>>87108
Thanks for the review of Cloud 9, most of you points we're really helpful!

>>84038
Claim. Expect today or tomorrow.

Title: Resolution

Tags: [Sad]

Description: Wandering the streets after a stressful day, a pegasus finds a strange anomaly which sends him forward in time. In the future Equestria, Time has killed everything: the sun is burnt out, the stars are few and far between, and the land is empty. Empty, except for one pony who has witnessed the end of Equestria... and everything leading up to it. When faced with such extreme circumstances, what will these ponies learn about themselves?

Link: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1UbIeRhecvLOP-6dbhFWXRULIGGJrAmMubK2LaGQz0mM/edit?pli=1

It's not complete yet, but I need some feedback before I can continue. I'd like to grill whoever reviews this and get their thoughts on the characters mainly.

>>84038
Comments in-doc. Two things I want to talk about that don't fit there:

1) Celestia and Luna helping is a secret.
No. This is unfeasable. Not only would Luna have to disguise to get out of the capital, she'd have to disguise at the battlefront, and all the way to and from the field. In addition, there's no reason why she would need to do this. Let's look at the advantages of disguising versus not disguising.

Disguising:
1) Less likely for an assassination attempt.
2) A little less dangerous.

Not Disguising:
1) Huge boost in morale for your troops
2) Huge drop in morale for the enemies
3) Awesome PR for the commander
4) More respect and a clearer chain of command

Again, let's look at real world examples. In every war, the knowledge that the enemy general is the 'big daddy', so to speak, has almost always resulted in a victory strictly from a morale standpoint.

2) Torture

This is all very silly. Most torture sessions are much more than someone punching you. Get nasty, clothespins on eyes, waterboarding, actually drowning to unconsciousness. That is, unless you're going for the enemy commander being a newbie/incompetent. In that case, keep it as it is.

This post is to confirm that Sapidus sent me his review by e-mail. Thanks guys.

Tags: Dark, Sci-Fi, Crossover, Normal

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1aVCCmLAOSuUKEloGOFLlwA8KKlB1ca1Nvic3OX-q5T4/edit

Chapter 3 is ready for a review. Chapter 2 was ripe with telling, but I'm hoping that won't be an issue in this one. Please and thank you.

Been working on editing these to get them up to snuff. Pretty significant changes from earlier versions.

Tags: Dark, Adventure

Synopsis: A thousand years ago, a princess moved out of her sister's shadow and became a powerful force in Equestria. Her meteoric rise to glory was followed by a catastrophic fall. This is the story of Luna, and how she was almost a hero before she became a Nightmare.

Links:
Chapter 1
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1oRpMlLA15wy4DM1h1wg_D547r_-VT5f0Wyd7hqbxy_Q/edit
Chapter 2:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1dwcoPnQ0V5YRZ0FtMSmfasXeVi7F_9M8C4tcfv9y3W4/edit

Some author's notes: This will be a very long one. Most of it was written in November for NaNoWriMo (and I actually succeeded!), it's just now a long, hard process of cleaning up what I have and refining it into something worthwhile. Seriously, I got 50K+ words and I still have more to write.

Wow, this thread moves fast. I totally missed that response! Well... Sunday I was a little preoccupied with planning for a big project :S
>>87158
> Pinkie Pie throwing a party and Twilight doing research are major parts of their characters. I'm not sure if it's "cliche" to have them doing things that they would most likely do in a given situation.
Maybe this is just because I've read too much fanfiction. I call them cliche because I've seen them too many times, and at this point every time I see them I roll my eyes. I'd say that if you must include them, add as much meaningful and important pieces to the plot/exposition as possible through them. Otherwise, readers could simply skip over those parts and not miss anything, because they know that studying is what Twilight does and throwing parties is what Pinkie Pie does. All I'm saying is just don't treat them like study and party machines (respectively) just for the sake of making your story more like the show and getting cheap fanfic cred for it, but make the absolute most out of them. That way, it doesn't come across as bland and unoriginal. If you already have your heart set on improving it in this regard, then good.

> As for the "portal" thing... it will make more sense in Chapter 4. This is also when Megan will actually learn enough about what is going on to be able to act (since she's kind of flying blind right now).
When I said you were approaching it with naivety, I meant it in that you seem to be unaware of how this fanfic contains all of the same telltale signs of a typical HiE story, and that may be off-putting to readers, which would be unfortunate. To your credit, you at least use a sonic rainboom instead of the hideously over-used trope "TMUAS" (Twilight Messes Up A Spell) to transport Megan to Equestria.

> Molly and Megan: they're sisters
I didn't catch that -- and in fact, looking back, it wasn't revealed anywhere in the chapter. Is it part of the earlier-gen canon?

> Why shouldn't they get some "reflection" on what she's thinking?
This is fine and dandy, but try to get more colorful with, say, some figures of speech. If you do things like just say "she felt weird" then it's not very interesting because that would be telling readers her emotion instead of showing it. Like I said in my review, emotions are hard to convey in a compelling and interesting manner because they're abstract. So, this is where you'll most need to get creative.

> Oh, and I'm not sure why I can't just use adjectives to describe things. Especially when those are the terms that the character uses to think about things....
This goes back to the showing vs. telling issue. Adjectives are fine, just use the right ones. Visual/visceral adjectives are great, even for emotions, because they're powerful and make the reader feel more immersed in the narration. Superficial/abstract ones like "weird", "frightening", and "pleasant" fall flat because, again, you're telling readers how they should feel, instead of giving them the necessary imagery so that they end up feeling that way naturally.

Oh, and don't let your narrator have identity crises. Is the narrator Megan? Or some separate entity? Make a decision on this and commit to it. When you reveal Megan's thoughts as though it's her talking inwardly, you need to italicize the thoughts or use thought tags, i.e. "she thought".

Title: Equestria's Twilight

Author: Sapidus3

Tags: Sad, Dark, Tragedy

Synopsis: This is the story of the end. This is the story of the death of Equestria. It is the story of the reign of her royal majesty, Princess Twilight Sparkle of the Fading Sun.

The alicorn sisters are dead and Equestria has turned to Twilight Sparkle to guide it. However, just maintaining a dim sun a fraction as bright as her mentor's keeps the new princess near her limits.

Years have passed and Twilight Sparkle is sure of only one thing. Equestria is dying.

Link: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1zuGiclNH0ofMcWS5S5ECWqnaiUaAkbWew9kcQ10IIYM/edit

Chapters: Chapter One

So I submitted to EQD, got what I interpreted to be a fairly positive response. Received some help on the TG and rewrote the chapter. Upon submitting it to EQD again it seems like my show/tell problems are still there (though it seemed like this pre-reader just disliked my story in general compared to the first)

First Pre-reader:

Good evening. I'm Pre-reader 23-ish, and I'll be providing the requested second opinion of your fiction tonight. Basically, a Pre-reader can ask another to take a look if they see something they're not quite sure of or need a second set of eyes on. In a way, this is good, as it means that your fiction is fairly close to being ready.


Let's dig in, shall we?

You have elements of a great story here, but you've got a few critical problems. Nearly the entire first chapter is what we call 'Tell, not show'. Basically, the narrator is telling us everything instead of us learning it through the actions of the characters.


In many places, you also appear to forget your closing quotes. There's also several instances of word choice issues.
This really could be a fantastic story, but in my eyes, you need to take it to Ponychan and get some help with editing. This will take some time, as your story is large and a HUGE amount of it is failing the 'Show and Tell' test. You need to find a way to provide this information by pony and not by narrator.

Author, you're breaking my brain. This is the first time I've ever given a story a 4/5 and said it wasn't postable just yet. But that is my verdict.

4/5 Not quite postable. FANTASTIC story, but nearly fatal show vs. tell issues and other problems as noted above.

Second Pre-Reader:

Greetings from Equestria Daily! I'm Pre-reader X, and I cannot recommend your story for posting at this time.

Look out for grammatical errors in these areas:

Incorrect use of single quotes
to/too/two confusion
Word usage
Hyphen usage
Misspellings
Extra spaces
Missing quotation marks

You also begin your story with a massive bout of telling rather than showing, with very little actually happening. I question the decision to begin your story at the point you do, as it falls rather flat in my view. Essentially, what you have is a massive Info Dump with a few bits of current events thrown in to pacify readers looking for plot development. While much of your actual writing is sound, your dry, overly focused on telling rather than showing style drags this down.

What I'm Looking For:

The technical problems that the pre-reader pointed out each appeared once (as far as I could tell) in my first chapter and have been fixed (other than word use, I'm not sure where that is a problem).

My big concern is show vs tell. I really thought I had made the chapter much more emotionally evocative and more showing, but apparently not. This is basically what I'm looking for help with. If I can get it in this chapter, I think I can apply what I learn in my later chapters.

Thanks in advance.

Can someone edit the training ground queue document thingy to reflect that High Stream's story was reviewed and then that review was acknowledged?

>>87466
That looks interesting, but two things right off the bat: First, you should switch the documents from 'View Only' to 'Comment'. Second, you should probably break up the chapters so that they're no so long (I would go from two chapters to four).

>>87341

Oof. This review is going to take a while. I don't think this author actually knows what spellcheck is.

>>87480

Was trying to hit the magical Equestria Daily 3K words per chapter thingy, I just keep overshooting it a bit. I could still split it up though if you think that's better.

Thanks for the tip on google docs, made that change.

>>87491
I think you're over 3k words per chapter. You're at like 4-5k words, right now (I think, I might be wrong).

I also would recommend against using bold text as well as different fonts and different sizes like that. I know that you're trying to convey a certain off-putting emotional tone in the reader about Discord's son, making the bad guy look insane. As a reader, though, it's distracting and nothing more.

Let the choice of words speak for themselves.

...

...

Aw, heck. I'll just review it. You've tittelated my curiosity to no end. :P

>>87493
>>87491
>>87480
>>87466
>chapters are >4k words each
>"split them up!"

Sorry to butt in here, but I'd like to defend decent-length chapters. LuckyStampede, your chapters are fine as-is. They're actually a little shorter than what I'd expect from such a story, to be quite honest. I advise against splitting them up if your only reason is "they're too long", because they aren't.

If you're going to release this story one chapter at a time, having chapters longer than 3k words is what you should do. Make your updates too short and you'll irritate a reader who wants to read something substantial when the stories they follow get updated. See Antipodes in its late teens for an example of individual chapters that leave the reader unsatisfied.

The most important thing, however, is not your chapter word counts, but that your chapters hang together thematically. A chapter is its own mini-story. What some writers miss is that chapters don't end when you tire of writing or get to a cliffhanger, but when their mini-stories are complete (and those can end in cliffhangers).

If the content of each of your chapters holds together, don't cut them up. ADD readers can take breaks in the middle of a chapter.

>>87491
Don't quote me (this is a better question for the "ask EqD prereaders" thread), but I think the 3k minimum applies to the entire update. So if you wanted to add a Chapter 3 that was only 1k words, you couldn't do that by itself. If you wanted to update EqD with Chapters 3 through 5, 1k words apiece, that would be allowed since the total update is 3k.

>>87493

Discord's son? Oh, that wasn't the intent I was giving. Also, it's female, and a mother as revealed at the end of the dialogue. The "kin of discord" is not to be taken literally, it's more of an epithet like calling the dragon a Nazi.

Let's begin, shall we? I'll review the next part sometime this week.

Characters Let me begin by saying that I'm a shameless Luna-is-my-waifu worshipper [if you're familar with my own stories, you'll see that immediately :-) ]. I've tried to put that aside. I think you've got her pretty IC.

I do think that you need to watch her manner of speech, though. It's weird to hear her speaking in full Canterlot Voice in one second, but then later she's hemming and hawwing like a foal. Most of your OCs seem fine.

The bandits are an exception. You have them talking like Shakespearean actors. "Oh, forsooth! I spy a merchant! Let us take his life, my dear roguish companion!" etc. That was a real WTF moment.

When it comes to Celestia, this... I'm not so sure about this. It strains believably almost to the breaking point for Celestia to be "Oh, they're Shakespearean and poor. Therefore, it's okay for them to murder my friends." It was a serious WTF moment.

I suspect a lot of readers would be unhappy at the mention of alicorn-x-pony crossbreeding, but personally I think it's fine (again, that's something I've written about glowingly myself). Those nobles had to come from somewhere. I just want to warn you to expect some pushback.

[b] Grammar / spelling [b]: You. Like. To. Write. In. Sentence. Fragments. Please. Stop. That. >:( I also spotted a bunch of comma problems. That's something that you just need to proofread for. I wouldn't worry about it too much, but you need to keep that in your mind. I think you might use too many ellipses, but that's more of a minor thing.

>>87522
Plot: There's nothing bad about the plot that sticks out at me. Yet, still, it somehow feels stale. This is a pretty vague criticism, and I understand if you ignore me. It's just that I feel like this is pretty similar to all kinds of other fanfics that I've read about or read myself.

[b]Tone / storyline [b]: You need to watch for the passive voice. I think that that you're a pretty talented writer, and you don't fall into the passive voice traps that I see all the time. Still, though, don't let even a minor problem keep your story from being the best that it can be. I'd go through with a fine-tipped comb and pick out every 'was', 'is', and so on. I hoped that I helped with that.

There are a couple things that I just felt confused about. She has these precious eggs with her, and so why doesn't she hide them before she confronts these wolves? Were the ponies really dead or just wounded? Why is she willing to literally sit and watch plants grow as those wounded/dead ponies sit there?

I'm speculating here, but I think the idea of Discord having sons and/or daughters is great. I might even rewrite it so that the creature is Discord's daughter. Or maybe just make it ambiguous whether or not more of them are around? Just a thought...

In general, I'd go with a solid 3.5 or 4.0 out of 5 for this story. This is a 'good' story that can and should become a 'great' story with some further revisions. It sounded interesting from the get-go, and it didn't dissapoint. Have a smiling Rarity.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1dwf6uMhlRqxUdnNM8cBH6r5_UdUaJTyYivFv7PEqDF4/edit

I will finish this review ONLY if the author can prove that he isn’t a troll. You can’t have misspellings like “Meanwhile at sweat apple Ackers” and NOT be a troll.

I have recently listened to The Piper at the Gates of Dawn, and I regard it as most enjoyable. So, I take back what I said about Pink Floyd as it refers to Syd Barrett's band. However, David Gilmour and Roger Waters can both SUCK IT. HARD..

>>87500
I stand by what I said about shortening the chapters, but I meant it more as a bit of friendly advice rather than a 'make or break thing'. I think that a natural revision process would probably clean them up into 3k or so anyways (based on how chapter one felt to me).

We are now in autosage.

Incorrect.
Now you are.

>>87527
Well, you're the reviewer and you read the story, but a quick glance over your own stories shows a love of short chapters (too short IMO), so I thought it worth presenting the other side of the argument, especially if the author is going for an EqD audience (you have mentioned in the past that you don't use EqD, and I on the other hand use it almost exclusively for my fic-reading).

In my experience, chapters on FIMfic exclusives are generally shorter than chapters on EqD-featured fics. And also there's the matter of minimum update lengths and such.

>>87532
You sound familiar...

>>87452
Thanks again, Dromer. Very helpful as usual. As always, I'll correct the flaws you have pointed out and remove/alter sections that need to be changed.

Cheers :)

If I'm reviewing something that I suspect is a troll-fic, (I'm 4 paragraphs in and I have yet to see a sentence that is passable as-is and my criticisms amount to over 1200 words), what should I do?

Fun fact: This fic has 45 paragraphs and clocks in at just over 3000 words.

WE ARE NOW IN AUTOSAGE

>>87542
I had a look-see. Doesn't seem like a trollfic, just a really bad case of self-insert HiE. Dialogue is punctuated right and nothing stands out to me as grammatically wrong, from what I skimmed... yeah, it's probably just that the story is really bad.

That being said, reviewers can drop a fic whenever they want to. They just have to give a really good reason or lose credibility. *shrug* In your case, you can just say
1) plot's boring, near-worthless
2) main character is an unlikeable douche
3) couldn't continue with this, please get those looked at

with supporting examples, so that the author/person who put this here on his behalf (wait what?) can't call you out for simply slacking.

>>87542

I can tell you with full certainty that this is NOT a trollfic. I know the person who made it(although, not IRL), and this is a completely serious piece of work. It started off as the author wanting to write a Sam and Max/MLP crossover with him inserting himself into the fic, but he decided that he wanted to write this... thing as backstory for his self-insert character. He's actually written almost 10,000 words of it so far, but he's only publically posted that part. Later chapters have him publically bucking his ex-girlfriend in the face in front of Applejack, who runs off... only to forgive him the next day and later on defend him in court.

I would review this myself, if I wasn't expecting the author to not take anything I say seriously in the review, as me and him have MSTd fanfics together before.

Please don't drop this. This guy NEEDS to hear criticism.

>>87523

I think it may be best to take this to email, because I have some points I'd like to discuss and don't want to clog up the thread. Is it okay if I email you?

Thanks for the review.

Time for chapter 4 to be reviewed. :)

Elysian Fields (Part 4)

Sad/Grimdark

Words: 3871
Total Words: 17229

"The Hearth's Warming story tells the tale of how Equestria came to be. It does not however tell of the dark secrets that followed. Find out about the true history, and dark secrets of Equestria's forgotten past."

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1e8wqYHo0bzzScptv4KQO9vjezduTU2ww71Qt5aTiA4g/edit

Cheers :)

>>87467
Oh, OK, I think I get it now.
To be honest, I think a lot of the problem is that I haven't really gotten it rolling yet. To be honest, a lot of the things that seem "typical HiE" are going to get blown apart by what I'm planning for Chapter 4 (which has already been set up a bit, but I won't spoil it).
As for characters, Megan doesn't know them yet. When we first met Pinkie and Twi in episode 1, that's kinda what they seemed like to us, because that's the first impression they usually make. I'll be expanding more on them later, of course.
And yeah, Molly and Megan are sisters in canon. I did explicitly say that Danny and and Megan had a little sister, and I just assumed that readers would put two-and-two together and realize that that's Molly.
Now I'm even more hopeful that I'll find time to write Chapter 4! It seems there's a lot of things I need to tie up to make previous chapters look better!

>>87526
alright, just forget about the whole thing. my fic isint ready for the training grounds, let alone EQD. it would need a complete re right and i'm just not ready to do that yet. I'll keep writing it, but you can stop reviewing it if you want. my characters an cutout and a gary stue, my grammar and spelling are horrible, and wile the idea might have been good, the execution wasint there. don't forget about me now though, il be back if i ever do decide to re right it, and i have an idea for a deeper story that i'll put more effort into. sorry for wasting your time.
cheers-
hobrohazard

>>87558
Okay, sure.

I know this thread is in auto-sage already, but the author of Toothpaste and I have already talked with each other and his review has been acknowledged.

I just put this here so I don't clutter the new thread. So review for Toothpaste completed in doc, thanks very much and have a good one. So until the new thread, have fun!

Where is the new thread anyway?

Hey there, sorry it took so long to get back to you about this. I received the review for "The Eternal Gift", so you can mark that one as completed.

Thanks!

Whoever makes a new thread, please don't forget the #ttg link this time.

>>87256
>>87187
As discussed, I'll make a summary post after I review the upcoming revision.

>>87568
Oh man, I can't believe I wasn't all over this the moment you posted it.
THE TRAINING GROUNDS SHOULDST/DOES NOT HAVE A MINIMUM QUALITY REQUIREMENT - WE SHOULDST/SHALL NOT "PRE-SCREEN" THOU BEFORE REVIEW.
All we ask is that you sincerely put your heart and soul into writing, and that you come here with an open mind, willing to improve. If you have truly tried your best, then it is impossible for your fic to "not be good enough for the Training Grounds."

That is all from me. I'll see about rounding up a new edition as well.

>>84220
Okay, I left comments on the first three chapters, mostly on issues I'm going to touch here. I'll leave it to you to find the rest, because frankly, I am not a fan of pointing out recurrent mistakes the author can find themselves. (Also, I'm a lazy bastard. :P) First off, technical. In general, I found nothing in terms of grammar and punctuation that I feel the need to correct, so kudos for the through proof-reading. What I am going to touch here instead is your manner of prose.

The main problem I have with your fic is your tendency to slip into multiple perspectives within the same scene. This is generally frowned upon as it is confusing and really comes off as a lazy way for you to exposit something without needing to account for it from the same perspective. Consider this.
>The colt swore that the guard's smirk grew a bit as he watched his prey's eyes widen further, and his fur start to dampen from the sweat. The guard could almost taste the fear radiating from the poor excuse of a pony sitting before him.

At this point, I'm not entirely sure who we're supposed to be following, and it jarred me a little. I actually thought the guard was Moonsong, up to the point he got home and revealed himself. Reader confusion is a bad thing, and it can make people put down your fic before it has even begun. A general rule is to only switch perspective with each scene break, rather than within the scene itself. The Scatterbrain chapter was a good exercise at this, except for the last part.

Since you're using each chapters to flesh out the personality of each OC pony you're introducing, might I make a suggestion? Do each chapter entirely from their perspective. Not only it allows us to get to know your OC ponies better and follow the inner workings of their minds, it provides a level of intimacy which is sadly missing. I find myself going 'meh' at the Inventor and the Spectre, since you used up valuable words to flesh out things which to me, provides little or no hints to their personality. (I find flashbacks to be meh, since unless I'm invested in the character, I won't find their backstory interesting.)

As for your story, although it is generally quite coherent and easy to follow. However, you seem to suffer from a number of lack of description at times, and overuse of description in others. For example, I know almost nothing of the city Moonsong that lived in, despite it being apparently important for the story. It was almost as if he was in some generic dystopian city... or a white canvas with the name of city in it. It has a junkyard, a police station and um... Sugar Rave Corner? Yet, I was treated to a description of the ship that Dusk Dancer was using in almost intimate details. In fact, if you read the first chapter alone, you would wonder why in the hay it justified a [Sci-Fi] tag, since there's literally nothing in it that says it utilises technology. (Maybe except for his metallic wings, but then again, the show tech level probably allows for such.) In the same vein, I thought the airship battle in the second chapter was a space battle until I realised that it was an air-borne craft, mentioned by the a small blurb. (Actually I was curious as to why this is still taking place on the same planet, given that ponies apparently have Mass Effect level technology, sometimes even hints of more.) You should address this problem, to avoid the white canvas feel. Give the readers some description of the setting to go on.

On the bright side, I do approve of you not trying to infodump the setting in one go to me, and instead using Atlas to fill in the gaps in the history via natural progression of the narrative. This is something I don't find often. Subtle allusions to how times are different, such as the sun shining not as brightly as it used to be is also good. You get cookies for those.

As for your characters, I find you might be trying too hard to fit certain characters into their archetypes from the show. Scatterbrain's casual reference to a party just smacks me of you trying to make her Pinkie Pie-ish. This is despite me liking her character the most, amongst the one you introduced, simply because the last scene shows a good depth into her personality. Moonsong strikes me as an emo whiny guy. Dusk Dancer the stereotypical idealistic captain. Sapphire Shock... uh, actually I don't know much about this one. Atlas is the nerd it seems. Nimbus is the angsty pegasus with a sad backstory. To be honest, I think you might be trying to introduce too many characters too fast, because I find myself not really having an emotional attachment to any of them. (Except Scatterbrain, because again, that last scene in her chapter was brilliant.) This is especially important with OC ponies, as people would not be familiar with them as they would with canon show ponies.

Okay, I was probably going somewhere with this rambling, but I think this is enough for now. I hope this helps.

tl;dr Well-written. Jarring perspective changes. Would like to see more.

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Review completed for Tamar's story: Icarus. It was done completely in doc and the author has been working with me through the past several days to fix it. Now I'm going to go over it again to make sure I didn't miss anything especially with the massive rewrite and overhaul. I'm only putting this here in the saged thread, because I didn't want to clog the new thread, and because I'm just going to move my own review since the author acknowledged it already.

Tags: [Adventure][Shipping]

Synopsis: Following instructions from a man named Leon, Hitch finds an amnesiac Twilight Sparkle, wounded, in the wilderness. Worried about her disappearance, her companions set out on a journey to find their lost friend, and dark creatures stir in the shadows.

Links:
Chapter 1:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1_HXk2q1De3mWvXt41SzSfoDULyUbsfovWSkmKhKFhAw/edit
Chapter 2:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1RmhxiLBmPXU7ZSRn9Upwnx18Og75jmloWjGlxFeWenw/edit

Comments/Requests:
None.

>>86107

Thanks for taking the time to review the chapter and giving /a lot/ of feedback. I'm afraid I forced you to do a rather large amount of work.

Allow me to shed some light on why I write as I do. I believe it stems from having read many books without giving much consideration to why writing in a certain manner works. In school I cared little for grammar, since I could read very well and write decently enough. Perhaps it is coming back to bite me.

I am implementing the majority of the changes you suggested. Though I am still a little fuzzy on some dialogue rules you suggested fixing. Moreover, I doubt my comma placement issues will be fully corrected any time soon. I will take to heart your advice on sentence length and structure. Some of the story telling hand waving is necessary, though I will try to clarify it. Showing not telling is something I hope to improve on with time. I find it difficult to describe some of the conversations without telling. There isn't enough action to fill in the gaps, and describing facial expressions seems redundant. I'll try and make the best of it, and perhaps learn from other writers.

The tense switch has caused problems since the start. Since much of the story beyond this chapter is told in extended flashbacks, I intended to make the distinction between past and present clear through the tense of the prose. However, there were some lapses in other parts that needed to be fixed, and I guess I found most but not all of them.

I will keep the third person narration, but you are quite justified in pointing out that it sometimes steps beyond Twilight's perspective. That discrepancy will be ironed-out.

Overall, I realized there would be issues with the grammar. I will try to improve the most glaring problems. Still, my spirit is lifted by your assessment of the chapter as a whole as promising, since the goal of the chapter was to create a mood and set the scene.

Thank you and please forgive the lateness of my reply.
Warmblood

Tags: [Dark]
^None of the others seem to apply.

Twilight is hearing grim messages in her sleep, relating to things happening around her. Can she discover who's behind the horrible things happening in Ponyville before it's too late?

Comments/Requests:
Please bare in mind this is part 1 of 4 parts, it will make more sense when the story is complete, I just want to know how badly I'm failing before I write the other parts.

Links:
https://docs.google.com/document/pub?id=1STfQPTsvSeXyPqAVPujj_NYNay1PmDiMxdhQQ0sCb30

>>87851
Post moved to new thread, sorry again, i'm an idiot.

>>86177
The password sold me. I'll take it. =)

>>86177
Well, I've only read the prologue so far, and I'm really liking it. You do have some grammar issues that are slowing me down, but I'm ignoring the little ones, like you asked.

The overall story is interesting to me. I do want to see what happens next. I'm not sure what you wanted to do with detail vs. bogging down reader, but I found that your most detailed part - the Clover study scene - was your best part. In fact, what threw me off was how you transitioned from that level of detail and then threw me some directional lines that didn't make sense. You spend 3-4 paragraphs on how hard she is studying, then in 30 words or less, she talks with the librarian; disagrees with the librarian; is persuaded by the librarian; goes out side; sees some weird jade thing and the story ends.

The letters are really killing it for me. They seem melodramatic for no particular reason. Okay, Celestia is writing some letters to her mom. Great, but why? I realize they have some secret, but that's not built up very well. I think you need to add the same level of detail to those letters as you did with Clover's studying. Don't just jump into the letter and assume the reader is going to read them with the tension they are meant to be read with.

Platinum's outrage-speech seems off. I didn't see her as Rarity.

The librarian was awesome.

The random jade, I'm not sure what that even is, was random. I'm not sure what the significance of that is, but if you are looking to tie that into the plot later as foreshadowing, you need to add more than that.

Clover is awesome.

Hurricane, Pansy, Pudding Head, Smart Cookie, and Platinum are all pretty weak. It's okay though, they serve their purpose. That's the beauty of fan fics, people already know the characters. However, I would describe Platinum a little more because I just assumed she was an OC alicorn at the beginning. It wasn't until later that I realized who she was because I forgot her name.

Here are the notes I took during the read:
Celestia's letter needs some work. The grammar is quite off.

“it wasn't that bad, now, what it?” sounds like a question.

“She'd figure something out. She continued writing” very telly, not showy. Also tense issue.

Threw dark confetti over the grave? Whaaa?

At this point I have no idea what's up with Princess Platinum. I get that she liked this pony who died, and that she is filled with rage and making outrage... but not much else.

In general, you use far too many personal pronouns. Each time you start a new paragraph you need to reintroduce the person who is receiving action. You cannot simply say “her” because I'm not sure who she is. Also, you do not need to start a new paragraph just become someone is talking. You only need a new paragraph if someone new is talking. So if the above paragraph is about the person who is about to talk, then it's a safe bet to keep it in the same paragraph. If you feel it is better suited in a new paragraph, then you can do that, but you need to make sure that it is clear who is speaking.

e.g.
As they ran parallel to the grave, they stopped next to Clover and the Princess’s horn glowed, lowering the window.

“I know you are upset, my dear Clover,” she proclaimed, “but you must let his secret go. This is not your fault. It was nopony’s fault.”

First off, who is they? Second off, this pretty much implies that Clover and the Princess are they, when they are not since the princess is in a carriage. So when I read the next paragraph, which could easily be the same paragraph, I could assume that the princess and Clover are walking together and some other pony proclaimed that to them.

For the first time, the eyes of Clover the Clever began to glisten. “That’s precisely why.”
-Glistening eyes usually means happy. I don't like that here.

Smeagol was a librarian... this character development is awesome so far. It's wide open, and I am creating the character with my mind.

No one = no pony, not nopony

brilliant narration. The description of clover reading is phenomenal, but it ends abruptly. The pace shift is a little too drastic. More detail is needed there, perhaps some more indication as to why she stopped reading.

I'm not buying celestia's second letter.

“Many feared the worst and some actually began preparations for a second funeral.” someone who studies for hours on end without rest is likely not seen often, so nine days is nothing.

I find it a little strange that the leaders of the three pony races are just randomly hanging out together.

“I don’t know,” she said. “What’s your definition of scary?” when she says this, it sounds sort of like a joke. Not sure if you want to end like that.

Celestia fearing that the elements are real BECAUSE of her believing that legends are real is kind of off. She needs more motivation or something to make that believable.

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