REVIEW Please Stop Doing Your Daughter's Homework - HapHazred (Recommendation-style short-review - for fics I would recommend, but for flaws with the format that can be sorted with editing) · 3:41pm Last Monday
Overall. Mrs Hardcase takes on an unusually difficult parent and has to reach through time and beyond cynicism to rediscover her passion for teaching in order to meet the challenge and deliver.
Best lines:
Miss Hardcase, the head teacher of class Sapphire 2, was sat opposite a tall, broad stallion, well known to the educational body and the wider populace of the Crystal Empire. The Prince of the Crystal Empire, husband to Princess Mi Amore de Cadenza, Shining Armor. Or, as Hardcase knew him, ‘the father’. Titles were not a matter of concern to her. Education was the right of all, from pauper to princess… literally, in this instance.
“What, Mr. Armor, is wrong with these?” Hardcase [sibilated], cutting through the title[...].
(Note: sibilance is a literary device, sibilated is the verb. Or we could not use the latinised verb and just say hissed :P )
“If you have two oranges,” she said, “And then I give you two more oranges, how many oranges do you have?”
Shining paused.
“You have permission to answer the question,” Hardcase pressed.
“A very unbalanced salad.”
Now, spell the word ‘apple’.” Hardcase stared Shining Armor down like a huntress would eye a target. She was assessing him. Probing the depths of the challenge ahead of her.
“Mr. Armor…” She pushed a small book towards the Prince of the Crystal Empire. It was a little, colourful book, veering on the side of booklet, titled ‘The Yummy Scrummy Baker Pony’.[...]
Hardcase opened the book to the first page. There was a colourful stylised depiction of a smiling pegasus pony in a chef’s hat, surrounded by dancing tarts.
“Read.” It was not a request, but an instruction.
“I’d rather just look at the pictures, if that’s okay[?]”
“Look, I won’t do Flurry’s homework again,” Shining said, the glint of defeat visible in his eyes. Hardcase’s heart jumped in her chest. His spirit was broken. He was resigned to being the sort of stallion who thought throwing his wife at an evil unicorn cloud was a good idea.
Why read? comedic situation; great twists; page turner.
Flaws
This was written quickly, so it feels a lil mean to point it out, but the writing is a bit ragged. Just enough to hold me back from a full rec.
Tips
When writing interruptions, the new speaker doesn't use an ellipsis (ie “—which this goes beyond,” Hardcase finished.)
Efficiency/grammar. Example 1:
The atmosphere in the schoolroom was cold; it was a simple space that relied heavily on there being anywhere between twenty and thirty bodies in it, giving off heat to help out the failing magical fire crystals that pumped warmth throughout the Imperial Crystal School for Young Fillies and Colts.
I noticed this because the clause after the semi colon doesn't work — the culprit is that comma which divides the verb (giving) from its subject (bodies). But, as with many grammar issues, really the issue here is efficiency of language. I quite like the idea of a classroom needing to have other bodies in it to be considered warm, but the simple sense of this is just that the room is a cold, basic classroom and the school is a bit rundown.
Suggestion:
The sparse schoolroom was cold. The magical fire crystals that pumped warmth throughout the Imperial Crystal School for Young Fillies and Colts were failing.
Example 2.
Shining Armor nodded in a manner that seemed to bridge the gap between hesitantly and apprehensively.
Those are adverbs, but they need to be adjectives, because they are describing a noun 'his manner' (a manner that was between hesitant and apprehensive). That is fine on the face of it, but hesitancy is what happens when someone is apprehensive. Is there really a mixture here? Or is there not a connection between those two things (one a characteristic of an action, and the other a characteristic of a mental state).
Suggestion:
Shining Armor nodded hesitantly, apprehensive.
Final thought.
"Cadance! Miss Hardcase taught me numbers today! You have two pillows, one foof and I just climaxed three times!"
