Writer of horrible stories.
Making a delivery to a client is usually easy. It does, however, get a lot more complicated when the client lives in a small village in the middle of nowhere. Rarity does her best to complete this simple task, but she could never have imagined that a small title would play such a large role.
Page generated in 0.09 seconds
Total duration
1,078 users online
1,766,307 hits today, 2,782,760 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.®
Author’s note, because I like having them in the comment section rather than the description. And, um, I got nothing.
That was actually a pretty good little fanfic. Better than i expected.
1312216
Thank you.
I enjoyed the read
All I could really see was some minor editing needed. For example:
In the first paragraph: "She was walking on the only road that lead to the village,"
it should be led here not lead. Also it's more my personal preference, but a period would probably fit better than a comma here.
The rest is pretty much more of the same. Period instead of comma and so on. All in all though very said minor stuff. It was a fun story.
1313693
Thank you, the first paragraph has been fixed.
I'll see what I can do about the full stops, I do have a habit of allowing my sentences to go on for a really long time.
1313729 Like I said it's more of my personal preference than an actual need.
I tend to keep my sentences fairly short, so any longer sentence correct or not looks odd to me. 
1313741
I fell the same when it comes to short sentences, but grammatically sentences are allowed to go on forever, so I can't qq about it...
1313762 True. My dad always points to the story Absalom, Absalom! (which he's still trying to get me to read) And it's like three page sentence, whenever I bring it up.
1314070
I've heard about that book. It says that one certain sentence contains over 1000 words...
1314217 That's crazy
Hey there! Review train here. I guess this is my first review as an official TWE reviewer, so let's get started!
Overall, I thought it was a decent story. I like how you showed Rain and Aplite's characters as the snobbish daughter and weak father, and I think it would be interesting to read more about them and their interactions. The setting was interesting, and overall, I thought you build the characters and setting very well.
However, I didn't think you captured Rarity's character as accurately as you could have. She doesn't seem to react at all when Aplite first calls her a princess. Sure, she feels confused, but that's really not a strong enough reaction for an assertion like that. I would expect her to immediately ask why he called her that. The way she reacts now, it almost seems like she accepts the title as her own, like she actually is a princess, and I kept wondering if I'd missed a story somewhere.
Also, she would not react charitably, or even ambivalently, at all to Rain's initial assessment of her as one who knows nothing of fashion. She would certainly keep her cool, but inside she would be fuming. Fashion is her life, her passion, and she would be furious if a 'hopeless' case like Rain tried to pretend her fashion sense was superior to Rarity's.
Then there was this line when she mentions the harvest situation to Aplite:
What? Aplite's explanation is confusing at best, and Rarity doesn't really talk like this anyway.
Finally, the conclusion. Despite these issues, you did a great job of setting up the situation and characters, and I find it incredibly hard to believe that Rain and Aplite's problems could be solved in a brief fashion consultation. Rain's problems are far deeper than simply knowing what to wear. She's rude and snooty and either doesn't know or care about how to look good. Learning to be a princess, even just in appearances, would take time, patience, and practice, and if there's one thing Rain doesn't seem to be, it's patient. Then, you have the deeper issue of her attitude. She treats Rarity like scum, despite the fact that she's there to help and made her amazing dresses. As Rarity would say, it's very unladylike.
Then there's Aplite. He comes across as a well-intentioned but clueless and somewhat weak father figure, unable to teach his daughter even the basics of etiquette and manners. He resorts to lies and feeble excuses, which only makes him look weaker as a leader. In a way, he needs just as much help in his sphere as Rain does in hers, help I think Rarity could give him with time. Rarity even hints that he needs to change and improve, but she didn't try to help him at all. It would be the equivalent of me saying, "Your story needs work," without offering specific ways in which you could improve.
Finally, there's the dynamic between Aplite and Rain. Their relationship is clearly broken, to say the least. Rain walks all over him, and he's too weak to keep her in check. Healing this father-daughter relationship seems to be the greatest good Rarity could achieve by helping them, but she doesn't to nearly enough to help. You have two great characters with a great dynamic, but I would have loved to see how it evolved over time as both worked through their problems.
Also, I think it would be interesting to see how Rarity handles the village's perception of her as a princess as she tries to give Rain and Aplite the help they need. That's more of a side benefit, though.
All right, lets move on to some technical things
You have a ton of run-on sentences. I've pulled out a few examples to illustrate what they are and how to fix them, but mostly you need to go back through and find them on your own.
First, boring definition stuff. A run-on sentence is a sentence that contains too many ideas (usually more than one). The problem can be resolved by either splitting the ideas into two sentences or connecting them with an appropriate conjunction. Let's look at this one:
Here, you have the idea of Rarity walking down the road and the idea of what the road looks like. Putting each of those thoughts in their own sentence allows the reader to process them one at a time, thereby increasing comprehension. So, instead of a comma, let's put a period between 'village' and 'it.'
See how that puts each idea in its own sentence? This reduces confusion and, by extension, makes your story easier to read.
Let's look at another:
Here we have the idea of the station itself, its condition, and its physical description. Three ideas that are related, but still individual ideas. It's okay to connect related ideas with a conjunction (for, and, nor, but, or, yet, so), but doing this too much results in confusion. So, let's try formatting this sentence like this:
Since the ideas of the station itself and its condition are simple and closely related, it makes sense to connect them. However, the physical description is a little more complicated, so it's better to give it its own sentence.
Here are two more I pulled out:
The first one has two ideas; the second, three. I'll let you decide what those are and revise them accordingly. Run-ons are usually very easy to fix, so it's mostly a matter of finding and fixing them.
Well, I'll leave it at that, for now. Overall, a pretty good story, though I would have liked to see you do more with the characters. Hope this helps! Review train out!
~Scribblestick, TWE reviewer
1320281
Thank you for taking the time doing this. It can't be easy.
I'll start from the end here. They aren't actually run-on sentences, but comma splices. Apparently those are equally bad in the English language so your point is true. I'll see what I can do about them without resorting to full stops.
I didn't intend for Aplite to come of as weak, actually he was meant to be the only one with outside knowledge. As for Rain, she has good etiquette and manners. But those only goes for her village. Cultural differences and such. Which is kind of why Aplite had Rarity come, while he has experience from the outside, he doesn't have enough, and Rain is too fine to be doing farm work. So to get by, she has to be going to the outside where the cultural differences come to play. It's my fault for not making it clear.
Same with Rain's and Aplite's relationship. I never meant for it to come off as a broken one, just Aplite not having the knowledge to teach Rain how to make it in the cities like Canterlot. I did want to delve deeper into Rain's personality, but this story had a five thousand word limit, and I was already cutting it way too close. The closest I was able to get was a play with her cutie mark. Which is kinda were the princess thing would tie in. I probably need to make that clearer as well.
You are right about the whole harvest issue explanation. It really shouldn't have been in the story as I realised there was no way for me to truly explain it in a good way, but for some reason I wanted to keep it to show off Rarity's element. At least I know now that it didn't work out.
I thought of having Rarity ask why she was called princess, but I failed at coming up with a good answer for Aplite if she asked. So I tried to make her feel confused and even think that it was a misused word. I'll see if there's a way for me to make it more clear, or else I will have to change it completely.
I probably missed answering something now, and this text is most likely a grammar mess, but certain devices just aren't made for writing long texts.
Alright! A week overdue, but I'm finally here! I forced our alpha wolf to stop before she ran the whole pack into the ground. Ah well, what can I say? I'm the psychotic one, but I had to help her. Good luck figuring that one out. dl.dropbox.com/u/31471793/FiMFiction/emoticons/shrug_Derpy_Hooves.png
Let's get started, shall we?
First off, this was a really good story. I found myself wondering what's gonna happen next, why they were calling Rarity a princess, and what was the problem with the town. You did a wonderful job bringing up questions and then answering them. That's really important in stories, and I'm glad you did that.
Alright, a few things I wanted to point out.
1. Um, Ouch. Little harsh there, huh Rare? I'm not too sure if I like Rarity's behavior right here. She wields the Element of Generosity, right? So shouldn't she want to share her dresses with everypony, even if it's in a backwater town? I understand if you did that for the story itself, but I just wanted to bring that up. It seems a little shallow of her to think like that.
2. The descriptions, MY GOD the descriptions. I'm a visual reader, I like to imagine myself there whenever I'm reading a story. Because of the fact that this isn't a place that's seen in the show, we won't automatically know what it looks like, for example if this took place in Ponyville.
See what I mean? You wrote about the buildings. How they looked, what made some of them different then the others. You described the road, what the houses had around them. You said what was going on around the town, what kind of animals were in the town.....
This I like! I felt like I was in Rarity's hooves, or at least next to her. One thing that I was taught, and always try to tell others is that you can never use to many details. I was told about an author that wrote five pages describing what fall looked like around Ponyville. As long as you keep up the amazing details, it's really, really, good.
1. Did the town only have earth ponies in it? That would explain why Rain was so hostile towards Rarity. I didn't see that though, so if I missed it, I'm sorry.
2. Ugh, I don't like Rain. But don't get me wrong, I know you wrote her like that on purpose. I guess this complaint is more of a personal thing for me, so feel free to ignore it.
3. You know, unicorn or not, I would expect that Rain would appreciate at least getting the dresses. Once again, my personal thought, feel free to ignore.
1. If I say anything else about the details, I'm going to sound like a broken record. I like them.
2. Okay, this is what bugged me a bit. We are talking about Rarity here. In my opinion, one of the most dramatic ponies on the show. Also, her passion is fashion.(no rhyme intended. I'm not Zecora) So, Rain is acting like she knows more about fashion then RARITY. Rarity would have said something, I'm pretty sure. And I'm 99% sure that she wouldn't have left Rain without her mane and face fixed. I'm not trying to yell, just want you to see what I'm seeing. You have to remember to portray the character well.
3. What the heck is Rain's problem? Is she just oblivious to the fact that somepony actually is trying to help her? I hope you explain what's wrong with her.
1. Whoa,what? I missed the first one, but I can catch it here. I'm pretty sure that if anypony called her a princess, Rarity would be questioning them, Immediately. But she just shrugs it off. The pony that's obsessed with royalty, doesn't have any questions to being called royalty?
2. Um, why did Rarity just let the matter of the food drop? I read what Aplite said about the contest twice, and I'm still really confused about what he meant. Either way, I don't think that Rarity would have let the matter go that easily.
1. So they were laughing at her, because she was worried that they would starve? What the hdl.dropbox.com/u/31471793/FiMFiction/emoticons/sillyfilly_Fluttershy.png ll?! That doesn't make any sense at all! That's equivalent to Twilight asking if Fluttershy was okay when she had her little episode with Iron Will, and having Pinkie and Rarity giggle their plots off! (Not the best analogy.) This seems really out of chracter for them. Now I know that the only ponies we've seen Rarity intercat with was Rain and Aplite, but this seems really heartless.
2. I don't even know what's up with that drink. Did they spike it?
1. So, to gain their respect, she had to drink a spiked drink? That's....interesting.dl.dropbox.com/u/31471793/FiMFiction/emoticons/shrug_Luna_apple.png
2. It WAS spiked!. What is it with this town and treating this "princess" like crap? I'm surprised Rarity hasn't flipped out on them yet.
1. Right there with you Rare. I wouldn't return there either.
Final grade: A
Final advice: Character development.
I really liked this story. I found it interesting that Aplite basically manipulated everything Rarity did for his own benefit. Still though, I think that Rarity would have been more then little upset. I also wanted to know why Rain was so upset and hostile to Rarity. Little more insight on the characters would have been welcome.
Your grammar and spelling is a welcome sight from the stories I've gone though lately.
Also, the details. Keep that up, PLEASE.
And that's it from me. If you'll excuse me, I think we're heading to the mountains next. Bye!
Howling at you from here to the netherworld,
twow443, TWE's Psychotic Demon Wolf
1313693
1320281
1637763
It took forever, and more than forever. But it's finally updated. If you don't mind, could you perhaps say what you think of it? Better? Worse? Completely destroyed the story? Someone who has chosen not to comment seems to think the latter. Not much I can learn from that really, oh well.
I'll try to send in to a reviewing group as well, just to keep an extra view on it. Even if they hate me. But, yeah, I would really appreciate if you could say what you think.
Hello there, Invisible Cadance. I'm B_P from WRITE, responding to your request for a review on this story. I notice that a few of my acquaintances have offered their own thoughts in the past, so I’ve gone ahead and not read them, just to be sure that the story in its current iteration is hitting me properly. Rest assured that any similarities between my review and theirs are coincidental.
Right off the bat, I’m noticing a couple of mechanical issues; there's misuse of a comma right in the first sentence. “Hollow Shades” doesn’t function as a sentence introduction in this context, so it just comes off as weirdly and improperly tacked on to the front of what is otherwise a perfectly legitimate sentence. This would be the spot for a full stop, just having “Hollow Shades” as an artsy little fragment. Times like this, where you’re using a comma in inappropriate areas, actually seems to come up a notable number of times throughout the story. Just know that you can’t use a comma to connect independent clauses all on its own; that’s a semicolon’s job.
There’s hyphen misuse (or, rather, a lack of use) as well, in areas such as this:
You need hyphens in order to form compound adjectives like this. If the first word of the compound adjective has an “-ly” (e.g. icily tempered, friendly faced), then no hyphen is required, but aside from that, you need them. Only when that compound is in front of the word it modifies, though (“She was a fresh-faced filly” vs. “The filly was fresh faced”).
There’s also a bit of a repetition problem. In the first eight sentences, for example, you use the word “road” all of five times. And in the third paragraph, there’s a two-sentence span where you use the word “dresses” three times. At the end of that very same paragraph, there’s this:
Areas like these just get a bit stale and awkward; you need to toss in a bit of variation or at least find some workarounds (like a simple “it” or “them”). There are loads more examples of this throughout the story, so all I can advise is that you just give it another reading through on your own and keep a sharp eye out for identifiable words coming up an excessive number of times over a short length.
I also spotted some areas that were just plain confused and in need of a rework. For example:
Here, you imply that the fields have sweat all over them, and that that sweat is pulling up vegetables, as well as that the cats are running, like, in the roads, like with tunnels or somesuch. Be very careful with both your word usage and your punctuation in the future, as spots like this are quite immersion-breaking and unpleasant. There are, in fact, so many issues with word usage (something with which experience with the language is the only thing that can help) that I'm going to stress that you should look for a more experienced writer, or group, perhaps, that is willing to go through this story with a fine-tooth comb and tell you what needs changing.
There were a number of general, one-off errors that needed fixing as well, such as these:
That’s all I put down before I realized just how time-consuming it was becoming when I should just be focusing on your review, but I assure you, there were more errors than these. You may want to grab yourself a dedicated proofreader.
Sorry about all that. Normally, mechanical issues aren’t the first thing I cover, but you hit me with two of them right in the first sentence, so it just sort of happened. But yes, now for my thoughts on the actual story.
I’m having a bit of trouble with the premise, to be honest. Rarity was commissioned to make dresses by a stallion who runs some sort of backwards cult of a society? Rarity makes those dresses, specially ordered for one girl, without ever having seen said girl? She treks to the stallion’s home on foot over who-knows-how-much land and through a dark, disturbing forest, all because he said he “had connections with the fashion elite”? She has connections with the fashion elite... It all just doesn’t seem very plausible to me.
And what’s with her attitude? You make a point to tell the reader just how important it is that Rarity be on her best behavior around Aplite, but she snaps at him with every other verbalization. This seems really odd when you consider that she doesn’t snap at Rain, who is actually insulting her. All Aplite did was mistake her (in her eyes) for a princess. Hardly something to abandon decorum over, insisting that he stop being such a liar as a knee-jerk reaction.
And, in the end, how is she alright with what’s happened? How can she leave this dark place, full of what appears to be slave labour, corruption, and quite possibly inbreeding, with nothing more than the resolution that she’ll never return? Something was wrong with Hollow Shades, and she never really seemed to acknowledge it. And why does this story have only a Slice-of-Life tag (and, not to mention, no OC tag)? Dark things were happening there, and the entire story had a very deliberate disturbing air...
All in all, I must say that this story wasn’t for me. The plot seems disjointed or strange more often than not, and your characterization (especially in the case of Rarity; Aplite was actually interesting, in his own, illogical way) left quite a bit to be desired. I know you’re familiar with the way that people act, and what makes for a good plot, being a person and a reader yourself. I’m sure you can smooth things out here. You may need help from outside sources for the mechanical issues, but for everything else, I would suggest that you sit and really think about this strange situation that you’re putting your chosen character in, and how she would really react.
fc00.deviantart.net/fs70/f/2012/356/b/3/bpadminlogolongver03_01_by_burrakupansa-d5ounvm.png
-- Burraku_Pansa, WRITE's Trainer Admin and Resident Namesmith
I am Kalash93 from authors helping authors.
Я Калаш93 от Авторов Помогают Авторbl.
I will read your story and then I will write in the morning. It is four in the morning where I am.
Я прочитаю вашу историю и тогда напишу утром. Сейчас это в четыре часа где я.
Excuse me, but I know only a little of the Russian language.
Извени, а я знаю только немного русского языка.
This is Kalash93 from Authors Helping Authors, writing up your review. Я могу этот переводить на русский язык. Должен я?
Grammatik: 8/10 -- Хорошо. Your grammar was better than I had expected it to be. Your spelling is also quite good.
Pros:
1. This is the first story about Hollow Shades I have ever read.
2. Hollow Shades was created and developed effectively.
3. You handled Rarity's character well in how there was conflict between her generosity and her sense of propiety.(пристойность).
Cons:
1. The plot was not very easy to understand.
2. Your writing style is extremely simplistic.
3. You ought to polish your translation.
Comments:
This really is the first story I have ever read about Hollow Shades. I have seen references to it, but I have never read anything that actually occurs in Hollow Shades. I like when I read something innovative which gives attention to something that is often ignored. You did excellent work in how you created and developed the village. The atmosphere surrounding it was very heavy. Your usage of imagery, particularly lighting, shadows, weather, and colours (UK spelling of "colors" Pyc: цвета), was highly effective and something which many authors neglect to do. From the very beginning, everything you did established that it was a peasant village and not a very nice place to live. You tackled world building and succeeded. I also like how you used Rarity for this story. It is a very interesting idea to use Rarity, who is a village pony, but behaves and wishes to be a bourgeoise pony, for this story. The contrast between the ladylike (женоподобный) Rarity and the peasants (крестьяне), is very interesting. You certainly captured the feeling of being a stranger in a small hick town. However, not all is well with your story. My biggest problem is with how you handled the plot. It seemed as if you were being deliberately vague and obtuse with regards as to how you handled it. Maybe I wasn't paying close enough attention. Either way, for a very significant part of the story, I had absolutely no idea why everypony was calling Rarity a princess. It was honestly quite vexing. You did not really reveal what rarity was doing in Hollow Shades or why she was there until almost the very end. You start off with a dress delivery, which then gets turned into taking a tour of the town and going to a bar, Then she goes back to the house and has a few conversations and then least. It doesn't make a whole lot of sense, to be honest. I would move the big reveal to occur much earlier in the story. Granted, you did try to build up to it and show the reader why Rarity would want to stay. However, I not get the feeling that you were effective enough at doing this. Providing more characterization for Rain might help. My second complain is with your writing style. In many ways, it is extremely simplistic. Yes, your grammar is competent and you vary your sentences in both length and complexity. However, you do far too much telling and not enough showing. Не рассказывай мне; я хочу смотреть! You used far too many blunt statements instead of allowing the action to speak. In this aspect, you must be like a director of a film. He does not hold up a title card stating "Грусть есть у Таня. Tanya is sad." He has Tanya look at the ground, walk slowly, and cry. He dulls the colors, dims the lights, and makes the scene mostly quiet with only only some accompanyment from a piano or a viola (виола). It is more interesting to read about something by observing it happen rather than by being told about it. Finally, your English is rough. It is definitely better than my Russian, but it is still rough. Most of it is grammatically correct, but the syntax is unusual. I noticed a lot of Russian grammatical constructions and patterns. You also made a few odd word choices. Your English worked well enough, but it can be much better with practice.
You receive 6/10 flutteryays. The average is 5/10.
Я надеюсь Тебе понравилася рецензия.
I hoped you enjoyed the review.
Please read and review one of my stories. You may pick whichever one you like.
2532636
Thank you very much for the review. I'll return the favour once I have the time (which should be within the next few days hopefully).
One thing I would like to point out is that this story actually isn't in the AHA folders. Try and keep the folders in mind next time, since its not always people want all their stories reviewed.
Thank you once again for the review. You shall have yours soon.
REVIEW – A for Effort, n°3
Reviewer, RealmOfMereShadows
The following review is as objective as possible but will eventually contain some subjective influences. I’m a French reviewer, I like wiping my ass with silk like the Merovingian.
Once you’ve posted your story in the group A for Effort you’ve accepted to be reviewed. No review is made to humiliate the writer but to make him grow up and enhance his skills.
Name of Story, Princess Rarity
Grammar, 9/10
I have not seen any error in your text which would hurt my eyesight.
Spelling, 9/10
I have seen no visible spelling mistakes but careless ones and an omission:
The verb is missing.
Originality,
The fact that Rarity is the main character is the main key of the originality of your text. It is infrequent and noticeable. The idea so far is very interesting but remains (My PoV) unexploited this could become a full story and not only a one-shot.
The originality is the relation between Rain and Rarity, and this is why the story is unexploited, Rain may embody what Rarity could have been or fears to be.
Characters,
Rarity is well-presented and does not turn out to be a stereotype of the character as we have seen too much in fan-fictions.
OC's,
Rain remains a cliché but this has to be related to the fact that this is a one chapter story.
Synopsis'
Like I said in Originality, the idea is interesting and could become the keystone of a long story developing the relation between Rain and Rarity.
Pros:
1) Rarity
2) The relation
3) The ambiance in the first part
4) Hollow Shades
Cons:
1) One-Shot, the plot is meant to be a full story in my opinion
2) Rain is a bit cliché
Additional Notes:
What struck me is the first part of the story, which reaches its climax with the “Hollow” brew. The atmosphere is oppressing and could lead to a darker story. What a pain this ambiance crumbled down afterwards.
The story is interesting but (I’m only repeating myself) remains skimmed through. The peasants, the father and Rain, Rarity and Hollow Shades deserve more attention (and likes? Maybe).
LAST WORDS:
nsa34.casimages.com/img/2013/06/15/130615014400909317.png
You’re approved in the Main Folder of “A for Effort”! Well Done
Raven: ......... Sighs heavily I wanted to find myself a story of the Hollow Shades, and I find this, which is kinda about the Hollow Shades, but, to be honest....... I feel as if I wasted my time reading it. It was so boring........
Dr. X: Agreed. Nothing entertaining nor amusing in my eyes in the slightest.