(First Person)(Alternating Perspective)(Mythical Timeline)
Making a friend is hard, especially for Skylla. A Gorgony who is starting her first day of school. Considered as a monster she flees. A strange Pegasus helps her out to the best of their abilities, maybe less. Will she make friends? Or fall into a friendless state of loneliness?
For Gorgony Group's: Gorgony Story Contest.
Placed: Second. (Thanks Blade-y!)
Huge thanks to EverfreePony for pointing out errors.
Now with a reading by Robipony! Greatness located here~
Chapters (1)
That was pretty good. Good luck in the contest.
A cute read, and I can always enjoy first person writing.
Hmm... not bad, definitely not bad
The beginning is great, I like how detailed and well-thought you made it. Also, nice references to Greek mythology. However, the part after Skylla left school is quite rushed and unclear, one thing happening over another and something that would require more explanation is mentioned just scarcely.
Another thing of style I'd like to point out is your description of characters. I'm completely okay with how Skylla describes Miss Cheerilee - it's understandable that a filly on first day of school will examine her teacher to the tiniest of details. However, don't do that with every character. You are just wasting space and time on that description, as well as risking boring the reader.
Wanna do a description of Di? A pink filly wearing a tiara. Silver Sppon? A grey filly with braids and... a spoon for a cutie mark? And so on... mention just a few traits, not all!
This is enough for anyone who has ever read the show to understand who are you talking about, no need to describe every little colorful spot they have on them.
The last topic I'd like to touch are the tenses. Here are two paragraphs I chose from the story:
Red are the verbs in past tense. Green those in present tense. All of them should be in one tense - past or present. That means, all those verbs I marked should be either red or green. (I chose the colors just so they will look differently enough, there is no right/false meaning to them!)
This issue is spread across the whole story. If you read carefully, I'm sure you'll be able to catch many of those runaway verbs.
Once you have the past or present tenses aligned, the work with the continuous is next. Remember that every continuous needs its simple verb. Again, a few examples:
Possible ways to change this:
"Taking a blue hairbow, I tied the snakes..."
"I took a blue hairbow, tying the snakes..."
(Past simple is my favorite, but of course you can use present simple)
"Panic swelled through me."
"Panic was swelling through me."
And that's it. I hope this little advice will give you a bigger chance in the contest
If anything was unclear or you have additional questions, don't hesitate to ask!
Good luck in your writing!
-Ever
8049901
Wow, thank you for the analysis. I will immediately put what you said to use. Thank you. ^^
I would like to mention that I have Deuteranopia... so those two colors... anyway. Thank you.
As for the different tenses it isn't so much as I write in two tenses... mainly I write in past, but it was I wrote it in past tense... then switched, so I might have missed things. Could I put you down as a proofreader after I fix those mistakes, and any others I might have brushed over?
8050181 You're welcome
Oh, I was unaware... Do you want me to rewrite those green ones to you? By underlining, for example... Anyway, once you are done, feel free to send it to me and I'll take a second look
8050200
If I look just enough, different angles, then I can see the differences. But if you would be willing maybe using blue for one of them... then that would be of some help. And it is because I don't mention it. ^^
8050202
Also, I just now noticed that mother it capitalized in the text above. It's normal noun, no need to do so
Eh, right... the tenses. So, past is underlined, present in bold and italics. Hopefully this helps. Maybe you haven't stated it anywhere, but it's still a great lesson for me. Many men are daltonic, so they would have the trouble too. Thanks to you, I found out that it's not the best way of marking words!
8050226
Don't forget colorblindness runs through women as well. Just so you don't offend anyone, might be best not to assume genders as well. As for me, just use whatever pronoun you wish; as long as I know it is me it is referring too, then it is good.
8050265 Oh, well... know that you are talking to a biologist. People can feel like whatever gender(s) they want, but they can never escape their genes. To put it simply, you'll always have either a combination of XX or XY (there are triploid exceptions, but let's ignore them for now) no matter what you consider yourself as.
The genes responsible for daltonism lie on chromosome X. Thus when a male (XY) receives a "damaged" chromosome X, there is no other chromosome to fix that. Seriously, chromosome Y is mostly just a tiny blank space with a few genes - this little guy simply can't fix anything. However, in female (XX), there is the other chromosome X that can fill in the chores of his damaged buddy. So the female carries a damaged chromosome, but she herself is completely okay - vision-wise at least. Of course, two damaged Xs can meet in one female and then she too will be daltonic. But it's far less frequent than in males.
Phew... That was quite a crash course in genetics. I hope you can understand this summary - seriously, I left out a lot of things
8050298
I did understand. Could you put the full thing? I'm just curious as to how much I know... feel free to say no. Also this is a lesson to me. I need to remember that people have things they do with their lives.
8050307 The full thing would be a book of genetics, mathematical probability, reproduction strategies and entropy. I don't think FIMFic is going to allow me write one comment that long
Seriously now... I think there aren't many scientists around this site, so you couldn't know. Hundred people, hundred tastes, hundred points of view on one topic
8050318
Yeah... and a story of that length... could be disguised as ponies, though it might not make it long. I would read it.
A scientist makes a breakthrough in the field of biology, and tries to share it with the other citizens of Equestria...
I'm going to check some of your stories out, if I haven't already added them to a bookshelf. But before I do that I have several things to take care of. The editing will have to wait until tomorrow; though I did get a small start already.
Stories to read, someone else's story to edit, stories to review... et cetera.
8050336 The book I had in mind is a real existing book by the name of "Love, sex and tenderness in the land of animals and plants" but it was published only in my native language, so I can't really link you that. However, I admit there are stories of mine heavily influenced by science...
Anyway, those can wait. Take your time and finish your duties to those awaiting them. Good luck!
8049124
Thank you... that was mostly what I was going for... sure! ^^
Before I read this, what is the Dark tag for ?
And how bad does it get ?
8053494
Hello again. How's your day?
The dark tag is for some "regular bullies" teasing and some more "hard truths" of the world. I would say that it doesn't get bad, no gore or anything like that. Just some of the "harsh" realities of the world. Out of curiosity; is there a reason you ask that for, what I've seen, every story with the dark tag in it?
Do you know what defeat tastes like? Well, you're about to either way.
8139644
I do know, but either way I think this was fun. Good luck with your entry. ^^
8140134
And to you as well.
Must admit this wasn't a particular dark story. Slight bullying and "harsh truths" aren't really same as Dark Tag description:
Personally the story feels to me like Sad and/or Slice of Life. Dark gives people wrong expectations, especially combined with AU tag.
Story feels slow. Perhaps it is because it is in first person and both characters have tendency to explain a lot, like say history of stick being used as a weapon. Story itself is sweet and I can't really comment more about it. I do find it funny that despite being overly descriptive there are still questions that remain unresolved like relationship between Skyla and her parents and who or what Stripes is. This feels more part of some larger world and that I am missing some content. Also her becoming friends with CMC right after she stoned them seems a bit forced. Two out of three were way too understanding and then immediately comes time skip.
Skyla seems like standard person with self-esteem issues due her particular brand of problems. I find her habit of sometimes speaking to herself with "we" or "us" a bit odd. Still no actual complaints about her.
Stripes I kinda feel that should not have his own PoV segment. Personal preference but I think seeing him only from Skylas view would help him to be a mysterious good matured stranger. Kinda awkward that he is mysterious and yet we look things from his perspective.
8170111
Well, glad you thought it was part of a larger world (that's what an AU should feel like). As far as any other tags go... I couldn't really decide... sad really. I should mention there is going to more expansion of this world... eventually.
As far as characters go. I thought it would make things all the more curious to give a PoV from Stripes' perspective, though honestly I did one too many... which was an accident, but I didn't feel like stopping it.
The time skip was very intentional. CMC become "normal," and notice somepony all alone. Why wouldn't they try to help? Also this is why I need to really check logic when I'm not running on so little sleep... given I had less than one week for the contest at the time of my entry into it... and I didn't find out about the extension until after I had submitted it. But yeah. Things can get explained better in a few later stories. Skylla, especially Stripes, will make a return.
Look at the time... I need to go. Bye Cinder talk to you later.
That was rather sweet
. I enjoyed it, XD. Not used to reading first person, but it was definitely a nice, enjoyable reading experience.
~Melly~
8199874
I mostly work in first person. It helps give a better feel of the character, or at least that is how I find it. I currently only have one story that isn't first... and I think it is quite horrible. But I keep it up. Eventually it might get a rewrite, but need to finish it first. Anywho, I'm glad you enjoyed it. :\
I'm thinking of starting to tag my stories with the perspective view (until knighty finishes the first person tag that he mentioned he might add). Do you think it is a good idea?
8200114
I don't think it would hurt. It's up to you really. I don't see why not.
~Melly~
The story was interesting and enjoyable, I have no idea how I feel about Stripes, at least in this story he seems kind of like a Gary Stu, however considering that he may have been a character in one of your other stories I could just not have the full picture. I will say looking back over it he does have some potential, from what it sounds like with that book perhaps some of the reasons why he is so strange is because of bizarre events that have happened to him in his journeys (which I would be interested in seeing, if they aren't already in existence).
8588913
This is the first story Stripes appears in; they'll be used more later. As far as that Gary Stu/Mary Sue feeling... that really just comes down to me being out of practice writing mysterious characters. While I have plans to include Stripes in more adventures, I haven't actually thought of making one about his (?) own.
I honestly don't get why people keep going to male for Stripes... though writing an agender is rather difficult, and I might have slipped up (or everyone is assigning a gender... in which case I should give Stripes a "proper" gender). Though I do have to ask -- other than me being bad at mysterious characters, what gives the Gary Stu/Mary Sue feeling? Any specific parts.
Also, thank you!
8589079 I noticed some of the agender stuff, but the character just felt male to me (might just be the fact that I like to put myself in the roll of the characters).
The Gary Stu elements merely came down to the fact that he seemed very philosophical and seemed to have a solution for most of the problems in the story (however, now that I think about it, his fear of heights does change things a bit). But like I said, it wouldn't surprise me if the character perhaps became this way due to the various supernatural events they came across prior to this story. Perhaps that is they reason why they are agender, maybe they had a gender once and something supernatural happened.
It just seemed very similar to the Gary Stu characters I have read about in other fics.
But characters do grow so perhaps he wasn't always this way. At least that is what I like to think.
8589125
I'm beaming! Thank you for the feedback! It means a lot~
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