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In an Equestria long wracked with the throes of disease will there ever be hope for harmony? A tale rift with death and despair, can our little ponies even hope to have a glimpse of something else?
It has been a thousand years since first this plague gripped the very core of Equestria and the one who hoped to see Equestria crumble is returning
Would welcome cover art ideas
Would love an editor to help fix my mistakes.
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A great start to a story, keep up this quality and the rest should be just as good.
2701098
I intend to, don't worry. I'm so glad you enjoy it~
Interesting idea... There are a few problems, though, some nitpicky, some that bugged me quite a bit. Mostly in the writing itself, rather than the story.
You keep switching between the past and present tense. It starts off in past tense, and then right at "the intern clears the film [...]" it switches for the first time. Then with the nurses, it's past tense again. Then it switches back to present when the intern "gives a meek nod," and it stays that way for a while. Then at the divider it switches. Then again, for the final time, at "I wait," it goes back to present tense, and stays there for the last few lines. It was really annoying, and kind of made it difficult to parse what was going on in the chapter. But, on the bright side, it's fixed easily enough.
There are also a couple of incomplete sentences lying around. "Though they were muffled slightly through the walls," for example, is not a coherent sentence, and would work much better if tied into the preceding sentence (it is a subordinate clause, after all). A careful and deliberately placed incomplete sentence can add some nice oomph, but this, and a few others in the story, do not.
You say that the intern kid has brains, but you don't show it. Just from this little opening, the way she's characterized, the problem seems to be much more that she doesn't have enough brains than that she has too much heart.
"Entering its vast and well light confinement did not make my hooves feel relief, if anything this room was longer then many of the halls within the brick walls of this castle. And it was all the way at the end that sat the throne fine enough to seat Her Highness." Oh man, this is gonna be a long walk. I think this sentence would be better if you fixed "light" and "then," and got rid of "within the brick walls of this castle." What happens next? "In a surprisingly short span of time I find myself seated." Aw, bummer. Why'd we have a whole big thing about how long the room was, then? How was he surprised by the pace at which he walked, anyway?
A lot of the sentences aren't phrased very well, especially towards the end. "Though I know what I see I turn to the ceiling," and "I've seen it many times in past visits and each time it both amazes me, leaving me with the sense of a child's wonderment" in particular stand out in my mind.
There are also one or two cases of oddly dramatic and abstract metaphors... like "In the pale green shadows of a land of the dead, they moved softly through the room" in particular. "Pale green shadows" alone creates a nice, haunting, somber feel. "Shadows of a land of the dead" sounds to me like a mashup of "walking through the valley of the shadow of death" and a zombie movie. It's just... weird, and doesn't really add to the atmosphere 'cause the whole death thing has already been established. And the shadows. And land isn't really pertinent to the metaphor.
I'd also feel a bit like there are two different stories being juggled here, the Luna one and the foals dying of some horrible virus (that they apparently pick up immediately, in a sterile environment?... Obviously they didn't get it from the mother, 'cause the doctors were concerned about the mother getting it from the baby). I guess they're probably related?... It'd be nice if the relationship, should it exist, were hinted at to some degree. The virus only seeming to affect foals kinda puts a damper on my initial assumption that Luna got the virus.
Anyway, those are my two cents. Feel free to take it with as much salt as you like. It seems like a pretty cool story! =D I hope something interesting happens with Flut--I mean, the intern.
2701641
Wow, thank you for the in depth review! I guess this is what I get for not running it by my editor before hand. I'll try to fix the thing like the metaphors, tenses and incomplete sentences as much as I can this afternoon.
And yes there is a connection between Luna and the disease.
And I did have more dialouge in mind between the intern and Nurse Hardy that would have a gleam of that intelligence show. I'll see if after I edit I still have time I will add it.
Also I must have simply forgotten to add it or didnt make it clear enough but I was going to make the disease one that once its host, the victim, passed on, it would no longer have its playground off which to feed and would die in rapid order. Under thirty minutes....yeah I'm going to edit tomorrow for sure.
Anyways the reason they didn't think of handing the foal back to the mom wasn't so muh they were worried about disease spreading, but they are so used to basically dumping the body they forgot. I'll try to make that more obvious maybe have a flutter anger scene when at first they brush off the idea, hm?
I hope once I make these changes that this story will be worthy of a fav from you~
2701773 Oh, don't worry about making it more clear that the virus quickly died off after the host died. I got that, I just wasn't quite sure how the foals became hosts in the first place... Given that it's a sterile environment, and none of the adults apparently have the virus (although I guess I don't know that for sure... hmmm)! I suppose I was just kind of thinking aloud there.
I'll definitely check this out again once it's updated. =)
2701814
None of the adults that are living in that scene as far as we know have the disease. Exactly!
I can't wait to start describing things like open sores and necrosis.
Not bad. I see you know a thing or two about medical procedures.
2704452
I just got certified as a CNA roughly two weeks ago. I should hope so.
2704467 Oh, really?
2704480
Yes, really. Why would I lie? Most people don't even know what a CNA is...
It was offered through my high school and where I live it is a prerequisite to taking the nursing program.
2704493 I never said you were lying...
Anyways, that's pretty cool.
Well, followed a request to critique from various places.
So, off we go!
Welp. Didn't take long to capitalize on that dark tag!
Really though, I don't have too much to add in terms of constructive criticism. Which is practically an event. SnowWhiteDesert already touched on the slightly spotty use of tenses, which does tend to happen with a lot of present-tense works.
It sets up the story well enough. It has a bit of a prologuey feel to it, with a lot of exposition provided. Thankfully it doesn't feel particularly ham-handed with that, as can often be the case. And it's nice and short, which is a virtue for expository chapters. However, because of that very introductory feel, I'd try to get a second chapter in sooner rather than later. Essentially we've been given a hint or outline of the story, but without any of the meat of it yet. That's not ideal for securely hooking readers. Though teasing us with alicorns helps!
Still, I do like the idea. And one of the reasons I like darkfics is that they give you leeway to explore more 'real world' problems like plagues. I wouldn't object to seeing it from a medical viewpoint, if that's how it's going to be. It'd be something new, to my experience. So, I guess my interest is piqued. I'll keep an eye on the story to see what's in store.
Well, I'm here to help on some ... editing stuff.
NUMBER ONE
___
The newborn infant #48P9I43P died on the morning of June 2nd, year 1000 at 6:07. He was only three days old at time of expiration. Lately the average life span of a foal, in this bleak time, was mere fifty-six hours.
___
Try to keep numerals consistent. What I mean is either use all numbers, or spell it all out. The second of June as opposed to June 2nd, or 56 hours as opposed to fifty-six hours
NUMBER TWO
___
"Finding a cure is going to depend on the data in your hooves." Nurse Hardy nodded at the stack of papers nestled neatly under the yellow wings of the intern. "Fail to record it, and this child died for nothing."
___
This ain't a mistake, but I'd like to point something out. The last sentence hit nailed it. If you're trying to build the main character as a must-find-cure-at-all-cause-even-deaths, then it worked.
IN CONCLUSION
___
Interesting concept. I usually skip stories with 'Dark' on it, because it involves death and, let's be frank, dying isn't what I came to fimfic for to read about lol. However, this reminded me partially of the malaria outbreak before vaccination, and I guess this is just a spin-off to it, so it isn't TOO dark.
Pacing is well established. Good job. However, I do have one complain. This disease came up about 1000 years ago (given that the current year you state is at year 1000, and now its 2012/2013 depending on when you want to write canon from), but there seems to be no hint as to how that time 1000 years was. Unless you picture it similar to current times, then you've made a conclusion that life hadn't evolved much for dem ponies.
Overall, this chapter doesn't hook me on too much. It's good, but if 10 was 'YOU NEED TO WRITE THE NEXT CHAPTER NAO!', you're looking at a 7/10 at best.
Honestly, this is pretty good so far. I don't really have anything to say in terms of criticism, good job! I look forward to seeing more of this story in the future.
Well, after reading this, it seems pretty good, though I have a few problems with it. Most of them have to do with grammar; I didn't see any spelling mistakes, but at least three to four times, you switched from past to present tense, only to switch right back. This could easily be solved by finding an editor to look this over, and while I can't help you, there are a few groups around the site where you could probably find one. Just search around in the groups section and you should be fine. As for everything else...
The writing is decent, and maybe even a bit above, but there are some places where it fell flat. Over all, the writing style did give a creepy and somber vibe to this, but it also gave off a bit of emotional detachment. In the beginning, that was necessary; this pony was a doctor, in the middle of his duty -- there's going to be a little purple prose and a bit less emotion, because the pony is doing his job, and he has to put his heart away for a few minutes in order to get it done. After that though, when the doctor was taken out of that state, it stayed relatively the same. It was helped by the fact that you explained his thoughts, but you're telling a bit more than showing with your writing. Just a short sentence telling how the doctor sighed sadly, running a hoof through his mane would have helped.
Over all though, this is pretty good and deserves a like from me. Just keep looking for an editor and show a little more, and you'll have something fantastic.
Stay awesome and keep writing!
~OfTheIronwilled
2710500
Yeah, I have someone willing to help me edit the tenses stuff however they are busy until maybe the weekend. That's always been something I have had a problem with. Though it doesn't always happen, I don't know why.
2710511
Oh, don't worry about the tense-switching. A lot of people do it, and even I do if I don't pay attention to what I'm doing, so it's pretty... Normal.
Ha! See what I did there, see it!? N-Nobody? I'm alone on this one? Not even a chuckle? Oh... I'll just go back to my corner now...
Seriously though, you don't have to worry about it. Everybody switches tense sometimes.
2712114
I see what you did there. Thanks for the encouragement.
2701641
And for now I have cut the scene with Luna. I won't bring Luna up a little while I think
I believe I have fixed the issues with the tenses within chapter one
partials...