Follower Reviews: Summer Dancer's Slow Dance · 12:13am May 18th, 2015
Well, I thought about doing a weekly update, but as I already updated everyone the other day, I thought I'd do something a little different.
Every week, I'm going to pick a story written by one of my follower's and write a thorough review on it. As an author, I know how hard it is to find constructive criticism and publicity for your work. So, I wanted to do just that for my lovely readers. 
I don't have a "formula," I'm just going to write everything I noticed while reading the story and give my honest opinion.
This week I'm taking a look at Summer Dancer's popular CheesePie short.
I read this a few weeks ago, and enjoyed it a lot. I can easily see why it's so beloved among CheesePie fans. It's a quick read, but hits all the right shipping buttons if I say so myself. ^.^ Summer Dancer has a knack for capturing the feels and making you smile the whole way through. Anywho, let's get into it, shall we?
I'll start with mechanics as that's what I always notice first. Then I'll move onto the story itself. Now, as a senior in college with a lot of education and writing experience, I fear I have a different, often higher standard for mechanics than most authors on the site. So take my words with the understanding that I'm reviewing this story as I would review a story written by my peers.
I have to hand it to Summer Dancer here, she sets the story exceptionally well. From the first few sentences, we have a mood for the story and some insight into Cheese as a character. I love this sort of scene setting and wish more authors would use it. However, that great scene setting is thrown out the window in the opening of the next two sections. This is like watching a delicious slice of cake fall on the floor for me. 
Each section needs to have a solid opening and a solid closing. Setting the scene isn't just for the beginning of the story, it's for every new section. That doesn't ruin the story for me, but it does make me sad to see such opportunity wasted.
Moving on. One major issue I noticed with the mechanics was repetitive wording and sentence structure. This isn't at all uncommon on the site, and I've seen much worse in my days (even in my college writing class). So many sentences start the same way, generally following the NOUN + VERB format. Case in point: paragraph three. It's not the end of the world, but such repetition gets old fast, and tends to pull the reader away from becoming fully immersed in the story. My recommendation is this; never have two sentences in a row that start the same and no more than two with the same structure/wording in a single paragraph.
This entire story flowed extremely well. The transitions between paragraphs didn't jar, the pacing wasn't rushed, and the character development progressed naturally. It's easy to tell that Summer Dancer has an excellent grasp on Cheese as a character as well as the girls. By paying attention to the character, she creates a story that is not only entertaining, but entirely believable for the Equestria Girl's universe. I especially loved Cheese's characterization as being shy, silly, but more mature than Pinkie. Well done!
Other points of note . . .
Typos. Not bad at all, honestly I think I have more on my first drafts. 
This one was particularly entertaining.
And it if it was one thing
I stumbled over it like five times before realizing it was a typo. A quick read-through should solve those bad boys in no time.
Then at one point you used erotic instead of erratic. For the love of all that is holy, fix that! XD
They all made notions of encouragement.
I think you meant motions.
This issue.
When he had first met her, he was immediately greeted with an enthusiastic “HI, I’M PINKIE PIE!!!”
Which he responded back with an equally enthusiastic “HI, I’M CHEESE SANDWICH!!!”
I'm all for excitement, but lands above, I don't want to be assailed by it. Feels like I'm being screamed at while I'm reading. [hides under desk] A single exclamation point is fine. Capitalization should be used very sparingly, and only for one word not the whole sentence. So, I'd recommend something like this.
When he had first met her, he was immediately greeted with an enthusiastic, "Hi, I'm Pinkie Pie!"
Which he responded back with an equally enthusiastic, "Hi, I'm Cheese Sandwich!"
Also, watch your repetitive wording. Using "enthusiastic twice in a row is pushing it. Try to switch it up.
Awkward wording. This is not uncommon and many authors including myself struggle with it. What is it? Simply put, it's sentences or segments that just read off. From what I've seen as an editor, the primary cause is adding too many words or not reading through your paragraphs to check for abnormalities.
For instance,
Which he responded back with an equally enthusiastic
That's cumbersome to read. Better to stick with something like this.
He had returned the greeting with an equally enthusiastic,
Really this story has minuscule problems where this is concerned. It flows sooo well and the wording is almost always easy to read through. Just a few places felt out of sync.
Grammar isn't my strong suit, and I hardly noticed any in the story, but here's a few easy fixes I spotted . . . Corrections are in red.
“Ask her to dance with you, darling!”
“Of course, we won’t mind, Cheese."
"Great! I’ll pick you up at four."
They had about three classes together, and sometimes he would come over to her house to study — or at least try to study.
within thirty seconds
This obviously meant, 'Eye contact!'
All right, enough nitpicking because that's what it is.
This story was really wonderful, and though a "seasonal" tale, it can be read any time of the year! It's a lot of fun, the characterization is great, and there are more than a few funny moments especially with Cheese's inner monologues. I'd recommend this fic to anyone looking for the warm fuzzies. If you haven't read it yet, check it out!
This is so cool, Bluegrass!
You're a great reviewer and i can't wait to see what you review next.
Also, I should go read this story.
Oh, man. This is great!
Well... this is a cool idea...
It's a really cool thing to do, although do try not to burn yourself out... I think that you getting to pick and only doing them one at a time will help. Not that there aren't some people who offer opinions on tons of fics and reviews and are totally fine anyway.
And now I'm off to read that fic so I can see how much I agree! It sounds good...
I want to thank you for reviewing Slow Dance, this is a nice surprise! Thanks so much for catching those typos, I'll make sure to go back and fix
This was a fantastic review! 