-This may be a weird critique, but I felt like the ponies weren't suspicious enough of their tail ribbons. It had been established that Wind Whistler, at least, did not have a ribbon before the transportation. Something or someone must have put it on her. To me, that's way creepier than having been transported to another planet. Yet the issue is never addressed, and the ponies continue to wear the ribbons. I'd be more suspicious if I was them.
I turn, I became suspicious of the costumes and other articles that are established toyline accessories, but you covered those quite nicely by establishing Truly and Skydancer's occupations, and Magic Star's hairpiece being her wand.
- A lot of time is spent describing the ponies, down to their body color, hair color, and the hair's curliness. This makes the writing more awkward to read, like I have to stumble over the descriptors before getting to the point of the sentence. As I'm not a pony myself, I'm not sure what the etiquette on describing a pony's color when she's introduced,
but in stories about humans, I usually find fewer descriptors until the character is established, or at least named. I assume it's be similar for ponies.
If it were me, I'd say either what color the pony's body is OR what her symbol is as the only descriptor (plus her species) like, "a white unicorn opened the door," or "the pony with the bird symbol shrieked." Later, once the ponies are named, THEN I'd describe more fully what they look like.
I like how the introductions clearly took place "off-screen," as that would have been tedious to read. Good on you!
-pg 5, p 5: "Sci-fi stand for science fiction as in not real."
This sentence should be broken up with a comma or two. if you read the sentence out loud, it'd come out as one breath, which would sound weird.
Another on page 6: "Real life can be so boring I wish I could live all the stories I read." You could even use a semicolon on that one, but they should be used sparingly. (I love semicolons, but all my creative writing teachers hate them, and I can see their point.)
-pg 5
I love both Surprise and (Bowtie?) yelling "Than you" for totally different reasons!
Thinking about it, I haven't seen that joke before, or if I have, I sure don't see it often.
I'd write it as "THANK you!" or "
Thank you" for emphasis. My brain reads it as an actual polite "thank you" otherwise.
-I smiled at Heartthrob on pg 8, "Of course I would find the bathrooms," in that "why does this
always happen to me?" tone. Just that one bit of dialogue and I glean so much about her character. You might consider using italics, as in "Of
course I would find..." or "Of course
I would find..." since you described her tone as "overly dramatic." In fact, you might not even need the descriptor of "overly dramatic," as the fact that she's even complaining about it says volumes.
-pg 15, p 10 (starts w/ "That's odd," )
Accidental use of "allowed" instead of "aloud."
-pg 16, last paragraph: " 'You're
deranged!' She put particular emphasis on that final word."
The last sentence is completely unnecessary. The italics and the exclamation point already show her emphasis.
- I'm intrigued about the concept of ponies not having clear-cut roles in Equestrian society, despite (or because of) their cutie mark. It's something I've wondered about myself in the G4 era.
-pg 25, p 3: Cherries Jubilee, a pony with "a heavy
curl in coral mane and tail..."
I assume you meant to put a "her" in there.
-pg 26, p 3
Used word "realties" instead of "realities."
-pg 27, p 11 (starts with "Lofty, the yellow pegasus..."): "Skydaner,
the ballerina still in costume, raised hers."
First of all, misspell of Skydancer.
The sentence is awkward. I think you're just missing a comma, as in "Skydancer the ballerina
, still in costume..."
-pg 28, p 2: "she would not be weighed down by
recently food"
-pg 28, description of the servants' quarters:
So far, your descriptions of rooms, castle features, etc have been just right - not too much, enough for readers to visualize. However, the description of WW's sleeping quarters is excessive. You don't really need to give the exact dimensions of the room and especially not the exact layout of the furniture - unless, of course, the layout of the furniture plays into the story somehow. You can let the readers use their imaginations here, and besides, most people reading this would know the basic layout of a bedroom.
All you'd really need to say is "the room was small, just large enough for its furniture," then go on to list the furniture. Mention the lighting and the window.
It felt like there were too many lamps for a "simple" servants quarters, but then again I can't think of a decent reason a servant
shouldn't own more lamps, so that's a very small critique. Just me trying to reduce words in the paragraph, an exercise I often have to do with my own writing. That way, the paragraph could be just as brief and functional as the room itself.
The sentence about the window has a minor plural error: there is one window, but the curtains are "drawn over
them."
I really love that last line in the paragraph. It's cozy and says a lot about Wind Whistler.
-pg 29
This is a really personal choice, but when the ribbon reties itself, I'd include a sentence like "It must have been enchanted" to remind readers that those types of things are commonplace in the story. But then, you might have more faith in readers who chose to click on a My Little Pony story! When I was reading it, I found myself thinking "why isn't she more freaked out about that?" and had to think about it and remember the kind of story I'm reading. I guess it's just myself I don't have faith in.
-pg 30, p 1
Use of the same adjective ("neat") in two consecutive sentences. I'm not sure if that's a problem to anyone else, or just me.
-Regarding accents:
Some authors like to spell word phonetically to convey a certain accent or twang. Others maintain that this is too invasive, and that one should simply say what kind of accent the character has, leave the dialogue untouched, and leave the readers to hear it themselves if they chose. I'm of two minds about it. On one hand, Truly's accent is kind of hard to read. On the other hand, it's kind of fun, too. Maybe go easy on the "uhs" at the ends of words? They're the ones that were hardest to get used to. It's really up to you, though. I don't think there are established rules on the subject.
-pg 31, p 4, "sapient" life
Did you mean sentient? Sapient is a word, (congrats on throwing a new word at me!) but I'm not sure they necessarily need to find "beings of wisdom" - unless you've heard the word used to mean "intelligent?" All I used for this comment is dictionary.com, so, yeah. I' assume you knew what you were doing, but figured I'd mention it just in case!
-pg 31, p 7: "Wind Whistler basically had to stand up to form the back of the line."
What?
-pg 32 (after the star break)
The paragraph about the way landscapes work is really beautiful. The sentences flow from one to another while at the same time we imagine the terrains flowing one into the other. Great voice, great paragraph.
Only complaint is that she is technically describing
Equestria's terrain - are you telling us this because the terrain on this new planet also follows those same rules, or because it doesn't? There's no connect between what she's used to seeing and what she sees now.
That mesa simile was fantastic. *insert "when you simile just right" meme*
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