Noonlight Bright is a unicorn focusing on the big picture. Even after being accepted to the school for Gifted Unicorns, she still has problems with basic magic spelling, causing all her glorious ideas to poof away into nothing.
One day, her old friend - the great and powerful Trixie - pays her a surprise visit, offering her an ancient tablet she refers to as "The Autocorrect Spell."
It sounds like everything Noonlight has ever dreamt for. But is it really?
Special thanks to Scathecraw for editing.
Chapters (1)
The beginning was great, the premise amazing and the characters well-written. However, toward the end I grew confused. If the auto-correct spell only works when she's totally focused, why does it malfunction? Small grammar issues pepper the writing, and I hope there will be a sequel. I wasn't sure why she went to Endless Scroll, and I want to read more of this story.
6128043
Thanks! Glad you liked it! :) the spell doesn't, didn't malfunction :D just when she is focused she makes less/no mistakes, so it doesn't correct anything major. When she panics she starts messing up more, and since the autocorrect spell corrects how it thinks best, the spell goes through, but the outcome is questionable :)
And yes, I rely on my autocorrect spell too much as well, so will tackle that.
As for Endless... Guess he'll have to teach her spelling all over again. We'll see ;)
OK. I loved this story. Emphasis on loved.
The only thing that could use some help is minor spelling and grammar mistakes- an editor could be useful.
6129419
Happy you liked it! :)))
Yes, them mistakes *blush* they'll be taken care of of, already working with an editor on another story and will hopefully go through this as well quite soon :D
6129542
If you fix the minor mistakes in this story-
Make no mistake, it will be in the top five of my favourites list.
6130185
Aaaaaaa! Cruel fate to have me so error-blind! :)
Seriously, though, fix as much as I can... Then get help from a pro :)
Liked and favved.
This needs more views. Loved the details of magic.
One question: if her name is Noonlight, how come the professor calls her "Miss Bright"?
6197745
Thanks! :) Very glad you like it :)) Means a lot coming from you.
Her full name is Noonlight Bright :D, so he's just being professorly.
I am giving you a critique. I only do this for stories I like and authors who show potential. Consider what I say as what a reader got from reading your words.
I am blown away by the concept of the story. Making spell casting literially spelling the incantation properly just seems perfectly right. Did you come up with the idea? I'm practically envious. There is nothing more meta than the manipulation of symbols to perform magic, even in real world examples (my major in college was heavy on folklore and mythology). To take the extra step to apply the concept of auto-correction to fix errors in a magic spell's execution just makes my jaw drop. Plenty of shamans and alchemists who would have liked something like that. That you went the next step and showed how it could go horribly wrong is the essence of good science fiction. As Greg Bear explained to me and a Clarion class, science fiction is stories about how technology effects people. This story qualifies.
That said, I must alas also tell you that the story needs work. The part after Noon flees her class after her spectacular demonstration is muddied by problems with point-of-view issues and unclearly presenting the action and train of thought. Both issues are, in my opinion, only first draft issues. A careful rewrite would fix these (and typos in the beginning).
Having read two of your stories now, here's my first recommendation. If you are not under time constraints, like a contest or a Equestria Daily Writer's Training ground prompt, write your story in the heat of the moment, clean it, then shelve it. Write something else, letting it ripen, if you will. Then read it again a few weeks or a month later. You will see your errors much better then. Alternatively, employ a reader who is willing to tell you the truth of what he or she finds, even if it might hurt your feelings (no relatives or supportive friends, in other words).
Second, stay in one point of view. For example, consider what it means to write in the first person. Unless the character represented by "I" is telepathic, only those things the character can perceive can be reported upon. This story is written in third person personal, roughly the equivalent narration as that of I. Unfortunately, sometimes you accidentally slip from Noon into Trixie's head. Once, you actually pull back from Noon and let the author's voice as a classical omniscient narrator speak. Look at your writing, converting it in your head to first person. You'll see your sins.
Keep writing new stuff. Considering the publish-with-no-take-backs environment here, fixing this story might prove pointless from a reader standpoint. If you decided to do that anyway, I don't think it would be time wasted, this time. Write your next story with these things in mind and you'll find yourself closer to your goals.
Here are two problem areas:
(It isn’t Noon at this point, but you speaking.)
(Here the two sentences between the speech dips into Trixie's head.)
6199457
Wow! That's really kind of you :D Very glad you enjoyed the idea.
The autocorrect variation is mine, but the overall idea was inspired from The Colour of Magic by Terry Pratchett long ago (in a scene in which Druids were discussing whether magic runes on Henges was a software or hardware problem). I thought this take might be interesting :))
Not under time constraints, but am high on emotion when writing, so I unconsciously try to go as quickly as possible then move to the next. Will follow your advice on waiting then retreading though. :) (In general I rarely reread/rewatch/replay things)
As for perspective jumping... *sigh* I do that a lot :( Jumps from character to character with touches of omnivoyance in between. Guess I now know what I should focus on :) starting with the examples you gave :))
6200899
The Color Magic was a great book, but I don't remember spells hinging literally on their spelling as you've posed it. I credit you for this concept in this case.
Writing in the heat of the moment is best. Continue that. However, you must revise.
Based on our communication and your work, I highly suggest that you start writing in the first person. You see, keeping in POV is an issue I'm working upon, also. The third person personal, best exemplified by the works of C. J. Cherryh, is hard to master. I took up writing in this universe to work on my craft in a publish or die environment. My bugaboos are discipline, concision, and focused POV. I'm writing solely in the first person to address the latter. So I'm not asking you to do something I'm not.
It's all practice. If you don't like it, you can switch back after you've absorbed the lesson.
Meh...I wasn't too impressed. The premise ...
Ah, who do I think I'm kidding, this story was amazing! The idea was great, the execution was almost flawless (there were a couple of grammar mistakes). Overall, great story.
6415521 thank you :))
Being autocorrected is always a curse :) Glad you enjoyed :D
6419832 Thanks, Strides :)
Am a dreamer, so sometimes forget what I have explained on paper :)
Generally, when a concept is developed I think of all sorts of weird things I deliberately don't mention since there aren't central :)
Sometimes useful info is caught in the crossfire O:)
Interesting indeed. A wonderful concept, elegantly built up, even if it does stumble to a halt towards the end.
6856224 :) Wow! Thanks :) I potentially should get back to this. Been ages since I read it :D
I couldn't not read this when I happened across it. After all, I am just as guilty of subjecting poor unicorn foals to the horrors of magical auto-correction.
It doesn't seem fair to bring up anything technical after almost two years and that I've seen that your works have improved, so I'll skip that.
I'm not sure what to say exactly, beyond that the concept amuses me. As evidenced by the fact the I wrote a story about the same concept. I had to wait for a morally-warped Starlight Glimmer to come along because creating the spell was important to the story, but an ancient tablet seems to work just fine as a way to simply introduce it.
Mostly, I'm smiling because this story proves I'm not
the only cray personalone, if only in how I perceive spelling software.Very nice. It's a shame there is no sequel