It's bad and I should feel bad. · 3:07am Jul 10th, 2013
So, on a lark I submitted Clastic Glow to EQD; thought I'd share the reply.
I had no expectation the story would get through, but I am impressed with the brutal tear down. It reinforces my opinion that one should stay clear of OC protagonists. The original vision of the story had Swage as a minor role with Scootaloo as the mane focus, but somewhere Swage just took over.
I'm still proud of the story for what it is, a rough draft of an interesting idea.
In the future, I want to take take ch10 and use it as the first chapter in a CMC story. Might get to that after Relit.
Thank you for your submission to Equestria Daily. At this time, I cannot recommend your story for posting.
To put it bluntly, your main character, Swage, is a Mary Sue (or Gary Stu if you prefer). He has the uncanny ability to learn any task related to metalworking, and is so good at what he does that he finishes early and takes a nap. He has the ability to enchant objects with magic, despite being a pegasus (a concept for which there is not enough grounding either in the show or in your story to support). He meets three of the mane cast, plus Big Macintosh and the Cutie Mark Crusaders, in the first chapter of the story. Perhaps worst of all, his magical powers appear to stem from his missing wing, a concept that really has no grounding.
In short, if you wish to resubmit this story, it will need to be completely rewritten. This character is overpowered and uninteresting. Care must be taken to recreate him as a realistic pony whose story will be compelling to the reader.
Again, I must stress that this will have to be a significantly different story before you resubmit. This is your first strike out of a possible three, so take the time to work on your story and make it the best it can be.
Thank you again for submitting to Equestria Daily.
Sincerely,
-Pre-Reader Noir Voice
Wow, Noir Voice sounds like a douche with a capital bag.
I think your character sounds pretty great.
Only two questions though. How can he learn anything involving metal working? And
how does he use magic?
Gimme some details^^
1200801 Metal working is his special talent. In my head, he was a tinsmith first of all and really just did blacksmith work as a side thing. However I didn't want to turn the story into "Lets teach people about tinsmithing" so I just hinted at the idea.
That's really the only criticism he had that left me scratching my head. It's pretty normal for a pony to be good at their cutie mark.
Now for the magic, I understand his septicemic there. I was trying for something pretty complicated . First I had the idea of two kinds of "casting of magic". The way unicorns to it, and ritual magic. Anypony can do ritual magic, is just an art like anything else. It's just a rather obscure one. It's also no where near as fast or powerful as unicorn magic, normally*.
Swage learned ritual magic out of desperation to fly again. Naturally he blended this with his metalworking to make mildly magical things. Some where along the line Swage discovered that he could use the "ghost" of his severed wing to aide in the ritual magic. He worked with this till he mastered the phantom limb and was able to cast magic with it sort of like unicorns, "faking" basically. This allows him to make much more powerful spells into his work than a non-unicorn normally could. I tried to convey that this was still a clumsy and taxing process for him, not sure if that came though or not. The story ends with him having to choose between his hard earned ability to use magic and flying again.
I'm not surprised they shot you down, but I do disagree with some aspects of his criticism- plenty of stories on EqD have non-canon chars meeting canon ones. I can see his view that Swage is a Gary Stu, for having unusual powers, but I suppose that didn't resonate with me because I liked the IDEAS you were working with, and I thought the loss of a wing was a fair setback. Perhaps more emphasis on how that has been a loss for him, if you decide to try again.
I read this story last night. I could understand it If you had gotten rejected for spelling/grammar issues, but most of his objections seemed more like personal biases.
Swage didn't meet any canon characters in the first chapter, that is where he had his accident.
He did not first meet Applejack, Twilight, and Mac in the second chapter either. He met them at his "Welcome to Ponyville" party that happened between chapters one and two. He probably met most of the citizens of Ponyville at the party. Having a new smithy in town is a big deal in a farming community like Ponyville.
Swage needed lunch, he bought from Applejack's (canon) food cart.
He needs to do some magical research, who else would he talk to but Twilight.
Why wouldn't Big Mac bring his (canon) worn out plow to the new smithy for repair?
and wow, the CMC are intensely interested in a new activity that might get them their cutie marks. Never seen that on the show.
The phantom wing being unprecedented? Dude needs to read some Larry Niven "Gil the Arm" stories.
Your story isn't perfect, but I liked it quite a bit.
But then I don't have a particular bias against OC stories if they are well written.
expectation
tear
reinforces
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OCs
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