New-found Lust

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xRei

xRei #1 · Apr 30th, 2019 · 3 · · A New Day ·

I'm one of the judges chiming in with some editing thoughts.

Writing is tough. I see you've gained an appreciation for that in your time spent writing this. When you simply read fanfic, it all just seems like words. The English language. We all know English, right? But writing prose isn't quite the same as speaking or writing English for day to day purposes. It's an art.

I think it's great that you spent time learning, though, and I'd encourage you to keep writing.
Simple advice I'd give to most new writers... Try learning third or first person limited perspective first.

This is when the point of view of the story is limited to a single character. Luna, for instance. We wouldn't know the thoughts and feelings of Celestia or any other character, other than what Luna could reasonably discern for herself. Learning to write in this way will really help you practice characterization and get you to think hard about each scene. You could try googling 'writing third person limited' and you'll find mountains of articles which can teach you some of the finer points.

The other thing I'd really recommend you focus on is show vs tell. You've probably heard about this before. Show and tell is one of the more challenging things to learn, but giving thought to it early on in your adventures writing will help a lot. One of the easiest traps to fall into is to do too much telling and not enough showing. It can be tricky, because a lot of the time it may not seem like you're doing it.

Lastly.. edit. Edit your work. Go back and re-read it and look for errors. They're there. They are *always* there. Even the best writers make tons of errors. No first draft is perfect. And after you finish reading and editing the first time.. go back and do it again. Each time you can focus on something to improve.

As for this specific story...

The main issue I had was simply that it started abruptly. I think taking more time to ease the reader into the characters struggle(with the incest) would help. Ditto with the smut. You don't have to rush into it, and in fact having some more build up before sex stuff happens can be a big benefit. Gives you a chance to set your scene and set the emotions and the mood.

I feel like you understand some of what typically makes incest appealing.. the taboo of it. Exploring that in greater details could also be good. Make your characters care about something. Really show how they care and why they care. Convince us that the characters care, and you'll make the reader care.

Good luck.

KnownFlare

KnownFlare #2 · Apr 30th, 2019 · 1 · · A New Day ·

9596368
Thanks for the feedback, I really appreciate it!

I just wanted to ask one question. I've been looking into "Show vs Tell" before I started writing, you mentioned it and I'm still really confused about it. I just can't seem to grasp what is the difference between these two and how do I differentiate them.

xRei

xRei #3 · May 1st, 2019 · 3 · · A New Day ·

9596823
Hmm, it can be tough. Keep in mind that telling isn't always bad, and there are times when showing isn't needed it will slow down the pace of your story when it doesn't need to be. That said, a lot of modern writing tends to favor a lot more show than tell.

As for the specifics, it can be tricky to explain, but I'll try to give a couple examples. let's say I have a small scene where I'm having Starlight observing something that Twilight is doing. Let's say casting a spell. I could pretty easily explain this scene with telling like this:

Starlight watched as Twilight cast her spell. As Twilight focused her energies, the room blustered and buzzed with magical forces. It was a difficult spell to cast, the kind that only a handful of ponies in Equestria could pull off. But Starlight kept her calm. She had faith in her mentors abilities.

This pretty much just explains what's happening and why it's happening. This is about the most telling tell you can have. It's pretty impersonal and dry and just conveys the information.

Starlight watched as Twilight started to cast her spell. She saw Twilight's horn light up, filling the small corner of the library with a lavender glow. Magical energies tore around the confined space and caused a massive disturbance. As Starlight watched, she grew anxious. It was a difficult spell, the kind that lesser ponies couldn't hope to cast. But Twilight wasn't a lesser pony, and soon enough she relaxed. She had faith in her friend.

This is less tell. There's more details, but still some problems. One of these is the usage of the word 'saw', which is a filtering word(you may want to google what a filter word is). It's not needed, generally. We don't need to explain that Starlight saw Twilight's horn glow, we can simply describe what it looks like. Also, 'she grew anxious'. It's an improvement over simply saying 'it's a difficult spell'. We can infer from Starlights anxiety that the spell must be difficult or that she fears something may go wrong. But there's still room to improve it.

Starlight watched as Twilight cast the spell. Purple sparks shot out from the tip of her mentors horn and filled the small corner of the library with a strobing lavender light. She could feel ~~the buzz of magical energy thrumming in the air~~ Magical energy rippled outward, blowing around pages from the stacks of tomes nearby and set Starlight's fur standing on end(Saying her fur stands on end is a way of more deeply showing that the energy in the room is 'buzzing', like electricity. It may paint a better picture). The energy continued to gather, coalesce and vibrate, causing her hooves to clatter upon the tile floors. Starlight looked deeply into the yawning vortex of energy, into the heart of ancient magics long ago forgotten(Now we know the spell is old). Her heart raced, and a bead of sweat fell down her face. Worry set in. Then came fear, threatening to grab hold of her and not let go.
But before panic could take her, she turned to Twilight. She was the tranquil center of the magical storm. Her breathing was steady, and her face was a picturesque calm. In spite of the chaotic energies tearing around them, she had the poise of a mare in total control. She was an artist. Reality was the canvas upon which her magic worked.(We see that Starlight must be impressed by Twilight's Calm.)
Starlight's heart fell quiet and her fear subsided.(Since she's calmed back down, we infer that she has faith in Twilight's abilities)

This includes a lot(perhaps even more than needed) of show. There's little here that's simply explained. Most everything we need to know about the scene is inferred from what's happening. What's important to note about this is that I think to fully leverage this kind of writing you really need to try and focus on third limited. This kind of scene doesn't work as well if we also peer into Twilight's thoughts and feelings in this moment. You're able to sense the feeling of danger and wonder more easily because it's strictly from Starlights point of view. If we were in Twilights PoV, she'd probably be totally relaxed and focused on casting the spell, which is a wholly different experience than Starlight. And so by keeping the PoV strictly on Starlight, it allows the prose, and the story as a whole, to have a focused and consistent tone and mood. If we dipped into Twi's head, the mood would have shifted to a more calm one, breaking the feeling of anxiety that the prose is attempting to build.

Now, you can do some of this in omniscient, where we experience every characters thoughts and feelings, but it's much harder.

But anyway that's the idea of show vs tell. One thing you'll notice right away is that showing tends to involve a lot more words than telling. It's quick and easy to tell(and this can be useful in scenes when you want the pacing to be fast), and usually slower to show. You have to learn how to balance show/tell and there's no super simple formula I can give you for that. I'm no expert myself, anyway. You have to practice with it and see how it works for yourself.

And google stuff. Google articles about the different aspects of writing. Read and learn. Then try to slowly incorporate what you learn. It takes time, but you'll improve. And you'll improve much quicker than someone who doesn't learn and experiment.

agron989