Giving Back...

First of all I would like to take this time to say that i am NOT an author by any means. Nor am I musically gifted. I don't have any sorts of special talents that I could use to contribute in the same way that so many other awesome people have. For quite some time I have felt the desire to give back SOMETHING to this awesome community of people and after thinking about it I realized that there IS something I can do. It might not be unique it might not even be very spectacular but I feel that it is something too few people do. I'm going to be using this very blog feature to Highlight stories that I am fond of. I know that there is a feature to do this very thing already in place however it really doesn't help ME specifically much due to the sheer volume of stories I read.
Each story I feature on this blog thing will be a new post. In each post there will be a brief summary of what in my opinion the story is about. I will talk about what I liked and what I disliked about each story. I will do my utmost best to ensure that my likes and dislikes as well as the summary itself does not contain any major story spoilers. Each story will be featured in my blog for roughly a week or two before I change it out for a new story. First I will be going through the stories that already exist in my favorite stories modules in no particular order, then I will be posting other stories that I feel could use some attention. Now without further ado the first story:
Shades of Grey
by InquisitorM

Summary: Shades of Grey is difficult to classify. You could call it Slice of Life or even Adventure but really it's none of those. This rather interesting tale is primarily about Rarity and her inner struggles, with a princess and a magic related problem thrown into the mix for good measure.

What I Liked: Though this story does feature an OC that defines the most obvious problem I am rather impressed by the fact that for all the problem(s) the OC presents they actually occupy so very little of the stories limelight. If anything the OC serves more as a background character to add a more dramatic backdrop to Rarity's personal problems. Even better is that though the Mane 6 all make their appearances in this story Rarity manages to remain the primary spotlight character in spite of the fact that it would be all to easy to ignore her in favor of giving the others more attention due to the tendency of many authors having this silly notion that every character needs the same amount of time in the limelight. There are three characters in particular that the Author COULD have allowed to steal the show from Rarity whom the story is supposed to be about but didn't. The First is Twilight Sparkle, The Second is Princess Luna and finally the Third is the OC around whom the more obvious conflicts revolve around. The Author did a very good job of giving the other major characters only as much attention as needed to move the plot along and not one bit more.
Speaking of OC's the other thing I liked about this story is how much personality each of the more minor characters have. Given how little time is devoted to these characters I personally feel that the author did a pretty bang up job of making these characters stand out as individuals.
The Last thing that the Author did particularly well in my opinion was their choice of chapter length. Each chapter was no less than 4000 words and no more than 8500 words. To an avid reader such as myself these chapters did not feel too long nor did they feel too short. I am often frustrated by stories whose chapters are so short as to barely contain any story or chapters that are so massive that they really should be broken up a bit to give the reader a chance to "Cool Down" so to speak, not everybody has the time to spend more than 2 hours or so reading a single chapter depending on individual reading speed. While this is somewhat understandable for some stories due to needing to be in a particular format most stories don't have that as an excuse.

What I Didn't Like: About the only thing that truly annoyed me with this story is how slow the pacing was in the early chapters. It felt like it took forever for the buildup to occur and the actual conflict to take place.