Trixie and Twilight lead an... interesting six-day seminar on the elements of a good story. Will amateur writer Generic be able to improve his techniques? Will Twilight hold the crowd's interest long enough to actually teach them something? Will Trixie ever show anypony ANY respect?
The answers lie here, in the Great and Powerful Writing Seminar of Obnoxious Awesome-isms!
Rated T for Trixie.
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And so the jouney begins.
It's nice to know Trixie hasn't changed at all. Looks good so far. Looking forward to seeing the rest pop up here in the future.
This is quite a fascinating story; one that, interestingly enough, teaches you some things while you read it!
I really enjoy the juxtaposition of Twilight against Trixie, as it provides a good balance between information and entertainment. The Great and Powerful Trixie is very nicely in character, and Twilight and Spike are as adorkable a pair as ever. Good read, I'm looking forward to seeing the other chapters on here.
Too bad there's no "edu-tainment" tag. I look forward to reading more.
Also, Generic has the best seat in the house.
This is very amusing, and somewhat informative too. Also, Generic better get summa dat flank.
I lol'd. And using Rarity/Applejack for purple/normal prose was inspired. As someone who has struggled against terseness his entire schooling career, damning length requirements to kingdom come, I have spent a good deal of time trying to figure out how to purplify my prose, and I still could not have come up with that paragraph Rarity did about the curtain. Even stretching my shortest story ever from 540 to 1k words for publishing on Fimfic caused me great anguish, and it wasn't for lack of things going on.
Fantastic.
I love this.
Wait, how do ponies make air quotes? And why is Trixie making beef bourguignon?
You've got a lot of guts to tackle this premise. You're gonna draw some very critical readers. For example:
>Without warning, her expression hardened and she stared daggers at the crowd, many flinching when they saw the look of deep loathing and hatred.
At the very least, it's a run-on. But the bigger problem is that you change subject midstream without using the appropriate grammatical structure to reassure the reader that's what you want to do: the infamous dangling participial clause. The result is a snag at "many flinching." Instead of an absolute clause, a relative clause will flow better.
>Without warning, her expression hardened, and she stared daggers at the crowd, many of whom flinched when they saw the look of deep loathing and hatred.
The next problem is the nested subordinate clauses: the "when" clause modifies the "of whom" clause. Furthermore, the "when" clause is an essential modifier that doesn't add the information it advertises. "When" specifies time. The clause actually functions to paint a "look of deep loathing and hatred" - additionally a redundant image. Have you ever experienced non-hateful loathing?
>... , many of whom flinched from her loathing glare.
"Loathing" is still a weak word, because it's a subjective modifier. "Glare" may be fine without it. This is a judgment call.
Turning to the main clauses, we have two actions that do not form a nice parallel because the subjects do not align: "her expression" != "she." One solution is to just make a compound sentence; however, noting that the "hard expression" naturally subordinates itself as describing how "she stared daggers" reveals this transformation
> Her expression suddenly hard, she stared daggers at the crowd...
"Stare daggers" is a metaphor, and should take similar form to "shoot" or "throw daggers:" use the preposition "into."
> Her expression suddenly hard, she stared daggers into the crowd, many of whom flinched from her [loathing] glare.
-vs-
> Without warning, her expression hardened and she stared daggers at the crowd, many flinching when they saw the look of deep loathing and hatred.
Now pay that much attention to every sentence in the story. You're in for a fun ride with the nitpickers.
397211
Quite right, one of many I probably missed. My goal wasn't to teach of the depth of writing (First rule of writing being: Don't obey the rules) but rather to help people avoid, and learn to avoid, simple problems. A good story isn't determined by clauses or by appropriate grammatical structure, but rather by what it contains. Of course, even the dullest of stories with the right presentation can become great (hence why I tackled prose first). Thanks for the input, I appreciate it. Mind you, this wasn't written overnight. In fact it has been stewing for over a month passed between myself and two other authors. Hopefully the next chapters will do justice.
396662 I agree. Fluttershy is best seminar-buddy.
396805
The solution is to practice imagining in greater detail. Stop frequently to smell the imaginary flowers, and distill the best images as flavor for your story. I'm currently proud of this picture from my own writing.
>The building was oval; the walkway eventually rounded back on itself, enclosing an open-air sky-court in the center. Looking across and down — Dash’s apartment was on the highest level — Fluttershy saw where some of the residents grew flowers and herbs in hanging gardens that climbed the rails and spilled through them, bright spots of color and falls of green cascading down the white sky-marble.
Similarly, you can ask your scenes to each reveal less about your characters, which will naturally spread your outline over more text.
397270
Someone can't handle the truth.
This story isn't needed. it's been done before with actual, better guides. Of all people you aren't the one that should do it.
edit: You already get the default power of having the last word with that delete button.
397305
Sorry mate, my natural response to trolls has always been to either ignore or rid myself of them. Seems like you didn't get the hint.
Now I would like you to do something. Scroll up. You see that section marked for tags, it's right beside the image of Trixie holding a book, can't miss it. Would you care to read said tag? Then, if you please, read the title of the story (and yes, this is a story) note the lack of any semblence of formality in it? Great! Now hopefully you can piece together that this isn't the most... seriuos of stories, nor do I pretend to replace or even come anywhere near matching the much better guides you can find here and there. I simply wanted to cover the same basic matterials in a slightly more entertaining fashion. That is all.
397305
Please don't be on my side. I like to criticize constructively, not engage in meta-argument
>Someone can't handle the truth.
>(the post I'm currently writing)
or argumenta ad homines
>Of all people you aren't the one to do it.
--
One of the weaknesses in the pony-fic community is a lack of really good guides. We have quite a few good ones, but none that are "last word" grade.
397211
I doubt anyone could create a "last word" grade guide. Writing being a fairly flexible art (of course I speak of the written part, not the grammatical), although there are plenty of "last word" grammar guides out there. Also, I did take the time to link the two most popular guides we have right now at the very end. I am not going to cover everything, might as well give someone who is honestly interested a place to where they do.
397292
That's the thing. The stick is not that I can't see things in detail, the stick is that when I get stuck describing something it's because I'm not sure which information I see is worth relating. Is it worth telling the reader that the TV's buttons are circular, hard plastic, 3/8" diameter, and raised 1/8" from the backing, or should I just tell them there's a TV in the corner of the room? The answer, is I would tell the reader neither with my old habits. I would just tell them that there was a family room and let them assume everything that wasn't important to the narrative. That is the kind of terseness I used to have trouble with.
397305
By that logic, no story is needed. Ever. There exists no way to tell an entirely original story; there is nothing new under the sun. The only question of storytelling, is this: can you make it interesting? And this author does.
397477
Chekov's gun, fun times!
I understand what you mean, there is a fine line between descrption and purple prose. In the end it all depends on how important that description is to the story. Is it to set the pace, to create a setting, to introduce a character...ect... if it isn't important then cut it. Then again, some people like to make everything very flowery.
397477
This guide is for informational purposes and (I guess) comedy, but the reason I said it wasn't needed was that there are more efficient methods of getting information on how to write from a multitude of other sources than this type of thing. If an author wants advice or information on writing, I'd think they'd go to a nonfiction source that is presented as something that will help them directly, rather than something like this which spreads out some bullet points into a few thousand words. The interspersed "comedy" serves as filler material.
Notice that stories are typically read for pleasure rather than research. In terms of information, this is nothing new and useless. If you look at it as a story, it is new (that much I can say).
397514
How did Chekov's Gun come up...? Not that it isn't my favorite literary device or anything, it just seems a little bit nonsequiter.
397522
y u so srs
This is information that every author should see, and fimfic doesn't allow the posting of guides. Therefore, to get authors who aren't looking at those other places to see this stuff, it has to be related here, as a story. Not to mention, it's written to be entertaining even to those who don't need it as a guide.
397593
If an author can't be bothered to invest less than an hour of their time into looking for a guide online for how to improve their writing, then they are seriously failing at being an author.
397605
...do you read most of the stuff that gets posted here? A good majority of the authors here are taking their first stab at writing after only being a reader, and may or may not have any formal training or even be aware that there is formal training to be had. So throwing this out here, where potential authors will see it, is a great shot in the arm for the chances that new authors will already have a leg up. Poo poo it all you want, but this is useful, even if it's only to open the eyes of new authors to the science of writing.
397662 I'm liking your positive outlook, my friend. I agree with you completely.
397593
A great author once thought to me that it was all about the mood. Now this may not seem directly link to adding or subtracting description but bear with me. (Also note that this is from my experience and opinion, take it with a grain of salt) Mood or feel depends on a few things. Pacing, description, emotion and vocabulary (vocab is a toughie). Pacing and description go hand in hoof. More description slows things down while less speeds it up. Or at least that's the general rule of thumb. An action scene for example won't dwell on every detail of the gun that is about to fire, rather, it will go boom, then the scene will move on. An emotional scene on the other hoof will dwell on smaller details, clothing being disheveled, hair out of place, a streak caused by a stray tear... anything that, while not telling you about it, describe the mood of a scene.
Emotion and vocab I'll leave to somepony smarter than I. Simply put the way you word things can affect the reader's perception of it:
Twilight jumped out of her bad; landing with a bang.
Twilight hopped out of her bed; landing with a thump.
Twilight was ejected out of her bed; landing with a crash.
I just said the same (or nearly) thing three times with three slightly different meanings.
Oh, ponychan... It's a good place, overall, really. Nice to catch the EqD prereaders with their hair down. I think they're hosting a twisted little discussion about Celestia/Luna slash right now. (The blog won't run it, of course, so it's entirely hypothetical.)
The Training Grounds is basically reader roulette. You'll get at least a prereading. I do conceptual editing and I'm starting to add a taste of copyediting (like first comment here) as my skills there improve. Many readers do mechanical reviews (point out repeated mistakes in a fic).
Otherwise, check the sticky for a directory.
It is really hard to get an editor for a long story, because there are a lot more long stories than editors. Most of them will be tied up on a few popular stories at a time. (Blood is Thicker and End of Ponies are the big editor time-sinks right now, and I can't say they don't deserve it. EoP especially is awesome.) To win, you need skill, an inspiring idea, and luck.
Short stories (less than 10k, 3-7k is a good size) are really good for practice, since you'll be able to get multiple people to look at it, multiple times too if you keep improving.
Interesting. The fifth day should be good, then.
First?
To bring up a previous topic, we were talking about content vs. presentation.
A little voice at the back of my head said, "It's all presentation! You could write an awesome story about the most boring topic ever."
I don't know if it's gonna be awesome, but 1600 words later, I think it might just be possible for execution to save a bad idea. I would like to present a description-driven CMC slice-of-life, or at least what I have so far of the first draft.
"Watching Paint Dry"
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/19048/Watching-Paint-Dry
password: wip
Concept was really easy. I mean, silly ponies --> Cutie Mark Crusaders --> Sweetie might actually watch paint to prove a point --> AB thinks that's stupid --> Conflict!
Then it needs to be spoiled. So, at the end of the day AB walks back to the clubhouse and SB actually fell asleep. The paint is dry, but it wasn't watched. Since it's an SoL, the resolution simply serves to mark when the story is over, and the middle of the story can be filled with whatever, um, filler strikes my fancy and relates tangentially to the conflict.
So I'm gonna split to two story threads, to create a) a fuzzy sense of time and b) provide contrast to keep the story interesting. For contrast, SB watching the paint is lonely and quiet. So, let's put Scootaloo in the story to keep AB company and provide mutual noise. This is the theme that will help me decide what to include and what to cut. (Especially during revision.) The paint-watching will result in SB a) noticing her environment (try going somwhere and doing absolutely nothing for a set period of time) b) getting lost in thought -- but only a little because that risks getting boring.
Also, that suggests that the clubhouse will almost rise to the level of character (I don't think I've done that good a job so far; it'll be a focus point of revision). At the very least it should move and have a history. Ideally, it should want something, but that's tricky for something inanimate.
AB and Scoot will get in trouble. Start with Scoot making a mess with the paint, and see where it takes me.
While drafting, I discovered AJ and RD inviting themselves into the story. (RD's part isn't written yet; it basically consists of her showing up into SB's solitude and crystalizing the theme of loneliness vs. family.) While I won't show it - it occurs after the end - the story is thematically moving towards a friends and family dinner at the Apple house. The CMC and Rainbow are invited. Stealth AppleDash ship? I actually don't know myself.
And, that's the behind-the-scenes look so far. Some may argue that all that added stuff is more content, but it all of it came from free association between "let's watch paint dry" and my imagination of the characters and their world. Others may argue that counts as execution of the idea.
As I see it, concept is born through execution.
406060
I conpletely agree. Especially that last little line. "concept is born through execution." Very true mate, and you can look at this from different angles aswell. Without execution there is no concept.
(intresting concept by the way. Watching the paint dry...)
406934
First draft is done. 3100 words, which is, wow. I wasn't sure if I'd hit EqD length. The next step is to check stuff against canon, specifically the treehouse. Such a fun prop.
I'm also eagerly awaiting tonight's installment. Yay.
I'd add that quality is more a property of the fic than the author, even though author skill is important. It's really almost inspiring to see a good author write something bad (or to have written something bad in the past). If even your idols make mistakes, there's hope for you.
I hope you don't mind me making you an example, Raven, but the dieselpunk story is worlds better than this.
414992
Haha, true. Still, I spent too much time on this to let it rot in a useless Docs file, might as well finish it off and post every chapter. Only one left. Then I'll try to get back on track with SGW (Chapter seven wasted three weeks of my time, and I am still not satisfied with it. Chapter eight is comming along nicely).
An entertaining guide. Useful and well-done- and I like how you've been including many other characters as cameos.
Well, good to know from this day on
406934;414128
I see that all the chats here are only between you two
And how easily you bring the subject of getting into EqD!
But, it was fun
The other chapters were fun, the third one by far. But this one? Hmm... I found out it passed out quickly.
But, I liked it. Such comments can hurt the writer and they might get a little bit... more pissed. But, the show must go on!
I actually wanted to thank you for pointing out this, because I know it happened to me a lot. I don't expect my work to get anytime soon in EqD, but I'll work to try to reach it
1572589
EqD is a good goal to set. Write your best, edit your hardest, then they'll systematically point out every little thing you did wrong. It shows you where to improve.
1572741 Well, somehow they always point out a huge bunch of mistakes, or just accept. It's too much of a difference for me
But hey, the show must go on
So....are you ever finishing this?
2744133
Probably not,
I'd need to give it a full re-write. I've learnt a lot in the past year.
2746149 Darn, Well any chance of a rewrite?
2744133
Considering since it's been six years, and the author hasn't been here for two, as far as I'm concerned, this fic is dead as a doornail.
Go, and let it float down the river in peace