AniFanfic Critique, Editing, and Workshopping

[wildweathel]

For the past few weeks, I've been reading and critiquing My Little Pony fanfiction (yeah, really).  Authors seem to find me helpful, so I'd like to try to start something similar to the PonyChan /fic/ Training Grounds on RAF.  I'm not expecting things to be as busy as over there, but I'll keep an eye here.

[spoiler=The Training Grounds, as recently described by our fearless leader]HEY! Do you wanna feel SO LITERATE? Try POWERFIC. Writing tips for people who need GRATUITOUS AMOUNTS OF ASSISTANCE.

With all new flavors like SCATHING. SCATHING ASSISTANCE. It's like adding RAGE to CONSTRUCTIVE CRITICISM. Sound the alarm, you're gonna be UNCOMFORTABLY ASSISTED.

What's that? You want hugs? Well, how about HUGBOX?! Made with WHINING. REAL WHINING.

CHARACTERS! (AAAAAGH!) You'll be good at them. It's assistance for BRONIES. PEGASISTANCE. These aren't your friends' puns, these are pony puns. PUNICORNS.

Advice, assistance, advice, assistance, plot criticism, dialogue criticism, structure criticism, more criticism THAN THINE FIC HATH ROOM FOR. You'll write so fast, readers wil be like "Slooooow doooooown" and you'll be like, "BUCK YOU!" and kick them in the face with your FANFIC SUBMISSIONS.

You'll have so many ideas... Ideas! (AAAAGH!) Just running all the time. Ideas for comedy! Ideas for adventure! Ideas for reviews! Ideas for critiques! Ideas for grimdark! Ideas for shipping! Ideas for plot bunnies! You'll have SO MANY plot bunnies. FOUR HUNDRED PLOT BUNNIES.

Give SCATHING ASSISTANCE to your plot bunnies and they'll be good at STORIES! Make your plot bunnies fly ABNORMALLY FAST.

They'll fly as fast as PEGASI. Ponies will watch them flying and think they're PEGASI. They'll race as fast as PEGASI, in a race with actual PEGASI, and it'll be a TIE and they'll get deported back to CLOUDSDAAAAAALE.

Hey, go with the sure thing! Don't gamble on your fanfic (****ATRIIIIICE)! Try POWERFIC, the assistance that will make you (AAAAAAGH) WRITE (AAAAAGH!).[/spoiler]

Rules:
0 - All RAF rules apply: no hate nor graphic sex, etc.
1 - Not just my show -- if you like to read, have an opinion, and have a decent grasp of the rules of written English, please jump in.
2 - Love the writer, hate the fic.  Critiques are expected to be critical.  Readers might not show mercy, nor should authors expect it.
3 - Because of #2, only post your own fic.
4 - Have fun. 

[NateSean]

So should we post the entire fic or just the link? What's your limit, one chapter or do you have the endurance to do a whole "book?" Cause I'm always looking for new insights to my Chronicles of Sean fics.

[wildweathel]

I, mm... I like shorts (they're comfy and easy to read), but I read anything.  Longest fic critiqued: 64k words, of which I read about 40 before quitting.  (Author was allergic to actually resolving anything.  Ever.)  The longer, the less detail I can get in to, as you'd expect.  Also, I might get bored and feel like doing something else for a while, but I'll come back.

I'd prefer links over copy-pasting into the thread; makes things easier to read. 

You should fix the links in your signature.  I think you need to add the colon to http: and the first one goes to the board, not the thread.

I'll start out with the first one and see where we'll go from there.
http://animorphsforum.com/index.php?topic=7026.msg536025#msg536025

I'm not reading until Friday and I've got "The Kelbrid Chronicles" to critique first, so it'll be a little bit.  Thanks for bringing something to play.  Should be fun.   

[Noelle]

Uh oh, I'm worried TKC is going to end up being a lot more than 64k words. 

[wildweathel]

Oh, the longest fic I've read (for fun) is over three million and isn't done yet.  The author writes a novel-length chapter every couple of months. 

I've started reading TKC.  Less than 3k in the prologue, so it shouldn't take long.

[Noelle]

I just wanted to bump this, the critiques he gives are VERY good and thorough.  They will definitely help your story.

[Vickie1]

The points are interesting and of course golden to story writing (much simply than what I'm learning in my course but that's just me being stressed right now). I am now keen on posting my story (after some more refining) here but bit edgy. Links do make it easier for the reader but I dunno, imo, works as a double edge sword.

This is where I'm gonna pour my learnings from my course (game design) and be plummeted to a bloody pulp by ya. Some readers, gamers, viewers would want the story/game/movie straight away instead of going through loops for it, whether technical problems or laziness (which is not what I'm implying). For example a gamer would want the option to just skip the cutscenes to do the gameplay and if no option is given, it becomes frustrating to him. So if there are many chapters which means many links or the links are inaccessible, it would really be annoying for the reader.

But it's still our choice whether we want to post the whole thing or just the links. We can have both too if we want. It's still a nice idea to have them in our signatures (that I like). Soignoremyrubbishhe reanddon'thurtmeIamlearningt obeagamedesigner!!!

[wildweathel]

Cool.  Whenever you're ready.  I'll warn you: I'm a huge stickler for clarity (unless there's a good artistic excuse, and even then you must not lose the reader).  If you write like that post I will have a field day.

Links only, please.  Either post your fic to google documents (make sure to click the "Share" button and set it to something other than private) or its own RAF thread or FanFiction.net or whereve. 

I find it's really helpful to learn from others, so:

Critique: The Kelbrid Chronicles: prologue
Thanks for the props, Noelle.

Next up for me is something like 50k words of ponyfic  to help clear the Thanksgiving backlog.  If anyone wants to jump on "Chronicles of Sean" before I get to it, feel free.

[Vickie1]

Uh thanks, I guess (why am I afraid now?). And that post....I only wrote it in 5 minutes 'cuz my art class was about to start. Anyway I'm fluttered to get critique from you and look forward to it when you come around.

I've posted it up, called "The Alteration" but didn't have enough time to do as a google document or refine it again. I may do that as google docs but I think I'll allow the choice on whether to choose links or posts to my readers and see where this goes. After all, we writers are at the mercy of the readers (but not too much). Same goes when I'm designing games for players....gaaaaah. ...

Thank you again, Angel Bunny.

P.S. I may tend to write in both a technical and artistic way course of what I'm learning. I doubt you know what a game design document is...I stop there. :/ Just expect that I haven't use my writing spells on fictional writing lately and more on game documentation.

[NateSean]

I posted the links to my fanfiction.net page since those were slightly polished from the postings here on RAC. But feel free to post the critique here, or however you want to post it.

[wildweathel]

Good news:
Chronicles of Sean B1 ch1-3 here.

Bad news: I read the RAF copy, so probably picked on some things that have been fixed.  Oh well.

Up next: Kelbrid Chronicles.

@purp: you're on the list.

[NateSean]

It's all right, I appreciate everything you've said.

The balance between show don't tell is something I've always struggled with in my writing. Strangely enough I'm quite capable of seeing it in other people's work, which is why I always try to get an impartial third party to read my stuff since it's hard to see mistakes.

The Complication starts in with the action pretty quickly.

Thank you for pointing out the grammar and the narrative rough spots.