Self-published author of werewolves, faeries and vikings. Homeschooling mom. Maker of doll clothes. Self-employed.
In Big Mac's dreams, he can fly: not with butterfly wings or those provided by magical means, but with huge, majestic, powerful pinions that match his body in strength and size. In his dreams, too, he has the courage to approach Fluttershy and ask if she'll spend time with him. One dozing daydream takes him on a wild adventure involving both secret wishes, and waking finds one has come true!
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My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
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Hmmm. A few quick thoughts:
I noticed right off the bat that this story has no long description or cover art, which didn't strike me as an auspicious start, so I was skeptical of this one at first. It proved to be quick, cute, and an okay character examination of Big Mac. This story doesn't feel to me like there's a great deal of depth to it, but there might not need to be for what it is. One flaw worth mentioning is that I would have liked this to have more showing and a bit less telling.
8020412 points out some of the same early worries I had. Your title is also not even title-cased, and the story also appears to be technically unpublished. (Or FimFic is really glitching at listing you with zero stories.) Oh, and you're just barely meeting the MINIMUM word count. That's a lot of red flags before I even got to the story.
But that's the bad news. The good news is that it is abundantly clear to me you are a practiced writer. The complexity of your sentence and paragraph structures is well above average, and makes this a really pleasant reading experience. There are a few minor typos, and two that I'm not sure about. That is, Sweet Apple "Orchard" instead of "Acres" and "Cloudsville" instead of Cloudsdale. As the whole thing is a dream... not sure if that was intentional or not, and as it's never clarified, a bit distracting as a reader.
Oh, and major tongue twister with: "pale yellow and petal pink on a path"
Overall though, I think you have a pretty solid story here, but the "dream" aspect of it kinda weakens the impact of the events shown. I am curious why you have so much of this story framed in dreamscape, when it would be so much stronger had Big Mac simply started off "working up his courage" and maybe asked Twilight for that butterfly-wing spell (or bought a potion, or bribed another wizard, whatever needed to get wings.) It feels like you were focused on Mac/Fluttershy as a thing, but also were determined to show the joy of flight. The end result is that the focus of the story is a little bit fuzzy, and the touching scenes shown with the dragonlets and such come across diluted by the fact that it wasn't real. Yes, you have a "it gives him the courage to..." bit at the end, but... I think you can do better, and I mean that as a compliment.
8072258
: To be clear, as this IS unpublished, Winston and I are both only here because we are judges for EFNW. I want to say that I did nominate this for the "Rarity" award, as I think you have a great way with words. The final judging round is starting soon, so best of luck!
But... publish it now! We're basically bending the rules to keep this in the running as is. As I'm now nominating it, we have to be able to link it publicly in the final round post, and even if you don't advance, you'll still get new readers from the nomination announcement. If it's not public by then however, it will be completely disqualified.
The theme of 'growing up wild and forever free' isn't very apparent in this story, unless
's flight symbolizes freedom. That said, I think you've got more wordsmithing skill than most. Your prose can be very pretty when it wants to be, and the heart of your story is sound.
For me, I would have loved to see something change in Big Mac, even something minor. Had you started with a scene where Big Mac couldn't bring himself to talk to Fluttershy, then after the dream he could, that could have showcased the dream's impact for the reader. Or maybe have him blurt the whole awkward, confusing sentence and really make a fool of himself. I disagree with Xepher in that I enjoyed the framework of the dream, but I do feel you could have done a little more with it. You could have made it feel more dreamlike; have something change unexpectedly, or drop in some spectacularly unreal scenery, or have fog smudge the edges of the trees. I only ask because you've clearly got the skill to pull it off! The scene with Fluttershy and the baby dragons came across as vivid, and I sympathized with Big Mac through that scene.
Anyhow, I am tired and seriously rambling here, so I will simply end by saying that I like your style of writing, and I thank you for participating! I hope to see more from you in the future!
8073180
Hi there,
Thank you very much. As I usually write novellas, I don't have much experience with short story plots, and of course, this is more of a storybit and less of a story - as noted, it barely reaches the minimum word requirement. I chopped this out in 2 days to hit a deadline for a contest. I promise, I'll do better in future. :D