EThe First Adventure

• MLP: FiM
• Romance
• Drama

There’s a fine line between friendship and obsession. Can three best friends overcome a growing rift between them, or will it destroy their relationships and perhaps their lives?

• OC

bkc56 · 10k words  ·  32  4 · 330 views

The First Adventure -by bkc56

Summary:
The First Adventure is a romance story about a trio of friends, Quicksilver, Mist and Cloudy, who face problems when romantic feelings start to kick in between some of them.

The story starts in their childhood when all three were good friends and takes the time to introduce them properly. Also it shows where life may take them later on. After that it jumps to their early adulthood days and shows the upcoming romance between two of the trio and the reaction of the third one of it to said romance.

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Well, let me say the idea is not new. Two stallions, one mare, both are attracted to her, but she is only interested in one of them. Of course this will lead to problems and push the friendship to the test. The question now is, is that entertaining? Did the romance let you feel the love here? 

Well, this story is neither bad nor good in that regard. It does some stuff right and some stuff wrong. It does flow well enough, has some romantic spots and well enough written dialogs most of the time. Though, it also lacks real substance and depth here and there. It more just flows along and shows you around instead of fascinating you or really leaves an impression for longer.

What I really missed was some more build up and reason for the romance between these characters. It is not out of nowhere, don’t get me wrong, it does work out, but is quite easy on it. A accidently touch here, an unintentional misleading word there and one event of greater impact later one is all it takes. I mean it goes along with how romance works in the show sometimes, still in an 10k word story there should be more about it in my opinion. This way however, it feels more like a Slice Of Life story with mixed in romance to spice things up.

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Rating: 
Romance: 5/10  Not quite the focus in this story, while the reason for the events to happen.
Entertainment factor 5.5/10 Well enough written by style, though lack of substance and depth to excite.

5.25/10

Feedback for the author:
I think this story is a great framework to work with! It has all the basics covered and the main storyline is suiting too. What it needs however is more substance and care for the individual scenes. Like the romance in the lab should have more little moments between these two, maybe more time spent on elaboration how the main character comes to realise he does more than simply like her and all that. Simply put, take your time with the scenes and let the love develop between them. 
Also the jealousy of the third char should be slower and not so forced forward. It feels a bit rushed and out of place how fast he suddenly tries to push Quicksilver out of Mist’s life.

I just re-read the review (I don't know, 4th or 5th time) and I wanted to ask about your expectations in terms of improvement. Picking just one quote:

What it needs however is more substance and care for the individual scenes.

I wanted to understand what you had in mind. Is it more like...

1. A few extra paragraphs and scene extensions, probably <1K words of additional content.
2. Significant scene extensions and new scenes, >1K of new content.
3. Significant re-writes of scenes to change the focus and flow.

I can envision #1 not being too hard for me to do since it's an enhancement to what I already have. #2 and especially #3 would be a lot more work. This of course raises the question of how much work I want to put into a "completed" story, and if it would be worth the effort involved.

Thanks.

7505546
1,5. I would say. Some scenes just need a bit polishing and small extension to make more impression. Others however need simply more to it and some additional scenes as well, like in case of the romance. The thing is the balance between story length and time you spend on the important parts. Your story is 10k, so a good bit of it should be about the romance and Drama you tagged, while a lot is Slice Of Life. actually.

7505548

Your story is 10k, so a good bit of it should be about the romance and Drama you tagged, while a lot is Slice Of Life. actually.

Do I need to re-tag the story to be more accurate? It sounds like I should add SoL. Are the other (drama/romance) two still OK?

And since your reviews are based on the story tags, that raises the question of if the review would have been different (better? worse?) with different tags (like including SoL)? We'll temporarily ignore the fact that I believe you don't like to do reviews on SoL stories...

7505550
Mhh, tagging it SOL would be accurate to a degree at the moment, but it is not what you want, I would suggest to edit the story a bit so it is really romance instead. About the Drama tag, I am not so sure about the meaning and purpose of it so I can't say much to it.

I think the story would have got a higher rating with the SOL tag yes. While it is not the only aspect which the review score is based on, the tags a very important to see what the story is supposed to be about and how good it is at that.