Let’s get hypothetical.
You’re a writer who’s been going at it for a bit now. You really enjoy what you do and put your blood, sweat, and tears into each story. One day, you decide to post it in a random thread to get some feedback.
Just one problem: no takers.
You wonder if you should even bother writing; you decide to quit and move on to something else.
If that story applies to you, then hold your horses. If all you wanted was feedback, to improve your writing skills a bit, or maybe just see how others do it, then you’ve come to the right place. There are a few rules, however:
>Posting the story directly in the thread is preferred over a link to Pastebin, FiMFiction, etc.
>One story at a time.
>Don’t be a dick or asshole when reading or critiquing.
>All stories posted within the thread must be pre-written.
This thread’s purpose is to encourage writefags all over /mlp/ to write. We’re laid back here. Post what you want as long as it’s pone related. We’re not all “STOREEEYS ONLY!” We discuss topics such as writing techniques, interesting tropes, and bring forth story ideas. Let’s have fun.
>>27780851
Tips and links:
Things you should know about before writing clop:
Vhatug’s tips for anatomically correct clop and squash soup:
http://pastebin.com/g4VpEg4f
http://www.literotica.com/s/erotic-synonyms (Because using dick, balls, and pussy just isn’t enough to get the reader off. Remember, the reader cums first.)
Had to. Puns are awesome.
Things you should know about writing:
Clever’s Tips on How to Write Short Stories: http://pastebin.com/GGBkxi7e
How to into writing: http://pastebin.com/V1ujiyJt
Writing rules from Navarone: http://pastebin.com/bnMmZ2T3
Ezn’s Guite to writing Fanfiction: http://eznguide.neocities.org/
Writing Book for beginners: https://mega.co.nz/#F!pwo21SKA!dljqCUmOhkwLX3x9_ApEgQ
Help for creating OC characters: http://www.dawnsomewhere.com/ocguide/
A few authors from different threads should you seek inspiration from their stories:
Flutterrape general’s writers: http://pastebin.com/eG8iY7Wy
Active AiE general writers: http://pastebin.com/mVG33ERX
PiE general’s writers: http://pastebin.com/Mgd0QuNy
>“How do I cure my writer’s block?”
Magic.
>“FUCK YOU ANSWER THE QUESTION!”
There’s no one way to cure it, but, if you can’t write, you may as well read stories. There’s more to writing than writing; there’s reading too, and that helps. Check some of the links above.
Try the following (keep in mind this won’t work for everyone):
-Figure out when it’s the best time for you to write.
-Fap then write*.
-Write anyway, and allow yourself to write shitty stories. More often than not, the block is the fear of it being bad. That’s what editing is for.
-Seriously, drink coffee. It’s a writer’s best friend.
-Listen to music while writing.
*Unless you’re writing clop, then listen to your boner.
Alright, let's try not to die too early this time.
Also, minor reminder that Guild has a skype group, add olik.reznov if you're interested.
>>27780856
Also,
Here’s some new stuff that didn’t fit in the second post.
A couple writing podcasts:
http://www.writingexcuses.com/
http://typehammer.com/podcast/
An archive of how to write pretty much anything:
https://curiosityquills.com/limyaael/
An idea generator:
http://writers-den.pantomimepony.co.uk/writers-first-lines.php
A worldbuilding forum:
http://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/
Thank goodness. The last one died before I could get a review. Thanks Stein!
Writing is a beautiful art.
>>27780967
>>27780967
Glad I can help.
>>27781013
Indeed my friend.
>>27780967
We back in biz!
>>27781489
Thanks for putting it back up.
Rosen, I'm working on your critique right now.
>>27782031
Yay! Thank you!
>>27782179
This story was pleasant to read, and the best one I’ve seen from you so far. The largest problem is smaller than it was in the last story, and it was mostly contained to one scene, which, by and large, is how you want your problems, if you have them at all. Rainbow Dash is, for most of this, left to her own devices, and she does fine. She goes where she needs to, she’s impulsive when she should be (lines 448-449 were perfect for her character), and she doesn’t have a lot of dialogue to muddy up the action.
However, when the action was supplanted with dialogue and exposition, Dash lost all of that character. During the entire Agatho exchange, she seemed to become, essentially, an automatic back-sass dispensary. She never contributed to the dialogue outside of just throwing out these aggressive quips, making Twilight have to constantly diffuse Agatho’s annoyance. This is one way to test a writer’s skill, to see if he or she can put characters into the opposites of their comfort zones and still make them seem like themselves. Dash does well after Agatho flies away because all she has to do is embark on an adventure, and her character is perfect for that, but while there is no action going on, she has nothing to do. I think you, realizing that she had no familiarity with that kind of situation, decided (whether consciously or not) to boil her down to her most basic component, so as to keep her still in character. The problem is, it’s a much shallower version of her character, because it’s only the one aspect. When Dash is properly characterized, she’s eager for action, attentive to friends and situations when she absolutely has to be, quick to jump to conclusions, and she has little patience for drawn-out bouts of philosophizing or cogitating. 1/?
>>27783149
Of those, only the final point is easily applied to Agatho’s section, so it’s the only bit that got in there. It carries over into lines 286-290, after he’s gone. Twilight says that they need to go get the key, and all Rainbow can contribute is a gung-ho reiteration. See, there’s a fine line between Dash being stupid and Dash being impulsive. While she might not be on Twilight’s level, she’s also not a dummy, so leaving her with nothing important to say in this section of the story doesn’t seem right. If she can’t actually give insights into the situation, she should at least be able to ask some intelligent questions. You could do that with her to accomplish two things at once: ameliorating her lack of character, and offloading some of the responsibility for exposition from Twilight.
On line 307, dumb Dash returns again, briefly. She asks Twilight to explain what Agatho was saying about the strings of fate, but the way she phrases her question really stood out to me. It’s those bashful pauses. It made her seem like she was almost ashamed to have to ask the question, and that doesn’t fly. Rainbow is not one to demur when something doesn’t make sense to her, certainly not something that she knows she has no reason to understand anyway. That, and having the question come immediately after Agatho’s departure, with no time for thoughts to germinate or for the situation to progress, also made the question seem a little stilted. I got the impression that you had Dash ask it more so you could have an excuse to walk the reader through what happened. It is okay to have characters ask questions like that, but you have to be careful where you place them. If they come too soon after the thing that precipitates them, then the exchange comes across as too if-then, too structured, too much like the character was just waiting to spring that important question. So it happened here. 2/?
>>27783163
Aside from that problem with Rainbow’s character, nothing huge stood out, and certainly nothing story-breaking. There are some minor issues, though. On line 134, Twilight mentions Virgil. How does she know about him? And the way that Rainbow doesn’t question it, as though it’s a common name, just reinforces how out-of-place its invocation is.
I think you could make the Furies’ descriptions more interesting if you have Twilight see them on her own, rather than getting it second-handsecond-hoof, sorryfrom Rainbow. It’s less immediate when we get the descriptions from Rainbow, because the reader is reading about something that happened off-screen, and that is frequently less interesting than seeing it happening in real time for the character whose point of view is being used. For this story, it also means that the stakes are lowered slightly, because the reader isn’t actually seeing as much threat to the ponies, he or she is only hearing about it. It’s kind of a meta version of the “show, don’t tell” rule; instead of showing, with Twilight, you’re telling with Rainbow as your servitor. However, I thought that you handled the transition from happy Ponyville to dark and scary Erebus pretty well. Moves into more serious topics can be hard with the ponies. It was still a little weird, and it still gave me a little whiplash, but it wasn’t that bad. Moreover, fixing something like that would require you to tack on another thousand or so lines of story to get the tone to build up how you need it, and that can be a real pain in the ass. Frankly, if I were in your position, I wouldn’t worry about it, but I figured I’d let you know, in case you DO want to worry about it. 3/?
>>27783174
I thought line 215 was weird for how quickly Rainbow recovers her constitution to give Twilight a wink, right after her ordeal with Agatho and his mind-ensnaring thing. It seems tiny, but it implies an internal discrepancy in Agatho’s power. He can mesmerize Rainbow, but, as soon as his spell’s broken, she has no apparent problems recovering her old can-do attitude. So is Agatho a being to be feared, or not? I know he presents as being on their side, but that’s not the concern here, it’s what he appears to be hiding. If he were to be his same glib self throughout their interaction with him, but his little trick on Rainbow were to leave her moderately devastated for, say, five minutes, then the reader would know that he is someone who is decidedly not to be messed with. It makes him more interesting, because it then means that he’s a being with definite power, who is deigning to help our heroes anyway. If he’s got no metaphorical teeth, then his decision to help them isn’t quite as strong, because he’s not stooping to anything to do it, you know? He could be just some passer-by with good advice, and that doesn’t fit quite as nicely in the scene you’ve painted. 4/?
>>27783190
Line 276 annoyed me. When Agatho pulls out the magic cloaks, which seem tailor-made to serve Twilight and Rainbow’s purpose, and nothing else, it struck me as far too convenient. I can understand him giving them advice and helping them get their bearings on the orders of Discord, but going so far as to pull out the tools for them as well is a stretch. I think it’s because the cloaks, much like Rainbow’s question about the strings of fate, are too perfect for the situation, and too well-timed. It makes the whole thing look like it was predetermined, and that flies right in the face of the story’s idea that a rainboom can rupture fate. Surely if their arrival into Erebus was not predestined, then there would be no reason for anyone to have any cloaks handy for them to use. I would suggest you make the cloaks into something similar, but with more ancillary functions that are unnecessary. Make them seem like something that can be found in Erebus, and that, in addition to their intended purpose, do what Twilight and Rainbow need. It’s about making them seem improvised, rather than intended.
On line 316, I think you’re mixing your story’s priorities. Why should there be a whole line to express Twilight’s excitement about Rainbow listening, when there’s an underworld, and Furies, and heavy philosophical questions hanging around? The story isn’t about Rainbow learning to pay better attention; or, if it is, that theme doesn’t carry through at all. 5/?
>>27783210
On lines 427-428, you’ve got an issue with internal consistency. You said that Tisiphone’s job is to watch from her tower and make sure no one escapes judgment. Would that not mean, therefore, that her job would be to remain stationary? She can’t very well watch everyone when she’s away hunting souls. If she could, if she could use that all-seeing eye from literally anywhere, then she wouldn’t need a nice, dramatic tower as a vantage. Even if I’m mistaken, and the tower is for looks, and not observation, shouldn’t she still stay somewhere where her whip can access those most in need of justice?
I liked the epilogue, except for Agatho’s reluctant interest in the ponies. He’s so suave and put-together that he already stands out a good deal in Erebus, but he has so little character or utility outside of his single part that giving him this one iota of personality makes it stand out against him. So he’s an anomaly in his world, and this single character point is an anomaly in him, and it puts his flat character into a needlessly sharp relief. I just said he has a flat character, but let me assure you that that is okay for someone like him, someone who needs to appear exactly once in the story. He’s not important for the totality of the story, so you need not expend energy making him into something deep. However, on the flip side, if you emphasize his flatness, it reflects poorly on him, and, in this specific case, it makes him look like the only reason he was in Erebus was to help Twilight and Rainbow. Just like the cloaks, just like Dash’s question, it’s too convenient. 6/?
>>27783227
I’ve got some detail points for you now. On line 49, I thought it was weird that Twilight wanted to do her experiment on the spot. What harm would there be in waiting for Rainbow to be ready? Alternatively, why would she get everything set up before consulting her?
You should mention earlier that Shining Armor is with Twilight, so that, when that shield springs up on line 66, he doesn’t appear to come out of nowhere.
Line 149, Agatho’s entrance, is kind of cliché. The young, dashing character who languidly claps as he watches the others doing their thing is a pretty standard entrance, and I would advise you stay away from predictable things like that.
On line 347, if this is another world, how can Twilight be certain that her spell will only work on her and Dash? What if the Furies can see mortal magic, and she doesn’t know? It would be nice if Twilight expressed more caution about that sort of thing.
I really don’t like the sentence structure you use for line 365. I don’t see the point in making a miniature rhetorical statement like that, when one can just say the thing outright. It seems needlessly flamboyant to me. 7/9
>>27783244
On line 412, you describe the castle, and I wonder how Twilight failed to notice it, especially if it’s on the biggest shard around. Even before she gets soft-headed in the soul stream, shouldn’t she notice a giant, echinate fortress on a huge shard? That’s a pretty eye-catching thing.
The description you have on line 628, I think, would be better on line 617, where the beasts are first introduced.
On line 693, I think you’re overdoing it on Tisiphone’s threats. She’s coming across as a lot of talk and no real power. I mean, they outrun her successfully enough, and she only gets one good lick with that whip. Actually, this would probably be improved if you lengthened the chase scene some, and made things seem closer. I know Rainbow has to pull off a rainboom to escape her, but she does those all the time. Think about it this way: if she can escape the Fury by doing something she can do on command, then that Fury must not be as apocalyptically powerful as you say. Seems to me that no extraordinary measures were taken, so Tisiphone’s outrage seems like a lot of hot air, and Twilight’s initial fear of her belies that. 8/9
>>27783264
In general, you have a few words randomly capitalized throughout, and you’re using the wrong “effect” in a lot of places. “Effect,” with an E, is the noun; “affect,” with the A, is the verb.
So, overall, this was pretty good. Rainbow suffered some in her character, but only when you exposed her to something outside her comfort zone, and that’s a pretty easy problem to have. It’s hard to write characters into places where they wouldn’t normally find themselves. You need to pay attention to how certain tools or secondary characters come across, because, right now, you’re dealing with some stilted circumstance, with things looking too much like they’re happening specifically for Twilight and Rainbow’s benefit. On the positive side, I really liked the intro. I thought it was a good way to draw a reader in. If I were reading your story outside of the thread, and had no obligation to finish it, I would have still kept reading. I liked the interlude with Rainbow’s nightmare—notice that none of my complaints mentioned it. I thought it was, one, a great break from the action, and, two, a good insight into her character from a slightly different perspective, without breaking the narrative’s flow. Finally, I liked lines 709-710; I thought they were really nice, straightforward, and poignant, a good way to end their part of the story. Nice job, but keep working with that characterization. 9/9
>>27783149
>>27783163
>>27783174
>>27783190
>>27783210
>>27783227
>>27783244
>>27783264
>>27783281
(ට˓˳̮ට๑) Thank you so very much, Littleguy. You've given me a lot to think about. I was worried that I was including too many lines that only served to try to show off the characters' personalities, but I'm just never sure how much is enough. I'll keep working on characterization. I'm glad to hear that you believe I'm improving. I had my heart in my throat through the whole read. I really appreciate you taking the time.
>>27783281
Oh, and I use capital letters to try to show sentence emphasis. Is there a better way in greentext to do so? I don't like to use apostrophes since it looks like I'm implying something rather than emphasizing.
>>27783400
You are welcome, as always. I'm happy to help, especially when I can see that my prior advice hasn't gone to waste. The amount you put into your characters' personalities is entirely up to you. Some authors prefer to have only what they think is necessary, others like to embellish. It depends on the style of writing you're most comfortable with.
>>27783506
You know, I'm so used to being able to put things in italics, I hadn't even thought about it. Maybe putting the whole word in caps, so it's more apparent that you did so deliberately. I agree the apostrophes that would be the wrong move.
bemp
bemp
Writing is hard.
What pictures have inspired you to write?
How many words do you guys write in a day? I usually aim for 5-6 thousand now, back when I started it used to be just 100
>>27787180
I always aim for ~30 lines/sentences, but I usually do either far more or nothing at all
>>27787240
>mfw I fucked up my trip
>>27785752
Writing is a beach, we're all just playing in the sand
>>27787180
>5-6 thousand
Jeez. I'm lucky to write 1,000 words in a sitting when I'm actually going for a story. That's probably why I'm so mediocre.
>>27787430
This is what I aim for. I don't achieve this goal every time.
Trust me, it took time and consistent writing to reach this point. I started writing 30 minutes each day to make it second nature, now I can't go a day without at least writing 2,000 words or so.
>>27787180
It depends on how the mood hits me. On a day when I actually sit down to write I normally put out around 12k characters. Dunno how that generally translates to word count. Lately I've been writing more though.Thanks, Guild!
>>27787536
That is somewhere around the 2K mark, I believe
>>27786411
You know, I've never actually tried to write a story based off an image
>>27790870
>>27790870
>>27790970
>>27791029
>>27790870
>>27790970
Trixie one day becomes a great and powerful wizard living like Howl in a moving castle, has a chance reunion and falls in lovewith a jaded Princess Twilight who fell out of love with magic and has forgotten her passions
>>27791134
Write it!
>>27791166
no u
i suck at writing, just saw those two comments and felt inspired
bemp
eump
>>27792629
bumos
bemp
COFFEE
GOD DAMN YES
UNF
UNF
GETIT GETIT
UNF UNF
GETIT
YEEEAH
>>27793344
wat
>>27793358
caffeine is one hell of a drug
bemp
What causes a work to be pretentious, or come across as trying to be something more than what it really is? How do you avoid that?
>>27795384
Purple prose can be a big problem with that. If you constantly meander around a thing burying it in metaphor and simile your readers will get annoyed having to dig out every bleeding concept and stop following along. Also, if your story is SUPPOSED to be a metaphor for something else you have to strike a balance between cloaking the concept in a narrative and letting the reader understand the intent. The second one is hard, so don't get flustered if not everyone gets on board. Each reader will have their own unique perspective that colors their reading and informs their reaction. When you're actually trying to be metaphorical you can't please everyone.
>>27795384
I don't have all the answers here, but avoinding the word "rather" is a good step in the right direction. Pretentious langauge always has a need to be clever, over use of the phrase "shall we?"
Cutting out a lot of neutral assumptions and keeping your wording precise will help a lot to.
Neutral assumptions include "Might be", "seems" or anything that doesn't confirm a description as a fact.
Example would be.
>The sky seemed to have a greyish allure to it, and I took that as a sign that maybe it's best to not attend the party tonight.
>Jenny had a rather nasty attitude as of late because that party, she's certainly implied she's against the whole thing since the beginning, and it's not helping that she's being distant while swearing up and down that she's 'fine'.
>Might be a good idea to shoot a text to Aron to let him know I won't make it tonight.
Anyone who's done a great deal of wrting that having a neutral stance on everything shows that didn't want to commit to anything and all it does is coming off as somebody rambling.
Its fine if you wanna give your stories a profound message or theme, but make sure it has substance. Keep the flowery langauge to a minimum too. That puts you on the pretentious list real quick.
So try to be as decisive as possible when describing anything, avoid "rather" and "shall we", there's already enough writers that think they're clever, and can't see it in themselves to be humble, and because of that, anything they write has this 'holier than thou' prentention.
>>27795541
Also this
bem
I would like to start analyzing stories. What are some good tools and frameworks that I can use to better understand stories and literature?
>>27801878
That's a whole course of study. Maybe get a creative writing textbook from your local resale store, or college. Aside from that, read tons of stories and try to take note of what you're thinking and feeling while doing so. Then see if you can analyze WHY you are thinking and feeling that. What in the words put you there?
I have a small question about naming.
So I'm planning green that switches the first-person view back and forth between a few different main characters. The normal think to do would be to name your main character Anon, but having more than one Anon would be confusing. I could have one character named Anon and give the other main characters normal names, but I don't know if that would work. I could do variations of Anonymous, but I'm not sure how that would go over either. How should I do this?
>>27804676
Thought about the same problem before. No clue.
>>27804676
Use a numbered naming convention. Onze, Douze, Treize or Ein, Zwei, Drei. You can even get clever with it. Like Einhardt, Zweitzer, Dreichel, or something. Or Aiden, Beirs, And Cern for ABC. Something that lets them have individuality while easily maintaining the pseudonym nature of Anonymous.
>>27805098
Thanks Anon. Gonna go with this.
>>27805352
Glad I could help!
Someone recommend some fiction books to me. There's a book sale near my place.
>>27806623
I would recommend /lit/'s guide.Anyone have opinions on /lit/? I just started going there and it seems pretty alright
>>27806676
They have a sense of elitism and on some cases, /tv/ infection of having film adaptations be more discussed than the books themselves.
>>27806687
Haven't been there since it started when everybody was trying to impress everyone else with all the books they'd read.
>>27806692
Books' they've read or booksummariesthey've skimmed?
Goodnight bump
>>27806708
Cliffs notes are awesome, I've heard.
>>27807149
And they're good to help get into study
Not yet
>>27807149
I actually use them alongside reading a book
>>27810820
That's a good application. I wish more books had authors' notes and definitions in the margins and footers for those who'd want them. Comics are great for that. Editor's notes and such.
>>27806687
>They have a sense of elitism
That is definitely there.
>>27811790
Well it's not like a lot of people elsewhere read books.
Well, fanfictions aside of course.
>>27814051
It's a shame. Books are enjoyable.
>>27814853
Not to everyone as we live in the tablet age.
But books aren't as dead as one would think. There's still a novelty and they don't cost a battery to use.
This has been a particularly slow thread
>>27814926
I read somewhere that reading from a physical book as opposed to a digital copy leads to better memory retention of important points
>>27820197
Humans are very tactile creatures. The stimulus of paper on fingers and the habit of turning the page and then fitting your finger just behind the next can combine with other impressions of the room around you and the smells and sounds to make a bigger impression in the mind. Oliver Twist takes me to a soft leather armchair in front of my granddad's hearth during a winter rainstorm with a cup of hot cider just as much as it does to the places in the story.
>>27821347
Makes sense.
Keep an eye on this, you sluts. I might have green I need torn to oblivion.
>>27824789
You know what? Just for calling me a slut in such a disrespectful manner, I'm going to be as gentle as possible.
>10
pic related
Quick question: does this sentence make sense?
>She picks you up and places you back on your feet with strength that her small, if slightly pudgy, frame betrays.
Is it clear what I'm trying to convey?
>>27827695
I think you're looking for "belies" rather than "betrays".
what's with all the barney
>>27829554
Been gone for a while. Has barneyfag gone apeshit?
>>27824789
That would be nice. I'm not usually quiet for this long in the thread. It's starting to get weird.
>>27827695
I get what you're putting down. Makes sense
>>27825331
You monster
>>27832915
Hello Anonymous! How are you doing today? My you look nice today. How's that green coming along my good friend? Can't WAIT to read it!
>>27833183
This.
bemp
