Stories TD has edited · 11:03pm Jun 15th, 2014
One of the other things I've done in my time here on the site is edit a few stories here and there. While it often goes unremarked by readers, the truth is that editors sometimes make a really big difference in the way a story is written, but I don't think most people really notice - which is too bad, as some people are enormously helpful when they go over your story. For my own part, Bribri, HoofBitingActionOverload, JetstreamGW, RazedRainbow, RainbowBob, Bad Horse, Pearple Prose, Lion, AcreuBall, and Comrade Sparkle all have helped with stories in the past, and poor Bribri has looked over literally every story I've ever posted here - I can tell you for certain that Shotgun Wedding wouldn't be nearly as funny as it is without his intervention. They all helped, and there are probably several more people I'm forgetting to mention who also have helped me out in the past - feel free to tell me what an awful person I am for forgetting your help down in the comments.
If you're wondering "When did Bad Horse and Pearple Prose help you with a story? I've never seen their names credited," that question will be answered when some stories come out this week. Hopefully.
So what published stories has TD helped with?
Spring is Dumb
by HoofBitingActionOverload
Rainbow Dash knows one thing for sure, she is definitely not a barbarous, uncivilized dolt who doesn't know polite conversation from a hippopotamus's rear end. And also that she's definitely not the one who's wrong. Rarity is wrong. Rainbow Dash is absolutely, totally, a hundred percent sure of it.
But then why did Rainbow just buy a wagon load of apology bouquets?
This is my favorite story that I've ever edited. I have to admit, this story also was in very good shape when I got there - Spring Is Dumb was already excellent even before I got my grubby claws on it, I just helped refine it a bit. If you haven't read this story (and seriously, why haven't you - I've plugged it like fifty billion times), you totally should; it is hilarious.
You Want Me
by HoofBitingActionOverload
Applejack and Rainbow Dash have been close friends for a long time and, for some reason Rainbow Dash has never been able to understand, it seems as if everyone she knows expects them to get together eventually. To Rainbow Dash's surprise, Applejack abruptly decides that their friends are right and asks her out on a date. To Applejack's surprise, Rainbow Dash immediately turns her down.
Unfortunately for Rainbow Dash, Applejack is nothing if not stubborn, and she declares that she won't give up until Rainbow Dash has agreed to go on a date with her, no matter what it takes.
Of all the stories I've helped edit, this one probably changed the most from when I first saw it to when it actually got posted. As it was originally, I wasn't actually very fond of it; it had some good points, but it wasn't really that great. I gave some feedback, and between when I edited it (which I assume had to have been fairly early on in the process) and when it actually got posted, it changed enormously; there were a number of scenes added and the story as a whole got a lot better, such that when it actually went up it earned an upvote from me.
After The Flame
by HoofBitingActionOverload
Rainbow Dash and Applejack grow old together. Rainbow Dash has a problem with that.
She doesn't want to grow old.
This is a rather melancholy piece; I have only scant memories of helping out with this, so I can't really remember how much I helped. Still, it is a nice, melancholy piece about getting old.
Lick
by HoofBitingActionOverload
Applejack is good with a rope. Really good. That’s a talent Rainbow Dash has wanted to take advantage of for a long time. Now that they're finally together, one of the first things she does with her new marefriend is convince her to try something new in the bedroom. But what begins as only a simple game, soon becomes something much more, and Rainbow Dash discovers just how much Applejack and their new relationship really mean to her.
Note: this is a clopfic. The link is not to the actual story, but to HoofBitingActionOverload's story page.
What to say about this? I had forgotten I even looked over this story. I think my main contribution can be seen in a few shortened paragraphs and a few little changes here and there; this story had a pretty large number of people picking at it (eight, if the story page is to be believed), so that makes sense.
It is one of the very few clopfics on the site I've upvoted, even though bondage is not my fetish at all (and make no mistake, this is a bondage - and trust - based story). I think it is precisely because of the trust-based stuff - that Rainbow Dash comes to realize that her thing with Applejack isn't just two hot mares together, but that there's actually something more to it than that - that the story is interesting to me.
What We Have Wrought
by RainbowBob
It has been ten years since the industrial revolution changed Equestria forever, a decade of prosperity for some, but a decade of torture for Rainbow Dash, whose desk job has slowly been draining the life from her body. Every day, she moves further away from other ponies, and the memories of her days of friendship and comraderie, when she could fly high and free, are little more than a fading memory. There's no use for the wings of a pegasus anymore, and flying has been banned in between the smokestacks and skyscrapers which make up the cities of Equestria. After so many years, she can barely even remember the feel of the wind beneath her wings.
Twilight Sparkle, the revolutionary genius who changed Equestria forever, was to blame. But not as much as herself.
I have this story rated as a "good" on my "how good was the story" scale, but I'm still not sure if I actually like it; it is pretty depressing. Bob asked me to do a final pass over it after some other folks had looked at it back in the day, and I made some suggestions. Sadly, it is one of his lesser-read stories, but apparently he felt I was helpful enough to drag me along on a later project...
Boundless and Bare
by RainbowBob
Seeking vindication in the most unlikely of places, Luna enters Tirek's dreams to find it in the form of a simple question for the villain. But when the tables are turned and the truth laid bare for all to see, Luna realizes that the truth is not necessarily the best of answers, especially if Tirek is the one to tell it.
This came out on the day of this posting, and is what inspired me to write this post. I had my claws in this particular metaphorical cookie jar from very early on in its inception, and am responsible for, among other things, cutting the first two pages of the story (the present introduction was originally a ways into the story), the title (if you haven't guessed, it is an excerpt from Percy Bysshe Shelley's Ozymandias), the use of the word cacophony, and numerous revisions to the text. Indeed, my editor senses still haven't turned off on it; even now, reading it on the site, I want to highlight passages.
A Nightmarish Double Date
by Jondor
Every year, Rarity takes on too many Nightmare Night costume orders and winds up working herself silly and sleeping through all the festivities. Sweetie Belle is feeling left out when all of her friends' older siblings will be going with them this year, but Rainbow Dash is curiously gung ho to come up with a plan to fix that problem.
This was a contest entry for the RariDash Spooktacular Writing Contest that my own story, The Wraith of Ponyville, was also an entry for. Indeed, if I recall correctly, when this story was submitted to the contest with less than two days left in it, it was the only actual entry at the time; if not, there was at most one other. Indeed, the entire reason I wrote The Wraith of Ponyville (in a single day, no less) was because I felt like it was kind of lame that the contest didn't have very many entries (it actually ended up with a grand total of five).
I didn't even place. The actual winner was Lion's The Wrong Kind of Scary, which I think also bears the distinction of being the only contest entry I actually upvoted, thus making me two for two on upvoting the winner of a RariDash contest. But that is neither here nor there.
I never really liked this story. Looking back through the comments, I did make some useful suggestions (both to cut some extraneous things and to remove some redundancy to fix some pacing issues) but in the end I think my ultimate dislike for the story stemmed from the plot and premise. It never really connected with me on a very basic level, and there wasn't any way to really fix that as "write a different story" isn't exactly the kind of editorial advice people are generally looking for when they have a 9k word long story written, especially a few days before it is due.
Other stories
These are not the only stories I have helped out with, but they are the only ones which are both posted and which I felt like I made a big difference on. There have been some other stories I have thrown my two cents on as well - back in the day, I went through all of the FlutterDash contest entries and gave some feedback on those stories, some of it line by line feedback - totally unsolicited.
I've read over a few other stories - Where Have the Stars Gone? by HoofBitingActionOverload, To Wub A Princess by Jondor, an unpublished Celerity (yes, that is totally the name for Celestia x Rarity) story by Bad Horse which I really adored the idea of but which has never been posted, and several other stories which either haven't been posted or I didn't really do a whole lot for other than read them over.
Obviously that RainbowBob guy has the best stories around :V
What's wrong with cacophony? It's a very useful, meaning-specific word.
To the point of the blog, editors are awesome. I would have had zero hope of ever making EqD without them, for one thing. They've also taught me things that I in turn teach other people now. I've edited a total of three stories onto EqD that were previously rejected. It's all a big learning process. We help each other.
2209556
Nothing; I made him use it.
"cutting the first two pages of the story" was a thing, so was "the title" and "use of the word cacophony".
2209599
Oh whoops. I read it as if "cutting" applied to everything you listed
2209608
Sokay. It could be read ambiguously.
Are you sure that's all? Admittedly, my memory is shit, but I feel like you've helped me a lot more than just three times.
2210141
You're right, I missed After The Flame. That clears up what one of the things which is a bunch of question marks was.
2210141
I also apparently helped on Lick, according to Google Documents.
Apparently I just have a really bad memory.
Looking back, I have to agree with you on NDD. I'm surprised it placed and my other entry did not. The best part about the thing is the cover art.
If I hadn't been under a deadline for the contest, I probably would have gutted huge chunks of it and tried again, but if it hadn't been for the contest, it wouldn't have been written at all.
2210544
Such is the nature of contest entries, I suppose - though admittedly, my FlutterDash contest entry was a story I had come up with the idea for previous to the contest, and I'm still working on a TwiDash contest entry for a contest that ended... oh, last August or so. Mostly because I liked the idea I came up with.
Well, not really working on it, which is why it isn't done. Sigh. I'm so lazy.
The Wraith of Ponyville isn't my greatest work, but it probably isn't the worst thing I've published; I don't dislike any stories I've published, though I do constantly want to go back and edit some of them (Crepes and Temptation the most out of any of them, though Shotgun Wedding and We Can't Turn Back Time are GOING to be re-edited because the Royal Guard and Equestria Daily respectively have told me that they'll accept them if I do so).
I think the most telling thing about the RariDash contest, though, was the fact that none of the entries garnered any real attention at all; not a single entry even garnered 100 upvotes by the time the contest was over, and that was despite the fact that we released Nightmare Night centric stories on Halloween. Indeed, the general "meh" reaction to those stories is part of why I pimped Spring Is Dumb so heavily - I was worried it was going to end up going unread because it was a RariDash story when it is, in fact, a very excellent story.