Being of Two Minds

by cosmofur

Just a tale of a small town pony.

Coltsdale City was not a real city, it barely qualified as a small town. It only had about fifty families, half being descendents of the original unicorn family herd that had founded the town, and the other half being the descendants of wandering vagabonds that had settled in and around the area. Other than the handful of shopkeepers who ran their businesses out of their front parlors or barns, there was only one public building in the whole town. It served as town hall, post office, general store and when the Mayor felt like it, a casual salt bar.

Yet despite being small, the town had a rich tradition and some real wealth. It never grew big enough to justify a full time weather team but they were lucky enough to be on the weather corridor the pegasi used between Manehatten and Fillydelpha, which means they could count on the dregs of left over clouds and sunshine, but only after the two larger cities had been served. This irregular weather proved to be a blessing, competition made surrounding forest grow in more wild ways as the trees had to fight for light and rain, at least compared to the wood from more placid and regular tended forests.

Hardwoods cut from the forests around Coltsdale, has exiotic grain patterns and unusual character in their bent and twisted branches. Most of the craftsponies in the town worked on making hoofmade decorative wood panels, curio cabinets, music boxes and other small wooden trinkets, frequently with minor unicorn magic enchantments to enhance their function. Merchant ponies from as far away as Baltermare and Los Pegasus would pay high prices and pull heavy carts over dirt roads for days to acquire Coltsdale’s finests.

Red Wood was a unicorn, that had lived his entire line in Coltsdale, gone to school in its one room school house, and learned to carve wood under the hooves of his parents guidance. Coltdale was small and isolated town, but Red Wood didn’t have many reasons to complain, he loved the woods with its less than perfect weather and complex textured feel. He fell in love both with the forest, and in the forest. For here he found his soulmate, a fellow unicorn named Gentle Breeze. Red Wood had always known Gentle Breeze, as the filly next door. In the shade of the twisted trees they played as colt and filly. First tag and hide and seek which over time grew into more intimate, if still innocent games.

Red Wood was not a very worldly or well traveled pony, not that he was a completly unschooled, having gotten a two year degree for magical engineering from the University of Fillydelphia. That stint at school had been the longest time away from Coltsdale, and pretty much the beginning and the end of his world travels.

Soon after Red Wood got his degree, he opened his own music box workshop, something he had always wanted to do since he got his cutimark, which was of a silver windup key set in a yellow circle to contrast with his gray coat and red mane. Once he started making enough bits to support himself, to absolutely noponies surprise, Red Wood asked for Gentle Breeze’s in hoof in marriage.

They along with two thirds of the Coltsdale’s residents, in a classic barn raising, setup a small one room house, along the edge of town against the forest. Nominally it was to make it easier for Red Wood to gather wood for his hoofcrafted music boxes, but it also gave the new couple a little more privacy which, small towns being what they were, was a valuable commodity. The next three and a half years flew by, easily the best years of their lives. Red Wood’s reputation and skill with music boxes and other windup toys grew, and steady orders kept filled a remote city bank account with bits, but they hardly ever withdrew money from it, having few needs.

Then around the midpoint of their third year of marriage, the town buzzed with rumors. For three months Gentle Breeze kept her secret, but then Doctor Kind Buck came back from a trip to the city with lab results. News of the results triggered a town wide party. (No, no pink ponies showed up at this party, but rumor says that a certain baker assistant many miles away suddenly gave a hoofs up and wink to the fourth wall when the Coltsdale baby shower was at its peak.)

With Gentle Breeze’s assent, Red Wood used his formidable wood craft skills to add a new extension to their small home. No cheap machine saw milled boards or mail order door knobs, he hand crafted each stick beam and wall panel himself. Because this was for Gentle Breeze’s and his nursery, she was pregnant with foal and nothing but the best would be good enough.

It was such a wonderful time for them, so of course tragedy had to find them, as if all good times had to be balanced out on some invisible tally board with evil ones.

Gentle Breeze was nearing her due date, but insisted that Red Wood go to work, she jokingly told him that he was more trouble than help and was getting under her hoofs besides she still had at least two more weeks to go. It was a major mistake, because sometime soon after Red Wood left to hunt the woods for exiotic branches, Gentle Breeze’s water broke and something went terribly terribly wrong.

That afternoon Red Wood came back to his loving home, to find a nightmare.

His next door neighbor, was crying uncontrollably unable to put words to what she had found, handed Red Wood a newborn colt, only hours old. He took the child into numb hoofs, because there was red iron smelling liquid everywhere. Blood on the floor, on the ground, in a trail that led into the woods, and Gentle Breeze was nowhere. They didn't even have a body to bury. Red Wood became a father and a widower on the same hour.

Author's Note:

Just a start, I'm looking for some pre-readers to help with the grammar and spotting plot errors. The long description contains some spoilers. I have a few more chapters ready, but I'll post them next week, hopefully I'll get pre reader or two to help before then.

Comments

[Warren Peace]

You qualify for a Warren Peace review. Prepare yourself...

[Warren Peace]

Being of two Two minds Minds

Capitalize your title, that's the second thing that a person sees when they look at your story. If it's not properly written then you're already letting people down.

And speaking of things that people see, your cover art is the first. When it comes to cover art, never use a ponycreator image. No one likes them as they're uncreative and lazily easy to make. Either go without or if you aren't the artsy fartsy type, there's a group that can help you out: Art for Fanfiction.

[Your description]

Shorten it WAY down, dude. The description should be a short summary of what the story's going to be about, not a massive wall of text telling us everything from A to Z. For example:

Red Wood, a widower, lives a quiet life in Coltsdale with his son. When he learns that his wife's death was caused by a messed-up prophecy, he seeks out answers [or whatever] with the help of an odd, monkey-like creature.

Short, simple, and without all that other bullshit that belongs in the story. If you choose not to go down this path, then there's some errors in the description that need to be fixed. MS Word should do the trick.

Now, onto the story...

Hardwoods cut from the forests around Coltsdale, has had exiotic grain

Don't change tense right in the middle of nowhere like this. You were writing in past tense before, so don't just make the random change like this. Additionally, it's about this time that I'm starting to tire of the relentless amount of telling vs. showing going on. Certainly you're creating a new town and that needs to be explained, but try to do it in a more interesting way. Do it through things like dialogue and spread it out as the story progresses instead of just dropping it all on us now.

(No, no pink ponies showed up at this party, but rumor says that a certain baker assistant many miles away suddenly gave a hoofs up and wink to the fourth wall when the Coltsdale baby shower was at its peak.)

Pinkie breaking the fourth wall stopped being clever ages ago. It adds nothing to the story so remove it.

Red Wood became a father and a widower on the same hour.

As is, all this stuff is written in a very telling manner. Instead, take a step back and bring us into the moment, show us this stuff as it progresses in the story, not in an overly-telling way like here. This has great potential for an interesting story, it's just been poorly executed.

Author's Note:
Just a start, I'm looking for some pre-readers

Here:
~Editors
~Proofreaders

So yeah.

Interesting idea, poorly executed. Shorten the description, get a new image (or go without because anything's better than a ponycreator image), get some good editors, put the story on password only, fix it, and open it back up to the public. Do this and you'll end up with a far better story.

Questions or concerns? PM me. Otherwise good luck and farewell...
/)

[cosmofur]

3334282
Thanks, though if you know any pre readers who have the time, please forward them to me. Until I have some, I'll just mould along best I can.

[Warren Peace]

3336407 I gave you two links, go to one of those groups and get one. It's easy, just read the group description to see what you need to do.