Fic Feedback #1 - Earth Ponies Can Cast Spells Too · 12:40pm Dec 23rd, 2014
Today we have story from a new writer. This story was recommended to me by bookplayer, based on its worldbuilding and, of course, the presence of Applejack. The writer has some big ideas, but the story also had some structural and textual issues, and when I noticed that the writer said in their description that they were hoping to get some feedback, I thought I would help them out by leaving them some detailed feedback in their comments. Four thousand words later, I realized that it was far, far too long for a comment, and that I spoke about a bunch of things which other folks might find useful. If not, then, I hope that at least Paulicus finds it useful.
Paulicus: Please don’t be discouraged or feel besieged by the volume of material in this post, and don’t feel obligated to listen to me alone. Don’t feel the need to change your story after my advice; oftentimes, I use post-story feedback as a means to improve my future stories, while not going back and extensively re-editing a story I have completed (though I have to admit I want to go back and fix some of my earlier stories myself due to my growth as a writer).
That being said, I think most of this stuff is pretty good advice, so hopefully it is useful to you, and I hope that some of the rest of you find this useful as well. I sort of half-heartedly went through and changed some of the “yous” to “the writer” here, but I then went back and tried to fix it because I realized that I was being dumb. If there are some weird bits where I am speaking in the third person rather than the second person, this is why. Well, that and writing this whole post in the middle of the night.
Earth Ponies Can Cast Spells Too
by Paulicius
AdventureMysterious portals to a “First World” are appearing all around Equestria. Even worse, there are unknown creatures coming through! When it’s discovered that these creatures are immune to unicorn spells, Twilight comes up with a bold idea to harness Earth Pony magic to combat the menace. Applejack must take the first steps on a new path she never expected, which just might be the biggest challenge she’s faced yet.
Why I read it: bookplayer recommended this story.
Review
The basic plot is that fey are invading Equestria from another world, called the “First World” by the characters for some reason; I at first assumed this must have been some sort of crossover, but it lacks the tag and I’m not sure if it is or not. The big idea of this story was that Twilight teaches Applejack how to paint magic runes on her body that she can later use to cast magic spells, sort of like a scroll in Dungeons & Dragons, but instead on her body
The story basically is broken up into two parts:
The first half is about backstory, Twilight teaching Applejack about the rune magic and how to use it.
The second half is Applejack, Rainbow Dash, and Twilight hunting for and fighting a monster.
The first half of the story is told in the form of a flashback while the trio are camping out while on the hunt, and the story ends with a final shot of the campsite.
Story Structure
This is a story about Applejack hunting monsters by throwing spells at them from runes painted on her body.
We don’t get to Applejack hunting monsters by throwing spells at them from runes painted on her body until over 3,500 words into the story – less than half of the length of the story is devoted to the actual story you’re trying to tell.
By this point, I had lost interest. The story spent a lot of time on worldbuilding, but ultimately, worldbuilding is best if it is integrated into a story I care about. The first half of this story was all exposition – trying to justify to the reader why it is that Applejack could throw spells.
But it didn’t need to be this way. We could have started with a vastly shorter scene – have Twilight help paint the runes on Applejack while they’re camping out, with a conversation between Twilight, Rainbow Dash, and Applejack giving us the details we need about the rune magic.
We could have even started out with them hunting the fey for the first time, with Applejack still getting used to the runes, thus giving us the opportunity for Twilight to give some exposition and Applejack to experiment with them a bit and figure them out better as the scene goes along, with the worldbuilding being inserted into the midst of the part of the story that we care about – namely, the action.
One of the most important things to recognize when you’re writing a story is where it needs to start and where it needs to end, and this story felt like it started several thousand words before it needed to.
Conversation and Narration
Early on in the story, this happens in the middle of a conversation:
Confused, Applejack sat back down. “You know I'll help any way I can, Twi,” she started, “but all of this 'otherworldly portals and invading fey' business seems a bit outta my area of expertise.” AJ nervously chewed her lower lip. “I'm an earth pony, after all, and a farmer. What can I do? Besides buck ‘em in the face, that is.”
By now, Twilight's grin was fully formed and spanned most of her face. “Applejack, it's precisely because you're an earth pony that I believe you hold the key.”
Applejack tilted her head, confused.
Twilight elaborated on her ideas, happily munching a sandwich between sentences. It was already known, she explained, that earth ponies and pegasi have their own forms of magic. Earth ponies are tied to the land, while pegasi manipulate clouds and control weather. What they lacked was a horn, which acted as a conduit for magical energies and allowed unicorns to focus and control their magic in specific, directed ways. Earth pony magic, she theorized, was tied to nature in a way that appeared similar to these fey creatures. Therefore, it might actually be able to affect them where unicorn magic failed. What earth ponies needed was a 'horn' of sorts, some way to focus and direct those energies so that they might cast spells themselves...
“Hold on there, sugarcube,” AJ cautioned Twilight, holding up a hoof. “I've been following ya so far, pony magic and all that, but earth ponies casting spells? Now that's just plum crazy. Sorry darlin', but you lost me. The way I see it, there ain't no way I'm going to be doing any of that any time soon.” She tapped her forehead to emphasize her lack of horn.
What just happened here? The story, mid-conversation, wandered between conversation and narration for no clear reason. While this can work at times, especially when you need to sum up something large, here, it wouldn’t have been any harder to show to us in dialogue, and it would have put it in Twilight’s voice; instead, the exposition detached me from the story and made me feel like someone was trying to explain how cool their magic system was. This is bad; the story should flow naturally, and because Twilight is exactly the sort of character who has good reason to deliver exposition via dialogue, there’s really no excuse for it here. If having a character explain something won’t take significantly longer than summarizing it in exposition, it is always better to have the character deliver it in-character to keep the reader immersed in the scene.
Repetition
The excerpt above also showed another issue: repetition in text.
Confused, Applejack sat back down. “You know I'll help any way I can, Twi,” she started, “but all of this 'otherworldly portals and invading fey' business seems a bit outta my area of expertise.” AJ nervously chewed her lower lip. “I'm an earth pony, after all, and a farmer. What can I do? Besides buck ‘em in the face, that is.”
By now, Twilight's grin was fully formed and spanned most of her face. “Applejack, it's precisely because you're an earth pony that I believe you hold the key.”
Applejack tilted her head, confused.
You used “confused” twice in the space of three paragraphs. This is generally a mistake; descriptive words tend to stick out a bit more than other kinds of words, and as such, repeating a descriptive word tends to stick out to the reader a lot more. Using the same word repeatedly makes something stick in the reader’s mind, but if it isn’t something important, it just becomes a niggling detail – a distraction from what you’re actually trying to deliver. Repetition is a powerful tool for getting the audience to remember something, but if you get them to remember something unimportant, it means that they’re more likely to overlook something else.
The other issue here is that this is unnecessary telling; we are shown that Applejack is confused by her body language and her dialogue, and thus, by saying she was “confused” outright, you’re robbing the reader. You don’t need to tell the reader what you’re showing them, and indeed, by telling the reader the same thing that you just showed them, you weaken the showing and make them feel like they’re being lead by the nose.
Another example of this in the same scene comes later:
“Uh... come again?” Applejack said, one eyebrow arching in confusion.
Seeing Applejack's confused look, Twilight simplified her statement. “I was studying how to store spells to use later,” she explained. “Originally the idea was to store them on scrolls, but my research indicated that placing the runes in close contact with the body might be more efficient... It was all highly theoretical, of course, and I never pursued the research further, as I ended up studying the magic of friendship here in Ponyville.” Twilight sipped her water and waited for Applejack's response.
Everything I italicized is redundant. Indeed, you could have cut “Applejack said, one eyebrow arching” as well, and just cut this down to:
“Uh... come again?”
“I was studying how to store spells to use later. Originally the idea was to store them on scrolls, but my research indicated that placing the runes in close contact with the body might be more efficient... It was all highly theoretical, of course, and I never pursued the research further, as I ended up studying the magic of friendship here in Ponyville.”
This is nearly a third shorter, and doesn’t lose any context. Avoiding unnecessarily breaking up or slowing down your dialogue helps it flow better, which keeps the reader more engaged.
Unnecessary Dialogue Tags
Confused, Applejack sat back down. “You know I'll help any way I can, Twi,” she started, “but all of this 'otherworldly portals and invading fey' business seems a bit outta my area of expertise.” AJ nervously chewed her lower lip. “I'm an earth pony, after all, and a farmer. What can I do? Besides buck ‘em in the face, that is.”
“She started” is purely unnecessary here; we already know who is speaking from the action at the start of the paragraph. It breaks up the dialogue for no reason, which hurts the flow of the dialogue.
More subtle is “AJ nervously chewed her lower lip.” While sticking body language into the middle of dialogue isn’t necessarily a bad thing, you should always consider whether or not the cost of breaking up the dialogue is worth the benefit of doing so. It is a very useful way to create a natural pause, making a character feel like they’re pausing for a moment without saying something like “Applejack paused” or something similar.
That being said, here, it feels unnecessary. Again, it breaks up the dialogue for no good reason. If you really felt it was necessary to communicate, you could stick it up at the start of the paragraph, but I’m not really sure that it is necessary to include at all; we already had Applejack fidget earlier in the scene, and her dialogue does a good enough job of telling us how she’s feeling. We don’t need this.
Saidisms
Saidisms are synonyms for the word “said”. These are very powerful words, but they’re something that you need to use sparingly as they draw attention to themselves. A saidism should only be used if it is really important to understanding your text; if it isn’t, then it shouldn’t be used. And this story uses a lot of them, frequently back-to-back, which draws even more attention to them.
In the first scene of this story, we have said, explained, fidgeted (body language), paused (body language), (no dialogue tag), interrupted, interjected, paused (body language), exclaimed, looked (body language), said, responded, queried, rubbed (body language), looked (body language), rose (body language), exclaimed, statement (though this used was in a simile), asked, explained, exclaimed, calmly replied, started, chewed (body language), elaborated (in dictation), cautioned, eyes sparkled (body language), explained, said, explained (and “statement” right before that, too), eloquently replied, started, reached (body language), and settled (body language).
This is a severe, serious overdose of saidisms. Worse, a lot of these are pretty weak ones.
The body language tags are good – those are all good choices. Though having two instances of “paused” that close together should give you a little pause, it didn’t stick out too much when I was reading it the first time.
“Asked” is a fine saidism when someone asks a question. “Queried” is something you should almost never use; it is very nearly an exact synonym for “asked”, but it sticks out far, far more. You do not want your dialogue tags to stick out unless it is really important; most of the time, when someone asks a question, you don’t want the action of asking to be visible unless you’re trying to draw attention to the fact that they are asking a question, rather than to the question actually being asked. Here, this is not the case, and a simple “asked” would have worked better. Note that, while “asked” is by far the most acceptable saidism, it frequently is unnecessary; the very act of writing a sentence with a question mark at the end of it means that the character is asking a question, and thusly, you usually will only append the dialogue tag when it is necessary to remind us who is speaking for one reason or another.
Replied is another decent saidism for when someone replies to something, but it frequently is made redundant by the fact that the character is already replying via their words; having the text remind us that they are replying is frequently unnecessary. Thus, saving “replied” for more special occasions, when the fact that they are replying to something needs to be emphasized, makes it stick out a bit more in those cases, without losing context otherwise.
Responded is similar to “replied”, but sticks out a little bit more due to the extra syllable. Honestly, I’m not sure if I’d really ever use this over “replied”, but there might be some occasion where it would work better. It isn’t a disaster to use, though.
Exclaimed sticks out a lot more than asked or replied; it isn’t a terrible saidism, but it is very frequently redundant because sticking an exclamation point at the end of a sentence already tells us that the character is exclaiming something. It is sometimes useful, but should be used sparingly. It was used three times in this single scene, which is not a good idea; the more you use a saidism, the less power it has.
Started is a very weak saidism when simply used as a mid-sentence dialogue tag willy-nilly; while it is occasionally useful, the reality is that when you are using it to mean “started to talk” (as opposed to the action of starting, being startled and jumping as a result), it usually is redundant. After all, they already have started to speak, so you already know that they’re doing this; frequently, you can achieve the same effect as “started” by using body language instead, to indicate that a character started to speak, paused, and then said something else. Started isn’t terrible to use, and it doesn’t stick out as badly as some other saidisms, but it seldom adds a whole lot to the text; as such, it should mainly be used when you need to have someone start to say something, and draw attention to the fact that they are starting to say something, and then say something else. Again, by avoiding using it outside of occasions where you really need to emphasize that they’re starting to say something you make it much more meaningful when you do use it; if you use it too much, it makes it less likely that the reader will register what you’re trying to do with it.
Explained is a sometimes useful saidism as it can imply tone of voice, but like other saidisms, it loses a lot of its effectiveness if you use it over and over again. If a character explains everything that they say, then it doesn’t really stick out when they actually need to use “explain” tonally. If they are using that sort of tone of voice for everything that they say, then there are other, better ways of conveying that than using “explained” over and over again. Here, it is overused; it is fine to use “explained” sometimes, but if you find yourself using it this frequently, you’re using it far too much.
Interrupted and interjected are very similar saidisms; using these to indicate that someone is interrupting someone else is okay sometimes, or throwing something in in the middle of someone else’s dialogue, but very frequently, as with exclaimed, it is redundant. The text and dialogue will usually indicate that someone has done these things – interruptions frequently are preceded with the other person’s dialogue being cut off mid-sentence and ending in an em-dash, meaning that you already have a pretty strong indicator of the fact that they’re interrupting someone else. Twilight interrupting Applejack was okay here, but Applejack’s “interjection” was unnecessary.
Cautioned is a powerful bookism; it indicates a great deal about tone of voice. Here, though, it is misused; Applejack isn’t cautioning Twilight here, she’s objecting to what she is saying.
Elaborated, while not used precisely as a dialogue tag here, is a dialogue tag I would generally avoid; it is almost always redundant with the text, and while on occasion it might be useful for emphasizing that a character is expanding on what they were saying, I think most of the time you’re better off having them just elaborate in their dialogue, and the sense will be conveyed well enough.
I noticed the use of a couple of adjectives as well, namely “calmly replied” and “eloquently replied”. Calmly replied is alright, but only if you need to draw emphasis to them being especially calm; here, it didn’t feel necessary at all.
Eloquently replied is used here sarcastically. Sarcasm is not a bad thing, and is a useful textual tool; however, here, I’m not sure that it was really necessary, and cutting the sentence it was used in entirely would have worked just fine.
For the record, though unrelated to its usage here, eloquently is one of those “show, don’t tell” things most of the time; usually, the best way to convey someone’s eloquent dialogue is to show us their eloquent dialogue.
Lavender Unicorn Syndrome
The dreaded Lavender Unicorn Syndrome, or LUS, is when you use a synonym in the place of a character’s name. It is frequently derided, but it can be a useful tool for reinforcing something about a character or simply avoiding using the same name one too many times in a paragraph. Note, however, that I say “one too many”; if you are doing this too frequently to avoid overusing a name, it is usually as sign that your real problem is repetitive sentence structure, and you need to mix things up a bit more.
If you do use a synonym in the place of a character’s name, it should be contextually relevant; calling someone friend or sister while they’re behaving friendly or sisterly, while seemingly redundant, doesn’t stick out so much and can actually help to reinforce their behavior. Likewise, drawing attention to a character by referring to them by a synonym – such as calling Harry Potter “The Boy Who Lived” – can emphasize some aspect of them in a specific scene.
Doing so unnecessarily, however, or using the wrong substitute for a character’s name, can look silly, be confusing, or just distract the reader unnecessarily. For example:
“I don't think so!” Applejack yelled, runes on her face glowing red. A trio of flaming bolts shot towards the Tatzlwurm, striking near its eyes. The beast let loose a horrible scream, shaking the three ponies' bones and forcing them to close their ears in an attempt to shut out the cacophony. Rainbow Dash was violently tossed away as the beast writhed from Applejack's fiery barrage. The apple farmer quickly became the beast's new target.
The fact that Applejack is an apple farmer may be relevant to many situations, but in this scene, it isn’t really relevant; as such, calling her “the apple farmer” is a little bit distracting, because it isn’t her name and it isn’t relevant to the scene.
Detail integration
The story sometimes struggled with the integration of details into the writing. Take this paragraph for example:
“Whoa there AJ, it's just me! Don't shoot.” Rainbow Dash quickly said, putting her hooves up in mock surrender and smirking. The pegasus mare wore a loose canvas scarf around her neck, useful for keeping the desert sands out of one's mouth and nose. A fresh bandage was wrapped around her head from an injury she’d received earlier that day. The flying goggles sitting on her brow had left a conspicuous area around her eyes devoid of the crimson dust they had become accustomed to. Despite the conditions, though, Rainbow Dash always held onto her cavalier attitude.
This paragraph is trying to let us visualize the scene by describing Rainbow Dash’s appearance, but it is doing so in a very forced way. We’re being fed a gigantic block of text which just kind of sits there in an unappealing mass, rather than feeling like it is being integrated naturally into the flow of the story. The description doesn’t really feel connected to the flow of the story, and instead is just being thrown at us like some sort of description in a D&D campaign. While this is not uncommon in roleplaying games, it does not work very well in a story like this, as it feels discordant and, again, pulls the reader out of the story. There are ways of integrating descriptions into the flow of the story, but this doesn’t really make us feel like we’re seeing it so much as like we’re being told what to see; it is a subtle difference, but it is an important one.
Show, Don’t Tell
Despite the conditions, though, Rainbow Dash always held onto her cavalier attitude.[/
This is the sort of thing that people are talking about when they say “show, don’t tell”; we are being told something which we could be – and should be – shown. The scene that this little bit of dialogue is being drawn from is very short, and doesn’t really involve much back-and-forthing between Applejack and Rainbow Dash. By having Rainbow Dash show off her cavalier attitude via a few lines of dialogue, possibly even Applejack remarking on it, you would slip in this characterization without just blurting it out. Indeed, towards the beginning of the paragraph, we already get the idea that she is being a bit cavalier, being playful when Applejack is threatening to blast her with magic.
Paragraph Breaks
A somewhat lesser issue was paragraph breaks; there were a few very large paragraphs which should have been broken up into multiple paragraphs, but which instead sat as very large blocks of text on the page. One good example of this:
“Great!” Twilight responded, levitating a paintbrush with her as she approached Applejack. “We've been practicing on paper up until now, but as you already know, these runes will need to be directly applied to your body in order to maximize the flow of magical energies.” As she explained, Twilight brought out a mortar and pestle, and ground up a few reagents before mixing them with the paint. “I had to important these dyes and herbs from the Dragon Isles. They weren't cheap, but they should serve as excellent magical conductors. And unless we specifically try to wash it off, they'll persist for a good while – perfect for our needs.” She dipped the brush into the finished concoction and floated it up to Applejack's shoulder. “I'll help you get started, though you'll want to practice applying this yourself at some point. If we're lucky, we'll be able to prepare a levitate spell that'll make the job far easier for you... there.” Twilight stepped back to admire her handiwork. The rune was a small one, designed to replicate a simple light spell. It consisted of seven vines radiating from a central point in a branching pattern, forming a circle slightly shorter across than a butter knife. “What do you think, AJ?”
This is a very long paragraph. While long paragraphs are not unacceptable, this is a great deal to stick into one paragraph; we go all the way from Twilight starting to apply the paint to finishing it up, with a great deal of Twilight talking and acting. This could have been broken up into many smaller, more easily digested pieces, and it would have helped the section flow better by making it easier for the reader to follow along with the action.
Flow and Engagement
I mentioned this a number of times in the other sections, and so I think I would conclude on this note.
Flow is one of the most important parts of writing; a story which flows feels like it is one continuous piece while you’re reading it, and it allows the reader to lose themselves in the story. A story which fails to flow properly will pull the reader out of it and make them see defects, or will simply cause them to feel disengaged from the work.
If a story flows well, every other flaw can be overlooked in it and forgiven; if a story fails to flow, oftentimes it will die.
For me, this story didn’t flow. The transition from dialogue to narration back to dialogue in the first scene in the story is the point at which I was pulled out of it, and I never could get back into it after that point; by the time I reached the second half of the camping scene – and thus, prior to when the story proper actually started – I realized that I was no longer engaged.
Having the story start with the actual story you were trying to tell would have given me less time to disengage.
Having the story flow better might have made me not care that the story didn’t start until over halfway through its length.
But together, they pulled me out and I could never get back into things.
A Good Idea
This all sounded terribly negative… and, well, let’s face it, it kind of was. I, personally, did not really end up enjoying this story very much.
But someone else did: bookplayer. In fact, she enjoyed your story sufficiently so as to [url= http://www.fimfiction.net/blog/420402/hey-applejack-fans]promote your story in her blog. Why did she do this?
Because she really liked your ideas. And ideas are very important. If people like your ideas, they will overlook many flaws. And indeed, ideas are the single most important thing in attracting readers; a story with a core idea which speaks to people will draw people in, and for all the good that flow does in keeping someone invested in your story, no one gets a sense of flow from your story description. But they do get a sense of the idea you’re going for, and when that idea is interesting, they’re very likely to read your story.
And if they like it enough, they’ll even tell their friends about it. That’s how I got here. Heck, bookplayer was one of the first people on the site who I spoke to, and I feel like knowing her helped me to get my start here, more than a year ago. Having interesting ideas is one of the things which most gets you noticed. And you did.
Don’t be discouraged by my not liking your story; be proud that bookplayer liked it enough to promote it. I’m infamously picky; people not infrequently make jokes about me hating everything, and judging by how frequently I downvote stories, there may be some truth in that.
That doesn’t mean disregard what I had to say. But remember: feedback is just an opportunity to better yourself, not something you should beat yourself up over. You don't have to take any of my advice, but if other folks agree with it, then maybe it is good advice after all. If everyone thinks I'm full of it, then you know it isn't good.
Good luck.
You're a wizard Twily!
2672679
So many words.
2672680 I read them all. Wow, you can write.
2672684
Hopefully you found it useful/helpful/interesting.
And yeah, so they tell me. Sometimes.
I've learned a lot in the last year and change, too. I'm still learning and improving.
2672688 All three. And I can totally see that.
Epic blog is epic.
All things I knew already, but rereading about them helps to keep them fresh.
Still, I wish I had gotten feedback like this on my own first story when I first started writing. I might have rewritten it then and there after getting some; instead, I am continually putting off that rewrite for a later day while other stories and people take priority.
A fair percentage:
Of the problems I see in stories submitted to Equestria Daily could be solved by reference to this blog post. I might just be bookmarking it for future use...
Mike
2672714
A lot of people seem to make wishes like this retroactively, which is probably what drove me to do this; someone got that wish granted ahead of time. It is a Hearth Warming miracle, delivered by the Grinch himself!
2673101
Glad to hear you thought it might be useful to others.
Of course, this means I need to make a post now listing my own sins...
Bookmarked. This is damn useful.
It's condensed several lessons into one and somehow succeeded in keeping me reading to the end despite my ADD filled noggin.
When I read the story I didn't know what to expect, but it did keep me interested.
First, I must thank you for putting so much effort into critiquing my story, even if you didn't enjoy it in the end. Heck, I'll take that as I good sign in itself.
You had a number of good points, and while I didn't agree with all of them, I did incorporate some of the simpler edits into the story. I recorded my thoughts/responses as I read, and rather than edit them in I'll just paste it below:
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You have a point about the crossover tag, I probably should've added it. I play a lot of Pathfinder, and the fey were more a convenient idea for why unicorns couldn't solve the problem than an intentional crossover.
I found the mechanics of why Applejack was spellslinging a very interesting part of the story, personally. That was actually a big part of the challenge when I was trying to determine how the story would come about, based on the fan art that inspired me. Still, you have a valid point for those looking forward to the action portion of the story.
I like some of your suggestions for other scenes, though, and I'll probably use them if I develop the story further.
I think a number of your points are opinion, but I can see why you made them. I mentioned in the comments (a few others also pointed this out) that I erred on the side of more descriptive, in case my writing wasn't clear. It's my first story, so that's something I'll keep in mind for later. Personally, I don't like the look of long character dialogue, though, hence the (probably excessive) dialogue tags. But again, it's something I'll look for in future stories.
My repetition in tags was to avoid repeating “said” over and over. Another personal preference, but again I'm no writer and didn't consider the impact of those words. I do come from a more technical background (scientific papers), so it's in my nature to be specific with the words I use.
I'm glad you caught that bit of sarcasm in the narration. :) You're right that it's probably unnecessary though.
Darn, I tried to avoid “LUS,” though it seems I may have erred a little to far on one side of that line. I like your point about making the descriptor tags more relevant to the scene, and even changed the second instance of “Apple Farmer” to a much simpler “earth pony.” I'll try to keep these a lot simpler in future writings.
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On your final point, I agree that the idea is the strong point behind the story. Really, it's what motivated me to write it in the first place. I'm not an experienced writer, so I'm happy to work on improving my abilities, but knowing that other people find the idea interesting as well is gratifying.
As others have said , the fact that you put so much effort into pointing out the flaws in the story, and (for me) getting such feedback for my first story, makes me feel quite lucky. Thanks for posting this, I'm sure it will help my future writings.
Also,
I love this! Thank you Mr. Grinch.
edit- I didn't realize that Bookplayer had posted a blog about my story. I'll have to check it out and thank her!
2674431
Oh no, I wasn't saying that cutting an explanation of Applejack's spellslinging was a good idea. In fact, that would be a terrible idea; it is the main selling point of your story.
The problem is that the way you explained it was awkward and off-putting. World-building is best when it is integrated with the story, rather than vomited out all over the audience right up front. If you look at books like, say, The Wheel of Time, the way that magic works is introduced naturally over the course of the story and we keep learning new things about it over time. You had an enormously long conversation with Twilight Sparkle which wasn't very interesting and which was very expository in nature; it was a gigantic Info Dump. There wasn't any real conflict until we were over halfway through the story. That's not to say that world-building is bad; it isn't. It is to say, however, that world-building in the absence of storytelling gives us little reason to be invested in what you're telling us. This is a very common mistake, but when it is done right, the exposition becomes effectively invisible, even though it is still doing its job of communicating information.
The story would have been shorter for it, and I don't think that it would have lost a whole lot in the process.
A lot of experienced writers will say that people should avoid saidisms entirely other than "asked". In reality, this is going too far; saidisms are fine used in moderation. Sampling Harry Potter books, for instance, I found "saids" made up about 50% of dialogue tags.
The thing is, though, when you find yourself in a situation where you feel like you are drowning in "saids", oftentimes this is an indication that your writing structure is repetitive; the solution in this case is not to vary what word you're using in the place of "said", but rather to try and mix up your paragraphs a bit more (and possibly to drop dialogue tags entirely when they're unnecessary; the primary purpose of them is to mark who is speaking, and if it is already obvious otherwise, they're much less important).
You're welcome!
2674534 You've already given me some ideas on how to better build the world in future writing. I'll try to integrate some of your suggestions, slowly, as I write more. Thank you, sincerely, for giving as much feedback as you have!