shapely prose does not expose to its readers every bell and whistle driving the machine of a story. You must choose, with the discretion of a jeweler examining rough diamonds, which details to place in your story. Next, you must place them in a manner as not to obscure the action of the story itself. The now is the most important element. Backstory has its place, but what the reader should have at the forefront of his mind at all times is the action happening “now.”

Dialogue
Here I am conflicted. There are parts that stick in my ear like globs of hot wax, and there are others that have a resonation about them covered by a haze of grammar and typographical errors. Your dialogue will definitely need reworking, though, as the characterizations still need work. You will also need to fix your dialogue tags, stylistically and mechanically.

Aesthetic
It needs lots and lots of work to be of any quality. There is some hope for the idea, but it is lost in translation, so to speak. If you work hard and rewrite, rewrite, rewrite, there might be some possibility of saving this from the scrap heap. Do try to do better.

And that’s all I have to say about that.

>>115650
I did so days ago. No need to speak anonymously. It's a legitimate discussion. I'm actually trying to help.

>>115628
It's not a preferred speaking verb because it can't take the speech as a direct object. You don't chide the words; you chide a person. That said, many writers stretch what constitutes a proper speaking verb, even to the point that the practice is becoming acceptable usage for some of these verbs, including "chide" and even some intransitive verbs. (For other instances of common usage becoming acceptable, see also "ain't" and the use of "they" in the singular). It's a minor point. Rest assured—if that's the only problem with the story, it will not be an issue.

>>115659
The sentence is as fine as it is, and there needs not be a direct object shenanigans involved in that specific problem. That said, there is a very basic dialogue punctuation error which screams for attention. Dialogue do not work like that, as it was pointed out.

>>115670
Actually, good sir, I happen to be Anonymous. Posting pictures is not currently within my power, and I apologize if that causes you confusion as to whom I am. But, back to business.

This might enlighten my point:
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=chide

Historical use of the word support more the intransitive use of the word (rather than the current push for a transitive only).

As such, the usage of it follows the same pattern as scold, ran, sleep, and many other words which become transitive or intransitive depending upon usage and the whims of the person reading. Thus, there is nothing wrong with saying "You are the worse student I have ever had, and I wish I had never bothered with you," he chided as the roots of the word, and the flexibility given to it by the way the English language works, means there is nothing grammatical, syntactical, or semantical which would prevent it.

English has a tendency to do those silly things like that, and it is good to keep them in mind studying how to construct languages in less than traditional ways, but in this case there is nothing unorthodox about it.

>>115671
Validation! I have a general sense of how many words are meant to work because I have seen them used enough times to absorb such knowledge! This is good!

I missed a dialogue punctuation error. This is bad! My eyes are not those of an eagle, and now me am cry. Fortunately, it was already pointed out by a preread and so it shouldn't go unaddressed.

>>115661

Not sure if you realise faeces is a proper, common way of spelling it, at least in the UK.

The sarcasm about what he smells like is certainly appreciated though.

You brought up his smell twice, pretty much the same as his overall description, so obviously it is important. That's why it's not good to make it vague then, especially when it's strong enough to make Twilight nearly vomit.

And in reference to it being the first chapter, it is, but try to remember, it's likely the first chapter anyone will ever read of your writing and definitely the first chapter where they ever see Iliad. This is possibly your first and only chance to sell yourself, to convince someone to watch you or to read on.

You dream sequence is kinda empty, Iliad isn't defined at all or has really DONE anything to be considered scary(villians generally are meant to be scary to be intimidating) and the only character interaction we really get is the Spike and Twi bit that seems heartless for Spike.

You might say you had an idea for Spike and Twi going to Zecora's, but that wasn't mentioned in the fic and because of that, it doesn't exist in the first chapter.

Things need to be stretched out throughout the story, yes, that's obvious, but the first chapter is the most important because it's what's going to make folks read on. A good first chapter can make people forget a poor second and third, but a poor first means you won't GET a second or third.

And I mentioned hallucinations, because you did. There was only one shown in the chapter (one we see nothing about), but there are more referenced, some of which last hours, but that's it. We know she hallucinates (a massive thing for a character to do, something people should be more worried about than they are), but we don't know about what she sees or hears, etc .

Like I said, for all we know she could be having hallucinations right out of 'Meet the Pyro'.

[Dark]

When Kite, a young pegasus from Cloudsdale, finally earns his cutie mark, he finds that it isn't quite what he had in mind. Claiming he's been given the wrong one, a pair of ponies show up and offer to take him to a place where he can have the mark changed.

Chapter 1: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1xLSRxITLwRnOBz3KyoKu0ERxNXDXH8aP2B_o-cN4lN4/edit

Chapter 2: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1GqtfVxhnGa6CUkuSwV5n0W6ZHeGqNCScB58vCSwjmEI/edit

Take note that I've also submitted this for review in Umbra's thread but, judging by the length of his queue, I figure I can easily slot in another review and edit. Chances are, you won't be reviewing the same versions.

Additionally, during Umbra's previous pass at this, he mentioned the desire for additional character development and fleshing out of scenes, less rushing.

>>115668

The author has acknowledged this review off-site.

>>115674

>Smell was strong enough

I never really said that it was Iliad she was smelling. On the contrary, I wanted to make it seem like the room smelled awful.

>Iliad being scary


Iliad is designed to be, how did Ryonne put it, loving and hurtful at the same time. He genuinely wants to reach out to Twilight, but at the same time he wants to get her away from him.

>Zecora not mentioned

I never said I would include it, just that at one time I did have an idea of doing that.

>First chapters

... don't patronize me. I've been writing for a long time. I know what I have to do to get people interested. Sorry if I come off as blunt or out of place, but it seems like you're calling me an idiot, and that's something I don't take too kindly to.

Now, this brings me to my last question, as it was stated when I posted. Would this be better if I started it from the beginning of the dreams?

You revisited the hallucinations, but only further complained about them. All right, I get it. They need to be better set up. Would setting it back a few days accomplish that?

Would highlighting the past allow the reader to make sense of the future?

Cheers!

-Figments

>>115671
I'm not saying the usage is incorrect. I'm saying it's not preferred by me or a number of reviewers that I respect. Does that mean you have to listen to us? Absolutely not. It falls into a grey area where things are not technically wrong, but may still hurt readability.

If "chide" is intransitive and you diagram the sentence, where does the speech go? Likewise, if you begin a sentence with a conjunction, where does the other end of the dotted line go? If you dangle a preposition, what goes on the little horizontal line? None of these examples are technically incorrect, however. Is it okay to begin every sentence of a story with "the?" It's not wrong, but highly inadvisable. You can break any guidelines or rules you like, but do so in moderation, and make sure your writing is good enough that the reader will assume it's a conscious choice. I break many guidelines and rules myself, including this one.

This won't be the thing that determines whether or not this story gets posted to EqD. It's just a suggestion. I am trying to help. You don't see too many PR's coming in here to give advice.

>>114441

We wants it. Gives it to us!

Might get this done later today. If not, it could arrive as late as some time next week (Wednesday-ish).

Title: Zecora’s Guest

Author: Sayhono

Tags: {Normal, Random, Adventure?}

Synopsis: Zecora has an unexpected visitor. Aided by her own experience as a former outsider and outcast, can she teach him/it the value of friendship?

Links: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1bkjGA_oB4IDgkQ56fm41ifVQ-K6Bes5HlbhnenKn6Gk/edit

Comments: I wrote this with two goals in mind: Make something that people would want to read more of, try to have as few mechanical errors as possible, and try to have some semblance of coherency.

It's short, yes, but in my experience as a reader, if something draws me in after the first few scenes, I will usually read it to the finish.

>>115464
updating with chapter two, but I don't know how to add that into my original review request. Not sure if I need to start another one, or if chapter two can just be tagged onto my original one.

Chapter Two: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1e3DAaHSgbV0TJKTac5OCY_sGu1DvxWVLaRV6ENbdPZY/edit

Also, if I can get myself back on quota tonight, I may grab another review-in-waiting in a thinly veiled attempt to clear the queue out to keep helping the thread. Am I allowed to do that?

Title: Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Hooves

Author: alexmagnet

Tags: Comedy, Sci-Fi? (does time-travel constitute Sci-Fi), Random? (possibly random, I'm not sure)

Synopsis:

Illegal cage matches, ass-kicking, and time-travel abound when Trixie returns to Ponyville to challenge Twilight to a bare-knuckle boxing match. Why has Trixie come back? What does she want? Whose ass will be kicked? And what's up with the time-travel bit? The answers to these, and less interesting questions, can be found in, Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Hooves.

Links: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ZX7Pa2tqgfLAHKLGkrmaJpW-gAQZyDfmj1dhPcmS2yo/edit


So here we go, attempt two. This fic was going to, and still might, be my entry for the August Fic Contest: Power Overwhelming. Though entering the contest has become a tertiary concern. Right now, I just want to write something doesn't suck and doesn't leave my reviewer bored as hell. I decided to write only the first chapter for now and then get it reviewed to see if I'm going in the right direction or not before I write anymore. I plan on this being pretty short. Probably 3 chapters about 2.5-3k words each.

I'd like to request that Anonymous (you know who you are) review this since he/she reviewd my last story and he/she would be able to best tell how much I've improved, if any. However, if Anonymous is busy, or simply doesn't want to review it, then I'll take a review from anyone willing to give me their time. Basically, I want to know if this is actually funny and whether or not it still sucks compared to my previous writing. If it does suck, then how can I improve it? If it doesn't, then great. How can I improve it? Thanks in advance to whoever reviews this.

(P.S. I've proofread this multiple times so the amount of errors should be extremely low. However, if that is not the case, then I apologize for not only having poor grammar, but also lying.)

>>115734
I'll add it to your original request so you don't lose your place in line.

>>115739
>>115734
Mind giving an updated word count?

I have a few other reviews to get through so I won't be able to get to your story for a few days. If it's still there when I finish up my other reviews, I'll claim it. Just don't want to keep you waiting too long since it might be a contest entry. :D

>>115734
Sure thing. But by review-in-waiting, do you mean an unclaimed item, or something already claimed but not yet reviewed? The first is more preferred, but either way, it's okay; coming here usually implies that the authors appreciate feedback, and the more the merrier.

>>115741
Sweet, thanks. I appreciate that.

>>115740
chapter two came out to 7,431 words

>>115742
and yeah, I mean unclaimed fics

>>115724
Eh, what the hay. Why not? I'll take another crack at this reviewing thing. Plus this is super short, so bonus points.



(pic is related because Noel is awesome)

This is *not* a claim. Not yet.

I am asking Conch, if it be his pleasure, if I might review his fine piece, 'The RED Cataclysm', in what I a cringe to refer to as a while.

I am loathe to claim outright, as this coming week reeks of foreboding, and I fear If I were to try write a review, it may not get to Conch for at least a fortnight, perhaps even more.

So, dearest Conch, if such a wait seems far too melancholy, I shall drop this immediately in the hopes that some other fine reviewer will pick up my regrettable slack. If, however, you are content to twiddle your thumbs in waiting for 14 days or more, then by all means make it known, and I shall begin as soon as possible.

Submitting my long-term project again. Requesting review of the Prologue, Chapter 1, and Chapter 2.


Title: Into the Night
Author: TheDamnedScribe
Tags: [Adventure] [Dark] [War]

Synopsis:
Many stories of Equestria focus on the happy aspects of life in the nation. They cover the everyday lives of the ponies under the care of the Royal Sisters, the trials and tribulations ponies occasionally go through, and the happy times that make up much of life. Far fewer focus on the unhappier side of life within Equestria, but these are also commonplace. The rarest of stories are those that cover the darkest of areas. Stories of war, and death.

But these are two things that the Royal Guard must face, for it is their everyday life to train and ready themselves to combat the threats Equestria faces. For these things do exist, despite the efforts of the Princesses, and sometimes, just sometimes, the Royal Guard must march to war.

So this is their story, for they were soldiers once…

…but heroes now.


Links:

Prologue - https://docs.google.com/document/d/1cucVgbUiTw9SKQJjT2bn-MBliOU7M4ZQMl1NNzLQO68/edit
Chapter 1 - https://docs.google.com/document/d/1t5c1oaCXQ_oDE_te-LBkfx_4rDpb8A5T3PyTGG5IYkY/edit
Chapter 2 - https://docs.google.com/document/d/1GcGf4FemIs59kElnwpPGf7EcDwmt6oY8JWInxJJQnR4/edit

Thanks in advance,
Scribe.