A project that can give mobility to those who cannot move; that's the goal of a young Arcane Science student named Dawn. it is a project that has garnered the aid of Twilight Sparkle, Equestria's newest princess. With her help, Dawn might just see the project become a reality.
As Dawn moves ahead with the project however, strange dreams begin to arise; dreams that may hold a closer connection to reality than Dawn is willing to accept. Soon, Dawn begins to wonder what's real and what isn't. The discovery that follows will shape not just Dawn, but another's life as well.
Chapters (1)
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I feel like giving feedback/review.
First up, I grabbed a few mistakes that I couldn't ignore, meaning they are the things even the readers will see. I tried to overlook what I could and focused on content though.
The phrases he's thinking should be in single quotes ( ' ) to differentiate it from something out loud. I'm trying not to get picky with grammar and stuff but I didn't want to let that one go.
'device' should be 'devise'
me >> my, unless we're having a pirate moment, which are always appropriate.
Too many ' I ' s
Capitalize 'dusk'
missing period
Concept.
I honestly think the intro is terrible. The story starts with dialogue, which is totally legal, but as soon as it hits an action by the professor, we come out of a narrative style and into a physical scene without any description. Ergo, there's a feel of a pony lecturing the audience in the midst of an abyssal void as he marks on a hovering chalkboard for us. It comes off very boring and talking-heads-like. As a secondary note, when you transferred to the main character's thoughts, that should be a new paragraph.
Overall I see potential in this but I can't say I enjoyed it. The dream sequence was something like the usual eldritch horror stuff which I really like but this time it pushed too much into the nonsense territory over the cool horror territory. Stuff like purple trees, a plastic roller coaster, and a shifting miasma all added to the nightmare feel well but didn't really feel relevant or purposeful. The miasma seemed like it represented something but the story never feels clear about what it's trying to show us. I think you meant for the meaning to come through Dusk, who is indeed interesting, but I still didn't really get the point of any the dialogue with her. What exactly was this story trying to put forth? Perception is not reality? Perception IS reality? We're all puppets of a greater god? Is this part of the Equestria-verse that only you really understand the relevance of? I honestly just didn't get it.
Beyond that, Dawn functions as a protagonist but he's inactive and underdeveloped. This could have definitely been accomplished by simply having Twilight as the main character studying with perhaps Celestia. Then at least we'd have a lead to care about. Starting with an OC you gave yourself the unfair challenge of having to develop him. The story itself was just too clouded already, making who he is and what he's actually worried about beyond me since I was simply occupied trying to figure out what the hell is going on.
It's totally ok to have a character be confused. It's never ok for the audience to be confused.
Overall, I have to say you know how to do your eldritch horror techniques (dat tense change in the presentation), and that made this kinda fun to read, but I don't think it's your best work.
3295557
Well, I wasn't expecting this review from you. Kind makes me happy. really, really happy....
At any rate, most of your issues have been corrected. Some even before I got to reading this review (As is usual of my post-posting clean-up, which you know all about). Matter of fact, I came today to post that very updated doc.
Now, far as your issues go. Some are on purpose, and others are due to my lack of current will to give this piece yet another fix, less I delay all my other work (which is already being delayed due to illness and the desire for some R&R). The piece stars off somewhat dully because the situation is dull. That's the point. Far as the rest goes... well, I get the feeling the message of the piece completely flew over your head. Dawn is underdeveloped for a reason, and Dawn's not really an OC (though, technically Dawn is). I also don't think I ever gave Dawn a set Gender, though I might have. I should double, check.
In truth, your points are valid, but at the same time, it feels as if you missed the entire ending part and the realization of what really took place in the piece. Is this part of the Equestria-verse for my tale? Even I'm not sure. it could be, but at the same time, it could all be chalked up to a crazy dream. The point of the piece is reality, yes, but not in the way you came out of it. There is another message in there. Actually, there are various messages in there.
That's what I mean in my last post by saying I was writing a story with a deeper meaning. Read more carefully, and you'll understand the meaning within the meaning.
Or don't, either way, I'm just happy you read and reviewed (though maybe, I should have had you run this once for your opinion while it was still being built). All in all, I agree fully with one of your final statements: this is indeed not my best work, but that's the point—just writing and getting it out.
3295914
Well cool. I've been doing this mega comments on stories now and again that I felt deserve it. I get mixed reactions but I figured you'd like it and I'm glad I could make your day.
I know not of this pony being developed in the FIM universe.
Yeah. I wrote my review statements that way to have that come across. It is what it is though. It may be convoluted, I may just not have payed attention. Test it with others and if they don't really get the message, then you might have to reconsider. As the artist, you are extremely biased to your own works' subtle hints. In When A Heart Loses It's Shine, I had a lot of hints I threw in to show that Shinning was alive and coming back that I thought were obvious, but at least 70% of people said the twist made no sense. I have to respect the statistic.
*spoilers* I think what happened was that this was a mix of "The Twilight Zone" and "Inception" where the guy in Twilight's dream thinks that he is dreaming and then woke up, but he was actually in Twilight's dream the whole time. The discussion about the Perihelion event was probably alluding to this. The beginning really threw me off, but this is what I got from the story in the end.
3295958 Maybe this will help with your understanding of the story.
Sometimes people just don't get foreshadowing.
BTW, Garnot, this was a really good story; there were a few mistakes, but a little editing can fix that right up.
3352504
You've pretty much got it, save for one fact which I'll leave unsaid to avoid spoilers this early in the story's life.
Thanks for reading and commenting. I'll try to find the errors in the story, though I won't know how many of e'm I'll get by myself.
Well, this is definitely the strangest story I've been assigned since joining WRITE.
But hey, strange or not, you asked for a review and I'm going to give you one. This story has some serious issues, and almost all of them are related to conveying information.
For a writer of fiction, information is a tricky thing. There's a balance to be struck. Be too vague about something, and people won't get it, or they'll fill in the blanks with something else than you intended. Lay it on too thick, and the story becomes very dry and boring. This story has both problems in different places.
Before I go into details, let me remind you that the purpose of a story is to make the reader feel something. Make us feel angry, happy or sad; make us laugh; or just make us curious what's going to happen next. Any other purposes, such as showcasing an interesting idea or preaching a political message, should always come second. I assume you accept that; if you don't, you're better off writing a philosophical thesis than a story.
With that in mind, let's take a look at the first few paragraphs of your story. First we get a lecture about the concept of a perihelion. Then we are informed of Dawn's project and its aims, and the fact that Princess Twilight is also working on it. A little later on, Dawn and Twilight talk about the perihelion - essentially repeating the lecture - and Dawn introduces her bright new idea for the project.
Exposition, exposition, exposition. There's even a literal As You Know moment!
Exposition isn't always a bad thing. Sometimes it's necessary to take a step back and explain some essential fact about the premise, the setting, or a character's background. But those moments should be few and far between, and they should be worked into the flow of the story. Just dropping a bunch of it on our heads like this is rightly called an Infodump.
By contrast, the aspects that make up the meat of any good story - characters and their interactions - are only touched on very briefly. When you do write about your characters, you turn the "Show, Don't Tell" rule upside down:
How are we supposed to empathise with Dawn if we're simply told what her personality is like, rather than figuring it out from her actions and words?
The conversation between Dawn and Twilight about friendship has similar problems (besides coming completely out of nowhere). It's all laid on too thick, spelled out too explicitly. This little speech from Dusk takes the cake, though:
So there is a theme to all this! There is symbolism! That's fine, but those things should be worked into the story itself, not explained to us in a lenghty monologue.
I think that about covers the parts where you tell us too much. There are also parts where you tell us too little.
First of all - this might seem like a silly detail, but you never give us a clue as to Dawn's sex. I read her as a mare for some reason, but when I read other commenters referring to her as "him", I realised there was nothing in the story itself that could tell me this. What she looks like is left completely blank, as well. She's a bodiless cloud of thoughts.
Then there's the "hidden meaning" - what is it, really? What's the big connection between Project Perihelion and Twilight's fears of not having friends? Who's dreaming what, and how many layers of dreams are there? It's anyone's guess.
I know it's not strictly in-story, but this comment makes very clear what the problem is:
If there is anything left to spoil after someone has read your entire story, you're doing something wrong.
There are a few grammar and spelling mistakes, but not many, and most of them seem to be simple typos. The only recurring error I've noticed is tense inconsistency. Dawn's dream (which is a part of Twilight's dream... I guess?) is written in the present tense, but you slip back into the past tense very often.
To sum up: this is an original story. It does its best to be strange and confusing, and it certainly succeeds at that. However, the infodumps, heavy telling, and almost complete lack of characterisation prevent it from being anything else.
Signing off,
MidnightRambler, WRITE's Flying Dutchman
Gotta say I was a little disappointed by the opening. It's like everything you tell someone not to do when introducing an OC. :/ Ending kind of makes up for it, though, at least enough for an upvote. Some interesting ideas at work here, at least.
Well that was... strange. Random it certainly was, but I have difficulty seeing it as anything else.
Your OC Dawn seemed to be there for things to happen to, rather than taking any action his/herself. As a result it was hard to get invested in him/her.
I honestly felt like this story started in the middle, went nowhere and stopped before it explained anything. The fact that it changed from being about prosthetics to dreams, then to friendship problems without reaching any real conclusion about any of them left me lacking any real interest in it. TL:DR, I don't understand what you were trying to say, and that makes this story boring for me.