• Member Since 7th Sep, 2017
  • offline last seen Jan 11th, 2018

ashi


"Want, not need. I don't NEED anything."

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It's Scootaloo's birthday; a lavish party is being prepared for her at Sugarcube Corner, but all she really wants to do is spend some time with Rainbow Dash. Unfortunately, the hectic touring schedule of the Wonderbolts makes it difficult for her adopted big sister to be there for her as much as she used to. Still, that doesn't mean that Rainbow Dash isn't capable of pulling of a surprise or two.

Chapters (1)
Comments ( 11 )

Awwwwww. I love this. I have just one quedtion, were Windy Whistles and Bo Hothoof at the party?

D'awww... Cute fluff, what else is there to say?

Awwww cute fluffy...

Awwwwww, I wish I could upvote this more than once, so cute!

Spelling wise this is pretty good, I didn't see any misspelled words, or at least I can't remember any. But that's not to say there are no flaws, and with the intent of giving some advice here's my review. Mostly how you wrote this anyway.

You need to cut back on the use of the en dash, especially since you only used them in narration. It breaks emersion when used that many times. The en/em dashes are to be used sparingly – as in, use as few times as possible – it's also for interruptions in dialogue, I saw you use the hyphen instead of the dashes a couple times. If you find yourself adding dashes take a look at what you've written and see if instead of a dash you could add a comma – you may need to restructure your sentences.

Italics, while generally accepted as a method for communicating a character's thoughts and/or emphasising certain words that the character says, it's not good for narration. It's for the same reasons as the dashes, they break immersion. Also, I don't understand why most writers don't do something like:

"I do love me some cupcakes!" Pinkie Pie exclaimed happily, emphasising the word: love.

perhaps I am missing an unspoken rule regarding that.

Show vs telling is by far your biggest issue, and unfortunately not one I can give much advice on. I can say this though, do not just write something like:

"Well! We'll see who's the better pony," with that he trotted away.

Instead write something like:

"Well! We'll see who's the better pony," he stuck out his chest as he huffed, pointing his head upwards he trotted away.

See? Write how a character acts as they're doing something, rather than just saying they did something.

Alright I hope I was able to explain everything in a manner that was easy to understand. However I would recommend that you read this writing guide by Ezn, it's extremely helpful in more than just pony-fiction. I'll leave with that, good luck and happy writing.

8661812

If they were, you probably would've heard them when Dashie did the Sonic Rainboom. :rainbowwild:

8661875

How many chickens would it take to fill an aeroplane? :trixieshiftright:

8661884

Cheers, mate!

8661898

Well, you know, make an alt account, use a proxy server ... :trollestia: Thank you for the sentiment, much appreciated!

Just came here to add this to my queue, so haven't read the story yet, but I did notice this in the comments:

8662123

Also, I don't understand why most writers don't do something like:

"I do love me some cupcakes!" Pinkie Pie exclaimed happily, emphasising the word: love.

Because it's very wordy.

"I love cupcakes!" exclaimed Pinkie Pie.

feels snappier. ("I do love me some cupcakes!") on its own could work, too. As a major canon character, after all, Pinkie's voice patterns are already familiar to most of us. Like you say, you don't want italics in every second sentence, but sometimes they are the most effective tool in the box.

8663170

The not-even-unspoken rule is called Said Bookisms; basically, not using the word said after a piece of dialogue but replacing it with words like exclaimed, retorted, etc. In moderation, it's fine, but when you go out of your way to do it rather than describing how a character is speaking and acting through narration it becomes a problem.

8663369

In moderation, it's fine

Indeed. That applies to most things. :rainbowwild: As for rules, my favourite saying is: "Learn them... then learn when to break them." :pinkiehappy:

Even though the author is gone, I reviewed this anyway. In brief: simple, cute, predictable. A shame about the mass of Lavender Unicorn Syndrome at the start, though.

Very sweet story.

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