The Muffin stood two feet tall and one foot in diameter. It looked heavenly. Cooked to perfection, it was perfectly browned. Peeking through its crust was every color imaginable, plus a few more; every conceivable muffin topping, filling, or flavoring had been added to a level of precision that made sure that conflicting flavors didn’t mix. A mere glance could render a pony unable to speak due to the excessive amount of drool that pooled in his or her mouth.
It sat under lock and key beneath ballistic glass capable of withstanding the force of an angry dragon. The glass also doubled as an airtight container and had been magically enchanted with the ability to keep things fresh beyond normal timeframes.
The Muffin’s rather unusual size and delectable looks attracted much attention and many questions.
If a pony were to inquire as to what kind of muffin it was, the only reply would be “yes.” Many a pony were more than slightly confused by this response and asked, “I don’t think you heard me properly. What kind of muffin is it?”
The store clerk, a stallion by the name of Baked Bread, would respond tiredly, “The Muffin is all types of muffins at the same time.”
“How is that physically possible?” the generic customer would ask, usually scratching his or her head in confusion.
Baked Bread would simply reply with, “It just is.”
The confused customer would then walk out of the store, muttering to him—or her—self about the scientific properties of muffins.
But today was different.
“This place looks just as good as any for lunch,” murmured Ditzy, standing in front of a sturdy—yet clearly old—building. She looked at the small watch attached firmly to her foreleg. Closing her left eye and looking at the watch, she mumbled to herself, “About a half an hour till my lunch break is over.”
She pushed open the old wooden door with her hooves, the cracked, cloudy, and aging glass in the door providing no preview of what she would find inside.
Entering the small building, Ditzy’s nose was immediately assaulted with the holiest of scents: the smell of freshly baked muffin.
“Mmmmm . . .” she hummed, looking around the room. Peeling white paint, warped floorboards, and flickering candles filled the room that was scarcely more than a short hallway with a counter at one end, the door that she had just walked through at the other, and a table with two chairs in the middle.
The chairs were little more than blocks of wood, polished to a shine from years of constant use. They were circling what looked like a plank of wood sitting on a tree stump, also heavily worn.
Ditzy walked past the seating area and up to the solid-looking counter, once again made from wood. Though, it was clearly a much more finished piece, as opposed to worn into a state of smoothness. The store clerk, a dark brown earth pony stallion with a sandy-colored mane, was fast asleep on the counter and snoring loudly.
“Hello!” she said happily, putting her hooves on the counter.
“Hzzzzzzwhaa?!” snorted the stallion, jerking his head up and focusing his sleepy, light blue eyes on the grey mare.
“I said hello,” she replied, smiling.
The young stallion rubbed his face with a forehoof, muttering something about beauty sleep. “Welcome to Ye Olde Muffen Shoppe, how can I help you today?” he said in the monotonous tone of voice that befalls ponies who say the same words over and over and over and over and over again.
“I’d like a blueberry muffin, please!” she chirped.
Nodding, the stallion removed his hoof from his forehead and yawned. He reached down into the hollow counter and over to where he had put the fresh blueberry muffins that morning.
“What is that!” she suddenly screamed, causing the stallion to smash his head into the bottom of the counter with a resounding thud.
“What is what?” he groaned, peering over the top of the counter.
“That!” she screamed, pointing to The Muffin.
However, the clerk was more preoccupied with the customer than what she was pointing to. Finally awake enough to appreciate her beauty, appreciate her he did. Her coat was a beautiful grey color, the kind of color one would find streaming from the moon on a summer's night: a soft, somehow warm color that seemed to give off a little bit of light. She was wearing a well-worn saddlebag that had her cutie mark—a collection of small bubbles—emblazoned on the clasp, and the tips of her wings poked out from the edge nearest to her hips. Her mane was a gentle gold, like the color of sunshine in the early morning. And her eyes—they were the most unique thing about her: stunning, golden irises that sparkled with barely contained joy. As he continued admiring her, he noticed that her right eye was focused on what he knew to be the direction of The Muffin, but her left eye was pointing at the ceiling.
“That’s the most delicious-looking muffin ever! What kind is it?” she squealed, bringing her hooves up to her smiling mouth.
“Yes,” replied the clerk automatically, expecting the inevitable question. He kept his eyes on her lazily traveling left eye while her right didn’t shift its gaze from The Muffin. He was unable to close his mouth, so he left it open, such was his awe in her natural beauty.
He had to get to know her better. There was no alternative.
“Really? That’s awesome! How much?” she asked, turning to face him.
He quickly averted his gaze and closed his mouth. “Uhhhhhhhhhh . . . forty bits, I think. Let me check.” He walked over to the the case that held The Muffin, wondering to himself exactly what made her not question his answer. “Yup, forty,” he replied, reading the small, dusty price tag.
“It’s not polite to stare you know,” she stated, frowning.
“You, uhhhhh, saw that?” he asked sheepishly, rubbing the back of his head with a foreleg.
“What do you think?” she spat sarcastically.
“Hey, I’m sorry!” the clerk exclaimed.
“No you’re not. Don’t lie to me,” she muttered.
“Yes I, er, wait—I’m not lying,” he protested feebly.
“You think that just because my eyes are crooked, I’m retarded?” She lifted her eyes to meet his, and the stallion didn’t like what he saw there.
“Retarded? Where did that come from?” he asked.
“Don’t start with me; I know how this goes. First the staring, then the snickering behind my back, then the teasing, then the laughing. I’ve seen it before.”
“I wouldn’t do that!”
“Really? Then why were you staring?” she demanded, stomping her hoof on the floor.
“Because . . .” His eyes glanced around wildly, seeking an escape that would never come.
“Because why? Because you think I’m ugly?”
“No! . . . It’s because—” A single bead of sweat dripped down his forehead.
“Spit it out! Tell the re-tard what’s wrong with her!” she shouted, jumping on the counter.
“Nothing!” he returned, backing into the wall. “You’re not retarded! You’re—”
“Go on! I’ve heard them all! See if you can find a new one, I dare you!” she yelled.
“Pretty . . .” he mumbled.
“Oh, that’s a new one!” she spat. “I haven’t heard that one before! Congrat-u-la . . . Pretty?”
“I was staring because I think your eyes are beautiful, and I wanted to look at them! All right?” he shouted quickly, cowering under his forelegs.
“. . . Oh . . .” she said, digesting the information. “Do-do you really mean that?”
The clerk looked up to see that the mare’s cheeks were turning a bright red. “Yes,” he mumbled.
“Oh . . .” she said again, still blushing. She carefully stepped off the counter and down to a more respectable position on the floor.
“Yeah . . .” the clerk replied, standing up slowly.
The room was quiet for a few moments. A few long and exceedingly uncomfortable moments.
“I’m really sorry,” she mumbled, not quite meeting his eyes; through, whether it was because she was embarrassed about her red cheeks or her outburst, he couldn’t tell.
“I’m sorry, too. I shouldn’t have been staring.”
Again, silence reigned supreme.
“So, forty bits is the price of the muffin,” said the clerk suddenly.
“That much?” she asked hesitantly.
The clerk nodded. “My father put quite a bit of work into making it.”
The mare slowly turned around and looked in her saddlebag for a few moments, the sound of a few bits jangling around in a mostly empty bag filling the air. “I guess I’ll just take the blueberry muffin,” she sighed sadly, hanging her head slightly.
The clerk’s gaze alternated between the despondent-looking mare and The Muffin. He looked between the perfect mare and The Muffin.
“Do you want The Muffin?” the clerk asked, motioning towards the case.
“I can’t really afford it,” she whispered, each word getting quieter and quieter.
“I could put it on a tab, and tomorrow you can give me the rest of the bits,” he offered.
“You don’t quite get it . . . I can’t . . .” she murmured. “Just give me the blueberry please.”
The clerk nodded, understanding dawning. “Oh . . .” He had a rather strained look on his face. On one hoof, he could just give her the blueberry muffin like she had asked, and everything would go back to normal: she would leave and never return.
But on the other . . . he could give her The Muffin, his father’s pride and joy. It took twenty-four hours of uninterrupted baking to make it, and the forty bits would be enough to refinish the paint, something he had been meaning to do for a while. He was by no means pressured to make ends meet, but forty bits was still forty bits.
But, the second option had a much larger advantage over the first; she might come back.
The clerk nodded once, his decision made. He walked over to the case and entered the proper code into the combination lock. It sprung open with a click and fell onto the floor. He opened the case slowly.
A scent flooded the room, a scent like no other. Imagine the best smell there is, multiply it by five, add adorable kittens, and then think of every other smell in the world as the smell of decaying fish. Only then can one truly begin to understand what they smelled when the clerk opened the airtight container.
She immediately perked up, nose twitching uncontrollably. “Didn’t you hear me? I told you I couldn’t—that I wanted the blueberry muffin,” she said, watching him intently.
He grunted and groaned as he lifted the unreasonably sized confectionery delight in the air. It made a loud thump as he roughly set it down on a serving platter usually reserved for twenty regular-sized muffins.
Balancing the heavy platter on his back, he carefully walked around the counter. Shuffling, he slid the platter from his back to the table and placed The Muffin in front of one of the chairs. “It’s on the house,” he said, beckoning her over.
“But I couldn’t possibl—”
“Please?”
“But I don’t deserve this after blowing up in your face like that for no reason.”
“Everypony makes mistakes sometimes. Mine was not coming clean the first time you asked. Please, sit. I insist.”
She blushed lightly, a pink color gracing her cheeks. “I-I . . . Ok-ay, but only since you insist,” she stuttered. She walked over and gingerly sat down on the seat, her mouth watering from the smell of The Muffin.
She carefully leaned in and took a bite. As she chewed, her eyes closed, her wings quivered, and long, blissful moans came forth repeatedly.
“This is the best thing ever!” she squealed, leaning in for another bite.
“I’m glad you like it,” said the clerk, smiling slightly as he watched her begin to rapidly devour The Muffin. Every bite appeared to be pure bliss, and she looked as though she was floating of a cloud of euphoria as she chewed each flawless crumb.
After eating less than a sixth of the marvelous sustenance, she couldn’t eat any more. “I’m done,” she groaned, her mouth full of muffin. She swallowed then asked, “What am I going to do with the rest of this? There’s no way I can take this with me.”
“Well, I’ve got an idea,” said the clerk, having already planned for this particular question.
“What’s your idea?” she asked, looking at him with her right eye while her left continued to look at The Muffin.
“How about I keep The Muffin in its magical case to make sure it stays fresh, and then the next time when you come by, you can have a bit more of it.”
“Really? You’d do that for me?” she asked, cocking an eyebrow and smiling slightly.
“Sure, not a problem,” he shrugged.
“Thank you so much!” she exclaimed, throwing her forelegs around him.
“It’s nothing,” he replied, awkwardly hugging her back with one of his forelegs.
“But it means a lot to me,” she said. She leaned in and gave him a quick kiss on the cheek. Like a gentle feather, she was there and gone, barely leaving a trace. If the stallion hadn’t seen it happen, he would never have known. “See you tomorrow . . .” she whispered, blushing heavily. She sprinted out the door, leaving a rather satisfied-looking stallion behind her.
Once the door slammed shut behind her, she let out a massive squee. “Woo-hoo!” she yelled, jumping up and down joyfully as she hastily trotted—or more accurately, bounced—back to work.
“Sounds good,” said the clerk with a goofy smile on his face. This was the first time he had spoken, or moved at all, since she left—two hours ago. “You know, I don’t even know what her name is . . .” he muttered.
“Tomorrow—wait?—tomorrow!” he yelled, grabbing a broom and sweeping the already swept floor. “Musht clean,” he muttered around the broom handle.
I liked it just like this. I really enjoyed how you described the muffin, like a marvelous explosion of everything at once. I love muffins...
Aww, I really want to see more of this. It's so cute.
I have something in common with derpy. My favorite sugary foods are muffins
great, now i want a muffin. thanks dude. THANKS! thankfully, i have some on hand, so you are good.
YAY!
I LOVE DERPY-SHIP!
I couldnt follow on the smmelling bit....cant smell
I like this story
MOAR
3619815
Thanks. I too love muffins.
3619967
perryviking.files.wordpress.com/2012/08/for-no-reason-share-this-picture-of-derpy.jpg
3619968
As you can see, I haven't yet decided, but thanks for your opinion.
3620060
Same! I love muffins.
3620192
My work here is done.
3620217
So do I, so do I...
3620531
That must suck, but at least you enjoyed the story.
A-A-Are you god of the cute stories!
3621260
I just can't help myself!
How can so much adorable be contained in so few words???? ARE YOU A WIZARD?!
3621484
You think that was adorable?
By chance, have you read one of my other stories?
And yes. I'm a wizard.
3622167
I don't want a Hnng-attack. I have to work tonight!
3622215
If you really want something adorable, you should read it.
You won't have a hnnng attack.
I promise.
3622270
YOU LIED! I HAD A HNNG-ATTACK! SEVERAL TIMES!!!
OMYGOSH OMYGOSH OHMYGOSH!!!!! this was awesome!
3622278
I'm sorry...
3623497
Thank you.
3624261
It's ok. They were good Hnng attacks.
I'd really like to see this continued! Even if the second half of their argument seemed a little forced (I mean, Ditzy didn't even wait before jumping down his throat for staring a bit), I still enjoyed the premise. I wonder what his dad will say about giving away such an expensive treat for free!
Have a great day!
Continue this masterpiece now, good sir.
3624729
Oh, that's good. At least you died happy.
3624768
I tried to make it seem like he was just the final straw in a long line of insulters (or so she thought at first).
Sorry if it felt rushed.
But thanks for the input, and you too have a good day.
3625567
Masterpiece?
Why thank you.
Continue
3625667
I think I just might.
Aww so cute, but now I'm hungry for muffins
Can't wait to continue reading!
Aha so this is the fic thats being submitted to EQD.
That line should be "No you're not! as it's a contraction of you are.
The prereader guy did spot that right?
Okay, just finished chapter 1. I thoroughly enjoy this story, it's such a cute little cheesy romance. You also do a superb job with the OC. You give me enough personality and background that I am interested in him, and want to learn more about him. The things that mainly bothered me were structural, things that effected the flow and immersion. So...let's get to it and see if we can't make you a little happier with this story!
Love the first paragraph, the description of the muffin is fantastic, and same with the case. However...
The subject just changed from the muffin to the case, this sentence needs to start a new paragraph.
This is a very cluttered paragraph.
It would look nicer like this,
Too much wood!
I get it, everything in the shop is wood, you don't have to say what the counter is. How about
See, I still know it's wood, but you didn't have to tell me again.
This sentence should start a new paragraph
I love love love her description!
I think you should restructure the start of the argument. Ditzy gets so angry that she jumps onto the counter and yells, so it doesn't make sense that she waits for him to walk over to the case and read the price tag before saying "It's not polite to stare." Baked Bread should read off the price tag to break the awkward silence.
When Baked Bread says
I think you should have him pause, then give a quick description of why he paused. It will add a bit to his character and won't make the argument feel so back and forthy.
I hate this sentence, if you don't listen to anything else I say, please lose this.
First off, you just gave me the same sentence twice. Second, Baked Bread is looking at her coat that has a color that streams from the moon on a summer's night, and her gold mane that reminds him of sunlight in the morning. So the whole hot looking thing doesn't cut it for me. He is a poetic pony, he's not checking out her ass.
This totally broke my immersion
Since Ditzy entered the shop, you have been telling the story from Baked Bread's perspective, but suddenly it shifts to a narrator for one paragraph, then switches back. It's kind of disconcerting.
As I just stated, this whole scene is in Baked Bread's perspective, so instead of
Maybe you could instead focus on what he is feeling while he watches her eat. It would give you a chance to let the reader know just how adorable he finds her.
And...That's it!!! It really is a beautiful story. Maybe if you smooth out these rough spots the story will appeal to you more. I hope you find these suggestions helpful, and, at some point in the future, I will read chapter 2 and continue my critiques.
Hello, good sir, this is ChromeMyriad here with your review from WRITE! For those about to read it, beware of SPOILERS!
From the description, I’m expecting a Ditzy/OC ship with cutesy situations and such. I’m wondering, though, why we switch perspectives between Ditzy and the random stallion in the description.
The bit about Ditzy finding “something more” is enough to grab a reader’s attention without needing the redundant and rather spoiler-y insert from the stallion’s perspective as well. With just the Ditzy part in the description, there’s a bit of mystery about what she’ll find. Instead, it’s blatantly stated that this is going to be a ship-ey little fic and the mystery is gone. Definitely would be better to cut the spoiler bits out.
Mistakes Run-Through
Chapter 1
*was
*muffins
Missing ‘the’?
*lifted.
Question mark.
Two ‘walked’s is a mistake. Two ‘carefully’s is redundant as well.
Missing a space.
Chapter 2
‘Windup’ is one word.
*hours
Chapter 3
Typo
I thought the case was glass?
*determined to taste
*what
Small Stylistic Errors to Keep in Mind
Redundant. One clause implies the other.
Redundant and a bit bloated. You could have simply put that he had a monotone voice and left it at that. The “over and over” bit is implied by the monotone.
Saidisms—words used in dialogue tags that aren’t ‘said’—are things to be used sparingly or not at all. I know you’re worried about redundancy, but using ‘said’ doesn’t get redundant.
One thing implies the other. Redundant.
Showing and Telling
There’s a lot of telling going on. Telling is when an author informs the audience how they’re meant to feel about something rather than inspiring that emotion by showing what’s going on. For example:
This is bad because you’re telling us how to interpret her actions rather than describing her actions and allowing us to make that determination. We’d rather see her smile or hear the energetic lilt in her voice than be told how she feels outright.
This kind of telling can be pretty easy to spot. Simply search your story for words containing “ly” and you’ll catch most of these attributions. I didn’t see too many instances of this in the story, but they should still be cleaned up.
Pacing
It’s actually a little hard to place what I’m going to point out next, but I’ve put it under ‘pacing’ because it tends to disrupt the flow egregiously and often. I’m talking about the random, usually purple, descents into infodump descriptions of something. These deserve to be addressed individually because they all have a different feel and effect on your story.
In case you’re unaware, purple prose is writing that is so ornate and flowery that it distracts from the flow of the story. Keeping that in mind, let’s continue.
This muffin has every conceivable flavor in it, but the cook was able to selectively make sure that certain flavors didn’t mix? This is a pretty distracting stretch of imagination. A story’s flow depends on the reader being able to maintain their suspension of disbelief. This is obviously overblown and meant to be funny, but it’s the narrator saying it. The narrator’s word is law, so this isn’t opinion, it’s fact. If this were, say, Pinkie Pie saying this, it’d be more believable and a lot less telly within the frame of the story.
This bit has similar issues to the above section. It’s difficult both to visualize and believe. An angry dragon is something I imagine destroying a castle, crushing boulders beneath clawed hands and breathing flames that melt faces off. This glass construction must be the size of a small house and over fifteen feet thick.
Very purple, very unnecessary. This whole section is bloated with modifiers and flowery prose. I know you want to convey her beauty, but this doesn’t really do that. We know what Ditzy looks like, so our opinion of her beauty is already fixed. If you want to communicate that he find her beautiful, that should be shown through his actions.
This is the first of a few instances that are specifically about The Muffin. These generally come in the middle of scenes that are meant to be sweet or sappy and they disrupt the tone completely. I have a few other examples:
This is very surreal imagery—and I actually like it on its own—but again, it interrupts a love scene. You can either pull this imagery and put it into its own section of the fic or delete it entirely. I think it would actually be a fairly entertaining undercurrent to the fic if The Muffin had its own subplot that gradually progressed throughout the story. However, it doesn’t need to interrupt love scenes. It kinda kills the mood.
Eech. This is more surreal imagery, but it’s creepy here. I wouldn’t mind except, again, it comes in what is supposed to be a sweet scene. Imagining Ditzy’s taste buds trying to rip themselves from her tongue is not imagery I want to think of when our characters are getting close.
Characterization
Some of these errors go hand-in-hand with the pacing issues such as:
These sorts of asides really give me a creepy vibe. This is a very admiration-from-afar type of statement. Generally, when you’re hanging out with someone—even someone you’re attracted to—it’s a more casual and organic kind of interaction. So, less “Oh Celestia, she’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen!” and more “Wow, I find myself really enjoying our time together.” Paragraphs that describe Ditzy this way can probably be cut completely without losing anything.
Other characterization errors disrupt the flow more because they come completely out of left field. Specifically, the following feels out of character, even within the confines of this story.
Wait, I forget, is this the bubbly one or the bitchy one? Seconds ago, she was the happiest mare in Equestria. Now she’s actually so mad she’s spitting her words at him.
She goes on to scream at him for calling her a “retard”. The clerk didn’t say anything about her being retarded and hasn’t done anything to really deserve this kind of overreaction. This makes Ditzy seem mean-spirited and unfair.
Furthermore, she switches immediately back to being happy and cute when he calls her “pretty”. This makes her seem shallow. She was so angry at this guy that she was jumping onto counters and she immediately calms down when she gets called pretty?
The argument does nothing but damage Ditzy’s character in the audience’s eyes. What’s worse is that her outburst implies she’s quick to anger and unreasonable, traits that never appear again in the story. Characters need to be consistent or change believably. This is an inconsistent, sudden change in Ditzy’s character and it needs to be either deleted or modified to be believable.
Miscellaneous Mentions
A few things that either apply to too many sections, or apply to none.
First, infodumps. An infodump is a block of text that has nothing except a description in it. It could be describing an object or a pony, either way it’s a boring paragraph that slows your story down. Most of the detail in an infodump have no bearing on the plot whatsoever. Further, the description of the setting can more immersively be communicated by dispersing the details throughout character dialogue and short asides. For example:
The appearance of the bakery is a nice thing to establish—if only to help set up the atmosphere—but none of it is actually important to the plot. Most of this should be peppered throughout the story or at least broken up by something other than exposition.
Second, character names. Baked Bread is a bit bland, but that can work. The issue is the unintentionally hilarious implication of just his first name. I actually laughed out loud the first time Ditzy called him “Baked”. It’s not terrible, but it can distract from some tender situations.
Also, the Bakenator.
hahastop.com/pictures/Triple_Baconator.jpg
‘Nuff said.
Third, anatomy.
The scene still cute, but I’m not sure exactly how he’s holding her up. These are ponies, after all, their centers of gravity are very different from humans’. For him to be holding her up, something else would need to be holding him up. This bit probably needs a little more showing and a little less telling. It isn’t impossible, but we do need to know how they’re doing this so as not to be distracted.
Lastly, this one scene near the end.
I usually stick to the things people did wrong when reviewing—it makes the reviews shorter to write—but this deserves special mention. This is a genuinely cute and believable romantic situation. This scene is worth about a thousand of those purple and rather creepy narrator monologues. Well done here.
Conclusion
This story has a few consistent problems, but shows a lot of promise. The plot is pretty basic and follows easily from the premise. The characterization falters in some places, but it can be cleaned up. The prose can be purple in places and a little telly in others, but it can be fixed. Despite its problems, there are a few parts that really shine.
Enjoy your review! If you have any questions, feel free to PM me or reply to this comment!
~ChromeMyriad, WRITE’s Nanite Construct
I'm really glad you decided to continue this. I rarely add my like to the first chapter of a story, but this has greatly earned that privilege. I'm loving this story already from what I've seen. I really hope it stays that way and if it's how this chapter is for the others, I know it will be.
I really wish I could smell that muffin...