After a long day of selling carrots, Carrot Top relaxes in her house with a carrot cake muffin without incident.
What you just read was a complete fabrication.
Note: There is a fic here for you to read, but it will be improved upon by me sometime. I can't promise when I will do so, but I can promise that I will.
(Big thanks to -TheStoryteller- for writing the semi-canon Chapter 2, and to TotalOverflow for giving me some very helpful criticism. Go check out those guys.)
Credit for Carrot Top's characterization goes to previous stories I've read about her by Blue Cultist, Meta Four, and Knight Breeze (as well as my own thoughts). I recommend the stories which include her by those authors wholeheartedly.
(Oh, and I have to mention the inspiration for the story itself, which was these excellent comics. The actual sources to the comics are linked in that blog post as well.)
Cover image from this Recipe Website.
I approve.
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Thank you! I approve of your approval.
A fine first foray into writing! A nice little slice of life.
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Thank you!
That means a lot coming from one of the better writers on here.
(I mean it, other people who may see this. Check out this guy's work. They're honestly some of my all-time favorite fics.)
This was a cute little fic. I always appreciate seeing a little bit of extra life breathed into background characters, as it helps flesh out the world a little more, and shine light on some under appreciated characters. I like that Carrot Top seems to have quite the fascination with foods of all sorts. I'd love to see that expanded on a little more.
I have some critique, if you're open. I think the biggest one I'd suggest focusing on for future fics is strengthening a central theme. This one has the beginnings of one (that being her love of food), but it kind of loses its way a little bit. Generally, you'd like a story to have 3 acts, and in a short comedic slice-of-life like this, they should act as a Setup, Build and Punchline of a joke. For example: In this story, Setup could be showcasing more on how hard her job is, but how she can't wait to eat those muffins. Building is how much effort she goes through to get into the container of muffins, and Punchline could be that somepony has been following her, just waiting for her to open the container to get some muffins too.
I'd also suggest foreshadowing Derpy's intrusion and escapades early in the story. Some mention about her interactions with Derpy, or perhaps that she's even had incidents in the past of Derpy trying to get at her snacks, and so she's become even more protective of them. There could be a nice little learning experience between the two of them, where Derpy learns some boundaries and Carrot Top learns to be a bit more generous.
There are also a few minor grammatical sticking points, but they could be easily ironed out with another polish pass. I would encourage you to look into any opportunity to push the personalities a little more, though. Perhaps describe some of the art on Carrot Top's walls? the art/photos she chooses to hang say something about her values. As well as pushing Derpy's embarrassment at being caught - maybe she even spends a bit of time hiding, and Carrot Top goes into survivor mode, shouting and trying to scare her mystery home invader?
These are all just suggestions, of course. I think it's a very sweet and to-the-point story. With some more polish and finding a way to insert some sort of central theme or a little lesson, this could easily function as a short episode of the show itself.
Keep up the good work, and don't stop writing!
P.S. My first attempt at a story for MLP was also a Derpy centric one. Though I have lots of issues with it looking back on it, I enjoyed writing it. I think Derpy makes for a nice, friendly first shot at writing
heh...it was a cute little story, but it needed a punchline. Something unexpected at the end:
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)
Wow. Just...wow.
It easy to forget there's actual, helpful criticism out there. I appreciate you taking some time to help me. You impress me so much that you get a follow, just for that. (And thanks for liking the story as well.
This was just something I bashed out in a couple days, and I'm sure it shows. I get what you say about the slight lack of a central theme now.
I don't know how soon I'll get to it, as I'm definitely more of a reader on here, but I think what I'll do is add a chapter to this story and put the original at the end as something like a "rough draft" version. That's so I don't have "duplicate stories", and because I don't want to delete the original.
And I'll definitely remember your ideas.
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Nice to see you here!
And that ending you wrote was great. Not going to steal it, but I wish I could.
Yeah, I know it needs some work, but TotalOverflow here has been extremely helpful.
(Thanks for putting my story in your bookshelf as well. It may be a little while, but I won't forget about improving it.)
Now get back to work on your Monk story!
Only kidding... I'm a relatively patient guy.
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To be honest, I actually wrote this story first with Carrot Top in mind. Of course Derpy's directly important to the story, and she's awesome, but I kinda prefer Carrots.
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lol...by all means! Use it with my compliments!
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Well, I appreciate the permission, but it wouldn't feel right just copying and pasting it over.
Oh what the heck, I will. (But as a new chapter.) This is now the beta build of the story anyways.
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Love this ending idea, great way to bring it full circle.
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No worries! More than happy to offer feedback and ideas. It's exciting to see more people pick up the parchment and quill.
P.P.S. Now that you mention it, I guess my first story Opposites is a Rarity focused one, with Derpy as a secondary character.
Funny.
I like to prank call people in Turkmenistan and Chad and all the obscure countries lel
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Y'know, plenty of people would be annoyed, but I approve of this. Especially since I'm fond of geography myself. And thanks for the like, I assume?
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Yep I gave you a like. Isn’t it amazing how few people know anything about geography though? Yeah I’m a geography enthusiast lol.
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And how the heck did I already get another like, because you were eleven, and now I'm at twelve. That's crazy.
I've spent many an hour just looking at Google Maps.
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How weird! And so do I! I use google maps on my iPhone every day to look at random shit around the world lol. Like I said, sometimes I actually call random hotels and businesses in other countries around the world and have conversations with random people so I can understand their country’s culture better lmao.
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Nice. Well, it's bed for me.
Hope Buck sees what I did.
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Does Buck like me?
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I honestly have no idea.
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But do you like me?
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Sure, from the like less than five hours I've known you, sure.
(I'm actually heading to bed now. G'night.)
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Fair enough. Goodnight good sir.