Many moons ago, back when I was a bad worse writer, I posted a preliminary idea for a story. It was about a freshly-alicorned Twilight, and her struggle with learning a new type of magic. Celestia asks her to learn war magic; whereas combat magic deals with combat between individuals, war magic deals with conflicts between armies. If combat magic is the bow and arrow or the sword, then war magic is the

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Generalizations are a dangerous thing. They often have exceptions, and require subjective judgements to make. The subject of today’s opinion piece, however, is a generalization that I believe in.

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One thing I often see writers struggle with is physical action: things like fight scenes, races, or the like. Sequences where the characters are moving a lot and interacting with other physical elements in a short space of time. I struggle with it myself, come to that.

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Some users may remember that one story I wrote about Nightmare Moon. You know, the one with the melodrama. Well, I'm happy to announce that Kitsune Heart has done a dramatic reading of it! Find it over here.

In my usual overanalysing way, I have written a critique of it. Read on for more.

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I don't usually make back-to-back blogposts, but this is a special occasion. There's a new Chrisfic!

Well, sorta. There's new Chris ponyfiction, anyway!

If you haven't seen it in the past couple of weeks, amazing ponyfic author/editor/jack-of-all-fanfic-trades cleverpun as started publishing chapters of a collab about... well, why don't I let it speak for itself:

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Last week, after many false starts and discards, I finished the first chapter of my novel. Or more accurately, I finished the first chapter of a novel after discarding three others this year, and this is the first one I'm mildly confident might possibly be finish-able. To celebrate this ephemeral milestone, I would like to revisit a piece of writing advice that I learned long ago, yet I still often forget; don’t force it—but don’t procrastinate either.

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Title: The Quest
Author: iisaw

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One thing I like about the FIM fanfic fandom is the abundance of reviewers and critique available. It helps authors grow, helps other authors learn from their mistakes, and helps inform readers of stories they may like or dislike.

I generally avoided being one of those reviewers for a long time. I usually preferred a direct dialogue with the author, so my critique would often take the form of a lengthy comment directly on the story in question.

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Today’s story uses not one, but two twists. Since the first twist is fairly obvious (perhaps intentionally so), I have not bothered to spoiler-tag it.

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Today’s critique is another “retro” one. It is an adaptation of a comment I already made, on a story I have already read, rather than completely new material based on a recent read.

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Title: It Feels... Wrong.
Author: pertelote345

Found via: the popular box

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The description and title are some of the most important parts of a story. They provide readers with their first impression, convince them to read it, and characterize your story even after it is finished.

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Title: To Be A Mule
Author: archonix

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In my editing career, I have met many authors who possessed...tenuous self-esteem about their work. My blunt critiquing style and frequent lack of tact have damaged many an author's self-esteem further. And I take full responsibility for that. I've often had a strained relationship with my own work as well. I recently did some editing for an IRL friend new to writing, and these topics came up multiple times in our discussion. I thought it a good thing to discuss.

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The Magician King by Lev Grossman

This is the sequel to The Magicians, which I read back in January. Spoilers for it follow.

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I go into every story hoping for something that will be worth commenting on. Unfortunately, not everything warrants prolonged critiquing. This is especially true of fanfiction, where many writers are still learning and improving. Here is a selection of reviews/critiques, in two sentences or less. All of these stories were found via the featured or popular boxes. Unlinked stories are rated M and are extremely NSFW: they may be found via the author links.

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I go into every story hoping for something that will be worth commenting at (great) length on. Unfortunately, not everything warrants prolonged critiquing. Here is a selection of reviews/critiques, in two sentences or less.

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