Reviewers Cafe 576 members · 410 stories
Comments ( 3 )
  • Viewing 1 - 50 of 3
daOtterGuy
Group Contributor

Ten More Yards
By: 5aszs
Amount Read: Up to Chapter “THE NINTH DOWN”
Verdict: Rejected (2/10)
------------------------------

Ten More Yards is a Slice of Life and Drama sports fic that lacks focus and needs a clearer sense of direction.

Firstly, on the positive side, the story lacks any major grammar or spelling issues. There are a few minor spelling mistakes such as in the Chapter “THE NINTH DOWN”:

How the buck am I supposed to do better that these guys?!

Should be written as:

How the buck am I supposed to do better than these guys?!

The characters are mostly consistent in personality. They have clear traits and motivations, something that is generally lacking in most fanfiction involving OCs.

Now, onto the major issues.

The first main issue, and possibly the biggest, is the genre confliction.

Slice of Life and Drama do not mix well.

Slice of Life is a story telling of a character’s everyday. This is undercut by these weird dramatic moments in the story. One example being when Atomic’s mother drops the dishes she’s carrying onto the floor after seeing Atomic’s scraped knees.

Drama plays heavily into emotions and dramatic events, which is problematic because of the large number of unnecessary Slice of Life scenes that make it seem that the plot is going nowhere. One such example being the shopping trip to the mall where all the characters do is buy Atomic a jersey.

You need to decide on one or the other.

If you go the route of a Slice of Life, mix it with Comedy instead to lighten the tone and mix in more fun with the actions of the characters.

If you go the route of a Drama, remove the unnecessary Slice of Life scenes that don’t add anything to the story, and lean heavier on the action oriented sports scenes.

The second issue is the writing.

Sports stories, and Action stories in general, require two forms of writing: the passive observer for the out of action events and the active in-the-moment style for the Action sequences.

For example, the following paragraph can be rewritten from:

Thunderhoof returned to the group and told Atomic and Chestnut to move back, and as a pale green aura surrounded his horn, Thunderhoof lifted the ball up with his magic and drew it back. Atomic began to try and get in front of Chestnut, who was trying his best to keep Atomic behind him. Thunderhoof threw the ball with his magic, and the ball flew high into the air, heading to the right of Chestnut, who quickly ran towards it with Atomic trailing behind him. Chestnut leapt into the air and caught the ball before Atomic could intercept it.

To the more active style of:

Thunderhoof returned to his friends and called for them to move back.

As they galloped off, Thunderhoof lifted the ball with his pale green aura and drew it back.

He threw ball to the right of Chestnut as Atomic struggled to dart away to intercept the ball.

He was too slow, as Chestnut leapt into the air and grabbed the ball in his hooves.

The shorter sentence and movement oriented language makes it easier for the reader to understand the action and to draw them in.

Additionally, a lot of the writing is excessively verbose. The following establishing shot in “KICKOFF” is a good example of this:

Mayfield Avenue in West Fillydelphia was unusually quiet in the last thirty minutes before sunset, with only a few ponies walking down the long, smooth concrete road to enter their houses after a long day of work. The houses were lined up next to each other on both sides of the road, and families with a decent income tended to live in the area; demonstrated by the fact that the majority of the houses had at least two storeys. The area was a friendly one, with everypony knowing everypony and street parties being regularly organised throughout the year to celebrate the positive community spirit present in the area. The only ponies outside at this time were two colts, who were using the almost empty road to their advantage to play Equestria’s most popular sport. Within five years of its founding, hoofball was able to surpass buckball in terms of popularity, and the formation of the EHL and it's subsequent teams in the last thirty years confirmed that hoofball would be around in Equestria for a long time.

This is a huge wall of text for the reader and uses too many words to describe something that can be done in far fewer words.  

For example:

It was quiet as the sun set over Mayfield Avenue, Fillydelphia. Few ponies remained in the streets as they had returned to their two story suburban homes with the exception of two young colts.

They had taken advantage of the quiet to play Equestria’s most popular sport: Hoofball. Founded five years prior and quickly surpassing Buckball in popularity, Hoofball was the primary sport of most youths.

This gets the point across and establishes the scene without having to parse through a large amount of text.

The final major issue is that there are too many plot threads.

Atomic Tangerine is rivals with three different ponies: Pablo the school bully, his best friend Thunderhoof on the opposing team, and his classmate Stormcaller. He is on a rival team to his friend, and he’s trying to revive the school team. He’s the underdog, he’s the promising newcomer, and he’s the expert, depending on the situation.

This is way too many plotlines and character arcs. Sports stories are formulaic. They’re about overcoming successively stronger opponents and accomplishing personal goals. They are simple with simple motivations and goals.

Atomic should have to face one rival or achieve one goal. After accomplishing or overcoming it, he should be given the next goal. After overcoming that, he should be given another, and so on.

This is the pattern that should be followed to ensure that the plot is clear and there is always the excitement of overcoming the next obstacle.  

Finally, staying with a child protagonist is not the best move for this kind of story.

Placing the story at a time when Atomic is either in high school, college, or the professional league would be much more appropriate for a Drama.

The main reason is that when using a child protagonist for a Drama, it is either comedic as children blow minor problems to ridiculous proportions, or incredibly dark when you apply adult or real world problems.  

Due to the unfocused nature of the story, and several critical writing flaws, this story has been rejected from the library.

"Mayfield Avenue, Fillydelphia..."

As a Believeland Grounds fan, that just feels all kinds of wrong...

6710795

Slice of Life and Drama do not mix well.

I beg to differ. If the story seems like it's going nowhere, it's the pacing issue, not the genre combination. Especially since most slice of life stories that go beyond simple "character goes to buy eggs and nothing happens" tend to incorporate drama at some point. It's a natural connection.

  • Viewing 1 - 50 of 3