A collaboration of WatchTower1992 and me. In this story, Fluttershy’s timidity turns her into a tortoise. And the only way to reverse the spell is for the shy mare to “come out of her shell”.
MLD: My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic and all characters, trademarks, etc. are property of Hasbro. All rights reserved. All credit goes to whoever it’s due.
BGI: This fan-made story deviates from the “Friendship Is Magic” canon right after the events of Season 1, Episode 2: “Friendship Is Magic, Part 2”.
Chapters (2)
I think this was great! But you might have forgotten to mark it as complete.
11133160
KingSombraTheTyrantRuler,
I had. I’m still figuring out the controls and how to do stuff involved in posting stories. This was my first.
11133196
Ok.
A nice premise built around a simple pun, but I can see how it could make for a pretty good story that can be taken in multiple directions. Though speaking of directions, I have to admit I'm unsure what tone and direction were you aiming for with this story. It definitely needs the "Random" tag, given that turning into a turtle/tortoise is not exactly an everyday slice-of-life occurence. Though besides that, I'm not sure if this was supposed to be a comedy, a sad story, or something bittersweet inbetween. For future reference, try to also pay more mind to how you pace the story. The concern about the lack of tone that I've expressed above stems from the fact that everything happens way too fast in the story, and the scenes are so short that they seem more like summaries rather than scenes that'd show enough to establish a sound atmosphere that'd draw the readers in.
Furthermore, watch out for some random POV shifts--there's one that even happens mid-sentence. The issue with this kind of error is that it's very noticeable and rather jarring, so it easily turns away potential readers. There are also some rather noticeable errors when it comes to punctuation. It's nice to see that you're using em dashes, but note that there's no such thing as double em dashes. (Or, better said, they are a thing, but they shouldn't appear in a story. What may appear in a story is a double hyphen that serves as a replacement of a single em dash.) Furthermore, parentheses (side remarks in brackets) break the flow of the story a fair bit, and as such they should be used scarcely and ideally only in epistolary narrative. When it comes to this kind of prose, better use commas or em dashes to introduce side remarks. I also noticed some punctuation errors in direct speech, but I won't mention them here for the sake of keeping this comment moderately short. I can send you a short guide on how to handle these though.
And that's pretty much all I wanted to mention. You have some pretty good ideas, but you also need to practise their execution. However, I believe that once you get that under control, you'll easily make it to the featured box.
This was a nice story. I liked the direction you took the theme of coming out of your shell.
11472959
PatRoison,
Thanks, friend.
A friend inspired me to make this story. Seems like something that Fluttershy would need.
What’d you like about it? Do you see anything that I could improve for next time, as this is my first story?
11472986
What I enjoyed was the play on the pun. That was nice. As for what can be improved. This isn't going to sound fun, but you'll get better with practice. I don't think I can explain better than EverfreePony did in their comment, so I'll add to what they already mentioned.
First, the story, especially the second part, has a lot of promise. The fact that part of Nightmare Moon still survived and traveled through dreams lends itself to serval possibilities, ranging from adventure to horror. That is something you can expand on by having Nightmare Moon visit other ponies' dreams. Perhaps, she wants to be freed and is looking for help. This could lead her to Fluttershy's dream.
As far as her condition, I kind of like how it's not explained how she got that way, but sometimes things like this shouldn't be kept a mystery. Perhaps it could be due to Nightmare Moon or something related to her. Regardless of the reason, it should be linked to Nightmare Moon somehow.
You did well with the dialogue. It worked, but you could include action between each character's dialogue.
The last part is the pacing. This can be a tough one because some readers enjoy fast stories while others enjoy stories that lay out all of the details. This is something that you will develop as you write more. This can be frustrating since each writer is different. A good tip is to try and visualize what the character is doing.
For example, when Twilight began to cry because she missed Fluttershy, why did she miss her? Fluttershy was still there, just as a tortoise. Was it that she couldn't speak or that Twilight missed the pegasus? And when she began to cry, was it a quiet sniffle, a sob, or a Pinkie Pie-style wail of sorrow?
These will give more insight into the characters and keep the story from moving too quickly.
For now, that's all I can think of, but please take all of this with a grain of salt. I'm no expert, and I have my own writing shortcomings to work out. I hope you continue to write, and as you do, you will improve.
11473273
I see.
Thank you for your input. I’m still fairly new at writing.
As for Twilight’s crying, she was sobbing because Fluttershy was remaining in her shell out of fear.
I am working on improving my writing, so I’ll take your input into consideration in the future.
Thanks for checking this story out!
11473667
Happy to help. I appreciate you clarifying why Twilight was crying.
I'll be glad to share my two cents in the future. Just remember that you'll get better the more you write. If you're consistent, you'll find that you'll be willing to take more chances and try different things. One of my favorite things is rereading something I wrote and finding a scene that I'm pretty much okay with.
Okay, that's a bit of an exaggeration. Keep writing. From both chapters, I can see that your ideas show promise, you just have to come out of your shell a little.
11473897
That, I do.
2020-2021, I had to put up several walls because of a lot of emotional trauma. Last summer was when things finally started to change for the better. I still have a lot to work on, though.
Hmm, I feel the beginning is rather clumsy here, in that RD just knows the tortoise is Fluttershy (avoiding a potentially interesting figuring out scene with Fluttershy talking to them), and we don't really get an idea why it happened. It gets better after that, but also feels a little short, as very little is done with the premise (shouldn't at least there be an issue with somepony like Rainbow Dash trying to handle the animals and struggling, since Fluttershy can't do it in her small and slow body?)
11488980
Nebbie,
Thank you for pointing that out.
This is, after all, my first fanfic. And another author was helping with the writing. I suppose we both overlooked that fact. Maybe the remaining Mane 5 are taking turns caring for Fluttershy’s animals during this crisis. I’ll leave that up to the speculation of the reader.
As for how RD knew the tortoise was Fluttershy, she looks like a tortoise but retains her natural colors as her pony self. Plus, the necklace with the Element of Kindness would’ve been with her still. So it wouldn’t have been hard to figure that out.
11489004
Ah, I had been imagining her looking like Tank, and also misread Twilight's line. I suppose in both the case of this and somepony else out with the animals, these are things that wouldn't be a problem in a visual medium (they'd be visually apparent while things are happening), but in writing, you really do need to spell out things a bit more.
11489237
I’ll keep that in mind. Thank you for your input. I’m still fairly new at this.
Cute story, I really liked the theme here. I would have liked for her to be cured while the others were present so we could see their reactions, but other than that it's good. Great job!
11553368
Thanks!