The Snake That Ate Equestria

dzamie #1 · Mar 7th, 2013 · · · The Day That Started It All ·

Rainbow Dash, I thought you said you wouldn't be writing self-insert Daring Do fanfics!

I'm ~~assuming~~ hoping that it's intentional, but your timing could use a lot of work. It's one thing to avoid purple prose, and another to rush through the most important action.

twilightsparkle13

twilightsparkle13 #2 · Mar 7th, 2013 · · · The Day That Started It All ·

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2230565
thanks for the feedback, i wasn't actually planning for this to be a daring do related story, but i guess it kind of is
the first chapter is actually partially based off of a dream i had......so you can probably guess i didn't sleep well that night

BR

BR #3 · Mar 7th, 2013 · 2 · · The Day That Started It All ·

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This is pretty fast paced. I'd recommend an editor to help with the pacing, and a simple way to spread out your writing is to go into detail when it comes to the most important things. For example, I took this from the story:

As I turned around to ask her what the hell she was talking about, I saw it for the first time. It was MASSIVE! It was at least thirty feet long, probably bigger!

Lemme rework that.

As I whipped around in the salty air to ask her just what the hell she's talking about, I saw IT for the first time. I've fought dragons, changelings, and other nasty things, but I, in my entire history of being awesome, have never seen anything like this before. It must have been as long as two houses put together, maybe even bigger than that. I dunno. Anyway, it was covered in black, rippling scales that reflected the bright sun like dusty old bottles, and was strewn with moss all the way down it's hideous body. Normally I would have rushed into action, but the size of the thing held me back.
"Woah," I said, mouth gaping. "That thing is massive. The rest of the ponies had the same reaction that I did; the entire beach went silent with shock from just looking at the giant snake.
Somewhere, a pony screamed, and then everything went to hell.

I had to add some minor details to the passage, but that's probably the consistency you wanna look for when writing.
It's a good story, though. Just make some changes to it, and I can see that it might have a lot of potential.

BR

BR #4 · Mar 7th, 2013 · · · The Day That Started It All ·

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Oh, and don't put "this is my first fic" in the description. New authors tend to make that mistake, making them look very unprofessional.

dzamie

dzamie #5 · Mar 8th, 2013 · · · The Day That Started It All ·

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2230748
Not only that, but more ... experienced readers have a sort of Pavlovian reflex: see "my first story" --> expect bad writing. This makes small mistakes shine like a beacon, and large ones really... I dunno, I guess just worse.

BR

BR #6 · Mar 8th, 2013 · · · The Day That Started It All ·

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2231648 I just don't like it how people think their story will be reviewed better if they put that on the description. Plenty of other authors have struck linguistic gold without having to mention that it's their first time writing.

twilightsparkle13

twilightsparkle13 #7 · Mar 9th, 2013 · · · The Day That Started It All ·

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2230737
thanks for the feedback, i was trying to get this done pretty quickly, so i wasn't focusing on detail, in the next few chapters i will be taking more time on the details so it should be more interesting

BR

BR #8 · Mar 9th, 2013 · · · The Day That Started It All ·

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2236618 Well, it never really pays off if you rush through things. And if the first chapter is poorly done, then how are people going to be hooked in enough to read the more detailed chapters? What I like to do is finish the first part of a chapter, wait a week, then take another look at it and have a pre-reader/editor go over it. There are tons of guys like that on this site who will be perfectly willing to help you.

dzamie