Alex Weaver’s day couldn’t have been worse; an uncomfortable call from his mother, a surprise visit at work from his ex-girlfriend, and a trillion-dollar device exploding in his lab, transporting him to some frozen wasteland. Damn Mondays.
The story itself has an interesting premise and good grammar. However, the narrative bounces all over the place and is quite confusing as well as mentally taxing to follow. Plus, you introduce all of these terms, people, and positions on a (Distant Future Earth) that we, the readers, have absolutely no knowledge of. For all intents and purposes, you're basically creating an alternate universe from scratch, assuming that your readers can just piece together everything from jumbled bits of context.
You have to be able to space the introduction of such a vast amount of information in chunks. Spewing it out in a vague, non-linear time frame is bound to frustrate people and turn them away. No matter how much the material might make sense in your own mind , you need to translate it into a format that others can understand. Don't assume anything. Set a timeline. Make a clear distinction as to what is in Alexander's past and what is in the present. Remember, introspective flashbacks are your friend. Use them.
I honestly want to like and enjoy reading this story, but...these are some really BIG problems that need to be addressed. For now, I will track it and hope that you improve. I hope my critique helped you.
7276106 Thank you for detailing your concerns. Honestly, I also found it a tad awkward to try to get all this background into a ~5000 flashback paragraph. I never intended for it to be the 'main engager' of the story. There were just a lot of little details that I had to show in the context of Alex's normal life for later in the story, and I opted to do this rather than omit them entirely. Most of the story is going to be told from Twilight's perspective, so hopefully that fixes the issue, as she will know nothing about him.
If you could give an example of what you think embodies this problem, I would appreciate it, and work to avoid it in the future.
7276138 If you do intend to tell this story from Twi's perspective, that's going to be even more confusing to your readers and a daunting task on your part. Mostly because you've already established Alexander as your MC, since he is introduced first.
I'll be honest, I had no idea why Twilight was trying to capture a meteor or why Tia and Luna were willing to waste billions of bits towards the project in the first place. Was that supposed to be the impetus that brought Alex to Equestria? If so, I didn't immediately connect the two events together.
And the whole Nightmare cult thing? Where the hell did they come from? They can certainly be your antagonists if you want, but their introduction came out of thin air. Flesh them out a bit more or wait to introduce them later.
My best piece of advice for you at this moment is to focus on one character and have him/her interact with the other characters in a linear, progressive fashion. That way, you aren't juggling around multiple perspectives taking place at different times. I think you have the skeletal structure of a decent story in place. However, you just decided to glue together the bones in such a way that people can only get a vague sense that it is indeed a skeleton.
7276218 Okay, that seems reasonable, but these questions your asking (Twilight's meteor, nightmare cult, etc.) are things that I have full intention to answer. This is just chapter two.
The next chapter is almost ready, and it unfortunatly might also have this problem, though possibly intentionally. I'm trying to convey a feeling of confusion and uncertainty, before being resolved. Perhaps I went a little overboard on that 'confusion' part.
Okay I'll be honest...I got really bored with this and started skimming through most of this chapter. I know the flashback was needed but you really took too long with some scenes especially since given how you left off the first chapter there should be have been a bit more with that instead. Some of the parts of this could have been cut out and nothing would have been lost.
I also didn't really get the sense that he didn't hate his family, it did seem more like he just didn't care for them than he was busy given how you wrote it. You had like two lines to explain it while the rest of that scene was him kind of being a jerk.
Also my point stands on why he was armed, unless his ex was working security there is no way in hell they would allow someone like her to walk around with a weapon. There is no 'clearance' for that kind of stuff. Now maybe if it was a prototype that was being developed in the lab and she was showing off her new design that would make more sense. Maybe asking for an opinion on a possible design flaw for instance.
I also didn't care for the whole underground project for the meteorite scene. Honestly you could have just written how he got there was a lab accident on his end. That scene (which is mostly skipped as it just wasn't holding my attention) could have been left out of this story entirely. I also don't get why for something you want to grab from space you build a complex underground in the Capital. Wouldn't a remote station built nowhere near a populated area make a hell of a lot more sense?
Honestly I just felt you could have taken that whole scene out and used the time to focus back on him and Shinning in that cave instead. Plus I'm not sure the technology of Equestria is up to that kind of stuff, yes you can use magic to help but given that the most technological things we've seen is usually cobbled together stuff that Twilight has made in the show makes me think they couldn't get that far.
Since wouldn't it be easier to just ask Luna or Celestia to grab a meteorite? They can move the freaking sun and moon, I think something a mere fraction of that mass would be no problem for them.
7277740 Thank you for your thoughts, and I'm sorry you found that bit boring. As I mentioned in a previous comment, that flashback was a little awkward to write, but there were details I had to include for later on that I didn't want to shoe-horn in with exposition.
There is no 'clearance' for that kind of stuff.
Says who? I could name plenty of movies where a high-ranking militairy officer is carrying a weapon in a secure location.
I won't get into the rest of your queries here, as those are going to be explored later in the story.
Thanks for sharing your concerns. I will try to take them into account. I hope it didn't put you off too much.
7277799 As a military member myself I can tell you that every time you see that in film and TV it's total garbage. Only security forces carry firearms and that's only if this is a military operation and if it where, if she's only security she wouldn't be able to just walk into a secure room like that. Trust me on this I know what I'm talking about. If she was a scientist (I don't know what she does at that place) they wouldn't allow her to carry a firearm.
7278454 Not really, you can do it on your own time but if this is a military backed program they would only have military people do it. I take yearly firearm training and I've never seen a civilian doing it but then when the RCMP have theirs they only have RCMP doing it as well. If she had a firearm and that she was 'given permission' to me that says it's a personal firearm which she would have training at a civilian run firing range. So again this is a person bringing in a personal firearm to a secure location which would never happen. It goes again every kind of security protocol there is and makes no sense at all.
7282179 Patience, young grasshopper. We must first get Twilight and the alien together before we can have her be adorkable about Humans and our technology.
This is definitely in my "to read" list just one little tidbit, the "year 2063" is WAAAAAY too soon for all that, you should change it to AT LEAST a hundred years later (2163)
7294019 I disagree; I think that if Humanity got its act together, then we could be doing great things. Admittedly, it does feel a little soon for some of the technologies I have planned, but I wanted the year to be close enough to give readers the feeling like they could live to see it. Anyway, can't change it now.
“Power levels are over 1000... 5000... 9000... Power levels are off the scale!”
Very well, mother. If that is all, then I will have to depart for work in a few minutes to conduct groundbreaking research for the Terran Union that benefits all Mankind,”
I shan’t keep the commander waiting
Who talks like this? If it was a quirk of future lingo I could accept, but no one else in this chapter did. And aside from these two examples, neither did he. Unless I missed a few, but these two sentences really stood out
7315635 Sorry, that might be a regional thing. Where I live, one might use bizzarly formal or archaic speech as a mildly comedic sign of annoyance or frustration. I think I originally had a line in there explaining that, but I must have cut it.
I like the descriptions so far, many details without getting too wordly. I have enjoyed reading the first two chapters, it looks like you have a lot of plotlines planned so I'm looking forward to that, as well as the romance angle since there are very few well written mature fics especially with humans.
like the story so far and hope to see more of it soon, but i cant help but wonder why these two chapters aren't reversed. having read the first chapter felt like it took away from the alex's bits in the second chapter because we had already been told what had happened. dont get me wrong they had there funny parts but that didn't stop it from feeling like it dragged on a little.
I think I tried some of that at an Scottish "Highland Games" here in the States. If I remember correctly, it was a "Very Popular" Soda/Drink from Scotland. Or at least that was what the salesman was peddling. He gave my friend and me a sample of the pink stuff that was bubblegum flavored. Well, it did taste like Bubblegum. Bubblegum Fluoride rinse that I had to swish on a weekly basis in Elementary school. So I wasn't very impressed with it.
Over all, I'm liking the story. Not sure about Alex's attitude, but it is only the second chapter.
Y'know, if Shining Armor were to die, Twilight might feel reeeeal guilty.
Like, maybe not until she's all like "killkillkill" with regards to Alex, but while Discord pulled the trigger, Twilight pushed her ponies hard through the night, going at it for 18 or 19 straight attempts. Plus from the sounds of it, she was an absolute dictator in the lab as well. Had she just not been so stubborn and stopped one attempt earlier this situation wouldn't have happened.
So many hours spent, so much work. Dozens of ponies, billions of bits.
Twilight recalled how, when she began to isolate herself, trying to solve the plethora of problems with the machine’s design, they all came to cheer her up and encourage her. They had even temporarily moved to Canterlot a few weeks ago so that she could spend what little free time she had with friends. They had all been so supportive of her efforts to make Equestria a better place by furthering ponykind’s knowledge of the Universe.
The first line of the second paragraph needs to be fixed. It sounds like you're referring to Twilight's friends, but until you actually specify it, it's a dead-ended subject. You need to say who 'they' is. It could even be a transition from the previous sentence.
7274387 7274790 Ironically, how Canary felt for Alex in the first chapter actually made me sympathetic for him when he was first confronted with the arctic conditions and the unknown. But upon reading the second chapter, wow! what a duchebag! Fuck both him and the politics he rode in on! And in addition, after giving his ex-girlfriend such grief for carrying a "modern" LEO weapon, which from her introduction, she was fully authorized and qualified to have, only for him to hypocritically use said "shoot-first-and-don't-bother-asking-questions lethal force" on Shining Armor after such the "diatripe" he rapefully force-fed his ex...
Please don't get me wrong. I'm seriously intrigued by this story now. But I seriously hope he gets what's coming to him.
He lives in Berlin..... I hate to break it to you but only the "Bayern" Bavarians especially Munich(southgermany) tend to do Oktoberfest. The rest is really indifferent to it. Of course there are some tourist traps who have 365 days of Oktoberfest but nobody who lives here goes there.
Also I had to laugh even 100 years later and the dang new Berlin airport still isn't finished. really accurate xD
Yeah, reading the second chapter didn't resolve any of my concerns.
You sir, have piqued my interest. Keep up the good work!
7274387 Thank you for you critique, and I'm sorry I couldn't make you feel sympathy with Alex.
Math, science and interspieces relationships, COOL¡¡¡ all the thing I like in one packege
I'm really on the fence concerning a judgement call with this one. roundstable.com/forums/images/smilies/ajskeptic2.png
The story itself has an interesting premise and good grammar. However, the narrative bounces all over the place and is quite confusing as well as mentally taxing to follow. Plus, you introduce all of these terms, people, and positions on a (Distant Future Earth) that we, the readers, have absolutely no knowledge of. For all intents and purposes, you're basically creating an alternate universe from scratch, assuming that your readers can just piece together everything from jumbled bits of context.
You have to be able to space the introduction of such a vast amount of information in chunks. Spewing it out in a vague, non-linear time frame is bound to frustrate people and turn them away. No matter how much the material might make sense in your own mind , you need to translate it into a format that others can understand. Don't assume anything. Set a timeline. Make a clear distinction as to what is in Alexander's past and what is in the present. Remember, introspective flashbacks are your friend. Use them.
I honestly want to like and enjoy reading this story, but...these are some really BIG problems that need to be addressed. For now, I will track it and hope that you improve. I hope my critique helped you.
7276106 Thank you for detailing your concerns. Honestly, I also found it a tad awkward to try to get all this background into a ~5000 flashback paragraph. I never intended for it to be the 'main engager' of the story. There were just a lot of little details that I had to show in the context of Alex's normal life for later in the story, and I opted to do this rather than omit them entirely. Most of the story is going to be told from Twilight's perspective, so hopefully that fixes the issue, as she will know nothing about him.
If you could give an example of what you think embodies this problem, I would appreciate it, and work to avoid it in the future.
7276138 If you do intend to tell this story from Twi's perspective, that's going to be even more confusing to your readers and a daunting task on your part. Mostly because you've already established Alexander as your MC, since he is introduced first.
I'll be honest, I had no idea why Twilight was trying to capture a meteor or why Tia and Luna were willing to waste billions of bits towards the project in the first place. Was that supposed to be the impetus that brought Alex to Equestria? If so, I didn't immediately connect the two events together.
And the whole Nightmare cult thing? Where the hell did they come from? They can certainly be your antagonists if you want, but their introduction came out of thin air. Flesh them out a bit more or wait to introduce them later.
My best piece of advice for you at this moment is to focus on one character and have him/her interact with the other characters in a linear, progressive fashion. That way, you aren't juggling around multiple perspectives taking place at different times. I think you have the skeletal structure of a decent story in place. However, you just decided to glue together the bones in such a way that people can only get a vague sense that it is indeed a skeleton.
7276218 Okay, that seems reasonable, but these questions your asking (Twilight's meteor, nightmare cult, etc.) are things that I have full intention to answer. This is just chapter two.
The next chapter is almost ready, and it unfortunatly might also have this problem, though possibly intentionally. I'm trying to convey a feeling of confusion and uncertainty, before being resolved. Perhaps I went a little overboard on that 'confusion' part.
I'mma curious so I'mma give this a chance.
Okay I'll be honest...I got really bored with this and started skimming through most of this chapter. I know the flashback was needed but you really took too long with some scenes especially since given how you left off the first chapter there should be have been a bit more with that instead. Some of the parts of this could have been cut out and nothing would have been lost.
I also didn't really get the sense that he didn't hate his family, it did seem more like he just didn't care for them than he was busy given how you wrote it. You had like two lines to explain it while the rest of that scene was him kind of being a jerk.
Also my point stands on why he was armed, unless his ex was working security there is no way in hell they would allow someone like her to walk around with a weapon. There is no 'clearance' for that kind of stuff. Now maybe if it was a prototype that was being developed in the lab and she was showing off her new design that would make more sense. Maybe asking for an opinion on a possible design flaw for instance.
I also didn't care for the whole underground project for the meteorite scene. Honestly you could have just written how he got there was a lab accident on his end. That scene (which is mostly skipped as it just wasn't holding my attention) could have been left out of this story entirely. I also don't get why for something you want to grab from space you build a complex underground in the Capital. Wouldn't a remote station built nowhere near a populated area make a hell of a lot more sense?
Honestly I just felt you could have taken that whole scene out and used the time to focus back on him and Shinning in that cave instead. Plus I'm not sure the technology of Equestria is up to that kind of stuff, yes you can use magic to help but given that the most technological things we've seen is usually cobbled together stuff that Twilight has made in the show makes me think they couldn't get that far.
Since wouldn't it be easier to just ask Luna or Celestia to grab a meteorite? They can move the freaking sun and moon, I think something a mere fraction of that mass would be no problem for them.
7277740 Thank you for your thoughts, and I'm sorry you found that bit boring. As I mentioned in a previous comment, that flashback was a little awkward to write, but there were details I had to include for later on that I didn't want to shoe-horn in with exposition.
Says who? I could name plenty of movies where a high-ranking militairy officer is carrying a weapon in a secure location.
I won't get into the rest of your queries here, as those are going to be explored later in the story.
Thanks for sharing your concerns. I will try to take them into account. I hope it didn't put you off too much.
7277799 As a military member myself I can tell you that every time you see that in film and TV it's total garbage. Only security forces carry firearms and that's only if this is a military operation and if it where, if she's only security she wouldn't be able to just walk into a secure room like that. Trust me on this I know what I'm talking about. If she was a scientist (I don't know what she does at that place) they wouldn't allow her to carry a firearm.
7277813
What about firearm training. Surely if she was a scientist she would have also received firearm Traing as a safety precaution.
7278454 Not really, you can do it on your own time but if this is a military backed program they would only have military people do it. I take yearly firearm training and I've never seen a civilian doing it but then when the RCMP have theirs they only have RCMP doing it as well. If she had a firearm and that she was 'given permission' to me that says it's a personal firearm which she would have training at a civilian run firing range. So again this is a person bringing in a personal firearm to a secure location which would never happen. It goes again every kind of security protocol there is and makes no sense at all.
You have my attention for now. Waiting to see where this goes.
>May contain math, science, and linguistics
You're a sick man.
exposition is strong with this one...
looking forward to story progression!
7282179 Patience, young grasshopper. We must first get Twilight and the alien together before we can have her be adorkable about Humans and our technology.
This is definitely in my "to read" list just one little tidbit, the "year 2063" is WAAAAAY too soon for all that, you should change it to AT LEAST a hundred years later (2163)
7294019 I disagree; I think that if Humanity got its act together, then we could be doing great things. Admittedly, it does feel a little soon for some of the technologies I have planned, but I wanted the year to be close enough to give readers the feeling like they could live to see it. Anyway, can't change it now.
7294583 not the tech, I meant the World unification and the colonization of space stuff
Who talks like this? If it was a quirk of future lingo I could accept, but no one else in this chapter did. And aside from these two examples, neither did he. Unless I missed a few, but these two sentences really stood out
7315635 Sorry, that might be a regional thing. Where I live, one might use bizzarly formal or archaic speech as a mildly comedic sign of annoyance or frustration. I think I originally had a line in there explaining that, but I must have cut it.
I like the descriptions so far, many details without getting too wordly. I have enjoyed reading the first two chapters, it looks like you have a lot of plotlines planned so I'm looking forward to that, as well as the romance angle since there are very few well written mature fics especially with humans.
This is a very interesting idea and seems to have alot of potential. I'm eager to see what happens.
like the story so far and hope to see more of it soon, but i cant help but wonder why these two chapters aren't reversed. having read the first chapter felt like it took away from the alex's bits in the second chapter because we had already been told what had happened. dont get me wrong they had there funny parts but that didn't stop it from feeling like it dragged on a little.
"Irn Bru", as in pronounced like "Iron Brew"?
I think I tried some of that at an Scottish "Highland Games" here in the States. If I remember correctly, it was a "Very Popular" Soda/Drink from Scotland. Or at least that was what the salesman was peddling. He gave my friend and me a sample of the pink stuff that was bubblegum flavored. Well, it did taste like Bubblegum. Bubblegum Fluoride rinse that I had to swish on a weekly basis in Elementary school. So I wasn't very impressed with it.
Over all, I'm liking the story. Not sure about Alex's attitude, but it is only the second chapter.
Keep up the great work!
Y'know, if Shining Armor were to die, Twilight might feel reeeeal guilty.
Like, maybe not until she's all like "killkillkill" with regards to Alex, but while Discord pulled the trigger, Twilight pushed her ponies hard through the night, going at it for 18 or 19 straight attempts. Plus from the sounds of it, she was an absolute dictator in the lab as well. Had she just not been so stubborn and stopped one attempt earlier this situation wouldn't have happened.
The first line of the second paragraph needs to be fixed. It sounds like you're referring to Twilight's friends, but until you actually specify it, it's a dead-ended subject. You need to say who 'they' is. It could even be a transition from the previous sentence.
Discord really knows how to burn his bridges, doesn't he.
7274387
7274790
Ironically, how Canary felt for Alex in the first chapter actually made me sympathetic for him when he was first confronted with the arctic conditions and the unknown. But upon reading the second chapter, wow! what a duchebag! Fuck both him and the politics he rode in on!
And in addition, after giving his ex-girlfriend such grief for carrying a "modern" LEO weapon, which from her introduction, she was fully authorized and qualified to have, only for him to hypocritically use said "shoot-first-and-don't-bother-asking-questions lethal force" on Shining Armor after such the "diatripe" he rapefully force-fed his ex...
Please don't get me wrong. I'm seriously intrigued by this story now. But I seriously hope he gets what's coming to him.
He lives in Berlin..... I hate to break it to you but only the "Bayern" Bavarians especially Munich(southgermany) tend to do Oktoberfest. The rest is really indifferent to it. Of course there are some tourist traps who have 365 days of Oktoberfest but nobody who lives here goes there.
Also I had to laugh even 100 years later and the dang new Berlin airport still isn't finished. really accurate xD
Really nice twists and turns there with Discord... This is still Discord and not Q right?
I love this
J