EComparative Mythology

• MLP: FiM
• Horror
• Slice of Life

The Student Six share campfire stories before Nightmare Night.

• Ocellus
• Young Six

Flashgen · 15k words  ·  97  2 · 2.5k views

Summary:
The young six a gathering around a campire next to the Everfree and exchange horror stories just before Nightmare Night to get everyone in the mood and learn about different cultures in that matter. Each of the young six tells a story from their people which is supposed to be scary.

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I must say the general concept of the story is quite entertaining. With each of the young six represents a differens species, the horor stories vary accordingly. While ponies may fear a dark forest and mysterious creatures in it, yaks have more problems with spooky creatures in heavy snowstorms for example.

This makes sure there is something for most of the readers, though not for all. The story is written in E for everyone, and it does a great job at this. The stories are more aimed at younger readers and to scare them, instead of being scary for adult people. That is fine of course, but I thought I should mention this. So from what I can tell after reading them, for the younger audience or those who get easier scared it is great, it never goes over the line or out of its way, staying in a certain limit of 'scaryness'.

Now to the stories themselves. I already said they vary which each species, but they also vary in quality. Sure, to each their own, some may find a certain story better than someone else may do, but from a writing perspective, the quality vary even on a objective level. Mostly small mistakes in continuity for example, like in the griffon horror story, the location is descripted as dark, very dark so you can't see anything, while the protagonist later is very well able to see his surroundings good enough. Or as second example, the story Silverstream tells is not compatible with the worldmap of equestria. These are no major issues of course with the younger audience but it is a point that I noticed.

On the upside however, is that each story has its own mindset behind it and each has its own storyline. So you more or less get 6 stories in one. And depending on taste they all are average till good. There is no filler or bad story amoung them. It is quite a bit impressive how the author was able to tell six different stories, from six different cultures and their background and make a fitting story out of them.

Also worth noticing is that all the stories leads to an related ending of the main story around them. I mean the general story of the young six getting in mood for Nightmare Night and therelike. Each story has an element that is needed for the ending of the story and that is also very good writing form the author.

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Well, now we shall take a look of how the story is written after we covered the concept and ideas. And truth be told, here the story looses a few points.

While the pacing is good and the organisation of the scenes and chapters is well done, the wording and the way of writing could need a bit of improvement. Many sentences could be merged together and avoid calling the characters names so often. Just as example, the first chapter has 2700 words, a third of this is the first scary story already, while a good amount of it is filled with the description of the surroundings and the build ups, though, still 83 times it is the name of one of the young six, 27 times alone Ocellus. Normal readers will not count them, but that I noticed them appearing very often is a bad sign. And it is not limited to character names, but some items too. Again, it is not that bad that it kills the story, but it gets in the way of a good read sometimes.

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Also we should look at the greater picture. What kind of image or memory stays in my head after reading this a few hours later while I write this review?

I can say it felt like something worth reading. Yes, it is aimed at younger audience, but still I got entertained by the variety of ideas and concepts for each species, an insight of what they may fear and why. Also the mainstory works out, with the young six gathering, learning about Nightmare Night and how every story adds something to the ending. That is something not many stories can pull off.

Sure, I would work on the writing style, but thats more or less it. And with so less to really complain about, this is a good sign.

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Rating:
Horror: 8/10 (Keep in mind it is for children, and judged as such)
Entertainment 7/10 (It is tagged Slice of Life, but the horror is the major part here and it is alright)
Writing Style: 4/10 (As I said, here the story looses a few points)
Ideas 9/10 (6 stories in one and none of them bad at all, also interesting)

7/10

Appreciate the review, and that you feel the stories all built up together into something. That was my hope when writing, I enjoyed writing it for sure.

As for repetition that you mention, I do think it's something I struggle a bit with my writing, but at the same time I'm never a fan of like physical descriptions when you have a large group of characters that know each other. I guess that's why the character names show up a lot. I will try to keep it in mind with future writing.