When Velvet Cream wins a contest, she is presented with a special camera that can do things that will change her life forever!
This is for ask-velvet-cream on tumblr for winning the contest! Sorry for the delay, but I hope you all enjoy the story!
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Awesome.
3542931 Definitely, I always go on look at other stories and compare, but i could never figure out how theirs was so good compared to mine :P thank you so much for the feedback, it's well appreciated!
Dialogue is a major problem here. Keep it to a minimum when alone. In addition, the dialogue is kinda cheesy, so I advise making your characters talk as little as possible until you improve a bit on that. Otherwise, good job!
Awesome story
Warning: A fair amount of criticism is present in this comment. If you're not one to take large amounts of criticism, then please ignore or delete this comment. If you read on, please note that this is all just my opinion, and you can do with my criticisms as you will. Also note that they are not meant to either insult or discourage you; they are meant only to provide suggestions on ways to improve your work.
I honestly found this to be both bland and confusing. I apologize if that seems harsh, but it's true. Rather than leave it at that, however, I'd like to talk about areas you can possibly improve upon, as well as point out good things you have in it.
My first issue with the story is the premise itself is jumbled. The contest states, "anypony who wishes to win a lifetime supply of desserts, please submit the entry form on page B6 via Equestrian Post to be entered with a chance to win." That's fine and all, but then the note in the winner's letter states,
The camera duplicates food, right? If that's the case, then why was there a focus on desserts? Wouldn't an invention like that set a person for life in terms of food? Wouldn't that be a massive invention for ponykind? Using it specifically for desserts when it can be used to duplicate other foods doesn't seem to make sense as a focus. If the camera can duplicate any food, then why does it magnify only the fat in the food? And if it doesn't duplicate all foods, that fact should've received some sort of focus.
I can get behind the possibility of a camera being used to duplicate food, and it being a dangerous tool because it magnifies the effect enough to begin overfilling ponies, making them sick or worse. I can also get behind Velvet Cream eating a bunch of cake and fattening herself up... if there was an established characteristic of having a massive sweet tooth. I can imagine that she would let herself go after the training at the academy, and she would have a lot of cake and fatten up to ridiculous proportions. But I think for this to work, the sweet tooth needs to be established, and there needs to be a consideration for why an invention like that, one that can reproduce dessert/food, and make it better, isn't an everyday tool. That way, it will actually seem like it's meant to fall in her hooves, and she's the one in control (...well, at least as far as making the food).
I think there's another problem with Velvet Cream: she's not characterized enough for me to understand who she is. I don't mean developed, since she's an established character in an AskVelvetCream tumblr (which, I fully confess, I haven't read); nevertheless, I couldn't find a lot to latch on and learn about. She has a red coat, she has a cake/cherry cutie mark, and she may or may not have a desire to be the best at everything she does.
Getting back to characterization, please look at this section where she performs an activity related to her cutie mark.
The entire scene is mechanical and rushed. I think a lot more characterization, especially in moments when the character is engaged in an activity, will make the scene come alive a lot more.
Someone already said your dialogue needs improvement, and I agree; I think it's dull. I think one part, in particular, needs some focus.
That's really lacking any sort of energy that winning a contest would have. It doesn't explain what the contest was, nor how it will allow her to receive dessert for life, as the advertisement stated—putting that P.S. in there is nonsensical, since the original message needed to be addressed in the main form. I think things like this need some sort of pizzazz, as it is a contest; at the very least, it could do with an acknowledgement of who hosted the contest. The part after the letter doesn't acknowledge it either. She wants to win free dessert for life, and she gets a camera; I think she'd be a bit perplexed at that. I do think you should work on dialogue.
I've done quite a bit of criticizing, so I'll switch to something positive: the way you have your plot set up seems decent enough. Finding an advertisement in a newspaper, and adding that mystery with the "weight" in the application was good, and taking it to the Post Office was a smart move, although it definitely needed some comment from either Velvet or the Post Office Worker that would indicate that this was not a regular contest, or at the very least acknowledged why the contest was being held. Having her do something she likes and something that will be relevant to the plot while she's waiting is good; the part after that, the fattening, is pretty good as well. I think you mainly need to work on your descriptions and your dialogue, as well as making things fit together.
Switching back to criticism now: your setting could use some focus as well, although there are some good points about it.
What does it matter that it's hot outside? She's making a cake, something that is hot, and she does this inside, so there's no point in mentioning it. It also doesn't change anything about how she proceeds while she's outside (another thing that can be attributed to lacking characterization).
I'm alright with her opening her mail up in the kitchen while she's baking (that's some characterization, at least). Also, and this isn't talking about the paragraph above, I like how you mention the bed and how it changed as she grew, as well as mentioning it as a place of comfort both at the beginning and at the end. Although...
I think that's ridiculous. But that could be just me.
Your prose could use a lot of work. I'd like to point out a few parts that seem particularly weird or bland:
1. It didn't ask for a lot of information, but it "included" those things mentioned? Was there more to it? I think, if that's all you wanted, rewording it something like this would work better: "She spotted the form in the bottom corner of the page. It asked for her name, address, type of pony, and weight."
2. It's not a secret? Why would she say that? And why would she question why it's asking about her weight? Those two things don't go together for me (although they may go together for other people; don't completely take my word for this).
3. [Nitpick]I would find it more odd that it's asking for applicants' weight without asking for their height, as well.
For me, at least, "lying to oneself" implies a denial of something. A phrase like "little did she know how wrong she was" would make me think that she didn't know this would run away from her.
This isn't very personal, is it? Consider something like this: "Ugh, I feel so heavy! I can't move!" That makes it sound more immediate. What you have here sounds too explanatory.
Why would people want to know that? This is superfluous description that doesn't fit with this story or the situation.
Your description of her changing form is nice.
I think these are good descriptions of her body. Although I will agree with what Megapone said about drawing out the process of fattening it up. The change from a 220-pound slob to a 4,000-pound immobile mare takes place between one paragraph; I think that's drastically rushing it. Details about the food she's eating (like what kind of frosting she put on her cake) would be nice, or how drastic each change is between snapshots. Some variety could be had as well, like having some milk with her cake, or having different flavors of cake. Describing her reaction to the taste of each cake—which, according to the winner's letter, makes it twice as good—would also help pad this along.
The ending was at least fitting for the character.
Overall, I still found the story to be bland, but it has its good points. The physical descriptions were nice, the plot was set up okay, and the setting was pretty good. This could use a lot of improvement. Characterization needs to come through, the setting needs to be utilized more, there should be more description and action, and making sure the plot fits together would take this a long way. I won't say a lot about the prose, since one becomes better at that through practice, but I will give these suggestions:
1. Watch out for phrases that are either redundant or tell nothing
2. Don't write stuff that contradicts what you've said before [pretty much the same, despite her larger behind]
3. Try making dialogue sound more natural and less textbooky
4. Watch out for descriptions that don't fit the story or the situation
As for spelling and grammar, again, that comes with time and practice. There was one other thing I hadn't pointed out in my examples: you mixed up you're and your in a line of dialogue. Not sure if that's common, but it may be worth noting.
I wish you the best of luck with your future stories!
3544365 I just want to let you know...
Thank you so bucking much! Not even being sarcastic, I needed this so much. I took a massive break in between writing the first and second half of writing the story (somewhere along the lines of 3 weeks) and a lot of information gets lost in that time such as the "lifetime of desserts" and the camera.
As for dialogue, I honestly knew it was going to be a challenge from the get-go. I probably should've excluded it from the story, but being used to a story with multiple characters, I found that I felt like it was manditory for my story. I'm 100% with you on the dialogue, it's complete trash and I must've been asleep when I wrote it. My own criticism to myself is to talk like I am the character, and write that down instead of whatever it was I was doing when I wrote this...
Believe it or not, when someone gives me a guideline to something, I tend to stick to it. So when FiMFiction gives me the guideline of >1000 words, I get a little intimidated even though I know I can easily get over 1000. So that's where the redundant statements come in, to increase the word count. Honestly, looking back at some of the statements, they were pretty useless and a waste of time. I'm glad you pointed that out so I can stop my bad habits in their tracks!
However, I do have a slight bit of defence to not make myself look so bad. With the "cracking of the bed that could be heard for miles" part, obviously it couldn't be heard for miles and I agree you are correct. However, I intended this part to be read as a hyperbole, not a literal statement. It might have made more sense to say light-years or something like that, just to get an understanding that it was an exaggeration, but what's done is done.
I should probably just retire by saying this but I tend to skip spell checking my work, which is why it's so easy to pick out mistakes. It's probably my biggest downfall, and the reason for my atrocious level of grammar. Another bad habit that has to be stopped.
Anyways I could go on for days about how I could fix things, but I believe I got the major stuff down. I want to personally thank you for taking your time to metaphorically beat me to my senses about my silly mistakes. Expect to see some changes with my writing style on my next story!
3544690 I'll be waiting eagerly.
That was an amazing story Taco . When will you be making more ? I have to know your like a god when it comes to writing about fat ponies .
Came here just to say this:
You know what they say. . . the camera adds ten pounds!
I know it was a one shot, but can you please do some more on this story? It's amazing.
If you can't it's okay.. but this has always been one of my favorite shorts...
6613494 i second this
I imagine Celestial would probably be trying to steal the camera for her cakes.