The Pleasant Commentator and Review Group! 1,287 members · 149 stories
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Finally getting to review the new stuff. Yay! I'm not feeling the best tonight, so apologies if this reads weird or if there's random grammar errors spattered about.

As always, this is solely my opinion backed by personal experience writing. I write these reviews to point out areas of improvement, not to embarrass or harass hard working authors. Now, I will say that I write to a professional standard, and so I hold stories to a much higher level than most authors on the site will. Some of what I'll say is honestly nitpicking and aimed to those who want to write professionally. Don't feel like I'm bashing the story, because I'm not. This is just me writing exactly what I noticed as I read the first chapter of this story.

Without further ceremony, here it is . . .

Song of Thunder

To start off . . . A straight Lyra ship? HECK YEAH! Sign me up for that! I was a little too excited to see this one in the inbox. These stories are crazy rare, so it makes me super happy to see one in the submissions. And since straight-ships are my specialty, I just couldn't pass this one up.

Let's take a look at the description . . .

Lyra Heartstrings is a mare who often goes about life with her head in the clouds. Always dreaming, always fantasizing about what could be. She sees her friends and so many others enjoying sharing their lives with that special someone, and wishes that she could as well. To find that special someone she can be herself with and not be afraid, even if that self is a less than socially graceful.

When a chance meeting with a stallion—who is often too laid back for his own good—occurs, it brings about that possibility she's been dreaming of. Music was always her secret passion, and now, it seems that the song of her heart might get what she's been wanting.

Or are things too good to be true again?

It's a bit long, but I've no room to complain there. Long descriptions are fine as long as you're keeping it to necessities. This confused me though.

Music was always her secret passion

:rainbowhuh: She has a harp on her flank! Not exactly a "secret" passion. [looks at description] Oh . . . this is AU. Mmmkay. Well, I guess I'll roll with it. Still, this point seems a bit odd to me.

So, grammatically this story is pretty good. Though, for a story that's edited, there's quite a few obvious if minor mistakes; mostly misplaced commas and missing words. I'm no grammar natzi, but there were a few places that made me cringe. Read it out loud! That's my suggestion where that's concerned.

Examples

When she walked close, she overheard one of the three say something to her companions, while pointing at her.

Eliminate the comma after "companions."

Bon Bon had another laugh at her.

Did you mean, "at her expense?" As is, it reads really off to me.

Honestly, the grammar is not an issue here. I doubt most folks will even notice it.

The plot is . . . Well, this story had a very, very predictable plot that I've seen in TV/books time and time again. Is that bad? Heck no. It's fine, and frankly doesn't bother me at all. However, a plot like that needs a lot of strong characterization to back it up. In fact, characterization needs to be the key as it's fairly boring to people, so you need to show why they should care to read the story. And the key to succeeding is in the characters.

This story failed to draw me in because of the characterization and the characterization alone. While the author does a decent job at identifying what is happening, they fail to give us reasoning behind it. It's like I'm getting a play by play by a cyborg. Like. Lyra doesn't like going to parties because she says so. Nothing is given by way of inference, thoughts, or targeted narration. It's all stated blatantly in the most obvious, predictable manner possible without giving room to grow attached to the characters. For instance, this bit.

Again, Lyra’s face turned a bright shade of red, and she looked away. “That would be nice,” she said under her breath, and looked back at Bon Bon. “Is it really that important to you?”

You are stating that she wants to find a stallion, but you give no hint of what her thought process behind that is. There is nothing for the reader to grab onto and relate back to Lyra. All they have is what she said and the fact that she's embarrassed. That's it. You can't draw people into your slice of life like that, you just can't. Something like this on the other hand encourages reader involvement in the character.

A stallion? Once again, Lyra felt her face grew unbearably warm. The thought of her with any stallion, laughing and smiling the way Bon Bon did with Caramel sent chills up her spine. "That would be nice," she breathed, turning back to Bon Bon. Her eyes bore into hers with that shameless puppy-dog look. Maybe she was right and this party would be different after all. "Is it really that important to you?"

All throughout the story, there are places where stronger characterization was desperately needed and not delivered on. There were places where it felt as if the author tried—especially with Thunderlane's sections—but they never came close to satisfying the gaping hole. Quality ship feeds need to have crazy strong characterization and emotional as well as situational build-up. This story had plenty of the latter, but severely lacked the former. The fact that there's a party, Lyra is strangely clumsy in this universe, and that Thunderlane is lazy and oblivious. However, you've given no insight into them as characters. What issues do they face? Where is there room for growth? What do they want to get out of the party apart from a set-up? How has the past influenced their outlook on the present? What are their dreams/aspirations? The story easily could have fit these into the narrative flow, but failed to do so. This was incredibly frustrating to a character-driven author like myself. I want to know the WHY not the how.

Going back to the plot for a moment. This is supposed to be an AU. And, from the first chapter, I honestly can't see why. It makes no sense to me. The only out of ordinary bit seems to be that Lyra's personality was replaced by a clutz and everypony acts like they're in High School Musical or something. Seriously, no one in real life talks continually about boys. Don't get me wrong, I'm a major proponent of straight ships, but no one talks about dates and boys as much as these characters do! It's all they seem to think about other than the party. I feel like I'm reading a middle-schooler's idealized account of what high school might look like. Boys. Embarrassing situations. And of course, parties. NOPE. This . . . I know it's fanfiction, but come on. It's waaay too unrealistic, even for fanfiction.

Characterization in terms of canon was off too. Again, I know this is AU, but I can't get behind the idea that Lyra somehow hides the fact that she loves to play the harp. IT'S HER CUTIE MARK! Seriously? Like, how do you not notice that? And why is she clumsy? Why was that touch necessary other than stereotypical comic relief? It has no explanation or backing either which just makes it worse.

Now on to the nitpicky stuff.

He yawned as the sun warmed his dark gray fur,

No, no, no! It's coat gosh darn it, not "fur!" Take it from a woman who's worked with horses for over ten years. "Coat" referred to all or most of it, "hairs" indicate the individual strands or a small portion. GRRRR. Okay, I admit I'm a bit anal about that. Sort of my pet peeve.

The most serious of the formatting/sentence structure issues related to the repetitive nature of it all. Sentences follow the same dang format over and over and over again. This story suffers severely from THE + DESCRIPTION + NOUN or just THE + NOUN format nightmare. For example . . .

The pegasus pointed to the upper-floor window of Lyra’s home as the approached. “That’s how. Any pegasus can see inside when you leave the shutters open like that all the time.”

The unicorn covered her face, her ears falling to the side of her head. “I’m so embarrassed.”

All the non-dialogue sentences started the same way there. It gets very boring to read and breaks apart any attempts at sounding professional. I find a lot of times authors get into this mode because they don't want to use the characters' names or pronouns over and over again. So they compensate by replacing those words with synonyms. No! If you want to break the repetition, don't just slap a band-aid over it and hide it, break it apart with a sledgehammer! The only way to kill the repetition is to vary sentence structure and sentence length. That's it. You can't do it by replacing words.

Another issue here is awkward dialogue. It's nothing compared to some of what I've read, but it does need polishing. Some of it flows really rough and unrealistic.

Then there's this . . .

“Flitter, Cloudchaser, take the left! Blossomforth, Thunderlane, take the right! I’ve got the center!”

Woah there! Easy on the exclamation points. It feels like I'm being shouted at by the story. One in a line is fine. Use wording, situation, and sentence length to indicate the tone rather than relying solely on exclamation points.

The transitions into and out of the sections felt rushed. They needed to be longer to smooth out the pacing to an appropriate level. I'd like to see more emotional setting and closing included (though this really needs to be included throughout not just in the beginning/end). Though, I will admit, this here was clever.

It had completed its maturity. The acorn had reached just the right size and health that it was ready to fall from its parent tree and embrace the waiting earth to begin its life. It didn’t know, however, that it would perform another service before starting its long life as a healthy oak. The wind knocked it loose from its branch and it fell, ricocheting off the head of a comfortably sleeping pegasus. Its first mission complete, the acorn bounced its way to the ground.

I NEVER would have thought to write something like this. :rainbowlaugh: It's hilarious! I thoroughly enjoyed that bit.

Good points for the story were that it captured a unique ship I've never seen before in a very cute, innocent light. It's nice not to have yet another smutty ship fic. Thank you for that! I like how Bon Bon and Lyra are still good friends and that Bon Bon's not ignorant to her friend's needs. It's good to see Lyra interact with a bunch of other ponies as all too often we get her only talking to/associating with Bon Bon.

The storm from the Everfree was a clever touch, though I felt it did little from an emotional/plot development standpoint. However, I simply adore that rogue storm idea and the way Rainbow was written made me smile. She'd definitely be the one to keep them together and motivated to succeed.

The last two scenes with the music were precious. Though they desperately needed more characterization/length, what was written proved to be a good start. It has a lot of potential. I especially loved the touch that Lyra plays the harp with her hooves not horn. How awesome is that? I imagine the other chapters go into that in a bit more detail, but from the first chapter, I could tell it was going to be pretty cute.

So, yes, this story has a lot of cliches, but they're not bad by themselves. I might be weird, but I enjoy cliches. The main issue here was the characterization. I wanted to see a LOT more characterization utilized. That and sentence structure/wording variation.

My final rating for this is NEEDS WORK, though it really isn't so much work. It's good, but it doesn't draw me in enough to recommend it. Keep on writing, because you've got a great foundation!

— Bluegrass

P.S. I love that the cover art is done by the author's niece! How precious is that? :rainbowkiss:

Zodiacspear
Group Contributor

4848002 Late reply is late!

I want to thank you for the review of Song of Thunder, it is appreciated.

I do want to just point a few things out in way of explanation.

First:

This is supposed to be an AU. And, from the first chapter, I honestly can't see why.

To start, this story was considered canon and not AU. It was changed after the episode Slice of Life because the show's Lyra was nothing like my Lyra. To keep confusion out, I changed it to an AU.


Second, I just want to ask this: how can one reasonably make a judgment call on characterization by reading only one chapter of a story? Not everything is revealed by the characters in their first appearances. Character growth (and bits of their background) are spread out throughout the story, it is a way to keep the story interesting by seeing the characters grow over time. I don't want to reveal everything from the get go, I want readers to want to know more of my characters by reading further. I can't really keep them interested if I show my hand (or hooves in this case) entirely.

And thirdly, I'm glad you enjoyed the acorn bit. I'm not sure where that came from, but it hit me and I had to write it. It was a lot of fun to write.

Thanks again for the review! :pinkiehappy:

4856577 You're welcome, I enjoyed reviewing it!

As to your points . . . That makes more sense now hearing why it was an AU. I was soooo confused there. Glad to know it was just a post-episode kinda decision. That's understandable, and I likely would have done something similar given the circumstances.

I have to explain my reasoning for the second, as I feel I did a poor job of doing it earlier. So there's no confusion, characterization is my specialty. It's my primary focus. I write novels wherein my characters are all explored in depth. I agree wholeheartedly with the basic idea you're going for there. I don't want to reveal everything about my characters in the first chapter. Heaven knows that's the worst way to do it! It's definitely more interesting to progress the characters over time, in fact, it's critical. However, I do argue that I am capable of judging characterization from the first chapter? Why? Because characterization is not the same thing as character growth, and characterization isn't something you need to spread out. It should be there from the moment the story starts. You can have characterization without giving away every aspect of the character.

This is a tricky concept to understand, but it's true. Characters consist of layers. Your story is a tapestry, but so are your characters. Characterization is largely understanding the threads in that tapestry, how you want to change the tapestry as a whole, and what threads need to be pulled and altered to do that. It's HARD, and it must start from the time you start writing. Characterization needs to be there right away, but you don't have to expose individual threads just yet. It's a constant give and take of information. You want to reveal enough to hook the reader, but not enough to ruin them and take the mystery out of it. For example, you can reveal that they are angry at say, a certain theology, but don't go into why until much later.

When I say your characterization was weak, I'm saying that you are not giving enough in the beginning. You're holding too much back or stating it rather than showing it. I have plenty of experience writing characters, and from the first chapter I know that you have not given enough to hook the reader on those characters. You need to show how they are to show how they change, even if what you are showing is only part of the truth. We don't need to know his life story or all his motivations up front, but we need to get some hints. This is a very advanced technique, and it's dang hard to get to the point where you do this naturally.

I honestly don't know how to explain it much further. I suppose I can give an example if it helps, but in the end, it's something you really have to see for yourself with time.

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