Reviews

Hi there! Golden Vision here, and I’m all revved up to review. Let’s get started, shall we? This fic is certainly a doozy!

So the opening of this story begins with what’s called a Weather Report. In general, this is a bad idea—readers want action, they want characterization, they want plot. They want a hook, and in general, beginning with “It was a beautiful day in Canterlot” tends to turn people off.

I’d like to note, however, that Vengeance of Dawn manages to neatly sidestep this problem: while the “weather report” in question isn’t quite a hook, it sets a rather nice tone for the diction and atmosphere you plan to bring to the story. Robert Jordan’s The Wheel of Time series did something similar, which I quite enjoyed, and so I’m not vehemently opposed to the idea.

With that said, I will tell you to keep in mind—as I am still only on the first paragraph of this story—that you may be stepping out of one problem to land in another. In The Wheel of Time, the weather-based openings spoke mainly to the themes of the series—that all nations and peoples were connected, and that all of time is at once ageless and meaningful. Vengeance begins with a discussion of the Canterlot infrastructure, which—depending on its value within this story as a whole—may or may not be a good decision.

The third-person present tense is an interesting choice for this story. I am, again, unsure of how this will turn out. Let’s see where this goes.

Hm. You seem to be unaware of the more commonly accepted way of separating scenes on FimFiction. Should you wish to display a soft scene break (as in a short difference in either time or location), then two to four lines of extra spacing is often sufficient. For either a soft or hard scene break (the latter referring to any expanded lapse in either direction or time), the line-break BBCode tag on FimFic is often preferred.

To illustrate, here is what you now have:

Her parents, watching in the corner of the room, prepare for tears and consoling hugs and an evening spent soothing the sorrows of their daughter.

***

The sun beams down upon Shining Armour, currently in training to join the Royal Guard.

A bit messy, not least because the asterisks aren’t centered. But what happens if we add the BBCode linebreak tag? The tag itself can be identified by the BBCode [ hr ], with spaces removed. The end result looks a little something like this:

Her parents, watching in the corner of the room, prepare for tears and consoling hugs and an evening spent soothing the sorrows of their daughter.

[ hr ]

The sun beams down upon Shining Armour, currently in training to join the Royal Guard.

which becomes:

Her parents, watching in the corner of the room, prepare for tears and consoling hugs and an evening spent soothing the sorrows of their daughter.

---

The sun beams down upon Shining Armour, currently in training to join the Royal Guard.

Much cleaner, wouldn’t you say? Hard-coded into the site, and fairly easy to use while staying aesthetically appealing. Do consider its use, won’t you?

And now, of course, we move into Shining Armor’s scene. The “Tell, Don’t Show” style you’re using here works very nicely with the present tense; it gives us more of a narrative, distanced feel from the events of the story. However, upon moving into the dialogue of the scene proper, the present tense disappears, and is replaced by simple past instead. This is quite the jarring change: As a reader, I find myself jolted out of the story here, wondering if there’s something that I’ve missed; as an editor, I can’t help but wonder if the two parts were written at different times, with the author merely forgetting to keep the tense continuous.

The story progresses, and a few grammatical errors come into evidence. For the sake of a more comprehensive review, I’m going to assume that these are mistakes born of a lack of education, rather than out of a mere tendency toward typos. If I’m mistaken, please forgive me—I’m merely trying to err on the side of caution.

Original:

"Of course," Lancer said, "The biggest threat we have to contend with are swarms of ravenous flying banana-fish."

Fixed Version:

"Of course," Lancer said, "the biggest threats we have to contend with are swarms of ravenous flying banana-fish."

If a single sentence of dialogue is split apart by a speaking verb, then the first letter of the second half should not be capitalized, as it is not the beginning of a sentence. Furthermore, when pairing a noun with a verb, it is necessary that the plurality of each one is in agreement with the other: threats, plural, are swarms of fish; they is not swarms of fish.

Original:

"Yes sir," Shining Armour said absently. He paused in mid-nod, "Wait, what?"

Fixed Version:

"Yes sir," Shining Armour said absently. He paused in mid-nod. "Wait, what?"

The only time when prose ought to use a comma before dialogue rather than a period is when the immediate preceding text comprises a speaking verb, as in:

He said, “Why are you reading this?

Otherwise, an action or thought merely ends, and the dialogue begins as a new sentence.

Original:

Shining Armour shook his head, "Sorry sir, it's just that my sister is taking her exam for Princess Celestia's school today. I can't help but wonder how she's doing."

Fixed Version:

Shining Armour shook his head. "Sorry, sir. It's just that my sister is taking her exam for Princess Celestia's school today. I can't help but wonder how she's doing."

We again see the emergence of the pre-dialogue comma, which has been appropriately dealt with. This time, however, the two clauses “Sorry, sir” (which now has a comma added for proper emphasis) and “It’s just that my sister is taking her exam” have now been separated by a period instead of a comma. Why?

The original format contained what is known as a comma splice. I’ll let some copypaste explain the proper meaning for me:

When two independent clauses are connected by only a comma, they constitute a run-on sentence that is called a comma-splice. The example just above (about the sunscreen) is a comma-splice. When you use a comma to connect two independent clauses, it must be accompanied by a little conjunction (and, but, for, nor, yet, or, so).

Do note, however, that the the conjunctions in question would have sounded either unwieldy or plain incorrect, grammatically speaking. In this case, either a period or—according to my own preferences—an em-dash would have sufficed.

Original:

"Magic school eh?" the older pony grimaced.

Fixed Version:

"Magic school eh?" The older pony grimaced.

It’s entirely possible that this was a typo, but just in case it wasn’t, keep in mind that you can’t attach clauses to dialogue if they do not include a speaking verb; one cannot “grimace” words. Any body language or other action must act as its own sentence.

Original:

Before you know it she'll be putting on airs with the best of them and you and me will be saluting her.

Fixed Version:

Before you know it she'll be putting on airs with the best of them, and you and me will be saluting her.

If changing subjects midway through a sentence, it is necessary to place a comma and article to link the two; otherwise, the sentence is grammatically incorrect.

And now we come back to the narrative itself. The return to present tense is, once again, jarring to read through. Furthermore, the sudden shift in point of view and—presumably, time period—is confusing.

Reading on, it becomes evident that Breaking Dawn is meant to be Celestia’s pupil on the same date as Twilight’s test. However, this is hardly obvious, and in fact seems to be laughably implausible. I suspect that I will return to this soon enough, namely when Celestia must trade one pupil in for another (as I assume this text will have her do). In any case, the sudden introduction of a new OC doesn’t quite work with a story so clearly focused upon Twilight—why would we learn of this new OC who seems to have taken Twilight Sparkle’s place? The organization and setup for this piece just doesn’t work, and harms the reaader’s ability to suspend disbelief while reading.

Celestia’s introduction introduces far too much telling to work as the ones before it have. While the other present-tense PoVs work through implication and illustration as much as exposition, Celestia’s perspective gives away too much, too fast. Not only does this strain the prose of the story, but it also robs it of any chance to introduce these secrets as conflict later on.

I will say this: I do like the scene you’ve written up for the Sonic Rainboom, though I do wish that each of the Mane Six got a longer, more detailed part. Perhaps a more symbolic (non-literal) description of events would work better as well.

Now, here is where the narrative begins to break down. Had you stuck with the present-tense PoV for the entirety of the “introductory” sequence, then this would be an ideal time to shift to the standard past-tense format. But that’s neither here nor there, as there’s a grander problem at work here.

This section, wholly different in tone and depth from the earlier scenes, is at once both rushed and too detailed. Had it been identical in flavor to the earlier scenes, it might have worked in technical manner, yet failed to hold the readers’ attentions. Yet by expanding it from an expository snippet to a fully illustrated scene, certain things are expected: pacing, for one. This scene just rushes by, snapping past the reader’s eyes, with each event either glazed over or dismissed within seconds. Spike’s eruption through the tower, Celestia’s appearance, and Twilight’s rescue are all events that would be greatly improved by taking the time to fully develop them, both through description and thought.

The latter point brings up a particularly glaring issue with this passage in particular: a clear point of view character is never established. Again, the omniscient narrator works quite well in the earlier, expository “bird’s eye view” setting, but here, a consistent voice or perspective would only do this story good. As it is, we go from Lancer’s PoV to Celestia’s without so much as a by-your-leave, which is either very amateurish, very rude, or both.

Original:

"Fear not, Shining Armour, all will be well. I promise."

Fixed Version:

"Fear not, Shining Armour. All will be well. I promise."

or

"Fear not, Shining Armour, for all will be well. I promise."

Behold, once more, the comma splice. I quote this only to drive the point home: to link these independent clauses, a comma is insufficient; either an article or a period is needed instead.

And so we reach the end of this chapter. I believe the only criticism I have remaining is that Lancer remains a flat, uninteresting, and, frankly, plot-device character who only exists as a hindrance to Shining Armor. Otherwise, I must admit that I quite like the premise. I presume that this was written before Equestria Girls a thing?

(Though I do see that you eventually bring Sunset Shimmer in with the sequel. My goodness, Celestia. You’ve certainly been a naughty backstabbing princess, haven’t you?)

I’ll likely move onto the next chapter tomorrow. Expect any newfound criticisms to rest in the comments there; in the meantime, I hope that this piece gives you something to chew on; if you have any questions, feel free to direct them my way.

Until then.

—Golden Vision

WRITE’s Pocket Spycrab