Fluttershy's hut is empty, all her animal friends are gone, Ponyville is abandoned, there is no pony around. All that is left is one lonely yellow pegasus.
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This is an experiment. The story is unfinished and unedited. I am uploading it in its unfinished state to get ideas for the direction it should take, I have a few ideas myself but nothing that is screaming "WRITE ME". The formatting right now is every paragraph is a single location so there are parts of it that are pretty blocky. This is a rough cut so its not the most readable thing but I'm hoping Ill get the ideas I need to finish it and make it into a great story.
Anyway, leave your ideas in the comments area and Ill choose which ones I like and throw them together and finally get this story finished and edited all pretty.
I'm half expecting this to not get approved so if it does then yay, if not then Ill leave it on the back burner forever.
Dear god, comma splices, fragments, and run on sentences are everywhere. This isn't even counting the excess of stilted sentencing. I was able to, kind of, get at what you're saying through all that though.
Beyond the grammar train wreck, you have a pretty cool idea here, but you didn't do anything with it. I was personally really bored through this, and I eventually skimmed along to discover you just had her go to each of the mane 6's houses. We can see that Ponyville is empty by a few words in. You don't need to overkill it by showing that in 3,000 words. There was no relevance, to going to each house, in terms of plot. You need to have something else happen within 1,000 words or so. Answer some questions; where is everyone? what happened? why? Give us a story dude! There's nothing there!
1430951
Dude, read the description, I cant decide what to do for the end, this is a really rough cut of the story and its pretty much unedited. I posted it as an experiment to get ideas for the ending from the community, Ill take the ones I like and make a real ending out of it and then edit it and make it a real story.
I likes it great setup!
I think you could make this a decent fic.
Honestly-- you should've put it into Google Docs, grabbed some friends or strangers, and then worked on this in there. Don't let your story out until after it's no longer rough!
However, I actually won't go into all them mechanical problems here, because you seem aware of them. (Again, do yourself a favor, and don't let a story out too early! You'll regret it)
I think what will serve you best will be this: Don't give each place a paragraph. First, you have these ludicrously loooong ones. Second, it's bad for pacing. If she must go to every place... then space it out. I'd do this much text for about half of the journey she takes. Do some exploring--you did well to have her looking through the house, but give me some details. Is the house messy, as if it was quickly abandoned? Or is it creepily immaculate? These kinds of thing s shape how the reader thinks about the story and keeps them engaged imaginatively.
I'd agree to a point with the first comment--not much happens here. After 3K, you're not absolutely bound to give all the answers... but you should at least have vague hints. Clues--even if those clues are red herrings.
Pacing could be improved simply by cutting this in half. Well, not in half. More like...
1. Fluttershy's house, surroundings, walking down to AJ's. Investigating AJ's and farm.
2. THEN Ponyville. The approach to Ponyville is a great opportunity to build on the mood here. Don't overdo it, but Flutters being creeped out can be fleshed out more here as she approaches a town that is deadly still. Have her explore Sugar Cube Corner and the other locations.
Get a pre-reader and such for editing, but find you a writing friend just to play with ideas with. You need to start formulating a why if you're going to continue this idea. Why is it empty? I can think of about... four possibilities. You could manage all of them, I think. But you need to plan that now and start hinting at it from the beginning subtly. Don't just pull something out of nowhere later.
1431018
*sigh* fair enough. Consider checking out ponychan's idea general board and bouncing your ideas around there.
1431337
The reason there are no answers is because I don't know where I want this story to go, I have an idea for an ending where she goes to Canterlot and finds the princess and shes stuck in like the end of the day or something but I don't like it. I posted this to hopefully get ideas so I could actually finish this, it does have an interesting setup but I have no clue where I want to go with it. I left it in a rough shape since I was expecting to get some ideas and end up having to change some of the earlier events and I didn't want to reedit it again after that.
Looks like no one cares about giving me any ideas and I'm too lazy to bother with ponychan or something, Ill probably just forget about this and go on to writing something else. It was worth a shot to try something new I suppose.
I liked it. Don't listen to those idjits, and don't sell yourself short, this story has significant potential. The pacing is dead on for a suspenseful story, and you were able to show Fluttershy's emotions without having to come out and say it. Also 3,000 words really isn't that long, these buffoons seem to be use to stories that end before they do anything (something that haunts this site). And your not supposed to give any good clues or hints early on, that would give the ending away, even if your really subtle. I would really hate to not be able to see the end of this, but it's your call on ending it or not.
1759608
Part of the reason I uploaded this in the state its in is because I'm having a hard time deciding on the direction to go with the ending. I'd like to be able to finally finish it and get it all edited up and make it all pretty but I've been stuck on it for months without being able to think of an ending that satisfied me.