!Currently under heavy revision!
The Dreamscape.
A web of Equestria's dreams all connected by one plane of existence, the Dreamscape keeps the innocence of ponies' lives contained inside their blissful little minds. But upon every age in history, there came a pony that could cross the Dreamscape, one that could touch others' dreams and influence their outcomes, their elements. That pony was one of a kind; once in 500 years would such a pony be born into being.
Lucid Dreams is just a sixteen-year-old colt, and yet he has taken upon himself the endless, ever-tiring task of monitoring the dreamworld and calming down nightmares that afflict the ponies of the kingdom. But one fateful night has pitted him up against a deadly force that cannot be stopped.
It threatens his life, as well as the hundreds of thousands of lives that exist around Equestria.
His heart is ready to leap up his throat.
And he cannot wake up.
First off, I just wanna say this: That description was beautiful. It got me thoroughly interested in reading this story, which is something I wish every description could do so well. I also really enjoy the idea for this story, as it seems to open up a lot in terms of story directions.
However, the writing isn't as great.
Let's start with something simple, shall we? The paragraphs. They range from fairly long to long and extremely long. As a reader, that does not look very appealing. At all. It can look intimidating and overly long to some, which isn't very fun to read. It's important to add variety to the paragraph length, so as to avoid these issues.
It's also the first bit of dialogue in this story. I repeat: FIRST. BIT. OF DIALOGUE. (Something else is wrong here, but we'll get to that later.) At this point, we're what, halfway through the story? Again, we run into the same issue: no variety. The
longbeginning, from what I can tell, is a recounting of past events. Now, this wouldn't be so bad if it was just a few hundred words, but it's not. As a result, it just drags on and on and on. It gets pretty dull and hard to read. If you were going to make that section so long, why not add dialogue?Show don't tell. I'd recommend researching into this yourself, as there are others who have explained it in great detail, but I'll say something anyways. This whole story just comes across as you saying "This happened and this happened and this happened."
The pacing is wonky. I'm not very good at putting this into words, but I'll try anyways. The beginning takes too long, preparing for the meeting with Celestia is too short, the conversation just felt off, and everything that happened after happened too fast.
Ah, back to this quote again. The other problem here? The wording is just very awkward, and I'm pretty sure it's grammatically incorrect as well. "Was" is a singular verb and meant for singular nouns, but here you use it for "words", a plural noun. This is really just an example, as there were many cases of awkward wording. The same goes for grammatical errors, but those are inevitable for a story of this length. That doesn't mean you shouldn't go back and fix them, though.
There is a severe lack of dialogue, and when it does show up, it's clunky at best. Ask yourself: Does this sound like something a person/pony would actually say? Does this sound like something Celestia would say?
Also, this story takes place five hundered years before the series, but they speak in the same manner? This didn't bother me too much, but I still felt the need to point it out.
The situations and how they progress don't feel real. This can be attributed to pretty much all of the issues above.
While the description was majestic, the first chapter wasn't, which really pains me. I want to see this idea and story done well, but it just doesn't deliver. It was honestly kinda hard to read. I sincerely hope that I can see the quality of this story improve, as it does show promise. Ah well, I wish you luck.
5424774
I cannot begin to describe how thankful I am to get feedback like this. Something real meaty, something I can put my hands around and get a feel for! I've never gotten this much feedback from someone on one of my stories, ever. Thank you very much. I won't waste this critique. I'll do my best with this information so I can applying to the current chapter and future ones.
This is amazing for starters. You've got a great use of prose, but because of the lengths of the paragraphs, it's a matter of seeing where you can cut/axe, rewrite and replace words. There were a few instances I spotted were you could have dropped a few words and join sentences separated by full-stops, to make a more smoother flowing sentence. Specifically speaking in terms of prose, some of the description is rather flowery, being I don't know why it's all there. I can read two-thirds of the paragraph and still get a basic idea of what the place looks like and is going on as a whole.
Reading what you had in the notes at the end, You got the character behavior and mannerisms at a 7/10. Reading the dialogue, you need to focus on how Celestia speaks, because it feels like there's words missing and I'm trying to figure out what they could be. Like the other dude said, it's rather klunky. By way of comparison, it's like driving down a road and running over a pothole now and then; stuff is missing and it needs to be filled in.
On a different note, if you broke up some paragraphs (a paragraph should never ever be more than 8 lines I'd personally say), because right now it's like reading blocks and blocks of test. It's a matter of finding where you can do this while maintaining continuity. The format bothers me, and reading this left like a teeny bit a chore to get through. The format is a bit bothersome, and another thing is you could do to indent the paragraphs too. I don't know if it's a personal thing you do—not to indent, but I'd think it's be a good idea for this.
So after all things considered I'm giving this story an 8.5/10 for excellent use of prose and originality, but the remaining 1.5% can be easily earnt back if you fixed the format/structure of the paragraphs, reworking sentence structure and removing a small amount of prose, and finally making the dialogue between the characters more smoother so it doesn't feel like I'm driving down a mountain back road.
Good luck with this. I'm faving and liking to keep track of this.
5445048
Thank you very much for the feedback. I have tried already to fix my mistakes on paragraph length, flowery description and Celestia's dialogue, but this proves enough I did not do a good enough job. I went back in and edited chapter 1 one more time. I really appreciate these kinds of comments. Thank you, once again.
The chapter is great, I can tell that you have a knack for writing good prose. Personally I wouldn't have minded waiting a few extra days for a longer chapter. My only gripe was you seemed a bit too generous with your commas in seperating your clauses. It threw the flow off a bit and I found myself mentally pausing in places thanks to the commas wherr I shouldn't have after the fact.
I love reading re-imaginings of Celestia and Luna's battle.
You sir, have a real knack for writing.
I love this story, IT IS GLORIOUS.
What happened to chapter three? I know for a fact I saw the update notification in my feed but now when I look at it, it's not there anymore?
5494899
Ooh. Oh boy. Ok. Thank you for notifying me. I think it's FimFiction's server screwing up. I already had trouble publishing chapter 3 in the first place. Then this. Ha, ok, I'ma re-publish the chapter.
Damn it Knighty.
If you don't mind, I mentioned the concept of the 'Dreamweaver' in the sixth and upcoming chapter of my story, 'A Nightmare Come To Life'. I added a link to your story in the authors notes so people can read it. It deserves so much more attention.
5539051
Oh no, that's fine! That's perfectly fine! I don't mind at all. I like free advertisement! Thank you!
Let's just see here what A Nightmare Come To Life is...
...
...Whoa.
...That's a lot of views.
...How many favorites does this thing have?
*click*
...
...
*faints*
5540677
That shit is too funny
Well, I don't know how much more attention it will get. There's still the risk of people downvoting simply because I'm advertising it, that said OC casts don't normally do down too well with people these days. It'll be a gamble, so please don't hate me if something bad happens
5540728
Ah, don't worry about it. I don't care if anything bad happens. If I'm getting views, that's all I really care about. I don't care about dislikes. If the dislikes are backed up by views and maybe some comments, I'm fine. I won't blame you for anything.
5541059
i.qkme.me/3so7mp.jpg
Just followed the link from the afore mentioned fic, and the description alone had me intrigued. Add that to the first few paragraphs' characterization of the MC being nothing short of outstanding. Despite not really knowing much about the character, I already feel for the poor b
d, and being less than a thousand words in, that takes some doing. Just a few paragraphs into the first chapter and you've shown that the story has the potential to be a great read (not good, great; which is something I've said to less than ten stories I've read, professional works included), let's see if you can deliver.
5550964
5541059
I did not know that my mentioning of this fic would actually bring someone here. I did it out of courtesy to be completely honest. Yay, you got another viewer!
LOL!!!
'Tis a good chapter overall, but there were a multitude of full-stops that should have been commas following dialogue. The only other thing was it's a bit too large for such a small amount of content. You could do to cut between 1k-1.5k words and still tell the same story/message in a shorter package.
What I did get from the chapter is the dreamer seems to have experienced a horrific tragedy, namely the death of a relative and they feel responsible for it, like the dreamer could have done something to prevent it.
I put your story in my group
Also, join my group
Stories from Alcatraz
Good as always, but the problem of the chapters being too long is still an issue. You could do to cut around 2000 words and it will still make just as much sense. So that's my challenge to you: 5000 words in the next chapter without so much prose, as good as it is. Keep it necessary: short and to the point.
5700065
Ok. I see. Thanks for the feedback.
Frankly, I disagree with you Alcatraz. I've read chapters 20k long and enjoyed (some of) those, this 7k seems to be "Slightly longer than normal" length generally, if it's written well enough and interesting. In my opinion 10k is long, 15k would be too much already, and 2k would be the minimum for a long storys chapter. Unless with good explanation and/or serious content. This is still MY OWN OPINION, and opinions change with every reader and author.
So, I think that 7k words is enough, especially with what you had included in this chapter. Of course it COULD have been cut into two chapters, but honestly, I didn't mind, it was a good read all the same.
Keep up the good work, both of you!
5701412 Sorry I'm a little late in replying to this; I only just saw it like now.
Anyway, my point was/is, is how much content can be cut, yet still tell the same story (when I say story, I mean the same chapter but in a more consolidated manner). It's gutting the irrelevant details and keeping the meat.
6218835 Sorta like Chekhov's gun, got it. And you're right in that manner, there's always something to improve and learn, as they say. It is easier to read shorter chapters afterall, regardless of the story. And I don't mind late response, just trying to make a conversation here after all.
I'm still quite miffed about this story not having any love given... This is so much better than the average story IMHO in here, and it's actually interesting..
6237616
I'll get back to you on that, working on my other story right now...
This isn't exactly on hiatus just yet, but I have yet to write anything new. I have a total map for the rest of the story though, so I won't be stopped by writer's block any time soon.
6241930 I... You... Goshdarnit... And only NOW I realize that YOU are the one writing pony.exe
Take your time friend, I'm eager to read both of those stories, so I'll be happy to see either one update 
The lack of a Luna tag surprises me.
7549077
There are no plans to actually feature Luna in the story.