It’s been 3 months since Twilight had returned to the crystal empire to see her niece, Flurry Heart was very excited to see Twilight again, and to show her all of the new skills that she had learned.
Twilight gives her niece some advice about being a princess.
Since this is an alternate universe, Flurry Heart is five years old, I did this because I wanted her to have a conversation with her aunt, and since babies can’t talk yet I’ve decided to make her a little older, hence the alternate universe tag.
Chapters (1)
This is a good cute story although for being ten years old, Flurry acts more like she is five.
11730504
I might change her age
11730510
You would also have to change the amount of time it was since Twilight last went up to see her as well. Also I would think that Twilight would go up to see her more frequently given how much she loves her.
11730513
Ok, to what time?
11730516
I'd think Twilight would go to visit her every few months. Being the ruler of Equestria, she could easily set her own schedule.
11730518
True, I’m not really sure what you mean by I should change the amount of time, to what year should I change it?
Hello again.
Hmm... Hmmmm... HMMMMMM...
Let's start with segment 1: 'Twilight and Spike sat on the train'. Does this really need to be stated so bluntly? Can it be woven into the narrative in other ways to generate interest? That would be a no and a yes. In segment 2 you give action to Twilight, so how can you weave them both together? You could start with the book, or you could start with the train. Example:
'Sat upon some of the least comfortable seats in this half of Equestria, Twilight fidgeted in place to relieve her poor posterior of its suffering. Sat next to her, Spike fared much better, his eyes glazing over as he stared out the train window at the rolling hills passing by.'
Establishes they are on a train, gives description (in this case the feeling of pain/discomfort and can be used later when Twilight meets Cadance/Shining Armor for some banter), and provides who's involved.
Sentence 2: Is this description necessary? You can state something short about the book without giving it all. Another example:
'Captured in Twilight's magical grasp, another page flipped within the sapphire blue book. Since entering the train, her eyes remained glued to the pages of 'The Crystal Empire, and Everything You Never Knew,' a text portraying the empire in a new light.'
The question: is the description important? If it doesn't contribute to the plot, and doesn't serve world-building, or any other function to improve the story, consider skipping a detailed description.
I'd recommend trying this again. Not only does it start with repetition repeating she's an alicorn (see previous sentence/paragraph), but it it also a run-on sentence.
It feels... so... robotic. Your attempt to add emotion doesn't seem terribly in-character for Twilight. Pinkie Pie, yes, but Twilight? And Shining's response doesn't help things. Him being amused by her antics would add some flavor to the dialogue. A 'Woah, you're sure excited today.' or something would help breathe life into the otherwise flat dialogue. And of course Spike is straight to business. Shining's response to him could be cleaned up a little, but otherwise I don't see as much of an issue with it.
Also...
For some reason this reminds me of certain lines from Half-Life: Full Life Consequences. And not in a good way. The obvious issue is that she goes on to scold Flurry, making the last segment both repetitive and SDT (Show, don't tell) abuse. The second segment can also be shown. Having a disappointed frown, narrowed eyes, etc. Also, the combination of the three segments is a mess. I say it should be rewritten.
I may as well put this here: Cadence vs Cadance. According to the MLP wiki, her name is spelt Cadance, with an 'A'. Think of it like Ca-Dance.
I'll leave you to figure out what's wrong.
Gurgled? Is that really the word you want to use?
Spike is also a dirty liar
Tense switch. Stay consistent! You use predominantly past-tense, so stick with it!
Germs?! EWWW! Wait, did you mean gems?
...
Le sigh... The emotional switch in Flurry could have had more buildup, the resolution could have been more in depth, the dialogue could have been more organic, and the story in general could have had better pacing. It's easy to see what you wanted from the story, however, execution leaves much to be desired. There were some spelling and grammar mistakes throughout the text, ones that would have been caught on an editing pass or by an editing service. Description was lacking throughout the story, which was a shame because with some appropriate descriptive language and better dialogue it could have been a sweet story.
Still, it's an experience to learn from. It isn't unrecoverable, and there are lessons to take in from studying your work. Keep trying and you'll get better!
11730675
Thank you yes.
I know about the grammar mistakes. I just went in and fixed some of them. If you find any more, please tell me.
I should’ve probably used Grammarly to check for grammar mistakes before publishing, but I forgot to do that.
But nonetheless, I hope that you still like this story, I’ll be releasing more stories like this, more short stories to practice using adjectives to tell actions, or to show actions that the characters are doing.
I’ll try and add more description, but I don’t wish to rewrite this entire story to add more description to it, it is not because I am lazy that I do not want to do it, I do not want to do it because it takes me a while to do it.
11730675
I changed it to the past tense.
I’ve also fixed some of the grammar mistakes.
11730675
I think the spelling of Cadence in the story is partly connected to the author being from Europe. I'm from the UK, and the word tends to be spelled with an E as it's a music term as well.
11732539
The musical term is absolutely spelled with an E, yes. The pony's name, however, is spelled with an A, because that way Hasbro could trademark it.
11732564
That is indeed true. Similar examples include Smolder/Smoulder and Vapor/Vapour Trail (although in some MLP publications intended for release in the UK Vapor's name is spelled in the British manner).
11732539
Yes, it is because I am from Europe.
I liked the idea for this story, but I feel like it could've been executed better. As others already said, there are some grammatical / spelling issues here and there, but it's nothing that can't be fixed with Grammarly, or by proofreading your fic. My main issue with this fic is with the pacing. The story is already relatively short (1.4k words), and the entire part about Flurry's emotions, from her mentioning the pressure she felt from her parents to the resolution, takes less than a third of the story (roughly 450 words). IMO, it would've been better to build up to it some more, maybe have Twilight notice some of Flurry's distress while playing with her and discovering more hints at her emotions during the day before the "reveal" / resolution.
Also, this may be a nitpick, but I feel like Twilight's stay only lasted for a few minutes: if I understood the story correctly, she and Spike came to see her, Twilight played with her for what felt like a few minutes at most, before Flurry talks about her issues (which get almost instantly resolved) before already leaving the Crystal Empire.
Admittedly, I prefer longer stories compared to one-shots so I may be biased, but I do truly feel that if this fic was longer, you'd have more opportunities to explore Flurry's emotions and to describe Twilight's stay in greater details.
All in all, it wasn't a bad story, I did enjoy it despite my issues with it. (And i hope I didn't come off as too "harsh", I'm not really used to giving criticism so feel free to tell me off if I'm out of line, haha)
11737008
I understand, but I will not make it longer.
As for the grammatical errors, I will also not fix them.
What a sweet story. Love how Flurry is so worried she's a disappointment to her parents and Twilight tries to calm her down and it all works out in the end when she finally talks to her parents.
Thanks for the nice story :D
11870411
Thank you and you’re welcome.
Yeah, I thought I’d try something different by writing this story, I usually write about ponies who have disabilities, but I thought I’d try something different.