But, if ErraticOverlord is dead, why the empty grave?
I heard voices in the dining room so I galloped there, tripping over a fallen lamp in the process. As I drew closer the voices became distinct; it was my mother's voice talking to somepony. A stallion? No. He was almost a stallion. The thing my mother was talking to had an undertone to his voice that sounded more like a horrible creature than a pony. I moved closer and I could almost pick out the words:
Cover art by the amazing Sakura.
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Let's look at what the opening paragraph tells me, the reader.
I'll give you points here. Not a bad way to start a story. Not perfect as you're basically thrusting the reader into something they know nothing about. This can work, but you need to know how. Best example is Star Wars Episode 4 and how it started the series.
And now you suddenly shift from world changing events to...college life? Do you see the disconnect here? You can't do that and expect the story to flow. Events and details need to be presented in a way that the reader can ingest and understand them. You've hooked the reader with the first sentences and hit them with a road block in the next one.
So wait, her dad was a construction worker but he helped people? How? Why did he die? This could have also been a good hook if you added more details. As is, it's pointless filler to the reader.
So yeah, your first paragraph is a jumbled mess of ideas for the story you want to write. The rest of the story has little hints of good storytelling squandered by your scrapbook of ideas being thrown at the reader.
Bottom line? I think your story is bad but very salvageable. Here's some advice.
Show don't tell. It's so sad that you've ALMOST got this lesson learned but you use it too infrequently. Best example is:
That's perfect. Now just add about a metric butt load more of that into your story and you'll be golden.
First Person. I'm not the biggest fan of first person, I'll admit that. For the most part, you can make first person work for you but once again it's infrequent. The strengths of first person is that it gives you a very personal perspective on the events. You can describe a characters every emotion in great detail like this:
This story works very well for the first person format. But you've got to get that "show don't tell" for it to be effective. A character telling me things that happen is boring. Describing her feelings clearly to the reader in great detail can make the story very personal.
Your kitchen sink storytelling. This is easy. Slow down! Take a breather. Yes you've got all these ideas floating around. Write them down. Look them over. Think, "how best would this serve the story?" And here's the big thing. You don't have to use everything you think of in the story. We've all thought up stuff we thought was great but really just sucked. Look at everything carefully and think about what impact it has on the story. I think you'll find that your story will be more succinct.
Grammar and Formatting. Yeah I'm not an editor or proofreader. Go get someone else to tell you about all that stuff. Just know that it's not great in your story. You need an editor/proofreader.
And that's it. Hope that helped. Message me if you have questions or if you hate me. Good luck.
4385184 Wowza! This is amazing! You used details, with advice on fixing it to follow, this is great. Thank you. Without someone pointing out flaws I can't grow as a writer. I really appreciate your taking the time to put this up and I'll spend some time when I can in fixing it using the advice you gave.