This story is a sequel to Ponies on Earth and their New Horizons
Set in the Pandemic Universe
What twisted terrors can the mind dream up? What kinds of powers can the imagination exert over a realm with limitless possibilities? Perhaps one might go on a thrilling adventure, or explore worlds that could never exist… it’s all possible within a dream. However, the powers of one’s imagination can also tap into your deepest fears and give them form as terrifying nightmares! Nothing’s more powerful than a creative imagination after all… It’s a lesson that Silver Eclipse and his faithful students of the Dream Realm learned all too well… and sometimes… sometimes it doesn’t hurt to be afraid of the monsters that lurk in the dark.
Cover art by: FanDrawsArt
Special thanks to:
Lawra, Halira, Javarod, and ModernSilver, for assisting with edits, offering thoughts on the story's development, and for their encouragement and help.
Unsure if it's intentional, but a whole section of it is italicized.
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I should probably have noted it down, the italics in chapters mean that that section takes place in a dream
I skimmed the first few parts, and I like it. The writing style is nice, altough the conversations look a bit broken up; But that’s just how some people speak.
I do have a minor nitpick: Said tags. If you have no clue what that is, they are mentioned in the writing guide here:
https://www.fimfiction.net/writing-guide#Said-tags
And if that doesn’t help, if you want some examples with parts of your story, or if you want me to take a look at what you fixed: Just reply to this or PM me, I’m always open for helping others.
Oh, and if you just wanna talk? Sure thing, hit me up! I’d be happy to make a new friend.
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I can't tell you how valuable that is to me. I never know what's the right syntax for that, and this really did help a ton. I went ahead and tweaked the chapter a bit, and I'm going to go comb through the next four or so chapters that are already written up too. Please feel free to point any of this stuff out, that's really why I look for comments so much-- as I said before, constructive criticism is super useful to me, and this story (and it's prequels) are all very special to me, so I want them to be as polished as they can be.
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Sorry for the late reply.
I’m still seeing said tag problems:
(close to the beginning)
Shoule be
“What happened next, daddy?” the colt asked with an eager excitement.
and
Should be
Silver smirked. “And then?”
The easiest way I can describe it is
11052494
Ohhh I see. Those two must have slipped through the cracks. Thanks again for pointing these out
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I don’t know if these are the only ones- I only skimmed a bit. I am pretty busy currently.
But as said, I like what I have seen. Keep up the good work!
That's really good do you mind if I use that?
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By all means feel free to
All right, it took me a while, but I got around to reading this as promised. However, I admit I stopped about halfway through by the second line break.
All in all, it wasn't a bad read, even if it started to drag pretty soon. The dialogues and character interactions were enjoyable and felt quite natural, though keep in mind that relying so heavily on dialogue, especially one about ordinary day-to-day things, becomes boring rather quickly. It also makes one question what do these two partners normaly talk about, given they seem to be exchanging nothing but news.
The biggest storytelling issue that I've noticed is the absence of a proper hook. It's possible that there's one further down in the chapter, but that's way too late. A good hook should appear in the first few sentences or paragraphs, and, if you have a good reason for it, it ought to be somewhere around 500–1000 words tops. I stopped reading around 3k words and still haven't spotted anything that'd really make me want to read on. Anyway, with both descriptions as well as the cover art presenting this story as a thrilling mystery story, the readers expect to dive into the mystery pretty much immediately. The discrepancy between how you market the story and its actual tone might turn away many potential readers.
Regarding some other issues of slightly larger scale, you should focus on your scene openings a bit more. While the story opening isn't bad and somehow sets the scene, it unnecessarily meanders on the candle thing, and you also make next to none use of the scene you've set up. The opening to the dream sequence could also use less telling. Most of the troublesome parts are pretty much irrelevant at the moment, so they can be simply cut/moved to a more relevant part of the story.
Regarding the dream sequence, I urge you to drop the italics. They contribute nothing to the scene while making it harder to read and keep focused on, not to speak about the fact that it's generally frowned upon and may irk a lot of people. If you ever find yourself italicising larger chunks of text, know that you've already went wrong.
The rest of the issues that I noticed are fairly small in scale, though many of them are so numerous that I'd suggest getting one good editor to go over the whole story to make sure that your writing is consistent. For many of the errors I noticed are indeed of inconsistent nature, e.g. your hyphen placement is both odd and inconsistent, you sometimes use Oxford comma and sometimes you don't, the capitalisation of certain words (moon queen/Moon Queen, the princess/the Princess) is also inconsistent, et cetera. Oftentimes you also unnecesarily repeat the same words or information (for example, the readers are told that Somewhere is Scarlet's favourite place, and she says the same thing in her following dialogue line).
When it comes to dialogues, there are multiple spots where you miss a comma before a character is directly addressed in dialogue. Also, I see that while somebody already linked you a guide on direct speech, I'd say that the majority of direct speech lines and corresponding dialogue tags/beats still contain incorrect punctuation and capitalisation or lack thereof. If you want, I can PM you a short guide written by yours truly. Some people claim that it worked for them better than Ezn's guide.
Other than this, your grammar and spelling is solid for the most part, and if some errors (for example mixed up lay/laid) happen, they are few and far between.
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Thanks for the feedback. I tried to go in and clean some of that up and even rework the opening a bit. Whether it's successful or not... I honestly don't know, but I like to think it sets some of the tone a little better from the get-go.
Hm, interesting story so far, I'm curious where you're going with this : )
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I’m really glad you enjoyed it. I’ll hopefully have an update out sooner than later but I’m not 100% sure on that window yet
Aww, I hope Silver doesn't draw too much ire from the Wardens for pulling someone as powerful as Sapphire from her dream like that.
Looks like Orion made some new friends. And it would seem from his experience with Sapphire's dream, Silver may have transited a rather dangerous place
I see a bad moon a-rising. I see trouble on its way
Precious bat family time, I love it
Hmmm, it seems this group of dreamers forgot one detail of their planning. Did not call a Warden for help. That's gonna have some consequences
AN interesting chapter. I think the first to butt heads with Silver are not the intrepid explorers of Morgana and Koruk. It might be Moonlight and Emily since they didn't do anything in the new realm and would be rather curious from the experiences of others.
I see a nice tie-in with the Outcasts story here. Also really glad the family get to go to Equestria. I have a feeling Silver can get far more answers there about his portal than anywhere else.
Nice work dude, keep it up.
Nice chapter : ) It's difficult to change your life when stuff happens.
Nice chapter. Love seeing Silver's pivot toward teaching being realized
Awesome story.
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Glad you like it, hope you’ll stick along for the ride!
Poor Silver, trying to keep the Unknown at bay with a hound pack baying to be let into it. At least the thought of shutting the entire place down hasn't crept in.
Nice so see Silver progressing through life : )
So, Silver begins the trek down the road to a career in teaching. Will be interesting to see where this other realm leads.
I was wondering when this would pick back up, and it most certainly has. Looks like Silver has a Nightmare to deal with, an Equestrian one at that.
Good to see this story back! And with such a twist too! : )