CCC: cleverpun's Critique Corner #7 — Lost and Never Found · 3:10am Aug 25th, 2015
Today’s story relies on not one, but two twists. Since the first twist is incredibly blunt, I have not bothered to spoiler-tag it.
Title: Lost and Never Found
Author: Oroboro
Found via: Featured box. Also, Oroboro is one of the semi-regulars on a pony fanfiction thread I frequent.
Short summary: Twilight encounters a lost little filly named Melon Ball. Turns out the filly is dead. Twilight magics up a solution.
Genre: Feels (?)
What does this story do well?: The scene where Twilight casts a complicated magic spell is reasonably well-written. It is described richly, and is evocative. At the same time, it is not so lengthy or purple that it robs the scene of its immediacy. Describing action, especially magical actions, can be hard, and this scene does a decent job of it.
I also did not notice any typos.
Where could this story improve?: This story’s first problem is the way its characters are written. They are inconsistent. Writing children well is very difficult, I’ll admit that much. That’s why most writers intentionally keep the ages of children vague and hope for the best. Yet the way Melon Ball changes moods, the vocabulary she uses, and the way her personality works are just all over the place. I suppose this might be excused by the fact that she is a ghost, but that doesn’t really come up in the story at all. Honeydew (Melon Ball's mother) is the same way (particularly the line where she reveals a tragic personal detail to a stranger she barely knows).
Twilight is no better. There is even an explicit contradiction about her in the narration. (One line has her describe politics as “boring”, and another has her say she enjoys bureaucracy).
The story’s second problem is the way it is written. Not only are many sentences clogged with clauses, there is also lots of tell-y narration. The narration does seem somewhat consistent with Twilight’s perspective, but it also makes a number of awkward asides that don’t fit with Twilight’s internal narrative or perspective.
The final problem is the unabashed bluntness of the premise and plot. The fact that the filly is a ghost becomes obvious very quickly. When it comes time for Twilight to find a solution to the filly’s emotional turmoil, Twilight thinks through the mechanics of magic and need for a “personal revelation ” to escape; then she promptly magics away the problem, robbing the situation of any emotional weight.
This would be bad enough, but then the ending has Twilight intentionally break reality again—preventing Melon Ball from moving on to the other side—just so the filly can say goodbye to her mother. Then the ending has Melon Ball show up at Twilight’s castle (because she can’t move on), and it’s treated as a good thing that this happened. Twilight welcomes Melon Ball into her castle to do research on her, and the story ends on a plainly disingenuous positive note.
In a single sentence: A blunt heartstring-tugger that lacks substance.
Verdict: Downvote. I made reference in a previous review to the idea of stories which resort to “melodramatic clichés and heartstring-tugging shortcuts” in order to make their readers emote. This is one of those stories. We are supposed to feel bad for Melon Ball because she is a Cute Child™, but that is her only characterization and it is not well executed. We are supposed to feel sympathy for Twilight because she is in this situation, but she doesn’t think through her actions and her mistakes aren’t acknowledged. We’re supposed to feel bad for Honeydew, but she gets even less characterization than the other two.
The crux of a good Sad story is an emotional attachment to the characters, backed up with situations that have verisimilitude. This story has none of that. It represents a low point in how to write drama; empty characters with an empty plot and a nonsensical ending, all hinging on the presence of a Cute Child™.
Hm. I agree with everything you said, but I'm not sure I agree with your final point.
I mean, for me, the story never felt like it was going for feels ‒ it seemed like a self-aware, intently ridiculous story that happened to involve a... less than fortunate event. I can't say for certain that was Oroboro's intent, but reading it as a comedy-lite it mostly clicked for me.
also apparently I'm not following you, how didn't that happen
3345535 I suppose that could be a reasonable way to look at it, but the huge Sad tag on it prevented me from seeing it that way
There could be a way to write Comedy about the ghost of a dead child seeking closure. In that case, though, I'd question whether the premise was really advisable, not just the quality of execution.
I thought the story was... not necessarily great, but decent enough that I was willing to keep reading. But that idiotic moment where Twilight breaks the universe... somehow? I literally stopped reading. I don't think I've ever read a story that went from decent to completely terrible so fast. Like, what does that thing in the spoiler even mean? How did it happen? Why did it happen? It'd be like writing a romantic story between Pinkie and Fluttershy, then suddenly throwing in at the end, "Oh, and then Pinkie sprouts wings and they fly to the Marshmallow Kingdom." Like... what?
3347448 I think that sudden swerves or surprising moments can work to a story's benefit. They need many things, however, in order to elicit emotion rather than confusion; setup, context, and an explanation, at the very least. Most importantly, the characters need to react to them in a believable and consistent way.
Unfortunately, this story's ending was just as lazy as the rest of it, in addition to being nonsensical.
3347544
Right. A good twist should have the reader go, "What?! Ohh! Wow, that's so cool! Now everything makes sense!" It should not make the reader go, "Uh... no. No, that's stupid, contrived, and impossible. Thumbs-down, and good day, sir!"