"The Strange Case of Dinky Hooves' Cutie Mark Curiosity": Revision of Chapter 1 is completed! + What got changed!

And with this, the revision of Chapter 1 of "The Strange Case of Dinky Hooves' Cutie Mark Curiosity" is finished! Almost two weeks in the works, but now it's finally done!
You can find the new and improved, first chapter, retitled to "The Foundation of the Future", in the place of the old chapter now!

Revising this chapter was a real challenge. I found a lot more errors in there than I thought I would and than I had anticipated. When I was writing this chapter in its original version, I was in a pretty bad state, burdened by moving stress and worried about not finding a new apartment in time, which left me pretty nervous. And all of this really showed in the chapter. Despite me proofreading it in November 2015, I somehow just couldn't see how disastrous it was.
Even at that time, months before I started writing "Princess Flurry Heart, Destroyer of Worlds!" and "Aunt Millie", my writing standard was already better than that, so my condition really messed with my writing there.
In hindsight, I feel ashamed I uploaded it that way and now I can definitely see where the unusually high number of downvotes came from.....

Anyway, now on to the important part of this blog entry, the changes made! The chapter saw a lot of those while I was revising it, and I can't list all of them here, but below, I include a list of the most substantial and important changes compared to the original version!

The construction process and its steps are shorter and less boring to read now!

Most important one first. This is something I received quite a bit of criticism about. When originally writing the chapter, I had put a lot of focus on the construction process. I wanted the reader to feel the same things as Applebloom, Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle, so that he can really feel how important the construction of their operation center is for them and their future and how much it means to them.
But I went overboard a lot with that and the construction parts were just dragging and really taxing to read. Which is, so I guess, the major reason for the many downvotes i received for the first chapter.
This is now changed!
I shortened each step of the construction process a lot, with less detail on the individual steps, while still making clear what is going on and (hopefully) still bringing across the importance of the construction.
Only the part where Dinky helps Applebloom, Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle building their operation center has still the same length (roughly), because it is a crucial point of the story.
But the rest of the construction is described in a much shorter way now and a lot easier to read!

Part that explains how important the clubhouse is to Applebloom, Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle removed

The second major change. There was a rather large part going into detail how much their clubhouse means to them. This part got cut.
I realized it was unnecessary, because it was essentially just repeating what the very start of the chapter had established already. Also, the extreme emotional reaction they showed to simply cutting off a very small part of their clubhouse, a part of the balustrade around the porch of it, was OOC for them.
Due to this, this part has been completely removed, and the chapter just swiftly describes how Applebloom cuts off a part of the balustrade now and that's it.

Twilight and Spike got removed from the chapter and Applebloom, Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle aren't worried about finishing the construction before it gets dark anymore

This is something I had derped a lot with in the original version. I named lengths for the different steps of construction that are way longer than they would actually need, leading to it that they were worried of not getting finished before the night comes, even though that risk was never there. This is the reason why I hinted at Twilight having sent a letter to Celestia to ask her about lowering the sun later, in order to give them more time for the construction.
This part has been cut, as well as each mention of them being worried to not make it before sunset. The only thing left of that is one sentence saying they lost time due to Dinky's mishaps, but are still somewhat on schedule.
The length of the individual construction steps, if mentioned, is also actually realistic and logical now.

Dinky's reaction while leaving the clubhouse again is a different one now

In the original version, when Dinky left the clubhouse after Applebloom sent her away again, she got cheered up by them and appeared a little disappointed, but happy. This is different now.
In the new version, Applebloom, Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle still try to cheer her up and manage it to prevent her from starting to cry, but she's still very disappointed and sad when she leaves, which fits the plot and her characterization in this fic a lot better.
That part also reads more tragic now, due to this change.

Small part about who they had prepared their lunchboxes with removed

This part got removed as well, it just wasn't important. Only Scootaloo's lunchbox description still contains a hint on Rainbow Dash having helped her with it. Other than that, there are only the descriptions of the contents of their lunchboxes left anymore now.

General Changes

And, of course, there are dozens of smaller changes. The sentences flow a lot better now and make more sense, because I fixed all the sentence construction errors.
There is now a more creative use of words and more diversity in regards to the words used and I fixed all the repeats as well.
And finally, emotions are described a lot better now, leading to the chapter grabbing you by the feels (and by the right feels) where it needs to be.
Overall, I went over each sentence separately, which really shows in the quality now!

New title "The Foundation of the Future"! (because the old one sounded really uninspired)

New wordcount: 6,903 words! (cut down from 8,354 words!)

And these are the results of the revision! As I didn't list every single, small change, there will be many you can discover if you still remember the terrible original version you read almost one and a half years ago.
Please give it a read again, now that the flaws are terminated, and, if you find that the reason for your downvote has disappeared, I would appreciate if that downvote gets turned into an upvote instead!
Other than that, please let me know in a comment what you think about the revisions and the new and improved chapter now!

And now that the first chapter is revised and has been brought up to my current writing level, I will resume writing this story and new chapters will get added!
Expect the first new one for Friday, May 5th!

Comments

[Bronycommander]

May 5th, that's my birthday

[Fluttercheer]

4512821

Then I'll do my best to deliver a worthy present.

Please let me know what you think about the new Chapter 1 once you got around to reading it! A lot has changed there.