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Luna Concept
Note colon literal colon colon literal colon colon colon capital T this was dictated to the machine and was not edited for the sake of submitting.
Sister where have you been? I have been looking all over for you what has happened?
Luna... Not now please. please not now.
sister what is going on what where are the guards? what has happened to the castle?
Luna please not now I can't do this right now. Please not now
Please Celestia, what is going on. Are you all right? have you been crying? Center
I don't need this now Luna, please not now. I don't need this now.
sister please tell me what's wrong. Luna move to hug her sister only to stop as Celestia shuddered at their contact, drawing back.
No! Celestia yelled not now! please not now she yelled.
Luna flinched, as if struck. she turned and ran from the room pushing open the door and running out the hallway. there were a few guards in the hallway many and various states of disarray. despite her parentheses good word for distraught condition parentheses, all seem to be ignoring her. she grabbed one of them, only for the guardsman too shy back as if bitten. She grabbed him again, only to suddenly release him as he let forth a scream of mortal Terror, and collapsed. Center
frightened, Luna ran into her Chambers, the walls of the castle growing increasingly damage the near her Chambers she went. The castles full retinue of staff, already oddly vacant, grew more sparse with the closer to her chambers that she went.
She stood outside of her Chambers, fine stonework of the castle walls ground to dust in many places, with large gouges taken out of stone work. most of all, the fine wrought silver metal doors to her bedchamber were cast Askew into the hallway As if from a terrible blow dealt from inside the room. Looking into the room, Lunas saw That of all the places in the castle her bedroom had taken the most Damage. her badly in pieces thrown against the wall,
The fine draperies emblazoned with her cutie mark that hung against the walls we're torn and shredded, long lists of fabric fluttering in an unseen Breeze. A sense of dread pervaded her as she trod into the room. It felt as if the working of a great and terrible Magic, and unpleasant Sensation that crawled against her skin.
The more she looked around the room, the more she was assaulted by fragments. Smells, names, places board into her mind branding themselves upon her consciousness.
emotions rolled through her, feelings of hate anger loathing and an overriding sense of jealousy. Jealousy against her sister for everything that her sister had accomplished that she had not, for all of those who adored her sister and shunned herself. As the last fragment drifted into her mind, she remembered the working that she had cast here tonight, the one that had transformed her into Nightmare Moon. she remembered bursting forth the door, and running into the Halls scattering staff and Guardsman alike as she stormed to confront her sister in the throne room. She remembered fighting her sister, striking her down only for Celestia at the last moment to attack back at her with the elements of harmony, a blast of rainbow light surrounding her. Then she... Was
Sister where have you been? I have been looking all over for you what has happened?
Luna... Not now please. please not now.
sister what is going on what where are the guards? what has happened to the castle?
Luna please not now I can't do this right now. Please not now
Please Celestia, what is going on. Are you all right? have you been crying? Center
I don't need this now Luna, please not now. I don't need this now.
sister please tell me what's wrong. Luna move to hug her sister only to stop as Celestia shuddered at their contact, drawing back.
No! Celestia yelled not now! please not now she yelled.
Luna flinched, as if struck. she turned and ran from the room pushing open the door and running out the hallway. there were a few guards in the hallway many and various states of disarray. despite her parentheses good word for distraught condition parentheses, all seem to be ignoring her. she grabbed one of them, only for the guardsman too shy back as if bitten. She grabbed him again, only to suddenly release him as he let forth a scream of mortal Terror, and collapsed. Center
frightened, Luna ran into her Chambers, the walls of the castle growing increasingly damage the near her Chambers she went. The castles full retinue of staff, already oddly vacant, grew more sparse with the closer to her chambers that she went.
She stood outside of her Chambers, fine stonework of the castle walls ground to dust in many places, with large gouges taken out of stone work. most of all, the fine wrought silver metal doors to her bedchamber were cast Askew into the hallway As if from a terrible blow dealt from inside the room. Looking into the room, Lunas saw That of all the places in the castle her bedroom had taken the most Damage. her badly in pieces thrown against the wall,
The fine draperies emblazoned with her cutie mark that hung against the walls we're torn and shredded, long lists of fabric fluttering in an unseen Breeze. A sense of dread pervaded her as she trod into the room. It felt as if the working of a great and terrible Magic, and unpleasant Sensation that crawled against her skin.
The more she looked around the room, the more she was assaulted by fragments. Smells, names, places board into her mind branding themselves upon her consciousness.
emotions rolled through her, feelings of hate anger loathing and an overriding sense of jealousy. Jealousy against her sister for everything that her sister had accomplished that she had not, for all of those who adored her sister and shunned herself. As the last fragment drifted into her mind, she remembered the working that she had cast here tonight, the one that had transformed her into Nightmare Moon. she remembered bursting forth the door, and running into the Halls scattering staff and Guardsman alike as she stormed to confront her sister in the throne room. She remembered fighting her sister, striking her down only for Celestia at the last moment to attack back at her with the elements of harmony, a blast of rainbow light surrounding her. Then she... Was
I don’t dislike the sort of obfuscation and stylistic disjointedness you wrote here, which probably echoes the shambles in the castle and Luna’s mind. That’s rather fine and well done.
However, the story itself is not very original. I mean, it’s one of the umpteenth retelling of the Nightmare Moon’s incident. The subject begins to be a little trite…
However, the story itself is not very original. I mean, it’s one of the umpteenth retelling of the Nightmare Moon’s incident. The subject begins to be a little trite…
The comedic tone you set by starting off with a joke about how the author can't properly operate a speech-to-text program ill-serves the rest of the story. If the ending also had a comedic tone it would be less of an issue, but it seems to be serious. Unless it is supposed to be double-irony because of the bad writing. Well, I liked some of the stream-of-consciousness imagery at least.
This reminds me of a lengthy debate made in a previous Writeoff round's story about the value of doing things unconventionally vs. the value of a story being easy to read. This definitely dances on the thin edge of acceptability, and whether it tipped too far one way or the other is up for debate.
As mentioned by some already, the concept is about as original as dirt. Yet I haven't seen it done in this way, so that helps some.
As mentioned by some already, the concept is about as original as dirt. Yet I haven't seen it done in this way, so that helps some.
Well, um, this is certainly an experiment.
I think the core idea has promise! I'm afraid I can't muster more than faint praise for the execution though. >>Monokeras's interpretation that this is being offered in this format in order to show us Luna's mental state is interesting, but I don't think that's the whole story -- there's the meta starting paragraph, and there's the fact that the Luna character in the story seems to be largely lucid except for the flashback at the end. Some elements, such as the in medias res start and the fragmentary nature of her memory, do seem to support that interpretation, though, and it might be worth preserving those bits while cleaning up the error-riddled dictation presentation if the goal is to get inside Luna's head. (I'd also put it into first person Luna if you're trying to have form reflect mental state -- although you might be able to get away with having the narrator be Nightmare Moon if you do it this way, and drop a twist at the end where you shift from "she" to "I".)
... Your speech dictation software interprets "colon" as the word "colon" but interprets "period" as "."?
And, uh, were you actually trying to write "Note colon: colon: colon colon This", or were you repeating yourself there, or what? What's with the occasional dangling "center"s; is this an attempt to justify the text? Why would your text-to-speech randomly capitalize "Breeze", "Chambers", "Magic", "Damage" etc.? In other words, despite the conceit here that this was dictated-not-written, there seem to be plenty of textual tells that this is an author conceit. At which point I have to question what it adds to the story. You're forcibly inserting a narrator character who has nothing to do with the core royal-sisters story you're telling; the narrator doesn't have a character arc or add anything that I would personally consider stylistically or dramatically valuable. Indeed, if the goal was to illustrate a character's disjointed mental state, drawing attention to a third-party narrator kinda gets in the way, which is why I made the NMM-as-narrator suggestion above; that would at least tie your gimmick back into your core story.
Moving from the structure to the story -- it seems like it kind of gets stuck in the "Not now", which seems like an odd choice. (What's unique about the current moment that Celestia is both treating Luna as reasonable, and also trying to delay reconciliation? Why would she withhold context?) Also, this appears to imply some sort of post-S1 relapse rather than the original NMM attack or the historic one -- the damage is clearly fresh rather than 1000 years old, but Luna's disorientation (and the lack of Elements) doesn't square with her on-screen S1E2 defeat.
In short, this raises a lot of questions that its answer doesn't answer. I hope writing this out helped get some of its ideas aligned in your mind, author; it's worth taking this from outline to first draft, and seeing how it holds up as a (possibly more traditional, or at least heavily edited to be in line with your presentation goals) story.
Tier: Keep Working
I think the core idea has promise! I'm afraid I can't muster more than faint praise for the execution though. >>Monokeras's interpretation that this is being offered in this format in order to show us Luna's mental state is interesting, but I don't think that's the whole story -- there's the meta starting paragraph, and there's the fact that the Luna character in the story seems to be largely lucid except for the flashback at the end. Some elements, such as the in medias res start and the fragmentary nature of her memory, do seem to support that interpretation, though, and it might be worth preserving those bits while cleaning up the error-riddled dictation presentation if the goal is to get inside Luna's head. (I'd also put it into first person Luna if you're trying to have form reflect mental state -- although you might be able to get away with having the narrator be Nightmare Moon if you do it this way, and drop a twist at the end where you shift from "she" to "I".)
Note colon literal colon colon literal colon colon colon capital T this was dictated to the machine and was not edited for the sake of submitting.
... Your speech dictation software interprets "colon" as the word "colon" but interprets "period" as "."?
And, uh, were you actually trying to write "Note colon: colon: colon colon This", or were you repeating yourself there, or what? What's with the occasional dangling "center"s; is this an attempt to justify the text? Why would your text-to-speech randomly capitalize "Breeze", "Chambers", "Magic", "Damage" etc.? In other words, despite the conceit here that this was dictated-not-written, there seem to be plenty of textual tells that this is an author conceit. At which point I have to question what it adds to the story. You're forcibly inserting a narrator character who has nothing to do with the core royal-sisters story you're telling; the narrator doesn't have a character arc or add anything that I would personally consider stylistically or dramatically valuable. Indeed, if the goal was to illustrate a character's disjointed mental state, drawing attention to a third-party narrator kinda gets in the way, which is why I made the NMM-as-narrator suggestion above; that would at least tie your gimmick back into your core story.
Moving from the structure to the story -- it seems like it kind of gets stuck in the "Not now", which seems like an odd choice. (What's unique about the current moment that Celestia is both treating Luna as reasonable, and also trying to delay reconciliation? Why would she withhold context?) Also, this appears to imply some sort of post-S1 relapse rather than the original NMM attack or the historic one -- the damage is clearly fresh rather than 1000 years old, but Luna's disorientation (and the lack of Elements) doesn't square with her on-screen S1E2 defeat.
In short, this raises a lot of questions that its answer doesn't answer. I hope writing this out helped get some of its ideas aligned in your mind, author; it's worth taking this from outline to first draft, and seeing how it holds up as a (possibly more traditional, or at least heavily edited to be in line with your presentation goals) story.
Tier: Keep Working
