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cleverpun


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Mar
29th
2016

CCC: cleverpun's Critique Corner #24 — It Feels... Wrong. · 12:13am Mar 29th, 2016

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Title: It Feels... Wrong.
Author: pertelote345

Found via: the popular box

Short summary: Caramel recently changed her gender. Her boyfriend Thunderlane treats her differently because of it. She throws a tantrum and runs off into the snow, and her boyfriend chases after her.

The Title/Description: The title is very generic. It also has a pointless period in it.

The description is fine, until the last line. Said line is tell-y and blunt in the extreme.

Genre(s): Romance, Inspired by, Import Fic

What does this story do well?: This story’s first strength is its subject matter. It presents a scenario that doesn’t get a lot of portrayal in mainstream media, and it is obviously informed/inspired by real life experiences. It also tries to make a comment about gender roles and how society perceives individuals based on gender.

The final confrontation between Caramel and her boyfriend Thunderlane also is a nice concept. The idea that “bottling up your emotions is bad” is obviously a very well-traveled concept. Tropes and cliches can be good blueprints, however, and “cathartic fight that turns into making up” is a romance trope that fits well in the MLP world.

Where could this story improve?: Let’s start with the biggest issue. The story is incredibly blunt and tell-y. The first person narrator makes a point of telling the audience every major detail that affects the story without illustrating why it affected them so much. An important thing about addressing real life topics in fiction is maintaining verisimilitude: if a subject is realistic, it needs to be given as much context as possible. This story doesn’t give context or illustration to any of the protagonists complaints. The story covers a very short timeframe, so we don’t see much of the relationship for ourselves. Without in-story evidence or context for Caramel’s emotions and conflicts, she comes off as whiny and flat.

As an extension of this, Thunderlane and Caramel receive very little characterization. We are bluntly told that Thunderlane is an understanding, nice guy, and we are told that Caramel is attractive and messy and various other attributes. But as above, without any sort of in-story display of these qualities, the characters are very one-dimensional.

This story also has a lot of awkward and/or inconsistent grammar and phrasing. Part of this may be the fact that is told from first person. I often advise new authors not to use first person narration as a crutch, however, and these awkward phrasing are a good example of that.

The use of cussing is another awkward element: the story starts with using G-rated stand-ins like “bucking”, then abruptly switches to actual swear words. It further emphasizes how inconsistently and melodramatically the story is told.

The story also has pretty much nothing to do with ponies. It would be better off as original fiction.

Finally, although I complimented the scenario and themes above, their blunt delivery robs them of a lot of their impact. Caramel states them to the audience (loudly and mixed with a lot of cussing), and it robs them of the impact they should have had.

In a single sentence: A story that tries to tackle an interesting and important subject, but fumbles the delivery thanks to bland characters and blunt narration.

Verdict: Downvote. This story is one of those pieces whose concepts and themes are sound, but the execution is lacking. Its brevity and narration style hamper it greatly. If the story showed us more, explained itself better, it could be a poignant little piece. Showed us the characters and their personalities, showed us their relationship before the operation, showed us how it had changed, etc. As-is, this story doesn’t have the substance to back up its goals and themes.

Comments ( 6 )

I'd say this is a fair review.

I've seen this author before. She had another story called Six Trans Mares that was examined by Rage Reviews a while back, and I think I saw another story of hers pop up somewhere which stated in the description that it involved a trans character. And she has other stories with this subject matter as well. Seems like there's a theme here.

Not that I have any problem with that whatsoever; I have themes too.

3835963 I likewise don't have any issue with recurrent themes. If someone is basing their fiction off of their real life experiences, in particular, it's perfectly reasonable to cover a lot of the same themes and ideas multiple times.

The issue comes when writers don't learn from their mistakes or improve, in spite of all that repetition. I haven't read anything else by this author, but the descriptions alone point to a lot of the same problems being present across her stories. Glancing over the Rage Review you mentioned, they point out similar issues as I did; hamfisted delivery and bluntness.

Sadly, judging by some of the comments on this and other stories by the author, the topic might be overshadowing the execution, and making it harder to focus on the shortcomings of the stories as stories.

3835168 Thanks, I try

3836064

If someone is basing their fiction off of their real life experiences, it's perfectly reasonable to cover a lot of the same themes and ideas multiple times.

I was mostly actually just talking about themes in general, not just ones with a basis in real life. Certainly, I don't think that the abundance of Discord stories I've written is down to anything other than the fact that I think Discord is a neat character. But yes, it's not surprising that a theme with a basis in real life experience would be common for a particular author. I've also done that, as I have written multiple stories exploring themes of fatherhood, due to events in my own life.

Sadly, judging by some of the comments on this and other stories by the author, the topic might be overshadowing the execution, and making it harder to focus on the shortcomings of the stories as stories.

I'd definitely agree that that's true, but in fairness to the author, it's a difficult subject matter to do right in a world like this. She wants to treat these issues with the gravitas and seriousness that they deserve, which is admirable. But for my mind, I simply cannot imagine an Equestria where gender dysphoria isn't made a relatively trivial matter by the presence of magic, as well as the fact that most ponies simply aren't as prejudiced as most humans are. It's like you say, it's not very "pony," and would be stronger as original fiction.

That said, if she does insist on writing these as MLP fanfic, she may well improve. I seem to recall her being very gracious about critique in the Rage Reviews thread, and I expect she'll be the same here. Perhaps the only reason her actual writing quality doesn't seem to have improved is because she's not got the hang of it yet. Habits of writing style are sometimes hard to break. Sometimes, my own editors have to call me out for a mistake several times across multiple stories before I internalise the lesson and stop doing it on my own, and this could be the same.

3836133 Well I meant any recurrent theme. Themes that come from your life experiences even more so, but all themes.

I'm obviously biased when it comes to Import Fics and other things that are obviously disconnected from ponies. Every one I have reviewed felt at odds with its choice of setting. I suppose The Destruction of the Self is an exception, but I mostly enjoyed it because of its strong writing in other areas: its connection to ponies was tenuous at best.

It's definitely true that improvement is not an easy thing to catalogue. Writing is such a subjective process that making assumptions about any part or aspect of it tends to be a crapshoot. Since there was a box on the user's page that highlighted two stories because of their "controversial" nature, that was what I was referring to with my comment.

As usual when I reply to your comments, I find myself using a lot of words for "yes, I agree" :derpytongue2:

3836339

Just remember to vote for me in the 2020 elections.

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