FIM Fiction Review - The Trottingham Reports: A Slender Escape · 9:30pm Apr 9th, 2013
I don’t know how stories with ridiculously long titles float to the top of my inbox, but I had a particularly bad time with this one when a lovely individual’s comment spoiled the thing. Damn you Lukezv; there is no forgiveness for the sin you have committed. Yes, I read the comments section! Lesson learned, but that’s besides the point. Flutterdash’s The Trottingham Reports: A Slender Escape serves as an excellent reminder to writers to elaborate on character and plot. It’s unfortunate since Flutterdash can put together clever and entertaining conversations that can feel realistic if it was executed well. The Trottingham Reports: A Slender Escape is a decent short-story even with it’s shortcomings. Now stop making long titles before I get carpal tunnel.
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The Trottingham Reports: A Slender Escape by flutterdash1
Complete (last updated Nov 17,2012)
Doctor Trotson has been assigned to observe Sherlock Hooves and his activities in Trottingham. He is assigned by the Minister of the Night to observe this obscure pony and as he does so he gets dragged into a murder investigation involving the mythical Slenderpony. Read it here.
Tags: Adventure, (Crossover)
Rating: Everyone, (Teen)
(Edited to better categorize this story) (Suggested Teen due to depictions of violence and very moderate gore)
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Well, didn’t I just make myself look dumb. Lukezv is forgiven, the description spoils that. I should’ve better explored that better, should I? Oh, the ways I try to make myself look clever. My biggest issue with The Trottingham Reports: A Slender Escape is how short it is. Don’t get me wrong, I like short stories, but Flutterdash clearly didn’t make this long enough to elaborate on Sherlock and Trotson’s characters. We end up not seeing any of their thoughts or flaws, leaving them unrelatable and weak. On a related note, the plot feels rushed and unclever. It wraps up quickly and hardly shows any development of the two character’s relationship. The list goes on-and-on about how rushed The Trottingham Reports feel.
The Sherlock Holmes stories have incredible amounts of layers to them; so much so that the BBC’s Sherlock takes an hour-and-a -half episode to solve one mystery. Now, it could just be that I’m too large of a fan of the BBC’s Sherlock, but I can easily say that those should be the standard model to the Holmes, or Hooves, mysteries. It’s going to upset a lot of people that The Trottingham Reports doesn’t take its time to add depth to its mystery. Sherlock Hooves would be clever if he solved clever mysteries.
Also, the pacing suffers as a direct result. Important plot points feel abused and any sort of buildup seems to be lost between the lines. Although there is only one instance where a slow part seemed to overstay its welcome, this is kind of a bad thing. The major plot points are the only thing driving this story, making them lose their weight.
That’s enough bad news for a Tuesday! Flutterdash does have one incredible talent: being able to make his conversations flow well and feel realistic. Not only that but they’re clever too. I could be missing the bigger picture here. With this amazing dialogue, the right length, and a lot more character development, flutterdash could put together a masterpiece. So in other words, flutterdash is a good writer but this story is way too short to be anything but just that: a sweet, short story. I easily recommend this anyone looking for short story. This has been Admujica. Have a great week guys.
The Trottingham Reports: A Slender Escape gets a score of: 6.5 out of 10
Really rushed but has the elements for an enjoyable short story
Read it here.
Grazi for the review! You're not the first to call my pacing to attention, but hopefully you shall be the last. I swear on my honor to continue to delve into the mysteries of pacing and figure out exactly how to master it.
994875 No problem. When writing my stories, I keep in mind that slow parts help build up to the faster, heavier plot points. So essentially, the slower, more character focused parts should drive your story just as much as the heavier ones. Although it's important not to let them overstay their welcome. Hopefully that helped. I look forward to reading your stories in the future.