Hazardus_Havard.

I completely agree with you. Interesting to say, I've rewritten the prologue over twenty times now. No joke. Originally, this thing was around 6k words. Now, it's more around 4k (just checked, 3,777 words). I've omitted a lot of it since so much was not needed or just idiotic of me to write in the first place. What you say there, I agree as well. So... why did I still do that? Well, it was to add in the confusion of the situation with the main character. I wanted to make it feel like that's how most people would actually think in a situation like that. First they'd see their surroundings, then look around. Seeing something so strange, they'd start questioning things for themselves, eventually remembering. But yeah, I suppose I could've added in some other things to help here. If there's anything else, I wouldn't mind hearing about it since anything and everything does help me improve my story. Oh, and so you know, I do double space after the completion of a sentence. Why? Strange enough, that's how my school originally taught me how to write and even if it's a queer thing to see something like that, it's always stuck with me.

Sure, I can do that. It won't be sometime until I have to go shopping. Midnight, if you'll believe that. I'll be waiting then for whatever you have to say. I just read your story, writing up a reply to each chapter and the prologue to it in a private message just so you know, okay?

Hello everyone. I come asking for some help here on my writing. You see, I've just cleaned up my prologue and many chapters, even just recently updating my story. I feel it could be better though. I tried going to sites like Ponychan, but all I got was someone that said it's too long for them. That's after almost a month of waiting on any reply over there. I have some people helping me, and one person that's very awesome for all the work in helping, but having more eyes on things would help this better. I'm not looking for someone to proof read everything. That's an enormous amount of work that I wouldn't ask for here. I'm just looking for a little feedback, maybe some criticism on things. If anyone likes certain things, that can help too since it would show what readers enjoy and how I can improve on that. Even ideas that people would like to see, I'd be okay with. Maybe I can find some way to write some into the story in later chapters. I started writing fanfic as a way to learn how to write better and I have improved, but I feel I can improve more. ...It seems I'm getting a bit too wordy here. Below is the link to my main story, which is also in my signature along with my Deviant Art page for artwork. If you'd rather leave a comment on my story, or even just private message me on either here or my FimFic account, that's cool as well. I read everything that's there. I'm also available to help out on looking at other peoples work too if they need it, so long as I have the time to do so. http://www.fimfiction.net/story/70801/an-alien-walks-amongst-us The one thing I've always strived for is a well paced story and to 'show, not tell' when writing. That doesn't mean I don't mess up though. Any help in any form is appreciated. I guess I forgot to mention. This is a comedic story that will have adventure and feels in it. By feels, I mean romance and other things.

Although I do that with my other drawings, I decided to go a little further with how I usually draw my stuff. Next I'll be doing a vector lining, then color filler, then finally editing in areas for the final so there's three more to go on this thing. No problem. I really needed to do something other than write to get my brain juices some time off and this seemed like the perfect thing to do. I'm really nothing special compared to other artists out there, but I'm glad that you enjoy it nonetheless. I just got done with the final image so if you'd like, the link to my DA is up so you can do what you want with it and what not, okay then?

Alright, this is a new image I'm doing since I have some time and mostly taking a small break from writing. An OC called Mist Chaser. I'll be doing a vector outline then a coloring of her soon, so here's the progress pics of the image. And here's the final image. Below is the progress pics, along with the vector outline and the coloring. I'll probably change up my style a little next time I draw from what I learned here.

To be honest, I only read the prologue. Why? First impressions are very important and if people are truly disliking your work, that is where the problem mostly lies. I think the biggest problem is the whole 'she's a good pony, but then one day does a 180 immediately turning evil out of the blue' thing. I don't know how the chapter of her back story is, but as a reader this is what we're seeing from the get-go. And it just looks really bad. You should lengthen your prologue, have some scenes of her going through life with a positive look on it. Pace it well. During her life, give her reasons to turn evil. Maybe she has a family that doesn't get much in life. Like they're poor, and she never gets anything she wants? She can have this view of 'Why is it that my family, myself included, get left out of things unlike other families?' because she's so poor. Even in the princess's tutelage, she can still have that view, wanting more but only given the bare minimum (the princess wants to teach her well, not wanting to overpower her student, but Shimmer doesn't see it like that). In her mind, Shimmer will want to do right but will be needlessly greedy if given the chance. And when given that chance, she decides to take it. See? Now that feels better to read. Also, when confronting Celestia, she pretty much beat her down. Really? A newly turned pony princess manages to beat her teacher who knows more spells than her without any effort? If anything, make it like Shimmer planned this all along since it was the best moment to get an enormous amount of spells at the time. She got Celestia in a spell (if you make it a runic type, like only activated when Celestia is on it and then Shimmer activates it when she wants, that would look nice) that saps at her magic reserves, while also making her powerless to anything. And then you can continue with the whole Shimmer losing thing. Just some ideas to help improve your story. Another post - Maybe you can make it unique here? Shimmer may want all the spells, but you can have her magic base secretly being runic magic? Just another idea. It might be difficult to do though for your story.

To be famous? You shouldn't be worrying about that. If you write a genuinely good story, you'll have people looking at it. I always try my best to take my time writing my stuff. So far, my main story has a main view of 2,948 with an overall view of 14,627. I'm happy that people enjoy my work, and I continue writing since it's fun for me and helps improve my own literary skills.

First off. You have a prologue... that takes three parts to write. Just, why? The purpose of a prologue is to introduce things to the reader that they should know beforehand, or just as a way to introduce the story. Why cut that up into such small parts when one is sufficient? They're also all very small reads. They should've been put together into one part. Some of your grammar can use correcting. Now, I can't say I'm the greatest since I'm still learning how to properly write myself, but here's what I saw just at the beginning. Your writing in red, mine in purple. "Welcome young Sunset Shimmer. Welcome to Canterlot, the Princess will be here in one moment." said a black stallion wearing the traditional guard clothing. First, you have a backwards quotation mark at the beginning (it appears in the FimFic site). Second, your welcoming her twice, which is redundant. Shorten it up so it reads better. Third, you need to comma when you go to a persons name. Example: Good morning, Jordan. Fourth, when you go away from a talking part, you either need to comma it off if it's continuing the scene or period it if the parts over. Fifth, don't over-describe your work. You might run into the problem of writing things that people don't care about, possibly even turning into the dreaded purple prosing of your work. Sixth, do things that make sense. He's a professor, so I hope there's a reason for him to be wearing guard clothing. Also, guards don't wear clothes, they wear armor. Or armour, depending on where you live. Lastly, you identify him as Principle Oak later on. Why didn't you just use his name here? Here's a revision. "Welcome to Canterlot, young Sunset Shimmer," Professor Oak says, tossing his cloak to the side with flourish. "The princess will be here in one moment. Me adding in his cloak tossing is just for fun, but it does two things here. One, it tells us what he's wearing so we have some visualization of the character. Two, it moves the scene with some interest added in how he acts. Other things with the first part. You don't need to italicize your talk with the Princess and Sunset Shimmer, so remove that. I only italicize when someone's thinking to themselves or if it's needed such as the title of a book or if someones putting emphasize on a word. Another thing, give your story telling pieces some real meaning and don't expect the reader to just believe much of what they read. A yin yang symbol as her cutie mark? You do know that the meaning behind that is balance, correct? As it's the moon and the sun, my first thoughts when I see the princess talking to her is 'Oh, she's probably going to be the princess of Twilight. Twilight: The period of the evening during which this takes place, between daylight and darkness. Or something similar like a princess of balance. Like the in-between of Celestia and Discord. You also need to remember to keep your readers attention. Show, don't tell. That's quite possibly the absolute most important part in writing. Remember that while writing, and I can guarantee more people will enjoy your work. It's just more difficult to write that way. As for the other two parts of your prologue. You have a second voice in her, telling her to do bad things. That immediately turns some readers off, since it's a cheap cop-out on having a character turn bad. Have something else turn her, with more reason than that. It'll turn out better. Third part. The part that looks bad is you having your antagonist immediately turning evil suddenly, beating the crap out of Celestia (are you serious?) and then only losing in the end due to greed. You moved this too fast. Pace is an important key to writing, and without it, stories tend to look like a clumped up mess of ideas. If you want to write a good story, you should go back to your prologue and then combine it into one. Give her a proper reason to be evil. A day turnaround from good to evil doesn't look right at all.

I love to listen to music. But music to relax to? I have plenty of artists and bands for that. I'd recommend The Rippingtons album, Modern Art for some good relaxation music. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FgkdJNQ3kjc

Okay. So, I'm doing a new image from another sketch. It's Leo the Zodiac pony along with Anonymous. I saw this and really wanted to do a colored version, so yeah. As usual, I do the sketch (Done by AtlasPony), then lineart, then color, then final product.

The story never once tried to explain itself. It was nothing more than a story with Pinkie killing ponies. That's it. ... ...Now, I know a certain story that's got a nice, lengthy read with a lot of entertaining stuff. It's a tad mundane in the beginning, but he wrote it about one year back when he first started and it was to introduce the characters and reasoning's to why they did that stuff. Pacing, if you will. Sadly, with what's IN the story, I cannot put it here without some admin probably deleting my post and giving me a warning. Unless I'm allowed to post that stuff? I know people discuss Cupcakes here (which is gore) and the story has that, but it also has other 'adult material'. Can someone answer this? I'm interested to know.

You know, it would be nice if you could provide a synopsis to your work so when people click on your topic, we can see what exactly it is you wrote. It doesn't have to be thorough, but something would be nice. Of course, going over the top shows your effort in providing content (to me at least) so that's always nice. Here, I'll give you an example from my own story. X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X Title: An Alien Walks Amongst Us Tags: [Comedy] [Adventure] [Human] Synopsis: Lyra, a simple pony with simple dreams. Dreams involving aliens, that is. Her fascination with them even got her a job dealing with them, though no one takes it seriously. Lyra hopes to one day be able to meet one, she just needs to believe. In comes a human, whom mysteriously gets transported to Equestria. It's up to Lyra to show the alien the ways of her people! The power of friendship, magic, and hugs await her on this strange adventure. X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X Something like this would be really nice so we can see what we're getting into. Yes, we could just click the link. But people may skip a story because it's not provided here with what they'd be reading. You don't peak their interest to read what you have by just providing a link.

I read P.A.T.A. and Brass Pony: Cloppers. Good stories that have a comedic effect which I enjoyed. I felt the first story was slightly lacking in content though. They were very short chapters, and for a story like what you wrote, this could've been really fleshed out with some fun, wacky moments. The songs were a nice touch, but no dancing going on during the scenes? You talk about them writing fan fics, but none of them recited any weird poems or haikus about Twilight? And why didn't the rest of her gang try and talk to her? That could have lent to some good stuff as well. You did leave the story off at a good place, and I even feel you could expand on this and write more. Your grammar is also top-notch. It's better than most of the people that are on that site, which is fantastic to see. It would've been nice if you indented your work, but at least you spaced your paragraphs properly. You have my thumbs up and a fav to this story. It's good, just wish there was more in it. As for the BP:C story, what more could I say? It's a silly story about people clopping and the effects on our civilization but in a funny, ridiculous kind of way. Perfect use of a one-shot idea. Try posting something here in a thread. You might get some people that can help out with it on feedback. It may happen, it may not happen. But nothing is gained if you think and never act.

Well... crud. All though I prefer reading HiE stories since I find them fun, I can read the other stuff without hating it. But I've always preferred comedy stuff intertwined with romance or some other genre (my own is comedy/adventure/human). I'm almost interested in that "My Little Devil". What's that about?

If you can give us what exactly you write, that would be very helpful for readers. Also, a link to said group and stories they are at would be something to add in as well. I do hope that there's reasoning to it and it's not written up just because they want to be violent. Luckily for me, I have the greatest proofer in the world. I'd show you his work and the bin he gives out to people that need help in writing... but it's very violent and adult so I can not give it out. And I've spoken to people that aren't native English speakers. They just need someone to help them proof as well and practice. A major thing that will help is if you write in Microsoft Word. Doing that will have the program show you what words are misspelled and other grammar errors easily.

I do this whenever I get the chance. Most of the people on this site either never respond or practically vanish once I show them something so I never know what happens with their stuff. Just keep trying with your stuff and make sure to always keep in mind that no one improves without trying in the first place for something to be improved on. I'll be around the place from time to time, mostly art'ing away or writing my own fanfics of the strange and the comedic. Throw a 'hey ya' ' whenever you feel like or if you need some look over in you stuff. Depending on what I'm doing, I'll try to help if I have the time.

Well, you won't get any good at writing if you don't start. I started writing my stuff back in September... and oh my god was that a pile of S***. And no, that stuff is not on my FimFic account, it's on my pastebin account where I will not be showing that to anyone (Unless you find out where I post these!) Overtime, I started to learn more about grammar and proper punctuation. Then I started learning about how to properly write a good story. And then I got into comedy, which is where the real fun begins. You have to know the right ways to tickle someone in their funny bones. Telling someone what should be funny will never work, and most people tend to do this until they learn how to do it properly. Your story will also be more difficult since it will involve nearly nothing but OC characters at all. Just make sure you do four things right: Make sure you have some pretty good grammar/punctuation so there isn't much for those 'grammar nazi's' to complain to you about. It also keeps your story stronger to read with it. A story that is properly weaved even if written with nothing but comedic chaos as the premise should be well done to keep readers glued to the screen. Fresh, original content is the key to success. If you use stuff for references to shows or stories, just don't ride off someone else's stuff for too long. Always write with the intent to make it so the reader will want more and come back for more. No matter what, make sure your characters are well developed, even background characters. They all need attention, and giving them that will give the readers a world that feels extremely alive and moving about, keeping them around for longer. There's obviously other things that should be mentioned, like not to make characters OP or OOC (Unless it's for a temporary comedic affect) and make sure the comedy is somewhat fresh. And don't forget to get a proofreader for your work to look it over. I currently have the greatest proofreader ever (No, seriously. If he was a horse, his pedigree would be marked 'Genius') To give you an idea, in my main story, it's about a human that comes to Equestria and Lyra finds him, treating him like an alien. It does NOT follow the obsessed human Lyra, it's more obsessed alien Lyra (That no one writes about), so none of that weird stuff you'd expect from other fics. I currently have a talking tree that praises the sun, gay big mac, references from shows like Doctor Who and Pokemon, silly interactions from a fairly big cast of characters, and an interesting hook to the story (The princesses don't know he's an alien. They think he's more or less a big doll but they have to treat it like normal) I do hope that whatever you write is a fun and interesting experience. I'm interested enough from what you said in your story. Most of my story reading isn't usually contained inside the FimFic site. Those two are bookmarked, so I'll definitely be checking this stuff out to read when I get the chance.

Interesting. So, humans have always been there but none of the creatures really know. Will they be one of those myths griffons hear about but never took serious until they see them in real life? I like the idea that they're a myth from long ago, it can add some interesting stuff to a story if used right. I'm just really hoping you don't make your immortal human OP. Also, what's HiM? I don't think I've ever heard of that before.

Well... sometimes I do in fact have problems with that notification thing every once in a while. It's not all the time, but sometimes when someone replies to a post I put up I don't get a notification and when I come across the thread and do see a reply to my post, I wonder why it didn't get through. But once again, that's not all the time. And when I post a reply, I just like to know if someones online that I'm talking to. I know this is a forum and not a chatroom, but it's nice to know if what I'm replying to will go through to the other person. If I ever did want to talk to the person more and write up something I'm hoping he/she/it will reply to, it'd be nice to know if I'll be waiting for a while since they're offline or waiting possibly for a few minutes or so for a response since they're online. Not needed, just nice to have. But that's just my opinion I suppose, you can disregard it.

Okay, now that's more understandable if it's your first read. Those tend to stick with people, even if it's mediocre, bad, or even the greatest thing to come about. My first read was a Ranma 1/2 fic that... the author never finished. I'm still peeved about that. And yeah, that one I showed is a really funny read. I also write stuff myself using comedy but I don't want to whore myself out since that would seem rude to do. I do hope you make something good out of these. I write HiE stories as well, though it's in a perspective some people do not like. I just think it's another way to read a story, nothing more, so I'm not sure why so many people get so upset if it's used.

I would like to counter with this part that is in the beginning of the story: Every time I see the show, or one of the ponies on a fan site, I recoil a bit at the bright colors, the joyful faces of the ponies, and the peaceful scenery of their world. It's so hard to look at that beautiful world, having it so close to my grasp; I reach out to touch it's warm colors and bright, smiling faces of the ponies. Only to be stopped by my computer screen. You want to relate... to that? I get his life sucks, but dear god that's a bit strange don't you think? It's not like this is a terrible fic. It's alright. It's pretty well written. But it's not the greatest thing I've ever read. It really IS over hyped. Wherever I go, people always praise it as the greatest thing they've ever laid eyes on when it comes to fics. Really? And when I ask what else is there... they don't have an answer. So they don't even compare this to other stories or even read much else... just this and other over hyped stories like Cupcakes. Once again, I am not saying this story is bad. It's fairly alright. But it IS over hyped all over the place as the greatest thing to ever come for fanfics and people try to put their stuff to that stories standards. It may also be the fact that I hate bronie insert fics. I REALLY dislike them. But just once more to remind you, I don't think this story is bad. It's alright. Just not the greatest thing I've ever read. Can you recommend anything else I may not have read?

So there is a possibility that I may have missed that since I didn't join until back in the summer of last year around June. Also, I... am an inattentive idiot. I didn't think to look at that since I have both Fic and Art on my Bookmark which is where I usually frequent most of the time, so I missed that (We have a Skype group? Oh boy...) I suppose I'll be checking up on that soon.

...Resource Map? Is that something new? I don't recall ever seeing one when I joined up last year. Of course, I could just be an idiot and may not have seen it or I did and just don't remember.

That is true. Can't argue if it's already decided (Even if Jokuc's picture up above shows a way it could be done) But could there at least be some sort of thing when people sign up or a reminder that it can be done? I didn't know about this when I joined up and only found out by accident.