The Sneezies

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Pinkie is out in the fields one day and comes across a strange flower that looks like Poison Joke. When she starts to have some serious sneezing issues she heads to Twilight's for help.

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mlplover17

mlplover17 #1 · Jul 17th, 2014 · · ·

I like this story

Derpator

Derpator #2 · Jul 17th, 2014 · · ·

Her books meant nothing to her compared to a friend.

This was a nice read. Pinkie's sneezing mayhem was more crazy that I imagined it could have gone. Was kind of expecting that cure though when I put together her situation as well as what the cure actually was. It was a tad predictable, but that meant nothing overall. This was still great to read.

Riser5

Riser5 #3 · Jul 17th, 2014 · · ·

4708112
I will admit the ending was definitely rushed more or less, and I could fix it up if need be. But I just needed to finish this story, it was starting to take more time than it should've.

ambion

ambion #4 · Jul 19th, 2014 · · ·

Hello Riser5, I’m going to be giving ye the full work-over here. I’ll be targeting technical aspects as well as figurative, and we’ll see where it goes from there.

Now, as a thunderous-sneezer myself I am immediately tickled by the premise of this little story. Let’s dive right in-

I can tell from the manner of your writing that you’re a fair bit new to this: there’s a few things I can readily call attention to.

Firstly - Present vs Past tense. The most accepted, traditional and universal tense for narrative is the past tense. Present tense isn’t wrong, but like comparing automatic gears in a car with manual, it does require a bit of awareness on the part of the writer to make it work. By the end of the story you’re almost exclusively in past, but mixing tenses at all is a problem. The few times that present tense does shows up throws the rest of the story for a bit of a loop.

Secondly - Telling or Showing? This concept is probably one of the most fundamental of all in writing stories, and we all began with telling.

Telling is, 98% of the time, inferior to Showing. So what are they? Understanding of the terms is something a person really has to develop an awareness of for themselves, but it goes a little something like this -

Telling is Telling the story, as if it’s already happened, all the dust is settled and the songs have ended, and your telling it to me very much I was never there to see any of it in the first place.

Telling is a bit like a lecture - information without much cause for emotional response. And we always start out like this when we we’re beginners, because we have the idea of the events of the story, and the obvious thing is to recount them. To say that This happened, then That happened, then they Did that and saw This, the end.

The aim, then, with show is to put the reader into that time, and into that place. For instance: Seeing a nearby barrel, Pinkie pulled the top off and threw her head into it. Thankfully for Pinkie the barrel was empty. Unable to hold it back any longer, Pinkie released a monstrous sneeze that nearly broke the barrel. Pinkie waited for a few seconds then glanced around. A few ponies were looking at her, notably an annoyed looking stallion that started to make his way over to her. Assuming that the barrel was his, and as Pinkie didn’t want any trouble, she quickly sprinted away.

Here we have an event: a sneeze.
A sneeze that nearly breaks a barrel. Just think about that. A SNEEZE that nearly BREAKS A BARREL. That’s one hell of a sneeze, or...it must have been, right? I mean, there’s the adjective ‘monsterous’ but other than that there is nothing else in this paragraph that gives its subject, this sneeze, any kind of tangible presence. We’re TOLD to take it for granted that this sneeze is ‘monsterous’, but there’s no real evidence to make us accept and revel in that fact. Even saying that it “nearly broke the barrel” is ambiguous and lacklustre. What does that even mean, “nearly broke the barrel”?

If you’d said that the back of the barrel had been ‘blown right out and clattered loudly against the wall’, then we have something real and definitive to work with, because the sneeze has done something that’s very apparent - it’s blown out the back of the barrel, and the imagery of that backing then clattering loudly against the wall reinforces that.

Let’s go deeper: Pinkie waited for a few seconds then glanced around. A few ponies were looking at her, notably an annoyed looking stallion that started to make his way over to her. Assuming that the barrel was his, and as Pinkie didn’t want any trouble, she quickly sprinted away.

This is definitive, textbook example telling. We’re told the script of events here, but what’s going on. Is Pinkie embarrassed? Afraid? Nervous? Amused? Shocked? There’s no way to know. It’s just an itinerary of events here. We’re told that ‘Pinkie didn’t want any trouble’ but again, that’s not really enough of anything to show us what’s going on. If she’d blushed, and laughed, and said “Whoops” and gently put the barrel down and brushing a bit of duts off it before bounding away, than we’d get a clear idea of what’s going on with Pinkie Pie here as a character. Or, if she’d hesitated, and blinked, and stared blankly around for a few seconds, blinking, before shaking herself, dropping the barrel to the ground and bounding away, we know that, while the sneeze was the same, the important details of how she as a character have reacted to them has changed entirely.

But we didn’t get any of that.

It brings me to my next generality - what I’ve learned to affectionately call Talking Heads Syndrome. Let me show you:

“Twi… Twilight?” Pinkie whispered.
“Pinkie! Are you okay?” Twilight replied.
“I’ve been worse,” she winced, “Are you mad at me?”
“Mad? For what?”
“For destroying your library, your own house is in ruins,” Pinkie said.
“Pinkie, yes I am upset, but I care more how this all happened. All you could’ve done was sneeze, right?” Twilight explained.
“Well, what happened was I was thirsty…” Pinkie hesitated weirdly for a moment, then forcefully sneezed, breaking the chair down and falling into the water beneath her.
“Okay, I think I could probably figure out,” Twilight said, “But at least we know how to fix you!”
“You do?! Where’s Zecora?” Pinkie asked.
“She’s back at her place.”
“But you said we? Do we go to Zecora’s—”
“Spike and I,” Twilight said, “Spike is the one who knows about it.”
“Yeah,” Spike added, “It’s called Dragon’s Joke, an altered version of Poison Joke. All you need to do is do something extremely nice for somepony.”

Very simply put, Talking Heads Syndrome is when we see these long dialogues that have very little in the way of actions to liven them. As such, we can imagine that there’s just their heads, floating there and talking, with nothing at all going on around them.

Other than where she sneezes and falls into the water, you could easily imagine that Twilight is literally standing there, and Pinkie sitting, not doing anything, the either of them, while they talk. It’s inefficient storytelling, and a common beginners’ error.

And, like I suggested with the Nearly Broken Barrel bit, using the characters is again one of the ways to fix this. Is Pinkie fidgeting, or sniffling with tears. Could you describe how she’s still soaked, is she shivering? Are her eyes and nose swollen from the sneezing? What is she doing right now?

Same with Twilight. The best way I can think to explain it to you is to say this: Look at people having conversations in real life. We use expressions, yes, but we use our hands as much as anything, and body language. Posture, and as often as not people aren’t just standing there talking, they’re doing something. Be it walking, looking, waiting, anything.

Otherwise, we’re just reading a script.

Right, so, up to this point I’ve been taking generalities - common errors that are pretty universal, and how they apply in The Sneezies and a bit of what to change next time. But let’s look more at the specifics of this story.

This is your first paragraph - A normal day outside in the meadows next to Ponyville is naturally peaceful, especially when the sun shines bright in the depth of Spring. The gentle buzz of lulling hummingbirds fill the air as rabbits search for leaves to eat. A cool breeze pulls through the flowers and trees, carrying a peculiar sound of that of a springing bounce and the terrified screams of grass being crushed under the pink hooves of a helplessly oblivious pony.

Truth be told, most reviewers and editors will already know most everything they need to know about a piece of writing in the first page or less, and any reading after that is mostly just to confirm their own expectations bar any drastic changes in style or quality.

Yours starts purple. As an attempt at prose it’s a little bit of a backfire, sadly.“Gentle buzz of lulling hummingbirds” ? Really? What’s a ‘lulling’ hummingbird? what is the ‘depth of Spring’? the breeze ‘pulls’?

You also are slapping adjectives and adverbs onto EVERYTHING, and it kind of pollutes the paragraph with purple:

‘Naturally peaceful, shines bright, gentle buzz, lulling hummingbirds, cool breeze, peculiar sound, springing bounce, terrified screams, helplessly oblivious.’ Watch what happens when I remove all the descriptors

A normal day outside in the meadows next to Ponyville is peaceful, especially when the sun shines in the depth of Spring. The buzz of hummingbirds fill the air as rabbits search for leaves to eat. A breeze pulls through the flowers and trees, carrying a sound [as] of a bounce and the screams of grass being crushed under the pink hooves of [an] oblivious pony.

The paragraph still makes perfect sense. What does this tell us? Those words I cut out weren’t necessary to the context at all. Even worse, they didn’t really enrich the content that was already there. And as some of those words were...odd choices (seriously, what is a lulling hummingbird?) they actually brought down the quality, because the same amount of material was just spread out a little thinner. Just something to bear in mind - an adjective/adverb doesn’t guarantee something will sound better. In fact, more often than not they have the reverse effect.

The story itself --

It’s short, yes, and the pacing is a bit tattery. Pinkie finds the flowers, Pinkie sneezes twice and begins to panic, (after only TWO sneezes, mind you) goes to Twilight, whom goes to Zecora, whom sends her back to Spike, whom sends her back to Pinkie, whom goes outside, the end. It goes literally all over the place/

This is, in a way, the very same problem as a moment ago. You’ve got things that could be removed that wouldn’t really break the story. Was the trip to Zecora necessary if Twilight was just going to end up talking to Spike anyway? Or on the other hand, couldn’t Zecora have just given her the answer and remove Spike from the story entirely, and get us back to Pinkie and the actual story that much sooner?

Part of the problem, for me, is that the story WAS Pinkie Pie’s, indeed it starts with her, and the conflict is hers, and yet Twilight sort of butts in and suddenly takes over the narrative. Suddenly the writing leaves Pinkie off-stage, so to speak, and we’re following Twilight around as she collects the dragonballs. For such a short story, I don’t think switching focus-characters worked.

Otherwise, for a story about crazy powerful sneezing, there’s only something like six sneezes in the whole thing. And they’re not given much description at that. One nearly breaks a barrel. One breaks the sing, another, the chair. But where’s the SOUND, the concussive FORCE of it, something, anyhthing to (again, I call back to-) SHOW us what these sneezes are like. Where, indeed, is the earth-shattering kaboom?

The ending is...a bit of a fizzle, to be honest. ‘Going outside’ seems a bit underpar if we’re honest about what makes something ‘very nice’. Sure, it’s conscientious, polite and respectful, but anybody would have done that anyway. What’s something that would have been Pinkie Pie’s style of very nice for setting things right? What would she do that’s unique and exceptional?

As a final note, your grammar was good, and I was happy by all accounts with that.

All in all, your story has a simple, cute premise, and I like that. I think your execution was a bit inexperienced, but that’s nothing to slight you for. The pacing and plot are a bit scattered and the ending just sort of happens after the relative excitement of sinks and barrels and bookcases, which is a downer, but ultimatey writing a story like this and looking back over it and seeing all the things that can be improved upon is the best way to do just that: improve.

If there’s anything you want clairifed or have to ask, just let me know

Riser5

Riser5 #5 · Jul 19th, 2014 · · ·

4716329
Hey, I really do have to thank you for this. It definitely helps, especially with Show vs Tell. This is the first time I've actually understood the difference between the two. Even Ezn's writing guide wasn't too helpful on that.

I do have two things I'd like clarified though. The first is Past vs Present. When writing, assuming you're writing in past tense, does it always have to be written in past tense? Like are there actually points where you can or even need to use present tense instead, or would it be better to always use last tense no matter what?

The other thing, on THS; does that mean you can never have extended dialogue in writing, even with small actions in there, or does adding those actions in allow it? And on that would you say extended dialogue with action in it be better or worse than short dialogues spread out with a lot of story inbetween?

Also, how many years have you been writing for ambion?

ambion

ambion #6 · Jul 19th, 2014 · · ·

4718305 Ok, a lot of questions.

I do have two things I'd like clarified though. The first is Past vs Present. When writing, assuming you're writing in past tense, does it always have to be written in past tense? Like are there actually points where you can or even need to use present tense instead, or would it be better to always use last tense no matter what?

The short answer is that, when writing past tense, you should consider the answer to be yes, that everything should be in past tense (not the dialogue, of course). The truth is a little more ambiguous, but the thing to keep in mind is that when professional writers mix in a bit of present tense it is for a specific, functional reason that they're aiming for and know how to achieve. It's their deep, experienced understanding of the rules that allows them to then break them, and make it work.

As such, there isn't really a reason for us to do so, though from the professionals I've seen them mix in present tense if the story is a second hand narrative of sorts - that is, the story itself is being told by a character after the fact, with the story in the past tense and the story-telling character in the present. If I recall correctly, Life of Pi is done like this. Otherwise, a few writers prefer to do bits of their exposition in present, when making statements about things that aren't dependant on the time for setting.

for example : Flowers grow brightest in spring, when the sun has them in the throes of youthful romance. The grass is moist, and the warm air fills ponies with the joy of the outdoors. Pinkie Pie felt this deeply, and bounced along the hills that overlooked Ponyville as the shinshine warmed her back

You can see that it makes sense to read, but writing with mixed tenses correctly is a bit tricky and takes practice. The advantage is that your exposition will feel immediate and closer to the reader than exclusively past tense, which is then reserved for the events of the story. Hope this clarifies that for you.

The other thing, on THS; does that mean you can never have extended dialogue in writing, even with small actions in there, or does adding those actions in allow it? And on that would you say extended dialogue with action in it be better or worse than short dialogues spread out with a lot of story inbetween?

'Never' is a very strong word, and very much relevant to the abilities of the writer. For instance, My most beloved of authors (Sir Terry Pratchett) Is often known to write very long sections of dialogue with no tags at all (that is, no X said, Y asked, X replied) or actions, often with a whole group of speakers, and it works beautifully because the dialogue itself is very specifically and mindfully designed to convey everything that the reader needs to really envision what's going on. Again, it's a case where an intimate understanding of the rules gives one the option of breaking them skillfully. Just as often he uses very vivid, intense scene laying paragraphs that space a small covnersation out over multiple pages. And these too are done beautifully well. Rather than think of one or the other style as the 'best', it's better to consider them both as tools - which tool is best suited to the particular task at hand? Sometimes one or the other is what you're looking for most.

Realistically, it's best to find a healthy balance, and typically beginners start with too much speaking and not enough emoting in any given scene.

Research suggests that most of human communication is non-verbal. It's not the content of what we're saying that expresses detail, but the manner of how we're saying it.

So to get back to the question, you can of course have extended dialogue scenes with little action, and you can also have scenes written so that lots of exposition and action break up the speech quite a bit. The point is to recognize what each of these things does, and how it affects the reader, and the story.

Saying that the small actions allows for the extended dialogue isn't a bad way of thinking about it at all.

To make an example here, imagine Zecora and Twilight having a long discussion about something as they sit in Zecora's home. Even a little account of Zecora making tea mixed through the dialogue - how the water boils, the air smells, the tea leaves crumble, how she stirs it, pours it, how Twilight burns her hoof ever so slightly and winces, the taste - little things that break up speech with little pauses and images, they'll have a dramatic effect for improving how it reads, even though the scene is still fundamentally a long section of dialogue.

If you then wanted to be very clever with this example, you'd pick your little actions to be relevant to the tone of the discussion. Is it happy and friendly? Then you might have Twilight note the warmth of the fire and the bright coals, or the sweetness and spiciness of the flavour. What about a more terse, sombre discussion? Well, then we might focus instead on the flickering shadows that the fire casts, or the strange, cloying scents that fill the air, or the way it feels for Twilight like the masks are watching her. It all goes towards evoking a certain feeling, a certain perspective in the reader.

And on that would you say extended dialogue with action in it be better or worse than short dialogues spread out with a lot of story inbetween?

There isn't a correct answer, because the question is very much context-based, and will depend on a lot of factors. Foremost is the aim and style of the writer. I find sometimes in my own writing that if I don't like how a scene feels, simply changing from one to the other can often be an improvement. It depends on what you want to get out of the story, really.

Lastly - years. I wouldn't be able to give you a specific number. I never just started writing. I've always had an eye for narrative, spotting tropes before I ever knew what the word trope was. As for actually putting words on pages, I can say it's been a good few years. Five or more, definitely.

same again, any questions, just let me know

Riser5

Riser5 #7 · Jul 21st, 2014 · · ·

4718601
4719289
These were actually both quite helpful. I really do feel this will be useful to help me improve. I'll make sure to keep this in mind next time, though it is a lot to work on. I guess it'll just take time.

Next step is to get started on a new story. Now if only I had a story idea...

The Real Sonata Dusk