A Review: Recollections of a Nightmare - My Little Reviews & Feedback

The Red Parade

The Red Parade #1 · Apr 19th, 2020 · 2 · ·

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TRecollections of a Nightmare

Sweetie Belle wakes up from a nightmare. At least, she feels awake.

Sweetie Belle

Seer · 1.5k words · 177 3 · 3.6k views

Author: The Seer

Whenever Sweetie Belle stays at her sisters she can bet that Rarity will wake her up for school in the morning.
Today is no different.
Isn't it?

Summary: Sweetie Bell! You’re going to be late for school!

Thoughts:

You ever have that one dream, where everything is so vivid and so real, but then when you wake up you can’t remember any of it? Or have you ever been like ‘didn’t I do that thing today’ and then realize that you just dreamed it?

Today’s story is about dreams and nightmares. Or… was it a nightmare? Or just a dream? Sweetie sure doesn’t know. That’s right, today we’re tackling The Seer’s Recollections of a Nightmare, a short tale full of dread and fear. Let’s hit it.

Plot:

Usually when I go into plot discussions I have to spoil it a bit. For this story I don’t even know if I can do that and give the story justice. It’s just so darn good. Seriously. I don’t think I have any major criticism of the plot so I’ll do my best to tiptoe around it, but be warned. I highly recommend you just go experience the story first before listening to me talk about it.

The plot itself is about Sweetie Bell as she wakes up from a nightmare, to Rarity telling her she’s going to be late for school. That’s about all I’ll say about it without going into spoilers. The idea itself isn’t particularly amazing or original, but I can forgive this for a few reasons. First, this was a speed-write piece done in an hour. Second, the beauty of this story is in its execution.

The author makes so many technical decisions that just add a little bit more to the story to really nail in that growing sense of dread, as both Sweetie and the reader suddenly start to realize that something is wrong.

This, coupled with really nice atmospheric writing, is executed incredibly, amazingly well, and the author uses the concept of show don’t tell almost professionally. Because while the author shows us that something’s wrong, he never shows us exactly what’s going on. And all of this adds up to the perfect horror concept.

So in conclusion, I think this story might lose a few points in the category of originality, but everything makes up for it excellently. There are so many horror concepts at play that are all blended together so well and executed brilliantly, from a strange dream to endless hallways to screaming without a voice, it’s all in there.

Characters:

They're really is only one character at play here, and that’s Sweetie Belle. Now, I think we could have an interesting debate as to whether or not Rarity is actually a character in this story, but she does play a certain role in it. But let’s focus on Sweetie for now.

Sweetie is an interesting character. Because she is a foal, and as such her reactions to the story are quite a bit different. She doesn’t quite exhibit the typical reactions of fear until the later half of the story, but I think his decision is quite in-line with the story as a whole.

I think the character development here is very interesting. Because Sweetie here doesn’t really react to fear in the expected way, but again this is just so in-line with the style, because the fic isn’t really meant to be in-your-face spooky. It’s more of a subtle approach that makes you realize that something is horribly wrong.

Sweetie doesn’t really have much of a chance to react to anything in the story until like the very end, and normally I would have a problem with this. But here it just works so, so well. I think what the author doesn’t explicitly say reveals a lot more than what he actually does say. If that makes any sense. Basically what I’m saying is that it was good.

Grammar:

Grammar was pretty solid! There are a few things that I did have a problem with, but since they’re so few I think I’ll point them out here.

First, in the short description there should be an apostrophe in ‘sister’s,’ because the implied sentence is ‘sister’s house.’

Second, I was iffy on the sentence

It was a good thing that Rarity woke her up, she was terrible for oversleeping.

I think this sentence makes it sound like Sweetie is terrible for oversleeping in the same way someone would say ‘drugs are terrible for you.’ I’d consider rewording this a little bit to something like ‘Sweetie had a terrible problem with oversleeping’ just to get around it.

Other than these two very small things there were no other grammar issues that I noted. Well done!

Final Thoughts:

I’ve read Seer’s Local before, and it’s one of my favorite horror stories on the site so far. This story feels a bit different to that in its methodology and execution, but it’s still a really solid and well done piece.

My interpretation of the ending is that Rarity has actually died/passed away, hence the white rose on her bed and Sweetie waking up crying. This could also be the reason for her nightmares in the first place, and why the author begins the story by saying ‘this is a love story.’The story’s true strengths are in what it implies and what it keeps hidden, yet what is shown is done in a spectacular way that just creates this great atmosphere of dread. This style of horror is one that I myself really want to learn how to write, and it’s definitely getting a favorite from me.

On deck is Mr Critique’s Comments Guide the Story, another shorter one (bless). Since it’s about a thousand words, expect to hear from me very soon. See ya then!

To the Readers:

Read it! Even if you don’t like horror! Because this isn’t a typical horror with big spooky monsters, eldritch beings, blood or anything like that. And it’s brilliant!

To the Author:

Absolutely wonderful job! It’s so, so well done and I wish I’ve read this sooner. Great job as always! Keep writing!

I do have my reading notes for your fic, if you would like to see them let me know.

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