https://docs.google.com/document/d/16H8mU8jAwFi4UM83rElbizRBDodBhg7mT0d-vvWshbg/edit?usp=sharing

I'm too tired to make it a hyperlink right now

6006705
So... overall thoughts.

I really like the idea of this chapter. This is a nasty way to bring out the knives for Luna.

That being said, I feel like it is a bit flat writing-wise. It just doesn't pop.

I'll go through it again in a bit and see if I can't make some recommendations.

6006705
6008940
I was going to say that the writing’s kinda beige here, though I can’t say too much on that without sounding like a hypocrite. Definitely a good diving board to explore Luna’s character, and maybe make it more than just a back-and-forth. I’m noticing that these chapters have to try to avert the whole two-people-in-a-one-act-play feel inherent in the Amulet attempting to seduce somepony.

6008940 6008949 Yes, I'll definitely concede that the delivery is dull. I'll admit that this chapter gave me a lot of trouble. I went through several variations on it before finally settling on how exactly the Amulet's temptations take shape (the first draft had Nightmulet as a much more passive entity, and the second had it appearing as Celestia).

Now that the concept and theme is on some sort of reasonable foundation, the editing can be about making the delivery less boring (and adding more detail to it, particularly the beginning and end).

Perhaps there should be more lead up and suspense to the Amulet's most cutting remark. I had intended it's “What have you?” to be the fulcrum of its argument, but right now it's just another line, lacking focus and import.

The entire chapter needs to have more of an arc in general: perhaps at first, Luna brushes off the Amulet's comments, but slowly starts to become more visibly agitated and less confident? Then when the Amulet says they are Not So Different, that's when Luna starts to react.

6006705
I quite liked this. It was both sad an moving at times.

I agree with other that the writing was a bit flat though. It's just missing that slight tinge of purple a scene like this demands.

6006705
Maybe the problem is Luna herself? There really aren't any new directions to take this.

The unique part of the chapter wouldn't come from Luna, it would come from the Amulet.

Perhaps a POV chapter from the Amulet itself?

Maybe something resembling my original pitch for Pinkie's chapter?

6013156 The problem with making the Amulet the POV character is that it would require answering too many questions about it. I want there to be some level of vagueness around it.

I think I may try that idea I mentioned before in reference to your Pinkie chapter; the Amulet claims that it helps ponies by testing them and helping them grow and learn. Then it turns it around on Luna that it can't help her, because she already fell to temptation and didn't grow as a person. So the general idea of preying on Luna's need for forgiveness is still the same, but there'd be a bigger undercurrent of insult to it, and the Amulet's position would be less passive.

6013340
Oh, that's a great direction!

6013340
Part of the problem is that this is the last chapter. I don't want to sound like I'm trying to talk myself up, but (While I went in this direction because I couldn't think of a better one) I really like how I killed the Amulet in my chapter. Pinkie names it Amy (automatically giving it more of a connection to us) and spends most of the chapter trying to talk it into giving up. It also dies very loudly trying to not die, and Pinkie mourns its death.

If there is a problem, maybe its that I didn't foster the connection properly? Future-Me problems. Point is, the Luna chapter should make us feel something, wether it be sorrow or victory.

6014769 Technically Celestia's chapter will be last.

If you want we can switch the order of this and Pinkie's chapter's (although I still havent read the Pinkie chapter to know how well this will work)

6014784
Probably wait until you read the chapter in question before you decide.

6015176>>6009001>>6008949 6008940

Alright, I've finished the initial rewrites. I suppose the major issue of beige writing is still there, but I reworked the plot to make the Amulet less bitchy. It's now manipulative in a much softer, subtler way. I also added some more accoutrements to the illusions the Amulet creates; the mirror symbolism is pretty blunt, but it did offer a larger variety of things to describe, and more visual variety. Perhaps this draft will be easier to de-beige as a result.

So overall, the chapter is still bad, but this draft might be easier to make better.

Comments and criticism welcome, of course

(Also, I'm still not sure if this or the Pinkie Pie chapter would be a better final show for the Amulet)

6033581
Whichever chapter kills the Amulet needs to feel something when it dies, whether it be sorrow or catharsis. I'm not sure the sorrow angle works well in this current draft because even though it's trying to sound reasonable it's stated goal is torturing folks. I do tend to read too deeply into things, though.

6033642 Well the idea is that it's a manipulative liar; whether the sob story it tells is real or invented is up to the audience to decide for themselves.

The trick with this approach, however, is that the audience still needs to feel some sort of emotion, whether they believe its story or not. So I focused the emotion on Luna rather than the Amulet. She believes its real, and that's where the emotion comes from. Perhaps I need to play that up in her conversations with the real Celestia; explain her emotions better and show them in greater detail.

Added more to the Amulet's argument/alleged backstory. Wrote a first draft of the ending scene