The Story of Roseheart
Roseheart was a simple pegasus from Cloudsdale. She had a lovely, you guessed it, two-tone rose-colored mane and tail, which complemented her white-as-snow coat marvelously. The mare also had gorgeous blue eyes that shined like two beautiful stars. She was a filly who dreamed of being the greatest, fastest, and best looking flier in all of Equestria, just like the long-famous Rainbow Dash who succeeded the fame of even the legendary Wonderbolts. She practiced, day after day, almost always until she was sore. Her mind was startled at the fact that her cutie mark had not appeared on her flank yet.
“I know what my destiny is, I know what I'm going to be! Why hasn't my cutie mark appeared yet!” Roseheart shouted angrily.
It was at that moment that she came face-to-face with a group of four ponies.
“We saw those stupid moves of yours that you call flying, Loseheart. What? Do you seriously think that you're the next Rainbow Dash or something?” said Solace, the obvious headstrong leader of the four equines. “Ha, you don't even have your cutie mark yet, you're nothing but a pathetic waste of valuable cloud-space.” The hateful pony continued.
“You're wrong Solace, I will be the mo—” Roseheart started her reply before Solace rudely interrupted her saying, “Oh but you're the sad filly who's wrong Roseheart. My Celestia, even your name is horrible. Girls, lets show pitiful little Roseheart how wrong she is.”
Roseheart then froze in horror as the four pegasi were charging straight for her.
The ponies continued their charge, flying straight toward Roseheart. To her the mere seconds felt like hours, and yet she was still unable to move from the spot she stood in. For all of her young life, even though she was a daring flier, she never had the courage —or maybe the stupidity— to fight with other ponies. Roseheart could not move a single muscle in her small equine body, and Solace and her gang were closing in fast. The poor filly could only close her eyes and wait for an impact. That's when she felt time catching up with her, and that's when it happened. Wait, no impact at all? Her senses caught back up with her thoughts and she opened her eyes to see Solace, a mere foot and a half away from her, stopped in front of her.
Solace's neutral expression turned quickly into a grin and said, “When I'm done with you, you won't even remember how ugly you were before I smashed your face in.”
Solace lifted her right hoof high in the air and brought it down hard on Roseheart's delicate face. She kept still, taking her peer's first blow without difficulty. Solace, however, wasn't satisfied with just one punch. She lifted her hooves up, her wings supporting her, and went into a frenzy more nasty than a hungry Ursa Major with a missing cub. Roseheart could only take the first few hits, collapsing after the fourth. It was at this time that the rest of Solace's friends entered the fray, kicking and scratching and biting the poor pegasus, even mocking her as they pulled her barely-conscious body into a small trash can. The four young bullies laughed as they left Roseheart bruised and battered body covered in filth and rotting food. She found that she wasn't able to move, and shortly afterwards, she passed out from exhaustion.
Roseheart awoke, still in the trash can. From the position of the sun, only an hour must've passed by. She climbed her way out of the trash can and limped her way home, tears slowly cascading down her beaten face.
“M-momm...” Roseheart said as she gracelessly fumbled her way through the door of her cloud home.
“Oh goodness look at you! What happened?” Her mother said.
Roseheart was having trouble remembering her mom's actual name. “I w-was pr-r-racting an-and...” Roseheart stuttered.
“Shh... it's alright, just tell me.” Roseheart's mother said, wrapping her front hooves around her, giving her a nice big hug.
“S-Solace, momm...” Roseheart replied. “Her? Oh she's a sweet girl, it couldn't have been Solace. She's the mayor's daughter after all, you must've gotten hurt pretty bad to be making something like that up.” Her mother responded.
“But mom! I'm telling you the truth! Solace and her gang — mom you've gotta believe me!” Roseheart yelled back, starting to regain her composure.
“There's no need to use your outside voice inside, my little pony. Are you completely sure that it was Solace and her gang?” Roseheart's mother replied.
“Yes mom, I'm sure of it.” Roseheart assured.
“I'll talk to her mother tomorrow, it's starting to get late. Lets fix you up, you poor thing.” Her mother mentioned, walking along with her daughter to their average-sized medicine cabinet, now treating her daughter's injuries. Time passed, the moon rose, and Roseheart was all bandaged up. She thanked her mother for taking care of her and walked to her room.
Mom didn't do too bad of a job. Roseheart thought, staring at herself in the mirror. She did however notice that she'd probably be stuck with a black left eye for a couple days, not to mention that her torso still scratched up a bit and that her wings felt horrible. Roseheart slowly made her way over to her window, and looked out upon the moon and the stars. A shooting star sprinted across the night sky, reflecting off of Roseheart's big blue majestic eyes. She looked down woefully, climbed into bed, and drifted off to sleep.
Roseheart awoke to her mother at noon, standing across from her bed. She had overslept, and it was most likely her weariness to blame.
“So, I spoke to the mayor, and she said that Solace couldn't have done that to you. She told me that Solace was at home all day.” Her mother said.
“She must've sneaked out mom, I swear her and her gang were bullying me, please believe me.” Roseheart replied.
What if mom isn't going to believe me? What's going to happen if she doesn't? she thought to herself as her heart began to race.
Suddenly, right in-front of her eyes, a shadow formed around her mother. When the darkness surrounding her mom dispersed, Roseheart was very disturbed by what she saw. It wasn't her mother. No, it was not her mother at all, it was Solace.
“Aww, did the pitiful filly feel too hurt to wake up in the morning? I think maybe you should go back to sleep, you aren't about to look so well.” Solace expressed, as she leaped from the end of Roseheart's bed right at the her.
“No!” Roseheart yelled, as she sprung up from her bed. Solace wasn't there anymore. The lights were off and outside the sky was completely dark, excluding the moon and a few stars. It was all a horrible nightmare. Sweat ran down Roseheart's already tear-saturated face, as she covered herself completely up with her blanket and laid still until the sun rose.
Roseheart awoke at noon. No.. not another nightmare.. Roseheart thought to herself. As she began to focus on reality, she recognized a familiar figure at her bedside. It was her mother.
“Darling, I talked to the Solace's mom and—” she said, stopping mid-sentence because of the horror-stricken look on her young daughter's face. “Did you sleep okay last night my pretty Rose?”
Roseheart could only gather up enough courage to look at her mother with her eyes closed and shake her head. Suddenly Roseheart had an idea. Her eyes opened quickly and she looked at her mother with a smile and said, “Mom, can I go outside and maybe practice or something?”
Her mother looked at her quizzically. “How are your wings feeling?” her mother asked.
“Uh..” Roseheart replied, as she got up on all fours and tried to flap her wings. She started to hover over her bed, but suddenly she felt excruciating pain in her right wing, and fell to her fluffy, soft bed.
“I think you should rest in bed today, little one.”
Roseheart frowned, and rolled over facing away from her mother, who ran her hoof through her daughter's mane, and started to walk away. It only took a minute for Roseheart to realize that she forgot to ask her mother something important.
She had forgotten to ask about Solace!
“Mom! Wait!” she quickly yelled, turning back around.
Her mother revolved back toward Roseheart, saying, “Yes dear? what's wrong?”
Yet, in all honesty, She had been baffled by Roseheart's strange behavior since yesterday. What wasn't wrong?
“Uh... Solace... mom?” Roseheart asked.
“Oh, of course. Her mom said that she was out playing yesterday with some of her friends near the school's playground. Is that where you were practicing yesterday?”
Roseheart nodded her head, “Yes! Mom I told you she did—OWW!” She had gotten too excited and her wings had shot up, unfortunately causing agonizing pain in the process. Roseheart laid back down in her bed.
“Her mother called Solace down from her room. Solace said that you had crashed pretty hard, but that when her and her friends had tried to help you, you told them that you were alright and that you didn't need their help, trotting off to somewhere else.” Roseheart's mother replied.
Roseheart could not believe her ears.
Solace lied to mom! she thought to herself as she quickly sat upright and her ears pointed upwards. “She lied mom! I know she hurt me, I know it!” Roseheart screamed. The frustration was beginning to eat away at her.
“Okay, okay, calm down. I think we should go over to Solace's house later and sort all of this out, but for now you need your rest.”
Roseheart sighed, “Okay mom. I'm sorry for yelling.. I..”
“It's alright, I know, now get some rest.” her mother replied, taking her daughter by the chin.
Roseheart listened to her mother and got herself comfortably into bed. Her mother looked at her and smiled as she left the room, giving her some peace and quiet. Roseheart looked out her window from her bed at the beautiful sunny day, daydreaming about soaring up in sky. She imagined Rainbow Dash making a visit to Cloudsdale, seeing her perform her awesome stunts, and asking her to be her flying sidekick. It was though, only a dream. A daydream that she wasn't too sure about anymore.
To anyone who has reached this page: Thanks for reading my story.
Feel free to post any constructive comments, or critisism as you see fit.
I'm just going to point things out as I read
Always spell out numbers unless they're ridiculously huge. When you used 4 in the middle of the sentence, it just looked really ugly.
As far as I can tell for everything else, you have excellent comma usage and I can't really pick out any cases of run on or fragmented sentences. You follow the rules of parentheses, another great plus.
For your first story, this is pretty dang good. I would have preferred it a little longer, and your paragraphs all seem a bit long when they could be broken up into smaller chunks.
But really. Good job.
2005784
Okay, thank you for your opinion and your tips. It's not done yet though, that was only the first chapter.
2005831 Yeah, I know, I'm just s sucker for longer chapters. I don't feel you can give enough in only a little under two thousand words. But some people like short chapters. It's all preference.
>>Sorren
Oh yeah, I completely understand what you mean. I'm trying to not push myself so hard with my first story, as I wouldn't like to specifically go for length and end up dragging it on to an extent where it becomes unpleasant for people to read. I really appreciate all of the advice and everything. I think before I get back to writing I'll take a look at some of your writings.
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I'm your friendly neighborhood editor with some edits for you! I'll go a bit deeper than what Sorren had to say, although, he did a pretty darn good job of saying it.
That, my friend, is a lot of Rosehearts. Can you use a pronoun for a few, just so that it doesn't seem a bit too repetitive?
You missed a comma, or ellipsis, here.
This paragraph. Let's go through it.
You need to spread this out a bit, by who is talking, because it looks like Roseheart is saying the bit on talking to her mother tomorrow. Oh, and put a comma between 'inside' and 'my little pony'.
Like this:
See how that is different?
This could be a completely new paragraph, and you might want to put the thought in italics.
The same thing with the dialogue and the thoughts goes to the next paragraph, and the next one. Heck, you might want to fix all of your dialogue.
Overview:
Are you a writer? Overall, this fic is amazing. Sure, it revolves around an OC, but I'm pretty sure one or two of my stories do that too. Its a start. Aside from the dialogue, you are amazing in any aspect in your writing. All spelling is correct, as with punctuation.
I give you four and a half stars, its a good start. I'll favorite it because I want to see where you'll take this.
Yours truly,
~Max/Muffinpatrol
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2005881 If it takes you away from your writing don't bother too much. My stories are just stories.
2005910
I appreciate the honest and well-thought-out review. I am definitely taking everyone's suggestions into consideration.
(By the way, Sorren, I read The Time We Have, and truthfully, I almost cried. Bravo.)
It's Awesome! God i can't believe kids would do that to another though, have they no conscience? But it is your story so keep up the good work.
Oh yeah I know, those pesky, good for nothing, meddling kids!
P.S. Thanks :)
Very interesting story, it's great start and I can't wait to see more of it. Those bullies are pretty harsh to poor little Roseheart.
2008873
Thanks. Yeah, Solace is definitely one mean little filly.
Hey, since you kindly commented on my new story I thought I'd give yours a look. I've got several points of constructive criticism, and I'll adress all of them rather briefly. If you want a more detailed review, I'd wish to refer you to Indie Authors Unite and Authors helping Authors where very nice people recide who would take pleasure in helping you improve your writing. I'd also like to point you to RBDash47's guide to Writing Fanfiction, helped me a lot.
1. More showing, less telling. Especially the introduction of your OC was almost all telling.
2. Each speaker gets a paragraph of his or her own. This helps readability a lot since it is easier to keep track of who is talking and brakes up those huge paragraphs of yours.
3. Internal thoughts go in italics, never in quotationmarks.
4. Use em or en dashes to indicate a pause, not hyphens.
5. Try not to stray too often from the verb "said" in dialogue attributions. Try to convey the tone of voice by altering the dialogue itself. Especially adverbs (e.g. 'Roseheart uneasily asked') are frowned upon and should be omitted unless there really is no other way to get the tone right--there usually is.
6. Omit needless words. Again, this was most prominent for me in the first paragraph. "The mare also had gorgeous blue eyes that shined like two beautiful stars." Getting all lovey-dovey right at the start turns readers off. "She had blue eyes." Would have sufficed, if you even really need to tell us... again, showing would be so much sweeter.
That's all I got for now. In generall, I liked it, but the things I tried to point out made reading it a bit tedious. Also, your character lacked in characterization... We don't really know much about her yet, despite the physical appearance.
I hope the tone of this brief review did not come across to you as rude, I wish you all the best for future chapters and maybe an overhaul of this one.
2009022
Thank you for the honest review, I've learned enough about criticism to know that constructive criticism isn't personal. So really, just fire away.
I have been planning an overhaul on the dialogue, and now I'm sure that I should probably adjust the first chapter to hopefully make any future additions more enjoyable for anyone who would like to read them. Expect Act I to look much more improved in the days to come. Once again, thanks to everyone for their reviews, and their support.
However, as characterization goes, I left you with little to go on because that's truly what this story is all about. Roseheart, at this stage, is a bit shallow when it comes to characterization. She's finding out who she really is, and that's why I tagged the story as a Slice of Life. Concerning changing anything about her character in this first chapter: I apologize, I simply will not change my plans.
I hope I am not coming off as rude, I'm only trying to share my perspective within the story's situation.
Thank you again for the links you've provided me, I'll be looking into them shortly. I will post another comment when I've completely overhauled the first act.
2009417 Don't worry, it's your story, noone can tell you what to do with it, and even if you don't take any of my advice, I won't complain. It all comes down to motivation I think: If you write for yourself alone, you need not heed any criticism, if you write only to please others, you must do what the majority wants. I think every writer is in between those two extremes and has to define for himself exactly where.
I do however have to tell you that a fondness of your protagonist is essential to hook readers into wanting to read more about her. Having her be a rapid Rainbow Dash fan and beat up wont suffice, I fear. If you don't want to go further into characterization in the first chapter and take things slowly, you might want to think of some hook else to keep your audience wanting to read on.
2009540
Thanks once again, I'm in complete agreement with you. Everyone has a choice.
P.S. I've finished my first edit of the dialogue, and I'm hoping that it's much more pleasing to read now. (I've also completely removed her mother's name from the story, because as of right now, I have no plans of buiding her mother's character.)
Thanks again for your words of —may or may not be— wisdom.
i'm sorry but ive always wanted to do a long comment like that there was sopose to be a line or spike mustashes but they dident post... can you see the one i posted here ^ <- or can you see this derpy?
ok now the mustache thing seems to be working
2014562
Well, yes. Although you could've just posted that all to your blog, that's part of what it's there for.
There's really no need to apologize. However as common courtesy to others, try to keep the comments focused on the story.
Thanks again for reading, I've started the second chapter, and it should be avaliable for your viewing pleasure —at maximum— in a few days.
2014615
Hehe, a few more days, I've been busy— but it will be in the next few days.
Good start to an interesting story. True to life situation of how cruel and vindictive school gangs can be with bullying, can't wait to read more....
2048978
I expect to be done with the next chapter by this weekend at the very latest.
2049142
I'm looking forward to reading more.