A pony moves to Ponyville.

by Questioner

Backround explained.

“My full name is Greyhoof Scrollseal. I am a unicorn, as you can see. And I’m not exactly from around here, and by that I mean I’m not from Equestria. You see, when the three tribes left and eventually founded Equestria, we were left behind. Not me personally, of course, but my ancestors. I prefer to keep the rest of this secret, I trust that you can keep secrets.”

“Yes, of course. Spike, please can you go out and get some groceries? It needs doing, and I think this needs to be a private conversation.” said Twilight.

”Yeah sure Twilight!” Spike replied”

“Please continue,” requested Twilight, after Spike had left.

“My ancestors didn’t follow the other unicorns, as they were sure there was noway that they would survive, and they didn’t realise the other tribes had left as well. You see, they guarded a vault of magical secrets”.

“What kind of secrets?” Twilight asked, looking puzzled.

“Dangerous ones. Knowledge of spells and rituals that could allow any pony to cause untold havoc. Powerful spells allowing one to control many minds at once with ease, the summoning of deadly creatures from beyond this world and more. It was decided not to destroy them, as with the knowledge of spell comes the chance of a counter-spell, in case the spells are discovered by another. As well as ordinary knowledge, just in case.”

“Wow.” Twilight said, looking shocked. “I can see why you want to keep that secret. But where are the spells now? You don’t appear to be carrying a library. And how did your ancestors survive?”

“My ancestors managed to use magic to allow crops to grow.” I replied. “It was very hard, and they never grew as well as they would if an earth pony had done it. And as for the vault, well, about three hundred years ago, my ancestors decided to scry to see if anypony had survived. After finding out that they had, they started work on moving the vault. It took over two hundred and fifty years to perfect the enchantments that would allow the vault to be accessed from anywhere. But only by us. It took a bit long to be sure that it was stable, and then the few of us that were left, including my parents, left for Equestria. I was born on the journey here. I grew up travelling around Equestria, my parents never were content in one place.”

“So where are your family now? I would have though they’d be with you.”

“Dead. Something to do with attempting to access the Vault to archive some new theories about counter-spells when a certain entity is changing the physical laws around does not mix. I only survived because I was a bit further away, bored.”

There was a knock on the door, and Pinkie Pie came in.

“Let me guess, the party is ready?” asked Twilight.

“Yup!” answered Pinkie. “And it’s gonna be a doozy!”

“Great.” I said. “I suppose I’d better come along.”

Comments

[An A10 Warthog]

You're kidding. Please.

[SIR OM NOM NOM]

................ What he said

[Commissar Rarity]

You seem to be missing character tags entirely.

Oh, and originality.

[Dunsparce]

r u srs

[The Sergeant]

captionite.com/c/2013/2/27/5ffc5.jpg

[Blackguard]

Oh dear. This is not going to be pretty.

You're new to this and I'll give you a few words of advice before jumping into the many problems that this story has.

The first is, never write in the first person. I know it's easier to do but it's too limiting when you get down to it. You wind up only being able to tell things from the main character's point of view. Anything that happens outside of his knowledge can't be told. It also means that he's going to be either speaking to himself or having long introspective conversations in his mind. Never a good combination. It also rises the terrible spectre of "I" starting too many sentences. I did this. I did that. I did the other thing. It gets monotonous and tiresome after a while.

Secondly as this is your OC and your avatar and the picture for this story and it's written in the first person we're going to assume this is a self-insert. These are bad as they're typically a fantasy where you get to walk around Ponyville and interact with the characters there.

And lastly, you have two chapters and barely 1000 words. Each chapter should be at least 1000 words. In fact, there's no reason why you needed to break this up into two chapters. You could have easily have combined them into one and it wouldn't have affected the story in any way.

Now, let's get on with the story itself. Your OC is bland, he's special and he's a Gary Stu. He's got powers and abilities beyond that of normal ponies and this of course will all be made clear when in some new chapter he performs some kind of monumental feat that leaves everybody surprised. The whole guarding of the secrets bit will be made later when he needs to use these secrets to protect his new friends in Ponyville. In the end he's going to either go back to where he was, stay in Ponyville because he found his one special somepony or he's going to die and leave it all to Twilight Sparkle.

This leads to the next problem, the ponies he's met are MLP fandom cliche 101. The first pony anypony meets is either Twilight Sparkle or Pinkie Pie. If it's Pinkie Pie she immediately sets about having a party for them. If it's Twilight Sparkle it's because the first place they visit it the library for whatever reason you come up with.

The next chapter will be a party where we will just meet the rest of the mane six and possibly they'll give us a little bit of a description of who they are and what they do. Or conversely they will be one dimensional characters that only portray a singular trait/ For example Fluttershy will be really shy towards him. Rainbow Dash will exclaim how awesome she is. Rarity will talk about his outfit and refer to him as "darling" and Applejack will buck apples.

Beyond that there's the structure. It's pretty weak. Never use parenthesis when trying to make a comment, always use a comma. Never break the fourth wall and speak to the audience. If you continue a thought outside the quotes use a comma and not a period. The only time a period should be used is at the end of a sentence.

I would say this needs a lot of work and you might be better off going back and retooling this before trying to put out another chapter.

[OneLonelyPickle]

First rule of writing a story: self-inserting is the worst thing ever. Make an actual protagonist and then I'll read your story.

3129515

You're wasting your time. If this guy wanted help he'd have seeked it already with one of the many groups on this site.

And you're clearly not the one to be giving advice. There's nothing wrong with writing in first person; but certain stories work better with it and others do not. If it's mainly a character story about Greyhoof than first person IS the way to go.

[Thaums]

Here we go again.

[The Sergeant]

3129643

Forever Alone.

[OneLonelyPickle]

3130080 What? All I see are a lot of followers thumbs downing me because they don't agree with my opinion, and would rather side with Blackguard because he typed way too much that will probably be ignored by the author. I wasn't rude so there's no reason to be thumbs downing me... don't have to agree with me but it doesn't make me wrong.

[Cobalt Swirls]

3130983
Because you had to go and make a statement like "You're clearly not the one to be given advice." He is very much correct when he says that it's difficult to captivate an audience from 1st person, although it obviously has been done well or we wouldn't have stories like Background Pony. You're free to disagree will someone all you want, but telling someone they shouldn't review because your thought process conflicts with theirs is arrogant and absurd.

[OneLonelyPickle]

3131529 "The first is, never write in the first person."

That is a direct quote from Black. That right there ruins a lot of his advice. He is telling a new author, with an easily influenced mind (when in the company of those who know better) that writing in the first person is something you never do. What kind of teaching is that? I'll remind you that many first person stories have captivated before: Hunger Games is the first I can think of. The thing with any tense is that it will work depending if the story is appropriate. Certain stories are more personal for one character so first person is best; Hunger Games is first person because Collins wanted to tell the story of one person growing as a human being, and changing the world just by being herself. Lord of the Rings is third person because Tolkien didn't want just one person to be center of the story, and wanted it all to come out as a grand epic, with it being more of an evil vs good story.

What I'm getting at is, while I could have used a better choice of words (as only Siths deal in absolutes; something like "I don't know if you're painting this guy the right picture" would have rattled less bones), so could Blackguard have. There such be no reason to turn to him as if he's in the right and I'm in the wrong when we both messed up. So for me it just feels like I'm getting hate because people see big paragraphs from someone and immediately assume they're professionals or something (I realize the irony in my statement... no comment).

[Cobalt Swirls]

3131742
Like I said, writing in first person is a valid form of storytelling, and it has been done it in the past with great results, but you have to consider this writer's skill level as well as the genre he's writing in, fanfiction. When someone uses 1st person for an OC, there is a very high chance the story is a self insert, (Not always the case, the great story Hospice comes to mind.) New authors should probably stear clear of first person until they acquire more experience. Does that mean it should be avoided all together? Definitely not, but it's pretty safe to say that this author has some bases to cover before he jumps into anything bigger.

[The Sergeant]

3130983

You type one thing, yet I read "Bring it on, b*tches! It's me against the world HOOAH!"

So do yourself a favour and cease commenting before you make a complete idiot out of yourself.

[OneLonelyPickle]

3131782 I understand all that. First person is HARD to write good, that is true. My issue with Black was always that he stated you never write in first person, which is just wrong advice. It's not a matter of opinion, it's wrong. Hence why I said he shouldn't be giving advice. Like I said before, maybe that was harsh of me. But it's even worse to give such terrible advice that could harm the development of a new writer's influential mind.

3131948 Go, go, go away, troll again another day.

[apple shock]

3132061 You talk about new writers like they're infants.

[Cobalt Swirls]

3132061
So a single bad point completely invalidates his whole argument? We've already established that, no first person shouldn't be avoided entirely but that doesn't make any of his other points wrong. When a teacher is grading a test and you have one incorrect answer, that doesn't suddenly make the entire test wrong, it means you missed something. Something that we've cleared up about five times now.

[The Sergeant]

3132061

Hmmm...how to sum this up in one single picture...

images.sodahead.com/profiles/0/0/2/5/8/1/1/7/5/NOPE-48446803347.jpeg

[The Sergeant]

3131742

I would've have read Hunger Games, but it was first person.

And like that, I never read it again.

[null_name5656]

A pony moves to Ponyville

i2.kym-cdn.com/entries/icons/original/000/007/666/_57c8a1a431a592af806925e57258202f.png
The pic speaks for itself.