Reviews from Pen Mightier's Library - Lyra and the Little People

Lyra and the Little People
By Not_A_Hat

Why You Need To Give This a Try
- It's beautifully written, a work of solid craftsmanship
- It's a quick one-shot and the entire story's self-contained in one sweet package
- It summons up a sense of nostalgia for the old English folklore classics, something we don't encounter as often in this day and age outside the Hobbit and the like.

Story Summary
A wonderful little jaunt of a story where we listen to our favourite lyrist recount an encounter with cunning little fae folk, of her experience being spirited away to become their little bard as a filly, written in the style of classical folklore with a sprinkling of ponies.

The Good
We are gently segued into the story through the perspective of one rather lost and wandering Bon Bon during one evening of directionless party-hopping. She speaks to the reader, drawing us in, sitting us by her side as she tries to make sense of everything. Like the reader she is searching for something, anything, to interest her distraught mind, to take it off something else. The writer takes his time with the soft but enticing prose to allow us to sit beside Bon Bon, empathize with her, see the party she had landed herself in through her eyes.

Then we are introduced to Lyra and her music. The author takes his time here, slowly weaving purple prose, allowing us to almost see, feel and touch the music she wove that night. This was perhaps one of the magical moments of the story. Sure, more waves of purple prose come later and there's a lot of of it to get through in this story, but I think if you've got the time and patience it becomes part of the charm.

The main part was filled with its own innocent magic. We are introduced to the 'Good People', the fey folk of the story who Lyra decides to call 'humans'. I found it fascinating that they are introduced as 'humans' but then are given a very magical description. They're small, they hide away most of the time, but love to play pranks and steal from ponies. And most interestingly, they melt away under Celestia's light. I quite enjoy it when writers take something I think I'm familiar with then turn my expectations on its head. Done well, it can be intriguing.

The innocence is compounded by the fact that this was Lyra's experience as a little filly. Now this was a fact I wish the writer had focused on, maybe even expounded more on. Fillies never fail to make a story for me with how adorable they are but, that's just a personal preference.

Sharp contrast is thrown in with the sinister undercurrents lurking beneath the innocent magic. The 'Good People' are not so good. They aren't outright cruel or evil, but they aren't beneath kidnapping a little filly just to have the pleasure of her music, which is the entirety of the driving conflict behind the story. It's the kind of 'benign whimsical evil' that you don't see so often in stories these days, the kind more at home in old folk tales.

The Bad
I'd love to leave the review with the good, but that would be half-assed of me. Unfortunately there are a number of reasons why this story isn't particularly popular. I could put it entirely down to lack of exposure but that's really only half the story. I advise you to go read the story first before you read this bit of my review.

The first and fairest critique I feel would be regarding the story summary. It puts off most people. It almost put me off. 'Lyra tells Bon-Bon about learning to play the harp, and her time with Brian Connors, king of the Good People.' The first bit is a weak pull for me. The latter half honestly almost made me pass up on this wonderful little gem.

Now I'm going to go on a tangent and theorize a bit based on my own experience of the fandom so far. I think I speak for most of us when I say we come to ponies to get away from humans for a bit. There is always some level of aversion towards all things human. For some it's not as strong as others, but it's there. Sure, there are a lot of human-in-Equestria fics (heck, I'm responsible for two), but the successful ones are either those that do not focus on the human or have a very vague human main character that the reader can simply use to immerse themselves into the story. Just to elaborate on my line of thought, would you read a story with a blurb that reads 'I'm Bob and me and my two best friends Jake and John end up in Equestria and now the fate of the world rests on our shoulders.'? I personally would steer clear of it. Now, would you read a story with a blurb that read 'I'm Jacob and I arrive in Equestria and suddenly find myself crowned King'. I would avoid it like the plague (Ironic considering my portfolio of stories, but hey, this isn't about my writing).

Where am I going with this? Well, this story's summary commits at least half that faux-pas. There's a 'Brian Connors' there, someone that sounds suspiciously like a named human. To make matters worse, he's 'King' of the good people. Only through reading the story do we learn he's the King of the fae folk. And that's only if we get as far as reading the story. His presence in the summary almost stopped me getting that far. Call me prejudiced, but I have little time in life and I try to economize on it. I only read stories with a really fascinating summary that draws me in immediately or if it's really popular (i.e. tried and tested. >500 people normally don't go wrong....normally).

Now, hopefully this review will have gotten you past that and into the story. That's what this was supposed to achieve, right? If you haven't read the story yet by this point, do so and go no further with this review. What follows is a rather harsh critique on what I felt ruined my experience.

Now, the story itself. Did I mention purple prose? Now, there's lots of it, so much that at times it takes some strength of will to pull myself through to the next point of interest. I might even accuse the writer of waxing poetic for the sake of it. Why? Cause I'm supposed to be listening to Bon Bon and Lyra recounting a story as part of a conversation, not reading out Lord of the Rings to me. By itself it's an interesting exercise in literary acumen. But as a story, particularly an MLP fanfic, which is, by the way, what I came for, it doesn't work quite as well.

Now as I said the story did do a good job easing us into the narrator's world. It kind of threw that out the window when it brought in a second narrator, Lyra, who arguably got us to the story's subject matter but in a rather rough-shod way, i.e. plucked us from that nice little bubble the writer had so painstakingly built through Bon Bon to shove us in another. It didn't help that the second narrator, Lyra, decided to start her bit with a massive info-dump.

There is no tension. If there was, it got really diluted by all the prose. At times I struggled to keep going, having to remind myself that Lyra's been fillynapped here! She needs to escape! But I shouldn't have to remind myself of that. That should be the author's job. There's no sense of danger, no gripping conflict. There are little points of interest here and there as Lyra figures out a plan to escape, but for some reason it came across as 'Guys, I'm going to practice on this lyre until I can use it to escape' rather than 'Everything blurred together. I lost count of day and night. I could barely tell them apart. The magic's hold on me grew stronger, my hold on reality only grew weaker. I must escape, and soon, and this lyre will help me. My plan was my last tenuous hold on sanity. But I mustn't let them catch me plotting, lest they stop me and wrest my last shred of hope away!'. That was putting it a bit harshly, but that was my own personal impression after finishing the story. As self-centered as it sounds, I feel the reader's personal impression on finishing the story is what matters most.

The last problem, and I promise I'll shut up after this. This is more a personal thing, perhaps even a borderline immature nagging on my part, but there aren't. Enough. Ponies. I come here for ponies. But apart from a few things here and there, you could have taken Lyra and replaced her with little orphan Annie and you'd still get more or less the same story. There's little that made this specifically a story about ponies.

Conclusion
Overall, an excellent flexing of the writer's literary prowess. The prose is of solid quality. I felt really drawn in by Bon Bon's introduction. I've never felt so immersed into a story before. Sure, all that painstaking immersion got ruined when Lyra opened her mouth, but Lyra's own story was interesting so I can forgive her that. The overall story and conflict was weak but so are most old folk tales this story resembles. Overall it was interesting enough for me to want to write a review about it. It deserves more attention, both for the good and the bad.

What We Can Learn From This
- Most important - careful with your summaries. It can make or break your story. Fanfiction's all about exposure, particulary on this site with its system of Likes and Dislikes driving what gets seen and what doesn't. You could have written the next Harry Potter, but if your blurb reads 'Boy loses parents and goes to school' you're not doing yourself or your story any favours.
- Careful with overdone purple prose and over-sophisticated language. I used to love doing this. I loved showing off just how deep and profound a wordsmith I could be. Then I wondered why my stories never get read. I realize now that the simpler your language, the easier your story is to read. End of the day, you are trying to entertain readers, give them something nice and easy to read. You're not trying to force them to sit through classical literature class.
- Careful with sudden shifts of perspective and theme. Done well it can create a sense of contrast that wows the reader. Done badly and you can lose the reader's attention altogether. When in doubt, do it slowly, or don't do it at all.
- If you're writing an MLP fanfic, make sure it's about ponies. I came here for ponies, dangit!

What was all this about, Pen Mightier?
This review? From now on I think I'll do reviews from time to time, either in-depth reviews and critical dissections of stories like what I've done just now, or just a little post-it along the lines of 'hey, guys, read this, it's really good! Enough said!'. I'll do the former more when I feel there is something to be gained, something for all of us to learn as writers. I'll do the latter when I come across something I really enjoyed that really speaks for itself.

As to what I'll review, it'll be just that. Either stories I really really enjoyed, stories I feel need some more attention, stories I feel we can learn something from, or all of the above.

I'm no literary expert. Far, far from it in fact. Just one read of my work should be enough for you to realize how shoddy a writer I am. And I'll be the first to acknowledge I commit a lot of the mistakes I expounded on in this review. Heck, I wrote two HiE fics! One of which has a human becoming the Emperor of ponykind no less! But I do enjoy writing, and really really enjoy reading. Now I want to share that enjoyment, share what I really enjoy, share what I don't enjoy quite as much. As unqualified as I am, I hope you'll allow me this selfishness from time to time. Many thanks for reading!