"What do you mean, 'I'm sorry'?! Sorry doesn't cut it!"
That's my mother shouting at me.
I am sat in the family living room. It is nicely decorated and brightly colored with photos on the walls of my family creating a very enjoyable atmosphere... Most of the time, but today the atmosphere was anything but enjoyable.
I was sat on a dinner chair with my head in my hands, My mother sat opposite me, waving a bill about in her hand. My father was sat in an armchair next to the door. I couldn't see him with my head in my hands, but I was sure he was giving me one of those looks... One that said 'I am very disappointed in you'.
I understood our family was having a bad time with money recently but still, No need to be shouting so much! It was only £1,000... Oh wait, That was before the limited edition Halo set, And the Battlestar Galactica credits... Maybe it reached £2,000...
It doesn't matter now. All that matters now is that the money is gone and I'm in deep trouble.
"Without that money we can't pay the mortgage." my mother angrily stated, still waving the bill around in her hand. "What are we supposed to do now? We have to make the money somehow, Let's start by selling your computer. That'll stop you from stealing more money!"
I took my head out of my hands to look at my glaring mother. "It wasn't stealing. You said I could buy those points" I whispered just loud enough that my mother could hear me.
Somehow her her eyes seemed to set on fire. She almost screamed at me "I said you could buy £10! If you can't tell the difference between £10 and £2,000 then you need to go back to school!" - I decided to put my head back in my hands to avoid her glare - "Maybe you should get a job! See how hard it is to earn money! Your father and I worked hard for that money!"
My father took this moment to say "Calm down. The money is gone now, there is nothing we can do about it now."
I lifted my head once more to look at my father. He didn't look at me. At that moment my stomach crunched and I was left feeling sick and light headed.
I thought to myself My own father can't bear to look at his son. I've messed up. My family is the only thing I have left. was the only thing I had left. I can't even find refuge in my computer. Look at me, My family hates me and I'm thinking about my computer. I don't deserve such a loving family
My mother's voice changed from angry to disappointed as she said "Maybe it's best if you went to your room"
I nodded my head and walked out of the room. I walked up the stairs and noticed my sister's door was open. I wonder what she thinks of it. Does she hate me aswell? I thought to myself.
I decided to go talk to her. I opened her door and saw she was laid on her bed, Reading a book. She looked at me, her face immediately darkened. Damn it! She does hate me
"Get out"
I looked at her with pleading eyes. I asked "Can I talk to you for a while?"
She replied replied with a bit of anger in her voice "No. Get out"
I looked down and said "Please. I -"
Her voice voice cut me off, Sounding angrier than I had ever heard her before "Get out!"
I did as she said, I closed the door behind me and sighed. My family really do hate me. I didn't expect my sister of all people to shout at me.
I walked to the end of the corridor to my bedroom. It was dark, the posters in my room barely visible. I walked over to my bed and laid down. I closed my eyes, Happy to finally have this day end. This is just a bad day. It'll all be better tomorrow, I hope. I've never seen my family this angry before, they always gave me anything I wanted even with money tight. They supported me after that fire alarm at school - I shivered, My feet were still cold from standing in the snow for an hour in my school uniform while the teachers did registers and checked the building for signs of a fire - Maybe my friends will forgive me tomorrow as well. They haven't talked to me at all this week...
My life has gone from bad to worse
I just wish I could be somewhere else right now
I drifted into sleep, remembering the faces of my family. Their angry faces, Their disappointed faces.
I opened my eyes.
I wasn't in my bedroom.
I was standing in my classroom.
How did I get here? The last thing I remember is falling asleep and- I smiled to myself. -And this must be a dream. Huh, seems pretty real to me... I shook my head as my family walked in. All of them looked angry, Even my father, My teacher stood behind them. All four of them glared at me.
"-And I'm sure you will be paying for the damaged fire alarm and the inconvenience of the school staff-" My teacher said without taking his eyes off of me "-Aswell as the £250 fine for misuse of the fire alarm"
My stomach dropped. There's a fine?! My parent's will kill me!
At that moment all of my friends walked into the room. All of them were smiling. It wasn't a nice smile though, It was an evil smile. It was a smile that said 'Were all going to enjoy this. You won't.'
I gulped.
All of my friends started running at me, The dream seemed to do in slow motion as I looked at my family and the teacher. They were looking at me, Still looking angry but with a hint of a smile.
This isn't a dream! This is a nightmare!
I screamed. I turned and ran towards the fire exit. The irony of running out of a fire exit to avoid people who were mad because of a fire alarm was not lost on me, I was just too busy screaming to laugh at the moment.
I ran through the school grounds, It was night and hard to see. I took a moment to ask myself why I was in school in the middle of the night but the thought quickly left my mind as I could hear shouting behind me. I looked behind me to see my full class, Not just my friends but some well known football players. They were going to kill me, literally.
I saw something move out of the corner of my eye. All of a sudden the shouting stopped. I turned around to see, Not a crowd of angry students but a large dark blue horse with a wavy mane that resembled the stars I could see behind it's head, In the night sky.
I squinted. Not a horse, A unicorn. Me and my mind. What now? I get speared by an angry unicorn? Sure why not, Saves my friends and family the pain of killing me I get ready to run again when the horse opened it's mouth and said "Hello!" in a loud voice.
I was shocked. A talking unicorn. An angry talking unicorn. I guess my dreams hate me as well. My eyes were bulging out of my sockets as I fell onto my back, my eyes still locked onto this talking unicorn.
It seems to notice my fear of it and says again in a softer voice "Hello,"
My eyes don't leave the unicorn as I reply "Hi."
It stares back at me and asks "What is your name?" in the same soft voice. All of a sudden I don't want to run from this unicorn. I was more curious that afraid. Maybe I can get a new friend? Yeah a new friend in my dreams. I'll wake up in the morning and I'll be back to the angry stares of my family "Umm... Bob..."
The unicorn looks at me and her face changes... It's smiling. I'm slightly unnerved by it's smile. It isn't an evil smile. It's a happy smile. It opens it's mouth again and happily says "Hello 'Bob'. My name is Luna." Huh. Strange name. Strange for a talking unicorn, I think not. it continues to say "- And I'm here to give you a new chance at life!"
I blink a few times, Still in shock from meeting this 'Luna'. Heh, A talking unicorn feels sorry for me. My life must be worse than I thought.
"Well?" Luna asks, it's smile fading slightly "I would have thought you would have accepted my offer already."
"What do you mean 'a new chance at life'?" I ask uncertainly. Its smile fades till it is but a ghost of it's former state.
The unicorn tilts its head slightly and says "I wan't you to come and live with me. Don't you want to? Don't you want to live in a land full of magic and friendship?"
I take a moment to notice that Luna's voice is feminine.
...live in a land full of magic and friendship.. Unicorn, Magic, Sure. Friendship? Not too hard to believe. It sounds nice. If this wasn't a dream I would go... Actually, This IS a dream so if I say yes what's the worst that can happen? I see that the Luna is no longer smiling and is looking somewhat disappointed. I remember the disappointed face of my father.
"Sure, I'll come and live with you." Luna's face lights up in a huge grin as she spreads her wings and flaps them until she's a few meters off the ground.
Wait, WINGS?! That is not a unicorn!
What have I gotten myself into?
4450756 Thanks! Think I should continue?
4450768 Thanks for the support! The romance tag is there for a reason!
this pleases me. continue as planned. please
Fuck, where do I begin?
So this little punk-ass shit steals his financially-strained parents' money for video games, has a self-gratifying whino moment about it like the whipped bitch that he is when he's rightfully tossed out of his soon-to-be-foreclosed house, and then gets to go to Equestria because...
4.bp.blogspot.com/-zqhUSLtm6eg/ULQH3_CWJ4I/AAAAAAAAAlM/s_XtZmw5VC0/s1600/Shrug.png
Not only that, you explain to the audience how the settings are supposed to make them feel, you beat the painfully obvious into our heads, and the story is rife with literacy errors.
Have to say, not off to a terribly good start.
Well, I read up and as I guessed this story is leaking in quite a few places. I will stay as constructive as possible with this criticism, but I hope you will in turn listen to someone trying to give you a little free advice I learned the hard way.
Ok, first there is the grammar. When the title of your story wasn't even properly capitalized, I had a feeling this would be a problem. Your very first sentence isn't even properly formatted. As you have it it reads:
No, I will give you that at least the spelling is correct, because
nothingfew things tick me off as a reader more than a writer who does not even care enough to write in actual English rather than text lingo. That said, there are punctuation errors, such as a missing space, missing capitalization, and a missing period. Corrected, it looks like this:I know those seem like small changes, but they are important. at least forty percent of the fics I give up on within the first chapter I drop because the grammar is botched. You also seem to have a problem with run-on sentences and past vs. present tense later on. I'd suggest asking for help from an editor, and by all means, don't let pride get in the way. Even great writers get a helping hand from one, if not several, editors.
Now that I've gotten the issue with the grammar out of the way, let's talk about the content itself. Not trying to crap all over your fic, but the premise of this story is insanely dull. I have seen this exact story, point for point, told in at least a few dozen other fics, and more often than not, they failed to spice it up also.
One of the inherent problems is your main character. The truth is, he's just plain and unlikable. For one thing, this character is either a total idiot in the literal sense that he lacks basic, third grade logic, or he is a completely selfish asshole. I mean, this guy actively acknowledged that his family was hurting for money and needed to pay the mortgage, and yet he spent two thousand pounds on video games!
I have a feeling you were going for the loveably irresponsible protagonist vibe here, but it falls flat. A loveably clueless mistake would be something more like accidentally forgetting to pick up eggs on the way home for a birthday cake for a younger sibling. But this guy knew he was doing the wrong thing and did it anyway, not to mention there is no way to accidentally spend two thousand pounds on video games.
This is a big problem as a story teller because if your main character is not likeable in some fashion, then the audience has no one that they care about enough to root for. Thus a story that was already riding cliche harder than a rented mule into the point of dullness is made a slog to get through.
Then we get the worst part of this excerpt: Luna just straight up invites him to Equestria. Now, dude, I am not trying to insult you personally, but certainly there has to have been a more unique and logical idea in your head than this. It is an immensely lazy way to introduce the main character and Luna (whom I really hope you don't ship him with given how much your story is already in the cliche zone). I mean she literally just asks him to live in Equestria? Why? Why him? He doesn't have anything memorable about him save for the fact that he was stupid enough to pay for two thousand pounds worth of video games with money for the mortgage. On top of that, why is she inviting anyone from our world into Equestria? I'd say it's not very wise to invite creatures from a foreign world to enter yours when you know nothing about them.
Wrapping up with this little mini review, I will warn you that this is about to get very blunt very fast. This is bad. This story is really bad. But the largest problem is that it isn't even bad in a memorable way. I mean, at least some things are so bad that they are fun to watch utterly flame out, like Birdemic and The Room. But this is so bland and lacking any sense of uniqueness that it feels more like a list of bad HiE cliches than a story. Antisocial/irresponsible unlikeable protagonist with little memorable character traits? Check. Everyone around him hates him including his own family in an unrealistic way? Check. Wakes up in Equestria and/or in the presence of a main cast pony? Check. It is just too boring to care about at all, and arguably, that is a bigger issue than a fic being conventionally bad given the entire point of a story, let alone the first chapter, is to invest me in the characters and conflict.
That said, I am also taking into account that this is your first story, I am not trying to discourage you from writing. Even if this story is bad, that doesn't mean that you can't improve at writing. Every writer has to start with a few less-than-pleasant stories, including myself. Instead, I am actually going to give you some advice to help you out. First, I'd work on your grammar. It isn't awful; it just needs a bit of sharpening. An editor would also help with that, so I suggest you ask around.
Also, a really important part of writing that many people gloss over is research. You need to deeply research not only what your story is about, but also the genre that it fits in. Find similar stories and learn what tropes and conventions are good for your genre and which ones are a death trap to stories. I spent months on this site before ever even typing a word into a story because I wanted to analyze what worked, what didn't, and what the audience would and would not be receptive to.
Finally, I would implore you to find a mentor, someone more experienced to help guide and teach you in writing. I never would have learned to write nearly as well without my mentor instructing me in the finer points of writing and literary analysis.
To sum all of this up, you seem like an alright guy and could probably learn to write well with the wisdom of a veteran and a lot of elbow grease, but as is, this story is deeply flawed to the core in a way that critically taints it. Still, hold your head high. If nothing else, it took guts to post something for public critique, and if you work at improvement, I might see one of your stories in the featured box someday.
4453545 Thanks for taking the time to write that. I'll try to follow as much as that advice as I can. And thanks in general for not just running from my fic, I appreciate constructive criticism in any form.
4453135 Thanks for summing up the story line. I appreciate any and all criticism that shows area's of improvement.
This start i've read to much *Story Starts with a Person/Pony With A Horrible Life A Few (ALOT) Chapters later Its Like they never had a horrible fate I'm still gonna read this