4854812
The neigh-canon from Journal of the Two Sisters depicts Star Swirl as kindly (the written books are pretty much canon, as the show has picked up facts from them after publication (like details about the Pie family) and not contradicted them). In the extended canon from the comics (which is far less canonical) depicts him as having a sense of humor and personality similar to Pinkie Pie. But independent of that, he seemed too cruel in your story to be celebrated in the manner in which he is in the cartoon.

You don't need to write the story with a happy ending, but you need to have a message behind the story you're trying to tell; which you obviously do, I just don't think it comes through properly due to the sympathetic, poverty-stricken child. If you'd made us empathize with Star Swirl instead of his student, it would have worked perfectly.

I agree there would be equilibrium at some point, but if the dome is going ten times slower than the outside world, either the temperature or pressure or both inside of it (or some geometric combination of the two by ideal gas law etc.) would be ten times higher. Either one of those would mean certain death. Consider the boundary: things that cross in always immediately slow down (lose temperature), so until the temperature/pressure is high enough it will continue to suck in air and motion faster than it pushes them out. Either way, I'd think a tiny proof-of-concept dome would be done first, so something like that must have been handled before the big one was constructed.

4854528
When you're confused about a story, definitely go back and read the old reviews.

What episode is that gif from?

4855084

As long as:

Discord's disquisition on energy and entropy didn't have too many glaring errors in it, I'll be happy. Getting the background details more or less right is an important part of suspending disbelief by its neck till it's dead, after all.

Mike

4855136
I honestly didn't look that closely, but if there was something obscenely incorrect I would have noticed. It's fairly far off into magic-territory, though, so I don't think disbelief will be an issue.

Welp, that's another Writeoff gone by. Hopefully, I can get some proper sleep this time around during my weekends. Congrats to all the finalists. I'll be reading stories whenever I can, as I've ironically risen from an all-nighter playing Fallout 4.

Also, I have a feeling this "Your primary language isn't English" thing is now picking up. Is this a meme? Is this a meme, guys? Are these memes?

Seriously, though, thanks to everyone who did reviews. I'll be looking at everything, really. I just hope I can drastically improve within the next three weeks. Looking back on it, I wish I had removed a lot from what had made into the finished product, but that's what I get for making it so I only have thirty minutes left to preread, huh?

4845830
And yeah, it's a lecture hall.

I hadn't imagined it exactly like picture related in the story, but it was pretty similar. The difference being that the chairs had foldable tops on them, like you would see in some theaters or airplanes so you can place things on top of them.

Usually Titanium Dragon jumps on this right after the finals are announced, but I'll step in.

Congratulations to our finalist stories:

1. Major Turbulence
6. Rainbow Dash and Her Universe
9. Sunset's Rest
10. This Happened Because Rarity Reads Too Much Chick Lit
11. On The Natural Rise and Fall of Celestial Bodies
13. Collapse Failure
14. Time Enough For Love
15. A Stitch
17. The Friendship Game
18. Recycled
20. Baggage
23. Status Quo
25. The Jet Powered Pegasus
26. Unwelcome
35. The Time of Their Lives

And our 15 finalist authors:

Bachiavellian
billymorph
Cold in Gardez
FanOfMostEverything
FrontSevens
georg
HoofBitingActionOverload
horizon
Oroboro
TheCyanRecluse
theigi
Thornwing
Trick_Question
Whitbane
Winston

What now?

If you're in the finals, stay anonymous; if not, you can claim your story, respond to discussions (as many authors are already doing above), publish it to FIMFic, etc.

If you click on the "Voting" button at writeoff.me you'll notice that you've been given a new slate of finalists. Every participant (and the public!) is perfectly welcome to keep reading, rating and reviewing -- and these are the 15 stories that your fellow participants have appreciated the most, so your reading experience is likely to be more powerful.

If you edit and publish your story to FIMFiction, don't forget to add it to the "Out of Time" folder of the Writeoff group! Everyone who has participated in a Writeoff should have permissions to do so; if not, bug me over at the "Become a Contributor!" thread.

4855110
Now that you point that out, it strikes me that a story about using time-slowing effects to create a livable colony on a cold, thin-atmosphered planet (Mars, the Moon, etc) would be kinda cool. Imagine the social effects. Someone born in the colony could grow up, live a full life, and die, and back home they were outlived by their father's pet kitten.

4854828 4854820
I, uh, think there's some missing context here: Doseux wrote Twilight Renaissance, in which Twilight kills almost everyone.

Still, not great timing. <.<;

4855277
I'm sure that's been done, but the most obvious twist is that the technology in the bubble would surpass that of the outside world very rapidly. I think you can see where that leads...

4855135

I did, and my understanding was pretty much on-track. Reading other reviews did help to make things more clear and concrete.

The episode is Spike at Your Service, when Applejack came to let Twilight know what Spike has been up to.

Now that I'm reading through all the finalists, I just realized something:

I cannot shake the headcanon that Time Enough For Love and Baggage are set in the same continuity ... and that idea is making me like both stories better, and I have absolutely no idea how -- or even if -- my voting should compensate for that.

4855110
Never read The Journal of the Two Sisters. I don’t read official pony fiction. But nevertheless, I claim the right to limn a grouchy, stern Star Swirl if I so desire! Besides, our depictions are not contradictory. You're very friendly here, but how do you behave in front of an unruly student?

On the second point, I might intersperse a scene depicting Nightshade’s parents arriving in Manehattan and being shocked to see that her daughter has become uppity with an over-bloated ego. I was probably too curt here, because—I said it—I wanted the story to be fast paced and action packed.

On the last point, I need to rehearse my thermodynamics. E = 3/2 kT and P ~ E is really almost all that I remember of statistical thermodynamics. So, answer deferred, miss egghead

Congratulations to the finalists!

One-Two-Zero.

Yeah, I wrote it. Worst. Title. Ever.

I learned several things from writing this, mostly that rush-jobs suck, first drafts suck, rushed first drafts suck more, and I still have no idea what I’m doing.

I spent WAY too much time potting out the story and trying to get my ideas organized. Speed comes with practice, though. Right? It was probably the thing that enabled me to finish on time, though.

That said, this one seems salvageable. The idea is interesting, I kinda like some of the world-building (such as it can be called. . . ), and “ponies in tanks” is an awesome mental image (which is kind of the whole reason I wrote the story in the first place). I’ve definitely got a lot of work before I can hit ‘submit’, though.

Many thanks to the folks who gave it a (head?)shot. Speaking of which:

4848191 (Alaborn)

Are you "DJG", by any chance? Because this only review that's not linked on the spreadsheet.

Unfortunately, the world thus created is one I don't buy. My personal feeling is that magical ponies would adopt technology created elsewhere and make it better, and not preserve centuries-old technology. (That also bothered me about Harry Potter.)

My reasoning was a combination of "they've already solved their problems, or so they think" and the fact that there are examples of communities being conservative about the adoption of advanced technologies in real life, such as the Amish.

It's not that Equestria shuns technology, like Harry Potter's wizarding world does, but that they simply see no need for most of it, or they didn't, until Tirek made it necessary.

YMMV, of course.

4849884 (Baal Bunny)

My first piece of advice: lose the prologue. Start right in with Little Red's escape from Fillydelphia and trust the reader to pick up on the AU that's happening.

It was half filler so I could make the word count, half I-had-no-other-ideas, so that’s not going to be a problem.

I also agree with some other folks that the final victory seems to come mighty quickly.

I had plans, but not the time.

I'd say keep the focus tight on Red but expand it out: give us more about his training, more about the Occident, more about the battle--and it's OK to call them "tanks" since Dash's pet is named that--just more in general.

That’s basically the plan. I’m going to gut and re-write it.

4844115 (CoffeeMinion)

If I had to describe this in a word, that word would be "enjoyable." It feels a little less polished than some other stories on my slate, but it's still worth the read. Overall it's the kind of story that I probably wouldn't fave, but that would make me click on the author's page, examine their other works, and consider giving a follow.

Thank you!

The narrative style is quick and event-driven, as opposed to focusing on the characters. This feels appropriate, given that this is kind of a WW2-ish sort of alternate-history tale. I also loved the descriptions of the antagonists, and the way our heroes reacted to them.

I’m glad the 1940’s vibe managed to come through, that was the basis of the entire Occident.

The golems were one of my favorite things to write.

The pacing was a big issue for me, though. It flows pretty well until about the 2/3 mark. Given the nature of the climactic struggle at the end, and the author's clear ability to describe things in an interesting fashion, I was expecting a pretty badass "boss fight" sort of thing. And while I think the author's trying to deliver that, what comes out on the page feels so rushed that I could only sit, staring, wishing for more, and regretting what might have been.

I feel like I’m going to be saying this a lot, but I had plans. But I ran out of time to implement them.

Dear author: Please revise that ending and post this when the Writeoff's over!

I intend to revise a lot more than that, but that’s the plan.

4854528 (Everyday)

I’m quickly seeing missing words. A mindful editing pass would be recommended.

Yeah, those made me cringe.

There’s a lot of (what I believe is referred to as) passive voice in this. To put it another way, the point of the sentence is being left to the end.

“Like everyone else, [point of the sentence].” “Like others, [here’s the point].” “And like others, [this is what’s actually important].”

I'll make sure to look out for that in the future.

Now, I recognize the point of the repetition, but I think the repetition would be more impactful if it were placed at the end of the sentence. As it is now, it’s mostly just distracting.

I'm honestly not sure how I'd go about it differently.

If the Occident lies to Equestria’s east, wouldn’t that make Equestria the Occident, and what is being referred to as the Occident the Orient?

I needed a name for a Europe-expy and I couldn't think of a good horse-pun. My reasoning was that Europe is to the east of the Americas, but it's still "western". There is an Orient, to satisfy the Rule of Three, but I couldn't fit them in in this draft.

This seems to contradict itself.

I suspect that's an error on my part. I did as much research on military radio protocol as I could, but I couldn't seem to find anything dealing with reporting multiple types of enemy and this was the best I could think of.

If the Twos, allegedly based on unicorns, did not have magic before, by what virtue were they based on unicorns? Pointy-things on top of their faceless heads?

That's an error on my part somewhere, I think; they did have magic. Tirek replaced them because he'd come up with something more powerful, which is what the heroes ended up facing.

Okay, for all of the holes I’ve been poking in this, it’s not bad. The language paints an effective picture, overall.

I'm glad it's not a total train wreck, at least.

4847077 (FanOfMostEverything)

I have to ask, how big is Equestria? Going by analogous geography, being able to see a fight in Ponyville from Fillydelphia is like being able to see a fight in Kansas from Pennsylania.

I superimposed DBZ explosions on the canon map and guesstimated. I probably shouldn’t have.

I understand why the viewpoint character wouldn’t know why Twilight lost, but the question still hangs in the air for the entire story.

That’s a detail I didn’t know how to fit in in the time I had.

I’m guessing the “barrel” is a tank, but I don’t really have a good sense of it.

I used ‘barrel’ because calling it a tank in story didn’t feel quite right. .

The ending just feels unsatisfying.

I wanted to do more, but I ran out of time.

An interesting concept, but a disappointing execution.

But salvageable, I think.

4847526 (FrontSevens)

You know, the idea behind this is okay. I like what the first scene lays out, that Equestria has built up all this magic and made it too easy for Tirek to take over. That’s a clever idea.

Thanks!

However, I don’t like this one.

Ouch.

The first third of this feels infodumpy.

I couldn’t think of any other way to introduce the AU at the time.

There was lot of buildup for a fight with Tirek where the fight was pretty short, making the end not all that triumphant to me.

I had more planned, but ran out of time to write it.

I wasn’t all that engaged with what was going on.

Ouch.

The military technobabble lost me.

Sorry.

Red seems kind of generic, also leaning towards being a Mary Sue, in that he’s a scholar and is the only one to think to run from Tirek but also somehow able to pass the “brutal” training—because he’s also a Royal Guard.

That’s what happens when you write a character without thinking, I guess. On that last, though, the intention was that he was recognized as not being a Germane soldier, even though he’d been trained by them. That’s an error on my part.

This could work as a longer story, maybe, but it doesn’t stand out to me as is.

That seems to be the general consensus.

4844629 (JonOfEquestria)

I'm on board with that, but it doesn't leave much conflict there.

In the story in general or in regards to the “boss fight”?

The hint that perhaps the story is about something else comes only at the end - the suggestion that the newly victorious ponies might consider not rebuilding along their prior lines, but along the more proven success of the Occident, and not worry too much about rescuing Celestia, Luna and Twi et al until a bit later.

That never even crossed my mind when I was writing, but I like it. I like it a lot. I’m going to take that ball and run with it.

Well... I'm actually okay with that. Certainly, it could be interestingly explored in a longer story.

I intend to explore it, or try to, at least.

I like it, on the whole.

Thanks!

4842408 (The Letter J)

If there’s any complaint I had about this story, it’s that it was so short. This story seemed like it should have been a few thousands words longer, if not a multi-chapter epic.

I intend to fix that.

This is going in the “I love it category.”

Thank you!

4845730 (Trick Question)

It might be better with one final line from the protagonist's perspective; having the last two paragraphs be quotes from the side character is less compelling. I have no other suggestions.

I'll make sure to keep that mind.

4855442

...implying Smashy-Frumpy-story isn't already at the top of your sheet

Ahem, so....

Writer's Block

Yes. I'm well aware of paragraph formatting. That was a case of 'When I was finishing, my internet went down. I managed to tether my phone, re-finish it, and then was frantically trying to format it on the WriteOff site when time hit.

At least I managed to get the italics in. But yea, paragraph breaks got nailed by a fluke of connectivity and lack of time to fix them.

As for story itself? I agree, Antiquity doesn't feel like Daring Do - but she's not really meant to, either. I see Antiquity as the 'young' A.K. Yearling, before she became reclusive and 'I work alone!' and so on. So she's more open than Daring. She's not yet Pulpy in personality because that's Daring, so was likely an impulse on her first real adventure.

This also suffered a bit as it would have been better as a minific in some ways. The original plan was 'Daring needs money fast, she submits something to a magazine as short fiction, never knowing it'll take off as much as it does' and show how AK Yearling came to be, in a way.

Only I realized way more, so I switched it to 'How Daring came to be', of a sort, though it's short on that bit as well. It needs more expansion, and for me to decide one way or another on if she has any kind of tragic backstory though I am leaning towards no.

4855484

You're very friendly here, but how do you behave in front of an unruly student?

I'm even friendlier, because figuring out how to reach such a student is my job (and I love my job).

That said, she wasn't an unruly student. She was extremely talented, polite, thorough, patient, deferent, a model researcher, driven, compassionate toward her family, considerate of others, and she and her parents lived in abject poverty even though this shouldn't have been necessary for someone of her station. She made a single careless mistake. Star Swirl came off as being jealous and mean (though this was in my mind, others may vary).

But none of this should make us lose sight of the fact that you wrote a good story that has great potential!

4854711
I was under the impression that JonofEquestria watched it too.

But yeah, I do watch it (both willing and not willingly) and I loved how it read exactly like how an episode would be shown; it was great use of present tense. And it was absolutely genius to pair up Joe and Rarity. It could have been one of those hit and miss stories, but it was a hit for me! There was just a bunch to love about it (too much to name) and it made my day. Now time to force my sister to read your story. Again, even if you didn't make the finals, it was a great story. (Dare I say that it was the best most creative prompt usage too?)

Edit: Never mind , I dislike the word 'best'.

Hey friendos. Another Writeoff, another review roundup.

So, I wrote Twilight Sparkle's Round (OR: the Three Deaths). I apologize.

I got the idea for this a few minutes after the prompt dropped. Well, I guess that's not exactly accurate; I got the idea for the opening line before anything else.

The first time Celestia died, she screamed.

I still think that's an awesome opening line. In my original plan, the story was—obviously—going to be about Celestia, not Twilight. The first time she died was during her first conflict with Tirek, millenia ago. The second would be the obvious:
And the third would be some unspecified time afterward; I wasn't sure when. Eventually, I decided that I wanted to change it to Twilight. I can't remember my reasoning.

I knew as soon as I submitted this that it wasn't making finals. It's confusing as hell, it's boring as hell, and makes no sense. Seriously, I'm not even sure I have the entire thing figured out. The penultimate scene, where Atman explains that Three Deaths—that entire scene is the product of me taking a walk at 3 AM and trying to explain to myself how the fuck the system could possibly work. That scene is my trying to organize my thoughts. I had a big debate with myself over whether I should explain it in the story or not—the original ending would just be Atman letting Twilight die for good without any explanation.

Another big plot point that I ended up removing had to do with what Atman is... he is. Originally, as Twilight faded away, Atman was to leave with her three words: "Twilight, you are."
The implication was that the universe is only inhabited by one singular soul, and that singular soul lives out the lives of every creature in the universe. Atman is, just as Twilight is. They're the same soul, but in different containers. But I decided that was too confusing, so I largely dropped it.

It surprised me that no one who reviewed knew what "Atman" was before reading. If you didn't read or didn't care, Atman is a word in Hinduism meaning the manifestation of Brahman (the absolute creator of the universe) in a human form. In Hinduism, it literally means 'self', and in Buddhism, it refers to the 'essential self.' By the time a being obtains Moksha (kinda like nirvana), it's expected that they realize that their true self, or Atman, is identical to the supreme Brahman.

The entire reasoning behind the Three Deaths in this story is identical to the theological backing behind reincarnation in Hinduism. Hindus also believe that since we are but manifestations of Brahman, we also share from a singular pot of luck. If a six year old girl is murdered by her father, that's okay, because in her next life she will be luckier. That's how Hindu karma works, and that's how Hindu reincarnation works. If you read the ancient Hindu text the Bhagavad Gita, there's even a section where it's argued that death does not matter, as we will simply be born again. Of course, the natural argument against this is just what Twilight's argument was here: if you truly believe that luck carries over, and hardship will merely be rewarded in another life, you necessarily discount individualism, and run the risk of ignoring current problems.

So, in a sense, this fic was kinda like a screed against Hinduism. Sorry to any Hindu readers.

This piece had a lot of problems—as one reviewer points out, it seems more like an intro to the idea of the Three Deaths than an actual story—but I had a lot of fun writing it. Also, I'm still in love with my opening and ending lines.

4845818 (FrontSevens)
Very true on it being a vehicle. I'm glad you got some inklings of maybe interest out of it? Sorry it couldn't really stick, though. Thanks for reading.

4845730 (Trick Question)
I disagree with your comment about the dual title, for the sole reason that I love "OR:" dual titles.
Also, you seem to be assuming that the last scene is showing us Taproot's Round. There are at least two other ponies in the room...
Not sure I get what you mean about Twilight being out of character. She's being forced to sit down and have tea with someone she's quickly realizing is implicitly responsible for thousands upon thousands of deaths every day. And even worse than that, as everyone around her dies, she's kept alive. I think that would make anyone pretty angry, and especially Twilight, who is concerned with fairness and equity above most all else.
I agree with most everything else. Again, the concept I came up with confuses me just as much as anybody. Hindu reincarnation principles are pretty clear—I mean, theologians have been studying them for thousands of years—but the Three Deaths thing is all my own, and it requires some rather convoluted logic to make sense. I actually could answer every single one of your questions, but it'd be boring and confusing and weird.
Thanks for reading!

4846471 (HoofBitingActionOverload)
Heh, I hear you. Although the difference here, I think, is that by the second death Twilight is pretty much blase about dying; it's everybody else that she's mad about. A big part of Twilight complaint is that by being kept alive, she's receiving unfair treatment.
I'm glad you enjoyed it. Thanks for reading! And also please don't be mad that I haven't responded to your PM yet—I've been busy as hell lately, and need time to sit down and write out a response :V

4844740 (FanOfMostEverything)
You know, I really don't agree about the punctuation for the dual title. I've looked at it both ways, and I think using just a comma makes the entire thing look muddled.
You're the only person to know what Atman was, even if you had to look it up. Good job on that.
Agreed with everything else.
Thanks for reading.

4849884 (Baal Bunny)
Agreed. Sorry you couldn't enjoy. Thanks for reading.

This marks the second Short-Story Writeoff in a row where I wrote a ponified version of some theological concept. Last time it was Christian redemption, and now it's Hindu reincarnation. What's next? Scientologist auditing? Twilight Sparkle Gets Her Thetan Levels Checked...

4855521

However, I don’t like this one.

Ouch.

I wasn’t all that engaged with what was going on.

Ouch.

Welp, those were my honest reactions. If you feel I'm being too harsh or insensitive, please let me know. I want my reviews to come across as respectful.

4855706

I did get inklings of maybe interest in it :P I liked some of the things you did with the dialogue, and Atman's and Twilight's dynamics with each other (made for some good comedy!), and some of the mechanics of Rounds and such, but again, it was a bit too dense for me in that respect.

And, really, in general, there are entries that I say I don't like or wasn't engaged in (see above), but that doesn't mean I hated reading them or thought it was a waste of my time. I like reading good stories to try to figure out why they're good, and I like reading not-so-good stories to practice nailing down what I didn't like about them and learn, so I can apply what I've learned to my own writing. I benefit either way. :P

4855876

It was fine. More like me not knowing how to respond, but feeling like I needed to.

I'm still trying to figure out this whole "actually getting feedback on the stuff I write" thing. It's nice, but I feel like a headless chicken at times.

Was it inappropriate?

4855926

"Ouch" is something people usually say when, well, they're hurt. I just wanted to make sure I hadn't insulted you, either by what I said or how I said it.

Knowing how to take feedback is a skill, one that I've learned a fair amount by experience and some articles on the subject. People on this site write blogs about this kind of thing, so if you're looking to learn how to receive criticism, a blog search might help, as might a good ol' Google search :)

I would like to thank the ponies who tolerated my fic, Writing. I write for fun, and the fic I submitted for this contest thingie was fun to write indeedy. It was kind of a self-insert though because I couldn't think of what to write, and then I decided to write a story about not being able to write a story.

4855991
Don't worry, you're not alone.

Two short story Writeoffs ago, for the prompt "A Matter of Perspective," I wrote Home, Sweet Home, a fic about Twilight Sparkle struggling to put together an entry for a prestigious writing competition. It was, in a few different ways, a retread of another fic I wrote for the January minific Writeoff, Protracted Thoughts, which was also about Twilight in a Writeoff.

One short story Writeoff ago, for the prompt "Distant Shores," Majin Syeekoh wrote You're Better Than You Think You Are, a fic about Rainbow Dash struggling to write under a prompt.

And then, of course, there's HoofBitingActionOverload's Start Recursion, probably my favorite Writeoff entry of all time, which is about an author writing a a ponyfic...

Some philosophers argue that originality doesn't exist—but that's okay. We'll keep writing, regardless.

Hello Everyone. If you have not guessed already I am the author of Brothers. The story is something I wanted to contribute to this writeoff because I felt it was most appropriate. I wanted to create a story that people can get to know and understand what goes on in a soldiers head and what they have to do when they have to care for a child. I thought I would do well but I guess that is not in case with the finalists.

4845730 I understand with using french can make things a little challenging. I didn't know what to go with so I just typed the words on google and translated it and that's what I got. Next time I can ask someone who speaks french to help get the language barrier down. Anyway, I will take your words to heart and get this all sorted with the scenes and hopefully this story will be a good piece.

4847497 I see what you try to get at. I will be adding more information to the beginning and setting up the story for the justification of the war and why the two brothers fight. Also, my intention for the two brothers are actually two friends who work together throughout and the story. I can make the few changes to make it that they are friends but brothers could also work out. Do let me know if you think if they should be brothers.

4845730 I see that I have my work cut out for me. I would have to cut a bunch of things that I do like even if others find see it differently. I'll see what I can do then.

4842835 I'm going to be working on the scenes a bit more, create more urgency, and make it more interesting for the intended reader.

4844577 I see what you mean here. I'm going to work in trying to find a perfect balance that can make the story stand out more and show the urgency for the characters and the gritty reality that they face, which is quite hard to due when making a story unless done right.

Thank you guys for all reviews and your words to help guide this story along. I will try to get the story out to some editors, either here or on another group page, and see if the story can be fleshed out and made better, probably after the write off is over.

Also I will try to do some reviews for the finalist since I haven't been able to due the other stories I was given. Talk to you all later.

~Broman

4855664
Looking back at my reviews (for the retrospective that should be coming soon), I see that you are right. But unlike Jon, you are actually in my target audience of "people who are fans of both MLP and MasterChef." It looks like Alaborn is actually in that group too, but I forgot about him because he didn't shower me with praise.

4855639
Thanks for the story!

Interesting what you write. I was chitchatting with a friend about Snowdrop. She is blind, and that spontaneously elicits sympathy. But somebody could portray an impish or even boisterous/rambustious/unruly/rebel/etc. Snowdrop, in other words give her one or more traits that would clash with the empathy we all feel. I wonder how such a story would be received.

4855521
'In the story in general or in regards to the “boss fight”?'

Ah, both, I think? Defeating Tirek is both made easy, and unambiguously the right thing to do. There's no moment when the main character considers they might have the wrong aim or the wrong method. They don't doubt, which means they can't triumph. I think the story is a stronger exploration if their philosophy is challenged, and they either embrace or reject that challenge. I'm looking forward to reading the extended version!

4856359
I would've showered you with molten chocolate soufflé but it collapsed.

Time is an Important Ingredient
First of all, I am sorry that this retrospective is so long. But I would really appreciate it if you at least read to the first horizontal rule, and whatever reply I have to your comment beneath it. (And you might want to read the little bit after the horizontal rule at the end too, for a bit more fun.)

Second, I appreciate all of the reviews that I received. Thank you for reading my story and giving it a shot. However, I think that a lot of your complaints with the story are, to be blunt, wrong. Obviously the story wasn’t perfect, and there were a few good and helpful criticisms scattered throughout. However, I think you all missed the only real problem:

Almost none of you are the intended audience.

The story was a crossover with MasterChef. Specifically, the US version of the show. (I’ve heard good things about other countries’ versions, and they’re probably pretty similar, but that’s the only version I am familiar with.) I tried to make this as clear as possible so that people who weren’t familiar with the show could figure out what was going on. (That’s part of the reason why I didn’t ponify the name “MasterChef.” (The other part of the reason is that I couldn’t think of a decent pun.)) But in the end, I knew that the story would never be able to overcome what is probably the biggest problem for most crossovers: readers need to be familiar with both source materials to get the most out of it.

I knew while writing the story that this would be a problem, and that there was basically no chance that it would get very far. I realize that it probably wasn’t a good idea to write a story like this for a competition, but I like how it turned out, so I don’t particularly care.

The other (lesser) problem the story had was that I didn’t actually have time to write it until the last day, because I spent most of the first two days tied up trying to finish some labs for my engineering classes. It probably would have turned out a bit better if I had had those two days for writing. I also might have been able to come up with an idea with more widespread appeal, but again, I like how this story turned out, so I don’t particularly care.

So what was I going for, and what was my thought process?
I love a good feghoot, and I’ve wanted to write one for a while. So, when I came up with that pun, I knew I had to use it. I initially considered just writing about some generic Ponyville cooking contest, or something like that, but it wasn’t really working for me. Then the idea to put them in MasterChef came to me, and once I had pony/sheep puns for the judges’ names, there was no turning back.
I wanted to make the story feel like a TV show. That’s why there was the introduction and I used the present tense (which is something I don’t think I’ve ever done before.)

So what could have actually been fixed? (And what will I be changing when I publish this, because this one actually has a good chance of making it onto Fimfiction, which would be a first for me.)
* That bit at the end where I forgot to put quotation marks around a line of dialogue. A few people mentioned this one, and I’m not sure how I missed it, because I actually had time to read through and edit this one. If I recall correctly, this sort of thing was actually giving me an unusual amount trouble while writing. I guess I was having a bit of an off day.
* More characters. My outline for the story included Trixie, Doctor Hooves, and Cheese Sandwich participating with the rest of the characters. But I was running out of time, so I left them out. Which is a shame, because I had some good ideas for them. (And Doctor Hooves might have been another red herring for how I was using the prompt.)
* More action tags. When I’m not being careful, my writing tends to drift towards becoming either all dialogue or no dialogue. In this case, it was the former, but I was mostly okay with that because the dialogue was more important here.
* More TV show-like. I would have liked to intersperse some mini interviews/comments from the contestants like the show does. I did a bit of it with the quote boxes in the introductions, but I wanted to do more. Unfortunately, I couldn’t really figure out a good way to make them fit. I also wanted to try tossing in a commercial break or two. (“Walmare: we have only the best food available. No, really. Why are you laughing?”)

Now for replies to my wonderful reviewers.

4842868 (Minds Eye)

This story turns the prompt into a parody of reality TV cooking shows. While I got a kick out of the idea, there's sloppy execution throughout that holds it back.
We start off with a large section of italics and quote boxes meant to simulate the opening narration of the episode. While it does achieve that effect, it raises some issues. First, the characters that are competing aren't ever named, only given quote boxes to introduce themselves. Like this:

I am the Great and Powerful—

Iron Will is a self-help guru!

Those two are obvious and all well and good, but there are also more vague entries like a retired Wonderbolt and a Royal Guard. There are no real character traits in those two blurbs to let the audience know who they are.
Worse, when the narration ends and the "show" begins, the seven competitors are Spike, Derpy, and the Mane Six sans Twilight. All four of the specific entries I listed above don't actually appear in the story. I don't know if this was an honest mistake, an intentional bait and switch, or suggesting Trixie and Iron Will competed in a previous episode. In the end, all it meant was that I had no idea what characters I was going to be reading about, or why the ones I ended up reading were actually there.

Okay, I can see how this could be confusing, but I did all I could to make it clear what was going on. This was supposed to be just one of several audition episodes in different cities, and best cooks in each of those episodes would get to move on to compete in the real competition.* Like you guessed, Trixie and Iron Will auditioned in other locations (though I did originally plan for Trixie to be in Ponyville). The other two weren’t meant to be anypony in particular. Why wouldn’t we see some unfamiliar faces in a national competition? I just needed a few professions to throw out there.

*For the curious, real life MasterChef does do something kind of like this, but they don’t show it. The first episode usually starts with the field narrowed down to about 100 cooks who compete for a few dozen spots. They also tend to audition individually, but I made it look more like a later episode because the story works better that way.

Like all competition shows, this story has three judges. Full disclosure, the only one I recognized was Gordon Ram standing in for Gordon Ramsay, but I gather the other two judges were also puns on other TV chefs.

Yes, the other two are Graham Elliot and and Joe Bastianich, who are Ramsay’s fellow judges on the US version of MasterChef (well, until the most recent season, when Joe got replaced, but I felt that I knew his character better than that of his replacement).

The three of them share in some stock reality TV banter through the whole story ("Do you want to go home?" "Are you just a one-trick pony?" "Who looks promising?") which made them all blend together. Except for Rarity complimenting Joe on his fashion and Fluttershy asking if Elliot was the nice judge, I saw nothing that made them three distinct personalities.

I tried my best to give them distinct personalities, but they didn’t really give me much to work with. At least not much that I could show in this particular setting. But I think anyone familiar with MasterChef would think that I was true to their characters.

The seven competitors were pretty basic. They all get introduced as one of the judges visits their cooking station, and there are no surprises. Pinkie Pie made her chimicherrychanga and says the silly word as often as she can. Applejack cooked with apples. Derpy made muffins. Fluttershy hides herself from the judges' criticism as much as possible. My biggest issue with these scenes is that there is a great deal of dialogue with only one or two action tags to break the monotony. There's so little space devoted to each scene, there's almost no time to show more than surface traits for each character. Rainbow Dash is confidant in spite of her subpar preparation, move on. Rarity is being fancy, move on.

The lack of action tags is a valid criticism that I addressed above. As for the rest of it, this is actually pretty true to MasterChef. The only differences are that MasterChef would have only shown a few of the most interesting contestants, and that they would have cutaway to interviews with the contestants. As I mentioned above, I would have liked to do that too, but it just wasn’t working for me.

I wonder if the author just tried to use too many characters? With seven scenes visiting the seven stations and then seven dishes presented at the end for seven judgements, it all has a rushed and crammed in feel to it.

I suppose this is a valid point, but I’m not sure there’s much to do about it. As it is, only having seven contestants is pretty unrealistic for the premise, though I did lampshade that a bit.

There's also a paragraph which is missing a set of quotation marks:

Yes, I mentioned that above too.

In spite of all this, I left the story with a smile on my face. Rainbow's explanation of what happened to her dish made me chuckle, and the pun at the end was glorious. Simply glorious. I'm ashamed I didn't think of it myself. While this story won't be high on my ballot, I got a genuine laugh out of it. So thank you for that.

I am very glad that you enjoyed it, even though you didn’t completely understand what I was doing.

4844629 (JonOfEquestria)

How did you do that formatting with the table-like boxes!?! Inquiring minds wish to know. Also, how did you know it would work? Is there a 'preview' button I've been overlooking.

You use quote tags, just like on Fimfiction. There’s a style guide here. It’s a bit hard to find, but there’s a link to it on the story submission page when submissions are open. And to preview a story, submit it, click on your username at the top of the screen, and click the story’s name in the list of your stories. You can then edit (or delete) it with the little buttons on that same list.

Also, it's a story. Based on MasterChef, one of my wife's favourite television programs (and my personal bane, as I'm asked to make the recipes, because 'you like cooking'. You know what I was given last Christmas? Vouchers for a cookery course! Go on the course yourself and make the present, say, vouchers for a certain number of days when I don't have to cook. But no, she thought I'd enjoy it! And... I did.

This amuses me. And I am glad to have a reader who is familiar with MasterChef, even if you don’t like it.
My problem is actually almost the opposite of yours. Both my wife and I enjoy MasterChef, and I have tried making a few things I’ve seen on it. But she has an...interesting palate, so she doesn’t like most of what I make.

I also quite enjoyed the story - I didn't laugh out loud until Rarity promised perfection on a plate. Really, Rarity? I knew what would happen next. I was wrong, and in some ways, that's funnier, because I got my imagined punchline - Rarity can't cook, hah-hah - and the real punchline, which was, in Rarity's hooves and from her lips, utterly hilarious..

I am very glad that you enjoyed it!

I was, briefly, annoyed with the idea that the judges would reprimand Spike's dish because they couldn't eat it - it just runs against the conceit of the story, which is MasterChef in Equestria - but that is a minor, minor quibble.

Well, there is exactly one civilized dragon in Equestria, as far as we know. There’s no reason for them to know that dragons eat gems. And even if they did know, I don’t know why they shouldn’t expect Spike to feed them food that they’re capable of eating. If they let him cook food that no one else could properly eat, they would only be able to take his word for how it tastes, and that wouldn’t be fair.
And the whole point of being a professional cook is to make food for other people to eat.

4844740 (FanOfMostEverything)

You’re nowhere near the word limit. You have no excuse for not putting spaces in the phrase “Master Chef.” This is not how to get a Writeoff apron.
EDIT: Scratch that. JonOfEquestria made it clear that the fault lies with the BBC. Still, such is the peril of crossovers, especially in this format.

Thank you, 4844796, for taking care of this for me. I actually made sure to check this when I was writing, and not only is the name of the show “MasterChef,” but they also seem to always write it like that when they say things like “become the world’s next MasterChef.”

In any case, the premise is kind of weak and I have no idea what the judges look like, but the writing and humor are solid for the most part.

I did consider trying to describe the judges, but I wasn’t really sure how to, and it didn’t seem too important. Their names alone should have made their species clear, and that was all that was important to me. Maybe I’ll try to take care of this when I publish it.

4846185 (CoffeeMinion)

This story had a rough opening. I’m guessing it references a show I have only ever watched incidentally while flipping channels. It was manageable, but it made me fear the rest of the story would be written similarly.

This is why this story isn’t really for people who aren’t familiar with MasterChef. That opening was heavily inspired by the opening in the first episode of one of the seasons.

I was pleased to find this wasn’t the case. Once it gets going, the story proceeds through a series of entertaining and generally well-written vignettes that seem to build toward a competition that stands to be won. However, if I may spoil the ending for the sake of being able to provide meaningful feedback, that doesn't end up happening. What we get instead is a feghoot.
Now, I don't want to dump on feghoots categorically. When a feghoot uses its status as such to carefully build toward the closing joke, it can end up being enjoyable in its groan-worthiness. However, I didn't ultimately feel that was the case here. The joke still made me groan, but I feel like it could have done that with a lot less story standing in the way. And the bigger issue is that it just came out of nowhere right at the moment when I was expecting a winner to emerge.
I guess both the good and bad of this story is that, by the end, it had succeeded in piquing my curiosity about who would win the competition. The fact that it veered off in a different direction at the last possible second was a genuine disappointment. Maybe that’s as much my problem as the author’s, but I can’t escape the thought that if someone had won the competition, or if the closing joke had been tied more strongly to the rest of the story, I would have felt a lot more satisfied. But then, if the story’s structure had relied less on a series of vignettes, I might have put less focus on wanting them to build up to more of a rewarding end.

Well, the first problem is that the feghoot wouldn’t really work if there was anything after it, so the story had to end with Rarity’s dish being judged.
But the bigger problem here is a misunderstanding on your part, and perhaps a lack of clarity on mine. This was an audition episode. There is no winner to be had. The judges will decide that several of the contestants are good enough to move on to the real competition, and they will. I tried to make this clear, but I can see how it might not be if you’re not familiar with MasterChef.
But if you want to know how this would have ended, I outlined it at the end of this post.

4846471 (HoofBitingActionOverlord)

This is a fun character piece, very character-based humor, and everyone is in character. But it’s not so much a story as a collection of silly descriptions of food. Maybe try inserting some more conflict to keep things interesting?

I did want to give AJ and Rainbow the chance to badmouth each other, but they were too busy arguing with the judges Joe instead. In the actual show, there are usually exchanges like this:

“What are you making?”
“[An overly-fancy description of an apple pie goes here.]”
[the judge doesn’t have anything to say about that.] “Who do you think is going home today?”
“Definitely Rainbow…”

And so on. But there wasn’t any place for anything like that in here.

4848191 (Alaborn)

This is a story written for me (although I favor the programs on the Food Network). My second story here involved Pinkie Pie in a human cooking competition, and tried to keep faithful to the show. Which makes this story disappointing for me. There are certain story lines that don't work with the Main 6 forced into them, and this is one of them. In keeping true to cooking competition shows, there should be a mix of contestants, but all would have at least some talent. The last line of the story was good, though.

Can you explain to me why you don’t think that this works with the Mane 6 in it? Yes, a few of them really aren’t good enough cooks to be competing here, but I did give that a bit of a lampshaded explanation.
And in my defense, the Mane 6 (and other major characters) tend to be the easiest to write jokes for, and I did intend to include a few other characters, but I ran out of time.

Not recommended

4848655 (Calipony)

The Mane 6 minus Twilight plus Spike and Derpy enter a TV cooking contest. Who will win?
This is a silly story, and it made smile. I like the way you caricature each one of the contestants. I think you could’ve added some further topping of silliness using puns you’ve run past. For instance: “I hope you’re not just trying to flatter me.”, whereas I was expecting “You’re buttering me up!”.

While more puns certainly wouldn’t have been out of place in this story, it wouldn’t really fit with the judges’ personalities. I think the only times they really make puns are when they’re telling someone how bad their food is.

I was expecting Gustave Le Grand as one of the judges, or, as a matter of fact, any of the other contestants appearing in the MMMystery on the Friendship Express episode. It seems that instead you’ve elected to transpose real chefs into ponies’ world, but for those who are not acquainted with those chefs, the humour is lost.

Like I’ve said before, this story really isn’t for people who aren’t familiar with MasterChef.

Some typos here and there, e.g.: “Derpy, you would be next,” Elliot calls out, but we’ve all already eaten several of the muffins that you’ve been passing around, and they’re great. So let’s just move on to Pinkie Pie. You’ve forgotten to quote the second part of the sentence.

Yes, I know. That seems to be the mistake everyone is pointing out.

Before Gordon can respond, Pinkie appears on his back, reaches over his head, and grabs one of the muffins. I’d expect Pinkie to gobble up ALL muffins!

Come on now, Pinkie knows better than that.

Well, this not ambitious, and is certainly not something you want to read if you’re on a diet. But I can’t deny it was fun to read, and, as a feghoot, it should certainly please Titanium Dragon (even if rubies might taste unpalatable to him also).

I’m glad you thought it was fun. And I was not aware that TD was a fan of feghoots. It looks like he didn’t read this one though (or at least didn’t review it).
Hey, 4842225 , want to give me a shot?

4852223 (Trick Question)

Time is an Important Ingredient (sic) (no seriously, capitalize Is)

Everything I’ve ever seen about title case basically says that it’s up to the author’s discretion and/or depends on the manual of style that you’re using. Since the closest thing we have to a writeoff manual of style says nothing about the specifics of title case, you can’t really criticize me for using a different style than you.

I don't know if the feghoot is necessary given the high quality of everything else. I don't really have any suggestions.

I am glad that you think the rest of it is high quality. Personally, I think that it wouldn’t have had a very interesting ending without the feghoot, but I suppose that depends on your opinion of feghoots in general.

4854518 (FDA_Approved)

Here I am trying to get away from reality television and you go and write a ponified version of MasterChef. I was laughing throughout the story. It’s silly and so ridiculous, but you perfectly got the voices of everyone, and it reads wonderfully. And that feghoot. I should have seen it coming! I don’t know how it could be revised besides the fact that you could add more characters. Maybe even a spin-off colt and filly version? Good job! I enjoyed this all twenty-six ways.

4855664 (FDA_Approved, again)

But yeah, I do watch it (both willing and not willingly) and I loved how it read exactly like how an episode would be shown; it was great use of present tense. And it was absolutely genius to pair up Joe and Rarity. It could have been one of those hit and miss stories, but it was a hit for me! There was just a bunch to love about it (too much to name) and it made my day. Now time to force my sister to read your story. Again, even if you didn't make the finals, it was a great story. (Dare I say that it was the best most creative prompt usage too?)

See, you are exactly the sort of person who I was writing this story for, and clearly it worked for you. And that is why I am okay with it not making the finals.
Like I said above, I would like to add a few more characters, and I probably will before I publish it. I haven't given much thought to a MasterChef Junior version, but we will see, I suppose. I make no promises.
Also, it is just now occurring to me that your username might be slightly relevant here.
And let me know what your sister thinks of the story, if she reads it.

And for those of you who are curious about who would have “won,” here’s how I think it would have gone:
Applejack: Probably moves on to the actual competition, and ends up doing pretty well for a lot of it. Her food is tasty, but isn’t as fancy as the judges want. She struggles with the technical, fancy, and expensive dishes that she has to cook, and eventually gets sent home. Also, the judges constantly berate her for making apple dishes whenever she can.
Fluttershy: Clearly doesn’t make it out of auditions.
Spike: Does decently well, but makes plenty of mistakes. He makes it far into the competition, though there is some talk that it’s only because the producers like having a dragon on the show. Eventually, he cooks a dish where he makes too many mistakes and they spiral out of control, getting him sent home.
Derpy: Moves on, but struggles with anything that isn’t baking. The producers make sure that you are constantly reminded that she is a single mom.
Pinkie: Does very well in the competition, but she experiments too much and is constantly cooking things she’s never tried before. If she doesn’t win, it’s because one of her experiments just doesn’t work.
Rainbow: Obviously doesn’t make it out of auditions.
Rarity: Despite her little hiccup in the auditions, she moves on. The elegance of her food is matched only by her wardrobe. The judges are always impressed by her plating. Unfortunately, she can’t handle the pressure, and the stress of the competition eventually causes her to crash, burn, and get sent home.

Now if you'll excuse me, all this talking about food has made me hungry. So I'm going to go make myself something (not-at-all-MasterChef-quality) to eat.

4856642

Everything I’ve ever seen about title case basically says that it’s up to the author’s discretion and/or depends on the manual of style that you’re using. Since the closest thing we have to a writeoff manual of style says nothing about the specifics of title case, you can’t really criticize me for using a different style than you.

Whoa there, sugarcube. I'm not criticizing you for using a different style than I.

Your interpretation that "it's up to the author's discretion" is not exactly correct. There are many different style guidelines you can choose from, but there's no title casing style that allows you to capitalize an adjective in the middle of the title while simultaneously allowing you to not-capitalize the copula. You can choose whichever style guide you like, but it's a fair criticism if your title casing doesn't match any of the accepted styles.

4856696
Ehhh, a fair amount of resources I've seen say something along the lines of "just pick something and be consistent." Not just in terms of sticking to one style guide, but in dealing with the confusing bits after you've picked.

That being said, I did look into this more, and I will concede that, according to the most common style guides, you are correct. However, Wikipedia does show the way I did it as an option (see "as above and also excepting copulae" in their chart), and I am positive that that is how I was taught to do title case. It could easily be the case that some English teacher I had at some point taught me incorrectly though (it certainly wouldn't be the first time). However, it seems to me that while my method does not follow any of the most common style guides, it is at least reasonably acceptable.

Now that I know better, I will probably try to stick to something more technically correct next time. Also, I wonder if it would be worth convincing Roger to declare an official form of title case for the writeoffs. It's definitely not the most important thing he could work on, and I'm sure it would be a struggle to get people to follow it, but it still might be nice to have for those of us who care about that sort of thing.

And really, if criticizing my title case is the worst thing you have to say about my story, then I really can't complain.

4856642

Can you explain to me why you don’t think that this works with the Mane 6 in it?

While I haven't watched MasterChef, I have the idea that the show doesn't troll its viewers by including obviously bad chefs. This isn't American Idol's audition round. In the show Chopped on Food Network, the four competitors are chefs in restaurants, personal chefs, caterers, or cooking instructors. So the personal chef might be perceived to be at a disadvantage compared to an experienced restauranteur, but he or she still has talent.

Since MasterChef is about amateur chefs, you could use the Main 6, but only if you show for the non-obvious ones (Applejack and Pinkie Pie have known cooking skills) that they have some cooking chops.

4856740

And really, if criticizing my title case is the worst thing you have to say about my story, then I really can't complain.

Then you have picked up on the most essential fact in my review.

My only real criticism was the feghoot at the end being a little flat, but I really think it's a fine story as-is. Comedies of that sort aren't generally my cup of tea but I genuinely chuckled more than once.

4855521 Hit me up if you want another pair of eyes on future drafts of One-Two-Zero. You've got some cool ideas going on in there.

4856741
MasterChef certainly isn't chopped. There will usually be a few contestants who have worked in restaurants, but most of them are people who have only ever cooked for themselves and their families.
It's true that they don't have American Idol-style auditions, but I think that's more because they usually start the season after they've narrowed the contestants down to the top few dozen. But when they have shown some auditions, there have been some people who are really awful. Off the top of my head, I remember them briefly showing one woman who cooked "macaroni and cheese with a twist." The twist was that she used breast milk. Gordon Ramsay was not amused.
If I wanted to be truer to MasterChef, it's true that Rainbow and Fluttershy wouldn't have been there. And maybe the story would have been a bit stronger that way. But I think that it still works like this, and the slight differences in format can be chalked up to differences between the US and Equestria versions of the show.

4856853
It looks like Wikipedia disagrees. I can't say anything about how popular it is though. EDIT: Here's the (much more extensive) French version of the page, and the official website.
And if anyone is curious, here is a list of the 50-ish countries with a MasterChef show.

So:

With "Discontinuity" up--it's in the Featured Box if you filter out the Mature stories!--I figured I'd try to make some sense out of my notes and post some more comments. I actually read all the stories during the preliminary round, something I don't think I've managed to do before, so when I clicked on my final ballot, it was already filled out. Ah, technology!

Mike

1. "Major Turbulence" - I've got to agree with several other reviewers about it being a good idea for a minific but too long as currently constituted. All I could suggest would be to have Rarity struggling with something as well that Rainbow could inadvertently help her with--maybe she's still not sure Canterlot Boutique is a good business venture, or maybe she's thinking about chucking the whole fashion business to become a private investigator full time. Just make the story more of an exchange than a one-way street, and that'll deepen it.

15. "A Stitch" - Again, I'll agree with other folks about the wordiness. I mean, I like a good convoluted sentence more than I should, but when I read at the end of this story, "Staving off the feeling of fear that soon began to creep up his spine as he turned to walk on the path toward the Great Hall, the aged wizard, instead, chose to close his eyes," I've forgotten what the introductory clause was about by the time I get to the subject--those commas around "instead" are extraneous, too. There's a good story in here, but it's nearly overwhelmed by the verbiage.

18. "Recycled" - I've ended up all torn about this story. Like I said earlier, I had no idea what was happening on my first read-through. Then I saw Trick Question's review, reread the story, and found all the clues I'd missed.

So do I punish the author because I'm a poor reader? Or is this the sort of situation the "Abstain" button was designed for?

I don't enjoy reading "puzzle stories," which is why I don't write them. "Choose Your Own Adventure" books always left me frustrated when I was a kid for that same reason. I'm not interested in engaging in a game of wits when I settle in to read a story: I'm interested in reading a story. I want to visit an author's brain for a while, see whatever sights the author wants to show me, then be on my way. But with puzzle stories, well, it's like when I was in high school and college translating Latin and ancient Greek. Many a time, I couldn't make head nor tail out of some passage from Sallust or Thucydides or one of that crowd, but I knew it was my problem. After all, people have been reading and making sense of that stuff for hundreds and hundreds of years, so if I couldn't make it work, it was my fault, not the author's.

That experience has colored my reaction to everything I've read since. My automatic assumption is that I'm the problem in the writer/reader relationship. But if "death of the author" says a story is supposed to live and/or die all on its own, do I as a reader have a responsibility to seek out secondary sources if I can't figure that story out? Is it ethical to shake my head and move on as I would've done if I'd encountered this story just at random on Fimfiction instead of in a contest situation? Or am I obliged to look at the comments as I did here, see if anyone's got an answer, then go back and see if that answer fits? Where's the line between "the author should've made this easier for me" and "the author probably wasn't aiming for an audience that includes me"?

In short, I have no suggestions for the author. Heck, I doubt the author wants to make the story easier for poor readers like me anyway. That wouldn't make it as fun for the readers who like puzzle stories. So, yeah, after way too much thinking, I'll probably be abstaining on this one in the final vote.

4857250
No worries. I didn't know that there were so many countries with their own MasterChef shows until I found that page earlier. I was aware of the US, British, Australian, and a few of the Asian shows, but I had no idea that all those others existed.

Right, final round of impressions from me. Just a reminder, these are not reviews but my thoughts and feeling about the story, everything is indended as constructive critique and woodchucks can chuck approximately fourteen centi-woods apeace.

Time Enough For Love

Edit: It's Clover not Cookie I always get those two mixed up.

I put this one to the top of my slate the moment I finished reading it, but it’s drifted back down over the course of writing this review. I tend to write these pieces for humor and critique so I won’t spend time lavishing praises on this one. I’ll just say, this is one of my favorite depictions of Celestia in a long time, the prose was great and I really liked the idea of time travel as a solution to immortality. Overall this was a fantastic doomed romance that kept me reading all the way through, with only one fairly major flaw.

That flaw was, I was never convinced Celestia and Clover were in love. Sure, they have a whirlwind romance and Celestia’s infatuation comes across clear as day, but Clover never seems to have any real passion for Celestia. In fact, he seems to dislike her throughout most of the story. I might be able to just pass off as a dysfunctional relationship, except that Colver makes huge sacrifices for the sake of this relationship. There’s a lot of times where he could have just walked away, in fact, there’s a lot of times when I think he should have walked away. The relationship gets almost abusive near the end and I really wonder why we’re supposed to think that this love is a good thing.

This comes down to both balance and framing. There’s a definite tendency in this story to focus on when it all blows up, when Colver spins the time-tuner and vanishes in a huff. These are the events the audience needs to see to move the plot forwards but there need to be some slower moments to build up the relationship and really sell this piece for me. Still, even without these, I think this one’s a medal winner.

The Friendship Game

This is another story where I really liked the idea but I was left cold by the execution. Twilight comes up with a game where she and her friends swap tribes for a day and this story follows the results. There’s a lot of little issues in this piece that turned me off overall. Firstly how long it takes to explain what is going on. For a story that’s supposed to be about exploring character reactions this is a pretty major black mark. Mysteries aren’t mysterious when all the characters know what’s going on. If something is common knowledge to the characters then the audience should be made aware, otherwise it just makes everything confusing and leaves the reader scrabbling for context when they should be enjoying the story.

A few other nitpicks include the fact pegasus-Applejack is a better farmer than regular-Applejack (in contradiction to the story’s own narrative on earth pony magic), that being a Princess gives Pinkie Pie santa claus powers (for some reason) and there’s some frankly disturbing implications to the whole ‘harvest celebration’ idea that made me think of Brave New World (Seriously, magic that makes you happy to be toiling in the fields all day when other tribes can do your job better and easier just reakes of the Equestrian Caste System).

These are all things I could overlook if the story really raised some interesting points, but I don’t think it managed it. The little personal stories never jelled for me and I don’t feel any interesting social or setting points were raised. There’s no drama to the story, everything is just swept away at the end of the story with real no effect. Pinkie Pie’s quixotic quest to deliver a cupcake to everyone in Equestria is the closest there is to a character arc but even that fell flat in the end.

Recycled

Recycled set off on the opposite foot to The Friendship Game, I really hate the alicorn Twilight time loop storyline but I felt this one worked, all in all. If anyone hasn’t read this yet, massive spoilers ahead, but Recycled is about Twilight’s attempts to save her friends from old age (and Rarity in particular) by travelling back in time and replacing her past self. It’s not an original concept, in fact it hits pretty much all the same notes as other stories, the fallout with Celestia, the abuse of future knowledge and the secrecy are all the bread and butter of this kind of story.

Recycled sets itself apart by working backwards, starting at the ultimate failure and slowly explaining how Twilight changed the world and it’s remarkable how refreshing this take is. Mystery, in this case, is one of Recycled’s strongest points, but it’s also probably it’s biggest weakness. I reached the end and thought ‘I don’t know what just happened’ and re-reading I’m still not really sure. There’s so much in this story that I would love if the end wrapped everything up properly, but it doesn’t.

4857201
I suspect from seeing reactions to cryptic stories over the past year in these Writeoffs that the author didn't intend for it to confuse people. I write my share of cryptic prose, and I can testify that it's really easy to over-cryptic something, especially when you're trying to preserve a secret twist for the last line of the story. Some of the best authors here have made that mistake; I remember the excellent Fluttershy-and-moth story where that happened.

I didn't write Recycled, so I don't really know the author's intention. But I'd bet 2:1 it's not supposed to be so confusing, especially the part about the sleeping pills (I have a guess there but that's as far as I'll go).

For those of you who don't follow me, I edited and released one of my old writeoff stories today. What was originally No Time For Regret, my story about Nightmare Moon convincing Luna to follow in her hoofsteps from the "I Regret Nothing" minific writeoff, has become Recurring Nightmare.

Anyway, onto the reviews!

Genre: Romance, Drama, Historical Fiction

Oh my god.

At first, I thought this was a comedy, and it sure felt like it – the story started out very whimsically as poor Clover got swept off his hooves by Imperatrix Celestia, a boisterous drinker, warrior, and all around badass who acts nothing like the Celestia from the show. But the story explains this state of affairs, and as time goes on, the piece grows increasingly serious as their comedic flash-in-the-pan romance turns into a much more serious affair. Celestia learns how to treat those breakable mortals who don’t live their lives at full speed, but Clover’s own life ends up very messed up as a result – doubly so as a result of his mentor, Starswirl the Bearded, and the magical device he gives him to skip forward in time so that he only experiences the best of Celestia.

I wasn’t really sure what this was going to be at first, but this ended up being pretty great, and I was pretty impressed by the way that the prophecy felt like it fit into the first section of the work, and yet paid off well by the end.

If I had one complaint, it would be that Luna's fall didn't really feel like it got as much meat as I would have liked; Luna was a background in the story, but also was in many ways a key to it, and it felt like Clover's own actions were linked to Luna's fading in some way.

4853130
14. Time Enough for Love:

billymorph expressed it better than I could have.

In fact, he seems to dislike her throughout most of the story. I might be able to just pass off as a dysfunctional relationship, except that [Clover] makes huge sacrifices for the sake of this relationship. There’s a lot of times where he could have just walked away, in fact, there’s a lot of times when I think he should have walked away. The relationship gets almost abusive near the end and I really wonder why we’re supposed to think that this love is a good thing.

I personally am having trouble seeing this piece as love. This is passion and lust and convenience and other things—of course, as always, everyone’s definition of love varies. And because of that, I have a hard time accepting this love when Clover says stuff like

"You know what hurts the most," he said quietly, "is that you can't stand me for more than a few weeks at a time, but that pegasus? Oh, no, he gets a normal lifetime."

Based on everyone’s reactions this will most certainly medal; I want to like this piece, and in some ways I very much do. The story, the foreshadowing, the characterization, all of those are wonderful, but it just leaves a slightly sour taste in my mouth.

Ultimately, they seem like two ponies that will keep hurting each other time and time again. I can’t properly vote for this story. Sorry, I have to abstain.

Wow, things really quieted down in this thread o.o

So, as it turns out, I’ve already reviewed 11 of the finalists, so I might as well review the rest :P

Here’s the rest of the finalists I haven’t shared thoughts on yet, numerical order, unexperienced opinions, spoilers ahoy, she was still just waiting for her coffee:

1. Major Turbulence: I see I’ll be joining the chorus on “this feels too stretched out / would be better shorter/ etc.”, and though that’s also my biggest gripe with it, I’ll try to find something else to talk about.

There are some awkward phrasings every now and then, and it hurts the flow, in my opinion. I get that the point is to emulate Rarity’s voice, but sometimes there are some obtrusive arrangements (“Thematically appropriate as the earlier showers had been for today's noirish drama”, “blinking blankly and otherwise emulating Twilight”, and “I then moved to genuine delight” are the most obvious examples to me). I’ve personally found that reading aloud helps.

You’ve captured Rarity’s and Rainbow’s voices well, and characterized them well, though I’d argue that RD wouldn’t draw out the part where she’s hesitating opening up to Rarity, though perhaps it is in character, but that nonetheless feels drawn out to me. However, I like the moral here and the writing is good otherwise, but the stretched-out-edness hurts it, in my opinion.

9. Sunset’s Rest: Other reviews have already pointed out the tell-iness. I agree. I think it’s close, though, to not being tell-y, because the way the backstory is told has almost enough non-infodump things tossed in there, like variety in paragraph size and some back-and-forth between Sunset and the girl. I think it’s also got a good amount of good characterization, good plot, good dialogue, and generally good writing. I was engaged, for the most part.

This does feel like the start of a story, though. One I’d continue reading? I’m not sure. If the infodump-iness was reduced, then yes, but I’m not sure I’d be invested in either Sunset or Twilight as a protagonist.

13. Collapse Failure: I… mmph. I really like the concept, here, and the idea of the progression, but I think I’m taking issue with the execution.

Somehow I thought that when Twilight walked by Spike, the section “However many times she made the effort, though, she could never quite tell exactly what he was looking at” made me think she was doing many double-takes, and this was the first time this had happened to her, and I wondered why she was she wasn’t as confused or concerned as I thought she’d be, and the rest of the story progressed in a way that left me somewhat confused until the end. Looking back on it now, I could interpret it as it referring to multiple days instead of multiple takes, but in my opinion, it was maybe a bit too subtle and could’ve been handled better (not just that section, but the rest leading up to the end, too), but it seems enough other people did not have this problem anyway.

Though I like the emotional ending, I think it’s both too technobabble-y and tell-y. I think what Twilight was feeling, at least, could’ve been better incorporated into the rest of the story so it didn’t come as one big infodump at the end. Not sure about how to make the technobabble more understandable. I don’t think I understood what she was talking about with collapsing and such, but perhaps that’s because I’m not inclined to that sort of thing anyway.

18. Recycled: The writing here is good, but I was confused by this one. On to read other reviews to understand it…

Oh, kay. So that’s what the story’s about (possibly, but it’s a good running theory so far). I actually really like that concept, and it has a lot of potential, but the way it was presented is a little too cryptic. As I’ve already said, I don’t like story-puzzles.

Besides that, it’s dialogue-heavy, imo, and that was a bit repetitive for me. The sections were focused on their topics, at least, but it didn’t come together for me until I consulted a third party, and that’s going to hurt my rating of it. Yes, I’m probably just not smart enough to appreciate it, but engagement is something I tend to value highly when I read, and too much obtuseness is often not engaging for me.

It turns out that I already reviewed all but two of the stories on my finalist slate. So after some reading and some use of the "Add Another" button, I present to you an equivalent to a full slate of reviews.

Unwelcome: The tone/mood here is pretty strong, as is the sense of tension throughout. I'm a little less enamored by the characters, though. The Inspector feels a little boring; he falls into the OC trap of never really doing anything that I wouldn't expect anyone to do in his circumstances. I realize that much of the story forces him into being either professional or reactive, but he still never really came together as a character for me. Throw in some moments when he has a little room to breathe and be himself, and the reader will bond with him a lot more. On a smaller note, pacing also feels like a problem. Nothing really seems to happen until the Inspector meets Glimmer, and then everything seemed to happen all at once. This probably has to do with the word limit, though, so fixing this when you don't have a wordcap is relatively simple.

Time Enough for Love: I've already mentioned that I really, really liked this one. Characterization is incredibly strong, especially Celestia's. Here, she's interesting because she's so different from how she is in the show; she's likable because she's so flawed; and she's lovable because she still tries so hard to be better. Similarly, Clover also feels like a complicatedly nuanced and tragically conflicted person. While the time-skipping idea is certainly a clever one, I doubt it would have had such an emotional impact if we weren't so invested in these characters. Well done! As for what could be improved, there are some definite pacing issues, which are probably an artifact of the word count. The first few scenes feel lovingly detailed and crafted, full of imagery and subtle detail. In contrast, the last couple of scenes are almost rushed in comparison; things happen just a tad too quickly and cleanly, IMHO. Running out of words is definitely frustrating as hell, so I'm definitely looking forward to what you can do when you've got the space to get everything you want down on paper.

Time of Their Lives: As I was reading, I was gearing myself up to comment on the odd pacing, but by the end of it, I think it really worked out in the fic's favor. Having all these mini story arcs lends the fic an easygoing attitude that compliments the subject nature and the style of humor very nicely. Characterization is generally on the dot. There are a few moments where a bit of telly-ness threatens to hurt the reader's attention/investment, but that's relatively minor. All in all, I'd say that this succeeds at what it sets out to do. While there isn't much in the way of theme or message (which I would expect from such a strange premise), it didn't bother me as much as I thought it would by the end of things. Overall, I'd be lying if I said I didn't enjoy it a lot.

This Happened Because Rarity Reads Too Much Chick Lit: This is personal preference, but I like my shipping the way a lot of folks like vodka—with plenty of mixers. Straight-up tends to be a little tough for me. I'm not a hundred percent sure if the interplay between Dash and Twilight sold it for me, because a lot of their banter feels like stuff that I've read before. That being said, the idea of Dash making out with Twilight if and only if she's blackout drunk got a giggle out of me. Still, I felt a bit confused at the plot. The opening scene suggested that the primary focus of the story was going to be on revealing Rarity's plan to get the two of them hooked up, but even by the end I'm not sure what this plan actually was. I mean, Dash and Twilight did get together, but it doesn't feel like something that could have been planned on Twilight's part. Unless I'm reading things wrongly, it's Dash's idea to go back in time and bake a blueberry pie in the past, so I'm still left wondering how Rarity could have planned it all in the first place. Premise is very important in how-they-got-together stories like this, so I'd suggest really clearing things up for the reader.

Recycled: The reverse chronological order idea is a great touch; it infuses the story with an innate mystery that the reader can latch unto very naturally. Still, I have to admit that when I figured out the twist, I was a tad disappointed. I've read a lot of stories with this sort of premise before, and thematically speaking, this fic doesn't really bring anything new to the table. Also, I still cannot, for the life of me, figure out what the sleeping pills were for, and it looks like a lot of other people in the thread felt the same way. With a story that focuses so much on revelation and discovery, you need to be sure that every element—especially one that was so strongly highlighted early on—is properly explained. Regardless, the execution is commendable, and I have to give you kudos for trying out such an interesting format.

4857753
IMHO, you shouldn't abstain on something just because you don't agree with the majority of the reactions here. If you think the story suffers because of a poor message, that is a completely legitimate concern. If something did not strike you well, it would totally be in your right to reflect that in your vote. When it comes to an art form like writing, I daresay that opinions are just as important as concrete observations in many circumstances.

But regardless of what you choose to do, thank you for being a dissenting opinion! It's helpful as both an author and a reader to see points of view that differ from mine, and I suspect many of our other participants feel the same way.

Also, the Writeoffs would be hella boring if we all liked the same stuff.

Second Wave of Georg's Micro Reviews for Out Of Time: Scores are letter grades for Plot, Technical Work, and Characterization, with a bonus point for following the prompt.

Read Rainbow Dash and Her Universe - A/A/A +1 - Hits all the high points and paces well. Really nowhere for me to pick nits. Engaging and kept me hopping all the way through. Top tier.

Unwelcome - A/B/A - A chilling tale of betrayal and intolerance. I’ve got this little bit inside me that always holds out hope for a happy ending, and in the end, I realized there was one, just not for who I was originally rooting for. A few technical flaws, some comma splices, but not bad at all. It still needed just a little more tension, although the limitations of the writeoff probably hurt that.

Recycled - B/A/B - I hate to ding this fic, but there were some things that really bothered me about it. It’s one thing to write a deep story that brings up heartfelt memories, but moving big chunks of it around without knowing what is going on sucks all the wind out of the sails. I mean it probably has a deep meaning to it, but I missed it somewhere, even on the second reading, or a third.

I’m not that smart. I need signposts on my road. Even a few yellow lines would help.

4857753 "...Ultimately, they seem like two ponies that will keep hurting each other time and time again..."
You just defined love. (For the record, I have Time Enough For Love as #2 on my list.)

4858375 Sometimes when a show is a failure, you get a similar feeding frenzy from channels/stations who need discount content to fill their timeslots. A bombed show/pilot episode gives a template to work around, and if you catch it quick before the actors wander away to do other things, you may be able to make the proverbial silk purse out of a sow's ear by milking it for a season or two. Besides, there's lots of pilots that went down in flames only to spawn a series. Take a look at the original Gilligan's Island or some other pilots with failed promise.

4860332
Ah, but did I?

—of course, as always, everyone’s definition of love varies.

I'd mention a famous book/musical, but that's probably irrelevant and I don't want people to get on my back because of that comparison.

4860226
The abstain didn't have to do with other people's reactions, and besides, there's no way I'd abstain for that reason. It had to do with a legitimate personal issue, which perhaps... I'm thinking about it and I may have overreacted just a bit. I think I'll un-abstain and place my vote accordingly.

But regardless of what you choose to do, thank you for being a dissenting opinion! It's helpful as both an author and a reader to see points of view that differ from mine, and I suspect many of our other participants feel the same way.

Thanks. I almost didn't post the review, but I felt I owed it to the author based on other comments I said earlier.

4860226
Agreed 100%.

I'm getting tired of seeing post after post where the reviewer calls themselves "stupid" for not understanding a story. That's a failing on the part of the author, not the reader, and it's a legitimate criticism.

I might back abstentions for things like "I hate shipping stories" or other personal issues where you can't appreciate a work, but you shouldn't abstain just because you don't think you were the target audience.

4860781

or other personal issues where you can't appreciate a work

Don't want to derail the conversation further, but I did want to defend myself. That was the reason I abstained, but like I said, I overreacted and have placed my vote accordingly.

But I do agree with all of you in that you shouldn't abstain just because you think don't think you're the target audience.

4861154
The main one that's bugging me is the number of reviews I've seen for Recycled so far where the reviewer is "maybe I won't vote on this because I was too stupid to get it". That's like, the author's job. It isn't your failing if you totally miss something.

It's actually the most common problem I've seen with the best authors here: they write a great story, they think they're being subtle, but it's sooooo easy to oversubtle something to the point where nopony can grasp the intended meaning. The story about Fluttershy and the moth did it, the one with Luna and the hot/cold dreams Twilight had did it, the one where Apple Bloom was an ageless ghost blank-flank did it (nopony picked up on "Diamond" not being Diamond Tiara, except maybe TD did because he's somehow psychically sharp enough to catch everything), and I could go on.

This only happens when the author is trying to put in a twist and they want to preserve the secret and not be so obvious about it on the reveal, but again, it's super easy to go overboard without realizing it. It's always going to seem obvious to you, because you wrote it. I don't know that it's possible to learn the skill perfectly, which is why it's a great thing we have these Writeoffs. They turn a number of substandard stories into polished gemstones by virtue of pointing out the flaws that everypony but the author can see.

In honesty, I vote stories based on what I think they'll become, on potential more than execution. I think Smashy-Frumpy is an amazing story even if the romance isn't completely believable, so it's at the top of my slate. I can look past the flaws when I can see what the story will become when they're corrected, in other words. But flaws are still flaws and it should affect the ranking, when all else is equal.

I finished reading all of the stories on my slate, but I don't think I'll have time to write much about them. All of the finalists I've read are really good, which is making it really hard for me to order them. I've shuffled the order of my top four stories several times already, and I'll probably shuffle them a few more times before the deadline. I think that "Recycled" is my favorite of all of the stories I've read, but it's not actually on my slate.

I do want to talk about Collapse Failure for a bit though. (And as a disclaimer, I haven't gone through this thread and read what other people have said about this story, or any of the other finalists.)
This story would have easily gotten the top spot on my slate, except that it just doesn't feel complete. It's not just that I want to see Twilight escape and return to normal time (or get some other less preferable ending), but the author hints at several seemingly important details that never go anywhere. What was Spike looking at? What was the noise Twilight heard and the motion she saw in the shadows? The possibility of her going crazy is completely unsatisfying, especially since she doesn't act like she is. It seems like there's something more going on here, but the story doesn't last long enough for us to find out what it is.
And why is she not using magic at all? In fact, it seems that she is deliberately not using it, to me. Does something about her situation stop her from using magic, or is she just afraid that using any will make things worse somehow?
I wonder if the author deliberately didn't give the story an ending as a sort of parallel to Twilight's situation. But while I can kind of see some merits to doing that, it is very unsatisfying for me as a reader.
I still really like this story, but I want more from it.

4861219
You could probably add stories and abstain on them in order to vote on the ones you've read, but I'm not sure if that would screw up the algorithm that decides which stories should be selected next for other ponies' slates.