TThe Canopy

• MLP: FiM
• Horror

Starlight and Trixie, on a trip outside of Equestria, find themselves lost in a dark forest.

• Trixie
• Starlight Glimmer

Flashgen · 4.6k words  ·  115  3 · 2.7k views

Summary: Starlight and Trixie are on the way to recruit more students for the next year for the school of friendship, and because the train they wanted to take is delayed by a dew days, they walk. Their way take them through a forest though, which is a bit unfriendly.

The story starts with a bit of dialog between the two mares to give the story reason and explain the initial situation. Then they go on with their walk through the forest, which becomes more and more a small odyssey. Also since this is a horror story, here and there are small elements of that genre. Over the following scenes it becomes clearer that they are not only lost, but that the forest is somewhat enchanted or alive and actively tries to hindrance them at leaving.

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Since I can't and don't want to spoil every scene and action of this story, I go right into the bigger picture analyzation.

The initial situation is well chosen, we have kind of isolation in this forest. Two main characters who interacting great with each other, and, also the basic horror elements that are necessary, like the night, spooky sounds, and the inability to leave or run away. Sounds like a solid start, and it is.

Though, 'The Canopy' is a teen story, and therefore it could make a little more out of this. While the story progresses, and the revelations like they are lost are made, there is the greater horror or spooky event missing. And all the small things, while fitting, doesn't deliver an atmosphere worth speaking of. Honestly, it took me quite a while to find out why that is so though. The story is written by the book if I may say so, it has the classic tools and situation, and they are not overused or boring per se. Still while reading I never got the spooky horror feeling.

In the end, I think, and I could be wrong here, but that's my opinion, that the problem is the time that passes. Starlight and Trixie take some rests, sleeping both and hours are passing without something happens or even the slightest sign of real danger. Yes, there are some noises one of them hears, but without something happening for real and days and hours passing, it is stretched too much. It is like -spooky scene-sleep-conversation-daily routine-sleep-spooky scene-sleep. It is just hard to get in the mood whenever something happens there is a nice rest between it and the next where the world is alright, besides they sleep not so well and Starlight has some nightmares.

To bring it to the point, the story reaches a level of horror and stagnate there. And like fear have it, if it is present for to long it becomes the usual and loses its intimidation effect.

Also the ending, well, after a medium storyline, it is also a bit rushed and comes over as too calm in my opinion. It is horror like but you can shake it off with a shrug.

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Rating: 
Writing style: 8/10 Like I said, this story is made by the book, so it is alright.
Atmosphere: 3/10 The story only reaches a low-medium level of horror and stagnate there.
Entertainment: 3/10 Well, it is not that it was work to read this, but I more or less just read through and was like, 'meh'.

14/30

5/10

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Feedback: You have a good background for this story, and a good starting point. Also two very good characters for this. And you handled the magic Op'ness of unicorns. That is something you can work with! Just try to raise the spooky atmosphere constantly. Start low and increase it, if you stop increasing it for too long, or, fake safety for a while, it becomes dull. Readers get used to the level of horror you use if it stays constant.
Also try to reduce the time that passes between the events. Or spice it up with something wakes them and sneaks around them, some actual threat, some horror. I mean how you start with only Trixie hears it is good, but if you don't deliver more after a while, well...
And the ending, there was an impact missing. You see it coming, or something like it at least and it is quite quickly over. You could work on that a bit if you like.