Screw it. · 8:32am Aug 25th, 2012
Got myself a nice little EQD rejection. And actually... reading it hurts, because I already ran all five chapters through the Training Grounds before. And I don't see some of the issues the pre-reader told me the story had.
This is basically what I got sent back:
Have a response:
"Aside from regular farm upkeep there was little buckin' to be done in late spring." / Missing comma.
"...who led a relatively calm, sensible life of baking -- or at least they would have..." / Not really wrong but it's prefered to use proper dashes instead of an alternative to one.
"...barreling straight into the tree she was leaning against with a muted 'OOMPH'" / If her speech was muted, then why is it in all caps, which often denotes speech that is spoken loudly?
"With one sharp tug she yanked the pegasus free, letting her slide unceremoniously to the ground." / Missing comma.
"'...else I won't have any trees left when applebuckin' season comes around.' Applejack chided her friend..." / Improper dialogue punctuation.
"Well, I was gonna start off with a-" / Improper punctuation. Use dashes, not hyphens.
"Applejack gestured at the pegasus' scalp with a hoof, where large bump was rapidly swelling." / Missing word.
"Ponyville had its share of pegasi, although they weren't nearly as common as Earth ponies and unicorns." / Earth doesnt need to be capitalized when used to refer to ponies of that type, think of it more of the earth beneath our feet than in reference to the planet as a whole.
"Clustered around the chicken coop a smattering of hens pecked at a pile of corn, oblivious to all save the delicious meal spread before them." / Missing comma.
"...I'm coming to you the next time I cr...have a miscalculation." / An ellipsis should have a space between it and the following word when it's used in the middle of a sentence.
"'Maybe I should go.' The thought vanished just as quickly as it had come..." / Another thing that isnt entirely wrong but you dont need single quotes for thoughts as the italics is already an indicator of such, that and it helps to minimize confusion with any other potential quoting within thought.
"Alright, bunny. Wake up before your owner has a heart attack. Or explodes." / Dash wouldnt know the context of her own reference because she wasnt in Feeling Pinkie Keen, or maybe it's just coincidence that Dash makes a remark about Fluttershy potentially exploding.
"...she groussed, poking her..." / Typo.
"Fluttershy's eyes shone with gratitude, although she held off on expressing it..." / So did she or didnt she?
"'Uh, Fluttershy? Should I go, or,' She trailed off." / A comma isnt an indication of trailing off, an ellipsis would be more appropiate.
"The presence lifted its shaggy head, snout in the air, and sniffed the wind." / Improper use of italics (this applies to the entire section).
Barely into the second chapter and already found plenty. My apologies for skimming the later chapters, but it appears to be more of the same anyway. Problems with spelling (typos, missing words, sentence structure/formation, misuse of italics, poor wording), punctuation (lack of commas where needed, dialogue punctuation, dash/hyphen confusion, semicolon abuse), character dialogue/action redundancies, dead dialogue (character speech appears stilted, it lacks emotion and doesnt pop or stand out) and show versus tell (character actions/reactions/expressions, general descriptions, expression of emotion) are present throughout the story and should be addressed during the editing process. This being the first strike of three, I advise you to put as much work as possible into the story before resubmitting, considering its length it may be beneficial to find an editor for additional help. Please take your time and dont rush.
Part of what sucks about this is that some of those changes are what the reviewer I consulted at the Training Grounds told me to do. So it wasn't good enough the first time around, and the edit isn't good enough either. In fact, the edit got a harsher reception than the first time around. The first pre-reader last year told me my main problem was show vs. tell, which I could see, but apparently everything else sucks, too?
Screw it.
I'm not wasting another couple of months getting it torn apart by another reviewer, then another month editing, only to have another pre-reader tell me that my third attempt is worse than the first one, too. EQD is not everything. I've gotten some nice feedback here, and I'm assuming the people that are following the story or have favorited it don't think it's crap, so I can be happy with that. Constructive criticism is how you improve, and I am taking extra time to rework chapter five to be more vivid than what I originally wrote, but you know what? This is a rat race, and I am beginning to think a lot of actually getting posted over at EQD involves rolling a 20 and getting the right pre-reader, and I'm not going to waste valuable time trying to live up to a standard that changes from pre-reader to pre-reader without much agreement between them.
So I guess this is it. I still feel bad, and I hope the pre-reader really is just being really nitpicky instead of my writing being terrible. But I'll stop feeling bad eventually, and get to writing again. I hope I can produce something worth waiting for. ^_^
To anyone who's read thus far, constructive criticism is most definitely appreciated. Is my dialogue dry? (I'm working on improving my ability in that area.) What else is wrong with it? Seriously. Criticism is welcome, even if it's as simple as 'I think this aspect SUCKED'. Although telling me why it sucked will help me pinpoint the problem a little more effectively. :P
I have had all my attempts at getting a story onto EQD squashed. I'm not a huge fan of the site and although I know it would have the poetntial to get a story of mine some serious views... I have decided to stick with this site over EQD as I can still tell a good Flutterdash story, without worrying about making it totaly perfect to someone elses standards. This is something I enjoy doing and I don't intend to work on them as if they were a paid project, those take up way too much time.
I encourage you to keep upding it here, I am sure to follow it closly, along with any other Flutterdash you write.
I understand wanting to make it near perfect before so many people view it... but what one person sees as right doesn't mean everyone will see it the same way. So yea... I'm unlikley to put in much more effort into getting somehting up to thier 'high standards'. Its up to you if you want to ever do so with this story again... but personaly, I like your story and I see nothing truly wrong with it.
Take a read of one of my stories if you want to see what I am trying to say. There is such a thing as 'good enough' and I can be happy with that.
Keep up the good work. You have my full encouragement.
Dang, these people are harsh! I, for one, think that the story is excellent and is far better than some of the other fics I've seen accepted on that site. I myself try to make reviews sound as positive and uplifting as possible while still expressing issues. I understand they must get hundreds of submissions each day, but still, "Sometimes we well need to be shown a little kindness." Now, most of his/her points are valid, but some of it is downright ridiculous. The ones with the hyphen vs. dash really made me say "Are you kidding me?". From what I can recall, your dialogue is fine. It's not exceptional, but it's definitely above average. I've read hundreds of FlutterDash fics, and this one is somewhere in the top 30 or so. Plus, you said it yourself. EQD isn't everything. So don't be discouraged, not everyone can recognize a good story when they see one. Also, I couldn't help but notice how almost all of the "errors" are not actually about the content of the story.
I really wouldn't worry about this, it's not worth your time. Constructive criticism? Hmm... the only point I really do agree with is show vs. tell, but I can't recall how well you did that. I'd probably have to go re-read the story to give you some actual advice, so maybe another day I'll do so since I truly enjoyed this fic. Again, don't be discouraged by the pre-reader's reviews. You and I both know your quality and you don't need some website filled with over critical reviewers to tell you that.
Blimey, the prereader you got was a right numpty; most of their points are either a load of crap or just based entirely on personal preference.
I've heard many others complain about ridiculous reviews or prereaders entirely missing the point on EQD, so you're probably doing the right thing by not attempting again. I've also seen really crap stories posted on there, as well as stories designed specifically for FIMFiction, so I wouldn't worry about getting on there anyway. Your story is good, and I'm glad to see it being updated again, even if it's only with rewrites so far.
I would rather EQD use Microsoft Word's spell and grammar checkers. They actually work and don't base crap on a personal preference that 99% of readers would disagree with. The muted OOMPH should be expressed as such, along with the apostrophes surrounding thoughts. It is most commonly preferred to have both, according to every single review pertaining to how thoughts should be typed I've ever seen. The first couple of comma exclusions were the only things I could agree with, but I am more or less a Comma Nazi specialist in the Grammar Nazi main forces.
Thank you for faving EoG while I'm here. I was actually more proud of Starswirl's back story than I was of the Spike comforting Rarity bits surrounding it.
Good morning, afternoon, evening, or what have you! Remember me, from Ponychan's Training Grounds? Probably not, seeing as how it was nearly twelve months ago. I wasn't one of the more active reviewers, but I was there all the same.
Sometimes, it feels like you need to roll a crit to get onto EQD. I'll be honest; as someone who's seen that side of the fence, that's sometimes true--just not as often as you'd think. You'd have much better luck rolling a 20 than rolling that-one-PR. (Since EQD posts... about one in seven stories that they receive, who you roll isn't that big of a factor. 1/7 > 1/20 and all that jazz.)
In cases of grammar, what a reviewer says isn't comprehensive, most of the time. In fact, it hardly ever is. I did line-editing on the Training Grounds and none of my reviews were comprehensive. No one can catch everything, after all. When a reviewer talks about grammar, you should be able to not address the specific examples by fixing them, but rather, address the underlying issue that caused you to make grammatical errors (e.g., using hyphen+space instead of an em dash when showing interrupted dialogue, or using commas to separate independent clauses). That's what they say in the TWE, isn't it?
And the Training Grounds is... well, a crapshoot. Sometimes you land a reviewer who knows what he's doing, and sometimes you don't. It's definitely more of a crapshoot than the EQD pre-readers. I'd imagine the TWE to be the same--not everyone's a good reviewer, and in some cases, some people are actually just bad.
In any case, I heard you love getting your story torn apart. Have some criticism.
Disclaimer: I haven't read chapters one through four, and this only covers specific parts of chapter five.
=== Ch. 5, Sparks ===
>Rainbow Dash cast a weather eye over the box Pinkie Pie was bouncing in place atop.
Read this sentence to yourself out loud. Now read it again. And again. Does it sound right to you? It certainly doesn't sound right to me. So let's break it down.
>Rainbow Dash
Subject
>cast
verb
>a weather eye
noun... phrase? I don't think "weather" is the word you're looking for here. Weather is not an adjective. "Weathered?"
>over the box Pinkie Pie was bouncing in place atop.
adverbial phrase. Oh boy. First, let me suggest a (structurally) simpler alternative:
>over the box Pinkie Pie was bouncing up and down on.
or another:
>over the box Pinkie Pie was bouncing on.
or another:
>over the box Pinkie Pie bounced on.
I suppose my suggestions are tainted by my prejudice against your use of the word "atop" which seems far too poetic to be used in conjunction with the word "bounced", but you have two adverbs, one of which (in place) doesn't really do anything since it can be inferred, added to a an -ing verb, which is complex by nature. You're adding complexity where it is not needed.
And thus we move on.
>Granted, the package was a bit dented and appeared to have been dropped a few times, but with mailmares like Ditzy Doo on the job that was to be expected.
As far as I can tell, this really doesn't add anything. You're referencing a character that's shown up only once in your entire story (from what I gather from a cursory ctrl+f of the previous chapters). Unless you're planning on using Der--Ditzy later on, referring to the character is tangential to your narrative and does nothing but draw attention away from what's important. The description of the package is nice, but a Ditzy reference is unnecesary. (And I think it'd be nicer if readers just happened to infer that the damage was done by Ditzy, rather than having the fact spoonfed to them.)
>"Overall it's a pretty good haul, but some of this stuff is weirrrd. I mean, like really 'We probably shouldn't let some of this stuff fall into the wrong hooves' weird!"
You seem to be writing this in RD's perspective, but with this, it sounds like she's listening attentively to Pinkie Pie. I suggest adding em dashes or ellipses to indicate interruption or trailing off, respectively--not that that's what Pinkie is saying, but that's what RD is hearing.
>Dash hadn't seen hide nor hair of her since then.
This should be "or", not "nor". "nor" means "and not". Hopefully, the following makes sense to you:
>not seen hide nor hair
= not (seen (hide nor hair))
= not (seen (hide and not hair))
= not seen (not hair and hide)
= seen hair or not seen hide
>seen neither hide nor hair
= seen (not hide and not hair)
= not seen hide and not seen hair
>not seen hide or hair
= not seen (hide or hair)
= not seen hide and not seen hair
This, combined with the "atop" usage from before, gives me the feeling that you're trying too hard to fluff up the level of
>"This looks like one of the masks Zecora has!" She exclaimed.
Punctuation error. This should be a more-or-less comprehensive guide on how to punctuate dialogue:
>"Look at this," said the reviewer.
>"This," continued the reviewer, "is how you punctuate dialogue."
>The reviewer stated, "You should make note of the way I place my commas, quotation marks, periods, capital letters, and"--the reviewer made an aside--"em dashes (or in this case, pairs of hyphens)."
>"Note that question marks and exclamation marks, when not at the end of a line of dialogue, is treated as comma--not a period!" remarked the reviewer. "See how the 'remarked' in the previous sentence isn't capitalized?"
>"But of course, how I arrange my dependent and independent clauses matters, too."
>"And that concludes my example." The reviewer smiled.
>Pinkie punctuated the question with a characteristic bounce.
You can't just say something is characteristic like this. That weakens your narrative. You need to establish that bounces are characteristic through narrative, and if you've already done so, then you don't need to say that it's characteristic anyways. I suppose you can say that some characteristics of a character are characteristic when you're introducing the character in, say... chapter one of a story. (Even then, it's weak and likely better replaced with gradual establishment.)
>"I thought you said it was something. Nothing isn't something."
You brought up the concern of weak dialogue. This is dialogue, and I think it's weak. It's flat and emotionless, a problem which you exacerbate with the line immediately after it:
>Pinkie's tone indicated that she didn't believe Dash's explanation for a second.
The fact that you felt like you needed this line to begin with marks that you know yourself that your dialogue here is flat and weak. Spoken dialogue is accented by tone, but since you don't have spoken tone, you need some substitute for spoken tone, like body language or more nuanced word choice.
>As per Pinkie's initial assessment some of the items were rather questionable.
Likewise, this is weak narrative. It doesn't contribute much to the narrative, if anything.
>'Pinkie Pie... you are so random.'
Standards dictate that thoughts go in italics or single quotes, not both. ...Well, standards say italics. Standards also say you emphasize things in italics like so:
>'Pinkie Pie... you are so random.'
>The tinkling of a bell announced the arrival of a potential customer; a familiar purple unicorn entered the bakery, levitating a small shopping basket at her side. "Hi girls!" Twilight Sparkle called cheerfully upon seeing two of her friends.
>"Hey Twilight." Rainbow Dash greeted her; Pinkie Pie didn't acknowledge Twilight's entrance, still engrossed with whatever crisis she'd happened upon.
This is what I would would call weak narrative, or as the prereader called it, "character dialogue/action redundancies." As before, allow me to present an alternative:
>The bell on the door tinkled, and a familiar purple unicorn entered the bakery with a small shopping basket at her side. "Hi, girls!" she called out.
>"Hey, Twilight," replied Rainbow Dash. Pinkie Pie was still engrossed with whatever crisis she'd happened upon.
Notice that I did the following:
- Removed "announced the arrival", since it's obvious
- Removed "potential customer", since it's obvious
- Removed the "X of a Y" structure at the front to make the prose more straightforward. (This may not effect the effect you want, however.)
- Simplified the first sentence's second half by replacing the participle phrase with a prepositional one
- Removed "cheerfully upon seeing two of her friends", since that's kind of obvious
- Removed "didn't acknowledge Twilight's entrance", since it's a given. Contemplated removing the part with Pinkie Pie altogether.
- Fixed punctuation (." -> ,") The (Hey girls! -> Hey, girls!) thing is more subjective, but you don't seem to be writing in an obscure style of British English.
The reasons I removed what I did above is the reason I said your narrative was weak. You had a lot of words that said nothing.
This is where I stopped, since I overestimated the time I had.
If I had to say what your main problem is from what I've read, it'd be grammar, but I'm fairly harsh when it comes to grammar. After grammar would be show vs. tell issues. I know that I've only looked at a sample of your story, but writing style tends to not change from passage to passage.
Too bad "show vs. tell" usually doesn't mean anything, which is why I didn't use it in the above. Here's a not-so-secret secret: Show vs. tell is a catch-all term for the below:
- Weak description
- Weak narrative
- Weak dialogue
which in turn are catch-all terms for
- stating the description of an object or setting or action in very basic terms rather than giving small, subtle descriptions that allow the reader fill in the rest of the object or scene or action's details him- or herself
- stating outright something a reader should be able to infer through narrative
- stating outright something a reader is not able to infer through narrative, but in a way such that the narrative is detracted from overall
- repeating something that a reader has already inferred through narrative
- going too deeply into an object's description such that the reader no longer cares about the object if he or she did to begin with
- and lots of other things I can't think of at the moment, most of which boil down to "the way this is written in does not fit the narrative voice or current pacing of the narrative"
The issue with "show vs. tell" is that it could mean bloody well anything. Myself, I only use it for descriptions when I have to. This is the best show vs. tell thing I've read. This show vs. tell thing I haven't actually read, but it's by TheDescendant, who is a really good author.
======
But I'm going to be honest with you, something I hope you'll appreciate. Most of the specific points that your pre-reader gave you? Those are trivial. Most of those are points that shouldn't have been there to begin with, and when your story has such points in high density, that's--forgive me if I'm sounding too harsh--just plain bad. Not from a prose-characters-plot viewpoint, but from a how-readable-is-this viewpoint. Spelling words incorrectly, leaving words out, improper basic punctuation is something that should have been covered by reading over it yourself, and for the cases where you miss yourself, you have a friend who's well-versed in grammar or a reviewer look over it.
Another thing you should know is how to respond to an Equestria Daily pre-reader. Protip: They're not always right. (They're right more often than not, mind you, but their points aren't absolute.) Points like this:
are more style based than anything else, as long as you know why you left the comma out and as long as you're consistent with this style. If you can argue that, that point's a non-issue. (Note that the hyphens-instead-of-em-dashes thing is not style; it's basic grammar through and through.)
I hope this helped. I apologize if anything I said was rude or incorrect--any thing I've said should be taken with a grain of salt.
565376
Bwee, thank you! I've been fretting over my writing style for awhile, actually, and trying to figure out where to go to deal with it. Well, aspects of my writing style.
The intricacies of grammar are certainly not my strong point, which is why any TWE reviews I did were limited to basic grammar/punctuation issues, but mainly characterization/plot issues. Up until recently, I was making the 'its'/'it's' mistake for some reason, even though I learned that years ago. I'm working up a basic guide of issues I have that I need reminders for (and one of my classes is apparently four months of learning how to use English grammar correctly...), so I can go through and put down some of the things you've mentioned. There are some that I've corrected through practice recently, but yeah...
Grammar can be fixed, though. My main problem is show vs. tell, and what sucks is that I realize it, but not how to solve it. With the current chapter I'm working on, there are parts where you can infer how Pinkie Pie is feeling through description, and others where I'm not sure what to do besides actively stating it. I'll go over the guides you listed, though. I know you're short on time, and I appreciate even the slightest bit of advice, but are there any fics you can think of off the top of your head that do show vs. tell poorly, and those that pull it off well? I think part of the reason why I have trouble with it is because of the works I grew up reading. One of my favorite authors is Michael Crichton, but he is a master of infodumping, out of place exposition, and just straight up telling instead of showing, which works when you're writing hardcore science fiction with an extreme science slant. It isn't necessarily the proper way to tell a story that doesn't run along those lines, though.
And you're definitely right: that is very weak dialogue for Pinkie Pie. Her speech pattern is rather interesting to iron out.
Don't worry about being rude to me. I want to be the best writer I can be, even when I'm just writing about Technicolor magical ponies with wings and horns. I want to create something worth reading. I appreciate that you are kind in your criticism, and patient, though. I'll get enough of 'YOUR STORY IS BAD AND YOU SHOULD FEEL BAD' once I'm writing professionally. Thankfully, the few articles I've gotten published haven't been received poorly, so I think there's hope for me yet. There's hope for everyone if they're willing to work hard enough.
Thank you, Filler! And I actually do remember you from my brief stint at the Training Grounds (before school took over my life.) I suppose I need to work on to picking up an editor somewhere. That'll be an interesting experience.
565570
>but are there any fics you can think of off the top of your head that do show vs. tell poorly,
Chapters 2-5 of OmniscientTurtle's What the Future Holds.
Early drafts of Transcendence by Corejo.
At least half the stuff on the front page.
Aside from that, not really--for stories that do show vs. tell poorly, I tend to not remember them, cruel as it may sound.
>and those that pull it off well?
Probably the books you read for high school English. Not even kidding.
The Glass Blower by Cold in Gardez.
The Carnivore's Prayer by Cold in Gardez.
The stuff in my favorites list aside from Crimps and Prance.
More on this in a bit.
I wouldn't try solving your "show vs. tell" issue if I were you. That's like saying "curing cancer," when in reality there are hundreds of different types with different methods of treatment. Instead, I'd try strengthening your prose instead of tackling what you think weakens it.
Focus on:
Narrative voice
Tone
Pacing
Perspective
Plot and and its logical cohesion
If you have these things down, you should have no worries about getting onto Equestria Daily, grammar aside. That's my theory. These things are what I recommended the fics above for. Doing "show vs. tell" well is, like I said, not saying much.
And while an editor is good to have, be careful not to rely on editors too much. It leads to complacency.