Some know the reason, they rejected your story. 3 Strikes and your out. Im on 1/3 right now. What about you?

455388 For me, I had a story get in and the first two strikes mentioned some minor fixes and details, telling me it was a good story but needed some minor editing. Come the third time, I am told the story is a steaming pile of shit (basically what they said) with no emotion, and even mentioned so called flaws that were mentioned by earlier pre-readers that I fixed. This has happened multiple times for me, and they are not reliable in any way.

On a late afternoon many moons ago, I encountered a pre-reader guarding the path to the Equestria Daily. Armed with my manuscript for A Game of Twits, I engaged him in mortal combat for the honor of submitting to Equestria Daily, with everything on the line.

"Hello stranger! I am Pre-reader #12, and I protect this path. If you wish to pass, you will have to defeat me in written combat!"

I looked at the man, a Goliath clad in heavy armor, face obscured by his gargantuan helmet. My throat suddenly went dry when I saw his armament: he carried an enormous red pen roughly the size of tree trunk over his shoulder. "Perhaps, good sir, if I offer you some coins..." I reached into my bag for some funds, but the pre-reader stuck out his hand.

"No."

"Well, fine then, we'll have to do this the hard way," I said, picking out my finest story from its sheath. "But I do warn you, I am a leader in of the story-training association called The Training Grounds. Surely you know how deadly a man versed in that particular style is!" Oh, how full of child's bravado I was in those days!

The pre-reader laughed. "Oh, I know."

I charged, hacking and slashing with my deadly instrument of words I crafted from my own will. Papercuts were never inflicted with such fury! Before long, the pre-reader was gasping in pain from the numerous gashes forming along his fingertips, he couldn't even hold his pen anymore. It clamored to the ground with an earth-shattering bang, sending startled flocks of birds flapping into the skies.

But I got careless. "Is this the great Equestria Daily pre-readers that we've talked about in whispered tones? What a joke! My frail grandfather who regularly suffers from bouts of skin cancer and artery jams could put up a better fight!"

I never saw that kick coming. He swung low, knocking my sharply-honed story from my hands to the filthy ground and sent me propelling backwards. With naught but a quick stamp of the foot, he crushed the entirety of my draft, a red rejection stamp from his boot embedded on my paper. It was over. We stared at each other a few moments, silence—his expectation simply that I pick up the ruined remnants of my manuscript and leave, tail between my legs.

When it was obvious that I wasn't leaving anytime soon, he threw the first of the punches. I dodged, parrying his blows and counter-punching when possible, but he left me few openings. I jammed my fingers into his eyes. Some people would call that a cowardly, insipid move on my part. But it certainly blinded the fellow well.

Clutching his now defunct eyes, the pre-reader screamed out in agony. "Y-you bastard, it's just a fucking story! You didn't have to blind me, jesus-fucking-christ!"

"Anything to win, good sir," I said, picking up his giant pen.

"Anything to win!? It's a goddamn site for showcasing fan-made pony shit! People don't go around blinding other people for that!"

"You've obviously never met me, then." I smashed the giant red pen into his skull, plastering the ground with a similarly red puddle of gore. I picked up my story. "Oh mister pre-reader, are you going to reject my story now?" I said to the corpse.

It didn't respond.

"Well, off to Equestria Daily I go then!" I stopped for one moment. I could use his equipment, his giant red pen, and his identification papers. I quickly realized how much power went along with this, and I was determined to abuse it as quickly as possible.

And that's how I became an Equestria Daily pre-reader.

455989
Son of a bitch that was funny

I never knew there was a strike system. Well then, I'm on strike 2/3. The first story I submitted was a total piece of crap. It was the first story I ever made, which is on Gdocs. I can see why they didn't approve it, and at the time I never knew this site existed. After I got that email, I joined fimfic and started to type away the stories. Then, I decided to submit my most successful story, with 11 likes and 1 dislike. I know this is kinda small, but for an author as small as I am, that's pretty good. I got the email, and they said the humor was terrible as well as the story itself and other crap I could care less about. And that's when I began to hate Equestria Daily. And that's when i joined this group.

456019
Forgot to reply to your comment. So just read my first one. :P

458493

That's not how the strike system works, bro. It's a strike system based on story, not author. You have no strikes on the first story you submitted because it was automatically rejected without even seeing a pre-reader, and you have no strikes on the second story you submitted because it was permanently rejected.

455989

>Before long, the pre-reader was gasping in pain from the numerous gashes forming along his fingertips, he couldn't even hold his pen anymore

Comma splice. Fired.

458995

>implying comma splices aren't conventionally known as stylistic decisions on the part of the author
>implying you refer to Strunk and White rigidness on comma splices

Improper termination of contract. Fired. Informal narrative warrants usage of a comma splice as a stylistic expression—check almost any given published work to verify this. Although this usage of a comma splice is pretty damn terrible, I admit.

477483

It's a tiered process. I look at all of those things, although I tend to check grammar first.

Rejections are pretty standard, unless I'm really getting in-depth about plot-specific elements of the story, which is to say that I create a list of issues based on the notes I took when reading the story, and reject based it based on those merits.

If you want a sample of my letter, take one from back when I first started in April:

Hello, I am Pre-Reader [handle removed], and I regret to inform you that your story cannot be posted on Equestria Daily at this time. Your story possesses an extreme amount of punctuation and grammatical errors, which alone prevent it from being posted.

A quick list of some of your problems:

-Homonym errors
-Sentence fragments
-Misplaced commas
-Improper dialogue punctuation
-Misuse of it's
-Omitted commas
-Word omissions
-Poorly constructed sentences
-Comma splices
-Lack of sentence variation

In your first sentence, you confuse "It's" with "Its." It's is a contraction meaning "It is" while "Its" is a possessive which delegates ownership to an object i.e. the octopus moved its tentacles. In the second sentence has a comma splice. The third sentence mistakes a plural (goddesses) for a possessive (goddess's). Such errors are prevalent throughout the entire story. Your punctuation needs work, and you need to be aware of how possessives work. Please educate yourself on how these things work instead of merely fetching an editor to fix these things; it is important that you know how these basic principles of the English language work.

Missing words such as adjectives, adverbs, verbs, are a problem in this story. Take: "Anything was possible when she flew the never ending realm" It's missing an adverb that ties the phrase together in a logical manner.

Your dialogue punctuation is wrong in most instances where a speech verb is required. Please read up on how to properly punctuate dialogue before attempting to submit again. Basic mistakes like these automatically disqualify a story for approval.

Nearly every sentence has a participle phrase (-ing verb dependent clause). There is little variation, and it feels like I'm reading the same sentence over and over again because everything is formatted exactly the same. You need to mix up your sentence construction and verb types to create an interesting prose that flows.

This is your first strike. Revise wisely.

477961

I wouldn't know. The last story I approved was Background Pony.

477968

I'm not really for hire for conceptual reviews anymore.

477974

http://www.ponychan.net/chan/fic/res/119870+50.html

^Can be of assistance if you would like a concept worked out with someone, if you're willing to wait a bit.

455407

WHAT?!

So they're saying they themselves are a steaming pile of shit?!

They are jerks though.

Most of my hatred stems from the changing of the Cupcakes rule.

It seems I began my alternate ending series to Cupcakes, 'The Cupcake Chronicles' at the worst time. Seth posted the 1st of what would become 7 stories, to nearly universal praise.

However, when the 2nd story was in-progress, the Submission rules were changed, barring anything even remotely related to Cupcakes. My series still garnered a considerable following, but nothing like it could have been if Seth and company didn't slap a PG sticker on the site.

Thus, I go to EqD for the comics and news, never for the fics anymore.