22 Short Stories about Equestria

Catullus Sedecim #1 · Jun 18th, 2015 · 1 · ·

It's difficult for me to talk about the voice without knowing what your intention is. If you want the italic'd parts to read like the way that over-dramatic 13-14-year-olds think, then you really hit it. This IS how people tend to think when they're that age, and that works. But if you weren't going for that, then you've missed bad.

You have a step up on a lot of short fics, since at the very least, there IS a character arc. Things seem to have resolved themselves. Some fics leave me repeating myself from writing workshops. "This isn't a story, it's just a thing that happened." This has an arc, and that's great.

Even allowing for the voice, there's some word choice problems. I'm just picking a sentence out here that stuck out.

See, in general, a few rules. If you can avoid it, don't use words/phrases like 'It seems' or 'it feels' unless you want to emphasize something isn't true, or want to emphasize an inability to judge, as if from voyeuristic perspective, or both. For example, to use something from my own life, I could say "My father seems to have a lot of energy for a man with terminal cancer." The use of the word seems emphasizes my inability to judge if he is in fact as energetic as he appears.

Also, unless your repetition of the phrase is MEANINGFUL to the story, from your perspective, try to not repeat words/phrases within the same paragraph. If you can avoid it. You'll usually just be giving redundant information, or jolting your reader by making them notice that you pulled out the same tool twice.

And finally, try not to provide information I already have, and use no more words than you would otherwise.

"It's been.... a long time. I don't know just how long. But it really seems like a long time without her around."

To start with on this one:

I really love this elipses. I'm a big fan of using elipses. So this is nice. That said, there are problems, and I mentioned them.

But think of what you're trying to do with this section. Spoon is upset about her friend not being around. But what is it you want to emphasize. If you want to emphasize her own inability to judge time emotionally, state a definite time, and then contrast it with the use of seems, and reminder of why. Like

"It's been only a few weeks, but without her, it seems like it's been... A long time."

The seems, there, is helping us contrast the time that she feels like she experienced, with the time she had.

While if you want to emphasize the way things have felt, without letting us know how long, and implying it may be long, but feels longer, then take out the 'Seems,' since we're in her perspective. That might be a good time to use the reputition. For example

"It's been.... a long time. I don't know just how long. But it really seems like a long time without her around."

"It's been... A long time. I don't know just how long, but... Long."

That puts an emphasis on the length. In your original, you give me contradictory information, starting with it IS long, then saying it only SEEMS long.

Finally, you fell into the old trap of telling, not showing. That keeps the reader at a distance, especially for something that could be extremely interesting, like here.

"And for the first time in a long time, I thought of Diamond Tiara and smiled. How could we have been so wrong? This experience has been something truly special to me.... sure, its sad to lose a friend, but I didn't really lose her. I gained three new friends. And everypony in school has been treating me so much nicer."

You've dropped something interesting "How could we have been so wrong?" that I want to see followed up on. Presumably, how could you have been so wrong that the CMCs were not worth your time. Also

"Sure, its sad to lose a friend, but I didn't really lose her. I gained three new friends."

That seems to be an important part of your story. This is a hard thing to show rather than tell, but you've said it, without demonstrating it. Did you not really lose Diamond Tiara? Then I want to see that not-lost-ness between them. And ponies are treating her nicer? I didn't see that. I was told, second-hand, without demonstration, by the viewpoint character. Demonstrate that. Both of these don't need MUCH change to demonstrate, though. For instance.

"Sure, it's sad to lose a friend, but I didn't really lose her. I can still send her mail, even if it gets lost. Father says I can even visit her over winter vacation, if I'm good. I just made three new ones. Everypony in school is treating me nicer, too. On Tuesday, Twist gave me half of her sandwich, 'cause I left mine at home by mistake."

With those illustrations, I'm being told still, yes, but it's also demonstrated. In some stories, show-and-tell can be a great way to do. Tell us what's happening, AND demonstrate it.

Try to consider a bit of expanding. I often find when I write short fiction, I get the full idea out and drop it. I think on a second reading, a couple days later or so, you can find things that maybe you would have made longer/gone deeper into. I don't know how long your editing was, so I can't say, but it in general felt like you could have looked at some expansion.

Another thing. The section, from when they finish talking in her house, to them playing soccer. How much time has passed. Is that literally the next sentence, them urging her to not let them score? Or is there a few weeks or months in between? I didn't see where she got the cape, and the use of the phrase "Rejoined" makes it sound like SHE had been playing earlier. Was that immediate, or what?

One more point. You talk about her and Diamond being 'Wrong' about the CMCs. How was she wrong, though? What did she THINK the CMCs were, that in fact, she is realizing that they were not?

Now, I know all of this is a lot of criticism. I hope you don't mind that. I felt like you deserved me giving it as much attention as I could spare for it, so I put a lot of effort into talking about it. It's not to say it's bad, but it does have some things I wanted to point out, to help you improve.

Overall, though, I do want to say, I did enjoy it. I like the stories that portray the CMCs as walking, talking bundles of innocence without a mean bone in their body. I've got a thing I've been doing for a few years with my boyfriend, which has a good chance of ending with Sweetie conquering all by being nice and cute to the living embodiment of tyranny. So this is the type of thing I enjoy. I also like fics with a villain being redeemed/expanded to be the good guy. Despite being clop, there's a section of that in my "Maid to Fight" fic for Blueblood. I feel like Equestria is a place where, in the end, everything should turn out alright. Stuff like this does a lot for that, and I do like to see that. I like Silver and Diamond stories in general, same as Snips and Snails. I like to see what's up for these characters. So I was happy to read this, and I hope you don't mind that this comment is a bit long. :) Have fun, keep writing!

Catullus Sedecim

Catullus Sedecim #2 · Jun 18th, 2015 · 1 · ·

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Oh, one last thing!

I was confused by the transition from her inner monologue, to a Twily letter. What happened there? Was she thinking, or is that writing? If it's writing, perhaps change the font or something again so we see a difference?

Anyway, fun work. :D

Kevin Lee

Kevin Lee #3 · Jan 14th, 2016 · · ·

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The only thing I saw that was jarring was:

"Coming, girls!" I shouted as I ran towards Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom, trying to get the ball over to Scootaloo and I's goal.

But since the story was in First Person perspective, this could be the way she internalized the thought, so I give this an okay.
Catullus gave it a pretty professional critique above that I certainly can't top. But for me, I can pretty well relate to Silver Spoon's monologue. This is quite a smooth and living feel to her emotions.
I'm tossing this into my Fave's bucket