>>
|
No. 132121
>>132086 So this review is going to consist of two parts, basically. The first will be quotes from your story offset with a >, followed underneath by grammar and spelling corrections. I'll go over unique or jarring examples and try to give a brief lesson on proper usage. Some things may come down to style as they can either way and I'll try to note that when I can, but if you have a disagreement, look it up!
The second part of the review will be more detailed thoughts on your story overall. Your pacing of the story, your characters, how you establish setting and conflict. Things like that. Compared to the first part, this will be far more opinionated, but should have good advice regardless.
On to part one!
>The scent of salt was heavy in the air, assaulting Twilight's nostrils as the waves crashed against the sand under her hooves. The newest of the Princesses looked down at the damp sand and the way it was pulled back out to sea under her. She wore a smile on her face as she looked over to the boat that was at rest near her, docked and waiting it's passengers. So we're only into the first paragraph and we already have trouble. A few things I want to point out here. >the way it was pulled back >the boat that was at rest near her, Was is passive voice, and should be avoided as much as possible. Actions like "danced" or "rested" or "slept" or "smiled" communicate more when they're active. Switching to passive voice puts a barrier between the character and the action and therefore the reader and the story. It's not a cardinal sin, but watch out for instances of it and think how you can rephrase the sentence to avoid those instances. >She wore a smile on her face Related to the above point about actions being active. Try "She smiled" or "A smile graced her face" instead. >waiting it's passengers. It's and its are confused very often. Your usage here is wrong, you need "its" because the boat is waiting for the passengers that belong to it. "It's" means "it is" while "its" is possessive. It's an unfortunate quirk of the normal rules of contractions and the typical way English represents possession by a subject.
>Twilight was one of those passengers. After the events with Tirek Celestia and Luna felt the princesses were overdue for a vacation. So they had set this up, a week across the see for the four of them in Itaily at one of the most well known resorts! The purple princess was quite excited to say the least. Yet more corrections! >Twilight was one of those passengers Again, passive. "Twilight counted herself among those passengers" is an alternative. Again, find the instances of "was" and see what you can do to use action verbs in that place. >After the events with Tirek Celestia and Luna... Need a comma after Tirek >So they had set this up Not technically wrong, but it sounds choppy. Drop "had." >across the see Sea >The purple princess was quite excited to say the least. Three problems here. First, "purple princess." The fandom calls this problem Lavender Unicorn Syndrome (LUS) because, fittingly enough, Twilight is the most frequent victim of this treatment. While it does avoid the problem of constantly repeating a character's name and the related problem of potential pronoun confusion, especially when dealing with primarily female characters, it introduces a subtle mental jump to the reader that breaks immersion. There's no easy answer here. Avoid the substitution game as much as you can but don't go overboard on names and pronouns, either. Second, there's that passive voice again. And third and most importantly, you're telling us how Twilight feels. Big no no. Show us. She danced in place, she clapped her hooves together. She cheered, she hugged Celestia and did a flutter in place. Show us through her actions that she's excited.
>Everything was arranged and taken care of. Spike and Twilight's friends would oversee her new crystal castle while she was away, while Celestia and Luna both had ponies ready to take over their duties for a week, while they would of course continue to raise the moon and the sun. It went without saying that Cadance and Shining Armor had ponies ready to do their duties for them. The Crystal Empire pretty much ran itself at this point. Gee, I wonder if some corrections are in order? >while Celestia and Luna... a week, while... Woo, that's bad sentence structure. Break it off at the first while so there's symetry with the other sentences discussing the other arrangements. >It went without saying Then don't say it. It's boring. It tells the reader nothing. Alternately, spice it up. Give us some world building. Show us that the characters struggled earlier to reach this point. Shining and Cadance fought triumphantly against the slog of encroaching bureaucracy and committees to deal with all matters of importance and delegated daily tasks to trusted advisors. It's a story, so tell one! Phrases like "it went without saying" or "clearly" or "obviously" are either wasteful or insulting to the reader. If it's so clear or obvious, why point it out? Again, if "goes without saying" why say it? Either give the reader meaningful content or cut it. You aren't finished writing when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away. Cut and trim until your story is as tight as you can make and you've wasted nothing.
>So here Twilight was, on the eastern coast of Equestria waiting for the others to arrive. Being the punctual pony she was, Twilight was on a train before dawn, having said her goodbyes the night before to ensure the maximum efficiency in her travel time. Now she stood here, waiting for the others to arrive, feeling a little bored. She had of course brought a few books to read, but those were for the boat ride there and back! She couldn't start on them now and leave herself with nothing to entertain her on the trips! This paragraph is a bit more of a problem than previous ones, because it's just so full of fluff. >Equestia waiting for the others to arrive. >here, waiting for the others to arrive, feeling Within two sentences, you've repeated yourself. Drop the second. >Being the punctual pony she was, Trim this down to "Being punctual" >So here Twilight was, Again, passive. Rephrase to use a verb. "Twilight sat waiting on Equestria's eastern coast..." Separately, given that we know she sees a boat and she's on the coast, maybe you'd like to take an opportunity to really show where she is. I'm guessing at a port. Is it busy? Are there lots of other ponies running around? What are they doing? What does it sound like? Is it quiet, with the sounds of gulls and workers? Or is it loud because workers and passengers alike are chatting away? Don't overwhelm the reader with tons of information, but weave it into the narration. >having said her goodbyes Not technically wrong. Try "after she said her goodbyes." >Now she stood here, ... , feeling a little bored. Depending on how you rephrase the start of the paragraph, this may become redundant. But we once again come to the "show, don't tell" segment. Show that Twilight's bored. Have her fidget or look through her luggage. Have her mutter to herself.
>The sound of a carriage arriving along the dock was music to the Princess of Friendship. The Alicorn whipped her head around, seeing what could only be the carriage holding the Royal Sisters. The main give away was the sun and moon insignia adoring it, as well as the white ponies with blue manes pulling it. >The sound of a carriage arriving What does a carriage sound like? Steel-rimmed wheels scraping against cobbled stone? Hooves clopping? Whinnies, nickers? Creaking of leather and wood from the harnesses? >Princess of Friendship >The Alicorn LUS, again. Not once in this paragraph do you mention a character's name. >The main give away >adoring "giveaway" and "adorning," respectively. >The main give away ... blue manes pulling it. This doesn't really tell us a lot about the carriage itself. This could be phrased much better and we could get a lot more detail about the carriage itself. Is it covered? How many wheels? What do they look like? How about the number of ponies pulling it? Are they earth ponies? Pegasi? Unicorns? Are they in guard uniforms? How about the insignia itself? Do they resemble the banners of the Royal Sisters? Are they combined like the ying-yang version, or are they separate suns and moons? Where are they on the carriage? How big or prominent are they? What color? How about the color of the carriage itself?
>Twilight wasted no time in flapping her wings and floating up to the dock to meet her fellow Princesses. She wore a big smile on her face as the carriage came to a stop and the door opened, Celestia stepping out first with a big smile on her face, happy to see Twilight and to be taking a vacation. “Hello Twilight!” She proclaimed >Twilight wasted ... her fellow Princesses. My issue here is just that this is poorly phrased. As much as possible, in a story told in past tense, write your sentences to use the past tense forms of verbs. It's understandable to want and need variety, but the variety is so much sweeter for it's rarity. >She wore a big ... taking a vacation Massive run on sentence. Break this up into two or three smaller ones because you have a lot going on and it's getting a little lost by being all wrapped up together. >proclaimed Missing a period at the end.
>The youngest of the Princesses wasted no time running over to her old mentor and hugging her tightly, giving her a soft nuzzle with her forehooves wrapped around her neck. “Oh, this vacation is going to be wonderful!” Twilight said joyfully! I really don't have a lot of issue here besides a couple of nitpicks. This is actually a pretty good paragraph. >The youngest of the Princesses Again with the LUS >wasted no time running Twilight doesn't seem to want to waste any time, does she? (Too much repitition, drop the phrase here and use "ran") >hugging hugged >joyfully! You already used the exclamation point in the dialogue. Just end with a period.
>Celestia happily returned the gesture, wrapping one of her front legs around Twilight gently, “I hope so. I think it's about time we took a break, don't you?” She said with a wink before breaking the hug and taking in a big breath, enjoying the scent of the coastal air. >wrapping one ... gently, "I hope so." This is a general thing about how verbs work with dialogue. If the verb is a "speaking" verb, like "said" or "replied" or "whispered", you use a comma either before the dialogue starts, like you just did there, or you use a comma in the dialogue before you transition to your narration. However, when you use an "action" verb (or just any non-speaking verb), you use a period in or before the dialogue. In this case, "returned" and/or "wrapping" are not speaking verbs. Use a period. >She said Don't capitalize pronouns after dialogue when you use one of those speaking verbs I mentioned, regardless of what puncuation you use. >breaking the hug ... the coastal air Again, bit of a run-on sentenece. Chop it up. Also, big overuse of the *ing verb forms. Rephrase to use the past tense.
I have a... standard, I guess you could call it. If my review on mechanics gets to the point where I'm writing as much or more than the author has written for their story, I need to stop. Unfortunately, I don't have a lot of patience for poor grammar. I loaded as many tips as I could into the review, pointing out issues that I see come up multiple times. I can't (and neither I nor any other reviewer should) be the person to go through your story to fix so many little things. It's tough on both of us, me as the reviewer, you as the author, to be in a position where I have to say, "Here are the errors I've found in the first page. Here's a guide on how to fix them. Now take these examples and hunt them down in the rest of the story."
I want to read on. I really do. But I can't ignore the fact that I can barely make it through a paragraph without needing to think of all the ways it could be written better. What you have right here is a good start. But because I can't keep reading, I can't give feedback on the larger story.
Part of me wants to read the rest to find out who you're shipping, because I am one helluva sucker for some romance. Part of me really hopes it's Twilestia, because that's a favorite of mine. Part of me hopes it's TwiDance. And yet another part wants to see some Twilunestiance because all four princesses in a big ol' love rectangle could be adorable. But because you mention guards in the description, I figure someone, probably Twilight, is getting shipped with a guard. There is nothing inherently wrong with that. However, there are a couple of things worth noting, and they kind of relate to one another. First is that it's easier to write a relationship between two established characters. You just have a lot of existing material to work with. And second, = there is a stigma with shipping Twilight (or any established/canon) character with OCs or just less-developed characters in general. A corollary to the first point is that using an OC to ship with is going to be harder because you need to make the reader care and you need to make the OC relatable and have the readers buy into them being shipped. Of course, if none of this is the case, if it's really Twilestia or TwiLuna or whatever, then these points don't really come into play as much. Cadacne marrying Shining Armor aside, there isn't much in the way of a canon romantic relationship. You're going to have to make a compelling reason for the reader to buy into whatever ship you want to sail.
That about wraps up all I can say, really. You have a good start, like I said, but you need to read through your story carefully under the lenses I've given you. Get to fixing up the little things so we can enjoy the big story you're trying to tell. Good luck, and I wish you the best.
|