King Sombra has returned from his broken state he was left in, and he has taken control of several ponies in order to rise up against the Princess. Driving the whole world to the brink of open conflict, he is bent on revenge for the events at up north at the Empire.
The Mane 6 strive to stop him in order to ensure the success of a peace conference, the last resort to avoid war at their expense. It's particularly bothersome when Sombra has stolen the one thing needed for the conference to be a success.
Chapters (8)
Well, it would be almost impolite of me not to follow it.
It's a pity your story hasn't gotten any more attention than this. 24,000 words is significant, and you've obviously put a lot of effort into it. From what I've read in the first chapter, you have good grammar and show a great deal of creativity. A piece of feedback I'd give you is that you might want to jump into the action sooner - and by "action" I mean dialog, characters doing stuff, rather than taking a great deal of time giving backstory in the beginning. I read a piece of advice someplace that said that you might want to consider not giving much(or any) backstory in the early stages of your story, throwing the reader into what's happening can sometimes be a lot more engaging than paragraphs upon paragraphs of what has happened(this is a style choice, though, so don't take it too seriously).
I really like the grand-ness of your story, the way you refer to the other geopolitical powers in the universe like the griffons and Saddle Arabia. It definitely gives the feeling that the world is large and full of possibilities. Usually I recommend new writers start out with short stories, rather than big projects, but it seems you have things under some semblance of control. But perhaps you might want to try your hand at one-shots(preferably less than 5k words) to get some more practice and feedback on your writing. Also, I recommend you listen to the Writing Excuses podcast; they give a ton of great advice for aspiring writers.
I wish you the best of luck with this story and all stories to come! You definitely show great potential and dedication, so you've earned yourself another follower
3022876 If I had you within a stone throw's range right now, I'd kiss you full blown on the mouth for that comment.
I'll see what I can do about one-shots, but I will continue this story. It's my big one. But things do kick up in the story. I guess I just need some more practice.
Thank you for that lovely comment, I hope to see you reading this in the future.
And so the journey begins...
Nice story. Looking forward to seeing how it plays out.
All right, here goes, my end of the Review Trading bargain.
What this story needs, my friend, is focus. What kind of story is it supposed to be? What's it about? What's the atmosphere like? I encourage you to think long and hard about these questions and come up with clear answers to them, because right now, the story is jumping all over the place. From dark action-adventure to wacky comedy to shipping, it's all thrown in there, and I have to say you've done a poor job of making it all fit together.
This causes particularly jarring Mood Whiplash in chapter 3, after Sombra has escaped with the Elements. After the darkness and tension of the big fight, the pace of the story suddenly drops and the mood gets a lot calmer as our heroes nurse their wounds and prepare to go after Sombra. It mostly stays that way throughout chapters 4 and 5. In fact, almost all of chapter 5 feels very much out of place in a story that's supposed to be dark adventure, because of all the trivialities. Shouldn't they be rushing to stop Sombra, rather than worrying about what they're going to pack, who's going to watch the shop while they're away, and whether Applebloom will get her cutie mark in engineering?
On a related note, each chapter has more than its share of jokes. Assuming you're not trying to write a comedy, those should be used much more sparingly. Slip in a subtle reference here, have the characters share a laugh there, but don't put all those comedic touches in the narration itself if you want people to take your story seriously.
Almost as suddenly as the tension drops near the end of chapter 3, it rises in chapter 1. Seemingly out of nowhere, Equestria is now a nation at war, with changelings and diamond dogs raiding the borders and militias training in every town. I think building this up more gradually would make the story a lot stronger.
Then there's the matter of décor and atmosphere. The fight scenes themselves are fairly competently written, but they mostly take place in a White Void Room. It would really help if you took some time to describe the setting every now and then, so that readers can picture the scene more easily. Some more description would also add much-needed colour to the story; right now, it feels almost like reading a plot summary in some places.
So, my most important advice would be to get a clear idea of where you're going with this story, and stick to it. On that note, asking for readers' input, as you do in the author's notes to chapters 4 and 5, seems like a very bad idea. Especially for adventure stories, writing well is very hard if you don't have at least a rough sketch of your plot planned out in advance.
Of course, I'd be happy to elaborate further on any of these points if you'd like me to.