Criticism

by Eclipse

Criticism

Everypony was now leaving Sugarcube Corner after the party that Pinkie had just thrown them for Rainbow Dash’s birthday. The party had gone on for about an hour or two, one of the shortest parties that Pinkie had ever thrown, but everypony had left except a nervous looking Rainbow Dash. Pinkie was still partying, thinking that Rainbow was doing the same, but after a while she realized that her friend wasn’t partying anymore. Pinkie just smiled at the cyan pegasus as she went to turn off the record player and turn to her friend. “So, whadd’ya need Dashie?” Pinkie asked as Rainbow gave a sheepish smile and a light rosy blush.

“Well, I got bored one day and started writing down something, I’m no writer but I just kept going back to it and like, adding on to it.” Dash shrugged slightly and continued, “I’m not sure if it’s good or not, and there might be some like, issues and stuff wrong with it.” Dash finished as Pinkie Pie looked at her friend with a glimmer of interest. Pinkie looked at the medium-sized manuscript that Rainbow Dash had stowed away in her saddlebags that she laid in the corner before the party. “Here it is, there’s not a whole lot there being that I lost my flow after page, like, twenty-seven? Anyways, could you please read it and tell what you think about it?” Dash said as Pinkie smiled and took the manuscript in her hooves and looked at the front cover.

Pinkie read the cover, and even the title of the book practically screamed Rainbow Dash’s name. The Super Awesome Adventures of a Spectrum-Maned Heroine and a Major Nerd, the title read. Pinkie was, to say the least, intrigued by the title, she looked around on the cover once again and turned her gaze back to her friend. “Alright, I’ll take a look at it then. But I’m gonna have to ask you to leave Sugarcube Corner and not come back for maybe a day or two until I’ve read all of it.” Pinkie said as Rainbow Dash stared back at the pink mare who was still wearing her signature silly grin and nodded. Pinkie bounced with excitement, “Alllllright! I’ll get it back to you extra superrifically fast!” Pinkie then proceeded to start pushing Dash out of the door and immediately slammed it after she was outside.

Rainbow sat there staring in disbelief at what has just occurred, but she picked herself up and flew as swiftly as possible back to her home in the clouds.
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Rainbow Dash waited countless days for a reply from Pinkie, but every time she’d gone to Sugarcube Corner, the Cakes would always reply that Pinkie hadn’t come out of her room since the party. The long countless time that Rainbow waited for that reply drove her crazy, all she really wanted was for Pinkie to tell her if her writing was good or not. But no, Rainbow Dash just continued to wait and try to check up on her friend every hour for the next two days. But finally after two whole days of waiting, she looked outside her door, and pinned to it was her manuscript and a neatly folded piece of paper. Rainbow Picked up the manuscript and the piece of paper and took them inside her home and sat the manuscript down on the table and started to carefully unfold the small piece of paper. Rainbow started reading over the small paper, it read;

Here, have yourself a friendly review!
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1) Okay, your vocabulary is at an all-time low throughout the entire story, even the ‘Nerd’s’ vocabulary is tragically skewed and not as vast as I think that it could and should be.
2) You repeated the word ‘like’ a total of 243 times throughout the story, you should really try using something else to convey the point.
3) You use too many onomatopoeic words like ‘Kaboom’, ‘Crash’, ‘Whoosh’, and ‘Bang’. You don’t need to use these as often as you did, as the plot should speak for itself.
4) You should really check your spelling; a common misspelling or yours is the word ‘conscious’ as you spelled as ‘constious’ and another is ‘destruction,’ which you spelled as ‘distrucshin’.
5) You have a slight problem with how you’re pacing the story; the story is all over the place and is kind of hard to follow what is initially going on.
6) You change tenses a couple times in the story, and you also changed perspectives when the plot didn’t call for it. You go from first person, to third person, and at times even to second person in most cases all in the same paragraph.
7) That brings us to the next criticism, most of your paragraphs are initially just a hurtful to read wall of text.
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Suggested fixes;

1) Try using connotation and synonyms of words instead of repeating the same word over and over again.
2) You should consider breaking down the walls of text into much smaller paragraphs that don’t hurt as much to read.
3) Always check your work for grammar errors, spelling errors, and issues with the pacing.
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Rainbow Dash glared at the piece of paper and then crumpled it up and threw it into the corner. “A simple, ‘You could really make this better,’ would’ve worked…”

Comments

[Eclipse]

This is a parody fic of a certain site.
to all the ponies put there who get it, go ahead and respond.
Written with love.

[MrMusicalPony]

This sums up what happened last time I sent a story into EQD

[Eclipse]

91056 That's the joke here. Don't get me wrong, they do it out of respect for us.

[MrMusicalPony]

I know it's the joke. And yeah, I know they do. I just thought it was funny was all, and very true.

[Eclipse]

91084 yes being rejected myself, I thought I'd write about it. I'm glad you liked it.

[Ezn]

Hmm...

This reminds me of Taken for Grammar. An inspiration of yours?

I guess this raises an interesting issue. It's one that's been bothering me for a while now. So allow me to get on my soapbox for a moment...

There's nothing wrong with writing a silly little story for fun and posting it up on FIMfiction, Fanfiction.net or deviantART. Some ponies don't want to be serious writers, or worry about stuff like grammar, pacing, style, etc... and that's fine. We all write for different reasons.

That said, people who don't see themselves as real writers (or as aspiring real writers) shouldn't try to get on Equestria Daily, because that site is a spotlight, not an archive. Not everything should be on that site, because not everything has the mass appeal to appeal to everypony who frequents it. A story like Rainbow's, for example, would be chuckled at by a few friends, but ignored by the world at large. Ergo, not EqD material.

Equestria Daily upholds certain standards, and they expect to deal with people who care about being writers and improving their writing. If you don't, there's nothing wrong with that, but your fic doesn't need to be on EqD. It's nothing personal. I have three stories on FIMfiction, and only one of them is on EqD. I only send in my absolute best stuff.

On another note, I've recently adopted a practice of only giving detailed, critical feedback to authors who are on EqD, or who specifically request it. I don't want to make the mistake Pinkie made in this story.

[Eclipse]

91297 I respect EqD and all of the kind people whoim pre-read some of the things people try to submit to it. I want to become a more serious fics and I'm going to take a quite long hiatus 'til I can get to the point where I can actually sit down and write things. I think that the criticism that the nice pre-readers at EqD are doing an excellent job at telling people what they can improve on before submitting again. I can't submit anything to that site because 1) Conflicting Emotions has a little part where there's some slight dirty parts to it. 2)Most of my fics are incoherent and all over the place. 3) I haven't really written anything in quite some time because I've been anticipating something soon to happen in my life.

NO, I don't expect anyone to do what Pinkie does, she takes it a bit too far because all Dash wanted to know was if the story was good or not. I'm a pre-reader myself and won't give any criticism that the author hadn't asked me for. This was just a fun little thing that I did when I got bored, as said before, I wrote it out of respect. That's a fad, if you love something, parody it.
I never got that

[Eclipse]

91297 Oh and P.S.
I don't frequent EqD, actually, the only time I visited the site was tyo check out the second fic I've ever read.
Fallout Equestria.
The first being Cupcakes

[Ponyman]

91297
Well I would love your input on my current works when I get them somewhat finished! As someone who was rejected from EqD on the most baseless and vague of reasons, and who talked with the pre-readers who basically told me "they don't have the time to provide any critical feedback, only to accept or reject", I thought I did EVERYTHING wrong and killed all my projects until I got in order. It sucks, but I want to "shine across Equestria" like all my friends.

Maybe I'm not taking it seriously enough?

[Ezn]

98884
I am usually happy to help, but I don't review mature content or shipping. The first because it kinda grosses me out, and the second because I don't read shipping or feel qualified to critique the treatment of romance in fiction. So I might not be the best fit for your work.

That said, I'm busy writing a guide to fanfic writing based on some stuff I've learnt. It's mostly-done, and covers everything from grammar and characterisation. I can swing you a link to that when it's done if you'd like.

[Ponyman]

100130
Rest assured, it's not mature or romance. Well kind of romance in that it's an anti-anti-ship fic. The other idea is a dark pschodrama type thing.

Sure I'll take a link! I'm sure your guide sounds less condescending than the one EqD has.