Twilight just can't understand why Rainbow Dash became so upset over something so minimal. After all, Daring Do only kissed her romantic love interest; there's nothing harmful about that! However, as she starts to piece together just what it is that's going through Rainbow's mind, she begins to find herself thinking about subjects that she had been too busy to even really consider before.
Written for the TwiDash Group Abandoned Fic Challenge.
Cover-art commissioned by me from MysticAlpha.
Chapters (1)
AHHHHH!!!! the feelings! they feel so mushy and awesome! loved it!
this competition is going to be amazing!
i liked the ending for this one most though from what i have read... it gave me so many feels
Loved this story great work
2871621
Thank you! I'm glad you liked it. ^_^
2871635
Yes, I am excited to be partaking in this contest. All my fellow writers have made such wonderful stories, I can't decide which ones I like the most. It'll be really exciting to see the outcome of this contest.
2871859
Thank you!
Not bad at all! Very impressive, especially considering it's your first fic! Keep on writing and keep on getting better.
Very bittersweet, especially heartbroken Rainbow Dash. I liked
Good luck in the contest!
Whenever i read the scene when they are hugging after Twilight said she wanted to "try" a relationship i think of this scene right here:browse.deviantart.com/art/Kovu-and-Kiara-161265545
2876815 God curse mobile links...
This story took a very clever approach -- it had Twilight enter the relationship partly out of pity for Rainbow and curiosity about what a romantic relationship would be like, instead of making Twilight randomly decide "OH I AM IN LOVE NOW!"
If that was what you were going for, I think that telling us that Twilight "had never felt happier" and "knew that there was no other pony she’d rather be with" was unnecessary at the end, as it detracted from the bittersweet tone of the piece. After all, the contest's requirement was that they end the story in a relationship, not that the relationship had to be a happy one.
That said, I might have misunderstood the whole point of the story. If you were actually aiming for a happy ending with a side of feels, as opposed to a bittersweet ending, then I'd say you pulled it off admirably. Keep on writing, and good luck in the contest!
2877297 Looking back on it, I think you may be right. Saying those things didn't really add much to the setting, as the situation itself, as well as the lead-in, should all give the reader that kind of understanding in the first place. But you're also correct in that my intention was for a happy ending. I'm a sucker for that kind of a thing, and seeing as this was my first story (and using my favorite ship, no less) I wrote something that I thought would work, please readers, and make me smile. And I did smile. A lot. ^_^
Thank you for your input, I'll do my best to learn from what I have wrought!
2876823 Thank you for saying that! The Lion King was one of my favorite movies growing up.
2876633 This contest is going to be a blast. I can't wait for the judging to really get under way.
2875034 I have every intention of working hard to get better at writing. I thoroughly enjoy the art of weaving a story. I am glad you liked it, I was fairly worried about this as it was my first one, but it seems I didn't do that bad. ^_^ Thank you for your kind words Timaeus!
2877577 Glad to know you like TLK.
Im addicted to it... just as im addicted to Reading
Engine Room: Daawww Factor 10!
Great read, and very well constructed! I love how you played with the emotions of both ponies, right up until the end. :)
Good luck in the contest!
2878152 Thank you, I'm glad you liked it. ^_^
And thanks, right back at you!
This is really good, this deserve more likes, well you have my like and fav.
Good luck in the contest.
2899061 Thank you! I hope to produce more writing soon.
My official critique as a contest judge, as requested
I really, really like this story. A lot.
There is just a ton of stuff you’ve done absolutely right here. The emotional arc that plays out for Twilight is a compelling one that feels entirely honest and entirely heartfelt. So many little touches add to it, from Twilight’s tentative cottoning on to Rainbow being interested in mares, to the realization of what she wanted from a simple photograph. The plot sings, it really does. The pacing of scenes, emotional resonances, and character actions all play together quite wonderfully.
There is, however, something to be said about your prose. You use a lot of telling in your prose. Now, the general line that gets bandied about is ‘show, don’t tell,’ which is far too simple a directive that misses a lot of really important nuance. Telling isn’t inherently wrong, and there are many places where it works. Where it works the best is when you’re exploring the emotions and thoughts of a character. Where it’s distracting and hurting the story is when it’s interrupting action. Telling, in this instance, is rendering most everything in passive voice and it’s also handholding the reader. As a result, everything takes a little bit longer to say than strictly necessary.
Here, I’ll give you an example:
Everything that happens here is fine, but there’s a bit of passive voice and a lot of over-explaining what all the reactions mean. Sometimes that’s necessary, but letting the actions (preferably active voice actions) speak for themselves generally leads to stronger sounding writing.
It’s not a huge change, just a reduction in the number of words. Nothing is lost in terms of action, nor in terms of why the actions are happening. Everything can be inferred from what’s happened before in the story, so it’s all clear.
For an example that’s more pairing down the action handholding:
Turns into:
None of it’s bad, mind you. A lot of the time it’s rather welcome. Having a nice, introspective look at the emotional processes of both Dash and Twilight is nice and it adds a strong authenticity to the change of ‘just one night.’ (
)
Overall, a very strong story. It all feels very true to the characters and I found myself grinning wistfully through the ending. I look forward to reading more from you in the future.
My two cents.
2955606 First off, wow. Thank you for the incredibly kind words bats! While I knew I had asked for a critique of the story (or to put it in Ech's words, a 'tongue lashing'), I hadn't thought for even a moment that you would genuinely like my story. It was my first attempt at a handful of different categories that I've never even touched. Well, until now I suppose.
Your constructive criticism is great, I really appreciate it. I have always had a problem with 'show, don't tell', and to be honest... I'm not sure how to fix it. When I look at the examples you gave (both my versions and then your fixed up ones) I really don't see the difference. I know you're right about it, but I can't really discern what it is that makes what you did 'showing' and what I did 'telling'. I've tried studying the subject and I've read many guides on it (Ezn's being one of the more recent onces). None of it ever really seems to fit though. I don't think I'm stupid but... I just don't understand it. When I think about 'show, don't tell', the first thought that comes to mind is... it's writing. No matter HOW I write it, I am 'telling' the reader what is happening in the story. It is always 'telling', despite whatever the context is.
I know you don't owe me or anything, but do you think you might have some words of insight that could help nail down what exactly I need to do to fix this? I'd be super appreciative because the entire reason I wanted to start writing about multi-colored horses was so that I could improve on my writing skill.
Oh, and in specific:
Thank you bats. That means a lot. I'll do my absolute best to improve.
I'm already starting my next story. I'll see if I can make it better than this one...
2958233
At its most base level, telling a reader is usually in passive voice vs. active voice (the difference between 'Twilight was sitting' (passive) and 'Twilight sat' (active)), and just says to the reader something that would normally be an inferred piece of information. To break it down to the simplest example, telling would be:
"Twilight looked nervous."
While showing would be:
"Twilight shuffled her hooves along the ground and cleared her throat several times."
The second sentence conveys the same information as the first, but it does so in a different way. The first just tells the reader what it is the character's feeling. The second shows through character action what the character's feeling. As I've said, it's not always show don't tell, because there's a lot of interior character thought and reasoning that is impossible to convey through showing, and some of the times telling is just plain better for the sake of brevity and story conveyance.
Really what it is, in your case, is holding the reader's hand and not trusting them to get what it is you're saying to them. In the first quote of the critique, mostly what I took out were the explanation phrases telling the reader why Dash was beginning to collapse. Having read the rest of the story, the reader knows that Dash is struggling because "her body was preparing to heave out all of her stress in one go," telling that to the reader again is unnecessary. It's inferred through the story up to that point why she's about to cry, we don't need to be told again that it's because her emotions were "all crushed by a single argument she had had a mere hour or so previous."
It's certainly not terrible here, but at a certain point doing this in prose is kind of like egoraptor's explanation for video game 'helper characters' in his Megaman X video:
You're trying to avoid having a reader say "Yeah, I get it." That's the real thing. Your show vs. tell could be a hell of a lot worse than it is, because generally speaking it's used poorly to skip over huge swaths of action and render things dull and boring. The real 'bad tell' example of the second quote I used would be something like this:
"Twilight was very tired and sweaty from her run."
So I suppose the real issue at hand isn't necessarily telling instead of showing, it's showing with extra telling tacked on. Without all the explanations for why the characters are feeling the way they're feeling and trusting a reader to understand from context why a character is shaky, sweaty, bouncing excitedly, etc. leads to a better reading flow while not sacrificing any of that emotional impact. I'm of the opinion that making all of it inferred subtext renders the impact stronger, too.
Hope that helps!
2958384
by all the Gods above and below....
Bats, you have just ascended past awesomeness for referencing sequilitis
Well done.
~OvO
All. My. AWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!!!!~
The feels i hawe a hart apparently and it aces when i read or feel something sweet.
(not that my ratings mater 
)
This was sweet and short and damn good, you get a 9.5/10 from me
3780316 Thank you very much! I'm glad you enjoyed it.
Wonderful read. Now, time to dig through the rest of your stories...
That was very sweet! The romance broke and melted my heart until it's barely recognizable. The conflict was very believable, as were the characters - especially Fluttershy, who, as usual, had nothing to say.
Just joshing you! You did well with this one, especially for a first try.
4239120
Thank you very much! I really appreciate it.
This was soooooo sweet
Definitely one of my new favorite stories. Also great inspiration to get back to my story so thanks bunches for the amazing read 
4292047
Thank you. I'm glad you enjoyed it.
I'm glad I was also able to help inspire you to write some more!
Didn't realize this was for a contest at first, so when I read another story with the same beginning (weeks after I'd read this one) I was a bit confused at first. xD
I really loved this, though. It was really sweet.
4711225
Thank you! I somehow won second place in the contest with this entry. How I managed that, I don't know. @_o I swear the judges must have been high on judgement day.
4711298 I totally would have voted for you, but I'm pretty sure I read this long after the contest ended.
4711299
Don't be so sure! The fic that won was phenomenal. Have you read it yet?
4711302 Unless it's Daring Dash and Rosetta Sparkle in the Jungle of Perils (and I'm only on the fourth chapter of that), then no.
4711304
Ironically, that is the fic which took first place. ^_^ ElPossie did a fantastic job on that entry, and it deserved first place and more. You are for sure going to love it.
4711308 It is pretty good so far, and I definitely can see why it won, but yours was still amazing.
4711321
It was my first fanfiction ever (and also my first romance fic ever) so I learned a lot from it. I've tried to channel what I learned from it into my current writings to improve as a writer. I feel like I'm at least getting better... Marginally, anyways. 
Well thank you, I appreciate the compliment.
This is some fine work you've got here. Characters feel very true to themselves, and like Rainbow, I've found myself irritated when a 'ship doesn't work out right.
I thought the prose was fantastic; just the right shade of lilac, without veering into purple, as befits a romantic story.
4832566
Thank you! I'm glad you enjoyed it.
Also, I am honored that after we talked a bit on your profile that you'd go and read one of my stories. Thank you very much.
4833971
Yeah, I'm very annoying like that.
4834477
Haha, I don't think 'annoying' is the right descriptor. Maybe 'awesome'?
4834688
Nah, there's nothing awesome about it. I just like reading new stories.
I loved it! However, I am curious as to whether Twilight noticed the blood and scratches adorning Rainbow's head or not. I don't recall seeing Twilight mention it but she is highly analytical so she must have seen it and not commented. Or was just too tired and worried to care. Either way. Unless I'm completely wrong and thinking too hard on something of little importance...
5209857
You are correct. Both she and Rainbow were just so tired (and had other, more important things on their minds to focus on) that it wasn't a concern. I just like to imagine the conversation the following morning while they're eating breakfast in Applejack's kitchen. xD
Also, the fact that you liked my new story enough to then check out my other fics has me really happy! Thank you very much!
5209877
Eh, no problem. I'm stalkerish like that. And besides, it was worth it on my side because I got an additional fic to keep me entertained! Be careful or you may just get a creepy notification alerting you to the fact that some monster made from skittles is watching you. And yes, I'm well aware how pants that joke was. Besides, you're a really good writer so you deserve all the views and reviews you can get.
5209996
Well thank you. That's quite the compliment! And seeing as this skittle monster has started following me, I shall attempt to live up to the expectations. So yes, thank you!
Awhh what a cute story haha
5213342
I am incredibly sorry for the late reply! I somehow missed your comment.
Belated response aside, I am very happy that you found my fic enjoyable. ^_^ Thank you for taking the time to read it.
This was a great reread. It was actually one of the first Twidash fics I ever read, and I'm not certain why it didn't make it to my favorites list, but that keeps happening to me lately, finding fics that I thought for sure had been favorite lacking that gold star they so deserve. Well, just as I did back then before I knew you, I thoroughly enjoyed this. It's definitely on my favorites now.
6077167
Thanks, Bass. I'm really glad you enjoyed it! Enough to re read as well. ^_^
Also, the fact that it's one of the first ones you ever read ... That tickles me pink for some reason. Hahaha!
6078204
Is that the word for understanding? I thought it was just Caughten On. Huh, Learn something new everyday.
You don't know how badly that confused me. I had to reread the sentence like 5 times before I understood what AJ was saying.