Main Reviews #13: Rise (spoiler warning) · 5:14am Mar 22nd, 2015
Going with the single suggestion made at the end of my last Voice On The Matter review blog, today I’m tackling a story by not one, but two writers. These two teamed up in January 2013 to bring forth great works of fiction together under a single account name. Whether one writes, or the other, or even if they collab together, I’ve been intrigued by such a partnership and the success they seem to have had with a shared account.
So, why not get into one of their lesser-known stories? I never noticed until now, but this is actually a side-story to two of their others, The Code’s Apprentice, and The Code of Harmony. I’m taking a risk here by reading this first, but hopefully it’s self-contained enough for me to enjoy without getting lost.
Is thirteen an unlucky number? Uh, well…?
Let’s get into it then. Today I bring you all my review of Rise.
Author: Lapis-Lazuli and Inky J
Synopsis:
The Great and Humble Trixie Lulamoon's reputation could not possibly be any worse, but that is about to change.
Following the disaster with the Alicorn Amulet, Trixie turns herself in to the authorities to account for her crimes. In penance, she is tasked by Princess Luna with the defense of Hollow Shades against a shadowy and unknown foe.
Trixie will have to draw upon every trick and every scheme she knows just to survive. And when faced with a fate worse than Death, she will have to prove there is more to her than flash and spectacle, and learn just how far her magic can go.
And learn how to Rise.
Length: 31,676 words over 4 chapters, averaging 7,919 words per chapter
Status: Complete
Review: Lots of people like Trixie. Lots of people hate Trixie. Whatever side you're on when it comes to her, surely turning herself in must seem like the sensible thing to do. After all, while Twilight might have forgiven her easily enough at the end of Magic Duel, she does not speak for everypony. Many of Ponyville's other citizens must surely have desired justice for their deprivation of liberty, their torture, etc. So to see Trixie having made this choice is a great story opener. What consequences shall Trixie face for her heinous crimes? For better or worse, we want to know. Great story hook.
Right off the bat, I detected many common writing flaws that newer authors’ (including myself, though I’d like to think I’ve weaned myself off this) stories are plagued by: specifically, being matter-of-fact and explicit in regards to moods, actions, expressions, exposition, etc. The writing is fundamentally telly all the way through, and littered with adverbs to boot. Paragraph formatting could do with work, too; one of the first things we learn in high-school English (some people even sooner, depending on individual schools) is to start a new paragraph when a new subject is introduced, or a new character speaks. This simply does not happen in Rise, with multiple subject changes within the same paragraph occurring frequently.
As for the paragraphs themselves, many are six or seven lines in length, sometimes more. Personally, I feel an ideal paragraph should be no longer than three or four lines on a regular basis. The odd longer one isn’t a dealbreaker, but when paragraphs start frequently breaking the 6–7 line mark, it tells me two things: either the paragraph formatting is off (as is the case with the multiple subjects being addressed inside one), or the sentences are too “busy” and trying to cram too much information into them, be it description or exposition. This is problematic because the story can start to feel unfocused, like it’s gone off on a tangent. Losing the audience’s attention is the last thing anyone wants; you want to engage them, make them crave your words, rather than just reading through them and wondering when the good bits are gonna start.
Note: before anyone points out the hypocrisy in this blog about the paragraph lengths, remember that I’m not trying to immerse you in a story. This is just a review, so regular writing rules don’t apply so much.
Ignoring the flaws for now, I see that my concerns about this being a self-contained story were more-or-less eased. Although there are clear mentions and references to Dissonance Magic, Sorceresses (something I assume exists purely within this ’verse), as well as other events, Rise holds up well on its own. Much like the “Themverse” stories that I read last week, while the fics in the “Codeverse” are tied together and related, this seems to work fine as a standalone title.
This particular entry into the series begins with Trixie awaiting punishment for her past misdeeds against Ponyville. I’ve seen a fair share of post-Magic Duel stories, but none yet where Trixie surrenders herself to the Sisters’ judgement, so this is cool. It feels odd, though. Sometimes the story is holding back with large amounts of description and internal monologue on Trixie’s part; other times it speeds through until we get to the relevant plot point. Luna’s dialogue felt very fast, forced, and wooden, not at all how I’m used to seeing her written by other authors (one of which also wrote a brilliant story about Trixie and Luna). It seemed that she wanted to be wordy when trying to be impressive or look intimidating, and then at other times just cut to the chase. There’s also a few instances where Luna forgets about her Royal We and instead says “I” before reverting back and forth at random. The same doesn’t happen for Trixie, though; she stays firmly entrenched in her third-person perspective.
As I continued, I found myself torn between wanting to offer suggestions for every. Single. Damn. Line, and wanting to just read and enjoy the story. I’m going to come out and say it now—I really wanted to like this. I really did. Plot elements are intriguing, characters are very well realised and feel quite unique—Trixie’s aunt was my favourite—and the setting of Hollow Shades has always of interest to me purely because we haven’t seen it yet. There’s a lot in this story to like… if you can look past the writing itself, which is, despite being rather well proofread, a drag to slog through.
I’m sorry, Lapis and Inky… Whichever of the two of you wrote this one, I’m not impressed. Not at all. If you’ve gotten better over the past two years (and I wouldn’t put it past either of you to have developed over all that time), I’m sure I’ll enjoy something from you in the future. But as far as Rise goes, I couldn’t bring myself to finish it. And for me, that is an absolute tragedy, especially with how good this story seemed like it would be on the surface. It is telly beyond belief (relying heavily on clumsy adverbs), the paragraphs have basically zero formatting, the pacing starts glacial and then roars off like Super Dave into the sunset, and to crown it all, I had to keep stop-starting my reading to mull over what I thought I just read. I was getting through it fine, then reluctantly, then forcibly, but when I got to the phrase “hanging juicily” I just couldn’t take the story seriously anymore. That descriptor actually made me lose my shit laughing. Which is a real shame since I know the story is meant to be played completely straight.
Oh, that’s not to say there can’t be comedy in an adventure, no. But when the comedy comes unintentionally from sections that are supposed to be serious, and the reader doesn’t laugh at what was supposed to give them a good little chuckle like Trixie turning Hollow Shades’ Captain of the Guard into a mare, it’s lost.
There is much improvement needed before I would recommend this to people. There is a lot of potential contained within this story, particularly in the case of the characters, but… it has a very long way to go. If the story is given a rewrite/passover, I might change my mind, but for now, suffice to say that I was very disappointed… to the point where I decided it was not worth continuing past chapter two. For the first time in quite a long time, I was unable to complete a story. I’m just not interesting in slogging through it anymore.
I don’t like being disappointed. It makes me feel terrible because then I have to write things like this that make authors feel terrible, or angry, or annoyed. As a fellow writer, I know what it’s like to receive a bad review on something you’re rather proud of. It hurts, and so it also hurts me to have a negative opinion of any story that has had time and devotion put into it. I don’t know exactly how much time or devotion was put into this, but judging by the publishing dates of the chapters, those 31k words only took a week to produce. I could be wrong: the story could have been pre-written, and published chapter by chapter systematically. But I will point out that the author’s note at the end of chapter two explicitly stated that they only cared about releasing the content, whether it was in shape to be released or not. Wrong attitude. If you really care about your readers, you’ll wait until you are 100% happy with everything, including editing. And if you aren’t happy with your editor? Find a new one—heck, even more than one.
I’m not going to downvote it. It has seriously great potential. But it does need a lot of work. It’s up to you, author, whether it’s worth it or not for you to do so. The story is close to two years old as of now, so...
tl;dr: Big points for creativity, great characters, and promising conflict. Massive deductions for the writing itself being nigh-unreadable and unenjoyable (at least in the sense of fluidity and immersion).
3/10
That's too bad :( If you're up for an ongoing/incomplete fic also done by a dynamic duo, that is captivating and goddamn good, I'd toss you in the direction of Starlight Over Detrot: A Noir Tale.
I don't know what it is about that one that grabbed me faster than MJ in a dark closet - maybe it's the drugs made from zapapples, or the sewer ghosts that are scarier than some of the Fo:E mutations, but I've been hooked from the first sentence. Granted, quality improves with time, but goddamnit I love that fic.
Besides, who wouldn't want a lightning-powered taxi? :V
Ouch. Well, I know what story I won't be adding to my RiL. That's a relief, it's already long enough. I already went through one story this week with great ideas and terrible writing, I sure as heck don't want to do another.