A trio of con artists are on the loose in Ponyville! Can Twilight Sparkle and her friends catch the crooks before they exploit the town's gullible residents and escape with the goods?
Chapters (6)
- Member Since 16th Dec, 2011
- offline last seen Monday
Green Akers
Former horsewords writer, current music/gaming blogger and aspiring YouTuber.
Green Akers
Joined 16th Dec, 2011 ·
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This made me laugh, and could easily be adaptated into an episode. Great job.
Hi there! I’m Tired Old Man, but you can call me Tom.
I’m your designated WRITE reviewer, and it’s my job to point out any notable flaws in your story, and make suggestions and improvements as I see fit to address.
PonyConned, as of this review, stands at roughly 8,500 words in five chapters. Since this story is unfinished, I’ll be expecting some rock-solid plot development (as far as I can determine), stable characterization, and some sturdy mechanics as well.
I’ll start off with some mechanics. There’s… surprisingly very little to cover here. For the most part, this story is actually very clean and well-written… except for these little things.
I’m reading this as the tome is covered in something purple, probably a book cover, and that purple isn’t the actual color of the tome’s cover. That’s what “covered” conveys here, so if you were going for just a ‘purple tome’, then state as much. Simple is usually best.
Just about every time I’ve seen the CMC shouting something, ‘YAY’ is actually the last thing I hear, not the first. Not saying this isn’t impossible, but just very… very odd.
That bolded segment should be a new paragraph since it’s discussing a relatively different idea from the previous statements. Prior to that, helping ponies in general was being discussed, and now it’s filtered down into something more specific than that. It would benefit from a paragraph break in this instance.
Separation of ideas like this is important to keep a smooth and simple story flow to follow. Mash it all together and it’ll become needlessly complex in a heartbeat.
Oh, and I believe you mentioned in your request some concern about overused dialog tags. To be fair, I’m seeing quite a lot of variance in the speaking tags overall, so this initially isn’t a problem.
I say ‘initially’ because as I read the story, I found very sparse use of simple speaking tags like ‘said’ or ‘asked’. You’re avoiding them like I avoid Maud on a bad day… and that’s a bad thing.
Simply put, there’s nothing wrong with seeing a lot of simple speech tags like those, whereas underuse bogs down conversation thanks to all the ‘unique’ speaking tags you use. Conversations tend to be quick and dirty (unless you use action tags to spice things up a bit in variance), and generally when readers see simple tags like ‘said’ or ‘asked’, it’s processed quickly and easily.
Variance is actually used less often than you think when it comes to speaking this way, and most communication is generally conveyed with actions accompanying the speech tag. Or the action itself is present but the speech tag isn’t, which is known as an action tag.
Anyway, when using speech tags, in general about 80-90% of the time they should be ‘said’ or ‘asked’, or even no tags at all if we happen to know who’s saying what in the conversation.
You also mentioned repetition of certain phrases as an issue.
Well, I did find one right in the first chapter. Only one I found, actually.
Keep that first bold phrase in mind for later.
The other one is bothersome for two reasons:
1. It’s repetitive considering the first ‘again’ used one sentence earlier.
2. Since when have the Crusaders done an activity again when trying to discover their cutie marks? Regardless of success or failure of their activity (leaning towards failure), they always check their flanks. If nothing shows up, they pout, move on to the next activity, and don’t second-guess this decision, and certainly don’t double back and try a previous activity again.
Not to rule it out as an impossibility, but it just struck me as highly unusual.
In fact, there’s a few little things like this that show up in your story that stood out to me as oddities, which brings me to my favorite segment:
Tropes, Logic, and Consistency (TLC for short).
In terms of tropes, there’s a rather nasty little problem that shows up early on and beat on my chiseled surface until I felt an earthquake in my head.
If you haven’t heard of Lavender Unicorn Syndrome (shorted to LUS) before, let me give you a quick rundown of what this is.
You see these general descriptors you have here to refer to the ponies in your story? LUS is the needless use of these descriptors when one can quickly and easily refer to said characters using names or pronouns.
This is FimFiction. Generally anyone who comes on here to read a story obviously knows about MLP:FiM and its many colorful characters; the most known in the series are the mane six, the Crusaders, Tia, Luna, etc etc. And many readers will probably have an eidetic memory of such ponies the second you mention their names.
So when you talk about Twilight, and then call her a purple alicorn just a moment later for this first use of LUS, this is redundant because most of us already know that she’s an alicorn. If we didn’t catch that from the Alicorn Twi tag you had on this story, then that’s clarified right in your last chapter anyway. Either way, referring to her as an alicorn now doesn’t add a single bit of relevant information at this point in your story.
The same problem occurs with every highlighted descriptor I noted, and this is all from your first chapter alone. There’s no need to call Rarity a “white unicorn” or Applejack “the orange mare”. We know who they are the second you say their name, so generalizing them afterward is very much pointless.
Although in the case of Applejack, you do have a long general descriptor describing her before actually saying her name. Also a no-no. You could have easily conveyed all that information just from saying her name first.
Technically, you could shorten it to “an orange mare” instead and then immediately clarify it’s AJ afterward, and refer to her using pronouns, or her name from then on throughout your conversation, and it would be fine. Why? Well, I’d like to address something else to show that.
When you mention the three fillies bursting into the room, that sort of general descriptor is actually fine. You’re bringing quite a few new characters into the scene at that point, so generalizing them that much is okay.
However, the second you mention Sweetie Belle with Rarity’s exclamation, I know the three fillies are the Crusaders immediately (and have very little reason to think otherwise). There’s no need to refer to “the orange filly” or “the yellow filly with a red bow-tie” as Scoot or Apple Bloom because, I repeat, I know who the Crusaders are.
This continues to persist (albeit with much less frequency) all the way up to your fourth chapter. The fifth chapter is a bit different because you haven’t named your white stallion or griffon yet, so seeing those general descriptors for them throughout the story are mostly okay. But since you’ve established the stallion is male and the griffon female, it’s a bit jarring to not see ‘he’ or ‘she’ pronouns for them showing up more often. The same goes for the Diamond Dog prior to his naming in the fourth chapter, who is also male.
Long story short, don’t be afraid to use pronouns or names in place of these descriptors. In fact, ideally names and pronouns should be outnumbering these general descriptors to the point where one should rarely see them outside of them being used to introduce characters, refer to one-off ponies in a crowd of some kind, or to establish some sort of uncertainty in proper identification in, say, a dark cave or something.
Now, you should have noticed that I marked one of them differently from the rest. The one that’s italicized when the Crusaders burst into the room. Normally under the circumstances of Twilight being a unicorn, that term would work just fine… except she isn’t a unicorn. She’s an alicorn. Wings are a pretty notable difference, so calling them both “unicorns” doesn’t make any sense in context. Something like “she and Rarity” would be a more suitable replacement.
That’s just one of many odd inconsistencies I found, so I think it’s time I assess those and a bit of logic in this, hm?
Those lines established that AJ already looked for Mayor Mare, and probably couldn’t find her at her usual locations (being her home and her office, or somehow she didn’t know where to find the mayor--which is highly unlikely), so when Twilight suggests visiting her office before she goes for a walk out in the park, AJ should have stated that she’s been there already and didn’t see her, but hadn’t checked the park yet and thanks Twi for the new location before heading out. Otherwise, this doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.
Chapter 3:
Chapter 1:
Correct me if I’m wrong on this, but if Twilight is so knowledgeable on the Neighgerian scam, then why didn’t this catch her attention, say, around chapter two when the Crusaders finished their tale and she realized that there were conponies in Ponyville? AJ didn’t interrupt this conversation until Twilight started checking Rarity’s book out, so either Twilight tuned Rarity out for some reason unknown to me, or you’ve got a hole to fill.
Something else bothers me regarding Rarity’s oogling of the shiny dress the griffon wore in chapter 3. Twilight mentioned that there’s a basic unicorn spell to make things appear very shiny.
Given Rarity’s high stance and standards in fashion, wouldn’t she know of this spell? It’s already established that she has a gem-finding spell, so wouldn’t a shiny spell like this make her dresses seem much more extravaga--
I take that back. She turned herself into a mobile disco ball, but I digress.
For a pony so highly invested in fashion and beauty, I find it doubtful she wouldn’t know of the spell unless she’s some kind of fashion purist, in which case she should be able to tell when such a shiny spell is used. She can tell the difference between a regular brooch and a vintage one that look exactly the same to me, which at the very least proves that she has a discerning eye for quality.
...or perhaps she just got so distracted by the dress that she promptly forgot all common sense in favor of SHINIES. I don’t remember her ever doing something like that, though…
Except when she carried me around, but that’s beside the point. She had a few bits loose in her head then.
And in that same chapter… did you forget about the Crusaders? You never mention them beyond the chapter where they finished their story, nor did you give them a proper exit line, so… did they just hang around the library quietly and listen to Rarity and Rainbow Dash(!) tell their stories to Twilight? I seriously question their existence once RD comes in because of Scoot not saying a thing in recognizing her idol appearing!
Huff… huff… I think I’ll go ahead and address a bit of characterization now.
*sigh* Look, I get that Rarity is melodramatic and over-the-top in her reactions sometimes (okay, about 75% of the time), but this feels a bit… much. She’s only ever acted this way whenever a bad event happens that directly involves her, not one of her friends. I actually expected this sort of drama to come out when she realized that SHE was scammed as well, not when AJ’s cellar was robbed and ransacked.
It’s important to know when a character acts like themselves. Sure, Rarity is well-known for her drama, but it’s either focused directly on her alone or her and somepony else having some form of conflict. It’s not reserved for others so outwardly like this, so when it just came out like that, it was… baffling, to say the least.
And speaking of baffling…
With how callous RD stated this, I’m having doubts about her Element of Loyalty. Granted, it’s blunt, but it sounds so apathetic to Fluttershy’s situation… and this is coming from a pony known to stick up for her friends and be there for them when they need it. There’s not a single trace of sympathy in this line, which is absolutely stunning… and in a mortifying way. RD has only spoken four lines, and this last one left a bad taste in my mouth regarding her character.
Now, upon thought, it is implied that someone bought that shake for her (given that she gave away everything she had), but since RD doesn't state that she paid for it, this still sounds very apathetic coming from her.
Characterization of the other ponies are fine enough as is. Twilight showed her natural concern for her friends and the Crusaders, Rarity chided her sister, and outside of the OOC melodramatic episode, she acted her regular ol’ generous self. Fluttershy turned her home into an open house sale to scrounge up funds to pay for her friend’s med costs… pretty extreme, but not out of the norm for her. And Applejack, however brief, definitely showed the natural panic one would expect from losing a thousand bits and a small lake of cider in a day.
Now, how about the villains? Well, besides not giving any of them names besides the “Lucky” Diamond Dog, you establish their intelligence, longevity of crime life, AND… no redeeming qualities whatsoever. Well, at least for the pony and griffon.
Lucky felt bad after seeing Flutter’s sad face… although that quickly faded after seeing the necklace, but then it came back with her offering her house deed. That at least showed a bit of internal conflict within him, especially given how the white stallion treats him.
Honestly, given that you’ve granted him the boon of a name and showed a few redeeming qualities within, you’ve definitely made Lucky a stand-out character. The other two… they’re currently cardboard cut-outs with a voicebox attached that only has a single evil laugh track.
I don’t know what you plan on doing with the stallion and griffin, but they need some depth. So far all I’ve seen them do is be evil, conniving crooks, and I’ve seen little reason to think of them as any more than that. Villainous they may be, interesting they are not.
Good villains normally come in two flavors: You see them and they have some depth and personality to them that justifies their actions or gives us some form or reason to understand their villainy. Or you don’t see them, but see the effects of the actions they take only make us question their motives and lend to them a mystery we may never get to see the answer to.
You may want to reassess what you want to do with your trio of cons in light of these facts, or at the very least reconsider what you’re going to do with the pony and griffon, because right now they’re about as flat and tasteless as a day-old opened can of club soda.
Alright, I believe it’s time for a recap:
Mechanics
This is mostly solid work here, safe for the extreme avoidance of simple speech tags. “Said” and “asked” are not your foes; they’re your friends that you should hang out with often.
Just not too often. You should have a bit of variance with other speech tags (and even more with action tags), but don’t go overboard with unique speech tags.
TLC
1. Lavender Unicorn Syndrome: Your first chapter is bogged down heavily because of this, and despite the lowered frequency in your later chapters, it still presents a problem that’s very difficult to ignore.
2. Logic and Consistency: You’ve got a few holes in this story that are very difficult to gloss over, most notably the sudden unacknowledgement of the Crusaders’ presence, and Rarity and Twilight’s inattention to detail regarding a shiny spell and Neighgerian scam respectively.
Characterization
Rarity’s a bit over-the-top, RD is too apathetic to Flutter's situation, and two of your villains are flat and uninteresting. Reassess your characterization of Rarity and RD, and give the other two villains some depth (and probably names too), given their notable presence in the story.
Final Thoughts
This story is still a young sapling. It can grow into something big and strong indeed, but you should clean up the dirt a bit by removing all the LUS, sorting out your characterization, and fixing a few holes you've left open in your story. Do this, and I expect your tale to be as strong as one of Applejack's apple trees in time.
And that’s it for this review! If you have any questions, comments, or concerns, feel free to drop me a PM. Don’t hesitate to ask.
Until then, this isTom, WRITE's Delusional Diamond, rolling out.
GottaLottaMoolah? Classic.
Short but sweet. Your stuff deserves more attention!