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#20529 · 1
· on The Wound in the Way
>>GroaningGreyAgony
Forgot to say anything earlier. I'm flattered that art could be inspired by a fic as weird and experimental as mine! Thanks! And great job with it, too. Tight and clean.
#20514 · 2
· on The Wound in the World
Oh hey, I guess this means I can reveal myself as still alive.

First ever minific. I think I was a little over-ambitious:
(WitW notes doc)

If I hadn't been trimming down as I went, the first draft of Wound probably would have been ~1500 words long. It lost a lot of context and characterization from that to this.

Oh, and thanks to whoever was inspired to make artwork because of this! That's one of the coolest things to happen to me in the past few months.
#4226 · 1
· on Harmony is Clockwork
>>FanOfMostEverything
>>wYvern
>>Bugle
>>FrontSevens
>>The_Letter_J
>>Broman
>>horizon
>>Morning Sun

And one full week later, I finally look at this again. I never even finished my slate, but now it turns out I was one spot away from the finals. The story definitely doesn't deserve it, not as it is.

I don't even know if reply notifications are a thing on this site, but I figured I'd post here anyway to talk about this a bit. Morning Sun has it pretty much spot-on, though to be honest I had some future, non-canon catastrophe in mind that took Celestia and Luna out of the picture. Funny how the plunder vines fit the bill perfectly.

Like everyone guessed, I ran out of time hard. The deadline for me was 6 AM, and I was up all night trying to write. I was too tired to focus the whole time, though, so I spent most of my time procrastinating. I made sure the opening was polished, but I looked up at the clock just as I was finishing the flood thing and noticed it was 5:50.

The original idea was to parallel the show pilot even more with character scenes in the forest, but I simply did not leave myself time for that. Instead I tried to imply that they had had those adventures and become friends along the way, but it was a pretty pathetic effort. I don't think any of you guys picked up that the gems were the Elements themselves, except maybe Morning Sun.

My transitions were pretty bad, mostly because I didn't make any revision passes before submitting. If I had a full week or two and the requisite motivation to write every day, this would have been a much larger and better story.

I mentioned in Discord that I've had this story half-plotted out for a year now, and was kinda just waiting for the right prompt. Well, the prompt came and I wasn't ready for it. I only had two or three of the characters fleshed out and none of them had names, but I'm much better at making up characters on the fly than in outlining, so I wasn't worried.

The bigger problem is that most of what I had planned already wasn't really going to show up in this first part anyway, because I intended this to be a larger story. Maybe someday I'll try it again, but it'll probably be a complete overhaul.

Incidentally, this idea started out as "What would MLP be like if it was made for boys instead of girls?" Like I said, none of the boyish stuff made it into this entry, but it's there in the world. Pester me if you want to read that story.
#3917 · 1
· on The Day the God of Time Stopped by for Tea
Huh. This is one of those rare fics that really wouldn't have lost anything for being original fiction. In fact, I think I might have enjoyed it better if it was, if only because being pony fiction brings a lot of expectations that weren't really met here. I was sure halfway through that Angel was in on this guy's con the whole time, and he used a trick on the plant. Instead, it turned out to be a modern fable that portrays Equestrian life almost exactly like ours, with all focus on the premise instead of the established characters or setting. It was done pretty well, but it was just done in the wrong month.
#3858 ·
· on Childhood's End
Hm. I'm sure I would have appreciated the dream and cutie mark symbolism more if I hadn't been up all night writing.

I do like this one, though. It was well-written and the characters were great. Not only were they believable and likable, but their composition is good for the plot's needs, as well. Though I think those needs could have been addressed a little further in the end. This is edging towards 8,000 words, and I suspect the ending had to be a little rushed/condensed. I'd love to see this without a size limit someday.

But it's time for the tree sap joke to die.
#3855 · 1
· on The Next Dawn
It takes a lot of practice to pull off old-timey writing right. I'm not sure if anyone in the Writeoff can actually do it properly.

This, for instance, like a lot of attempts, is just modern writing with words and phrases replaced by ancient-sounding ones (not often correctly, either). To make those phrases fit, though, takes a different pace and style of expression that's really hard to learn. I'm not sure I could do much better, to be honest.

Basically, I think this would have been more engaging if the thee/thous were toned down a bit. The action was okay, but there wasn't really a plot that went anywhere different from where it started, at least not enough to hold my interest in the characters or the events.

If I had to describe this fic in a sentence, I'd say it's a dramatization of the war between the Solar Empire and the New Lunar Republic, alternating perspectives between the two generals. That's probably what the author intended, but it has no ambition. It didn't do anything new with the generic collective headcanon story of this war. And if you're not going to do anything new with a story, why retell it?
#3854 · 2
· on Solitude for the Modern Businessmare · >>Kitcat36
Well that wasn't a ship I expected to see, ever.

Not a bad story, though. Cleanly written, eloquently worded, well thought-out, and very, very Rarity. I don't know if it's anything particularly special, but that might just be because I don't care much for shipfics myself. I'm sure I'll appreciate it more once I read some lesser fics.

EDIT-- Oh, and I don't really see how this connects to the prompt. Rarity ending an era of loneliness is pretty shaky, if you ask me.
Paging WIP