CCC: cleverpun's Critique Corner #10 — Red Apples · 1:06am Sep 22nd, 2015
Title: Red Apples
Author: billymorph
Found via: Featured Box. Also Titanium Dragon wrote a review of it.
Short summary: After her return, Luna laments how much things have changed. But some things—or some ponies—remain constant.
Genre: Character Piece
What does this story do well?: This story does a good job of immersing the reader in Luna’s mindset. It does this with a combination of first-person narration, archaic vocabulary, and believable characterization. The first part of the story in particular—where Luna contemplates the titular fruit—is immersive and engaging. I often refer to first-person narration as a crutch—something that makes writing easier for the inexperienced. I think this is an example where first-person emphasizes the story’s strengths.
It is a well-known fact that writers cannot do math. In FIM, one of the biggest expressions of this is the timeline, particularly of Luna’s banishment. This story takes that and runs with it, by emphasizing just how significant the differences become after a thousand years away. Geography changes, music changes, culture changes, and even entire familial lines change. The story emphasizes this cleverly, not only by having Luna wax poetic, but also by having her try to slot things into her archaic worldview and failing.
The characters feel believable. It’s a great example of how writers can frame a character’s behavior in terms the audience understands, without sacrificing nuance.
Where could this story improve?: This story has severe problems with comma usage. There are comma splices, missing commas for dependent clauses, incorrect list punctuation, problems with coordinate/cumulative adjective delineation, and other such problems all throughout the story.
Further, there is a lot of passive voice being used. This might be justified by Luna’s internal narrative and the slow nature of the story, but many of the sentences are phrased in an incredibly dull way.
The story also mislabels Applejack, Octavia, and Vinyl Scratch as major characters (all three have bit parts as plot devices and could have been replaced with anyone). Taken together, all these little issues make the story feel less polished than it should be. There’s a lot of amateurish grammar and style mistakes, and it damages the story.
The story also commits that all-too-common mistake of completely failing at Early Modern English. Luna’s dialogue is peppered and salted with the standard-issue “thou”s and “ye”s and so forth. They are used inconsistently, incorrectly, and constantly. This shouldn’t even be a problem: for most of the story Luna is addressing Celestia, and since they are equals “you” should be used. Luna also uses modern contractions and other obviously recent language developments. This is all the more frustrating because Luna has a good character moment at the beginning, when she is unsure how to address Applejack. Her inconsistent and inaccurate speaking style damages immersion, especially since the story is in first-person.
Finally, the story doesn’t have a real arc to it. There is a meager plot—with the matter of the High Princess—but it lacks any surprise or suspense. The ending is so obvious to the audience that the buildup to it becomes completely pointless. The story is reasonably short, but feels far longer than it is.
I complimented the opening above, but not all parts of the story meet that high initial standard.
In a single sentence: A great character piece, diminished by an abundance of small problems.
Verdict: Upvote. I’m definitely a sucker for stories starring Celestia and Luna, especially ones that effectively explore their characterization. This story definitely has its flaws, but the skillful characterization shines through them. If you enjoy character pieces, this is an easy recommendation. If you only want stories that have a strong plot, or are put off by grammar/punctuation mistakes, then I can not safely recommend this.
While inconsistent use of you/thou is potentially problematic, Luna using "thou" to address Celestia informally is not wrong - thee/thou was at the time not only used for inferiors, but also used to indicate intimacy and familiarity, and referring to a sibling or lover as "thou" in private was something people did. Hence Shakespeare's "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day".
3411334 That can be true, if both participants in a conversation use the same pronouns for each other. Here, Celestia uses you and Luna uses thou/ye/et al. This implies that Luna thinks Celestia is beneath her, since she is not reciprocating Celestia's use of you. I know this because an editor called me on that exact situation in one of my stories.
In "Luna Eclipsed", this unbalanced dynamic makes sense, because Luna does see the ponies she talks to as beneath her. I wouldn't mind seeing a fic where Celestia uses Early Modern English to make Luna more comfortable, and they use thou to refer to each other.
3411386
It seems likely Luna would notice it and remark on it. It wouldn't really surprise me if Celestia didn't really notice it at all, but it would probably bother Luna.
Though most likely, from Luna's point of view, Celestia "youing" her would be oddly formal, and thus might come off as stiff and rude from Celestia to Luna - basically, like turning a cold shoulder on someone by referring to them in a much more formal manner than they "should" be.
3411397 That raises the question of whether Celestia could still speak in Early Modern English if she wanted to--switch back and forth freely, the same way one might switch from English to Spanish. It certainly is its own language, but would someone who lived through the evolution from one form to the other be able to treat it that way? It's one of those aspects of fiction that lacks real life reference, so any explanation could be valid.
One can justify anything with enough mental effort and worldbuilding. I did not see any such effort in this story, however, which makes the language use read as a series of mistakes, rather than an intentional characterization point.
Why didn't I know you blogged reviews/critiques? Gonna follow to keep an eye on those.
Sorry to hear I'll be missing out on new pony stories, but original fiction is good too! Keep an eye on the Writeoff Association — from what I hear, Roger's going to add Original Fiction competitions to the current schedule, starting maybe as soon as this weekend. Might be an interesting way to dip your feet back in!
3482761 I actually haven't written a review in about a month; been busy with school/work, and a collection of Asimov short stories took a lot of my reading time. They'll hopefully resume next week, since one of my more strenuous classes is ending.
I actually already started working on a short story--my power went out yesterday and I had nothing better to do
It's about a dystopian future where combustion is illegal, because pollution has made rain flammable.
I'll keep an eye on the group, though. I'll admit I'm the type of person who sometimes needs extrinsic motivation to write