Well, I came on Subeta today and saw this....

GleamSnowette's pet spotlight nomination was denied for the following reason(s): • This is a cute story! There are a few spelling mistakes that I saw but mostly what would be nice is if the story flowed a bit better. There is a pet spotlight support group and they usually are more than happy to help with stories. There just seems to be a lot of sentences that are so close they sound like repeats.

So I apparently don't even RECALL putting GleamSnowette up for spotlight nomination. But it happened and I got rejected.. So could anyone offer me some advice on how to improve her story? And I also need some coding help to not make the pet image repeat.

hi there! Love the profile (changing color while scrolling is awesome) and the story is cute too. I was reading over it a bit and I did notice some spelling/grammatical errors that caused the pet to get rejected.

Just a few examples:

• Putting "But" after a period like that makes the sentence sound disconnected. Usually a comma would suffice.

These are just some examples I could find. I would suggest going through the story and fixing any spelling/grammatical errors you can. If you need some help doing that people in the writing board can also help with that!

Thanks for the advice! Fixed the errors you mentioned. Does anyone else have suggestions?

I dunno if this helps you, but you write like the Princess Zelda when she first talks to Link in Ocarina of Time. Each individual sentence she uses chains exactly with all the other sentences before and after, one small idea at a time. This is a very royal Japanese way to speak, and it is one that does not expect or allow the listener to do any thinking all thinking is done for the listener. All the thinking is done for the listener explicitly, even if the idea is totes obvious the idea obviously follows. (see what I did there?)

Children also do this when they tell stories, but for a different reason, because all of those small leaps are new to them. It could be that you are doing a whole Frankenstein's New Adam thing, but if you are you need to make it more obvious.

Either way, this drives people crazy in real life, it's a time-waster and wasting the listener's time violates one of the rules of communication.

How do I make it more obvious? This is the first time I've ever heard of that writing style.

framing tales (like Frankenstein), insertion of other points of view (either spistolary or third person imperfect), jumps back and forth in time (like in Flowers for Algernon)

It could be just me, but there are a lot of parts where 2 or even more sentences start with "I" following each other. I learned in school that you should avoid such a thing. So maybe try merging some of the sentences in a way to avoid too many "I" starting a sentence?

Could be just me, but I actually noticed this even more than some grammar errors.

But if this style of writing is exactly what you're going for (I think years ago I've read a book with a similar writing pattern), then just ignore me. :)

The pet in question is supposed to be recounting her past to the reader, which is why the story is written like this. However, I did go check and revamp some of the sentences that started with I. I'm not sure how to rework the "I" sentences that describe GleamSnowette's first encounter with the fairies and the arctic frost minions, though.

It totally makes sense to write in that style, I really like it. I've read through it again now and it has a better flow with less "I" starters, and the ones still remaining aren't that many so I think it would be ok to leave them like that if you can't really find a way to rework them. Better to let them stay than slaying sentences up to a point where they aren't what you were actually aiming for. (:

Too many "i"s wut? This sounds like a rule English teachers tell you.

I do not agree that it makes sense to write in that style. You are attempting something very difficult to do, and you can't leave it the way it is.

when you first told me this, I did not doubt you. You now tell us this again. I still don't doubt you. Too bad for you?

Your pet is a boring person. Your pet does not realize they are a boring person. Your pet violates the rules of conversation. Your pet does not realize they are violating the rules. The fact that they have these disabilities doesn't particularly endear them to the reader nor does it entice the reader to allow a claim on their attention. People RESENT these things in RL and do not want to read them or listen to them when they happen to them. You are expecting way way too much of the editors in the pet spotlight queue of a virtual petsite. They are not book publishers who will be making millions of simoleons to concentrate their attention

You have to make those two uninteresting facts about your pet interesting somehow by telling us things about this pet with the communication disability just cannot say themself. Right now, there's nothing in your pet's story that is like that. Have you read Flowers for Algernon? The rat makes the nearly incomprehensible words of the severely mentally disabled human seem accessible and worth trying to figure it out. The tragedy of the story unfolds as he gets smarter, and then loses his intelligence again and then dies. Without the rat, we don't care. Charly is way less articulate than your monster at the start and end of the story. Now me, I wouldn't have read the thing if it weren't assigned. I had totally heard of the story before, tried to read it, had the same reaction the editors are having to your story now and to the general fan disgust upon first meeting a Princess Zelda with speaking lines bleargh. As such I wouldn't have gotten to the good stuff that intelligent Charly says in the middle of the story that sorta explains things and makes you read it all over again, and the first time I played Ocarina of Time I zipped right through the blather and missed chunks of the story..

I do not care what 'rat" or 'Impa' you choose, and the editor probably doesn't either.

Too many repeating sentence starters just look weird, read weird and sound weird. I was taught that way over 20 years ago. I don't know what teachers say these days about this. It wasn't an English teacher either, but a German teacher.

If you learned that it's ok to begin 2 or 4 or more sentences in a row with whatever word, good for you. Maybe it's one of the differences between English and German.

is writing a weird story. On purpose. Saying it's weird may be pedagogically correct, and in academia, interesting. But telling her and me this makes me think you didn't read the story or listen to what she said she is trying to create.

The rejection note for her Spotlight said that the story should get a better flow, that's my main reason for my suggestion.

I've read the story, yes. I don't know how you come up with the idea that I didn't.

And because I don't want to spam the Topic, you can always comment or mail me to discuss this even more.

I think our discussion will help her figure out which way to go, myself, so it seems on-topic until she tells us it isn't helping her, IMO. She needs to figure out a way to convince us both, because we are each representing aspects of what the Spotlight judge is thinking.

Once she cues the Spotlight reader into her plans, it will become apparent that the way in which her pet speaks is on-purpose and persons who have trouble with cognition and communication do indeed repeat 'I' statements.. In RL people stutter and repeat themselves. This makes poor essays and position papers which are the things we are taught to write in English and German. They nevertheless can make for great story dialogue.

I think this has great potential. It's a story of redemption and making new friends. It could flow a bit better but I think grammar, spelling, and sentence structure improve with time.

I don't really understand why you say her character is boring. Maybe her character is boring to you but have you thought that maybe things you find interesting others might find boring? Not trying to start a fight just asking.

Thanks, I WAS going for a character with a redemption arc. How could it flow a bit better, though?

I'll have to take a closer look. Right now I don't exactly have time for that but I'll let you know when I can.

i just finished reading everything! overall i think the story and concept themselves are cute, but as others have pointed out the flow can be improved c:

one of the main problems is that while the description of what is happening is clear, the reader hardly knows what gleam is thinking or how she feels throughout most of the story for instance, during the fourth and fifth paragraphs where she interacts with the fairies and minions she never gets across a feeling of growing attached to them, which in turn makes the following scene and "climax" come off as flat this can be improved by throwing in some of gleam's opinions or commentary on what is happening/happened, rather than just describing the action (really this is one of the best parts about writing in first person, that the narrator comments and gives their own input on the story, so keep that in mind!)

tossing some more specific advice under a spoiler because i'm kinda nitpicky and detailed lmao

as a sidenote, the opening lines are great at setting the tone and conveying how gleam feels about her creation without explicitly telling the reader (so good job with the "show don't tell" there) and the final paragraph is also good!

hope i helped some and good luck with the spotlight! n __ n