Personal Author's Advice: Helping the author's story

I've seen a lot of these How-To things and advice pieces and well I'm willing to try my own personal hand at this so well here goes.

Personal Author's Advice: Helping the author's story.

Me: Often Author's (Like myself) get a lot of critique over praise or more praise then critique or more often a perfect balance of each. Here is my Personal Author's Advice to all of you: It's always good to make a suggestion to the author to help the story but sometimes this help doesn't always help the story at hand. Let's use two examples I already have up, Finally at Pegasus and The Legacy Saga. Finally at Pegasus is a fully planned out story that already has a set train of thought going that makes it what it is. The Legacy Saga however is a story that needs some serious work. We'll go over each starting with Finally at Pegasus. Finally at Pegasus is a Cross-Over of Ranma 1/2 and FiM with a eye catching opener and a working stable story line. Much of the critique for the story is simply...

Pinkie: HI!

Me: ACK! PINKIE! What in Celestia's name are you doing here?!

Pinkie: -Takes big breath.-

Me: -Puts hand on mouth.- Never mind I don't want to know! I'm trying to give advice here Pinkie... did you break a fourth wall again?

Pinkie: Maybe? -Bouncing in one place.-

Me: -Facepalms.- What I tell you about that. Each time you break a fourth wall you make a wall of text, which I need to talk about if you don't mind. -Pinkie sits and pulls out bag of popcorn.- Where did you... Never mind. As Pinkie just made me introduce most of my issues were do to the ill favored Wall of Text! From my understanding this is where a story's paragraphs become a bit too long or cluttered and needs to be spaced out. This is great advice for a starting author on fimfiction.net BUT be kind about it. No need to annoy the author or be snooty about it.

"Ugh, it's all wall of texts. Fix it and I just might read it." Is a BIG NO NO. This just plain mean and not likely taken with kindness. "Let's see what we got here. It's a great story but you have a lot of text walls here. Mind getting them?" Now this will get a much better response and may even gain a thank you. Just saying Wall of Text on a Chapter of a story ever chapter can be quite annoying to the Author in question so only once or twice be fine and if you feel you need to speak to the author about such issues best to just PM them and tell them.

Pinkie: Oh oh oh!

Me: Yes Pinkie?

Pinkie: What if the characters your using in the story are out of character while you tell the story and the readers point it out?

Me: Good question Pinkie. Like in my Cross-over Finally at Pegasus, some situations won't meet up with what some readers call Cannon because the author doesn't show this in the intro or on the story information page where he shows what info he's using the information from. I did for mine, I noted the season and number of the episodes and that I was using a manga for the story. For this fiction I mentioned it was after a failed wedding along with pieces of information from the Manga in the story. This tells the reader what to expect in the story so what may be OOC for the reader may actually be Cannon for the Author.

Pinkie: But... what if it's somewhere in the middle of the story?

Me: Then the reader needs to wait for the next part of the story to answer those already made questions. Here's an example, in the Prolog of Finally at Pegasus I showed that Ranma married Luna yet later on in the story I showed a certain shy pony we both know has an interest for Ranma's female side, Ranko, along with a split between the two halves of Ranma and Ranko. Now I'm making this quite obvious for a reason. That reason is to keep the readers on their toes and ask, "how did this happen?" from the very start.

Pinkie: But what if they don't catch it and say something that would have you need to make some really big changes in the story?

Me: Then the author will have to either get his/her editor to work over time trying to make the story bed to the reader which would make the story kind of well... dull.

Pinkie: What do you mean by that?

Me: It's exactly what I mean. It's fun to let the author let the majority of the commentators tell him/her how the story should go when prompted BUT when it's not it's best to sit back, relax, and see what the author has in stored. I never mentioned in any of my stories yet of this prompt so someone suggesting a serious change could be a train wreck in the making.

Pinkie: But what if someone does suggest that, what's the poor author to do?

Me: Take it and put it on the back burner. Things like these are great ideas but never ever a good idea to suggest when a story if four to seven chapters in. The Author already in in a flow and to do this will cause those fingers and ideas to dam up and all the readers will get are trickles because the story will need an epic revamp often causing them to go off scheduled, redo a whole four to seven chapters leaving the readers on a serious cliff hanger, then have them become confused because of the story shift, or just cause them to rid of the story entirely.

Pinkie: Wow, that's just sad.

Me: I know Pinkie, some authors are like that. Readers are what help keep the author going may it be bad or good because it fuels their mind and creativity.

Pinkie: But what if the story really needs a redo?

Me: Then it's a good idea to leave a Review. Reviews are extremely handy for an author Pinkie.

Pinkie: Like a a cook book for really yummy cupcakes?!

Me: Yes exactly Pinkie. -Hand her a cookie when she eats.- Reviews help authors find mistakes, story errors, and many other things that causes a good story to go flat. My story THe Legacy had a review on this and is currently going through heavy editing due to this.

Pinkie: Where? I don't see the review. -Looking for it.-

Me: Ah right. Well there are two types of Reviews in my opinion Pinkie. Open and Personal Reviews.

Pinkie: There's more that one?!

Me: To me there is. An Open Review according to me is a Review that can be placed in the comments for all to read. Think of this as advertizing. Like a commercial.

Pinkie: Okay but what if the review is bad?

Me: Then the Author can take that review that's placed in the open and use it to make open edits or edits that can be made on the fly and in the site. These are pretty easy to do according to me. However the other kind is not.

Pinkie: Why is that?

Me: Because Personal Reviews are for the Author's Eyes Only Pinkie. They are to tell the Author what is seriously wrong with the story as a whole. Should an Author get one of these its best for them to stop, read the review, and get with their editor ASAP. It'll help save the story and help him/her inform the readers of the needed editing and put their stories in Hiatus, or needed wait. Once they get out of it the story will be fore the better.

Pinkie: So it's more like a doctor's visit for stories.

Me: Yep. It's always good to find a pre-reader or a Reviewer you trust to go over your story, even after it's been published. This helps the Author out a lot.

Pinkie: Wow... That' a lot to take in.

Me: Yes it is Pinkie but hopefully it'll help a lot of readers and writers become better, and Pinkie.

Pinkie: Yeah?

Me: You left the over on again.

Pinkie: -Loud gasp and vanishes.-

Me: Sigh. Well that's it for me. -Bows- Hope this helps everypony.