Rainbow Dash Seeks an Editor

by Dusk Raven

6: Verdict: Guilty (Of Being a New Writer)

Rainbow was up early this time, flying from window to window at the Golden Horseshoes Hotel, trying to locate Night Rain’s room as discreetly as she could - after all, even for Ponyville, looking into a hotel’s windows was odd. Of course, “discreetly as she could” meant looking while nopony else was on the streets to see her, which was just before the sun rose. After all, there really was no way to fly stealthily, which was why most pegasi didn’t even try to be sneaky. Daring Do and her #1 fan were exceptions.

Her reasons were perfectly legitimate, of course - she was going to make sure he woke up at a decent time. For days now, she’d had to impatiently wait until he stumbled out the front door of the hotel... often barely in time to get breakfast. Today, this would change. ...But since Rainbow didn’t know which room was his - having forgotten to ask - she was scouting out the hotel now, in the early morning when there was nopony to wonder why she was looking in hotel windows. Rainbow did her best to make her search quick, only spending a couple seconds at each window before moving on. In no time at all she had found Night Rain’s room on the second floor. Naturally, he was still asleep, so Rainbow resolved to go back to her home and kill time for a little while until a good time came to wake him up.

This resolution did not last long. Ugh, why won’t he just wake up already and tell me what he thinks!? She glanced at the clock on her bedside table, wishing that time would hurry up and get to the time of day that normal ponies got up by, so she could wake Night Rain up and they could properly talk about her fanfiction. Over the past few days, Night had only talked about grammar details and writing concepts, but had stayed silent on the matter of the plot and how the whole thing felt. He had said he would tell her today. He’d better tell me, this is the day he goes back to Canterlot! ...That’s it, I can’t wait any longer!

The sun had hardly risen by the time Rainbow returned to the hotel, and Night Rain was of course still asleep. Rainbow quickly rapped her hoof on the window frame, and grinned as Night stirred… he sure is a light sleeper… I guess I can’t blame him for wanting to sleep in!

She waved, still grinning, as Night groggily looked over at her. He glared sharply at her, the harshest expression he’d ever given her, not that that meant much - and anyway, she couldn’t blame him for that either. Slowly, he shuffled off his blankets and walked over to the window, eyes half-open. “What do you want?” he asked as he pushed the window open.

Rainbow’s grin widened. “What do you think? I want to do some work before you leave for Canterlot!”

“I’m taking the evening train, we’ve got time!” Night scowled. “If I get up now I’ll just be miserable the whole day and we won’t get anything done.”

Rainbow flicked a hoof and scoffed. “Hey, you’ve got to be able to work even while under the weather. You have to be prepared to work through anything. You never know what life will throw at you!”

“Like an overeager, obnoxious pegasus?”

She grinned. “Precisely!” She then frowned suddenly. “Hey, I’m just really excited to hear what you have to say about the story.” This got Night to smile a little. “Also, it wouldn’t hurt for you to get up earlier.”

“Tell me about it,” Night said, then yawned. “What time is it?”

Rainbow shrugged. “6:30, ish?”

Night glared at her again, then sighed. “It’s going to be a long day… just let me pack my things. Come back in a half-hour.”

Rainbow put her hooves in the windowl to keep him from shutting it. “Oh, no. I’m staying with you, so you don’t just go back to sleep!”

For a moment Night Rain looked about ready to put her to sleep. “...Fine…”

---

Night Rain’s prediction was right, he was miserable, and generally uncooperative, even while packing his things. He refused Rainbow’s help, leaving her to jump up and down on his bed out of sheer boredom. Once he was done, however, he perked up a little when Rainbow mentioned food.

Soon, Rainbow was eating breakfast with him just outside the hotel, while talking with him… or at least, trying. “So… you haven’t talked much about your life back in Canterlot.” Rainbow noticed that Night kept taking big bites of syrup-drenched food right as she finished asking him a personal question - and this time was no exception.

Night took a long moment to chew his food before swallowing, before pouring even more syrup over a pancake, the liquid flowing like a wave across the food. “There’s not much to tell. I study.” He took a large slice out of the pancake and bit into it, while Rainbow tried to think of another angle of attack.

“Well, you’re pretty good at this whole...” she glanced around for other ponies - through the town wasn’t fully awake yet, the stillness of the early morning air made her voice seem even louder than usual. “...You know, the writing thing.”

Night shook his head. “It’s mostly a hobby. I don’t do it for a living.” He used his magic to grip a piece of French toast, not even bothering to pour syrup on it and instead just soaking it in the puddle that had formed in his plate.

Well, A.K. Yearling writes as a second job, Rainbow thought, but she kept that to herself.

Night hesitated, the toast levitating in place in front of him. “...I wish I could write for a living, though.”

Rainbow tilted her head. “What’s stopping you?”

Night shook his head before biting into his toast. Once he’d finished chewing, he replied “Just been busy with things. I never really have the time.”

“I see…” Rainbow frowned. Well, if he didn’t want to tell her, she’d just have to deal with it. Clearly, she wasn’t going to get anything out of him by just asking. “...Well, you really are good at it, you know.”

Night chuckled, but it was a humorless, empty chuckle. “You’re just saying that.”

“No, really. I mean, I haven’t seen any of your work, but you know a lot more than I do, and you seem like you know what you’re doing.” Rainbow wrinkled her nose. There was humility, and then there was pointless self-depreciation… she needed to break him out of the latter somehow. “...You know, if you aren’t too busy, you could come back and help me work some more.”

Night instantly brightened up at her words, making Rainbow smile in turn. “R-really? I’d love that.” He cleared his throat. “I… I should be able to make time pretty soon.”

“Just send me a letter when you’ve got things worked out.” She grinned.

Night chuckled. “A letter… haven’t sent one of those in a while… well, now I’ve a good reason to get back into it.” He sighed. “Of course, you might want to wait until after I’ve given you the full verdict to invite me back…”

“Huh?” Rainbow frowned. She had a bad feeling about this, but she’d been dealing with the sense that her writing was bad for quite some time, so she was used to it by then. Sort of. “...That bad?”

Night took a deep breath. “I think we should discuss that at your place. I spent the time since I finished the fic last night trying to think of a way to describe my thoughts… it’s going to take a while. But I want to say that I am willing to keep helping.”

Rainbow smiled. “Glad to hear it. Now, if you’re done eating breakfast, let’s check you out of the hotel and take you up to my place.”

---

Even after the two had returned to Rainbow’s villa, Night Rain was still quiet. He fidgeted in his place on the couch, seemingly aware that he couldn’t put off the discussion for much longer. Meanwhile Rainbow tried not to glare as she looked at him expectantly. Spill the beans, Night,” she said, “How’s the story?”

Night sighed. “I’m trying to think of how to-“

“Enough thinking, more doing!” Rainbow had hoped her voice didn’t come across as too harsh, but to her surprise Night chuckled.

“That’s good writing advice actually,” Night said. “ I definitely have a problem with that.“ He sighed, leaning back into the couch. “All right, let’s start with the good news. You write action scenes well. Your style conveys the intensity of those sections quite nicely. They’re gripping to read, and they flow well, which is very important for those kinds of scenes.“

Rainbow smiled, even though she found his wording a bit dry. She remembered that Twilight had also complimented her action writing, and it was good to hear that Night agreed. Still, she spoke up. “But…?”

Night smiled. “I’m not done with the positives. You also have a good grip on Daring Do’s character. Although I personally don’t think that’s hard to do.” He chuckled. “But if I’m any judge, you did a good job. For the most part, she seems in character.”

“For the most part?“

Night Rain waved a hoof. “I’ll get to that in a little bit. Anyway, some of the original characters are… interesting. I’ll get to that later too, I want to say what I think of the plot first.” He shook his head. “I should have done that first before looking at the spelling and grammar. It was like looking at trees instead of at the forest.”

“Or looking at the clouds instead of the sky,” Rainbow interjected with a Cloudsdale idiom.

Night smiled, “Yeah, you’re right.”

Rainbow gave him an apologetic look. “I guess I’m guilty of that too. I was kinda hoping that the spelling and grammar were the biggest problems. Like, I knew those were issues, but I was hoping that Twilight had been wrong about everything else. And it sounds like there are a lot of things wrong...”

Night sighed. “No, it just seems that way because I can’t get around to actually talking about them.“ He frowned. “Rainbow, there are things you did well, and things you didn’t…”

Rainbow frowned in turn. Was he trying to avoid hurting her feelings? That was nice of him, but it also wasn’t what she needed. “Spit it out.”

“Well, for starters, there’s an issue with what in writing circles is known as the ‘show, don’t tell’ rule.“

Rainbows ears twitched. “Twilight said something about that she read my fic. What is it?”

“It's basically about describing - or ‘showing’ physical details rather than simply telling the reader that something happened. The thing is, you do that well with action scenes, just not anywhere else. To be honest, I wonder if you were so excited to get the action scenes out that you neglected the rest of the story.”

Rainbow chuckled nervously. “That… might be true…” She certainly was a mare of action.

“The good news with that, is that you already know how to show and not tell. It’s just a matter of actually doing it outside of action scenes.“

Rainbow smiled just for a moment at the indirect compliment. “Anything else?”

“Yeah, that Spectrum character…” He scrunched up his face. “You… really like hyping her up. I mean, you like hyping up Daring Do also, but it’s like you can’t decide which of the two is your favorite.”

Rainbow coughed. Night had apparently not caught on to just who “Spectrum” was based on. From the time of his voice “Well… I just really liked her in the new book, so I wanted to include her in this fic.”

Night chuckled. “You certainly like her a lot. Honestly, though, that can be a problem. An issue in a lot of fanfic, from what I’ve seen, is that they have a character around whom the story revolves around a little too much.”

Rainbow tilted her head. “I dunno, aren’t Daring Do books supposed to revolve around Daring Do?”

“Yes...however one can reach a point where it’s not just the story, but the world itself that revolves around a character. They succeed when they shouldn’t, everypony - or at least everypony the author likes - adores them, and even their personalities lack flaws. In general, they can do no wrong.” He waved a hoof. “Of course there are variations, but the general trend of this character type - known as a ‘Merry Zoo’ in fanfic circles - is that they’re too perfect.”

Rainbow tilted her head. “Too perfect?”

“Yeah.” Night frowned for a moment, looking at nothing in particular, before continuing. “The reason these ‘Merry Zoos’ are disliked so much is that, quite simply, they’re boring. When somepony who can’t fail is in a fight, or a race, or a collapsing temple, there’s no dramatic tension because there’s no risk that they’ll fail, at least not in a significant way.” He tapped his front hooves together. “Think of it this way… the first time you read Daring Do and the Quest for the Sapphire Statue, how did you feel while Daring Do was making her way through the temple, or caught in Ahuizotl’s trap?”

Rainbow grinned a little at the memory. “Tense… I couldn’t help but read more. I needed to find out what would happen!”

“Exactly!” Night grinned. “That’s the feeling you want to give the reader. However…” his grin faded, and his face returned to the somber expression he’d had previously. “If the outcome isn’t in doubt, if you have a character who’s too awesome, you don’t get that. And more than that, characters who are perfect are boring. You need some kind of conflict for a good story, and characters with no real flaws don’t have that. You can sometimes manage if the story is mostly about the action itself and not about the characters.” He waved a hoof dismissively, “Admittedly, Daring Do leans in that direction, but it does it well, and there’s nuance to it as well. I mean, personally, I find stories that are mostly about action to be boring, but Daring Do still my interest. That’s the beauty of it.”

Rainbow mulled his words over in her head, trying to ensure she was understanding him correctly. “So, to avoid that, you have flawed characters?”

“Sort of, it’s a little more complicated than that. You go too far with flaws and you wind up with a different kind of Merry Zoo, the kind whom everypony feels sorry for because they have it so rough…” He sighed. “Anyway, one of the typical Zoo traits is that all the other characters practically fawn over them, and in the hooves of a bad writer, a character can fail at everything and everypony still treats them like a princess.” He coughed. “Also! Not all flaws are ‘flaws,’ so to speak. A flaw needs to actually cause issues. If you have, say, a mare whose only flaw is ‘keeps falling in love with the wrong stallion’ ...in a story where the ‘right stallion’ is the protagonist...”

“Ugh…” The round of disgust came from both ponies.

“Anyway, a flaw needs to actually cause problems, to make things difficult. And that’s pretty much how you write a character who isn’t a boring, perfect character - they have issues. They have difficulties. They have to work hard to get what they want. And that’s what you need to get across.”

A moment passed, and then Night glanced away. “Sorry, kinda went on a tangent there…”

“It’s all right, I think I get the point.” Rainbow chuckled. “So you’re telling me I shouldn’t hype Daring Do and m- err, Spectrum up so much? Like…” She pursed her lips, trying to apply what she’d just heard… which was proving surprisingly difficult as she was still trying to process it all. This simply wasn’t her area of expertise. “Basically, I’m making it sound like they’re awesome and unbeatable, but even if they are it shouldn’t look like they are?”

“Kind of, yeah. You don’t need to tell the reader how awesome they are if you can show it, but… like I said, they need to be challenged. The most satisfying victories a character can have are the ones that they really had to earn, after all.”

Rainbow chuckled. “Just like in real life.”

“Yeah, I guess that’s right…” Night Rain smiled, but trailed off and said nothing more.

Rainbow cleared her throat. “...That’s not all, is it?“

“No, it’s not.” Night grit his teeth. “I think the biggest problem is that events in the story tend to happen because the plot wants them to happen, rather than because that’s what should happen.”

Rainbow tilted her head. “...What does that mean?”

Night frowned, his mouth twisting as though wrestling with words that wouldn’t quite come to mind. “Best way to describe it, is that what happens next isn’t what would logically result from what happened previously. What’s a good example…” he put a hoof to his chin, “...Ah, when Jetstream fights Daring Do the first time, he kind of just... wins. I guess that sometimes happens, realistically speaking, but… in Daring Do’s adventures, whenever she loses, or gets set back, it’s usually for a reason: she’s out numbered, or she encountered something she didn’t expect. Stuff like that. Jetstream is just better at that point in the story and it’s not really clear why, if that makes sense.”

He cleared his throat. “I think you’re basically yanking the story around on a chain, trying to get it where you want it to go by any means possible.” He then shrunk back, suddenly bashful again.

Rainbow was silent for a moment, before she spoke, slowly. “So… how do I fix that?”

Night shifted, saying nothing for a few moments, until Rainbow herself started to fidget. Finally, Night said, “...I don’t think that’s something I can just tell you, Rainbow.”

“What do you mean?” Night shrunk back at the sound of Rainbow’s voice, making her realize she’d unconsciously raised it.

“Well… I know how I would go about fixing it, but that might not be what you want. On some level, you really need to figure out what it is you want, and then…” his voice faltered a little, “...maybe I can help with that.”

He was silent for a long moment, and when he continued it was in a quiet voice. ”Ultimately it depends on you, and how much you’re willing to let me help. I can edit all day, but I think I’ll be most helpful if I can suggest things, and actually work with you in the creative department.” He blushed. “...If that’s not too, uh… out-of-bounds to ask.”

Rainbow frowned, her eyes unfocusing slightly as she grew deep in thought. Finally she took a breath and said, “I need to think about it. It looks like a lot more work than I thought it would be...”

Night smiled faintly. “I really do hope you finish it. It’s got potential, and I’m excited to see the finished result. Oh, one more thing, it might be useful to re-read the fic over, I might have mentioned that already. It’ll especially be helpful if you haven’t read it in a while. ...I assume you haven’t read it front-to-back since writing it?”

“No, I haven’t.” Rainbow winced. “Is it that obvious?”

“Not as much as you’d think. The story is mostly consistent, it’s just little things here and there. That, and…” He hesitated before waving a hoof. “Never mind.”

Rainbow narrowed her eyes at him. “Go on.”

Night shook his head. “It’s nothing!” His insistent tone, to Rainbow, seemed to be confirmation that he was trying to spare her feelings… something she did not need.

“Night Rain, something tells me that you’re trying to hold back because you don’t want to hurt my feelings. But something also tells me that that kind of thing won’t help me. I need to know everything wrong with this story, and that means you can’t be holding back.”

“Yeah… you’re right, it’s just… hard for me sometimes.” He sighed. “It really is nothing, I just… I was wondering, if you did try and re-read it, would you be able to understand it at times?”

Rainbow frowned, then looked over to the half-edited draft sitting on the table. After the third misspelling in a single sentence (in fact, her alter-ego’s name was the only word of two syllables or more that was spelled correctly), she replied “Probably not.” The rest of the page was covered in Night’s editing notes, making it even more illegible. She turned back to him, looking grim.

Night Rain seemed to sense her mood and the pessimistic thoughts going through her mind. “Rainbow, I really think you can do this… it’s just going to take a lot of work.”

Rainbow snorted. “I’ve heard that before.”

Night winced in reaction. “I mean it. I mean, it takes a lot of work to write a story… especially a longer one. Frankly, I wouldn’t have been able to write anything as long as this… if this is the first thing you’ve written, it’s pretty damn impressive!”

Rainbow couldn’t help but smile a little.

“Actually,” Night continued, “I’m kind of surprised you tried to match the length of a Daring Do book. Most writers would have started with a short story.”

Rainbow might normally have made a quip about how she wasn’t like most writers, but she wasn’t even sure whether that was a good thing or not. “Well… I just had an idea, and I just had to write it…”

Night smiled, but there was just a touch of… sadness? “I know that feeling… although, I’m a little envious that you managed to get all this written off of inspiration alone…”

“It was a really good idea.” She sighed. “At least, I thought it was.”

“It is.” Night smiled, reaching a hoof out to Rainbow, though of course the distance between the couch and her chair was too great for him to reach her. “You’ve just… got to keep at it. It gets better.”

“Maybe…” Rainbow sighed, stretching. “But not right now. I’ve been cooped up inside for too long over the past week… I need to go out and do something.” She slid off the chair and onto her hooves. “You wanna hang out with me until you need to leave for your train?”

Night’s eyebrows raised a little, before he dismounted the couch and stood on his hooves. “All right… there’s just one thing though.”

“What’s that?” Rainbow tilted her head.

“When we first started working together, you said snacks were on you. But we haven’t had a lot of snacks while working…” He smirked. “I believe I could use some snacks for the trip…”

Rainbow rolled her eyes. “All right, but you’d better work hard when you come back to Ponyville!”

---

Rainbow waved at the departing train, while Night simply smiled back at her as he grew more and more distant, until finally his face was no longer distinguishable in the passenger car window. Once he was gone, she sighed, looking over and up to her flying home. Speaking of hard work… she thought ruefully, before swiftly taking flight.

Once she was in her house, she flew through the rooms until she reached her bedroom, and landed next to her wall-mounted calendar. Let’s see… do I have any days off when I can just sit down and read?

There was… however, it was just a few days before a date that was circled and labeled, ‘Wonderbolts Reserve Test.” Of course… another challenge that involved skills she wasn’t good at. She groaned in frustration. Why did everything she wanted in life require her to do eggheaded stuff like read or study? Why couldn’t everything be solved by pushing herself physically, by flying as hard as she could? That was what she was best at in life, and better than any other pony in Equestria. Why wasn’t it enough?

She didn’t want to think about that… so she trotted out her front door, dove off the landing, and sailed through the sky to take her mind off things.

Author's Note:

This was probably the hardest chapter to write so far... or at least it feels like it. But finally, we are done with Night's first visit!

Comments

[-Pinkamena_Pie-]

9318723
Okie Dokie Lokie!

[Csquared08]

“What do you want?” He asked

Ultimate SHAME

Merry Zoo

Boo, hiss

in Daring Do’s adventures, whenever she loses her get set back it’s usually for a reason she’s out numbered she encountered something she didn’t expect stuff like that.

Something weird happened to the text I put in bold, and you also forgot your commas in this sentence.

“.Probably not,” Rainbow said.

I was just gonna say "Shame!" for the random period there, but when I pasted this in, there were also a couple random italics tags?