Equestria. A fledgling nation, wrenched from the grasp of a madgod. Most ponies alive couldn't remember what a world driven by logic looked like. Without experienced leaders to follow, the rule of their home fell to Celestia and Luna, the sisters who defeated the tyrant. The sisters, princesses now, attempted to settle into their roles. But their lot was not even.
Not two years later, on New Year's Eve, Princess Celestia is faced with the bitter reminder of her failure, approaching the first year she will spend without her sister.
A one-off I wrote for a write-off, as part of an attempt to get myself back into the swing of writing. Never written anything with the Princesses as a major focus before, let me know what you think.
Chapters (1)
Awww, that was a sweet ending. An excellent story, keep it up!
Hey Pracca. I'm here to respond for your request for feedback on the Struggling Authors group.
First things first. This story is a real hidden gem, and it's a huge shame that it has fallen through the cracks to be ignored. You've written a few other stories and been here a while, so you probably have a good guess as to why that happened.
I'd say that people aren't reading it because it's long and not immediately attention grabbing. It is however a great story to read. People on the internet just don't seem to have time to read long stories like this when there are more blunt stories in there face all the time. Perhaps the reason you aren't getting more comments is that people feel intimidated by your writing. I feel a little dwarfed in writing knowledge just trying to post this, but I'll do it anyway, because I'd hate to see you stop writing good stories to meet crowd demand.
I really loved this story. You are a master of character driven story telling. Everything about your characters and how they interact with the world flows perfectly. The story is quite slow, but still at no point did I find myself skipping over detail. You can predict a little bit where the story is going in advance, but the details are still interesting enough that I didn't feel any strong desire to skip to the point. Your Celestia is spot on in tune with the show, as well as having your own touches that serve her well in the story. Luna's mind was also captured well, but I think not quite as impressively.
I'm surprised that you say you managed to write all in just two days. The level of attention to detail put into the world of the past is first rate. There seems to be plenty of things for the characters to do, and it makes the story feel very much alive. Excellent proofreading as well; I expected it to be a little minimalist on that issue if you were strapped for time.
The flow of the writing also captured me well. You've got a good mix of interesting sentence structures and you know how to use them, while avoiding anything chiche. A lot of the fun of the story for me came from just the writing style. It's as good as what I'd expect in a published book (and I don't read crap, so I mean real books). The story was slow, but I understand it's a character building story and that's the more important part of it.
I don't have much criticism to give, but here goes. Remember these are things that didn't bother me much.
I don't understand the motives of the nobles in the story. It seems strange that they would request a queen. It seems unlikely that they would have anything to do with foriegn nations, so the reason you gave bothered me. It would be easier for them to gain power in a nation with weak leadership, so I would think they would be against it.
Even though you take the story slowly, it still feels a bit sudden when Luna starts acting like an ass. I guess this could be explained by assuming discord had some sort of controlling effect over her mind, but she still acts kind of dumb. I would have thought she would be better at resisting after all the good things Celestia said about her. Was this caused by a time issue?
Discord is sort of an 'out of the blue' element here. He just shows up in a book with no explanation. I would have liked to know how he lost a battle for the earth only to leave part of his brain in a book somewhere. Maybe this is pushing on plot convenience, but it's really a small issue, at least in my mind.
I'll finish with one more good thing. The ending is done perfectly. You dodged writing a long pointless fight scene. It wouldn't have gone well with the story. I was concerned that you wouldn't be able to convey the seriousness properly without a fight, but you did. It was a heartfelt ending that got the necessary dialogue out of the way for proper catharsis, and the subtlety of the conflict was still very interesting.
Please keep writing stories that don't suck it you can find the time. I'll be following you.
Woo! A Struggling Authors, Wanting Feedback story that isn't a Human in Equestria one.
The novelty alone was reason enough to read it. Off we go!
The quality of your writing itself is very, very good. You neither skimp on nor overdo description. As someone who constantly struggles with florid prose, I can appreciate that it when that proper balance is found. Your dialogue is of similar quality. It flows nicely, and for the most part fits the characters well, especially Celestia, who retains some of the personality we know, while seeming rather less wise, as it should be.
Did hit a snag early on that sort of latched on and never let go. It bugged me through the whole story, and rather ruined my immersion as a result, frustratingly. Apologies if that shaded everything a bit toward the negative for me. The issue was that nothing felt like it took place in antiquity. Nor did anything feel like a civilization coming out devastation in recent memory. The language was modern, the ponies all acted like modern ponies, everything seemed incredibly established, even in their 'new' capital, there wasn't any friction between the tribes. There was even some kind of established nobility that acted with the sort of moron entitlement you get from generations of being increasingly spoiled.
Wasn't really sold on Luna's actions either, but that's probably mostly a function of the one-shot nature of the story. A good spiral into depression and insanity (or desperation, in this case) needs room to grow, to feel 'fulfilling'. Or it at least needs a whole lot more angst than we got. I just never really got to the point of feeling really sorry for Luna, and so her fate didn't seem terribly tragic. It just felt like she made one stupid choice. So Celestia's lamentation didn't have the same impact as it could have, in turn. I guess the fandom has just come to expect a lot of emotion where the Nightmare Moon transformation and the banishment come into play.
So, overall, I can tell that you've certainly got the skills (possibly to pay the bills). However, I don't think you did yourself favors trying to handle such all these mythical events in one, albeit long chapter. And it could probably have used a bit more thought where it came to worldbuilding, and presenting said world.