An Honest Critique: To Feel Is To Understand · 10:35pm Apr 20th, 2020
An Honest Critique of "To Feel Is To Understand" by Arthur Paige
A note before any of you make it into the critique proper. I attempt to write these reviews with the least amount of personal bias possible, despite my trope and genre preferences. Self Inserts/Human badass OC fics aren't typically my gig.
That being said, despite my best efforts, I am sure some of that bias may still leak through. So, please, be sure to form your own opinions on the story itself rather than rely on the word of one Salty Boi.
Chapter 1 of "To Feel Is To Understand" begins with a cast of characters in a van. These characters are Potato, Uyada, Moon, and Arthur himself. Two women, two men.
They're also criminals with an extensive history of theft, heisting, and burglarizing. Think "Payday" but without masks and less wanton homicide.
What follows the beginning scene of light banter and discussion between the two male members of the crew is, in my opinion, a rushed museum heist scene that makes up most of this chapter. We are introduced to a little bit of Arthur's personality and philosophy as he makes a mental checklist in his head, before exiting the van to begin the heist. We are also introduced to Uyada, the Japanese woman of the group and resident badass, and her belief in luck. We're never actually given any physical descriptions of the characters, beyond the reveal of Moon, the other male of the group, having a prosthetic leg in Chapter 2. So, despite my best efforts, I am happily reading this story with Arthur from RDR2 in my head.
It's implied that Potato is chubby as she runs through the grass to get around the museum, but it's never confirmed. She's also got a bigger klutz streak than Derpy, which is always nice to have on a museum heist worth millions of dollars.
Fun times! Reminds me of a ragtag TTRPG group trying to be serious.
So they break into the museum, Uyada distracts the guards (though we're never shown or told how) after an incredibly short amount of time, and typical heist shenanigans occur. The power is cut, our heisters begin stuffing their bags full of as much loot as they can carry while they banter...
And everything inevitably goes wrong.
Apparently, the FBI had gotten to one of their buddies, and now the entire plan, as well as their lives, are in jeopardy! Queue spontaneous police and FBI agents corralling Potato and Arthur through the museum until the dynamic duo is cornered. Potato promptly YEETs herself out of the closest window, and one of the cops shoots Arthur as he proceeds to do the sensible thing and, also, hurl himself out of the closest window. Said cop looks out the window, and gets ready to shoot Arthur again.
Of course, Uyada shows up and saves the day, blasting a cap in the policeman, much to Arthur's dismay. Two more cops show up, and Uyada effortlessly guns them down, but not before one of them shoots Potato in the stomach.
And then Moon shows up in the van and saves the day, yelling at the three of them to get into the van. They're surrounded by police, helicopters hover above them, they seem pretty thoroughly fucked.
Queue Discord Ex Machina(Maybe? Not sure what other inter-dimensional entity just randomly rescues groups of humans in this genre.)
The entity instructs them to carve their zodiac signs into their hands, and after a bit of arguing, they agree, and are all teleported to Equestria.
Chapter 2 is your bog-standard introduction to Equestria chapter. Nothing much important actually goes on in this chapter, beyond the aforementioned prosthetic reveal, and Princess Books telling them they can't go home.
So. Overall, this is your typical HiE with some twists. Overall, the story itself is written solidly, with only the odd grammar mistake here and there. The plot itself is still incredibly undeveloped on account of the story only having two chapters thus far, and the characters themselves don't seem all too unique yet.
And this is where we find one of the lessons any "good" writer learns in their own time.
The difference between the mechanical aspects of writing, and the art of story telling.
With enough practice, anyone can "write" extremely well. They can know all of the ins-and-outs of the English language, and use every word in the book to make their prose more "flowery" or descriptive.
But actually writing a story requires more than the mechanical knowledge. It requires a solid grasp on the art of story telling, of conveying a tale to your audience in such a way that keeps them engaged and coming back for more. It's the art of keeping your audience on the edge of their seats, always wondering what will happen next. It's knowing which minor details to omit and which to convey, it's engaging your readers in a personal way. It's immersing your readers in the world that you created, and allowing them to put themselves in your characters shoes to feel what your characters are feeling.
If the mechanical aspects of writing make up a body, the art of story telling is the spirit that gives the body life.
My personal advice to Arthur would be to analyze some of the best stories or books he could think of, and see what their authors did right. Learn about plot development, and character/world building. Strive to improve the less objective aspects of your writing, such as conveyance of emotion and setting the tone of a scene. Add more descriptions in your work, as there are incredibly few in this story, forcing the reader to imagine everything themselves.
As a whole, this story is just not my cup of tea. Beyond the genre and tropes it uses, I couldn't find myself sympathizing or empathizing with the crew. The only one I found vaguely enjoyable was Uyada, and that's simply because she was the star of the show for the chapter, single-handedly carrying the heist on her back as Arthur and Potato were unable to help themselves. Moon didn't really have all too much spotlight in either chapter, so I can't really talk about him. Potato, to me, felt like the comic relief, which in and of itself isn't a bad thing. But the klutziness was a tad played up in what should have been an incredibly tense and high-risk situation. Arthur personally seemed to be the "bandit with morals" archetype, but I've seen very little of him in a meaningful way.
I'd recommend checking the story out and casting your own judgement, but despite the writing itself being fine, I just couldn't, for the life of me, invest myself into the struggles of the main cast. And that may just be a personal hangup of mine that not many of you will share.
With all of that said, this has been An Honest Critique of Arthur Paige's "To Feel Is To Understand." Do remember to shoot me a PM if you want a story of your own reviewed and critiqued, and be sure to stop by my Discord sometime!
