Somehow, I know it’s a show day. It’s still dark out, but I see the barn lights on. The riders are wearing pale tan jodhpurs instead of their normal jeans. Whats that? Oh, only Tessa coming with the halter. As she leads me to the barn I can feel the waves of frequent nervous energy going through her. After a quick brushing, I am loaded in the trailer. The door to this dark box closes, and for the first time, I feel adrenalin pumping it’s way through me too. This must be the reason for the multiple practice rides, and constant brushing.
Finally, I see the light of day. As I am backed out of the trailer, Tessa unwraps my leg wraps. The early classes of the show have started, we’re not ‘till later. A pretty dappled grey is jumping a brightly colored fence, and small children on antsy ponies are standing by their trailers. Tessa puts the saddle on me and tightens the girth. Ooooh! I hate that feeling! It’s like a corset tightened too much. Tessa polishes her boots. I see her eyes narrowed at the course paper. It’s a killer glare. She clenches my reins, her hands red with sweat. Finally, It’s time to school. The ring is filled with bright jumps. Tessa posts in her beautiful form. It’s obvious she’s a champion. Her trainer, Helen points out her mistakes. Me? I just do what she asks. If Tessa doesn’t ask right, I don’t do it right. She picks up the canter and heads toward a green water jump. I push off from the ground, tucking up my knees. Tessa leans forward in two point. We hit the ground. The hard footing shocks my thin hoof as we land. I can’t help but do a little buck. Tessa hits me sharply with a crop. I hate it when she does that!
Then, it’s the worst time of the day, waiting for your class. A fly bites my back and causes a searing itch. Tessa feels me flinch and scratches my back, Ahhh. She’s so good at that. Helen gives us last minute instructions. Tessa’s heart beats faster and faster. Finally, they call our name. Time to fly!
As we trot into the ring, Tessa whispers in my ear, “Fly boy, fly!” We do our hunter’s circle nice and wide like they taught us. We canter toward the first jump, I soar over it. The second one is a bit harder to jump. It’s higher and it has water underneath it. I jump wider than usual to avoid getting my legs wet in this disgusting liquid. We turn again, Tessa guiding me with her legs. The second one is easier to jump and I head on toward the last jump. Three feet high, with bright yellow flowers, I push off as hard as I can from the ground, but my back leg hits a rail. I feel Tessa’s crop hit me as we trot out of the ring. Helen storms over.
“Tessa, you know you should have gotten a better approach to the line! He wouldn’t have knocked a rail on the last if you had. Tessa’s face scrunches up as she goes to collect the 6th place ribbon. At the end of this show though, I know that Tessa will have so many ribbons that that she won’t even care about a 6th place ribbon in a warm up class. But no matter what she wins, I will always try my best for her.
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139,477 Literary Works • 672,575 Reviews
Nice story, I like it a lot.
I really love stories written from animal POVs, if they're well written of course. In my mind two categories in animal POV writing, you failed or you did it well. I'd say you're leaning more towards the 'you wrote it well' category. So good job on that.
Got a few errors, punctuation and what not, you also need to use a more varied vocabulary. Like for "We canter toward the first jump, I soar over it. The second one is a bit harder to jump" you could replace the last jump with another word, like 'scale' or 'leap over' or any number of words. But besides that not many such errors, so good job on that.
My favorite line must be "Me? I just do what she asks". This line shows the simplicity of animals and is just, I can't really find a word for it. It's a really beautiful line, let's leave it at that.
So, great job, nice story, and keep on writing man... or girl.
Hi there! Lucrezia here for a review.
First off, love the idea. Not many writers dare to do a piece from an animal's perspective, and I give you major props for doing so. And also, doing it well! The only line that didn't seem particularly real was the corset one, as Firefox already pointed out.
As a horse rider myself, I feel you captured the atmosphere very well. The whole thing felt realistic, and the horse's narrative voice was solid.
The pacing was good, not too rushed nor too slow. Pacing trips a lot of people up, so again, props to you for pulling it off. *applauds*
Overall, a clever idea executed quite nicely. Great job!
Nitpicks:
There should be an apostrophe in "what's."
Get rid of the apostrophe in "it's" (should be "its"), and I'd also take out the "too" at the end there, though that's not necessary.
I'd put another comma after "Helen."
I believe one of the other reviewers mentioned this one, but I'd change the comma following "back" to a period and put "ahhh" in italics.
"Jump" is repetitive here.
You forgot the end quotation marks after "had."
Otherwise, well done! Keep up the awesome work. ^_^
*Drops from sky* Rawr! Ladcat here for a review!
Nice job with this! I love how it was from the point of view of the horse. You obviously know what you're talking about. I dislike when people write about something they don't have any knowledge in. I can speak from experience, because I horseback ride, too. Welcome to YWS, too! You'll love it here.
I can't really point out any other mistakes besides those pointed out by @dominusatramentum and @FireFox. Watch your commas and your grammar, and try reading this out loud to yourself. You will quickly notice any sentences that are awkward. I could go point them out, but I'm too lazy.
Overall nice job on this, and I like the ending. So as always, keep writing : )
Hello Pony123! First of all, welcome to YWS. Second of all, I'm getting the sense that you like ponies and horses, based on your name, profile picture, and this story
. Now for the review:
"Somehow, I know it’s a show day." If you say "somehow," that tends to mean you don't know why. You then explain later why the horse knows it's a show day, so this doesn't make a whole lot of sense.
You don't actually explain who exactly Tessa is. I'm assuming she's the horse's trainer, but you don't say that outright, which you probably should have. Just because you know a reader can infer something, doesn't mean you should make them.
This is more of a scene than a short story. For it to be a short story, give it meaning. We get that the. Horse loves Tessa, but we need to see that. If you added a little bit more at the beginning, showing us that, it would be perfect.
Hope this helped!
-dominusatramentum
Hi, pony123! FireFox here! Welcome to YWS! Alright, on to the review. I will tell you in advance, I do somewhat of a "review sandwich," as some call it. I list some main things that I think you could improve upon, and I list some things that I really liked about the piece. When a review is done this way, it cuts down the possibility of being offensive, as well as shows you what your readers see as your strengths and weaknesses.
Needs Improvement:
1. Grammar. I found some minor grammar errors - mainly comma/period displacement - that I won't bother to nitpick at. This is something you can do, should you decide to extend on this piece.
2. "It's like a corset tightened too much."
Not only do I find this sentence to be awkward, but this is one example I'd like to use in another aspect as well. I completely understand the comparison you are trying to make between the saddle and the corset but, considering you are writing this piece from the perspective of a show horse, how in the world would a horse know what a corset feels like? How would it even know what a corset is? These are little things you have to be careful of. Writing in the perspective of an animal, or even a child, can be tricky, in that you must be careful to make sure that the animal or child's dialogue and thought process is believable. Say you were writing a story in the perspective of a four year old boy. You wouldn't carry on his thought process as if he were a 30 year old, would you? To make your piece believable, you must stay true to your characters.
3. I feel that this piece could be much longer and more interesting if you wanted it to be. It seems a bit rushed - not necessarily forced, but definitely rushed. I would love to see more dialogue, perhaps even dialogue in which Tessa is talking to the horse. This would help us to get even better characterization and get a better glimpse into what each character's personality is really like. It would also help us establish a relationship between the characters. Perhaps Tessa is a controlling, mean, overly-competitive slave-driver and her show horse has just about had enough. You need to portray this through dialogue and description.
4. A minor problem easily fixed but, nonetheless a problem: is there even a name for this show horse? It is established that the horse is a male, as you state "him" in one of the last paragraphs, but we don't know his name. It is important to establish a sort of relationship between reader and MC from the very beginning, and that is hard to do without us knowing his name.
Strengths:
1. I actually really like the concept of writing from the perspective of an animal, but you must be able to pull it off. I'm sure you can do that with just a little bit of work and perseverance!
2. I enjoyed the first paragraph, as it is a great introduction to what you are about to jump into. With a little bit more description work, I think that first paragraph could be damn near perfect.
3. I like the constant thought process of the show horse and that we constantly know how he's feeling and what he's thinking, but it gets a little confusing trying to tell the difference between his thoughts and then trying to figure out what is description, etc. Perhaps you could try putting his thoughts in italics, or doing something different so that the reader is aware that it is the horse's thoughts?
All in all, I think this was a clever piece and an interesting concept. I've never really considered what a show horse's thought process might be like. I feel that this piece would be even better if it were lengthier and I would love to read more if you decide to edit or elaborate on this!
-FireFox
Hello,
This was enjoyable to read.
It was a bit confusing as I didn't realize you were writing from a horse's point of view until the last few paragraphs. Maybe you could somehow make it more obvious at the beginning that you are writing from a horse's point of view.
Also, when Tessa scratches the horse's back maybe change the comma to a full stop so 'Ahh' is a separate sentence. You could change the comma to a full stop after the word jump as well so 'I soar over it' is a separate sentence. You wrote 'that' twice in the last paragraph after the word 'ribbons'. You also wrote 'whats' which should be 'what's' in the first paragraph.
I hope this review is helpful. Keep writing!
Thanks!