I’ve noticed a lot more chat recently regarding the fiction submission process to Equestria Daily. Some people like it, some people think it is as if Hitler and Stalin started up their own website. I’ve been one of the pre-readers for Equestria Daily for over a year now, and after reading some comments, thought it might be helpful to write up a post explaining (in my mind) what makes a good story.

Of course I might also be sticking my neck out on the chopping board, I’m good at that.

Before you do anything else, save the link to The Editor’s Omnibus somewhere. This is an excellent document which contains a lot of tips about story writing: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1WMMs8H-GpFIXPsQeC0RNu8V-Cq6uyGl_UERpOUK_6KY/edit#heading=h.8lrl3cbuqprf

Fanfic on Equestria Daily

To understand what we are looking for, it’s important to understand why stories are posted. I’ve seen quite a few people post statements such as “Fimfiction is better than Equestria Daily because it allows all the stories and Equestria Daily only allows some of them”. That’s missing the point by a wide margin. Comparing the two sites is like comparing chalk and an otter. Both are completely and utterly different.

Back when Equestria Daily started, the fandom was much much smaller than it was now. It was also pretty spread out and so there was no central point for fanfiction. Stories could be posted on Googledocs, on Deviantart, on Fanfiction.net or even in weird image posts on 4chan. Because the fandom was a lot smaller, it made sense then for Seth to post stories on his new blog, Equestria Daily. It became the fanfic hub, gathering in all these disparate stories in one location. The key is though that because the fandom was much smaller, there were also far less stories. One, perhaps two new ones a day at the most. It was perfectly reasonable to expect that every story could go on Equestria Daily.

Since then the fandom has exploded. It’s amazingly inspiring sure, but the amount of work that is poured out is astonishing. On average, Fimfiction.net has over 100 new stories a day posted. That’s a lot. That’s a mindboggling amount. It’s also something that fimfiction.net, as an archive for fanfiction is specifically set up to handle; as a blog Equestria Daily would explode if you tried to post 100 new stories a day. People would drown in stories. People would ignore stories.

The function of fanfiction on Equestria Daily is as a fandom showcase. “Hey!” we say. “We know there are a lot of stories out there, but these ones are particularly good. These ones are worth reading!” As the amount of stories being produced and submitted increases, so must the standards. There are around 20-30 stories submitted to Equestria Daily each day. There are 2-3 slots to post new stories on the site per day. If there wasn’t a cut-off point for quality, then you could submit a story today and not have it posted until December. The good news is that it’s not actually that difficult to get a story accepted, but most people seem to make the same mistakes again and again.

But Quality is Subjective!

Sure, quality is subjective. We’re human, and mistakes do happen, but look at it this way – we have literally had thousands of stories submitted over the past year. Sometimes there is a slip up, sometimes someone gets something wrong, but that has happened only a few times. That’s still a 99% success rate. We are also not heartless monsters; if you honestly feel that your story has been unfairly reviewed, then let us know, we will of course listen and take another look.

Here’s how the process works. A writer submits their story via the website form. It is then automatically emailed to the pre-reader inbox. A group of pre-readers man the inbox and ‘auto-reject’ any stories that don’t fit the rules. The rest are then forwarded to the main pre-reader mailing list. This is a mailing list that everyone else can see. We will then read a story and comment on it. These comments are visible to all and anyone else can weigh in. The comments are then collated and sent to the writer. It’s not a closed system, you can’t get one rogue pre-reader declining everything for petty reasons because we can all see what they’ve written.

Sometimes responses will be long. Sometimes they will be short. It depends how long the queue is, how many issues a story has, all manner of things. But what you need to remember is that if we don’t think your story is fixable, we will tell you. We don’t review your stories to be mean, we review them in the hope you can improve them or future stories and then resubmit.

The pre-readers are not an editing service. Our primary function is to say “yes” or “no” to stories being posted on Equestria Daily, anything else is just a bonus. It is because we want to help people improve that we go to the trouble of reviewing. Don’t think that if you submit music or art to the site you’ll get a detailed critique if you’re rejected, or indeed any response at all.

Basic Rules

There are a few types of stories that are automatically rejected. These are:

— X-rated content, including sexually transgressive or gory stories

— Incest, foalshipping beyond a schoolyard crush, and other broad cultural taboos

— Humanized/anthro stories

— Stories using real people from the fandom (Show Staff, Bronies) as characters without obtaining prior confirmed consent from the people in question

— Copy-paste stories (e.g. The text of Harry Potter with character names swapped out)

— Stories written in a language other than English

—"Brony in Equestria" stories.

Yes, it seems obvious that these should be automatically rejected. Yes, every day we get lots of gore, porn, rape, you name it. The people writing these stories seem to think the rules don’t apply to them and that their incest rape fic is different. It isn’t.

Back in the early days of the site, it was just Sethisto’s blog. It was a small site which a few people visited. Sure stories like Cupcakes got posted, it was posted on a lot of people’s blogs. Nowadays it is a massive site with almost 200 million hits. It is viewed by almost everyone, by Hasbro even! Like it or lump it, it is the public face of the fandom, and so nowadays you have to be a lot more careful about what you can put up. This is basic common sense.

Also for the record, Human in Equestria stories are not verboten. Brony in Equestria stories are. You know, the ones which go “I am an average Brony and one day I went to Equestria and married Fluttershy.” These are all terrible by default. (Of course, there are always exceptions to this rule, and perhaps it would be bent for a genuinely amazing story in this genre. I have yet to see this done seriously).

Spelling and grammar

It’s still shocking the amount of stories submitted that haven’t even had a cursory spellcheck. Given that stories are made entirely up of the written word, it is usually customary for these words to be spelt correctly. Every story will have a few spelling errors which sneak through the net, but when you get ones in which people ‘typ leik ths’ and think it is appropriate, I weep.

I don’t care if you’re “not good at spelling” or whatever excuse you pull out. This is the 21st century. Spellcheckers are standard on pretty much every word processing programme. It takes approximately one minute to run a spellcheck on your story and make sure it’s in order. Not bothering to do that shows a complete lack of respect for your reader. If the writer won’t respect the reader, how can you expect the reader to respect the writer? There is no excuse for a story littered with spelling mistakes. None at all. At the bare minimum a computer will fix it for you, or at least give you a good head start (since spell checks can’t help you with context).

As for the rest, make sure you don’t make rookie mistakes. I’m talking about random capitalisations, awkward phrasing, paragraphs which are one sentence long. Don’t write a story which is just a string of dialogue with just “he said/she said” separating it out. That sort of style is fine if you need a punchy back-and-forth blast of dialogue, but for more than three to four lines, it’s too much. Lack of prose risks losing all immersion in a story. In fact, lack of any spelling or grammar risks losing reader immersion since they will constantly be pulled out of the action by the mistakes.

It’s really hard to check your own stories, since your mind often fills in the mistakes on the page because you are reading what you think you wrote, not what you actually wrote. I always recommend finishing your story, sitting on it for at least two days, then coming back to it with a fresh, dispassionate mind. You’ll be surprised at the difference that makes.

Norsepony has made a rather excellent document which includes link to all sorts of grammar/spelling websites which should solve any quandary you have: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1g9RF_wP8G-cA0jx-pgnxXDTsJmnklPLERtbpPcBkbaI/edit

‘Boring' Stories

You’ve written your story. You’ve not broken any rules by making it about Scootaloo going on a murder spree helped by a Brony in Equestria who is also her boyfriend. Your spelling and grammar is top notch.

But is your story ‘good’?

One of the hardest things is reading a story that is fantastically written only to find it is boring. In cases like this, several pre-readers will check over the story to make sure it isn’t down to personal bias. Of course not everyone can like every story, but it is perfectly easy to know if a story is ‘good’ without liking the genre. On that note, several people moan about Equestria Daily because one or two stories are posted that they personally don’t like. Again, you’re not expected to like everything, but the corollary is that we post hundreds that you do like. If your entire beef is with one or two stories, that means we are still getting it 99% right. If you dislike more than that then goodness, I can’t help you there!

Sometimes a story is unengaging. Sometimes it is an incredible slog to get through. If a pre-reader is having to force themselves to read your story, what hope has your average reader who is under no obligation to read your story? Here are some tips I’ve found helpful in writing engaging stories, perhaps you can share your own; with writing there are no definite answers.

What’s the story about?

Before you begin to write your story, make sure you know what you are writing and why. This is so intrinsically important I can’t stress it enough. If what you’ve written is just a series of events, A then B then C, you don’t have a story, you have ‘stuff that happens’. A good story is focussed, it has a strong thread running through it, it has a reason to exist.

As a basic level, each episode of MLP has a ‘moral’ at the end. This moral is the thread which runs through each episode and informs everything that happens. It’s no coincidence that the episodes with the weaker morals seem to be the weaker episodes (hello ‘Feeling Pinkie Keen’). I don’t mean that every story needs a moral, but it’s a good solid example.

Perhaps your story is about loss. Perhaps it’s about revenge. Perhaps it is about finding happiness after tragedy. I can guarantee you that every single story, television show or film that you like has threads like these running through them even if you don’t realise it. We are attuned subconsciously to things like that, it helps stories to resonate. When these things are lacking, the story feels shallow.

Take Star Wars for instance. Yes it’s a space adventure! But it’s also about religion vs science. The importance of faith (“turn off the battle computer Luke!”) It’s about a confused young man finding his place in the world. It’s about love and friendship and betrayal. Characters’ fights are the externalisation of their internal conflict. The Prequel trilogy by contrast has none of these. It’s all spectacle and no substance which is why they feel so empty and shallow. The fights might look more exciting but at the end of the day, they are characters who have no relationship with each other who are fighting. That’s hollow, there’s nothing there. I really recommend the Redlettermedia Star Wars reviews if you’re interested in this train of thought. They’re long but hilarious, and will teach you a heck of a lot about the importance of narrative depth: http://redlettermedia.com/plinkett/star-wars/

Why are you writing?

Again, I stress this point. While you are writing, ask yourself “why am I writing this, what’s the point?” Personally, I think the reason most ‘Human in Equestria’ and ‘Original Character’ stories turn out to be so bad is because the sole reason a person has for writing a story is to showcase their character, nothing else. The story becomes shallow, and only interesting for the writer.

Once you have your ‘why’ it will influence how you write the entire story. It will feel a lot more cohesive and structured, because you will build around your ‘why’ and have an actual impact on your reader. It is also important because it stops unfortunately accidents. If your story has no ‘why’ then other meanings and reasons can sneak in.

About half a year back I read a story where the writer had decided to write a ponified Hitler fic. Putting the morality of that aside for the moment, the story involved the ponies meeting Hitler pony, and then learning that Hitler pony was actually a really nice chap and didn’t mean to be evil and was just led astray by Himmler pony.

Taken dispassionately as a story that’s not terrible. If it was some sort of original character evil pony who it turned out wasn’t evil, that would have been fine. But it wasn’t. It was Hitler. The writer had obviously just concentrated on what he was writing (A then B then C etc) without considering why. As a result, he ended up accidently writing a story which stated that Hitler wasn’t a bad chap after all.

This is also why it is a good idea to step away from your story for a while after writing, so you can view it objectively.

Unique Selling Point

Originality is important, however given that almost every idea under the sun has already been written, it is not always possible. When writing a story, you need to really consider its ‘unique selling point’. What separates your story from the hundreds of other stories out there? Why will people want to read yours and not someone else’s? There are over a hundred stories post a day on fimfiction.net, why will someone click yours not one of the 99 others? What will make people remember your story and tell their friends about it?

In a market that is so crowded and so competitive, you need to stand out from the crowd. This counts double if you are writing about a tried and tested trope. Rainbow Dash loses her wings? Scootaloo is an orphan? There are literally hundreds of stories based on those subjects, most of them exactly the same. If you are writing a story based on those, you need to make sure it is red hot with a unique element to it. There needs to be a good reason that people will read your story and not any of the hundreds of similar ones.

Structure and Pacing

Bigger is not better ladies! A great man once said that “brevity is the soul of wit” and nowhere is that more true than in the cutting edge field of My Little Pony fanfiction. I’ve lost count of the amount of massive, multi-chapter rambling stories we receive. “It gets good after three thousand words” isn’t a positive thing, you know.

Staying focussed in a story is vital. You need to be able to grab the reader from the start and keep them interested in your work. I’m not saying long stories are bad, but if you’re going to write over say, 20,000 words, you’d better have an excellent, multi-layered story otherwise people will lose interest and drift away.

This is why planning is important. A lot of people will try to rush a story out and get as many words as possible onto the page as fast as they can. This tends to result in sprawling stories which lack any sort of structure or pacing and often change direction at random points.

You need a good idea of the general structure of your story at least. Personally, I like to start with the end. I’ll think up a good core idea, I’ll think up an excellent punchy ending, and then I’ll slowly flesh the idea out piece by piece. I won’t write anything down though – often I will keep an idea in my head for weeks if not months. If they idea is still there, stewing away at the end of this time, I know it’s a good idea and will make a good story. If I’ve forgotten it, then I know it wasn’t an idea with any staying power. In a fandom with so many stories being written, you need an idea with staying power.

Know Your Genre

Some genres come with their own problems. Here are some of the most common issues I’ve noticed:

Comedy

It needs to be funny. Seriously. Comedy does not mean that a story lacks drama, it means that it is funny. Nine times out of ten, I will read a ‘comedy’ story and not crack a smile once. Comedy is hard, really hard. It is not about recycling old jokes and memes. Talking about farts is not automatically funny. Silly names do not make a comedy fic. One joke in 4,000 words does not make a comedy fic.

If you want to read a good comedy, read some of Cold In Gardez’s stories. These are comedies that are funny; make sure yours are too.

Sad

The corollary to this is sad fics. It’s not enough for a ‘sad’ fic to just be about being sad, it needs to be about something else too, to have a reason for the sadness or it runs the risk of being crass and manipulative. As humans we are conditioned to find things automatically sad. There’s no skill at all in writing a story about Fluttershy crying because Angel dies, or Scootaloo getting brain cancer. Of course those things are sad, but there needs to be much more than that or you’ll end up with something very shallow indeed.

Crossovers

If you are writing a crossover, make sure it is actually a crossover! If you have written a story about say, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, in which everyone is a pony but they still do Buffy-esque things and live in Sunnydale, then you’ve not written a Buffy/MLP crossover, you’ve written a Buffy story in which characters happen to be ponies. If you can turn everyone into humans and your story would no longer be pony related, odds are that you’ve done something wrong.

There needs to be a reason for a crossover besides ‘characters from show X meet the ponies’. That’s not a story, that’s something that happens in a story. Make sure that your crossover is comprehensible to people who’ve never seen what you’re crossing over with, or you’ll lost most of your prospective readership.

Dark

A lot of the time people mistake ‘adult content’ for ‘maturity’. Sex and blood and gore and violence might be issues reserved for adults, but including them in your story doesn’t automatically make it adult. In fact the use of such things is often a sign of immaturity in a story. If you want to have blood and violence in your story, you need a good reason to include it. This is especially important because Equestria Daily doesn’t accept X-rated content. If you go down that route, you need an adult, sober reason to be dealing with adult stories, or you will just come across in a very childish way.

Don’t Give Up!

The most important process of writing is constantly improving. It’s easy to wrap yourself in cotton wool, only listening to the nice comments and calling any criticisms ‘crazy’. Of course sometimes if people criticise your fic they are doing it to be mean. But sometimes they are doing it to help.

The Pre-Readers want to help. Honestly. Personally I like to assume that every single writer really wants to improve and become something excellent. Also if people improve, then it stops the influx of rubbish stories and everyone wins!

One of the most heart-breaking things is when you spend an hour reading someone’s story, give them a list of comments, problems and feedback, only to get a ‘screw you’ in response or worse, the writer just never coming back. We’re not here to be malicious – if we think your story isn’t fixable, we’ll say. We don’t give you feedback for the hell of it, it is an invitation to improve and resubmit. I’ve lost count of the times someone has told me that they hate EqD for rejecting their story, only to find that the ‘rejection’ was a long list of helpful comments and areas where the writer needs to improve. That’s not a rejection, that’s a ‘your story is good BUT’.

Everyone gets rejected. Barely any stories are posted on their first submission. Most writers need to go away and rework their stories, even the best ones. It is astonishingly hard to properly judge your own stories in a dispassionate way and external reviewers (especially ones who aren’t your friends) can pick up on things you’ve missed. Even Pre-Readers aren’t immune, just the other day one of us got rejected hard. It happens. The solution isn’t to throw a hissy fit and make a website about how much you hope we get cancer, it’s to look at your story and think: “okay, how can I fix this?”

Again, I cannot stress this enough. If we think your story is unsalvageable, we will tell you. Until then, you have three strikes in which to fix it. Most writers should be able to achieve that within one strike.