Mechanica is a story about a broken Equestria. The mixture of blood and fuel, veins and wires, flesh and metal. The only hope what little of it has left, are of course, Twilight and her friends. Though they will find that this journey may be their most brutal one yet.
FEEDBACK IS HEAVILY APPRECIATED:
Let me know if you find too many typos or if you know how I could improve the story's writing.
I may be good at writing in English for the most part, but I'm still Brazilian and still trying to improve.
Temporary Cover until I have the patience to actually draw a final version.
Chapters (1)
You drew that cover?
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Eyeup, I did indeed!
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Cool!
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Thanks!
So… did Phyrexia invade Equestria?
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Oh? What would that be?
Here's some feedback:
Unless you wrote this for the comedic effect, the comparison doesn't really work. Children, or foals in this case, cry from very little, while what you're trying to imply is that it's a strong pain.
Does one generally feel their eyes? You could switch with something like "The left remained firmly closed and, as Twilight continued to try forcing it open and failing, she realized it was as if it wasn't even present."
If you want emphasis on this, you could say it made her gag.
Though the Equestria we see in the show isn't without technology, it is still a very agrarian society with little in terms of mass production. You should either establish why Twilight knows what a factory is like or phrase this differently.
Don't overuse ellipses. They break the rhythm of the prose, which can sometimes be desirable, but definitely not this early, nor this often.
In the previous paragraph you say "hours". Either change that to "what felt like hours" or rephrase this.
"slowly and feeling disoriented"
Twilight. In general unless a character's title, gender, or any other attirbute is important, try to stick to their names.
This whole paragraph should likely be split in two or even three smaller ones. The amount of detail in them is pretty overwhelming, especially since you largely stick to samey words. Also you're using "structure" way too much.
neatly?
Careful with such descriptions. Without details or basis for comparison, it's more confusing than helpful. If you wanna emphasize their length, just say "long".
As above, "strange" in and of itself doesn't say much. Everything in this location is strange. You should strive to explain what exactly makes it strange and let the reader deduce that this is very much not normal.
Why is this underlined?
This turn of phrase doesn't make sense in context.
You tend to repeat words for, what I assume to be, emphasis. Don't. It's jarring. There is also an overarching issue with this whole description: It's completely emotionless. Yeah, sure, you throw in a lot of "bizarre"-s and "strange"-s and whatnot, but the impact of Twilight's morbid transformation is lost on the reader when the whole thing is basically told to us like a shopping list.
Consider: "Slowly, Twilight's eyes crept towards her hindlegs and she screamed. In the grimy reflection she saw herself standing on nothing but bones. Yanking her head backwards, she took a better look, one she almost immediately regretted.
Where her legs once were, she now saw two grim mockeries of what a pony's leg was supposed to look like. Three segments of interlocking metal served as the grotesque approximation of the appendages, jutting messily from her flank. At her mind's command a series of pistons and tubes whirred and whined and the 'leg' slowly raised itself, just like a real one would."
Don't capitalize stuff like this.
This feels weird to me. Why 'hello'? And not, say, "help me" or something. Not to mention, it feels very abrupt after the previous paragraph. I think she'd be far too overwhelmed at first to scream around, only when she came to the breaking point and realized all her explanations were just cope would she start screaming.
"Yet any and all explanations she came up with could not explain the harsh reality" or something similar would work better imo.
pleas
1. she 2. What? That's a really bizarre line.
Why the quotes?
She really got over becoming a mutilated freak quite quickly...
Small c.
Had to be.
small p.
See my previous comment, just use "Twilight", alternatively "she". I won't point out the rest of these, but know that it applies further in too. If you haven't yet read Ezn's Guide, do so, it'll serve you greatly.
Even more ellipses. It really is very jarring. There is no need to "artificially" make the scene slower like that. Readers automatically infer that things don't happen spontaneously.
Don't capitalize random stuff.
Stomped? Also this doesn't really seem to make sense.
Again, stomp.
Weird use of locomotion. I'd just cut this whole line and connect the next with the previous one.
Ellipses and since the question is on the next line, you need a comma here.
Overall, despite all these issues, the concept is neat so far. Really depends on where you bring things from here. Mecha-Twi's transformation is brutal enough, I just wish she had a far stronger reaction to it, because as of now she basically just screams a little then shrugs it off. She could feel phantom limbs, try to touch a part of her out of habit then realize she is touching metal, bump into things because her anatomy is changed and she hasn't yet adapted, etc. Bodily horror is a huge source of grief, don't skim over it.
Good luck.
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Ah, thanks for the feedback! The Underlining on "four" was completely accidental, but all the rest, I will try to improve. Thanks a lot, I'll edit the chapter soon to fix the errors and y'know, try to avoid being repetitive.
Thanks again, I'll try to follow your advice to the best of my writing abilities, and once I do, I'll make sure to let you know ^^
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And done, first edition is done. If there's anything else I can improve (like formatting, I'm not the best at it), please do lemme know. I hope I managed to at least make it a bit easier on the eyes to read!
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I see you've changed some stuff around, but much of what I wrote remains as-is. They weren't nitpicks, any casual editor would point out these as flaws and maybe more. Read through this, it'll help you: https://eznguide.neocities.org/
Also, an important thing with feedback is that beyond trivial changes (like capitalization, though I can imagine situations where even that is not so clear-cut) you should consider why the feedback was given in the first place. An example:
While yes, this does solve the chronological inconsistency, it doesn't really address the root issue. Twiggles screaming into the void and the machines working feel like unrelated events. Consider this:
Obviously I've taken some liberties, but consider the things happening here:
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Oh. Sorry, I'll give that a read and again try to follow your advice to the best of my abilities. I need to start being a bit more descriptive I see. Anywho, thanks once again, I'll re-edit the chapter again soon!
The story sounds so engaging!
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basket random
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Thanks, still working on improving it though!