Greetings! I am someone who exists on this website. I have been here for at least a year. I probably should catch up with my writing. I also have a discord server.
Last minute entry for the New Blood Contest:
https://www.fimfiction.net/group/215333/beans-writing-group/thread/519255/the-new-blood-contest
Going for the bonus:
4 "The main character’s name and identity is never mentioned."
A unicorn harbours a secret dream to fly like a pegasus.
Story is complete in terms of the contest. Whether I take it further post-contest is not decided.
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Ooh, I loved the vibes Iom this story. I think you could have gone for the "include a bug" bonus as well—certainly would have been a different angle from all the changeling stories.
Here's your New Blood Contest feedback!
When I first read this story, I put in my notes that it was "less a story, more a tech demo". While this is certainly uncharitable, and I can respect experiments in technical writing as much as in narrative, I still feel this original judgement holds up.
On the subject of technical writing, the first glaring typo can be found in the first paragraph:
Exited. It's spelled correctly in the following sentence, but that sentence also has the phrase "It was in this excitement that she didn't notice until too late [an obstacle]". That should be "didn't notice [an obstacle] until too late", or something like that - though I don't think rearranging the words is a sufficient fix.
Moving ahead, there are a few more typos of similar variety throughout the story. "Scolded" instead of "scalded", tense confusion like "aches" instead of "ached", and lack of proper punctuation for quotes. However, it does seem to improve towards the end of the story. And, for a positive example, there is this beautiful paragraph:
... Is it error-free? No. Do I still love it? Yes. It captures the idea of blurry night photography almost poetically, with gleaming edges the only clear details. Great stuff.
However, onto more fundamental matters, there seems a distinct lack of character in this story. Sure, there's a character, but there's really nothing distinct or interesting about her, and nothing telling me about who she is or what she's trying to accomplish - other than the obvious "Pony Iron Man" stuff.
The best thing I can say about this is that it does very compellingly and viscerally portray a character who's working herself to death, sacrificing her mental and physical health for the progress of her machines. However, this is more or less a background thread. The caprices of gravity and momentum, of magic and crystal, are given more focus than the character who suffers them.
I can envision a story that spends its time on physics and natural effects, divorced from any recognizable personality, being a good read. But this isn't. It's too focused on the what, and silent as to the why.
...
Speaking of "why", I thank you for writing this and participating in our little contest. No, really - you didn't have to spend your time on this, or subject yourself to judgement, or to feedback, but you did. It is better that this story should exist than that it should not, even if I didn't like - all the more reason for you to keep writing. And I hope to see much more from you in the future!
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Thank you for your review. I am aware that I need to improve in the character department and I did write this one completely last minute with very little planning. I think this story fell flat a lot because of that. I just grabbed some random old idea last minute and shoe-horned it into a story to get it done in time for the contest, I procrastinate a lot like that.
My strengths are in descriptive writing, my weaknesses are in showing character.
I also need to improve on planning and taking the time to plan out a story more rather than jumping straight in; I need to make sure to consider themes to focus on and a proper ending.
This wasn't much of a story, and I treated it more as writing practice.
There were other ideas regarding this story for other characters and such, I normally do slow-burn SoL so I would definitely have written this differently if I were writing this as a regular story rather than a last minute contest entry or practice piece.
I likely won't be doing many contests in the future and will focus more on developing my own ideas in my own time going forward.
There is an upcoming contest that I may or may not try for so I'll try to make an effort towards better character interaction if I choose to proceed into it.