- Member Since 21st Jul, 2023
- offline last seen 5 hours ago
Penanka72
Hi there, new to the whole writing thing so don’t judge too much.
Penanka72
Joined 21st Jul, 2023 ·
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Hmm, the premise sounds interesting, and the chapter on its own has great action and is well-written. The one big flaw, which I feel is a real killer here, is that...it's the introductory chapter, yet rather than being introduced to things, we simply get a few characters dying.
As a general tip for writing stories, particularly ones where you aren't using pre-established things, your audience doesn't automatically care about everything you create, you have to make them care, by either making them like the thing (for characters, mostly that means making them relatable or sympathetic), or tying it to what they like (like a macguffin or resource is vital to those characters the audience already cares about, or harmful to them); this means that if you knock those things over immediately, it carries no impact.
Overall, I would recommend actually adding a chapter before this one, in which Haru and friends are doing mundane things, perhaps talking realistically (some mature, some less so, but all with clear personal reasoning) about changes to the state of Frozen Equestria along with their personal lives, and joking around a campfire about things immaturely. It would let us soak in what this setting is like, and make the chapter where Haru dies a real gut punch.
11803896
The point of the introduction was to showcase the coldness of the main character (Ahmya), showing off her abilities as an assassin and showing she is feared and known across the land... As for Haru, Eto and Denkie, I never really thought about them emotionally, them just being nothing more than victims of Ahmya.
11803922
Ah...
So to address the very general case, you should give reasons to care, both positively and negatively (purely good/bad characters tend to be boring), about every character that's a focus, or else things happening to them might as well not be in the story. Even for a random victim, if we're getting a big scene with them, especially from their POV, we really should get something to latch onto before they're taken away from us, or else it just seems like violence for violence's sake.
Now as for the specific case, with the framing...there's a big problem: As Haru is the POV here, Haru is the main character/protagonist of the chapter, and does garner a bit of sympathy, mainly from the fact Ahmya seems to kill her for no reason and in a disrespectful and cruel manner. Haru effectively looks like a decoy protagonist for the fic as a whole (I was seriously expecting one of Haru's relatives to be the protagonist out to avenge her), while Ahmya looks like a villainous antagonist who must be stopped.
If we are to root for Ahmya, we need to know why Ahmya is killing ponies before she's doing so, and ideally, Ahmya should be giving them mercy when possible (complete ice cold is unrealistic; in the case of Haru's severe mortal wound, the merciful thing would be to slice her head off, plus it's insurance in case some unicorn came along with the magic and knowhow to save her...Haru's situation isn't unsavable in for instance a modern hospital). If instead we are to loathe Ahmya as a villain protagonist, we at least should get Ahmya's POV before she's killing anyone, so we can get something to enjoy or at least reflect on about her.
Overall, my recommendation then is to still flesh out the setting and these specific characters with a prolog where nothing yet is coming to blows, but to switch a lot to Ahmya's POV in that, and then add some bits in the fight of her justifying why she's doing it and seeming at least a little sorry for Haru.
11804035
I see what you mean and it is helpful advice coming from your perspective, but I plan to keep Ahmya a cunning, cold killer for the time being, her past will unfold with time. I'll fiddle with the introduction and make Haru more of a short-term main character for the REAL main character’s entrance.
Is there anything else I can improve?
11804165
The main thing is you need to contextualize the action that goes on, so that it it can be cared about. That means the setting, and then the personal level of why Ahmya is doing this.
For the setting, it gets a very basic rundown in the description, but that should really be expanded upon in the first chapter, to establish why ponies have melee duels in the snow. This could be some really basic exchanges with ponies talking about their fears for things becoming worse, or what they consider normal; I again recommend dialog between Haru and the others for this, simply because it means you don't need to make extra characters (Ahmya could talk with a trader or overhear a conversation at a tavern or something, but then you've got even more characters we don't care about around, it's better to flesh out a little the characters you do have).
As for the action's context on a more personal level, something like Haru and company being unscrupulous could be worked in here so they don't appear to be just innocent victims, but again, they should still be made somewhat likable/relatable in dialog if just to ground the setting in a sense of reality before we plunge into serious mature action. It would also help if we got something about why Ahmya's out brutally murdering ponies. She's certainly not doing it for fun. Even if this is just a job to her and she has no idea why her employer wants them dead, surely she at least has some way to rationalize to herself why she's doing this, and it'd help to know that.
11804360
I see what you mean about Ahmya having a reason to kill, and I'll add a reason for that when I edit introduction. I'll also add a conversation between the three guards to show the relationship they have towards one another and have them talk about personal things. I'll also have a clear but somewhat vague setting of the world around in this fic.
11804383
Sounds good. I'm available to help edit if needed, though I will say that I really think you've got pretty good skill in writing scenes.
11804785
I appreciate it, I'll try an improve what I can.