Pleasant Commentator and Review Group Reviews

Assassins Creed, anyone?

More on that seemingly-unrelated topic later.

Linkedy Link: The Dawn of a New Revie... uh, day by The Eternal Emperor

*NOTE: This Review is based off my reading the first 5 chapters, and skimming over about 7 more.

First Impressions

The synopsis:

How did this happen? Humble Pie thought the sentance over and over again as blood dripped from the blade, making a small puddle on the floor. This was just to be a vacation with his niece, but now it's the beginning of something else.

Multiple contradictions in the very first impression aren't a great way to start:

1. First off, 'sentence'. Grammar is very important in the synopsis, and you must check it at least 3 times to make sure it's golden.

2. The title is 'Dawn of a New Day', and the picture seems to go with that, showing Twilight. Then we go to the synopsis, and we're talking about... 'Humble Pie'? Is this fic about Humble, or is it about Twilight?

Well, looking at the tags... Twilight isn't there. Regardless of your cover-art making qualities, getting access to one which is relevant should always be important.

The other couple major confusions I found reading over it is with the synopsis and the other tags... let's check them out.

1. 'Sex', 'Romance', 'Crossover', 'AU'.... Crossover with what? When you're crossing something over, you should always say what you're crossing over so the people who know it can be interested in your fic right off the bat. You can get a good audience with known crossovers, trust me on that one.

2. Finally, the synopsis clearly says something about moider most foul. When you reference murder, and don't have a dark tag, then you're usually getting something wrong. This isn't a comedy fic where we're murdering the pickle-jar, this is described and presented as a serious thing. The same can be said about having 'romance' and all that in a fic without referencing it in the synopsis.

*Phew*... sorry about that. There's some other minor issues, but we'll leave it there for now. The important thing is that you understand why these issues were issues, and fix them so that your readers understand what they're getting into.

Another thing you'll be seeing from first impressions is quotes that sort of make sense in the first couple chapters, but slowly start to degrade... eventually, they stop all together. But from my opinion that's good, with such classics as these:

"Chuga, chuga, chuga, vroom, vroom!" A train.

"Tick tock"-unkown

^I wasn't sure if I was getting played for reading the fic, or if this was meant to be funny.

Certainly don't add quotes for no reason at the start of chapters. They're a nuisance, not great for foreshadowing, and certainly don't add anything with pointless ones such as these.

Mechanics

Grammar: 90% good/OK. The sentence structure + format is what really needs attention. The fic certainly needed a few more looks through with a proof-reader or two:

"For Celestia's sake!" grumbled the stallion in a funny accent that sounded like what a pony from Trottingham would sound like if they ate pebbles .

"How could you forget!”

While it was for the most part grammatically sound, I would never say that it was particularly strong. There was nothing that came out at me as, 'wow, that's really good!' It was all rather 'OK'.

Dialogue: Well, there's a lot of it, that's for sure.

The majority of dialogue in this fic is one-liners. That being, a single sentence being said to someone, who then says a single sentence back, and so on.

Par example:

“Morning Humble, oh Time Turner,” said Carrot. “I forgot you were coming today.”

“Well I would have come later but-”

“Awww, babies!” said Dinky fawning over the giggling twins.

“And what are you doing here Dinky?” said Cup Cake ruffling Dinky’s hair.

“Well I promised Derpy-”

“The doctor told mommy that he would take me to see A.K Yearling!” said Dinky hopping around.

“What she said.”

“And Humble why are you so dressed fancy?” said Carrot as Humble adjusted his tie.

“Same reason as this little filly,” said Humble patting Dinky on her helmet. “To meet Miss Yearling.”

“Well Mister, uhh,” said Time Turner.

“Humble Pie, uncle of Pinkie Pie,” said Humble putting out a hoof. “But please call me Humble.”

You get the picture. But remember this quote. It's important, I tell you.

Worldbuilding: Assassins Creed Syndrome. That's what I'm coining it.

Essentially, large portions of your story are told through flashbacks, except that the flashbacks don't really correlate with the present too much. For the most part, you the flashback world is more interesting. In fact, you'd much rather the story be told entirely in the past than with all these flashbacks.

This is definitely present for the first few chapters. I soon realised that the majority of these flashbacks weren't actually telling anything of note to this story, or when that damn murder-thing was going to happen.

Other than that, it's pretty much just Ponyville... I think. I'm not sure, there was a lot of talking, and not a lot of 'Oh, we're here! Let's explain this area now.' There's a bit of worldbuilding at the start, and there IS a train described at the start (not in the same chapter as that quote, tho), but it seems to run off somewhere else later.

Finally, there seem to be some more sinister things happening in the background, and therefore the 'dark' tag would be useful.

Pacing: This is best done at the start. There's some ponies trying to get this writer! Hmm, interesting, why? Suspense, as they try to get in closer. Afterwards, though? Slow. Much too slow. You know that quote with the 1 liners? That's how the majority of this fic is set as. Lots of somewhat pointless talking, and never really getting back to the whole synopsis-suspense thing of, 'Murderer'!

Well, there's talking, then there's this that I found a bit later:

“A disaster at Bargain Baryard today,” said Stale reading the paper. “As a series of explosions caused the crowd gathering to see famous author of the Daring Do series, A.K. Yearling went wrong with panic and stampeding injuring dozens of fans. A citizen named Doctor Time Turner was severely injured at the start of the chaos.” Eyewitness statement was what Stale read next. “I heard a loud pop and the next thing I heard this guy shouting out in pain,” said bystander Noodle Bowl. Mister Turner’s exact medical condition is unknown at this point due to doctors and nurses refusing to speak to us. An eyewitness who is anonymous has described the suspects of the chaos as two stallions with one being a one eyed yellow unicorn with a target shaped cutie mark and the other a chestnut coated earth pony with a scar on his muzzle with a thick Trottingham accent along with a bat shaped cutie mark. If anypony knows anything about these two dangerous criminals who have foalnapped notable author Humble Pie, writer of Ice Barrels and The adventures of Con Colt, and uncle to the element of laughter Pinkamena Diane Pie, please contact the local authorities,” said Stale finishing the paper. “Huh.”

...I hope you didn't read through all that.

Never, ever tell your story like this. A massive block of exposition text is not fun.

Point of View: A bit of a switch at the start, but for the most part it's 3rd person Humble-Pie following as he meets and greets everyone in Ponyville.

Show and Tell: In reverse for the majority of the story.

I think this is the part that is really the most major issue here. You must learn when to show, and when to tell. To know this, you must first know what your story is trying to present. What's the main plot? Is it about dagger-murdering something or other? Ok!

In that case, you don't need to have about 3 or so 7K word chapters about showing Humble meet literally everypony in Ponyville. It's just not required, and is very off-putting to what should be the main plot.

You want to be showing all the stuff later, which is much more important to the plot. If this rule was addressed properly, the fic would be about 1/10th of the size.

I'll skip to the conclusion at this point, as I feel I've said my piece.

Conclusion

Honestly? The premise isn't bad, if not confusing at first. There seems to be two ponies trying to capture this one writer dude. Want to know why? Find out in this story!

The thing is, it shouldn't be anywhere near this long-drawn out.

Along with AC Syndrome, the actual 'plot' of the story becomes lost between flashbacks and greeting the residents of Ponyville. Try to give us a good, strong plot, make it interesting, and stay focused on that in later attempts. That'll be what gives you a better story in the future.

Also, always remember that proofreaders are abundant and plentiful right now. Go find three or so good un's willing to help you, and you're set for some learning experience and good writing-times.

(As for scores, I won't post them unless you directly message through this thread/otherwise that you want me to. This isn't Blunt Reviews, after all)

*Needs Work*