Forbidden Magics

After the attack of the Changelings, life in Equestria eventually went back to normal. Celestia, afraid for her subjects, desides to ban magic throughout all of Equestria. This causes chaos in all of the land, and causes defiance among the people.

This is my first fanfic I've written, so I apologize if the characters' personalities don't perfectly match with canon personalities. I will try to get better, and I hope you see that. Enjoy!

Chapters (2)

Comments ( 6 )

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Ssendam the Masked

Ssendam the Masked #1 · Aug 27th, 2012 · · · Chapter 2 ·

I love it. Good job, man.

Silent Tortoise

Silent Tortoise #2 · Aug 28th, 2012 · · · Chapter 1 ·

Hello Antiivvan, I am a Tortoise, and I just finished reading and reviewing your story, Forbidden Magics.
I read your story as an editor/proofreader, as well as a critic and there were a large number of problems I noticed in the story. A note before you read, I will often refer to Sentence Y in paragraph X using the the following format: (pX sY), where p means paragraph, s means sentence, X is the paragraph number and Y is the sentence number, such that (p1 s3) refers to the third sentence of the first paragraph. Also note that I don't count dialogues as their own paragraphs. If you have any questions about what I mean in a certain part of my review, let me know and I'll be happy to explain what i meant.

If at times I seem to be short with you in review, it is only because I'm trying to write as much as I can without writing excess words. I'm not attacking you or anything, but there's just a lot to write and I don't want to take two thousand words to do it.

Grammar, flow, and clarity issues
Redundancy
The first thing I noticed was a problem with redundancy. In the first paragraph, you keep restating things. For example: "It is finally peaceful yet again. With the defeat of the Changeling Queen, Equestria is safe and peaceful again." You don't need to repeat that it's peaceful, most people will get it the first time. I would recommend deleting the first sentence and altering the second slightly, so that it can stand alone as the first sentence.
The Redundancy issue returns again with sentences three and four. You state twice that life returns to normal. when it was understood the first time. As such, consider deleting the third sentence, or the fourth one.
p4 s4: The sentence is redundant. I would recommend deleting it.
p4 s5: You already said things were slowly returning to normal. Either delete it from the beginning, or delete this sentence.
p7 s3: "When she walked into the square, she saw all sorts of ponies." Kind of a useless detail, as it's kind of implied already by the fact that every pony in Ponyville is gonna be there.
p9 s2, s3: You said "All the ponies" twice. Repeating words or phrases like that is an excellent way to make the writing seem repetitive and boring. Try to avoid doing so.
p10 s3 s5: Luna says 'speak up now or deal with the consequences' twice in the same paragraph. She only really needs to say it once. Choose a sentence to delete.
p12 s1: "Rainbow Dash flew up from the crowd and was enraged by ~~these recent events.~~" It's obvious she's angry about the ban, no need to point it out (what else would she be angry about?)
p16 s17: Pinkie's last sentence in the dialogue doesn't tell us anything we don't already know. Delete it!
p19 s4 s5: "I have assigned a guard to keep an eye on you. This is because I will allow you to use magic, but only under the supervision of the guard. " I would recommend deleting the fourth sentence, and just incorporate that information into the fifth one. 'I have assigned a guard to keep an eye on you, and only under his supervision may you practice magic...' something like that.
It is important not to constantly repeat previously mentioned details, as you'll quickly being to annoy your readers. Especially those who love to nitpick, (like me)

Flow
First paragraph has a lot of sentence fragments. Instead of writing a series of short sentences, consider writing a few longer sentences. You can do this by combining the short sentences. For example: instead of "It is finally peaceful yet again. With the defeat of the Changeling Queen, Equestria is safe and peaceful again. After this memorable event, life seemed to go back to normal in Canterlot over time. All the excitement seemed to die down. ", try something like: 'With the defeat of the Changeling Queen, peace and safety returned to Equestria and life seemed to return to normal in Canterlot." In doing so, you allow the story to progress much more smoothly for your readers, and as a result, make it easier for them to follow and enjoy!
Paragraph 2 also has some flow problems. When you have a lot of short, choppy sentences, the narration will sound choppy, again making it hard to follow. Try combining some sentences.
p3 s1 "Only* Twilight sparkle had been affected..."
p4 s1, s2: Combine the two sentences into one, in order to improve the flow of speech.
p4 s7: Now the problem is that the plot feels rushed. Add more details, and slow down the flow of speech. You can't just say "everything turned for the worst" right after saying "everything was happy". Add more details in between, and build up to the dramatic. By building up, you can create a lot more drama, and keep your readers hooked.
p9 s4, s5: Combine the two sentences into one '...Luna walked out of the mist and the rioting stopped instantly.'
p9 s7 s8: Combine these two sentences into one. 'She gazed sternly at the crowd, walking slowly up and down the stage...'
p12 s2 s3: combine these two sentences to help the flow: 'She flew right up to the princess, and put her face right in front Luna's, in an attempt to intimidate the alicorn, however Luna did not so much as flinch' (or something to that effect)
p13 s2 s3: "Rainbow fell to the ground and tried to open her wings, but* Luna's magic was too strong."
p15 s1 s2: Combine the two sentences using the article "but" 'I'm sorry Twilight but I had nothing to do with this.'
p16 s18 s19: ""Well, I think we should take her back to the boutique now. And let her cool down." Why did you break this into two sentences? Just make it one sentence.
p20 s2 s3: Combine the two into one sentence, to help flow.
p20 s4 and s5: Combine into one sentence.
p22 s2 s3: "She was wearing a delicate, expensive-looking* purple robe with a golden "R" on the sides of it. ~~It looked to be very expensive and delicate.~~"
s25: s2 s3: "He noticed ~~then coming~~ them come*in soaking wet, and ran off, A returning a* few seconds later, ~~he came back~~ with a few towels for the two ponies"

Clarity (no not Rarity, Clarity)
There are a few sentences that I, as a reader, am unable to understand in your reading. One such example is "Those outer cities were never affected by any of these disasterous events, at least not enough to bring panic." (fifth sentence). Which outer cities are you referring to? I assume you're talking about the other cities like Ponyville and Manehattan, but by failing to specify which cities, you create a lot of confusion for your readers. Also, I think the sentence is a bit misplaced you may want to place it either immediately before stating that peace has returned to Equestria 'seeing as none of the other cities were affected by the attack...." or directly afterwards "Peace had returned, as none of the other cities had been attacked.
p3, s2, s3. In sentence two, you talk about how Twilight returned to her library to begin her studies anew, but in sentence three, you talk about how Shining Armor and Cadence had come to visit. Did Shining come to visit right away, or had time passed? You have to be clear about these things; by adding detail, you can make it more obvious to the audience what is going on.
p5 s1, s2: You tend to throw together a lot of details without linking them to one another. Although these links may make sense in your head, we aren't in there, so we can't always tell how they are related. Was the sun shining because the sky was clear? or was the sky just clear and the sun was just shining (meaning that there's no relation in them).
p6 s2: "It was being flown by the Canterlot Royal Guard, so it must be important." By it, do you mean the chariot must be important, or that the people IN the chariot are important? Be more specific.
p6 s5: ""Twilight? I'm here here on royal duty from the Princess. I'm sorry I don't have time to catch up. Could you do me a favor?" Now I'm completely confused. Haven't they already just finished catching up? Why do they need to catch up again. This is why using details to indicate the passage of time is important. Because you don't bother to tell us that time has passed, we don't know whether it's been a month since Twi last saw Shining Armor, or a day.
p7 s5: "Once everypony had gathered in the center of Ponyville, Shining Armor had started speaking. He cleared his throat, and then addressed the crowd." How does he start talking, and then clear his throat? It works the other way around, doesn't it?
p 15 s3: "I just think the princess was afraid something like the Changeling Queen will come again and all of Equestria will be lost." I'm kind of confused at this point. If it wasn't for the use of magic, Shining Armor would not have been able to use the shield spell, and thus, Canterlot would have fallen to the changelings. How would banning the use of magic have helped that situation any? I'm not trying to change your plot, but that's a pretty big plot-hole to leave open. Maybe add an explanation as to WHY banning magic would help the situation whatsoever, cause at this point, I'm just confused.
p20 s1: "Most of the ponies must've been inside because the streets were UNusually* empty."

Grammar
There are a couple grammar mistakes in your story which, (in my opinion), hinder your writing style, and thus make your story harder to read.
The first one occurs at p2 s2. Here, you have a shift of tense. In a single sentence, you're generally not allowed to move from one tense to the other, (i.e. shift from past tense to present tense), yet that is exactly what you did. Either keep the whole sentence in the past tense or the present tense.
At p2 s3, you have a run-on sentence. You can't use "and" twice in a sentence, so i would suggest replacing the first "and" with the word "to".
p2 s5 "Rainbow Dash had gotten* back to her job and was..."
p4 s1 "They ~~had~~ spent a lot of time together during their visit."
p5 s3: "Some of the early risers were up and about ~~with~~ their usual business..."
p7 s4: "Some ~~that~~ were attentive and eagerly awaiting what a the guards* would have to say, others were upset that they ~~were~~ had been*woken up so rudely this early in the morning, and ~~even some that were~~ some were even* trying to get back to sleep in the small amount of room that they had."
p8 s5: "This statement had been enough to silence an entire crowd of Wonderbolts fans, ~~even~~ as crazy as they ~~are.~~ were*"
p14, s4: "Shining Armor! (put a comma instead) why ~~did~~ would the princess do this?"
p14 s5: "Twilight Sparkle had approached her brother ~~who was about to follow the guards to the chariot.~~ just as he was about to board the chariot.
p15 s3: "I just think the ~~princess was~~ princesses were* afraid of* something like the Changeling Queen will ~~come~~ attacking* again and ~~all of Equestria will be lost.~~ destroying all of Equestria*
p16 s16: " Pinkie Pie and Fluttershy were next to her trying to comfort her. "I think this hit ~~everyone~~ everypony* pretty hard."
p18 s4: ""Twilight! Thanks goodness you're here."
p20 s6: "It was so quiet, that Twilight imagined that if someone so much as dropped an apple, you would be able to hear the sound all the way in Canterlot. ~~If there was so much as an apple hitting the ground, you could hear it all the way to Canterlot.~~" You don't have to follow this suggestion to the letter, but the way you have it written now is strange and incoherent.
p20 s7: You can't describe silence as 'dark'. sorry dude but it just doesn't work that way. Try "eerie".
p21 s5: It's spelled filly, not philly.
P21 s9: "She pointed ~~her hoof~~ down the hallway towards a ~~door that was~~ beautifully painted door.*"
p22 s13: "Twilight walked Rarity over to her bed, which ~~was wet~~ had a wet spot in the middle from Rarity's tears."
P24 s2: "Only, a few things had* changed"
p24 s3: "First off, the pegasi ~~sure did~~ had done a good job matching the mood of the town."
p24 s7 s8: "~~First,~~ At first, it was* just a drizzle, but* by the time they got there, it was* a downpour."
p25 s1: "~~Twilight walked in and~~ Spike was trying to sweep up all the dust ~~after~~ created by re-arranging some books on the top shelves when Twilight walked in."

Suggestions* Note that these are only suggestions I have for your writing style/story. Remember that you are under no obligation to follow them, and that as a human, i may have opinions that differ from yours. Follow them if you want, ignore them if you don't.
First and foremost, space out your paragraphs, leaving a blank line between each paragraph. in doing so, you make the essay less cluttered, and thus more aesthetically appealing to the reader.
In p2 s1, I would recommend playing with the words in the sentence to make the sentence more interesting, as personally, i found it to be boring. Instead of just saying she went to work on some new designs, try something like "Rarity went straight to her boutique, eager to work on some new designs inspired by Canterlot's fashion..." (or something to that effect).
p6 s3: "It stopped in front of the library and Twilight saw a stallion was standing tall inside the chariot" By adding those two words, you make the sentence much more amazing.
Also, for dialogue (p6 s4), make sure that each new line of a dialogue has it's own line. Meaning at the end of sentence 3, hit enter.
p7 s2: "After visiting quite a few ponies, she figured that she had found all of them." That sentence doesn't really make much sense, as A) Twilight isn't a lazy pony who leaves a job undone, and B) if she had only visited a quite a few ponies, how can she figure that she had found all of them? Doesn't make sense. Now is she had assumed that Dash would find the rest, that's different.

Other notes
As I'm sure you've heard before, the first sentence, and first paragraph, are one of the most important lines in the story. It's in these lines that you either completely catch your reader's attention, or fail and lost their interest. As a result, it is imperative that you have something to catch your reader's attention, and that the first paragraph flow nicely. Unfortunately, the first two paragraphs did neither of those things. The first paragraph was pretty choppy, making it hard to read, and there were no attention grabbers. Actually, it almost felt like I was reading a summary of the story, rather than the introduction. I would highly recommend fixing the flow issues, and put something interesting in there to grab our attention; something to either make us laugh, build suspense, build anticipation, or just stay interested. If you look at a number of the featured stories in fimfic, you'll see that 99.9% of them have some sort of interesting start that entices you to keep reading. As I progressed to the third paragraph, I had begun to notice a fairly large lack of details. Remember Antii, that there is more to a story than just the plot. Make sure to supplement the story with plenty of details, such as how the characters felt, (where they happy, tired, or frustrated? Was Shining Armor looking happier now that he and Cadence were together?), how Ponyville looked when they returned (were they happy to see home? Was it happy to see them?), or even just the color of the sky. By adding details like that, it's easier for the readers to get 'lost in the story'.

To the best of my knowledge, I have pointed out and attempted to correct every grammar problem I could find! I gotta say, this one was a beast.
Final Critique/Summary
Believe it or not, I actually like the main idea behind the story! I'm not really sure where you're going to go with it, (I'm not going to be proofreading chapter two unless you ask), but it definitely has potential. In fact, had the story had no grammar or flow problems, I actually think that it would have made a featured story!
However, the flaws were too big a problem. Between the redundancy, the flow issues, the clarity issues, the grammatical mistakes, and the lack of detail it was almost impossible to stay immersed in the story. As I said it had potential, but I was honestly bored to tears reading this. When you correct these issues, you'll be able to easily build up drama, create comedy, and hook your audiences.

A little fun fact for you, this took me three hours to write. Please do me a favor and actually read what I have written.

Silent Tortoise

Silent Tortoise #3 · Sep 6th, 2012 · · · Chapter 2 ·

Here you are, Antiivvan, your the long awaited sequel to my earlier review! Sorry it took so long to get back, but college is a demanding mistress (this is a great story, and one you may be able to learn from, should you decide to branch out into romance/slice of life).

Also, a side note, I've decided to change my organizational style. From now on, I'll be counting the lines of dialogue as their own paragraph if they've been given their own paragraph, as opposed to earlier, when I neglected to do so. What does this mean? It means that before, I wouldn't have counted line four, ("Well, hurry up, we're going to be late!"), as its own paragraph before, but now I am. So then the paragraph after it will be paragraph 4, not paragraph 3.

Anywho,

Editing/proofreading
Flow
Flow is, as I've explained before, how easy it is to read a script and become immersed in the story. From the initial read-over I gave your second chapter, you have done an excellent job with flow! Really, well done! However, there still are some minor problems here and there that hinder the flow of your script.

Before I get to the specifics, I'm going to give you general tips on the following for improving your fanfic, for future reference:
1) Detail Overload: One thing you always want to avoid is detail overload. Now details are, in my opinion, the best thing to happen to Equestria since sunlight, but when you add to many details in one area, you'll begin to lose the interest of your readers, (Shame on you guys! ). See p2s3 for more detail.
2) Word repetition: By repeating a sequence of words, (see p3-4, s1), the script will instantly become bland. That's why we have 200 different words in the English language to say the same thing. By varying your word choice, you add variety and flavor to your script!
3) Abbreviate: I noticed that in your script, you often neglect to abbreviate certain words (for example, you say "I will" instead of "I'll", seen in p4s1, or "did not" instead of "didn't", seen in p4s4. While not mandatory, it makes the story slightly easier to read.
4) Combining sentences: One of the biggest ways to kill flow is to have a bunch of short, choppy sentences. If you'd like, I'd be happy to tutor you (or anyone actually bored enough to read these tips) on how to tell when two sentences can be combined into a shorter one, but for now, be conscious when writing your new script for short choppy sentences. If you have more than 4 sentences in four lines, (not counting speech or thought), chances are your sentences are too short, and can be combined into one.

p2s3: "Iron was~~, of course,~~ sitting out of the way, observing everything silently." I understand what you're trying to convey here; you established Iron as the stoic pony in the last chapter. However, by adding details such as 'of course,' you interrupt the flow of your writing, because the detail is unnecessary; If you were to remove it, the sentence meaning of the sentence stays the same.

p3-4 s1 (the 1st sentence of paragraphs 3 and 4): "Well, hurry up, we're going to be late!" , "I will hurry." The repetition of the word '"hurry", as I explained above, does not really help the flow of the script, as it bores the audience. Instead, try having Twilight respond: "I'm on it" or "I'm almost done".

p4 s4-5: "Some pony had a very intriguing question that Twilight did not have the answer to. So, she spent all night looking for the answer, and created quite a mess in the process." You can combine these two sentences into one like so: "Somepony had a very intriguing question that Twilight didn't have the answer to, so she spent all night looking for the answer, creating quite a mess in the process." Subtle changes here and there, but it allows your sentences to flow much better.

p5 s2-3: You can combine the two of these sentences by deleting the period after "Equestria" and replacing it with a comma and the word "but". Also, the repetition of words is present here: "It hit pretty hard in some places in Equestria. Ponyville was built by earth ponies, so they weren't hit too hard." Instead of saying "hit too hard" twice, try using the word "affected" ("Ponyville wasn't affected as badly.")

p6 s1-2: Combine these two sentences by replacing the period after "Twilight", and adding the word "although". Also, delete the comma after "usual".

p6 s4-5: Replace the period after the word "book" with a comma. De-capitalize the letter B.

p6 s6-7: Replace the period after history with a comma, decaptialize the letter "B", delete the comma after But.

p6 s8-9: "The strangest thing was that it was never unicorns looking for the books. It was mostly earth ponies." Combine these two sentences by replacing the period after "books" with a semicolon (;)

p7 s2-3: Combine these two sentences.

p8 2-3: You can combine these two sentences by deleting the third sentence and just adding "to Sugar Cube Corner" to the end of sentence two.

p8 s4-7: Too many sentences, and not enough information; what I mean by this is that in these four sentences you say the same thing each time. Either add more detail to each sentence, or delete the others.

p9 s3-4: You can combine these two sentences by adding sentence 3 to the end of sentence 4.

p9 s5-6: You can combine these two sentences by just stating "Twilight saw Rarity talking with a few other ponies in a corner, and walked over, Iron Storm in tow, while Spike went to check out the dessert table."

p12 s4-5: You can combine the two sentences to improve flow.

p15 s4-5: "Twilight saw many of her other friends there, too. Fluttershy, Rainbow Dash, Applejack, and Pinkie Pie (of course)." The problem with these two sentences is that A) sentence 5 is kind of redundant B) the two sentences are choppy and thus interrupt flow. I'd recommend combining the two to eliminate these errors. For example: "Twilight saw many of her friends, such as Fluttershy, Rainbow Dash, Applejack, and, (of course), Pinkie Pie".

p17s2: This sentence only serves to hinder flow the way it is written. I would recommend combining it with the first sentence, the sentence after, or adding more details it in order to improve flow. i.e.: "...Pinkie clean up Sugar Cube Corner. Thirty minutes later, they were almost done; all of the cake had been cleaned up, and all of* the balloons and streamers had been put in their appropriate areas."

p17s6: "He did talk to a few ponies, mostly just unicorns, though." The only thing wrong with this sentence is its placement. In writing Antiivvan, you can't talk about one thing, start talking about something else, then go back to that first thing. What do I mean by that? In sentence 3, you were discussing what Iron Storm was doing during the party, then in Sentence 5, you talked about what he was doing now. You can't go back to talking about what he was doing after the party; doing so will throw off your readers because it interrupts the flow of the story. I'd recommend combining sentence 6 with sentence 3.

P19 s1-2:"~~Yeah.~~ Yeah, It was fun." Note the comma instead of the period.

p20s2-3: "It was so fun! We should do it again sometime." To improve flow, I would recommend combining the two sentences like so: "It was so fun, we should do it again sometime!" Also, at the end of sentence 3, you need to put an exclamation mark. Exclamation marks are used to express strong emotion/enthusiasm. Seeing as Pinkie Pie is a pony bursting with enthusiasm, especially in her statement in sentence 3, you need to remember to put the exclamation mark.

p21 s1-2: ~~"All right.~~ Alright, see you later, Pinkie." What I'm trying to indicate here is that you can combine the two sentences by replacing the period with a comma, not that you have to use alright instead of all right (Both of them work, I just wanted to show you a different way of saying all right).

p21 s5-6: "It had a crimson color on it. As she got closer, she noticed it was an envelope." You can probably combine these two sentences into one: "As she got closer, she noticed it was a crimson envelope." Less short sentences= more flow!

p22 4-5: "There was no return address or sending address. The front of it was completely blank." You can combine these two sentences like so: "The envelope was completely blank; there was no return or sending address."

p26 s2-3: "It wasn't too far. It was relatively close to the center of town." These sentences interrupt the flow due to their extreme brevity. Also, you may want to add more detail here for the reader's convenience. You say it wasn't too far, but too far from where? The Library? Sugar Cube Corner? Canterlot? While it's obvious you're talking about Sugar Cube Corner, not specifying forces the reader to figure out which one it is. Here's one way to fix these sentences: "Both the post office and Sugar Cube Corner were in the center of the town, so it wasn't too far a walk."

p27 s5-6: "As she was about to walk out, another mail pony came in through the front door. She had a yellow mane and had a bag on. " These two sentences can be combined to improve flow: "As she was about to walk out, another mail pony with a yellow mane and a bag came in through the front door."

p29 s5-6: "He was right when he said she wouldn't even know he was there. For a second, she forgot he was still there." Combine the two sentences by replacing the period after "there" with a semicolon (;) and de-capitalizing F.

p30 s1-2: "When they got back, Spike was upstairs asleep in his bed. He left the party a lot earlier than Twilight and Iron Storm, he must have been tired." I would recommend combining these two sentences, and deleting the detail about him having been tired; it's kind of obvious if he had left the party early.

p35 s4-5: "She took it out and looked at it. She lit a candle and held up the letter to it." These two sentences are kind of choppy, which harms your flow. I would recommend combining the two sentences using a comma and the word "and".

p41 s2-3: "The paper burned a bright blue. It didn't take long for it to be turned into ash." You can combine these two sentences like so: "The paper burned a bright blue, and quickly turned to ash."

p42 s6-7: "It was sure going to be a long 3 days. Twilight just couldn't get that letter out of her head..." Combine these two sentences with a semicolon in place of the period.

Grammar/Grammatical Structure
This is the area where I'll correct your grammar! Exciting right? I'll also place any concerns I may have with the structure of the fanfic here.

p4 s6-7: "Pinkie was throwing a party at Sugar Cube Corner. She said everypony was upset about the recent changes, and they needed to cheer up." Two things here: First, you can combine these two sentences to help your flow, but that's a secondary issue. More importantly, is context. Context means literally "with text". When adding details, speech, or thought, you always have to consider how the sentence will relate to the text around it; how it works with the surrounding text. The problem with these two sentences is in context, it seems to be place quite randomly. One moment you're talking about the mess Twilight made, and the next, about a party Pinkie is throwing. The sudden shift throws off your readers, and thus will confuse them. Either add a sentence to 'ease into' the topic of the party, or put it somewhere else, (For example, you can have Spike say "Well hurry up! We're going to be late for the party*!

p5s5: Thankfully, no pony ~~has~~ had* been punished, or at least caught for magic use* (so far).

p7 s2-6: "He ~~isn't~~ wasn't* a pony of many words, but he is was* good company. He ~~isn't~~ wasn't*very aggressive or rude, he just ~~likes~~ liked* to be alone with his thoughts. " When you're discussing a person, memories, or an event, you can't switch tense. Either keep it present tense, past tense, or future tense. Seeing as you're talking about memories/ past experiences though, keep it past tense. The same goes for the following sentences, keep it past tense.

p8s2: Same deal as above, keep it past tense.

p9s1: "The two ponies and ~~the~~ dragon..."

p13 s4-5: "Twilight remembered when Rarity offered to make everypony a dress for the Gala. She worked day and night, just to please all of us." Unfortunately, you have made a grave mistake here, one that many a good writer has fallen to: person-shift. Throughout the entirety of the chapter, you have been writing in the third person, but in sentence 5, you switched to first person. That is a mistake you are not allowed to make. Unless you somehow indicate to your readers that you are going to be switching to first person, (logic tells me it can be done, but I have yet to see it executed successfully), you are not allowed to switch. Change sentence five to third person.

p15 s6-7: "She had talked with all of ~~them.~~ them, but their lives ~~haven't~~ hadn't changed a whole lot, since they ~~don't~~ didn't rely on magic.

p16s2: "They ~~had~~ played several games, did karaoke, talked ~~a lot~~, and ate a lot of cake."

p16 s3-4: "But, once everything ~~had~~ settled down, everypony ~~was getting~~ had to get* back to their normal lives." You did that tense shift again here. At the start of the sentence, you were writing in past tense ("had settled down") but two words later you shift to present tense ("was getting"). Sorry, but you gotta stick with one tense.

p16 s5-6: "You can't party all the time, and you can't always have a good time, so you had better enjoy the time you do get. Because once that is done, it's over, you can't make it last forever." You did it again dude, you person-shifted. This time, you went from third person to second person. Although I have seen people shift from third to second person before in a script, it's usually fairly difficult, and unfortunately, it didn't work here. Either keep it in the third person ("All good things must come to an end eventually; nopony can party forever"), or create a transition to second person (sorry, but I have no suggestions on how to do that).

p17s1: "Once everypony had left, Twilight was helping Pinkie clean up Sugar Cube Corner." Tense shift again. Either keep it past or present.

p17s4: "He sure is was* good at his job." You did it again! You can't shift tense when discussing an event or person.

p17s5: "At ~~this time~~ the moment, he was standing out of the way, watching Twilight and Pinkie Pie clean up."

p20s1:"I know, ~~right.~~ right?*" Remember, you're asking a question here, so you need a question mark. (I make this mistake all the time too )

P20s5: "She said with a beam." I know you mean that she's smiling here, but unfortunately, you're using the word beam wrong. Unfortunately, beam (the way you are trying to use it) isn't a noun. You either have to write "She said, beaming." or "She said with a smile". Am I being a bit pedantic? Yes. Will most readers be even worse? Definitely.

P21s4: "It was under one of the tables, whatever it ~~is.~~ was*." Meanie! Now you're just doing it on purpose! I'm joking of course, but please be careful not to shift tense in your writing.

p21 s5+7: In these two sentences you write that the envelope is red... twice. Needless to say, redundancy is present. Delete one of these two sentences.

p24 s3: "It could be belong to* that one mail-mare with the yellow hair. I think I saw her* here today." Make sure to proofread your scripts. Either have somebody else proofread it for you, or, if you have nobody to do that for you, do what I do. If you read from start to finish, you're going to miss all the typos because you know the story so well. Instead, reading from the finish to the start, one sentence at a time. That way, you won't get swept away in the story, and can easily spot your typos!

p29s7: "They walked silently back to the library, Twilight levitating the envelope trying to think of whose it could be." Here we have a run-on sentence AND a tense-shift. You've got too much information here without any breaks. I would recommend rearranging the sentence/trimming a detail to keep the sentence grammatically correct. And keep it all in past tense. For example: "Twilight thought of who the envelope could belong to as they walked back to the library in silence."

p31s1:"He ~~doesn't~~ didn't usually* talk a lot, but for some reason, he talked now." Your word choice here strikes me as slightly odd. I understand that he's a taciturn pony, but his response isn't exactly what I would call "talking a lot". Also, just because he doesn't talk a lot, doesn't mean he won't answer a direct question asked to him. You might want to clarify by saying something like: "He didn't usually respond to questions Twilight asked him..."

p32s4: " ~~As she was opening it,~~ After opening it* or Inside* she saw a neatly-folded letter inside." Usually it's hard to see into an envelope until after you finish opening it.

p35s5: "She lit a candle and held ~~up the letter to~~ it up to the letter*."

p37s3: "She didn't really like lying, especially to a pony that is was* only trying to protect her."

Clarification
This is where I'm going to post any problems your fanfic may have in terms of clarity.

p5s4: "The unicorns were not the same" You need to add a bit more detail here. How were they not the same? Why? (I know it's obvious to you, but you need to add details like this) By failing to do so, it's harder to get lost in the script, because then we, (the audience) have to think.

p7: More details. You're very vague throughout the paragraph, and you fail to elaborate on implied past experiences. For example: "Twilight learned a little bit about him over the time they were together." Well what did she learn about him?

p9 s2: More details, or delete the sentence. The sentence currently does nothing for the flow, and thus, should either contain more details, such as what the others were doing, or just be deleted.

p15s8: "There were other ponies that were having trouble, but it was usually minor things." What do you mean by that? What kind of minor things? Who? You can't really just throw out details like this without really elaborating on them. All that serves to do is frustrate your readers.

p17s3: Iron Storm had had some cake, and played a game or two, but he never lost sight ofTwilight. I know what you mean by 'he never lost Twilight', as will most of the readers, but the sentence will confuse the readers. It's kind of hard to lose a purple pony, isn't it? Specify what you mean.

P21s8: "It looked like it was from a king." How would you be able to tell if a letter had been from a king? The answer is, you can't! (unless it has the words "FROM THE KING" all over it. You can say that the envelope looked like it was from royalty, but how can you can't say that it was from a king specifically. It may seem like i'm going overboard here, but I'm not because as far as I'm aware, Equestria doesn't have a king, so reading that the envelope was from a king completely threw me off.

Suggestions:
The suggestions section is, as the name implies, where I will post suggestions that, in my opinion, may improve the script. I'm not saying that these changes are in any way mandatory, obligatory or otherwise essential; they are simply recommendations for you to consider. (It's more a space for me to be pedantic, but still worth considering).

p2s2: "Just ~~one~~ a* minute, Spike" Not exactly a huge or significant change to the script, I know, but its just one of those things that bugs me as I read (As far as I'm aware, nobody says just one minute)

p4s4: In English, we use the word someone to refer to a person, not some one. By that line of logic, it might be worth changing "some pony" to "somepony". It's still grammatically correct, but it just looks a bit odd. If you'd like I can show you how to get word to autocorrect some pony to become somepony

p5s4: "The unicorns ~~were not~~ weren't* the same"

p5s5: "Thankfully, ~~no pony~~ nopony* has been punished..."

p6s3: "For some reason, ~~some pony~~ somepony* would come in and ask for a particularly strange book almost every day.

p6s6: At first, it seemed just like ~~a pony~~ somepony* wanted to learn more about history.

p7s1: Twilight had asked Iron what he thought about this and ~~he usually just looked at her thoughtfully~~ The arrangement of words here is off. I can't put my finger on it, but rearranging the sentence may help improve it. For example: "and his only response was to look (or gaze) at her thoughtfully."

p13s3: "We don't want something like that incident with the dresses to happen again." No offence Antiivvan, but this sentence sounds a bit clumsy. Because of the sentence afterwards, the audience will understand that you are alluding to the time Rarity made dresses for the Gala, however the way the sentence is written now causes two problems: A) It creates redundancy in the script, which as I explained in my last review, annoys the readers. B) There is a clarity issue created: Although you tell us what incident you're talking about in the sentence after this one, it still throws off your readers when they don't know what you're talking about right away, you know? I recommend deleting the reference to the event in the third sentence, and replacing it with normal dialogue, for example: '"...don't overwork yourself, okay? We don't want you to overwork yourself again." Twilight remembered when she offered....' By doing so, you can eliminate the redundancy, while still keeping the reference to that event. The reason this is in suggestions is because this isn't really a huge error; it's relatively minor. But why settle for good when you can have great, right?

p15 s1-3: "All right Rarity. Take it easy. Don't overwork yourself." You can probably combine two or even all three of these sentences. Not necessary but it helps with the flow!

p16 s3-4: "But, once everything had settled down, everypony was getting back to their normal lives." The shift from the party to the end of the party was too sudden here. I'd recommend using a transition to ease into the change, for example: "Eventually though, everything began to settle down, and the ponies began to return to their normal lives.

p17s3: "Iron Storm had had some cake, and played a game or two, but he never lost Twilight." There's nothing grammatically incorrect with saying had had, but it's best to avoid to writing. Replace had with a different verb, such as "eaten". Not necessary, but it makes a slight difference.

p17s6: "During the party he ~~did talk~~ talked* to a few ponies, mostly ~~just~~ unicorns. ~~though~~." You might want to add more detail to this sentence, because on its own, it's rather dull and uninformative.

p20s4: "~~I am~~ I'm just glad to see their smiles back!" Don't forget to use conjunctions!

p26s7: Far be it from me to tell you how to write your story Antiivvan, but I think that this sentence may need some editing: "Twilight asked as she levitated the crimson envelope in front of her." Considering that there's a magical ban in place on every pony except Twilight, I think it's kind of an asshole move for Twilight to casually be using magic in public. Again, not my call, but if I were a pony seeing that, it would bother me.

p33s3: "...exactly 3 days from reading this letter." Instead of saying 3 days from reading this letter, I would recommend saying "3 days from now." It sounds more ominous. Your call.

As a post note, there's something important I want you to notice. I presented the issues your script had in the order I did for a reason. The most important thing to any story is flow. With good flow, grammar mistakes can easily be overlooked and ignored. Also, without flow, you'll never captivate your audience. Next of course, you need grammar. Without grammar, nothing makes sense, as i'm sure you know. After that is clarity, because while your script may be grammatically correct, and may flow well, if you confuse your audience they're gonna have a hard time enjoying the script. Finally, are just my suggestions because as I mentioned, you don't really need to do them, but I feel they would improve the script if you did.
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Critique
That being said, I actually thought that this chapter was fairly enjoyable. As I mentioned before, you have a great understanding of the characters; all of the dialogues match the characters' personalities exactly. As far as the chapter goes, it was a good chapter, but in terms of drama and comedy it was slightly lacking. After the basics such as flow, comes literary techniques such as suspense, comedy, drama, and all those other things that make interesting stories interesting. While the envelope did create suspense and drama in your tale, the rest of the text was a bit bland. Not that it was boring, it just wan't particularly interesting. A really great script rivets the audience to their chairs and makes them want to finish the chapter before doing anything else. I would recommend adding either more comedy, more action, or more suspense/drama to your future scripts. An excellent idea would be to look at Kkat's Fallout Equestria. Although it is incredibly long, that script is absolutely riveting and packed with comedy/action. By studying the text, you may be able to pick up a trick or two.
All in all, not good, but could be better.

My final score? Three Spikes out of five.

Diamond Sparkle