Hundreds of millennia ago, seven tribes of pegasi journeyed to the south pole of the planet Equus. In a world of hostile predators, these primitive ponies decided to utilize the bitter cold of the arctic as a defense against the outside world.
These tribes were known as the Ullens, the Cristali, the Izens, the Glacens, the Whittox, the Glisseaux, and the Iafins.
This is the story of those seven tribes, and how they developed over time to become the prosperous nation known as Ulluria.
Chapters (1)
A lot, a lot needs to be said here, but at the very least, you know how words, sentence structures, and grammar works (although you use the exclamation point far, far too often.)
The first 7 paragraphs convey that the MC has been thinking about leaving her current home, but she has forgotten that South exists. She realizes that the south exists, knows nothing about it, but leads the entire tribe there on the hope that it would provide a better life because of a dragon attack which, as I understand it, went better than usual.
This leaves several questions:
1. Is everyone in the entire tribe able bodied and prepared to make a month-long trek? How did they survive a month long migration on a whim without any provisions?
2. Why do they not send a small team to scout the area before everyone moves so they don't needlessly jeopardize the lives of the young, elderly, and incapacitated? (Unless there are none)
3. If they haven't been surviving where they are now, has it always been this way? Have the attacks gotten worse recently? How many have been lost? How many remain?
4. Why would they follow Xena? Why is Xena an authority figure?
In the next passage, they discover that the south pole is cold, and Xena makes tools and her sister makes a fire. This far, the characters with names, except the one sent back to tell the other tribes that there was land at the south pole, are experts at everything which deftly craft survival tools, gear, and fire.
This leaves several more questions:
1. If they were segregated to the clouds because of dragons before, how are they experts at earthly survival endeavors now?
2. Why are horses eating fish? In this alternate universe where trees can grow in below-freezing environments, what reason is there for the horses to be eating fish?
3. If these particular ponies recognize the cold, and are damaged by it (as shown with the hoof/water part), how are they surviving long enough to make harpoons to try out fishing first? How are temperate climate ponies, who once lived where it was warm enough for dragons, used to these climates and require no conditioning?
Lastly, when you are trying to convey very simple information, you use many words, and sometimes several sentences, to do so. For example 1:
""H-he got me!!" exclaimed Tyra, gasping in pain as she tried to put the flames out. She started to drop in altitude, and would become breakfast for the reptilian raider if Xena didn't do something, and quick."
1. Tyra was hit by the dragon's fire and fell.
2. Xena didn't do anything to save her sister.
3. Tyra is being introduced and didn't exist prior to this moment.
There is nothing wrong with purple descriptors (i.e. "reptilian raider"), but the events taking place are, I assume, fast paced. With quickly-evolving action, less is more.
example 2:
"Xena nodded, turning her head to view her sister. Tyra had been flying on her own without any help for the past week, and for the most part, she seemed back to normal."
You are going through this motion as an order of events. Xena nodded. Xena turned her head. Xena looked at her sister. Xena's sister is no longer injured. This is telling, not showing.
We know Xena has to turn her head to look at things sometimes, and unless turning her head is important, it shouldn't be mentioned. If we are being told that she has recovered, it would be better to say, compare new feathers growing on top of the scars, or perhaps through dialogue to simultaneously get to know the characters better.
So far, we have learned nothing about the characters as people. They are names and relations attached to actions, but there are no personal motivations, flaws, or idiosyncrasies.
example 3:
"Looking down, Xena saw movement; and upon closer inspection, she found that it was a school of fish. The water surrounding this rocky surface was teeming with aquatic life. And as the pegasi got closer and closer, it became more apparent just how enormous this area was."
Once again, you are telling not showing. Xena looks down. Xena sees movement. Xena inspects closer. Xena sees fish. There are lots of fish.
Xena should be feeling things now such as, "We've been traveling for like a month. This shit sucks ass, and I'm hungry af. zomg, there's like fish or whatever. I'm gonna fuck up a fish. Holy shit. This little migration just might be my best idea yet." or some shit like that. With each new bit of information, the MC needs to be feeling a certain way. Right now, she's just like, "Hey, there's land... it's got fish... God of Snow."
So, like I said on Twitter, this is skipping a pointed, interesting story for a meandering, loosely defined narrative, and that definitely shows with the last few paragraphs.
Is Ulluria the main character? Are you telling the story about this settlement, or are you telling the story of the ponies who founded it? What is the motivation? How many other tribes are there? Are we to assume that all the other tribes are friendly? Why is everyone so reasonable and logical in this world devoid of emotion?
This story is missing a proper main character, a perilous conflict and/or any formidable antagonist. All we have learned in this chapter is the names of some characters and the continent of Ulluria.
It appears to be that you're either completely making it up as you go along, or you have an outline and you are doing everything you can to adhere to it religiously.
Find a balance, show don't tell, and take the time to develop interesting characters. You clearly know how words, sentences, and grammar works. The hard part is honing that skill into creating an opening that isn't just a 2,500 word emotionless, rigid order of events.
10798400
Alright, this is certainly far more helpful than what you said on Twitter. Just a bit of advice, if you're gonna preface your critique, don't do it with "it's uh... not very good" because that left me feeling EXTREMELY demotivated. If you were paying me to write a story then maybe that kind of statement would be more suited but certainly not when I'm just doing this for recreation.
Looking back, for a lot of this story I had "it's just fiction, don't think about it too hard" in my head. But then I also had sections where Xena described with great realism her hypothesis about the south. So clearly, that mentality is inconsistent, and leaves a lot to be desired. So, I think I'll go more for realism. I'm definitely gonna edit this btw.
Xena didn't "forget the south exists." They're just really far north of the equator. I was hoping this would be implied, since they know about the north, but not about the south. But I could've definitely been more clear about that fact.
1. This is one of those "don't think about it too hard" moments I had, since I didn't think the preparation to migrate would really add much to the story. But yeah, for the purpose of realism, when I edit it, I'll make sure to put that in.
2. Same as above, but I still think I'll keep them all together. Maybe one of them could suggest a small team, but they ultimately decide the tribe should stick together. After all, if they leave the young, elderly, and incapacitated behind, how will they survive the dragons on their own?
3. I was planning to answer this in the next chapter. I wanted to leave a lot of questions in the reader's mind, so they'd be excited for those questions to be answered in a future chapter.
4. Same as above.
1. Another one of those "don't think about it too hard" moments. I was hoping the reader could infer "Oh, they're the tribe leaders, that means they must be the wise ones." But I do realize how, even if the reader infers they're intelligent, this part is definitely a bit of a stretch.
2. Trees can grow in taigas, they're just rare. Also, horses can eat fish.
3. The dragons didn't live up in the clouds with them, they just came up for a bite. Way up in the clouds, it is still very cold, and a dragon wouldn't be able to stay up there for long periods of time. The key difference between the south pole and the sky is that, if a dragon gets too cold in the sky, it can just fly back down. But at the south pole, they can't just simply 'get out' of the cold quickly. I thought this would be implied. It's also explained that the reason the pegasi can withstand the cold is because they live way up in the clouds. But just because you can withstand the cold doesn't mean you can touch ice-cold freezing water with no issues.
These are some good points. But I would like to mention something very important; characters will only ever exist for one chapter. It wouldn't be great to spend large amounts of time fleshing out characters just for there to be a timeskip and the characters are suddenly a part of history, with new characters taking their place every time. This story recounts the entire history; I can't have chapters close enough chronologically that they have the same characters. Perhaps I should've fleshed out the characters a bit more, but if you're expecting a full detailed description of their personality and their past, that's just a bit much.
Also, a lot of the questions you're asking are meant to be answered later. I want to give just enough information that the reader knows what's happening, but little enough that they're curious as to why the world works this way. Why are there dragons there? How come a lot of pegasi were able to stay in Equestria while these specific ones clearly could not? How did earthponies and unicorns survive? I have answers for all of these questions and I have an idea for how I'll give those answers, but it'll be in a future chapter.
I'll definitely take your criticism into consideration; thanks for the taking the time to make it.