The Will of the Bon Bon
By Duke of Canterlot

Reviewed by Rinnaul

Huh. This will actually be my first encounter with Iron Will clop. I don’t have much else to say here, unless I just want to talk about what I ate last again (ham and cheese frittata, for the record—I didn’t have any green peppers to put in, and didn’t consider tomato until it was already nearly done), so let’s just throw in the customary “pony in a sexy pose” image. Now, to see what I can find…

I only made it through three chapters, but that was enough to convince me the story’s problems were endemic.

Right off the bat, the writing is beige and simplistic, but it isn’t until we get about half a page down that it becomes a severe issue.

Lyra got some rope and tied Bon Bon to the bed. Bon Bon could feel her pussy becoming wet. She was turned on. Bon Bon was on her back tied to the bed.

Lyra could never fulfill Bon Bon's fantasies and that made her sad.

Beige, telly, simple sentences, and repetition. This writing style is wholly incompatible with an erotic scene of any sort. Not only is it nearly impossible to convey the appropriate emotions this way, the contrast between the childlike prose and the mature subject matter gives the entire scene an air of comedy rather than romance.

"The sample size I have regarding meals that you have cooked is admittedly small. It is too premature for me to make a judgment."

"Yes, I have. He's such a dreadful minotaur. He gives minotaurs a bad name to be honest."
"I have never met a minotaur before."
"Is Iron Will in Ponyville?"
"Yes, he is. Iron Will is going to be at the Ponyville Gardens today at 2 PM to give one of his assertiveness seminars. Would you like to go?"

Furthermore, the characters never speak naturally. At best, the dialogue is stilted. At worst, they sound like robots—most often Bon Bon. It’s enough to make me wonder if there isn’t a “Bon Bot” tumblr out there somewhere.

"I hate what Iron Will stands for. He doesn't preach assertiveness. He preaches aggressiveness. The two are very different ways of acting.

Frankly, she has a point.

Bon-Bon wanted to slap that loud-mouthed bitch so hard but she restrained herself.

Iron Will must have thought he was hot shit.

Fuck her, what kind of pony does that to Fluttershy?

Not only is all of this telly, and putting first-person thoughts into a third-person narrative, but including such crude language in the narrative itself almost never works to the story’s advantage.

hung like a horse.

Sorry, but does that line even have any meaning when most of the characters are horses?

I skimmed for a while after this point, and then quit reading at the end of the chapter.

The writing style is extremely simplistic, full of telling and beige prose. This would be bad enough in most stories, but in clop or romance, it completely ruins the mood. This continues into the dialogue, and thanks to that, the characters never sound natural. First-person thoughts work their way into the narrative and give the impression that the point of view is drifting, and those thoughts often include gratuitous swearing that further weakens the prose.

Above all else, expand your sentence structure. The entire story is awkward and hard to read in the absence of any complex sentences.

Read your dialogue out loud. Does it sound like natural speech?

Keep the characters’ private thoughts out of the narrative, unless you’re writing first-person.

Expletives should generally be relegated to first-person thoughts and dialogue, and only when appropriate to the character in both cases. There’s almost never a good reason for the third-person narrator to swear.

Finally: show, don’t tell. Don’t just tell us that Bon Bon is sad that Lyra won’t play along with her fantasies. Show us how she responds to that emotion. Instead of “and that made her sad”, let’s see something like “Bon Bon sighed and lay there quietly, a slight frown on her lips as she watched her sleeping lover and thought of all the things they could do together, if only Lyra were willing.” We see more complex emotion this way. Not just “sad”, but a mixture of disappointment, longing, and doubt that paints a much more complete picture of what Bon Bon is really feeling.

The weak writing style, weak dialogue, slight POV drift, and gratuitous swearing all combine to give this a rating of:

Needs Work.