Since the earliest days, ponies have foolishly believed that the natural order of their world would never change. That there would always be magic for them to use. That the princesses would rule Equestria for all eternity. That nothing could change their happy and ordered lives.
They were wrong. An event, known as The Shift, caused the world's magic to weaken, and the days of Equestria's glory came to an end.
Now, many years after the cataclysm, the world is still broken. But there is hope. Some vestiges of magic still linger in the world...
30/12/2011: First chapters have been rewritten/heavily modified.
Chapters (3)
Excellent read. Can't to find out what happens next chapter.
If only i'd been a beta-reader, I would've known this genius before. Great story though.
Here's my review for you: This story prompted me to register an account here and make my first comment. A rather eerie beginning to an interesting premise, and so much more coherent than most of the stories I've looked at today. Curious to read more.
Mm. What kind, and how detailed of a review would you like? There are a few things that I spotted here, but I don't know whether you'd prefer just a concept check or nitpicking or tough love or what. Do you only publish to FIMFiction, or do you work within gdocs for your drafts? A lot of us use gdocs so we can do in-line peer reviews. Much, much easier than copy+pasting from non-gdocs, but still doable if need be.
I was just thinking: "If all of the worlds magic suddenly vanishes, the pegasi would drop from the sky, the are flying through magic."
And then THUMP. The first one drops.
Like it so far. Personally I would introduce a main character in the first scene, even if it is only a prologue, so the audience gets more involved.
Continuing with first chapter.
Mm. I'll go for broader review commentary for this.
Language: I know English isn't your first language, but while the sentence structure overall is pretty okay, you've got a lot of odd word choices and flow. There's pretty much nothing you can directly do about that, as fixing that is a matter of absorbing the literature of the language to understand what seems like a strange term or phrase to use. If you'd like to improve on this point, make sure you're reading good books and not just fanfiction. Since your profile says you're into Sci-Fi, I recommend: Dune by Frank Herbert, Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card, Armor by John Steakley, The Mote in God's Eye by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams. All of them are excellent, though the problem with Dune is that absorbing the language he uses might not be all that beneficial.
Concept: Your story has a neat concept, and it's definitely drawn my interest. The way you go about introducing it is a bit lengthier than it needs to be, but the pegasi pancaking really helps drive the point home.
Characterization: Obviously slim comments for this, as you've only got the one named character. I immediately have to wonder how much Golden Barley matters to the story. It'll be fine if he somehow ties in within the first chapter, but since no other characters are introduced, the focus is on him, since he's the only one given the special attention of a name, cutie mark, and other descriptive attributes.
Flow: Jarring. Very, very jarring. You jump directly from a particular day into a brief period describing Equestria's enemies, and then do the same for an open-ended aftermath period where Luna's Domain and Terra are introduced. Everything after the initial day effectively reads like a synopsis and not a prologue. I'd suggest sticking with either the particular day, or a zoomed out explanation of what happened over the time period, rather than try to combine both.
Final thoughts: It's not painful to read, but there's a lot of work to be done. For instance: the massive section for Author's Notes is pretty unwieldy. I'm not much of a dedicated reviewer, so I'll point you to PonyChan's /fic board. If you're not used to -chan style boards, it can take a little getting used to, but there are lots and lots of reviewers there willing to help folks out. If you're like me and don't want to pick a particular reviewer to pester, find the thread called "The Training Ground" and follow the instructions to post your stuff there. Someone will eventually pick it up, especially if you only submit a chapter at a time and wait until your review comes back to submit another. It can take a while for them to work through your stuff in this way, but it would probably be worth it in the end, even though you've got this on EQD already.
The prologue was awesome! though, i seriously dont like horrific pony fan fics personally
I say it OK. It caught my interest a little. I think I read a little more of your story now.
I saw this on Ponychan. I have to give you a lot of points for boldness as well as imagination. However, I also have to say something kind of cruel. If I was reading this cold (w/o a synopsis), I would have just stopped reading pretty quickly. You have a full ten paragraphs of dull, bland exposition in the beginning of the story. I was expecting this to begin with something abrupt, with some piece of fun action. This wasn't that at all.
As well, I see a lot of passive voice language. There's "was", "were", "is", and so on everywhere. I would rewrite this to make it much more personal. Emphasize Barley's emotions. Besides, you have the f**king sun vanishing! That's a stroke of literary genius, and you should underline it.
I would begin with something like:
[Golden Barley threw himself out of bed, clutching his hooves against his head in pain. The deafening roar, deeper than any crack of thunder, burst out overhead. He winced, knowing that it could be heard even by the deaf and the dead. He threw himself against the window, glaring straight up.
The sky had turned jet black. The sun had disappeared, an all-encompassing shadow veiling everything. It looked as if night had suddenly come. Barley squinted. "No stars? It can't be a thunderstorm," he moaned. He couldn't see any lighting bolts anywhere, either. The sound, now pulsing with an eerie tone, seemed to come from nowhere. ]
You see what I mean? You have a bunch of really, really cool ideas. You just need to write them in an active, personalized, and character-driven way. I hope you keep going on this! Keep writing!
Finally an updated Chapter!!!!!!
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And the award for the most patient person on FiMFic goes to...
crap i'm scared to read this story in case it goes on hiatus again
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And the award goes to every one of you!
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Well, that's a risk that you're going to take, or not. From my side, I'll try to do my best this time.
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Patience paid off, didn't it?
Wow, I had assumed you abandoned this a long time ago, definitely surprised to see something happen with it again.
Hmm, seems like you've made some more changes again, too, but it's hard to remember exactly what's the same and what's different from before.
Finally I was able to read this chapter.
Looking forward reading the next one.