It's decided, Stranger to Light will be fetured in EQD · 11:54pm Jan 9th, 2016
Why to I say this? I say this because I recently submitted my story to EQD.
I didn't do this because I wanted to get it featured right of, but because I felt they were the only ones that could have given me the simple feed back I needed. They didn't just do that however, they went farther that what I expected from them. Here are some remarks.
The three big issues that quickly jumped out at me:
1. There's a really sudden transition from the opening exposition (which doesn't even add anything to the story) into an epistolary format.
2. The story needs the attention of a good editor. There are lots of mechanical mistakes throughout.
3. All of these different characters writing letter sound remarkably alike. You need to develop distinctive voices for all of them. Of course Pinkie mentions a party, so a reader could at least tell them apart from subject matter, but they don't have distinctive voices at all. If you removed the signature from each letter, I would be very hard pressed to identify who wrote each one. They should sound distinctive enough that a reader could tell who wrote each one just by the sound of it. Their personalities need to come through in their word choices, phrasings, and tone. It's basically dialogue, and there's a similar writing rule for that: if you removed speech attributions, the read should still be able to figure out who said what just from the way what they say and how they say it lets their character come through. The one exception is that you do a much better job in Twilight's letters than any other character. They do convey her personality more so than the other characters' letters, though it takes a little while for that to develop—she still blends into the crowd in chapter 1, but the later chapters improve.
I bold the two that had reason, where as the first one is a crap reason. I say that because the story is not supposed to give much exposition, if any. All the readers need to know are the characters, and the rest is explained quickly. I did it that way for a strong reason, and it fits into the dramatic structure because exposition, though important, is not required at the beginning if the author chooses. (Yes, I am also aware of the problems with that and that there are rules to balance that choice, those I will fix.)
So the second one, I agree with. I need a good editor for this story. Unfortunately, it's hard to get a good editor and the time of one to do a complete work. I will work it out though, and I'm glad someone was willing to say it to my face, even though it was through anonymous means.
It's this third one that I really like though, one I knew was there.
Anyone who knows me, know that my greatest weakness is dialogue. I have a hard time writing with other voices, and I have reasons with that. So, I will take every bit of advice he gave and I will rework this story, each letter, each chapter, until each voice is strong. (I also need to adjust signatures to help display relationship levels. (Ex: Spike never saying Princess Luna, but just Luna))
So, along with that, I will work until EQD sees this story as something worth sharing. One, I don't like people telling me no, and I don't accept that answer and will not accept it for any reason.
Why am I saying this?
Simple, because I need to. Won't happen otherwise.
With much respect to the pre-reader who gave information that was helpful. Because that is rare from EQD
Good luck with your writings, man.