EHigh-Water Mark

• MLP: FiM
• Adventure
• Drama

Two visiting researchers are thrust into a life-and-death situation in a flooded earth pony settlement. Will their skills be enough to rescue residents before the raging waters of the Neighagra River wash them away?

• OC

bkc56 · 18k words  ·  52  3 · 686 views

Review: High-water mark

Tags: [Adventure] 70%, [Drama] 20%

Summary: This is about Misty, Quicksilver and a bit of lore of clover the clever in an earth pony settlement.

Critic:  Never seen a clover the clever to be used like that.  This fiction is pretty cute and I really like the way you handle it.  It has that feeling a little bit more than most other fictions out there. I do like most of the characters such as Misty and Quicksilver personality a little bit.

However, there are some standards when making a fiction though… and it’s grammar which is not too bad.  The thing about making and writing I almost fall for the one most thing… The short description felt like it was going to be a mystery just for a moment.  Some parts almost made me feel a little bit of a thriller.

The flow of this fiction is really good and I believe I should give this at least an 8/10.

The idea when writing this fiction since it’s complete is clearly 10/10 to be made.

The word choices that you used are a bit slightly not as great which is at least a 7/10.

This also falls into gatta in the fiction and a few punctuation errors which leads to at least a 7/10 the grammar is not too bad but it’s not decent either it’s above average.

Which leads me to this thing in my head of a 32/40   which is clearly somewhere in the 7.5/10 range.

Thanks for looking over my story.

I'd appreciate if you could point out any bad word choices and punctuation/grammar errors that you mentioned above so I can correct them. It's always good to remove any errors when I'm made aware of them.

7516072
if I point everything in everyone fictions I wouldn't be here today.... If that was the case.... I would be reviewing, a small feedback which I do mostly... the reason why I do small feedback is because it's a good fiction there is nothing to be said.... it's just grammar or punctuations... I am an editor as you can see I care more on the grammar aspects to people stories... each people write differently one day you'll come across a fiction that is british english or an english that is most common... However, I use Microsoft English since it works really well which is a free program.... I read the fiction then copy and paste to see what grammar errors and use the grading system. the total score is what the fiction is...

there are other stuff I do but that's world building fictions

I grade those for structure, grammar of course, characters personality.

one shots

I grade grammar, and character personality (which is flow that is combine how smooth the fiction is).

and etc such as ideas (based off on your ideas)

word choices ( wanna or ganna is pretty much what I call a bad word choices...)

Long fictions I grade overall

which I don't do but if I did it's probably

Structure, grammar, character personality, character use, details, how many times has the character not been used lately, and etc and so on...

7516072
but since I do have some time... and you wanted me to pointed out... I point out on 2 chapter because it's a big.

paragraph 5 “Mayor. It’s a pleasure to meet you. I’m Quicksilver.” He tilted his head towards Misty. “And this is my wife Misty.” He looked around. “It’s such a lovely setting for a town.” (wife needs a ,)

56; “So what’s the plan for tomorrow?” Misty asked. (so needs a ,)

143; "I'm Quicksilver, and I think you already know my wife Misty. We're going to do our best to get everyone off this island before..." (wife,)

157; He frowned, glancing at the groups. “I was concerned about the weight.” He looked at Quicksilver. “So she gets the smaller ponies, you get the larger ones.” (so,)

164; Mayor Bigwig moved closer. "Are you doing okay?" His eyes narrowed and forehead furrowed. (doing,)

183; A strong gust blew strands of wet mane in Quicksilver’s eyes. He cleared his vision just in time to see Misty cant dangerously to one side. With her wing pushed vertically, she plummeted towards the raging waves. (can't)

222; 225 gotta isn't word.

7516110

Thanks for replying.

I see you rely on an external tool to identify problems. Personally I use Grammarly on drafts prior to editing. While using such a tool can be helpful as a guide, they can't be relied on 100%. Sometimes, the use of a comma can be debatable. The is especially true in dialogue where the comma can be used to affect the cadence, basically adding a small pause. I notice all the issues you identified were in dialogue.

As to the two actual problems you identified...

He cleared his vision just in time to see Misty cant dangerously to one side.

If you read that in context, it clearly isn't "can't" (can not). That's because the actual word is cant - a sudden movement, toss, or pitch that causes tilting, turning, or overturning. False-positives like this can happen when one relies on a tool to identify potential issues.

gotta isn't word.

It is in informal conversational English. It's an informal version of "got to" or "have to". In the context where it was used "I gotta go", its a shortened version of "I got to go", which is an informal version of "I have to go".

I put a lot of effort into making my dialogue sound natural for the character and the setting. Usually that means making it sound informal with lots of contractions and the like. This is a style choice and is not wrong (not a bad word choice).

7516204
is this the modern english...?

7516384

If you consider the late 1800's as "modern" (the one etymology reference date I could find).

7516389
do you use paid Grammarly? Because I use Microsoft word and writing tutor online... these are both of the programs I use.

7516404

No, just the free version. One, because I don't write enough to justify a paid utility. And two, because I just wanted help with the more obvious problems prior to turning a real editor lose on the story.

I will also copy/paste in to MS word as it sometimes picks up spelling errors that the browser and Grammarly spell-checks miss.

It's funny because I find that some of the add/remove comma suggestions from Grammarly are reversed by my editor (I trust the editor). That's part of why relying on a tool to identify comma changes isn't necessarily totally accurate. A tool will never be as accurate as a skilled editor.

7516415
I guess.. I do have an editor but it makes me feel I'm still using the program than the editor. I don't know the last time... and one of my friends had an editor last time and it didn't go so well. I guess I'll forever be stuck with using MS tool and writing tutor online.

7516423

Not all editors are created equal. I was fortunate to find someone who seems to really know their stuff.

But I might caution you in reviews to be careful in your analysis of spelling/grammar issues if you are relying on external tools to point them out. As noted above with cant and gotta, they can generate false-positives. It's disconcerting to know that stories are getting dinged for errors that aren't actually wrong.

7516436
i take it wanna is the same thing?

7516442

Sorry, I quoted the wrong word above. I've edited my post.

And yes, gonna, gotta, wanna are all similar contractions of something longer and more formal.

7516461
well... time to add it to the computers dictionary.

7516461
you mean informal speech?

7516494

you mean informal speech?

I mean a word like "gotta" is a informal contraction of the more formal "have to" (as an example).

ah, ok.

7516516

Out of a perverse sense of curiosity, I ran Grammarly on the story to see what it had to say about the comma "errors" you noted above. I fully expected it to report at least some of them. It didn't. It didn't make a single suggestion for the spots you noted. I know it gets stuff wrong, but not for those examples.

This can be compounded by the fact that dialog is often informal and may explicitly include grammar or spelling errors that may not be wrong in context.

And we've already explored the other two errors (cant and gotta) above. Grammarly also didn't report either of those.

I guess my point is that if you are going to rely on a tool to do grammar checking you can't do yourself, and downgrade a story's grammar score based on errors it reports, you need to make sure they are actual errors. Telling an author their grammar is bad because the tool doesn't recognize a word like "cant" isn't helpful to the author.

Footnote: you might consider getting the free version of Grammarly to see if it works better (fewer false-positives) than the tools you currently use.

perhaps... the last time I used grammarly it made my fictions look twice as bad... So that's why I use MS word. But grammarly does do updates every now and then. Hmmm I'll think about grammarly for their services again.

7517195

the last time I used grammarly it made my fictions look twice as bad...

Grammarly doesn't force the changes on you. One still has to use common sense as to which suggestions to accept and which ones to ignore, especially in the context of dialogue. My only point in suggesting it is that Grammarly didn't generate a bunch of false-positives unlike the other tools you used.

7522476

I don't think grammarly is the best choice since I used it, it clearly gave me problems from saying too many errors but, it's a paid to write subscription which could ruin a person writing if there not careful. Where MS fix everything with no payment at a cost. Not only that but writing tutor is also a good program to use incase of these events...