TCovering for a Magician

• MLP: FiM
• Comedy
• Drama
• Mystery

During a stormy night, Starlight notices Trixie carrying a bloody, pony-shaped bag...

• Death
• Trixie
• Starlight Glimmer

Chromentazol · 13k words  ·  49  3 · 741 views

Summary: 
Starlight spots Trixie with a bloody, pony shaped bag in the middle of the night and investigates. 

Analysis: 
So, we have the comedy, drama, mystery tags along with the warning tag for death. Two of them are unjustified, and misplaced. 
This story is more a detective story with a plot twist than anything comedy like. The mystery itself is alright, but the concept is flawed and the entertainment factor is very low. While the writing of the individual paragraphs is good and the dialogs are also written in a good way, the overall story progression is too slow and it needs way too long to unfold.
Let me explain on that: The story starts with an intriguing mystery, Trixie with a bloody, pony shaped bag spotted by Starlight. The author has a very good start to build a story from. The problem is that this already was the best part of the story. First, the choice of characters was a mistake for the storyline. Starlight is one of the most powerful magic users in Equestria, though, during the whole story she only uses her magic when unnecessary. Several situations could have been easily solved if she would teleport. Like sneaking through Ponyville. She fears to be spotted, that she may raise suspicion, but that she could simply teleport doesn’t come to her mind at all. The story simply wouldn’t work if Starlight would use her magic normally. Second, while Starlight investigates, she takes page after page to reveal small parts of the story to build up for the finale. Even if some readers stay unaware of the storyline till the end, it takes 13000+ words to get there. Latest at the end of chapter 3 I was groaning about another chapter to read for the joke that was already obvious to come.
Though, I also want to point out that the story does good on the drama tag. The side characters, like Fluttershy or Rarity for example, do have realistic behavior, reactions to events and way of talking. The author also went the extra mile to include their dailyroutines to be in check with their show example and personalities. 

So to summarize: It would be a pace and style wise good written detective story just with the wrong main characters, or a well done drama based story with a tendency to be a bit long on the storyline. As a comedy, mystery, drama mix however it doesn’t work out.

Rating: 

Drama: 8/10
Well written side characters, antics and behavior included. The author put work into this aspect of the story and it shows.

Comedy: 1/10
One joke, stretched over 13000+ words and four chapters. Yeah, the ‘punchline’ itself is okay but it doesn’t carry the whole story.

Mystery: 6/10
It starts very good, but declines with every passing chapter. 

15/30 -> 5/10

7957499
Thank you for the review

7957499

Man, this review has been living rent free in my head all day, lol. Your feedback is pretty different from the one I've received so far on that story, so it was definitely surprising (but in a good way!). Should I fully remove the comedy tag, then, or let it be as is? Should I rewrite it to be much shorter?

In any case, thanks for the wildly different feedback

7957811
Hey, I am glad you receive it so well

Well, removing the comedy tag would work, though it reduces the amount of people who would find your story and read it. Having a wider range of possible readers is good for your stories publicity, while, yes, some may be disappointed by the lack of comedy during the read. So you trade a higher reader count for a few dislikes I would guess.
With option B, rewriting some parts, though you have the risk of sacrificing the good drama and character interaction for the sake of fulfill the comedy requirements.

It is a difficult choice, I would tend to the rewriting though. Not at least for the sake of fixing the main characters either by changing them, or, finding an excuse why Starlight doesn't use her magic properly. So adding more funny situations, maybe adding a few punchlines here and there while providing an explanation for the magic problem sounds good to me.