EThe Mistletoe of Love

• Equestria Girls
• Romance
• Slice of Life

Merry Christmas. <3

• Sunset Shimmer
• Sci-Twi

sunsetshimmer_13 · 1.4k words  ·  14  3 · 935 views

Description

Two girls and one romantic night. Sunset Shimmer and Twilight Sparkle (Sci-Twi) went to a special Sugar Cube Cafe for the evening. The one n only matchmaker Pinkie Pie is their waitress and little did they know is that they may have an cute special moment under a mistletoe. <3

(The italics were as formatted in the description itself)

Initial Thoughts

Well, it seems that Sunset Shimmer and Sci-Twi have been a couple for some time, but apparently that means there is still room for Pinkie Pie to play matchmaker. Should prove to be, indeed, a “cute special moment.”

I must note, unfortunately, a few errors found in the description. We have an instance of the past tense, with “went,” but then we have a present-tense verb conjugation, in the form of “is.” We then have “did,” the past tense, and a redundant verb adverbial clause, “is that.” We also have an incorrect indefinite article, “an.” The second sentence itself (the second complete sentence, I should specify) sounds a bit awkwardly structured. Perhaps because it’s missing a comma? 

To correct this, the whole thing might be rewritten as: Two girls and one romantic night. Sunset Shimmer and Twilight Sparkle go to a special Sugar Cube Cafe for the evening. Little do they know, however, with Pinkie Pie as their waitress, they’ll have a cute, special moment under the mistletoe.

Onto the story. Spoilers ahead.

Summary

Sunset and Sci-Twi go to Sugar Cube Cafe for a special evening date, and Pinkie ends up making it even more special by hanging mistletoe above their heads when they aren’t looking. 

Plot

It’s hard to give this story credit for graceful maneuvering of all its pieces. 

By its premise, I understand this story would not have much of a conflict. It is, rather, a story about a moment, and that moment, of course, is of Sunset and Sci-Twi going on a date. That, itself, is a cute and fluffy idea, so at the very least, I can say that what the story said it would set out to accomplish, it did… to some extent. 

But because of this lack of a conflict, the story has to try and draw the reader in somehow. And while it presents itself as a cute fluff fic, it doesn’t quite do enough to capture one’s attention.

In part, that is because the story is told in a very “telling” manner, and in doing so, it removes much of its own intrigue. We are told that Sunset and Sci-Twi have been dating for almost a  year in the first paragraph. That’s fine exposition, totally acceptable, but it more-or-less cements the idea that these two are without any problems are struggles. Their relationship is perfect, idyllic, and this date is just another fact to that—but why should that matter?

To put it another way, there really isn’t a sense of any stakes in the story. The characters get what they want, and then some, but the plot itself—which apparently centers around the antics of Pinkie Pie—isn’t given space to develop, or an anchor with which to weigh itself in the story’s narration. Pinkie’s entire act takes place off-screen, removing any sense of tension or weight, and it’s only observed in passing by Sunset and Sci-Twi, and only at the very end of the story, too. 

The unfortunate fact is that this story is boring, and it doesn’t do enough to circumvent that. It tries to be cute, but it comes off feeling flat and ingenuine—it tries to hit all the hallmarks for writing a cute story, but it falls short of completion. We just aren’t given anything to care about. 

I believe that the main cause, or at least the one to which I can draw tangible evidence from, is that the story spends too much time away from the cafe as opposed to being in it. There are a good dozen or so paragraphs spent with Sunset getting ready to pick up Sci-Twi before they go to the Cafe. But that’s almost half of the story’s length, and the other half isn’t given enough development. I’d be more interested in the two of them immediately being in the cafe, for starters, and I’d be more interested in hearing them have a conversation about their relationship so far. The story feels like it was too afraid to take that simple avenue of exploring these characters’ relationship to each other, and would rather present to the reader something small and insignificant. 

It cheats itself and the reader of its own premise. And that hurts the story by a good margin. 

Score - 5 / 10

Characterization

I wish I had more to say about this point. The characters are… remarkably flat. 

In perhaps an offshoot of the problems with the presentation of the relationship, the characters suffer a similar lack of development. Nothing about them changes or grows, nothing about them is vaguely interesting or presented as interesting. If names had not been given, these two could easily have been any generic “couple in love,” and that itself is a rather boring construction.

Sunset Shimmer doesn’t quite have a strong sense of sass, and Sci-Twi’s awkwardness doesn’t come into play. There are no flaws that are presented which may highlight the strengths of the other. There are no weaknesses or conflicts. They’re just… in love. And, yeah, that’s sweet, but it’s the kind of sweet that old candy gets after a while. 

Pinkie is the only character whose flatness seems intentional, but that, I believe, hinders the story greatly. Again, let me reiterate: the main reason why she’s in this story is to hang mistletoe above the couple. But that happens offscreen. That makes her action unnecessary, and in fact, her entire presence needless. Which is odd, since it seems like the story wants to say that she’s somehow very important to the narrative. 

The hints of characterization are there, but they’re just hints. Again, flaws are the helpers this story needs. Stakes, too. Give me a sense of what the characters want out of this relationship more than just saying, “They’re happy in a relationship.” Complicate the narrative, or the characters. Whichever feels right.

Score - 5 / 10

Syntax

The biggest and most immediate textual problem with this story is the amount of tense changes. Let me quote the first paragraph as an example:

Boy does it feel good whenever the Holiday season comes around. It’s away to spread Christmas joy and cheer in the season of giving. It was currently only a week until Christmas comes and Sunset Shimmer was just getting ready for her special holiday date with her girlfriend Twilight Sparkle. Sunset and Twilight have been dating for almost a year up to this point and since then they were practically inseparable. Sunset Shimmer can still remember their first kiss at the Canterlot Park during New Years.

The first sentence is in the present tense. It’s also one of those abstract beginning sentences that you might find in a student’s essay. Functionally, it’s fine, but it’s a rather weak opening. The main issue is that following these first two sentences, we move into the past tense, with “was.” Then, in the subsequent sentence, we return to the present, with the present perfect tense: “have been.” Midway through, we return to the past tense, “were.” Then we end on the present tense: “can.” 

These kinds of errors are prevalent in virtually every paragraph. Sentences will start in one tense, then end in another. It’s a rather concerning issue for how common it is.

In general writers ought to stay in on tense and one tense only, though that is far from a rule of law. It is simply easier to stay in one tense for the sake of clarity than it is to jump around tenses. By the tone of this story, I’d assume that the best way to tell it is in the past tense, so such a change would be required. The easiest way to practice noticing these issues is to simply read the story out loud and hear where the verbs are incorrectly conjugated. 

Another issue is having too long of a sentence. I’ll admit to being a fan of long sentences, but the ear is to be specially trained to detect when that’s appropriate, and when it’s far better to shorten a sentence. (Such as here!) Let me pull an example from the story itself:

“Hey Twily,” Sunset greets back as Twilight gets on the motorcycle behind her and she wrapped arms around Sunset.

It sounds like to me that the sentence could be broken into at least two shorter ones. You would, as a suggestion, put a period after “back,” delete the coordinating conjunction “as,” and start a new sentence with Twilight. (You would also, of course, have to decide what tense you want this story and sentence to be in). As a corrected measure, it may look something like this:

”Hey, Twily,” Sunset greeted back. Twilight got on the motorcycle behind her, wrapping her arms around Sunset.

A similar structure could be taken if the sentence were written in the present tense, of course. 

Of more mechanical criticisms, there are points where a comma would be needed in order to divide up two distinct clauses. Certain sentences could do with trimming away of certain coordinating conjunctions like “as” or “while.” Some sprucing up of semicolon, comma, colon, em-dash, and other “pause” punctuation marks would also be advised.

In effect, though, such errors made reading this story more difficult than it should have been. I’m less inclined to be a stickler for grammar than perhaps I seem, but at the same time, if such issues affect the clarity of the text, then it detracts much from the experience therein. One can argue style points, but style cannot come at the cost of clarity - otherwise, there’s nothing you can do with it. 

Score - 5 / 10 

Final Score - ( 5 + 5 + 5 ) / 3 = 5 / 10

Final Thoughts

The story has a lot of potential for a nice fluff piece. Unfortunately, its main drawback is that it doesn’t do enough with itself to set that standard. More development on virtually all of its aspects—from the progression of its plot, to its use of its characters, to the fine-tuning of its syntax—needs to be accomplished for the story to truly be its best self. 

<For archive purposes: 5/10>

Not half bad for first review
I’ll take it