- Member Since 4th May, 2019
- offline last seen 5 hours ago
Element of Malice
One day my heart felt heavy so I set it down. Then I lost it, someone stole it because it was made of gold. Yours looks heavy, can I borrow a piece? I'll return it when I find mine.
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Read this mlp fanfic https://www.fimfiction.net/story/472982/lunas-true-love
I really like this story. I find it be well-paced, with the conflict being solved at a natural pace. Grammar's perfect. And your first person is really well-written; I can feel the Doctor's emotions through the words. Also, points for originality 'cause I really like the creative ailment you invented for Color Palette. (Quick question: is the doctor male or female? I didn't quite catch it.)
Good stuff. Keep it up.
10356371
Thank you, I’m glad you liked it.
At the very end, the doctor says: “if anyone asks I have two brothers.”
10356443
I loved the story. And I still don't get the doctor's gender.
10357147
He is a stallion. Saying he has two brothers is his cover story.
10357155
Oh. Thanks for the clarification.
This is so cute
10357659
What did you think of the concept?
10357660
It was ok
This story is so beautiful Malice, I loved the ending! Keep up the good work!
(I'm telling people to read this)
Great work man! Wish you luck!
I enjoyed this story enough that I remembered it and came back to read it again.
10431444
Thank you, I’m glad you liked it. What about it made you want to read it again?
10431942
Considering that I thought I'd read it months ago, and was making my decision to reread based on old impressions, I might not be able to answer a question about how those impressions formed as well as I might like to be able to.
Some of what I can say with some realistic confidence is...
What I recall from my somewhat hurried reread today, hampered by the other things that have distracted me today...
And its disclaimer also helps build towards a sort of dry humor. And one of my first reactions upon refinding your story was to say to myself, based on my memories of my first read, "This story has only how many reads?"
Well, actually I've had a bunch of people yelling at me today and I'm kind of tired, and not up to it, sorry.
I do see that your story summary has a terrible-funny pun in a right place.
10431995
Sounds to me like you had a rough day, all I can do is say “hope you feel better soon.” Thank you for the feedback.
And yes I am also somewhat surprised that this has few reads, but hay I can’t force people to read it, so I’ll take what I got.
All right, I finally got around to reading this. I might be slow, but I always keep my promises.
I have to say, I enjoyed reading this. It flowed nicely, felt lively, and the humour was pretty good as well. What marred my enjoyment a little was some rough wording, a few typos and a couple of tense shifts thorough the story. Subtle little things, but they affect the story's otherwise smooth flow quite significantly. One more thing that also stood out to me was that the characters seemed to behave a bit incostistently at times--mabe skimming over the 'date' part of the evening wasn't the best idea as it prevented the audience from getting to know Palette better.
Furthermore, kudos to you for her condition, that one was really original, and while I tried, I could not guess what it was. Though I'm not sure why almost everypony treated her so harshly, it seems like an interesting ability. On a side note, while I liked the ending, I think that keeping the doctor as a normal pony would be a bit more impactful. You know, you don't need to be special to understand the situation of another special person. But that's just a minor nitpick.
I can see my cover's been uploaded. Thanks again for this assignment. 'Twas real fun.
10678478
No, problem.
Responding to the author's note: it's not bad at all. I've seen much worse attempts at similar concepts.
10838913
I’m glad you found it to your liking, I hope you had a good laugh. What part did you find the funniest?
10838946
Definitively when Color Palette threw the ponies out of the restroom and then when the unicorn kept teleporting back and forth.
Though the whole story has a nice background noise of romance comedy. Well done.
10839340
I just thought of something to add at the very end.
Yeah, wasn't super impressed with this. I guess it had to happen sooner of later. I enjoyed both of the other two stories I've commented on so far, but this one has an awful lot going wrong with it. I suppose it's nice to have a story that's a metaphor for transgenderism rather than lecturing and grinding our faces in it. But by about a third of the way in I found myself frowning in confusion at both the grammar and general story flow, and that frown still hasn't entirely gone away even as I write this.
Editing/grammar/technical stuff
* You often slip back and forth between present and past tense.
* There are a lot of places where you're using peculiar phrasing or incorrect words or just generally saying things that don't make very much sense. For example, "defenestrated" means to be thrown out a window. Saying someone was "defenestrated out the door" is like saying you were "beheaded on the arm." What exactly is a "staff worker?" 'Staff' means 'group of people employed by a company.' A 'worker' is an individual who works. "Staff worker" is like saying "workers worker." Or consider: "a unicorn resort staff member intersected me." Setting aside how awkward that is to begin with, I think the word you were looking for was intercepted. What's a "vaca?" Google tells me that word means cow in Spanish. Eventually I consulted urban dictionary and scrolled down to alternate definitions to find it listed as an abbreviation for vacation. Even now I'm not entirely sure whether it's a regional colloquialism from somewhere or whether it simply was typo. "a miscellaneous of items?" That's just not correct use of that word. There are so many little mistakes like this that if I hadn't read a few of your other stories first, reading this one might have led me to wonder whether English was your native language.
* There are places where entire paragraphs are full of these weird little weird choices and awkward phrasings. For example:
1) "Staff member?" I think the word you're looking for is waitress? Or actually...given that she's offering to set up spa appointments and weather arrangement, hostess or concierge would probably be better choices. "Staff member" is corporatese HR-speak. It would be reasonable for her employer to call her that, but Solar is a resort guest and it's made even sketchier by the fact that this is part of unspoken narration. Solar is your narrator, so that might be forgivable. But even if he'd spoken this line it would still be peculiar.
2) "Bouncing with her eyebrows?" Do you mean she was waggling her eyebrows?
3) "Noticing my look of dismay, she returned one that held the impression that she had just gotten fired." There are so many problems with this sentence. Why is this even happening? How does asking if Solar wants to buy the lady a drink equate to her being fired? "Held" the impression? Weird word choice. "Gotten" fired? I think you mean been fired? "Gotten" is a strong class indicator. It's like the word "ain't." Word choice tells you something about the social standing and education of a speaker. Notice that Applejack doesn't speak like Rarity, for example. This guy's a doctor. He shouldn't be saying 'gotten' any more than the homeless bum on the street should be saying 'how do you do, old boy?' At least, not unless this is deliberate characterization for a reason. But I don't see you doing anything with it, so it doesn't appear intentional. And given how many strange word choices there are in general throughout the entire story, this seems consistent with that. Also, this was narration, which should generally be neutral anyway.
4) "“Oh, I’m sorry I couldn’t help overhearing, but I didn’t hear much, I only know—”" Phrasing and punctuation here are awkward. And why is this even being said? If she'd overheard the conversation...Color telling Solar off and him agreeing to stop talking to her...that wouldn't easily lend itself to thinking the next thing to happen would be him buying her a drink.
5) "I put my hoof down" sounds like a ponification of the idiom to "put your foot down," meaning that you're insistent and unyielding, or to put a stop to something. I realize you're using it as the followup to him putting a hoof to her muzzle, but there are better ways you could have phrased this. When she's apparently terrified she's about to lose her job and he's "putting his hoof down," there's a moment where a reader needs stop to figure out what's actually going on...but then she's winking at him, and the end result is a bit discordant.
6) Why three drinks? The implication is that he's buying the waitress a drink too. Ok, that's fine if that's what you intended. But if you intended it...why, exactly? It's bit of a Chekhov's Gun, especially when it's reinforced by him touching her muzzle and her winking at him. There's more flirting and chemistry between Solar and this unicorn getting his drinks for him than there is between Solar and Color, but then rather than doing anything with that, you just have Solar becoming frustrated with her later on because she turns out to be an idiot.
* Your inconsistent use of pronouns is annoying. I realize that it's popular in certain cultural subgroups to use they/them to be deliberately ambiguous, but to my ears that ambiguity is roughly as cringeworthy as a 90 year old in an Elvis costume talking about "surfing the information superhighway like the bodacious radicool kids." Making it worse, you can't seem to make up your mind about which to use. If it would be less awkward if you were at least consistent about it, but you're not. You start out referring to her as they/them, but then the ambiguity disappears once he realizes that she's, quote, "Definitely a mare." So at that point it should be settled, but instead you continue to swap back and forth between she/her and they/them for no obvious reason. This becomes especially awkward in places where you make use of English's explicit subject requirement. For example, in English, if somebody says "It is raining" who/what exactly is the "it" being referred to? Or suppose someone says, "They say any landing you can walk away from is a good one." Again, they is a pronoun...but who is they? English sentences require both a subject and a predicate, and these pronouns are employed to supply a subject. It's just a quirk of English. Meanwhile, 'they' in particular is usually used to indicate plurality. Using it deliberately hide gender is inherently awkward to begin with, and it's made worse in this story by your inconsistent handling. Yes, language is flexible. It's certainly ok to play with it, or to break rules if you're doing it on purpose. But randomly changing your usage from one sentence or paragraph to the next makes it harder for a reader to follow, and I don't see anything being added by it. Meanwhile, consider this:
Who is 'they?' In the first case you use it to mean "unspecified person or persons." But then you switch to use using it as a replacement for "it." It was a hotel, not they were a hotel. And when you mix that already sketchy and inconsistent use of 'they' to also mean 'she's a girl but I'm trying to avoid calling attention to that' the end result is just completely bizarre. Then at other times you go back and forth between 'she' and they' to refer to the same person in a manner that makes it genuinely difficult to even figure out who you're talking about. For example:
From one sentence to the next, you're swapping between using 'she' and 'they' to refer to the same person. I don't care about your social politics. I just want to read a nice story about ponies without being confused about what's going on. Sure, there can be legitimate reasons for an author to avoid clueing a reader in to a character's sex, but you explicitly confirm that she's "Definitely a mare" fairly early on...so why all the obfuscating nonsense? And even in cases where obfuscation is desirable, rather than handling it the way you are, you'd be much better off restructuring sentences to avoid these grammatical issues entirely. It's usually trivial to remove pronouns by simply swapping a few words around. This, for example:
...reads much better as: "If only I could take my eyes off the pony at risk of heat stroke."
No 'his or her' or 'themselves' required at all. But instead of doing this very simple thing, it's like you're going out of your way to use as many inconsistent pronouns as you can.
___________________________________________________
Story flow
Several things happen in this story that don't make a lot of sense. Peculiar story choices are made, and information is routinely delivered in a manner that leave me perplexed. For example, let's trace through starting from this:
What department? This character has just been introduced. This is a resort, not a retail store. Department of what? "Head" manager "of this department" implies multiple managers of "this department." So what department is this and how many managers does it have? Since when do hotels even have departments? What, is she specifying that she's part of guest services and not from accounting? What is she talking about and why is this information being given to us in the first place? She's delivering ice, but she's suggesting that it's because she's "head manager" that she's able to bring them these things? What, did the other managers not have authority? Could the front desk clerk or some random bellhop not have delivered ice? It's pretty normal for hotels to have ice buckets in every room to use with the ice dispensers on every floor. People use them to keep wine chilled. Everything about this is a little bit weird, and it kind of comes across like you've never stayed at a hotel, so you're filling in the blanks using your mental map of a retail department store.
Now, if the head concierge of a hotel had been informed that a guest had been injured and decided that she wanted to personally deliver the ice, ok that would be reasonable. Not that anybody else couldn't have...obviously room service for example could have delivered ice, but if the concern isn't ability or authority, but simply her as the person in charge wanting to make absolutely sure that a problem is dealt with...that's reasonable. But after delivering the ice, she apparently thinks that it's all a ruse and that Color and Solar are really just rushing up to have sex? Does that really make sense? She presumably would have been informed about the "scalding hot tea" incident by the unicorn who asked her to get involved, she might have heard the screaming...and this conversation is happening in a public restroom. Does it really make sense for her to think this is a sexual encounter? Why would they be asking for ice if it is? Do you generally scream for hotel management to get ice for you when you have sex in a public restroom? Why would they be asking hotel staff to fetch bags with medical equipment if they were having sex? If they were having sex, wouldn't they probably prefer to not be interrupted multiple times by all these deliveries? Nothing about this makes much sense.
So now let's trace it backwards. She says he asked for ice. Ok. When did that happen?
...ok, so after this pony had already been to his room twice, teleporting in seconds to get there and back...Solar suddenly insists that somebody else do it. Why exactly? Pretty sure it would be faster for the teleporting unicorn who already knows where it is to go rather than have her fetch somebody else. Presumably he's asking for this because he's frustrated with her incompetence, and you're trying to play this whole scene off for laughs. Ok. If that's what you're going for, I think the comedy falls flat, but at least it makes more sense than the previous. But who is this pony in the first place?
...so it's the pony who fetched the drinks earlier who's doing all this? The pony who was offering to rearrange the weather and set him up with a spa appointment? The pony who called herself "head manager?" She's the one who's so stupid that when asked to fetch a medical bag for an injured pony, she dumps out the contents and returns with the bag only? That seems inconsistent with her prior characterization. So inconsistent that on first reading I didn't even realize it was her, and it was only after tracing back through while typing this that I realized who this pony even was.
So that was a lot of typing...let's look at a more succinct example of stuff not making sense: Color Palette is wearing all of those clothes at the start of the story to hide her issue, right? So why does she need to hide in the bathroom if the clothing hides it? She's still wearing her clothes when the tea gets poured on her. Why does she run to the restroom?
...oh, is it because the clothes don't cover up the color change? After all, a coat wouldn't cover her neck and face, right?
Ok. Then why is she wearing the clothes in the first place if they don't cover up her change? Do you see the problem here?
For that matter, why does she run? Because she's anticipating imminent transformation, right? Why? What triggers it? Is it the hot tea? It doesn't seem to be. She changes several times while she's hanging out in the restroom, no hot liquids required. So why does she hide in the first place after the tea incident? And if it is the tea that triggers the change, then why doesn't she change right away when it happens, and instead changes a bunch of times later on when it isn't happening?
Why are any of these things happening? I don't know. They just happen because why not. Fundamentally, the flow the of story, the plot, the "things that happen" just don't make very much sense.
___________________________________________________
Unnecessary forced romance with an unlikable character
I'm not sure whether you realize how unlikable Color Palette is, or whether you're going out of your way to make her unlikable for reasons unknown.
She's constantly yelling. She's rude. She's inconsiderate. She kicks a bunch of ponies out of the restroom over her own personal issues. She's violent. She threatens the pony who's trying to help her. She's a dangerous nutcase, and Solar knows that she's a dangerous nutcase:
Sure, I get that metaphors are a thing. Maybe he doesn't literally think she'll kill him. But Color is clearly an unstable pony with issues. She's also completely stupid:
...so, she knows healing spells, and she's been injured like this before, and her reaction to being injured isn't to deal with the problem, but rather to:
1) Go running off somewhere
2) Needlessly kick a bunch of people out of the restroom
3) Sit there and wait all by herself in the restroom for a dozen paragraphs while Solar and Miss head manager unicorn juggle getting his medical supplies
4) Climb up over the door, while injured, in order to attack and threaten the pony trying to help her
5) Sit there and wait for another half dozen paragraphs while Solar talks to Miss unicorn about ice and whether things are ok or not
6) Have an impromptu makeout session with the pony she'd just threatened and attacked
And only after all that does she cast a spell to deal with the problem she's freaking out about? Even if she panicked over the impending change in public and her first priority was to hide...why didn't she heal herself during all that time she spent alone in the restroom while Solar was outside talking to other ponies? What was she doing, checking her makeup?
Color is a moron. If this person kissed me I would run away. This is not a likable character I would want to share a romance tag with. Yes, Comedic Sociopathy is a thing, but this character isn't likable enough to pull it off.
___________________________________________________
Weak ending
Finally, after all of this confusion and nonsense...the payoff at the end is this:
If this is supposed to be a joke, it falls very flat. In fact, on first reading I didn't even realize it might be a joke, and it was only after looking for quotes while writing this that it occurred to me that maybe growing a unicorn horn was supposed to be a metaphor for gaining a transgendered penis. As I type this...I'm still not sure that's what you were going for, but it's the only thing I've been able to think of that even might be a joke.
If it is a joke, it doesn't really work. Sure, there are plenty of stories on this site that end with a weak pun but that manage to pull it off because the rest of the story is sufficiently amusing. Like I said in my review of Plastic Strength and the Smiles they Hide, a lot of that story was fairly bland, but the powerful ending totally made up for it. The ending changed the conetxt of some of the things that had happened previously, and suddenly what was once bland became profound. Here, I spent I most of my time reading It's Not Contagious feeling mildly confused, and the ending just isn't enough to recover from that.
If it's not a joke...then what's even going on here? It's a public restroom. It's not like somebody's standing outside tracking who goes in and out. Several ponies were already kicked out amidst the screaming. Even if somebody was watching...from behind you see a pony go, five minutes later you see that pony come out and he has a horn on his head. Are you going to panic and freak out over this or are you going to conclude that you just missed the horn when you only saw him from behind? The manager presumably got a better look, but she apparently thinks they're having sex in there, so she's probably not waiting around to watch them come out.
It only makes sense if it's supposed to be a joke. But it's not a very good one. And...if it is supposed to be a joke, then it's a missed opportunity for the obvious pun. Instead of this encounter happening in a restroom...it could have happened in a linen closet.
11199631
Well, at least I was open about it. And honestly, this kind of criticism helps more than you think. How would I know what problems to fix if I'm never informed about the problems to fix? Responding to this will help me put my 'ducks in a row.'
On a side note: I noticed you gave the stallion in this story the name Solar Urticaria. By how much detail you put into your posts, you probably know this already, but I’m pointing it out because it wasn’t intended to be his name, more the name of the condition he thought she had:
That…
never occurred to me. It’s random, so I thought, “heck, anything goes. Just keep it clean.”
What you read is most likely what it sounds like when having a verbal conversation with me. I struggle with finding the right words to use on the fly, so I cut corners when I can’t find what I’m looking for to make up for that. It seems that habit slipped into this story.
media1.giphy.com/media/yhLV2DGTLDRCw/200.gif
Oh... so that's the proper word for it. That's yet another example of my lack of vocabulary.
if you ever worked retail or somewhere that requires pleasing the customer/tenant/whatever the proper word to use is. (I worked at a supermarket, not a hotel or vacation resort.) there's always "that one person" who finds fault in the pettiest of things and are the absolute most toxic kinds of individuals that can talk and have legs. The main character looked at her in a similar way that gave telltale signs from previous encounters that he might be one of those ponies thinking to themselves, are you stupid!? (personal experience) But in truth, he had the rug pulled out from under him, and it took a moment before he could figure out how to respond. This is followed by her panicking and making an already awkward situation more awkward by back-peddling out from something that she thinks has her job on the line.
Another example of my small arsenal of vocabulary. Again I worked retail so I'm more familiar with that structure of authority. I don't have a clue on how hotels or resorts are run.
In this scene there are four distinct characters that are (or will be) introduced: you, Color Pallet, the stressed overworked 'service with a smile' resort worker, and the overworked worker's boss's boss.
The stressed worker on the beach is the same one going back and forth from the rooms five consecutive times. You (the Dr.) are trying to tell her she needs to get some rest and maybe take a vacation from this vacation because she’s on the brink of burnout. It’s happening too fast for you to get a word in, and even when you do, she still insists on doing more work than she can handle.
The workers' superior (Head manager) was luckily in the restaurant/cafe/
general food eating place building around the time it all went down. The moment she caught wind of the fact someone got injured through the involvement of resort workers, she decided to take the initiative and secure a good standing service in whatever way she could provide. She doesn't know who this guest is, for all she knows they're royalty of some kind. So for the reputation of the resort she works for, she's willing to pull some strings and get whatever might be needed at the ready quicker. You said it yourself:
The Dr. (you) doesn’t know what skin condition Color has so as a measure of precaution, he is asking for more ice than what he is probably going to use. And he’s not angry at the ‘workers incompetence’ as much as he is trying to say ‘give me two seconds to explain everything I need’ without sounding entitled and demanding to an exhausted worker. And over the realization that the contents of two bags got ‘mishandled’ again but doesn’t blame the worker.
Well… that’s half the joke, the other half is that the doctor can’t say the reason why she is wrong to assume that, making him think ‘No! Why would you think that?! you’ve got it all wrong!’
Because there’s boiling liquid cooking her skin under all the layers when it slipped down the slight opening in her coat collar. To treat it, even with magic, would require her to remove everything the hot drink soaked into.
The color of her fur changes depending on her emotions, it’s something she can’t control so to hide it she always covers herself up to avoid any relatable attention it might bring.
I'll assume you know about this episode. With how long Color Pallet has been the way she is, there's bound to have been some negative/aggressive reactions. The times those aggressive reactions took place is when she has needed to heal herself. And she’s applying self treatment while the fiasco outside the restroom door is happening so by the time he came through the door she had already done what she could.
Random is as random does, there are things that aren’t supposed to make sense, but I’ll have to work on the more glaring ones that are.
media4.giphy.com/media/czOM9AjyWfi8w/200w.gif?cid=82a1493benf8e6sgv04v4bmjqwcrh79g75dpdiunj3mwy56h&rid=200w.gif&ct=g
Do you know any editors I could reach out to for assistance? I constantly say to others that I tell stories better than I can write them and this is proof of that.
11200023
My mistake. Didn't see any name on first read, and when I went back to find one for the review I was quickly scrolling through and mixed up the context.
Maybe, but the dynamic would be very different in a restaurant or resort or hotel because these are social places that people go to to have a good time or meet people. Going to a bar to "pick up" somebody is a thing that people do, and it wouldn't be strange for a server to offer encouragement to someone she thought was interested but not quite brave enough to make a move. Very different environment than retail.
The narration in this story is spoken from the protagonist's point of view. that doesn't come across like it's supposed to be the reader in that role. For example, suppose I walk up to you and say, "I am a doctor." You wouldn't hear that and think I was talking about you, you would think I was talking about me. The narrator says "I," and doesn't identify himself as a third person. So it comes across like the protagonist is telling the story.
If you want "the reader to be the character" you're more likely to communicate that by using the second-person point of view. For example, if I say that "you are a doctor," you're far more likely to think I'm talking about you.
Ok, I guess, but she didn't seem very concerned about that. It came across to me more like she knew the spill was going to trigger a transformation, and that's was her primary concern. I suppose the idea is that she was concerned about both of those things and the desire to not be seen was enough for her to, uhh...run away from a doctor and go kick a bunch of people out of the restroom before tending to her skin being cooked. Yeah, having a hard time relating to that.
Me? Isn't that what you asked for? I've certainly edited for other stories. A Watchful Eye, and Heaven's Not Enough, for example. And of course, feel free to read my own stories on the site to see the level of polish I typically aim for.
Considering my current workload though, I think I don't want to commit to a full chapter-by-chapter, multiple-revisions sort of arrangement. That tends to take as much time as writing them does. But I'm happy to give a few of your stories a once-over like I've been doing.
Did you have some specific question "for an editor?" I can probably answer.
11204577
The story is supposed to be second-person, you are the main character. Although, when speaking or thinking wouldn’t it be in first-person format?
Oh,
I saw what you are doing more as just getting a review on each story. When I said editor, I was meaning someone to physically go into the document and correcting the illiteracies I keep overlooking.
I figured you had other stuff on your plate. I didn’t want to ask more out of you than what you’re already doing. But if it is something you can handle, I could PM you the google docs link.
11204681
This story is not written in second person.
Example of first person
As I entered the park, a cute pony saw me and waved.
"Hello!" I beamed at her. "I'm Element of Malice. How are you?"
"I'm happy that you're here!" she smiled back at me.
Example of second person
As you entered the park, a cute pony saw you and waved.
"Hello!" you beamed at her. "I'm Element of Malice. How are you?"
"I'm happy that you're here!" she smiled back at me.
Yes, as shown in the example above, when you say "I'm" the Element of Malice. But notice that the unspoken narration says "as you entered the park" and "you beamed at her." I think you may be confusing thinking with narration. Look at this from the opening paragraph of It's Not Contagious:
Your protagonist isn't thinking to himself "I sighed in relaxation." He isn't thinking "I put my hooves behind my head." This is narration.
Imagine you're the one doing the above. Would you think any of that to yourself? Would you think "I sighed in relaxation" while you sigh in relaxation? No, you would simply do it. Your character might (be doing, or have done) these things, but in either case he wouldn't describe these actions to himself in his head. Or consider later in the story, where we have this:
This isn't a character's thoughts. This is narration. Your narrator is describing these things to the reader, telling us that they happened. Yes, your protagonist happens to be the narrator, but that doesn't make the reader the character. It's more like the character is telling us what happened.
------
I prefer not to work that way, because it means spending a lot of time continually correcting the same mistakes over and over, and you not improving as a writer. If I explain things to you, like in the above, and you have to be the one to make changes...then you can learn and grow and all of your writing will improve. It's a better way of handling things.
11204821
animemotivation.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/kuroko-shirai-head-bang-gif.gif
Brain fart. I should have known that.
I'll have to read this later. On my lunch break.
11204821
Okay, I see what you're saying now. That's something I can go through and fix.
In that case, I'll get started on making the corrections. I've got a lot of work by the looks of it.
thumbs.gfycat.com/DeterminedDismalEquestrian-size_restricted.gif
In the meantime, you could probably move to the next story, but only if that still rests in your interest. I don't want to come across as demanding or entitled and hope I haven't already. My online communication skills leave much to be desired.
11205203
Well, it's not broken. Maybe it's not what you intended, but why do you want to change it? I'm not seeing anything that demands it be the reader in this story rather than some random OC. Also, second person point of view is generally best delivered in present tense, whereas most of this story is written in past tense. Swapping all of that out would require a rewrite of nearly every sentence, and I'm not sure the story would be improved by it.
Why do you want this to be a reader-insert?
11205220
Because that was the original intent when it was written. Also, it should be good practice for me to write better in the future.
FWVLIW, i kinda enjoyed the whimsically odd phrasings. For example, i thought for just an instant, "maybe i should tell the writerer that defenestration refers to windows." But then i decided that it was probably on purpose and it certainly was amusing, at least to some of us ponies. The ill-fitting choice of verb speaks with rich subtly to the utter bafflement (to put it lightly) experienced by all the mares suddenly ejected. Sure, they were pushed out the door, but they might feel like they just got chucked out the window.
P.S. in sans-serif, the uppercase letter I like India, in "CoNtAgIoUs" reads like a lower case l like Lima. IOW, i read the title as being something like: "IT'S NOT CONTAGLOUS" (here i put it in all caps to avoid letter dimorphy issues)
11548134
Yeah this one does need a good amount of work on the delivery. I tend to tell stories better than I write them, and it seems to be getting harder as years pass, not that I was really all that great to begin with.
Glad you liked them though.
11548212
What if you sat down with a dictation machine and plenty of wax cylinders (or mayhap something more modern-like) and told a story from start to end verbally. Then transcribe the recording, verbatim, to the written word and see how it works. Just an idea for a way to utilize that skill which you say you are better at. You might end up with something more alive feeling, like actually listening to a wise old pony telling a story.
Cheers
11548254
Words on a paper lose the body language of the words that are spoken. I’ve explored different methods I have access to like speech-to-text. But that seems to be a constant issue.