Don't Stop Dancing, Scootaloo
Two
Scootaloo sat near a vent behind the spa gathering vapour and collecting it into a small cloud. There was something she had to do. She didn't want to, but what had started off as a small nagging feeling had finally grown so strong she could no longer ignore it. Besides, she assured herself, mares dealt with their problems head on. Hiding from it would do nothing but demonstrate immaturity.
She decided she had enough vapour. With a sigh she carried the cloud over to her scooter and hopped on. She rode through Ponyville, cloud in tow, ignoring the occasional odd look from other ponies.
The journey didn't take as long as she had hoped, and soon she was below Rainbow Dash's house. Anticipation of undefined unpleasantness sat in her stomach. She didn't want to go up there.
Ugh. Stop being such a foal. Scootaloo jumped from her scooter to the cloud. Once she was steady, she tugged on the cloud, expanding it, increasing its volume. The cloud bobbed. Again, she tugged at it. Again, the cloud bobbed. It began to rise. Its pace was abysmally slow, and now Scootaloo found herself wishing it would hurry.
It took almost half a minute for her to rise to the height of Rainbow Dash's house, by which point Scootaloo was drumming her hooves with boredom. With a buzz of her wings, she brought her cloud up to the house and then linked the two with a tendril of vapour. Her safe route back to the ground thus assured, she jumped the gap onto the cloud patio and cantered up to the door, vapour puffing beneath her hooves. She could still turn back, return to the ground and forget about the whole thing. She didn't.
There was no response when she rapped on the door. Rainbow Dash was home, though. Scootaloo had Dash's timetable memorised: Right now, Dash would be either reading or snoozing inside.
Scootaloo knocked harder. This time there was a slight groan from inside. Snoozing, then. Scootaloo knocked again and then called through the door, “Hi, Rainbow Dash! It's me!” Another groan, then the sound of hoofsteps upon cloud. The wind whipped at her mane as she waited.
Rainbow Dash opened the door. Her mane was unkempt and her eyes bleary. She gave Scootaloo a weak smile and said, “Hey, kid. What's up?”
The planned words died in Scootaloo's throat. She masked the hesitation with a cough and then said, “Oh, uh, nothing much. I just wanted to hang out!”
“Come in, then.” Rainbow Dash turned, walked back into the house, yawned, and flopped down on a cloud cushion. She did not seem to notice anything was wrong. Scootaloo closed the door and followed her.
“C'mon, Scoots, what's new? It's been, like, forever since you last dropped by.” By Rainbow Dash's and Scootaloo's way of reckoning, “forever” meant any period longer than two weeks.
“Well, I … ” Scootaloo paused, then spent several seconds settling down on her favourite cloud cushion opposite Dash.
“Well, you … ?” Dash was always so impatient.
“I, uh, have a date! Yeah, that, a date.”
“Ha, that's awesome, kid!” Rainbow Dash clapped her on the back and offered a hoof-bump to Scootaloo, who responded after a moment's delay.
“Yeah, I suppose it is,” said Scootaloo.
“And I bet he was totally fawning over you until you gave him the time of day, right?”
“He … was, actually.” Scootaloo smiled. She was starting to feel more comfortable. She decided she could just chat for a while and then tell Dash about her wings. Hopefully Dash wouldn't …
“I knew it!” Rainbow Dash grinned. “Awesome mares like us are cursed to forever have endless stallions lining up to try and impress us. It's a burden, I know, but you gotta deal with it.”
“Totally!” She called me a mare!
“Oh, yeah. Speaking of being cool,” said Dash a little while later, “I've got a whole bunch of new shows coming up. And this time, I'm gonna be squadron leader! Got some new recruits, and Spitfire told me I could lead their first shows.”
Rainbow Dash paused. Scootaloo watched her with rapt attention. Rainbow Dash ruffled her mane.
“I guess you wanna know more, huh?” said Rainbow Dash.
“Yuhuh.”
“Well, I got permission to open a couple of shows for Applejack. Just, y'know, 'cause I owe her. Then there's … something happening in the Crystal Empire. I kinda slept through the briefing for that one. I'll find out what it is later. Oh! You'll like this. I'm gonna be performing an opening act for The Draconequi Rebels in Fillydelphia in a couple months.”
“Ohmigosh, that is so badass!” said Scootaloo.
“You have tickets, right? 'Cause I'd hate for you to miss it.”
“Of course!”
“That's my girl.” Rainbow Dash smiled. “The ponies I'm flying with are pretty cool. Not as cool as me, of course, but still pretty cool. And with me as squadron leader, it's gonna be like I'm teaching them. Imagine! Me, a teacher! I always thought I'd hate it since I hated school, but now I'm actually kinda looking forward to it. I'm gonna have a couple of really skilled ponies to take under my wing. It'll be awesome.”
Scootaloo's ear twitched. “Skilled ponies to take under your wing?”
“Yep!” replied Dash.
“Oh.”
Not long afterwards, Scootaloo excused herself and returned to the ground. She did not tell Dash about her wings.
*
Three young mares tramped through the rain-wet long grass just beyond the outskirts of Ponyville on a warm and humid late afternoon, their hooves occasionally slipping in the thin layer of mud. An intermittent breeze sent ripples across the field and stopped the heat from becoming uncomfortable. Scootaloo, leading the way, wore a saddlebag holding an ornate brown glass bottle. She had put her worries about Rainbow Dash out of her mind as best she could. Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle trailed immediately behind her, talking quietly. Sweetie Belle held a second bottle in her horn field, taking swigs intermittently, and, when prompted, offering them to Apple Bloom.
“What about you, Scootaloo?” Asked Sweetie Belle.
“Huh?”
“What would you rather – hold on, you haven't had any mead. Here!” The bottle flew through the air at Scootaloo, who had to duck to avoid being clonked on the head, then stopped, wobbling in front oh her.
“Looks like you've had a little too much, already!” she said, laughing.
Sweetie Belle blushed.
“Look who's talking,” said Apple Bloom.
“Come on, Scootaloo, you got it for us. Have some!” said Sweetie Belle.
“Okay, okay, fine. Go on, then.”
The bottle of mead hovered in front of Scootaloo's face, still bobbing in Sweetie Belle's horn field. It began to tip towards Scootaloo, who brought her mouth up to meet the neck. For a moment it seemed they had managed to pull off the act: Scootaloo got a gulp without having to stop walking. Then the bottle kept on tipping. Mead filled her mouth and spilled down her chin, soaking into her hair. Scootaloo sputtered.
“Oops! Sorry,” said Sweetie Belle, righting the bottle and pulling it back.
“S'fine” said Scootaloo, laughing and trying to lick the mead from her chin.
“So, what would you rather?” asked Sweetie Belle.
“Outta what?”
“Would you rather be a pony who never had any friends but had a comfortable life or a pony who was adored by everypony in the world but never had any time to yourself because of it?”
“That … doesn't make any sense,” said Scootaloo.
“It does!”
“No, 'cause, like, if everypony adored you and wouldn't leave you alone then you wouldn't have any time for proper friends with give and take and all that stuff.”
“They'd all be proper friends!”
Scootaloo snorted. “Why would I want to be proper friends with everypony in the world? I'm not Pinkie Pie. So I wouldn't be friends with any of them.”
“Well I figure you could choose those you liked and spend more time with them,” said Apple Bloom. “Then you'd have some friends but no free time.”
“Eh,” said Scootaloo. “I guess so. But even then I wouldn't want you girls to be my friends just 'cause everypony had to like me. So the first one, being alone.”
Scootaloo heard mead slosh and Sweetie Belle cough. When she glanced round, Sweetie's muzzle was wet and stained amber.
Apple Bloom broke the silence. “Okay, my turn. Wouldya rather have the hindquarters of a minotaur or the head of a griffon?”
“Minotaur!” squeaked Sweetie Belle. “I don't wanna lose my face!”
“With those dinky little legs?” said Scootaloo. “Griffon head, obviously. But! Make it versus head of Diamond Tiara and I'll go for the minotaur legs every time.”
Apple Bloom laughed. Sweetie Belle giggled. The mead sloshed.
“Scootaloo! Your turn!” said Sweetie Belle.
“Oh, all right. Would you rather … ” Scootaloo looked over the field of long grass, chewing her bottom lip, trying to think of something good. “Right, got it! Would you rather pee beer or crap chocolate?”
“Ew! Scootaloo, that's revolting!” said Sweetie Belle.
“It's pretty nasty, yeah,” said Apple Bloom. She sounded less offended than Sweetie Belle.
Scootaloo's smirk broke into a laugh. The mead bottle swatted the back of Scootaloo's head.
“Seriously, that's gross,” said Sweetie Belle.
“I ain't gonna answer that question,” said Apple Bloom.
“Me neither!”
“Cowards!” said Scootaloo.
“Nope. Nothing doing,” said Apple Bloom.
“Okay, fine,” said Scootaloo. “Pretend I didn't say anything.”
“Will do.”
“Scootaloo,” began Sweetie Belle.
“What?”
“The … uh … second one. Does … does the chocolate have the same shape as … ?”
By the time the young mares reached their destination, an old, overturned cart, gloam had passed and the air had cooled. They sat in a patch of shorter grass beside the cart having polished off the first bottle of mead and talked of trivialities. Scootaloo picked chips of red paint and splinters from the soft, rotted wood of the cart's wheel while she listened.
“So, then,” said Apple Bloom, “I, uh …” She paused, looked out across the field, and rubbed her chin. “Where was I, again?”
“The bit with the barn after you got back from the shop,” said Sweetie Belle.
“Oh yeah! Well, I saw my sis open the door of the barn a crack and look around, jumpier than a coked-up kangaroo. I don't think she saw me. There surely is something going on between 'em.”
“That is so sweet!” Sweetie Belle bounced, squealed, and almost fell over.
“Wayta hold … hold your liquor, Sweetie,” said Scootaloo. She took a gulp from the second bottle as if to show off her prowess at holding on to sobriety.
Sweetie Belle tried to give a coherent retort, gave up, and made a dismissive gesture with her hoof. “Mead is nice, though.”
“Sorry, y'all. I couldn't get any cider today,” said Apple Bloom. “Granny Smith was fine about it, but when Applejack heard, she freaked out.”
“S'cool,” said Scootaloo.
Sweetie Belle nodded.
“Where did you get the mead from, anyway, Scoots?” said Apple Bloom.
“Y'know Nectar Drizzle?”
“Yellow mare? Yeah.”
“Well, don' tell her 'bout it.”
“Huh?”
This time Sweetie Belle did fall over. “You stole it!” she said from the ground.
Scootaloo looked offended. “No! I jus' took it without tellin' her!”
“Scootaloo – ” began Apple Bloom.
“I leave whatever bits I have in return,” said Scootaloo. “But she can't know!”
Sweetie Belle pulled herself up into a sitting position and said nothing.
“So long as you pay, I … I guess that ain't stealing,” said Apple Bloom. She frowned.
Scootaloo stared into the neck of the bottle for some time, and then took a long draught. When she finished, Apple Bloom pulled the bottle away from her.
“Might wanna take it easy on the drink for a while,” she said. “I don't wanna hafta carry you back home.
“'Kay, 'kay, fine,” said Scootaloo. She settled in the grass and gazed up into the sky while Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle talked.
A brown spider scurried across cart's wheel beside her, apparently aimless. Scootaloo watched it. Her head felt fuzzy. Make up your mind, dude. Scootaloo reached out with a hoof and allowed the spider to run up her foreleg. She shifted her weight to keep the spider out of Sweetie Belle's view.
Something occurred to her.
“Hey, girls,” she said when there was a lull in the conversation.
“Mm?” said one of them.
“D'you ever worry the world is moving on without you and if you don't get into gear you'll be left behind forever?”
“Huh?”
“You totally slurred, Scoots. That was just a … a .. stream of sibilants!”
“You're doin' the … words thing again, Sweetie,” said Scootaloo.
“Oh, sorry,”
“Don' matter.”
“Huh?” said Apple Bloom again.
“Nothin',” said Scootaloo. When she looked back at her foreleg, the spider had gone
*
After several hours and the better part of the mead had gone, and the sickly light of dawn smudged the sky and made the world seem bleak and timeless, Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom decided to go home.
“Y'comin', Scoots?”
Scootaloo did not feel like going home. She shrugged. “Yeah, alright.” She climbed to her hooves and brushed bits of dry mud off her fetlocks with her wings.
The three mares spoke little as they walked back towards Ponyville. Scootaloo was tired, damp, and cold, but still she didn't want to sleep, not yet. In an absent-minded sort of way she hoped, the lightening sky notwithstanding, Celestia would oversleep or take the day off or … something.
Once in town, The Crusaders went their separate ways. Scootloo waved goodbye to Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle and, once they were out of sight, headed in the opposite direction from where she lived. She tried to aimlessly wander the empty streets but soon found herself walking down the pathway to Morral's.
Oh well. Perhaps she could have breakfast there if she stayed up long enough. Wait … no. No bits. Scootaloo stomped her hoof in annoyance at the failure of seemed to her to be a perfect plan.
She was not alone on the street. Somepony was already up. The grey mare she had seen here a few days ago. Lacking any reason to continue to Morral's, Scootaloo flopped down on across the road to watch. She pulled the nearly empty bottle of mead from her saddle bag and took a swig.
The mare worked and didn't seem to notice her. Curlicues and ripples of vapour. Her work was still incomprehensible. Scootaloo felt it comforting to watch.
A little while later – she couldn't say how long – Scootaloo realised she had finished the mead. She shoved the bottle back into her saddlebag, stood up, and walked forward. She decided she had to ask the mare what she was making.
When she was within a few feet of the mare, the world lurched around her. Scootaloo stumbled. Something went crash! beside her. Buzzing her wings, Scootaloo tried to recover her balance, stood at an odd angle for what felt like like an impressively long period of time, then fell.
A grey wing caught her and righted her before she hit the ground. Scootaloo blinked and tried to clear her head. Beside her, brown glass lay in fragments. And before her stood the mare, looking concerned.
“Hey, miss,” said Scootaloo. “Why d'you …” She had forgotten what she planned to ask.
“Oh dear,” said the mare. “Let's get you home.”
*
Scootaloo woke at midday when the sunlight stabbing through a slit on the curtains became impossible to ignore. No hangover. She never got hangovers. It was something she loved to brag about to Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle. She buried her face in her pillow and cuddled Screech while she tried to assemble fragments of last night's memories into something coherent. It wasn't coming.
Oh well. Never mind, then. Scootaloo groaned and rolled out of bed, tried to land on her feet, and, with a soft thud, ended up tangled with the duvet on the floor. She looked at the window to see if, on the off chance, anypony had seen her pratfall. Nope, nopony watching. She tugged herself free of the duvet and climbed to her hooves.
The tumble notwithstanding, she felt quite quite chipper. That evening she had a date!
*
3157225
Elevating the tail. It's something mares in heat do. In pony society, it's probably one of those awkward going-through-puberty moments for young mares.
Poor Scoots.
Rainbow would understand!
The mead is a nice touch. Honey booze! Oh Scoots, you little delinquent you.
Poor Scoots. Hopefully she can get her act together. She just seems to be drifting aimlessly right now.
have her go home with her date
3338729
Scootaloo is best bad influence? Almost certainly.
3338926
Cheers! If you're interested in finding more, I read Black Celebration and Best Young Flyer as my research for this fic.
3339988
So long as it's just Scoots and not the story itself, that's all good.
3343491
I have no idea. So don't worry, you didn't miss it. Maybe this needs explanation? Nearly every story that features a grown filly (or an original character) goes to the trouble of detailing their cutie mark. I almost never do that, because I don't think it adds too much, and I like being a contrary git.
tl'dr version: You can choose whatever headcanon cutie mark you like for her.
3356850
Then the story becomes really awkward pornography?
3365358
Hmm, I think Rainbow is probably the best bad influence. Would not surprise me if RD did the exact same thing at Scoot's age, and has told her all about it.
You are now picturing Rainbow Dash giggling at a now bit more than tipsy Fluttershy while holding a mead bottle.
Greetings, Scramblers and Shadows! Here is the review you requested from WRITE:
Unless that’s a weird hybrid fetlock/buttock body part, you have a good old-fashioned typo there.
Watch your telly language. The worst offenders are directly naming emotions (sad), using them in -ly adverb form (happily), or in prepositional phrase form (in excitement). The gist of it is that such words don’t paint a picture for me. They get me to invent the picture for you. That’s your job. You paint the picture and get me to infer the emotions you want from it. This makes the reader think about your character and identify with him more, and it’s a more natural way to interpret emotion. What about her sigh would lead you to conclude it was dramatic if you were there to witness it? That’s what you need to show me. Now, you don’t always have to show, if the situation is unimportant, but it makes for a more engaging read, and that’s really what you need up front where you’re trying to hook the reader.
You have a number mismatch here. “That sort of gesture” or “those sorts of gestures.”
Here, I’ll cut in to say that your sentences structures are already repetitive after one paragraph. The simple subject-verb-maybe-object will often be a writer’s go-to arrangement but you have to toss in enough other ones to mix it up, or it gets into a rut. Even throwing a prepositional phrase, adverb, participle, absolute phrase, etc. will spice up this structure. You have 9 sentences in the first paragraph. 8 have a subject, and all 8 begin with it. 6 of those subjects are “she” or “Scootaloo.”
You’re telling again. What does this look like? If it’s my conclusion, I’ve made a connection with the character to deduce that. If it’s the narrator’s conclusion, it’s a cold fact.
I believe you’d do better using “with.” “By” suggests that the posters did the painting, carpet, feng shui…
I believe you’re severely short-changing her attitude. Without any evidence why, this is pretty sterile. Even a couple of one-sentence anecdotes or a short list of her qualities that Scootaloo likes would go a long way.
As a noun, it’s preferred to capitalize it as “X-ray.”
“Last time” is a “when,” not a “where.”
Unless you do something to make repeating this meaningful, it just comes across as an oversight.
You’ve done this (see what I did there?) a number of times already. It’s weak to use a demonstrative as a pronoun in narration, as it has a vague antecedent that’s often a broad piece of text. Find a noun to stick after it, like “this new information.”
Set off the dependent clause with a comma.
And herein lies the main problem. I don’t know how she feels, either, and that’s the crux of your story. It’s not going to draw me in if she’s unreadable. Having conflicting emotions is great; having no emotions isn’t.
Note that modifiers like to latch onto the closest possible object, so the word placement here suggests it’s Scootaloo who is sympathetic and implacable. And the doctor seemed rather calm. Implacable doesn’t make sense here.
Why is this capitalized?
The only thing to visualize here is the smile. You’re putting far too much of your responsibility onto the reader.
Don’t capitalize “Family.”
That sentence doesn’t parse. Not sure what you were trying to say.
Missing your dialogue punctuation. A comma, unless you wanted an exclamation mark there.
Comma splice. You’ve tacked together two complete sentences with a comma.
You don’t need to capitalize after an ellipsis if it makes syntactic sense as a continuous sentence.
In the past ten paragraphs, there’s only been one non-speaking action, and it was an unadorned sigh. If I don’t know what these characters are doing as they talk, they might as well be statues. Half of a conversation is nonverbal. Don’t short me that. How do they look, how do they react, what’s their body language?
Again, comma between the clauses.
When referring to her specifically like this, capitalize “Mom,” versus leaving it lower case for a generic reference that isn’t using it for a name, like “my mom.”
Another misplaced modifier, and participles are a common one for that. It sounds like Scootaloo is the one looking back.
Homonym confusion. You want “principal.”
Double word.
Verb tense.
Sweet Celestia, is that ungainly. First off, it’s a huge change from the narrative voice you’ve struck so far. Second, phrases like “at this point” are horribly self-referential to the narration. Lose the italics, lose the parentheses, lose the “at this point,” and this will work.
You’ve been inconsistent about using a comma with “too.” While it’s easier to always use one or never use one, there is a school of thought that differentiates instances, but your usage doesn’t match that, either. That method uses a comma when “too” refers to the subject (I went to college there, too.) and goes without when it refers to an item in a list (I had some toast, and I tried the eggs too.) It’s often simpler to go with the all-or nothing approach, unless you feel like putting a lot of thought into it.
Odd (and probably unintentional) word choice, given that she’s also holding a stuffed bat.
More repetitive sentence structure. These all start with the subject, are all simple sentences, and are all about the same length. That all converges to give this a very plodding feel, like it’s a list.
Does not compute. How would simply thinking confuse her? Maybe the subject matter would, but that’s not what this says.
Lose that second “of.” You already took care of it.
Typo.
Missing comma for direct address.
Give me some context to know what this means. An uncomfortable silence? One of them is watching a birdie out the window. Taking a drag on a cigarette? And this is the third time in the chapter where you have a sentence that’s just “a pause” or “there was a pause.” It stands out as repetitive.
Again, you’re totally disarming any emotional conflict here.
I don’t buy this, and it’s very cliche.
Hyphenate your compound descriptors.
Extraneous space.
Take me through some of this. I need to see it happen, not just have the narrator’s assurance that it did.
I don’t understand her purpose in doing this within the context of the class. It’s meant to help her remember their names, but she already knows Diamond Tiara and probably already had names for her.
Be consistent with using a period with this.
Missing a word in there.
Another missing word, and I have to take issue with your simile. A factory implies mass manufacturing and something that’s not particularly old, neither of which really meshes with being priceless. Maybe you should go for a museum or art gallery.
And this (for the second time in the last two paragraphs) is sticking out with those previous instances of “a pause.” One or two times in a story is fine. What you have here is an unfortunate tic.
Alright, let me throw a whole paragraph at you, because this exemplifies a lot of your problems. All but one of these sentences start with the subject. They’re all about the same length, have a similar rhythm, and have a downward inflection. And aside from the deep breath, they’re all treating how she feels as a series of cold facts to toss at the reader.
It’s the difference between:
Paul was mad. His boss had taken credit for his idea. The CEO was so impressed that he took the presentation straight to the board. It didn’t have Paul’s name on it, of course. Everything that could have gone wrong did. The whole day had been like that.
and:
He seethed in the corner and nearly bit through the already well-chewed pencil clenched in his teeth. Not a moment before, that lazy manager of his had claimed the new advertising pitch as his own, right in front of Paul. Did he think Paul wouldn’t notice, or was he just that immune to ethics? And then the CEO carried that pitch—Paul’s pitch—straight up to the board. After a cold cup of coffee, the third traffic jam in as many days, and… yeah, just another perfect day.
What’s with the scene marker at the end of chapter 1?
First off, pony names generally make sense. I’m trying to decide how much of this was intentional. That’s a very obtrusively long name. At least I get that Tango and Foxtrot have to do with her career, but Whiskey? I haven’t seen a use for it… except that in the NATO phonetic alphabet, she’s WTF, which is a groan-inducing hidden joke that awfully undercuts the tone of your story and that character’s role in it. This is exactly the kind of thing that writers think is exceedingly clever and refuse to rethink, but I’ll go ahead and tell you it absolutely doesn’t fit the story.
On to chapter two, then. Mostly, I’m seeing the same things as in the last chapter, so I’m going to blow through this one more quickly.
It’s unclear here whether “her” refers to Scoot or Dash, and this whole thing comes out of nowhere. What friends? What lovers? Get in the way of what? There’s been zero reference to any of this, and now it’s thrown out as if it should be self-evident.
If it’s that windy, why didn’t it affect her journey up to Dash’s house? Seems odd that it wouldn’t come into play until now.
Also, I’m already getting a very different narrative voice in this chapter. It’s anchored deeper in Scoot’s perspective, which is a welcome change; in the last chapter, the narrator was chiefly objective.
You didn’t hyphenate this in the last chapter.
You’ve attributed the quote twice in one sentence.
Another missing word.
Missing end punctuation.
Extraneous apostrophe.
This is the hugest let-down. Show me what she does! How the small talk winds down, Dash is just oblivious to the lull, Scoot turning over her thoughts, deciding whether to tell Dash what she wanted, then keeping silent and hastily making an exit. There is so much rich ground to mine here. Now, I appreciate subtlety and understatement, but you’re just skipping over one of the emotional high points of the story. No, don’t make it all melodramatic. Subtlety still works, but you have to say something before you can do the soft sell, ad I have to have some emotional connection to Scootaloo if I’m going to care what happens to her.
Dialogue capitalization.
Extraneous space, missing comma.
Another missing word, and this word choice is really at odds with the decidedly Scootaloo-like voice he’s been taking so far in this chapter.
You need another dot in your ellipsis, and are you sure you didn’t mean “sibilance”?
Typo
Another extraneous space.
C’mon. GDocs, Word, and many other programs point these things out.
Either an unneeded comma or a wrong verb form.
Wait, Derpy was doing this outside before. What floor is this?
Dialogue punctuation.
And again with the scene break marker at the end of a chapter…
Okay, summing up time.
Mechanics:
Quite a few editing problems of various types. I marked quite a few examples, but there are many more. It’s up to you to find them. I’ve probably already done too much of that, as we aren’t an editing service.
Really, any problems were so intermittent that I couldn’t tell whether you know what you’re doing and had a few lapses or don’t know what you’re doing and got lucky a lot. I’m not going to guess, so rather than go into a bunch of explanations, I’ll just say that if you don’t understand any of the mechanical points I made, go look up some info on the subject.
Style:
Here’s really where this story needs help. I’ll reiterate the issues I repeatedly pointed out above: show-versus-tell, talking heads, disconnect in narrative voice between the chapters and even within chapter 1, some narration that doesn’t sound like Scootaloo, repetitive sentence structures.
In addition to the telly language, they story constantly missed opportunities to delve into Scoot’s emotions, opting instead to give me a blow-by-blow account of what happens at the expense of showing me how she feels about any of it, except when it does so bluntly and without finesse.
In addition to repetitive sentence feel, take a look at these word counts, totaled over both chapters:
start/began: only 9. But these verbs are often used when they really didn’t need to be. Every action begins. That’s a given. It’s only worth mentioning when that beginning is noteworthy because it’s a significant/abrupt change or because the action never finishes.
said: 97. There’s a spectrum of such words. Many people had it drilled into them in grade school to avoid this word at all costs, but that’s more of an effort to foster creativity than good writing. But going with only this is just as extreme. At least you worked a pretty good balance between using “said” and going with no speaking action, but it’s okay to work in a few different ones here and there for variety. What constitutes a good balance will vary from reader to reader, but the point is that your choice of speaking verbs should blend in well enough that the reader doesn’t find them noteworthy; at that point, it’s drawing focus away from the important things, like the dialogue itself. And I found myself very aware that you used only “said.”
is/was: 129. There are many other forms of this verb, some of which are pretty difficult to tease out in a search, so there will be more. That seems like a very high number to me for this word count. Now, that’s not necessarily a problem, but you’ll have to look at each instance and see if it’s really necessary. Beyond simple word repetition, which isn’t so much of an issue for such a ubiquitous word, this indicates that you may be overusing passive voice (I didn’t notice anything problematic here), or you need to be using more active verbs (bingo). It’s much more interesting to read about what happens, not what simply is. There are certainly times that eschewing “to be” verbs becomes unwieldy, but for the most part, it’s entirely possible to use more active language. Take “His mane was red” versus “A red mane graced his head.” They say the same thing, but one is active, vivid, and interesting.
Characterization:
All of this seemed fine, in that your characters didn’t act in a way that was inconsistent with how you’d developed them. But insofar as our perception of a character is colored by our emotional connection with her, I will say again that the predominance of telly language kept me from getting to know your Scootaloo. That’s all I have to say here.
Plot:
Nothing wrong here, either. I didn’t see any big inconsistencies in what happens or logical fallacies in how everything plays out. So good job there.
Pascoite, WRITE's mineral
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3365358 why not ???????????????
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Thank you. That was tremendously helpful. I'm not sure I agree with all of it, but mostly it was spot on, and in any case, the perspective is very welcome.
Also, I feel I should apologise for requesting an enumeration of mechanical errors. There are rather more than I thought there'd be. So, sorry about that.
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You shouldn't agree with everything I say. If you did, you'd end up with a story that was tailored for my tastes. The point is to look at everything with an objective eye, consider the critique, and decide what will actually make your story better.