Mill Whistle is a orphan Pegasus from a logging town near Vanhoover, Equestria. Her Mom gave her up when she was just a newborn foal. This my first story hope you enjoy!
Chapters (4)
JandT
Joined 14th Dec, 2014 ·
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I'll comment in three times, one per chapter.
One funny thing to begin:
I first thought it was sort of a joke, as "tot" means "dead" in german, but it seems it wasn't your intention. Found the confusion funny nonetheless.
The weird thing is, you forgot about the whole medication thing just a few paragraphs after that:
I'm surprised by that choice. My guess would be that you wrote the story over a long time, or were in such a state of mind that it slipped through it. Otherwise, I would be very interested to know why you chose to go from sickness to accident.
May I say I feel like it's all going way too fast? This remark would apply to most of the story. You're telling a portray of a broken family, not much more, but you're doing at the rythm of an action sequence all the way. It made it hard for me to really feel what the characters could be feeling, because as soon an image had formed in my mind, another had already taken its place:
"A pregnant mare. Being secretive. Child at the orphanage. She says something to the child, but then mill whistle and paper."
I can see how you wanted this scene to mean something deep. I'm just surprised you didn't allow yourself the time to expand the feelings through descriptions.
For example, why did you choose not to describe Misty's mindset when hiding Mill? Her feelings while letting him go away? Also, couldn't you have expanded on why the Mill Whistle meant enough to her to give that name to her foal?
This is the only time you explain one of the specific terms you use, but the fact you took the time to do it here is good. The way you did it could be improved in my opinion, but at least I had the information I needed to understand the story as a reader.
Okay, second part.
I was talking about how fast everything is going. Here is a good example of what you're doing with the dialogues. I may first recommend to separate the different lines of dialogue like different paragraphs to make it easier to read. But that's not my point here. My point is that it goes so fast that it gave me the impression to re-live the movie "the room" and the part of the shop:
Once again, I understand what you wanted to accomplish here, but the discussion felt very weird for me because of that fast pace, as we go from "cider and hay fries" to "congratulation" in a second.
Just because it was fun to imagine: "And if they didn't do great, they could never leave!"
(yeah, it's not even a critic, just having fun here)
The idea you're using here is very good (which explains why it's done so often). Once again though, it goes way too fast in my opinion. Not even in the explanation of the mother (even if it would be possible to add some descriptions in the middle, like her trying to spot the reaction of the foal as she goes, some hesitations, etc...), but mostly in Mill's reaction.
The most amazing thing is that to change the rythm fondamentally, it seems it would take not much more than:
Just ending the sentence at "adoption paper", opening a new paragraph and leaving a space usually forces the reader to make a pause.
Last things (I've got ten minutes left...):
You explained what a "widowmaker" is in the field of logging. But here, as well as after that and in the beginning of the story, you give technical train names without a random reader like me being able to tell the difference. It created a very confusing feeling for me and pulled me out of the story, because I was unable to create an image in my mind, as "GE P40s" doesn't ring a bell for me. Actually, the first image that came was a computer graphical card, but none would correspond to that name, and it had nothing to do with the story.
What was Time Keeper's role in that story? For the longest time, I thought it was Mill's father, but in the end, there is no hint going into that direction, beside the fact you named him while he seems to have no impact on the story whatsoever...
And this is my last point. The story ends with Mill getting his cutie mark, but the story was about his relationship with its mother until then. So it was pretty confusing for me to have a resolution that seemed to have no connection with the introduction and developpement part of the story.
If I come back to the beginning:
This line gave me my idea of what the story would be about and created my expectation of the resolution. The kid wants parents and to go away from the town.
And in fact, he gains a mother, and leaves the town. So resolution accepted.
But at no point in the entire story did you ever mention cutie marks.
So even if I understand, after some time thinking about it, what you wanted to accomplish and why it makes sense, I wish you had given a hint here or there to show that beyond everything, Mill Whistle mostly wanted to have a place in the world:
- a physical place outside of his deadend town
- an emotional place in a family
- an identity place, as a member of society, with a cutie mark
I've got to go, but all in all, the story has a lot of potential and there is a lot of honesty that I felt reading it. I hope my comments could help you understand why it didn't work on my the way you probably intended it to.
Also, glad you decided to use your own knowledge of trains. I highly recommend you to keep doing that (even if you need to explain it better to the reader) as it gave the story its own unique feeling in my opinion.
Keep having fun.
I would suggest switching the order: The house was owned by her father until he was crushed by a dead branch (called a "widowmaker" by the lumber ponies) that had fallen off the tree he was (insert action here).
what do you think?
Thanks for all the tips and pointers. I've tried to fix the parts that you've found wrong with this story. It would be nice to have somebody to co-write or edit future stories and the position is open. If anybody would like to edit this story, I'd be glad to email it to you.
Sincerely,
JandT
One little thing. Chapter 2 and Chapter 4 can be folded into Chapters 1 and 3, respectively, leaving 2 chapters. I had the same problem when starting out.