She'll Be Apples

Shrek the Ogre

Shrek the Ogre #1 · Mar 28th, 2013 · · ·

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What inspired this fic?

AppleBandit

AppleBandit #2 · Mar 28th, 2013 · · ·

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2335467

It's slightly personal on how I found out about my own mother.

Brony_Fife

Brony_Fife #3 · Mar 29th, 2013 · · ·

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Golden light stretched like fingers through the trees across Sweet Apple Acres as though the sun had just gotten out of bed itself. The trees and grass sparkled with dew from the previous cool night. The light slowly crept into the room Applejack whose ears filled with the sound of roosters crowing. Sleepily, she yawned and stretched her body out as she came out from the sheets of her bed. Her tired eyes looked towards the window and a smile crawled across her face.

This whole paragraph is off. It doesn't quite read well. It suffers from a number of problems:

1) Subject keeps changing, going from light, to trees, to light again, then to Applejack.
2) Some sentences seem too out of order, causing some more flow issues.
3) Some grammatical errors ([...]"crept into the room Applejack whose ears"[...])
4) Superfluous words ("stretched her body out" and "a smile crawled across her face".)

You should try something like...

The trees and grass sparkled with dew from the previous cool night. Golden light stretched like fingers through the trees across Sweet Apple Acres as though the sun had just gotten out of bed itself. The light slowly crept into Applejack's room just as the roosters began to crow. Sleepily, she yawned and stretched. She turned her tired eyes towards the window and smiled.

The trick is,

1) Know how to flow. In the corrections I made, you'll notice how it goes from

trees > light> Applejack.

Don't insert sentences that disrupt the flow. Instead, arrange sentences so that they flow seamlessly from one subject to the next--and make sure it stays there.

2) Don't stuff sentences full of words for the sake of feeling artsy. Say only what needs to be said. If you can boil an entire action down to one word, do so--especially if it is an action that either doesn't move the plot forward or has little impact on the plot. Pick and choose how and where to put in fun descriptors.

AppleBandit

AppleBandit #4 · Mar 29th, 2013 · · ·

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2337726

Noted for future use, thanks!

Hopefully despite that though, you still enjoyed the story.

Duskrider

Duskrider #5 · Apr 4th, 2013 · · ·

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I'd like to begin by saying that there are a lot of great things in this piece. It's obviously meant to tug on the heartstrings and it does deliver on that. The descriptions are evocative and simply delightful to read; I can see the fields, smell the fresh air and the story is all the better for it. While, at times, the language gets a little too flowery, overall you do an incredible job in bringing the reader into your world. Great work.

Also, you've got some great work in the voicing of AppleJack, which is not always the case in many fics. The accent is neither too heavy nor too light, it doesn't get noticeably inconsistent, and it simply feels natural. I can imagine hearing AJ speaking as you've written her with very few exceptions. So as well, job well done.

Now, there are a couple of issues that, at times, cause some serious problems with the reading of the story. Firstly, the mechanical and grammar issues just kind of stick out like a sore thumb. For example:

The light slowly crept into the room Applejack whose ears filled with the sound of roosters crowing.

I'm not convinced this is a complete sentence. For all I know this may, in fact, be two sentences that are missing some prepositions and a second predicate. It's tough to say. But considering that this occurs in the first paragraph filled me with some heavy dread about reading onward. I'm glad I did continue, but this threw me off wildly. I would consider getting an editor or pre-reader, if only just because a second set of eyes is helpful to catch little mistakes.

I won't go through this with a fine tooth comb (I haven't been asked to) but there are also a few issues with things like added words or words out of place:

"But you startled us, and I sort of put blew us up," Scootaloo interjected.

Also there are issues with missing punctuation:

Moving her legs again she took note they were all still attached, she was simply on her stomach. Letting out another groan she looked back up to the three fillies who watched her.

These are just examples of some of the mechanical issues throughout. If you wish, you might consider going back over these and looking for these issues.

The big thing I wanted to address here is the showing vs. telling tendency you have. The overabundance of descriptors isn't really an issue until it becomes a situation where you're explicitly explaining to the audience what's happening. Things like

Apple Bloom seemed quiet that night, not really talking much about until finally she looked up to Applejack

feels as though there are ways to describe how the night and lack of conversation are going, rather than explicitly saying she wasn't really talking much. I'm going to go ahead and disagree with the previous poster that you should simply cut out extraneous words, because extraneous words and descriptors are the spice of the story, they are what show the story to the reader and immerse them, and there are plenty of good, if not great examples throughout this piece. Some instances don't work, and that's fine, but which is more interesting: "She cried" or "Her cheeks streamed with tears as the grief poured from her eyes". Now that's just for example and likely wouldn't fit in the context of your style or this story, but don't begin cutting just for the sake of cutting. Find the descriptions that don't work, that don't add to the picture, that don't immerse your reader and cut those. Or better yet, find something that expresses the image better.

Brony fife does make a good point about flow, your sentences and story become very choppy at times. Just as a for instance:

She didn't want that for her sister. She didn't want all that heartache, even with the nagging feeling it was coming. All the voices. Every last one of them. Her mother and father would read stories to her and Big Macintosh with all the voices. Sometimes even Granny Smith would wander in and do them too. When they were on the road though, there were no stories. Granny Smith would try, but sometimes she would just fall asleep or even forget. Applejack's eyes didn't tear away from the picture as her mind wandered.

There are 12 clauses in these 4 lines. They, without a doubt, tell the story, but it lacks a smooth flow of one thing moving to the next with it being so broken up. I know there are better examples of this, but one sentence doesn't lead into the next every time here, and it almost feels schizophrenic with how we move from topic to topic. Try to move from one idea to the next rather than going back to a topic in the middle.

Please don't take this that I didn't enjoy the piece. I did. And I hope that you'll find some things in here to take to heart, because you seem to have a very interesting writing style that is both engaging and immersive. As with anything, these are simply my opinions and observations, and you are welcome to take or leave them as you wish. I do hope you'll read through them and at least consider them.

Be that as it may, I wish you the best on your future endeavors.

-Duskrider

AppleBandit

AppleBandit #6 · Apr 4th, 2013 · · ·

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2372136

I do appreciate it, I do have at least two people I can turn to for pre-reads even though one of them is my professional contact who likes to remind me that I'm wasting my time writing, what he refers to as, "simple minded drivel". The second is far nicer, and has gone over a lot of my things, but even the best of things can be gone over with a fine toothed comb and still have a few knots.

As for the suggestions, I tend to be a tiny bit schizophrenic when it comes to my writing as most of it is based on my mood at the time. When I sit down to write a piece, it tends to drift if I take too long on it. This took about three days to hammer out just the way I wanted it which is unfortunate. I quite like it, but going back over it I can see where the major faults lay.

All I can say is I tried to do something a bit different, much like future content I'll try to do things differently and pull elements I've used in other things I've written in the hopes it remains at the very least entertaining. I'm not a fantastic writer, if you were to ask me I'd say down right rubbish, but this gives me the practice if nothing else and it's good finger exercise.

Thank you for the suggestions, and I will do my best to take them to heart and apply them in future endeavors.

SparkBrony