Maybe I should call this a Gundere 
So... About my first romance fic... · 9:47am Apr 8th, 2016
It's been three months since I've written my first romance story featuring the three little adorable fillies. Everybody should know who they are by now. So... as the title says that was my first shot into the romance (mostly thanks to a contest which is a part of the reason I'll address soon) It's gotten a decent amount of likes which makes me happy but... there was one comment that made me think about the story in mind... If anyone's wanting to know who's comment this is, here it is... From Mermerus
Okay, gonna be hard to find the right words - hopefully, my brain's up to the task.
I almost downvoted this here entire story. After reading the first chapter. Then, luckily, I remembered that I'm not an asshole. Well, most of the time. So instead, I'll just take my leave and won't vote at all. But before doing so, I'd like to at least try to explain why.
That's true, so far. My problem with this tale of yours is not about typing errors. And to be honest, I haven't taken a look at the tense. (As you might've guessed by now, English isn't my native language, so I'm definitely not starting to nitpick about that.) The fist problem, as I see it, is the dialogue. As bjorn stated before - it's... hard to follow, sometimes.
The second, more important and all around bigger problem is the structure of the story itself. Let me try to give you an example:
She's worried. After a few minutes, she turns to her friend. "I'm worried."
That's a pattern I've read a lot in this first chapter and it's... annoying. Frustrating, even. First off: Show, don't tell. Why plainly stating that she's worried, when you could try to lead your readers to that conclusion themselves? She could stare into the distance, wrinkles on her forehead, deep in thought, a dead-serious expression, ignoring the first one, two, three times someone tries to get her attention. That would've been a better description and it would've avoided those pesky repetitions. She states that she's worried - that's okay. She's letting her friend into her world, trying to share her worries and thoughts. That should probably be a serious moment. But after being just plainly told that she's worried - I care little for what she's got to say and I'm more annoyed, my thoughts circling around something like "you don't say...? Really?"
This pattern pops up way to much and throws me off every time. I can't get into the story, can't get absorbed the least bit because of it. That's really sad, because you had a great idea, really. The premise of this story sounded interesting. But I just can't bring myself to read any further.
I'm sorry.
So this comment from the guy I had a good time chatting with (just adding that in case if you thought that I had bad blood with him) made me ponder about my first shot into romance... Admittedly, when I wrote it, it was... fun. I mean all books I've written and read are fun mind you but this... considering it was my first try into the romance genre and I was nervous throughout writing it, in the end, I ended up smiling through it all. Gotten some good comments especially Fluttercheer's! Here's her two comments if you want to know...
Wow, this story..... I have a huge smile on my face from reading it.
Just last year I was thinking of them as being in a triangle relationship and here's the fic for that now!
I'm not exaggerating when I say that this is a literary masterpiece of MLP: FiM fanfiction. The idea of them getting together in a triangle relationship alone is so unique and the way it's executed here is splendid.
It's touching, cute, dramatic, heartwarming and full of joy. I absolutely love it.
And I especially love it that they have decided to accept their romantic feelings for each other and to stay together as a herd, by doing babysteps in their relationship.
Applebloom, Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle together as a herd..... This is without a doubt and matter of factly the cutest thing ever.
My heart is molten now.
And...
Says every master, because masters are modest.
Really, you nailed it. I truly mean it.
As a writer I may suck at romance stories completely, but as a reader I can see a excellent romance story and you did everything right here.
Love is something different than friendship and having been friends for years and then suddenly discovering romantic feelings for each other made them afraid of the changes that would occur because they never experienced such feelings before for ANYPONY and so they feared unforeseen changes could let their friendship suffer and before they wanted to let that happen, they rather retreated from each other, so that their feelings for each other can't destroy everything.
They were overcharged with everything and this is an incredibly realistic reaction for three little filly friends who never had romantic feelings before and who suddenly discover that they have fallen for each other.
You've done a fine job there!
And, there's something else..... If you ever feel up to the task:
This story needs a sequel. A sequel about how life goes on for them now, how their relationship develops and about the babysteps they make.
Comparing to Mermerus, this was rather pleasing to me. But both comments come up in my thoughts. Here let me explain, remember when I said that this came because of a contest? Well, that's true. With Mermerus's comment bought up, I initially did rush through it hoping to get it submitted before the deadline so as a result, I most definitely missed out on details I never bothered to check aka where Mermerus's comment comes into play. So after I managed to submit it before the deadline, well I left it be, that is until Fluttercheer's came up and this is where I began to ponder.
With Mermerus's comment, since I have enough time with me now that the contest is over, I actually have begun thinking about revising this story and possibly revoke it (for now) so I can start it again from the bottom up with a much better story structure than before especially since I'm not rushed to do so. But I want to do it after I'm done writing the three stories I'm writing up on. Starting revisions already while I'm writing those would be a terrible idea on my part.
With Fluttercheer's comment, the advent of a sequel of their babysteps as she put it does seem like something I would do for the sake of me having a little bit of fun. So with that in mind, I might go for it after the revision and finishing the three stories in mind. Because honestly, I'd like to see their babysteps as well and possibly expand upon my romance side 
I don't remember anymore if I read that comment from Mesmerus, if I did, then I forgot it.
He says good things in his comment, but also some not so good things. First off:
That's something where he has a point. I admit that I haven't seen this, because I was so engulfed by the idea of them falling for each other.
That you wrote "Diamond let out an exasperated sigh. She was not enjoying this and now, with Silver being like this, she was beginning to get worried for those three, 'I know about this knowledge already friend, can you just skip to the main point? You’re making me worried for them now…'" is a problem because you explained that she's "worried" before she said it.
But that's also all that is to it. I have no idea why he made those suggestions like adding that she wrinkled her forehead ect, because you already did that:
And that's enough. If you would now add three more things of how Diamond Tiara shows how worried she is before she addresses it directly to Silver Spoon and make an own paragraph about that, then it would drag while reading and it would make you feel bored.
Like Mesmerus was thinking "you don't say...? Really?", I would think then "Okay..... come to the point. Finally tell her!"
Not to mention that emphasizing too much on it how worried she is would create the same problem that Mesmerus pointed out here, it would take the impact out of it that she tells Silver Spoon about her worries.
This one, subtle showing of how worried she is with the "exasperated sigh" is already enough, it doesn't need more description.
The only real mistake this paragraph has is that you stated in the description that she's "worried" before she told Silver Spoon about those worries. Take that out and all is good with that. Write instead simply:
Or, if you want to keep the second part of the sentence:
That way, you don't preempt that she is worried by saying it before she says it, you can still desribe it a little more without letting it sound dragging, because the second part of the sentence was already there before anyway, and you can express that she's both worried and fearful at the same time, which makes the paragraph more complex and complex story structures are always good.
Win-Win situation!
So, now about the part in his comment that isn't so good (and the same goes for bjorn's comment):
Something that needs to be kept in mind when receiving feedback as an author is that not every reader who gives you feedback has knowledge about good writing or gives you objective feedback.
There are readers who just write down what they feel, readers who lack understanding of plot elements because of the subjective nature of their minds or readers who simply don't care about helpful feedback and who just plainly tell the author what they WANT to read.
For an author, it is important to separate the wheat from the chaff here. Take the useful things from the feedback, the actual story problems, and ditch the rest, especially if you see a reader criticizing some very crucial plot or style element. In that case, it's certain you have gotten yourself a "critique" who just wants to make you change the story for his own reading pleasure, not so much for the actual quality of the story.
If you don't believe me that people like this exist who only give feedback for this sole reason, watch "Dinky's Destiny" by Minty Root, read the YouTube comments and the comments the animation got on EQD.
The kind of "feeback" he got there came from bronies who, on one side, didn't like it that the plot was intentionally presented in a vague, mysterious way so that thinking was required to understand everything and, on the other side, were too impatient to wait for Part 2 (as "Dinky's Destiny" was just a prologue for the rest of the story) and wanted a conclusion right now.
As a result, they complained a lot about the animation and tarnished their complaints as "helpful criticism", which in the end, led to it that he scrapped the project completely, started it from scratch and diverted from the way he originally wanted to present the story, to please the complainers. I talked with him recently and it turned out that he had planned "Dinky's Destiny" as a full-blown 45 minutes episode (as long as a two-parter of the show!) filled with intriguing and mysterious plot elements that tell an engaging story if put together the right way. And all of that he scrapped, shortened it to three minutes length and reduced Dinky from one of the main characters of the animation to a rather pointless side character. He basically dumbed down the plot of his animation to please people who wanted to have a simple and easy story that doesn't require them to use their brains, to put it as bluntly as possible.
And all that after he originally even wanted to give up on animating completely because all the "helpful criticism" was too much a punch in the gut for him.
There's something one can learn from Minty Root's case last year:
Be open for feedback, but don't blindly follow every feedback you receive. Pick out the good feedback that helps and that doesn't go against your original vision, and ditch the rest that criticizes stuff that is already fine and/or violates your freedom as the author of your own story.
And what bjorn said about the plot and the conflict being "really, really vague" and "hard to follow" is more the type of feedback you shouldn't follow. I read the story attentively and I had no problems to follow everything (much in the same way I had no problems with following the plot of "Dinky's Destiny").
The plot of your story is as clear as it can be, unlike "Dinky's Destiny", the plot isn't even vague, neither intentionally nor unintentionally, and neither is the conflict.
Some points where this shows:
Diamond Tiara subtly suggested Applebloom, Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle that they are more close to each other than friends.
Silver Spoon explaining that they might get afraid of their friendship changing due to them having romantic feelings for each other and that they will split apart to avoid that those changes a romantic relationship brings ruins their friendship.
Two excellent pieces of dialogue that make very clear what the story is about and who prepare the reader for the conflict. You only need to read those two paragraphs and you are in the picture about everything.
And that's only from the first chapter..... I could bring up more examples.
You have very well thought-out and very extensive dialogues that conveniently explain everything that is needed to know to understand the plot and conflict. If you would describe the conflict in the dialogue's even more, it would feel like you're spoon-feeding your readers.
This is as clear as it can get and as it should get. Making it even clearer would dumb the story down. The dialogues are fine as they are now.
Now, why were there two readers who criticized the dialogues then? Because some readers want to be spoon-fed.
As I hinted on above, not every reader will give you feedback that will help your story, some will give you feedback to tell you that you should feed them, precisely, feed them with the food they like. And this food is not always of the highest quality. Sometimes, it's like the cheaply-made hamburgers that you get at McDonalds as opposed to the really tasty (and more expensive) hamburgers you get at an actual restaurant.
That it's still your story and that you make the decisions is usually ignored by these readers. They just want to make you change your story for their needs.
Long story short, don't change the dialogues to make the plot and conflict more clear. This would dumb down your fic, make it less engaging to think about it (this is crucial for a good story, only stories who make you think leave a lasting impression) and insult your intelligence, as well as the intelligence of, well, more intelligent readers who don't need it that the author chews everything for them and overall, hurt the quality of your story.
This is one crucial thing that every author must learn one day:
A story that appeals to the masses is not necessarily a story of good quality, if the intellect of the majority isn't very high (or their laziness not low enough).
Sometimes it's better to cater to the readers who are lower in numbers, but are more intelligent, when you have the goal to write a really good story.
As paradox as it may sound, sometimes, a few hundred views are better than a few thousand. It all depends on your audience.
3856315 I just wanted to compare his comment with yours because I wanted to know sometimes. I will agree that I may need to edit some sentences so it doesn't sound so weird in my case. I just tend to take what I hear from people rather seriously you know? Unkess they're rather negative though, then I'll pass
3857993
Why do I have the feeling you haven't read everything from this long flank comment? xD
The bottom line of it was just that the plot and conflict isn't vague, but were explained very neatly, which I backed up with examples, that you shouldn't change the dialogues to detail the plot even better, because this would dumb the story down, and that you should not listen to every feedback, only to the one that actually improves your story, instead of just making it more appealing to certain kinds of people.
3858147 Oh I've read it, it's just so big that my head can't cram it all!
But okay then, so long as you say so, I just normally listen to comments both negative and positive oddly 
3858179
Yeah, as I said, negative criticism can be helpful, but you should think about the feedback you received and not blindly following it.
This can backfire as my example showed. It's important to separate wheat from chaff there.
3858187 Well okay then...