News of Princess Twilight Sparkle's School of Friendship spreads across Equestria, and many young ponies want to be students. However, the high demand means not every one of them can get in. In order to see who would be idol students who'd benefit the most from such a school, all applicants are required to write an essay about themselves and why they want to go.
This story follows one of those young ponies, Sandbar, as he figures out what to write about in his essay and maybe discover why he wants to enrol in the school in the first place.
Entry for The Discovery.
Chapters (1)
This is really sweet.
10036278
Thank you! 🙂
10037311
You're very welcome!
A nice look into how Sandbar got into the School of Friendship, especially since we never got any hints in the show.
To the author - Omg there's so much i want to say but might've already been said by others.
i really do love the origin story of sandbar's cutie mark
Dude I mean nothing but love, I used to make the same mistake, and quite possibly I was even worse than it than you, so I can speak about this with no small degree of authencity.
More. Paragraphs. Enter is your friend. This is not a scientific article, your goal is not to have your readers eyes melt out of their sockets.
10093179
Yeah, I probably could have separated the story out into chapters as well in hindsight.
Yes, you could have but that wasn't necessary. The scenes in your story are not that far apart narratively and the story itself is rather short. My guide for solid writing practices is usually Harry Potter and Rowling put in one chapter break every 15-25 pages, which is comfortably more than your entire story. Dan Brown of course put one in basically every other page, but than again he was terrible author who based his fame entirely on his bashing of the Catholic church. Which apart from being distasteful is just generally a low hanging fruit in the modern pop culture.
Hi! Thanks for entering The Discovery! You PMed me way back asking for a review once things were done, so now I'm here to write it!
Immediately I love this idea, I love that you're writing about Sandbar because he needs more love from the authors of this site, and I like how you're setting the story up. As a reader I already know why I care about Sandbar getting into this school, and even though I already know that he does, the how of it all is something that I want to find out. On a conceptual level I'm a big fan. It's simple and clean and offers a lot of potential.
My favorite parts of this story were Sandbar's first person segments. Your voice for this younger, more hopeful version of the character is really adorable and honestly I feel like it could have carried the whole story if you had chosen that route.
I also enjoy the general structure. Very no-nonsense, the bit with Sandbar's old school was interesting and felt like the necessary thing that Sandbar needed to get him on track while reiterating the fact that he's on a time-limit and increasing the stakes.
Just a few notes:
You switch tenses in the middle of paragraphs sometimes, particularly when you're meaning to convey the inner thoughts of certain characters. I would suggest using italics for when you need to do that, and you'd have a better time having that come across.
And on the paragraphs, some of them are really big. Now don't get me wrong, I love a chonky paragraph or two, but moving forward with your writing it might be something you want to pay a little more attention to.
Emotionally, I didn't feel as if Sandbar's isolation was dire enough to warrant his need to go to the school. There's definitely a good base there, but I was wanting either more cruel treatment from his peers or more emphasis from the prose that it was all in his head, or that he just didn't fit. To see him struggling to ask if those three ponies wanted to hang out was really great—more of that kind of thing would have really kicked things up a notch for me. But again, I understood the reasoning and you had little bits in the story, I was just hoping for more suffering, because that's what really engages readers in a sweet, coming of age story like this.
The revelation that Sandbar has when he's telling Coral why he needs to go to the school is beautiful, though. That last bit felt so amazingly perfect—Of course he got into the school with a final conclusion like that! It felt really cathartic and I want to commend you on filling in this bit of Sandbar's character that we didn't get in the show.
Overall, very enjoyable. I really liked it! If you have any questions on anything that I've said then please feel free to PM me, and thank you so much for participating in the contest.
That is a pretty nice way how sandbar got into the school but his little sister Didn't want him to go away poor kid But I'm sure they will figuring out how to See each other I'm sure they will ya sure it can be hard because I remember as a younger sibling of my brothers and sisters They had to go and sometimes I really don't like to see them go but they have to do this But it doesn't mean it's good bye they will always find a way to see each other this was a pretty good story
Okay, this story is making me want to see more of Coral. I think you might have written another story with her in it, and now I'm excited to get to it.
A sandbar or shoal is a landform that is in or partly in a body of water. Usually, it is made of sand, silt, and/or small pebbles.
Upsers
So he felt like an outcast in his old school yeah I know how that feels and it hurts 😔
At least he had mom and Dad as friends with whom he can share till he is a child, As soon as he /she enters in teenagers age or adulting age, you can't even tell your parents or brother/sisters what are you going through, and the only person you feel you can tell has also started ignoring you or don't have fuck to you problems or feeling they will just take care, even if you say you have a panic attack or you are in depression. they will this common word to every is fucking problem, "Take care". but when they are in a problem you have to help, Why? because this is what we care for everyone, and that is a really big issue in this world. If commit death then they will say, "why didn't you tell me, what are you are going through, I was always there to listen to you", If we have the power to talk after death to the person who we know I may have said this "you were only there to just listen like it was you job to do and don't even give advice or show care to it. you just say take care". so Now morals are changed in this 20s is that don't get emotionally connected to someone and do listen to people who really wanted to get listened to and are in need of your consult or Help. but never help people who don't even give a fuck about you or your problem, they just show up when they need.
upsers
Super!