Country Fiddle was born in Ponyville.
Her father, an outstanding talent, himself, was performing at the town hall when he received word that his wife was in the Ponyville hospital with their new-born daughter. He hurried out of the hall without any word to the audience.
When he breathlessly arrived to the room where his wife was, he saw in her arms a small, smiling filly, full of life, giggling softly.
"What a beautiful daughter we have."
He cried.
Gently lifting one of her small hooves, and arching and letting fall her night-blue hair, he gave a significant happy glance at his wife and gazed back at their cheery filly, though in that face repressing a feeling like sadness that often accomapnies the knowlege that something so happy will end or will be lost, or has ended. Her light-yellow coat, the smell of dried grasses wafting in from the fields, and the merry violin tune he had stopped short at the town hall; capriciously, he gave her a name: "Country Fiddle..." Her parents smiled together, approvingly. The scene was, for all the world, like any other.
A certain, puzzling frown, though like a smile to her parents, grew on Country Fiddle's face.
Soon after Country Fiddle's birth her family returned to Canterlot. In Canterlot they ere had another daughter: almost Country Fiddle's twin, but with a grey coat and a dark-gray mane and tail, named, Octavia.
Being Canterlot ponies themselves, Country Fiddle and Octavia's parents were high-class ponies and thought very highly of themselves, so they were also very busy ponies.
From an early age, their father taught them to play on a great variety of instruments; they were made to practice daily. Soon certain, favorable talents were proven on an instrument: Country Fiddle loved the Violin; Octavia loved the cello.
As soon as they could, almost soon after they could speak, their father had them perform in many duets on many instruments at Canterlot concert halls.
Princess Celestia was present at every performance.
The music they played was always quite simple but exceptional for their age, especially for earth ponies.
Their parents were both unicorns, and it was at times difficult to teach their daughters certain tunes with their hooves.
Now, though they worked hard, at times it was bitter work, their father was not so hard; he loved his daughters and loved seeing them play music, and they did enjoy playing music very much.
You could imagine how excited they must have been when, after all of Canterlot knew of the famous fillies, and their reputation spreading slowly across Equestria, backstage, Princess Celestia said that she wanted one of them to study under one of her personal musicians; she was sad to say, however, that this musician was only looking for one student.
"What?" Their father protested, "But certainly he could make an exception--my girls are as near in talent as they are in image--!"
With lingering regret, Princess Celestia said, "I understand your wish for both your fillies to be excepted and succeed, but, I regret to say, it is not my decision to make. I tried every means to persuade him, myself, but he said, firmly, he would only teach one or none at all."
Their father averted himself in frustration and stomped his hoof violently. Country Fiddle and Octavia had never seen their father mad like this, and were not a little frightened.
He turned back to Princess Celestia, composure renewed but with a defeated air. "Fine. He can have it his way," drawing circles with his rear hoof, "And how will he choose?"
Princess Celestia smiled sympathetically. "Be at the Canterlot Castle Theatre tomorrow morning; he will be there to judge whom he will tutor. I will also be there with my student." Turning to the fillies, their colors contrasting, and kneeling down to their level, "And I wish you both the best of luck." With that, she departed.
The fillies exchanged excited, uneasy smiles.
The next morning, all the way to the Theatre, their father muttered things anxiously under his breath, and, again and again, telling his daughters to do their best, and to remember to be sure to do this and that, and to avoid doing such and such a thing; and, he emphasized, not to worry, and to relax.
They came to the back of the Theatre and were let in.
The fillies shifted the weight of their instruments on their backs.
As Princess Celestia was talking with their father, who was pacing nervously, about what to expect and what Beethoofen, the musician, was wanting to see, the fillies were tuning their instruments.
Octavia, closest to the curtain, pulled it slightly aside and looked out into the theater; Country Fiddle joined her younger sister. In the front row sat three: Beethoofen, gray coat and wild indigo mane, sat in the first seat to the right of the center aisle; on the other side of the aisle sat a filly like themselves, with a lavender coat and a violet, pink-stripped mane; beside her sat a small purple baby dragon. They certainly made a unique audience.
They felt Princess Celestia's presence before she spoke.
"No need to worry. Now," taking them under her wings and hugging them, "Country Fiddle, Octavia, you both will do brilliant and stun this silly musician, for sure. And remember: have fun and enjoy yourselves." With one last comforting hug, she left them to take her seat in the audience.
Their father trotted up to them and seemed about to say something, but then seemed to think it best to say nothing at all, and instead took them both up in his hooves and kissed them both with all his love for them.
"I will start with the youngest first," They heard Beethoofen call out.
They all took a deep breath and walked to the side of the stage.
"Good luck, Little Sis," Country Fiddle hugged Octavia. "I just know you'll do the best!" Octavia could only smile with glad tears.
She walked to center-stage, cello in hoof.
He father worried she looked kinda awkward, and wondered if Beethoofen was thinking the same. Yet, he was so proud to see his little daughter on stage, on the threshold of a great future.
"Don't worry, Daddy." Country Fiddle could see her father was very worried. "Octavia has the best piece picked out; she's guna win for sure!" Her father shed a tear and took her up in his hoof.
"Begin when ready," the indifferent Beethoofen said.
Octavia adjusted the pink bow on the white collar around her neck, picked up the cello bow cleanly, and cleanly began to play her piece. It was a sad piece which turned happy near the end. Octavia played her piece perfectly and expertly, without missing a single beat or note.
When she finished, Princess Celestia was seen smiling a huge smile of admiration; the lavender filly seemed confused; the purple dragon couldn't stop crying. All three applauded her loudly and enthusiastically, the baby dragon a little too enthusiastically. Beethoofen merely gazed indifferently on and languidly clapped his hooves.
Country Fiddle was next. She had little time to congratulation her sis before Beethoofen impatiently called out to her to hurry out.
Country Fiddle cantered out with her violin. She wasn't wearing anything, like Octavia, so she merely twirled up her bow to the violin and waited for Beethoofen to tell her to start. As soon as he opened his mouth to say just that, she began her piece. Her piece, in contrast to Octavia's, was a very cheery piece.
Country Fiddle was not as expert a musician as her younger sister, and could be heard to miss a few notes and accidentally add a few, and miss her beats, slightly. These mistakes, though, seemed to go on with little notice and were very few in number. But, suddenly, she made a slip she could not cover. Beethoofen's eyebrow noticeably raised; her father and sister became worried. This was it: she lost!--so why not, she whimsically thought, have some fun? She started with a rapid note and played from there. She played passionately for the last bit--complete improvisation!
When she finished, all four in the audience were silent. The lavender filly began to clap, and, almost at the same time, so did Beethoofen; then Princess Celestia and the baby dragon stood up and cheered, followed by the lavender filly and Beethoofen.
Astounded, Country Fiddle dropped her bow. Her father's mouth was agape. Octavia ran on stage and tackled her big sis in a hug.
Country Fiddle couldn't believe it! She had lost and only wanted to go out on a capricious flourish--why was everypony cheering? Yet, she knew in her heart that she did only just what she thought Beethoofen would like, and played only an extreme variation of the end of her sister's piece, and so smiled wryly.
Beethoofen came up to her and ruffled her hair. "Congratulations, little one: you've won!"
LOL Someone loves them some Fiddlesticks, huh? Very interesting.
Incidentally, I'm thinking of doing such a story with another overlooked background pony, and I may look to this for inspiration if that's cool.
It is because I also love this background pony that I want to give you a very strong piece of advice.
"Show don't tell." It is a phrase that everyone who seeks editing help learns to hate. It's a skill that takes time and effort to develop, but it is very, very valuable.
Typically, the phrase is applied to things like this.
This is a perfect example of telling. You have told us that he is "happy yet sad" while glancing at his wife. There are a couple of things wrong with this. First off, it's a very vague and uninteresting description--I don't know what it means. More importantly, it doesn't even count as proper description.
A lot of people suck at explaining "Show don't tell," but it's actually a very simple concept. I can explain it in the same number of words as are in the phrase itself: "Use imagery instead." Observe.
versus
In the first one, I said what was going on. I said "she was getting close." In the second, I talked about her mouth and her breath--I used sense imagery and did a proper job of describing stuff. The overall lesson: When a moment or specific object is important, describe it with imagery.
This story in particular does a REALLY bad job of skipping stuff and just "telling" it. Here's a clear example.
This isn't just skipping over imagery, this is skipping over entire paragraphs. The bolded words are what should have been said in other ways. Telling me that someone is bourgeois tells me nothing. Do their clothes make them look rich? Their attitudes? Their accents? And don't tell me that "their clothes made them look rich" either. Tell me about their custom-hemmed accents, chunky golden jewelry, impeccable eye for fashion, etc.
Now we've gone beyond just me trying to teach you Show-Don't-Tell. Now we're talking about you not even taking the time to tell your story properly. You do almost nothing to make the story, the characters, the progression engaging--this reads like an outline.
There are things I like about your writing, but the way this story came out is making me cringe. I really think it would be worth it for you to take it upon yourself to work towards self-improvement. There is a whole world of poni authors for you to tap, to this end. Come drop by The Training Grounds if you want the full review treatment.
Merry Christmas (only ended 15 minutes ago in my timezone), and keep writing.
>>ImperfectXIII
Thanks
And I'd be very flattered if you did
>>Tactical!Rainboom
Thanks for the advise, it is very helpful. I do realize what what you mean by "show don't tell", however it always helps to have a little review. However, now that I realize it seems awkward to some, I'll be changing it more to "show", as I was planning to anyway. Most of the "tell" I did here is, as far as I can observe, lingerings of the late Tolstoy writings and and Kawabata, but amateurish. I told what I did for a reason, however, and it should be cleaned in subsequent chapters--I'm always working toward self-improvement
Thank you very much for reading and the advise, I really do appreciate it
Oki-doki! A decently nice short story you got going on here but you got a some room for improvement. I'm not great with correcting others but I took some notes along the way and I hope they'll help you out.
I could tell off the bat that you over use commas which create strange sentence breaks and pauses. For example...
There are too many sharp pauses, thus it just doesn't flow and sounds slightly robotic when said out loud. Compare it too...
You might want to try and go back and think of ways to string some of those sentences together without having to rely on commas so much.
ere?
This line here could use a big break down with less commas and a period or two.
Shouldn't they at least be a little frightened though? It's common after all to be a little thrown off by seeing someone that's normally well collected go into a sudden fit.
Keep up the writing! The more you do and the more you sharpen a critical eye, the better you'll get!
That was a good first chapter!
I'm not going to be able to finish it right now, but you can bet I will finish it soon!
I just want to say there were a few added commas (,) that confused me at some points, but nothing too big.
Awesome!