Presented, unedited, without comment · 12:39pm Nov 23rd, 2019
editor interest
If you don't mind my asking, do you speak english as a first language? I am asking because people love your stories, based on Triptych alone. You obviously tell good stories or, to be honest, i would have never known who you are. but i couldn't even get through Triptych in the first place because thoughts seemed to bounce all over the place, and too many words were used to explain simple things.
I am not saying you've done anything wrong, thousand's like what you have written, but maybe more could like it if it was clearer/less wordy, and had less broken phrasing.
and to be blunt, there are clear breaks of simple english that just scream "I wrote this without understanding the language"
I am sorry if anything i said sounded rude or judgmental, I am just wondering if you might want some help.
sorry if you have gotten help, or improved after triptych. i just wanted to offer help, and explain my feelings while trying to read it.
It's is frustrating to see a series loved by so many when i can barely struggle through the first part. I know i am critical, but don't hate me.
I used two quote boxes because the message originally arrived in two parts. I removed the sender's name, but have not changed the contents in any way.
Do you even English, bro?
5159428
¿Que?
5159435
My first thought was "Joyce."
googles
Yep. Joyce.
Was ist das?
Your secret is revealed! All those colourful turns of phrase. Your subtle and nuanced sentence structure. It’s obvious!
You originally wrote it in Swahili and sent it through Google translate!
Nimekushika kwa uwongo...
5159440
Well, Swahiliisthe language of the zebras.People getting frustrated even in the earliest parts?
You heard it here, folks. Estee is the Dark Souls of Fimfiction. Or possibly the Cuphead.
I loled, but I hope you DO have a relationship with an editor? Everyone can use a second set of eyes to check over things.
I could understand them simply not liking your writing; different people like different things after all, like steamed brussel sprouts for instance.
But the fact that they assume it's your fault, that's impressive.
5159435
...is that saying they departed Howth Castle via a winding river and ended up taking a big loop that left them back where they started, passing a farm on the way?
5159446
...well... let me put it this way. I'm still trying to figure out if this is concern trolling or a written incarnation of the Dunning–Kruger effect which got crossbred with a near-terminal case of Muphry's Law. Because when the writer is trying to not-so-subtly state that I have no real skill with the language and my poor efforts would be greatly improved by allowing their superior editorial abilities to command the helm, it is perhaps not advisable to wrap up their verbal argument for the position with, and I quote, "It's is frustrating."
5159442
Does that make me the E.T. game of Fimfiction then?
I'm not sure why this person thinks you don't speak English as a first language, or at least as a "simultaneous" language. Your erudition and unique grasp of the language seems to say otherwise, though this erudition is also the source of the confusion. I greatly enjoy your stories, but allow me to explain. In this I will disregard the nature of the critique sent to you, as amusing as it is.
To be quite frank, I almost stopped reading Triptych several times. The complaint made that "thoughts seemed to bounce all over the place, and too many words were used to explain simple things." is accurate, particularly the second part. At times flowery to the extreme, with a great deal of grasping being done to make a clever turn of phrase or innuendo. The author (usually) knows everything that's going on in a story, and has to strike a balance between what is shared with the reader and what is withheld in order to create intrigue, suspense, and mysteryーa desire to keep going to "find out". I found myself wishing that you had been a little more generous to the readers, and not so much with the overarching plot elements themselves but with the information that fills out the commonplace world, which in Triptych is often masked behind a cloak of overwrought language, convoluted sentence structure, and haphazard breaks and bolds and italics that attempt to convey thought processes and subconciousness and clever asides. Sometimes it works quite well and other times it is extremely jarring.
As far as I know it was your first story on here, however, and your growth is highly noticeable throughout. The first half was rough (where I internally screamed a few times), the third quarter slightly better ("I've gotten this far and the story is interesting so better keep going"), and the last quarter more enjoyable. It deserves a bit of a rewrite, because it's a great story set in a fascinating universe. I'm glad I read it, and after reading A Tale of Land and Sky I'm super excited for another long sequel, if that's in the works.
I do have to mention that you wrote Discord's character extremely well in Triptych. Indeed, your character writing in general is excellent, making Triptych one of my very favorite portrayals of the Mane Six.
Your writing style is still flowery, but you've reached a good balance I think. I like flowery very much (within reason). Your latest story regarding salad spinners was highly enjoyable and I think my favorite stories of yours are actually the three about Filthy Rich, for some reason. They have a good tone and they paint his character so well, with all the right kind of teasing and whatnot (i.e. Ditsy Doo. I ship it btw). I only recently started reading your stuff but you've snagged me good and I will happily devour whatever you put out.
Well, if one feels compelled to harp upon another's work... could they at least use the shift key?
To be fair, there's times your writing tends to go on and on and on for a while when it doesn't need to, but it works for your style of storytelling.
Perhaps you should run a story through several different languages before translating it back to English and see what you wind up with, then see if anyone notices?
5159450
Nah, you're WarioWare: no individual bit makes sense, the full picture makes even less sense, and it's all fun enough that nobody really minds.
5159435
5159448
The Joyce comparison is apropos: a language mastered to the point where it loops back around to become unreadable once more. Or at least that's the apparent consensus on both; I don't have experience with either because when that's what the people who liked it think, I look elsewhere.
good job you can learn an English! -_^
Reminds me of a time a classmate made fun of me for using "old English" because I used the word "criticize" because "Nobody says y'all are criticizin' me anymore"
Perhaps it's ironic to say, as an honest opinion and with no intent to offend, the quoted probably just has a low reading comprehension level. I love your style, how the narration length and style compliments or contrasts the emotional weight to what its narrating. It's an absolute delight to read and really gets me immersed.
Of course that's my taste and my comprehensive ability talking, but there's a difference between "I don't like this/this is hard for me" and "you are doing it wrong." I can see how you might fall into the former - but the latter? Lol no.
If there's a pool you can put me in for Dunning-Kreuger.
Wow, just wow. I know our fandom is very spread out but this must be a troll. Yes you do on occasion go all sesquipedalian loquaciousness, but that is part of your writing styles charm.
5159450
Nah. More like "The Room".
Edit: I completely misread that comment.
~Skeeter The Lurker
Please don't ever dumb down your stories. In fact, if I were to be so bold, write a(nother) murder mystery. Explain nothing.
Seems kinda rude to me... they're gonna just assume you don't know how to write in a language that you obviously already wrote over a million words* in?
It's just odd. Almost condescending? I don't know if they were intending it that way but it's how it comes off.
*idk the real number, I'm too lazy to go check but it's close
5159429
We speak Murrikin 'round here, young'un.
Do us a favor and keep the German where it belongs; namely, in Korea, where the rest of the Zulu are.
thousand's
puu.sh/EHMWp.png
...Bruh
Americans are worse
At the time, this was the highest grossing musical in history
When Pygmalion (the original play) was written,
the idea that you could teach someone to act upper class was wildly controversial
5159461
I would suspect that many of us have been in similar circumstances.
My parents razz me about 'honeyed words,' which I had used in context now long forgotten, but was almost assuredly of a contemporary nature. (Or 'esteemed colleagues' in an email chain at work... There are many nice turns of phrase (and now I'm hearing Pinkie asking how you turn a phrase) that are extant, if underused.)
...They meant well.
Similar to what others have stated, this was probably a misguided, but in the writer’s mind reasonable, statement of belief that your writing was “unnecessarily verbose”.
I have seen this as an increasing trend where folks with a limited vocabulary decide that the people with a more expansive selection of available words are ‘the problem ‘. They have been indoctrinated by a social media environment which elevates volume and emotion over logic and considered thought. They come to distrust and ignore anything which requires more than a few key buzz words or catch phases to make its point... “If I can’t understand it then it must be either lies or an attempt to confuse me... probably both.” Nuance and subtlety are lost arts, firmly replaced by blatant bias and self righteous posturing. Expansive prose and considered conversation lost to an avalanche of semi mindless parroting supported by unjustifiable and undeserving arrogance.
Yes, I will admit that I am somewhat frustrated by a near endless supply of stupid masquerading as much of modern society.
5159448
Heh. Cute.
5159494
For those who aren't familiar with the term: I didn't come up with it.
The most common version of this particular Law reads "If you write anything criticizing editing or proofreading, there will be a fault of some kind in what you have written." There's some variations (and painful examples) at the linked page.
5159427
You are a more merciful God than I.
I mean, who really understands English? It's a confusing mess.
5159492
Tangential, the below is a series of excerpts from the preface to The Elements of Eloquence, which I believe every writer here should read in full at least once -- even if they don't fully comprehend it.
5159501
At least with that choice the blog doesn't break any site rules too!
5159452
Ok boomer
5159457
That was surprisingly praiseful. Thank you!
5159472
Because it was literally one click and a few keys away: over two million. So you were technically correct, but despite what you may have been told that's actually the worst kind of correct (and I'm reasonably sure that the writers of Futurama agree with me instead of the guy they had say that line.)
(For those playing at home, hit "Home" to get to the top of the page, click the "Stories" tab, hit "PgDn" a couple times (your keyboard may truncate it differently. Apologies, I have a bit of a vendetta against people who ask questions in a comment when they could have Googled it instead and this sort of thing is tangentially related.)
5159446
It's the second half of the last sentence of the book, which is essentially a solid brick of high lit trolling.
5159471
This. I am confident you could somehow make a character piece with deep personal revelations and comedic interludes from "X Mane Six character needs to poo", and the flowery language is part and parcel of that.
5159452 It may be flowery writing style but it attracts us butterfly readers, so shush while we're nectaring :)
5159492 I'm not sure “unnecessarily verbose” is too much of a thing, really. It's the style of the writer, after all. Frankenstein could be considered unnecessarily verbose, but if you went through it and condensed the story down, it would lose all of that delightful ambiance and flow. (thinks for a minute) Ok, The Princess Bride as it was written originally was certainly unnecessarily verbose, I'll give you that. It depends on *why* we're reading a story. Sometimes we like to amble down the country pathways, smelling the roses, watching Sun set under the horizon, and breathing in the Night as it expands through the darkening sky.
5159487 One of my top ten favorite movies, particularly since the male lead could not sing well, and much of his parts were rewritten to an octave I can carry. Or part of an octave.
5159473 5159460 In Computer Science at K-State, I had three primary professors I spent most of my time with: VanSway, Calhoon, and Ravidan (Ravi). VanSway was Dutch, and it took about one class period to get accustomed to his accent. Calhoon was MidWestern-ish, and had no real accent (but spoke very fast, so write notes like the wind), and Ravidan was Indian, and spoke with the Most Specific Enunciation Ever Possible With Every Single Word Pronounced Perfectly And Separate. Calhoon was the hardest to keep notes with. He was the only one that had the students huddle together after class to figure out just what had been taught (although mostly because he presented an *immense* amount of material). Ravi was a Godsend. Sometimes the hardest people to understand are the ones who speak your language like a native.
This is especially funny to me because at one point I asked Estee to be my editor.
5159539
Indeed, Ravidan and his ilk do it this way because they know they're at a disadvantage when it comes to clarity. That, and their learning of the language was probably more formal than native speakers who mostly picked it up via osmosis.
Whut?
Mind you, I'm the one who is still trying to work out what is supposed to be wrong with the early chapters of Triptych. I mean, if it was badly written I would never have gone beyond the first paragraph, let alone the first chapter.
5159539
Tbf most stuff written between 1850 and 1950 is unnecessarily verbose.
These are two sentences you want to hear from an editor, all right.
5159510
Personally, I find that a good dash of romance can help the rhetoric along quite nicely. People are much more likely to lend you their ear if they find that they actually enjoy your blather.
Thanks for the excerpt, I may have to go and find that book some time.
derpicdn.net/img/2014/5/3/616462/full.jpg
I don't get it, what this post even mean... English is not my first language, but I think that's not the point... Can anyone explain to me?