Sunset Shimmer had one friend before the events of Equestria Girls, a diary. She abandoned the book in her spiral into darkness but now, with a chance of redemption, she turns back to her old friend for help. Does writing in her diary help her recover her life? Will she be able to overcome her memories, feelings, and school bullies to make deep connections with her new friends? It's all in her diary, all you have to do is read it.
This story is an epistolary, written entirely from the perspective of Sunset Shimmer making diary entries. For those of you unfamiliar with this format it means you are getting both the story as she is writing it as well as the emotions and thoughts she has while reviewing the events she is writing about. Half the story is how and why she writes what she writes.
Pre-read by alt-tap, asylum1388, Monanniverse, and totallynotabrony
Edited by Nopony_Important
A special thank you to EQD Pre-reader 63.546. When I submitted this story to EQD he saw it as close enough to post that he took extra time to help me touch up the story. As it turns out, he helped me 3-4 years ago on the ponychan boards when I first drafted Excessive Worry. It literally took me years to get good enough to make good on his notes and now it's been featured by groups such as the Seattle's Angels.
Art by Elsia-pony
I feel dirty for reading someone's diary
5454800
Then you, sir, are totally not a brony
. Obviously we have to invade every facet of their thoughts, their like pop stars.
Hello
I saw your call for some feedback from die-hard EG fans and, well, I consider myself a pretty big fan of the movies (I sometimes watch them more than the MLP show! 
) So, without further ado, your feedback;
Do I like this in diary form? Actually, yes, I do. Sometimes diary stories don't flow very well, but you have potential to spin this into a really good series. The way you write is just like how most people would in a diary and I feel like some readers will complain in the future that it's all tell, no show but that's the whole point. People don't whimsically string together words that portray paintings in a diary, it's just their raw emotions. So I like how simple it is with still all the power of emotion.
I also like how you portray Sunset Shimmer. It's very Rainbow Rocks-esque, which I like, with her apologies and sorrow. I guess I would like to see her hope and mood improve throughout the entries? Like..her best friend the diary helps her through and she becomes better and her hope grows? That's just a personal opinion though.
My only complaint is you should add some italics for extra emphasis!
Overall, I do enjoy this and am interested to read more.
Loved it
Y'know, it would be really cool if Knighty added diffrent fonts, for when we write stories 
5454934
Thanks a ton
It would also be nice if they had a tag for Epistolaries, it's a completely different format and I love it but they are hard to find. Though I guess people don't know what they are called and are kind of rare.
5454876
Yay, someone who gets Epistolaries. I'll think on the italics. I think I add a few in the coming chapters but I haven't decided if they take away from the form yet because normally people don't hand write like that. Then again you made the point of different fonts.
5454969 Yep
Herp derp.
There's a scattering of grammatical mistakes throughout. I get that it's a diary, and an actual diary would likely also have mistakes, but you're still telling us a story. That doesn't excuse you from having good grammar.
5455056
"Herp Derp" is right. While I'm always trying to improve grammar is definitely one of my weak points. It's why I try to get extra pairs of eyes on it. Thanks for the catch.
Aside from scattered grammer mistakes. I would say this a pretty great.... entry? Gah reading Sunbutt's dairy is werid. (No not the Alicorn)
Got to love the emotion when Sunbutt describes how she felt when the magic was taken away from her. I loved the line, "kind of like having your horn taken away".
Blah blah blah, this was great, I need more please.
Well, you asked for feedback, and for once I'm actually in a capacity to, so here's some.
It took me a few hours to realize why this story doesn't do it for me so far, and it's that a lot of this is an infodump of things we already know, with very little character to back it up. Oh, there's lots of insight into Sunset as a character, but very little of Sunset herself ends up on these diary pages, IMO.
The parts I most enjoyed were the beginning few paragraphs, the ending few paragraphs, and a smattering of a few things in the middle. These are the parts where we really get to see her true desperation and her remorse. They're excellent because they're raw, and she's talking to the diary instead of dictating to it.
The rest of the entry, however, doesn't give me this. We get a recap of events, and worse yet it's a macro recap. There are some words as to how Sunset feels about all this, but I'm not in any of the moments. I don't know what Sunset's thinking, or what's motivating her outside of the speech she's prepared for me (more on this a couple paragraphs below).
There are a few choice moments in this that do ring true; people have mentioned the effects of the rainbeam, that was pretty good. I also like the bit where Sunset questions the H5's motives for helping Sunset with the school repair. Also quite nice. And especially when Sunset talks about how empowering it felt to turn into the she-demon. Also great.
But by and large, this reads like a blog post of someone's theories about how Sunset might feel over the events of the movie. This feels like an edited essay. This feels like memoirs, instead of something Sunset's still in the midst of feeling the sting of.
I want to see more like the stuff I liked
because I'm selfish. She doesn't have to plead with the book all the time or anything, but let her truly open a dialogue with the diary, and with herself. Let her ask questions she knows no one around her will answer. Let her be rambly. Let her be spiteful, sad, mean, relieved, as truly sorry as she says at the start and end of this.Having it be an epistolary means you've handicapped yourself from the jump in terms of being able to show emotional states of character in a traditional manner. You've stated plans to write an entire character arc in this format -- a format that limits you to telling dialogue. Therefore, you'll have to maximize the strengths of dialogue to let readers believe what you're writing, and take Sunset's journey with her.
Hope this helps, and good luck.
I'll track this--I at least know you're being earnest in trying to explore her.
5455100
Oops. Sorry about that.
It probably means I:
Edited late at night or was tired in any way,
Only went through once or twice, meant to come back, but didn't, because life,
Accidentally turned the computer off and forgot about this (unlikely)
Sorry anyway! I normally try to go through stories at least three times, unless they're ridiculously long.
5455338
This was quite helpful thank you. While I don't think I can really change the first chapter all that much, as I am handicapped by needing to recap the first movie, I can say that the next few chapters are a bit better. It's not recap, you still have those types of moments that you mentioned you liked, but I also get to play more with the plot, which was Not Equestria Girls strong suits.
But you really helped me identify some of the strengths and some of the weaknesses of both the form and my writing and I think I might be able to do better next time. Thank you.
Damn.
Just...
Damn.
Herp derp
This chapter felt a lot better than the first. The summary feel to the first chapter just didn't seem right for the story. This chapter, however, gives me rising hope for the rest of the story.
*Feels*
Something tells me that crap she's getting isn't going to stop until she does something big, selfless, and important.
...lunchroom musical, anyone?
Um, so I actually looked at this thing on this specific page for the first time, and I just noticed that it says "Prolog."
Should be "Prologue."
5510660
Thanks. I'll have the new chapter for you in a few hours.
typos
___1
it was apparently Rarities idea.
Rarity's*
___2
No telling what people would do with my you, Dairy.
with you, my Dairy.*
Good story, it gets a like from me.
This is getting more and more interesting. I like this a lot, can't wait for more
Read this again to refresh myself on the story before reading the next chapter and noticed a couple things:
Herp derp
Yeah, this story's definitely growing on me. Looking forward to more.
Well shit.
5533482
I blame it all on Dyslexia.
5539483
You doing okay over there? Or are you just feeling guilty for using the villain from Rainbow Rocks as your Avatar
5539522 I'm fine.
Just getting lots of feels from this story.
Completely fine.
I'm a fucking liar
I'm loving your characterization of Sunset. It's actually what sort of inspired some aspects my own fic.
I'm curious to see where this all goes. I know if I was in the shoes of a CHS student, I wouldn't trust any of what Sunset was saying.
*Principal
take all my lilies! Take all my faves!
Typos
___1
When I did, dozens of ponies were just finishing their song
people (not ponies)
___2
and there were probably be more ways,
there will probably
___
Otherwise keep up the great writing!
5625637
Hey, 2 errors is a lot better than where I was at a year ago. Thanks for the help.
As to more I have another story coming out later today (already submitted). It's a fun crackficy little comedy in the form of a letter to Fluttershy. Also, I had fun with words, it was hell to edit but oh so much fun.
... Feels.
That is all.
I posted a review of this story on my Blog (as part of the Sunset Review Mini-Group that Piquo started). Check it out here.
Overall, I liked it, though I wish that there was a little stronger emphasis on Sunset's tangible goals both immediate and long term. But it's a very well written story so far.
A-HA! I finally found an EQG story with Iron Will as the P.E. Coach!
... I'm not really sure why I felt the need to spoiler tag that,
s6.postimg.org/dd47s96ap/Pirate_Approved.jpg
Let there be Rainbow Rocks!
Wings made out of fire will do that,
There's so many ways to write in first person, and this is one of them.
Oh dear. Cue the "Dun, dun, daaaah!"
The "I" here is some strange character that sometimes renders like the letter I and sometimes like the number 1, depending on the font. I just barely caught it while I was reading because it looked funny.
Maybe cut the comma after the "and". I don't know it it's grammatically incorrect, strictly speaking, but for some reason it just makes the whole sentence really awkward feeling to me.
Drop the comma. This feels like an unnatural awkward pause without any reason.
Should be "that's".
First word of the sentence should be "It", not "I".
Should be "its", without the apostrophe.
Should be "possess".
Cut the second period on the end of the sentence.
Should be "quit".
Was this supposed to be "familial"?
Should be "I was faintly reminded..."
Rainbow Dash.
"... hurt other people even now?"
'Brevity' doesn't really make sense here. Maybe just "given the hard time you've been having".
there.
This sort of got to me as a thing that had a lot of disparity:
But then shortly afterwards:
I get the feeling there's no way a high school girl's softball team is practicing by batting at 87 mile an hour pitches.
should be "basis"
friends
6262888
Thank you for both comments. I hope you enjoyed it.
6263057 it was cute and thoughtful, each entry had true depth and reason. I was wary about how it would read when the description said a diary was Sunset's best friend, but I find the way she writes to Diary as if it were an actual sapient being was a nice touch so I ultimately approve