Reviews

Link: A Device For Divine by stanku

Hi there! I’m Golden Vision, and I’ll be your WRITE reviewer today. Let’s get right down to business, shall we?

I’ll start with your synopsis, because something about it caught my eye—and not necessarily in a good way.

In a remote village, ponies begin to disappear.

This, I’ll give you, is good. It’s a nice hook, and hints at a kind of supernatural mystery.

Celestia sends Twilight and Fluttershy to investigate.

This is good, in that it sets up which characters you’ll be using, but I do wish that you would use this sentence to hint at either the circumstances of the mystery, or at any internal conflicts that Twilight and/or Fluttershy have.

After that, nothing is certain, nothing except the smile on Celestia's lips.

After that? After what? Perhaps, “However, they will discover that nothing is certain—nothing, that is, except for the smile on Celestia’s lips,” would be a better way to phrase it.

To be honest, this final sentence doesn’t do very much other than give a vaguely confusing tone of ominousness to the story. What is Celestia smiling about? Why is she involved, when Twilight and Fluttershy are likely hundreds of miles away? It confuses your reader, and doesn’t really get across what the full story will be about.

Ever wondered why Celestia smiles so often? Ever wondered how she has been able to rule over Equestria for over a millenium? Of course you have, and so have I. This story discusses these themes at length - I mean, I have some 50k worth of words already, and more is coming whenever I find the time to write. I hope you will enjoy reading this story as much has I have loved writing it.  What are you waiting for? Read it already.

Finally, this is exactly that kind of thing that you don’t want in your synopsis. A synopsis should contain:

1.) The plot

2.) The characters

3.) Any external or internal conflicts

4.) The stakes involved

5.) Any triggers or acknowledgements (if relevant)

What you certainly don’t want, however, is a plea to your potential readers to enjoy what you’ve written. It comes off as untidy and unprofessional, and really just clutters up what should otherwise be a fairly straightforward section.

Onto the story itself! Chapter One, here we come.

Huh. NickNack edited this? Cool.

The opening is very slow, both in a meta-sense and in a more localized sense. For starters, every story needs a hook—something to draw us in. While a character running away from some anonymous evil is an oft-used (and certainly a valid) method of beginning a story, it does you no good to start off with reflection and deliberation rather than the actual thrill of the chase.

A good hoofhold was crucial when running fast in this forest and Blue Fallow knew that, everypony she had ever known knew that. That was something they had learned as fillies; as soon as they had learned how to run, they had learned how to run on soft soil.

The panic gripped her throat and muscles, it seized her whole body. Fear sharper than a blade of grass cut through her very soul.

See this second part? You’d be much better off starting your fic with this, rather than the first excerpt. That’s not to say that the first bit needs to go—you can certainly work it in after the hook to establish characterization (i.e. if she’s somepony like Twilight whose mind never stops working, even if she’s running for her life)—but you still need that initial heart-stopper to get things moving.

Quick note: You seem to have a few punctuation mistakes scattered throughout, as in:

Whenever she tried to hide, the monster found her, wherever she tried to run, the monster seemed to follow

That middle comma should instead be a semicolon joining the two clauses.

It’s not unforgivable, but I see enough instances of awkward or incorrect sentences that you may want to consider just doing another editing sweep.

Glancing over the comments that someone appears to have left on your story, I will tell you outright that indenting your paragraphs is by no means required. In fact, most people on FimFiction and/or EqD will tell you that it’s perfectly acceptable, if not outright preferred, to leave only a single space between paragraph. That doesn’t mean that indenting is incorrect—to do both at once is technically correct, but it will make it harder for you to stay consistent.

She breathed like her lungs were on fire, which they might as well have been, because they burned. Every breath was a stab to the ribs now

This is good description—it’s got a good sense of imagery and word choice. This Kevin Lim guy in the GDoc comments has no idea what he’s talking about.

Random grammatical note: I would recommend you try not to begin sentences with the word “And.” In some places, it can work—stylistically speaking, that is—but in most places, it fails. As you don’t seem entirely experienced with this rule, I’d recommend following it to the letter until you get more comfortable with your writing. Sentences like:

And it was the last thought she had before her right front hoof sank deeply in the green mud that could have been some solid turf.

Would be better served if they simply began with “it,” rather than “And.” Not only does the “and” make the sentence grammatically incorrect, but it connects the beginning of this clause to the ending of the last one in a way that can easily throw off the rhythm of your prose.

At this point she started shouting, mostly just words like ”help”, ”please” and ”somepony, anypony”.

I’m noticing something about your style of writing here—namely, that it’s slow and thoughtful; in some cases, I’d go so far as to call it languid. While that might work in some arenas, you want a much more active style in a scene such as this. You want choppiness—panic, agitation, and wide-eyed fear. How might we rephrase the example above?

”Help!” Her eyes were wide and filled with with tears. She gave her hoof another yank and let out a cry as pain lanced through her leg. “Please! Somepony—anypony!”

Sentence structure can be used to create a certain effect. In a quiet, tense situation, you want to use longer, more complex sentences in order to strengthen that feeling of tension. In situations such as this, you want to create simpler clauses, use “harder”-sounding words such as “yank” or “cry,” and allot more time to action over narration.

Put simply, something like, “At this point she started shouting” does very little to make the reader feel a sense of tension or panic due to how matter-of-fact it sounds. It reads more like a financial report than a gripping, high-strung narrative.

Note: This “matter-of-fact” tone can be very effective if used correctly; see Terry Pratchett or Douglas Adam’s work for an example of how such a tone can be used for great effect in dry (British) humor.

Her mindless sobbing instantly turned into frantic screaming. She struggled violently for a few seconds, but the strong jaws simply closed in and broke her neck with a sickening crunch

Something that I’ve noticed that quite a few writers tend to do—including myself, mind you—is to overuse adjectives and adverbs. A professor of mine once told me that the best writers let their writing speak for themselves; William Zinsser’s book On Writing Well has as its central tenet: “Simplify, simplify, simplify.” Descriptors, be they of verbs or nouns, ought be used only when their presence would maximize effect. Otherwise, we can assume them to be either implicit in the original word or otherwise unnecessary.

Her sobs turned instantly to screams. She struggled for a few seconds, but the jaws simply closed in and broke her neck with a sickening crunch.

See how I’ve removed every adjective save for “sickening” (You don’t have to keep that one in, though it’s my personal opinion that “crunch” needs extra flavor to work here, which “sickening” provides)? This makes your prose much more succinct and straightforward, which is all the more essential in a scene that needs simplicity as much as this one.

And nothing else happened.

I don’t really want to get into line-by-line, but this is a very non-dramatic line. It seems to serve no purpose—if nothing happens, then why am I reading? This is like “At this point” in terms of tone—it has no place in literary prose (at least in this particular context), and just weakens your writing.

Except that Fluttershy, hundreds of miles away, couldn’t stop shaking on the floor.

This is a very obvious transition between both character, perspective, and simple location (though perhaps not in time). As such, you’ll want a scene break (created by the [ hr ] tag) between this and the previous scene. Otherwise, the two merge in a way that just creates confusion in the reader’s mind.

You also don’t really want to start with “Except that,” for two reasons. First, it makes the sentence grammatically incorrect. Secondly, you usually don’t want to “bridge” a sentence or idea across a scene break unless you really need to for effect. Here, it’s not quite necessary.

No moon, no stars, and no light, but darkness. Darkness that only let her see because it had moved.

I’m starting to think that you have a real problem with sentence fragments. Style or no, I highly suggest combing back through this chapter and eliminating as many as you feel is possible. It’s just disruptive to the flow of the story, and makes you appear grammatically inexperienced rather than stylistic.

She had to, though. Lying on the floor, covered in sweat and still trembling, Fluttershy was convinced that the dream had been important, that it had meant something. She felt the need to know what it had meant, even if this required exposing herself to the darkness. She closed her eyes, right then and there on the floor, for she could feel the mist evaporating fast. She needed to catch them before they vanished completely. Into the darkness she looked, even when she knew that something was looking back at her. At least the teeth that bit deep into her flesh certainly belonged to something other than to nothingness.

I don’t want to say that your prose is purple, but it’s certainly more ornate than it needs to be. Again, “Simplify, simplify, simplify.” We can pare this paragraph—and all the ones around it—down to size to create a much easier reading experience.

Still trembling and covered in sweat, Fluttershy felt that the dream had been important—it had meant something. She just had to know what.

She closed her eyes, trying to catch the last threads of her dream before they vanished. Her memories were dark and clouded, and she couldn’t shake the feeling that something was staring at her, ready to sink its teeth deep into her flesh.

If you want to get technical, we’ve cut the word count down by 43 words just through this edit. More than that, however, paring down the language has eliminated redundancy (the original version repeated some variation of “she had to know” two or three times), has given us a clear picture of Fluttershy’s physical and mental state, and just made the whole thing flow better. It’s much cleaner this way—be on the lookout for ways to simplify and tidy up your language, both while writing and while editing.

Quick protip: You seem to have an aversion or ignorance of em-dashes (—). They’re wonderful tools for creating interruptions or pauses in your narrative or dialogue; while I admit that I’m somewhat addicted to the things, I’ll also state outright that they’re one of the most valuable pieces of punctuation to keep in your toolbox. Try to use them more—they can rid you of many of your sentence fragment problems if you learn to use them correctly.

There’s actually a problem that I’ve noticed throughout your writing: you have a tendency to go into unnecessary detail on things that you don’t really need to talk about. There’s a concept known as significant detail that can be summed up as follows: Each scene, paragraph, or sentence contains a certain list of ideas that it needs to convey to the reader, and any words not devoted to that “certain list” are insignificant detail. This new category can comprise redundancies as well as unclear phrasing; their addition clutters up your prose and can turn off an otherwise-eager reader.

...Okay, this story is definitely getting purple. It’s not Skirtsian or anything, but phrases like:

The sound of a page turning filled the room for a moment before it traveled upstairs, letting silence occupy the room once again.

But when the case wasn’t so, one couldn’t help but notice all kinds of metaphors becoming something more than just tricks of language.

The dream was already turning into a mist, into grey smoke of which only glimpses could be recognised.

...do tend to push it a bit. This is the last time I’m going to say this, so listen closely: Clear up your writing, simplify your prose, and put everything in the most basic and readable format possible.

Let’s move on from this before I start getting even more redundant.

Twilight called Spike, but didn’t hear her own words. The confusement quickly changed into a smile, though, after which she ended the silence spell. A well-timed thunderbolt outside her house made her jump in the air.

There’s a definite tendency in this story to jump over actions and “summarize” them in a quick sentence. We need to see what’s happening in the story; it’s not enough to just give us the gist of each event and leave it at that. Instead, expand it to give a more play-by-play style narration:

”Spike!” Twilight called—

—before finding that the words evaporated the instant they left her mouth. She blinked before trying again. This attempt was no more effective; instead, her ears were filled with complete and total silence.

Silence. She almost slapped herself. A flicker of her horn did away with the silence spell she’d put up. Twilight grinned, opening her mouth to call for Spike a third time.

An enormous peal of thunder crashed through her eardrums, sending her what seemed like a foot into the air. She fell back to her chair with a thud, her mane standing on end and goosebumps covering the back of her neck.

The pegasi must have really outdone themselves with that one.

This way, you’re telling a story—we can envision the events as though they take place on a screen, rather than in, say, the vaguer format of a newspaper.

“Well, that’s really nice of you, but could I see those letters now?” Twilight answered, saying nothing more of Spike’s remark about her cuteness. He had begun to use such language more often now, and Twilight couldn’t help but notice. She wondered if that was the puberty speaking or whatever dragons had when they grew to that special age. Nonetheless, she didn’t mind the change as much as she sometimes pretended to.

I know I shouldn’t keep coming back to this, but there’s so much of this story—as in the example above—that you’re just not doing anything with. To quote my friend Applejinx, such a story “isn’t doing anything with most of those words, just 'ambiguating'. Be more directed. Stop making vague points in all directions and filling in the tapestry with goddamn fuzz words.”

This excerpt is also a fairly large non-sequitur. Do we need to know this? Is it relevant information? Take, for example, this quote from later on in the chapter:

It was a kind of magic even Twilight couldn't comprehend. Nevertheless, she hadn’t come here to talk about proper pet keeping procedures.

What impressions or sensations does this convey, and, most importantly, are they necessary? More than anything, this story needs to narrow its scope to those events and narration immediately and consecutively relevant to the story at hand, rather than keeping it set on the author’s stream of thought.

Spike, on the other hoof, seemed a bit let down that his comment hadn’t received any more attention.

Here’s a straightforward example of “Show, Don’t Tell.” Assuming you don’t know what SDT is and/or why it’s important, I’ll just bring in my standard copypasta to help you out.

Show, Don’t Tell

It’s better to show a reader a picture than to tell them what it’s a picture of. Words paint pictures, after all, and it’s much nicer to see the picture than to merely get the headline. If a picture is worth a thousand words, then the inverse is true as well, and an author is only cheating themselves if they choose to directly give the reader that information rather than illustrate its existence.

As a quick example, take the following:

“Get out of here!” Rainbow Dash said angrily.

So, be this piece of dialogue (and associated verb), we know that Rainbow Dash is angry. However, we know this only on an intellectual level—there’s no actual emotional investment or belief that she really is upset. Instead, like children, the readers are told to accept this at face value. This is a practice that can harm immersion; thus, it’s better to expand upon the action. How might we do so?

”Get out of here!” Rainbow Dash snarled. She bared her teeth, pawing at the ground. She flipped her mane out of her eyes and glared.

Those parts meant to show Dash’s anger have been bolded. As we saw earlier, one way to replace adverbs is to simply use a stronger verb—in this case, snarled is an excellent way to convey that feeling of scathing, sudden irritation or rage. Additionally, to deepen this image of anger, examples of body language allow the reader to construct a more cohesive picture of what this “angry Rainbow Dash” looks like, thus enhancing believability. She bares her teeth and glares, which give us the clear image of a maddened pegasus who is not to be crossed.

If a character—such as Spike—has a certain emotion or reaction, don’t just tell us what that reaction. Instead, show it—describe it—to us.

Twilight read the short, cryptic text yet again.

As a general rule, you usually don’t want to make “subjective” judgements outside of, say, first-person perspectives. It might be short, it might be encoded, and it might be written in Ye Olde Equestrian, but it is not “cryptic” unless Rainbow Dash says it in dialogue, or Twilight explicitly refers to it as such in an internal monologue.

Moving right along.

You tend to over-describe characters’ manner of speaking. See, for example:

”Tame?” asked Spike, his voice a bit hurt by the word mostly used in the case of pets.

This does somewhat fall under “Telling”—you could just as easily convey this emotion through body language or the like—but it’s also just not necessary. Strong dialogue should be able to carry tone through the strength of its diction alone; one of my favorite authors, Jim Butcher, writes dialogue with literally nothing more than “he said” and “she said” for every line. In general:

Start with a bare line of dialogue.

“Hey! Get back here!”

Add “he said” or “she said” to remind the reader of the speaker’s identity.

“Hey! Get Back here!” Rainbow Dash said.

Use words other than “said” if doing so is necessary to lend a certain tone to your writing.

“Hey! Get back here!” Rainbow Dash hollered.

Add in body language if there is no other way to convey a certain image or impression through text.

“Hey! Get back here!” Rainbow Dash hollered, tucking her wings in as she sped through the air.

You’ll note that a big theme of these additions is that they should be used only if strictly necessary. Simplicity is king, significant detail, etc. etc. etc. You get the picture. With that said, you should highly consider reducing most of your post-dialogue clauses to simple “he/she said”-isms. It’ll tidy things up quite a bit.

Nitpick: two words that combine to form a single adjective (unless one of them is an adverb) should be connected through a hyphen; i.e., “ill fit” should become “ill-fit.”

Going on, you have something of a problem with perspective—namely, keeping it consistent. This story is working within a third-person limited perspective, which means that you need to pick one character’s point of view per scene and stick with it. This chapter, however, switches between Spike’s and Twilight’s PoV at the drop of a pin, giving us:

He also knew better than to press the matter further, especially when Twilight was just making her way out.

alongside

Somehow she, too, had a vague idea of the contents of Princess Celestia’s letter.

In this kind of narration, we can only see into one person’s mind at a time. Skipping between two or more minds is cheating of a kind, but more importantly, it’s confusing for the reader, as well as a surefire mark of a story unable to keep its own narrative under check.

Moving back to dialogue, I’d advise against using long paragraphs solely comprising one character speaking, as in:

”The Princess seems to have other missions for Rainbow Dash and Applejack, as important as this one is. And do you remember the fashion show that Rarity has gone on about for weeks? Well, it is taking place right now – in Canterlot. When it comes to Pinkie... Let us say that the Princess advised against her inclusion for a number of reasons, number one being that she is Pinkie Pie. She might be ill fit for the atmosphere in Damp Town.”

This would read much better as:

”The Princess seems to have other missions for Rainbow Dash and Applejack, as important as this one is,” Twilight said. “And do you remember the fashion show that Rarity has gone on about for weeks? Well, it is taking place right now – in Canterlot.

“When it comes to Pinkie...” she went on. “Let us say that the Princess advised against her inclusion for a number of reasons, number one being that she is Pinkie Pie. She might be ill fit for the atmosphere in Damp Town.”

One subject per paragraph, plus the addition of speaker attribution—which you really only want to exclude if you’re in the midst of a rapid-fire back-and-forth between just two speakers—splits up the dialogue and makes it much easier to digest.

I will go on, however, to mention that you don’t quite seem to have a feel for Twilight’s—or Spike’s, come to think of it—tone of voice: that is, her diction. Take this excerpt. It’s got all of the ideas that we want Twilight to say, but does it really sound like her? Can you imagine, say, Tara Strong reading it out in an episode of the show?

“The letter says that Rainbow Dash and Applejack have gotten their own missions—ones just as important as this,” Twilight said. “And do you remember Rarity’s fashion show?”

Spike nodded.

“It’s going on right now,” she went on, “ in Canterlot. And Pinkie…

“Well, she’s Pinkie Pie,” she finally said. “According to Princess Celestia, Pinkie and this ‘Damp Town’ place would get along about as well as a barn on fire.”

The original dialogue was much more wordy than Twilight is in-show. This is both cleaner and closer to her canonical tone.

Twilight is crisp and precise, yet snarky. You want to make your characters “pop” off the page as much as possible—they need to exist as more than just conveyors of exposition. Give them depth through diction and your readers will love you for it.

Something that I’m noticing throughout this story is that there’s very little in the way of narrative structure—things just seem to happen. Take, for example, the opening of the scene in which Twilight meets with Fluttershy.

”Hello, Fluttershy. Mind If I come in? We need to talk.”

”Oh, right, of course you can come in.”

The familiar scent of a bunny, mixed with some other animals, greeted Twilight in the hallway. It always amazed Twilight, how ordinary and ordered Fluttershy's house was with all the animals living there. It was a kind of magic even Twilight couldn't comprehend. Nevertheless, she hadn’t come here to talk about proper pet keeping procedures.

”Fluttershy, I need your help. No, the Princess and I both need your help.”

”Oh my. What is it? Has something terrible happened?”

There’s no establishment of scene, characterization, or mood—things just leap into action because the plot needs them to. It’s clear that this scene exists solely to get Fluttershy on the road with Twilight, rather than to establish any depth or tone within the fic.

Another unfortunate factor within this scene is the extremely large amount of “infodumping” that goes on in Twilight’s head. We know who Fluttershy is, we know who Twilight is, and we know what Twilight wants. You don’t need to explain every detail—and especially not those details that aren’t even relevant—that goes through Twilight’s head.

The pacing of this scene is even more erratic than that of the last one; we go from Twilight asking if she can come in to a not-so-brief timeskip that encompasses Twilight asking Fluttershy questions, having tea, and then finally leaving. Nothing is accomplished in this scene, so it’s hard to see why it’s even here in the first place, but moreover, there’s no story here. This is a sequence of events that you might find in a newspaper article:

Extra, Extra! Twilight Sparkle Visits Fluttershy!

After a long entry process, Twilight managed to get inside of Fluttershy’s home. At this point, she asked Fluttershy about her health, taking special note of Fluttershy’s tired appearance. Fortunately, Fluttershy managed to reassure her of her physical and mental health. The two then took tea together before Twilight ultimately left some hours later.

That’s not interesting. That’s not a story.

It’s perfectly acceptable to “skim over” certain parts of a story—usually, a scene is included if it meets all of the following criteria:

1.) It advances the plot in some way.

2.) It establishes or deepens characterization.

3.) It provides a concrete tone or mood.

Often, if a protagonist is giving exposition to another character that the reader already knows, the author will just skip it over, saying something like, “Twilight told her all about Sombra and the Crystal Empire. By the end of it, Pinkie’s jaw had dropped.”

A scene also should not be included if everything goes according to plan. That means that if there’s a particular scene consisting only of, say, Rainbow Dash going back home and picking up her backpack, we don’t need to see it…

...unless she finds Scootaloo waiting for her outside her front door with a reminder that she’d promised to do flying lessons today instead of going camping. Conflict! This is interesting. This is relevant to the narrative at hand. It meets all three criteria, and so should be added to the story.

This scene with Fluttershy is the same way. There’s a discussion to be had, which can foreshadow the coming mission to Damp Town. There’s characterization to be established—Fluttershy’s fear and reluctance, alongside Twilight’s more urgent manner. There’s tone to be found, too: the sequence of events, if done correctly, should lend an air of tension and foreboding to the piece.

But without actually writing the scene, you rob your story of all this depth. Instead, it becomes an uninteresting blurb that we can just skip over, and if that’s the case, then why bother writing any of it at all? “It makes the plot make more sense” is not a reasonable excuse. This scene, as it exists write now, has no point to it whatsoever.

In the next scene—the one on the train—we’re met with an extremely large amount of exposition. I must ask, however, whether it’s truly necessary to report this—it comes alongside no characterization or tone, and it’s little more than an excerpt from an encyclopedia. Readers won’t find it interesting.

Moreover, it might serve your purposes better to leave Damp Town mysterious and unexplored. It’s ‘a remote town on the edge of Equestria,’ after all, so why would Twilight know so much about it? Keep it remote, keep it isolated, and keep it unknown; like the town in the short story “The Lottery,” an unknown town with unknown customs and history makes for a much more interesting story.

Fluttershy asked, still looking outside. There were some cows on a field that seemed to be of great interest to her.

I’m going to say this one final time: Everything should have a purpose. Don’t just say things for the purpose of saying them. Knowing that Fluttershy likes cows serves absolutely no purpose in this story; it just takes up space.

In fact, this entire conversation serves no purpose other than a meaningless infodump. You could cut it all out and start with:

”What do you think happened to the ponies who disappeared?” she asked.

This would clean up the scene, serve as a clear hook, and give us a clear idea of where the story is going. This also allows us to establish a better characterization and tone for the narrative at hand.

Meanwhile, Twilight’s response to her own question is utterly befuddling:

”We must prepare ourselves for the possibility that some wicked party is behind these disappearances. Should this be the case, my first guess would be that the changelings have something to do with this.”

Never before have characters in the show instantly decided that a new threat was related to an old enemy (unless you want to get nitpicky and bring up Nightmare Night). The parasprites are their own threat; the Ursa is an isolated incident. To Twilight’s knowledge, the changelings are gone—a non-issue. Even in the comic issue that they appear in (IDW #01), the Mane Six don’t even suspect changelings as the villains until they’re explicitly revealed to be such.

I’d like to note that I’m already six thousand or so words in, and I’ve yet to find any sort of conflict beyond a vague concept of “Bad Things Happening In Far-Off Town.” The synopsis promised conflict with Celestia, yet she’s had no presence thus far beyond a summarized, off-screen note. Fluttershy and Twilight appear to have no internal conflict—or, if they do, they’re so muted and inconsequential as to be completely marginalized—and there’s really no draw to the fic aside from an amorphous promise to have “interesting plot.”

Just something to keep in mind.

As Twilight and Fluttershy enter the village proper, I find myself wondering why they didn’t bring the others with them—or indeed anypony else. I know that there was—or was supposed to be—some manner of justification for this, but it’s starting to feel like lazy writing. What was so important about Applejack and Rainbow Dash’s “mission” that they couldn’t come along to this isolated, dangerous, and frankly intimidating village? It just doesn’t make sense, and a confused, irritated reader is not something that you want to have.

Meanwhile, the scene containing their entry into the village should be the high point of this chapter—full of darkness and malice, ratcheting up the suspense until the reader is shaking on the edge of their seat. By contrast, though, most of the actual scene is skimmed over, thus robbing it of any meaningful tension or depth. We barely even know what the town looks like, let alone what it feels like, which is often even more important in a reader’s mind.

Moving along, I’m in the scene where Twilight wakes up and fails to see Fluttershy.

I have no idea what the hell is going on. This is the trippiest, most confusing, and downright purplest piece within this story thus far.

Is it a dream sequence? Whose dream sequence? What’s its significance? Where are we? What’s going on? Due to the inability of this story to lay out a concrete sequence of events without skimming the whole thing, I can’t tell where the dream—hallucination? acid trip?—ends and the actual story begins. Something about falling, and then something about hunger is all that I get.

And now we realize that Fluttershy has gone missing. Clearly, this should be the emotional watermark of the chapter—where the tension has gone out the window to be replaced by horror and despair, only for the suspense to return tenfold once we’ve realized what’s happened.

Yet none of this is made manifest. Twilight has no apparent emotional response to Fluttershy’s disappearance and in fact seems to treat it no differently from a calculus problem. There’s a bunch of analysis in the narrative that really isn’t necessary to go through. The only thing even hinting at an emotional response is a two-bit referral to “her panicked state.”

And now we get to some kind of plot.

She didn’t know what to do. But then she remembered the story. It had been mentioned in one of the books about Damp Town she had gone though, barely a side note, really, but that was all she got. A long ago, in Damp Town, there had been talk of a Witch. A Witch that had supposedly lived in the Forest of Shallows long before the ponies that came to live there had come up with that name. In truth, nopony had ever seen this creature they had named the Witch, though something had given them the incentive to think that everything wasn’t like it should be in the Shallows.

I’ve tried to stay civil for this long, but I really feel that there’s no better way to convey the problems with this section than to give you my outright reaction to it:

Me: What.

What. Not, “Ooh,” or “Aah.” Not even a snort of derision or a whimper in fear for Fluttershy.

Just a flat, bland, confused, “What.”

We’ve had no introduction, thus far, to any concept of a “Witch.” There’s no foreshadowing of its appearance or existence, nor is there any narrative tension whatsoever that can relate to it. There’s not even irony present—perhaps, had Twilight waved off the existence of such a creature when Fluttershy informed her of it, then the ultimate irony of the situation would come about when ignoring those warnings results in the very thing they wished to avoid.

There’s nothing. Absolutely nothing. Instead, we get a half-baked piece of exposition out of nowhere that’s dumped right into the text without so much as a by-your-leave, without any context to place it in.

And this, I believe, is the biggest problem with this story. It’s unorganized and constructed without much thought or purpose. Things just happen, and often, meaningful things are glossed over while meaningless things hold the camera. There’s far too much going on in this story at one time—that is, in terms of moving from place-to-place in a very small word count—and at the same far too little, abandoning depth for breadth where it could instead develop characterization, story, or overall atmosphere.

I could go on with this review, but this is already stretching six thousand words. It doesn’t help that I firmly believe that—if this review is helpful at all—this story needs to be completely rewritten, with a totally different format, structure, and tone. There’d be no point in going any further than this because any issues that I might find with plot would be too specific to make a difference, especially as an improved version of this fic would likely dispose of them entirely.

Final Score: 2/10 Pinkies

I know this review might sound harsh. It is. You seem like an author who both knows what he wants, and is willing to take a few knocks to get there. You say you want to get on EqD? EqD is a lot meaner than me—what I have here is just the bare minimum to make this story readable. Their standards are even higher.

I hope that your devotion to this idea doesn’t wave with the admitted harshness of my review. Instead, you should take a step back and re-evaluate what you want to do with it. Take my advice, and…

Do what, exactly?

Well, we’ve done the criticism. Let’s get to the constructive bit.

First, read. Read more. Read a lot. And I’m not saying fanfiction—read Twain, read Orwell, read Butcher, read Rowling if you must. Watch how they work, both through prose and through actual storytelling. Read a book once for the story, and then read it again for the technique. Observe. Take note of foreshadowing, character development, or memorable lines. In the writing world, we stand on the shoulders of giants—those who have paved the way for genre and successful technique that we can learn to work with in our own time. Do your research and get into the proper mindset—in this way, writing is little different from any other discipline.

Secondly, outline your story. And I mean reallyoutline. Lay down the exposition, the characterization, and the plot elements that will come into play throughout. Go over them. Think on how best to work them in. Then go to work writing the story, put it aside, come back to it, and do your best to evaluate objectively whether or not your technique has worked. Really think about the play-by-play of each scene and how each weaves in with its surroundings to create a coherent, solid narrative.

Thirdly, practice scenes. Write them—in snippets, maybe, of no more than two to three hundred words. Do your best to start off with a hook, and to develop the mood, the plot, and the characters as best you can with limited space. Work on getting the reader invested into a story without glossing over the actual narrative. Avoid unnecessary exposition and Telling to the best of your ability and instead focus on the interplay between characters, or between a single character and their environment.

I wouldn’t worry about Equestria Daily just yet—you’ve got a long way to go, and it’s important to develop your skills one step at a time. Keep it in the back of your mind as an ultimate goal, though; it’s always good to have something to reach for. With enough revision, who knows? You might end up with a final draft of A Device For Divine right on the front page of Equestria Daily.

If you have any questions, comments, or complaints, feel free to PM me in reply. I’d be more than happy to answer them.

Best of luck writing!

Cheers,

Golden Vision