Without the Elements of Harmony, Ponyville and Equestria finds itself in its Darkest Hour, its up to our Heroes to survive if they have any hope of rescuing the citizens of Equestria from the Dark Forces long forgotten and left in hiding!
Drama, Action/Adventure, War
Rating may increase depending on progress of story.
Notice: Contains spoilers from Season 3 and Episodes 1-3 from Series 4.
Due to your helpful feedback on this story, I will be rewriting chapter 1 when I get a chance, and I promise that chapter 2 will be everything your looking for.
- RR.
Chapters (1)
If you don't like my story, please, please just don't thumb it down for the sake of it, tell me why you didn't like it so I can make myself a better writer.
I will give you my honest impression of your work. There is no berating, nor pandering to the masses. (I do understand British English; I am Canadian, after all.) I will not like, or dislike, as it would make me partial.
To be perfectly honest, your story needs work, Retro. The chapter... feels rushed. First thing to work on is your pacing. Space everything out. You pretty much don't give us a lot about the background of Sirus Star at the start. Now, I know you're probably saying, "I explained him throughout the chapter!" While that is barely acceptable for many stories, you give barely enough explanation throughout the chapter. Maybe you wanted to make him more mysterious, sure. Try that. Maybe make him a decorated war hero. What this seems like is a sort of an attempt at a self insert. (I should know, I am writing a self insert described as a shameless self insert.) I'm not going to go on and on, saying that "You should write like me," even though you use some of the same grammar structure I do.
The Protagonist Pitfall, as I like to call it, is where the character seems to be, well, flat. While pacing is easy to fix, the Pitfall is where most Protagonists fall. I do realize that Sirus Star is an Original Character. I have 565 OCs spanning various universes, some of which I've made myself. (I've been making characters for a long while. It took me a couple of days to count them all.) What you have to do is make your Protagonist someone that either you want people to hate, or people to like. Make them well-rounded.
Three Pitfalls to watch out for:
1. Character is too flat.
2. Character is described as Gary/Mary Stu/Sue.
3. Character is well-rounded, but never changes. The Robot Protagonist (Only good if you are trying to write a robot.)
I hope this gave you some help. I'm not an editor, nor a reviewer, but I will give advice whenever I can.
Thank you for your comments Ancheron, the reason Sirus seems flat in this episode is because the ponies are just meeting him, I figured that his charecter would be revealed more as the story progresses and the charecters get to know him, as for pacing that is something I struggle with, and I will try to correct it as best i can in Chapter 2.
I didn't want to write his whole life story in one chapter since the story isn't just about him, but about the ponies around him getting to know him.
Thanks a lot for your comments, and I hope that you will enjoy my later chapters more than this one.
Sirus is infact a decorated war hero, but he doesn't like bragging about it. The ponies will come to know him better as the story continues.
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You'll want to work on dialogue as well, along with some points of grammar. I still have not fully figured out the story-quote thing, so I cannot give specific examples.
Partially, what I meant by flat is that he seems sort of... well, emotionless. While characterization is hard, here's a tip: Create a document for the character. Write out the main details: Name, Age, Race, Physical Description, Backstory, and Personality. Once you have those in front of you, try to imagine yourself as the character. ( I find it useful. Don't know if you will.) Then imagine a situation you want to create.
Three Questions for that situation:
1. Who else is involved?
2. Where are they?
3. How will the players react? (Players is referring to actors in a play. Think of that for a situation.)
That's pretty much the best way to go about making sure your story has realistic reactions, for the most part. If your story was comedy, you would want occasional over-the-top reactions.
Now, the last thing I wanted to mention? The tags say this story is DARK. Have a character remembering a past battle, every image playing out in their minds. A grizzled war veteran? Maybe he has PTSD, and sometimes slips into a past battle, never forgetting, and barely sleeping at night because he sees every death in his dreams, horrific nightmares that will never leave him no matter how much help he has. Just a thought. (PTSD is a horrible condition, but it can work along with Dark settings. First, though. If a character is supposed to have a mental disorder, do research.
1. Symptoms?
2. Mannerisms?
3. Speech Patterns?
Everything's in 3's because I can condense it down into a set of three points.
Hey, I see potential in this and you as a writer, but there are a few things that really need addressing.
I won't write a huge paragraph about it (mainly since I'm not too good with big critiques), but the pacing is a little too quick for comfort. You don't give us a whole lot of time to get used to things before you zip into something else. Take some time to flesh it out a bit and add more detail. What's going on around Sirius and the others? What do they see? Why is that? Stuff like that. Even a little more detail will get you a long way.
Now, as for Sirius himself? He's pretty bland, to be honest. You haven't given us much reason to like him as a character because of a lack of physical description and descriptive emotions. He just seems to be a blank slate with a monotonous attitude and speech pattern. Try adding more emotion into him, maybe explain a bit what he's like, why he is the way he is. Tell us how he's feeling as he speaks and moves.
Last, but definitely not least (and often the most annoying part for any author): the grammar, spelling, and tenses. I noticed a few grammar mistakes (such as your where you're is supposed to be, as an example). I noticed once or twice you switched from past tense to present tense, and that can confuse and throw off a reader.
Also, I noticed both at the beginning and end of the story your left alignment seemed to have derped.
That's pretty much all I have to say. As I said, I do see potential in this story and you as a writer, and I think you can be successful, so long as you keep Acheron's and my comments in mind and apply what they say
EDIT: Wow, so much for no paragraphs. I still did it