- There are a few confusions with the wording you use: there is no such thing as "forehooves". There's forelegs and hooves, I made this mistake myself once. (Just for my personal interest: are you a native speaker?) The same thing with: front right foreleg - You use the italics to make you character's thoughts visible. In a 1st person narration this should only be done for thoughts at this exact moment. Since you use the past tense to narrate, the thoughts in italics should be in present tense, because they quote the character's thoughts at this very moment in time. Your 1st person narration covers the later added comments of your narration. - the quote-box in your text: I don't think you should do that. Italics are meant for occasions like this, while the quote-box... throws off the reading flow. Just imagine a box in a real book, wouldn't look good. -
Oh Celestia. I'm don't even know god I should be praying to; I've never been familiar with the Equestrian religions. I guess the Princesses are the closest things I know to Gods...err...Goddesses.
The OC acts as if he wasn't even a pony. Never been familiar to Equestrian religion? Seems kinda unusual for a pony living there and working for the MoP.
But apart from those mostly technical things I think this is a decent story. I've definitely seen far far worse. So does this get continued (because it says "incomplete") or is it a one-shot?
Comment posted by sparkypchu deleted Jun 27th, 2014
4606988- I'm assuming that you're asking if I'm a native English speaker. I am, but I'm no grammarian and sometimes I do use the wrong word. In this case, it's purely my unfamiliarity with writing for ponies. I'm assuming that when I was originally writing I thought that "forehooves" may have been another way of saying the front pair of pony legs. Is there a term for the front legs specifically? - I think I know the parts you're talking about. There are a few of the italic parts that are in the wrong tense. I need to edit those. They are actually remnants of earlier drafts of the story where it was all going to be in one tense. After a bit of rewriting I changed the story and made the two tense possible. The past tense being reflection and narration while present tense was, well, present thoughts. - I just felt like it was the best way to present that text. As if it were a message on a computer monitor or piece of paper. While it wouldn't be ideal for a book, that wasn't my focus as this is just a little short story on FiMfiction. I also didn't want it to get confused with the narrator's thoughts as those are already in italics. - This is a very good point. To be truly honest, I just wanted him to pray to the Princesses as ponies would 200 years later. It's also the fact that I'm unaware of Equestrian religions myself. This, of course, isn't a topic brought up in the show and I really didn't want to try to insert human religions into Equestria. It's possible that there isn't any religion or that they're too taboo to discuss, but I just went with the route of the narrator being completely ignorant to their existence. That he was raised in a city with many different ponies (with possibly different cultures and religions) and that he was raised by either non-religious or extremely busy parents. It's also possible that in his moment of panic he just couldn't think of any religions and just thought of the highest power he could, the Princesses. -Thank you for calling the story decent. I became a little disheartened when the like-dislike ratio balanced like a see-saw. It actually does get continued. Originally it was just going to be a one-shot where the narrator got vaporized, but I thought harder on it and actually divided the story into the three parts. I am working on the second part currently and will keep some of the things you mentioned in mind.
Soooooo....
- There are a few confusions with the wording you use: there is no such thing as "forehooves". There's forelegs and hooves, I made this mistake myself once. (Just for my personal interest: are you a native speaker?) The same thing with: front right foreleg
- You use the italics to make you character's thoughts visible. In a 1st person narration this should only be done for thoughts at this exact moment. Since you use the past tense to narrate, the thoughts in italics should be in present tense, because they quote the character's thoughts at this very moment in time. Your 1st person narration covers the later added comments of your narration.
- the quote-box in your text: I don't think you should do that. Italics are meant for occasions like this, while the quote-box... throws off the reading flow. Just imagine a box in a real book, wouldn't look good.
-
The OC acts as if he wasn't even a pony. Never been familiar to Equestrian religion? Seems kinda unusual for a pony living there and working for the MoP.
But apart from those mostly technical things I think this is a decent story. I've definitely seen far far worse. So does this get continued (because it says "incomplete") or is it a one-shot?
4606988- I'm assuming that you're asking if I'm a native English speaker. I am, but I'm no grammarian and sometimes I do use the wrong word. In this case, it's purely my unfamiliarity with writing for ponies. I'm assuming that when I was originally writing I thought that "forehooves" may have been another way of saying the front pair of pony legs. Is there a term for the front legs specifically?
- I think I know the parts you're talking about. There are a few of the italic parts that are in the wrong tense. I need to edit those. They are actually remnants of earlier drafts of the story where it was all going to be in one tense. After a bit of rewriting I changed the story and made the two tense possible. The past tense being reflection and narration while present tense was, well, present thoughts.
- I just felt like it was the best way to present that text. As if it were a message on a computer monitor or piece of paper. While it wouldn't be ideal for a book, that wasn't my focus as this is just a little short story on FiMfiction. I also didn't want it to get confused with the narrator's thoughts as those are already in italics.
- This is a very good point. To be truly honest, I just wanted him to pray to the Princesses as ponies would 200 years later. It's also the fact that I'm unaware of Equestrian religions myself. This, of course, isn't a topic brought up in the show and I really didn't want to try to insert human religions into Equestria. It's possible that there isn't any religion or that they're too taboo to discuss, but I just went with the route of the narrator being completely ignorant to their existence. That he was raised in a city with many different ponies (with possibly different cultures and religions) and that he was raised by either non-religious or extremely busy parents. It's also possible that in his moment of panic he just couldn't think of any religions and just thought of the highest power he could, the Princesses.
-Thank you for calling the story decent. I became a little disheartened when the like-dislike ratio balanced like a see-saw. It actually does get continued. Originally it was just going to be a one-shot where the narrator got vaporized, but I thought harder on it and actually divided the story into the three parts. I am working on the second part currently and will keep some of the things you mentioned in mind.