“Fire Watcher in Heart’s Warming Eve.” by Bronie312 is a story inspired by the game Firewatch. It follows the perspective of a human working as a sort of park ranger alongside the human Luna. The story is not actually a crossover with Firewatch or anything like that, simply a similar style of story. Spoilers ahead.

TFire Watcher in Heart's Warming Eve

• Equestria Girls
• Drama
• Slice of Life

Even on holidays, people get to work; some spend the celebrations in company, while others... just stay alone while staring at the world, reflecting.

• Profanity
• Human
• Alt. Universe
• OC
• Vice-Principal Luna

Bronie312 · 1.4k words  ·  11  0 · 289 views

First, a little background. As Heart’s Warming Eve approaches, many of the rangers go home for the holiday. Except for Luna. But this year, she isn’t alone. The protagonist decides to stay behind, and the two of them chat while watching a terrible blizzard rolling in that will leave them trapped the next few days. 

Grammar/Spelling (2/10):
The spelling is fine. The grammar is a different story, though. Several times throughout the story I had to stop and reread a sentence three or four times to figure out what they meant. And, while they are technically correct, there is quite a bit of room for improvement. 

The use of semicolons would be the first issue. Most of them could be done just as easily with a period or comma. And I have nothing against semicolons, but they should be used rarely, not in every paragraph. 

My second issue is the fluff in the sentences. For example:

“Then, a brief silence didn't hesitate on making an act of presence to empty the previously busy environment; and although I wanted to speak, I couldn't…” 

This sentence tries to get the point across that the room was silent. But it has so much fluff and superfluous wording that it just ends up confusing the reader. 

My third issue is the way the sentences are written. This sort of combines the two above issues, so was saved for last. My best example for this is the first paragraph of the story. The entire paragraph is a single sentence, but split into three or four long clauses. Again, there is nothing wrong with long sentences, but the way these are written are complex, and would benefit from simply being split into several different sentences. This would allow the reader to digest the information more easily and improve the reading of the story. 

Plot (4/10):
The plot is rather simple. A storm is coming that will trap the park rangers in their cabins for Heart’s Warming. But they don’t mind. And after a short conversation, the protagonist and Luna decided to spend it together. Her first one with a companion for a long time. Rather simple and short. Not much room to critique. Which in itself is kind of a problem. The story starts, happens, then ends. But there’s never really a reason to get invested. Everything just sort of happens. The emotional payoff at the end feels like it came from nowhere. 

My biggest issue is that there is definitely a plot in here. It’s inspiration, Firewatch, proves that you can tell an amazing story with a setting like this. But this story sort of ends before anything happens. I feel it would definitely benefit from a slower pace. Allow the reader to get to know the characters and empathize with them before trying to introduce an emotional moment like the climax of this story. 

Overall, not bad, but definitely room for improvement. 

Characterization (3/10):
I have very little to say about the characters. The protagonist has a checkered past and might have a thing for Luna. At the very least, he’s friendly with her when he talks to her over the radio. But there isn’t much more to him. He’s a little bland for my tastes. 

The second character is Luna. Former-Vice-Principal Luna, to be precise. She seemed to have run into some trouble with her students and decided to get away from all of it. She’s lonely and isolated, which makes for an interesting character that shares some traits with her canon character. But again, there isn’t much more to her than that. When the protagonist compliments her, she shows up at his door crying and they decide to spend Heart’s Warming together. But the emotion feels unearned. 

Total Score:
Grammar/Spelling: 2 / 10
Plot: 4 / 10
Characterization: 3 / 10
Final Score: 9 / 30 (3 /10)
<For archive purposes: 3/10>

Final Notes:
“Fire Watcher in Heart’s Warming Eve” is a rather short story. And it is a flawed story. But that’s okay. Every story is flawed. What’s important is that the author learns from these flaws and figures out how to craft a better story for the next time. In support of that, I urge the author to ask if they have trouble understanding some of the critiques I’ve made here. And don’t let this dissuade you from writing. That isn’t the point of this. These critiques are meant for the author to get better. 

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It's funny how everyone tells me "you only have to improve", yet when I do so, I end up getting worse. (True story, check my other stories to verify it).

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And no, it's not the critiques. It's just obvious I'm terrible at writing, that's why I stopped.
No need to worry, pal.