A Follow-Up to the EqD Rejection · 3:38pm Apr 7th, 2014
As anyone who knows me personally will attest, I am overly sensitive and tend to take criticism rather personally. It's an unfortunate character trait that I hope to grow out of soon, and I've tried taking the first steps by requesting help from prereaders and editors in hopes to discover why Patience, She Said was rejected. The following is a critique by one prereader I contacted:
6h, 13m ago
stanku said:
Sure I can lend a hoof and some time with my keyboard.The young Unicorn filly had been gifted instead with a rebellious spirit and enough curiosity to kill at least a dozen cats. Such inquisitiveness had been praised by her teachers, her defiant attitude not so much. With that in consideration, Glitter Belle parents and instructors foresaw her becoming a scientist of sorts in the future, or perhaps an investigative journalist or a detective.
Even with the quite neat feline analogy, this fragment nonetheless suffers from a common case of exposition. You're telling us directly what seems to be the most characterising feature of your protagonist and as such, you're feeding the reader readily processed information, raw data so to speak. In the optimal scenario, at least in my mind, every sentence in a story should resemble a breadcrumb and not an arrow. You need to guide the reader by making them trace you through the woods, not by holding hooves with them.
Right of the bat, you may find that I like to use a lot of analogies. Beside the fact that I love 'em, they also hint at what I'm trying to say by the very act of hinting. They dress the information I want to convey into somewhat of a more mystical cape.
The determination and stubbornness that had fueled her initially was quickly being replaced with fear and fatigue. Perhaps this was not such a good idea after all.
Feelings lack power when they simply "happen", that is, when you use the passive tense to express them. Don't tell what happens inside her chemical body, show it. Let her teeth clatter, her heart jump to her throat; make her hyperventilate. Fear is not an emotion; fear is a word. You need a lot more words to make it an emotion. The same goes for the other "big" words you used to express her state of mind.
"Well well well, what do we have here?"
It's always advisable to include speech tags in your lines. That cuts out the fleeting doubt of "Who's talking?" from the reader's mind, thereby severing another auxiliary appendage between them and the story.
If she hadn't been so tired she might have gasped.
What might happen is categorically speaking a weaker in comparison to what actually happens. I'd recommend avoiding alternative worlds.
Slowly, nervously, the filly shook her head no.
That "no" is unnecessary.
Was the dragon about to eat her now?
The sentence would be more vivid if you framed it as an italicized thought.
Example: "Is he going to eat me now?" she thought in terror.
"What?" was her answer.
We intuitively know it was her answer. This may sound like a little thing, but every unnecessary word is an obstacle that the reader will have to cross, either consciously or subconsiously.
"It's a long trip from the town to up here, I wager.
It's a highly subjective thing, but to me dragons ought to talk a bit more elegantly. "I wager" sounds ill to my ears, although the sentiments is hardly universal. Still, something to consider.
"That's not fair!" she cried. "Everything's tiny compared to you!"
What happened to her fear, I wonder? Mood swings are part of any eight-year old's life, but this seems a bit excessive. At least offer some sort of a transitionary explanation.
"Sort of. It kinda depends on the genre."
Again subjective, but "genre" feels like a big word for an eight-year old.
Though she spoke to Luna, Spike was confident the message had been directed to him as well.
No, don't say that aloud! There's no magic in that. Show us some tiny gesture instead that hints at this, something subtle, something that doesn't make the reader feel like they are leafing through a newspaper.
Then a few more general comments about the fic. Because you're aiming high with this, I take it as my duty to be honest with you: The story lacks excitement. Basically it's an epitaph to Spike, which is all fine and proper as such. The thing is, when you look at it in the light of action, very little is achieved in the course of 5k words. To be fair, that is most likely exactly what you were aiming for in the first place, and I'd be loath to scold you for that. However, as far as I know, EqD is not that keen on these types of stories, but you'd be fool to believe that makes your story worse, somehow. Reading the comments that you've received on this, it's clear that many ponies do like the fic, even love it, and I'm inclined to believe that they're right to do so.
That leads me to think that the biggest blockade between you and EqD is the style you have chosen for this story. And I don't think there is much I can do to change that. It would basically mean fundamental changes to the fic, at which point it would be a wholly different fic altogether.
But this is only my view on things. I can hardly tell what EqD really wants from a story; I can only give you my impression on that. I genuinely hope that this review did more good than harm to you, and if you have any questions about it, please; I'd be eager to clarify my case.
From what I've gathered, the biggest issue was the style and content of the story, and to change that would completely alter the narrative.
I'm not going to do that. Changing the story that way would completely change its entire meaning, something I am very reluctant to do, even for a feature on Equestria Daily.
I believe the 400+ likes I've received on Patience, She Said (which is more than the total likes from my two other stories that have been approved on EqD combined) stands as a testament to effectiveness of its style and structure. If I had followed the established checklist of Equestria Daily, I do not believe it would have been as popular or as emotionally moving.
Patience, She Said will never be featured on Equestria Daily, and that's okay with me.
If you are happy with your style of narration, then don't change it for people who want you to write for their taste.
The number 1 rule of any writer is for you to be happy with what you wrote.
The only thing that I have to agree with the guy you contacted was the vocabulary for a kid. I too make kid characters speak "like an adult" (with a decent vocabulary, but nothing too exagerated) in my story mostly because I have no idea how to simplify and write how a 6 year old should talk.
That's pretty much what I thought when I got my rejection for Incomplete. The prereader was very kind and gave me a huge list of criticism—something I'm really pleased I received—however, I disagreed with many of them. Intentional mechanics I'd put in there for effect were flagged and criticized. There was a lot of valid criticism, but I feel that many of the larger points only offered solutions that would defeat the purpose of the story itself.
EQD isn't something I aspire to be featured on. Perhaps that's because I've only ever received rejections from them, but it doesn't really matter to me. If I ever get featured, then great, but honestly I'd rather the users of Fimfiction read my stories than the users of EQD; it's nice getting to know everyone else on this site.