It's a normal day for Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle but Apple Bloom is missing...yet again. With Apple Bloom missing the two remaining crusaders decide to held out and have some fun on their own. Imagine their surprise when they find Apple Bloom coming out of Sugarcube Corner with Diamond Tiara!
Second Learning to Love Story. Have to read the first one to get some of the stuff mentioned in this one.
Cover art found here: http://diamond-tiara-lovers.deviantart.com/gallery/?set=32585929&offset=0#/d4pvlcj
Chapters (6)
Wait, an Apple Bloom x Diamond Tiara story?!?! FINALLY!
However...this isn't perfect. First off, you MUST start a new paragraph whenever someone new talks, okay? It doesn't matter if it's a fast-paced conversation, or a character only speaks one word. You CANNOT have more than one character speak in the same paragraph. So, please try to correct that. Also, you spelled "Cheerilee" wrong at one point, so you might want to check your spelling.
Nice start. Tracking and all that. Always had a soft spot for Spoony and Tiara, and love their shipping with CMC!
253781 Roger Doger!
253781
Starting a new paragraph whenever someone talks isn't all cosmetic. It brings gravity and realism to the words they say. And it also allows for character development through syntax declaration. The WAY you say words and WHAT you say are a major indication of hidden character. So if they are smart, bombastic or pompous, make them use large, intelligent sounding words. If they are meek, obsequious, or just plain shy, they use lots of useless filler words (um, eh, just, you know, etc.) and lots of ellipsis (...) and pauses.
May you remember the Triumphs of your Victories more than the Failures of your Transgressions.
~E.C.
The sentence formatting hurts my brain, as the plot holes already do (Why is there a broken plate, why did the tree just burst into flames?!?!?!?!!?). Please get an editor, maybe a pre-reader or two; at this point both this and your previous story just hurt to read. I really want to like this story, but it's hard right now.
255472 Um, okay. I'll get on it.
255494
I'll take that as my points didn't get across, just tell me what I need to clarify for you and I will.
256346 What's wrong with the formatting? If you can can you send me an example to how it should be done?
256542
Mostly what Tails and Succaeros already said, you need to separate dialogue for each person into a new paragraph. Many times you have exposition for one character and dialogue for another in the same paragraph and that is very, very bad for comprehension. The worst part is that you are getting better with it, but there are still pockets throughout.
I just reread the scene right before Diamond runs off, and I see where the plate was now, but that was not easy to follow. Having the crash be too many lines away from the explanation just lost me. I will contend that a living, thriving tree would not burst into flames from lightning unless it was a strong enough hit to fry everything in the vicinity; electricity doesn't just strike one spot, it jumps to anything nearby that is easily transferable to, like wet ponies.
256878
Yea, I had no idea what was happening at that section of the story. I had to go back and reread to figure anything out.
256878 Okay.
diamondbloom? hmm... first story i've read with this ship. EXCELLENT!!
282122 Thank ya kindly.
more please.
YAY!!! MORE!
first to comment? all right, then. this chapter is rigged with Daawwwws.
Slight typo at the very very end. Learning was spelled wrong.
Gotta admit though, This story is the shortest one i'v read that ACTUALLY kept hold of my attention!
350786 Sweet! Fixed Learning.
Wow there really need to be more stories like this. I wonder why ppl don't write filly love stories... They're great... Especially if you are a younger briny lik me...
352336 Thank you. I don't know either. It'd be nice to see a bit more AppleTiara or ScootaBelle, or ScootaBloom or even SweetieBloom.
"Yer shittin' me." APPLEBLOOM!
Though, I lol'd
Personally, I don't like the pairing, but the story got me to appreciate it a bit more, because it's such a well-written story.
352715 Thank you.
352797 No problem, just keep writing awesome stories!
"Yer shittin' me." LANGUAGE YOUNG FILLY!!!
371072 Lol
This story started oit pretty rough, with several obvious errors; but over time, you totally captivated me. Great job.
958614 YAY!
I absolutely love this pairing!
1147219 YAY
.....Favorited. Nuff said.
1254008 YAY!
I googled calibre...
She was using it correctly! Also the story would have been much better when it started from the start rather than erm, the ending. The part with Scootaloo and all is erm, UNNECESSARY!
The dialogue separation would be my main critique, and that's been covered by the others. I like the story regardless and adore this shipping.
I couldn't help but to notice that you used "person" instead of "pony" most of the time its a minor error and I know its easy to make since we don't always say pony all the time.
Example: "I-I'm sorry Apple Bloom. I am a terrible person huh?"
"I-I'm sorry Apple Bloom. I am a terrible pony huh?"
other than that this story is great keep up the good work /)^3^(\
2043618 Ahh I know but soon all will be fixed. I've been busy and soon all the revised version of all the Learning to Love stories will be up!
It always pains me to come across a story that I don't like. For one, I don't like to excessively complain about something someone puts a lot of time and effort into completing. Also, I don't want an author to get the wrong idea and think I'm just trying to discourage them from writing. My goal is to do my best to help people become better writers, so I prefer to be as lenient as I can when I give my honest opinion on a work, but I do need it to still be honest.
So, that being said, let me just say that, as a whole, I didn't like this story. Allow me to explain why:
First, there's the framing device. Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo find out about the relationship, so Apple Bloom and Diamond decide to tell them the story. Ergo, the entire story's essentially a flashback, which is perfectly fine and gives it more of a "storytelling" feel. The problem I have with this setup is the fact that everyone and their pet goat just abruptly comes in to listen to it. I could understand if they were telling a story about something comedic or an interesting happenstance, but the things they're talking about are extremely personal. I mean, not only was it about a personal relationship, but it also went into detail about personal tragedy and loss. That's just not the kind of discussion someone should ever eavesdrop on. Even if they got consent to listen afterwards, it's still incredibly rude to come over without being invited first. This was probably the biggest issue I had with the story itself as it seriously lessened the seriousness factor of the story they were telling. It started out fine when the group was just their circle of friends, but once the crowd started getting gigantic, it just started to seem more like a trip to the storytelling festival than a personal and emotional triumph of love. The more people that came, the more it all seemed to be just played for laughs. If this was a parody of a sad story, that would have been an excellent way to go about it, but for a serious story, it had the complete opposite effect. Also, it kind of confused me why Apple Bloom was the one who didn't want to tell about it while Diamond was so fine with it, considering Diamond was supposed to be the selfish and immature one.
Now, if there's one thing about this story I had to choose that I felt could have been so much stronger, it would be Diamond's character. To be honest, I didn't really see much of Diamond's character in this story. I know there was a character in this story named Diamond Tiara, but that's really the only similarity I could find. Basically, there's three criticisms I have with Diamond as a whole:
1) She completely loses her spine.
After the thunderstorm scene, Diamond undergoes a complete, dramatic, whiplash-causing character transformation that makes very little sense when taking everything into consideration. Then, once we reach the present, she becomes, for lack of a better term, Apple Bloom's arm candy, kissing her every three seconds and essentially only continuing to exist as Apple Bloom's significant other. It's particularly jarring considering that Apple Bloom's personality remained consistent throughout. As a word of advice, I'd like to say that when writing romance, never trade personality for relationship status. Find a solid middle ground.
2) The reason for her canon behavior doesn't make sense.
If this was really her mentality, she would be living a completely isolated life, turning away any and all acts of companionship. It wouldn't make any sense for her to be friends with Silver Spoon if she merely wants to avoid getting close to anyone. Character motivations are very important. They drive each character forward and give us a reason to sympathize with them. If they don't make sense, the reader isn't sure what to think. I'd suggest keeping this in mind.
3) Diamond is inferior to Apple Bloom
The relationship between Apple Bloom and Diamond doesn't feel natural to me in this story. I think the main reason for that is because Apple Bloom has seven hundred positive traits to Diamond's seven hundredth. Apple Bloom's the smarter one, the nicer one, the nobler one, the one that makes the sacrifice, and, most baffling, the one who encourages the other to stop being so timid. It's a completely one-sided relationship. All Diamond does is present more problems for Apple Bloom to solve. It makes it come across as Apple Bloom being much too good for Diamond, and the relationship seems weaker as a whole because of it. I think you could have improved in this area by either giving Apple Bloom a few distinct character flaws or by drawing Apple Bloom's explicit superiority into the spotlight as a bump in the relationship. If done well, it might be an interesting twist to see Diamond feeling inadequate around Apple Bloom.
It's very easy to get into a critical mentality and ignore all positive aspects, so let me say something I liked about the story. I can easily say it wasn't boring. As far as I'm concerned, the only way a story can truly fail is if its audience says the phrase of death: "I don't care what happens to these characters." I can promise you that thought never crossed my mind while reading this. We do have some action, we do have some emotion, and we do have some character development even if it is a bit simple. Apple Bloom being intelligent offered an interesting twist on the classic format, and you did have a few instances of "show, don't tell" with it. Definitely have to give you the points for that. Also, seeing as how this is such a short story, I think the use of music was very called for and helped to set the tone to where it needed to be. I think it's for that reason that Chapter 4 was my favorite of them all.
To me, I think this is the type of story that someone would enjoy if they're looking to see Apple Bloom and Diamond Tiara getting paired together. The story's interesting enough such that wearing the shipping goggles will make it read like one of the best stories ever made. In that respect, I suppose this story's fried chicken. A lot of people may like the taste, but I don't particularly care for it.
I wish you the best and hope you continue to improve in your writing!
uuuuuuuuuuuhhhhhhhhhhh what did I just read!!!!!!!???????!?!?!?!?!??!
Very cute romance between two enemies, it works well.
This ^. This big time.
Also, I couldn't help but die laughing when Apple Bloom said the doors were electrified.
Despite all this, I'm somehow enjoying this story so far.
Short but sweet
Wait I thought daring do was only a book character
Did I miss a episode in a season?!?!?
Ok so twilight and rarity both come in and instantly join the group. Is it me or does that seem odd?
2981090
Eeyup.