• Member Since 24th Aug, 2012
  • offline last seen Aug 10th, 2023

Ultima D


T

"my name is Zack Marcus and i'm here to tell you my story it might be my last chance."

these tales are to chronicle the life, love,and hardships of Zack Marcus


if more tags are needed tell me.
my first fic

gentle criticism plz

Tale 0 and 1 are in edit Tale 2 in the works

Chapters (2)
Comments ( 13 )

Here's a bit of criticism -- learn the basics of English grammar and punctuation before you attempt to write anything else.

gentle, eh? well, first, don't put descriptions of characters in little boxes of text. weave their personalities into the story. secondly, i didn't understand a thing about this story. who names their foal zack or zach? thought those were human names

You need to clean this up quite a bit. This is not a roleplay forum. Your characters should be described in the story. Saying, "His brown mane tugged behind him as he ran." is a lot neater and more descriptive than: OC #1: Mane Color: Brown. Your names are also very much out of place. "Zack Marcus" is a human's name, not a pony's. If possible, the name should reflect on their personality. Ex: Fluttershy. In addition to this, your grammar needs an overhaul. There is a group on here that helps people find editors. I highly recommend you do this.

Hope this helps,
~Swirls

but first i'll tell you about myself and those around me.
Zack Marcus
unicorn
coat-gray with lighter shades
eyes-silver
mane-light gray single dark line slicked backspikey on head
tail-tied up in a lengthy top knot
acc.-black vest and dark iron shoes
My brother
Zach(ZA'Ch) Marcus
unicorn
coat-dark gray with lighter shades
eyes-purple
mane-black with gray in a pretty boy style
tail-short bi-color
acc.-white vest and silver shoes
my dad
Ardent 'adamantite' Marcus
unicorn
coat-white
eyes-silver
mane-dark with silver streaks
tail-short top knot
mark-a red(adamantite) iron heart
acc.-white vest with royal guard issue leggings
my mom
Marisia Marcus
earth
eyes-violet
coat-dark gray
mane-black short styled with a long ponytail
tail-tied up but still hangs down
mark-two rapiers clashing in front of a star
acc.-has 2 bracers one gold with a diamond the other silver with an onyx
now that i've told you about my family
let's get down to why your here.

No. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. The first rule when writing any story is 'show, don't tell'. This…whatever the hell it's supposed to be takes that rule and breaks it over the knee with a sickening crack. If you want anyone to read this story, then you need–need to find a better, more natural way to describe your characters. Something along the lines of:

My father, Ardent Marcus, stood tall and opposing before me, his white coat shining under Celestia's sun. His cold, silvery eyes met my own with a stern glare, blah, blah, blah.

Do you get the picture? A lot better than giving a laundry list of description before the actual story even begins, don't you think? And since we're on the subject, let's talk about the story for a minute.

Let's start with the technical stuff. I'm going to be very blunt with this: the punctuation and capitalization was godawful, which I honestly don't understand. The inconsistency was absolutely staggering. I saw quotation marks, exclamation points, and words in all caps (which isn't necessary), so I know that you know how to use the shift key. So why in the holy mother of f:yay:ck does virtually every single sentence in this story start off with a lowercase letter? You seem to know basic capitalization since your characters' names are properly capitalized, but things like your 'I's and the first letter of sentences are left lowercase. Like it or not, you are in desperate, desperate need of an editor if you want any hope of this story being eligible.

Now to the story itself. I honestly had a very difficult time figuring out what was going on, which isn't very surprising since you barely described anything. In the first scene, you say that we're outside Canterlot. Okay? What else? Was it night? Was it day? Sunny? Cloudy? Cold? Hot? Could we hear the chatter of the hundreds of ponies wandering inside the city? Also, we're at a 'medium house' as you chose to call it. What did the house look like? Was the house two-stories tall? Three-stories? Was it extravagant in design? Simple in design? I'm not saying describe every single bit of detail down to how many bugs were buzzing around, but you need to help the reader paint a picture in their head about what the environment looks like, and what the characters are doing in said environment. Try something like:

Celestia's sun was setting over the horizon, giving the sky a magnificent, orange sheen. Hours outside of Canterlot, two young colts, both grey, sat in the middle of a grassy plain as a stallion paced back and forth before them, his cold, silver eyes locked with theirs. Even during a sunset, his white coat practically shone with brilliance, but that didn't deter anypony from the sense of foreboding that filled the air.

See? Reading that, what do you picture? A grassy field during a sunset with a city a few miles away. The description the three ponies involved gets across, and nothing feels too forced. Granted, there's no mention of the house, but it's a rough draft, so what can you do?

You might've noticed that I kept my above observations limited to the first scene. Well, there's a pretty decent reason for that: it was as far as I could go. If these errors continued throughout a whole entire scene, then the rest of the story is no doubt filled with them as well. Besides, my head was starting to hurt from trying to figure out what the hell was going on, so I'll just end it here. There will no doubt be other criticisms that'll tackle other things that I didn't, and what you choose to do with those will be all on you.

This needs work. A lot of work. A total revamp. Like I said, I suggest getting an editor to help with your grammatical issues, and maybe even a cowriter to help you with things such as pacing and description. Don't be afraid to ask for help, because you never know who you might find. Goodbye, and best of luck to you.

(P.S Capitalize your title. The Tales of Zack Marcus)

They're both named Zach? Pronounced the same, even with a small spelling change.

This needs a ton of work. Take the advice of FoughtDragon-get an editor.

1408739 ever hear of an anime called Zach Bell

was my pronunciation set up wrong?:fluttershysad:

1411677 I live in America, and over here we pronounce them the same-Zack is an alternate spelling of Zach.

come on guys quit commenting on the small things the story over all is pretty good right?

1414391
I wouldn't know much about the story's actual quality because I didn't bother reading the whole thing. Hell, for all I know, the actual plot could be a golden, but I wouldn't know because the atrocious grammar and goddamn laundry list of description at the very beginning of the story drove me away before I could really get into it. A story cannot, under any circumstances, have a decent story, but bad grammar. That makes the story very hard to read, and will turn people away, just like it did to me.

If you were able to find a decent story underneath that mess of grammar and spelling errors, then more power to you, but don't say that understanding basic grammar is a 'small thing', because it isn't. And be honest, this story could be a lot better, couldn't it? If English isn't the author's first language, then the grammar's understandable, but that's what an editor is for. To help fix that sort of thing so that the story is far easier to read. I even suggested that he get one in my pseudo-review. If he did that, then readers would be more likely give this story a fairer chance. If he put more effort behind this thing, then people would have an easier time reading it, and maybe even praise it as opposed to tear it a new one. That's a fair exchange, right?

1414553 then be nice and help him out instead of turning down the story tell him his errors in a nice way and then try to reword them for him and see if he will go for that

1414649 Heh, if you think that I wasn't being nice, then you need to read a legitimate TWE review. Regardless, I'll see what I can do for this. Right after I eat dinner. Gotta get those critical juices flowin', ya know?

yep okay give the person a try you may never know it may become a very good story right i've been through much worse an nopony wanted to help me so i'm doing the right thing and trying to make a difference for the others who are not doing so well

Comment posted by Willevergreen deleted May 9th, 2013
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