The Wheel and the Butterfly: A Dan X Pinkie Pie Saga

Justice4243 · 2013-09-09 16:11:49

I forgot we had this sub-area and decided to make use of it.

As most of you probably have gathered, my Dankie obsession hit critical mass a few days back and I've been trying desperately to get me thoughts typed up.

I think part of the issue is usually, I can find someone else's work here to slake my thirst, but there's not a ton of Dan X Pinkie Pie works out there, and the better ones tend not to be updated frequently (as per the law of the internet.)

So, take a read, tell me what you think. Pick apart my atrocious grammar in places, point out my word choice errors, or just criticize.

I'm a MAN, who just happens to write cross-shipping fan faction, and I can handle comments like a man.

Yarrun XIX · 2013-09-09 16:15:06

I'm still not sure if I want to read it, to be honest.

No offense to your writing style. It's just that I'm not one for shipping fanfiction.

I'll sort it out between myselves and get back to you.

Justice4243 · 2013-09-09 16:19:09

Fair enough.

It's hardly "shipping" at the moment though. One of the thing that bugs me about most DanXPinkie fics is that the one of the pair tend to fall for the other quite quickly.

I dismissed that notion in favor of Dan screaming A LOT at Pinkie, as is his primary motif. Especially with people who bug him.

So, aside from the prologue. It's mostly Pinkie trying to adjust to being human while Dan verbally abuses her, so far.

I MAY start adding shipping fuel by the end of next chapter, but it will be a long, long time before these two are getting cuddly with each-other.

Even then, I think the humor of the pair is my primary driving force here.

Yarrun XIX · 2013-09-09 16:27:14

Okay, the council of Yarrun has reached a consensus based on your words. We will read the fic.

Oh, man, you

You've got the Dan/Chris dialogue down-packed.

You misspelled assist though.

Justice4243 · 2013-09-09 16:28:38

Thanks, and thanks. I'll touch that up right away.

You would not believe how many times I've reread this and STILL come across things to fix!

Yarrun XIX · 2013-09-09 16:38:51

Pedantism about the English language, switching from being really knowledgeable to knowing bupkiss...you have a really good handle on how Dan functions.

Justice4243 · 2013-09-09 16:47:26

Thank you! I'm really proud of some of my Dan lines.

Chris I want to start figuring out how to make him seem just a tad smarter.

He's not exactly the brightest bulb, and is easily distracted by food, but I noted he occasionally has the smart, introspective, thing to say. Especially in regards to Dan's attitude.

Pinkie...I don't know. Honestly, she's probably being rather quiet despite how often I have her start ranting.

Then again, she's getting used to everything and is being shouted down every few minutes, so I'm probably over-thinking this.

Yarrun XIX · 2013-09-09 16:49:02

I did notice that she was being kind of passive, but you fixed that with the last two chapters.

Third chapter's probably the most superfluous out of the bunch.

Justice4243 · 2013-09-09 16:50:57

Is that criticism or praise?

This is Pinkie we're talking about, so I honestly can't tell.. :P

Justice4243 · 2013-09-09 17:08:06

Aaaaand, I just found another word choice error.

*sigh* Oh well, fixed.

I really should start on the next chapter.

Justice4243 · 2013-09-09 17:20:51

And now chapter four looks less ass.

It needed a good proof-read.

Justice4243 · 2013-09-09 20:13:47

Next chapter is up.

http://www.fanfiction.net/s/9665238/6/

Justice4243 · 2013-09-10 01:22:44

Thanks for being a bro, Yarrun, and checking the first few chapters out for me.

I'm at over 100 views on fan-fiction.net and over 50 visitors, so I know I have a handful of readers interested, but I've gotten zero feedback.

It's nice to have some honest comments on all this.

Justice4243 · 2013-09-11 01:27:19

So, decided to ALSO upload to Fimfiction:

http://www.fimfiction.net/story/131002/the-wheel-and-the-butterfly-a-dan-x-pinkie-pie-saga

My formatting options are slightly more limited, I think, but it forces the whole thing through ANOTHER spell and grammar check, so the version here will probably end up easier to read.

I'm going to try to finish the next chapter before bed.

Justice4243 · 2013-09-11 05:00:28

Next chapter:

http://www.fimfiction.net/story/131002/7/the-wheel-and-the-butterfly-a-dan-x-pinkie-pie-saga/part-1-pinkie-vs-van-nuys-chapter-6-pinkie-vs-loneliness

...Why am I still awake?

Bee · 2013-09-11 16:17:23

Might as well put my comment here instead of on Fimfic.

First thing I'm noticing is that you need a proofreader. You've got a lot of malaprops and miscapitalizations that are minor but always look worse than they really are. The good news is that's the easy part to fix (at least compared to the creative process). Here's what I'm seeing in the prologue.

Technical:

- Put whitespace between header block and first narrative sentence.
- Twilight glanced behind her
- unicorn with a purple main mane
- sinister looking (add hyphen)
- she and her friends where out
- Their immediately response
- the only thing she thought
- the Orange pony (decapitalize)
- I don’t think “a rock” is going to (use single quotes inside dialogue)
- Sugearcube Corner
- back legs where now
- came to her…”feat” (this...may have been deliberate given the context, but if not, you homonym'd)
- a Pink skirt (decapitalize)

Stylistic:

- Between the story and chapter titles, that is a LOT of colons. Probably enough to use as sprinkles on a sundae, but then you'd have a colon sundae and that just sounds really gross.

- You can probably get away with not using descriptive epithets (Lavender Unicorn Syndrome) at first and just addressing them by name. We already know who the Manes are, and using epithets for more than one or two characters at a time (especially in a crowded in media res intro where you don't have time to smell the roses) is awkward and wordy in a not-useful way. If you want to introduce color and descriptive features, the fact that you set it in a poorly-lit nighttime confrontation is actually really convenient; you can add a lot of atmosphere by playing off of vague sights.

- The prologue is being told with the camera pointing over Twilight's shoulder, so to speak. Given that the story is about Pinkie, it would probably be a good idea to aim it over hers instead. Even if you don't want to get inside her head (which, let's be honest, is a rather terrifying prospect), just fixing the narrative perspective on the right character even in a non-omniscient way will do a lot to focus the story right out of the gate.

- There's a lot of Talking Head. You go into long strings of dialogue without much action or emoting weaved in. Active dialogue is probably the biggest hurdle of writing characters, even more so than getting them in character at all. Not having it really hamstrings you from making the characters pop off the page because they just kind of turn into script machines when they open their mouths, but it's also hard as hell to learn to do right and can quickly descend into narrative blather. The best advice I can really offer there is to read really good stories, and start dissecting how they handle and break up extended dialogue.

Yarrun XIX · 2013-09-11 16:33:23

Oh, yeah, good point on the prologue.

I may or may not have skimmed it and forgot to give advice on it.

Justice4243 · 2013-09-11 16:39:09

^^ Thanks for the advise.

Yeah, I was iffy on a number of things on the prologue, to be honest and considered going strait into the names from the get go. I'm not sure WHY I wrote it from the point of Twilight really, this might be a chapter I actually go back and fix a bit.

Thanks for the the list, too. I'll go back and fix those. I knew there was no way I had gotten all the wrinkles out yet.

And, I think I will reduce the columns. It's also something that's crossed my mind as I've worked on this.

Yarrun XIX · 2013-09-11 16:41:35

I personally don't think you did too poorly on the whole 'Talking Heads' thing.

Justice4243 · 2013-09-11 16:41:58

Also, it being dialogue heavy is definitely the most common criticism I've gotten. I think I just need to force myself to explain facial expressions, what there hands are doing, just to what depth of emotion they are feeling.

ESPECIALLY facial expressions and hands. Pinkie and Dan are ultimately cartoon characters, and both are probably S level energy characters at that.

Justice4243 · 2013-09-11 16:45:28

Yarrun XIX said:
I personally don't think you did too poorly on the whole 'Talking Heads' thing.

Ahhh, thanks, man.

I've noticed people who say this are the ones most familiar with Dan Vs.

I'd imagine Chris and Dan are rather easy to imagine what they're doing and how they're acting based off the dialogue for people are are very used to seeing them interact.

So it's sort of a matter of breaking the assumption on my part that my audience can fill in the gaps based on what they're saying and based on formatting.

I'm kinda in an odd place as this takes place in the Dan UniVs. for the most part, but most my readers will probably be MLP fans, so I think I might need to sort of reverse how I'm approaching it.

Bee · 2013-09-11 17:53:45

Ch.1

Technical:

- The large man turned back to his prey briefly, “stay there” he commanded. (Comma splice)
- “I think you better move on, this ain’t your business.” (Comma splice)
- strop, drop and, roll (fun fact -- strop is actually a word, and paints a rather amusing unintentional picture here)
- IGNIGHTED
- a flurry of kicks to the larger man’s gut who dropped a small box from his pocket and fled into the street (syntax error -- "who" points to the mugger's gut instead of the mugger. Also, that should probably have taken place over several sentences)
- Niiiiiiice assist
- tool to keep”, Chris raised his hands for some air quotes “the moron population down.”
--- Tricky one. Punctuation usually goes inside quotes with very few exceptions. This happens to be one of them (an interruptive action beat), but you do it like this, with emdashes:
--- . . . In fact, you lecture on and on about how cigarettes are just a tool to keep”--Chris raised his hands for some air quotes--“the moron population down.”
--- Further reading on interrupting dialogue: http://writeworld.tumblr.com/post/30757793487/two-tips-for-punctuating-interrupted-dialogue
- TIRED TO POISION
- Chris help! (needs comma)
- Pinkie’s grip loosened, “That’s EXACTLY (Comma splice)
- Pinkie threw her arms
- I’m Ooookaaaay! (decapitalize)
- Dianae
- TREACHERY!
- You REALLY just pushed

Stylistic:

- MANY CAPS. That only makes you rich after this pairing causes a nuclear apocalypse. I realize we're dealing with two very loud characters who will naturally capslock a lot, but that only makes it all the more important to try to downgrade it to italics where possible so it doesn't wear out its welcome. Chris will probably need a darn good reason to go all the way up to caps, and the narrative voice itself should never do so unless you're doing weird Discworld-style metahumor that screws with the medium. As a general rule, half the places we want to put emphasis don't actually need it at all; the reader will naturally apply a certain amount of speaking cadence to your writing. Use sparingly.

- You comma splice almost as much as I used to. The only reason I don't so much anymore is because I had a Technical Writing teacher who harped on them a lot, and I now cringe hard when I look back on stuff I wrote in high school. Commas can never be used by themselves to string together two independent clauses that could stand as their own sentences. If they're pertinent enough to each other that they must be connected in one sentence, they have to use a conjunction (and|or|but|etc.). Oftentimes, it's better just to make them their own sentences instead. Also semicolons, but try to steer clear of those altogether until you're more consistent with this.

- Your strongest point is definitely the banter between Dan and Chris.

Justice4243 · 2013-09-11 17:59:12

Oh man, are you actually going to proof read the entire thing?

This is like Christmas, Halloween, and Thanksgiving all rolled into one. /sincerity mode.

Bee · 2013-09-11 18:01:27

I'm a programmer. It's in my blood to compulsively fix little goofs like that :P

Justice4243 · 2013-09-11 18:05:20

What's strange is I can pick up a lot of this (not the comma splice stuff though. My punctuation knowledge is pretty weak) if I read someone else's work. But my brain seems to always know what I MEANT to say at some level or another and ignores all this.

This is probably why my programming style is mostly code, let something run expecting it to break, then go back and fix errors.

Bee · 2013-09-11 18:11:21

The best thing you can do is (preferably when well-rested and sober!) read something amusingly awful like this thing -- aloud -- and try to actually pronounce all the errors. Get in a habit of having all those things pronounced aloud by the voice in your head.

Then go back over your own story and read (aloud, if necessary). Eventually, it gets to the point that you do it reflexively as you type.

As for comma splicing, it's one of the weirder things to figure out for someone who isn't intimately familiar with the unspoken guts of grammar. Most grammar simply sounds natural enough and we can write by ear so to speak, but that's one of the things that doesn't make it across. It's confused even more by the fact that people -- and thus characters! -- will sometimes speak in comma splices, and the rule is a little more relaxed in dialogue.

This guy breaks it down pretty succinctly.

Bee · 2013-09-11 18:43:13

Ch 2

Much, much cleaner. I'm wondering if I can graph your sobriety over time while reading this.

Technical:

- what do you think. (question mark)
- YOU,” Dan pointed back at Chris “, just barreled into him with your car.”
--- Same thing as before. Also, you have a ninja comma that jumped into the beginning of quoted text. Commas are like Pinkie Pie: they always have to be attached to things, or they go insane and start shanking people.
- pay for his friends food (Dan's war on apostrophes has drawn first blood)

Justice4243 · 2013-09-11 18:45:04

- pay for his friends food (Dan's war on apostrophes has drawn first blood)

Pffft.

It's probably less sobriety and more how much sleep I've gotten.

...though thinking back, you may just be right about the first couple chapters... -_-;

Bee · 2013-09-11 19:06:44

Ch. 3

- Dan shoot back.
- her currently, wet and matted hair.
--- No comma. When using adverbs in lists of descriptors, they're attached to the adjectives. When used this way, think of the adverb like a wrapper class for the adjective. "Currently wet" is the first item, followed by "(implied currently) matted".
--- Side note: for only two descriptors, separating them with a comma is optional, so "wet and matted" is fine.
- Euro’s (the greengrocers are fighting back against Dan!)
- new, pink, laptop bag
--- No comma after pink. This is like the inverse of the descriptor list thing above. Commas only separate the descriptors from each other, not the noun they're all attached to.
--- Also like the side note above, the comma after new is fine either way.
- And dug out a similarly pink wallet . . . (fragment -- don't start with and)
- CONDESCENDING
- She spun, scanned her surroundings, oh God long sentence give my regards to Tolstoy

Bee · 2013-09-11 19:50:21

Ch. 4

- those things where after HER
- She’d have to wait to figure out the rectangles later, Dan and Chris where undoubtedly waiting on her, and she didn’t want to give Dan any more reasons to be mad at her.
--- Tricky. This...could be charitably seen as a correct "X, Y, and Z" sentence, but it feels like a "right for the wrong reason" sort of deal. The X isn't structurally related to "Y and Z" the way you're using it, and feels more like it's comma spliced on as a separate thought. Best give the first clause its own sentence, or at least add "because".
--- As a general rule, if you use a long string of clauses like that, try to make it echo some kind of chronological order, because that's what a reader will naturally expect. Deciding that she has to wait on figuring out money is a consequence of the following clauses, not a precursor. Logically, it should either be mentioned after her reasoning, or signal that reasoning is to follow with "because".
- It wasn’t long before the pink, wet, matted mess, was a pink, dry, curly mess.
--- No comma after the first mess. "pink, wet, matted mess" is collectively a noun, so the sentence reduces to "It wasn’t long before the $X was a $Y". Be able to identify where large groups of words collectively act as a single component.
- annoyed with his friends ability (Dan's rampage continues)
- Dan screamed “I HATE CHEESE”. (period should go inside the quote. Also, perfect moment.)
- not used to any of this
- Pinkie buried her head in her arms. (you forgot to close your italic tag from the previous sentence.)
- “slider” (single quotes inside dialogue)

Not too convinced about Dan going all Sherlock -- at the very least, about being totally okay with his conclusion. He's weird, but I'm not getting that kind of weird off him. If anything, I'd expect him to figure out most of it (maybe not about Twilight's prior experience), then immediately keep suspecting it to be an act until she does something really off the wall.

Ch. 5

- “what was so funny?” (Single quotes inside dialogue. Actually, you probably don't even need to quote that -- "asked what was so funny" would suffice)
- I’m NOT OK (probably want to spell out "okay" for the sake of consistency, since you spelled it out above -- it's a pick one and stick with it sort of thing)
- put his arms under Pinkies (IT CONTINUES)
- Concussions are usually followed by much worse symptoms, BELIEVE me, I’ve had a few. (First comma is a splice. Technically the second is too, but a colloquial enough one that nobody cares.)
- nice, kitty. (no comma)

I notice that you don't capitalize Everclear in this chapter, but you did when it popped up before (I only remember because that early on I was on the lookout for miscapitalizations and I had to look up if Everclear was a brand or not (it is)). Might want to make that consistent.

Ch. 6

- a couple of, now bloodstained, throw pillows. (no commas. "now bloodstained" acts as a single adjective)
- Dan shot her a “you’re not helping look.” (endquote should be one word back)
- UTENISALS (utensils)
- one of Pinkies arms (oh the humanity)
- LIFE threateningly “bad” (single quotes in dialogue)
- I will BURN Everyth… (lowercase)
- “Well…”Twilight continued (missing space after quote)
- the cryptic name of “The Order Keepers” her being called “The Warper” and the fact that they were all (commas after both endquotes)
- I think sleeps a good idea. (')

Justice4243 · 2013-09-11 20:43:19

Thanks a ton!

Cleaning up my story is going to take priority over new chapters, so I'm going to go over all your changes and fix it up tonight, time permitting.

Justice4243 · 2013-09-12 02:31:52

Fixed most of this. Still have 5 and 6 to do.

As I mentioned in Fimfiction, Dan's admittedly absurd theory that happens to be right is a subtle nod to Pinkie Pie in Equestria Girls who basically came up with equally detailed and absurd theories twice and was right both times.

Justice4243 · 2013-09-12 03:27:21

Fixed and revised.

I took a great deal of the criticism to heart from both here and Fimfiction, so less caps, more formating in place of caps, and more descriptions how what the characters are doing with there bodies as they talk.

Now to up load all the changes to Google docs, then open each one, and manually add a line break so formatting doesn't blow ass on Finfiction. *sigh* ._.

Justice4243 · 2013-09-12 03:54:41

Updated completely, finally.

Sleep time.

Justice4243 · 2013-09-13 00:56:05

Next chapter up:

http://www.fimfiction.net/story/131002/8/the-wheel-and-the-butterfly-a-dan-x-pinkie-pie-saga/part-1-pinkie-vs-van-nuys-chapter-7-dan-vs

I think this is my favorite chapter so far.

Yarrun XIX · 2013-09-13 01:01:07

No, not the car.

noooooooooo

Justice4243 · 2013-09-13 13:07:24

Next chapter is also up:

http://www.fimfiction.net/story/131002/9/the-wheel-and-the-butterfly-a-dan-x-pinkie-pie-saga/part-2-dan-vs-pinkie-pie-chapter-8-pinkie-vs-disguises

Justice4243 · 2013-09-15 11:51:18

http://www.fimfiction.net/story/131002/10/the-wheel-and-the-butterfly-a-dan-x-pinkie-pie-saga/part-2-dan-vs-pinkie-pie-chapter-9-chris-vs-boredom

Justice4243 · 2013-09-17 23:07:22

http://www.fimfiction.net/story/131002/11/the-wheel-and-the-butterfly-a-dan-x-pinkie-pie-saga/part-2-dan-vs-pinkie-pie-chapter-10-dan-vs-mall-cop

Justice4243 · 2013-09-19 21:13:08

http://www.fimfiction.net/story/131002/12/the-wheel-and-the-butterfly-a-dan-x-pinkie-pie-saga/part-2-dan-vs-pinkie-pie-chapter-11-chris-vs-elise

Bee · 2013-09-19 22:52:35

Your grammar is getting much, much better. Also you need to italicize thoughts.

Justice4243 · 2013-09-20 00:02:39

Oh! That's a really good idea!

Thanks, I'll start right away and go back and fix the other chapters later.

Justice4243 · 2013-09-20 06:41:40

http://www.fimfiction.net/story/131002/13/the-wheel-and-the-butterfly-a-dan-x-pinkie-pie-saga/part-2-dan-vs-pinkie-pie-chapter-12-dan-vs-regret

Justice4243 · 2013-09-20 10:07:13

Next.

Bee · 2013-09-20 15:44:02

Okay, you're starting to get a bit too frisky with those interrupting beats. They're specifically for cases where an action must be done in the middle of a sentence, and there's a reason they're rarely seen enough that almost nobody knows how to do them.

Justice4243 · 2013-09-20 22:57:41

Fair enough. I'll try to tone it down a bit.

It gets...difficult with Dan and Pinkie as they're both very cartoony cartoon characters. So I spend a lot of time figuring out how they're moving their hands, bodies, eyes, etc, etc...

Maybe I'll treat myself and do a chapter where they both get hit with tranq darts. :P

Justice4243 · 2013-09-20 23:01:23

Chris & Elise Vs. taking Dan and Pinkie somewhere without something catching fire or the staff being assaulted with their own product.

Bee · 2013-09-20 23:18:47

It's a bit awkward (in large part because so few people have seen it done that way), but generally preferable to Talking Heads at least. So if you absolutely have to err on one side or the other...

Usually though, the least awkward way is to just have a regular action beat between sentences, with no interrupters necessary.

Justice4243 · 2013-09-20 23:20:39

I can probably think about breaking my sentences better, at least. That way I can still insert action, but just in between sentences.

Justice4243 · 2013-09-21 00:55:30

I wondering about my glorious run on sentences. Though I think it's another thing that might sort of be appropriate for the characters.

I'm reading American Gods and Neil Gaiman also strings actions together, but he does it in a series of micro-sentences.

Somehow it just doesn't flow as well for me, then again, the characters aren't out of cartoons either.

Bee · 2013-09-21 03:10:33

Don't worry too much about run-on sentences in dialogue. People talk in run-ons. Pinkie Pie talks in fuckin' sprint-ons if she feels like it. As long as it sounds natural and you can read it aloud without suffocating or wanting to stab yourself, it's probably fine.

Be...cautious about it in prose. Authors trying to get flowery will sometimes dip into run-ons, but there tends to be a certain rhythm to doing it without sounding awkward, and I have trouble quantifying it to much useful degree. Generally it takes one of these forms:

1) Comma splicing -- Using a comma to tie independent clauses together without a coordinating conjunction like and/but/etc. When done on purpose, it's most often used to distill parallel sentence structure by cutting out superfluous syntax. "I came, I saw, I conquered" is the classic simple example of comma splicing, as well as a commonly accepted poetic use of it. Typically, this is a bad idea unless there's actually some sort of shared or sequential structure between the clauses you're splicing.

2) Unresolved fragment list -- You construct a sentence where the direct object is a list, but instead of properly resolving the last item with "and", you just kind of let it peter out instead. It can lend the prose a relaxed, conversational tone. For instance, "I was mauled by wolves, bears, tigers. Everything in the forest, really." The period essentially parses as an ellipsis.

3) I accidentally a comma -- This is when you just mash clauses together it makes you sound like a third grader. It's generally just a bad idea on the whole, even in the context of Pinkie Pie unless she's actually in the middle of a notable rant. It's tied so often to outright bad writing that it'll grate on a reader pretty much regardless.

Stephen King discusses stylistic errors-on-purpose like this in On Writing, which you can probably find in a library somewhere and flip through if you're curious. Lewis Carroll did it pretty constantly too, though with far more complex grammatical tools (and weirdly, a lot of the most terrifying ones almost parse correctly anyhow). Tolstoy is another, but that would involve...you know...reading Tolstoy.

In any case, it's another thing to do very sparingly. If you break it out too regularly, people are more likely to assume that you just have atrocious grammar than that you're making calculated efforts for loose, flowing prose.

The Wheel and the Butterfly: A Dan X Pinkie Pie Saga

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