Alright everypony! New reviewer on the scene!

And yes, I'm totally going to steal Jack_mahoff's style of reviewing because "good writers copy, great writers steal." (T.S. Eliot)

Overview:

Our story up for review today is Past Shadows by Chaos Dragon, a T-rated adventure fic centered around the life of a royal guard as he takes on the advent of an upcoming changeling attack and interacts with some main characters of the show.

But before we start reading, I do have to say that I'm a little disappointed that there isn't any cover art. It's not a huge thing as far as a review goes, but it really reduces the chance that new people will be enticed into reading the story. To cover the lack of cover art, a writer needs a really good hook. This one has a decent hook, but that little piece of art will greatly increase the chances of new readers coming to add their view.

Another thing before we start. This story I think was a bit too dark to not warrant the "dark" tag. Particularly the last few chapters were pretty gruesome. I'm not sure I'd spring for an M-rating, but a dark tag would be a step in the right direction.

Synopsis:

After the failed attempt of Chrysalis and her changelings on Canterlot, Equestria has experienced a time of peace. However, that all changes when changelings begin to attack cities, towns, and villages around Equestria and with the looming doom of a full scale war. Celestia and Luna are unaware of a looming darkness creeping back into the light.

Aside from a few awkward phrasings in the description, the synopsis gets straight to the point and tells me exactly what I would want to know about the story. I get the idea immediately that Equestria is currently in a bit of a bind. Well done. However, the last sentence is slightly misleading to the story since the princesses don't play a huge role in the story.

Just from looking at the chapter list and overall word count, it is a moderate length story at 50k words. It is well distributed in chapter length down to reasonable chunks of information. That said, there are a few chapters with rather awkward endings that would have been better off with more or less information to avoid numerous cliffhanger endings.

Chapters should generally have a normalized length, but it is far more important to make sure that each chapter has an appropriate end. Cliffhangers are fine if they are used tastefully and in moderation. There were a great deal of them in this story and it somewhat detracted from the effectiveness of the next chapter's reveal.

Grammar: As an editor for multiple other stories and a writer myself, I noticed a great deal of flaws in the grammar of the piece. There were numerous capitalization and punctuation errors and awkward tense changes. No one is perfect, but that's why we have editors. I noticed you did have one, though I'm not sure how much he got around to editing since I saw his name drop out of the author's notes. My advice would be to use the group Looking for Editors. They have a lot of eager editors wanting to read, comment, and correct stories. Another way to improve your own grammar is to take a look at other writers' stories or just read an actual hard copy book. When you read, your brain internalizes the information and you will recognize what is right and what is not. It's pretty nifty stuff!

Dialogue: Overall, pretty good. I felt that the dialogue of each character was fitting and appropriate. I don't have a great deal to say on this other than it was good One little caveat is that you used a great deal of phonetics with Applejack. It's not strictly wrong, but it annoys a lot of people. The great thing about fanfiction is that when you write established characters, we know how they speak. If I write Applejack some dialogue, to make sure it stands out from other characters, I would want to add some specific word choice, rather than "countryizing" the dialogue. Word choice is a great way to show dialect from different classes and locations. You can also use much simpler grammar for her versus other characters like Rarity. While Rarity may be prone to using some purple prose and flowery words, Applejack is pretty direct with her words.

Pacing: I felt that it took a little long to get started and went zero to one hundred in the last few chapters really fast. For the final confrontation, there wasn't a great deal of information prior to the big bad's appearance. He just kind of popped up there.

Altogether not bad, but it could have been better in places.

Point of View: The story fits comfortably into that well-loved third person limited point of view. It does a good job of giving us the thoughts of a few characters through appropriate grammar constructs befitting of the POV.

Show and Tell: At points, it got particularly 'telly.' Particularly during the dream sequences that our protagonist goes through. There was a lot of "He thought," "He saw," "He noticed," etc. Give us a bit more reaction rather than his direct thoughts. Express it through dialogue or reactions. Instead of saying that a character was cold, you could say that they "shivered in the wind."

It was alright. I'm not going to say it was particularly amazing or bad. It was alright. I felt that this story was a lot more plot driven than character driven. The plot did a pretty good job of progressing and keeping me interested, but the characters I felt weren't extremely interesting. Part of that goes into the show/tell argument from earlier. When you show things in your characterization, it becomes easier to insert yourselves into their horseshoes and empathize with the character.

As a story about a royal guard with a dark past and some special powers to control weapons (Weaponry, big shocker), it doesn't stray too far from the beaten path. I'm pretty darn sure I could find other fics with the same sort of overall plotline, though this one did have a few things that set it apart from other stories.

Particularly, the changelings were different than anywhere else I've read them in. In this story, not only are the changelings able to shift their appearance, but they can apparently change their physical composition and become weapons and armor and the like. I'm not sure that it's really what I wanted to see, but it's certainly original. Had a bit of a double-take there.

The story was altogether a decent read. Not one of the best things I've ever read, mind you, but it does say something that I got through the whole 50k words in only a day or so. I'm not a particularly fast reader, but the bite-sized chapters really helped with that. The plot was interesting enough to keep me invested to the end too. So that's a point in the right direction.

After taking a look at the author's archives, I noticed this was indeed his first story. It does show on several occasions, but it was still alright. I've certainly seen far worse in my editing jobs.

Plot: Pretty well conceived with some minor hiccups and sudden gear shifts. 15/20
Mechanics: The mechanics of the story left a lot to be desired, but was altogether still readable. 12/20
Characterization: Not the greatest characterization I ever saw. I didn't get very attached to any of the characters. 10/20
Originality: While it had elements of original content, I didn't think it tried to blaze any new trails. 12/20
Impact: I'd say it was worth my time in the end. I didn't regret picking it up to read at the end, and it was a fun plot to follow. 15/20

Thank you for your submission to the PCARG! I hope that you continue to improve and write some more.

4716278 Just wanna say this is a pretty good review. :) I might check this one out.

4716365

Thanks for the feedback I'm just glad that the newbness doesn't show too badly on my first review.

4716278
Thank you for taking the time to review the story. All the help and issues with grammar, spelling, and plot will definitely help me with the edits to the story. I hadn’t thought about adding the “dark” tag because I didn’t want to have the reader know about all the gruesome scenes near the end, but as I read your review I felt that adding it would work because the reader would know some dark scenes would be in the story, but wouldn’t know when it would happen. The character dialogue was something I struggled with because this was my first Fan fiction story since I usually write original fiction. As for the pacing, I’ll definitely go back and edit the pacing so it doesn’t feel as though it goes from 0 to 60 in a blink of an eye.

As for the editor, I really don’t want to find a new one because GradualGhost has helped me so much and the way he edits really helps me understand what needs to be done and how to edit on my own. All his skills have really helped me and I know things happen in our lives, which is why I don’t mind waiting because of how much he has helped me. GradualGhost is a great editor that I know will help bring out the potential in the story.

Thank you once again for taking the time to look over the story and give me feedback to help make the story better.

4717886

No problem! And as far as editing goes, you don't need to drop your editor, but it would help both of you a lot to read other work with really good grammar. It helps you make less mistakes and for him to catch more, resulting in a better story grammatically.

Keep up the good work!

4718030 I'm sorry I forgot to ask this when you posted the review. it just came across my mind now and I feel terrible asking this so far from when you posted the review. actually it's two question: one is on Chapter 19 when I posted the video of how the Roar sounded. Did having to watch the video pull you out of the story? I'm still working of describing sounds in my work. the second is on the whole dream sequence when Twilight has to go through doors through Weapony's memories. did the two chapters (16 & 17) did it feel too drawn out? because I re read it and didn't know if it felt too drawn out and too long. I'm thinking of cutting all together but don't know if the reader would be confused?

4793538

It's been a while since I read it, so I can't remember too greatly in detail about the memory sequence, though if I recall, I think the memory scenes were where I got some of the best characterization in the piece. I thought it flowed fine.

Though for describing sounds, you may want to start with that video, but make a description of that sound. Use auditory cues like "shrill," "guttural," or "deep." Using any videos kind of pulls people out of the narrative for any purpose. Try to keep all description in text, or sometimes in pictures, though don't overuse them.

4793620 thank you again for all your help, I'll definitely look into how to write sounds and roars. right now I'm researching it on line to better prepare my self for the edits. thank you again for all you time and help.

4793648

No problem