Story: Hiraeth
Author: Silver Scrolls
Reviewer: AusFlick
Percentage Read: 100%
Score: Rejection (4/10)
Reason:

Hiraeth is a story that promises an extremely intriguing concept that could be an immensely impactful and emotional story when done correctly. The story makes a huge deal of this massive mistake that Twilight has made that essentially caused what seems to be a dystopian Equestria where Celestia, Luna and the rest of the Mane 6 are deceased. It’s a story about Twilight suffering 1,000 years of self guilt for said mistake, and is being given a dilemma of having a second chance, but at a large price. This story has a lot of the puzzle pieces necessary to make it good, even a great read. Unfortunately, despite the potential, the final result is a story that leaves a lot to be desired.

The best thing I can say about the story is the fact it’s very competent on a technical level. I can’t recall many issues with spelling, grammar, punctuation, or anything of that nature. The writing style was solid and the sentence structure was top notch. There aren’t many, if any blatant mistakes that can typically be found in many beginner writers.

However, the story unfortunately suffers in the main plot. One of the first issues I had with the story is that I didn’t find the story very engaging, and I think the root of the problem is the lack of clear stakes. I understand that Twilight is really depressed, and her friends and Princesses have all perished, but that’s all I really know. The story spends little to no time exploring the current state of Equestria, or how the rest of its citizens are living and feeling. If you want me to empathise with Twilight for feeling so guilty, I need to have a clear understanding for the consequences for said mistake. What made this mistake so terrible? Because as far as I can see, the rest of the Mane 6 and the Princesses are the only things that’s wrong with this version of Equestria. Since I don’t know the consequences for Twilight’s apparent terrible mistake, I don’t know how high the stakes are. I felt like I wasn’t really given a reason to latch onto what Equestria is going through, and therefore, I wasn’t engaged in the story.

As far as my biggest issue with the story is concerned though, if I had to summarise my main problem with this story in one sentence, it would be: Too much build up for too little pay off. Don’t get me wrong, build up is great. It’s a fantastic and necessary way of building suspense and anticipation, and one of the key factors of keeping your reader’s attention. However, the more build up you give something, the more satisfying the pay off needs to be.

Most of the story is giving this huge build up for a terrible mistake Twilight has made. Apparently this mistake was extremely devastating to all of Equestria, even if I can’t exactly see why. Almost everyone Twilight cares about besides Spike is dead, and it seems like Equestria has entered some sort of depression. Almost the entire story we’re being told just how terrible this mistake is, and when we eventually find out what the mistake is, the result was what I found to be quite underwhelming. It got to the point where I wasn’t entirely sure what the mistake was, or at the very least, what made it so terrible to cause Equestria’s downfall. My biggest interpretation of Twilight’s apparent huge mistake was something along the lines of Twilight learning many dark secrets of the villains throughout the show, and the dark information she was gaining about them consumed her. She let that info get to her emotionally, and that caused the death of the Mane 6 and the Princesses somehow?

This apparent huge mistake is seriously glossed over. Twilight says it in practically one line, when I really wanted to know more about how being burdened with the knowledge of the dark secrets about the villains would eventually lead to this apparent dystopian Equestria, and the demise of the ponies Twilight cares about the most. The mistake that the entire story is building up to is said incredibly quickly, it’s very vague in what it means, so instead of getting a major reaction out of the realisation like a massive plot twist, I’m just left scratching my head. My reaction to Twilight’s mistake was “What? That’s it?” In short, the impact and consequences for Twilight’s mistake, as well as what the mistake itself actually is feels really muddled and confused.

I love the concept, but the lack of an ability to latch onto what Equestria is going through, since I don’t see how they’re suffering aside from Twilight feeling depressed, and being confused with what the mistake actually is, unfortunately is what killed the story for me.

Another reason why I couldn’t get emotionally invested the way I wanted to is because the story is very bare bones. It relies way too much on telling instead of showing, to the point where I struggle to recall a point in the story where the author showed instead of told. Not only did this cause me to become emotionally detached from the story, but the story was so telly, bare bones and basic that at times I struggled to comprehend Twilight’s surroundings. There were times, especially in the beginning where I was lost on whether she was home, or in some sort of prison cell, or what.

Another issue that bothers me about this fic is that I feel the story really should’ve delved deeper in to Twilight’s moral dilemma. She wants a second chance to make things right, but it will come at a great price. What would have tremendously improved this fic is if it spent a significantly larger amount of time delving into Twilight trying to make that choice. Make this decision a hard one to make, forcing Twilight to weigh the pros and cons of both sides of the coin. Having an internal conflict of this nature, and seeing Twilight struggle to decide which choice would be the right one would have made the story far more engaging. This is why I was rather disappointed when Twilight made the choice to accept the offer pretty much immediately after it was given to her with no hesitation, because the chance to explore a really intriguing conflict is instantly squandered.

In addition, the choice doesn’t really feel like it was that hard to make, unlike what the summary would have you lead to believe, because not only does Twilight instantly make the choice without hesitation, but despite being clearly told there would be severe consequences for her actions, once she’s made the choice, everything goes her way.

The last issue I wanted to bring up is that there are a few other aspects of the story that had me confused. During the end of the story, Twilight is talking to what is implied to be the spirits of Celestia and Luna’s parents. They have come down because apparently wanted to see their children one more time, but these two are deceased, and Luna and Celestia have also passed away, aren’t they technically able to see each other in the afterlife?

Overall, it’s a story that I really want to be emotionally invested in, but the whole story feels incredibly shallow and just leaves me asking questions more than anything else. Ending your story ambiguous and having your readers finishing asking questions is sometimes a fun way of having your story leave an impact, so people continue to think about it long after they finish reading, but I doubt that’s what the author was going for.

I know I came off as quite harsh in this review, but it’s coming from a place from someone who genuinely wants to see this author improve. I am in love with the premise, and nothing would please me more than to see it blossom into a fic that is truly spectacular. It just needs a lot of fine tuning before it gets there. I really want to be invested in this kind of story, and I can see the potential that this story, and this author has. So to the author, I strongly encourage you to keep going, because I would love to read a story with this premise with great execution. For now unfortunately, I’m afraid I’m going to have to reject this story.

Thank you for the review. Though I'm sad it didn't get accepted it gave me something to think about and with this review in mind I might return to the story and see if I can improve it. This is one of my older fics so it might actually be a fun exercise for me to go back and see if I can tackle any of the problems you mentioned. Thank you again for the review, and I don't think it was too harsh at all.

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That's the spirit. Thank you for listening to what I had to say and I love that you're interested in taking what I've said into consideration in an attempt to improve the story, which I highly encourage you to do. I'm glad you found this review helpful, and I wish you the best of luck for your writing in the future.