Chapter Three
A Crazy Night
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“You want to hear my life story?” All six of the Ponies, Fluttershy, Rainbow-Dash, Twilight-Sparkle, Pinkie-Pie, Applejack, and Rarity, nod their heads at me. I sigh and Begin my story.
Well my name is Dean Yarlo, and I am from another world, I am from a place called Earth and I was walking in the woods in my town and I found a portal and I decided to jump in and see what the deal was with it glowing and stuff, I am from a town called Poplar. I was thrown out of my house for supposedly not trying to find work which is bullcrap because I worked my ass off trying to find a job, There is nothing in Poplar, shouldn’t be called a town. I am 17 years old soon to be 18 in a couple of days, out of high-school and out of a place to live. I thought jumping into the portal would be a better option than blindly walking through the forest and run out of food and water. I am just trying to figure out why the portal brought me here.
I cough a little and clear my throat. "That's pretty much all I can tell you about me, I'm not that special."
"Aww come on now, everypony is special in their own way." AppleJack smiles. I smile back. "Are you wanting to go back home?" "not especially..." "Why not?" "Cause they told me to get lost, and so I did." my voice starts to get an angry tone as I remember back to that night.
'You need to find a damn job son!' I remember Dad saying, 'I'm trying my hardest Dad!' 'Well it's not enough, all you do all day is stay in your room and play that stupid computer!' I got angry with him. 'I don't just play games Dad! I do cons-' 'Oh okay sure, constructive,' he makes air quotes when he says constructive. After a while of bickering he told me to pack my things. I looked at him and said 'Fine! You want me to be gone? I am GONE!' I picked up my bag and slammed the door behind me.
I must've stood there for a few minutes, my hands clenched so tight the color fades in them. "A-are you okay? Dean?" Fluttershy's voice breaks my thoughts and I remember where I'm at. I sigh "Sorry, yeah, I'm okay.." I lie horribly. "What's wrong Dean?" I hear Twilight speak to me. I open my hands which immediately start to hurt, but I ignore it. "I was remembering the night I left."
I explain the night to them, and they nod. "Well you're here now and you can be an awesome friend, cause I like being friends with everypony I meet-" "I'm not a pony, and why do you say everypony and not everybody?" Twilight steps forward. "Nevermind that now we need to get to bed, it's getting late." I notice that it is getting dark. Where am I going to stay, thinking to myself. "You can stay at my cabin Dean."
I look at Fluttershy and she smiles, “I-if you want.” “Sure.” I say happily knowing I have at least somewhere to stay. So we all go home saying good night and I follow Fluttershy to her place. She takes me to a small little cabin in the middle of a small forest. “This place is beautiful Fluttershy!” She smiles at me and takes me inside.
I walk in and the place looks great, it smells amazing, like a new house smell cause of the wood and paint. “This place is amazing Fluttershy!” she blushes a little and smiles “Thanks Dean.” I smile back as I feel a little weirdness in my chest, not really sure what it means. “You can have my bed” she says, “it’s bigger than my couch and you would have a more comfortable sleep.” “No deal Fluttershy, that is your bed, I don’t want to take it from you” "Are you sure?" "Yes."
Before I lay on the couch I smell myself and I about gag on how bad it is. “You got a shower?” She points down the hall “Yep 1st door to the left.” I go in there and notice it’s an open shower. “Don’t you have a curtain for your shower for like, privacy?” She looks at me and says "We don't wear clothes most of the time anyway." "True."
I sigh and turn the water on which isnt really that hot, I take off my pack and lay it down next to the door and then I close the door so I can get some privacy. I shrug at it and take off my clothes and jump in the water and wash off the dirt and scum from today.
I put my dirty clothes back on, I had no choice, my Dad didn't give me time to get more. I walk over to the couch and lay down on it. I grab the blanket Fluttershy left for me and wrap up in it, its chilly in here. After a while it starts to get really cold, and then I remember that it is getting close to winter, but it is so much colder in this world than mine. I lay there shivering myself crazy. I sit up and curl up as tight as I can, I soon fall asleep.
I wake up again still freezing, I look up and notice Fluttershy is standing there. "Agh!" I yelp. She jumps as I do. "Sorry Dean, didn't mean to scare you. Are you okay? Cause Angel came into my room and woke me up saying something was wrong with you." I look down at the bunny, she looks back at me with worried eyes. "She was saying you were shaking crazily." I speak back to her in a stutter due to the cold, "I-It's s-so c-cold..." "Really? Its warm in here to me." "E-easy for you t-to say you have a c-coat to k-keep you warm, all I have is sk-ski-n..." She looks at me and says "Why don't you come and sleep with me, there's enough room on the bed for both of us. I have more blankets for you to use." I nod
We get into the bed and it is warmer, I sigh in relief as the warmth comes over me. "Feel better?" she asks. I smile and nod. She says "Okay Good night." She leans over and hugs me randomly making my heart beat like crazy. Wait, I like her..she's a pony..that's not right. She pulls away and I shake my head as I feel a strangeness come over me. I shrug it off as nothing. I close my eyes and enjoy the warmth of the covers.
I see a shadow walking towards me, in the shape of a pony, but it's male and charges toward me at a fast pace, it wooshes right through me, like a ghost would, I fall back and the shadow appears over me, It's eyes glow bright white and it seems to fade and I feel an energy engulf me...
I wake and yelp loudly waking Fluttershy, "Dean, You okay?" "Y-yeah...Just a nightmare..." I get up mumbling, "it seemed...so...real..." "Dean?" Fluttershy asks. "I'm going to go get some air..." I walk horrified beyond belief outside into the freezing fall air.
I walk around in a circle around the shack, and I hear a familiar voice "Dean!" and I ignore it completely, still terrified by the dream. Rainbow-dash lands in front of me with a frown on her face, which immediately fades when she sees that I am white as a ghost. "Dean? You okay?" I stop and just stand there, Fluttershy comes out of the shack and walks toward us, "He had a nightmare and he won't tell me about it." "Come on Dean, Tell us.." I open my mouth to speak but that's when it begins.......
(end of chapter 3)
Hey guys Another chapter for you hope you enjoy, Point out any mistakes you see please, and i will fix them. Also looking for a Proofreader, though my spelling is pretty good, but still its always good to have someone else look at it Thanks Guys
--Gareth
NICE work I"m getting addicted to this story keep it coming!
1222616 Thanks man. I will get chapter 4 up as soon as i can. i just gotta revise it and junk :P
Well, it's not the worst fic I've ever seen. You have the skeleton of a good writing style here. It's generally coherent, and I can tell what's going on at a glance. This is good stuff. The characterisation is quite good, as well, and you don't focus too much on the small, inconsequential details that most new writers assume make their fic deep and interesting, but instead make it an absolute slog to read. For an example of this, try reading a random page of 'Eldest' by Christopher Paolini, a published writer, who gleefully falls into that trap. Which you as a new writer have avoided, so feel proud of that.
Now, onto the bad stuff. You start 80-90% of sentences with 'I'. This is a newbie mistake with first person, and it makes your writing repetitive and, to be honest, hard to read. For example:
'I walk around in a circle around the shack, and I hear a familiar voice' could become 'Walking around behind the shack, I hear a familiar voice'. Not perfect, but it doesn't begin with 'I', and incidentally cuts out that awkward 'around in a circle around' business.
Secondly, new line for new speaker. Every time the person speaking changes. That way, your speech is clearly attributed to someone, rather than the speech derailing into a confusing jumble where the reader is unsure as to who is saying what line in a conversation. This problem grows exponentially with each possible character within contact distance. The more characters that would be able to interject into a conversation, the more difficult it becomes to tell who is saying what line. Did X just say that? Or was it Y? Did Z just quickly interject via the comm unit? Did A yell it from the next room over? You get the idea, I'm sure, and I'm just being patronising at this point (Apologies, but I can't assume people are competent on the 'Net).
Thirdly, get a beta reader. They'll help remove some of the awkward word choices and weird grammar quirks that I've noticed so far, because they are able to look at your work from a more objective viewpoint than you. 'I stand up slowly on my feet and the watch me in awe.' (Chapter 2), for example. You don't need to specify that you stand on your feet, because you're human, and thus we can assume from 'stand' that you are, in fact, standing on your feet and not your nose. Since this is first person, you as the viewpoint character, don't know that they're watching in awe. They could be watching with barely disguised disgust. Or you might have mind reading powers. Either way, you need to show what they are doing here, rather than telling the reader what the ponies feel, since, barring mind reading, you as a character wouldn't know they were feeling awe. A better line might have been 'Trying look as harmless as possible, I stand slowly. The yellow pony's eyes widen, and her jaw drops as she stares at me." or something like that. I'm not a professional writer, but still, it doesn't look half as awkwardly phrased. Also, you need a 'y' on that 'the', my friend. Nitpicking, but still a spelling mistake
Anyway, you might want to consider revising this in light of the 'I' problem, but overall you have the skeleton of a good story, so far. It needs fleshing out, and some of the bits are a little broken, but it's not one where I'd say "scrap it and start over.", it just needs some TLC. So good job overall. Watched and liked, just don't fuck up
1224628 Ummm... wow... I am not trying to be the BEST freaking writer out there I am just writing a story... My grammar is not that amazing i'm sorry. I do need someone to help me with that stuff. And I don't know what to do with all the I's. Can you help me out possibly? you know so much about it seems, (im not trying to be mean)
1217826 By the way i also got rid of the immediate shipping, i wont make it where they have a ship...but there will be shipping later...
I recommend spacing you lines of dialogue, such as if a new person talks strata new line so it is easier to read sometimes I found myself confused if the character was talking of somepony else
(Yes I know this story is 7 years old but I just feel I have to put this in) I'm not gonna lie, I like this story, but it feels a little, what's the word, robotic, to me. But other from that it's pretty good