EHow to Host a Party

• Equestria Girls
• Slice of Life

Sunset Shimmerʼs friends realize theyʼve never been at her place. To remedy this, Sunset decides to host her first sleepover. How hard can it be?

• Sunset Shimmer
• Main 7 (EqG)

Uz Naimat · 3.5k words  ·  82  2 · 1.9k views

How to Host a Party

by Uz Naimat

Summary:

Sunset Shimmerʼs friends realize they’ve never been at her place. To remedy this, Sunset decides to host her first sleepover. How hard can it be?

Initial Thoughts: I am a simple man. I see ‘Slice of Life’ and ‘Equestria Girls’, and I click. And the description intrigued me. There’s something about the EQG setting that demands a little exploration. Not only it’s connections with Horseland, but its own inner workings were left so vague and undefined by the show, that there’s a whole host of ideas each story can explore, in the micro and macro sense. Toss in character interaction between Sunset and company, with all the wonderful potential topics that could come up? I’m sold!

My Reaction: The story sets up a rather simple premise right off the bat: Sunset Shimmer hasn’t yet been the host for one of her friends’ sleepovers, and when it comes her turn, she decides to do it right. And ‘simple’ is a good description of this story, as a whole. It’s uncomplicated. It’s good, in fact… just perhaps a bit too simple at times.

The characters, in this story, are all solid. Everyone is in-character, and distinct in how they talk, act, and feel, without turning into caricatures of themselves. And they’re all put into a story that could go into some darker territory, but it pulls back enough to where this would probably work perfectly as one of the shorts… almost. The feel-good excitement of having these realized characters share a good time is there, and that’s half the fun of these sorts of stories.

But. The main problem of the story quickly rears its head. And the problem is… there is no story. There’s really no conflict that has to be resolved. Everyone wants to have a party… and the story kind of is just that. But there’s no unexpected drama. There’s no comedic misunderstanding. There’s no problem to overcome, despite the ingredients for all that being spelled out in the story itself. There’re buckets of cool little details the author throws into this story, hinting at Sunset’s life and unseen backstory… that doesn’t get used, when that alone could have negated the need for a “conflict”.

Now, you don’t always need there to be a disaster, or a villain, or something like that. But the absence of a plot does cost the story any sort of tension.

That said, the story itself is still a fluffy piece that follows our favorite non-ponies through what seems to be a happy, fun time. And if that’s all you need, then this tale provides.

Grammar: 8/10. It wasn’t until my second read-through that I noticed a couple of grammar faux-pas. Nothing so egregious that I noticed the first time around, and nothing that truly distracted me all that much. But they are there, and could distract other readers.

Story: 2/10. I feel weird, scoring this as low as I am. Like, there’s very clearly a “story” going on here. A sequence of causes and effects takes place. But without substance, why are we reading about this sleepover, and not one where something more interesting happens?

Characters: 8/10. Every character was solid. Everyone hit their mark, sounded like themselves, and didn’t come across as an outlandish imitation. This is only being marked down because the story didn’t really do anything with them. They exist, and in a somewhat polished state. But that’s all in a vacuum.

Final Word and Rating

8+2+8 = 18/30 = 60/100%

How to Host a Party is a fun, light-hearted tale that, sadly, doesn’t do more with its premise. All the elements are there, even hinted at, but we get neither character exploration or sleepover shenanigans with this particular story.

To the author: You have Sunset (and her friends) hint a lot at the weird, off-putting, and somewhat dark past she’s lived. And in a story where she’s anxious about putting together a social engagement that vaguely touches on some of those hints, I would have expected more of that to come out. There were so many moments that I thought would suddenly cause… something. Sunset’s money troubles, or Pinkie and the gelatin, or just how the Humane 7 thought about Sunset in the story’s opening moments could have been amazing storytelling beats. You just need to build on those moments, and make one or some of them into the juicy moments I have every confidence you could have done here.

Let me know if you have any questions about this review, or if you’d like to talk about some of those more specific moments.

7324630
Great review, Ninja!

7324630
Thank you for the review. You aren't the first reveiwe to tell me that the story lacks conflict. But that was on purpose. How to Host a Party is my first story, and I decided to write a short, conflict-less story to start my writing history. I also introduced, but didn't explore, Sunset's backstory because I was saving that my my next story . Anywho, thanks again for the review!