It's Zap-Apple season, just in time for Applejack's first big day off of the year.
Wanting to work hard for the sake of the farm while also following her big Brother's wishes to refrain from over-exerting herself after so many weeks of back-breaking work, she promises to make her day off the most relaxing it could possibly be.
However, acts of petty crime begin begin to occur on the property that quickly escalate into something far more sinister then robbery. Taking matters into their own hands, the Apples begin to take any means necessary to maintain the safety of the farm.
But they quickly realize they are in over their heads, as their actions not only threaten them, but ponies around them as well.
(Features anthropomorphic Characters)
Chapters (2)
I'll put this into my "read later" list and give it a shot... When I get the time.
2106921 No problem, I could only imagine how hard writing your own mech stuff and keeping up with the latest here on FimFiction could be
2116536
Extremely.
Having constant stress and panic attacks because of my work doesn't help, either.
But still, I'll try to take a look at this soon; it's only about 8.4k words, after all.
Okay, read it. Interesting ideas here, though you have a few issues. Formatting is rather poor, with paragraphs stuck next to each other, and no separation OR indentation to indicate a new one. Several times you have quotation marks being the only separation between words, no spaces, and many of them are pointed in the wrong direction.
There are a few word errors, as well:
I think you mean plunging, or plowing. (Ploughing if you want to be like me and deviantly anachronistic.) I'm pretty sure "plundering" means "to pillage" and stuff like that.
And the same here, too:
While this would be fine if writing about Viking ponies, doesn't fit so well here.
You put a lot of information about the cars that doesn't really need to be there. Exact model years and names are only going to be relevant if you plan on it being a regular prop. Knowing Baritone's car make and model wasn't really necessary, as was most of the others. A simple description of "fancy luxury car" or "high-grade sedan" would work. Similar descriptions for other cars, as well.
Overall your word choice needs work, as does your flow, pacing, and characterization. Although the latter is pretty good for a first fic, it's still a bit off; Applejack seems to relent a bit too easily and without much of her usual stubborness sometimes, and overreacts a bit much when she finds out how late she slept. You also randomly capitalize words that don't need it, like "Orchard" and "Stallion", as well as capitalizing words after a quote. This line for instance:
"She" there needs to be lower case, as the exclamation point actually signifies a comma as the whole thing is one big sentence, given the second, non-speaking half is completely dependent on the dialogue.
Speaking of dialogue, you have stuff like:
That information is a bit excessive, given that they're siblings who live on the same farm and already know what the truck is. I'd rewrite that specific line as "Take Granny Smith's truck, she won't be needin' it today an' it won't hack it in th' fields, anyhow." The model is unnecessary, and clumsy when spoken between two characters who would already share that information. Same with the later line AJ gives to AB about "scratchin' the navy blue paint." She should just say "scratch the paint"; we don't really need a paint description at the moment, and you could save that for a later part, like maybe a brief description of Applejack dropping Applebloom off: "The navy blue truck barely halted before the passenger door flew open and a young filly darted out." Something like that works the description into the flow, and doesn't overload the reader with details that aren't yet necessary either for painting the image or for the plot.
In summery, it's not a bad work, but clearly shows inexperience. Try reading more professional-grade stories, like published novels and books, especially popular ones that are accessible to readers, like The Hunt For Red October and other older Tom Clancy books. I'd also suggest Michael Crichton, Robert Heinlein, and random selections from other authors. Clancy and Crichton had a knack for making stories that were easy for people to grasp, and Heinlein just had a way with words that is glorious to behold, even if it's sometimes confusing. (Although working out the meaning can often help you understand how the written word is put together, and more importantly, how it should be put together.) You might also want to take a break after writing, and then read over what you've got. Often after you've given your mind a chance to forget the exact positions of letters and grammar and such, you'll re-read your work and notice flaws you never saw before, or sentences and paragraphs that you suddenly realize are awkward.
I'd say your biggest problems are the flow of the story, and grammar issues. The grammar can be cleaned up by repeated passes and a better understanding of the rules (which you can look up on Wikipedia or any site that encourages writers), but story flow and pacing are a bit harder to work on. Again, taking a break and re-reading something you've read, especially after you've maybe read a small portion of a professionally-done story (or even one of the few really good fanfics that are better than most published novels), your mind will become used to the improved grammar and flow, and when you look over your own stuff you'll become aware of sections that just don't seem right.
I'd give you a more in-depth nitpicking, especially suggestions on how to reword or rearrange sections of your story for flow (or maybe cut whole bits out), but it's late, I'm tired, and I feel a bit hypocritical as I'm still pretty crappy myself when it comes to writing. Just remember, it's not bad, you just need practice and an attention to detail. Since writing is a medium of the mind and imagination, details are critically important, and I don't just mean scene or character details, either; the other stuff I just talked about is important as well. Also, don't forget the Law of Conservation of Detail. (I'm sorry for linking you to TVTropes.org; I've no doubt just condemned you to hours of wasted time. However, the site can be invaluable in understanding how stories are put together, even if SWO gets a bit miffed when I talk about the site and the concept of tropes in fiction.)
Anyway, not too bad. A lot of this stuff you'll pick up as you write and read more. Especially read, as it gives your mind examples of what to do. Practice, experience, and re-reading your old stuff (and realizing all the cringe-worthy mistakes) will tell you what not to to. So just keep practicing and reading.
2116884 That's actually more help then I ever could have asked for, thanks Rokas.
I'll be tweaking this chapter heabily before releasing the second one and so on and so forth.
Thanks again, I'll be hard at work reading, writing and learning :)
As a bandit of apples, I feel I should approve of this.
2829652 Great, now I gotta make an Apple Bandit joke in the next chapter.