Pistols at Dawn, Not Manly Enough

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They've only been at camp for a few hours and someone already has their sights set on Twilight, but Flash is not going to stand for that. He'll show this Timber Spruce who the real man is in the most manly was possible: a duel.

Chapters (1)

Comments ( 12 )

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HB_DS2013

HB_DS2013 #1 · Apr 21st, 2017 · · ·

How old is Timber again?

DR-Fluffy

DR-Fluffy #2 · Apr 21st, 2017 · · ·

8111518 I'm not sure, 20 maybe. Too old in any case.

HB_DS2013

HB_DS2013 #3 · Apr 21st, 2017 · · ·

8111544 I can also see Twilight not dating Flash because he's too young for her... or something.

L0rd0f7hund3r

L0rd0f7hund3r #4 · Apr 22nd, 2017 · 1 · ·

Despite some glaring spelling errors (it's 'duel,' not 'dual',) and some rather odd sentence structure, this was a mighty fine read. I gotta give props to anypony who can work in love triangle between Sunset Shimmer, Timber Spruce, and Science Twilight.

DR-Fluffy

DR-Fluffy #5 · Apr 22nd, 2017 · · ·

8111916 I went over it three times and still miss stuff like that. If you don't mind can you tell me how the sentence structure was odd?

Anyway, thanks for the feedback.

Czar_Yoshi

Czar_Yoshi #6 · Apr 22nd, 2017 · · ·

...Hmm.

If you're looking for qualitative feedback... the two biggest things that stand out to me as issues with this story are that it's too long and that its tone is completely inconsistent.

The premise- and especially the first paragraph- instantly put you in the realm of so absurd you have a license to break any established character and defy any established convention, so long as it furthers the comedic absurdity. Flash mistaking SciTwi as Princess Twi, calling her his waifu, and wanting to fight Timber publicly? Could be hilarious, but it needs to go all in. And for that, you can't do anything that would normalize the story or lower the tension- the slice-of-lifey bit with gathering the things for the duel does exactly that. You need to ride the momentum of your own ridiculousness, they should have fought then and there. Plenty of other crazy stuff like explosions and anime-style yells would have fit, capped with something like s TimberFlash ship at the end. I'm not entirely sure how good that would be- it'd be heavily dependent on your ability as an author to keep people so entertained, they don't care about how flagrantly you're violating your characters. But it's better than breaking character and then pretending that was normal.

The second bit goes along with that: the second half of the fic is actually really serious, but when you've just told the readers to take things seriously at their own peril (and tag it Comedy, but not Drama), you just wind up with a fic that looks like it takes itself way too seriously. Asking someone to become invested in a drama when they're just waiting for a punchline or wink just doesn't work.

So... separate the Derpy/Flash stuff from the Flash/Timber stuff. Both could work, but they belong in totally different stories where they don't send conflicting signals on how to interpret the story.

As for sentence structure, most of the issues I see just have to do with dialogue punctuation. I strongly recommend checking out the section on that in fimfic's writing guide (under the FAQ section on the menu strip). Stylistically, just go for fewer instances that read like "Words words words," character said. Then they did some body language. You can easily cut out the "they said" bit and make it flow a lot smoother- eg: "Words words words." Character did some body language. Just as clear, but avoids repeating said all the time.

DR-Fluffy

DR-Fluffy #7 · Apr 22nd, 2017 · · ·

8112425 While some of your feedback is quite useful for me, I feel I should add I disagree with many of your points.

First, the story does not need to be separated, and it came out about how I imagined. There was no need to make the duel some overblown thing when that was never the focus of the story.

This story was not a drama. Comedy's can have serious moments without being a drama.

But thanks for the feedback, I'll see if I can improve the story when I have time.

Czar_Yoshi

Czar_Yoshi #8 · Apr 22nd, 2017 · · ·

8113221 The duel isn't the focus of the story? It's the only thing mentioned in the description. It's what people will go in expecting to be the focus, so if it isn't, they won't get what they're expecting and won't have a good time. And the first paragraph strongly reinforces that expectation.

You could give someone the best orange juice in the world, but if you tell them it's apple juice, they're going to think it's pretty bad apple juice, or just be mad at you for not giving them what they wanted.

Red Does Reviewing

Red Does Reviewing #9 · May 16th, 2017 · 1 · ·

8113479 Honestly the fact the Duels mentioned in the summary is part of the joke of this fic.

Koga13

Koga13 #10 · Mar 29th, 2018 · 1 · ·

This is good. . . Because it actually portrays teenage males surprisingly well. Especially the moment where Timber and Flash want to duel, but also don't want to inconvenience the rest of the camp by doing it at dawn (so they both casually agree to do it at 8:30). It was priceless!

DR-Fluffy