Legendary Emerald

Yo. Expressed interest in this earlier. Glad to see an actual thread for it now. I'd like my character Serah to be involved in this. Character image and some description given in the link; ignore the human backstory part, because that's only for one specific RP on this forum that required an alternate backstory. For what she'd be in the military... well, she would have to be someone who is directly involved in the fighting. Considering her attraction to danger and violence, she might be heavily decorated (or her limbs might decorate the battlefield XD).

Da,ms scppt... let me try that again. Damn Scoots, that was a good post! Maybe it's just the alcohol, but that almost made me tear up a bit. So good. Gotta read it twice. Follow the mystical golden chicken's example, everyone. Post food, and gof... AHEM, post good, and post often. And don't post whilst tipsy. Because that's funny to no one but yourself.

That was a pretty fast turnaround. 2 Minutes ago: "Yeah sure I can do it!" Present: "NOPE NOPE NOPE!" Sorry, that just tickled my funny bone.

I can give composition a shot as well... or maybe re purpose an older song I have to work with the lyrics. I'll see what I can come up with after class. Edit: After "Let me explain" I can't find any sort of melody. Is that supposed to be spoken word? https://www.box.com/s/fzhoqin216etp4j94ecm This is just a quick test I did. I came up with a tune to sing the lyrics, and then put them over a song I'd originally composed for Fluttershy. I don't know if there's anything else I can do with your lyrics at this point though. At least not without figuring out a melody for the second half of your song. If anyone else who expressed an interest in working on this song wants to use any part of my little test for inspiration or reference, feel free to do so.

When I read through all the posts I'd missed yesterday, something like half of them were just those two ponies locking lips. Gonna have to change the name of this RP to "Shipped: The Remake" pretty soon. Has that joke already been made? I hope that joke hasn't already been made...

First thing I thought of when I read the title was the song . Probably just a coincidence, though. For only having been writing stories for about a year, this is pretty good progress. There are still some basic concepts that you need to learn, though. Your tense changes from the first paragraph to the second. The first paragraph is in present tense, while everything else is past tense. I'm guessing you used present tense for the first paragraph in an attempt to be artful, but really it's only distracting, and doesn't send a good first message to the reader. If you think the present tense must absolutely be kept for those first few sentences, I'd suggest formatting it differently within the story; perhaps by placing it in italics and align it in the middle of the page, so that it looks clearly different from anything else, and doesn't look like a mistake. On the subject of formatting, there are a couple of errors in what you've posted. Only every other paragraph has a blank line separating paragraphs. Either have no spaces between paragraphs, or spaces between all paragraphs. And whichever method you go with, indentation is a must. Though in this case you probably copy-pasted the fic from a word document, and the indentation was just lost in the transfer, so I'll give that a pass. Finally, there's a bit more "telling" in your story than necessary. For descriptions of the environment, that's is fine. But for describing events in a story, it is uninteresting at best, and redundant at worst. Unless you are writing in first person, or your character has her own "thought bubbles" (meaning her thoughts are included in parenthesis and italicize/otherwise distinguished from normal dialogue), the reader should not explicitly know what your character is thinking or feeling. It is better if the reader has to infer what is going on from character's actions, appearance, and the environment alone. Remember: fiction is largely a visual medium; it just relies on the readers to form the image themselves, based on the text you've written. These are all generally accepted writing rules. I know for a fact that authors attempting to be featured on Equestria Daily must follow, because my first story was rejected the first time I submitted it, and only go featured after many months of editing and re-writing. Not all successful commercial authors will follow these basic rules; just the fact that you've written the way you have shows the kind of writing you've been exposed to the most. But just because somebody else jumped off a cliff and managed to land on a nice cozy pillow of good public reception doesn't mean you will be so lucky. Besides, do you want your story to be considered good by an audience IN SPITE of the quality of its prose? Or do you want your story to be considered good because it tells a good story and it tells it well? The answer should be clear if you have any real passion for writing. For a newcomer to writing, you aren't as bad as many I've come across before. But you have a lot of room to grow. Keep trying, keep making mistakes, and listen to those who try to help you out. Do this, and you'll steadily progress and become a better writer.

guys, I made a post! Be happy! Be healthy! Honey Nut Cheerios! I hope things pick up a little bit more now. I'm in the mood for some serious role playin'. SO GO GET THAT !

Something hit the ground near Serah, causing her to wake up with a jolt. “Hmm? What?” she muttered, looking around herself, front hooves positioned for a fight. She seemed to be in a library of some sorts, leaning up against a bookshelf. A book had lay haphazardly splayed on the ground. The cover read 'How I Learned to Stop worrying and Love the Offensive Spell'. “Right... I was reading... looking at that.” The last hour or so of Serah's memory was a blur. She'd followed the other ponies on the tour without speaking, eyes threatening to close on her at any moment; her half-lidded expression probably gave the impression that she was glaring at everyone, but in reality she was just dead tired. “Fatigue was sudden... because I used so much magic earlier?” She thought to herself, looking back at the book she'd dropped. “Why the hell am I in a library anyways? Hate books.” Serah didn't bother to place the book back on its shelf. Instead, her eyes caught another pony whom she hadn't yet met. “Poofy orange mane, yellowish-tan body... even while sleep deprived, I would remember a pony like that.” Serah overheard the question, and glanced backwards at her flank. She hadn't really examined it before then. It appeared to be a twisted pinwheel of some sort, burnt red and covered in sharp edges. “Red. Dangerous. Almost like fire. Fitting.” Serah ran the characteristics through her head. Again, she looked at the orange pony. “Carrots. Shouldn't be surprised. Clearly a fascinating individual.”

There are some well-accepted notions about backgrounds characters, but really, nothing is set in stone. If you want to use background ponies in a fanfic, it's best if you ignore a lot of what other people think about the characters. Instead, you should work to really make them your own; an OC with a recognizable face. Don't ignore the show canon (what little of it there is for BG ponies), but don't restrict yourself to the same ideas other people have, or what you write might come across as redundant. For example, Lyra doesn't have to be obsessed with humans. Octavia doesn't have to be related to Pinkie Pie. Bon Bon doesn't have to have a voice that changes every other day. You can use those fan-theories if you want, but you shouldn't include any feature just because you feel you have to in order for readers to like what you're writing. I actually just finished the first storyline of a fanfiction that uses this exact idea. I grouped Lyra, Bon Bon, Derpy, Trixie, Vinyl, and Octavia all together in a new city (Las Pegasus), and the fun is in seeing them all bounce off one another. It's in the editing and proof-reading phase right now, and I hope to get it on EQD like my previous fanfiction.

PHEW! It's taken longer than expect, but today I wrapped up the first episode (read: storyline) in the ponyfic I started for National Pony Writing Month, "The Subordinate Six". As such, this is a call for pre-readers to read what I've currently written and give their advice and opinions. I already have an editor on hand for taking care of my grammatical and spelling errors, but he tends to think so highly of my writing that he's can't provide much constructive criticism. If you want to be a pre-reader, message me in private, or just reply to this post, and I'll send you a link to the google docs.

Okay, I finished the episode of the fanfiction I was working on. I'll have time to post in this RP again, yay! But... not until tomorrow. Trust me, I've been writing for almost the entirety of today. You do not want to see the kind of post I would make in this RP if I tried.

Who's got two thumbs and just pre-ordered MLP:FiM Season 1 on DVD? DIS GUY! And I can try to post today, but I really have no clue WHERE Serah is at the moment. Last I'd written, she'd seen Ponyville a little ways off in the distance. I suspect Numbers and Ice Storm continued ahead, and she would have just been following behind them trying to block out the memory of Number's junk.

Thanks, these were the answers I was looking for. The name "Beauty Brass" works so, so well. Still need a name for the band/ensemble, though. Something dignified sounding.