I'm back once again with another brutally honest review! I'll keep putting critique in the title until Mr. Flare hits me or I'm proven to be nice about this 'job'. If you want to know what I write to, you can find my music for tonight just here; although don't expect amazing taste, yo. Anyway, today we're reviewing a piece of work titled "Lightning Struck", by a user called hamcon.

Shall we get cracking, lads?

:-:Description:-:

When a storm hits Sweet Apple Acres, Big Macintosh goes out to board up the barn to keep it the farm animals safe. But as this happens, Applejack, Granny Smith, and Big Macintosh remembers a storm many years ago. The storm where lightning struck.

Apparently there are two versions of this story. The illiterate version for wannabe gansta'z and the version that's trying to be literate, but has a few errors all over it. So, good fun. When I first read this title, I could tell that someone had been or would be killed. Guess what? I was right about both of those things! The description has a very painfully obvious error in it, which is discouraging, seeing as a piece I left out mentions it was 'edited'. ლ(ಠ益ಠლ)

So as I enter the dreary and edgy atmosphere of this story I'm noticing something, there's a storm taking place. Okay, glad we got that sorted; for a second there I thought the title was a lying scoundrel. In any event the atmosphere isn't built up very well, I'm gaining an understanding of the fact that this kind of storm has happened before... in which case this is a super convenient for the sake of the plot event.

I'm constantly being reminded of the 'horrible' event through lines like "making this moment almost peaceful" and "His thoughts going to the day his dad went out to do the same thing." What I really want to know is... well, why do I care again? So far I've gotten some fairly mediocre examples as to what the Apple family is doing, the fact that there's a storm and, oh no, daddy died in a storm just like this o—

Yeah, yeah there's an overbearing feeling of coherency here. It's being used but not correctly, as in, I'm being drowned in a sea of reminders to the fact that 'lightning struck' - the line is repeated several times, and while repetition can be used well, here it's just shoddy workmanship. (I'm also beginning to wonder why this was submitted to the {Tragedy} folder; it would be better suited to {Sad} review, rather than a critique from yours truly.)

One thing this story has going for it is an imaginative use of phrases, such as "—the sky itself exploded, and the wind threatened to bulldoze the very house—" or "—booming of thunder was torture to her ears—". However they're too few and far between the errors and mistakes, which is causing this story to slip past my "Critique Horizon Line", meaning, there'll be no saving it soon. ಠ╭╮ಠ

There's a small vibe of the old ">...< knows best" cliche, in which Granny Smith is able to remedy a seemingly impossible feat of upset by singing; and she just so happens to sing a song Applejack was sung by her mother, as a foal! Of course, this might work if I wasn't having the fact that "AJ has dead parents, be sad" shoved down my throat non-stop.

I'm going to take a break here and explain what irks me so much right now.

When it comes to something which is sad, upsetting, tear-jerking or even slightly moving; it's built up. You're told, subtly, that something happened before or, in some cases never told until the reveal (at which point previous actions/opinions become so much clearer.) This is a common pattern seen in all artful and sophisticated pieces of work. No masterpiece has ever force-fed me an entire sob story throughout the whole story, while expecting me to care. If I was to care, which I am capable of, believe me; it would be because the reveal and events were built up beautifully in a way which touched me, not in a manner that merely displeases me.

Now, I'm going to skip ahead a little bit in the story because explaining it would be me repeating the same things again and again, that being that the actual mood is being misused. I'm being told that Big Mac' sees a tree get carved in two by a flash of lightning, before it blackens and disperses. Then he decides to rush home, to escape being struck by lightning.

Why?

This is a serious piece of plot-hole right here, folks. See, we all know Sweet Apple Acres is covered in trees at least twice the size of ol' red. There are none around the farm-house and barn, but the buildings themselves are far more likely to be struck than Big Macintosh. So, why did daddy get hit, and why does Big Mac' get struck by lightning, too? It makes no sense! Besides, the fact that he gets hit in the end is, alone, so cliche it hurts!

Now, I could tell what was going on throughout but the pace seemed too sluggish, yet too fast, all at once. Events were slowed down in some places, yet too quick in others. Just under one thousand five hundred words is no-where near enough to build up a decent flow and story to evoke painful emotions about demise, and the pacing just... doesn't exist. This setting is aiming higher than anything it got, sadly.

I suppose this was intended to be something sad and tragic, the kind of thing which would make you weep bitter tears for the loss of a character's family and a replay of horrific events.

In all fairness however it was much more along the lines of lacklustre, in the sense that the {Sad} and {Tragedy} elements were rushed to the point of light-speed. If you're to write out something sad and deeply touching then you need to take your time, you need to build atmosphere and you need to help me feel included; else you'll lose me.

Unfortunately there was no hook to include me, the atmosphere was forced rather than created and I genuinely didn't enjoy reading this fanfiction. It's savable, the story is good, the premise could work and the description of events was fairly nice; but the mood was tarnished, the 'feels' non-existent and the ending as cliche as a supermodel with a poodle or a cowboy with a stetson.

For errors, we'll be sticking to the system of green text for punctuation errors, red for spellings, blue for text coherency and purple for stuff that was okay but dodgy to read.

The rain pattered against the window as Applejack watched as lightning filled—

This should technically be 'whilst', because otherwise the sentence is a hassle.

the rumbling thunder that followed after made it seem that the sky itself exploded—

I believe the choice words to use here would be 'as if'.

would stay up till Big Mac came back

* 'till

but fell asleep from the exhaustion of working around the house and farm to keep it safe.

For some reason this entire half of the sentence reads difficulty for me, so I'd suggest changing it to; "only to fall asleep from the tiring housework and farm chores needed to keep the land secure."

but <- it didn’t bring back good memories, -> but the bad

The word 'but' is used very awkwardly, and far too repetitive. I would change the words "but the bad" to "instead it brought the worst."

powerful storm came,her son went

* came, her

her son went out into it, to get the farm animals to safety.

This comma isn't needed.

She wiped a tear away as what happened next caused Applejack and Big Mac to stay in their rooms for over a week, just as he was 10 feet away from the house, lightning struck.

I really cannot tell for the life of me what's going on in this sentence. Was Big Mac' just struck right now? Or was this mysterious father figure hit down by Zeus?

(I'm making a note here about the fact that, there are as many unnecessary commas as there are spots during an acne epidemic; so I'm not going to bother listing them all down. You know what? I'm actually going to give up on this section altogether, as the errors in the first three paragraphs alone take up this much space ب_ب )

C-: This story is breaking it in at a C minus for some very obvious grammar mistakes and issues, sentence structure about as smooth as sandpaper and wacky pacing. However it's managed to pull itself up with interesting although not unique explanation and description, fairly mediocre setting and cliches didn't help nor hinder this; and a few lucky lines made me think... giving this grade.

As always all my tips have basically been mentioned above, so from now on, I might just label this part 'SYMPATHY'.

The thing that annoyed me most about this entire fiction was the misuse of commas and the irregular sentence structure. You might think it's poetic and artful, and maybe it is; but it's also very difficult to read and rather poor use of grammar. I understand, because I used to do something akin to this as well, but eventually you'll learn it's better not to, than to go ahead and do. The plot line is fairly okay but could be improved a tad, and of course, pacing.

I definitely feel what let this entire story down was your word count, which is truly, the only {Sad} thing about this work. ಥ_ಥ

:-: I enjoyed it :-: — Well I didn't enjoy it personally, but the concept was good enough and although it was a rough read, it's something that's worth improving. It doesn't need a whole team of workmen slaving on it day and night, but it does need a little love here and there. (Namely, word count.) So I'm placing it between our two last categories, seeing as I neither enjoyed it fully nor think it needs a full revamp. I'd say... *It's alright I guess.*

Any comments on my latest review? Too harsh? Not harsh enough? Shout at me in the comments! I simply love being shouted at for being hard on people over stories! (づ｡◕‿‿◕｡)づ

Have a good one,
~ Vocal

I'll keep putting critique in the title until Mr. Flare hits me

Challenge accepted. I see no reason to yet though

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Ah, I take it you enjoy my reviews then?

2782680 little Kirby thing.... Yes...

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wat

2783095 the little dancing Kirby thing at the end... It looks so... Adorable... Lol

Another great review though

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Cheers!