Follow this character on an original story, as he who has no memories, no name, and no face. How will he survive in Equestria without these simple necessities that are given upon birth? With only the ability to talk, and an unusual cutiemark that affects the way he lives. With no one to depend on how will he survive? Unsure if he is truly a pony, though he possesses character traits physically that show he is a pony, a cutiemark signifying he is a pony, however... what happens confuses everypony making ponies wonder what he is exactly, with abilities nopony else has Tumult strives to adapt to this world!
Chapters (6)
Hello!
Friendly Neighborhood Critic here!
I'd like to break down your first chapter for you.
Let's see...let's do the first paragraph:
First Paragraph
"This way! I found him! No... I don't know where he came from. I just saw lightning and saw somepony was where the lightning stroked and I just found... him...her? Hold on... YAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!!!!! IT DOESN'T HAVE A FACE! I'M NOT KIDDING! LOOK! It’s... hard... like steel or concrete or something... Alright... I'm calm... I’m calm... Hold on. I'll check... I don't want to do it either, but we have to make sure! It's a male! We need to get him out of this rainstorm! Rainbow, can't you cancel the storm? No? Alright then, let’s take him to your place Fluttershy! Is that okay? Alright, then it’s settled!"
*thud*
Grammar:
-Replace 'stroked' with stroke.
Suggestions:
-I can see what you're trying to do, it's not bad. But there's always room for improvement.
-Try to tell the story, explain what going on. Instead I'm getting the feeling that this is somewhat like 'Blind Dialogue'. We see what's being said, but we don't know who's saying it or who they're speaking to.
-It's hard to put a face to the voice that's fluctuating so many emotions at once.
-Try to set the setting first: Include things like it's raining in the background or that it's at night.
-Add verbs to this block of dialogue:
Example: The stranger looks closely at the stallion lying on the floor,"Hold on..." She focuses her gaze through the dark night. A flash of bright lightning danced across the sky and exposed the wounded stallion, face to face. She shrieks in terror when she realizes something odd about this pony, "YAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!!!!! IT DOESN'T HAVE A FACE! I'M NOT KIDDING! LOOK!" She continues to examine the curious creature. She takes a deep breath and scientifically analyzes it to the best of her logic, "It’s... hard... like steel or concrete or something..." She takes a final deep breath, and steadies her heart beat.,"Alright... I'm calm... I’m calm..."
-At the same time that this dialogue is being said, include other character's voices. If you don't want the others to speak yet just simply say that their talking was muffled, or that they shook their head in disagreement. Something to let us know that the one who is speaking is not alone and talking to herself...
I hope this critique was not too harsh, as I was not trying to be. I hope you will understand my suggestions and will take them to heart.
I wish you in the best of luck in your next edits and chapters!
Happy writing!
5702245 Thank you very much for your input! I appreciate the tips! I was trying to write the story in a way to show it being his point of view 100% so I wasn't sure if writing the way you suggested would break that. Thank you for watching!
Loving the story so far. defiantly like the introduction of something new (your OC of cause). Liking the storyline as well. I also don't know what could be improved to make this any better, but thats my point of view.
keep up the good work
5710393 Thanks! Glad you are enjoying it!
Greetings and welcome to one of our reviews. I am Simon o’Sullivan, and this is my beard, appropriately called Beard. Here are our thoughts on your story.
As I read through the story, there’s a big problem that goes on through the whole thing, and that’s the formatting. While the fic itself isn’t a wall of text, it’s really close to it. Without the double spacing separating the paragraphs, the chapters are wonky and look huge. Related to formatting, there’s also the issue regarding dialogue. One speaker per paragraph. New speaker, new paragraph. It’s a universal truth, and in the very first chapter you have a clusterfrick where at least two characters talk.
Punctuation is one of your greater issues, at least when it comes to commas. And the overuse of ellipses, and I think that word doesn’t even begin to express how often you use them. They are everywhere! They seem to be on sale on the grammar mall, because there are dozens of them. The thing is, most of the time, they are not needed. An ellipsis is often used in dialogues to a character has trailed off for whatever reason, be it lost in his own thoughts, distracted, speaking while catching his breath, you name it. They aren’t usually accepted in narration, but first person narration when the story’s taking place as is being told is that exception. And even then, they are overused beyond the tolerable. Punctuation seems to be an issue, and I would recommend an editor for that. A few examples:
You’re missing the vocative comma, right after “place”. It’s the comma used when you want to get someone’s attention. It’s why you say “Hello, Twilight” or “Come here, Spike.” Make sure you have a proofreader/editor read through those or do it yourself to fix those.
By all that is holy, I beg you to just use commas there.
There’s a missing comma before indeed. That way, it’s used to emphasize that It’s added to underline his statement.
Another huge problem with the story is the main character, Tumult. The story is obviously written in first person, so we see what he sees and we know what he know. That’s the rule. We have a limited perspective through his eyes. We won’t know if Celestia and Luna are holding a limbo competition with the Royal Guards in Canterlot if Tumult is not there when it happens. With that said, there are certain issues I had with this guy and his selective memory. I am going to hold my punches when it comes to Mary Sue-ism, but I will point at the elephant in the room later.
Tumult has no idea about anything at all. As a person who has studied several languages throughout his life, I can assure you that Tumult would have no idea what they’re saying, and neither would the readers, which is the important part. What Twilight and the others say will sound like unintelligible gibberish to him, which is what you her when someone speaks to you in a language you have never studied before. However, we don’t feel his lack of knowledge because we know what’s going on. What we get is not sympathy about his state, but eagerness for this guy to please learn to be less useless. It feels like going through the tutorial of the 10th Legend of Zelda game you play in your life: you have mastered the seldom-changing controls, but you’re still forced to sit down and patiently wait for the unskippable tutorial to finish.
Another main issue Tumult has for me is his short-term memory when it comes to what he learns via adapting, as well as how much he repeats itself. Beginning with the latter, how many times do we need to hear him think about how common or uncommon sign language is? We also see him reiterating how he doesn’t have emotions during the first chapter (even when he clearly shows guilt when he storms to save the CMC when he specifically claimed “if will be my fault if they die”), and then he repeats to himself how the truly has emotions when he finds out a new one.
One of the biggest eye-twitching moments comes from when he suddenly learns he can speak by covering his mouth with the scarf. I am totally okay with that, because hey, that cuts us the annoyance of sign language and people looking weird at him and forcing the story longer by finding an interpreter. But, and here’s my eye-twitching moment, he only uses that skill twice. One to tell the CMC to run, and the other when he explains to Twilight what happened in the forest. My question is: why in the world does he use sign language in Canterlot when talking to Celestia, when it’s more than clear that speaking is much more convenient and allows him to be understood by everyone who speaks Equestrian there?
There’s also a problem of disbelief about the guy when it comes to not knowing the name of stuff, especially since the first book he absorbs is a dictionary. And yet, in the first paragraph of chapter 2, he is unable to even say that light hitting him in the face is from the Sun, among other things.
And this is an important issue to address because Tumult is the main character AND the narrator, so if he’s screwed up in any way, if splashes all over the story. First person limited PoV narration combined with a clunky style of writing makes the story hard to read, and there are so many issues not only when it comes to grammar, but also with the way you introduce things. There’s no way in the Nine Realms the “____” that appears in the lines when the race of whatever Tumult is mentioned is a viable way to do so. The telliness of it hits way too hard and kicks you out of the story. If you want to keep his original race a mystery, there are better ways that putting gaps in dialogue. You can make the speech in such ways that the mention of their race is not something that happens at all. There are better ways to have the girls speak and he not understanding. Have them speak gibberish to his ears while their body language kind of gives away the very basic. Because even friggin Tarzan of the Apes points at himself and says “Tarzan”, and after a few moments, he points at the woman who has previously introduced herself to him and says “Jane.” He might know that Twilight is introducing the girls to him, but because he has no idea of Equestrian basic structure, he might not get their names at all.
And now, the elephant in the bedroom; the Mary Sue effect. Just let it be clear right now that it’s made official. Given enough time, and as long as it’s written down in any way (printed, hoof written, and probably stone or wooden carvings), he can learn and do anything. It took him four chapters to become an alicorn (about that, no, teleportation is NOT a basic spell, seeing how only the most powerful unicorn/alicorn have been seen using it, and believe me when I say the idea of being able to do that is so awesome that I would be surprised they wouldn’t be overusing it), and temporarily become a dragon. Truth be told, defeating Timberwolves, the Putties of Equestria, has been proven to not be that much of a hard thing, but the overkill was the reason the alarms sounded so loud it was deafening. He can learn ANYTHING, and apparently, transform into ANYTHING as long as there’s a book written about whatever he wants to learn or the thing he might be able to transform into, and he has “cleared the path” reading the basic stuff before going to the most advanced material there is. Think for a moment, as the author and creator of Tumult, about the problems regarding that. He only read basic books regarding magic, flying and dragons, and look what he can do already. And no, the “he’s super powerful but he holds back” is not an anti-Sue charm, neither is the limit of books he can absorb per day. It’s just postponing the inevitable.
I honestly don’t know where you’re going with the story, because at the moment there’s not really that much here when it comes to self-discovery, and the little that was got blocked by… “I don’t know what it is, because my brain doesn’t know, but my body does,” which I think you should double-check just in case. After about 20 pages of story, there doesn’t seem to be a clear pattern of what’s going on and what will happen.
Don’t let my words discourage you, though; keep on writing and keep up the good work. You might even prove me wrong and make this awesome.
Simon o’Sullivan and Beard, WRITE’s Manly Reviewers of Manly Fics, signing out.
5886443 Though I find your review bad for the faint of heart, I really do appreciate the honest opinion. A lot of the grammar I admit for sure that I do indeed make tons of mistakes in, and you make plenty of good points. My one question is just how did you find my story? I'm just utterly confused on how so? I only ask so that I know what works, so that I can get more reviews to write better, in the future.