Well, you’ll be seeing me more than usual. I’m going to take my crack at getting some of these fics in the submissions box out, so get ready for the #Review takeover. Let’s go boys and girls.

Today’s story “A Day at the Tryouts” is written by Darth Redbeard, who I have seen lurking in some of the forums on fimfiction. I haven’t read any of his stories before, so this is my first peek into his writing. Hopefully it’s good.

[Thirty minutes later]

After skimming and reading through the story, I am pretty perplexed. The concept was decent, but the execution itself was more than just lackluster. I’m sorry, but there is a lot wrong with this story. Let’s first show what Darth Redbeard did right, because my last review did it in reverse.

So let’s be a bit more pleasant, shall we?

To be honest, not much.

This line got me to giggle a bit:

Both Rainbow Dash and Soarin started busting out some crazy dance moves that would put a certain King of Pop to shame.

The recapping of the canon events was a nice little touch. It allows us to connect to the already canonical characters, and lets us get the necessary background information we get before we get into the dialogue.

The lead-in before the dialogue was nice. Basic, but nice. It got the job done.

However, here at the Pleasant Commentator and Review Group, we’d like to see something more than the average when it comes to stories. I love seeing stories coming to life with concepts that I haven’t seen before and writing that simply makes me like the author for taking the risk and being different. Darth Redbeard’s story does not fit in this category.

To answer my own question, a lot went wrong with “A Day at the Tryouts”. It didn't do much other than place our canonical characters from MLP in an one hundred percent human environment. Not to mention, at least from what I see, this event would almost mirror the Best Young Flyers Competition. However, it cannot be fully mirrored because humans are not capable of doing a sonic rainboom, and the Wonderbolt’s influence is more like the Wonderbolt Academy episode than of the Young Flyers Competition. So this story could be criticized as a combination of the two episodes with the romance component being tagged on, but that would seem a bit harsh and not truthful. The thought does come clear though, so author, keep that in mind.

Let’s dive into the story more closely here. The introduction to this story is one of the prime reasons why I gave the story the rating it deserved. It’s just…

It was a bright day in Cloudsdale as Rainbow Dash had arrived for her Wonderbolts tryouts. To say she was nervous was an understatement. She felt absolutely terrified. Sure, she had flown a few planes, but today, she would be flying in front of the best pilots in the Wonderbolts, including one that she really liked. Her and this Wonderbolt had met when she first flew in front of them, but that was when she was flying among others with her five best friends watching her. She ended up proving to some bullies from her youth that she could fly and got to meet her idols that same day.

...generic and bland. I mean, heck, the first sentence is as cliche of an opener as “it was a dark and stormy night”. I mean, yes, it gets the job done, but if an author wants me to enjoy his or her story, it needs to have some flare. Chucking in a generic opener doesn't do that. Instead, it makes me groan and worry about the quality of the story that I’m reading. It also makes me wonder if the author even put effort into the story.

The next sentence even adds to my worry as we get another cliche introduction, but this time it is the author’s way of introducing Rainbow Dash’s character to us. Yet again, it gets the job done, but if you want to get something more and be better than the average, you’re not going to do it with a movie liner like that. Be more creative. Variety goes a long way in writing, and setting yourself apart from the rest of the writing community will bring you the attention you’re looking for.

The rest of the content within this paragraph and the two following paragraphs introduce the topic of Rainbow Dash and her lover’s character, Soarin’. Oh boy, when you touch ground with one of my favorite characters, you better not screw him up. Here, he’s not screwed up (yet). However, I will be getting to his downfall later on in the review. For now, let’s switch gears to the storyline and get what we came for: the nitty-gritty.

Overall, the story writing isn't terrible, but it isn't amazing or above average either. It follows the same type of story writing as what we would get from the show, but with less of an impact and excitement. To be honest, the writing itself kills it here.

I’d like to point out that this author mentioned that he did not have the appropriate information to be even writing about the topic, so the vague descriptions of emotions, the feeling of flying, the awkward problem with the plane, and other content-related factors were affected drastically by the lack of experience and background of planes. This goes out to any author who is writing something that they have little to no information about. If you have never experienced nor researched the topic, please, do not write it. If you are going to write something you haven’t experienced, either research or ask someone who has researched or experienced the topic you’re writing, otherwise you’ll be running into content issues that even I have to shake my head at. Reviewers don’t like shaking their heads at content issues such as:

“Alright, now try a loop-de-loop.” Rainbow once again performed the trick with ease, but as she was doing a second one, she noticed her plane seemed to have some trouble for a second before it went back to normal. Every trick that she was asked to perform, she did it with great ease. “Now for the final trick. We need you to do everything you did once again to pass.”

This section of the story is a prime example of what not to do when writing about planes and exams. Vague and awkwardness is everywhere, isn’t it? For instance, what trouble was the plane having for that brief second before it suddenly went back to normal? Was something beeping? Was the plane making a noise? Did Rainbow Dash fly into her propeller and kill it? What happened? It’s just so vague that it bothers me as a reader. It’s like you posted what you had in your outline, which is the place where you lay out the skeleton of your story. You shouldn’t be writing your skeleton. Instead, you should be using that outline as reference to build your story, not copy. Don’t control + v, just type. Let it flow.

The vagueness continues in that paragraph in terms of narrative, but it gets even worse with the dialogue. Based on the previous context, the person speaking here is someone from the radio (who apparently lives in it). In reality, the person is in what’s called an Air Traffic Control Tower (ATCT), which gives prompts as to where a plane can land, can respond to emergency calls, and can tell a pilot if they have clearance to takeoff and what not. It’s not a radio tower, it’s an ATCT. With a bit of research, you could get that easily. Despite the inaccuracy in people suddenly living in radios, the dialogue is just awkward and rushed. It’s like we’re supposed to assume what she did previously. I mean, the author decided to skip over what her exam called for her to do, so we don’t get the whole gist of the exam, but come on. Even examiners of this caliber aren’t this lax and awkward. I mean, my driving examiner wasn’t even close to this level of awkwardness, and she was heartless!

Heck, after searching for more research, I couldn’t help but get this question popping in my mind. If the planes are modelled like WW1 planes, how did this exam even happen? Voice communication wasn’t even developed until 1916, which was a couple of years in WW1, and it certainly wasn’t ready until after the war, when it could be used for commercial flights and what not. This is a very wide plot hole that is left open without a care.

Well, all I can do is move on. The vagueness and awkwardness really throws this story into a tailspin, and I’m not even done with the review yet.

Yikes.

I have a few minor gripes to talk about. The first one is Soarin’. He is OOC.

Darn it, Soarin’. Don’t make that face!

All honesty, his sudden shift to using the Rainbow Dash’s tagged nickname caught me off-guard. The reason being: his character does not even engage itself to that line of thinking. From what we’ve seen, he’s capable of being a softy and a hardass, but even softies like him wouldn’t use that nickname, especially for a lover. Let’s be realistic. I wouldn’t call my girlfriend babie, right? That doesn’t make a lick of sense. Babe sounds ‘bout right. So why would Soarin’ adopt a nickname that wouldn’t make sense with his character?

Second, why would he be using Pinkie’s nickname for Rainbow Dash? She uses it in the show, not him.

And… this is where my pet peeve pops into place. The word “Dashie” has been slapped into places where I don’t even want to speak of… ”My Little Dashie” is a prime example of the nickname being used like mad. It’s an overused nickname that has been twisted from its innocent usage by Pinkie to now be used by every character that would not use it in a million years. I would’ve been perfectly fine if you kept the consistency of “Rainbow”, since that is what he calls her in the first place. The reason why is because the sudden intrusion of “Dashie” doesn’t make sense, since he would’ve already established a nickname for her since they have dated for quite some time now (according to the author’s story).

The next gripe I have is about another character named Rapidfire. Now I haven’t read Calm Wind’s version of Rapidfire, but I have read Rurik’s Rapidfire. In all honesty, the version of Rapidfire in this story was just a toss-in. There’s no other way of putting it. I mean, if an author is going to make a toss-in character, at least make them interesting for the time they have. If you have them just for mere shock factor, then there’s no purpose of having the character in the story. I mean, just look at the line you gave him!

“She should not even be a pilot!” Rapidfire yelled. “Women should stick with staying home being housewives.”

Now let’s be realistic here. If this guy was making those type of comments, he would’ve been thrown off the team before he could even say Mississippi. Why would Spitfire and Soarin’ put up with that? It’s just extremely jarring that these two would brush it off (at least Spitfire does, Soarin’ does another OOC thing by punching Rapidfire in the face) while Rapidfire says these inconsiderate comments. It just doesn’t make sense.

My third gripe is the fact that--

The two of them went near Spike and Sweetie Belle as they were dancing as well.

These characters were not introduced correctly. We have no idea if Spike was humanized in his fullest. For all we know, Sweetie Belle could be dancing with a dog. That actually could be funny, you might want to add that instead.

Final gripe… Well, I’ll just let this speak for itself.

Cloudsdale Wonderbolt Airport.

If you don’t understand what I’m getting at, then read that out loud while staring at a mirror. If you don’t sound awkward by saying that because it doesn’t roll off the tongue, then I don’t know what to tell you. The Airport’s name is not creative and sounds blocky (not like Minecraft). If I may just toss out what I was thinking, maybe Cloudsdale International would be a good option (but that means that it isn’t a private airport for the Wonderbolts). If you wanted a private airport, you don’t even have to name it straight away. Instead, you could have had the character’s use a nickname to refer to the airport. Brainstorming is a great thing.

I’ll let you ponder over what I said for a bit, dear author, while I switch gears to a more comfortable territory for me: grammar and suggestions.

Sorry, someone cut me off.

Welcome to the grammar and suggestion section.

Now this story doesn’t have bad grammar. It’s actually fairly straightforward, so I don’t have to worry about grammar too muc--

Her and this Wonderbolt had met when she first flew in front of them, but that was when she was flying among others with her five best friends watching her.

I stand corrected. Let’s fix this problem child.

Who the hell is the Wonderbolt for starters? It’s good to assume in my view, since I know who it is because I’ve already read the story, but this is not how you lead a character on for the sake of making the audience guess. Instead, define the character out front so we know instead of going in blind.

Maybe…

“Her and Soarin’, the Wonderbolt of her eye, had met when she…

That sounds much better. It’s creative, adds a bit of flare, defines the character upfront, and makes a smooth transition to the rest of the sentence.

Now let’s dissect the rest of the sentence.

The vagueness of “in front of them” is killing me softly. Who the heck is them? We have to assume it’s the Wonderbolts, since that’s the only thing we get in this entire sentence. Assuming is bad, kids. Don’t assume.

“Her and Soarin’, the Wonderbolt of her eye, had met when she first flew in front of the Wonderbolts,”

Welcome to the club, Mr. Comma. Have a seat right over there.

We’re going to fix this second half, because it’s a doozy. It’s just full of wrong word choice, and its flow is all bent out of shape.

“Her and Soarin’, the Wonderbolt of her eye, had met when she first flew in front of the Wonderbolts, except she was flying among many other flyers who were just as talented as her.”

The reason why I cut out her friend was because it wasn’t a key concept to the plot. Her friends won’t affect it, and as I stated in my review, the emotions and description was lacking. In this case, the description and emotion should be geared more towards the flying aspect rather than her friends, since we’re talking about flying being the reason why she’s so nervous. She’s always focused about being the best, so her friends wouldn’t really pop up too much, except for when they became in contact with her flying. Simply watching doesn’t seem like it’s enough in this case.

This is not the only error I found.

They would all be watching her fly one of the new planes that they had received from a mysterious donator.

An anonymous donor would work better here. Plus, unless that voice at the end is the donor, I don’t suppose this added anything to the storyline? I’m not sure, I still haven’t read the sequel.

When Spitfire and Fleetfoot left, Soarin and Rainbow helped take Rainbow’s plane back to the hanger.

They use what’s called hangars, not hangers.

Listen, I have to follow rules

You have to follow the rules. You’re missing an article there. Either that or you could completely rewrite it by saying, “Listen, I have to abide by the strict guidelines from the examination community and…”

Walking in the park near the Cloudsdale Wonderbolt Airport.

This is a fragment. You need a subject and a verb, not a dangling modifier and a prepositional phrase.

There are probably more errors scattered about, so getting someone to read the story out loud to you will probably help you polish the story.

In all honesty, this could have been a more dramatic, intense, and heartwarming story if it wasn't for all these grammar errors, lack of description and emotion, content mix-ups, and some out of character (or lack of character [Rapidfire]) derps. The concept was nice and the other touches like the recapping of canon was good, but it was not enough to save this story from being sent to the needs #work group. I encourage you, Darth Redbeard, to continue writing and instead of thinking extremely basic with concepts, try researching and expanding out. There needs to be more here, and I just don’t see it. Prove me wrong by expanding and giving us, the hungry, craving readers, something to gnaw on while we consume your story’s content.

Thanks for the read!

-Soaring

P.S. Nom nom nom!

4363824 thanks for your review. Actually, I'm going to be doing some more research on air on another story. Guess I really should've also placed this in the AN.

Part of the extra stories for the main series

Sorry about that.

For Rapid, Calm does mention I did get part of what his version was. The Douche part down. I just put something different, but I guess a better explanation would've been better.

Thanks for taking the time to review the story.

4363857
There's a difference between a douche and a bigot. Your Rapidfire sounds more like a bigot than a douche. Plus, douches (in some cases) can be nice and pull back on their insults. Some douches also know when to stop being a douche. This Rapidfire doesn't seem to fit the mold of a douche.

And no thank you for giving me something to review. I'm on my #Review takeover and I'm also trying to learn from others, so giving me stories to think and review is not only helping you, but it's helping me too! =]

4363926 well, there are many things I still need to learn, such as the name of the British aircraft. Should've had a notebook and pen with me at that WW1 talk. I'll just wait for the book to come out. The guy was second to Eddie so it'll be helpful to read. Or just email the professor and ask for him to send me the interview.

Why didn't I think of that sooner.

4363824 These are some interesting points. I'll be sure to check over any stores I may do in the future and make sure that the introduction is good.