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The Spring in Her Step · FiM Short Story ·
Organised by RogerDodger
Word limit 2000–8000
Show rules for this event
A Little Help
Ring, ding, ring, ding!

The sun rose over Ponyville as Berry Punch lived up to her last name. She slammed the alarm clock off the nightstand and onto the floor. It kept on ringing. Rudely awakened, she stumbled out of bed and turned off the hated device properly. The mulberry mare was not a morning person and her aging joints gave her problems.

Limping into the bathroom, Berry lurched into the shower and got the water nice and hot. She did her business there and came out into the kitchen more refreshed. The pony ate some cereal and drank some coffee like she did every day. It was a simple, comforting motion she went through every morning. With a sigh, she left her home and sluggishly went to her part time job.

The store was called Telephones and Magazines and sold more than just what was on the sign. The small-time owners were impressed by the success of Quills and Sofas and the franchise it created. This inspired them towards the creation of this store in hopes of copying this success. So far it was breaking even in bits and was considered a good enough place to find items you couldn't find at the other place.

Berry was somewhat friends with them and had manager experience in the past working at Hay Burger. She didn't need the money because her dead husband set her up for life years ago. She did need the job to keep herself busy, sane and away from something that used to be a favorite pastime. Something she took up to deal with his death. Something right now that she didn't want to think about.

Berry was not an unhappy mare, but was far from content. Ever since her little baby Ruby Pinch grew up and left home, the mare found her life without real direction now. She had this job and her other one. They were both fine and the other one was something she was more passionate about. She was a restaurant reviewer and a decent one at that.

Ring. Ring. Ring.

She just wanted more time with her family and a bigger one to boot. Which is why she called Button Mash up on the store phone. Not because he was her daughter's coltfriend and she wanted to see how they were doing. She did, but instead had an urgent issue of one of the arcade cabinets not working in front of the store. It would take bits but not allow the game to be played. Berry had no clue how to fix but had enough wisdom to call on someone who could.

This was a newer invention like the phone that combined science and magic. Instead of talking to people across long distances, this machine had a screen that displayed pictures that you control with and stick along with buttons to push. You could play a game on it that was much like the pinball machines from her youth. Which she was pretty good at. These machines also brought the creatures in.

“Hello there Button!” Berry greeted as Button walked up to the cabinet.

“Hey there Mrs. Punch. Let me open this up and get it fixed. By what you told me over the phone, I got an idea on how to get this working right. It'll stop eating bits,” Button reassured her.

Berry didn't recall much of what Button was like as a foal, since he and Ruby never interacted much. He was a brown skinny colt with a weird hat, but grew up to become a fine young stallion who still wore the weird hat. Button was a very clean cut and successful co inventor of these machines. She pretty much understood what her daughter saw in him.

“Very good dear. I'm going to do some work in the back and you can come get me when you're done.”

“Stick around Mrs. Punch. This is only going to take a couple of minutes,” Button said as he opened the bit drawer up. “How's business here?”

“Better since these things came in. Seen a lot of parents get pulled in here by their children. These things are almost as good as a pinball machine,” Berry replied with a wink.

“Oh wow, great,” Button beamed.

“How are things going with you and Ruby?” asked Berry.

“Okay. Mostly,” he replied, busy finishing fixing the issue.

“Problems between you and...?”

“No! Oh Sweet Twilight Sparkle no. It's just her restaurant,” Button replied quickly.

Berry chuckled a little nervously “Oh that again. You know I was kind of hoping it would be more along the lines of surprise grandfoal or two.”

“That's not going to happen anytime soon.”

“Not from a lack of trying?”

“We're not going to get into this again. Plus I get more than enough of this grandfoal talk from my mom. You're not conspiring with her, are you?” Button asked warily.

Berry chuckled “No, no. Just I'm at... you know?”

“Yes, I get that it's a mom thing,” he said as he closed the bit drawer.

“That was quick. What was the issue this time?” she asked, impressed.

“It was a broken switch in the slot. Heh, you should come to Ruby's restaurant some time soon. You haven't been there in awhile?” Button asked curiously.

“I will. Soon. I promise,” Berry answered truthfully.

With that reply she thanked him for his time and got on with the rest of her shift.

By the end of work, Berry decided to give her daughter a phone call.

Ring. Ring. Ring.

After a few rings a voice answered, “Hello? Ruby Red's, this is Ruby Pinch. How may I help you?”

“Sweetie, it's mom,” Mrs. Punch answered.

“Oh, heh mom. I'm kinda waiting on a call from a supplier and I'm also swamped at the moment. Could we talk later?” Ruby asked.

“Sure honey. I was just wondering if you come over for dinner sometime this week. You could bring your Button with you.”

“Him? Oh yeah. Look, I can't make any promises. We'll do it soon.”

“Okay.”

“I've got to go now. I'll talk to you later.”

“I love you Ruby.”

“Love you too mom, bye!”

Click.

Berry stared at the store telephone and sighed.

After work Berry took the old train up to Canterlot on the mountain. It was the capital of ponykind and an increasing number of other creaturekind. It was much bigger with more people and places to visit. By late afternoon Berry stood outside the Eden Cafe. It was a pro meat eating restaurant with next to no vegan options outside of bread. Which was alright with Berry because this wasn't her first time at a place like this. The meat was ethically sourced and there was a magic pill that she could take for digestion problems.

Berry was here to review the establishment. She looked forward to having a fish sandwich with chips. She heard the lobster was good, but that was a little too rich for her blood. Plus she was allergic. Berry saw people leaving and laughing happily as they exited the place.

Berry stepped in and found the place to be more than pleasant. It was well lit and clean. The wait time for a table was short and the service she received at it was very good. Her server was a griffon who had funny stories of his time in the Griffonstone Postal service. When the food came it was hot, fresh and tasty. Even the chips were crisp and crunchy. She was going to give this place a very good review.

Ring, ding, ring, ding!

The sun rose over Ponyville as Berry Punch lived up to her last name again. She launched the alarm clock off the nightstand and against the wall. It kept on ringing. This was a gift from her daughter Ruby Pinch, who had Button Mash make one much more resistant to abuse from her. Considering how many she used to go though, Berry was thankful for the thoughtful gift. She stumbled out of bed and went through her morning routine with a bit of more pep. The dinner last night lifted Berry's spirits and she was ready to face the day.

She wasn't scheduled for work at Telephones and Magazines, but instead went to the train station's small cafe to meet with her editor, Silver Spoon, from the newspaper that was visiting today. It was called Equestria Daily and it was a fairly, newly created organization that was formed by a bunch of smaller, local papers merged together. This by somepony called Diamond Tiara. Its claim to fame was the first newspaper to span the known world.

Silver used to be a local form Ponyville. She was around her daughter's age and the two chatted a bit at the cafe. Berry towards the end of the conversation hoofed over the review.

Silver smiled and replied, “Thank you so much Mrs. Punch. Like, you are always such a breath of fresh air. Not like some creatures I have to deal with. You are so amazing!”

“Thank you Silver,” Berry grinned back.

“One thing though. Just have to ask you this: When are you going to get around reviewing the Ruby Red?” Silver asked straight and to the point.

Considering that it was Berry's daughter's restaurant, her grin faltered, “I know I have been putting this off and I was going to go tonight.”

“For real? Because I have been like, asking you for a couple of months now. Tonight? Not on my account, right? Recall last time I asked and I know that I was totally out of line,” Silver chuckled awkwardly.

“No Silver, you weren't. I did bite your head off last time, sorry. Was planning to tell you I was going tonight. It will be fine,” Berry assured her.

“It will be fine,” Silver echoed back.

Berry wasn't so sure, as she said “Sure.”

“For sure! I know you haven't heard the best things about the place lately, and we can always drop the review if it is not, like great,” Silver reassured back.

Silver once again thanked Berry for her time, and they went their separate ways. One of them with a youthful spring in her step, and the other one not so much.

Later after the sun went down, Berry arrived at the Ruby Red's Restaurant in Ponyville. It was a restaurant with a decently stocked bar, or so she was told. The mare didn't drink anymore.

Berry stepped in and found the place to be a bit cramped and crowded inside the entrance. After a while, she was seated at a table and decided on something simple like a hayburger. Her server was a nice mare who seemed a little bit frazzled. Across the other side of the room, the mare noticed her daughter was having an argument with one of her staff. It seemed like Ruby was getting on her case about the cooking.

Ruby Pinch was a pink unicorn (father's side) who grew up to be a successful business owner. She worked at many places over the last 15 years and mostly funded the creation of hers Ruby Red's. Also during that time she met Button Mash and entered into a relationship with him a couple of years ago. Currently the mare looked stressed out.

Her daughter glanced over to her mom and just sighed as she went into the kitchen. More than a few minutes later Button Mash entered from another back room and started a conversation with her daughter, his marefriend, as she entered back into the main room.

“Ma'am? Here's your deluxe hayburger with steak fries. Hope you enjoy,” she said with a strained smile.

Berry thanked her server and munched down on her meal. It was okay. She noticed that her daughter and boyfriend were having a heated discussion she quite could not hear. At the end of it, Button Mash turned around and left in a huff. Sighing, Ruby Pinch marched into the kitchen with a frown.

Finishing her meal, Berry thanked her server and left a decent tip before she walked across the sticky floor to the kitchen door. Unexpectedly, her daughter came out in a rush.

“Mom. You're still here? Great.” Ruby said with a slight frown.

Berry strained a smile “Hi honey. Just wanted to stop by and see how things were going with you?”

“Now, today? Everything is fine You are here on business too? Your review thing?”

“Oh yeah, of course.”

“Everything to your liking?”

“It's okay dear.”

Ruby’s frown deepened “Alright. Anyhow, I'm kind of short staffed right now. We should talk later, okay?”

“Sure thing Ruby,” With that reply, the daughter marched back into the kitchen.

Berry left the establishment thinking that the whole encounter very felt off. Outside she saw Button packing up some equipment into a cart. He looked stressed out and she decide to pry.

She went over to him and asked “What is going on with my daughter? What were you two talking about, loudly?”

“Oh uhm... not out here. Someplace else, okay Mr. Punch? I need to put this away,” he answered.

“Meet me outside the liquor store down the street when you're done.”

Button raised an eyebrow. Later, he trotted to where Berry was outside. Next to her on the ground was a bottle of booze, he figured.

“Button! I do my best brooding out here,” she chuckled.

“We're going to share a drink here or...” he started.

“Nope, I don't drink anymore. This is just for you to relax a bit. Just a bit,” Berry answered as she sat down.

“Alright, thanks,” Button complied as he took a swig.

“Let me get to the point and ask what's going on?”

With resignation Button explained in some detail about his relationship with his fillyfriend and the issues she was having. Berry listened patiently.

After he finished, the stallion wondered out loud “What can I do to fix this? Want to help Ruby, she is just... throwing it back into my face.”

“Not a lot Button that you can do,” she stated with a soft smile. “You've done what you can for her.  I'll visit Ruby in the morning and see if there is something I can do.”

“Like what Mrs. Punch?”

“Just going to listen. Think there is more going on that she's letting on to you. There are certain things a daughter will only share with their mom. Or so I’ve been told.”

Button smiled a little “Hope you are right.”

“Me too Button,” Berry smiled back.

Chirp, chirp, chirp.

The sun rose over another day in Ponyville as Berry Punch woke up slowly. She forgot to set the alarm clock last night. With a jolt she sat up and checked what time it was. The mare saw it was just a little bit after when she usually woke up. She slid out of bed still achy but with a purpose. She skipped her morning routine and took a brisk walk outside.

Clouds started to move in front of the sun as Berry approached the outside currently closed Ruby Red's. She noticed the front doors were unlocked. The mare entered the building and found her daughter sitting at a table doing paperwork.

“Mom? Hey there, what brings you here today?” Ruby asked as she looked up from the mess on the table.

“We don't spend time much anymore and you were busy last night. It's later now and I wanted to talk to you,” Berry replied with a soft smile.

“Oh about what? I'm guessing this is not a casual social call,” Ruby said as she started to put the papers away.

Berry nodded “You like getting to the point then? You take after me in a lot of good ways.”

“If this was about the service last night or whatnot, it's just a temporary thing. Growing pains and all.”

“Dear, I'm happy about your success. You've built and grown this place well.”

“Yeah and it's all going down the drain because I can't handle the restaurant. This is all my bucking fault.”

Berry frowned at that statement. Ruby continued on “I'm not good enough to solve this myself. That's one thing I don't take after you.”

“Wouldn't sell yourself that short sweetie,” Berry replied. “You do know that I've buck up hard, right?”

The daughter looked at her mom like she grew a second head. “What? No, no. You're like the best mom in the world. You've never screwed up.”

“Honey, after your father died, I had a drinking problem,” her mother corrected her.

“What?”

“Yes. Don't want to get into too many details now because I would rather not make this about me. Just say that it affected my life and yours for a while.”

“I don't recall you having an issue at all? You must have taken care of that yourself.”

“I certainly did not. The low point was when Cheese Sandwich found me in bed with his fillyfriend Pinkie Pie at the time. He was not amused.”

“Err...”

“Nothing weird happened. I was just really drunk and Pinkie Pie wanted make sure I didn't do anything more stupid. That was a turning point in my life where I had to get help from other ponies.”

Ruby was flabbergasted and took a minute to take this in. “Okay. Revelation aside, you want me to get help. I get that. How?”

Berry shrugged “I don't really know. Other than allowing people to help you? I was just here to listen.”

“And to help. Still can't believe that you were a drunk.”

“The town drunk for a few years. Never was perfect. Could we move on?”

“Sure mom, sorry. Just trying to process this, ” Ruby apologized.

Berry smiled, “That's okay Ruby.”

Ruby listed out the issues she was having. Berry figured it was mostly business growing pains and how her daughter wasn't delegating properly. Ruby explained how this was putting a strain on her relationship with Button. For the rest of the morning they hashed out the details on what could be done. Other suggestions was to have Berry help co manage for a while until a proper one could be found or trained. Ruby pointed out that Button wanted to install arcade cabinets out front for his benefit. Berry in turn thought that it could help with keeping the people entertained as they waited.

Tick, tock. Tick, tock.

The moon was already high in the sky as Berry Punch came back home later than usual that day. Her first night working part time at the Ruby Red's went okay. She was happy that Ruby Pinch and Button Mash smoothed out their relationship that night. Berry made plans to tell Telephones and Magazines her hours might need adjustment for a while. Also she was planning to tell Silver that her review of her daughter's restaurant was not going to be forthcoming soon. Berry was going to ask if someone else could do it within a few months.

Berry's joints still ached as she winded up the alarm clock for the coming morning. Berry thought about the current direction of her life and was more content. As she laid down, Berry knew it was temporary. The mare mused she should get someone to help her and decided on so before sleep overtook Berry Punch.

Tick, tock.
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#1 · 2
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Okay, so I absolutely love these kinds of comfy stories that straddle the line between SOL and drama. It's most of what I write, I think, so you've already got yourself many points in my book for your choice of the scale of conflict. There's something stories like this that's fits the MLP really well and is just really satisfying.

In particular, I really like the the way you set up and pace your scenes, in the macro sense. Each scene really does feel like it's got a concrete goal, and as a whole the story spends an appropriate amount of time with each moment or concept that it needs to build up. I think you do a great job of telegraphing to the reader where they are in the story's progression, which can be a really tricky thing to do without feeling like you're giving away the whole story too quickly. The fact that most scenes open with Berry's alarm clock or phone is a nice touch that gives the whole story a feeling of continuity and theme.

Now, I think the area with the most potential for improvement is gonna be your sentence-to-sentence level of construction. Two things in particular come to mind.

Easy thing first, you should really format your scene breaks when you can. The second time Berry woke up to her alarm clock, I read it as though it happened immediately after the previous scene, and I thought that everything before that point had been a dream that Berry was waking up from. To avoid this (and really make sure that the reader is in the proper mindset to digest a new scene) you should use soft scene breaks (empty paragraph, which is 3 empty lines) or a hard scene break (type "hr" between two straight brackets [ ] without the quotes). The other stories in this contest use hard and soft scene breaks, so check them out if you wanna see how it looks and feels. In my opinion, you would probably want to use hard scene breaks for most of these scenes.

As for the harder part, I think it might be good to think about your prose on a mechanical level and consider how you're constructing your sentences. There's quite a few places where you default to using a simple, single-claused S-V-O sentence several times in succession. There is absolutely nothing wrong with these kinds of sentences in and of themselves (I love using them for emphasis and to speed up the perception of time!), but when any sentence structure is repeated many times quickly, it makes for a bit of a monotonous experience for the reader. They might not notice consciously, but they may feel bogged down and disconnected from the story.

A quick self-check you can do is to glance over a paragraph and see how many sentences start with a subject noun. Somebody told me about this trick several years ago (I think it was Pascoite, actually!), and as soon as I realized it, it made a huge difference. Also, try to gauge whenever many sentences in a row have a very similar length (for instance, the paragraph starting with "Berry stepped in and found..."). When there isn't a lot of variety in sentence length and structure, things can start feeling less like a story and more like a blocky list of things that happened.

Try think about how you can vary your sentence length and structure; add 2 or even 3 clause sentences if you want to slow things down and make the reader think about a complex concept. Semi-colons and colons are your friend here, too! I personally can't get enough of em dashes—you can really use them wherever the hell you want.

I know that I spent a lot of time talking about what could be improved, but I really don't want to understate how much I loved the bones and structure of this story. It's really exactly the kind of way I outline my own stories, and I personally think that this is the hardest part of writing at all, and I thought you did a great job with it.

I really hope that you find these thoughts helpful! Thank you for writing!
#2 · 1
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It’s been a while since I’ve read a good Berry Punch story. Thank you for this.

First off, I love how you’ve fleshed out her character. You’ve thought up an entire character arc almost. It was indeed interesting to find out how these characters could have grown.

I'm loath to say, however, that I feel this story could use a similar treatment as the first. It takes a while for the story to properly get to its “point” in my opinion.

I would recommend cutting some of the more redundant actions and descriptions in the beginning. Show don’t tell, as it were. You could also maybe make it clearer earlier on what the story is going to be about, or at the very least hint at it.

If you did, then you may smack me in the head with a restaurant platter, because I must have been still asleep when I read.

None of what I said is a deal breaker though; the story is still quite enjoyable as is. But if you were planning on improving upon it, these would be my suggestions.

Not much else to say, I'm afraid. Thank you again for writing.
#3 · 1
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I think that this a story with really solid bones. I also think that it's a story that needs more meat on those bones. The idea of a middle age/slightly older Berry Punch working various jobs, having some family stuff going on is appealing. Heck the characters in the story are appealingly written.

The issues for me is that the scenarios that present themselves in the story are rushed through. A little more time spent on each scene would help. Why doesn't Berry Punch want to write a review of her daughter's restaurant? I don't remember a reason. Why doesn't her daughter realize her mother had an alcohol problem? Did she grow up and think it was normal behavior or something? What's the real problem between Button and And Ruby and so on.

If that sort of stuff can get brought forth more you'll have a really really good story here. As it stands it's still enjoyable I just wish there were more.
#4 · 1
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Wrote this and my heart wasn't fully into this story by the end. Considering I read at a college level but write at a 8th grade level, I don't hate this story. Happy that it was coherent at least. The criticism of this that this was bare bones, more tell than show and rushed are what I agree with. As for being contest material? Rate that I'm going, it'll be another two to three years before I'll get bronze without it being me just showing up. I'm okay with this.