Author: BillyColt
Description: Hoofston is a normal town, for the most part. It has its shopkeepers, its eccentrics, its shut-ins, and its civil servants. It's quite dull, really. One day, a vagabond with a song in his heart (and not a lot in his head) comes to town, to see if he can't spark a little music into everypony's hearts.With a Little Help From My Friends Part 1
With a Little Help From My Friends Part 2
With a Little Help From My Friends Part 3
With a Little Help From My Friends Part 4
With a Little Help From My Friends Part 5
With a Little Help From My Friends Part 6
With a Little Help From My Friends Part 7
With a Little Help From My Friends Part 8
With a Little Help From My Friends Part 9 (New!)
With a Little Help From My Friends Part 10 (New!)
Additional Tags: A stupid musician and others.
28 comments:
I grinned a lot when I saw the title, until I noticed it was a story and not a video.
ReplyDeleteSomepony with video skills! If you make a Joe Cocker PMV, I will love you FOREVER.
... So is this what happened when Ayn Rand decided to write pony fanfiction?
ReplyDeleteHeh, Beatles title.
ReplyDeleteBut unfortunately it's a OC pony story so I'm not going to read it.
Damn shame.
~Scratch
An epic saga, it's not. It is, however, fun and light. Ritardando's amnesia has me interested in the story. I want to know how it happened. Sadly, the other characters seem a bit one-dimensional. I hope Billycolt fleshes out their personalities some more.
ReplyDeleteHoward Roark sighed at his typewriter; this wasn't what he'd wanted to express at all. He'd had such grand plans for his fan fiction, but it just didn't seem to want to come together. The events seemed to be strung out at random, failing to provide the sort of buildup and dramatic tension he'd seen in other works. The pages seemed bare, details sparse, but he didn't know what to expand upon and what description would be extraneous. Where other ponyfic authors had brilliant imagery, his story had only the bare bones, and seemed to suffer for it. His dialog read like a script, and his narrative voice wandered, never quite settling on a consistent third person limited perspective, but never implying third person omniscience.
ReplyDeleteThe architect puffed on his cigarrette in silence, the architectural blueprints strewn about him temporarily forgotten. He knew that it all had potential, he could see it shining before him like a siren, but while the sweeping lines of a skyscraper came naturally to him, the stunted lines of prose seemed forced.
Practice. He needed practice. His first houses had been amateurish at best, and this was no different. Read more, write more. He could do it. He wanted to write fanfiction almost as much as he wanted to design marvels; he would do his best in both, study, think, practice.
The dim illumination of a single bulb lit his rented attic; he banished it with a click. In the morning, he would submit what he had to Equestria Daily. At least he would get some feedback on what could be improved. He drifted off into fitful sleep, dreaming blueprints of Canterlot.
Is this...some joke I don't get? I mean English humour can be downright strange, but this doesn't seem like that.
ReplyDeleteI'm mystified.
Is it supposed to be a treatise on the correct use of dynamic capitalism in a free market society?
Is English not your first language, Midnight?
ReplyDeleteAlso, do you mean the story or the wall of text above your post?
@Anonymous
ReplyDeleteEnglish is indeed my first language, but that doesn't mean I get all English humour.
I read this story, or tried to, and I don't get it. I don't want to say it's poor but it smacks of Ayn Rand and it doesn't DO anything or go anywhere.
Is this some in-joke I don't get? Is there some reference which will have my sides splitting with mirth?
Or is this just so-so fanfiction that somehow found it's way here?
The story is halting, repetitive, obscure. The shop keeper is a capitalist. Well of course she is, by definition almost...why is this important? I don't know. The policepony is obsessed with the laws and the righteousness of them. Why do I care? Retardanto is some sort of strangely secret semi-genius by virtue of being apparently normal. Again, is there any significance?
It's like a silent shadow-play where all the characters are ostensibly identical, and the narrator doesn't speak clearly enough to tell what's going on.
I feel like I'm missing something.
I think it's just not very good.
ReplyDeleteHello, author here.
ReplyDeleteI'm... rather surprised at some of the comments here - not at the whole thing about the characters being poorly-developed and the general lack of plot, but...
Ayn Rand? Really?
Everyone just sort of latched on to Gold Standard and was like "Rand!"
ReplyDeleteI suppose I can understand where the misconception came from, and I suppose it's my fault, but believe me - if I were some kind of Randroid trying to preach via pony fanfiction (which would be patently idiotic), Gold Standard would either be much better developed or, more likely, would be highly insufferable. And she'd be giving speeches. And probably be a rapist.
ReplyDeleteTrust me, I hate Ayn Rand, and I find her philosophy to be morally abhorrent and her fans to be very creepy. The whole thing about Gold Standard being a capitalist was intended to be a joke, as was the thing about "there's a difference between a proprietorship and a corporation" (I took accounting this semester).
Now, criticisms that the characters are shallow and that there doesn't seem to be a point, I can't defend against. I do have a plot (nothing particularly grand, I assure you), but at the moment, I'm just trying to establish the characters.
This story has a lot of potential. BillyColt has set up the world in a believable, simple way. He establishes the character early on, so there's almost no confusion about who is speaking or why somepony does what they do. HOWEVER, fleshing out the characters a little more would do wonders for this story. Their dialogue should be written with their character in mind, as the conversation does seem a little... boring? EG. Kite. I get it. She likes kites, but that's all she likes? Seriously, every sentence of hers is about kites. I think you did a better job with Phoenix than any other character. When you first described him, he wasn't even in scene. Then you gradually brought the rest of him in, firmly, but solidly. Also, though I don't think Retardando is such a great name, it appears that your using it to alleviate describing him. (Who I assume is mentally handicapped) A character's actions and speech should define him, but what you've given us is woefully not enough. It definitly has potential, and seems to be getting better with each new part, and I know writing OCC ponies is difficult, but it can be done. As it stands at part 4, I can't give higher than a 3.
ReplyDeleteAlso, a little bit longer writting sessions might help. Each part is a little short.
ReplyDeleteHey, that's my drawing. =D
ReplyDeleteYaaaaaaaaay.
I like where this one is going.... keep it up! :D
ReplyDelete@Anonymous
ReplyDeleteHey, we may be creepy, but at least we're not the ones making accounting jokes.
I like the slice-of-life feel. It's a nice break from the dramatic (and sometimes tear-jerker-y) plots I like to read.
ReplyDeleteI will say this, though. Reading part 3, it felt like you weren't exactly sure what you wanted it to be about, so you just had the characters doing whatever. Sure, it was permeated by Ritardando tuning a piano, but that doesn't feel significant. Maybe if it was a lead-up to him actually playing a piece. I know it's not the kind of story with an overarching plot (if I might hazard a guess), but each part of the story should be about something. Its own mini-plot, if you will.
I'd also agree with ZKPony about having more characterization. Every time we see Kite, it's about her asking Raindrop for wind, and very little else. It'd be nice if each scene revealed something meaningful about one of the characters involved. Say, for this particular example, why does Kite love kites so much anyway? What's her relationship to Raincloud, aside from the wind thing? Something like that.
That all said, I'll be waiting for the next installment.
Lotsa huge comments.
ReplyDeleteHoofton is near where i live.
By Hoofton i mean Houston but...
lol
Eagerly awaiting further installments... :)
ReplyDeleteSomething I've noticed and I probably don't get it because I'm not a big fan fic person, but why are OC stories so reviled? If it's because of poor quality I would assume you get just as many if not more shitty fan fics that use cannon characters.
ReplyDelete@Fengor
ReplyDeleteOne reason why OC is frowned upon is because OC generally means self insert. This is not true for many storys of course but this idea still holds true in some peoples mind.
Another reason is because if you use OC ponies there can be (next to) no cannon involved. Besides the very basics of Equestria, everything you are making is fanon.
As for this story. I really like it. I don't mind reading OC stuff and this is just fun to read. It's not the best story ever I must admit but it is still fun and it even has me tempted to draw a picture of Ritardando for this story. (And I'm not that great an artist.)
Ya Another update. I was wondering about it since its been so long.
ReplyDelete@SirLeandrea
ReplyDeleteI apologize for that. Real life got a little busy, but the next couple chapters shouldn't take as long to get submitted.
Hey, the part 9 links to part 8. Problem seth?
ReplyDelete"Ritardando, a simple-minded traveling musician"
ReplyDeleteI lol'd.
[Setting] is place where stuff. ONE DAY A VAGABOND comes in to [setting] and stuff happens.
ReplyDeleteWhy does every fanfic with OCs have this somewhere in its description?
@Anonymous July 29
ReplyDeleteBecause its a good description. You get everything you need if you follow that format. True it might arouse more interest if the description were different form others but as a base description its good.
And yah! another update. I really do like the story.