• Member Since 27th Aug, 2016
  • offline last seen Dec 1st, 2016

ArtaFactia


Nowhere Mare

T

Applejack, Big Mac, and Applebloom wake up to find that their grandmother, Granny Smith, has passed away. Everypony is sure that her death is merely the result of natural causes, of her age finally catching up with her. But Applejack gets the feeling that something isn't right about her grandmother's death, and she enlists the help of Pinkie Pie and Rarity to investigate.

Will her friends be able to solve this mystery? Is there even a mystery there at all?

Chapters (2)
Comments ( 22 )

great start... looking forward to the continuation!

7523204 Thanks! I'm working on getting my notes in order, and then I'll hopefully start on the second chapter soon.

I am going to track this so that I can see when the next chapter comes out! :pinkiehappy:

7523804
7523638

:pinkiehappy: Thank you so much! I'm really excited about the next chapter myself. Playing sleuth with Rarity and Pinkie is going to be fun as all get out.

*WRITING INTENSIFIES*

7527170

Yes. All of my yes. Take them.

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There's a part of me that really wants Granny Smith to just be pranking them in some sort of incredibly elaborate, incredibly cruel joke.

YOU MONSTER! Oh wait...maybe I'm the monster for killing her off... :rainbowderp:

7528227

The thought has crossed my mind, yes. I can't leave the rest of the alphabet out of the fun, now can I? But let's focus on A for the moment. Writing this story will take all of my writing powers and then some. It's quite the undertaking for me, and I hope I succeed. :pinkiecrazy:

Please don't tell me it's one of the mane six. I hate it when writers do that. None of them are capable of doing something like that. (And if it's Fluttershy then I will personally....I got nothing. Nothing will prepare you for what will do if it's Fluttershy).

7529167

The very idea offends me! Maybe this is saying too much too early, but it is not one of the Mane Six. As you said, none of them could reasonably carry out such a heinous act, and it would be a low move to make one of them do such a thing. So no, you've nothing to fear in that respect.

And especially not Fluttershy. I could never do that to that sweetheart.

7529388 oh thank Celestia. I read a story that Sweetie Belle murdered Tender Taps..for what reason? Thank you for not making your story immensely OOC. That would have ruined it for me.

7529990

I read a story that Sweetie Belle murdered Tender Taps

I...I just don't even.

Thank you for not making your story immensely OOC. That would have ruined it for me.

You're welcome! And yes, I'm going to keep the established characters IC for the most part. I can't promise there won't be any behavioural changes, though, since I've only got certain details filled out so far, but I shall do my best to avoid doing so. Nothing is more jarring than seeing a character acting out of character.

7530441 that was my reaction exactly when I read that part! :rainbowlaugh: I hate it when characters are OOC. It completely ruins the story.

My sister: oh well you should talk! You make Celestia a jerk in your fan fics!

Me: yeah but it's for comedy!

My sister: your comedy isn't that good either.

Me: shut up you can't write like I do!

7530464

To be fair, sometimes a character being OOC works, if you can make it work. For instance, in my other fic, I have Chrysalis acting a little differently than she has been shown in the show or the comics, but I do provide at least a small explanation/theory of why her behaviour has skewed in that direction. Whether or not it is believable enough, I leave that up to my readers.

7530513 when I make a character OOC, it's normally for comedy purposes. Like in one of my stories, Luna behaves like a complete idiot, thinking that the iPad is staring at her. Or when Celestia banished Luna to the moon because she commented on her fat...how do I put this....:rainbowhuh:...hindquarters? Any way, as long as it's not too serious, I can forgive you for that. But back to this story, the characters are good, the mystery has me on the edge of my seat, and crap I just fell off its so intense. :rainbowlaugh:

7530548

Or when Celestia banished Luna to the moon because she commented on her fat...hindquarters

Celestia has glorious hindquarters! :heart:

But back to this story, the characters are good, the mystery has me on the edge of my seat...

You have no idea how happy that makes me to hear that! This is my first mystery so I wasn't sure how it was faring in the eyes of my readers. At the moment I'm just slowly and casually working on notes for the next and upcoming chapters, not letting myself get too stressed about things (since I do have the tendency to run myself ragged). It'll likely be a few days before the next chapter. I'm pacing myself now, trying to make sure I give it enough thought to make it both believable and competent. Keep your eyes open for further detective work! :3

7529167
It's interesting that's where you draw the line. (I'm not trying to judge, really I'm not; it's interesting.) There's a good argument to be made that it's not just the Mane Six, it's Equestria that simply isn't capable of murder; it's a reality that works under different rules, and it would break the world just as hard to have a bit character or random townspony be a killer.

I'm kind of out on the other side of the spectrum. Pinkie Pie seemed a little too suspicious in her behavior and her mood swings, and I was engaged by trying to sort out whether it seemed fishy or whether it was a reasonable reaction to such a tragedy. I am slightly disappointed to have that flat-out ruled out in comments, but there's still plenty of room left for an engaging mystery here.

Habemus Corpus

"We have a body." I see what you did there. :raritywink:

The one observation that sort of leapt out at me about the writing here, which you might want to consider, is that you're writing in third-person omniscient (you have a narrator who's not any of the characters in the story, and rather than being confined to one character's brain, the narrator is able to tell us what's going on inside multiple characters' heads) — and yet there are a number of times when the narrator seems to introduce their own opinions or observations about the story, such as:

'Ah ain't dead yet, no need to act like it's comin'', she had said. But maybe it had finally come.

By making the narrator a character who doesn't actually exist in the story and then giving us the narrator's thoughts, you're basically breaking the fourth wall. That sort of observation works better in third-person limited, when those observations allow you to develop character voice and illustrate the viewpoint character's view on the world around them. It's not impossible to do in omniscient, but it's tricky and distracting.

Finally, if you're a mystery fan, you might appreciate the blog series that ScarletWeather is starting about mystery writing.

Best,
h

7530890

There's a good argument to be made that it's not just the Mane Six, it's Equestria that simply isn't capable of murder

THIS. I will admit I had a similar thought regarding Aqua Drop's objection to one of the Mane Six being the culprit, when this is ostensibly a fictional world where murder just doesn't compute. It doesn't happen. And yet now it has.

Pinkie Pie seemed a little too suspicious in her behavior and her mood swings

That would be me writing badly, unfortunately, trying to do both and not segueing well.

By making the narrator a character who doesn't actually exist in the story and then giving us the narrator's thoughts, you're basically breaking the fourth wall.

I will admit it, I'm what I would consider a 'neophyte' when it comes to the realm of fictional prose. My writing has usually been confined in the past to strictly poetry, and I'm sure that comes out a bit in my prose. When writing poetry, when the muse is with me, the words just seem to flow, a sort of stream-of-consciousness writing. It is this that invades my story writing. I have a few ideas in my head in terms of where it will go, as well as certain scenes/interactions I've played out over and over between the characters within my mind, and then I start writing. Sometimes things stay on track, other times subtle changes happen and I have to step in to reevaluate the direction and act accordingly. Perhaps it is because of this loose style that I gloss over things like what you mentioned. I hadn't really given any thought to my narrator voice. It's like a slip of the tongue, a little colour commentary, and I guess I didn't notice how it broke the fourth wall.

I have good ideas, but the execution is always somewhat lacking. I don't quite know how to curb some of these reflexive writing habits. I'm pretty much always in my head, being both narrator and cast, and maybe that's a problem. But I've done it for so long that I feel I've built myself a pretty little mental birdcage for me to sing in without being able to stretch my wings. :applejackunsure:

Maybe I should go back and rewrite the chapters, and try to push it into the mold of third-person limited. I'm not sure. I feel a little mentally waylaid at the moment. :derpyderp1:

EDIT: I just went back through both chapters and made some changes to remove the omniscient moments and keep things set in limited. Limited does seem the better option for a mystery story, anyhow, since there is the mystery of what thoughts are going through the character's heads on top of the main mystery itself.

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