4865289
Ah. I thought Celestia's motivation was something along those lines. Good to know that was the case. I look forward to the Fimfiction version.

4865295
There's always realistic fiction. We're familiar with the world we live in. Hopefully.

4865341
Hmm… Okay, but that doesn't solve the characters' introduction. Anyway. 105 minifics based on realistic fiction? Frankly, I'm sceptic.

4865376
I agree, a mini-fic without established characters might be tricky... But on the other hand, you can introduce and define a character pretty quickly using tropes and archetypes...

"Heeeeeey baby! Did it hurt? When you fell outta heaven?" Kevin pointed his finger at the blonde sitting t the bar, miming as if he were shooting guns.

And with just a few short words, we know that Kevin is most likely a sleazy horndog. Who probably has too much grease in his hair and might very well be wearing a polyester leisure suit. We don't know any details about his life, or his history, or even much about his appearance... But we can probably fill in enough blanks for him to act as the protagonist in a (very) short story. Most likely about him getting shot down by the other patrons of the bar.

Just because you don't have the cast of MLP to work with doesn't mean that the human brain isn't already filled with a cast of characters, personalities, body types, and clichés that you can call upon at will.

4865376
You can find all sorts of published collections of extremely short fiction if you look. It's difficult to do well, but many have managed to do it successfully. It's not an unknown genre.

Lots of talented people in the WriteOff. I'm sure we'll be fine.

4866304
4866647
Well I hope I'm pessimistic. You're probably right: it can be done. I've got one or two ideas myself, though I'm not sure they'll work with the future prompt.

Anyhow, let's not judge a priori. We'll see what comes out of it.

Cycles Around a Watercooler

First of all, an apology. I said I'd do some reviews this round but this week and the past week I was stuck doing essays. This is also why this feedback is so late.

So what the heck, Jake? Why write something so... surreal?

See, I originally was going to write a completely different fic. One about Maud reflecting and narrating the series of events that led to her deciding to leave the farm and study rockology. I wanted a style similar to Kill a Mocking Bird... then realized it didn't work because the series of events only spanned a couple of days, not years.

So, with little time left and nothing to lose, I opted for something crazy.

The idea of Rainbow Dash stuck behind some dead end desk job really appeals to me. What happens to such a competitive, sports inclined person when they're stuck in a boring job? How do they feel about their life?

This fic does not explore such things.

It was based off theatre plays like Waiting for Godot, with the surroundings based off The Stanley Parable. Basically the idea was that Dash never actually left her office. There isn't a home for her because she's always spending her days doing the same job over and over, just like how in Waiting for Godot, the two main characters are just stuck in the same place, waiting for something that'll never come. I guess the main difference is that Dash doesn't realize what she's waiting for until Discord makes her think about it.

Originally the office was supposed to be a limbo in which all the characters were stuck in; Pinkie would be the first to realize this and escape, this triggering Dash's suspicions about her life. This was cut due to time constraints.

And Discord being a fish in a watercooler? I dunno. The imagery really appealed to me. His role in things was intentionally left vague, so the reader could decide and think over it.

4843868

The message behind my fic wasn't that suicide wasn't the answer to your problems. Gods no. But I can see how a reader could get that from the text. Like I said above, Rainbow never actually left the office, so her going through the window represented her escaping that world.

Perhaps it would've been clearer if she left through the door and actually stepped outside instead?

4843303

I can get the lack of tension, or character. With the latter, I could've written more, I reckon. On the former, I think it just goes with the weird, surreal territory it's in.

And no, I didn't read that last story. Whoopsie. These things happen, I guess.

4854528

I agree! Rainbow being forced to act professional is cute. Mostly because it's something she'd never do normally, so seeing her act that way is kinda refreshing. Let's us see another side to her, one that is capable of acting serious.

4847077

Fascinating was what I was going for, so yay for that!

The ending does suck though, I agree.

4845818

Pacing issues and lack of repetition with the cycles are due to me running out of time to finish the thing.

Suffice to say, I panicked.

4845830

I think it's less a lack of context and more a lack of consistency. Discord was the only far out wacky thing in there. I think if I included more subtle oddities, it'd feel more cohesive maybe? I'm not sure.

4844629

The ideas surrounding Discord and what he means to Dash are certainly ambigious. Luckily this was intentional.

4842408

This is what happens when I try to be deep, aye.

Never again.

Right, I've been putting this write-up off far too long. First of all, thanks everyone who liked The Jet Powered Pegasus, it's awesome to get another medal and I was kind of hoping things would turn out that way after reading the reviews. Congratulations to all the other finalists and particularly to horizon for the bitersweat Time Enough for Love. As a side anouncement, I'm currently a little short on pre-readers to get JPP polished up for FiM submission, so if anyone would like to help out do drop me a line. Don't worry, 99% of the errors have been fixed already but another pair of eyes is always apreciated

Anyway!

So, how many people spotted this was a sequel? I'm guessing very few because the prequel story was one of my lowest scoring Write-off stories. Still, If You Can't Win Cheat was written as the opening section to The Jet Powered Pegasus. I didn't end up writing anything off that original opening, but the idea of Scootaloo being unable to fly and building herself a jet powered suit has been dancing around my head for a while. I've been planning a novella in the same vein for a while but never really got started, but this story I think hits all the same notes and I'm very happy with it.

The write-off itself was rough this time around. You probably noticed quite a few errors, which is due to two factors. One, I just finished a long story in present tense, so that was clogging up my mind. Second, I had grand total of fifteen minutes to edit. Actually, time was a factor for the entire story. Due to prior comitments I only had Sunday to work on the story, and after I woke up, had breakfast and checked the clock, I realised that to hit my target length I'd have to write five hundred words an hour for the next twelve hours. So I did.

So that put me off writing for about two weeks, but I set a new personal best words in a day record. So swings and roundabout. Now to adress some specific comments.

4845728

I have to say this is one of the best stories I’ve read. Period. Wow.

Well that's always the reaction that I'm gunning for. Awesome to hear you enjoyed it so much, for all the editing flubs.

4847077

Huh. Given that pegasi can produce lightning on demand, I figured aluminum wouldn’t be a precious metal in Equestria.

The rule change doesn’t seem like the dealbreaker they’re making it out to be. After all, Scootaloo can attest to just how necessary this is. She can also attest to hard work and dedication. Really, given the engineering brilliance on display, she could probably turn Spitfire’s whole argument around on her. Speaking of, I’m amazed that Dash didn’t explain the situation to Spitfire. I’d think it would come up at some point, especially if Dash is seeing Soarin’.

While we’re on the subject, Scootaloo can’t be the only flight-impaired pegasus in the world. There’s definitely a market for her inventions, even if the racing circuit tries to legislate her out of the competition. This conflict doesn’t feel nearly as life-or-death as the story is trying to make me think it is.

Wait, if Spitfire’s representing Cloudsdale, why is Fleetfoot there? Heck, by that argument, what's Dash doing here?

Right, in order of which they occur. Aluminium, given Equestria's early-industrial tech I peg it as far more expesive than modern aluminum, but given magic's general ability to break the rules I peg it as mentally cheeper than pre-industrial Earth (ie kings ransom levels of expensive). So for Scootaloo, it's too expensive to just make her suit out of, but she can still aford a couple of kilo's for critical components.

The background to the race and its criticality to Scoots is all stuff that would have been built up in the novella, but a lot of stuff got cut for the write-off. I've added some more in the FiM version to clear things up somewhat. In short, Scootaloo is using the race to prove her suit works as much as anything else. Not telling Spitfire about her wings is all pride. Scootaloo's vice in the story is pride and hubris and she can't stand the idea of Spitfire doing anything because of pitty.

Spitfire is there representing Cloudsdale, Fleetfoot is there representing the Wonderbolts (who get a curtesy invite) and Rainbow is there by special invitation by the organisers (mostly because of her rivalry with Fleetfoot filling seats).

Holding it back, in my opinion: The plot elements feel like they don't wholly connect together (my best stab at a summary is: everyone seems to react realistically on-screen, but I cannot construct a narrative for this story in which the characters' stated goals and backstory actions managed to lead to the situation we see).

Yeah, the whole 'started life as a novela' is rather blatant in a few places, notably world building. With unlimited time there would have been a long build-up with Scootaloo building the suit, qualifying and increasingly butting heads with Spitfire. Alas, I had to skip to the end to find the wordcount so most of these are implied. The backstory stuff has been cleaned up a lot in the new version.

4843846

If there is a problem with this story, I think it’s Spitfire. Canon certainly says that she can be a jerk sometimes, and I can understand Scootaloo not wanting to talk about how she’s a cripple, but it still seems like she should have been able to figure out what was going on. You mention several times how small Scootaloo’s wings are, so that should probably be a hint, and she have easily heard something from Dash. But this is a small complaint at most.

Yeah, that was one of my concerns as well. Without the build-up just throwing Spitfire in and saying they have this antagonisim is asking for some suspension of disbelief. Though with regards to Scootaloo's wings, this is a world where Bulk competes in the Equestria games so wing size is apparently not all that important to an athlete.

4854009

Second, I think the ending needs a bit more space than the last two paragraphs to pull off the paradigmatic shift in Scootaloo's point of view. That much emotion shouldn't turn on a dime.

Totally agree with you. But it was way too late in the day for me to do that scene justice. Its fixed in the FiM version.

And thanks to everyone else who left a review:
4862614 4854528 4845818 4846471
4843249

For those interested, I've posted Rainbow Dash and Her Universe on Fimfiction. Thanks again to all who read it and gave feedback on it

With the next Writeoff just around the corner, I'd probably better hurry up and reply to peoples' comments on my story from the last one...

4843868
4845830
4854528
-- The filler. Oh, the filler. I felt so proud when I sat down and wrote the "core" of the story in one shot... and then I panicked when I realized it was only about 950 words. I ended up racing the clock, adding paragraphs and checking the word count and rinsing and repeating until I got it up to 2000. So, thank you for confirming my thought that a lot of that stuff needs to be pruned, and thank you for pointing-out that the beginning is a prime spot to begin the pruning.

4844577
4844818
-- I'm glad it worked for you guys. I think I need to make the ending hinge more on the offbeat-friendshipping-ness going on here. I knew that ending was lame when I wrote it, but it was the only thing I could come up with at the time...

4845730 -- No reply. Sorry. ...OK, in all seriousness, thank you for reading it, and I hope it worked for you. I'd be curious to at least know if it was something you'd thumb-up/thumb-down/not-thumb-at-all.

4847421 -- This was some of the most interesting feedback I received. I love your idea about doing a "How I Met Your Mother" sort of thing. I might have to try writing something like that. I don't know if I'll turn this story into that, though; I really wanted to write some goth pony. But you pointed out a number of other specific issues (repetitive sentence structures, lack of scene descriptions) that definitely need to be addressed, which is helpful indeed.

4851121 -- Your review made me smile. I was hoping someone would find this to be absurd, amusing, and sweet. I'll have to try strengthening the characters' voices and adding a bit more payoff at the end to combat its otherwise pointlessness.

Also: A special thank-you to 4845902 for adding that image of Moonlight Raven, which I felt provided the cover I needed to do a self-review. I evidently didn't fool everyone, but I straight-up didn't know how to take a shot at reviewing my own story, and that emboldened me to try.

Speaking of which: 4846505, you are doubtlessly sexy, correct on all points, and I would love to engage you in deeper conversation while taking a long walk on the beach sometime.

4880189
I thought the story was fine as-is, which is why I had no suggestions that might improve it.

Hey everyone. Just wanted to shout out that Jet Powered Pegasus is now live on FiMFiction! If you loved the story, but hated the editing, take a look and leave a like, it's much improved over the original and now has a much better ending.

Enjoy!

The Jet Powered Pegasus
Anything can fly with jet-engines, even Scootaloo. But with her debts mounting, and the rules changing on her, winning the Hearthwarming Derby is Scootaloo's only chance to keep her wings.