A Review—03/01/2015: "The Lifespan of a Princess"

I've been letting my reviewing skills atrophy for a while, and I've decided today to say no more! I've decided to try something a little bit different from what I usually do in situations where I let my skills atrophy (and I usually sit back and moan about it while my skills atrophy even more, because I'm a pathetic man). I will be offering reviews of stories I somewhat-randomly select right here in this blogging system. How long will it last? As long as I can take it.

I'm doing this for a few reasons:

1. To get me back to reviewing

2. To talk about okay stories. What I mean is not exactly great stories, not exactly awful stories, but okay stories. I think we all know what a bad story is, and we all have stories we consider great, but we have less of an understanding of what makes tepid, drab fiction that follows the rules of fiction, but isn't very evocative. This isn't meant to insult or discourage any authors; it's rather meant to look at what the author can do to make his or her story more evocative.

3. To bring stories to your attention, specifically low-view-count stories

4. To offer advice to the author, should he or she come to look at this little thing

And that's it. To begin this whole shebang, I picked a story that was tagged with seminal characters from the show: The Main Six, Spike, The Cutie Mark Crusaders, Princess Celestia and Princess Luna. I also looked for completed stories that weren't tagged with sex, gore or any other characters. Do you know how many stories have those requirements? I do. As of this moment, twelve. I picked the most recent one, for convenience's sake (and because I didn't want to begin with a comedy, random or HiE story). The story I'm deciding to pick for this first review is

The Lifespan of a Princess
by Henyoki
Published 1 March 2015
Tragedy Sad Slice of Life
Words: 5,489
It has been quite some years since Twilight became a princess; but can she handle the reality of the things her kind must deal with?

This needs to be said before I begin: Henyoki joined this site just a little while ago, and he or she has claimed that this is their first feelsy story, so I'll attempt to go into this with leniency on him or her. If you, Henyoki, are reading this, any and all criticisms I have against this story are not meant to either discourage or insult you; they are, rather meant to look at what can be improved with the story, and they are pieces of advice that you can use to help you as a writer.

Now let's get to the review.

The first noticeable thing about this story is the grammar. The errors in this story don't make the entire story unreadable, but there are a lot of problems with it. Homophone mix-ups aren't a problem, and thankfully it's and its aren't mixed up. The story does have a lot of missing spaces, inconsistent capitalization (present in Sweet Apple Acres), inconsistent tense (written mainly in present tense), and awkward comma usage that halts the story in unnecessarily choppy spurts. There are a few odd errors as well, some I've not seen before, like this:

"Well...I miss all of my friends. Rainbow Dash, Pinkie Pie, Rarity, Fluttershy...and now Applejack. Spike has grown too big to live alongside me, and my castle is so empty and cold. I miss their friendly faces, sitting with me, laughing with me, playing with me. I miss all of it. I even miss our arguments. I wish I could bring them back. I...." Twilight begins to tear up again. She wipes her warm tears with her hooves (Here's an oddity→)".I-i'm okay...I...I don't know if I can be a princess without their help. They've always been there for me in my time of need, but...I couldn't be there for them, when they needed me most." Princess Celestia looks at Twilight patiently. She looks towards the hall, and makes a slightly sad expression, with a dim smile.

I'm not pointing this out to make fun of Henyoki; it was just odd, and a bit humorous. The author has his words down; he just needs to work on the aforementioned things, the spaces, capitalization, tense and comma usage. The grammar is bad, but it's not awful.

If you couldn't tell from the above quote, this is a Twilight-is-immortal story, and it's an okay story. It's not great, or even good, but it is okay. From what I gather from this story, the author understands what makes a conflict, but doesn't understand how internal conflicts can guide a character, or how to write emotional moments that are a result of the turmoil from the conflict. The author understands that descriptions make a story vivid, but doesn't understand how to make them meaningful. The author understands how to characterize characters, but didn't make the characterization vivid. The author doesn't seem to grasp pacing or world-building, at least from what I understand from reading this. So it's okay, with a lot of room for improvement.

Let's get to specifics, shall we?

Of course we shall!

Here's the very first paragraph:

It has been quite some years since Twilight Sparkle became a princess. She has grown, now she is Princess Luna's size, that is, if Luna weren't as big as Princess Celestia now. Twilight sits alone in her castle, The circle of the mane six's chairs empty. Twilight heaves a small size (I believe the author meant sigh) as she steps off of her chair onto the cold floor. Walking through her large castle, her steps echo throughout the large corridors. It seems so quite (Quiet, I believe), and dark. As Twilight steps outside, she is met with the blazing light of the warm sun, along with Princess Celestia.

There's a lot that happens in this paragraph. In fact, far too much happens in this paragraph. It gives up background for the story, and then description of the current situation, and then starts action, AND THEN moves up on to the first important interaction. That's a lot to take in, and given how different the information is compared to the rest of the paragraph, each sentence has to fight for its right to be in the story. And each sentence doesn't fit in with the rest of the paragraph, making the paragraph a mess. Here, let me talk about each part individually:

1. "It has been quite some years since Twilight Sparkle became a princess. She has grown, now she is Princess Luna's size, that is, if Luna weren't as big as Princess Celestia now." First, off, there's an example of the awkward comma usage that stops the story in spurts. Secondly, this appears to be the beginning of our getting acquainted with the new Twilight Sparkle, one that has matured with age, one that is different from the Twilight we've come to know and love. And the comparison of Twilight's size to Luna's is awkward, and could've been written more fluidly, like this:

"She has grown to Luna's size when the moon princess returned from her banishment; Luna herself had grown to match her sister's stature."

Or something like that.

2. "Twilight sits alone in her castle, The circle of the mane six's chairs empty." Unnecessary capitalization on "the," but that's beside the point. This is a radical change from introducing the new Twilight Sparkle. This is beginning the action, and it's very jarring from the previous two sentences. As you would find later if you actually read the story, or stick with this review, the author struggles giving meaning to descriptions, and this jump into the action calls into question whether or not knowing Twilight's size is actually a sign of her changing, or is just a description for the eyes.

And like the previous two sentences, this isn't a bad sentence (story-wise; technicality is another matter); it just doesn't join well with the previous two.

3. "Twilight heaves a small size as she steps off of her chair onto the cold floor. Walking through her large castle, her steps echo throughout the large corridors. It seems so quite, and dark." Not a bad few sentences either, but it just moves on from looking onto the empty seats. The problem here is that moving on like this doesn't let the implications that come with looking onto the empty seats in Twilight's new castle sink in. It doesn't let that detail have enough weight to it, and it gets lost in this. The coherency here is actually nice. The details could be elaborated upon, to make the darkness and silence more vivid, but it does its job for what it is.

4. "As Twilight steps outside, she is met with the blazing light of the warm sun, along with Princess Celestia." And then we have the first important event of the story, and this clashes with the rest of the paragraph. The tone of the story hasn't been groundly set, and the implications of Celestia's coming there are both too explained to be mysterious and not explained enough for the implications of her visiting to be available. It's just shoehorned in. And where is she stepping outside anyway? On her favorite balcony? Out the front door? Out the back door? All of these choices would have different implications for Celestia waiting there.

All of that in one paragraph, and it's a bit of a mess. Henyoki, if you're reading this, I hope you can see what I'm saying. I want to toy around with this for a bit, to try and make it better. Now, I'm not a godlike author, either, and my example will definitely be improvable; this is just to try and improve what's there now:

Twilight Sparkle starea at the circle of empty seats around the table, at which she is at the head. There is nothing in the room that would hold any onlooker's interest, but Twilight looks intently from chair to chair, at every image adorning the back rests. After a moment's pause, she sighs and finally stands up.

It has been a few decades since Twilight has become a princess, and one could hardly tell that she has aged. She still retains her purple coat, her lustrous-as-ever mane and tail with no grey hairs, and the same fiery eyes hungry for knowledge. She has grown taller, to Luna's height when the moon princess had returned from her exile; Luna herself had grown to match her sister's stature. Twilight's features show very little age; there is just small lines under her eyes, formed from intense studying into Equestria's banks of knowledge and friendship.

She leaves the room and walks down the cold corridors. Her eyes are staring at the floor, to avoid the darkness her castle has taken in. The bright lights of life have dimmed, and are almost completely gone. The silence also weighs down on her, and she trudges on to try and get outside.

Once she opens her front door, she finds the blazing sun and the sun princess herself in front of her eyes. The princess etc etc etc...

I think this shows what I'm getting at. I attempted to get the weight of both agelessness and forlorn...ity? forlornness? in these few paragraphs, and I think I succeeded in giving the first major event—Twilight meeting Celestia at the front door—enough set-up to give it some implications for why she's there and what the author should expect. Is it perfect? FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFno, but I hope that shows at least some way that previous point could be improved.

Moving on from the first paragraph, the story unfortunately doesn't give its events any time to get the weight of them across. Almost everything else is alright; the author understands that certain events lead to certain emotions. The story, though, moves at too fast a pace for nearly anything to be appreciated. There is one part, with Twilight, Applejack and a bunch of flowers that has some weight to it; I thought the set-up of it was pretty good. The attempt at description is nice as well, although the author needs a lot more practice to make it flow well.

Twilight and Applejack make it to a large cave, the Tree of Harmony sitting in the middle of it, the Elements of Harmony happily sitting in its branches. Twilight stops pushing Applejack's wheelchair when they stand closely in front of 4 marble graves. The graves each have a different cutie mark carved into them. From left to right, they have Rainbow Dash, Pinkie Pie, Rarity, and to the far right, Fluttershy (It would be better to say the actual cutie marks, as what's here now sounds really awkward). Twilight used her magic to set the bucket filled with flowers in front of Applejack. Twilight begins to lay the flowers in front of the graves.
Blue Evolvulus flowers for Rainbow Dash, peachy pink roses for Pinkie Pie, White Calla lilies for Rarity, and Woodland Poppies for Fluttershy. Twilight looks at the two remaining groups of flowers.
"What do I do with the Asiatic lilies and the Purple Glories?" Twilight asks, a bit confused.
"Well, the Purple Glories are for you, Twilight. The Asiatic Lilies are to bring back to Sweet Apple Acres. For me."
Twilight smiles and plucks a single Purple Glory from the bunch, tucking in into her tiara. Applejack smiles at Twilight.
"That looks a might lovely on you, Twilight." I really like the flower choices Henyoki makes for this story)
"Thank you Applejack", Twilight flashes a smile, and puts her hoof atop Applejack's. "It was very kind of you. Shall we head back now?" (Here we are again at the breakneck speed. This is potentially Applejack's last moment on earth; let the moment linger, please)

I can't say the same for anything else, as the story moves very quickly with both the events and the dialogue. I don't mean to insult Henyoki, but the dialogue is bad. Celestia tries to be consoling, but she comes off as callous, especially with her experience.

"I just...I lost Applejack about 37 days ago... I'm having trouble dealing with it."
"Oh, Twilight...I am so sorry for your loss. Applejack was a very kind, dependable Pony, but there was nothing we could do to stop nature's course."
"Y-yes...I know that, Princess. If there was some way I could have helped, I would still have the others too...But, I'm useless...I couldn't help anypony. My magic is useless..." Twilight begins to sob lightly, as she sits on the floor. Celestia looks at her, saddened by her struggle. Celestia hugs Twilight in a soft, warm embrace.
"It's OK, Twilight, please don't be sad, my student." Twilight hugs Celestia back, still crying. (You, of all ponies, should know how illogical emotions are. Why would you expect Twilight to not be sad after losing Applejack?)

Spike is given some okay dialogue, but he has some odd things as well about him:

"I just don't see how you're so content about this, Spike..."
"Oh Twilight, I am a mature dragon now. Our emotions are much more developed than a pony's. We can control it easily. (Well, that's really straightforward and pompous, even if he is explaining it to her)You know I will always be here for you, until the day I die."

The other characters have personality to them, apart from Cadence, who is by far the most poorly-written character in the story. She's very robotic in her speech, and that makes her "mother nature" talk fall flat.

The author definitely tries to give Twilight Sparkle grievance over losing her friends, and I felt it, although not too strongly. Her dialogue is handled alright, most likely because the author devoted more time to make her come alive. The rest of the story, though, works against her fitting truly into the story. Twilight finding out that her brother is on his death bed comes off as too melodramatic due to a not-so-good set-up and worldbuilding, and the rest of the story is like that as well. It's either melodramatic or confounded by stilted dialogue from the other characters.

The worldbuilding is non-existent, so I won't comment on it. It would've been cool to see how the world changed—or didn't change, if you're more into the the-great-shroud-of-the-sea-rolled-on-as-it-rolled-five-thousand-years-ago-idea of time, but it's not there. I don't know what Henyoki's capabilities of worldbuilding are, so I won't comment on it.

I think there are two more things to talk about: the plot itself and the style. The plot is simply Twilight seeing the last of the ponies she shared the closest kinship with leaving the world for the next. The pacing moves by too quickly, but I feel that if it were stretched out and elaborated on, and the important parts of the story are given the time they deserve, the story could've actually been better than okay. I do think the way he wrote the scene where Shining Armor is passing away was extremely rushed with no thought of the emotional impact it would have. The pony in the spoilers isn't as close to Twilight as the girls are, at least not from what I've seen, so Twilight's freaking out over it just seems melodramatic. The conclusion of it, honestly, falls flat for me because a) it's rushed like the rest of the story, and b) it doesn't provide closure to the story's issue. It concludes alright, there are no hanging questions that I can think of, but it is rushed to the point of seeming cobbled in with the story.

Finally, the style. The author needs to work on developing their individual style for vividness's sake, but it's not unreadable. The author moves the story from one point to the next. I did say that the detail needs a lot of work, and I do still mean it. It provides descriptions, sure, but it doesn't offer any sort of tone to it. Here's a few examples off the top of my head:

"Now, let's try to talk about this without all the tears, alright?" Princess Celestia flashes a kind smile at Twilight, before walking to her throne, signalling for Twilight to sit next to her. Twilight walks over, her shoes tapping on the floor loudly, she sits on a soft, red pillow, and faces Celestia. (What does it matter that the pillow is red?)

"These are the hooves of a pony who has let all of her loved ones die." Twilight lets her hooves drop back onto her bed, as she stares at the peach colored ceiling, using her magic to bring multiple pictures of Shining Armor in front of her. (What does it matter that the ceiling is peach-colored?)

As Twilight follows behind Applebloom, she glances at the walls as they make their way to the stairs leading to the second floor. The walls are covered with many pictures of the Apple family, ranging from oldest to newest, the further upstairs they venture. (Isn't is obvious that they're going to the second floor, since this is the Apple Family house we know?)

There are details that are pretty good, like the details of the newer pictures not having Applejack in them, and Twilight's tiara not having a luster to it. Those give off a tone, the former of time, the second of neglect. Textures and colors, however, in this story don't (except for the warm and fuzzy blanket over Applejack, to signify comfort). It just needs work.

---

I think I covered everything I could. Overall, the story is okay. It takes some time to consider Twilight's being as the last of her friends and relatives leave her, but it goes by too quickly to really have the weight of it, and other important considerations, settle into the story. The characters act alright for the most part, playing their part in the story, but the dialogue needs a lot of work to consider the situation and the characters themselves. The worldbuilding isn't really there, and it could've been for a story like this. The style needs a bit of work, and the grammar could use a good clean-up. It's not an awful story, but it's not a great story, either. It's just okay.

The author does say he's new to it, so I won't get into the implications that come with present tense versus past tense... kinda because I'm not fully aware of it myself...(I'm a stupid little sh**, aren't I?) and Henyoki, if you read through all of this, please don't feel discouraged. The only way you'll get better—how all authors get better—is to continue writing. I do hope this at least showed my side of why I personally didn't really enjoy this story. I don't think it's awful, but I do think it needs work. I urge you to continue writing, and I hope this helps in some way.

As for the rest of you, I hope you at least found this somewhat worthwhile. My reviewing skills are rusty, and I hope to improve them in the future. If you give the story a go, please keep in mind the newness of the author when you read it.

I wish you all the best with your writing ventures!

Comments

[Dusty Sage]

I have a wholly unreasonable prejudice against present tense. (Or should that be "I had a wholly unreasonable prejudice against present tense"?) I'm not sure why. Maybe it's because for some reason I have it jumbled up in the brain next to second-person stories, which almost always rub me the wrong way.