I Can’t Be a Hero
Chapter 1: Prologue
Princess Celestia and the Elements of Harmony were all standing in a large circle in the courtyard outside Celestia’s palace. Luna’s night sky was dimly lit by the soft glow of its own pale moon. The only sound that could be heard was the excited breathing of each pony in anticipation of what was about to unfold.
They were preparing to cast a summoning spell with the Elements of Harmony. A feat never before attempted. "Desperate times call for desperate measures" Celestia had said. And each pony knew the elements themselves would serve little purpose for prophesied war, a war which the Equestrian border had not seen in more than three thousand years, none of the Equestrian Guard had been in any real battles prior to the changeling invasion, and there they had only shown their inability to operate in circumstances even remotely resembling an all-out war, even then it had never been their enemy's intent to kill off their own food source. It had become clear to Celestia that the Guard was essentially a highly militarized police force, trained to subdue and detain a single, or possibly a small group of insurgents; they were never trained to fight life and death battles where the enemy’s numbers would often exceed their own.
“Are you ready, my little Ponies?” Celestia asked the bearers of the Elements.
“We are, Princess,” replied her most faithful student, as five others nodded their heads in determination.
“Then we shall begin,” said the princess as her horn began to shimmer, casting its light to the middle of the group.
Immediately, all the elements began to glow, each contributing its power to the center of the circle, as soon as the seven strengths met they began to flow up into the surrounding sky. The many colors created an artificial aurora that, on this clear night, could be seen for miles as they wafted through the sky around Canterlot. The beautiful glimmering shadows were largely missed by the population that slept beneath, and so, except for a few guards unlucky enough to be on duty at the ungodly hour, the night’s beauty would not to be remembered as it could have been.
But the purpose of the lights was far greater than that, and so once she felt enough power had been massed Celestia focused her magic to a single point, drawing with it the lights of harmony. Slowly the magic began to focus itself and blend into what appeared to be a small white star above the group of tiring ponies. Celestia again focused her magic to perform the final step of the spell, her horn now shining intensely as sweat began to slide down her brow, as she forced the star’s power to search the universe over for a creature who would meet their needs, one who could stand beside her guard and protect her little ponies from one of the few things that she could not.
All the ponies were beginning to feel the effects of the fatigue that so often comes from the use of such powerful magic. They all eagerly awaited the conclusion of the spell, but such things had to finish of their own accord and took time, the spell would take as long as it pleased before it would reach its conclusion. Without warning the star began to sink towards the ground, drifting until its center was level with the solar princess’s head. There it paused waiting a few moments seemingly for the sake of tension, and then almost as if out of spite, the object exploded.
There was a loud ting, as if a giant silver coin had been dropped from the heavens. Expanding air knocked six ponies back as they shut their eyes against the blinding white light, and still, the princess hadn't moved. She needed to know the outcome of her spell and could not be bothered to look away. As the other ponies lifted themselves off the ground and began to look upon the epicenter of the great spell what they saw horrified them. Not because, as they might have expected, they saw a horribly disfigured or evil looking creature. No, the fear they felt rising in the pits of their stomachs came because in front of the Princess there was nothing. Nothing but a single singed spot of grass, to taint the well kept yards. Before the royal pony there was no creature to which they could pin their hopes, they had nothing to show for the months of careful planning, calculation and preparation for the events of a night when all was right in the universe for such a spell. Now they would have no ace in the hole for their upcoming battles.
For the longest time none of them moved. Princess Celestia stood, rooted in her place, the sweat on her body now mixing with the tears that rolled down her face. Her own spell had failed without explanation, and she knew her ponies would suffer because of it. All seven continued to stare at the spot each feeling the weight of the failure pressing into their souls.
They would have stood there waiting until Luna, as her sister had asked, attempted to raise the sun for the first time, so her sister could recover.
They would have stood there waiting…
If the Great Princess Celestia hadn't collapsed.
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As the night faded and the sun began to grace the Everfree forest with its warm rays there was a blinding flash of light on the edge of a short waterfall that fed into a wide spring water pool. Out of the light shot a grey Toyota Camry. The unlucky vehicle went right off the edge of the waterfall, at forty miles an hour and landed in the crystal clean water below with a loud splash, settling to the sound of breaking glass, and the protests of a suddenly waterlogged engine. It bubbled and sank into the shallow depths; its now useless frame came to settle on the white sand, the hood of the car stopping just over the surface of the water. Moments later a sneaker came smashing through the front windshield, knocking the broken glass out of place, the offending article retreated back into the vehicle and in the seconds that followed the car’s only passenger crawled out onto the hood.
An adolescent human male sat for a moment in a dazed state of confusion before reaching back inside the car that had already began to fill with water, he pulled a small lever and the trunk of the damaged vehicle popped open. He slipped waist deep into the water and waded to the rear of the automobile. Within five minutes of landing in the water any belongings the creature thought were remotely valuable were dry or drying on top of the car. With a sigh and a few choice words the hairless beast removed the cloth covering the upper half of his body and swam the short thirty or so yards to the nearest shoreline.
i like it i expect to see some heads rollin soon
For a first story,
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And just for shits and giggles,
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Hey, you said that you wanted critical criticism and that is exactly what I do. I like to give a list of what I liked and disliked about the chapter and give an honest opinion about it, then I like to rate the chapter with a score of 1-10. Let's get started than.
What I liked about this was the fact that you explained how that human got to Equestria. Sure this lost a bit of a mysterious aura about it but that is obviously not what you are going for. You explained this in the summary and I was intrigued, and that is a big accomplishment because I usually hate human-in-Equestria stories.
Now of things that I think you need some work on.
You said there were six other ponies in the courtyard with the princess but you never explained who they were. Looking back now, I figured it out that it was the mane six, but that was only after I noticed that it was Twilight giving the princess the nod. You should've added their names to break up the confusion because I may or may not be the only one.
You didn't explain what the ponies saw after the spell was finished. You just needed to add some more detail there.
If you were going for a tensioned first chapter, I didn't feel it. You could've showed the months of planning they did before this moment, starting when the princess heard the news, and this would've added so much suspense to this scene.
Now for what I need to say. It was good for the first story you've ever wrote, but that doesn't mean I'm going to let up. I think you just started in the wrong place, but that could be worked with. I liked how it was different in the arrival of the human and I love differences, it shows more original ideas in store.
I would rate this chapter at a 6/10
Wow! For a first story, FAR from the worst I've seen. You have a lot of good things going here. First of all, your description/hook is great. Grabbed my attention easily. Sure it's an HiE and possibly a self-insert but I like to keep an optimistic mind about things. The writing is decent and so far it seems like things could get interesting.
A few technical notes: when incorporating speech into your sentences, use commas and periods appropriately. For example, "Replied her personal student." is not a complete sentence, so the speech before should end with a comma and not a period. This was the biggest grammatical issue I noticed.
Loved the car into a lake scene. That one is new! Look forward to seeing where this goes. A promising start!
Hey there, guy. According to both your author's notes, and the first few paragraphs, you're looking for some constructive criticism. Well, best get some finger sandwiches and hot cocoa, because this might take awhile.
To make this easier on both myself, and you, I'm just going to list the problems as I see them. So, with that being said, I'll start with the title. In both the cover art, and this first chapter, you have the title of your story capitalized correctly, but for some inexplicable reason, you chose not to capitalize "Be" in the actual FiMfic title. Seeing as that is literally the first thing new readers see when looking at your fic, it's a good idea to quadruple check that everything is grammatically correct before submitting your story. Clearly this hasn't stopped some people, seeing as this is currently in the top spot of the feature box as I type this, but I'd recommend going ahead and fixing it for the future. Moving on...
Author's notes are generally considered amateurish and sign of bad writing, as is telling people "this is my first story". Although, it's hard to fault you for this since nearly everyone does it at some point, myself included, but regardless, I would at least take out the author's notes from the beginning of the chapter and just leave the one at the end. Also, in my opinion, it is bad form to use your synopsis as the first paragraph of your story. Again, this comes across as lazy, or that you just don't know what you're doing. Rather than start with you telling us, "Hey, this is what the story is going to be about" in the first paragraph, you should just, y'know, get to telling that story. Well then, now that we've covered my initial thoughts, we can move on. Still got those sandwiches? Good.
The griffin nation
Given that, in this context, this is the name of a country, it should be capitalized, much like Equestria, or America. Also, the spelling of Griffon is somewhat ambiguous and you can spell it almost however you want, so long as you stay consistent. Shortly after that bit, comes this:
politics, they
This is what is called a "comma splice" which is when you separate two independent clauses with a comma. When you have two complete sentences, such as The griffin nation had grown tired of politics and they wanted land and they wanted it yesterday then they need to separated with a period and not a comma. You could, if you were so inclined, separate them with a semi-colon given that they're closely related to each other, but I'd recommend sticking to periods for now. The same thing goes for the rest of the paragraph up to this point:
even a few ambitious dragons felt they wanted in on the action.
This should be four separate sentences and not one long, comma-splice-heavy sentence.
With enemies on all sides and the arrival of war seeming inevitable, Princess Celestia decided she needed to use the elements of harmony to summon a hero.
Couple things here.
First—
Okay, never mind. A friend of mine just informed that this was edited out, and, upon refreshing, it has been... so that's lovely. Well, I've already put a decent bit of time into talking about this stuff so I'm just going to leave it as-is, since I still think most of it is good advice. But, as for what I was about to say, let's just consider that a review of your synopsis. So, with that in mind, let's continue...
First, With enemies on all sides is an introductory clause, and as such requires a comma after it. So, it should read as With enemies on all sides, and the arrival of war seeming inevitable,
Second, if you're going to capitalize "Elements of Harmony" later on, which you should since that's generally how it's written, then you should be consistent and capitalize it here as well.
and the Elements of Harmony
I assume that you mean Twilight and Co., but by not naming them, you're inadvertently implying that it's not Twilight and Co.
Luna’s night sky
This is another one of those "amateurish" things that people often do, and I have as well at one point or another. Generally, I would advise against using euphemisms such as "Luna's night/moon" or "Celestia's day/sun"
They were preparing to cast a summoning spell, with the Elements of Harmony, a feat never before attempted.
Kill the first comma and replace the second with a period. Also, a little bit of build-up/explanation would've been nice as opposed to just jumping and saying "Hey, they're doing this crazy thing that no one has ever done before" in the second paragraph.
"Desperate times call for desperate measures."
Take out the period, as it creates broken attribution.
A war which the Equestrian border had not seen in more than three thousand years
This is an imcomplete sentence because it's lacking a subject. If you replace the period before this sentence with a comma, then that would solve your problem. Also, three thousand should be hyphenated (three-thousand).
equestrian guard
Equestrian, again, since it's a country, needs to be capitalized. Also, since you capitalize "Guard" later on, you should probably capitalize that here as well.
even then it had never been their enemies intent to kill off their own food source.
Frankly, this is an utterly pointless clause as the one before it properly conveys the guard's shortcomings, but if you want to keep it then you need fix some stuff, namely:
enemies needs to be enemy's
It had become clear to Celestia that the Guard was essentially a highly militarized police force
You'd think Celestia, of all ponies, would be aware of her guard's capabilities, or lack thereof in this case. I just find it hard to believe that she'd be caught off-guard by how utterly unprepared they would be.
“Are you ready My Little Ponies?” Celestia asked the bearers of the elements.
Random capitalization of "My Little Ponies" is random, and is missing a comma before it since it's a direct address. On the other hand, "elements" should be capitalized, as, in this case, it's a proper noun.
“We are, Princess,” Replied her most faithful student. As five others nodded their heads in determination.
"Replied" should not be capitalized as it is not the start of a new sentence, and I would not recommend referring to your characters for the first time by a title. Instead, I would just call them by their names, unless you're trying to hide who they are, but I don't think that you are. Finally, the period after "student" should be a comma since the clause after it is dependent upon the first.
“Then we shall begin.” Said the princess
Period needs to be a comma, or, again, it's broken attribution.
"Dialogue always looks like this," I said.
"And not like this." He replied.
See, in the first instance it's clear who's talking because there is a comma which means the two clauses "Dialogue always looks like this", and "I said", are connected, whereas in the second example it's unclear who is speaking because the two clauses, "And never like this", and "He replied", are separated by a period.
Immediately all the elements began to glow,
"Immediately" needs a comma after it because it is an introductory clause.
each contributing its power to the center of the circle, as soon as the seven strengths met they began to flow up into the surrounding sky.
Comma splice, but otherwise this is nice description. A little barren, but nice.
The rest of the paragraph, however, is quite nice. I'll be honest and I say I wasn't expecting much after the first few paragraphs, but it seems you actually have at least some talent when it comes to description.
There are a few more instances of comma splicing in the next few paragraphs, but for the sake of brevity, I'll ignore them. Given the first few examples I gave, you should probably be able to find them yourself.
and then almost as if out of spite; the object exploded.
That should just be a comma and not a semi-colon.
and still, the princess hadn't moved she needed to know
and still, the princess hadn't moved. She needed to know
otherwise you've made a sentence with two independent clauses.
they had nothing to show for the months of careful planning, calculation and preparation for the events of a night when all was right in the universe for such a spell.
Boy, any indication that there was this much planning involved ahead of time would've given this scene a lot more impact. As it stands now, it just sort of... is. They do the spell and nothing happens, but we don't really care because we've been given no reason to. Now, you don't need to go off and write a 20k word prologue, but perhaps a bit of explanation, or dialogue between Twilight and Celestia that clues the reader into how long this thing has been in the making would give the scene a bit more "oomph".
the sweat on her body now mixing with the tears that rolled down her face.
This comes across as slightly melodramatic to me, and without any real weight given the complaint that I mentioned a second ago. Celestia is crying, yes, but, from our perspective, for no reason.
If the Great Princess Celestia hadn't collapsed.
Not sure why you felt the need to give her a second title, but it seems rather uncecessary to me.
the offending appendage
Heh, I don't think you realize that, given the subject of the previous sentence, this implies that the sneaker is an appendage. That'd make for an interesting human.
With a sigh few choice words
Read that, then fix it.
All right, well that about sums up my... uhh, "review" I guess you could call it. Anyway, just a few things before I go. I noticed quite a few comma splices/lack of commas that I didn't point out, again for brevity's sake, and one or two awkward word choices, but for the most part it was relatively grammatically sound. The first few paragraphs are a little shaky, but it smooths out as you go, and I was actually impressed by some of the stuff near the end. As I said earlier, clearly you've got some talent for descriptions, but you need to make sure your grammar is up to scratch, as well as your dialogue. Admittedly, I haven't seen much, since there wasn't much to see, but as sparse as it was, it still came across as incredibly flat. I mean, you'd think that after months and months of careful planning Celestia would have some words of encouragement, or perhaps Twilight and her friends would share a final good luck before they cast a spell that literally no one has ever done before. Anyway, this comment is far too long as it is, so I'll leave you with this, and be on my way. Hopefully you were able to glean some nugget of information from this mess of words that I shoved into your comments.
~alexmagnet
Good, but sometimes run-on sentences are annoying.
Good golly, you need to work on your grammar. That being said, your story sounds intriguing. Although you have some major problems, I can already see that this is going to be good. I am looking forward to it!
Also, I am not sure if this is worth changing or what, but it is almost impossible to kick through a windshield. It would be better to change that to the side window.
Good luck!
"PPS: Big thanks to alexphoenixwing for being the first to give me any writhing advice."
I can give you writhing advice! As in most things, form is important ...
Like you said, it could use some proofreading (some words are missing, for example), and some fixing of grammar, but overall it's rather good.
A few Pro-tips:
Never openly admit that a first story is your first story, until you have at least 3 finished stories under your belt.
Get Alexmagnet to help edit your chapters, no matter the cost. I mean, Lookit that post!
Join a few groups here on FiMFic. Plenty of people who are good at editing lurk on them, waiting for the chance to brain you with proper English and the like.
[Rant]Going to be honest, your character seems too...powerful. He found slavers and his first thought is to fight them with his old weapon? Even though he has stated he has trade goods, he wouldnt ask them to wait, load his shotgun and return?
Not just that but he seems like a "Mary Sue", a character that is based on the person who made them, very strong with few weaknesses or fears. He took on two griffons, which are strong animals, and in MLP, I am sure they are stronger than the average pony, considering their size, claws, etc. A human, against a griffon's size is still minuscule in comparison, and the fight would've been a hell of a lot tougher than it was.
156 shotgun rounds for a weekend? Jesus. [/Rant]
Now, good things. It's immersive, description is perfect, conveyance of the situation is good and the general grammar and punctuation is good. Sense needs a little bit of a touchup and fix, but hey, this is a world of cartoon ponies, anything could happen really.
- CMDR_Melander
Dis is some good shit so far.
I don't think it's very good that you started out with the summoning part. Felt way too rushed and forced. I would have recommended adding scenes that involved explaining why they're using such measures, at least more than "well uh our guards suck so... yeah". Why wasn't Luna there? It's night time and we're meant to be getting the impression that this is a strong spell, so where was she? Could have at least explained she was resting so she had enough energy to raise the sun for her sister.
I'm not used to writing criticisms...
Aren't you supposed to kick off your pants? I could have sworn those were the trouble... Unless it was wearing a robe or armor.