>Not Rainbow Dash

WELL THAT JUST SLAPS ME ON THE KNEE

>photographic proof dash is best pony

>Rarity

That's now how you spell Twilight Sparkle.

Anyway, serious question: given the recent episode leak, I have to ask, in both this situation and any possible future leaks, are you willing to take fics either based on or using explicit canon from an episode that was leaked before it's official airtime?

>>83243

We'd treat them the same as any other fic, though they probably wouldn't be posted until after the episode officially airs.

>>83243
We probably would, but we may not post it until the episode airs or something. I'm not really sure we have a contingency plan for such a thing.

Are there any pre-readers who also do reviews here or somewhere else? I can definitely see what conflicts of interest could arise, but if the person were considered trustworthy, it could work.

Why are you all misspelling Trixie?

>>83243

>That's now how you spell Twilight Sparkle.

Wow, you guys are horrible at spelling. It's spelled Luna.

Anyways, since I'm not saying anything productive otherwise, I tip my hat to the pre-readers. It's always been fun 'dueling with you' (Aka getting you to read my 'epic' stories). Back to writing! I SHALL BLOW YOU ALL BACK! MUHAHAHA Chaotic neutral ftw!

>>83254

I don't think so. Snarkle hangs out in the Training Grounds, but I'm not sure if he does reviews.

>>83256

And we will be looking forward to your next submission.

>>83254
Twilight Snarkle is prominent here. We have a few people in the WTG from Deviant Art. That's about all the overlap though.

>>83255
>>83256
Philistines all of you.

>>83259

Bah! Each pony to their own!

> And we will be looking forward to your next submission.

Goooooood, gooood. Though it may be awhile as this new 3 strike rule has reared it's head. Tricky grounds I now wander... *wanders off to ttg*

>>83259
Technically I'm still in the WTG from dA. But I'm official admin/support for the new people doing it. All of the pre-readers who were helping got too busy with life/eqd and the group was dying. So the #mlp-wtg is all non-eqd staff for the moment.

>>83240
more proof

>>83264

Heathens! You will all burn in the righteous flames of fabulosity!

>>83265

So the duel begins... I will stick to my lightsaber to the bitter end.

P.S. This thread is already 1000% cooler

Regarding the "three strikes" policy: is this currently in place? I don't see anything about it posted on EqD itself on either the general "Submit" page or the Fanfic guidelines.

>>83271

Seth's going to make an official announcement soon. It isn't in effect until that announcement is made, though, so don't worry about anything that was sent in recently. We won't hold it against you.

>>83271
It is in place.

Seth is busy with other things, so he hasn't made an official announcement yet.

Maybe we won't really use it very much yet? Who knows. As I've said - for initial submits, it shouldn't really matter unless the subject matter is an issue.

>>83243
We may end up with an EqD policy on that - it would seem to behoove us (haha, equine pun) to keep spoilers off the blog until after the episode airs.

If you can't watch it on the Hub when it first comes out, then you're kind of out of luck everywhere else, so that sounds sensible.

>>83275
OH WELL NEVER MIND THEN

Guess I've been spending too much time not paying attention.

>>83283

I was just told that another story on the website has the name I submitted. Should I just change the title of my fic and resubmit?

>>83294

Yes.

Alright, how common/uncommon is this type of plot

Six human minecrafters create portals to Equestria after notch sends them a secret pre-release.

Behind the scene, though, Herobrine is plotting against them, intent to kill the only beings that can destroy them, since I plan on correlating each of the six to an element (Two are one element).

The six humans have to face blunt racism, pain, each other, and the manipulation of Herobrine.

Somewhat like a slice of life story, where you see the daily struggles the six minecrafters face, later facing the wrath of Herobrine with their corresponding ponies.


Everything from minecraft is in here, bugs included. Also, the world of minecraft leaking into Equestria, the six minecrafters have to teach the ponies to deal with minecraftian daily struggles.

>>83298

I can safely say I haven't heard that plot before, save the three or four other times you've asked this.

My first issue is that I can't tell if it's supposed to be a comedy or not. You claim that they're going to deal with all these hardships, but put in the context of "block guys in Equestria", it's nearly impossible to take any of that seriously.

My second issue is that it relies very heavily on the reader caring enough about these (I'm assuming) important individuals within the Minecraft community to not only want to read a fic about them, but be entertained by it. I'd imagine that's a very small audience, but hey, I could be wrong.

In short: Write for you, not for us. If this is a fic you feel passionate about writing, then screw what anyone else has to say and just do it.

>>83301
I forgot to mention that they are not blocky. Everything else minecraftian is blocky, but the humans are not.

Also, its rasism against humans.

*Facepalm*

God, why must I always respond after reading half the post.
>>83301
They are not all that important, but I plan on introducing them in such a maner that you feel

Few things bugging me about the Editor's/Pre-Reader's Omnibus.

>“bad”.
American punctuation puts commas and periods inside quotes, and you've elsewhere adhered to those standards.


>✔ "Hi there," the pink pony giggled.
This is not an example of correct punctuation. While her speech might be interspersed with giggling (," she said between giggles), the act of giggling is incompatible with the act of speaking intelligibly.

I think it'd also be a good idea to include punctuation for attributions in the middle of dialogue.
>"Hi there," she said. "What's your name?"
>"I," she said, "am Pinkie Pie!"


>‘too often’
Should use double quotes

Idle thought: I'd like a mention that the constructions "he verbed, verbing" and "verbing, she verbed" require those actions to be simultaneous. Thus, sentences like
>Getting out of her bed, Twilight Sparkle opened the door.
are wrong. This is an error I've seen a fair bit, and it'd be nice to have wider recognition on it.

>the only thing to do is to break open the thesaurus
It is my firm conviction that the thesaurus is a tool of Satan. Especially for beginning authors, the thesaurus is a treasure trove of words begging to be horrifically abused. (Case in point: End of Ponies's use of the word "nubile.")

>You do not always have to use a character's name when a short description or a pronoun will do.
Pronouns are good; short descriptions are not. /fic/ has "affectionately" dubbed this Lavender Unicorn Syndrome. Vanner's got a copypasta on the subject somewhere.

>The blue pegasus rocketed into the sky, her wings working hard to gain the speed she would need. Ponyville's premier party pony applauded and cheered as the rainbow-maned flier trimmed her wings and tilted her head back, throwing herself into a spin. The pink pony whooped even louder as the multi-chromatic blaze began to spin, sending a spray of water droplets in all directions.
This paragraph should be buried in an unmarked grave. Possibly it should be dismembered and buried in several unmarked graves.

>>83313
>Idle thought: I'd like a mention that the constructions "he verbed, verbing" and "verbing, she verbed" require those actions to be simultaneous. Thus, sentences like
>Getting out of her bed, Twilight Sparkle opened the door.
>are wrong. This is an error I've seen a fair bit, and it'd be nice to have wider recognition on it.

I've never actually heard this rule before. It makes some logical sense, but seems to be a bit of grammatical pedantry that counteracts common parlance. I ask how you would make that sentence correct.

>>83315
Well you can't just move it around.

You'd have to add a phrase of her somehow getting from the bed to her door.

>>83313
Actually...

You should just exclude things that would actually prevent the vocal cords from working, as those would actually stop speech. Tickle your girlfriend (if you don't have one, tickle your brother/sister if he won't physically hurt you, or if all fails get your pet and notice it's reaction if it's ticklish) and you will notice she can still speak while she is giggling. Thus, giggle works.


However, yawn. If you can speak normally while yawning, go to a doctor immediately, you should only be able to use your lips to regulate sound, and even that is difficult.


As for the rest, my only thing is with the thesaurus. Early reader must have a good thesaurus at hand so that they expand their vocabulary, but with the knowledge there are rarely words that mean the same in English, normally just expressing similar thoughts rather than equal thoughts. Making mistakes along the way will happen regardless of what they use or don't use, so they might start using a thesaurus and either have someone tell them how to actually use it, or learn by having people call them out on their horrible word choices.

>>83313
>This is not an example of correct punctuation. While her speech might be interspersed with giggling (," she said between giggles), the act of giggling is incompatible with the act of speaking intelligibly.

False. Giggling and laughter etc. are vocalizations and it makes perfect sense to speak during them. I've done it myself numerous times.

And the alternative most certainly doesn't improve the narrative at all. It's quite a bit more awkward and distracting.

>>83315
Twilight Sparkle got out of her bed, and opened the door.

Also, I decided for a bit of expansion, because I just noticed that example is probably not the best one considering that Twilight has magic to her benefit. If that sentence was taken from an actual story, it's not a huge bound of logic then to assume she didn't have to actually first get out of her bed.

Of course, that's just being pedantic.

>>83315
>>83322 is pretty much the answer. This rule sounds pedantic, maybe, but you won't see these errors in published fiction—it's just that they're subtle enough amateurs don't immediately realize they are, in fact, errors.

>>83319
>>83320
I'd compare giggling to yawning: you can say something, yawn, continue saying it, but while you're speaking you're not doing the other thing, for at least a moment. One pauses for the other, and so I prefer it when the two are separated. >>83320, I don't see a problem with [," she said between giggles] or [," she said, giggling], which also maintains the intended simultaneity. Eh, it's debatable either way. Carry on.

>>83313
>It is my firm conviction that the thesaurus is a tool of Satan. Especially for beginning authors, the thesaurus is a treasure trove of words begging to be horrifically abused. (Case in point: End of Ponies's use of the word "nubile.")
This. So much this.

The beauty of the English language is that no two words mean exactly the same thing. Swapping a word for a similar one that's unfamiliar to you is a terrible idea.

http://www.rdrop.com/~hutch/argon

>>You do not always have to use a character's name when a short description or a pronoun will do.
>Pronouns are good; short descriptions are not. /fic/ has "affectionately" dubbed this Lavender Unicorn Syndrome. Vanner's got a copypasta on the subject somewhere.

>>The blue pegasus rocketed into the sky, her wings working hard to gain the speed she would need. Ponyville's premier party pony applauded and cheered as the rainbow-maned flier trimmed her wings and tilted her head back, throwing herself into a spin. The pink pony whooped even louder as the multi-chromatic blaze began to spin, sending a spray of water droplets in all directions.
>This paragraph should be buried in an unmarked grave. Possibly it should be dismembered and buried in several unmarked graves.
Also this. The Omnibus is mostly pretty good stuff, but it's always annoyed me that you guys are encouraging one of the worst writing practices I've seen in fanfiction. Swapping names out for descriptors all the time has ruined fight scenes for me and broken my immersion far too many times.

To be fair, descriptors can work on some rare occasions, but they're too often used as a crutch so that the author can avoid learning proper pronoun usage and effective sentence structure.

>>83330
I always abuse LUS and the thesuarus >_>. I can't stand repitition unless it's used to drive a point home. I'm OCD like that.

>>83334
>The best stories don't use the same word twice. =P

(file is a quote from Orson Scott Card on why LUS (or musical names, as he calls it) is bad)

108 is correct.

Laughs, yawns, and hiccups [and others] are in the same category: things that are not speech under any circumstances. However, these can be mixed with speech.
For example...

"I haha hate pfft herons!" [What you would hear, not write]
"We gotta get more–hic–cider before they–hic–close."
Yawns do not need an example.

Being able to giggle a word is just as ridiculous as breathing in and out simultaneously [...through the lungs; circular breathing is excluded.]

As previously stated by 108, [subject] [speaking verb[phrase]], [action verb[phrase]] is one of several correct ways [if correct tenses are used] to describe speech when it is interrupted/modified by non-speech, such as laughter.

>>83313 verbing, verb.

Interesting. I'm now looking through the nearest-to-hand published fiction (Dirk Gently's), and it strikes me that Douglas Adams uses ING a lot less than I see in fanfic. Perhaps we're doing it wrong in general...

Anyway, this is messing with my mind. I won't be able to read anything for weeks without thinking about the INGs. You may have ruined The Hunger Games for me.

(I really don't mind, though.)

So, in all this discussion, how many of you have succumbed to yawns?

>>83346
I blame the Samurai...

>>83346

I stopped reading to watch an episode of MST3K about an hour ago.

No regrets.

>>83341
Hahaha! Whahahat? Are you kidding meehehehee?

But seriously
-bullshit

Also, I am unjustifiably upset at this line of reasoning.
It seems almost unhealthy.

Ah, one last clarification on the gerund issue: sentences like
>She verbed, causing X
and
>Having verbed, he otherverbed
are acceptable. In the first, the verb is both an action and a cause of [some later effect] at the same time, though the [some later effect] might not happen at the same time. The second is just one of English's past tenses.

'Fore I go to bed, a few more things I noticed upon another look:

Several instances of periods outside quotation marks.
>the use of “I”.
>unreliable narrator”. (which could well do without the quotes)
>its use of “you”.
>“he/she/they/it”.

>called first, second, and third-person.
called first-, second- and third-person. Or remove the hyphens entirely, whichever. Also a double-space between "called" and "first."

>that the all readers agree
that all readers will agree

>read it again (but use
The parenthetical ends with an exclamation point, but the sentence proper has no closing punctuation.

>The more polish
The T isn't bolded.

Some of your em dashes have spaces on both sides, others are non-spaced. Be consistent.


I've gone up through "Spit & Polish," but now I'm off to bed. I'll do the rest over the rest of the weekend.

Hopping back to the previous thread for a minute, I was a bit surprised by the Hitlerjack story. It sounded like a pretty good reason to give chapter updates a quick skim-through. Yet it sounds like chapter updates are still getting auto-approval?

>Not implying I wish to quintuple the prereaders' suffering

------

Random question: how frequently do you get into arguments with submitters regarding category tags? "Okay sure, there's one teeny little massacre, but that doesn't mean this is grimdark!" etc.

>>83362

Regarding Hitlerjack:
We've been more careful about asking for overall plot synopses (is that a word?) for stories that could go in a more... questionably direction. Hasn't failed us yet.

Regarding tags:
We actually have more of an issue with authors overtagging their stories. Y'know, saying [Comedy] when there's one joke a chapter or [Grimdark] when Fluttershy gets a papercut.

>>83356
>Having verbed, he otherverbed
This is not a gerund. It is a nominative absolute.

>>83370
Sweet. I have a name for this structure which I hate so much now.

>>83370
Thanks, I didn't know the proper name for that conjugation. It's not a gerund, no, but it follows a similar structure to the problem sentences; I thought it would be a good idea to mention that that structure doesn't follow the same rules on timing.
(I dislike the nominative absolute for other reasons—it doesn't mention the subject until late in the sentence and it's too easy to misplace your modifiers—but that's a different issue entirely.)

>>83521
Not necessarily. Nominative absolutes can come after the subject, as:
He, having verbed, otherverbed.

I am learning so much about grammar today.

Question:
At what points have y'all noticed the highest fluxes in terms of fics received? For instance, I know that Read it and Weep spawned a huge amount of Daring Do-related stories; have there been any other recent events that caused a turnout as noticeable, if not more so?

>>83828

There's a lot around the holidays. Starting in October we get a ton of Grimdark, then move right into Christmas/Hearths Warming stories for the next two months.

I must admit, I was expecting a ton of shipping around... now, but haven't really seen any. Maybe we'll get 'em after Valentines Day.

>>83330
If the omnibus says to always swap out descriptive verbs and nouns for names, the reverse, or something stupid like that, then that particular part should be burned in a van. I doubt it does, and it is merely reader comprehension that has failed here.

I'm used to that, I see it a lot. If we say "don't do talking heads", we get purple word salad. If we say ease back on the purple, we get wooden talking heads again. That's okay, it's natural, it's part of the learning process, but no, it's not good and it is the author failing to hit the necessary skill level.

>The blue pegasus rocketed into the sky, her wings working hard to gain the speed she would need. Ponyville's premier party pony applauded and cheered as the rainbow-maned flier trimmed her wings and tilted her head back, throwing herself into a spin. The pink pony whooped even louder as the multi-chromatic blaze began to spin, sending a spray of water droplets in all directions.

That paragraph quoted is an abomination unto literature. Moderation, folks, moderation. Use names, use descriptions, mix them up. both extremes are hallmarks of utterfail. The one above is excessive amounts of LUS. Don't do that.

rainbow dash did x. rainbow dash did y. rainbow dash then z'd excessively.

NO.

the blue pegasus x'd, the cyan streak y'd, the sky-blue winged equine z'd.

NO.

A thesaurus attack is just as bad as a dictionary attack, okay?

I was just curious about this.

After getting a response that your story was sent to the pre-readers, how long should you wait before resubmitting if you don't receive a response? (One week, two, etc.)

>>83354
The argument as it currently stands is based on subjective interpretation of actions. Let’s make this concrete: find an example in published fiction of ,” she giggled, or an equivalent thereof.

>>83527
And in that variation, the otherverb is divorced from its subject and it’s still too easy to misapply modifiers. Still not my favorite structure.

>>83870
Not an error in comprehension. The section in question, quoted in its entirety:

>This concept of not repeating a word too often holds true for characters as well. You do not always have to use a character's name when a short description or a pronoun will do.

>Rainbow Dash rocketed into the sky, her wings working hard to gain the speed she would need. Pinkie Pie applauded and cheered as Rainbow Dash trimmed her wings and tilted her head back, throwing herself into a spin. Pinkie Pie whooped even louder as Rainbow Dash began to spin, sending a spray of water droplets in all directions.

>In the above paragraph, the name "Rainbow Dash" appears three times and "Pinkie Pie" twice. This gets repetitive and tiring to read. Try replacing some or even all of these with a short description.

>The blue pegasus rocketed into the sky, her wings working hard to gain the speed she would need. Ponyville's premier party pony applauded and cheered as the rainbow maned flier trimmed her wings and tilted her head back, throwing herself into a spin. The pink pony whooped even louder as the multi-chromatic blaze began to spin, sending a spray of water droplets in all directions.

>In this paragraph, the proper names for our marshmallow cuties were not used once. It's still clear which pony is doing what. This is not always the case with pronouns. When you have two females present within a section, using words like 'she' needs to be done carefully and unambiguously. Assume that the reader WILL mix up who 'she' is if it is at all possible. For example:

>Rainbow Dash rocketed into the sky, her wings working hard to gain the speed she would need. As she hit her apex, she tilted her head back and trimmed her wings. Her maneuver threw her into a blaze of spinning colors, scattering water droplets everywhere, while Ponyville’s premier party pony cheered her from below.

Again, this section advises writers to

>Try replacing some or even all of these with a short description.

I, personally, see little wrong with the first paragraph, and my only problem with the third paragraph is its use of “Ponyville’s premier party pony.” The second paragraph is an atrocity, but the Omnibus unambiguously advocates it and its equivalents.

I believe that published fiction is likely the best source of guidance in these issues. Published fiction restricts itself in almost all cases to using names and pronouns. The only instances I can think of in which published fiction uses short descriptions in place of names or pronouns are when 1.) the characters’ names are unknown, and 2.) when the descriptions are actually being used to describe those characters, rather than as stand-ins for names/pronouns.

Again, I welcome concrete counterexamples. If you find examples in published fiction of short descriptions being used instead of names or pronouns, please post them here.

Anyway, I’m out of classes for today because of Lincoln’s birthday. Three-day weekend means this still counts as the weekend.

>Show vs. Tell

The example given here is correct, yes, but I feel that its length obfuscates the real essence of Show vs. Tell. An amateur author could well draw the conclusion that Show/Tell is simply a matter of length. Long sentences can still tell, short sentences can still show. For instance,

>She blushed. She was embarrassed.

The second sentence is longer, but it’s still telling. This segment isn’t wrong per se, but I think it could be misleading.

>an advanced writer who knows what they’re

singular/plural agreement. Only pointing it out because you went to the trouble of “his or her” a few sentences earlier.

>Crossovers must also deal with how well an average reader will understand it.

“It” has no clear antecedent (another singular/plural issue).

>unlikely to patronize your story

Patronize can mean “act condescendingly toward,” “provide aid or support to,” or “frequent as a client or customer.” None of these definitions quite fits.

>any story with gratuitous amounts of violence, gore, or otherwise mature themes need to be

any story [...] needs to be

>at all/often

often/at all

>they are still available as a plot device and thus their power remains.

Unclear antecedents

>they fall under the auspices of 'Special Snowflake' due to their uniqueness alone.

Unclear antecedents

>‘Special Snowflake’

This phrase isn’t explained. Also, use double quotes.

[Note: I often see people use double quotes for dialogue, but single quotes for scare quotes, sarcasm quotes, words treated as words, etc. That’s wrong; use the same type of quotes for everything. Could this issue get its own shoutout, perhaps?]

>Gradients are rarely if ever used, and this author can only recall them appearing on Celestia’s extended mane.

Rarity’s mane has gradients for the shading.

>‘different’

“different”

>they are considered exemplars of them

they are considered exemplars of those traits

>sugar coat

sugarcoat

>'special'

“special”

>etc)

etc.)

>“Cupcakes”.

“Cupcakes.”

>are in… well, character.

are... well, in character

>Ponyville”,

Ponyville,”

>[...]/Slice-of-Life Tag
[...]/Slice-of-Life Tags
>5 Words
Five words
>1.) 2.) 3.), etc. [In the “How to Submit” section]
You’ve bolded 6.), 7.), and 8.), but not any of the rest. Be consistent.
>Section 7: 5 Words
Section 7: Five Words
>where-ever — just
wherever, and be consistent with whether or not you put spaces around your dashes
>5 Words You Would Use
Five Words You Would Use
>I suggest waiting at least a day or two
Given the backlog you’ve developed, you might want to change this.
>ideas”,
ideas,”
>‘TVTropes Will Ruin Your Life’.
“TVTropes Will Ruin Your Life.”
>helps the writer (or just the curious) follow the threads of their
helps writers (or just the curious) follow the threads of their

And that's me done with the read-through.

Thank you for your hard work, pre-readers, and for providing the Omnibus to authors. Best wishes.

>>83902
Like 2-3, mostly becuase 99% of the time he says that, he actually sent it, so you should wait for us to actually review it.

Our queue is... stupid big right now.

But as the OP Q&A says, most stories get covered in 7-10 days, I'd say.

>>83903
1.) The argument as it currently stands is based on subjective interpretation of actions. Lets make this concrete: find an example in published fiction of ,” she giggled, or an equivalent thereof.

Gravity's Rainbow, used three different times, perhaps more, my memory is not what it used to be and frankly hunting them down is not something I want to do.

Here are the sentences:

>He dangles two pillows and watches her. "One more step," she giggles.

>"I forget," Trudy giggles.

>"Get the S.P.R. in, to have a look," giggles someone with a cigar.

Additionally, I can be found on various occasion through the Harry Potter books, but I can certainly not quote those. There are a couple others I want to mention, but I can't say with any degree of certainty.

I hope that puts your doubts to rest.

>>83903

I'd also just like to chime in that "Signal to Noise Ratio" isn't very clear either.

Also: christ 108, is this what you're like all the time? How do you enjoy anything at all?

War in Equestria fics. Yay or nay?

>>83922

Probably not, unless the writing is truly incredible.

>>83922
Nay.

Is there an up-to-date list of pre-readers? It seems the post at http://www.equestriadaily.com/2011/08/authors-and-pre-reader-page.html is outdated. (I recall Twilight Snarkle being a pre-reader, yet I don't see him listed there.)

>>83934

Yeah, we need to poke Seth about updating that page. He'll get around to it eventually.

>>83934

Oh god I totally forgot I still have an awful Ponygenerator image on there.

brb, spamming Seth with mass emails until he changes it.

>>83925

Define "truly incredible".

>>83925

Good enough that we'll hear about it on our own, and the author won't need to send it to us.

>>83870
And as the Omnibus mentions, let's not forget that using ambiguous "she" everywhere is its own kind of awful, especially when considering that so many scenes are monogender.

"She did this. She talked to her. Then she walked over there."

I also vote for moderation. Too much LUS is bad, absolutely, but I'm not sure it justifies the level of disdain that it receives.
>Implying I know what I'm talking about

How do you respond to troll fics?

How does the electronic valence of an atom going through a phase shift differ, dependent to speed? Heh, just kidding.

>>83965

We read them before rejecting them. They're entertaining sometimes.

Except for Spiderses. That one was so good it had to be posted.

>>83922
I can only in good conscience abide them if:

A) They are not about ponies fighting ponies,

B) They take place before the founding of Equestria, or

C) They have Windigos coming back to freeze everypony to death.

You don't do one of those? Hell no.

Proptip: I hate warfics. :V

>>83983
Yes, windigos are basically my headcanon now as well.

Do you apply harsher standards on fics that are a part of the episodal waves (with fics about the same new background characters)?

Also, for some reason every time I see that OP pic I unconsciously try to mimic Disgruntlestia's frown and it hurts my face.

>>83992
Not really - we only apply harsher standards to cliche ideas. HiE, February's, Dash-breaks/loses-wings, etc.

DESPITE the canonical nature of that last one due to read it and weep...

>>83903
augh. Finding, burning in van, finding perpetrator, burning in same van.

Out of curiosity, what is required in order to be an EqD pre-reader? Do you need to have a story posted on the blog, review a certain number of stories for The Training Grounds, etc.?

>>83950

Hmmm... I'm sure I can arrange that... ;)

>>84016
First, you must embark upon your vision quest in a clear state of mind. You must remove yourself from all earthly ties: friends, family, material possessions. Those who are impure of heart are easily swayed by weaknesses, after all.

Once you are ready to begin, you must find your way to the Mojave desert, in southern California. How you get there is up to you: some walk, some hitchhike. One noteable pre-reader flew there on the wings of three-hundred and eighty-two turtledoves, tied together to him like the movie Up, but one cannot account for the hygiene toll that such a method took upon his person.

Anyway, once you reach the desert, you will wait for three days and three nights in the bare elements. Food is prohibited, as is shelter or water. If you do not die, you will be visited by Iyuuk, the spirit of vision. He will give you a task. Whatever this task is depends on Iyuuk and the desires he sees in your heart.

After you complete this quest, then, and only then, will you be shown the path into the pre-reader's sanctum.

Or, you can email Seth; I think the requirements are 3 stories with 4.5 stars or better, when he's actually looking for more prereaders

OK, so I wanted to be sure about this.

I have a story that I've submitted to EqD twice so far. Obviously, since I'm here asking about it, my fic was rejected. It's totally understandable, I know the pre-readers have extremely high standards.

Since I'm now on my last try for submitting this story, however, I really want to make sure I don't mess it up and get my third strike.

So my question is this: is there any way of finding out how close your story was to being EqD quality, other than the comments in the rejection email? I want to be very sure I don't waste my last chance.

>>84021
This should totally be the official way to become a pre-reader.

>>84028
Get a review here from an established reviewer. If I, Nicknack, Vanner, or Vimbert (Vindictive mode activate) like it, you're hot to trot.
There are plenty of other reviewers: I'm merely listing those who I've actually witnessed in action. I'm sure the TTG has several reviewers that would be a good yardstick as well.

>>84021
It's actually three four-stars or better.

And Seth is looking for pre-readers. I WILL CONTINUE TO SAY THIS UNTIL SOMEONE TELLS ME OTHERWISE

Daff, add this info to the FAQ next thread. :V

>>84016

The requirements that were listed on EqD a while back was 3+ stories on the blog with star ratings of 4.5+. However, that isn't absolutely necessary. If you've done something else to warrant becoming a pre-reader, email Seth about it. You never know.

>>84041
I POSTED THE FAQ IN A DOC AND NO ONE ELSE ADDED TO IT THIS IS NOT MY FAULT

Now then, last time I submitted my story to EqD, I got an email that said:
>"I'm going to have to say that I could approve the prologue and first chapter... Chapter two is a different story. There are large chunks of dialogue that are not attributed to any pony, making it quite difficult to understand who is speaking. For this to go up on the blog, chapter two should be put through Ponychan first."

Reading this, I was understandably thrilled. I carefully fixed the problem, and then sent it through multiple reviewers here on ponychan. When I got the thumbs up, I resubmitted it to EqD.
Last night, I got the following email:

> I stopped at the top of chapter one. This really just isn't going to work. It continues to come back with piles of issues. I'd recommend posting it elsewhere.

Now then, I understand the right to deny publication to a story that you deem unfit. But apparently, five almost unnoticable formatting errors now qualify as "piles of issues". Might I add, this "pile" of issues that he presented are so unnoticable that no other EqD pre-reader saw them, no other reviewer saw them, and, in fact, when I looked through the story, I could only find three of the issues. The other two did not seem to be there, although I am not above admitting that this easily could be a lapse on my part.
Now, normally, I would do my best to take this in stride, but I am more than a little bewildered by the fact that, as I understand it, I am now unable to submit this story to EqD again.

>>84042
Just for the sake of discussion, what are some examples of "something else" that would warrant it?

I want to do an experiment brony z-ro.

Post your story and the contents of the e-mail to see how true the issues are.

>>84051
sure, couldn't hurt my chances any more.
Here's the story: http://www.fimfiction.net/story/5117/Caveat-Emptor%3A-Let-The-Buyer-Beware

Emails:
https://docs.google.com/document/m?id=1kWvZWqDcv0qkdB1IHQsE4oD9dACIQHoheCaJubDuop0

>>84044

Here's the problem:

It took, to my understanding, six revisions to get your prologue + first chapter to the point where it could be considered postable. However, if we post the first chapter, all following chapters get autposted. You gave us a plot outline as requested, but some of the details seem a bit too grimdark for EqD. Long story short, we can't really guarantee that your writing is going to remain at the same level of quality throughout the rest of the story (as it's unlikely you'd get each new chapter reviewed six times).

I'm unsure why Seth didn't mention that in the email he sent to you, but there you go.

>>84045

Doing reviews here on /fic/ is a good way to get noticed. For example, I hung out in the Training Grounds for a few months last year and that was apparently enough for me to become a pre-reader.

>>84058

Ok, well, see, that makes a lot more sense. The only way for my fic to be considered postable is to make the chapters acceptable on the first or second try, i.e. improve my writing about twelve-fold.
So, if you ever hear from me again, I garrauntee you it will be with much improved writing, and at least a half dozen reviews from here that give me a thumbs up.

>>84074

We'll be looking forward to it.

Communication and complete messages are magic.

It's been a week and a half. >>83028. Thank you in advance.

Quick question: I was just rejected for a story I submitted, but I have another that I want to send in as well. Do Seth/the pre-readers dislike it when a person is sending stories in regularly?

>>84127

Send as many as you like. Past rejections won't influence how we judge your other work.

>>83922 >>83983
How about if the conflict is artificial? I need to tread lightly to avoid spoilers, but...
Say it takes place in a something like a Star Trek holodeck. It's a fake construct only for the purpose of putting someone through the scenario to see how he would react, in order to judge his character. Although war implies injury/death, nothing actually happens in the fic except for some fistfights and tying prisoners up.

>>84146

So long as the actual battles aren't too graphic, and the story has an actual purpose beyond "WAR AM BAD", I can accept that concept.

>>84112
So, I've recieved a response... however it had very little to do with what I sent. Could anyone ask 23 what happened?
Here's the relevant pieces of correspondence: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1uEc94BITxM8DfCqOPEuiEWSaifoCQqtXeMAWOXh0KqE/edit

>>84127
Only if they're all terrible and you insist that you're the best writer to ever hit the fandom and that we're stupid for rejecting them.

This happens SO often.

Hey, it's me again. Don't worry, not here to complain. I just need to know what parts seemed just a little too graphic for EqD so I can trim them down. I had included it in the email, but I didn't get a reply, and I wasn't going to bother Seth about it. Here's the list.

-The implied tortured death of a character who is trapped in a magic book (i.e. "a wisp of smoke rose from the pages, and with it a scream of terror"l -A graphic daemonic possession scene (blood trickling from eyes, nose, mouth. Twitching so hard that bones snap. Creepy laughing, etc.)
-Daemonic cursing (really doubt this would matter, but letting you know anyways.)
-An implied torture/death scene of a guard, audio only. (i.e. guard refuses to break, screaming, weaker refusal, more screaming, one last rebuttal, like "Rot in hell you bastard", a hollow crunch, followed by a wet thud.)
-Implied death of both princesses. (Again, almost certainly not gonna matter)
-An insane version of Pinkie Pie with razor sharp bladed gauntlets. Has a deathjester-like skull mask, draws pleasure from pain and death, speaks in rhymes, attempts to attack foals but Zecora distracts her while they escape. (Actually, twisted version of each Mane Six pony, but Pinkie's is the most disturbing.

Not sure which of these is throwing it off, so I wanted to check.

>>84257

It's not that any one of those issues is preventing your story from being posted, but that almost all of them could -potentially- cross a line in later chapters. This is a problem, as later chapters are auto-posted.

I really don't want you to gut your story just to get it accepted to EqD. Write what you want to write. Post it on FimFic. If you write for you and not for the approval of anyone else, I'm sure it'll be popular.

>>84260
Hmm? No, I'm not planning on gutting the story. All of the stuff I listed is stuff that I'm considering putting in, but wasn't sure. This was meant to help make the decision. I have plenty of grimdark that is gonna be in the story regardless.

>>84261
Well, personally, I'm all for torture and posessions and evil books and Voldo-Pie.

I think killing the Princesses and corrupting the EoH is the iffiest, though. Those can very easily break your reader out of the story if they're not handled well.

>>84264
I think that the "killing" of princesses is handled pretty well. It's never explicitly said that they're dead, and all we see is Luna being captured. plus, it actually turns out to be a mass hallucination type deal. Although the antagonist almost gets Celestia for real.

Corrupting of the EoH?
...you mean, the whole evil Mane Six thing? They aren't the actual Mane Six. It's.... complicated...

>>84273
handled well, it will go up. I think the goriest fic that has a post on EqD is "ponies make war", so if you're on that level or not massively different then you're good to go.

>>84274
Never read "ponies make war". What's the Gore factor on that?

>>84276
Ponies are cut into pieces, set on fire, and have shards of metal/glass forcibly jammed into their open eyes. In none of those cases does the story go into vivid detail. There's also some implied torture.

>>84278
Huh. Well, I think I'll be ok then.

I hope I don't ask a silly question. But here we go!

Are there any preferences on prologues? I have read a couple of fics where there was a Prologue followed by Chapter 1, Chapter 2, etc. But with a couple of them, as I read through, I couldn't tell why they didn't just call their prologue "Chapter 1" and start from there.

Are odd prologues like that something that the pre-readers look out for?

>>84324
Prologues that would be better named as 'chapter 1' don't bother me, personally. However, if your prologue has seemingly nothing to do with the rest of your fic, then we might have a problem.

If your prologue is cryptic for a reason, you had better provide reasoning as to why it's written as such. If your prologue streamlines into the rest of the fic, that's fine. Ideally, your prologue should explain things and information that's necessary to the rest of the fic.

My apologies if it's been asked before, but I recently got around to updating a story of mine that's on EqD. The problem is, I'm not sure how to tell EqD that the story has updated. Is it the exact same thing as submitting? Or is there a different system entirely?

Here comes another dumb question you've probably already answered -

So, if someone submits a fic in which ONE chapter is deemed acceptable, then the usual procedure is to allow all updates through. Or something like that.

So then, if someone submits a large, multi-chapter fic, do you still have to pre-read the whole thing, or just the first chapter?

Because they seem like equivalent situations.

>>84347
Just send an email to submit@equestriadaily.com with "[Story Title] Update" as the subject and a link to the new chapter in the email.

>>84351
Generally we'll read the first chapter or two of a multi-part submission then skim the rest for larger content issues.

>>84347
E-mail submit@equestridaily.com and put the subject as 'Update: <story name>'. That will get their attention.

>>84351
For single chapter stories, we usually have faith that the author will continue to update in a presentable way, without questionable material. For multi part stories, we'll usually read several chapters, then skim through the rest for anything questionable.

>>84354

>>84324
All I'll say is don't just submit a prologue without at least a chapter 1.

>>84347
Though you got two responses to this already, just to clarify, it sounds like you're updating this on a site like fimfic, rather than uploading new documents. So you would just email the submit and let them know it updated.

Are you prepared for the flood of fics that will hit you after FiMFiction's contest?

>>84377
Our bodies aren't ready.

>>84377
Oh god.

OH GOD

D:

>>83238
If I were to submit the first TEN chapters of a story, would you accept it or would you want just the beginning?

since there is now a 3 submission limit to stories, how does this apply to stories submitted before this new rule?

For example I submitted a fic flying high falling hard initially, was littered with horrible mistakes and whatnot. I naively went through and fixed some of them and tried resubmitting, only to get rejected again because it still had gaping flaws.

Here I am much later down the road, at chapter 20 sitting at 60k words on the story, and having learned much about writing compared to before. I'm rewriting those early chapters almost completely, with the help of my current pre-readers and two reviewers from this board, and yet... if this rule persists to submissions from before when the rule was in place then I could only have one more shot at submitting it!

I feel there's a definite chance the rewrite may still need a small amount of tuning up before being accepted, so I'm incredibly nervous about when I do resubmit after I finish the rewrite.

tl;dr do fics rejected before the 3 strikes rule count as a strike?

lol @ the 3 strike rule...

Lazy pre-readers are now canon.

Noone said that being a pre-reader is easy. If you want to be one, you have to be able to deal with stuff like that instead of transferring the work to /fic/ so all you have to do is publish all stories you get.

>>84396
It makes sense. They don't want to be reading the same thing 20 times when there are others who could have something worth reading.

>>84395
No, there's a grandfather clause of a sort being implemented. Think of it as "three strikes starting... now!"

>>84396
The work of a prereader is not to edit or suggest fixes, but we find ourselves doing it anyway. Sadly, this also means that people tend to use us as editors, and while we aren't bitter about it, we are getting burned out.

So pick one: we either implement a rule to make authors use the resources available to them for editing and only send in their story when they really, truly believe it's ready, or we answer every single fic with simply "yes" or "no".

>deal with stuff like that instead of transferring the work to /fic/
People on fic volunteer for this kind of stuff. We do not (though we obviously have a hard time saying no). I think this sentence could better be reworded as "distributing the workload to appropriate parties", but that sounds like I'm just trying to inflate my PR.

>>84394
Submit as many chapters as you like. We'll read the first few in their entirety, and if we don't find glaring issues, we'll skim for content. Viva La Hitlerjack!

>>84395
No. Strikes only accrue once we've made the rule.

>>84396
You are welcome to your opinion. You have, however, failed to ask a question. I request humbly that you rephrase your statement in such a format so the theme of this thread might be maintained. Have a nice day.

>>84394
We would accept it, but we'd check the first few chapters for serious errors, and then skim through the rest to make sure it's the same quality as the rest.

>>84395
Stories submitted before this rule have the rule applied to them with 0 strikes. So, if you've submitted your fic and it's gotten rejected twice and you submit it right now, it will be at 0/3 until we either accept it or reject it.

>>84396
If you saw the current queue you would never call us lazy ever again. And as far as 'dealing with this', no, that's not what we're here to do. To be quite frank, we could simply say "Yes" or "No", and leave you at that.

>>84408
That sounds like how they insist on the contestants saying "What is . . . ?" on Jepordy!.

>>84396
>all you have to do is publish all stories you get.
That's what it means to be a pre-reader. They're the gatekeepers, not the ferrymen.

>>84407
>>84408
>>84409
Hivemind Combo Triple Play, now with matching timestamp goodness. Goddamn, that's sexy.

>>84413
oh good christ I hope you are being facetious

>>84396

Speaking of being a pre-reader, have there been any news about open spots? I check around every now and then, and see 'no' for an answer, but I have the slightest suspicion that the 'no' is outdated.

I don't know why.

>>84421
Well, as much as we would like to pick through every fanfic and point out the errors, problems, issues and wrongdoings, we're in the unfortunate situation of volunteering for a very popular website. By the time we finished with one fic, five more would have come in.

I'm sure you can see the problem here. If you can't, or have the wrong problem in mind, it's that the queue would build up to quickly for us to be thorough. It takes long enough already to just point out the general issues, never mind getting into detail.

>>84421
Why are the writers so lazy as to not do a good job on their second try? The third strike is a gift, and you're looking it in the proverbial mouth.

Just because people actually have standards, doesn't mean you need to insult them.

>>84421
Are you offering to be an EqD prereader?

No? You just want to anonymously insult volunteers? kk

We have a topic on /fic/? I wasn't aware. Neat.

>>84426
This seems like a more reasonable solution. Why not just cast more pre-readers?

The strikerule will just scare some authors and we'll never see some stories that could have been of great quality.

>>84442
Same logic as to why Pchan doesn't bring on more mods, I'd imagine. You just can't handle that many people, and you can't rely on them all being good at their jobs.

>>84426

We're actually looking for more right now. Send Seth and email about it.

Also, unrelated, my face right now.

>>84435
Perhaps because they're humans, Sturm? Anyway, I personally support the new three-strike policy. Call it a love for living I the edge, but I always feel compelled to give it more effort when I'm given standards and policies like this. And I totally didn't swear on my name that I would put every last drop of my free time and effort into my own fic.

At any rate, I totally support this, but remember to take it easy on the newer writers when you do review works, alright?

Anyways, I wanted to know: would you be enforcing any new policies on time with this update? If so, how quickly would you want corrections to be made?

>>84443
Sure, you have to take your time when choosing them and don't take in too many at once, but then the whole problem is solved without frustrating authors or pre-readers who will still have to deal with an overblown market of fanfics.

>>84444

Right on. Thanks for the heads up.

>>84447
As far as I know we aren't putting any restrictions on time in between submissions, that would just be silly. The point is to get the fic to a point where you are comfortable with it as the best it can be.

It would be unfair of us to try and squeeze all of that into a small window of opportunity, take as much time as you need.

>>84447
Ahh, that's why I liked this policy move; couldn't put my hoof on it.

It's human nature to max out your allowances, even if subconsciously. If I have a month to do something, I probably won't be working very seriously the first few weeks. If I have infinite chances to submit to EqD, I'll probably keep tossing fics against the proverbial wall until they get through.

On the flip side, if I only have a week, I'll hunker down and get stuff done. If I know I have a finite number of tries at EqD, I'll make them count.

>>84449
The whole problem is not solved, it is simply band-aided. The number of pre-readers we would need would also be astronomical, and the time to 'slowly' build up to that would be even more so.

Also, consider that EqD is not a fanfiction website. It is an MLP website that also showcases outstanding works of fiction. Opinions differ about where to draw the line of acceptable quality (and simply raising the bar another few notches was considered), but regardless of where the line is drawn the important part is that there is a line.

Frankly spoken, writer's are responsible for their own work. If someone says "hey, I wonder if this fic is good enough to get on EqD" and it gets rejected, there's no harm in it. If they try to keep resubmitting it and fixing the bare number of issues (see Daff's post on EqD) then they aren't letting us do our jobs and we have no further business with them. At best, this makes writers put that much more work into making sure that they make their attempts count. At worst, half-assed authors won't commit to their stories or will be intimidated. It's not like other fanfic sites don't exist.

>>84447
Oh god no.

Who wants to keep track of that? D: Not to mention forcing a time limit would prevent authors from actually putting forth enough work in their revisions to be worthwhile.

>>84426
We're getting some new pre-readers at the moment. I'm not sure how many, confirmations are underway, but there you go.

>>84421
You wanna know why I'm lazy?

Sure, I could spend my every waking moment pre-reading fanfics. Given my usual speed of one per half hour, minus breaks for eating, bathing and taking a dump, I could probably read 20 a day that way. I could chew through the current queue in a week, if accounting for continued influx. I would also lose my goddamn mind.

I don't do this because I happen to be a fanfic author as well as a pre-reader. I'm sitting on about 70 ideas and 20 fics in various stages of completion. I want to share all my wonderful ideas with the fandom. If I spent all my time pre-reading, I'd have no time for writing, and when Present doesn't exercise his creative muscles for too long, he goes a little extra-nuts.

I don't do this because I don't get paid. I'd like to get paid, which is why I'm looking for a job and pre-reading in my spare time.

I don't do this because I have family and friends who demand my free time. They're kind of important.

I don't do this because after the fourth or fifth grimdark Dash loses her wings, Celly and Luna defeat Discord, Pinkie kills somepony borderline clop Naruto crossover, you start needing a break.

I pre-read fanfic because I want to see the best of the best posted and the not-so-best get better. I do it to give back to a fandom that I have always found amazingly generous from day one. I do it for that little spark of pride when a story hits the star-6 rating and I can say, "I saw the potential. I approved that for posting." Pre-reading is an amazing thing to be doing and I'm glad I have wonderful colleagues to share it with, but that doesn't mean I want to spend my day doing nothing else.

If that makes me lazy, good sir, then I will gladly sign up for one out of seven deadly sins.

>>83238

Okay, I apologize if this is bugging you guys too much, as this same post was a comment of mine in the EqD post about the new rule...

I submitted a Grimdark story a while back called Night of the Shy. Upon retrospect, it was horrible, not good and seriously not up to the quality level of the many fics I've written in the past. It rightfully got utterly rejected.

HOWEVER, now I've completely revamped the fic and turned it into a dark adventure/action fic. The original version is dead to me now. I spent a month working out key plot points to get something coherent, added new plot elements, and the chapters went from 3,000ish words to 9,000+ words. I am intent on making this a far better story than the original. So far it has gotten a very positive response on Fimfiction over the 4 chapters I've posted so far.

I have submitted this revamped version of the story twice, but have gotten no response. I don't mind if it's been rejected again - I have had another story (the Kim Possible crossover) get accepted to EqD - I'd just like to know if I should just forget about trying to submit this revamped dark/action fic and let it be consigned to Fimfiction and Fanfiction.net, is all.

>>84478

If you haven't gotten a response, it was probably rejected by Seth for some reason before it even got to the pre-readers. Send it again and specify that this is different than the original story despite having the same title.

>>84478
If you've had no response, then the fic got lost or something. Resubmit, clarify the story's information, and make sure you're sending to the right email address.

>>84478
Never resign yourself.

If it is as revamped as you say it is, I'm sure we're giving it a good shot.

The queue is massively bogged down right now, so it may be a bit before we get to yours. It's obvious that you are pouring effort into this and taking feedback to heart, which you'll notice is one of the reasons we have this whole three strikes rule to begin with.

Wait for feedback and decide where to go from there.

>>84486
Ah, I misread part of your post.

Ignore me if youwant and listen to these guys:
>>84483
>>84482

Gonna throw out an outside-the-box idea here

Has anyone ever considered the possibility of a different paradigm entirely?

What if
Instead of submitting stories to EqD to be checked by pre-readers
EqD had a staff of trusted "head hunters" who ply the pre-reader trade in order to track down fics to post?

Then, they're sure to get only the best fics.

>>84490

Me and [Name Redacted] use a system like that for [Name Redacted], which we run together. It's a lot more difficult than it sounds, mainly because there are -so many fics- that need to be sorted through. The great ones aren't necessarily featured on FimFic or have a huge number of comments. It takes quite a bit of digging, and you're almost guaranteed to miss some.

>>84490
Do you realize just how many thousands of fics are out there to go through?

Taking a step back and looking at all of the sites:
fimfiction.net
fanfiction.net
deviantart
Google Docs

Google Docs doesn't even have an archive listing for posts, Fanfiction.net has no rating system and on fimfiction 90% of the votes are 5-stars.

How exactly would we go about digging through all these fics to find the diamonds in the rough? Just go through them one at a time?

Much better for those interested to come to us with their fics. It gives us a much smaller cross section to work with and is much more manageable. We only get maybe 15% of all MLP fanfics through our inboxes.

>>84494
Nevertheless, with
(a) multiple pre-reader/head-hunters working simultaneously, it would increase throughput

and (b) - there isn't really any particular imperative for EqD to maximize throughput anyway, only to balance quantity and quality (as is my understanding).

The number of fics posted on the site would fall, but the procedure would be much smoother.

Or maybe split the difference?
Allow a 2-level hierarchical system.
Top Level pre-readers
and a Second Level layer of trusted "fic suggesters" to point out potential finds

>>84502
I respectfully disagree.
If you think your work is worth posting somewhere, it is your responsibility to make sure the work shines. If it doesn't, we're going the distance to give you two additional chances to wow us. If you can't pull your act together and find an editor or simply self-edit well enough, then we will decline your fic. You are welcome to submit another, different fic in the future once you have improved your craft.

>>84501
See>>84497

>>84502
Nuclear bomb would be removing all fanfiction from Equestria Daily completely.

For everyone posting about the three strikes rule, please consider moving your discussion to the thread at >>84405. This is the Did You Get My Fic Ask a Pre-Reader Thread, not the Protest the Three Strikes Rule Thread.

Is there any order to how fics are preread? I ask this because I'm seeing fics pop up on EQD that (according to FIMFic) were submitted after mine, which has been in the queue for 9 days.

I don't know how long these things usually take, though.

>>84482

Thanks. I have just resubmitted it with a blazing "(REVAMPED STORY)" header and all the necessary information.

And actually, I apparently submitted it 4 times, mostly after each new chapter update. Derp. That may have been percieved as annoying and pushy. My apologies.

>>84509
There is no order.

When it gets right down to it, many pre-readers read fics that sound more interesting over ones that don't appeal to them. Every once in a while one of us will dive to the bottom of the inbox and try to dig up something that needs reviewing, but for the most part it's a pick and choose affair.

Unless Mechanic or Alexstraza goes on one of their crazy fic reading sprees. Those guys are machines.

>>84503
See, that's another thing. Even with this rule in action, if the amounts of fanfics are even close to what you guys describe in this thread, it's not gonna change anything. The amount of work would still be too much without a significantly higher number of pre-readers.

This issue has to be approached from multiple directions.

>>84512
"When it gets right down to it, many pre-readers read fics that sound more interesting over ones that don't appeal to them."
So does that mean my story is fucked if no prereaders want to read a noirfic? :(

>>84513
But when so many of the fics we are getting are in there 4th, 5th or even 9th round it starts bogging everything down and keeping fresh material from being read.

Instead of fixing the problem by buying a bigger gun, we narrowed the firing range.

>>84515
Fear not, all fics that show up in our inbox get read eventually.

Some just take longer than others.

Nine days sounds like an awfully long turn around though, if you drop the name you can at least find out if it made it to our inboxes. We really have been flooded lately.

>>84515
No. It means that the 4000-word complete story is more likely to be grabbed over a lunch break than the 150,000 word epic telling of the advances of cybertechnology, and the dystopian universe that dwells beneath the Everfree.
No story is ignored*. Some are simply read faster than others.

*Please note: If you haven't received word about your story, LET US KNOW. It's probably gone missing in the flood of four thousand emails Seth gets.

>>84513
Not a pre-reader, but here's my two cents:

A well-written piece is evident from the first page. That's what I believe, at least, and that's how I review things. If the hook isn't apparent within the first 8~15 paragraphs--if it's all scenery description and thoughts and non-plot--then it won't hold the attention of the average reader for long. If that's the case, then it won't do too well on EqD (tl; dr).

Point being, work in editing -> good beginnings (among other things), and good beginnings -> quicker pre-reader responses saying "It's good to go". At least, that's what I think it's like.

>>84515
A noir fic? I'm not a pre-reader, admittedly, but that sounds kickass.

>>84520
"Nine days sounds like an awfully long turn around though, if you drop the name you can at least find out if it made it to our inboxes."

Fic name is "On the Docks"

Submitted chapters amount to a total of maybe 7.5k words. Three and four are being edited while I wait for the fic to post. <_>

Thanks.

>>84524

TL;DR I asked myself, "What if Raymond Chandler wrote MLP fanfiction?" and then I started writing the story.

>>84527
Duuude. I'm hopin' that it gets accepted just so I can get a chance to read it.

>>84526
I've checked the queue just now, and we don't appear to have that! Make absolutely sure that your submissions is in the right format and free of typos.

>>84526
Looks like that one somehow got lost in transition, it's not in our inboxes. I'd resubmit it if I were you.

Honestly, I don't understand the deal over the three strike rule. It pressures fanfic writers to make actual revisions and actually improve instead of throwing the same crap at the prereaders. They'd make their shots count, taking time to do so. By taking their time, they would alleviate the work load on the prereaders.

Equestria Daily isn't (primarily) a fanfic site, nor are its prereaders dedicated editors. EqD is a My Little Pony news blog, and its prereaders are merely critics. I'm beginning to think most of the fanfic community has forgotten that.

>>84530
"Looks like that one somehow got lost in transition, it's not in our inboxes."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qsS42Ca3XQU&NR=1

Okay, sending it again with my other email account.

>>84533
Email sent.

>>83238

Hate to be annoying, I know I am. Sorry!

My fic "Athanasia" was accepted by EqD yesterday, with this email as a reply:

"Dear Hato F,

Hi and thanks for submitting to EQD, I'll be reviewing your story today and putting problems below.

And that's the review. Seriously, nothing is wrong with this. Congratulations! Just make sure it doesn't get too saucy. Also, would you mind sending us an outline of where you want to take the story? Just to make sure nothing inappropriate comes out of future chapters. Thanks!

Sincerely,
Pre-reader A1X3"

Now, I sent that outline for him, and it's been a day and a half without a reply. I'd just like to confirm that Athanasia is still on the posting queue?

Thanks, try to get some sleep pre-readers! You overwork yourselves.

>>84556
It's in the queue. I guess the blogponies didn't send you a reply. That happens sometimes, but don't worry, it's scheduled.

Can any prereaders confirm that my fic is now in the email pool? I'd hate to wait another nine days to find the email didn't go through again. ;_;

Fic name: On the Docs

Merci!

>>84574

Alrighty, thanks Alex.

On the Docks*

herp derp

>>84578
Hold your horses, it takes a little while for the blog ponies to forward stories to us. They get even more email then we do.

Bide your time and hold out hope.

This has probably been asked before, but do you guys split stories by genre? Like, one person takes mostly adventure and comedy, while another sorts through the grimdark and shipping?

>>84588
Nope, it's one massive hodge podge of forwarded stories.

Do you guys keep reading serials? Or do you just pass them on and forget about them.

>>84595
Differs between pre-readers, but if I read a fic that I really enjoy and see it updating I will try and stay up to date as much as I can.

I know several of us followed Fallout: Equestria.

What are some of the things guaranteed to get your story a poor rating?

>>84600
In /fic/, anything related to Past Sins, My Little Dashie or Cupcakes. On EqD, Cupcakes, male/male shipping, unpopular ships (Big Mac/anyone else other than Fluttershy), and stuff that's Conversion Bureau-related.

>>84600
Ion Sturm isn't a pre-reader, don't listen to his lies!

The three guarantees to a bad rating are:

Mary Sue OC
Shipping said OC with a main cast member
HiE wish fulfillment fics (which most HiE fics are).

Other stuff like out of character writing, choppy dialogue, telling vs. showing and repetitive narrative can also bog down the score, but the three above are the only things guaranteed to tank it last I checked.

>>84603
Anything less fanon-related? Like, common character archetypes or plots. Aside from the obvious "RBD breaks her wings" shenanigans.

>>84607
Aha.

>>84609
Obviously if it's a story we've seen hundreds of versions of before, it's going to color our judgement. Originality is a prized virtue that pre-readers seek after.

>>84613
Do you guys enjoy stories filled with OCs ?Hardmode: that aren't crossovers

>>84614
That really depends on the story.

Antipodes is enjoyed by several of us, for example. It really rides on how the OCs are portrayed and whether or not they are fleshed out as their own characters or are simply extensions of the author.

A general rule of thumb is to only use OC's when no other character fits or is appropriate for the roll, but this doesn't apply to OC centric fics for obvious reasons.

It's worth pointing out that the "old friends grow apart" sad fic has been written at least ten thousand times by now and yet still continues to receive six-star ratings despite being the deadest horse on the block.

Long fics always get at least five stars, even if the quality of the writing is average at best.

Also, if you're an author with a fimfic fanclub you're pretty much guaranteed six stars.

>>84614
I happen to be an Antipodes fan, and depending on how much you want to stretch the 'OC' rule, I enjoy Past Sins as well. Another OC fic I've started recently was Hackers With Hooves.

So yeah, it can be done correctly. As long as the OCs aren't Mary Sues or Gary Stus, they can be a lot of fun to read about.

>>84616
>author with a fimfic fan club
>guaranteed six stars

There are a lot of things wrong with your post, but this is the one that jumped out at me. No kind of fic is guaranteed a star level.

In fact, I can't count the number of times we've rejected a fic and gotten a response along the lines of "but everyone on fimfiction LOVES it! It's got 4.8 star rating with xxx votes!"

>>84618
Post was tongue-in-cheek. But established authors do tend to have legions of fans ready to gush all over their work.

Luckily, authors with large established fanbases also tend to be at least passable writers, but it's the principle of the thing.

>>84609
If we are strictly talking about ratings on EqD (ie, not our personal opinions), then anything slightly risque is going to get one-star bombed immediately. Crossovers tend to do poorly unless they are Doctor Hooves, and anything starring the CMC will get 1-starred and ignored.

Generally.

Are there any kill-triggers for you? By which I mean things in stories that cause you to instantly stop reading, throw the fic in the trash, and set it on fire.

>>84625
This has only happened twice with me.

The first time was reading a Spike ship fic fic called "How I Got Your Mother to Love Me" on fanfiction.net. I drew the line at mutant dragon pony hybrid babies. And I heard from others that the pony Spike was shipped with is an OC to boot.

The other fic was also on fanfiction.net and was called The Wind Beneath Your Wings (Or My Wings, can't remember which) and that was due to prose so purple you could throw it at a bedsheet and not even Oxyclean could remove the stain. Fics should not send you running for a thesaurus every sentence.

Is it true that you all despise Past Sins privately, but in public it's all smiles?

>>84629
I don't like Past Sins, publicly and privately. Everyone else is case by case.

The worst part is I can't figure out WHY I don't like it. I tried reading the prologue and through the entire thing it felt... off somehow.

Suppose an author submits, say, five different stories and they're all rejected. Suppose each story is rejected a second time (or maybe a third time). She comes along with a new, different sixth story.

Is that the point where you say "I just don't like her" and forget about her stuff for good? Or would you quit with the author before then?

>Assume for that the person is polite and cordial, but her revisions don't really work well.

>>84635
We don't quit on authors, as far as I know.

There have been one or two authors that spat in our face or bombarded us with troll fics that got black listed, but beyond that we don't filter based on who wrote it (as far as I know at least).

After all, the three strike rule applies to fics, not authors. People get better with practice.

Do you find yourself getting angry at someone if for whatever reason communication with them doesn't work out well-- i.e. they have to send it to you many times, they say they didn't get a response back, etc.?

Would that spoil the whole thing?

>>84637
The only reasons I ever get angry is if feedback is ignored or excused.

Answering all your criticism with "Oh that will be explained latter," or "but it's supposed to be like that" is bullshit and does not stop a the fic from being bad.

>>84638
Oh, and then there are the people that get angry at the feedback we give them.

Their rants are infuriating.

Which would you say is more accurate about OCs:
1)Almost never have OCs. If it's a distant background character, fine, but that's just it.
2)OCs are fine, and you can have they all over. The whole point is proper characterization. There's nothing forcing all OCs to be Mary Sues. Make something worth reading, that's all.
3)Only use OCs as background characters. Don't you dare try and have, say, Fluttershy and your OC collaborate raising lost puppies in a shelter. Keep OCs out of the main part of the story.
4)OCs are fine all through the story as long as they're written well. Just don't use them do something romantic with an already established character or something taboo. There's nothing wrong with average OC activity.

>>84643
1 and 3 sound the same, as do 2 and 4.

That being said, I have a hard time deciding between two and four.

>>84643
#2.

#4 if you don't know what you're doing. Any properly characterized OC is just that... a character. The reason people hate OC ships is because a poorly characterized OC x canon pony ship inevitably feels like a self-insert fic.

>>84638
Does it bother you to have reviewers dispute a point? I'm saying this as something totally different than being ignored or just ranted with.

Like if you have a conversation like this=
"I think he comes across as a Gary Stu if you have him being friends with so many of the mane six like that."
"I don't see what you mean. He's not friends; he just mentioned Rarity and Applejack because he bought stuff from them."
"It comes across too much like friendship, and that makes it sound like a Gary Stu 'everypony likes me' trope."
"I don't know if I agree. It's not like I'm not all friendly-ish with the people at Subway."

>>84641
I find a lot of them hilarious myself

>>84643
OCs are fine if developed properly. Most people don't. OCs are hard because you have to make me care about them at least as much as Spike.
OC x OC shipping is double the above. Shipping you have to care about the actors or what's the point? Ditto sad.
OC x mane shipping. I pass on these. I have zero faith left in the ability of fanfic authors to make me care enough about their OC that I consider her/him worthy of $mane_cast_member. I also don't review them, so it doesn't really matter beyond one less person who will read the fic. My lack of faith in OCs came about during the summer when every other fic was about Luna. Dear god I'm glad all that fanon was killed, most of it was awful.

>>84636 >>84635
We've quit on fics before, but not authors. There is one very special author that we don't hold much hope for, but his/her stuff gets reviewed when we get it too. I will admit, it tends to sit for a while.

>>84618
How about the number of times we've been super excited about a fic and had practically the entire pre-reader group love the crap out of it and see it go 3.9?

>>84625
Yes
I did yesterday-two days ago now. I was already planning to moon for totally generic BronyInEquestria when i saw "u" used in place of "you".

>>84600
Sadly, any form of Shipping seems to be getting a lot of downvotes. Seth is making those 'ignore the ratings' for a reason. M/M and to a lessar extent F/F seem to attract the worst of that.
Apparently borderline clop is another good way to get people pissed off at you.

>>83964
LUS is better than ambiguity, IMO. One prereader did have a comment "allow me to introduce you to the phrase 'the other mare'"
I tend to use the shortest thing I can that isn't ambiguous. He and she for a stallion and mare talking (lol. me write stallions e.e). If I'm using third person limited, the pronoun is reserved for the PoV and teh other character gets names (Twilight) or epitaphs (Her friend, The Unicorn , the other mare). I have found though, that you can get away with a lot of repetition in names by not starting all of your sentences the same. "Twilight said" five times in a row calls for SOMETHING.

>>84651
without context (an example that would spark that debate) it's impossible to answer. It certainly sounds like someone derped.

and. i need to get ready to go to work. FML

>>84646
That makes sense. I have a shipfic involving an OC and Luna that I like a lot, and readers like a lot, but I know would never fit in EqD because of the nature of the style. I tried hard to make the OC realistic, but I know that it is pretty difficult. OC shipping just falls naturally into self-insert and Gary Stu territory the same way a apple just naturally falls from the tree.

And the thing is: that's fine. If you as an author choose to write different things to different audiences, then you're just being rational.

Is m/m an automatic 'do not want'?

>>84659
The fanbase will one-star bomb them, but the pre-readers are a bit more mature. You should be fine with the inital submittal, i believe.

The real question is why you would WANT to ship an OC with a canon character. There are plenty of oh so exploitable character dynamics within the actual cast, especially if you include supporting characters. If something can be covered with an existing character, why further complicate the fictional universe by adding one of your own?

>>84662
That doesn't work if you want to do a hetero-ship, unless you play a R63 card at some point (at which points things get a little weird. I'm looking at you, Connor and your Rarity/Elusive shipping). There's a few canon male characters, but none of them are particularly well-developed.

A thought occurred to me.
If pre-readers have a backlog that is partially from resubmitted stories, would it work to have some ponies who are not pre-reader quality but want to help compare the old and new stores for significant change. Then if the comparison reader does not feel significant change is made they send it back. If they feel change is made it is sent to the actual pre-readers for review.

It might not be terribly efficient but it could help shorten the cue. Give a expanded input from a second individual. This could also provide a useful tool for individuals who want to write (like me) but need to get better.

I know I would be happy to occasionally compare fics, especially if there was a pre-generated list of concerns.

>>84665
I know there are programs that can compare a story to see how much has changed. Do the pre-readers use something like that?
(Or at least, I think there are programs like that. I remember Pen Stroke saying he had something like that when he was comparing the edited version of PS to make sure no one slipped in something unsavoury, but that might just be my memory speaking.)

>>84668
I'm under the impression that those programs are relatively unreliable and thus might not help at all.

>>84668
Notepad++ can do it. But you'd need a copy of the original submission to do the comparison.

>>84651
I don't know about you, but it bothers the crap out of me.

Sometimes they have a point - at least once or twice, a subsequent chapter has indeed clarified a sticking point. When that happens, I usually advise to hang a lampshade on the "problem" to tip off the reader that the author does know it's there, because the reader tends to need that to maintain their belief in the story.

As a more discerning reader, when looking at things to be put in front of potentially millions more readers, being told that "generic problem #16-f" isn't really a problem irks, because I can guarantee it will be. Mary Sues suck, special snowflakisms make me want to scream, poor plot progression in the vein of "it will be explained later" and "oh it just happens like that" is *weak*, and it's my job to tell the writer that.

At some point, I have to say "yes, and I know you don't care, but I do, and it's my job to tell you why you're wrong and you really do have to fix it".

Quite frankly, every so often, there is an author who Just Doesn't Get It(tm) and feels that their special snowflake supersedes the pre-readers' opinion. It doesn't.

This is harder to deal with when the fic is just plain so-so - not amazingly well written, but it passes the hurdle by a hair's breadth. At that point, I have to think - do I turn around and tell the author "sorry, you've improved it a lot, but not immeasurably, and I just don't think it's good enough"? Or do I post it and listen to whining from those who thing EqD isn't posting "good enough" fiction?

It feels like a dick move, but that does happen.

The issue is that, at conception, pre-reading was designed to separate the wheat from the chaff, not to pre-package the result. It's slowly been moving more towards "well, this isn't actually all that good, even if technically passably written" - some would out and out like it to showcase on the best of the best. Now we have sites like fimfiction and the pfa, we feel better about doing that, but it does lead some authors to rage against seeing their arguably passable fic not pass, where in the past it would have gone up.

The ones that get most shouty are ones that have managed to write in plain English competently, but lack that master-stroke capability to take it to the next level. Trying to explain and help them make their story jump from "okay" to "good" or even "great" is hard when they won't listen.

If someone told you their prologue was slow-going but the first chapter (and subsequent chapters) were very good, and you read their fic and found that, indeed, the prologue was quite slow, would you still read the first chapter? Or would you suggest that they make the prologue more interesting first?

>>84689
You have ONE chance to snag an audience. One. If your prologue is slow, at least give it a solid, compelling hook. Give the audience the desire to complete your story, not a promise that might be empty.

I just had an idea, which might possibly make everyone's lives a little easier.

From what I can gather, the problem that has caused the 3-strikes policy is too many fics, without enough experienced pre-readers. While limiting the number of submissions is one way to deal with this (and probably the right one), another way would surely be to increase the workforce.

Of course, to maintain quality standards on EqD, only so many people can be good enough (and dedicated enough) to pre-read properly.

A lot of you guy's workload is from really awful stuff, right? So why not have a first layer of people, not really to judge stories, just to reject inappropriate/unreadable ones?

There's probably all sorts of things wrong with this.

>>84708
Seth already does that on some level, and we don't have issues with inexperienced prereaders, though I'd prefer not to expand any further on that.

That said, the three strikes rule isn't just about the recent surge, though it is part of it -- it is also a way to cut down on returning workload, since some people are quite... well, bad at taking advice/criticism that we give them (be it their arrogance or how new they are to writing). From the official post on EqD, I can already see people rethinking submitting because of this rule.

That is probably the largest help of all -- it will slow down submissions and make authors look more intently at their writing. Upping the man-power on our end would do absolutely nothing to increase the quality of submitted fanfiction, while this rule should ease workload, increase our productivity, and help the quality of submitted stories.

>>84665

Significant change doesn't necessarily mean the story is -better-. If, for example, the story is riddled with show-dont-tell issues, they can rewrite ten paragraphs and still have those same issues.

>>84595
I've been keeping up, or at least trying to keep up, with a bunch of serials that I approved, though I don't have a lot of time to read. But that's seriously all I did last month while on hiatus, I caught up with tons and tons of updates.

>>84600
All the answers to this assume people look at your fic.

The real answer is shipping of any sort and OCs. EQD hates them and will 1-star on sight.

>>84629
Never read it, personally.

>>84708
What Nines said. The rule is meant to cut down on people who continually resubmit after changing nothing or only what is explicitly pointed out. For instance, a comment like, "You have a problem with punctuating dialogue. 'my face." said Rainbow Dash' should have a comma not a period." would then expect the author to look out for further instances of this occurring, but often an inexperienced author will just fix that and send it back in. That's-a no good. We want to put the kibosh on that.

>>84629
There are pre-readers who like it and pre-readers who don't. That's all I'll elaborate on.

>>84738
I guess everyone learned their lesson in not giving more fanfare to a story than it deserves.

>goes to the comment section
wait...

Hello, Equestria Daily pre-readers. I have a question that's been more or less burning in my mind for a while. Here, I guess I'll throw it to you. Say I have a fanfiction that I've planned through completely, and am speculating it to be practically epic in length. Of course, this will contain many, many plot devices, and amongst them is shipping. Now, basic fanfiction law says I should just throw on a shipping tag, and everything is all fine and good, right?

However, said shipping does not exactly come in until much later on in the story (the last five to seven chapters, to be exact). It's used as a major plot device, and it's between the two main characters. Therefore, anypony can really put two and two together when there's a shipping tag and spot this carefully planned plot device from a mile away. However, if it isn't there, it will come as much more of a surprise. So, I've been kind of torn between what is wise to do.

Is it a good idea to throw on the shipping tag, and give the readers as well as the fic publishers a good warning, or is it a better idea to leave it out to not spoil a huge element of the story? Please respond, and let me know what I should do. Thanks, and keep being amazing, pre-readers!

>>84804
You could always say late-game shipping or something.
Really, I think you shouldn't use it. It may be a major plot device, but it's comes in so late and isn't the drive for the story story. Plus, you may get readers who see "Shipping" and are like "Awesome! Gonna get my Fluttermac on!" and then drop it in disgust when there's no shipping for the next several thousand words.

>>84804
The tags that are assigned to stories are typically about the story overall, not just pointing out specific parts.

In your hypothetical example, you wouldn't call it a shipping fic because shipping is not the focus of the fic.

That would be like calling Star Wars a family drama because Luke has daddy issues.

My grim curiosity compels me to ask, but do you guys take fics that are humanized or anthropomorphic?

>>84833
We, uh, have, but normally because the actual ponies were changed via magic or something.

Just plain human/anthro for the sake of itself.. idunno. Doubtful? It should have a good reason for it I guess.

>>84804
One thing that pisses me off is SUDDENLY GRIMDARK on stories I'm reading (I like shipping, so don't care about suddenly shipping). But you WILL piss people who don't like shipping off if you ship main characters. Especially if it's "out of nowhere".

Just FYI.

>>84833
We've posted some humanized stuff before. It usually gets a lot of comments like "what's the point?" And some low ratings. I, too, wonder what the point would be.

Anthro: I have no clue. I don't think we've got any. I would seriously wonder what the point of this is. Also, I wouldn't bother reading it. I'm willing to bet it would get murdered if we ever posted it.

>>84841
Well, it isn't specifically out of nowhere; for one, there won't be two main characters from the show, but they will be the two main characters from the fic. Also, it's not going to come straight out of the blue; firstly, its going to take quite a while to get there (35-40 chapters or so with a variety of subplots as well as the overarching one); and secondly, they have very different personalities, and I plan for the love for each other to stem from their conflict in their disagreements, thus generating-

Oh wait, I should be writing this instead of talking about it, shouldn't I?

Anyway, thanks for the responses I have been given. I'll keep that in mind, and, judging that one of these may have been the actual pre-readers, I'll just drop the shipping tag.

Yeahhh... when the next Pre-reader thread is made, it might be good idea to have a listing of pre-readers who regularly check the thread, as some /fic/ regulars seem to feel obligated to jump in and answer questions for them.

>>84869
I think Ion is the only one that's been doing that.

>>84877

Though, in Ion's defense, he hasn't said anything incorrect.

Yet.

>>84877
>>84884
I try to play it safe, and if it's a guess, I state that it is.

When did this thread get so big?

>>84923
When I started posting here.

Bitches love Nathan.

Hi mr.nathan, who the hell are you?

>>84965
I'm a pre-reader.

I have the dubious honor of having authored the first fic ever to show up on Equestria Daily.

Been pre-reading for right around six or seven months now but rarely come to ponychan since /co/ is my usual hideout.

>>84967
First fic on EqD? I never knew that.

>>84967
I'm listed on the bio page

http://www.equestriadaily.com/2011/08/authors-and-pre-reader-page.html

>>84969
Well nobody ever really looks back that far anymore.

But yeah, Porcelain Secrets is dated January 19th, 2011.

It's been getting a surge of traffic on fimfiction lately.

What do you think of FiMFiction's revamped ratings? I find it annoying. It wasn't perfect, to be sure, but now it's a very blunt instrument. At least before you could weed out the 3-star stuff, but now you can't tell the difference. It is interesting to see how many very good fics got some bad ratings. Couldn't see that before.

>>84976
I wish EqD would adopt the same rating system actually.

Knighty wasn't kidding when he said 70% of the votes the site got were 5 star, the number he gave us was closer to 90%

With a system like that, average star rating is really not an accurate way of showing how well liked a fic is. Being able to compare how many liked it to how many didn't would be a lot better.

Pony Fiction Archive has an even better system that links ratings to comments, giving authors more feedback than just a number.

>>84987
I'd also quickly note that the like/dislike system also provides a different viewpoint -

that "average/bad" fics may still receive a significant number of likes, too.

It provides more data,
and also makes the ratings more about "like/dislike" than "good/bad" fic.
Which is good in some ways, and bad in others.

>>84987
But there's no "Meh, it was okay" option on FiMFiction. Every vote is pigeonholed into "yay" or "nay."

>>84989
>>84990
Well I think Knighty provided enough justification for the new rating system.

If you want to propose the middle ground to him, by all means go ahead.

>>84989
>>84990
Well, not only can you compare # of likes to # of dislikes, but you can compare both numbers to your number of views. If my story's gotten 500 views, only 1 like, and 0 dislikes, then it's probably "meh". Contrast with 500 views, 250 likes, 250 dislikes (polarizing).

Granted, I'm used to yea/nay systems, largely due to YouTube. Actually come to think of it, YouTube used to be 1-5 stars a while ago, didn't it?

>>84990
It seems to me that 'meh, it's okay' = no rating at all. Or at least that's what I do on fimfiction when I come across something that's just okay.

>>85023
I agree with this. Also, if the vast majority of ratings are five stars... What's the point of separating out stars? It's a de facto 'like' or 'dislike' anyway in the first place.

>>85023
Yes. Google changed that, as well as taking away the stars before clicking a video (although you can get an app for Firefox that shows the likes/dislike to fix that issue). Some believe it was to protect advertisers when they pay to get a "Featured Video" spot since those were usually one-star bombed.

>>84421
troll harder next time, your submission featured a good amount of trigger for what was a short message, but lacked the truly abrasive and insulting punch of a longer troll.

I would suggest demeaning our collective intelligence, insinuating we take bribes and are too busy clopping to ponies to do the job we obviously do only to get the fillies, and used other (probably sexual) favours to get the glorified positions we obviously hold.

Still, 2/5 horseapples for trying.

How many times have you seen "Luna" misspelled as "Luan"?

What are 'horseapples'?

>>85059
Seriously, I'm not trolling. I just don't recall where in the show they discussed 'horseapples', and I don't know what that word means.

>>85060
Bollocks, cajones, the-two-voltorbs.

>>84724
I was referring to changes as attempts to fix the problem. Theoretically a pre-pre-reader would look at the fic and say one of a few things.

1) The author made a good attempt to change the majority of the issues which seem to be improved enough to quite possibly pass.
2) The author made some attempt but they have work to do, possibly even some new mistakes. Send it back with some advice and encouragement.
3) The author did not really make a effort or failed in there attempt. Send it back, try to help the author if possible.

Again the idea of a pre-pre-reader is to cut back on some of the clutter in the inbox for the better qualified readers. This could also be used to test potential pre-readers now that i think about it.

>>85062
Horseapples refers to the shape and consistency of horse feces, not testicles.

>>85047
I hope to succeed where the anon failed.

*ahem*

I can only assume that your mothers drank heavily; what but fetal alcohol syndrome could explain your chronic lethargy and apparent retardation? Perhaps if you weren’t so busy feverishly refreshing paheal, hoping to feed your porny addiction, you would be able to handle the current volume of fics. Remember, people need you to look at their awesome stories; if any of you died due to autoerotic asphyxiation, the loss would be sorely felt. Still, I fear that as long as tissues remain at hand, the queue will grow longer and longer.

Also, government subsidies weren’t enough? Is your collective greed really so great that you are swayed by bribes? Bribes that you then use to purchase even more tissues!? I’m quite sure the given the amount of time you spend on the computer, you should have developed some sort of round-table discussion-through-the-internet technology by now, which you would almost certainly use to cultivate favor with seth [and of course, accept sexual favors from strangers in exchange for review work [because that is your job, after all]].

I am also convinced that you all suffer from a lack of exercise. Frankly, it surprises me that none of you have been crushed under the weight of those masses of flesh you call bodies. I would imagine that the promise of a tea party rally is the only thing that could get your unshapely, and probably sore, asses out of your chairs. Oh wait, living out your deepest fantasies in lovingly crafted fursuits at conventions counts as exercise now? Then you’ll all be fine.



How many points do I receive?


In all seriousness, I think you all are doing a pretty good job under less that ideal circumstances

>>85065
I prefer to believe in a different type of horseapples.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horseapple

>>85066
huzzah! The fun hath been doubled!

>>85065
Well, that'll learn me.

>>85066
>pic

>>85066
>round-table discussion
was supposed to be (x^2 + y^2 = r^2)jerk

Take that, word-filters!

>>85077
I'm telling !!Celestia on you!
Naw, not really. Stick it to the... mare?

>>84396
Hah, while I don't agree 100% with you I like the idea of saying "you're lazier than an Equestria Daily pre-reader!".

No worries though, even with Equestria Daily being out of the ring now there are still plenty of other good fanfic sites to go to.

>>85090
>No worries though, even with Equestria Daily being out of the ring now there are still plenty of other good fanfic sites to go to.
I think some of us are forgetting that fics got permabanned before. From a reader's perspective, this ruling will change more-or-less nothing.

>>85090
>out of the ring
>500,000+ views a day

:\

>>85099
I think he was refering to the fanficpart of it.

>>85104
>out of the ring
>only posting the best fanfiction

I don't see where he's going with this.

>>85106
Let's not start this discussion again. Since the rule will go through no matter what, there's no sense in talking about why it's good or bad.

Some say it'll hurt the fanfic-section of EquDaily, others say it'll do it good.

I say let them do with their site whatever they want. There are still lots of other sites that host FiM fanfiction.

>>84990
I always say, if your only response is, "Eh, it's okay", then it's a nay. Meh stories should not be upvoted.

>>85053
I've never seen this, surprisingly enough.

Now I want to write a trollfic where her name is Juan. It could also star her sister, Celesita.

If you submit a fic to EqD and receive no "to the pre-readers" response, does that mean that your fic was rejected before it even got to the pre-readers, or does it mean something else? Also, should I resubmit it?

>>85223
This is covered in the FAQ in the OP, btw. I'll run through it again, though.

How long ago did you send it? Sometimes it takes a few days for Seth to get around to forwarding stories to us.

It would only be auto-rejected if:
-You didn't use the submission format.
-There were ~5 spelling/grammar errors in the description.
-It was a gorefic or clopfic.

>>85237
It was yesterday afternoon. I guess I'm spoiled after getting a response in only a couple of hours. Perhaps I should just wait a little while longer?

>>85060
I only recall one mention in-show, during the Iron Pony competition. Used as an expletive of sorts, which makes sense.

>>85358
Ironically, Rainbow Dash says "horseapples", while Applejack says "ponyfeathers".

Do you think "Shades of Gray" or "Monochrome" is a cooler fic name?

I recently submitted a story that I was told seemed too much like a self insert, and was therefore rejected. I understand why they'd reject it if it were that genre, but it's actually not. Granted, it's a crossover, but the character in my fic is completely fictional and in fact nothing like me.

So my question is this: since I was already told to take the story to FimFiction, is there any way I can re-submit it for examination? In other words, if it wasn't a self insert as the pre-readers thought, would it have a chance?

>>85566
Not a pre-reader, so take this with a grain of salt, but...

If it seemed like a self-insert to the readers, it likely was. Even if you're a hundred percent sure your character isn't, re-examine him or her and figure out WHY the readers thought that, then correct it. Your fic will benefit as a result.

>>85566
I haven't been a pre-reader long, so this may not be the final word, but so long as it isn't its third strike, you should be able to submit again.

>>85566

It was most likely auto-rejected by Seth, and never made it to us. You can send it again with an explanation of why we should consider it.

Why does Seth auto-reject things? How is that different than just plain being rejected?

If I'm remembering correctly, Seth will auto-reject stories with several typos in the submission form, as well as trollfics, Cupcakes spinoffs, and certain types of crossover. This means the story never goes to the pre-readers, and thus helps keep the queue unclogged.

>saged for not-actually-a-pre-reader.