A year ago, Nyx herself was synonymous with the horrific creature known as Nightmare Moon. That was, after all, her past life. But a whole year has past, and finally, finally, the general populace has forgiven her. After all, it wasn't entirely her fault. She was being twisted and controlled, manipulated by the true evil that branded her a villain. But now, she was finally free.
But what would happen, if she wasn't the only one? What if there was another, just like her?
There is a saying, one must learn from another's mistakes. What if there was another cult, one not under any sort of mind control? One that learned from the mistakes of its predecessors, and strived to revive something much greater than a single mare?
What if they tried to revive the most horrid of evils ever known?
Disclaimer: Nyx and others are not owned by me. Nyx belongs to Penn Stroke, and other ponies belong to Hasbro.
Hey, awesome story so far!
I was honestly surprised. Looking at your rating, I expected this to be mediocre or average, but it certainly was not. There was a lot of great things that I found in the first chapter. SPOILERS AHEAD.
You had an awesome introductary paragraph about tales and legends. It could've very easily been cliché, and it partially is. Cliché doesn't mean bad though. I think it could've been a lot stronger with a unique story detail like, "A family's bond isn't born strong. Rather, it's forged, tested, broken, bonded, then broken again, until it's stronger than steel." It's along the same line that yours is, but by adding that extra story detail, makes it unique and interesting.
Your grammar and spelling's pretty spot on. It didn't interfere with the comprehension in any way, and I found it quite easy to follow along. One general tip I give to all writers is to eliminate as many unnessary words as possible. Sometimes people get too wordy and have tons and tons of run-on sentences thinking more detail is better. By having less words though, you force the reader to pay more attention and thus, enwrap their attention more.
The characters were decent and believable. They weren't the strongest in my opinion. Most of the dialogue seemed rather generic, so it was hard for me to be engaged and invested in most of them.
Twilight might be the only exception, as her wake-up scene gives off a feeling of empathy (I mean, who else hasn't hated to wake up?). The bad guys, despite having "unique traits" (the old guy, the cocky one), came off more as stereotypes than anything though. They seem fine for the first chapter, but I'm not super engaged with them.
I think the problem is that they a) don't have a strong weakness that I can be interested in, or b) a strong goal outside of the generic, "Raise bad guy from dead". Like I said, adequate, but not awesome. Ask me more about this if you want more detail.
Something I think I should address is the point-of-view. You have a really interesting take on this. Instead of being in third-person, it's of a narrator reciting a tale. This is something not often seen in fan fiction (or at least, the fan fictions I've been reading). I know some popular and well-reviewed novels use this style, A Series of Unfortunate Events being one of them. I feel really split about this personally, a third-person narrator with an obvious bias or prejudice. It's incredibly different, I'll tell you that. But it's also difficult. I feel it can definitely work if done masterfully like how Lemony Snicket does. But if done wrong, can really really go wrong.
I think you did a passable job. There were some really powerful moments, such as the "realms beyond our own" line and the "all good things must come to an end". You used the self-aware, third-person narrator in your favor by adding these little snippets here and there, which is definitely good. It's a big strength of the self-aware narrator, because you can so seemlessly add foreshadowing, conflict, mystery, and intrigue with one or two lines like that.
At the same time, despite it being incredibly interesting, it's hard for me to get over that hump of such an odd point-of-view. This could very likely be bias toward traditional points-of-view, like regular third-person or first-person, so take this with a grain of salt. But I feel like if a non-traditional writing style is taken, it must be done exceptionally well in-order to justify it. If it's only done averagely, it doesn't overcome the natural strangeness and awkwardness of the style (which, to be fair, could be used in your favor for strange and awkward settings like Alice in Wonderland).
I think the reason why it feels average is because it seems the story is hesitating on how much of the self-aware, third-person narrator it wants to convey. It seems like it switches between third-person and self-aware third-person narrator throughout the story. On the other hand, Lemony Snicket commits fully to this writing style. There are little gaps and pauses in his story that flip-flop between the two points-of-view. I think if you want to use this writing style, you have to commit fully to it instead of this awkward in-between stage. Instead of the reader becoming adjusted to this unique point-of-view like they do with Snicket's writing, they're constantly being jarred between traditional and the nontraditional with yours.
I'll give you an example: the scene where Twilight, Spike, and Nyx eat their breakfast. As Twilight is freshening up, it feels very much in the self-aware third-person narrator writing style. There's personality in the voice. There's objectivity in the voice. Someone is slanting her actions with an obvious bias, which is why we can tell it's the self-aware narrator.
However, when the dialogue starts, the self-aware narrator is gone. Spike says something. Twilight says something. Spike says something. Twilight takes a seat. Nyx says something. Then, all of a sudden, the self-aware narrator returns. He goes on with his description of Nyx. This is the first moment when I noticed something was off. The narrator then leaves. Spike returns with pancakes. Twilight takes a pancake. Nyx says something. Twilight says something. This back and forth exchange continues on until the last line, where the self-aware narrator returns to say his line. It comes off strong, but I'm just wondering, "Where were you halfway in that scene?"
Compare this to Lemony Snicket's work, The Bad Beginning. He starts the story with the self-aware narrator, and never leaves. He begins with the introductory paragraph about the Baudelaire youngsters and their impeccable bad luck. We know this is the narrator speaking because every action, every scene, every detail, is painted in a dark, pessimistic light. He even tells us straight-up that, "If you are interested in stories with happy endings, you would be better off reading some other book."
But okay, yours and his introduction are roughly the same. That's one thing I can commend you on. But what about scenes with dialogue?
He begins with describing how Sunny, the infant of the siblings, was saying, "Gack" over and over again. The narrator tells us, "... this morning she was saying "Gack!" over and over, which probably meant "Look at that mysterious stranger emerging from the fog!" The latter half of that sentence, "which probably meant...", is a detail the narrator tells us. It's not something you can deduce from a regular third person narrator. The narrator is imposing his thoughts, his beliefs, his experience, upon us with that line. That's how we know he's still present.
The dialogue continues on. Klaus tells the others to look at the figure. The narrator tells us it was drawing closer, and gives us some detail about the person. Violet asks what it is. Klaus says he does not know, but that it's approaching. Violet says there's no one else on the beach, and that it must've been approaching toward them. The narrator then tells us that Violet felt the stone in her hand which, "... she was about to try to skip as far as she could. She had a sudden thought to throw it at the figure, because it seemed so frightening." Klaus says it only seems scary because of the mist. The narrator then tells us Klaus was right, and gives us detail as the figure comes into view.
You can see the big difference between Snicket's writing and your writing. When your dialogue kicks in, the narrator leaves and the story becomes a flat, "He said, she said" exchange. When Snicket's dialogue comes in, the narrator is constantly present, telling us details here and there, thoughts and intents of characters that we wouldn't know if it was simply a third-person point of view. This is why I felt like you didn't fully commit to your self-aware narrator, because of the long pauses like these.
It's okay to not have every line involve the narrator in some way. It's not as much to have the narrator leave halfway through a scene.
Here's another example using your writing this time. The first paragraph is what you originally wrote, devoid of the narrator. The second one includes him, and enhances the scene with your writing style (as well as some minor edits).
I hope that illustrates the difference between your work and Cricket's. And before you say that, "Oh, he's a professional writer. Why does my work need to be as good as his?" The best way to improve your writing is by emulating those who are successful in it. I really believe this story can be something incredible, but a consistent writing style and point-of-view is hampering it to be so.
Like I said from earlier, do take this with a grain of salt though. The story is quite good, and I'm not too terribly-versed in self-aware narrators. It's not my favorite writing style, which may be the reason why I'm emphasiszing this so much. I do love how Snicket writes his narrator though, and I don't think it's too hard for you to reach the same heights he does.
Thanks for the read! I'll be keeping an eye on this for future chapters.
From the title, I can tell you're quite a fan of a song named Still Alive from Lisa Miskovski, or the game Mirror's Edge because the whole title was part of the chorus of Still Alive. And this seemed to be exciting, how everyone makes it look like the worst had passed, only to have 3 other ponies coming up with a scheme at the same castle where the nightmare began.
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Well thank you for such a wonderful review! The reason why the ratings are so mediocre is because I'm rewriting this story from the ground up. And although you already said this, do keep I'm mind that this is only chapter 1. I haven't had time to establish the reason why the bad guys you see are doing what they're doing. I will say this, the action may be generic, but the reason may surprise you. Also thank you for the comments about it being a self aware author. I do admit that dialogue between Twilight, Nyx, and Spike does seem a little lackluster, and I'll probably do something to fix that in the future. I've never written with this style, so the helpful comments about how to actually use it are very much appreciated. I would love to hear anymore suggestions you have about how my writing could be improved, as you seem to know a lot more about this style of writing than I do.
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Don't you DARE not continue this
Tracking.
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