Chapter One - A Magic Cutiemark
Somewhere in the Centre of Ponyville, Equestria
A small blur zoomed through the main area of Ponyville and was headed towards Sweet Apple Acres. If you looked carefully, the blur could be identified as three fillies riding on a scooter. These fillies were none other than Applebloom, Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle, the infamous Cutie Mark Crusaders. The sworn mission of their club was to get their cutie marks and to find their special talents. Unfortunately, they didn’t so much as earn their cutie marks as wreak havoc over Ponyville trying to get them. The Cutie Mark Crusaders were coming back from another failed attempt at getting their cutie marks. Suddenly, the scooter stopped abruptly, nearly tipping the three fillies out.
“Hey, what’s the big idea?” Sweetie Belle protested.
“Girls, I just had a great idea!” Scootaloo said.
“What is it?” Applebloom and Sweetie Belle said in unison.
“Well, we all know by now that we can’t get the same cutie marks, right?”
“Yeah?” Applebloom and Sweetie Belle pressed.
“And Sweetie Belle’s a unicorn.” Scootaloo said.
“What? Oh yeah, I am!” Sweetie Belle noticed, looking up at her horn.
“So, maybe we could help you get your cutie mark!” Scootaloo exclaimed.
“Wow, that’s a great idea!” Sweetie Belle said.
“Even if we don’t get our cutie marks, maybe we’ll get helping cutie marks!” Scootaloo added.
“That is a great idea!” Applebloom complimented.
“But who will help us?” Sweetie Belle inquired.
“Twilight can help us, after all, she is the Element of Magic.” Applebloom said.
“Oh yeah.”
“Come on! Let’s go, girls!” Scootaloo yelled.
They turned the scooter around and set off for The Books and Branches Library.
Books and Branches Library
Twilight Sparkle was in the middle of organising her checklist for the next day’s errands when she heard a knock on the door. She opened the door, and found the Cutie Mark Crusaders standing at her doorstep. While she did like the three fillies, she really hoped they weren’t trying to get cutie marks as librarians again.
”Hi Twilight!” Applebloom said.
“Hello, girls!” Twilight said brightly. “What brings you he-”
“Sweetie Belle wants a magic cutie mark!” Scootaloo interrupted.
“Really? I don-“ Twilight tried to put in.
“And we thought you could teach her!” Applebloom added.
“Teach? I do-“ Twilight faltered.
“You know, since you ARE the Element of Magic and everything!” Scootaloo said.
“Girls, I-“ Twilight protested.
“And you did all that cool stuff with the Ursa Minor!” Applebloom intersected.
“I real-“ Twilight tried again.
“And you defeated Discord and Nightmare Moon and all the other scary things!” Scootaloo cut in.
“GIRLS!” Twilight shouted.
“Yes, Twilight?” the three fillies said in unison.
“Magic can be very hard. It is very challenging, even for someone with my amount of magic.” Twilight explained. “It needs a lot of study and hard work.”
The Cutie Mark Crusaders weren’t put off.
“PLEASE?” The three fillies begged as they put on their best pleading faces.
“Fine.” Twilight said, defeated. She had a slight feel of déjà vu.
***
Sweetie Belle and Twilight Sparkle stood across from each other, Applebloom and Scootaloo watching intently.
“Can we help now?” Scootaloo put in.
“Not right now girls,” Twilight said, “This is for Sweetie Belle to do. Now, Sweetie, why don’t you try lifting that book there?”
Sweetie Belle strained, imagining lifting up the book with magic. Sweat poured from her face, but the book didn’t move.
“It didn’t work.” Sweetie Belle said miserably.
“Don’t worry, Sweetie, that was a great try! You just need to focus.” Twilight encouraged. “Now why don-“
She was cut off as she heard a knock at the door. When she opened it she saw a turquoise pony with amber eyes at the door.
“Oh, hello Lyra!” Twilight greeted brightly.
“Hi Twilight!” Lyra said. “I’ve finished with those books I borrowed from you.”
Curious, the Cutie mark Crusaders went over to see the book titles.
“’Man: Fact or Fable’, ‘Parallel Universes’ and ‘The Origins of Humans’?” Applebloom read aloud. “What’s all this stuff, Lyra?”
“Oh, humans?” Lyra inquired. “They’re my favourite study subject. There are all these theories on where they went and if we evolved from them. There’s even a theory that they live in a parallel universe! It’s really fascinating! The-”
“That’s interesting and all,” Scootaloo stopped Lyra before she went off in a tangent. “But what are they?”
“Humans are a bit like hairless primates, with a mane. They’re more intelligent than primates though. Apparently, they could even be more intelligent than ponies!” Lyra spoke slightly hesitantly through her description, as if she wasn’t quite sure how to define these “humans”.
“That sounds pretty interesting, Lyra.” Sweetie Belle said. “Could we have a look?”
“Sure! I was returning them, anyway. Bye girls! Bye Twilight!”
“Bye Lyra.” Twilight and the Cutie Mark Crusaders said in unison.
“Alright girls, if you’re going to look at those books, I’ll be at Sugarcube Corner. I’m starving. I’ll do some more magic with Sweetie Belle when you’re done. Please don’t get into trouble.” Twilight said.
“Ok. Thanks Twilight.” The Cutie Mark Crusaders mumbled as Twilight left.
“Let’s start with ‘Parallel Universes’!” Scootaloo said. “That looks cool!”
“Okay!” Sweetie Belle said, opening the book.
The three fillies skimmed through a few pages with a few nudges, some “Hey, I wasn’t finished!” A few “What is this supposed to mean?” and a bit of “Move over, I can’t see!” until they came to a particular page.
“Spell for opening gaps in parallel universes?” Scootaloo read. “What does that mean?”
“This spell can open a door in one universe and let beings through to another.” Applebloom said.
“How did you know that?” Scootaloo confronted.
“It says it on the book, Scoots.” Applebloom retorted.
“Right. I knew that.” Scootaloo said. “Hey, why don’t you try the spell, Sweetie Belle?” Scootaloo asked. “We know Lyra wants to meet humans, and it would be pretty cool meeting some!”
“I don’t know,” Sweetie Belle worried “I don’t think Twilight would like it, and it looks pretty advanced and dangerous.”
“Come on, Sweetie Belle!” Scootaloo pressed. “Who knows, maybe you’ll get your cutie mark!”
“We could just get Rainbow Dash to do a Sonic Rainboom like the way Twilight got her cutie mark.” Sweetie Belle suggested.
“While that was AWESOME,” Scootaloo said, “We don’t have time! And Rainbow Dash isn’t here anyway; she’s at the Wonderbolt’s Derby with Rarity. She won’t be back until tomorrow. Come on, please?!”
"Scootaloo, no! We might get in trouble! And we don't even know that much about humans anyway! What if they're scary?" Sweetie Belle protested.
"They won't be! Even if they were, Cutie Mark Crusaders are never scared! Come ON, Sweetie! If it doesn't work, I won't bug you about it again!"
“Okay,” Sweetie Belle gave in, “I’ll try.”
She concentrated hard on the spell written in the book, and her horn lit up.
Now, usually, a unicorn filly like Sweetie Belle’s would fail at performing this spell, but, unbeknownst to the other two Crusaders, she had often tried magic on her own at Rarity’s and failed, and because of this, it caused a build up of magic. A bright light shot through the open window and out of Ponyville.
“Well, that was anticlimactic.” Scootaloo said.
“What are you, a dictionary?” Applebloom interjected.
“Come on, girls.” Sweetie Belle called. “That didn’t work. Let’s go to Sugarcube Corner. I want to learn some more magic!”
The Cutie Mark Crusaders left the room, forgetting what had just happened, completely unaware of the warning on top of the unread paragraph that described the spell.
Not bad for a first story. The spelling and grammar is good.
Try to avoid the "wall of text" Add some indent to the paragraphs.
I'll hang around for a while and see where this goes.
This isn't bad so far. Like totallynotabrony said, you could definitely stand to indent your paragraphs, or at least put a line of empty space between them. You have a new paragraph for each speaker, which is something that a lot of new authors don't do, so that's good. In fact, you're a lot better than a lot of new authors;I couldn't find any issues with your spelling or grammar.
As for the story itself, it's not too bad so far, but your OCs haven't actually shown up yet, so it's too early to determine whether you're going to fall into the pitfalls that many Human in Equestria stories fall into. I do like the originality of having Sweetie Belle be the one who brings them into Equestria - a lot of fics have it be Twilight messing up a spell, or just some unexplained occurence, and those are getting really old. The dialogue was pretty good, some of it made me laugh.
This gets a thumbs up from me, but I don't think I'll be following it. Don't take offense, Human in Equestria just isn't my thing.
This has potential, you seem to be a pretty good writer, but like Erica and Totallynotabrony said, formatting's a bit of an issue. The wall of text thing does get annoying to read. Separate out and indent the paragraphs.
Well, if anything, this looks promising. You seem to have pretty good grammar and punctuation; that's something I always look out for in fanfics. You portrayed the Cutie Mark Crusaders' personalities quite well, though I would have liked to see a little bit of Spike. If you have the time, longer chapters (2,500 words+) would be appreciated. I'll give this a thumbs up to help you along, and if it grabs me in the coming chapters, I might favourite it as well. A word of advice - be careful not to make it a cliché. Be original and creative. This has potential if you can do it right. Know that fact.
another human story?
*after reading...*
THIS
IS
SO
Not bad I enjoy it, got a few chuckles from some of the antics and descriptions, time to see were this goes. I will not restate what everyone else has so that is all I have to say.
1268971
I concur.
Twilight is a common choice because she's sort of known for trying new (or very old...) and unheard of magic and magical experimentation, and occasional misuse of magic. Oh and she is the canon element of magic. That along with the existing fanfics make her an obvious choice for being the cause of seemingly impossible magic and magical mistakes. Maybe it's overdone, but it's understandable.
Conversations don't have to be done in a one line per thing that was said style.. If you want to make them paragraphs, though, some filler details about what the characters are feeling or doing at the moment helps to give the reader a better sense of what's going on. It can also reinforce our understanding of the characters behavior, reactions in certain contexts. Grammar and spelling is pretty good, don't slack off or else. You might try smoothing the flow of that last sentence or maybe expand it into two sentences.
Your writing is pretty good, still I think you should spend more writing leading up to the initial plot point though. It seems thrown in suddenly, granted that the Cutie Mark Crusaders have never been much for patience. It would make a lot more sense though for Sweetie Belle to try a complicated spell to impress them than just because. Also, having some practiced skill with magic would give her the confidence to try it, believing that it might be successful. Basically, I would say to let the magic lessons and "learning" about humans go on for a chapter or three, to sort of consolidate the idea. That would even give you a chance to use Lyra more, or even have the CMC bug Lyra about these "humans".
Continuing on the line of suggestions, I think they really probably ought to have read all or part of those books so they know what humans are and maybe be curious to see a real one before they try finding/bringing one into Equestria. Making it a part of the spell that they didn't do (i.e. longer, more complicated spell?) that caused the humans to arrive as ponies rather than their normal forms (i.e. spell intended to correctly transfer species...) could be interesting as a justification. Probably wouldn't bother the humans, since the whole thing would definitely be a new experience for them. Could be used to reflect the CMCs lack of attention to detail/complete success if you want to hold onto some of the canon. It would be just like them to "borrow" one of Twilight's books on magic from her. It would even possibly make a useful lead-in for having Twilight find out what they've done -- since of course she'd eventually notice the absence of the book, or it being in the CMCs clubhouse. I doubt Twilight could miss that kind of magical disturbance especially if was done in her own home. In any case a spontaneous burst of magic would probably do more than just shoot off into the sky, it'd probably make a mess of the library or their clubhouse whichever is a better place for this to happen.
As an aside, as intentional magic, this is a spell Twilight would likely have trouble pulling off. If you're okay with that great, but you could work in using some kind of magic infused gemstones (surely Rarity has something like that, would explain her ability to get so much work done) and/or accidentally piggybacking a spell that Twilight or Rarity was attempting. Or even throw in some nonsense about magical buildup related to the weather. Just saying you should consider a larger range of reasons why it worked.
Sorry for the wall of text, just had some ideas to share. In short, potentially interesting story. Hope to see more. Oh, and best of luck.
Wow, people are really liking this story. I have an idea for chapter two where I'll introduce the humans, but I've pretty much got writer's block. I am liking these ideas I'm getting, and could use them. Right now, anything could happen. Not Romance or anything sad though, that's not my area.
1270509 you might want to put spaces and not have a wall of text with no white click enter twice and then write some more words
By the way, I'm a little under a rock when it comes to the other HiE stuff. i try to read them, but I'm new, you see. What are these 'pitfalls'? Just so I can avoid them.
1273710 if they become black and red alicorns there is a pitfall, if one of the mane six falls in love with them instantly, if they become so op they are untouchable, or they join the cmc. Those are usually the indications of a Mary sue story. again wall of text will turn people away, try putting more description paragraphs into the story to help immerse the reader. but so far i like the idea were it is not Twilight that summons the humans.
1276578
Romance is out of the question, and I'm definitely not making any Mary Sues. No CMC joining, no black and red alicorns. Don't worry.
1277982 people hate walls of text moslt because a story with walls of text is a trollfic
1269581
Thank you. I'm flattered.
1276578
I'm still not completely sure what these 'black and red alicorn' things are. What does it mean?
1314436 in most horrible HIE the main character becomes a red and black alicorn (i.e. same type as Luna) although there are some good ones out there they are few and far between.
1315126
Got it. Thanks. Also, I know what an alicorn is. Just saying.
1315179 when you said "What does it mean" i thought you were referring to the word alicorn which can also mean the stuff that unicorn horns are made of
1315192
Well, that makes a lot more sense. I learned of the horn's substance from a particular YouTube video called 'The Parts of a Pony'.
You guys are pressuring me. Maybe I should write something on my iPod and just end up with a really short chapter with lots of mistakes. Unless, you want to wait a while. I'll be back from India in four days. I'll force myself to start typing when I get back.
Hmm I noticed some minor grammar errors but other wise nothing too bad
Your portrayal of the cmc is... Perfect. You perfectly illustrated their utter imaptience by having them say that they can't wait for Rainbow Dash to get back the next day to get them their Cutie Marks, they want them NOW.