ENot just another Hearth's Warming

• MLP: FiM
• Slice of Life

Filly Twilight wants to stay with Princess Celestia at Heartswarming Eve instead of spending the holiday with her family, when she asks her why, the filly's answer leaves Celestia's mind reeling.

• Twilight
• Celestia

Meowofy · 2.2k words  ·  431  2 · 6.7k views

SUMMARY
Alone in her chambers during Hearth's Warming Eve, Princess Celestia receives an unexpected visit from Twilight Sparkle. And what a visit it is.

This is a story to warm the heart, especially for fans of the relationship between Celestia and Twilight. Although the story has a few pitfalls in execution, the core message is quite touching and perfectly in-line with the spirit of the holiday season.

LANGUAGE - 6/10
The author mentions on their user page that they are an amateur writer and still learning the process of editing. Therefore, I have focused this section of my review to be more educational for the author's benefit.

Style: When it comes to developing a writing style that pulls readers through a story, consistency is key, followed closely by flow. An example of inconsistency is evident in the descriptions of Celestia as first "ivory" then "alabaster" - a single, simple color ("white", for instance) would suffice. Verb tense is an issue throughout the introduction of the story; consider this sentence:

In the depths of Canterlot Castle, where everything was still and silent, devoid of the usual rattle from patrolling guards, gone were the busy shuffling of maids rushing from one room to another, the whole castle was dark, save for a single room.

The verbs are past tense and passive, implying that everything was, but no longer is, still and silent; using active verbs here will not only make the sentence clearer, but also allow a more vivid scene to register with the reader, increasing the contrast now that the castle is empty.

Throughout the story I can see the author try to set apart important ideas by framing them in sentence fragments; stylistically this can be very effective, and for the most part is in this story. I only caution to use them sparingly and to craft the sentences around them such that the flow is unimpeded.

Mechanics: Sentence fragments are common throughout this story, as are comma splices where the author tries to place a lot of detail in a single sentence. Parallelism is broken at a few spots, especially for verb tense (e.g. "searching" vs. "shuffled"). These are not the most egregious errors a writer can make; I mention them because they are simple to fix and the only thing keeping what is a great story from being truly polished.

Mood and Tone: Word choice is great and the overall mood is established well. The use of the motif "all alone" is effective. The quick shifts in character expressions, though, can be a bit jarring for the reader and leave them confused as to the exact mood.

SETTING - 8/10
I enjoyed the subtle details the author put into the setting, especially in their use of it to explain the source of conflict for Celestia. The choice of Hearth's Warming fits well with the message the author is trying to convey. The only issue I see with setting ties in with the language section; the main example is some confusing pronoun usage to describe Celestia's chambers.

CHARACTERS - 6/10
The author writes some interesting depth into Celestia's character. The reader sees her express her troubles as well as her struggle to move past them.

The character of Twilight, though, seems out of place for what should be a pre-show presentation of her. Her extroverted feeling (by this I mean the ability to feel and understand the emotional state of others) is too well developed based on canon presentation; this side of her character is something that she develops through later seasons. I would like to see greater depth for this character in the story, especially considering how important she is to resolving the plot.

Character descriptions suffer: Celestia is not mentioned by name until several hundred words in even though is obvious to the reader who she is. Using physical appearance to reference a character (known as "Lavender Unicorn Syndrome" in FiMFic parlance) is common, while the lengthy description of Twilight Sparkle is unnecessary considering the audience.

PLOT/THEMATIC DEVELOPMENT - 7/10
The plot of this story is simple and heartwarming - learning to accept and open your heart to friendship is a great message. The author establishes the conflict early on and builds tension within the character of Celestia right up to the climax.

My only complaint is that most of the work to resolve the conflict is done by Twilight instead of Celestia; doing so turns this story into more of a praise of Twilight's abilities than of Celestia's resolve to change her character for the better. And because of the way Twilight is characterized, this results in the plot losing some of the weight it could have.

FINAL THOUGHTS
I know my review here seems negative, but I really did enjoy this story. It is simple and warm, the perfect sort of story for the upcoming holiday season. The author gets a lot of things right: the setting, the mood, the internal conflict, etc.

The things which detract from this story for me are minor and based entirely in technique as I have discussed above. There is one more aspect that I did not like, but I have put it below this review in spoilers because it has little impact on the story and is merely my personal perspective.

Overall, Satisfactory story. 6.75/10

I am a little uncomfortable about the relationship between Celestia and Twilight as presented here. The statement "You're so warm, Princess!" pushes what should be a teacher-student relationship into the realm of unprofessionalism. My view may be biased because I work in an environment with strict standards on professionalism, but I feel that the author can still establish a strong relationship between characters without adding these details. But this is the internet, so who am I to judge.

Thank you for the advice! This was really helpful, and I know that making these reviews take quite a while, so I’m very grateful. I’ll try and fix some of these mistakes, but it might take a while since I don’t really know where to start...

7381650
You're welcome. If you want any help, you can always PM me or find any of us in our group's discord (link on the main page).

Sorry if I seemed like the grammar police throughout the review - I can't help it. It's like a sixth sense that can be both a blessing and a curse; the blessing is that editing is a breeze, while the curse is that it take three times as long to write a single sentence. I normally have to compose like three or four variations of a sentence before I commit any words to paper. Such is my fate.