Review: "The Howling Pony" by Inazuma. · 8:07pm Mar 26th, 2015
This is a review of The Howling Pony by Inazuma.
This is the kind of story for which the term "purple prose" was invented. The first line is:
It was a dark and stormy night.
Yes, I know exactly the kind you mean. The kind of night when the rain falls in torrents — except at occasional intervals, when it is checked by a violent gust of wind which sweeps up the streets, rattling along the housetops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of the lamps that struggle against the darkness.
The first couple of paragraphs set the atmosphere for the tale nicely. Here's some more:
The castle's torch-lit Entry Hall, primitive looking, like something out of the Middle Ages.
Sentances without verbs. The author often seems to use them to start chunks of text, making the whole story read a little like a film treatment. The author does a very good job of describing the scenes. You can almost see the settings and characters in front of you.
The story reads like a gothic horror film. The suspense is palpable. Right up until:
Dun, dun, duuuun!
This is the single worst paragraph in the story. It adds nothing; it destroys so much. I laughed out loud. I should not be doing that in a suspense story. Using a fleuron or another typographical convention to show a section break would have been far more effective.
The story would benefit from a good editing.
“I'll speak to Zecora.” Sunset replied. “Noooo. She's the greatest maniac of them all.”
Except the "Noooo. She's the greatest maniac of them all" part is not spoken by Sunset, but by another character. There ought to be a paragraph break there. This is not the only punctuation problem I spotted, but it's one of the more glaring ones.
Later on a mare is referred to as "him". These are little things, but they can distract the reader. The more a reader is forced to think about the way you're saying something, the less they can focus on what you're saying.
Overall, I liked the story. I liked the concept. I liked the writing. I liked the style. I liked the bookend scenes with the older Sunset Shimmer. I think it could do with a bit of cleaning up, but even if that never happens, it's well worth a read.
I like this. Thank you very much for reviewing it. And for reminding me that I needed to re-edit it. But I have one question:
Where exactly did you see that particular error?
2913638 This line:
And no, it's not the part where the mare starts turning into Discord and you intentionally switch from female to male pronouns.
2913669 Ugh. Thank you for catching that. I must of scanned a hundred times and somehow it still eluded me.