Six Friends

Schwarzwald

Schwarzwald #1 · Apr 7th, 2012 · · ·

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Amazing poem/story.

Twilicorn

Twilicorn #2 · Apr 7th, 2012 · · ·

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D'aww. Feature worthy!

Armalite

Armalite #3 · Apr 7th, 2012 · · ·

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419282>>419279 Thanks guys! I just started writing poems this year, and it turns out that I'm pretty good at it Who woulda thought?

Dr. Fumbles

Dr. Fumbles #4 · Apr 7th, 2012 · · ·

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Warning! Long comment incoming!
*Initializing critic mode in 3... 2... 1...*

This was pretty good, but I do have a few problems. It certainly wasn't bad, it was just... I guess you could say random?
If this story is a sequal or a prequal to another story, or something else, let me know. If not, then that is the problem. The poetry isn't bad, in fact it's quite good, but there is no real reason to care about any of it. What I mean is that I have no idea who Jake, Kyle, Alice, Sam, Leon, and Mack are, nor do I know what they are doing or why they are doing it. I have no emotional investment to the characters. It seems like you were trying to write one of those stories that gives little to no detail to the why's or how's, and instead uses a common fear, notion or idea that people can relate to, such as 'Soft Rains will Come' (a personal favorite of mine), to tell the story without actually telling a story, which is a great, though difficult, concept. However, you were too specific in areas where there should not have been details at all. By giving the names of these six characters, and even placing them in an age group, you have started to give them each their own individual identity, which naturally makes me want to learn more about them. However, you kill these characters before anything is learned, thus preventing any emotional bonding, yet a portion of the story assumes we should feel bad for these characters. In a story of this nature, it would probably be better to keep them anonymous, or perhaps to simply represent humanity as a whole (like the story I mentioned above did). Doing that would allow the reader to feel personally invested in the story, since we all represent a part of humanity.
The second problem follows along the same lines with the too much detail. Stories like this can feel a little stupid, no offence. It's not your fault, it is just simply the concept. This (almost) gives the way overused cliche of 'Earth/humanity is evil/terrible'. That concept is rediculously difficult to pull off, and almost everyone tries it unfortunately. Even the popular story 'Somewhere only we know' comes off as a little silly to me, and kinda fails with the concept. It relies way too heavily on HUMANS ARE BAD!!! which drowns out the good portions of the story. Don't get me wrong, it is a wonderful story, but that one downfall almost ruins it for me. It is easy to get carried away with the 'Human life sucks' idea, but you don't want to sound too misanthropist. As I said, this concept is nearly impossisible to achieve (yet when done right, can make some of the greatest stories). Not only is doing it right difficult, but being original is perhaps the hardest part.
To come back to the point, you use a very... strange way of approaching this problem, whether intentional or not. Unfortunately, it does not work out, but only for the reasons given about detail, as I said earlier. Instead of using the nuclear holocaust or world war gambits, you choose the... zombies? mutants? aliens? I have no idea what it is, and therein lies the problem. You give the interesting detail of 'monsters' yet never elaborate. We know these monsters aren't other (functioning, rational) humans because Twilight doesn't address the children as monsters as well. Because of the bizarre nature of the childrens demise, we want to know more about their situation since it is nothing we can relate to (especially since we barely even know what is happenning), as oppossed to war, plagues, etc.
Most importantly, it seems like this was meant to be part of a bigger story. Again, you give details in places where they did not belong, yet never explain about the things we want to hear about. Who were those children? What were they fighting? Why were they fighting, and most importantly (again), why should I care? The reader wants to feel rewarded for reading your stories, so they don't feel like they wasted their time. Luckily, this story is fairly short, so it doesn't need to worry about that as much.
Having too many loose ends is usually never a good thing; the reader shouldn't be asking questions at the end of a story. Some stories actually try to do this and succeed, since they tend to be more thought-provoking or mind blowing, but that is not the case here.
Also, the Lyra comment felt a little out of place in a story of this nature. It really slowed the momentum you were building.

As I said, the poetry and story aren't bad, and it does have its good points as well. Just take this as friendly advice from someone who wants to help. If you have read to this point, then thank you for taking your time to hear what I had to say, and remember that this is mostly just my opinion.
Now, I await much TL;DR.

LightHero01

LightHero01 #5 · Apr 7th, 2012 · · ·

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Well this was... different. Don't get me wrong it was a VERY good poem but it kinda feels... bleh at times. I mean it WAS good but like Dr. Fumbles said it DID give a little bit too much detail at parts while at others it gave too little. Like for one thing the whole "monsters" thing, like Dr. Fumbles said before me, it was very... undescriptive for a lack of a better word (because I can't fucking spell "veage" ) when discribing them. At first glance my mind IMMEDIATLY thought zombies, most likely from all the zombie games I play, but then I thought it could also be a sorta post-apocaliptic thing like in a "Fallout" game setting, but the zombies are more likely. I also felt like the whole "giving the characters names" thing was sorta bitter-sweet, like it drew me into the story a bit more, but at the same time making me want a backstory to this because I feel like I'm missing out on alot of info, hell I'd write a backstory myself if it wasn't for that everytime I go to write something I GET WRITERS BLOCK. EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. Sorry about that, but yeah it stands alone well enough by itself but it could be greatly improved with a backstory. Also I have a problem with the whole "Princesses are trying to find way into world to help" thing, because doesn't that seem a little, I dunno, "iressponsible"? I mean, sure its nice of them to want to help but doesn't that put Equestria in danger? Like if it IS zombies then chances are it could possibly infect ponies if it somehow gets into Equestria and mutates to be able to infect them. I personally think that the Princesses would leave things be and let nature run its course. You may say I'm heartless for saying that but you must remember "The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few." and, seeing as the Princesses have probably made this choice before, it seems they would do it again if it meant keeping Equestria safe. Also the Lyra comment was WAY outta place and it took the mood and momentem the story had and threw it on the ground for a second there. In short, a pretty good poem, a story that coulda been better but good overall, and I enjoyed it alot, even more so with the fact that it has very few spelling errors and the ones it DOES have are very small, has a good idea behind it, I'd say was pulled off nicely, and overall enjoyable and MUCH (times 9001 ) better than most stories I see on the front page that can't even spell "the" correctly and have no plot whatsoever. Going in my favorites and getting a like, keep up the good work and, FOR THE LOVE OF CELESTIA KEEP WRITING, you are very talented and have lots of room for inprovement. (I really need to work on my tendency to ramble,this comment/review was WAY to long )

Armalite

Armalite #6 · Apr 7th, 2012 · · ·

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420328>>420125 Thanks for the critics guys! I had a random flash of insperation when doing this, and the concept behind the idea when I started was for the readers to answer their own questions. The reason for the story actually, was the fact that it needed to be over 1000 words in order to be submited So I created a story on the author of the poem. That's why the story was done kind of on the fly. I tried to give it the same atmosphere as the poem, which was really hard. However, becuase of the feedback I might do another story about this world. Whether or not these kids will be involved, I'm not sure, but it will be in the same world. Oh, and one more thing... zombies.