This is a place to post EqD rejection letters. We can learn something from each others' rejections! And we can also help dispel the fear, uncertainty, and doubt about the process.

Please state the story title so we can find the story and understand the letter. Quoting is better than summarizing - people usually introduce spin when they summarize. That would be counter to the purpose of this thread.

My first EqD rejection, for "Big Mac reads something purple":

"Unfortunately, your fic does not meet the minimum word count. While it is over 2500 words, 1100 of those are part of alternate endings. Also, the writing seems very flat, where character does this, character does that, character said, etc. Please revise your fic before resubmitting."

True about some of the writing being "flat". I think of it as "sparse" or "efficient". But I may have gone too far.

My revision request for "The Detective and the Magician" (now "A Scandal in Equestria", but I don't like that title either):

As something of an occasional Sherlockian, I approached this with a feeling nigh-unto dread. I've seen terrible Holmes crossovers darken our inboxes before, and I feared this would be the same, but I held out hope—that this fic author would capture what made the novels engaging while keeping the flavor of Equestria alive.

You, author, have done just that.

However, I can't recommend it for posting just yet. This is not a rejection; merely revise your story with what I point out in mind, then submit through the form again. I'll give it a quick skim to ensure the fixes are made, and then it can be posted to Equestria Daily. I have included one example per issue to assist in editing, although of course there's more than one instance per problem.

1. Dashes: when there's a pause and a dash, it should be an en or em dash rather than a hyphen.
> are perfectly safe, and comfortable, and - WHAT ARE YOU DOING ON THE CEILING?

2. Comma use: when a sentence has a simple subject (he) and a compound predicate (go and shot), a comma before the coupling conjunction is not required.
> But he did eventually go mad, and shot himself in a field not long after cutting off his own ear as a gift for, appropriately enough, a "mare of the night".

This last point is more of a personal irritation of mine and is not required to fix in order to be posted, but I'd like you to consider it.

3. Semicolon use: in general, conjunctions shouldn't be used to start sentences or after semicolons often after they're used to adjoin complete clauses, and you use a semicolon for the second use quite often to the point of oversaturation. Consider possibly doing this less.
> The museum had a tip that an attempt would be made on the painting in Fillydelphia; and its board, in addition to notifying the local police, had engaged Holmes to look into the matter.

And that's it! Fix those two issues, consider the third, and then this can get posted. If you have any questions or concerns, reply to this email and I'll do my best to answer.

My fic is Captain Colt Stallion

Here's my letter:

"Thank you for submitting to Equestria Daily. Unfortunately, your story did not pass initial grammar inspections due a number of systemic issues that need to be rectified and, as a result, cannot be sent to the pre-readers. This does not count as a strike, but your story will continue being rejected until it can be brought up to a standard that we can forward this story to the pre-readers. Feel free to e-mail us back if you have questions."

This is the third time I've gotten that same message on one of my fics. When they finally told me what issues they had, I swore I fixed them, but I still got this message.

I'm not getting strikes, but at the same time nothing is going anywhere at this rate.

I had an ironically short response on the lines of "Pacing is too fast. Give the story some space to breathe before we send it to the proof-readers."

It was a response to am ancient (months old) draft of optimization - I had launched a couple dozen subplots and the main plot in the first four chapters.

Here is my letter.
___________________
Look for errors in the following areas:

Comma use
Capitalization
Tense inconsistency
Semicolon use
Dialogue punctuation
Word misuse (weary instead of wary)
Possessive nouns

I also noticed... a severe... overuse of... ellipses... which made the story... drag... when used too often in narration. Also consider trimming down your author's notes: they're a bit overbearing at present. FiMFic provides comments and blog posts for these things.
__________

Some are easy enough fixes. I deleted my A.N.'s and am working on getting rid or incorporating the ellipses into the story. The others... I might need /fic/...

406572
If you want us to do something differently, the first step is to actually say something to us.

Hint, hint.

407768 Would some of the pre-readers go more in-depth in their letters if we ask? I was getting the impression from the EqD FAQ section that they read it over once and were done with it until the next submission.

407777
Yeah, certainly. All you have to do is reply to the email and ask and it'll find its way back to your pre-reader.

410841
Huh. I... honestly don't remember your fic. I read so damn many, I got a lot of them confused.

As for our lists... I'm actually one of the few who does that any more. Most of the rest of us provide examples and such. I call them crazy, because most authors who get that just rant and rave and get mindless sympathy from their followers anyway, but meh.

I read nearly every review we send out, and I dunno if I'd call most of what we send "cruel." Is "Here's a list of what you could improve in your writing, particularly if you want it on EqD" really that bad? I'll grant that on occasion, a few of us fly off the handle (I did that myself when I rejected either device heretic or AbsoluteAnonymous... I forget which), but by and large, I think the rejections aren't as bad as you're making them out to be. Hopefully this thread backs me up as more people find this group

410841 411442
I think one of the problems with the emails is less of the content that the pre-readers give the authors, but more of how they word it. Since it is by email, and authors read it, if it isn't worded carefully it can come off as extremely offensive.

My letter for example (I have nothing against you Air Pirate, this is just an example)

I also noticed... a severe... overuse of... ellipses... which made the story... drag... when used too often in narration

This part of the letter really upset me. Not from what he is saying, but how he is saying it. If he would write it out without the '...'s, then I can take it as a more professional review or word of advise. Since it is added in, it feels like he is degrading my story by saying 'what you wrote is horrible, so you should delete this part because I feel it isn't worth reading'. I know for a fact he didn't say that, but I got the impression from it.

Wording is one of the biggest factors in a lot of problems (from what I have seen, at least)

411474

This part of the letter really upset me. Not from what he is saying, but how he is saying it. If he would write it out without the '...'s, then I can take it as a more professional review or word of advise. Since it is added in, it feels like he is degrading my story by saying 'what you wrote is horrible, so you should delete this part because I feel it isn't worth reading'. I know for a fact he didn't say that, but I got the impression from it.

I believe what your pre-reader was trying to do is demonstrate why the narration felt like it dragged by providing an example. I can almost guarantee that that line was intended as more of a joke than anything else. I suppose we have to be more careful about what we joke about, since as 411700 mentioned, it doesn't always come across in email.

This is my Rejection Letter
Moderator:

Your story has been deleted from our queue. Don't lie about reading the submission guidelines next time.

Me:

But I didn't, can you tell me what I did wrong?

Moderator:

Well, to start, right at the top it says:

The sheer number of errors in your first few paragraphs alone show that this hasn't been edited. Or that English isn't your first language. Or both.

Slightly below that, we have:

Note the last point.

You claim to have read the guidelines, yet somehow you missed both of these. Or perhaps you just think the rules didn't apply to you. I really don't think there's a way to make it any clearer than it is now, so it seems reasonable to assume you just lied about reading them. Either way, we are not interested in posting this story. Feel free to leave it on FimFic; it seems to be doing well there.

So there is some hurtful things, but good comments as well.

I just added my fic "Pinkie Pie's Wonderful Flying Machine" to the second chance folder. Here is the rejection letter that goes along with it, though keep in mind many of the issues have been resolved. I also feel the letter itself was cut short in the end, though I wonder if that is the case.

have a quick review!
---------
My maine complaint so far is that Pinkie, while as enthusiastic as she normally is, has not made a single non-sequitur or otherwise off-the wall statement so far. She does do asides, but they seem less, um, Pinkie Pie than they should. And she is doing a lot of talking. The dialogue could stand to be broken up. Here is the paragraph that finally got to me.
"Cupcakes and muffins and all that stuff is easy to make, and the materials are much easier to come by,” Pinkie explained as she opened the door to the engine room, “Just
look at this ship! Metal! Lumber! Canvas! A pony like me just can’t get
all this stuff in one go. I had to call in a lot of favours, and spend a
lot of time usually saved for parties and pranks to build this. I love
being in Ponyville where all my friends are, and I love having parties
and working on delicious tasty treats! If this ship wasn’t bugging my
noodle for the past six months, I would have kept making goodies. And
it’s so much more fun to be here in Ponyville having fun and bringing
smiles than lecturing in some mechanics class in some academy. By the
way, remind me to have you sample my new butterscotch-maple-walnut-soufflé. I think it makes a yummy in my tummy, but for some reason Mister Cake didn’t want to give it a try.”
That's a lot of dialogue that could use some Pinkie actions to break it up. She's never still when talking.

Pinkie then opened the door to the engine room as she waited for Rarity and Fluttershy to enter before closing it behind them.
This is kind of long and awkward. She opens and closes the door in one sentence. It's weird.

Mageia Chrysalidas
This is not a very pony word. How do you even say this?
Mah-gee-ia Cri-sal-ee-das ?

“Oh, um, I guess I can help with your work,” Fluttershy said, “Rainbow Dash does say I have a ‘freaky knowledge of sewing.’”
Sorry 'shy. I don't see the connection. It sticks out as a weird reference instead of a cool reference.

Her life as she knew it would always be in Equestria; if not staying in the Boutique in Ponyville then moving on towards the elite of Manehattan, New Yoke, or even Canterlot.
Your comma grew an extra dot

Her forays with the upper crust (though not that pony in particular) were memories she still looked back on fondly.
I really dislike parenthesis in prose. They should be reserved for narrator asides to the reader, something a serious work like this probably shouldn't have.

While geography was not her strong suit, Rarity did feel that information about other nations and even other continents should be common knowledge, rather than the feeling of discovery now.
You lost me here. I don't quite follow what Rarity is feeling. Is she wondering why more people don't know or why she doesn't know?

I'll just note that this is moving s bit slowly. The various descriptions of WHAT is happening are interesting, but there are a lot of them. I just want them to launch teh ship already :|

“I took a look myself, and no altas mentioned any place like Mechanon. Still, Pinkie did say that Mechanon was far across the ocean, and no pegasi or ship was been able to fly that far. I am curious how this Cogworks made it across. Pinkie never explained.”
Still may need more lampshading. All of her friends are giving up a large chunk of time for a place not even Twilight has heard of? On Pinkie's word? Seems fishy.

“Pinkie wouldn’t steer us into danger or some false promise. Maybe steer us to a party or what appears to be a wild goose chase, but never anywhere she knew was not worth it.”
Twilight... How do you read so much and still say things like that.

---------------

They are generally saying you could make it a bit more engaging! Up to you!

441996
Looks like you got a pretty in-depth review there. It seems the pre-reader commentaries on EQD lately have been stressing the fact that they can't offer help for every submission, but yours took extra time for you.

I'd say it looks like, in general, he/she wants to see tighter prose. When I write, I tend to understand what I'm describing better than I can write it. That last bit in the review makes me think you might need to simplify your setting descriptions a bit, not make them more vague, but simpler? You may also need to check your pacing.

Also, don't write semicolons ( ; ). There's a place for them, but I think the pre-readers are developing an allergy. (again, I'm speaking from recent commentaries on EQD).

I haven't actually read your fic yet, but If I get a chance, I'll look at it while keeping the review in mind.

444500 you say not to write semicolons (;), but sometimes they are used correctly in the sentence, and fit the story much better than when the sentence is broken up into two separate ideas to avoid it.

If it is used properly, is it still counted against us just because it is used? This is worrying me...

444500
We like semicolons.

We just hate it when they're used incorrectly.

445778
>If it is used properly, is it still counted against us just because it is used?
No.

445778

Talking from a video interview where a group of pre-readers (not sure which ones) agreed you should just avoid semi-colons. Not sure which interview it was and it's been awhile.
They may have just been trying to cut back on finding them improperly used, though. I mean, everyone assumes they're using them correctly.

441996

Ask and ye shall receive.

444500

There isn't really a non-awkward way to start this, so awkwardness ahoy!

Hi. I'm one of the mods on SALT, /fic/'s stunted and forgotten reviewing brother. I'd be willing to go over anything that gets submitted into the second chance folder, but I would also suggest including links to /fic/ and SALT in this group, especially for any authors who are seeking a second chance. They're both pretty invaluable for providing a solid level of critiquing (though, admittedly, /fic/ is far better at doing so than SALT).

I'd also like to say that I fully support what you're doing here. Hosting pre-reader to rejectee discussion without having it dissolve into an endless hissy fit is no small feat.

Oh, and Sage for irrelevancy to OP's post.

446089
With what you did for Omega Pony, I'd say you absolutely earned a little advertising for those sites. Your offer for reviewing the second-chance folder means more than I can express.
Also, I can't take credit for how this group is turning out. Most of that was from the fantastic users you see above.

I believe you've inspired me for some ways I can arrange this group.

Hey members! Watch out for incoming threads!

Well, it finally arrived! (Shades of Grey added to 2nd chance folder)
—————
Dear Author,

Thank you for submitting your work to Equestria Daily. I regret to inform you that I am unable to approve it for publication at this time. Please look for errors in the following areas:

- Punctuation mis-use. There are many instances of unnecessary commas and semicolons used in the place of colons. Remember the distinction that semicolons must separate two independent clauses, while colons join two dependent clauses together (hard and fast with few exceptions, but generally applictable)
- Onomatopoeia (especially bolded) is a very clumsy method to communicate an event. Please phrase sounds or happenstance within your story.
- Please do not use capital letters for emphasis - bold or italics depending on context.
- Clauses separated with colons/semicolons do not warrant a capital letter, as they are still within the same sentence.
- "bestest, favoritest most comfortable cloud" is not something I believe Rainbow Dash would ever say. It's baby-speak in a sense, and doesn't fit her characterization.
- Inconsistent indentation - please either include equal temperment line breaks or indents for all new paragraphs.
- Twilight's dialogue pacing and phrasing feels very awkward in several places.

All in all, there are several combinations of technical errors as well as storytelling considerations preventing this story from postability.
————

I think I can see why some people get aggravated with these letters. The tone set for the list is 'these errors', yet much of it is subjective opinion, or simply requests. I get why you might term it that way, but it doesn't come off particularly well. This is exactly what I was alluding to in the 'ask a pre-reader' thread about grammar versus style.

Most worrisome for me is the semcolon/colon issue. I can't see any errors (which is the point, of course), so I'm going to need some external help with that. Also, the assertion about capitals and colons is just flat wrong, and that's before even taking the groups that disagree with the base 'rule'. Colons do not always separate dependent clauses, either. If fact, a colon cannot separate two dependent clauses, since the clause before the colon must be independent to begin with (the clause after it can be anything from a fragment to several independent clauses that form a list). Conversely, I have no idea if the exceptions apply or not until I can actually locate the instances in question.

-Scott

EDIT: I would also like to point out that this is a huge improvement over the first rejection. To even be getting into specifics makes me happy, so please don't think I'm just being barbed.

454571
Hmm, let's see here...

Punctuation mis-use. There are many instances of unnecessary commas and semicolons used in the place of colons. Remember the distinction that semicolons must separate two independent clauses, while colons join two dependent clauses together (hard and fast with few exceptions, but generally applictable)

Taking a look...

You know Fluttershy though; she just couldn’t bring herself to say what the problem actually was.

That looks like it should be a colon.

Rarity lifted her eye mask again to see Lotus gesturing with a tilt of her head towards Twilight: the weary unicorn had fallen asleep and was already starting to snore.

My gut tells me that that should be a semicolon, but I also can't really make a solid case against it being a colon.

Dash’s eyes sprang wide open at the tone of Rarity’s voice: A tone that indicated something had transgressed Rarity’s sensibilities.

That "A" should be lowercase – while I'm aware it is acceptable to start with an uppercase letter after a colon according to some style guides, as far as I know you generally only do that if the thing that's starting with an uppercase letter is a proper sentence, and "A tone that indicated something had transgressed Rarity’s sensibilities." lacks a finite verb, so it's not a proper sentence... it's really just an extended subject free of a predicate.

Even so, after the day’s course of events, she had committed herself to helping first Twilight, then Fluttershy, yet now they were off helping each other and she was left here: like the last offcut of finest silk—beautiful, but useless.

Not even getting into technical details, I'd really recommend substituting that colon for a comma – having such a strong punctuation mark where a weaker one would do borks your flow horribly.

Onomatopoeia (especially bolded) is a very clumsy method to communicate an event. Please phrase sounds or happenstance within your story.

I'm quite fond of onomatopoeia personally, but even then I use it very sparingly. Put it in italics, not bold. You very rarely find bold text in prose, and even in our free-wheeling, rule-breakin' MLP fanfiction world, it's best to avoid it if you can – it's heavy and distracting.

Please do not use capital letters for emphasis - bold or italics depending on context.

This I agree with. Using caps for emphasis looks OBNOXIOUS and LOUD. Italics are a far better choice. I'll admit I've used caps for shouting a few times in the past, but I don't really do it so much anymore.

Clauses separated with colons/semicolons do not warrant a capital letter, as they are still within the same sentence.

With semicolons, that's true. With colons, you might be justified in beginning independent clauses with a capital letter, as I mentioned earlier.

"bestest, favoritest most comfortable cloud" is not something I believe Rainbow Dash would ever say. It's baby-speak in a sense, and doesn't fit her characterization.

Out of context, I agree. This sounds more like Pinkie Pie.

Inconsistent indentation - please either include equal temperment line breaks or indents for all new paragraphs.

You can safely tell the prereader they are wrong with this one. Your indentation style is perfectly valid. To quote Robert Bringhurst on this page:

The function of a paragraph is to mark a pause, setting the paragraph apart from what precedes it. If a paragraph is preceded by a title or subhead, the indent is superfluous and can therefore be omitted.

Although it seems standard practice to indent every paragraph for many publishers in the US, many international companies use the same style you're using. It's one I personally prefer. =)

Twilight's dialogue pacing and phrasing feels very awkward in several places.

This I'd have to actually read the fic to analyse.

On a note the PRs didn't ask about, I'm interested to know the logic behind your em dash/en dash usage. It looks awfully bizarre and inconsistent to me. Ideally, you should either use unspaced em dashes for everywhere you need a dash—like this—or you should use spaced en dashes – like this – (only leave out the space between the dash and the word preceding it when dialogue is being cut off mid-word) or you should use spaced en dashes for general dash marks and unspaced em dashes for when dialogue's being cut off.

Anyway, hope that helps a bit. I can probably be persuaded to do little grammatical PR-concern sweeps for anyone else who asks, at least for the time being, because they're easy and quick.

454694 (Must work out how to do the little dialogue boxes!)

"That looks like it should be a colon."
The advice I was following was to loosen up dialogue. If that was in narrative, I'd agree, but in dialogue it says more about how something is said, than how it's constructed. But you do illustrate the point that confused me most. It's one thing to say it might look more right as a colon, but quite another to say it's actually wrong as a semicolon. I mean, we wouldn't say that a character's one word question was a fragment and shouldn't be used. I don't understand how this is different.

"My gut tells me that that should be a semicolon, but I also can't really make a solid case against it being a colon."
The latter is explaining what the tilt of the head is referring to. I thought this was a cut-and-dried colon (now there's a horrid mental image). If not, then without knowing why it doesn't really do any me much good.

"That "A" should be lowercase – . . . "
It can't be. Either the whole construction is invalid (which is fine, if that's the case), or both A's must be capitalised.
Dash’s eyes sprang wide open at the tone of Rarity’s voice: A tone that indicated something had transgressed Rarity’s sensibilities. A tone that suggested that Dash was the one doing the transgressing.
"The traditional rule of capitalization after a colon is twofold: If the text that follows the colon as an expansion or explanation is a phrase or a single sentence, the first word of that passage should not have an initial capital letter. If the text is more extensive, the first word of each related sentence should be capitalized. (The preceding statement is an example of explanation.)" —DailyWritingTips

"I'm quite fond of onomatopoeia personally . . . "
Well, that was kinda my reaction. I'm totally fine with the bold thing, it was overkill. I certainly didn't think I'd used many (although several came out from the previous iteration).

Also, I have no real issue with the caps thing. I seem to find it far less of an issue than most, and sometimes you want to be loud. To me, using italics and using caps (instead of bold, which I generally dislike) serve very different functions. and thus I try to use both where appropriate, but it's no big deal to change it. The only time I would openly advocate it is for emphasis in italics, since the inversion principal of un-bolding doesn't work for me. It looks horrid, it doesn't emphasise, half the time I can't even see it, and it still looks better than boldface.

It's hard to change stuff and do it right when you can't get a clear answer about what's wrong, and just parroting what I'm told doesn't really seem to be in anyone's best interests. That's why I enjoyed Self-Editing for Fiction Writers. It's extremely good for explaining why one thing is bad, and why another thing works.

-Scott

454745
The boxes are [ quote ] [ /quote ] without spaces, or you can use the new button that looks like two speech bubbles.

The advice I was following was to loosen up dialogue. If that was in narrative, I'd agree, but in dialogue it says more about how something is said, than how it's constructed. But you do illustrate the point that confused me most. It's one thing to say it might look more right as a colon, but quite another to say it's actually wrong as a semicolon. I mean, we wouldn't say that a character's one word question was a fragment and shouldn't be used. I don't understand how this is different.

I meant "more right as a colon". As long as you've got two independent clauses that are related, I don't think you can be wrong with a semicolon.

"My gut tells me that that should be a semicolon, but I also can't really make a solid case against it being a colon."
The latter is explaining what the tilt of the head is referring to. I thought this was a cut-and-dried colon (now there's a horrid mental image). If not, then without knowing why it doesn't really do any me much good.

I tend to avoid colons in general because no-one seems able to agree on how you're supposed to use them. The clearest I've got is that with a colon, what comes before it directly leads to what comes after it, and with a semicolon the two sentences don't need to be related in that exact way but should still be related somehow.

But then, what does "directly lead to" or "call attention to" even mean? It's a definition easily expanded.

I get what you're saying about speech though.

It can't be. Either the whole construction is invalid (which is fine, if that's the case), or both A's must be capitalised.
Dash’s eyes sprang wide open at the tone of Rarity’s voice: A tone that indicated something had transgressed Rarity’s sensibilities. A tone that suggested that Dash was the one doing the transgressing.

Technically speaking, the whole construction is invalid, because you've got sentence fragments. Those are more accepted in fiction writing than they might be elsewhere, but of course you still need to be careful. Personally, I'd probably do something like this:

Dash’s eyes sprang wide open at the tone of Rarity’s voice: a tone that indicated something had transgressed Rarity’s sensibilities – a tone that suggested that Dash was the one doing the transgressing.

It's hard to change stuff and do it right when you can't get a clear answer about what's wrong, and just parroting what I'm told doesn't really seem to be in anyone's best interests.

I guess that's writing. Language is ever-changing, people on different ends of the globe can't agree about everything and sometimes you need to break the rules.

You've inspired me to do some more research on colons... oh wow that sounds bad.

(Ta!)

I tend to avoid colons in general because no-one seems able to agree on how you're supposed to use them. The clearest I've got is that with a colon, what comes before it directly leads to what comes after it, and with a semicolon the two sentences don't need to be related in that exact way but should still be related somehow.

That's probably the most sensible answer going. Still, my understanding of colons is pretty simple, courtesy of the The Penguin Guide To Punctuation (British English): The colon is used to indicate that whatever follows it is an explanation or elaboration of what precedes it. More general: more specific.

Technically speaking, the whole construction is invalid, because you've got sentence fragments.

Yup, which I am entirely aware of. But, as you say, sometimes you break the rules for effect, and I wouldn't mind changing if that was the problem. That's kinda why I was confused by the comment in the first place.

You've inspired me to do some more research on colons... oh wow that sounds bad.

I... but... I got nothin'.

-Scott

454833

Still, my understanding of colons is pretty simple, courtesy of the The Penguin Guide To Punctuation (British English):

To just chime in here, I believe pre-reader [derp] is American, and quite a few of us get tripped up by/don't know some of the rules of British English usage where it disagrees with Stateside style, so if you pointed that out, he might be more inclined to see it your way.

454872 it is a fair point, although in this specific instance I'm not aware of any differences where colons and semicolons vary between the two. Of course, making that assumption is possibly rather stupid in itself.

But, on the larger scale, it doesn't change the points that were valid (bold, caps, etc.), and I have already sent en email to Derp about the issues I find myself in directly opposition to (whether rightly or wrongly). I really don't want to be the author that makes a sink and won't accept when he's wrong. Obviously it isn't unique to me, but this really does me an a lot to me: both the story itself and the help that is on offer here. I want to grab that help I can with both hands, I'm just trying to avoid making a pain in the arse out of myself while doing so. It's not a line I navigate very well, so I apologise if I apologise too– ahh, balls.

You get the drift.

-Scott

454930
I understand completely. Back when I was just a /fic/ reviewer, one of the points in a pre-reader response was "Celestia doesn't use contractions, so take them all out of her dialogue." I promptly called bullshit and linked evidence to the contrary, and that point of the review was dropped without further mention.

Trust me, we like authors who try to further understand/contest our points rather than posting a FiMFic blog filled with "AHHH THE PRE-READERS ARE DICKS"

455420 I know this from experience.

There is a lot of opinion work in some of the reviews too. And, as stated, there are different standards when we have reviewers between different countries. We need to try and be sure both sides know this and try and work together to find common ground when needed. This will defiantly help avoid hurt and frustration on both sides.

454872
I wonder if having the authors name their country in the submission process would help prevent this.

455510
Not necessarily. I can think of a few authors offhand who mix the rules of several regions, and besides, some people don't know their own usage rules very well anyway. I'd rather not clutter up the submission form any further.

Well, here's my (second) rejection mail of my story, Twilight's Odyssey, and an example of pre reader/author dialogue.

Prepare for long post!

Dear Author,

Thank you for submitting your work to Equestria Daily. I regret to inform you that I am unable to approve it for publication at this time. Please look for errors in the following areas:

- Characterization. This is the most major, and it impacts the readability of the entire prologue. If the three leaders of ancient Equestria are meant to be analogues to their modern day mane six counterparts (which the show has demonstrated, and you seem to be following) then their dialogue and behaviour needs to be consistent with this portrayal. Chancellor Puddinghead (Pinkie) is wildly inaccurate in both her dialogue and behaviour, feeling stilted, dry, and 'un-pinkie-like' in almost every instance. If you're trying to strike out a different interpretation of the character apart from Pinkie's portrayal then that might be acceptable, but you also throw in allusions to Pinkie's thought process and behavioural elements at several junctures. In short - this character in particular needs a total rewrite.
- Comma overuse. There are many instances of pauses inserted (mostly near the beginning of sentences) where they do not belong. Please keep a watchful eye on your comma use and omit them when unnecessary.
- Perspective. While you seem to be starting out with a third person limited narration, the jump into the Chancelor's head feels jarring and doesn't fit the context of the rest of the interaction. I suggest sticking to the limited third person narration, or comitting more fully to the internal perspective. While third person omniscient is tenable in some instances, it should almost completely avoid the use of a first-person internal narrative if being utilized properly.
- The entire preface to the story is a flood of dialogue about something the reader is already familiar with. If the character interactions were anything beyond the execution of their stereotypes then this might be enjoyable, but as is you're spending an entire chapter boring the reader to death with already understood information. Setting the scene is necessary, but so is executing that set-up in an enjoyable manner. In my mind, the entire prologue is in need of a rewrite or almost complete removal.

The above said, there are a great many overarching issues preventing this story from approval. This is your second strike of three - please revise wisely and heavily before resubmitting.

Regards,
Pre-reader ******

My response:

Thank you for your pre reading. It is much appreciated. I would, however, like to counter a few of your points.

Characterization: This is a pretty simple one in that the leaders aren't meant to be analogues of the mane six. That episode, Hearth's Warming Eve, was a play where the mane six played as actors (with their interpretations of the characters) while this is the actual historical meeting. For example, I doubt a cloudcuckoolander like Pinkie would be elected into such an important office anywhere, especially during such harsh times (unless that office had something to do with partying). I am curious as to where you think I made allusions to Pinkie's character, as that was absolutely not my intention.

Comma overuse: Entirely possible. I will have to look into it.

Perspective: Again, entirely possible. Will look into it.

Plot: Firstly, since this point is sort of dependent on the first, which I tried to counter above, then it isn't really as big an issue. Also, I disagree with the notion that this information is already known to the reader, especially since the treaty, something from outside the actual show, will be a very important plot point later on. You almost have to trust me when I say that it would be very problematic for the story to remove the prologue entirely.

Thank you again for taking a look at my work. I hope this reaches you and that this is the right place to respond.

Hoping for a reply,
DemPonies.

His response:

Hi author,

The separate instances of 'Pinkie-like' characterization were only two fold, but I assumed from the portrayal of the other characters as analogues to their main six counterparts (with historical considerations - Dash being aggressive, Twilight's counterpart being overly intelligent) - and the fact that her name is "puddinghead" along with a disciple "Smart Cookie" seemed to speak for itself.

However, if you think this isn't indicative of characterization, I'll say you have your work cut out for you with such evident connections in the other characters. Here are the offending phrases.

"Well then," Chancellor Puddinghead continued, trying to appear unfazed, "we shall form a 'try-um-vie-rate' and— "

and

"That's the gist of it, yeah," Puddinghead answered.

As to your insistence on the inclusion of the prologue, I would stress then that you work your hardest to make it engaging to the reader, because right now it's a dry-feeling partial reiteration of audience knowledge, exceptions now withstanding.

Regards,
Pre-reader ******

My responseX2:

Thank you for your response, ******.

I have to admit that I don't hear the "Pinkie-ness" of those expressions. If anything, I modeled her more after Applejack (stubborn, down-to-earth, but not very intellectual--thus her exaggerated pronounciation of the word "triumvirate"). The others were mostly written in a way I felt logical. Commander Hurricane, being the leader of what is essentially a might-makes-right military dictatorship, would naturally be aggressive and hard to negotiate with. Princess Platinum, the sole heiress to a kingdom, would be arrogant and full of herself, but schooled in diplomacy, so she would immediately recognize an opportunity coming her way. Her advisor, conversely, would be a scholar who could tend to her and document the discoveries the Princess made during her expedition. Puddinghead, the sole elected leader of the three, would be a much more smooth talker than the rest, and would serve as the voice of reason.

But it would be easy to change the wording of those two expressions (if they are distracting?).

I would prefer to change as little as possible in terms of story, since it's already on FimFiction, and some (I dare say most) of my readers actually like the prologue. A read-through of the comments of chapter one would attest to that--the new political structure of Equestria being one of the more intriguing aspects of the story. I realize the prologue isn't very "action-y" and the characters do little apart from standing around in a cave, talking and signing a document. But I have tried to make it engaging, and I do think I did a fair job. I'm not saying that your criticism isn't valid, and EQD being what it is, you can reject me on pretty much any ground you like. I'm just saying that there might be niche for this, every style fails to please everyone, and asking me to make the prologue "more fun" isn't very helpful criticism.

Apart from that, I forgot to ask in my last mail, did you read chapter one of my story as well? If so, did you find any similar issues with it? Also, what are these "great many overarching issues" you referred to before?

I'm sorry if I'm being rude in some way by "talking back". I'm just trying to get a clear picture of what I can improve.

His last response:

Dear Author,
If the case for your contention with the review is that my opinion in regards to the engagement of the text (dry and uninteresting) is personal, then I will admit you're absolutely right. I can't envision anyone in particular who would enjoy slogging through a drawn-out dialogue between a host of political leaders with (what I still feel) is ill-defined characterization - but then again, they say there is a reader for everything, and you're clearly in contention of the point I tried to make about character representation vs. reader expectations.

If that's the case, I'll do my best to ensure someone else reviews your story upon its resubmission. For now, I stand by my feedback.

Regards,
Pre-reader ******

P.S.
If you have further rebuttal, please tender it with your future resubmission so that it can be analyzed in the context of an associated review.

My last response:

Thanks again for your response, ******. Even though I do not agree with all of your criticism doesn't mean I don't take it to heart. I'll look into making the prologue more engaging.

Best regards,
DemPonies

I do respect his opinion of my prologue as dry, but, as I said, I have tried to make it engaging, and some do like it. To quote Ezn (if I can hang you out there, bud) from his review of my story over on /fic/:

As I said above, I liked it. I'm not sure that long political conversations are going to be everyone's cup of tea, but I found your prologue quite pleasant. You had the ponies pretty well in-character, their banter was fun and the whole thing seemed like a natural scene between the leaders' unfreezing and the founding of Equestria. I'm worried that it might be a little overlong, but I couldn't really say what to cut, and it may just be all the verbose and unnecessary bits.

The first chapter was also enjoyable, if possible a little too meandering for absolutely everyone's tastes (again, the pacing should pick up if you lose the word cruft). Your Twilight and Shining Armor made me smile, and that setup with Trixie may be the beginning of the best justification for her actually caring about Twilight Sparkle I've seen in a fic and actually makes me excited for her reappearance (and this is coming from someone who loathes Trixie revenge fics). What's more, it's fun to see just how much of Twilight's backstory you're managing to keep so very similar to that of regular, non-AU Twilight.

So, apparently, opinions differ. I do take his evaluation seriously though, and if anyone has any advice on how to make a chapter more engaging, that would be a great help.

P. S.
The pre reader doesn't use the name ******. I don't know if he would object to me putting his name out there, but better safe than sorry.

455639

partial reiteration of audience knowledge

I think I forgot to mention something relevant to this in my review. Stuff like

Princess Platinum, the regent of the unicorns

Clover, the Princess's vizier,

the ruler of the pegasi, Commander Hurricane.

All eyes turned to the Chancellor’s secretary, Smart Cookie,

can be safely and, I think, is preferably omitted. The great thing about writing fanfiction is we can expect our audience to already know stuff like this.

My best advice is to trim what you can from the prologue. Just make the whole thing shorter. When I read it, it was, as the prereader said, a bit of a dry slog, but I wasn't sure how much of that was due to the word cruft I pointed out and how much was due to the actual events taking place. I'll have to give it a reread sometime.

Honestly, I don't think it was criminally dull, but there are probably ways you can make it more engaging.

455854

Sure, I can omit that. I think I only put it in in response to another reviewer's feedback (who felt I took too much knowledge for granted) anyway.

I'll look into shortening it down a bit, but I think most events follow a very logical pattern and follow the rules of Kurt Vonnegurt: either reveal character or advance action.

I'll be interested in hearing what you think after reading it a second time.

455639

- Characterization. This is the most major, and it impacts the readability of the entire prologue.

I'd agree, although probably not for the reasons given. There just doesn't seem to be much in the 'voice' of each leader to set them apart. The subordinates are far less of a problem, but I'd say the pre-reader has a point about running parallels with the main six: Fluttershy, Dash, and Twilight were all very obvious to me. I don't think it's a line you can skirt without your readers making those assumptions. If you want to imply that it's actually what happened, then I'd suggest changing some things outside of the core story. The first thing that sprang to mind would be to change the names, preferably to make the names from the show to be perverted parodies of the original. I think that might lend you the sense of gravitas that the 'real' version of history might require.

- Comma overuse.

Honestly can't see it. I'm more than prepared to be slapped down for speaking outside my forte in a place such as this, but personally, I'd call foul on this one.

However, I would also say that you do seem to have a little bit of a habit for sentence construction that does mean you run comma-heavy. That is to say that as far as I can see, the commas you have used are correct, but you could cut it down by a lot. That doesn't seem to be what the pre-reader is alluding to, however, so it's hard to say.

Some examples:
Clover chimed in as she, too, came to Private Pansy's defense. (drop the 'too'. 2 commas down)
If, Princess Platinum, what your vizier said is true, (Put the name at front of back to drop another)

- Perspective

I agree entirely, those two paragraphs messed with my head. There is no reason you couldn't just use a beat to start a narrative description of exactly the same details, however.

- The entire preface to the story is a flood of dialogue about something the reader is already familiar with.

I agree with the pre-reader in principal. However, this is only true when you're reading is as the main six in the places of the characters. I think if you shook things up a little in terms of names, characterisation and other small details, it would feel altogether different.

That being said:

I think the biggest problem by far is that you have a prologue full of dialogue, and your dialogue is quite stiff. It's not what's being said (aside from characterisation and voice), it's how the narration falls around it. A room with 6 characters is a bitch to narrate, but that only makes it more important to cut attribution as often as possible. Yet, every single line has an attribution tag, and mostly tell-y ones at that. Personally, I think that's one of the biggest things that makes the prologue so dry. There's just so little flow to it. I say this having only learned learned it two months ago, and I still have the scars from beating myself with a good book until the new style stuck!

Drop some attribution. Change some for beats. Try and knock off the 'explained/chimed/scoffed' and so forth. Let the dialogue do the heavy lifting and give the reader a break. I can't say it's everything that you need to do, but it will damn sure push your story up a gear in readability.

If you would like further explanation of any of these points, feel free to ask (although you might want to keep it to PMs). I always say that if you're not willing to explain a thing... keep your trap shut!

-Scott

455872

Thanks, this gave me some great insight! Have a few question about it though, which I sent through PM.

This.

Language warning.

458132

Why? I hope I didn't say (well, write) anything rude. If that's the case, I apologize. It wasn't my intention.

458297

Aww, no. I wasn't referring to you at all.
I was posting new content in the form of that link.

Sorry to confuse you!

458326

Ah, okay.

It was just that the conversation regarding my letter was the last since your previous post

Oh, man, I totally forgot about this thread. I guess I probably should put up the three immediate rejection letters I've had:

Dear author,

Thank you for your submission. Please see the following list of feedback ( '>' denotes a quote from your work):

>As they reached the stairs, she reached to carry her; she lifted her by the barrel with all of her strength and tugged, pulling her up as she began to walk down.

You're overusing pronouns to the point of ambiguous language; it's difficult to tell at a glance which character is doing what, and that's a problem.

>She hit the floor very hard.

This doesn't need a separate sentence, much less a separate paragraph. Your short paragraphs lead to very strange pacing.
>That wasn’t the best flight ever, Pinkie Pie did not say. I almost got you killed.

Explicit thoughts should be italicized or put in quotation marks.

The biggest issue here is one of style. You have sad things happening, but there's very little to draw the reader into the narrative; there's not enough description to immerse readers in the scene and there's not quite enough of any one of the characters' perception in the narration to immerse them in the mental state of that character. Because of this, the impact of your emotional scenes is dulled. Added to that is the fact that there's very little else here; it's all just Pinkie and Dash being sad about Dash dying with just a bit of variation on that theme. If you go overboard on sad elements, they tend to lose their ability to touch readers. Your fic relies entirely on the readers' existing emotional investment in the characters to provoke an emotional response to bad things happening to them. Good sad fics usually could work relatively well even if the readers weren't that familiar with the characters because the essential parts of the characters' personalities are conveyed through the narrative in both description and dialogue. That just isn't the case here. If your scenes were more fleshed out, if there were more description, and perhaps if it weren't so relentless in its desire to depress readers, then this would probably work well. As it stands, your stylistic choices are not well executed, so I cannot recommend it for posting. This sadfic is too much sad, not enough fic.

I know you've recieved advice on Ponychan about his. If you're willing to make changes, then we look forward to your resubmission.

-Prereader E

Dear author,

Thank you for your submission. Unfortunately, I cannot recommend it for posting. You have a problem with run-on sentences (the first paragraph of chapter 2 being a prime exaple), but more importantly this fic is not all that funny. I can see the style of meta-literature humor you're going for, but your characters and narrative are constantly essentially explaining the jokes, which tends to ruin them. I do like the concept, but your execution leaves a lot to be desired in that respect, and it makes your fic rather dull. I'm not the only prereader that found this boring. Feel free to resubmit for a second opinion, but I'm afraid I have to give this a first strike. On the other hand, this did generate plenty of attention of Fimfic, so it may save everyone time and effort if you simply kept it there.

-Prereader E

Thank you for submitting your story to Equestria Daily. Unfortunately, there are several reasons why it cannot be posted without some pretty drastic changes. As such, the story as is cannot be accepted without a rewrite which would constitute a different story.

I only found a minor number of mechanical problems which are not worth enumerating here, given that they are a secondary issue.

First, while I appreciate some of the humor within, it didn't get me to crack a smile more than once, and comedy is one of my favorite tags. It's more interesting viewpoints than humor per se, which i could excuse, but...

The word count is far short of our requirements. We can waive those rules, for stories that are exceptional, but this one is not so clearly above the bar.

Finally, Celestia's desire for an incestuous relationship with Luna is against our policy; while you could introduce elements to suggest otherwise, like asserting they are not actually sisters, doing so would feel like shoehorning it in without adding anything to the story for the mere purpose of justifying that choice. And the second reference to a direct, if not graphic, description of a sex act between them is over the line.

Your writing is quite good and imaginative, and I would welcome any future submissions that fit within our policies.

Sincerely,
Pre-reader 63.546

tl;dr the bourgeois establishment is suppressing my something or the other

514092
I chuckled.

Folks:

Bad Horse pointed me toward this place, so I thought I'd give it a try.

I'm currently revising my fic "In Their Highnesses' Clandestine Corps," a 26,000 word light adventure romance with Prince Blueblood as Equestria's James Bond equivalent and Rainbow Dash as something like Tracy Draco.

I wrote it originally after stumbling across TAW's Shipping Contest and decided I'd submit it to EqD as well. My last three stories over there, the 6-star novel Half the Day is Night, the 5-star short story "The Birth of Harmony," and the 4-star novel An Infinite Number of Pinkies, were all done so long ago, the star system was still in place, and I wasn't sure I'd ever submitted anything through the pre-readers, either. Still, I figured, what could possibly do wrong?

Twelve days after submitting the story, my "first strike" letter arrived:

Response:

Dear Author,

Thank you for submitting your work to Equestria Daily. I regret to inform you that I am unable to approve it for publication at this time. Please see below for areas requiring attention in your story:

- Double hyphens are used frequently instead of em/en-dashes - this is likely a formatting error, but it should be corrected for readability.
- Specific error, sentence fragment: "His eyes bulging from his pale yellow face, his odd golden horn twinkled."
- Inconsistent capitalization after dialogue tagging
- Usage of multiple question marks - recursive punctuation should be solely the domain of the interrobang.
- Specific awkward phrasing: 'candles in the rain' - should likely be 'candle'.
- Specific awkward phrasing: "Rolling to the floor, then, he lashed out..."
- Specific run on sentence: "...the other unicorn with a solid squish, and he had to wince, thinking of all the unpleasant things he was constantly being asked to touch during these little escapades for his aunt."
- Several instances of colon / semicolon confusion

Given that these errors have been selected from a reading of a small selection of your submitted text, it seems evident the body of your story likely requires a significant amount of editing attention. I will say that the content of the story itself seems charmingly put together and has a unique narrative voice - it's just a bit too clunky on the technical side for proper consideration, as well as needing some polish on the side of phrasing. Try reading your passages aloud, and see if you can spot places where the sentences are awkward to read.

This is your first strike of three. Please revise wisely before resubmitting.

Regards,

Prereader [derp]

So I went through and rewrote most of the sentences where I used absolute constructions, a grammatical form I enjoy but few others do, since the examples of "awkward phrasing" all seemed to be in that category. I also rewrote a fair number of the sentences where I used colons and semi-colons, reinstalled most of the conjunctions I'd elided, figured out how to make an 'em-dash' in my word processing program, and rethought the ways I was inserting dialogue tags. I then resubmitted it, and after another twelve days, I got my second strike:

Response (strike two of three):

Dear Author:

Welcome back. I'm Pre-reader Senility, and I'll be going through your story.

Issues:

1) You reference Blueblood being tied down by ankles and wrist, which implies hands and feet. A few paragraphs later, he's extending his front legs. Believe it or not, for a moment, I thought I was reading an Anthro-pony story. Might want to tweak that.

2) You're giving Dash an accent by odd punctuation. Might wish to reconsider that...

3) Awkward phrasing here and there.
Her wing muscles as mooshy and thick as cheese after that whole trip up the side of the cliff, Dash could barely keep herself hovering as light brighter than a summer afternoon in Ponyville's market square flooded through the drooping branches of the willow tree.

4) Spell out your numerics. Seventy thousand, not 70,000

All in all, I find this much improved from the last iteration that appeared.

However, I would still request you take it and get it looked over on WTG or some other editing service. There's just enough left of the former issues to raise a red flag.

I also agree with the previous pre-reader. I genuinely liked this story, and hope that you'll give it a good going over with a second set of eyes. I also look forward to it coming back!

-Pre-reader... wait, what was my pre-reader name again...? I forgot...

So, here I am facing my final submission. I've gotten out my finer-toothed comb and gone through the whole thing again, but I'm also taking that last piece of advice and seeing what other folks might think. So if anyone would like to go through the story and see if any of the sentences are still too byzantine, I'd greatly appreciate it!

Mike

515504
Welcome, AugieDog, and congrats on finishing your story.
First off, I would suggest adding your story to the folder "Please Revise, I want Another Chance". People from the group will receive a notification that you are seeking help. Also, there are some excellent sites for thorough review posted on our main page. I would recommend SALT.

So far, though, it looks like you are well on your way. Reaching the last strike is rather nerve wracking, but it looks hopeful as the suggestions have gotten more specific. You were right to seek help, however. Sometimes you need an extra set of eyes. I am currently on a haitus, myself, but I'll do what I can to get others to take a look.

Good luck,
Sunset Reed

516080

>I would recommend SALT

Well, I recommend /fic/.

515504

I've got your submission and am currently processing it for posting. Before I do so, though, is there any chance we could do this on a Gdoc with comments enabled? I can post the fimfiction link up there, but the Gdoc's just more convenient.

As a side thing, WTG was probably a derp. I'm guessing your pre-reader meant TTG, which would be a thread on /fic/. WTG actual hasn't been active in yonks.

516080

Reaching the last strike:

Is better than what I'm used to, actually. In most markets, you get one chance with a submission. The only time I can recall having anything different happen to me was with Gardner Dozois, the former editor at Asimov's SF magazine. I sent in a story, and he sent it back with a line he'd written in pen at the very end. He'd buy the thing, he said, if I'd agree to add that last line. Fortunately, it was a great last line, so I agreed and the story was published in Asimov's Feb. 1994 issue...

517920

I've been looking at the fic section of mlpchan.net for a couple days now, and even though I'm still not sure how it all works, I chose this little subsection because Applejinx had mentioned in a blog post I recalled reading that he'd set that thread up specifically for folks who'd written more than 40,000 words of Ponyfic. Do I just wait now and see what happens?

I can cut-n-paste Clandestine Corps into GDocs, sure, as long as you don't mind me leaving the BBCode tags floating around in it... Shall I PM you the URL once I get it set up?

Thanks again, folks!
Mike

518123

That's fine. I tend to just write the BBCode in myself, so I'm used to mentally parsing it.

As for the Applejinx one, yes you just have to wait. Though from what I've read of your story (quick skim of the first chapter), you may have posted it in the wrong thread. Applejinx's specialty is stories focusing on interactions between the mane six; from the tags, yours is more to do with Blueblood and RD. The mane six aren't really the focus.

On the other hand, he does do long stories when most reviewers won't, so there is that.

If you were after even more opinions, I'd advise posting it in TTG on /fic/ as well and mentioning in your post that it's in Applejinx's thread.

Can I post:

My acceptance letter here, then, too?

We would like to thank you for taking the time to address our concerns with this work. You have put a lot of work into it over the long period of time since you first submitted it to us, and we appreciate all of the dedication that you have shown to your work.

As such, we are able to inform you that we now can see the work as being featured on the blog. We appreciate how you developed Blueblood as a character while still keeping him close to his canon personality. We wish you luck with your future works.

So thanks, folks, for all your help on steering me in the right direction on "Clandentine Corps." It definitely ended up a much better story for it!

Mike

This. Is. Awesome!

I am so very happy to congratulate you!

First rejection for The Corpse Bride. I can't tell whether this critique is valid or total bullshit. I don't care as much about getting on EqD as about knowing whether my story sucks. This response is really bad, the last thing you want to hear from a reader.

I think the only problematic part, where the emotions don't match, is where Twilight expounds her theory on friendship magic. That was totally absent in the first version, where Twilight was emotional and rammed everybody through scene 2. Unfortunately readers hated that; they said she was out of character and shouldn't be so emotional.

The rest of the story, though, is somber, and that's right. I could just revert back to angry Twilight, but most of the story should still be somber and understated, which seems to be the opposite of what this pre-reader wants.

Thank you for submitting to Equestria Daily! Unfortunately, I am unable to recommend your story for posting. You will find my notes detailing why below. Please note that the technical issues are only a selection and should not be treated as a comprehensive list.

The short version? Overall not too bad, but really falling short of where I think it needs to be. To be honest, the prose and dialogue could use some work as they’re both leaving the story feeling very flat and uninspired.

So, let’s break it down, shall we?

To start off, the prose.

Straight up it’s very clear we have an issue with ‘fact listing’ description. Which, as the name suggests, is where you list events like a series of facts, an effect that tends to leave the narration dull and difficult to engage with.

For example, >The three ponies had been hurrying home from an evening stroll around the lake. They had lost track of time, and the wind was already picking up, building towards the storm scheduled for later tonight. The other pair had just come into view around a bend in the forest path, coming in the opposite direction.//
That is exposition that needs some work. At first glance it appears inoffensive, and it is, at least grammatically. However, it’s also dull. Everything is told to me and done so without any sense of life or imagery, or anything potentially engaging at all. Having the occasional section like this is not the end of the world, but, unfortunately, this kind of description is the rule rather than the exception, and it’s often used at very inappropriate times. It’s boring description, and when there’s a lot of it, it tends to leave the story feeling quite dull.

In other words, this lack of any sort of engaging/emotive description leaves the work feeling, pardon the pun, lifeless. There is none of the emotion that I would expect to be in a story like this. There isn’t anything funny or sad or angry in the narration. It’s just a bunch of events described in a way that have the same emotional impact on me as my local t.v guide.

Bring the prose to life! Make it interesting to read. This is not a call to purple prose; it’s a call to write interesting description, something that is much harder and much more rewarding. Use descriptive language and the other conventions of narrative technique, and make it vivid and engaging. It’s not easy, but it will bring your work to life.

Okay, next up is the dialogue.

Like the prose, it often tends to be lifeless, almost completely at odds with the situations your characters have found themselves in. The characters talk about their dead friend and the prospect of ‘killing’ her with the same emotion they would talk about something mundane, like unpleasant weather.

For example, >Rarity raised a hoof to her chin. "She didn't act like she was suffering when we had our weekly visits to the spa. Back before Aloe asked her not to come anymore." She shuddered. "The poor dear. I could barely stand just the sounds it made when she tried to give her a massage.// It’s flat, and it’s really not how I would expect the characters to act in this situation. You have to sell to me that they are talking about their dead friend. But not only that, whether or not she is suffering. There is nothing here that makes me believe the emotion that should be present. And, without it, the tension holding the story up just fades away. There is nothing engaging me with the characters and investing me in the outcome because the emotion that underpins it is really lacking.

The only real advice I can give here is to make the dialogue more natural, and that means selling the emotion right. Unfortunately, that is never an easy fix, nor is it easy to give advice without devoting more words and time than I have available to me. But, at the end of the day, you need to make me believe that they are talking about their dead, suffering friend, and that they are honestly talking about 'killing' her for her own good.

In conclusion, the two main areas you need to focus on are the dull ‘fact listing’ description and the poor presentation of emotion in the dialogue. In other words, you need to engage me in the writing, and you need to make this story stand out.

This is your first strike out of three. Please revise carefully and don’t rush!

All the best,

- Pre-reader lost in Middle-Earth

514092 Story titles & links?

Finally, Celestia's desire for an incestuous relationship with Luna is against our policy;

What policy?