Once upon a time, Princess Celestia was a pegasus.
She didn't choose to become immortal.
Done with a challenge by rainsilent to write a story that changes scenes every paragraph.
Take a look into the Kaleidoscope.
Second place in the Kaleidoscope writing challenge for the Quills and Sofas Speedwriting group. The challenge was to write a story based around the same title, prompt and cover. An explanation can be found here, credit to The Seer.
Recommended If You Enjoy Experimental Fiction by Present Perfect
Chapters (1)
This is honestly one of those times where I can't imagine people sitting in a room listening to someone explain this idea and no one raising a hand and asking, "uh, you sure about that?"
That being said congrats on being the first of these stories that comes after a break in the chain. By a porn story, sure, rated Mature so people with the Mature filter on won't notice the break in the chain. But it's there.
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Somebody DID, but they went ahead anyway.
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I hate that challenge. Then again, perhaps without it this story wouldn't be what it is, and I really, really liked the underlying idea. Well done!
So I was a dummy and didn’t read the summary before reading the story itself. The constant shifts in scene were evocative of a fever dream, but once I understood what was happening (which would have taken less time if I’d read the summary), I could follow along with each arc and Celestia’s reactions to them. It was kind of like a David Mitchell novel compressed into a short story. I struggled to make sense of it, but it was really interesting.
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Thanks, I appreciate it :)
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Thanks for the comment! I actually used the words "fever dream" when I was brainstorming the story (due to Celestia's disorientation and the total nonlinearity), so I'm oddly happy that I got this remark. So yeah, totally understandable that it was difficult to fully grasp, but I'm glad the arcs were at least a little bit clear.
With that being said, any criticism or suggestions to improve? You're a good writer (and I'm still getting there
) so I'm sure there's a lot I have to learn.
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This story has some seriously good writing, though, and I enjoyed reading it, even though I struggled with its structure. I was actually hesitant to give any suggestions because I didn’t want to suggest anything that would change what makes it unique.
That’s really kind, thank you
On a re-read, I realized I’d connected the first couple of paragraphs into one coherent arc: Celestia is on a hospital bed but lapses into a fever dream; in the fever dream, she’s leading her army across a lake, where the other army is led by her mother (who stuns her with a flash of light to save a soldier Celestia was about to kill). I missed that Celestia was in a room. I wonder if each of the first paragraphs could have started with some difference — maybe Celestia’s age or something blunt like “She was in her room” “She was on the battlefield” — to really make clear each paragraph is a different scene.
In terms of other story elements, this story really is great. We get a lot of sides of Celestia that we don’t see often, and all feel accurate to her, and they’re described in engaging ways. It was a challenge to make sense of, but the challenge was more than worth it.
This was very well executed for having such a difficult challenge imposed on it.
I loved the dreamlike presentation. Your descriptive work is still top notch as well, it all worked excellently in conjunction.
Nicely done mate!
I also didn't read that summary first, though i got the feeling that it was going for afterward. Very dreamlike and interesting!
That is not what I was expecting at all. I loved what you did with the challenge. Well done.
oh shit
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Thanks for the read!
Seems like people on the speedwriting server are pretty hyped about getting comments. Might a review blog be in the works? 🙃
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yes'm :3
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