UNDER REVISION AS OF 06/25/13, REVISED CHAPTERS WILL LACK 'PAROUSIA' BEFORE CHAPTER NUMBER
Paul's self confidence has always been an issue, but on the night that he needs it most, a saving grace falls quite literally into his lap.
Now stuck in an overrun Equestria full of demons and shackled ponies, this brony has to work through his personal issues in addition to dealing with the evil forces at work. He'll experience the highest peaks of joy and lowest valleys of pain, and maybe even find a love for the ages. But there are dark beings pulling strings behind the scenes, and nopony knows just how deep Equestria's troubles run.
In the end, could Paul's personal issues and those of Equestria somehow be linked?
(Note: This is my first fic ever, criticism is welcome and appreciated. Also, NOT a self-insert.)
This sort of thing really doesn't belong in the description.
2298020 Thanks for the suggeston!
OK well didn't exactly finish chapter but I don't see any problems so far. Nope not continuing. Why? Cuz I don't want to read so much.
It's nice that you put so much work into this, but let's keep the intro shorter if it's your first time. Although I do see promise in your writing from just the first lines.
But your description says a lot about the story...and it has grammical errors that make the story look bad. I'm sure that's why people haven't read it. or if they did then grammical errors later on will turn them away.
Oh and I saw the comment by that one guy...copy those quotes over to your discription NOW or you're fucked.
2298098 What grammatical errors, if you don't mind me asking?
2298098
Hm. Looks like you're the only one here making 'grammical' errors.
2298258 I don't know, I'm really paranoid now!
Wow ok I had to fight off a bunch of lag cuz my internet went out for a moment. Had to reconnect with my everything useful.
OK this story...the plot and character....
AMAZING!
However both are interfearing with each other so greatly that it hampers everything you're trying to get through. Your character has way too much thought between dialog. I want you to go to my most recent story and give it a read, it has first person thoughts, but they are always situationally focused. Your character has a severe case of ADD right now and it's not a good thing when you type out every little thought he has.
By now I begin to suspect this is a self insert. I'd like for that to be confirmed in description. Your description of the environment is good enough so that I understand the situation you're in. The character is acting too casual and it defeats the purpose of being surprised. Hell he even is throwing in stupid internet terms.
Which brings up a solid and potentially story threatening issue. Your character seems to act like he's online and not in the real world. This is contradictory of the philisophical moments where he believes it's his time to 'go' and commit suicide on a good note. Let's pick your character apart so that you don't have to focus on stuff that's boring shall we?
Ok here we go.
Paul: Internet fanatic, emotional giant, philisophical, tragic past, casual, without purpose, brony.
Ok let's see what we can remove...Internet fanatic. Ok we don't need to delete everything in this chapter relating to the internet. All you needed to do is say "I often go on the internet and can be found on <site>" or something similar. We don't need you to be funny. That actually hurts your story a little bit. or at least this chapter.
Ok let's see...we can keep emotional giant, philosophical, tragic past, brony.
Without purpose and casual however...
Ok I understand he know's what he can and can't do. But what about now? Yes he knows he's going to help save Equestria and stuff, but right now he doesn't have any defined skills that I know of, or remember.
Casual...way to casual about the whole situation, he should be more caring about a little girl in the tree crying, specifically when he just finds her. He does approach her but trust me, he's not all that interested in helping her the way you wrote it. It seemed like his mind wandered so much that he couldn't give two shits about crying twilight.
Also he's the narrator of a first person story...he doesn't have to have massive time consuming thoughts that would last minutes to think about. It's like his brain is a computer right now and it's processing so much information at once. That's not good. Especially when you poop down random and unimportant descriptive details on the page that we don't need to know about. Like the unbelievably long 1-9999 points of thought when he realized he was talking to Twilight.
Yea that was bad...so was a lot of other stuff.
But this story is good...I like it. I want to hear more. I also want you to go to my most recent story, where the first person narration is not only used, but perfected.
of course there are little errors but that comes with writing. I have an editor too :D
OH and use Microsoft Word when typing k? It helps you find red words that are wrong. It can also help you find similar discriptive words if you right click a corrected word and look under synonyms if I remember correctly.
Oh and your writing is fonaminal.
2298335
>fonaminal
I think you mean "phenomenal"?
2298335 I definitely see what you're getting at. And thanks for the criticism! I basically wanted him to be acting out in an ADD sort of way because it's his emotional defense, the way he goes through problems without really having to deal with them, if that makes any sense. I'm actually on chapter 5 right now, and have cut down on that whole thoughts-going-crazy thing as a subtle sign that he is growing emotionally. Any other criticisms you can think of, just post them! It never hurts!
Also, thanks for the comment on my writing! This is literally thwe first thing I've ever written, so there's going to be mistakes, but I like the idea that someone thinks it's 'fonaminal'!
2298442
You mean he's doing this as a defense mechanism? Well ok that's absolutely rubbish :/
It's hard for me to grasp that idea given the way the first chapter was written. It was so off on so many tangents that I could barely understand what the characters actual emotional status was.
Try not to do that ever, even if you're reasoning it in it's not a good idea. Anyway I'll continue reading because I'm actually interested in all of this. So keep on writing and I'll give whatever criticism or observations to help you out.
Oh and just saying, I reached the featured box. you can check the like and view count in my story to confirm. Hell you can even use my writing as an example of flow.
I try to not write anything that would be confusing, and allow it to be easy to follow.
And if ever you need tutoring on writing you can always send me a PM
Not that you need it though. I'm sure all you really need is to continue writing until you get priorities straight and you're feature material. Hell I know a prodigy when I see one ;P
I would like to know what song that was.
2298343
Possibly...
2301861
Here's the music video! Try to imagine it acoustic, and without the harder riffs in the middle.
2306009 Most people downvote because "It's an OC story".
Yeah, I don't get it either.
On a different subject, the idea of making him into a magic»strength/stamina/health converter was an interesting twist from the norm.
In fact I think that if he had a steady supply of magic given to him, he could run a literal cross country.
I take offence. I am not Spanish ignorant
I'm just uneducated in the Spanish language 
But I do know "Hola, Como, Por que, que, umpigeinyo???? I think...ANYWAY SOUND THAT OUT AND IT MAKES SENSE! So yea....
Unessicary musical number...also Twilight's transformation cuz of music was uncalled for and cringe worthy.
Oh and the taunting your character gave Gomorrah was uncalled for and out of character. I would think he'd just fight him and push him off the cliff when given the chance. I'm sure being a pacifist excludes Irish demons.
Oh yea and he's WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY out of character with the laid back everythingness.
I want you to keep in mind that there is too much addition to his powers in Equestria, super strength was good, and stamina was cool. But to abuse them in the way he's abusing now and then sudden magical resistance becomes a little much. I hope you don't give him more powers or It'd be a turn off for the whole story.
Oh and your character is gary sue as fuck...
or something...anyway ponies like him way too much, and he's way too smart. I've had the same problem before. Try to dial down on everything until you're able to explain the character changes.
Hell my excuse for something like this was that he was a sociopath and he was nice to gain allies and quickly killed his enemies.
Nothing more.
But yea it was an ok chapter. I'd like to add the tangents were sorta uncalled for but they were funny.
AND WHAT DID I SAY ABOUT REFERENCING STUFF?!?!? Ok whatever. That's cool though. Just keep it in nonserious situations and you're good.
I assume the diamond dog female has joined the party sooo....YAAAAAAAAAAAAY PARTY MEMBER! How heal?
Anyway I couldn't get to this chapter cuz of...everything O.o But I wasn't disappointed with it. It shows improvement from chapter 1 and I'm proud of this change. Although you wrote this before me so I assume you're improving the more you write
Keep experimenting with new things in this story. I did the same in one of my first stories so I could figure out what people like more. (of course no one commented...) but I learned a lot as I went on. :D
So keep on written! I'd like to see where this goes
Oh yea and this is serious. Equestria is in danger and Twilight is being targeted while a new companion has a broken rib. I could also barely figure out where he was at some points so don't forget the mentioning of the background when entering a room or courtyard.
I do however want to see something that makes sense out of the human character. I'd like to see him worry more about the future, I mean would you worry when you find yourself in Equestria and Irish demons led a pack of diamond dogs to find you and Twilight?
Yes. Same for me. I'd think that even with super strength I'd still try to plan out my engagements with a supernatural force.
But yea regardless it was a good chapter :D
Yes I know I commented twice today XP
Long chapter is long, and quite enjoyable.
Writing long chapters can be hard especially when you have to keep the reader entertained for the whole of it. You did that perfectly. I cannot wait to see what happens With the mysterious "Q". Although a little more information on Paul's history could be needed to get a sense of his character. With this being your first fimfic I am impressed greatly. Compared to many others I have read this has outranked them in many aspects. Keep up the good work bud can't wait for the next chapter
This has been an alright chapter. Needs more prereading and the dialog is a little...ew.
...
That was sudden and without explanation. Considering you do the same thing with the whole story and sudden details, this makes it look bad.
AND WHAT DID I SAY ABOUT REFERENCES! this time they seem to dominate the chapter. I know...none of them.
Also you're using ALL CAPS RAGE in all the wrong ways. Yes they're used for anger but seriously? They aren't used for every time someone is angry. only when there's something meaningful to really shout about. The fact that there was a lot of unnecessary shouting anyway also made the scenes seem not very serious and very uninteresting.
That's a reference...and you've done a terrible job at using caps here. You could have used bold to fix this.
That thought process was off topic. He should have been thinking of ways he would blend in better rather than going "Oh Alicorns are OP so nope."
This statement is wrong. Ponies actually have canines. A lot of herbivores have canines. It's an evolution thing. I believe horses and ponies evolved form predators. Just like the chicken.
Also WHAT THE FUCK HAPPENED WHEN HE WAS DOING WEIRD SHIT WITH HIS FACE?!??! Yea this stuff is kinda strange. Everyone is now out of character
OK but for the most part in this chapter...it was good. It really was. More because of what it represented. You've written 13,000 words of them fooling around in the same place. That's an achievement for a lot of people. I can't do that for an entire chapter of 8,000 words because by the time I've done that, i'd be reusing stuff and it would be boring as hell.
Good show
Oh and Q better show up at some point. (DON'T FUCK HIM UP OR YOU WILL DIE!)
Oh and this is a better song than everything you've ever linked.
I AM BIOCHEMICALWOLFGEAR!
THE GREAT ECO WARRIOR OF ANNO!
I'VE CONQUERED CIVILIZATIONS AND PUPPETED GOVERNMENTS!
ALL WILL BOW AND FEAR MY MIGHT!
2334720
I see your epic music video, and raise you Two Steps From Hell.
There is reason to the madness. Little hints about Q will be given throughout every chapter from now on, and will culminate in the last chapter of this arc. Just so you know, whatever you expect... it's not that.
Pretty good story, though I would use italics and maybe bold to emphasize certain words.
2335417 I honestly have been thinking I'd used too many!
2335437 I mean instead of caps-locking the words you want emphasis on.
2339960 Gotcha. Makes sense.
You are doing a fantastic job with the story so far!
Keep up the good work.
2374846
Thanks so much!
Anything you think I need to work on, though?
2375092 How should I put this? I don't just read stories, I watch them (my imagination's way out there). You not only made me feel like I was actually seeing a movie, you made me feel like I was the main character, seeing the world the way he would see it. The flow of the story and the balance between descriptions, thoughts, and speech are handled with excellence.
As to answer your question; in my opinion, it's great "as is".
2375423
That's for you!
Thanks for the kind words; this was just meant as a starter project, to ease into writing!
This has the potential to be way more emotional if you described the scene better and wrote in something like "Their cheeriness seemed misplaced in the gloomy and decrepit town. I felt heartbroken to see three young fillies full of life and energy in such a crisis, just holding onto hope and still pursuing what made them special" Just sayin'.
It would be even better if it were colder because of windigos and they needed to wear clothing. I'd also like to see a consistent sceen too. Especially since everypony has ragged cloths and look dirty. maybe describing the messiness of everyones mane and patches of dirt on their coats would remind us of the hellhole you put them in. So far I haven't seen any description of dirt on any of the CMC's.
OH and your character is using names and nicknames before being introduced to each character. You should look out for that because he should ALWAYS be called out on it if he uses a nickname without being told what it is. Especially spikey wikey.
Oh and your Character is Gary Suing because everyone is trusting him. First of all you don't need to meet every one of the ponies so soon. Expeically when there's a crisis to attend to. And going around saying "Phase One of my master plan" is suspicious and no one will believe you. The guards would take you for conpericy because they don't give a shit and they might kill you on the spot. As for the main six they shouldn't be unguarded like that.
You need to check out every fact and NEVER try to fit characters in whenever you feel. Which is what you're doing righ tnow. You'r basically bending over for the tags of your story by introducing as much as the main six as you can. Also you've got a bit of a problem with your main character. He's too lenient in a situation like this.
Oh also he's meeting everyone he shouldn't meet at all throughtout the course of the story anyway. Like the background ponies and main six. I personally would say he should do what's expected and go along with the mission. I mean think about this, would a spy go to fancy restraunts if he's on a time constraint?
Oh and your interperitaion of mares and children are a little flawed...ok very flawed. The ponies won't cry if they weren't part of a plan. I'm sure they'd understand even without explaining. the CMC's have no reason to hang out with a full grown stallion too. Especially when he gave them a bone crushing hug. Nevver express your emotions toward characters or make them love your main character so soon like this.
Oh and Applejack, Rarity, Pinkie Pie, and everyone is out of character.
ESPECIALLY PINKIE PIE! Wait did I send you my list of what Pinkie Pie is?
I basically have a text file on my desktop to tell you easy steps to do Pinkie Pie like a pro :D
"Oh tough talken ponah who dun gow down after ah hit him once! scared I am!" Yea I just summed up what was wrong. XD
Never do stuff like that. AND WHAT DID I SAY ABOUT TAUNTING! How dare you
meh still ok. I can tell you, your chapters are kinda deteriorating. Let's try not to fill up the chapter with so many events like this. Especially if they have nothing to do with the outcome. Oh and it wasn't funny so don't make it sound funny.
Anyway remember when I said I was going to go hard ass on you when you submitted something to The Good HiE List?
I would over do it at this point and point out so many detail issues and character development issues. Along with the fact you can't do Pinkie or any other pony without falling back on cliché's. I feel this is more because you're putting them all in a room together and there is a difference between time in the real world with time in the story.
Like a 5 minute rushed scene was actually an hours or more for you to write. Be wary of that or you'll mess up and make yourself look bad.
AND I KNOW YOU'RE CAPABLE OF GREATNESS!
So no excuses!
2384089 This is why I need your criticisms! The only things I would say is that Rarity snd Applejack would be crying becasue they weren't being allowed to leave their horrible conditions behind, and the CMC actually were described as dirty later on.
I can see exactly what you mean, though- I never was very good at characterizing, and I would appreciate any Pinkie lists you may have! There's definitely reasons why I haven't even considered submitting anything to the Good HiE List- I've never had any delusions of 'greatness'! Wait, that sounds like an excuse...I will try harder!
I've added my review in the forum as you've requested. By the way, I think the past tense of 'shine' is 'shone'.
2404729 Thanks for the reply! I'm going to get to editing as soon as school lets me. I can't believe I never picked up on that grammar error...
I think I know what happened at the end. And no, I'm not telling!
2669548 At the end of this chapter? It's not really a secret.
Hey there. I'm Starman Ghost, and I'm here to review your fic on behalf of WRITE.
I'll admit that I kind of balked when I saw that this was a brony in Equestria fic. BiE as a concept has been done over and over again, and I'd never seen one that managed to pull it off well. I held out hope that this one would be something different and special, the diamond in the rough.
Much as I hate to be the bearer of bad news, I'm afraid that this wasn't at all enjoyable for exactly the same reasons as so many similar works.
FORMATTING
Let's get the most important thing out of the way first: if your reader sees that you've inserted blocks of song lyrics into your story, alarms are going to go off in his or her head. This is your fanfic. People came here to see your writing. Dumping lyrics right into the middle of it breaks up the flow of the story, doesn't contribute anything meaningful to the prose, and gives the impression that you're trying way too hard to use your fic as a platform to just talk about stuff you like.
Beyond that, there's also your use of numbered lists. While not as problematic as grafting in someone else's song lyrics, it still breaks the reader's immersion and wastes space when you put something that looks more at home in a technical report or a Powerpoint presentation into a work of fiction. The far better option is to lay out the lists in paragraphs, so (for example)
becomes
after I arrange those into a paragraph and add my own touches.
There are other minor mistakes in the formatting (write out numbers smaller than 100 — e.g. "fifty-two" instead of "52"), and you have a couple of doubled spaces between words (like this), but the two above are the major ones.
Also noticed this, but luckily that's an easy fix:
Your paragraphs are cleanly arranged and readable without difficulty, so all is well there
GRAMMAR
Your grammar, for the most part, is pretty solid. The only consistent problem I noticed is that you have some tense shifts. For example:
Note that "listen" is in the present tense, but "tended" and "was" are past tense. You should pick one or the other, and stick with it for all the scenes describing your protagonist's everyday life. Since the protagonist's life is (apparently) about to come to an end, I think past tense would work better, like so:
Other than that though, I didn't see any other major problems. While there are some mistakes here and there, they're minor and you should be able to find and correct them upon rereading the chapter. (You are rereading your chapters to go back and correct mistakes you may have made the first time, aren't you? It's one of the most important things you can do as an author!) Some examples:
NARRATION
Let's get the most important thing out of the way first: 4chan memes have no place in a work of literature. They don't accomplish anything. They're not even good for a laugh because anyone who's read them either hasn't heard of them or got tired of them long ago. These will yank your readers out of your story so hard they get whiplash, followed closely by the unwelcome reminder that the great adventure they'd settled down to read is an internet fanfic written by a guy who's got an image board on the brain.
The other thing that kept throwing me out of the story was the moments where something intended to be funny fell flat, and this happened distressingly often: the stick. Ballroom Blitz out of nowhere. Just about any of the narrative asides that do nothing for the reader (e.g. "NONE, DO YOU HEAR ME!").
I can't claim to be an expert on comedy, but I know what makes me laugh and I know to some degree what makes it funny. If I've learned anything from Douglas Adams, it's that if you want your narration to be funny, the funny bits have to flow naturally with the rest of the prose. Calmly stating an absurdity along with everything else and moving on is a lot more funny than crowbaring in unimportant asides or 4chan memes. Again, another example:
By putting the joke in all caps and drastically changing the tone, you light it up with a blazing neon sign and leave the reader with the impression that you desperately want them to laugh. See how much better this is when it's smoothly inserted:
No excess capitalization, I clipped the joke and nestled into the other one about "chemical warfare," and finally I moved the "I would have laughed" to the beginning — making the very important fact that the protagonist's hands are burning seem like an afterthought. I won't claim the revision is on the level of Douglas Adams' writing or anything, but I at least think it works better than the joke as originally written. It's always good to improve, even if you can't be perfect.
Another problem is that you don't quite follow the advice of "show, don't tell." For the most part, you've got the "show" down, but your "don't tell" could use some work. For example, descriptions such as these:
This is a bit of an infodump; be careful in the future to avoid just heaping information like this on the reader. Rather than giving them these descriptions, keep them for yourself, and show them in the story at opportune times through your character's behavior. You did a pretty decent job of establishing these traits in your protagonist in his first encounter with Twilight, so luckily all you need to do is remove the descriptions of them at the beginning.
Regarding the scene with the collapsing bridge, I get the impression that you don't really understand just how quickly disasters happen. I feel like the characters were given a lot more time to think, plan, and act than they would've had were one of them to actually start plummeting to their death. The scene just doesn't feel as urgent or frantic as it should.
It's not all bad, though. Your descriptions of scenery and setting did a pretty decent job, and I have no real issues with them.
PLOT AND CHARACTERS
The plot — "depressed brony gets unexpectedly transported to Equestria and helps save it" — has been done plenty of times, there's nothing wrong with treading familiar ground if you can add a new perspective or fresh ideas to it. Unfortunately, from what I've read, the fic does neither of these things, and as a result has so many of the same problems with plot that others of its kind do. I have to call into question the idea that this guy is really the best person across the multiverse available to help Twilight. Someone who has just attempted to commit suicide is not in the proper frame of mind to set off on a grand adventure.
The protagonist came across as painfully generic and unlikable to me. Dropping 4chan memes like you got them at a bulk discount, angst for angst's sake about how awful humans are compared to ponies, and painfully forced attempts at humor that break the flow of the story are not the qualities of an endearing protagonist.
Twilight fares better, and I'd say you more or less have her personality down. The only thing I notice is that I think she warms up to the protagonist a bit too fast and she's rather quick to give him compliments and affection. Feels like blatant wish-fulfillment to me. Twilight is seeing an entirely alien creature for the first time under stressful circumstances who seems to know entirely too much about her; it seems like there should be plenty of distrust and apprehension to go around even after their first bits of bonding. Make him work for that friendship!
CONCLUSION
If this story's going to shine, it'll need to be heavily rewritten paragraph-by-paragraph. It would actually probably be best to rewrite some sections from scratch. It would also help to get yourself a prereader so that you can have an extra set of eyes looking over the rough drafts of your chapters. This will help you catch some of the minor grammatical and formatting mistakes.
I know you've put a lot of work into it, and I know that it's painful to think of going back and entirely revising so many words, but unfortunately, writing well isn't easy. It takes a lot of time, effort, and patience — and, yes, rewriting — to create the stuff that will really draw people in, keep them engaged, and have them remembering your story long after they've closed the browser window.
I'm not saying that you should choose between locking yourself up to devote all your time to writing, and quitting. That's not something I want you to take away from this, because it's discouraging and just plain untrue. I've read some quite good fics that were written by adults with full-time jobs, relationships, and other obligations. You just have to commit yourself to writing a little bit every day and keep at it for a long time.
In short, keep in mind the suggestions I've given here, but don't take them as gospel. Get second opinions. Ask other people where they thought you could use improvement. Keep writing and keep sharing what you write. Most of it will be crap, but that's okay: every author starts off writing crap, and as long as you apply lessons you learned from your earlier mistakes, each new story you produce will be better than the one it followed.
Starman Ghost, WRITE's Unpaid Intern
2674137 Thanks for the honest review! It really seems like you plot a lot of thought into it, and I can't tell you how much I appreciate it!
(especially if you don't like BiE stories
)
Anyway, this is exactly the sort of stuff that'll help me improve as I continue to write, so thanks for grinning and bearing my terrible writing! Have a moustache.
*Sigh* No new chapters for a while...
Anyways, the faked death really stumped me as to what it would achieve. Don't have a single clue.
2764107 Ah, you'll see- it all makes sense in my head.
Besides, while they may not be brand-spankin'-new, the revised chapters will have plenty of newer stuff, and some entire scenes will be replaced. Look out Chapter 3, I'm talking about you!.
And I see you're following me now.... No takebacks!
(
seriously though, thanks for the watch!)
2764476 Meh. I noticed that I wasn't following you yet, so I thought 'Oops, forgot to do that
;might as well follow now.'
I... loved... this....
2813446
fc01.deviantart.net/fs70/f/2012/227/b/5/oh_stop_it__you___pinkie_pie_version_by_nrxia-d5b5ul1.png
Really?
2813469 I hold a soft spot for old sayings like the one Paul whispered to Twilight. Honestly, I don't see how it got any dislikes at all.
2813475 Thanks! For the like, the watch, the fav, errythang! Have a moustache as payment.
2813495 You already paid me with this amazing story. Although I like myself a moustache.
2813506 So you're saying shameless self-promotion works?
2813517 You bet your ass it does. Well, in this case. And there aren't that many cases.
2813528 Might have to try it more often then, eh?
2813544 i3.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/000/322/451/44c.gif
Just thought you wanted to know that... Just kiddin'
