I was introduced to MLP by a friend in S3. At the time I teased him about it a little, but I guess the joke is on me as here I am now, writing Trixie shipfics. Feedback is always welcome.
Rainbow Dash7,261 stories ·4,146 members
Fluttershy4,017 stories ·2,924 members
School for New Writers9,633 stories ·5,013 members
Writers and Reviewers Institute for Technical Excellence302 stories ·46 members
The Great and Not Obsessive Trixie2,048 stories ·1,639 members
Rainbow Dash is Best Pony3,009 stories ·1,065 members
Following the events of Boast Busters, Trixie decides to hide from the town (and Rainbow Dash in particular) by taking cover in the Everfree Forest.
Trixie discovers not every problem can be outrun, and sometimes facing them can have unexpected consequences.
Special thanks to:
Phaoray PrincessLuna123 Ryla
Nebulae Rethkir
Cover Art by:
Hakuno
Page generated in 0.175 seconds
Total duration
927 users online
1,860,820 hits today, 2,707,512 yesterday
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
Designed and coded by knighty & Xaquseg - © 2011-2024
Support us
SubStar
Chat!
Discord
Follow us
Twitter
MLP: Friendship is Magic® - © 2024 Hasbro Inc.®
Fimfiction is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by Hasbro Inc.®
Will Rainbow Dash be beating anybody up in this story?
3977133
Yes she will.
3977148 In what chapter?
3977151
Chapter 6.
What do you mean by that?
3977188
Well as random example, say that in chapter 25 a bloody scene takes place. It would feel weird to have the gore tag as it's almost false advertising for the other 24 chapters if people come looking for a bloodbath. But if it is the norm to do that then people would already understand that a tag only means that element will happen at some point and not how much it happens.
So I'd have to know what the norm is to know how to tag it. If that makes sense?
So is this the last chapter or is it continuing?
4003806
Oh i see. Thats kinda briljant ^^
That was really helpful thanks a lot!
I will keep that in mind.
3977297
usually what an author does is tag that chapter as gore/sex and give fair warning in both the synopsis, the authors notes the chapter before, and in the chapter title. Then they release and abridged version, say chapter 25.5, that leaves out the descriptive elements. This way you don't have to tag the whole story as gore, but can still have a particularly heavy scene that you felt the story needs.
4003806
Oh i see.
That was really helpful thanks a lot!
I will keep that in mind.
Wow. Dash is making Gilda look kind and polite in this one.
4050206
Messing with the friends of the element of loyalty is a really bad idea.
Ah!
Loved the last sentence! Really nice chapter!
4050948
An interesting discussion appears! While many of her actions are definitely inspired by loyalty to her friends*, are those actions (including almost committing involuntary ponyslaughter) really justified by loyalty? I get the entire 'you hurt my friends, I hurt you' thing, but she does seem to be going to excessive lengths given the circumstances. And that is completely in character for Dash, most certainly. I just found it noteworthy.
Are we seeing some TrixieDashShy foreshadowing?
And yes, I am a Trixie fan. And I fully acknowledge that her ego could blot out the sun and that she's almost as arrogant as Dash.
*Loyalty, arrogance, anger something something Dark Side.
4053943
I love Trixie. Such a fun character. There are just tons of things I want to do with her. I might write more stories about her with different takes on her character once I'm done with this one, or the same one.
Are Rainbow Dash's actions justified by her loyalty to her friends? No I don't think they are. That would imply they were the right actions to take. I do think her actions and motivations are in character, just that she got unlucky. I feel bad for Dash really, forcing her into accidentally almost killing a pony due to circumstance, even if Trixie appeared to be asking for it. I was a bit nervous about leaving it like that at the time, considering Dash's bits of redemption only showed up so many chapters later and the guilt has her acting out making her look even worse. I do love Rainbow Dash, only she could pull off being kind of the antagonist here and still be awesome.
As for foreshadowing... That would be telling.
4054186
I hope you do write more Trixie. She's an excellent character and you do her justice. And the world needs more Trixie stories in it.
Good work Fluttershy! You recognized a death trap. Pretty soon, you'll be ready for the Tomb of Horrors.
I wonder if Liches are immune to the Stare?
4090138
Oooh. Experiments may be in order, i am sure Twilight would be thrilled to perform them.
I tried but the spelling errors really distract from the story
4097360
My sincere apologies for errors that have escaped my notice.
I am working with an editor to stomp all my errors out, but it is a slow process due to time constraints. If you have any you would like to point out I will fix them immediately.
Other than that I am afraid I can only recommend you give the story another try at a later date once the corrections have been taken care off.
Though I am surprised you mentioned spelling. I was aware of grammatical errors, but I have not been informed of any spelling errors till now.
Also, how far in did you get? It might get better. (If it did not, I have even more studying to do >.>)
I can only promise that I do my best to learn from my mistakes and not to repeat them in the future.
Damn it, I wanted them to make out!
4123643
Me too!
Who know's it might still happen.
Hey there, I’m alexmagnet, of WRITE, and I’m here to give my review of your story. Just as a preface, I’ll be separating this review into three sections: Grammar, Style, and Story. I’ll discuss each aspect individually, and probably have some subsections in each as well. I’ll do my best to not just point out errors or mistakes, but explain why they’re errors, and also how to fix them. To that end, I won’t be pointing out every mistake, but rather take a few examples of each, and explain how to fix them. The hope is that rather than just telling you how to fix everything, I’ll get you started, and then you’ll be able to fix it yourself, and thus not run into the same problems in the future since you’ll know what to look for. It’s just like the old “teach a man to fish” adage.
Anywho, without further adieu, let’s get started.
GRAMMAR
As I said, this section will be divided into subsections, indicated by the italicized titles. Also, please note that these sections are in no particular order.
Hyphens (and their many uses… but also ways they shouldn’t be used)
>She recognized that voice as the loud multi colored filly she'd shown up earlier
>That foolish foal outwitted by the Great and Powerful Tri-OOf!
>"...Twilight Sugar-cube."
>“T-that's right... Trixie is not in ponyville.”
All right, so hyphens are a useful tool, when used properly. They can be used to combine two adjectives into a compound adjective, make a compound number, avoid confusion with awkwardly written words, and also show a stutter in speech. However, there are also several things they are not used for, such as creating a break in dialogue. So, let’s look at each example that I pulled.
>She recognized that voice as the loud multi colored filly she'd shown up earlier
In the first one, the compound modifier “multi colored” should be hyphenated. Now, things get a tiny bit complicated here, because it’s not always hyphenated. See, when a compound modifier, such as “multi colored” comes before a noun (in this case “filly), it needs a hyphen, and this is to clarify what exactly is being modified and how.
See, if you were to leave out the hyphen, it becomes unclear what exactly is being said. Is she a multi “colored-filly”? Well, no, that wouldn’t make much sense. So, you use the hyphen to avoid confusion. By writing it as “multi-colored” it becomes clear what you’re saying. However, if RD were described like this: “The filly was multi colored” you wouldn’t use a hyphen since it’s clear what’s modifying what. You only need a hyphen when the compound modifier comes before a noun.
Now, for the second example.
>That foolish foal outwitted by the Great and Powerful Tri-OOf!
What you’ve got here can be done, but it needs to be done with a dash, not a hyphen. I’ll get into dashes more in their own section, but for now, just know that when you have dialogue interruption, like you have here “Tri-oof”, it needs to be interrupted by a dash, not a hyphen. Hyphens are only used for the things I talked about in the first example. Also, there’s some issues here with using onomatopoeias, but I’ll get into that in the style portion of the review.
>"...Twilight Sugar-cube."
This one is just inexplicable. You don’t hyphenate “sugarcube” anywhere else, so I can’t fathom why you did here. Regardless, it’s not a compound modifier, so it shouldn’t be hyphenated. Again, there’s some other issues here (not grammar related), but I’ll talk about those later.
>“T-that's right... Trixie is not in ponyville.”
Okay, now this example I specifically pulled because here you used a hyphen correctly. When you have a stutter in dialogue, you use a hyphen to indicate that. Oh, and I’d say the missed capitalization of “Ponyville” was a typo, but you seem to miss capitalizing several things, so I’ll talk about those in their own section as well. For now, we’ll move on past hyphens.
Commas and Comma Splices
>her head held up high and a victorious gleeful smile upon her face
>Twilight Sugarcube merely put a baby to sleep, The great and Powerful Trixie
>A moist dripple of drool landing on her head from the massive Ursa above her, apparently it was enjoying her strokes a bit too much.
>and oddly colored but somewhat soft pink mosses on the tree roots.
Commas are an important grammatical tool, and knowing how to use them correctly is even more important. For the sake of clarity, I will try to outline all the uses for commas (the relevant uses anyway) and give short examples. Then, when that’s done, I’ll go ahead and talk about the examples I pulled from your story, and explain what’s wrong, and how to fix it.
Commas are used to separate two independent clauses when they are joined by a coordinating conjunction such as: but, for, and, so, nor, or, yet.
>Trixie may not be the most competent magician, but she’s confident to a fault.
Commas are used after introductory clauses and phrases (except in the case that a dependent clause follows the introductory clause, as in the second example).
>However, that’s not to say that Trixie wasn’t also brave.
>Trixie still fought the Ursa, even though she knew she couldn’t beat it. (Incorrect)
Commas are used to set apart words, or phrases that are not essential to the understanding of the sentence: parenthetical elements.
>Trixie, even though she was brave, could still be considered foolish for her actions.
>Knowing, however, that she couldn’t lose to Twilight, Trixie tried her best.
Commas are used to separate two or more coordinate adjectives that describe the same noun. However, make sure you don’t put a comma between the final adjective and the noun, or between non-coordinate adjectives. There are two easy questions you can ask yourself to see if adjectives are coordinate or not. 1) Do they work in reverse order? 2) Do they work with and between them? If you answered yes to both questions, then you need a comma.
>Trixie’s starry purple cape fluttered in the breeze. (Correct)
>The strong, muscular Ursa Major was an intimidating sight. (Correct)
>Trixie couldn’t help but marvel at the vast star-filled night sky. (Incorrect)
Commas are not used to separate the subject from the verb.
>Trixie, ran to the forest for cover. (Incorrect)
Commas are not used to separate two verbs or verb phrases in a compound predicate, and likewise for compound subjects/objects with nouns/noun phrases.
>Trixie took off her cape, and used it as a blanket. (Incorrect)
>Trixie could be described as a fraud, and a charlatan. (Incorrect)
All right, so that about covers all the relatively common uses of commas. Though, if in later sections I come across an issue, I’ll address it there. Anyway, let’s look at your examples.
>her head held up high and a victorious gleeful smile upon her face
The adjectives “victorious” and “gleeful” are coordinate, so they should be separated by a comma. But, to be sure, let’s try asking those questions I just talked about.
1) Does it work in reverse order?
>her head held up high and a gleeful, victorious smile upon her face
Yep.
2) Does it work with and in the middle?
>her head held up high and a victorious and gleeful smile upon her face
Yep, although it’s a bit awkward (due to the “and” already being used right before it), so you probably wouldn’t want to do that.
>Twilight Sugarcube merely put a baby to sleep, The great and Powerful Trixie
Setting aside the fact that “Twilight Sugarcube” is silly, and unnecessary, let’s just focus on the comma there in the middle. This is what we call a comma splice, and it’s what happens when you separate two independent clauses with a comma, but no coordinating conjunction.
>Twilight Sugarcube merely put a baby to sleep. The Great and Powerful Trixie
Also, since you capitalize both “great” and “powerful” in every other instance like this, you should be consistent.
>A moist dripple of drool landing on her head from the massive Ursa above her, apparently it was enjoying her strokes a bit too much.
This is basically just another example of a comma splice. But while I’m here, “dripple” isn’t technically a word, though it’s somewhat acceptable if a bit awkward sounding.
>A moist dripple of drool landing on her head from the massive Ursa above her. Apparently it was enjoying her strokes a bit too much.
Oh yeah, and there’s another issue illustrated here that I’ll talk about later. You keep switching back and forth between present and past tense.
>and oddly colored but somewhat soft pink mosses on the tree roots.
The phrase “but somewhat soft” is a parenthetical element, and as such should be separated by commas (you could also use dashes or parentheses, but I’ll talk about those in another section).
>and oddly colored, but somewhat soft, pink mosses on the tree roots.
Then vs. Than
>If Trixie hit the tree here than that means Trixie came from..
(There are likely some more instances of this issue later on, but I don’t want to spend a bunch of time combing through every chapter looking for it, so for brevity’s sake, I’ll just use my own examples)
>Trixie is much more clever then Twilight.
It seems you’ve got a pretty good grasp on this concept, but for the sake of clarity I’ll explain it real quick anyway. It’s pretty easy, actually. Then is temporal. Than is comparative.
>Trixie boasted, then got busted.
>Trixie is tougher than she looks.
So the one example I pulled from you is a pretty simple fix then. Just change it to “then”, since it’s relating to time, and you’re good.
Ellipses
>“Really... Does Celestia have it out for the Great and Powerful Trixie?
>Trixie only claimed to be more powerful than her once!... Okay per performance... But still!”
>Humiliating Trixie by rescu...” She froze when the word rolls past her lips.
>'So it is day then…?'
Ellipses, man… Lemme tell you about ellipses, and how friggin’ awesome they are. You see, ellipses, being a rather overused bit of punctuation, have started to receive a lot of hate recently, or maybe not that recently. Either way, people don’t like ‘em. And, given how I frequently see them used, I can understand the hate. That being said, there’s a few simple rules for using ellipses that should keep you safe from the ire of ellipses haters. 1) Ellipses replace periods or commas, not dashes. This also means you don’t also use a period or comma after an ellipsis, and you certainly don’t use any other punctuation after it. 2) Ellipses are used to indicate pauses in dialogue, or trailing off (also they are less frequently used to indicate these things in narration). That’s it. That’s all you can use ellipses for, and they’re great at doing their job, just don’t abuse them. Anyway, let’s look at the examples I pulled.
>“Really... Does Celestia have it out for the Great and Powerful Trixie?
This one is technically acceptable, although it’s gratuitous since neither the dialogue nor the actions seem to suggest a pause is necessary. As a general rule, you want to use ellipses only when necessary, and that should be fairly rarely.
>Trixie only claimed to be more powerful than her once!... Okay per performance... But still!”
Remember how I said you don’t put further punctuation after an ellipsis? Right, well that also goes for punctuation before one as well. Second, if you have more than one ellipsis in a single line, then you need to reevaluate whether they’re necessary or not. Here, they certainly don’t seem to be.
>Humiliating Trixie by rescu...” She froze when the word rolls past her lips.
So this is a pretty big pet peeve of mine. Ellipses, as I said, are to be used for pauses, and trailing off, nothing else. If you’re giong to interrupt dialogue in the middle like this, then you need a hard break, not an ellipsis. You’d be better served using a dash here, but I’ll get to dashes in a later section.
>'So it is day then…?'
At the risk of repeating myself, don’t put additional punctuation after an ellipsis.
Direct Address
>A loud angry voice rose up behind her. "Why that little!"
Direct address is pretty self-explanatory. See, it occurs when, in dialogue, someone addresses someone else directly. For example:
>”What are you playing at, Trixie?”
>”Twilight, I’m trying to help you.”
>”Maybe, Trixie, you should go somewhere else.”
Basically what you do is put commas around the name (or title, or phrase describing a person, as in the above example where “that little” is directly addressing Trixie, though not by name) of the person being addressed. If the addressee appears at the beginning of end of the sentence, then, as I’ve show, you only have one comma, but otherwise you use two. The reason this is done is to avoid confusion. For example, if you had:
>”Trixie, Twilight is a magician too.”
It would be confusing if you didn’t have the comma to make it clear the speaker was talking to Trixie. But anyway, this rule is pretty simple, and from what I saw you seem to be decent at. But, much like “then vs. than”, it’s better to be clear.
Verb and Tense Confusion
>She glanced back just long enough to spot the winged mare take to the skies and flying in her direction.
>There was not a single cloud in the sky and the stars light up her enchanting white mane and tail like a beacon.
>A moist dripple of drool landing on her head from the massive Ursa above her
>Spinning around in fright and redoubling her efforts on igniting her horn [...] and turned left and right quickly certain this time it was not her imagination.
Okay, so this is a pretty major issue, and I’ve spotted many many times in just the first few chapters. Since I started reading this, you’ve posted almost a dozen new chapters, so I haven’t read those yet, but I’m willing to be this might still be an issue. Regardless, it’s not too difficult to fix, but it may be somewhat more… annoying to spot going back through and reading for errors and such. Normally my suggestion is to read the sentences aloud, and see if they sound like something a normal human would say, but given that you’ve said in your bio that you’re not a native English speaker (not that that means you’re not a normal human) it may not work as well for you. For these errors, and perhaps some issues with awkward phrasing (which I will talk about a little in the Style section of this review, you may want to find yourself a competent editor to help you out. I know there’s plenty of groups out there that offer editing services. WRITE is not one of those, though depending on the reviewer, they may offer more editing advice than others. But anyway, let’s talk about tense confusion.
You see, you’re writing this story in the past tense, which is pretty standard and probably the easiest way to do it. The problem that I’ve noticed is that quite often you’ll change one verb, or perhaps two or three in a row, into their present tense forms, and I can only imagine this must come from your background in RP-ing. Anyway, like I’ve done with the rest of this review, I’ll go through the handful of examples I pulled from your fic and talk about them in brief.
>She glanced back just long enough to spot the winged mare take to the skies and flying in her direction.
Everything here is good except “flying”, which should be “fly” since that would be the correct tense.
>There was not a single cloud in the sky and the stars light up her enchanting white mane and tail like a beacon.
Two things here. First, there should be a comma after “sky”. Second, “light” should be “lit”, since you’ll want to stay in past tense.
>A moist dripple of drool landing on her head from the massive Ursa above her
So I’ve talked about this sentence once before, but I neglected to mention that you changed the tense of “land” here to “landing”. Change it to “landed” and you’ll be fine.
>Spinning around in fright and redoubling her efforts on igniting her horn [...] and turned left and right quickly certain this time it was not her imagination.
Okay, so a lot of problems here. First off, one the issues with this sentence is the same issue that plagues a lot of your other sentences, namely you often make lots of run-on sentences. On top of that, the sentence will often switch subjects or objects without warning and be talking about something completely different. This creates a lot of confusion, and makes it hard to read. As a rule, one sentence gets one thought. That’s it. But anyway, as for this sentence, you can fix it by taking the “and” after the [...] and replacing it with “She”. I say capitalized “she” because I think it’d be best if you started a new sentence here. Also, I’d remove the “quickly”, and you’ll need a comma before “certain”.
Began vs. Begun
>The light of her horn slowly begun a disconcerting flickering
I think this is probably the only instance, but I might as well talk about it real quick. This one is slightly tricky, but shouldn’t be too much trouble to memorize. See, “began” is a past tense verb, and it appears by itself. “Begun”, on the other hand, is a past participle, and thus appears after “have” (in one of its iterations). For example:
>Trixie had begun to believe that she was the best.
>Trixie began to believe that she was the best.
Of course, this is really just treating the symptom not the problem, and what I mean by that is this sentence, like many of the ones I’ve pulled thus far, is in a general state of clunkiness, and/or awkwardness. I’m trying to address as many grammatical issues as I can so that you can help yourself find them in the future, but issues with phrasing is a bit more difficult to fix. I’ll try to talk about it more in the style section, so for now just now that changing “begun” to “began” isn’t going to fix this sentence.
STYLE
All right, there’s quite a bit to talk about here, but I’m going to do my best to keep it somewhat short. This review’s getting a little long in the tooth already. Just as a disclaimer, there are a lot of problems with this story, grammatical, stylistic, dialogue, etc., but I don’t want the things I’m going to say to discourage you from writing. I think everyone has the ability to write, it’s just that you’re probably going to have to put some work into improving. Oh, and like I said earlier, you might want to find an editor, or a proofreader at least, to help you out some. From there, you should be able to hone your skills and get steadily better, at least that’s the hope. But anyway, let’s dive into this style section.
Awkward Phrasing/General Clunkiness/Incomplete Sentences
>Between being lost, the hunger, cold, rain, humiliation, loss of her possessions and outright terror of facing the Ursa It certainly had seemed to do it's best to punish the show mare for having the audacity to put up a performance.
>She braced herself for whatever came next, but the pattering of droplets around her was all she heard. After several moments of chilling silence [...]
>A slow trot through the forest while she bit by bit examined the various plants, bushes and roots, looking for any that she recognized as edible.
>Five minutes had passed, with the blue furred open muzzle still hovered over the pink moss then swayed towards the roots and each in turn.
These are just four examples out of the dozens I could’ve pulled just skimming through one chapter. This is pretty clearly a pervasive issue, and not one that’s easily fixed with a wave of your hand. See, learning to write clearly and coherently sounds like it should be simple enough, and sometimes it is, but it can be harder than you’d think. The best way I’ve ever found to improve your style is to read… a lot. And I don’t mean read fanfiction. I mean go out and find some books by authors you like and study their style. Look at how they write things, and then try to replicate that in your own writing. Obviously I’m not advocating plagiarism. I’m simply suggesting that you should try to emulate them in your own words. After some time, you’ll eventually develop your own distinct style, and it’ll only grow from there. Starting off is the hardest part though, and you’ve already taken that first step, so good on you. You’ve got nowhere else to go but up. Anyway, I’m going to do my best to attempt to rewrite the above sentences in such a way that they’re slightly more palatable. This should not be taken as the only way you can write these sentences, but rather as one of many options. I’m just trying to give you ideas here so you can decide for yourself how you want to do things.
>Between being lost, the hunger, cold, rain, humiliation, loss of her possessions and outright terror of facing the Ursa It certainly had seemed to do it's best to punish the show mare for having the audacity to put up a performance.
The main problem here is that the sentence is utterly confusing. The subject and object are unclear, and I’m not really sure what’s going on. So lemme try to fix that.
>Between being lost, hungry, cold, humiliated, shivering from the rain, reeling from the loss of her possessions, and fearful of facing the Ursa again, Trixie still found time to condemn the world for putting her through all this simply because she had the audacity to put on a performance.
>She braced herself for whatever came next, but the pattering of droplets around her was all she heard. After several moments of chilling silence [...]
This one doesn’t really need fixing, so I won’t bother, but I do want to point out that there shouldn’t be “chilling silence” if she hears rain splattering all around here. That is, in fact, a sound, and thus would break whatever silence existed.
>A slow trot through the forest while she bit by bit examined the various plants, bushes and roots, looking for any that she recognized as edible.
This sentence just lacks a subject, and the verb suffers from tense confusion. So, let’s take a look at a possible fix.
>Trixie trotted slowly through the forest, examining bit by bit the various plant, bushes, and roots for any that looked like they might be edible.
>Five minutes had passed, with the blue furred open muzzle still hovered over the pink moss then swayed towards the roots and each in turn.
Here we’ve got an issue with the passive voice. Passive voice is when you have something happening to the subject instead of the subject doing something. Generally you want to avoid this.
>Five minutes had passed, and Trixie, her mouth open, hovered back and forth between the moss and the roots, still unable to decide on which to eat.
Trixie Referring to Herself in Third Person… Constantly
I don’t think I really need to pull examples for this one. So look, I’ve always had a bit of an issue with people who have Trixie talk in third person exclusively. I mean, yes, she did talk like that in the show, but only in specific circumstances.
...Okay, well, I was going to show you a youtube clip with her speaking in first person, but apparently all the instances of the episode (minus all the friggin’ “blind commentaries”) were taken down, so you’ll just have to take my word on this. Trixie only spoke in third person while she was in her stage persona. When she was speaking down to other ponies, or showing off, she’d speak like that to put herself above them, or at the very least because she’s arrogant. However, when she was threatened, scared, or not on stage, she generally spoke like a normal
personpony. So really, I’ve always maintained that when writing Trixie, it’s better to stick to that style, and only have her refer to herself as “Trixie” or “The Great and Powerful Trixie” in specific circumstances. Of course, you’re free to do what you want, but personally I find it incredibly odd that she’d even think in third person. I mean, it’s somewhat annoying, and more than a little awkward to read.”Twilight Sugarcube/”Prism Crescent”
Again, no need to pull examples for this one, so let’s just jump right in.
The problem with calling Twilight “Twilight Sugarcube” is that it makes literally no sense. Not only does Applejack not call Twilight “sugarcube” in such a way that it could be misconstrued to be the second half of her name, I also find it hard to believe that Trixie would’ve even bothered to pay enough attention to notice that since apparently she can’t remember Rainbow’s name despite it being told to her face. As for “Prism Crescent”, well… I think it should be obvious why this is just illogical. First off, if Trixie remembered enough of Rainbow to recall that her name had something to do with what she did, then it begs the question of how she could get “Rainbow Dash” so wrong. I could buy it if she misremembered it as, say: “Rainbow Crash” or something phonetically similar, but a synonym of her name just doesn’t make any sense.
Thoughts vs. Dialogue
In general, dialogue goes in quotation marks, either single or double. Thoughts, on the other hand, pretty much never go inside quotes, since they’re not really being said. While there are many different ways of doing this, the most accepted is to put thoughts into italics, like this. This indicates to the reader that we’re hearing a character’s thoughts, and not just reading dialogue, which putting thoughts in single quotes might make them believe. On top of that, if you’re going to bother separating out thoughts in some way, then at least be consistent about it. There’s lots of times where Trixie will speak to herself, or we’ll see something she’s thinking, but it’ll be presented as regular narration. This is actually fine, and you can do it like this, but be consistent. Don’t have both thoughts either italicized or in quotes, and as part of the narration.
Lavender Unicorn Syndrome (LUS)
I doubt that you’ve never heard of this before, but you may not be totally clear on what it is, exactly. Lavender Unicorn Syndrome, often abbreviated to LUS, is what happens when you take a character, like Twilight, and refer to her as “the lavender unicorn”, or “the bookish mare”, “the librarian”, and so on and so forth. The idea is that you replace pronouns and proper nouns with descriptive phrases to avoid repetition. It’s an understandable goal, given that avoiding repeition is normally a good thing, but in the case of forgoing pronouns and proper nouns, it couldn’t be more annoying and unnecessary. Often I’ll see you refer to Rainbow Dash as “the prismatic pony” or, “the rainbow-maned mare”, and this is just not really something you want to do. Pronouns, like, “she”, “it”, “her”, etc. are your friends, and you should use them. The only time it’s acceptable to use a descriptive phrase instead is if you’re telling us something new about the character. For example, if you wanted to show that, say, Trixie was dragging her leg because she broke it or something, you could call her “the injured mare”, but only once. After that we already know she’s injured, so you don’t need to keep calling her that. Basically, as a general rule, you want to use pronouns and proper nouns as much as possible.
STORY
I honestly don’t even know how I’d separate this section into subsections, so I won’t. I’m just going to talk about it in a stream-of-consciousness sort of way. Full disclosure before I begin: I only read up to what had been posted when I started reading, so that’s around Chapter 14. So that’s all I’m going to talk about. I have enough problems with it that I don’t think not having read all of it is going to be an issues. There’s some basic stuff in the beginning that needs to be changed anyway. So, let’s get started.
There was one thing I’ve been meaning to mention for awhile now, and I suppose now’s a good a time as any. The title, “Trixie’s Forest Retreat”, is a little ambiguous. You see, at first I thought it was going to be about Trixie starting a B&B in the Everfree, which I would totally read by the way, but it was in fact about Trixie retreating into the forest. So yeah, this isn’t a colossal deal the grand scheme of things, but it’s maybe something you want to think about in the future. I’m sure there’s a million other titles you could come up with that might represent the story itself a bit better.
So, an issue I noticed while reading this is that each individual chapter seems to be arbitrarily separate from the others. Like, there’s no reason the first 4 or 5 chapters couldn’t all be together. They’re certainly short enough to allow that. The problem is that nothing really happens for the first five chapters, so you’re not exactly giving new readers a lot to go off of. The basic premise, while it’s been done many times, is still a good base to work from, but you have to do something interesting with it, and you have to do it pretty damn early on otherwise people aren’t going to stick around waiting for something to happen. Well, not most people anyway.
I do have to give you credit for switching perspectives to Rainbow Dash after awhile. It’s an interesting shift, and it means we get to see things from her perspective as well, which is pretty cool. The only issue I have with that is that you rehash a lot of the dialogue in the beginning of Chapter 5. I understand the urge to do that, but really it’s not necessary. You can pretty much pick up right after that and we’ll know where you are since we’ve all watched the show. But, really, this is a minor complaint. I’m actually pretty pleased with how this story is going so far, even if it could use some work to be more technically pleasing. You’ve got a fairly well-used set up, but you seem to be taking your own spin on it, like I suggested, so that’s good. Oh, but I do want to say that this shift in perspective, while welcome, only further makes me think that you’d be better off condensing the chapters into several longer chapters instead of tons of short ones.
Anyway, I’ve reviewed, and written, many many fics in my day, and I can certainly say that yours isn’t half bad when it comes to story. Your grammar and style could stand to be improved, but at least you’ve got a solid foundation to work from with the story, which is more than I could’ve said for a number of fics I’ve reviewed. Keep writing, and you’re bound to improve. Hopefully this review will have provided at least some useful advice and wasn’t just five and a half thousands words worth of me blathering on.
Until next time,
This is alexmagnet, WRITE’s resident Trixie fanboy, signing off...
4129745
*5348 words later*
Wow. I was not prepared for this, at all.
Imagine my surprise when I realize the reviewer is one of the three writers that actually inspired me to try writing.
Thank you for taking the considerable time to read the story, and the massive amount time it must have taken to write all that.
Every point you made on grammar was clear and well explained. I will try to improve upon them. I must admit some of them truly surprised me, and I am glad I am now aware of them. Some others make me cringe for having missed something so obvious in hindsight. I feel I have enough information on now to look further into these mistakes, thanks to you.
On style, I can definitely see that the examples of improvements you provide are much better than the originals. This does seem like a much more difficult area to improve in. I have been reading more fan-fiction but I see you suggest I should read actual published works, I can see why that would be better.
The terrible habit of swapping from past to present tense is in fact a remnant of RP-ing, I'm impressed you made the connection.
I do have one question. Relating to this:
I seem to be unable to understand this point, I fail to see how the sentence is incorrect. Could you perhaps elaborate? The others were all crystal clear.
With regards to Trixie obnoxiously using her 3rd person speech. There is a reason for it in this story.
But I can understand what you are saying. It might be somewhat confusing/annoying.
I will have to consider that trade off.
Thank you again.
I feel like I have learned a lot, and I'll try to implement it.
4130502
I'm glad I could help you out, and I'm pleasantly surprised that I was in some way responsible for you starting to write in the first place. You have no idea how happy that makes me. Anyway, as I said, I'm glad you felt you learned something, as that was the intent, and I'm sure you'll improve immensely if you keep up with writing. As for your question:
Sure, I can elaborate. Let's look at the sentence again:
>Trixie couldn’t help but marvel at the vast star-filled night sky.
Now, since there are two adjectives here, "vast" and "star-filled", you have to figure out whether they're coordinate or not. In this case, they are. If you switch "vast" and "star-filled", the meaning is changed, and you also lose the hyphen, which would cause confusion.
>Trixie couldn't help but marvel at the star filled vast night sky.
The reason you lose the hyphen is because "star-filled" no longer falls under the rules for compound adjectives because it isn't followed by a noun. So, by switching the order, you change the meaning of the sentence. Therefore, the two adjectives are coordinate and must be separated by a comma, like so:
>Trixie couldn't help but marvel at the vast, star-filled night sky.
4130571
Ah yes I understand, thank you.
I realize now that my confusion stemmed from misreading the segment, not from any unclear writing. My apologies.
In my defense it is 3AM.
You most certainly did, it was your Letters from a friend at the end of the world that initially got me hooked on reading on fimfiction,. And eventually interested in writing about Trixie.
I will do my best to proof you right. I have no intention of stopping to write any time soon. The thing I dread the most is the inevitable rewriting everything I've written prior though.
4130678
Well, to be honest, I picked your story to review because I remember you commenting on Letters. Getting comments is basically what keeps me going with that story (and also that I love writing it), so I wanted to give something back. I mean, just the fact that I not only got you into writing, but also ponyfiction in general... it makes me feel pretty great. Anyway, enough stroking my ego, heh.
I know this feeling quite well. I've been wanting to rewrite the first 20 or so chapters of Letters for awhile since I don't feel they're up to my standards now, but that sounds like way more work than I'm willing to put in. If you want my advice, I'd say that maybe you should try writing something else, a short one-shot perhaps, just to have something that you can easily read over and edit to your heart's content. Then, once you're satisfied with that, take that knowledge you just gained and start applying it to editing this fic. It may take awhile, but I can guarantee it'll be worth the effort. Writing can be a long, arduous process, but goddamn if it isn't fun as hell.
4130931
So in a sense I traded <50 words for >5000? Damn good deal.
Heh sorry. I was just excited about it. I cannot tell a lie, but i can hush the truth.
Writing a quick oneshot for practice does sound like a good idea.
The funny thing is though. This was supposed to be exactly that, and look what happened.
My fault for underestimating how many words I would need I suppose.
I do certainly like having a good excuse to give it another try though. I will put some thought into a nice short story I can repeatedly revise, maybe something involving
. Or actually I might have a better idea.
4131050
Yet again I find myself in your shoes. Letters From a Friend was originally written as a contest entry, but I never finished it, so I released the first chapter, unfinished, and over the past year or so, it's grown into the monster it is now. So, I can tell you I know exactly how you feel. But yeah, just keep practicing, write a lot, and I'm sure you'll improve.
Anyway, I've taken up enough of your comment section already, heh. I look forward to seeing you around in the future.
Whoo! Finally! Now just to get Rarity to make the wedding dresses!
4145094
Haha, I'll be honest I was looking forward to reading your reaction.
I wonder if Rarity would make Trixie's dress green.
Wait, when did this get a romance tag? Where was the hints at romance? Trixie went from flinching at the sight of rainbow and still having a slight resentment against her, and rainbows actions up to this point has seemed out of guilt for causing the situation and supported by the two monologues in the past two chapters. Really an odd moment to jump into romance.
4145116
The romance tag came in actually fairly late at chapter 21. I made a mention of it in the notes at the time.
As for the hints at romance, you'd be correct for not picking up any towards Rainbow Dash. You actually described it very well.
I don't want to spoil anything, but you are on the right track. I'm glad actually, I was a bit worried about ending the chapter there but it was so big already.
4145152
so inb4 its all a dream?
4145272
Well that would be telling.
Da fuck? I thought trixie liked fluttershy! My life is ruined
4145365
*Hugs* There there. ^^
4145584 poor fluttershy though
So, Trixie is developing Stockholm Syndrome towards Rainbow Dash? Kinky.
Also.. "As if you really wanted to die, you weren’t ready back at the timberwolf and you sure weren’t now!" As I recall, Trixie was ready to die in order to distract the wolf from Fluttershy yes?
Trixie is going to need so many years of therapy after this.
4157110
Yes she was willing to die for her. Though almost dying was a lot scarier than she thought. She admitted to RD afterwards she thought she was ready, but wasn't. Thus RD's reaction here.
Yes, yes she does. Here's to hoping she does not end up abusing magical corrupting amulets ey?
I guess Rarity's dresses will have to wait.
Oooohhhh....Trixxie is so smooth.
.... i am really liking this history : D, and as Maulin said, Stockholm. Kinky.
Anyway i am surprised this has so little views, is a genuinely endearing and well paced romance (although the chapters are kind of too short for my tassting but it does not affect the pacing, so its mostly me being picky). Well....maybe is a little fast, but not in a bad way.
Fav and like for ou good sir
4159115
Thank you for making my day, good sir.
I may have to consider combining some chapters. It is mostly due to me forcing a thousand words a day when i started, to get the ball rolling. *Adds to post-completion checklist*
Honestly I'm thrilled with the views it has gotten so far.
If I am being exceedingly kind to myself, I would say maybe people had their fill of the "Trixie in Everfree Forest" stories. Or maybe I need a more catchy title and description. "Trixie gets Stockholm Syndrome, Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy deny much needed therapy" might be a good one if you and Mad Maudlin are any indication.
4161009
I would read a Trixie Stockholm Syndrome story. Mane 6 or otherwise. I would read it so hard that the force would travel through the Internet and spontaneously set your keyboard on fire.
4161118
Dang you are vigilant! xD
Maybe I really should consider rebranding a bit.
On the other hand, new keyboards would be expensive.
Plus it might confuse people. So many things to consiser.
4161189
Well, theres always the next story! I heard something about Fluttershy having a shed..
4161205
Indeed, I will have to remember that idea. ^^
But to be unfittingly serious for a second. This story wont change, but I do think I could have done a better job with this stories title and desc. >.>
4161009 Nah dont do it, if you writte triggers like that you scare away those who are here for the history (like me XD) and reel in those who are in for shock value. Which is kind of sad, as a good Stockholm syndrome history on fimfiction would be interesting.
Anyway, i eagerly await your next chapter, and i am sure that if you keep this quality your history wil inevitably get popular.
4161333
That is a good point.
Now I'm curious what a story like that would actually look like.
Just wondering, why do you call it history?