• Member Since 14th Jul, 2012
  • offline last seen 1 hour ago

Georg


Nothing special here, move along, nothing to see, just ignore the lump under the sheet and the red stuff...

More Blog Posts479

  • 6 weeks
    Big Leather Egg Sunday

    A reminder (as John Cleese put it) that today is Big Leather Egg Sunday, and to celebrate, I'm linking the Best Football MLP story of all time by Kris Overstreet. Starring... Rarity?

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    3 comments · 326 views
  • 7 weeks
    Goodbye Toby Keith, American Legend

    Undoubtedly, if Toby Keith had ever done a tour in Equestria, Applejack would have been right there in the front row, whoopin' and a hollerin' as loud as possible. I think every high school in the US had a proud friendly guy like this, and we raise our red Solo cups in tribute to his last beer run. Salute!

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    9 comments · 416 views
  • 12 weeks
    New Year 2024- New Projects 1939

    Still working on everything else this year, but I've got a sequel/prequel to Equestria: 1940 in the works, both a series of short stories set in the 1940 world up to the Equestrian moon project, and a war story showing some behind the scenes details about the war. For a little country the size of Ohio in the northern Atlantic, it has a lot of potential. Explosive, mostly. Snippets after the

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    4 comments · 323 views
  • 13 weeks
    Merry 2023 Hearth's Warming greetings and fic recommendations

    Once again it's that time of year, when families gather around those we hold dear. Christmas is upon us, with words of good cheer, written below and organized here. I'm copying most of a previous blog of Hearth's Warming and recommended fics, so let's get started with a heart warming cartoon from Vivziepop, and the rest of recommendations below the break. (which I'm editing at the moment so it

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    2 comments · 241 views
  • 19 weeks
    Quick survey on Letters From a Little Princess Monster

    Summary: I have two more chapters done in Letters. Post them now or post them after I'm done with the arc in two more chapters or so? Upvote the comment that matches your opinion. Including a snippet just to let you know I'm not addicted to cliffhangers⁽*⁾. Oh, and I blame Estee for what happens to Green Grass. She's the one who came up with the idea of his special talent. It made me think.

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    11 comments · 427 views
Sep
19th
2013

A Very Short Guide to FimFiction.net and the fascinating creatures inside · 4:49am Sep 19th, 2013

I keep seeing cries for help in some of the groups from the new converts to the herd, so I thought I’d put together a little misguided collection of the do’s and don’ts of the community, as misinterpreted by Your’s Truly.

Think of this as the Be-attitudes:
Be Nice
Be Polite
Be Patient
and of course, Be Helpful.

Readers
User Names: If you’re going to comment or make a list of fics to read later, you’ll need one of these. Pick something polite that children will not blush at and is spelled correctly. If you think you’re going to write later, you might want to pick out something that goes with your personality. But nice.

Reading: When reading through older fics, please remember that some of the authors have given up halfway through and may never complete their works. Don’t wail and gnash your teeth (the dental bills are horrible), just sigh and move on. Fortunately Knightly (Blessings Be Unto Him) has added a search feature in the Later/Favorites so you can pick out the stories that have completed from the dozens (or hundreds) in your list. Light a candle in memory of his long-lost sanity, and pray for the longevity of his remaining body, for his is the power, and the HTML, Amen. (Seriously, this place just keeps getting better)

Thumbs up/down: Use a little discretion here please. If you like something, by all means, give it the happy thumb. If you don’t, just skip on. Downthumbs should be reserved for the same purposes as Bridge Out or Road Ends signs: to prevent the disaster that happened to you from happening to others. (Oh, my eyes! It burns!) It is considered polite (but nobody seems to do it) to leave a productive comment on such stinkers (see below) when you curse them with the dreaded red thumb of death. And don’t just drop the hate on fics where you don’t like the genre (HiE, Horror, Luna’s sobbing gloom), instead just skip them. After all, somebody must like them, or they wouldn’t get written.

Commenting: (subcategories)

Praise: We authors always appreciate praise, the same way new parents appreciate having their baby adored. One special thing you can do is to say just exactly *what* part of the story you liked the most, i.e. “That ending, it was just perfect. I could totally see Celestia yelling that.”

Criticism: Otherwise known as the ‘But’ “I loved the way you showed Pinkie Pie, but…” If the author has a particular part of the story where they wander away/get boring/get out of character/take a sharp turn without signaling/go horribly dark/go horribly sunshine and rainbows, and you don’t like that, please leave a polite message to that regard, not just “Oh, I hated your fic!” We use these comments to go back and correct problems or clean up ambiguous language, sometimes making dozens of editing trips back through a document until it meets our high standards of quality. (Actually, I almost never get there since I’m overly picky)

Typos/Grammar: This is a pet peeve of mine. If I’m reading through a fic and see a typo, I open up a notepad window and start composing an email response detailing the corrections that need made instead of just slapping them into the comments. Why? Because if the author corrects their document, your typo comment just sits there like an ugly outdated lump. Yuch. Moral of the story: Email typos

Downvotes: Few things frustrate an author more than a downvote that was not explained. Did you not like the main character? Was she acting out of character? Was the grammar and spelling so bad you just could not keep reading? For the love of Faust, please tell the poor author. And be nice about it too. MLP fans from all over the world write ponyfic, many of them with English as a second or third language. If you like the story and hate the grammar, try volunteering to be an editor/pre-reader for the author. It’s hard work, but worth it.

BB Code: The FimFiction site uses BB Code inside the stories and comments, which is how you do links (as above)/underline/bold/color/etc… Be aware that FimFiction does not use the whole stable of BB Code, and some acts a little funky like colors. (I can’t get colors to go over two lines, but no biggie) Go to the above link and learn, young one. I’ve gotten to the point where I can type the BB Code for a break [ center] * * * [ /center] faster than I could cut and paste it. (There’s an extra space after [ and before center so you can see what I did)


Writers/Authors
What to Write: Answer: Write what you know, what you like, and what makes you feel. Don’t feel cut down if your first story draws single digit views, or even your second. If you don’t know what you want to write, fill in this blank: There should be a MLP story that _________.

Just one warning: Comedy is the hardest thing to write, and it is *impossible* to get everybody to laugh at every joke.

How to Write: Answer: However you feel most comfortable writing. You want to put on the headphones and go half-deaf while typing, great. Need to be in a quiet room with a pencil, that’s fine too. Experiment. Try new methods. Try to get at least a little writing done each day, even if it’s nothing more than jotting a quick note on a piece of paper in your pocket.

Where to Write it Down: I’m really opinionated here, but generally whatever application you want to use to put your thoughts together is fine, Word, your phone, iPad, etc… One thing I would *not* do is to compose your story on the FimFiction.net site. Far too many documents go *poof* during the editing process there, so instead, I use Google Documents. I have a pony folder that all my stories go inside, and I can work on them from any computer on the internet that has Firefox or Chrome (because the other browsers stink at Gdocs). It takes very little effort to change the permissions on your document to “Any user with the link can comment”, and then I tend to put the link in my blog postings.

FimFiction has the ability to import directly from a Gdoc, but I don’t do it that way because it drags in all the comments (and my stories always get the heck commented out of them during the build process) plus it requires a file for every chapter (which gets horribly cluttered really fast). My process is to use a single file, and put chapter tags such as “Chapter 1 / End Chapter 1 “ at the chapter beginning/ends and use Search and Copy/Paste to copy them out of the Gdoc and into the FimFiction chapter. Very nice when you have a 37 chapter document and you just made one edit in the middle. As an example, here is a Gdocs link to Diplomacy by Other Means, a fic that I’m in the middle of writing at the moment. Feel free to read ahead and comment.

If you zap something out of your Google doc, don’t panic. Google has multiple-step undo. You can unwind the document back to just about any date, which can be a little scary, but very useful. (I’ve used it twice now)

Author notes: I use the first comment in the story to put my short chapter descriptions and any background information, including a link to the Gdoc, etc… For example, here is The Traveling Tutor and the Librarian which has been through a bazillion editing and review passes, and includes the Gdoc link, links to reviews, etc…

Editing: (Otherwise known as Helping) One thing that can earn you the love (and occasional hate) of your fellow writers is to volunteer to help edit their fic. Just send/receive a Google Documents link to their precious child (as above) and start to work. The previous advice about being helpful and polite now goes double or even tenfold. Be firm, but not bossy. You don’t need a comma there. Semicolon here. You used the british spelling of colour here. You will find helping others babysit their children assists you in your own child rearing process far more than any number of college classes.

(new) Reading: Groups: One of the most handy tools on the site for catching stories that you might like, groups allow you to get notifications when a writer (see below) or reader puts a story in it, or if you follow the discussion threads about your favorite topics. Like to read about writing? Join the Writers Group. Same thing for Children’s stories, the fantastic Lunaverse, Badass Twilight etc… Now for the flipside of the topic.

(new) Writing: Groups: One of the most handy tool for a writer to get your story in front of people who would be interested in it rather than just flinging it into the giant pool is also groups. Here’s where it gets complicated. Groups have rules. Don’t just go jamming your fic into every group you can find, that’s rude. Read their rules. Submit politely. Also, if you are a member of a group and you read a fic that you like and think should be in that group, you can add it. Once again, be polite. Don’t spam. Take advantage of the resources available such as the Proofreader Group, the Writers Group, Author Support and many others to improve your stories and your writing.

Now I’ve actually heard people write “I don’t want to add my story to groups because I’m afraid too many people will look at it.” Well, I can understand that, if you’re a new writer and need to polish that story up a bit before putting it out for a group to examine. Dip your toe into that pool carefully and before you know it, you’ll be doing the backstroke with the rest of us. Come on in, the water’s warm. Um. But don’t pee in the pool…

(new) Equestria Daily - Submission: Depending on who you listen to, EqD is either the pinnacle of a fiction writer’s achievement or a place where dreams go to die. Much like a beauty contest where the losers are executed, the endless line of hopeful contestants bearing their precious creations is nearly matched by a line of defeated authors swearing vengeance headed in the other direction. There’s a reason EqD has so many good fics (and the occasional Sharknado), and a reason the I Hate Equestria Daily group exists. Be aware if you write a story and think it’s good enough for EqD, and you’ve never submitted anything before, it’s not good enough, and will need editing at best, and will be rejected hard at worst. (At least they don’t track you back to your home and nail a dead skunk to your door.) Get a good proofreader and pre-reader (above) and go over the story with them like it is going to be published in the Times. Even then it probably won’t be enough, so take a deep breath, and write some more.

We’ll be waiting. And reading. :pinkiesmile:

Note: I’m going to try to keep this document current and add any new little genius (or SubGenius) ideas as they float to the top of my mind (just remember, cream is not the only thing that floats).

Now get out there to Love and Tolerate the heck out of people.
-Georg

Report Georg · 3,286 views ·
Comments ( 17 )
Spacecowboy
Moderator

Explaining Downvotes. Got 250+ of them across my stories, maybe 3 or 4 were explained. Wish there was a "You must comment before downvoting" system in place.

A very nice write-up. So many tend to use downvotes in a more harassing manner from what I see in pulling up dummy accounts, and using that to go after people they don't like. A few groups are sadly very well known for that kind of thing, or to have that happen with certain authors. But otherwise, yes, here is to hoping.

I'm Elric of Melnipony, and I approve of this message. :pinkiesmile:

I like this. Thanks for making it.

Explained with the eloquence of a Grand Master! Any advice on Groups? They scare me.:applejackconfused:

An exquisite introduction to the site. This should be required reading for new users.

1359513
Ah, but that would just lead to a deluge of "hated it 0/10" comments equal in size to the downvotes. Sadly, there's no way to guarantee a constructive comment.

1359805 I added a section on Groups and EqD, just for you. (See, this is what I meant by Comments are Good Things. They point out places where we have deficiencies, and allow us to correct them.)

This is very useful (though I already adhere to these rules), but there's no mention of the category: Responding To Criticism.

Let me tell you, a lot of people do not appreciate negative criticism, even when you take the time to actually explain the why and the how. On at least two occasions, an author explicitly stated in the story description that negative comments would be deleted, a decision that earned them very little love.

Last time I issued clearly negative criticism on a story (that the characters were absurdly sociopathic for no real reason) the author made some passive-aggressive remarks about not having to explain himself to me and that I should just "deal with it". (I dealt with it by leaving my downvote where it was and not continuing to read.) Another time (different story and author), the author replied that he'd never write again. Not sure if he was serious or not.

So maybe some advice about reacting to negative criticism without acting like a hysterical teenager could be useful.

I do too have a paragraph on criticism. (Is it meta to criticize a criticism of a blog post?) It's short, but it assumes that the reader is a thinking adult and... Oh, I see. Yeah, I better expand on that some. Thanks! (Note: The comment and this response are the way criticism is supposed to work: pointing out a shortcoming politely, and responding politely while fixing said shortcoming.)

Yeah, Explained criticism is a must. Sure, my writing may be terrible, by I want to know how it's terrible so I can make it not terrible.
My first story ( a short one-shot, now long gone) recieved about 50% downvotes, but only one person told me what it was they didn't like about the story, and basically just said: "X is bad.", pretty much in those words. Not why it was bad, or what they'd like to see change. And that was all I got. It's a LOT more helpful if you do this: "Here's what I didn't like, here's some advice on how to improve, or resources you can use." Even advice is optional, as long as you're specific enough. "This character was bad because they felt a little flat and didn't really have any background." And even that little is enough.
I usually leave constructive criticism, though that's not to say all authors listen to it. Most do though, and appreciate it when you take the time to really think about the story.
I can count on one hand the number of downvotes I have given, and all of them have been for utterly atrocious, incoherent, unserviceable writing. (And with them came very long comments on how to improve it and what exactly it lacked.)
Anyways, TL;DR- Only downvote stories that really deserve it, and TELL AUTHORS WHAT THEY NEED TO FIX!

When I read

You used the British spelling of colour here

but...but...I live in Britainland!

3666885 I'm sorry. If you manage to escape, we can provide you sanctuary in Kansas. :scootangel:

3667032 That would be top. I will carve your name into the wall of my prison cell. If anyone else comes, don't blame me...just say you dislike tea or something. The vast majority should implode upon this information.

EQD: Where dreams really do go to die.

4342668 You just need to remember, there is one reason behind every (well, almost every) story that gets published on EqD.

Will this story bring more clicks to the EqD site? (without devolving into porn)

I have a couple of stories which I haven't submitted because they're too blue, but over the last (oh, God) two years or so, everything I've submitted has gone through. I'm a lot better writer now than I was four years ago, and I'm trying to keep improving as I go. Maybe someday... Amazon.

4342715


Yyeeeeeaaaaaaaaaah, you say that, but EQD ha given me some very dubious rejections. For example, I wrote a death fic focused on old Twiley, and they whined about it not focusing enough on her already dead friends. I submitted another story which involved a quick shooting. They turned it down for "violence / not being family friendly ". And the very next day, they posted a story FOCUSED on Rarity playing RUSSIAN ROULETTE! Purposeful misinterpretation and double standards. You can see how I am bitter and cynical about Equestria Daily. What do you say to that? How do you justify that, hhhmmmm!? As you can tell, it is still a very sore subject for me.

4342740 Yeah, you should have heard me when they bounced Concept Art - Captured in Stone, not once, but *four* times. Wow, I whined. That's one of the reasons I joined the 'I hate Equestria Daily' group. One easy mistake to make is assuming EqD is a single entity. The fiction review team is a group, and as such will have differing opinions.

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