For Those That Yearn for Adventure #5 (11/3): The Grey Pegasus's "30,000 Feet" · 12:55am Nov 4th, 2015
Continuing on with the adventure reviews for NaNoWriMo.
This story will be a challenge to review, simply because it's not entirely meant to be a striking adventure. According to the author in his comments, he wrote this so that he would get back into writing, and so he could practice descriptive writing. Logic and physics are not a central focus here; the descriptions are what is meant to carry this story. I'd rather not dismiss a story like this, because this is a good time to focus on a specific aspect of storytelling: descriptions.
In this story, the descriptions come from altitudes and the world around the protagonist, Rainbow Dash. Ladies and gentlemen, fillies and gentlecolts, this is
30,000 Feet
by The Grey Pegasus
Tags: Adventure and Slice of Life
Word Count: 1,851
It's a long way down.
What does Rainbow Dash experience in the cirrus clouds? What will happen to her over five miles above Equestria? Let's talk about descriptions.
Before I begin, I would like to say that my review is not meant to be belittling, discouraging or insulting. It is simply my observations as I read it. Please take what I say with a grain of salt; I'm not particularly bright, so I may miss or misinterpret something.
Review Commences here
Before we get to the descriptions, is there anything else to the story? I can say that the story is at lest compact; there's not really a conflict to be had, but what is there feels loose enough to enjoy, and tight enough to no feel flabby (if that makes sense). The dialogue at the end—the only place there is dialogue—admittedly does sound awkward, but Rainbow's internal thoughts—which take up more of the story than dialogue—are pretty good. I don't think there's anything to be said for character development; the story seems to straightforward to have any. This isn't a bad thing, as this isn't that kind of story. If you're looking for a story with deep introspection and personal reflection, and something going terribly wrong while she's up there at cirrus-cloud altitude, then this story isn't for you.
This story's less of a typical story and more like a snapshot. It takes place within a single moment, and doesn't have an up-and-down story arc. Still, it does have an exploratory tone to it that would put it as an adventure, so for this review, I'm going to be looking at it for its use of descriptions mostly, how well they work and what, if anything, doesn't.
Firstly, the story does have a good sense of scale to it. For a story that takes place within a cloud many miles above the land, it has a good scope of what’s all around her, in every direction. The space below is described with an appropriate amount of detail, with a great swath of land being observed as tiny dots from high above. The surrounding space around her in the sky is also observed with a good amount of visual, aural and tactile detail. Each spot only gets a few paragraphs, but it’s enough to get the scale of where she’s at nicely. Some may say that the descriptions of the land is lacking in detail, like there isn’t enough landscape there, but I personally found it to be a good amount for where she’s at.
This part in particular, I think, is a good sign of the scale that the story has:
The cloud layer was sparse with clouds, so standing on the cirrus cloud was much more like being on an island with a sea of empty space surrounding it, rather than being on a plain of white. It was surreal, to say the least.
That sounds like cirrus clouds, being very sparse up in the atmosphere, so I can imagine what this would look like.
I think there may’ve been some lacking with the timing of the story. The first two sentences talk about how Rainbow’s lungs are working overtime to get oxygen into her, and yet the only indication that she’s having trouble breathing is with this sentence: “The thin air would eventually make breathing uncomfortable.” I guess just having something like that doesn’t suck me in as a physical detail, like her head becoming dizzy from lack of oxygen, or her body shivering from loss of oxygen. This is also something to bring up, in my opinion, because temperature gets really cold the higher you go up in the troposphere, and cirrus clouds are really high up—ice particles, in fact. There’s actually no indication from what I remember that Rainbow Dash is cold; this could be chalked up to her pegasus build, but I can’t get a picture of how her body’s changing with the half-hour she’s been up in the cirrus cloud. I’m not sure if this is a problem, but it does make me wonder how she is faring up here in this high altitude as time goes on.
The story does seem to be more focused on creating a serene situation, and in the few paragraphs it’s set up, it does so quite nicely, though with a few questionable word choices. Within the few paragraphs the story uses, both the moments of peace and excitement have a nice amount of descriptions. I think it succeeds in vocabulary and tone because the words have a nice enough variety to keep the story fresh and interesting, but it’s not so varied as to heighten the story to anything more than what it is: a relaxing experience. The pacing also helps this descriptive story out, as it’s slow enough to where the descriptions can be enjoyed, but it’s fast enough to both keep the story as a panoramic view, and keep it as a moment of observation (as compared to, say, a deep reflective moment, which the story isn’t). The fast pacing of the numbers, on the other hand, especially at the single-digit-change level, was really weird due to how fast she was going. I didn’t have much problem with the word choice of the descriptions for the most part; the only one I can remember actually being awkward is the view of the ground being described as “crystal clear,” because me, as a nitpicker, can’t make the dirt look crystal clear.
I think the descriptions’ scope, vocabulary, tone and pacing all work well for this story; the few things resembling the semblance of a plot, on the other hand, seem to struggle in the story. Nothing’s done with the two comparisons between Rainbow Dash and Twilight in terms of studiousness and intelligence, and for a story focused on developing atmosphere and description, without more comparison it’s distracting. This paragraph:
Sure, she could try going for more than one sonic rainboom and break more barriers on the way down, but she could probably wait until 10,000 feet. It took some effort flying up all the way, and all she wanted to do was savor the moment.
relies too much on authorial statement, and not enough on description. The transition from the completion of a rainboom to the challenge of creating a second rainboom is very rushed, like the story was just trying to get into more excitement without letting the scene be appreciated. I think that may be an issue with the other two things I pointed out as well: whenever the story wants to appreciate the emotions and descriptions of the scene, it takes the time to let it be appreciated, while when there’s something resembling a plot, it seems to transition in a rushed manner.
But that may just be me.
And to be nitpicky, and I mean really nitpicky, I was bothered by this: “The light blue of the sky darkened to a deeper blue as she looked up. She left around 9 AM, so the sun wasn't particularly high up.” With how much visual description of the sky and land there is, I was bothered by there being a specific time she had left around; I’d more appreciate it if it was just beginning sunrise, or the day was just beginning when she left. Buy again, that’s me being really nitpicky.
The flying section is nice as well, with good descriptions, but it goes by a lot quicker. There’s little description of the land rushing up, no details about things coming into focus, and there’s a huge jump in altitude—3,500 feet, in fact—that could’ve been used as well. I shouldn’t complain about it too much, and go off of what’s there; I just feel that for how good the later section is, it is lacking the detail that the first part had.
There’s not a lot else to say except the climax was pretty nice, and the description of Rainbow Dash “bleeding speed” was lovely, especially considering who she is. A few lines of dialogue follow, and it honestly sounds really awkward and not too much in character, but I can’t fault it too much for that. It doesn’t ruin the story, or even come close to it.
Finally, the technicals. The pacing is something to behold, especially the first part, and the vocabulary has a nice overarchingly relaxing tone and exhilarating tone when it needs to be. The only mistake I remember within it was a typo, where the is used instead of she. But that’s a nitpick. I can’t think of anything else to say about the technicals.
So in conclusion, 30,000 Feet is a nice, pleasant story that some have called sublime. It has a great vocabulary, great descriptions, excellent pacing for the most part, and a pleasant tone. I do think that it’s rushed at points, some details are lacking, and the dialogue at the end is off. I think that for its word count, it’s one that should be read for its descriptions and pacing alone. I would recommend it to most for a nice relaxing time.
There’s the third review for this month, twenty-seven to go.If The Grey Pegasus ever reads through it, I’d like to stress that this review, like all of my others, isn’t meant to belittle, discourage, or insult you in any way. These are my honest thoughts on the story you wrote. Praise to you for writing it. I hope you continue writing, and will be awaiting great things.
Also, to anyone that actually reads these, if you have any ideas on how I can improve my reviewing, please let me know. I'm trying to get better as I go along, and any feedback would be appreciated.
NaNoWriMo reviewing challenge
November 1st: Words Failed Her by Nonsanity
November 2nd: Great Big Sky by shortskirtsandexplosions
