Can anyone translate this feedback? · 9:17am Mar 23rd, 2015
So after a long LONG overdue polish and reformatting of Then Tomorrow Came, I decided to try resubmitting to Equestria Daily. I had attempted once long ago, but it kinda got lost in the system, and with the giant purge and strike forgiveness happening a while back, I figured I'd send it back in. Pre-reader got as far as chapter 4 before bouncing it back with the following feedback.
A bit about incorrect or inconsistent comma uses when using dialogue tags. That's fine with me. I take grammar nazism in stride.
Something about character emotions fed directly to the reader (aka ____ felt ___). Also fair. I try to minimize that where possible, but some of it happens as a natural result of the whole biased narration tinted by character perspective thing I do.
It's the third part that's a bit baffling. And I'm having a bit of trouble interpreting it.
Third, and this is the big one: you pretty much require the reader to bring in their own investment in the romance, because you're not supplying anything to support it. This is a common thing for shipping stories to do, and unfortunately, it's a common thing for shipping stories to do wrong. There are times it's not actually necessary to do so, depending on the story's focus, most often when it takes place long after the two have begun their relationship. But here, it's paramount to reader engagement (except for those shameless TwiDash fans out there, who will gladly accept anything put to them) to establish why Twilight likes Rainbow Dash. There's a lot to this, and there are a lot of ways to build it up. But basically, you need to show me that there's a genuine, deep-seated affection there, and all I have is that Twilight dreamed about it and the narrator's vague assurance that Twilight is in love. You're making me invent the justification and investment in Twilight's situation. That's your job.
I'm not quite feeling petty enough to take the least charitable interpretation of "I don't like TwiDash" and dismiss it, but I'm struggling to grasp what they want here. It has to be justified why Twilight loves Rainbow Dash? I agree it's a good thing to include in most shipfics where the focus covers the development of the feelings through to the confession, though as they mentioned, this is often omitted because the characters are already well known and the audience DOES come prepackaged with plenty of investment (I would argue that this in itself isn't such a terrible thing). The key point I would underline is that this story isn't about the development of Twilight's feelings for Rainbow Dash, it's about Twilight's struggle to cope with the rejection. Chapter 4 contains some bits that discuss why Twilight thinks she and Rainbow Dash would be a good match, but the point isn't why she loves Rainbow Dash, it's that she has these feelings, they are persistent, and they cause her real distress.
If I somehow need to do more to show the reader that Twilight really is in love, I don't know how that would be possible without loading a lot more on to the front of the story (before the Appledash announcement at the end of chapter 1) and that would radically shift the focus of the story and massively disrupt the pacing. This seems to miss the point that the story isn't about Twilight discovering her feelings and struggling to confess. The actual story starts at the end of the first chapter. The first chapter is a prologue to set things up. I'm beginning to think maybe there would be less confusion if I had just axed most of the first chapter and started with Twilight mixing the fireworks. Just give no setup and jump straight in so people don't confuse it for an underdeveloped first act.
Anyway, that's my rant. Let me know if I'm spectacularly missing an entirely reasonable point.
It essentially means that the story shouldn't say "Twilight and Rainbow Dash are in love because I say they're in love, so there" and expect the reader to say "Okay, fine." It has to be able to sell readers who don't automatically ship that pairing on HOW and WHY they feel that way about each other. That's what they're saying.
So what I think the prereader is saying is that the author needs to have reasons why Twi loves RD. These are not big, clear, completely spelled out reasons to be stated at the beginning. Instead, it's the little reactions Twi has to RD every time they are together that show Twi is in love. It's Twi reacting to things RD says, things she does, and than dreams/fantasies she has. For example, I remember a part where RD comes to visit Twi (very near the beginning after the announcement that her and AJ are together) where Twi is glad that RD has come to see her. This is an example of showing why Twi loves RD. It might be a tad overdone, but you get the point. Twi loves RD because she cares and comes to see her. Now you as a writer have to think of more reasons Twi loves her and put those in subtly so the reader really feels along with Twi. I think this is what the prereader is getting at.