Now that I’ve successfully waited the obligatory month and a half between reviews, I'm back with another review!

And I’m prefacing this one with an apology. I claimed this story ages ago, probably some 6 months or more, and I want to say to Lise Eclaire that I am truly sorry for forgetting that I had a claim on this one. I guess now the wait is finally over, so let’s get down to the review!

Before jumping into this story, I really didn’t know exactly what to expect. The title and premise screamed random comedy, but the tags suggested that maybe this wasn’t exactly what it looked like. It was at least a little bit of an attention grabber, because I sort of wanted to see how Applejack’s tree was able to talk to her. I will say that the “X changes her life forever” hook on the end is a little lackluster, but it is at least serviceable.

The plot of this story revolves around Applejack’s discovery of a peculiar apple tree in her orchard that can talk, produces apples with a hazelnut flavor to them, and wants to be left alone. We watch as Applejack slowly befriends the tree, and after a time, we discover the true nature of this event. A tree spirit named Karya from the Everfree Forest had taken up residence in the tree after losing her previous home, and was slowly dying because Apple trees weren’t fit for her type. After wrestling with the problem of finding Karya a new tree, it is revealed that Karya can live in an oak tree, as it is sort of like a default species for her kind. The Golden Oaks library comes up as a potential candidate, and though Karya objects to it, she eventually decides to try taking residence there. Just in time for Tirek to come along and blow the library up.

So, the tags were telling the truth! We’ve got a tragic tale of a spirit meeting her end, and Applejack is given a view into those final weeks, but how does it stack up as a story?

Personally, I felt that it was very middle-of-the-road. There were some very strong elements to the concept, and I loved the amount of imagination involved in creating a whole race of tree spirits, but I feel that there were some issues with the execution of the tragedy. The biggest issue I have is with what I like to refer to as Andrea Syndrome.

Let me explain. I was a fan of The Walking Dead for the first few seasons, and one of the moments in that show that really started turning me away was the death of Andrea, one of my favorite characters.

I think that since it’s been about 4 seasons since her demise, I’m safe from raining down spoilers with this one. Andrea’s death involved being tied to a chair while locked in a room with another character who was mortally wounded. According to the premise of the show, anyone who dies will become a zombie unless the brain is destroyed. So, when said mortally wounded dude gives her a means to escape, she spends too much time talking with him in his final moments, and inadvertently gets herself bitten just in time to kill the zombie. It was a death that absolutely shouldn’t have happened, and I believe that it was poor writing that was only working towards the mandate that she be killed off.

Alright. Nobody gets killed by zombies in this story, so where exactly am I going with this? Well, looking at the bigger picture, I get the feeling that in Applejack’s Little Tree, Karya is not so much killed by the circumstances that surround her, but in the story’s mandate that she be killed in the service of the plot.

Now, let’s take a look at this. From the moment we meet Karya, she knows that she is doomed to die. Her tree was a part of her, and being without it is leaving her in a deteriorating condition. This can be remedied by finding her a new tree, and Applejack does absolutely everything in her power to find a new hazel tree for Karya to adopt.

Okay, I can roll with that. Maybe hazel trees are a little scarce outside of the Everfree Forest. I’ll suspend my disbelief to accommodate that plot element.

Next, Applejack goes to talk to Twilight, which results in the revelation that oak trees are also viable as a home for Karya, because all dryads are compatible with that species. Alright, that’s pushing it a little. That info would have been nice to have much earlier because Karya freaking knows it herself, but again, I’ll let it slide. What’s next?

When Applejack suggests that Karya take residence in the library’s tree, Karya refuses because the tree is mature and wouldn’t accept her.

Alright, that’s it. I don’t know what kind of backward world this place is, but how in the hell could there not be a young oak tree somewhere in the Ponyville area? Oak trees are common. Very common. In fact, a quick google search reveals that oak, pine, spruce, fir, and beech tree species make up nearly ⅓ of the planet’s total biodiversity of tree. So the fact that there is not a single young oak tree that Karya could try to take residence in anywhere nearby comes off as overt Andrea Syndrome. There is almost certainly a way to not die, and yet you do it anyway simply because the author wants you dead. The thing that makes me hate Andrea Syndrome even more is the fact that it is so simple to fix. Correcting only a small handful of details will completely fix the problem, but it still shows up abundantly.

Another smaller issue I have is the fact that Karya decides to go to the library literally a day before Tirek blows it up. Had my suspension of disbelief not been eaten up by the Andrea Syndrome earlier, I’d be perfectly happy to accept it, but I’m just a little more wary at this point. Heck, you could have had the story take an almost identical path to what it was, and it would have seemed much less contrived! Say Karya found a sapling on the edge of the forest to adopt. It would have taken away some of the Andrea Syndrome, and you easily could have still pulled off the tragedy. A lot of things were destroyed around Ponyville and the Everfree Forest by Twilight and Tirek’s fight, and so it would have been perfectly acceptable to assume that Karya’s new tree was a part of those casualties.

Whew, that was a doozy. I suppose it would be worth noting that while I had some pretty major issues, I will say that at least the story is well-conceived. The plot follows a coherent path, and it was pretty easy to read through. I think it was serviceable, but flawed.

Grammar/Formatting— There are not too many issues with grammar. I noted a typo or two here and there, but everything seemed pretty ship-shape in this regard.

Dialogue/Narration— I will say that I have a big problem with your Applejack dialogue. Phonetics. Intentionally misspelling a character’s speech to show dialect. It is such a bane of my existence when reading Applejack stories. I’ve said it time and time again, but it is worth repeating. In regards to fanfiction, we’re dealing with characters who are very well-established in our minds. I know that Applejack has a country accent, so do I really need to be reminded of that every time she speaks? All the phonetics do is make her seem less intelligent, like this example courtesy of Sandy Cheeks.

So yeah, please don’t use phonetics, kids. It’s in poor taste.

Worldbuilding— There is some really good worldbuilding in the form of the Dryad race. I love the introduction of a new species into pony, as it almost always has some interesting story to go with it. I feel that the idea is pretty well-developed, but there is a bit limited of a delivery of that idea to the reader. Personally, I’d like to know more about these tree spirits, but I suppose it just wasn’t in the story’s scope.

Pacing— One of the biggest mechanical issues I noted was the fact that this story was paced very quickly, and that is resultant of two factors. First, this is spread out over a somewhat extended time frame, and so there are a lot of pretty significant time skips. Secondly, this story is written predominantly as telling, rather than showing. If there is one thing a tell-heavy narrative does best, it is getting the pacing to go to warp speed. Granted, it’s not all tell here. There is a decent bit of showing done, and for that I will give credit, but I still feel that the balance between the two is off. The story is so focused on getting through itself in as short a time as possible that it doesn’t take the time to really develop investment in the world it creates. Sometimes it’s best to give yourself time to stop and smell the flowers.

Writing Style— When writing a story about a character’s emotional journey, the best way is to approach the subject in a subjective style of writing, that is, trying to convey emotions as if we’re feeling exactly how the POV character feels. I can tell that this is the approach that Lise Eclaire took with this story, but I have my doubts about the execution.

I’ve found that in writing, subtlety is what often speaks the loudest. In this story’s approach to description, there is really not a lot of nuance. Most of the time, the author is just laying out what’s happening, plain as day in very blunt language. I do get that this may help tell the story as Applejack sees it, just because that’s her character, but I felt a little off-put by the way the descriptions worked here. My suggestion here is to be a little less in-your-face with the descriptions.

Also don’t be afraid to type your characters’ names more than once per paragraph. I would much rather see Applejack described as “Applejack” and not “the pony”.

This story is really a character study of Applejack, and while there is plenty I could say about that subject, I get the feeling that most everyone here is pretty well-versed in our favorite apple horse. I’ll simply put it that Applejack is very well-represented here, willing to help anyone she considers a friend, and just being one of the best ponies there is.

Karya was a little more interesting to me, simply because I like seeing OC’s get fleshed out. She’s stubborn, a little abrasive, and I can’t help but sympathize with her. After all, wouldn’t you be a little distraught if your home was destroyed and it was literally killing you slowly? She’s a very nice OC, and I will admit that I felt pretty hard for her when she was killed in the end. While the problems this story had certainly did hamper just exactly how much I did feel for her at the end, I will say that I liked Karya a lot, and I believe that this story’s strongest suit is its presentation of character.

I have to say, I think this story really did put the effort in on developing ideas of its own. Particularly in the case of the dryads, there is plenty to set it apart from other stories of the same genre. I will say that I wish we could have gotten a little better look at the Dryads themselves, but that would have required a much longer story. For what it is, I say this story has some strong original concepts, and I award high marks here.

Achievement— This story set out to tell a story of a spirit meeting her end in a tragic set of events that were entirely out of her control. It managed to rise above a cheap tug at the heartstrings (*cough* My Little Dashie *cough*), but it didn’t quite leave the impact I feel it was hoping for.

Impression— And what was my opinion of the story? I found it to be a little underwhelming, but not bad by any means. Keep practicing, and you’ll get there sooner rather than later.

Let’s see how this story stacks up.

Plot: Had its fair share of contrivances, but was at least coherent. 14/25
Mechanics: Pretty solid, but needs work on the writing style and dialogue. 14/20
Characterization: Very solid characterization. 22/25
Originality: 8/10
Impact: It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t quite the best it could have been. 11/20

Thanks to you, Lise Eclaire, for submitting your story to the Pleasant Commentator and Review Group! I’ll see you next time.

-Jack of a Few Trades

5621699 I lost it at the obligatory cancer. I was like a white girl with all the even I couldn't

5621699 I've heard mixed opinions on phonetics. There's some really quite good books that use them.

Maybe it's just a thing that you have to learn separately how to get good at? Could be a case of finding and recording speech patterns among the people you wish to impersonate, which would be a fun study to do.

5621756 Perhaps there is a good way to use them, but I've yet to come across one I enjoyed. For instance, The Yearling makes heavy use of phonetics in the dialogue because the characters are 19th Century backwoods Floridians, but I found that it only made the book harder to read. I enjoyed the story, but I found that aspect to be less desirable.

At least in my opinion, careful word choice >>> phonetics.