Fallout Equestria: Shadowed Songs and Painted Valleys

Thebravenorse

Thebravenorse #1 · Jul 23rd, 2014 · · ·

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Read and enjoyed. I shall be following this story Have a like!

Gleaming

Gleaming #2 · Jul 23rd, 2014 · · ·

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You're off to a good start with your first story so far.

Tetragrammaton

Tetragrammaton #3 · Jul 23rd, 2014 · · ·

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A story not started by a false named prologue, that's definitely good. The fandom's going into the right direction.
Although your first lines (from "Friendship..." to "...Wastes") qualify as prolouge, since they are detached from the real narration. Damn you, fatum!

First off, you don't need to give us the story's and your name in the actual chapter. It's not necessary, the side gives us these information without anything you have to do.
The same thing with the large gap in front of the story. Just doesn't feel good if you have to scroll down for a while once you're eager to read.

And your quote...
I'm not a fan of those. They make it look as if you're trying to give your own story glory by making it somehow connected to another story/person/book etc. Too many people think what they write becomes a piece of literature once they quote Nietzsche on the second page. It doesn't. I'm usually noone how points his finger at overused things (e.g. many people think FoE is overused) but this quote-thing really takes the wind out of my sails once I start reading.

And now for that actual story:

- First things first: A pegasus OC. May I introduce myself? I'm Tetragrammaton, the guy obsessed with pegasi (especially enclave ones) in this fandom. I like pegasus OCs.

- you oftentimes capitalize randomly. Things like overmare and valley. The second may be a name, but since I doubt the nature is actually called "Overmare" in the Valley of Shadows, it shouldn't be capitalized. Same thing with pegasus. Your spellchecker might say it's wrong, but it doesn't know the race pegasus. The capitalized version refers to Pegasos, the mythical horse.thing, by name. And the SC only knows that.

- I would suggest making things like the letter in italics. It separates the letter from the rest of the text and I think this should be done.

- The first scene/battle scene. I don't see the purpose of this scene. You could start when Song walks through the night and nothing would've changed. You should give us a bit more information, e.g. what the mission is Shadow Song has to go on alone and why they are under attack by surface ponies. It just lets us connect to the story.
I don't say you should scratch that, I'm a fan of longer stories, details and such things.

- Deeply connected to this is an issue with the scenic character of your paragraph-clusters. You just jump too fast for my liking. YOu give no explanation why Song is sudenly transported from a battlefield to the night on a mission of her own.
What I want to say is: things are simply happening too fast. It's merely one action or two in each paragraph-cluster and that's not that good in a 3rd person narration. In 3rd person you can describe things the character doesn't know, so you can give much more detail about the surroundings and what's happening. With the scene in stable 235 it's obvious you're narration isn't limited to one character, so this can and should be done.

- one final advise concerning your perk: I wouldn't implement it into the author's note, those should be reserved for things you personally want to say only.
Make a horizontal line of your text and then simply write the perk down, maybe highlighted like this:

yaddayaddayaddayaddayaddayaddayaddayaddayaddayaddayaddayadda
Shadow Song - Level up!
+12 Speech Skill
New Perk: Failure To Communicate – Similar to Intimidating Presence, this Perk will allow you to attempt to intimidate or attack others after you have failed a Speech check. It also unlocks unique dialog options with certain ponies.
Quest Perk: Shadow Sense – You are beginning to feel things that are beyond your reality. Perhaps things are not as simple as taste, touch, sight and hearing? Or maybe this description is too poetic! You gain +1 Perception during certain encounters only. Additionally you now get a -1 Perception penalty when you are just coming out of sleep, trances, and being unconscious. One would think you had those penalties anyways!

I like this story so far. Your OC doesn't seem to be a Dashite, that's definitely something that should be done more often. Your narration seems a bit chaotic, but maybe that's because of Shadow Song being a bit... light in the head.

I'm no expert in sexual pony terms, but I think "Fillyfooler" is meant either as an weak insult or some kind of teasing among friend, the second more than the latter. The male equivalent - as far as I know - would be "Coldcuddler"

UniversalBlue

UniversalBlue #4 · Aug 10th, 2014 · · ·

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4741320
I'll try to take your suggestions. Oh! And I would have replied sooner but my computer doesn't seem to like it when I try to reply or send people mail on this site. I have no idea why. This is my first time trying to do anything like this so it's been rocky. That large annoying space is an example of trouble I had when I went from my word processor to putting it on here.

Some of my problems are a little more life-long in their nature, like staying on one topic, staying to the point, or random capitalization. I have a friend of mine who is actually published who tells me daily, that if I just try to write every day - those tendencies will go away. Me, I'm not sure, I think my brain is just wired wrong so it will never go away.

Tell ya what.. I like quotes and a few other things I consider rather traditional like the silly leveling thing. But I'll make you a deal.. I'll put in a quote only if I think it pertinent and not make it mandatory.

I'm afraid I've had a lot of writer's block with chapter 2. I had what I thought was a great idea, that I still love, but it feels too removed to the point of being jettisoned altogether from chapter 1 (some new characters, different time and place that eventually relates again) - and yet I still like it too much to give it up. I'm not sure others will like it, but I get this sense that when its done, it will give me a lot to work with and this may really take off then.

Tetragrammaton

Tetragrammaton #5 · Aug 10th, 2014 · · ·

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4827642
I just said I'm not a fan of quotes, I don't really think they're bad, just a bit... out of place. But it's nothing you can't keep and it's just a personal preference of mine.
You don't have to make a deal. Of course you include quotes when you think it's necessary. Just because I'm no fan doesn't mean it's bad per se. Just do whatever you want, it's your story and even if it would've hundreds of quotes in it, the story-line is interesting enough to forget those "faults".

Your friend is right when he/she says that simply by trying to write, problems will go away. It's a bit like learning a new language (although not as hard) and the best training is to simply start doing a bit of the language. E.g. Reading, speaking, writing... that's the way I learned to write/speak/read English.

Your story is really interesting.

UniversalBlue