CCC: cleverpun's Critique Corner #28 — Indigo Hooves · 4:01am Jun 26th, 2016
Title: Indigo Hooves
Author: xjuggernaughtx
Found via: the featured box
Short summary: Gearshift recently lost his wife. He didn’t take it well. He met a unicorn in a bar who was blacklisted for some necromantic research. After a lot of preparation, the big day has finally come.
The Title/Description: The title is one of those “only has meaning after you’ve read the story” types. It’s okay. It has a multifaceted meaning, but isn’t very gripping (whether you know the meaning or not).
The description is a bit muddled. It focuses on a lot of different things at once, both in terms of run-on sentences and ideas presented. I had to read it twice to understand it properly. I actually like the short description better: it’s more focused.
Also: I strongly disagree with the story's “E” rating. 
Genre(s): Dark, Horror, Science Fiction, Character Piece, Romance (technically?)
What does this story do well?: The story covers a very well-traveled theme: bringing back the dead. Everything from Frankenstein to Pet Sematary has covered this theme in every which way, so giving it a new coat of paint isn’t easy. Overall, I think this story addresses the theme well. It focuses on the character’s motivations, on the loss that spurred this sequence of events, and I think that’s the best approach to take. It puts focus on the characters rather than the theme, and that helps soften the blow of how many times we’ve seen this before.
Following on this, Gearshift is a well-defined character. We don’t spend a huge amount of time with him, but his motivations and emotions are shown efficiently and effectively. He’s not necessarily likeable, but he is sympathetic.
Finally, the beginning of the story does a great job of setting up mood. It begins zoomed in on a very specific moment, then gradually zooms out. It doesn’t give the reader any information without a good reason, and the pacing is snappy and fluid. The gradual trickle of information feels naturalistic and the pacing feels smooth.
Where could this story improve?: Unlike the main character, the other characters (the dead wife and mad scientist) receives only mild characterization at best. I understand that the story is from Gearshift’s perspective, and that is going to affect the amount of screentime other characters get. I think that a little more could not have hurt, though. There were plenty of opportunities for him to paint a clearer picture of both of them, and it would have given the story more impact. He does comment on both of them to a degree, but both of them only get the most basic of characterizations. For the amount of impact they both have on events, it’s unfortunate that both are so shallow.
While the beginning of the story is paced well, smoothly moving from exposition to event and back again, the climax and ending feel rushed. The story feels very lopsided: it feels like more attention and care was paid to the front half. One could argue that this was intentional. After the climax, the direction of the story could be considered a bit of a given. As a character piece, however, it only makes the flat nature of dead wife and mad scientist that much more noticeable. The latter half of the story could’ve been a good time to give both of them more characterization, to re-build suspense for the ending. After the climax, however, the story peters off very quickly.
Following on this, I’m not quite sure how to feel about the ending. The wife eventually deteriorates like all the other test subjects, but then her legs manage to live on as sentient constructs. Is it supposed to be happy? Is the main character’s reaction supposed to underscore his mental state? How does that even work, strictly speaking? I suppose this sort of vagueness could be considered good: it might be a little bit of everything, or it might be up to the reader. I think a good ending, however, should give the reader a clear set of emotions before it fizzles off into speculation fodder.
In a single sentence: A story that sets a creepy mood and flows smoothly, at least until the last part.
Verdict: Upvote. This story definitely has some flaws. Instead of ending on a strong note, it sort of fizzles out abruptly. The final scene in particular made me more confused than anything, and that’s not a great emotion to end your story on.
Despite this, I enjoyed it. It covers a common theme, but it does a good job of it. The pacing and mood of the first part were worth the ride, and I enjoyed my time with it. With a little more length and development, I could imagine reading this in a magazine or short fiction collection.
For what it's worth, he apparently had trouble editing the long description.
Thank you for the critique. I'll definitely give it a few more reads with your suggestions in mind and see what I think.
Also, I definitely suck at those descriptions. For some reason, they are incredibly hard for me the write.
4049276
Descriptions are the worst, I hate them. D:
4049276 No problem
Like all critique, this is ultimately subjective. Some might enjoy the story's fast pacing, but it was a bit too noticeable for me. Like I often say, being an artist means differentiating between applicable criticism as well as good criticism.
Another thing I didn't mention in the review was the fact that the story doesn't feel very pony-related. I don't generally consider this inherently good or bad, though. I didn't feel like it impacted this story strongly one way or the other, so I didn't mention it.
And yes, descriptions are pretty annoying. My personal rule is to summarize the first chapter (or first 500 words for shorter works). You want to hook the reader while still preserving as much mystery as possible. Giving too little or too much information can misrepresent your story, and/or make the description hard to read or unhelpful.
4050169 Well, I like the pacing, but that doesn't mean that it couldn't be better. I've often changed a portion of a story because an editor really wants it a different way, then grown to like the change more over time. I rarely care for it at the onset. If I have time, I'll probably re-write a different version and then let it sit in Gdocs for a few weeks before I re-read it. We'll see how I feel then.
The story not being very pony was a concern of mine. This story was actually just written as a fun aside to a post I made on someone's blog. I was giving an exaggerated example of how I hate when writers want to go over every little physical detail of their OC in their story. The last line said something like "while he ran down the beach with his indigo hooves." Others pointed out that my sentence sounded like he had some disembodied pair of hooves running around with him, and so I wrote this to amuse them. It really wasn't written from a space of telling a story about Equestria. It was just something to make that poorly worded sentence make sense. That's why it doesn't feel particularly pony.
So when I decided to publish it, I was a little worried that people would call it out for being un-pony. I really couldn't argue with them if they did. It's not very pony at all, but... eh. It's still fun. There are certainly worse stories.
4049657 I keep thinking of making a group that's just a workshop for story descriptions, but then I remember that I'll never have the time to run it properly.
4051839
Obviously, you need to get someone else to run it. I suggest BlazzingInferno, just go look at the description on his newest one!