I happen to be a huge Starcraft fan. So, when Comic-Con came to town, I just had to go as a zerg—my favorite race—of my own devising. The only thing that I could not make or get in time, were some clawed gloves that go with my outfit. So when I saw the perfect pair, I just had to buy and try them on. So, then I blacked out and found myself in the land of techno-colored ponies. And I discovered that I was not in control of my actions; it was the genocide named Prime Directive that was in control. And so, the zerg spread over half of Equestria before they managed to blast me with the rainbow. I was turned to stone, and I ended up becoming the one in charge. Now I need to convince the ponies that I'm not evil anymore. (My first fic, and a LoHAV. Thanks to all constructive critics that are helping me, or have helped me.)
200 likes! WOOOO!
i62.tinypic.com/qwzpd1.jpg
4286718
At least give me constructive criticism
4286735
It's not BAD, per se...
The plot is intriguing, but you really could have explained a bit more of the backstory IN the story...
Also, the characters seem a bit... Iffy.
For example: Why would a FARMER be so insistent on telling 'Tia directly, when there's bound to be plenty of guards. Even more curious, is that his wife was unable to humorously talk him out of it.
TL;DR: Build more pylons, and explain the logic behind things. Everything is done for a reason, after all.
4286735 Terran sequence somehow became Zerg, feral, less. Failure to defeat primitie, unevolved species with minor psionic abillities, failure to evolve brood, failure to take over easilly conquered world, even physically incapable of smashing a thin rhylite shell.
Terran shall be thrown into deep space, sequemces and biomass uneeded.
hmm i had an idea for a Zerg story
4286804
I was going to put some back story in the second chapter, (some of which I have already written and have now put in the first) but I now see that I need to put more up front. Thank you.
Uh. Umm. How do I put this?
It's bad.
The story is good and most of it is written ok but...
Ok, if the story was put into pieces like a puzzle, each individual sentence it's own piece, then some pieces had their edges cut off just to fit.
I can't really comment on individual bad things because it would just take too long.
It's a good try but when you leaped to the other side you missed the ledge by a mile.
4286844
Elements of harmony, no defense yet. Defeat only because of Elements.
4286853
You're welcome.
Also, looking it over again, your pacing could use a bit of work as well.
As stated: Interesting plot concept. Keep at it, as it will be good practice, regardless of who reads it.
4286867
Thank you, but I shall continually refine this story until it is a good one.
4286858
Thank you, I shall edit the first chapter (with the occasional next chapter) until it is a good story.
4286864 I hate using pronouns, but I must to express my disdain. These so called elements are weak psionic powers, incapable of even scratching somethig that has the command level of a broodmother.
Large portions of Terrans incapable of higher reasoning.
4286930 The elements make a stone covering, and nearly destroyed the primary zerg influence. The stone was magically strengthened and only with the release of discord was the stone weak enough to be broken.
4286947 Stone is weak. Zerg is strong. Psionics are incapable of altering chemical
compounds, can only move.
You are zerg, you have extreme larnyxesophogal properties, dissolve the stone, weakling.
4287100 Pony psionics renew stone. Pony psionics capable of turning apple to orange. So is capable of making stone stronger.
4287121 Failure to avoid psionics is moronic. You have the abillity to burrow down and escape, no excuse. Why not target elemenr bearers with parisites.
4287147
The Terran not knowledgeable of elements before entombment. Too fast.
This story is great! I give you 4 Derpys out of 5
-Can't wait until the next chapter!
4286735 Well, you wanted constructive criticism, so I'm choosing to give some.
You see, most of the time I see criticism given on this site, it's either fluffy criticism that's ultimately there to say "your stuff's bad, and these are some general areas addressing why, but here are more words of encouragement than actual help because I don't wanna come across like a dick" or it's vague/indifferent criticism that's even more useless than the former. Here I'm going to give you harsh, but detailed criticism. I'm going to say not just what I think needs to be changed or improved with this story, but what I think others will find wrong as well. So, without further ado, let's begin. (Of course you are free to ignore this comment as I understand you did not specifically ask for a full review and nor was that comment directed at me in any way, shape or form. I simply want to help).
As a disclaimer written after having written what comes below: I am in no way claiming to be any sort of authority in the subjective field that is creative writing nor am I professing to be any expert in grammar, mechanics and general language usage. The review that follows is simply my opinion on the state of this story as it stands when I read it and is almost entirely based in subjectivity. Furthermore, let it be known that the purpose of this review is to inform, not to bash, insult, or put down in any way the author of the work. It is meant to be a pointer in the right direction from the perspective of one reader.
First up, the description (I'm doing this part without having read the story because that's the position another potential reader will be in).
- Marks in red are simple grammar corrections or suggestions (actually, the only one that's a suggestion is the changing of the parentheses to em-dashes).
- Marks in blue are spelling or larger grammatical corrections.
- Marks in green are suggestions for rewording (and an indicator that the sentence construction was awkward to read).
- Strike-throughs are things that need to be removed.
- And the italics came into play because the clause you used makes no sense (mostly the word "genocide" as you used it is wrong because genocide is a noun and the position you have it in seems like you wanted an adjective to be there. The adjectival form of genocide is genocidal).
Overall, it's not a bad description for the story you are trying to write. But it fails to introduce any plot point and serves only as background information. Right now, there's nothing beyond "hey look, a Starcraft story" that compels or entices me to want to read your story. You need to give us a hook or something that makes us go "wait, what's gonna happen after that?"
Now onto the story:
First up is the author's note. The only things I have to say about it are the following: good job on forewarning the use of colors to denote a specific character speaking. Personally, I wouldn't do it myself unless I was juggling a large cast and even then only in certain situations, but I am not adverse to reading it. Others might be though, so putting information like that at the top is good. The same compliment goes to explaining exactly what the Prime Directive is.
Next… the first paragraph. I'll analyze the first paragraph only simply because it can often be a perfect indicator of how the rest of the story is going to go grammar-wise.
Where to begin? First sentence is fine. If you're going for a more colloquial sounding main character, the second sentence should use "wasn't" instead of "was not." Period after 'horribly' to avoid a run-on sentence and improper construction of clauses. Period after 'now' because you have completed the thought and are moving on to another (more technically, you joined two independent clauses with a comma, which is known as a comma splice; it's one of the most common grammatical errors you'll see, even amongst experienced writers and proofreaders). This new period would mean 'my' has to be capitalized. Em-dashes instead of parentheses. Starcraft: Heart of the Swarm is a proper noun (a title) and should be capitalized appropriately. Lastly, I would write the following instead of "I am now a zerg": I happen to be a zerg.
The first paragraph is incredibly important and I have to say it is indicative of a story that will some grammar mistakes, but not as many as there could be. Obviously, not much can be said with regards to the story from the first paragraph, but for many it can make or break a story in that instant.
And now for the rest of the story. First and foremost: it's not good. It's not incredibly bad, but it's not good. Let's see if we can address all the reasons why.
The pacing is too fast and all over the place. Try and coherently connect the scenes you have with events happening in between them that are connected to the scene you just left in some way in order to have a smooth flow of time. You jump from one time of the day to the next day without a second thought and it's very jarring. Furthermore, your pacing during scenes needs some work as well. Thoughts of the characters seem too short and disjointed. It feels like you're rushing to get a 1000 word homework assignment done within the next two hours.
There are issues with formatting, but that's too subjective a topic to go into detail about here. If you get an editor (which you should, and I'll provide all relevant links at the end of this comment), they'll most likely go over some text positioning and formatting issues with you.
If you have to switch POV for a minor character that you're just going to dispose of like a candy wrapper, DON'T. It wasn't necessary, made very little sense in the first place, and was too jarring in the flow of the story to be justified in my mind. But mostly, the issue here is that the farmer's scene made little sense from a logical standpoint. What makes this farmer so special that he can just waltz into Canterlot, seemingly on the same day, and get an audience with the Princess? And for that matter, there wasn't a single question about how he got in there, who let him in, where he came from, etc. It was more or less "Oh, look. There's a random pony here in the most important building in Equestria when we just had a national crisis. We should hear what he has to say."
Going back to the interaction between the farmer and his wife, all I can say is this: it was very dry, stale even. It wasn't even like they were reading from a script. The wife's pleas were lacking, the husband's ploy to get her to stop protesting was clichéd, and again, there was not questioning on how the farmer planned to even so much as get within 200 yards of the palace, let alone speak with Celestia.
For Celestia's POV…
You shouldn't switch to another POV like this in a first person story. You can, but I believe you shouldn't. If you need a way to show what's going on elsewhere, find a way for your character to be there so that he can observe and comment on it. But if you really need to and can't get your character there, you can switch. Just don't do it too often and with multiple characters. Furthermore, you accidently slipped out of first person in this POV. You had one instance of using "I" in your narrative as a dialogue tag after Celestia spoke, and all the other times you used third person.
The entire dialogue of the scene feels a bit off as well. I can't quite quantify what I mean by that, so perhaps someone else can elaborate a bit more.
Last scene…
If you're going to do a "X years ago" thing like this, it should be at the beginning of the story. I realize you may have been going for an "in the midst of the action" opening, but backstory like that should come at the start, not the end, of the chapter.
In conclusion, your grammar and spelling suffered throughout, even got a little worse as the chapter went on, but wasn't the worst that I've seen. Construction of thoughts and scenes along with meaningful and in-character dialogue are the things you should focus on the most at the moment. Then you can come back and refine the other elements of this story that may be lacking.
As promised, here are some links that may help you in your endeavors:
The Proofreader Group {Be sure to carefully read the rules and all other provided information}
Starcraft Fan Group {I'm sure you're already a member of this one, but I feel obligated to link it}
Game Crossovers {Again, I get the feeling you might be part of this one already, but it's still probably a good place to ask around for advice on writing a game crossover}
I wish you good luck with everything and hope you can greatly improve from this slightly more harsh, but more detailed, review. I don't normally read crossovers but for some reason I want to see this story do well. No upvote/downvote or fave from me yet, but I'll still keep an eye on things by popping in every month or two and'll comment again sometime. And remember to never give up!
This review brought to you by Lupine Reviews, LLC., a subsidiary of The Lupine Corporation, a fictitious company of my own creation that makes this comment seem much more official. :P
This has great potential...potential to be fucking awesome.
4288049 No it does not.
4288065 It totally does.
To be completely blunt, this story is bad, there are so many grammatical errors, but I can look past that, the problem for me is that this story just paced far too quickly, the interactions between characters are flat and uninteresting, not to mention they don't seem very real, when I'm reading this it feels clunky and disjointed.
This story has potential, but you need to slow down, not just in the pacing of this story, but when you are physically writing this, I get the feeling you rushed this story out as fast as possible. Don't rush it, slow down, re-read your work, it'll take about five minutes tops, then you can fix the problems and make the story more smoothly and the characters seem more real, as it stands, I'm sorry but this is just bad.
4287274
Yay! people are liking it!
4287454
Thank you for giving me some well deserved criticism. I will try to implement it in my work.
4288049
I will try to meet it's potential.
4288090
Thank you. As stated, this is my first fic, and so i'm not very good yet.
well apparently I wasn't the only one to think that we needed a Zerg story on the League
luckily our ideas are quite different so I don't have to alter anything except on how fast I'm working on it
not bad on the story, let's see where you take it
4288739
Yay! We can now have glory us (and humorous) co-operation!
4288755
we'll see how things work out
For the SWARM!
4288776
For the Swarm!
Like the idea, but I'm going to wait a little while for improvements and more chapters. A like for the concept though
4289868
Thanks! Im trying to get better as fast as possible.
By the way, I accidentally posted chapter 2 prematurely. So I had to unpost it. Sorry.
4299062 i has sad
4299772 I'm going to try to post this chapter as soon as possible (1000 words at least). And then I'm going to try and post one every week end.
4300805 YAY
no one else said it.
kkekekekekekekekekekekekekekkekkekekekekekekekekekeke
4288755 Despite my love for starcraft I can't like this story sorry when stories with just zerg are here and they don't destroy equis can't like it
4312297 too bad ponies can't build supply depots to block the choke points... :\
4287454 your comment is longer than the story dude.
4312477
One thing, Elements of Harmony
4312297
Nice
4313655
>>reads comment
>>thinks to self "that can't possibly be true"
>>copy-pastes comment into Word
>>sees 1871 words
…
moar
"You probably cannot understand. Being a Zerg limits you in that fashion."
"I do not need to understand. All I need to know is how to grow the swarm. And you are a Zerg, you just need to submit."
"I will never submit to-"
I Think that Dahaka and Prime Directive talks to one Another here right? So why is it all in Dahaka color?
Also love the fic and would love it to see an update.
4405249
ah, thank you. I'll fix it soon. and I will try to update soon.
not bad chapter, waiting for more
4460880 I'm happy that I'm if not good, then not bad ether
What about Dahaka explaining that he was under prime directives
control.
Celestia (probably) knows what a hive mind is and understand
Not bad, but want more.
4464322 That would be like Hitler saying that he has a bad alternate personality, and that he
is not a bad guy at all.
4464525 Don't worry, I'll try to get the next one out sooner than this one.
Celestia seems blinded by the past.
Lurve this story so far and the Encroacher seems like an awesome unit that I suddenly wish I had in SC2.