Hello everyone! Call me Belial. I'm a mostly horror writer, but I also write a lot of tragedy, romance, and comedy. I know how to start a story, bu i am horrible at finishing one.
AppleDash | | Songfic to Whiskey Lullaby by Brad Paisly and Alison Krauss
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Applejack is devastated to find that Rainbow Dash cheated on her while she was away at war. She leaves, still in her boots, and finds that whiskey may be the only thing that could distract her from her pain...
We watched him drink his pain away, a little at a time. But he never could get drunk enough to get her off his mind.
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When I read "Whiskey Lullaby" by Brad Paisley in the description, that really hit me and I knew this story isn't going to be emotionally pleasant. Damn it, you nearly made me cry.
Despite small errors here and there, I like it.
(will be sending a PM of the small errors soon)
2312385 I'm glad you like it! I was hoping to hit some cords with this one. Seems like a succeeded, at least a little. :3
Yes, that will be much appreciated! Some of this was written around eight feet from the screen, so it was a bit hard to see my errors.
Damn it Feels, I wasn't ready right now...
It was great and I don't normally read these types of fic.
I have to admit, Whiskey Lullaby is a damn good title.
2312593 Yes, I have a habit of rushing things that I'm trying to correct. I can't seem to stress thee details enough, and usually just dive straight into the plot.
I'm glad you liked it, though.
if you knew the song you wouldn't be expecting a happy ending
I saw the title and thought oh my gosh I know wgere this is going. Really great job.
I read this story this morning... those feels stuck with me all day. Damn near made me cry! That said, I tip my hat to ya... Well wrote.
What.
The.
Did I miss something? Oh well, this is good.
2317001 Its how the song which this is based off of ends. It fades off with that, and I thought it a fitting way to end the fanfiction.
This all feels very... rushed.
First things first, you can't just say "Applejack came back from the war." What war? Don't worry, I understand where you got it from in the song and its video, but you can't just drop war on Equestria without at least a little background, and preferably a lot of background.
Truth be told, I was planning on writing this exact story... as soon as it got to the front of the rather long line of stories I've got lined up.
I saw the title and I knew, I immediately pulled up my spotify and played the song while reading. twice the feels
Love the story, well done
Well done, I have heard or thought about that song in at least a decade but still recognized it immediately. A little rushed, but fitting of the song.
I've never heard the song before, so I didnt know what to expect. But REALLY good! Im listenning to it now! Well done!
AHHAHAA!!! THE FEELS!!! WHY!!!!????
Now that that is taken care of......I really liked the way that you put the story together. There are a few things that were not explained, like the whole war thing, but it is a one-shot so that is understandable. I can not listen to that song without crying and this story did the exact same thing to me.
Well done!
Why AppleJack
Oh dear Celestia, the feels!!!!!
Greetings, my friend! I'm here from Authors Helping Authors to give your story a read and a review. As always, this review will contain SPOILERS so don't read it unless you've read the story!
Name of Story: Whiskey Lullaby
Grammar: 9/10 Very good with a few errors. I usually don't go through stories with a fine-toothed comb looking for mistakes, but since you asked specifically for proofreading, I'll go ahead and error-check. I'll list the ones I find here:
Should be 'excited'. Looks like a typo.
'Drips' is a verb. You're looking for 'drops'.
You just need 'in' here.
'Laying' refers to someone actually putting something down. 'Lying' is when the person (or pony) is the one in a resting position.
'Bask' has a very positive meaning, generally referring to a relaxing or warm feeling. You might try something like 'drown' if you're trying to communicate oppressive sorrow.
Beginning a sentence with 'and' is a big no-no. You can solve this by either combining the two sentences or just removing the 'and' from the beginning of the second sentence.
Double comma. Whoopsie!
Another 'and' dangling scared and alone at the start of a sentence. You can just delete this 'and'.
Both 'her' and 'the' work in this context, but not both. Looks like a typo.
The 'and's are back with a vengeance! Neither of these are necessary and can just be deleted from the sentences.
Typo. Moving on...
Repeating words in a paragraph is distracting and to be avoided if possible. Either one of these 'even's can be removed and the passages would be more powerful for it.
I have yet to mention the liberal use of commas in the proofreading section because commas are rather tricky for me, but this one is definitely unnecessary. I imagine there are a lot of commas that don't need to be where they are, but they go with the story's flow for the most part and I'm not the person to talk to about commas.
This sentence flows with the thought process of the story, but it is still grammatically incorrect to put that 'and' there. You could instead use ellipses for the pause that you want in between this sentence and the previous one and simply combine the two.
*Lying.
I'm not sure what to think of the hyphens being used in place of starting a new sentence, but it flows well with the story and the grammatical rules escape me, so I don't have a recommendation.
Pros:
The descriptive adjectives and little tidbits of setting description are woven into the narrative well. It does a lot to draw the reader in and sets the stage beautifully.
You give yourself very limited space to tell a story, and you use it well. This is an excellent one-shot because it lingers on the emotional parts it needs to and doesn't feel like it has to explain everything. It's short and... well, not sweet, but it's a bite-sized story and it works that way.
The dialogue of the characters does a lot to portray the sadness they're going through. The power in this story comes as much from the descriptive adjectives as it does from the dialogue.
The story flows well, even with the time lapses. Those are hard to get right and you make very good use of them.
Cons:
The characters don't act like themselves. Applejack is honest and steadfast, so why is she instantaneously broken and running from Rainbow upon finding out she cheated? Rainbow is brash and loyal, so why is she cheating in the first place? Why would these two ponies go for three whole months without coming to some sort of reconciliation when Rainbow is genuinely sorry and Applejack still loves her? Using characters from the show lends this story some of its weight because they're characters we love, but they behave completely unlike anything I would expect.
Having said that, there aren't many other cons to consider. The pacing is fast, but it fits well with the story and doesn't detract from the experience. Other than the characterization, I really can't find anything wrong.
Notes:
This story CRUSHED me. The writing style drew me into the story and I really felt the all-engulfing sorrow the characters were going through. The characterization of Applejack and Rainbow Dash bothered me, but in the end it didn't matter. I was drawn into the tragedy despite its flaws and it made me legitimately sad to read it. I see from some of the comments that this story was inspired by a song, but I haven't heard it. I can see the influence of the song here by how the characters behave and I honestly think this story could be improved by using a couple of OCs since the characters are the ones from the song and not necessarily the ones from MLP:FIM.
Despite its flaws, the story drew me in and made me feel for the characters. A good read.
As is the AHA tradition, I'd like to link you a story of mine to read and review. My story is called Tides of Shade.
3181092 Thank you for the review! Yes, I do have quite a bit of typo's in there, don't i? haha...I'll go through and fix them, thank you for pointing them out to me. I think my spellcheck is broken, which could be a part of it. It only works half the time.
Yes, it is based of a song, and its music video as well. I thought that AppleJack and Rainbow Dash would be the best characters to fit it to, even though, i agree, it is rather on the OOC side.
Thank you for the review, I greatly appreciate it! I'll be sure to give your story a read, and a review when I have some time(My dinner will be soon, then maybe a movie).
Hi, I saw your story in Authors Helping Authors. Here's a quick review for you
Name of Story:
Whiskey Lullaby
Grammar:
I'm not the best judge of this, so I just looked for places where something seemed unclear for technical reasons, and it was all fine.
Pros:
This story really gripped me. It's intense.
It seems to have a message that shows the consequences of betraying others, and how that can lead you to betray yourself as well.
I enjoyed the use of language. Things are described very well, and I never felt that the events being described were redundant or unclear or otherwise difficult to parse. That's a skill I'm jealous of because I seem to be addicted to enormous compound sentences peppered with parenthetical statements, rather than concise, straight forward stuff that paints a picture with simple strokes.
Cons:
This story breaks the knob off at eleven. It is starkly melodramatic to the point where it broke my immersion completely. Here's just a few examples:
- Soon as Applejack arrives in Dash's room, there's instant screaming. There wasn't any heartbroken disbelief. No whispered 'Oh no.. oh no oh no!' from either side. There were no hearts hammering in the chest, breaking into tiny shards while faces curled into anguished grimaces of betrayal. Just straight to soap opera levels of hollering.
- That was forgivable. Maybe they're just like that. Maybe they're really passionate souls, or maybe (more likely) their relationship was completely miserable and this was the last straw for Applejack, but then Dash is so completely distraught that she's literally crawling over broken glass to run after Applejack shrieking out panicked pleas for forgiveness? That crosses the 'nobody would ever do that' line. Also, it was callously unreasonable to have Applejack ignore the sounds of her (ex?)lover's terrible injuries like that.
- If I asked someone to describe what excessive melodrama looked like, they would probably say: 'Someone shouting 'WHY?!' while slamming their head against a hard surface and crying', so, yeah.
Some examples where I felt you 'told' too much instead of 'showing':
- 'For the past three months, it had been all she'd done. Drink. Sob. Drink some more. Sob some more. Sleep. Drink some more.' I would have liked to have seen some of that. Surely that process wasn't instantaneous. It must have taken a toll on her other relationships. Seems like we skipped some juicy feels there.
- 'Something which she would regret, for the rest of her days.' I would have liked to have seen that too. Just seeing it stated outright instead of shown, or coming out in dialogue, seems like a missed opportunity for more feels.
- 'Years passed. Rainbow continued to grow more and more distant, rarely ever flying, a mere shadow of her former self. She knew that this was her fault, and it ate her away inside.' This seems, to me, what the entire story should have been about. Dash dealing with her guilt. This seemed to be the central conflict of the story, and it could have been explored in many direct and symbolic ways, but it all just got summed up, and it skips right to the climactic breakdown.
Notes Section:
- The ponyville bar allowed somepony to carry a gun into a bar, of all places, while they're obviously completely distraught, and then allowed them to get completely hammered, and walk home alone. Wow.
- This level of melodrama might not be a bad thing, for some people, but I can't help but feel that it's not something you want to see in a story that's about the tragic downfall of a character into misery. I think it should have felt more personal and subtle than this. If this were a comedy, it would be pretty awesome, and I don't mean to imply that your writing is a joke, it's not, I just think that you actually have a talent for creating an explosively gripping narrative that keeps making the reader say 'Whoa!'
- I personally wouldn't have put the song lyrics in.
I hope you're not upset with this review... Please review this story of mine and feel free to be just as honest as I was with yours:
Just Like Me - A tragedy about a soldier's experiences in a time of war.
3182066 Thank you for the honest review. I really appriciate it.
Yeah, I'll come check out your story in the near future~
I'll definitely keep the things you said in mind with my future one-shots.
The reason i did the show vs tell part was because this wasn't supposed to be a long story. it was supposed to be rather short. But I understand the distaste.
3182362
My story is a lot like yours in many ways. It's two big events, which are very sad and covered with feels, separated by time, but linked together.
The way that I kept mine short was that I started the story closer to the end. I started at the beginning of the second sad event, and I described the first event through 'backflash' style exposition.
You could probably have done the same thing here. You could have opened up with Rainbow Dash going to town on whisky, reflecting on her life as it comes to an end, thinking back to the mistakes she made, and how her life spiraled.
3182397 The thing is, this is a songfic - I wanted it to follow the music video, since watching that video was the only reason I got the inspiration to write a fic that I actually finished. I'd been struggling with quite a bit of Writers block, a move, and figuring out that I'll be an aunt around the time I wrote this, so I was happy that I /finally/got inspired to write(and finish) a story, even if it was just a short oneshot.
Name of Story:
Whiskey Lullaby
Grammar:
As I read your story, I noticed a couple typos (i.e. the line 'It was hard to walk when she was this exited...'), nothing that detracted from the story at all.
Pros:
I enjoyed your interpretation of the song, I'm not much of a country fan, but 'Whiskey Lullaby' is a good one.
I enjoyed your descriptions in the beginning of the story, about how Applejack was excited to come home.
The angle you went with the story was really good, with the soldier coming home.
Cons:
I felt like the story was a little clunky, meaning that it went from one big event to the next. There wasn't much build-up.
The emotional tug wasn't very strong for me, as stated before, I would have liked to have seen a slower, more in depth development of the story.
I thought that the bartender selling Rainbow Dash alcohol didn't make sense, considering what happened with Applejack, I would have expected the bartender to refuse the sale.
Notes Section:
Overall, I enjoyed your writing and I hope you continue!
Exactly like the song, as you were obviously going for.
Feels man, feels.
3183068 Thank you for the review.
Yes, I suppose that there was a lot more detail I could have put into this - But I'm still happy with how it turned out.
3184839
I agree, it was very enjoyable!
Dear Eclipsis,
Hi! My name is MrAlbum321. I am giving you a review of your story Whiskey Lullaby from the Authors Helping Authors group. Here goes:
PROS:
-Good economy of language. Being able to portray an event effectively in as few words as possible is a skill modern writers use a lot, and I was impressed by how the heavy emotions the story engenders occur in such a short amount of words.
-Nice word choice. Your descriptions are effective, which makes the economy of the language move the heart in a much more immediate fashion.
-A direct enough adaptation of the song that does not require the song to be effective. Something that happens when adaptations are attempted, is that they remain so completely faithful to the source material that they do not even try to alter it to fit better with the medium it is getting adapted to. So the fact that the adaptation works so well here is because it has changed enough for it to fit the short story format. In fact, if the song wasn't even mentioned, the story would still create strong feels in the folks who read it.
CONS:
-As much as I hate to dredge this up, both Applejack AND Rainbow Dash are completely out of character. First off, Rainbow Dash's element is LOYALTY. Because she is loyal to her friends and loved ones and puts them above her, she would NOT betray Applejack, not of her own free will. To do otherwise would mean betraying the very essence of her character. Also, Applejack is honest. She would NOT try to drown her sorrows in whiskey, because she would not want to hide herself from the truth. She would be honest with herself about the pain she feels, and she would constantly confront it. She would own up to the fact that drinking her life away is the worst possible way to spend her life, and that there are better ways to get over RD's out-of-character disloyalty.
-There are events and places that are completely out of context. First off, that war. What was it? Who were they fighting? Are they winning? Is that why AJ is coming home? Or was there another reason? Why is she in camo gear, when she would more likely be in full uniform? Is there a reason for that? What about the bar? Is the bar in Ponyville? Or is there a different way to get whiskey? Or did I simply miss that when I read through the story? The reason I ask these questions is because readers need to know where they are, and WHEN they are, in order to believe that the story doesn't occur in a white void.
-Why the HELL didn't the rest of the Mane Six stage an intervention, considering how blatantly visible to the public the story makes their drinking? They would do that, too. They would not be afraid to lock up both AJ and RD to prevent them from destroying themselves at the bottle.
-Minor nitpick, but that song lyric at the end isn't necessary. And it's all "Lalala's", not "Falala's." At least, that's what my ears heard when I watched the video to get a good context on the inspiration for the story.
Reccomendation:
There is a simple solution that could clear up the vast majority of the OOC problems:
Switch Rainbow Dash and Applejack.
The vast majority of military might that is seen in the show has primarily been Pegasi. Sure, there are some unicorns, but on average they are kind of a rarity (no pun intended). So it would make more sense for RD to fight for the country she is loyal to. Plus. Applejack's element is Honesty. If she was pining for RD, she would tell herself that RD isn't there, that if she wants to get her "jollies," she's going to have to go to someone else, which gives an in-character reason for her to cheat. Plus, she is stubborn. She could justify her actions and be so adamant in that justification that it leads her to cheating. Thus, RD witnesses the cheating, and implodes in whiskey first, with AJ blaming herself for RD's self-destruction, and being unable to lie to herself otherwise, and imploding next.
Seriously, the more I think about it, the more it makes sense.
Last but not least, I know that this could be hard, because if done incorrectly it can stand out like a sore thumb, but give some context to the story, even if it is just a paragraph at the beginning that outlines what the war was, why AJ volunteered to fight for it (or RD, if you consider my recommendation), and why she is looking forward to reuniting with RD.
Hope that gives you some food for thought
If you would like to take a look at my story My Little Poem in return, I would most appreciate it. It needs the critique IMHO
Sincerely,
Mr. Album
Song will always make me cry. No matter what happens.
3286518 I barely cry at anything but this song just hits me hard I totally agree
3197332 about your cons you have to think that applejack was crushed she fought in a war and just thinking of her and that's what probably got her threw the war that probably even changed her a bit but she couldn't wait to see her and she is with another mare just you would lose a piece of your heart and mind. Because you loved her for a long time and she just didn't care for you. you wouldn't trust anyone and lose yourself but I do think it would be better if they were flipped
still as heart breaking as the first time i read it
