Rejected From EQD · 12:07am Jul 17th, 2016
Well, I finally got around to try and see if Roses was good enough for EQD. Apparently... the answer is no. While they didn't put a strike against me, but the rejection is a bit disheartening. It doesn't help that they didn't give examples, so it leaves me at a loss as to what I could do.
Here's what I was told:
It's a long enough story that I can't delve into detailed instances, or I'd have time for little else, but the broad things I see are these:
There are some editing issues, nothing too serious, but it could use a proofreading sweep. There are a number of perspective issues where you switch between an omniscient and limited narrative voice quite a bit, and when in the limited perspective, don't stick to ways of expressing the narration that are appropriate for the focus character. Make sure it represents how he would perceive and phrase things. You also like to start scenes, especially early in the story with "weather report" openings, which are pretty cliched. Lastly, there's a lot of repetition in word use, phrasing, and the information presented.
So, I'm just curious, what do you guys think of that feedback? Is it accurate to my story. Should I really change? Do you see that in my writing? Maybe you know some examples that they're talking about.
To be honest I didn't really notice the switches between omiscient and limited, but I guess I wasn't paying that much attention. I agree that it could use a proofreading sweep, and I would be happy to do it myself, just tell me how you want me to give you feedback on it (PM, comments on chapter or something else.) The cliched openings is something I noticed, but it didn't really bother me, despite getting a bit repetitive. The thing about repetitive word/information usage as well, but I am not a native English speaker, so I usually can't find good substitutes. My advice is to just keep working on the story as it is, rather than going back and constantly rewrite it, otherwise you will get stuck in a neverending loop where you "fix" something wrong with the story, and later when your skills have improved you will feel the need to do so over and over. Keep up the good work!
4096446
Probably want someone who's natively English, but you can give it a shot. I usually prefer a google doc of some sort with the marked changes and a reason for it, besides obvious misspellings/punctuation/etc.
4096463 Yeah I wasn't really talking about full on editing, but rather fixing the more glaring errors; typos, punctuation and word mixups and so on. Though I would like to consider myself a fairly decent English speaker I can see why you would rather have someone native.
I've read a few of your things and I got to say that you do a great job.
4096471
I'm not against you searching for typos and stuff like that. It would be very helpful and appreciated.
4096505
I'm glad some feel that way!
4096603 I've already started
will probably have it finished and in presentable form in 2-4 days, depending on what will be going on in my personal life.
Get some editors to fix those details and that'll fix it.
EQD is notorious for rejecting good things. Forget them, they suck anyway.
4099267
Makes me wonder what meets their quality of "good".
4099951 I'm about 90% sure it's personal bias rather than some standardized system they have. You probably pulled the wrong reviewer.
Honestly, don't worry about it too much. The story itself is great, EQD just has some ridiculously high standards.
Yeeeeah... no. Equestria Daily is a nice spot for pony stuff, but as far as written word goes, they are about as picky as Blueblood.