Off we go to a great start...
For this pegasus pony, life in Ponyville and Cloudsdale felt the same. Thus, he decided to pick up his travelling bag, his essentials for travelling and go explore the entire Equestria and come back to Ponyville once he travelled everywhere!
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This is quite good for a first story. Looking forward to seeing more from you Khaki.
10745688
Heh. Thanks mate.
Well, I’ll be brutally honest with you, this is not exactly a good first chapter. Though I’ve seen far worse, and I believe it can still be salvaged with some tender loving care.
Bluntly put, this chapter suffers from a lot of issues. Some bigger, some smaller, some that your average reader may not even notice. I’ll try to point out those that I deem the most important, though I know I won’t be able to cover all of them.
First and foremost, you start the chapter with a couple large paragraphs. They are not exactly what I’d call a block of text, but they are in the ballpark of it and are quite hard to look at. So, unless it’s absolutely necessary, go for shorter paragraphs. They are far easier to read and maintain your audience’s attention much better.
However, the biggest issue of the opening is the opening itself. You start by expositioning your character’s plan and situation while rapidly jumping from one thought to another and going off on a tangent about certain things. Lots of the extra information can be omitted altogether or conveyed at a later, more convenient spot in the story. The first few sentences/paragraphs should be geared towards catching the readers’ attention and giving them a taste of what to expect from the story, ideally both in regards of theme and tone. The current opening hints at this being a story about travelling, but it doesn’t tell me anything about the tone and also doesn’t provide that interesting hook. Furthermore, it’d be good to introduce us to the character’s plans in a more natural way (e.g. sitting down and tracing the locations with his hoof on the map or something). Some chaotic exposition also occurs later on in the story.
The whole chapter also moves at a very fast pace, even though it’s not really needed, as nothing really tense happens. This results in everything that happens feeling quite insignificant, and it makes most of the information easy to be forgotten while your narrative rushes the audience closer and closer to the chapter’s end. This also results in the story’s atmosphere being almost non-existent and making it nigh impossible for the readers to immerse themselves in the story. There’s no feeling of a calm train ride, no sense of dread as they pass the bridge, no real struggle as the character tries climbing out the window, and next to none confusion and surprise as he overhears the engineers. There’s not enough description to provide these in the first place, and there’s also not enough time to let these build up and sink in. So, bottom line, slow down and describe a bit more to make the story livelier and more vivid.
I already mentioned that a story needs a hook. What I meant by that was something that immediately piques one’s interest and makes them read on. However, a story also needs another kind of hook, one that should happen over the course of the first chapter and introduce the story’s conflict. It doesn’t have to be a literal conflict, but it should be something—a question, a problem, a mystery—that will drive the story’s plot forward. Such a conflict should tell me what to expect from the rest of the story; will it focus on some moral dilemma? Or maybe on investigating who the murderer is? There’s no such hook in this chapter, so I honestly have no idea what to expect from the rest of the story.
Regarding some smaller issues and technical aspects, your grammar and spelling are rather solid (albeit I remember noticing one ‘brang’ where ‘brought’ should go), though there are still some things I’d like to mention.
First, refrain from using numerals in stories. They stand out a bit too much and draw unnecessary attention, and are generally considered incorrect (some exceptions to this rule include years /in 1620/, ammunition callibers, and certain names and codes with numbers in them). It’s also good to refrain from stating particular times or durations of certain events, since it stands out a bit too much and makes your character seem unnaturally obsessed with time. It’s fine to do this if your character is indeed obsessed with time.
Second, the show itself has been pretty inconsistent at times, but one thing that stood out to me is that the character leaves some location, which I presume to be Ponyville, given how he says goodbye to it later. A short while later, the train passes by Canterlot and quite a while later it goes after Ghastly Gorge. However, GG, unlike Canterlot, is supposed to be within walking distance from Ponyville. I have to admit I still don’t know what route the train took.
And now, about some other things, mostly related to formatting and punctuation:
What’s the purpose of the quotes here? Was her coat not cherry-red?
To be fair, this sentence makes no sense. Why is a part of it in italics and brackets?
Again, what’s the purpose of the italics here? It’s normal dialogue. (Also, there should be a comma after ‘reading’ instead of a period. I can send you a guide on how punctuation in dialogue works, if you want.) Judging by the last third or so of the chapter where more italics and brackets occur (in addition to some oddly merged paragraphs), I presume that you tend to use italics to indicate dialogue lines, and brackets to indicate thoughts. Both of these are unnecessary and quite misleading. Dialogues are traditionally written in normal text and defined by double quotation marks, thoughts are italicised without any quotation marks. Brackets should appear only in first person epistolary narrative (e.g. journals and letters) to introduce some side remarks and such. And even then, they should be used scarcely.
Lastly, avoid telling in certain instances (the passengers were angry) and also describing stuff the character couldn’t know. This includes thoughts and also facial expressions that couldn’t be seen from below the train. Also, unless this character is a close friend of Rarity and Sweetie Belle, then he shouldn’t really compare somepony’s else behaviour to them.
And that’s everything I wanted to say. I apologise for such a long and rather negative comment, but I believe this will help you more than pointless sugarcoating. Let me know if anything was unclear, or if you have some additional questions.
10752590
I get that my first story some of the flaws. It was for testing purpose (because I am new), so I gave it a try.
Thanks for the critique and help though.
10752624
You’re welcome. And that’s fine, it’s better than what people usually write as their first story. Also, I hope I didn’t scare you. I surely didn’t mean to, I just deem it better to try to get newbies on track as soon as possible.
10752629
Ah, you didn't scared me with that such critique. I at least now can use this wisdom to improve the other story of mine in its upcoming chapters.
10752659
Also, regarding quality of individual chapters, the first one should always be the one of highest quality. It goes hand in hand with the hooks I mentioned below—if the quality isn’t good enough or the hooks are missing, people may not stick around to read on and enjoy the better chapters. I like to liken a story to a building. It doesn’t matter what grand palace you build upon a faulty foundation. It’s going to fall apart anyway. Of course, I don’t know how your other story’s first chapter looks, but keep this in mind.
Good to know. I didn’t get much help when I started writing years ago and had to figure out a lot of stuff by mere trial-and-error, so I’m now trying to support new folks here and help them start off in a smoother way than I did.
While I do see the validity in Everfree's points, I still find the story a good start to your time writing on this site. I definitely do see aspects that can be improved, but these can be ways to improve on your future stories. Keep writing!
10755431
I will do my best to improve the future stories that I will show here.
Just hope that they will be good with my limited english volcabulary.