Terra Firma was a simple earth pony. He never expected to be chosen as the first cartographer of early Equestria, before the monarchy came to be. Comments and Ratings are greatly appreciated. I want to know your honest opinion on my first finished fic. If you like it, say so, if you hate it say so. Tell me the good, the bad, and the ugly. It all helps me improve.
I've decided to make this a standalone story, instead of tagging it as my OC's fic. The story will not change, just Shadow's name and appearance, and some of his backstory.
Chapters (8)
i40.tinypic.com/bjbmvs.png Ok, hi everypony, Stalin here, bringing another installation of Stalinview!
i40.tinypic.com/bjbmvs.png Today we are going to look at alternate universe/crossover story "Shadow Foot's Great Exploration "!
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i40.tinypic.com/2wptjee.png Heh, i already see the main problem with this story. It's nothing more than MASSIVE BLOCK OF TEXT. A piece of advise, autor, dont do these. These shall avert the reader from your story, cuz blocks of text are just too hard to read.
"As a Unicorn born and raised by Earth Pony parents who owned an apple farm and a library"
i40.tinypic.com/bjbmvs.png Apple farm AND a library?
i39.tinypic.com/35bxab6.png It's like owning yacht AND migraine at the same time!
i40.tinypic.com/bjbmvs.png The thing Misha want to say that these things are not fitting together.
"with his magical powers, which felt that they leaned more toward protecting and helping others over such things as combat, or beauty, or other types of magic"
i42.tinypic.com/1r4u8n.png Don't quite get what you wanted to tell here...
“True North”
i39.tinypic.com/35bxab6.png LOL! Is Falce North his brother?
"from the time before time."
i39.tinypic.com/35bxab6.png ....What..? Time before times? Like Land before time with dinosaurs?
"They were incredible warriors, living by a strict code of honor and pride in one’s king"
i40.tinypic.com/bjbmvs.png Samurais had no "king". If you insist on not using word "Shogun", use "Lord" instead
"“Daisho”, which consisted of one short blade, called a Wakizashi, and a longer blade, named a Katana"
i40.tinypic.com/2wptjee.png HOW THE HECK PONY CAN USE DUAL WEAPONS? One blade is understandable, cuz they can hold it with mouth. But DUAL?!
"so he found these weapons extremely difficult to wield as two"
i40.tinypic.com/2wptjee.png It's not "difficult". It's IMPOSSIBLE
"He also practiced wielding by both mouth and magic, which served to strengthen his neck and his magic powers."
i40.tinypic.com/2wptjee.png Neck muscles? Do you really need these?
"and began training with the force"
i40.tinypic.com/2wptjee.png - Luke, i am your father
i39.tinypic.com/35bxab6.png - NIEEEEEEEET!
"By this time, several years had passed, and he and shadow had their “Spirit Marks”"
i39.tinypic.com/35bxab6.png Ok, that makes sense.
"establishing routes that would develop into modern trade and postal routes"
i40.tinypic.com/2wptjee.png Word overuse. Route used twice in sentence, which is not good
i40.tinypic.com/bjbmvs.png Have to disagree with all "tribes" stuff. Heath warming eve hinted that Equestria was unhabited before three tribe leaders came there.
i40.tinypic.com/2wptjee.png Boss, it's tagged as "Alternate Universe"
i40.tinypic.com/bjbmvs.png Oh, right. Ok then
i39.tinypic.com/35bxab6.png Hmmm. There is nothing much to talk about here, except of what we shall tell in overview.
i40.tinypic.com/2wptjee.png Let's fast-forward then
OVERVIEW:
i40.tinypic.com/bjbmvs.png Again, forst thing to mention is that your story consists of a HUGE block of text. It is EXTREMELY hard to read, and man ponies who shall open this story and see it, shall refuse to read. You need to look at other stories and learn how to properly use paragraph.
i40.tinypic.com/bjbmvs.png Okay, now the plot.
i40.tinypic.com/bjbmvs.png Your writing style is strange one. It feels not as a story, but as a recap. like some third person telling us the events of past.
There are almost no real-time moments, but reader can get used to it and like it. But lets say that this style of story telling is not for all.
Your characters are interesting enough, althou some of them have no personalities. Your time and history parallels are understandable, war planning is well done... Althou a little clished.
i40.tinypic.com/bjbmvs.png Stalin recommend you to look at other's stories at Fimfiction more and learn some stuff about pacing and paragraphing
VERDIKT: Not a bad story, but it have a long way to improve
424988
Greatly appreciate the input, fearless leader. Had to get it from somewhere since nobody commented except you. This was kind of rushed over 2-3 nights, and I really have no defense for how bad it is, heheh. But live and learn, right? I'm sure if i actually take my time with my fics they'll come out much better. I really do appreciate the time you took out for this. I had already favorited one of your fics prior to this review, so i'll be eagerly awaiting more chapters from you. This was a bad copy paste from microsoft word. I'll have to go back through and edit it quite a bit. Thank you again.
425063
You're welcome. And try to submit your fic in a better time next time. Week-end is best time to submit.
When I originally uploaded the intial 2 chapters, it was 5am my time (new york state). Not exactly the best window of opportunity
Okay, i have read your story again. You defenetely has improved (some typos has disappeared ect.) But paragraphing is still not very good. Basically what you did is divided one gigantic block of text into smaller, but still heavy. Only advice i can give you is read other stories and pay attention to paragraphing, and then try to mimic what you saw. You know what they say? Live to learn
I am still has so much to learn myself, even with paragraphing. Read. As you reading - you improving. Maybe you even dont know it, but you do. And this story is still cool! Good luck!
533366
thank you for taking the time out once again. I'm using the same paragraphing for other fics. I don't know what else I could change, but I'll be absolutely certain to pay attention to some of the more popular fics on the site and see what I can come up with. I'm trying to alternate between each character's view points. That could be the problem right there.
I will tell as much as I can from carefully reading the first 2 chapters and skim-reading the next (I will read more carefully later). If you don't like the comment, delete it, but this is my opinion.
The Bad: Your fic is really, really fast moving. What you could have done is use less exposition and more events. Eg. You could write about how they met, if they bickered, how did they meet the pegasus brothers? Did they argue over their parting? Of course, that technique would be much more draining, it's a style you might not be used tow writing and will require a hell of a lot more time and would require a massive rewrite. Still, I think the characters would have come out much more dynamic if that technique had been used and it would have given the audiences more time to get to know these characters. One more thing is that I'm rather confused why you decided to tag this fic with 'Alternative Universe', because it's not really a really 'what if situation'...(correct me if I am wrong, but the story can fit into canon history even if you didn't mention the founders of Equestra such as Platinum, Hurricane, Pudding Head, Clover, Pansy and Smart Cookie). Instead I think the story becomes more of a history fic instead of 'Alternative Universe'.
The Good: You've given a lot of backstory to Shadow and North so they are rounded characters with personalities. Also, I love history fics (eg. Paradise and I'm writing one myself, plz read?) and the story works to canon. War in Equestria would have been a great possibility before the Princess's arrived and you explained it pretty well on how it broke out. Your story so far is solid, with a developing plot, actually developed characters and solid grammar (which cannot be said for some fics that exist). It is a fairly good shot for first fimfic. (better than mine which got disliked
)
698759
I know it was kind of rushed, but I was so excited about writing it I kind of got carried away. Time constraints prevent me from doing any really heavy editing to any of my fics. I'll gladly read over your fic since you took the time to not only read, but review mine. I'm not one for reviews, cuz im no real critic, but if i have anything good or bad to say about it i'll be sure to say so. It's tagged as AU because I wasn't sure if I would get any hate for claiming this as part of equestrian history. I wish you best of luck on your fic and i'll be sure to leave a rating.
I have to say this is really good and I have no idea why it only has those few likes but on the bright side no dislikes!
thanks man. it's been a while since somepony commented on this.