Tara Sparks is the new girl at Canton High School. And being a bookworm makes it hard for her to fit in with her fellow students. She eventually meets a small group of girls who, despite varying personalities and social backgrounds, bond together and face the various trials of high school together. She might even get some helpful advice from her favorite childhood toy. So join Tara and her new friends: Diane, Jacqueline, Rene, Rachel, and Felecia.
My first humanized fan fic.
http://danteskitten.deviantart.com/art/MlP-FiM-Mane6-Spike-and-CmC-342190950
This picture may not reflect how I describe the characters in the story. This was just my favorite image to use.
Chapters (1)
MORE!!!!!
Hmm. Tara Sparks = Twilight Sparkle
Diane = Pinkie Pie?
Jacqueline = AJ?
Rene = Dash?
Rachel = Rarity?
Felicia = Flutters?
Not too sure about the whole "my pony toy talks to me" bit.
And let me guess who the Dean of Canton University is?? Not gonna say who it is though.
This seems good. Carry on.
Interesting, and good
will fav to see where this goes.
I love it
2024720 You actually guessed correctly, most impressive. I have a character info before the actual story that is now visible. A sort of cheat sheet for those that can't figure out the names of the characters. I didn't originally have the talking toy plot, but I needed more references to the show to get it approved so I added that little plot point. But I don't plan to use it all the time.
I love it
Ok
Lol
first AJ then the Pinkie like girl, whose next I wonder
and I'm guessing Phillip is Pipsquak.
(Joke) Alt. Title: My Little HIGH SKOOL!: In Which Twilight Sparkle Tara Sparks Attends School Again
...And let's not forget that one other student, Darlene "Ditz" St. Hüvins. The umlaut's there for aesthetics. And I think I remember one other kid, not necessarily from that high school, named Jane "Bad Seed" Austseed. Of course, I could just be making these names up... Which I am.
This is cute!
I'm going to watch it!
However:
...Tara is an MLP fan, so much a fan she talks to her Twilight Sparkle plushie, and she is said to be very clever. But she doesn't reflect, not even internally, that she runs into three siblings that just happens to have name like three major characters in the show, and have the same family business. That's a bit odd. Not that she would think she is repeating the show or something; it's just that if I met a guy in a sailor suit named Donald Ducktowski, I wouldn't have been able to not snigger a bit and said, "sorry, you probably get that a lot..."
Compare where "Applebloom"'s first reaction to Spike's nickname is to say that it's "just like on my little pony, cool!" - which I guess is because she watches the show, because there are a lot of other Spikes out there, but it would be a natural association to make for an MLP fan. It's almost a little too quick, whereas Tara doesn't react at all. I guess she is swept up in going to a new school, but if she never reflects over the similarities between her own life and the cartoon she likes it's going to be rather odd.
2024804 If you know your Dickens, then yes Phillip is Pipsqueak
2024832 Yeah, you see, I had to include more elements of the show in order to get this story approved, so I'll admit these things are as shoehorned in as Shining Armor and Princess Cadence. Really, I should probably leave out them having nicknames. Or, now that I have the story approved I could always take out the little sub-plot of Tara talking to her Twilight plush. I really don't know what to do. lol
2024832 And yes, I will to this day say that Shining Armor and Princess Cadence were shoehorned into the show. I've still enjoyed their episodes,buuuuuuuut there was no buildup to meeting these characters before their introduction at the end of season 2.
I'm thinking of taking out the talking plush toy and MLP connections from the story now that it's been approved. Do you think if I did that they would take my story down?
2024843
Or if she refuses to but Diane or one of the kids does and says "You never considerd that WEIRD?" "What, no?" and just shows that being good at your studies doesn't mean that you're not clueless sometimes. I liked the plush plot, btw.
I don't mind as long as Tara reflects over it.
Of course, if you're going to duplicate the show's plots very literally... so that, say, the first story is about Louise Prince escaping from the asylum when she has another breakdown to kill her sister (and she causes a power outage all over town at her escape) but Tara and her new friends talk her down and she and Celeste reconcile, then it's very odd if Tara doesn't remark upon it ("And me without my big crown thingie..." "What are you talking about?" "Nevermind...")
2024869 Other than Tara talking to her plush, I had no magical elements intended for the show and maybe some parallel plot points.
Uhm. Didn't the admins just make a huge deal about how stories like this are not allowed on the site? Did something change or what?
2024892 Right, so now I've just tweaked the story some to where Tara has thoughts about the odd coincidences going on.
Needs more Derpy.
Everything needs more Derpy!!!
2024754 I wasn't too sure on Rarity and Dash, but Rachel just sounds more to her style, if you know what I mean.
First day of school and Diane is going to throw her a party, and Tara is going to go hide in the school library!!!
This is brilliant!! MORE MORE MORE!!
I approve of this story.
2025010 Oh yeah, I get what you mean, that's why I chose that name. It seemed like a Rarity humanized name.
Hm. Okay. Well, here it goes.
Firstly, this story does far too much telling and not enough showing. The second paragraph, for example:
You should never outright tell crucial character details such as this, but rather have it be shown through her interactions with other people. It's easy enough to just say how a character feels or behaves, but readers connect to them much better when they are shown exactly how the characters act and react to their surroundings.
Secondly, the characters are given far too much physical description. It would be one thing to mention something like how Spike got his nickname from his spiky hair which he liked to dye green, but to open the story with this big block of text giving exact details of how every character looks is too much too soon.
If they had any truly distinct physical characteristics (again, like Spike's hair) then they should definitely be mentioned. But other than that, not much detail is needed. You shouldn't open a story by going "This is what the character looks like and how she feels," because that is not a story. You should start right in the middle of the action and either let the reader's imagination go wild, or slip in crucial notes as they become relevant.
Thirdly, the small talk... A good chunk of this chapter is made up of small, one-line bits of dialogue that either A: do not matter at all, or B: only serve as expository dialogue that, again, is telling us how the characters feel, rather than showing us. The biggest offender is this line right here:
And the scene following it. You say she is startled, but we have no way of actually telling that for ourselves. She doesn't act startled. She doesn't do anything to show that she is startled. In the small bits of dialogue, we get absolutely nothing from the scene. A story should be more than a recounting of who said this and did that. It needs to evoke feelings. WE should be just as surprised by the talking stuffed animal as SHE is.
This kind of story (humanized characters in school) has been done a million times, so you really need to work hard to separate yourself from the herd.
Also, pro-tip; unless it is a huge number (7,777 for example) you should write numbers out (ten and fifteen instead of 10 and 15).
2025372 Of course it's telling more than showing, it's text. Show don't tell applies to movies, tv, and other visual medium, this isn't a visual medium. If I heard a voice come from seemingly nowhere, I would probably respond with "Who said that?" because, well it just seems like the thing to say. And she felt she was going crazy, seems like she's startled to me. I haven't read any stories involving humanized characters from the show in a high school setting, so any similarities to said stories are coincidental. Plenty of works of fiction give plenty of description to how a character looks, so I really don't see the problem there. I'm introducing the characters, so yeah I'm gonna describe what they look like. The whole seeing connections with the show were so I could actually get this story posted on the site, so I'll admit that part is a little clunky. I'm really not trying to separate myself from the so called herd, seeing as how there's nothing really new under the sun and even the show takes familiar plot points that we've seen several times before. So yeah, thanks for the advice, and I plan to tweak things here and there, but I'm still sticking with how I'm telling it. I'm not going for a pulitzer or anything, I'm doing this all for fun and people seem to be enjoying it and get what's going on so that's good enough for me.
2025422
The "show" in "Show, don't tell" does not at all mean "give visual aid." Of course it's just text, but that doesn't mean you can't convey emotions rather than just telling them. You say Tara feels startled, but we have NOTHING in that scene to actually show us that. Have her scream. Have her throw the stuffed animal across the room and pull the covers over her head. We could connect with THAT kind of reaction because it is what WE would do if an inanimate object started talking to us. In comparison, reading her just ask "Who said that?" is boring. We don't get anything from that.
2025461 Still seems like the logical question to ask when you hear a voice come from nowhere. And I'm introducing characters, and in most things I read that introduces a character they give physical description about it. Shit, JRR Tolkein would go on for like 2 pages describing what a person looks like. I think by comparison I didn't say too much.
2025476
I'm not saying she shouldn't ask that, but once she realized it was FROM the stuffed animal, she shouldn't just sit there and go "well, that's weird." Twilight is a pony who believes in reason, and there is no reasonable explanation for why a stuffed animal would talk. Tara should really be freaking out.
Also, Tolkien wrote in a high-fantasy world filled with all sorts of unique character traits. You are writing in a world inhabited by normal humans. People we see every day. (And besides, just because Tolkien does it doesn't mean it's the right thing to do. There are about 100 pages in Fellowship that can be shaved off and you wouldn't miss a thing, because that dude described WAY TOO MUCH even for his fantasy setting.)
Look, if you are going to describe character appearance at length, don't open the story with it. We, as the readers, are not primarily concerned with what they look like. We are concerned with how they ACT. It's bad enough when authors stop the story halfway into a chapter to describe something at length, but it should definitely NOT open with that.
2025503 I'm using some of the basic traits of the characters, but they aren't going to be carbon copies. The Tolkein thing was mainly a joke. I didn't totally open the story with character description. I was also talking about them moving to a new place. And I've already made some tweaks to the Tara's encounter with the Twilight doll, so hopefully that'll make you feel better. And I'm not trying to sound like a smartass or be mean with that remark, but I don't feel the need to change my opening and people seem to be liking it thus far.
2025503 Plus the description still included why they were moving to Canton and I only went into details of what Tara and Sam looked like, not the entire family that was in the car at the time.
2025372
Technically, you are wrong with this. There are two ways for a reader to understand who the character is: by showing (their looks, their actions, their speech, their thoughts and opinions, and other character's thoughts and opinions) or by directly describing them(Hell, you can even use both). You just don't like it when characters are described directly and I see your opinion; however you shouldn't use "we" so much considering most people are fine with it.
2026562 It doesn't really matter to me. I'm just saying, with a little less telling and a little more showing, a story with this premise could really do something great. If people like it and that's all you were going for, then that's fine. But with more effort, people could have LOVED it.
I almost forgot! That Russian exchange student Oktav E.A. Filarmonii, who I also made up!
good start to what im sure will be a good story!
followin'
2025592 I just changed the opening sentence to mention there being a car. Does that make you feel better? I sure hope so
I love it
Haha! Love the fact that MLP is in the fic, as what it was intent to be, a show. I think it gives the story a bit more flare.
A cheer for the chess team?? Really? Aren't they supposed to be quite events?
There is an actual medical condition called Strabismus, which causes one of the eyes not to focus on the intended target, causing a lack of depth perception. One of my friends has it, and he says it gets really annoying sometimes.
As soon as I read the title I snapped my fingers and said aloud, " I can relate!"
2029261 Sure, but it's Pinkie remember
2026562 It doesn't really matter to me. I'm just saying, with a little less telling and a little more showing, a story with this premise could really do something great. If people like it, then that's fine. But with more effort, people could have LOVED it.
2025572 People could like a story with its flaws, or love it without them. The premise of the story is neat, and it could have been something great. But choosing to describe the characters/events therein one way over the other certainly does impact how good it actually is.
Use '? !' for expressed confusion and shock, respectively. The whole "-dialogue-," format is only used when that character continues speaking. BTW:
Their= It belong to them
There= pointing out where something was
They're= They+are
2032766 Oh well, I'm ok with people liking it.
2033190 I know the different meanings of they're, there, and their. If I accidentally misused them, it wasn't intentional.
Awesome!
And yet there is always that one thing... You represent all of the characters perfectly... but Twilight/ Tara. I just don't feel like Tara is supposed to 'be' Twi.
More
2044422 I admit I need to work on her some, but she is supposed to be Twilight. This is my first attempt at a humanized fic.