Beside the Last Gateway, the Sun Shone Warm and Bright

Mockingbirb

Mockingbirb #1 · Jun 25th, 2020 · · · Beside the Last Gateway ·

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This is a test comment.

EverfreePony

EverfreePony #2 · Jun 28th, 2020 · · · Beside the Last Gateway ·

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I promised you some feedback, so here we go, let me know if you should elaborate on something:

Overall, it’s a pretty enjoyable, short read, though it still suffers from quite a lot of issues. First and foremost, over a half of the part with Swift Bark feels like some sort of pointless meandering that cannot decide on whether it wants to be a comedy or a serious, almost sad philosophical piece. It also moves forward at an awfully quick pace. Both of these issues lead to the part seeming mostly jarring and without proper atmosphere. The best way to solve this would be to slow down, describe more, pay attention to details, and, possibly, try to establish the (most likely somber) mood even before Luna enters his dream. This can mostly be applied to the rest of the story as well—slower pace and more details to make it feel more alive. For example, the cloud puppet theatre part is good, but it can easily be far better. Swift Bark’s recovery’s also a bit too swift, and the audience cannot really appreciate it. One spot where the faster pace fits is the lighthearted ending, though truth be told, that one would also benefit from being a bit shorter—the joke is drawn out so much that it kind of stops being funny.

As for more technical aspects of the story, your spelling and grammar are mostly solid, even if there’s the occasional typo or some roughly worded sentence. Watch out for repetition of some words (such as said) in almost every sentence. You should try to show off your rich vocabulary a bit.

By the way, why is there a Sci-Twi tag on the story?

PS:

"When you were a filly, did anypony ever tell you the story of Sleeping Beauty?"
"Yes," Twilight said. "I always thought it was creepy.

Well, did you know that Sleeping Beauty was raped in the original version of the tale?

Mockingbirb

Mockingbirb #3 · Jun 28th, 2020 · · · Beside the Last Gateway ·

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10306184

First off, thanks for reading the story and telling me what you thought!

By the way, why is there a Sci-Twi tag on the story?

Good catch, thanks! I just fixed it.

Well, did you know that Sleeping Beauty was [censored] in the original version of the tale?

I had read about that. But I didn't want to bring it up and commit to avoiding an E rating. So I handled it in a way that I thought was appropriate for a wider age range.

I think as for most of the rest of your comments...
- Much is immediately helpful in some ways, in giving some clues to an example reader's relationship with the story.
- A writer might need to wait and take some time to think about them before deciding how to apply them. They're not as simple as "Here's the right way to spell alleiykcorn," or "Goad is definitely not the past participle of to go." Maybe some of what you said are the kind of comments that a writer might have a better idea how to apply several stories later.
- I think some of your commentary can only be properly applied by my taking a serious look at what my goals for the story are and what your tastes are like. Fortunately, fimfiction.net lets me look at your user page and see more clues about that.

EverfreePony

EverfreePony #4 · Jun 28th, 2020 · · · Beside the Last Gateway ·

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10306207
You’re welcome, glad I could help a little!

I had read about that. But I didn't want to bring it up and commit to avoiding an E rating. So I handled it in a way that I thought was appropriate for a wider age range.

That’s understandable. I put it here as an interesting bit of trivia, rather than a correction. To be fair, most fairy tales started out as stories aimed both at adults and children, and thus most of them were kind of mature.

a writer might need to wait and take some time to think about before deciding how to apply them. They're not as simple as "Here's the right way to spell alleiykcorn," or "Goad is definitely not the past particle of to go." Maybe some of what you said are the kind of comments that a writer might have a better idea how to apply several stories later.

I wish I could give you something more concrete here, but writing is indeed a craft largely based on experience. Of course, I could show you how I’d rewrite it, but that’d be just one of hundreds of possible ways of doing so, and it definitely wouldn’t be your way. Still, if you want to make sure that your story’s content is the best it could be, I strongly suggest getting an editor. You can learn from them faster than if you tried to discover all the rules by trial and error by yourself, plus your story’s quality won’t suffer because of that. Also, another good way of gaining writing experience is reading works of others and thinking about what in them works and what doesn’t.

Wild Stallion

Wild Stallion #5 · Jul 9th, 2020 · · · Beside the Last Gateway ·

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"Hey," Luna said, "I have an idea. Let's figure out how to frame Celestia for curing him."

I mean it all depends on what period of time your putting this in, so if your doing this some years after the final then it shouldn't mater too much. If this takes place during the show though, then you should know Luna had a very medieval way of speaking, and even when she starts using modern words she is still by nature very formal. I have trouble believing the Luna we see in show would use a phrase as casual as "Hey". But that's just me, other people might be fine with it. Other than that not bad.

The dialogue is a little wooden and if you really want to make a impact I suggest you get that polished (perhaps some emotional qualifiers?) So "He looked at Twilight Sparkle and winked." becomes, "He looked at Twilight Sparkle and winked roguishly." Just little things like that to tie the story together, and give a underling sense of emotional depth to it, but there's nothing much else that strikes me as out of place. You might get some quibbling from fans as to whether or not Luna is really the kind to play jokes but other than that, this looks to be pretty straight forward.

Wild Stallion

Wild Stallion #6 · Jul 9th, 2020 · · · The Sun Shone Warm and Bright ·

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I am going to have to point out something your readers may likely ask questions about; namely the fact that if Swift Bark or another pony did in fact poison him wouldn't the absence of a sting mark reveal that to be the case? Or is there some other reason as to why the Princess is in doubt over the accuracy of his claims?

Mockingbirb

Mockingbirb #7 · Jul 10th, 2020 · · · The Sun Shone Warm and Bright ·

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10324721

All of the spoilered stuff below this paragraph is largely irrelevant to this story's actual virtues and flaws as a story, which have more to do with the relationship between the story and its audience. Because you are a member of the audience talking about your relationship to the story, your comment is pretty much guaranted to be a clue towards writing better stories, if I have the wit to properly interpret and use it.

If I just take your question as a question, I think the easiest and most convenient way for some ponies to get manticore venom into a pony is to go (or take the pony) to a place where there is known to be a manticore, and provoke the manticore.

If you're trying to commit suicide, you can provoke the manticore.

If you're trying to get a colt poisoned, maybe you can bring the colt with you, anger the manticore, and run away faster than the colt can run.

Either way, the physical evidence of the manticore poisoning is a manticore sting mark. The most objective cause for suspecting murder or suicide is the fact that one colt was poisoned in two different ways in such a short time, which is somewhat unusual, and might be a clue that someone REALLY wants that colt dead. The later part of the investigation would be closer to a police procedural, and is not really the part of this that Luna was most involved in. If I wanted to write a police procedural instead of a look at the various things Luna was doing, that would be a good place for me to focus.

Mockingbirb

Mockingbirb #8 · Jul 21st, 2020 · · · Beside the Last Gateway ·

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10323612
I think fairness to Wild Stallion requires me to point out that after I received his comment, I reviewed some of Luna's show dialog, reworked much of Luna's dialog in this story...and I'm still not sure if I managed to make only improvements to it, or if I might have worsened at least a bit of it too.

I do think there's at least one funny irony in some of the comments I've received on this story, but that's life and I won't point out what specifically I'm thinking of. Because life is funny and it probably should be.

Angel Midnight