Paul's Thursday Reviews CXXV · 10:22pm Aug 2nd, 2018
Whelp, it’s getting close to time. As of Tuesday I started closing down the pre-reading process and performing final edits on Bulletproof Heart. Ten more days. I’d ask time to hurry up, but nah, I rather enjoy the thrill of anticipation. Alas, my writing has all but stopped thanks to the final edits. To accomodate, I’ve decided to include editing as part of my wordcount, albeit at a fraction of the actual rate. Say, ⅕ the wordcount of the edited story. That’s fair, right?
Which also relates to my decision regarding daily wordcounts. I’ve come to the saddening realization that, as productive as I am, there’s simply no way I’ll be able to maintain a steady stream of 2,000 words/day. I can get it one or two months in a row if I’m extra-diligent, but eventually I burn out and fall behind (as happened this past weekend), and as the year 2018 has so far shown, once I fall behind I’ll never catch back up. I guess I’ve found my limit. So, with that being established, I’m reducing my daily wordcount to 1,500. Yes, I know: disappointing.
Yeah, not really. I’m pretty happy with that.
Who wants some reviews?
Stories for This Week:
It will all be over soon, Princess by Luna-tic Scientist
"I'll Take That One." by JMac
An Adventure Through the Overflowingly Wordy Psyche of the Fair Princess Celestia by Violetta Strings
The Cutie Mark Allocation Agency by Hoopy McGee
Evernight by Wisdom Thumbs
Freak Like Me by Roselucky Seven
Curse, Bless Me Now by Pascoite
Daring Do & The Rookie Editor by Naughty_Ranko
The Armada Trilogy I: The Lieutenant by TheMysteryMuffin
Dashaloo Days: Angry Flight Training by RGLloyd
Total Word Count: 125,396
Rating System
Why Haven't You Read These Yet?: 1
Pretty Good: 4
Worth It: 3
Needs Work: 0
None: 2
It will all be over soon, Princess
6,316 Words
By Luna-tic Scientist
I got tired of waiting for Luna-tic Scientist to complete the story that will never end, so I threw this into my RiL to hold me over. I took a look at the image and the tags and immediately suspected a red herring.
In this one, we find that Earth and Equestria have managed to make contact with one another across dimensional plains, albeit entirely on accident. After the preliminary investigations prove mutually beneficial, Celestia decides to go to Earth for a diplomatic summit. Things don’t go well, and the next thing she knows she’s strapped to some mysterious apparatus facing a doctor of questionable intentions.
This, understandably, is quite worrisome.
This turned out to be a story about how unexpected, small things can lead to big consequences. It was fascinating and well played, Luna-tic Scientist doing a great job channeling Celestia’s ever-growing terror. The physical and psychological alterations ponies undergo while visiting Earth are an effective means of adding difficulty to the diplomatic process, and a unexpected twist I wholeheartedly approve of.
At the same time, there was no question in my mind from the get-go that Celestia was wildly misinterpreting what was really going on. I’m divided on this, mostly because I can’t tell if it was intentional or not. I think Luna-tic Scientist wanted it to be obvious - especially considering the incident with the squirrel. At the same time I’ve seen more than my share of writers who didn’t want things to be obvious but made it so anyway, and I can’t be sure this isn’t that kind of scenario. For the author’s sake I will assume it was on purpose.
In the end this story was everything I hoped it would be, and then some. It takes a little time for the scene to be set up, but it doesn’t overstay its welcome and does what it intended quite well. Definitely glad I took a look.
Bookshelf: Pretty Good
Now to find something else to read while waiting for Final Solution’s conclusion in 2050.
Previous stories reviewed for this author:
Days of Wasp and Spider — WHYRTY?
"I'll Take That One."
3,006 Words
JMac failed to provide cover art.
JMac’s stories have varied widely from decent to ‘meh’. So when I saw that a great many of his stories fall into a universe centered around a character named Quizzical, I was hesitant to investigate. Fortunately, the prologue story to this apparent franchise is very short. Against JMac’s recommendation to read Quizzical first, I jumped in and hoped I wouldn’t be disappointed. The results were surprisingly pleasant.
In this story, we find Princess Luna attending the entrance exams of Celestia’s school. Celestia has advised her to seek a student of her own, and while Luna is unenthusiastic she figures at least investigating the potentials wouldn’t hurt. During a lull between the exams, Luna stumbles upon the present student Quizzical, who can best be described as a Mini-Maud and Mini-Twilight rolled into a single foal. Luna spends much of the story trying to coax some level of enthusiasm out of Quiz’s voice.
I was entertained. More than that, I am intrigued. If this monotoned intellectual child is the star of JMac’s primary franchise, then I want to know where it’s going. While there’s really nothing much happening in the story on the whole, it makes for a great introduction to the character and a wonderful way to catch potential readers’ interest. I shall be reading the main story in time, of that you can be sure.
This was a nice little meeting of two ponies who are still quite awkward around others, and their interactions were plenty entertaining. I look forward to the start of whatever is in their mutual futures.
Bookshelf: Pretty Good
Previous stories reviewed for this author:
Being Neighborly — Pretty Good
A Little Game Of War — Worth It
Stand Ready — Needs Work
An Adventure Through the Overflowingly Wordy Psyche of the Fair Princess Celestia
1,691 Words
By Violetta Strings
It was all worth it for that ending. Look at Twi acting like a boss.
In this quirky story, we get to listen in as Celestia devotes vast amounts of words describing… well, nothing much, really. And that’s kinda the point. The story seems like little more than an experiment in overlong wordplay, and I have nothing against that. It lasts just long enough to not overstay its welcome.
The only real complaint I have is that the dialogue that does show up matches the narrative. I think it would have been a more interesting juxtaposition if the characters spoke normally. But meh, that’s just me. And I’m still totally in favor of that wacky ending. This is a brand of silliness I don’t mind.
Bookshelf: Worth It
Previous stories reviewed for this author:
Of Mirrors and Madness — Needs Work
The Cutie Mark Allocation Agency
35,711 Words
By Hoopy McGee
Ever wonder where cutie marks really come from? Hoopy McGee has the answer: gnomes! These tiny creatures have been hired by Princess Celestia herself to distribute cutie marks to foals all across Equestria at precisely the right time they are needed. The process is quite grueling, from the researchers who study each pony to determine their special talent in advance to the field agents who sit in hiding for hours just waiting for the foals to hit that moment of epiphany and fire their Cutie Cannons. And it’s all wrapped up in a bureaucratic monster you can’t imagine… unless you work in government, I suppose.
Holy Cannoli, this story is wonderful.
Seeing the cover art, I expected this to be about one particular field agent and his endless frustrations trying to get Apple Bloom a cutie mark. What I got instead was a delightful story where gnomes with such endearing names as Glummwriggle and Tallywaddle get caught up in a cutie mark misallocation conspiracy. It’s a story filled to the brim with wit and charm, where a world that one would expect to be nothing but cute ends up responsible for the destinies of millions.
If I had a list of top favorites, this would be on it easily. I have nothing at all to complain about. The pacing is pitch perfect, the world of the gnomes is fully realized, the consistently wry narrative keeps the smiles coming, and it all fits with remarkable efficiency into canon. I imagine I’ll be remembering Glumwriggle, Claribelle, and Tinseltoes for a while. I’m also tempted to make use of Tallywaddle’s Rules of Management in my own stories; they’re a delightful piece of meta that tells me Mr. MCGee knows how an office works. Or at least reads a lot of Dilbert.
Read this. It’s delightful.
Bookshelf: Why Haven’t You Read These Yet?
Previous stories reviewed for this author:
The Keepers of Discord — WHYRTY?
Evernight
1,828 Words
By Wisdom Thumbs
No, Mr. Thumbs, it most certainly does not work best as a one shot.
For this story, we enter a world where Nightmare Moon won. With farming no longer a career option (and no indication of how ponies get food in this AU), Applejack has turned to monster hunting to support her family. The market’s pretty stable, considering this new dark world seems to breed monsters like crazy. This time she’s visiting an old abandoned cathedral to deal with a reported vampire.
For all its shortness, this story shows that Wisdom Thumbs has a solid grasp of atmosphere and visuals. While I could never take seriously the idea of ponies firing guns with their tongues, this author does a great job of making the concept visceral and a bit painful. You get a strong sense of AJ’s emotional state throughout the story, whether she’s chasing after a fleeing baddie(?) or facing a horde she might not be able to deal with.
The result is an imaginative, fun, but altogether gloomy tale that is a great showpiece for evocative description. I enjoyed every moment of it and would love to get more of van Jacksing in action – especially considering what that ending suggests is to come. Right now I can think of no reason for Wisdom Thumbs not to expand this potentially awesome universe save for a lack of ambition. For shame, because we could use more stories of this nature.
A great, albeit brief, foray into a world of gritty awesomeness.
Bookshelf: Pretty Good!
Previous stories reviewed for this author:
The Weak — Pretty Good
And I am filled with sadness, for it appears we will be getting no more stories from this author. A pity; FIMFiction could use more of this.
Freak Like Me
2,406 Words
By Roselucky Seven
Requested by Roselucky Seven
Starlight Glimmer is down in the dumps. It seems that nopony in Ponyville is interested in making friends with her. How can she make herself okay with that? Her solution is to talk to Discord. After all, he doesn’t seem to care whether anyone likes him. Maybe he has a secret to share about letting loneliness not be a bother.
This is an exceedingly simple story. The problem, the solution, the discussion, everything is simple. That might be deemed fine by some, but it struck me as unambitious. This is a story written at least partially for the purpose of writing Discord, or so the author’s note suggests. So why does it take half the story to get to him?
The good news is that Roselucky Seven does a great job of channeling Discord’s character through the writing. I could hear his voice in my head, which is impressive (and fun, because properly written Discord always is). The problem is that there’s no drama, no sense of rising action or a climax. Things just… happen, and the story’s over.
I don’t know Roseluck Seven. This is the first story by them I’ve read. So I will note that this one definitely displays some strengths. The author has a good sense of character voice, the writing is solid throughout, and the idea alone is worth a look. A few things need to be done to make this story really good however, and that all lies in the direction. First off, the entire first scene could have been skipped at no loss to the whole of the story. This in turn leaves plenty of room to help with the second problem: Discord’s and Starlight’s discussion is over almost as soon as it’s begun.
Discord might be an interesting character, but he can’t carry a story with his presence alone. By the end it felt like Starlight had just solved a small sudoku puzzle with an obvious-in-hindsight solution rather than taken a big step towards solving her friendship woes. Okay, so she hasn’t approached others looking for friendship. Why? Is she afraid? Give us something to make the problem seem bigger. Even if it’s not big to us, if it’s big to Starlight then it can still be interesting.
I think this belongs in the middle ground as far as ratings go. The author definitely has the talent available, but there are definite areas in need of improvement. It may just be that the author entered this one with a lone goal, achieved it, and said “that’s good enough for me.” And there’s nothing wrong with that. I intend to examine Roseluck Seven’s other works to see if that’s the case here.
Bookshelf: Worth It
Previous stories reviewed for this author:
New Author!
Curse, Bless Me Now
15,174 Words
By Pascoite
Recommended by paul
When Detective Gumshoe’s partner and superior disappears, he is handed the stallion’s ‘curse case’. Turns out there’s an albino colt, so young as to not even have a cutie mark, that everyone thinks is cursed by evil spirits. Gumshoe doesn’t believe one word of it, and so sets out to find what is really stalking the ponies this colt knows.
Mysteries are fun things, and Pascoite handled this one well. Between the hawkish headmistress, the overbearing lawyer mother, and a whole slew of strange events, we are given a story with plenty of potential villains. The author did a great job giving each character personality, all while avoiding casting anyone as potentially too innocent or guilty. It ended up being a fun little whodunit.
Better yet is the atmosphere, which Pascoite works hard to maintain throughout the story. It gives a good impression of who Gumshoe is while emphasizing the legitimate creep factor when things start to go wrong. Another element I liked was the subtle clues, clues that are obvious in hindsight, that tell you not just about the mystery, but the ponies as well. Take, for example, an opening scene where Gumshoe remarks on the little things he recognizes about the world around him. It was a brief thing, but it spoke loud and clear that this was a character with an eye for spotting details, a solid trait for a detective to have. Many authors neglect to add little hints like these into a story, but Pascoite’s definitely covering his bases.
Ultimately, I had little to complain about. The atmosphere is great, the mystery keeps you guessing, the pacing is just right. I see no reason not to recommend this.
Bookshelf: Pretty Good!
I do have one, unrelated aside: can anyone explain to me what the heck is going on with FIMFiction’s word count system? After years of scheduling reviews as I do, the one thing that is blatantly clear is that the total wordcount almost never matches the chapter-by-chapter wordcounts. I rely on those things to keep myself from reading too much on any given day, so it’s extremely annoying when I schedule a 100,000 word story only for the individual chapters to sum up to 90,000 (which amounts to a day’s difference in reading, btw). But this story is by far the most extreme case, with a chapter count around ~15,000 but a total wordcount of ~7500. How can they be so totally off from one another when they’re supposed to be counting the same thing?
Previous stories reviewed for this author:
Ambergris — WHYRTY?
Duet in the Folk Style — Pretty Good
Method Acting — Pretty Good
Where the Heart Is — Pretty Good
The Poetry of Politics — Worth It
Daring Do & The Rookie Editor
2,952 Words
By Naughty_Ranko
Recommended by Pascoite
There’s always been two mutually exclusive truths regarding the Daring Do stories. If you follow the show only, then you know Daring Do is actually A.K. Yearling and writes her own adventures as a series. But before that became canon, the comics introduced Twilight’s mother, Twilight Velvet, as the author. And that, it seems, it how everyone always approaches the concept: one or the other. Naughty_Ranko rejects that premise with a new one: Twilight Velvet and A.K. Yearling are collaborators. Daring Do & The Rookie Editor is about how they met, and nothing else.
The story is brief and jumps straight to the point. There’s no effort made to build a friendship between Velvet and Daring. Velvet shows up at Daring’s place, witnesses a brief fight, they join forces, end of story. Very simple, very direct. Frankly, I would have preferred something more ambitious, or at least with a better focus on building the relationship.
But for what it is, the story’s not bad at all. It’s competently written, provides some decent action, and gets its purpose across with minimal fuss. If that sounds like your kind of thing then by all means give it a go.
Bookshelf: Worth It
Previous stories reviewed for this author:
New Author!
The Armada Trilogy I: The Lieutenant
37,031 Words
By TheMysteryMuffin
Completed Story
Having yet to read a story even featuring Tempest Shadow, I was intrigued by this one’s promise of a multi-story adventure detailing her life. There’s really no need to summarize, because we all know Tempest’s story by now: lost her horn as a filly, went to work for the Storm King, is now his right-hand mare. There’s tons of potential in this. None of which we see here.
Before I say anything, I just want to point out what feels to me as a massive flaw that isn’t even the author’s fault, but that of the movie creators: am I really expected to believe the story about how Tempest lost her horn? They want us to think she lost it being attacked by an Ursa Minor as a filly. Really, they expect that to pass. Let’s have a little reminder, shall we?
That’s right, an Ursa Minor is so big it can destroy a wagon by stepping on it. And the only thing that happened to Tempest is her horn broke? What, is she from the pony version of Krypton?
That really isn’t the author’s fault, and I can’t blame them for being obligated to make use of it. I just had to get it out of my system. My apologies to TheMysteryMuffin for using this review for the tangent.
But there are still a vast range of issues that need to be addressed for this story. The first and biggest issue is that there is no logic here. Practically nothing in this story makes sense, and I’m not sure the author even considered trying in that regard. Let’s start with Tempest’s hometown. It’s outside of Equestria, and nobody in Equestria knows it exists, and it’s tiny. Fair enough. So how in Luna’s name do you expect me to believe it is covered by Equestria’s national health system (if its outside Equestria), or that the local school is internationally famous and extremely well funded by Equestrian sources (if nobody knows it exists), has a fully functioning hospital (if it’s tiny), and has thousands of citizens at a thriving market (if it’s tiny and nobody knows it exists)? Other issues as they occur to me:
Ten-year-old Tempest Shadow just got seriously injured by an Ursa Minor. Parent’s reaction: “There’s an ursa minor near town? Okay, no big deal. You kids go home and enjoy Hearth’s Warming while we bring our filly to the hospital.” At the hospital: “We can’t see our daughter while she’s being treated? Oh, okay. We’ll just sit here patiently. Man, these chairs are crummy. I’m going to complain about them. What, my daughter? Why worry about her when these chairs are so obviously sub-par? I have priorities, y’know.” A couple days later: “My daughter’s sleeping off her surgery? I’m going to break down and sob now, even though I didn’t so much as bat an eye while she was, y’know, in surgery. Gotta give the readers some drama, y’know?”
“Aww, everyone at school is so nice! They sent me presents and get well cards and have been super friendly and I love this town! Except now that I’m out, when they all abruptly do a 180 and decide I’m a freak because the author needs me to feel put down upon. And then my best friend who has been treating me so well all my life has, in literally two seconds, suddenly decided he hates me and resents how he’s an outcast because of our friendship that bothered nobody at all just yesterday. This is my one and only reason for running away from home like I’m some pariah and my life is so miserable.”
Storm King: “I just met this ten-year-old filly with a broken horn! And I’ve decided to make her my slave and future second-in-command instead of Princess Skystar (who is cameoing because fan pandering is a thing) because somehow, knowing this kid for all of two minutes, I’ve decided she has more political and power value than a freaking princess.”
“Tempest Shadow had never been outside her tiny village before in all her life. Oh, but she’s been on some really epic travels!”
“The Storm King was like a father to me! Except we only met once when I was ten, at which time he declared me his lifelong slave and threw me into brutal, vicious military training. It was eight horrible, miserable years before we met again, but yep, totally my father figure! Oh, and he made me his second-in-command on our second meeting despite there being no evidence whatsoever that I was qualified for the job.”
“I just ran away from home! And by the way, home is a tiny village far beyond Equestrian boundaries that doesn’t even have a name and nobody’s heard of. But somehow the Storm King has a literal file with my name on it and all the details of my existence, right up to and including my one-night stay in Klugetown.”
“Grubber! I only met you once for a few hours in Klugetown eight years ago when we had practically zero interaction, but you’re my best friend and I missed you so much and I love you dearly!”
Though I’ve barely scratched the surface, I digress. This has so many plot holes it’s a wonder there’s anything resembling a story in there. TheMysteryMuffin needs to get a handle on their plot logic, because right now they have none. My advice would be twofold. First, to pause and think about what they’re writing and make sure it doesn’t contradict anything that happened in the past. Second, to look at what’s happening and question how a person would actually behave in these situations. If you find out your daughter, who you love dearly, just got grievously injured by a giant monster, you don’t wave it off and whine about the cheap seats in the hospital. You worry about your daughter and the giant monster that is lurking just outside of town.
The next major issue is the writing style which, to use a favorite phrase of mine, is telly in the extreme. It’s wasteful in its word use, throwing far too many at us to describe simple things. Take this example paragraph from near the end of the story:
The magic inside Tempest's horn died away and the glow of her eyes reverted back to what they were previously. She got up and allowed her robes to drag along the floor. Two of the unicorn maids, deciding to be generous, used their magic to pick up the robes and started following Tempest towards the event. The maid not holding Tempest's robes closed the door behind them and then caught up with the group, making sure that they didn't leave or dropped anything whilst on their way to the ceremony.
Let’s try something else, shall we?
Tempest’s horn dimmed with the glow of her eyes. As she left the room, the maids used their magic to hold up the hem of her robes.
That’s it. We don’t need to know that she got up, or that the third maid closed the door and followed, or that the maids doing their job is considered generous. All of this is implied, and those things that aren’t are not important considering this is the only time we’ll ever see these three maids. We only need to know that which advances the story or improves upon it in some way. Generating atmosphere, for example.
I’m also going to strongly advise not using the author’s notes as an advertising tool or a “here’s what’s next, I’m excited, aren’t you excited?” billboard.
All of this comes with a silver lining: this is TheMysteryMuffin’s very first fanfiction. They made the critical mistake so many (including myself) make: you should never have your first story be big. The only way to learn is practice, and that’s best done by starting out small. I’ve seen some crummy writers become great ones, so I’m not ready to throw this author overboard just yet. But TheMysteryMuffin needs to advance significantly before they can see their stories on my bookshelves.
Bookshelf: None
Previous stories reviewed for this author:
New Author!
Dashaloo Days: Angry Flight Training
27,257 Words
RGLloyd failed to provide cover art.
Sequel to Dashaloo Days and Scootabow Nights
In the prior story, we learn that Scootaloo is a very responsible young filly who spends a lot of her time taking care of her handicapped father while her mother works day and night to pay the bills. Rainbow Dash, now ready to train Scootaloo in flying, has become devoted to the whole Big Sister thing. The problem is, training your sibling is a heck of a lot different from training Weather Team recruits…
I’ll just go ahead and start off with it: the author’s writing style has not improved much at all from the previous story. We’ve still got a narrative voice that is all over the place, blatant typos, and stylistic choices that are questionable at best. As such, the real question is whether the story has continued to be interesting. Well… yes and no.
For one, we’ve got some curious character building for Rainbow Dash, who is still adapting to her new role. But her behavior is almost unrealistic, particularly in relation to how she has a mental breakdown over nothing at all. No, seriously, she does something to Scootaloo that she knows from experience is perfectly safe, only to break down because somehow now it’s not? Then she spends half the story in an emotional funk, offending Scootaloo in the process. It largely doesn’t make sense.
And that, in fact, sums up the majority of this story: it doesn’t make sense. A few things of special note:
Scootaloo’s mother shows up out of the blue and decides to fight Rainbow Dash. Okay, fine, she thinks Rainbow’s hurt Scootaloo somehow. Acceptable. But we don’t know jack about this mare. Her presence is so brief and so heavily focused on violence that when she does start to become part of the drama there’s no attachment or reason to care about her newfound mommy issues.
Oh, and Rainbow challenges her after the calm has returned. Mind you, that’s with a messed up wing she can’t use against an elite combat veteran and former Wonderbolt. Logically, she shouldn’t stand a chance. But RGLloyd won’t let things like reality get in the way of an epic DragonBallZ-style showdown, so he just pretends the equine body has no limits and has the fight happen anyway. It’s every bit as stupid as you can imagine. If you want to make your fights epic, at least make their over-the-top nature have a reason for existing other than “becuz teh auther wantz supr-l33t Goku vs Vegeta brawlz!!!!!1!”
Spike briefly gains superpowers from devouring too much caffeine. It’s no less dumb.
Oh, and Fluttershy is looked upon with fear by Rainbow and Twilight, as if she were some demon.
Look. This is supposed to be a story about Rainbow Dash learning to be a better sister and Scootaloo’s mom figuring out some mistakes she’s made in not raising her daughter. We don’t need massive crater-inducing pegasus battles, baby dragons with heightened awareness, or chapter-long jokes about Fluttershy’s secret darker side to achieve that. The message of the story got diluted and at times forgotten because of a bunch of nonsense that added nothing whatsoever to the story. Are you writing something to be funny and stupid, or serious? I can’t rightly tell, because you’re mixing them up without bothering to think about how the formats interact.
Ultimately, I am disappointed. The first story might have been poorly written, but it had both a good story and a generally good idea of what kind of story it wanted to be. This? This is a mess.
Bookshelf: None
Previous stories reviewed for this author:
Dashaloo Days and Scootabow Nights — Needs Work
Stories for Next Week:
Twilight Sparkle Gets Stuck in an Elevator by Feather Gem
Festival of Lights by Cascadejackal
Moonstruck by Sharkrags
And then there was that one time Trixie became a communist by Bok
Hearth's Warming Cookies by Viking ZX
DownFall by Redback Spino
Lust by Taialin
One Hell of a Party by Loganberry
Screwball Mio Amoré by Warren Hutch
Drifting Down the Lazy River by Georg
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In the case of that particular story, all that has to happen is for Pasco to unpublish and republish the chapter. I'm not sure about the rest.
That's actually what I use, actually. I did some cool math and found that in a day of editing, I got about five times if the editing done for the same amount of time as a normal writing day.
So I count 20% of my edited words toward my quota.
Good call!
4912934 If I recall correctly, Smart Quotes are counted as words while Dumb Quotes are not. Sometimes. Depending. So:
"This is a sentence."
Is 6 words with smart quotes and 4 words without.
4912956
Gotta love these complications.
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The word counting algorithm changed at one point. It used to count bbcode and newlines as words.
knighty knows about the word count inaccuracies, but he's not particularly motivated to fix it. It has to do with what actions trigger the total to be recalculated. In my case, I used to upload write-off entries to this site to check the formatting before submitting them to the contest and leaving them unpublished here until I got around to revising them, back before the writeoff had its own site. The first version of this story was about 7500 words, but I later expanded it. However, editing a chapter doesn't trigger a new count. I've never been keen on trying the unpublish/publish trick, because I don't know if that deletes the comments. I don't think it does, but I never wanted to take the chance.
4913079 publishing/unpublishing screws up enough stuff that I'd avoid it at all costs. Word count isn't that important.
I've read a few of these!
Let's see, "Cutie Mark Allocation Agency." Very cute story, and I loved the characters. My only complaint was that it was awful telly at times. I'd definitely recommend it to others.
I liked "Evernight," but it wasn't so much a story as a scene. It hints at larger things going on, but not much of consequence happens, and there's no real story arc. It's great to whet the appetite, but I wanted there to be a lot more to it.
I had pretty much the same impression of "Daring Do & the Rookie Editor" as you. I liked the characters, and it was an interesting way to include both of them in the authorship question, but there was no struggle to achieve any of this, so the story had no tension. It's another one without much of a conflict-driven or character-development arc. It was originally written for an EFNW event, and the author was reluctant to expand anything, because they wanted to stay below the contest's word limit. But imo, there was plenty of word count available to trade off. The fight scene, for instance, was pretty extraneous and could have been described in passing by Yearling instead of presenting it in that much detail. Then there would have been more space to, say, make Twilight Velvet rediscover her passion for writing or have Yearling overcome her resistance to having her work edited. As it is, they both just kind of make a snap decision.
You may be giving me a little too much credit on "Curse, Bless Me Now," but I'll take it. It was one of my earliest write-off entries, and I let it sit for years before revising it. And my method for revising is to start retyping the story at the top and deleting the old version's paragraphs as I finish cover their material. However, this does lead me to copying a fair amount of it verbatim, or almost so, such that a lot of little things from the old version still creep back in, and those seeds of inexperience still poke up here and there. However, the original version was not a good example of a mystery, for a couple reasons. First, that there weren't clues the reader could follow along with, and second, that possible guilt was never thrown upon more than one or two characters. Hence the revised version being twice as long.
4913096
I think I have one story that shows as having 0 words...
Drifting Down the Lazy River? I consider it one of the best works I've ever read on this site. Looking forward to your review next week.
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Well, that's all nice and annoying. I guess I'm going to be stuck having to fight these weird word glitches forever. Meh, it's not like they're killing me or anything, but when I saw Pascoite's story had such a huge discrepancy I had to wonder.
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Huh. Fancy math, you say? Normally I'd do that, but this time I just gave it my best guess from past experience. Now that I'm not seeing my wordcounts crash and burn with the editing process like they did back in May, I wish I'd thought to do this before. I mean, I'm not writing new words (mostly), but I figured it's still working on my stories so it should count as something. If I'm lucky I might even catch up to how far behind I've been these past two months - some of the BPH chapters are pretty long.
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That's a curious rewriting method. Me, I'd probably have just started writing, with the original open but minimized so I could refer to it when I needed to. Granted, I've only ever done one rewrite before, but that was remade completely from the ground up and thus doesn't really count. I do have an original fiction I want to rewrite, though. It was the first long story I ever finished and I'm still immensely proud of it, but I cringe whenever I go back to examine it because my amateurism is blatant in it.
Hello, Paul. Thank you for reviewing my story and being honest on your opnion!
This is the first proper review about one of my stories that I've seen by someone else. It is interesting to see the likes and dislikes of my readers, especially from my first reviewer. I am not offended, because I need both good and bad points in order for me to improve, so don't worry!
Heh, heh! This is why I'm starting to think about putting the Alternative Universe tag in most of my stories, because of the many comments that pick out chronological flaws. Yes, The Lieutenant was my first fanfiction on this website, so I know that it won't be my best to come, even if it's my most successful view wise. I will do more research when writing future fanfictions.
Okay, will address at some point.
That I will try to add in some of the chapters.
Okay, will change ASAP. Also, I'll write in the description that you've helped me.
That I can easily change.
I agree. This is why my next story will be much smaller and have a much easier understanding e.g. plot etc.
Thank you for everything, Paul. It's been a pleasure. Reviewers, like you, will help me and other authors with future projects.
Yours sincerely,
TheMysteryMuffin
(Laughs in Night Shift)
I really, really need to read Hoopy McGee's story. It's already on the list, but I'll have to bump it up a fair bit now. Another week when I haven't read anything here! Just serves to remind me how huge ponyfic is, and I suppose that's no bad thing.
Next week, I actually do have one I know (Taialin's), and I'll be fascinated to see how you rate it. I'm also reminded that I still haven't read Georg's fic, and I don't really have any excuse for that. Ah well, another one to bump up the list!
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Speaking of, were you aware that I used the name Horsemouth in my latest Them story?
Hi, thanks for the review on Daring Do & The Rookie Editor!
I do understand your point about the story not being very in-depth. I'm not gonna deny it, though by way of explanation, the story was written as a contest entry. So I was restricted to a word count of 3,000.
Maybe I should go back one of these days and build on this premise, show the friendship actually evolve after that first encounter.
Thanks for the review, and I'm glad you liked the story! I had a lot of fun with my little gnomes, especially the names. And, yes, far too much of that bureaucracy was drawn from personal experience
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Glad to hear you're taking it so well. My suggestion, however, would be not to fix The Lieutenant. As I have often said, we don't improve ourselves by fixing what we did wrong in the past, but by proceeding ever on with the new knowledge we gained. Try writing a few short stories, flex your craft, build up your skills. The Lieutenant is not something you can fix just by going in and changing a few lines. It would serve you far better to grow as a writer then come back and retry the story from scratch: rebuild it from the ground up into something far greater than its current form could ever be. I can say from experience that it can work wonders if handled that way.
improbable =/= impossible
People have survived some pretty insane things in real life.
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i.imgur.com/MHctWlE.gif
Thank you for the kind words. I miss fanfiction... but I'm still writing. "Original stuff" they call it.
There's just no time left in the day anymore. Plus my laptop's a paraplegic (currently clicking an onscreen keyboard with a mouse). And I don't watch shows or draw, either... Actually, you might have revealed a serious case of depression here. At the very least it would be nice to rewatch FiM and catch up.
Heard the show's ending. What's the deal there?
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Okay then, thanks.
I'll admit, I was quite outraged when I saw you'd tagged it 'pretty good', then I remembered that this is your 'B' grading and relaxed.
Were you supposed to know Big C was misinterpreting things? Umm... probably? I don't tend to write with that level of intent, just put things together at a sort of instinctive level. It's also been a while since I wrote the thing (prompted by, among other things, watching the horse dentist work on my horse), and I really don't remember.
This is a rare sort of story for me (you know, actually finished), really written as a test to see if I could write something short. Written mostly in a single sitting, with a certain amount of fettling after the fact. I still like it, and I still enjoy rereading it (probably because it's finished!).
As for the neverending story, it is actually getting to an ending. I've said that before, but this time I can actually feel it. The list of bits to include is now down to a few bullet points. Progress isn't as fast as I'd like, because it turns out that endings are hard.
Anyway, apologies for taking so long to reply and thank you for the review. I really do appreciate it.