Shipping in an assistant librarian from Manehattan to run the Canterlot Archive is an unorthodox move to be sure, but Page Turner, fresh off the train, thinks that maybe it's just a sign that she's moving up in the world. Page is crushed when her duties in charge of the prestigious library turns out to be an endless parade of busywork.
But soon Page finds things are not quite as boring as she thought. She receives odd requests for the rarest spell books, and royal visits almost daily. Just when things seem to be looking up Page finds herself plagued by sleepless night, strange noises seeping from unseen corners, and vivid, frightening dreams.
All alone on her first time away from home, Page slowly puts together the pieces of a frightening truth:
Something is terribly wrong in Canterlot...
I must say, the classy Mare in the Vest enjoys her word play? This feels....old. Like...-sighs- Like one of those mysteries from the old heyday of mystery writing. It might be a bit premature to say that but it just...feels that way. Also I mean that in the best possible way! It feels right.
Looks nice so far. We don't yet have a real hook yet other than your OC protagonist but she's appealing at first blush and I want to see more.
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Thanks!
Indeed I was concerned by the lack of a real hook, but it's sort of an unfortunate symptom of the story structure I'm afraid. It's a bit of a slow burn.
I'm glad you like Page though, since we're going to be hanging out with her for 8/9 of the chapters. She's really interesting to write, since she's an outsider here and the rest of the people are familiar, but we're also on her level, since the other characters know something more than she, and thus we the audience, do. This chapter, as you might have gathered is very much about setting up her and her situation before we get into the meat of things. It actually turned out a lot more comedic than I expected too. (I don't consider this to be a really comedic story, but I mean leave me alone with a keyboard for too long...
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*Madly searches story for word play and other clever turns of phrase*
*Can't seem to remember writing any*
*Puts rug over it*
AH
YES
INDEED.
I DO ENJOY MY WORD PLAY.
4478656 I meant more of the fact that you manage to make it seem you pick your words very carefully. I don't know why but you do. -smiles and shakes head- I'm enjoying it though. I find the Book titles cute.
Something of a 'training day' for Page Turner. Poor thing!
Despite the lack of a serious hook, yet (as Skywriter said), this does look like it has a lot of promise. I'm looking forward to seeing more.
I keep complaining that half the genres are not accomodated by the tags and half the tags aren't even real genres.
Anyway, this chapter, as an intro, does not make me not want to read the story but it also actually encourages me to read less than the description does.
I'll keep this in Read Later for now since I do have enthusiasm for what the description and character tags promise, but I am kind of disappointed by the lack of content here.
You had me at "Librarian."
Seriously though, so far you've given out a sense of Page Turner, what makes her tick; aspirations, fears, small grudges nursed over a great deal of time. The mirror trick was a nice way to show an imaginative mind that tends just the tiniest bit towards the theatrical, and a neat literary flourish to boot. I look forward to seeing our new Head Page (temporary) solve a mystery.
But seriously though, you had me at "Librarian."
4479543 I am sorry you feel this way, though not, in retrospect terribly surprised. The story is structured to have a series of one-scene chapters and, well, this is one scene. We have basically covered the first paragraph of the description. (One of the reasons that I had such trouble tagging this story was that while there is definitely a mystery that develops, the initial chapters will come off as almost slice of life.) That said, thank you so much for sticking with it, I hope that it will eventually live up to your expectations. Though perhaps not in the way you expect.
Arcainum recommended you, and there's Mystery and Adventure to be had. I'm favoriting.
This is the third story I've found that shares a name with my OC!
A library-based mystery? Colour me intrigued. I don't see enough mystery stories around here.
Forgive the impertinence of asking, but what kind of update schedule are expecting to maintain? I'm looking forward to the continuation.
One teensy grammar nit-pick (because I can't help myself):
The first comma is missing and definitely required; the second comma replaces the period, as the dialogue is split into two sentences.
4482291 I am hoping to update once a week, since the remainder of the chapters will be as long as they are, and I don't have to worry about making them longer/shorter. This is a lot of finger crossing, but I am optimistic that I'll be able to handle some sort of update at that pace.
That or Fed will kill me.
All of my this
it should be a simple system, but it doesn't leave a whole lot of room for improvisation does it?
A bit on the short side so far, but looks promising! Someone down in the comments said it feels "old", and I have to agree – the style seems straight out of a 19th century novel, but still with modern sensibilities. Let's see where you take it from here.
The brutalized remains of our first victim!
Welp, I'm hooked. Is this set before the start of the series? If so, I'm curious how that will tie into the plot.
Also, ponies being accidentally racist against Spike is reliably amusing. Maybe because he's so nonthreatening, so the usual "Oh no that dragon is going to burn everything" response is particularly wrong.
4521003 Oh Sir! My Game is plain! This story is a tale of a most brutal and fearsome Serial Killer! Spike is rushing potential victims into protective custody.
4521756 But surely this is part of the Killer's nefarious plan! Now he doesn't have to search for them; he knows exactly where they are! Oh those poor, poor books...
Except for the scrap. That was probably just the reveal page from one of Rarity's romance novels. They all end the same anyway! Or, so I've heard...
I'm feeling the urge to point out some grammatical errors I hit while rereading, but I know it's obnoxious to get a note that's just typos and grammar fixes. So I'm going to include some overall thoughts too, like a good friend, but put them all the way at the end of the post, like a jerk.
First--spaces. You are quite inconsistent about single vs. double spacing after a full stop, though it may partly be a side-effect of
dyingyour tendency to punctuate dialogue tags with periods instead of commas when you aren't paying attention. At any rate, it's a bit hard to spot on fimfic because this site justifies text, but it is there and maybe worth a fix. You could find replace all the double spaces with single spaces if you wanted to get rid of them easily, as opposed to making the single spaces double.This paragraph is (still? or newly?) missing an indent.
Would incline towards putting the ellipsis after "it's" instead of "guess" as that's how I would say this, but up to you. It does need a space afterwards, though.
First, let me just say that I find it CRIMINAL that Page has never read How To Address Your Dragon. You're supposed to be a librarian, Page. Shape up.
On a serious note, the ellipsis feels weird and kind of forced in there as too much of a "THIS IS A PLACE WHERE SHE PAUSED." Could replace with just a "but," maybe?
If you feel like fixing a construction the "[does x], then [y]" constructions are repetitive. Anyway "then suddenly looks quite silly" doesn't... quite register to me as an action, and I think is actually wrong as a "linking" dialogue tag (it starts as a tag, then becomes an action, but because you start with a tag the "then suddenly" leads you to expect a further tag, like "then suddenly bursts out"). "Gets halfway into a salute before he stops himself, a goofy look on his face" is an alternate rendering of what I think you mean to say here, but I'm not really sure. Anyway I might at least throw a period after "silly" in place of the comma for grammar reasons.
So, things that I can say about this that don't involve all the spoilers I know:
- Page is kind of a dork and I like her.
- While I retain my feelings about the suggestions that you didn't take, I think your choice of fixes was smart and improved the sense of Page's voice considerably, as well as the overall flow.
- I also retain my feelings of knowing what happens but wanting to know what happens to get there, so you've managed to create suspense for me out of lack of suspense. Which is a good thing.
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Oh my! I'm lured here with the promise of a humble Mystery, and instead find a sordid, true-to-life tale of murder most 'orrid, as ripped from the headlines of the more sensational broadsheets. Replete with spilt ink, cracked spines, dislocated joints, and even removed appendices, no less! I'm betting that before we know it, our Heroine will be diving beneath the covers and sliding between the sheets in her efforts to uncover the truth.
And a serial killer you say? The additional volumes must protected before this nefarious villain strikes again!
I've head-canon'ed this pony as an ancestor of Trixie; after all, he was known to be Great, et Al.
Is Twi trying to resurrect the dead? Bit of necromancy for a hobby?
Repetition here.
You accidentally a word here.
Interesting chapter. I want to know what this weird thing going on with Spike ends up being. Also, that whole thing about the keystone.
Something you may want to consider: putting a character's name in the title of a chapter implies that the chapter is from the character's perspective, especially since that's how the first chapter happened tfo work.
Her job is so boring her mind developed psychic powers to pass the time. Just like Maretilda!
1:
Changeling.
2:
Parchment is made from animal skin. There is such a thing as vegetable parchment paper, but it's the waxy paper you see used as baking sheets and occasionally as a substitute for actual parchment for legal docs.
Missing end punctuation.
4617859 Thanks for your concern. However I have decided to ignore the advice, since ultimately I have a reasonable logic for the chapter titles in the story. Each one refers to the day of the week on which the event occurs and who the chapter is about (rather than the point of view). Since the first chapter is something of a prologue--it introduced Page Turner and gave us no other characters--it is named after her. All subsequent chapters, save the epilogue are named after the character Page interacts with in that chapter whose requests and demeanor will give us more clues as to what is happening. This will become more clear once I post the next chapter and the pattern can be established.
Interesting! I'll definitely be keeping an eye on this! It's an interesting premise, and I'm intrigued by the idea of her piecing the needs of her patrons together through their book choices.
Please keep writing, I'll keep reading!