EDaring Do and the Mystery of Eternal Ruins

• MLP: FiM
• Adventure
• Mystery

Daring Do re-explores some old ruins and gets told a spooky story.

• Daring Do

Khampostel · 4.3k words · 244 views

Summary: 
Daring Do re-explores some old ruins and gets told a spooky story.

Analysis: 
First of all, I think the tags are a little misleading. It is a mystery story with more slice of life of Daring Do with some spooky elements mixed into it. It has an adventures touch, but the way it is written and the descriptions are more suited for a slice of life tag. The dark tag per se may be not wrong, but it is not like people are dying or face a dark fate or anything. Given the E rating, well, maybe it is fine but my expectations after reading the tags were not quite met.
The mystery however is based on a solid foundation, nothing too complex though and the writing style stretches it a bit more than necessary. While reading, I was waving between being excited for the storyline and how things are going to unfold, and bored by the slice of life parts, supported by the dry writing style.

More Detailed analysis:
Well, the basic concept and idea of the story has potential. The author provides a far away land, some lore for the area and a pinch of mystery around Daring Do’s discoveries. So far so good. Also the added artwork, while AI generated, fits the setting and adds to the atmosphere.
What’s holding back the story however is the writing style and focus on unnecessary things. For example if there are only two speakers in a dialog it is unnecessary to mention who is speaking every sentence.

"HAAA!" Meg Tree suddenly shouted, causing Daring Do to jump back in the air frightened.

"Sorry, Miss Daring, I think I dozed off. I hope I didn't bother you with my snoring," said Meg Tree, yawning sleepily and wiping off the drool.

In the air and shaken, taking a moment to recover from the scare, Daring Do finally told him: "No, not at all."

"Well, it seems quite late now... would you like something to eat?" Meg Tree said very calmly as he pulled out a bunch of carrots from his saddlebag.

"Ummm... sure," replied Daring Do with a forced smile.

A few times just refering to them as 'He' or 'Her' would work wonders, or simply letting the dialog move on without tags at all.

Also the jarring accent of her companion really starts to be annoying quickly:

"Of course, it's necessary, UWU. I've given you my word to take you to the top, and I intend to keep it, UWU," Meg Tree replied, taking off his hat as if making a solemn oath.

"Alright... fine," said Daring Do, looking away to avoid seeing the guide's untidy and unhygienic mane.

"Great, UWU!" Meg Tree responded cheerfully. He turned around and, with a skip, continued ahead with proud steps.

This, together with the constantly added reminder who is speaking and the stretched description of side-infos causes the otherwise interesting basic-storyline to become dry and less thrilling. 

Rating: 

 
Mystery: 4/10 
The idea is there, a glimpse at the background lore is provided but the focus of the story is more on slice of life than the actual mystery. Exploring more Daring Do’s situation and her interaction with her companion than the actual mystery.

Dark: 5/10
Well it is a ‘E’ rated story after all, so no really dark topics, that's fine. Though, the overall impression is not really fitting the Fimfictions description of the ‘Dark’ tag.

Adventure: 3/10
The location is the greatest contribution to that tag. The story takes place away from Equestria and involves an ancient ruin, so the baseline is archived, the story fails to build up on that though in my small opinion.

12/30 -> 4/10 -> Total 5/10

Feedback:
I would advise to reconsider the stories focus. Keeping the main event, adding a bit of mysterious events or hints during the exploration phase, maybe even adding a more subtle scary atmosphere. That, while shorten the Slice of Life parts and taking a step back of the amount of annoyance Meg Tree adds to the first chapter. Making him more interesting and less of a disturbance. Also it could be a good idea to have an editor taking a look at your writing style, shorten sentences, remove ‘speaker tags’ and such stuff.

Overall you had the right idea for the setting, a good nose for the lore and chose the right main character for the story. The lack of focus and the writing style should be fixable by getting a second pair of eyes like a pre-reader or editor.

7956402
thanks for the review!

certainly the story could be improved... but before talking about that, I would like to explain a few things.

This is the first story I have written since I decided to make MLP fanfics, I had no feedback or models and the advice they gave me to write correctly did not really inspire me with confidence to follow them. So just experiment and let the art flow, or at least that's how it felt to me.

About the story, which is what I really like about this fanfic. Meg Tree is a hateful character, she has an annoying way of speaking, and her dialogue makes her uncomfortable. (I did it thinking she would be like that) Daring Do herself mentions it in the writing. That the reader also feels it seems like a success to me. But that makes sense, it's a mediocre performance by someone who is only wearing a mask, MegTree does not exist, behind him is a dark entity that laughs at the naivety of the pony who has come from far away to learn something very already I had learned before and that it really won't make a difference.

Yes, Daring Do had already encountered that being before. The difference is that this time it allowed him to keep the memory. But that won't matter much in the future. (it's a joke. it is important! hahaha)

In general I think the story could qualify more as a slice of life. But I preferred the dark tag, I know it's disappointing since I recently realized that people like to put blood, death and other things in that kind of fanfic. But that's not my case, it's just dark and adventure. 50/50 (by the way I'll add the 'slice of life' tag, it's a good observation, thanks)

The images inspired me to write more than anything else on fimfiction.

By the way, I am a Spanish-speaking writer, the translation I do is more... improvised with tools that are on the internet.

Finally, this fanfic, despite its shortcomings, I have esteem for it. These strange ruins of my Fanfic are where the entire MLP universe that I have written to date arises. All my writings refer to what is shown here.

7956423
Your welcome

I got that, I understand it while reading the story, like I said the storyline is okay. There is a difference between making a character unlikeable and making him straight annoying to read about. Giving it was your first story, well, congrats for the translation success and the overall storyline. Good job on that
Back in the days it was not possible to add both the adventure and slice of life tag at the same time, maybe they changed it though.
Also, keep in mind it is 'She' for female characters in english and 'He' for male ones

7956513
I just remembered why I didn't put slice of life, it can't be done, it only allows 3 tags. Well, I'll leave the Dark tag for my fanfics, it's not like they're depressive, or violent, or those suggestive things. I'll just leave it to adventure and mystery, that should be enough.