The start
It started like any other day in Ponyville; Rainbow Dash was clearing the clouds for another beautiful day. She was anxious to get done, for this was the two-year friendship anniversary of her and her friends. They were to meet at Sweet Apple Acres around noon to have a picnic and have some fun. She cleared the sky in ten seconds flat, and then went to their favorite tree at Sweet Apple Acres. Considering she was ahead by an hour, she decided to take a small nap while she waited for the rest of them to show up.
***
Rainbow yawns. She gets up, stretches, and then opens her eyes. What she saw she couldn’t believe. She was still at Sweet Apple Acres, and the sun was setting. Her friends never showed up.
“What? Why didn’t they show up?” Rainbow said. Her immediate reaction was to the nearest place: Sweet Apple Acres. She went up to the front door and knocked. Normally, Applejack would answer the door, but Big Macintosh answered instead.
“Is Applejack here?” Rainbow asked.
“Nope” Big Mac said.
“Do you know where she is?”
“Nope”
“Do you at least know where she headed last?”
“Nope”
Rainbow groaned as she flew off to Sugarcube Corner. She went inside and saw Mrs. Cake.
“Oh, hello, Rainbow Dash. What brings you here?” Mrs. Cake asked.
“Have you seen Pinkie Pie? I can’t find her anywhere.” Rainbow asked.
“I’m afraid I haven’t. I would tell you if I have, but I haven’t seen her all day. Sorry I can’t be of help.”
Rainbow then heads out the door to Twilight’s tree house. After knocking on the door for about five minutes, Spike answers the door.
“Is Twilight here?” Rainbow asked
“No, I haven’t seen her all day. I’m getting worried.” Spike said.
“Well, would you happen to know where they went?”
“Last I saw, they were heading towards Town Hall. Does that help?”
“Yes. Actually, that does help.” Rainbow Dash flew over to Town Hall. She couldn’t believe she didn’t realize it earlier. They were having the party at Town Hall. They must’ve come looking for her at her home, but couldn’t find her considering she was at their tree. Though she felt stupid, she burst through the Town Hall doors with a smile.
“Don’t worry girls, I’m-“
The room was dark. Not a sound, not a pony.
“Here.” She was upset. She sighed as she shut the door behind her. She went back to the tree house and knocked on the door again. Spike came out.
“Twilight?” He said hopefully, and then saw Rainbow Dash. “Oh.”
“Sorry, Spike. I can’t find any of them anywhere. I don’t know where else to look.” Rainbow said, disappointed, “This was supposed to be our two-year anniversary of our friendship. Where could they have gone?”
“I wish I knew. Twilight doesn’t usually stay out this long. Who else could know?”
“I’m… not sure. Who could I ask?”
“Well, what about Octavia and Vinyl? They might know.”
“That is a possibility.” She then flew off to their home. She got to their home and knocked on the door. Of course, Vinyl was playing her- dub step, as she called it- and it was too loud for anyone to hear anything; especially her knocking on the door. So she kicked it open and saw Octavia trying to play some music on her cello, but couldn’t concentrate because of the dub step. Vinyl Scratch, seeing Rainbow kick in the door, turned off the dub step.
“Hey, Rainbow Dash. Why you bustin’ in my door for?” Vinyl asked.
“Well, I’m trying to find my friends. I was hoping you knew where to find them.” Rainbow said, “And I was knocking for, like, five minutes.”
“That doesn’t give you any reason to kick our door down.” Octavia stated. Rainbow hated her voice. Rainbow and Vinyl have been friends since they were fillies, but when Octavia moved in, she didn’t come around as often, but considering they both loved music, Vinyl let her stay, which was a complete mystery to Rainbow, how two opposite types of music can live under one roof.
Rainbow sighed then spoke.
“Well, would you two happen to know where they are?”
“I don’t. Sorry, Rainbow,” Vinyl said, “What about you, Octavia?”
“I can’t say that I have. Sorry I can’t be of any help.” She said.
“I mean, Twilight did stop by earlier, but she didn’t stay very long, and she didn’t seem like she was in trouble.” Vinyl said.
“Well, thanks anyways.” Rainbow said, slowly going out the door and shutting it behind her. After she shut the door, the dub step started almost immediately after, giving her a fright. After catching her breath, she started going door-to-door, pony-to-pony, trying to find anything she could. Anything. Then she remembered: There were three more places she could look; The Boutique, Fluttershy’s cottage, and the park. She immediately flew to the park. It was almost dark now; she could hardly see. Considering her place was on the way to the park, she stopped by her place to grab a headlamp. After putting it on, she flew to the park. After searching and searching, she saw something out of the corner of her eye. Excited, she looked over there. It was a bunny. “Oh, man. What am I gonna do? I wish I cou- Wait. A bunny?” She looked over at the bunny. It was a pure white, and it was eating a carrot. It was Angel. Rainbow flew over to Angel and nabbed him up.
“Please tell me you know where Fluttershy is.” Rainbow said. Angel, being unable to speak, simply shook his head.
“Well, ok. Let me take you home.” She said as she started flying towards Fluttershy’s cottage.
***
After checking Fluttershy’s cottage and Rarity’s Boutique with no luck, she went back to Twilight’s tree house. Before she knocked on the door, she was hit over the head and was knocked out. A hooded figure stands over her with a wicked smile.
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To be nit-picky, it's only a surprise if it's unexpected. It is redundant, but I think it was Andy Warhol who said "Repetition is Beauty." Also, just "A Surprise" would be a terrible title. I think we get the point.
Ah, I see we're not promising anything concrete right off the bat. I don't know what prior knowledge I'd need to not be surprise, but I guess I'd better crack this bad boy open and find out.
Oh good, just where I wanted to start.
Yes, lull us into a false sense of security.
The problem here is not the fact that we have no idea who she is sharing her friendship with (the weather, the clouds, herself, we don't know), but the fact that "done" indicates a chemical reaction has taken place as opposed to "finish" which implies the end of an activity. Yes, changing that will boost understanding, not that first thing I mentioned. Realleh.
Thank God she hurried. This would not be interesting if events passed by in rapid succession with no natural breaks from action or dialogue, just like hurrying would not be hurrying with a sense of urgency. Urgency and pacing are just... words and such.
Build-up? Naw, this totally encompasses her feeling of disbelief and sets the reader up for the following revelation all by itself.
THE REVELATION THAT RAINBOW DASH CAN WARP. I mean, I'm lead to understand she went to Sweet Apple Acres, so warping is the only logical explanation. PLUS, she "was still" there, which means she jumped through the time stream to an earlier point sometime during her nap as well. Consider me unexpectedly surprised.
Well... can you see where the plot is going?
Are... are you going to use punctuation?
With dialogue this riveting, who needs storytelling?
Dangit Rainbow Dash, you gotta tell the dude "thank you" first, even if it's only implied dialogue. It's just nice to hear... you know? To know someone is thankful you exist... or yeah... you know...
In case you missed it, Vinyl is playing dub step.
Rainbow Dash, are you exaggerating? I read the transcript of what happened, but I missed the part where you were knocking for a long time before busting down the door. Knocking wasn't near as important as the fact that Vinyl was playing dub-step.
Look at this whopper of a run-on! I'm glad we've established... whatever we established. It had nothing to do with dub-step, so I can only assume it's unimportant.
Oh-ho, I'm sorry! What exactly was she doing beforehand?
This jarringly sudden transition brought to you by Rainbow Dash's ability to warp.
Over there? More to the left. Oh.
Or the plot. Do you have any idea where it is going?
Louder.
Well... that was unexpected and I was surprised that something important was suddenly happening. I give this story's title an A+.
Conflict and plot? Now, why are you two out this late at night? Your mothers are probably worried sick! Now run home boys.
And that was your first chapter.
I'm not sure what I expected, but only because you totally set me up to be completely surprised by something that I couldn't see coming. Let me tell you something, I didn't see any of this coming.
Alright, let's get serious here.
Let's sum up what's wrong in one sentence:
This story goes nowhere fast.
To elaborate, there is a lot that actually happens and a lot of information tossed around, but none of it is important. We establish an assumed problem (Friends Are Missing) and the way to solve this problem (Find Them) right off the bat. You take the reader on a trip through Ponyville that bears no fruit at all. Maybe there were hidden plot points in there, but you didn't elude to them in any way that made them seem significant. All we learn is that her friends are nowhere in Ponyville, but I don't think you needed to take literally the whole chapter to explain that. Other questions you throw out for us: Where could they be? What might they be doing? What is Rainbow Dash thinking? Is anypony else looking for them? At the end you finally reveal what her friends fates are (Allegedly Kidnapped by Hood), which belittles the exposition a little. At no point was I convinced that her friends might be in town, so it wasn't terribly shocking when some stranger bopped RD on the head.
On top of that, there were a handful of other places that would have been better for that big reveal. She was alone in the dark Town Hall where Spike's hint and RD's own thoughts lead the reader to believe her friends might actually be there, so why not have the ambush there? You could, in fact, move everything with Spike more towards the end. That way, the build-up from searching the town doesn't suddenly drop off when we keep hitting dead ends. Then again, I'm not here to write your story for you. It's your plot.
Let's talk a little about information. We learn a lot of things while we read this. We learn Big Macintosh doesn't know where RD's friends are. We learn Mrs. Cake doesn't know where RD's friends are. We learn that Vinyl and Octavia don't know where RD's friends are. We learn Vinyl and Rainbow Dash used to be close. We learn that they stopped being close when Octavia came into the picture. We learn Vinyl and Octavia are quirky housemates with vastly different tastes in music. We learn that nopony in town knows where RD's friends are. We learn that Rainbow Dash owns a headlamp she uses when it gets dark. We learn that Angel the bunny is indeed a bunny. We learn he doesn't know where Rainbow Dash's friends are. Last, and nowhere near least, we learn that Rainbow Dash gets conked on the head by somepony we don't know yet. We learn that he is evil, or at least we are lead to believe that based off that final line.
That is a lot of stuff, but how much of it is relevant? When you go on a hike, you don't pick up every stone on the side of the road; you just pick up the interesting ones. Perhaps you think I went a bit overboard, but consider this: how much of that information will be brought up later? Will we be rewarded if we picked up on those things and remembered them? Do they fit into some puzzle?
Knowing that RD's friends are nowhere in town is important, but it's thrown at us so many times and so many different ways. There wasn't much point in stopping by Big Macintosh and Mrs. Cake since they offered up the same information. That information can be presented without being burdensome, but having the scene shift and having dialogue about it is putting more weight on it than is necessary.
To close this out, I should talk a bit about scene shifting. There is a lot of it going on, and it is all happening very quickly. A thousand words isn't much for getting run across Ponyville a few times. Hit the brakes, you'll get where you're going whether you run or you walk. The readers will be able to determine what's important and what's just transitional based on how quickly it's handled. If we just get a short paragraph outlining how RD's goes about town without figuring out a thing and then we go to Spike, the reader will latch on to the significance.
But, this doesn't need to end on a bad note.
This has its moments and it has concepts that are original. 2-year-anniversary of their friendship was a good device to have the six of them gather exclusively. It was interesting to see Spike mistake RD for Twilight; it gave us a sense of his plight and adds to the actual urgency of the situation. I could see RD and Vinyl getting along in the past, but then Octavia coming along and changing things. I do want to know who this hooded pony is and what he's done with everypony.
So, see this through to the bitter end. Will it be a masterpiece? Not in the grand scheme of the universe. Will it be horrible? Only if you make it that way. I've given you this first impression for your own good. Learn from it or leave it, just remember that it only takes a first impression to get someone to decide if they're going to keep reading or not. By that logic, a story will never disappoint if your first impression is your worst impression.
Here's to a good job and a continued desire to excel.
2001121 First off, I gotta say you are absolutely hilarious. I had trouble not laughing at your comment. Now, down to business. The reason it is 1000 words is because there has to be AT LEAST that many to post out the story to begin with, and this is based off a dream... However, I had to make up that beginning on a dime, considering it wasn't there at all, and I think I did pretty well, if I do say so myself. About Rainbow Dash warping through time and space... That was a mistype. Completely my fault. Thanks for the constructive criticism and I hope to hear from you soon!
2001527 and 2001121 i agree with all the errors in the writing but overall great story i cant wait for the next chapter
2002817 Cool story bro.
Literally.