Comments ( 14 )
Just by the looks of it, this story needs critical grammar checking.
I apologise,I try my best. I didn't think it was that bad. I'll try to improve the grammar, what in particular is wrong? I would apriciate the help ![]()
You could try to proofread again. Id do it for you, but when I'm on the computer I can do it. Apart from the grammar, the story is in a good starting position.
You might want to clean up the tags. The ones used heavily conflict with each other. Two of the tags used (Sad, Tragedy) are actually the example in the FAQ of tags that are highly unlikely to both be accurate representations of the same story.
When tagging, you should only pick tags that cover what the core of the story is. For example, an adventure story with a minor romance subplot and a scene in which Fluttershy cries is not Adventure, Romance, and Sad. It is just Adventure. And if the story focused on both adventure and romance as major elements, then it would be Adventure and Romance.
So, is your story about the everyday life of Pinkie or is it about her tragic downfall at the end of the tale? Is the story sad or is it loaded with random funny stuff? You just want the main focus of the story.
Right, Thankyou I've changed the tags
Is the grammar looking any better? Thanks for the help guys, I'm kind of new to this ![]()
Title is not capitalized properly. All major words should be capitalized in a title. When the Laughter Stops
The story itself is also rather brief, lot of one sentence paragraphs, not much described, etc.
You've got a lot of capitalization errors. Cases where proper names like Pinkie Pie aren't capitalized and ones where things that shouldn't be capitalized are (Baby Cake Twins should have only Cake capitalized). A good pass through in that regard should help.
Grammar-wise, it could use some love still. The formatting especially. You'd have a massive block of text if not for all those one sentence paragraphs. But don't get discouraged, just a learning process :) I'd recommend reading this guide. The earlier parts on it cover a lot of grammatical and format type things, while the later parts offer some good writing tips.
Yup yup, drop me a note or reply to this comment when you're done editing. I can take another look then. Be sure you use the "Reply to this comment" chat bubble in the upper right of this comment, that way I'll get a notification that someone has replied to it, if you choose to go the reply route.
Getting better, but still got lots to go. Here's what I noticed in the first few paragraphs, will give you an idea of what to look for:
Today was a strange day and Pinkie didn't know why,1the earth pony didn't jump out of bed in the morning and her mane was straight and flat, she looked at herself in the mirror and tried to smile but it just didn't look right.2Pinkie had never felt like this before,3 she was sad sometimes of course, but this was different,4 She felt tired and weak.5Her head was aching and no matter what angle she looked at herself in the mirror,6She7 didn't look or feel like herself.
1. Need a space between why and the.
2. Need a space here, not a return.
3. Comma should be a period, this is a "comma splice", something to be avoided. And then the following she should be capitalized.
4. Comma should be a period. Another comma splice.
5. Need a space between weak. and Her.
6. Need a space between mirror, and she.
7. She should be lowercase.
#2 is something I noticed quite a bit of. You're using returns after a completed sentence. If they are part of the same paragraph, just use a space to separate the two sentences.
#1, 5, and 6 were all missing spaces. There's still lots of cases like this throughout the story.
#3 and 4 were both comma splices, still a bit of that as well.
“Maybe I'm just hungry1”2Pinkie thought to herself, as she slowly walked downstairs,3instead of trotting.
1. Need punctuation after hungry, a comma in this case.
2. You've got a return here. It should be a space.
3. Another missing space.
After throwing away her half eaten1 muffin;2 Pinkie Pie sighed and brought her hoof to her head. Her head hurt a lot and it made her feel terrible. 3
1. half-eaten, needs the hyphen between the two.
2. Semi-colon should be a comma.
3. The paragraph ends here, so you want an extra return here. The reason why the paragraph ends here is because the next line has a different character speaking.
The last sentence would also be a good example of a situation where you really want to show rather than tell. Rather than saying that her head hurt a lot, you could describe the experience Pinkie is suffering from. I'd offer an example of how it could be worded, but not too good at the whole show versus tell thing myself ;)
“Are you okay1 Pinkie Pie?” asked a concerned Mrs Cake,2 she had never seen Pinkie like this before. 3
1. Need a comma here. When you address someone, the addressing term should be separated by commas.
2. Comma should be a period, the following she capitalized. Another comma splice.
3. Add another return here, end of paragraph.
#1 is another thing to look for throughout the story.
“I'm fine1 Mrs Cake!” the pink earth pony reassured her. 2
1. Need a comma.
2. End of paragraph, need another return.
Mrs cake1 nodded and carried on feeding the baby Cake twins mashed apple for breakfast, occasionally helping herself to a spoonful of the foals2 food3 . 4
1. Cake should be capitalized, part of her name.
2. Foals', need an apostrophe after foals. It is their food.
3. Got a space here between food and the following period that shouldn't be there.
4. Need that end of paragraph return here.
There's still multiple cases where names aren't capitalized in the story.
“I'm just going to go outside for a walk Mrs cake1.2” Pinkie Pie told the older Pony 3,4 “I'll be back later to help with the baking”5 .
1. Another failure to capitalize.
2. This period should be a comma, as the "Pinkie Pie told" bit should really be part of the same sentence.
3. Pony is not a proper name, it should not be capitalized.
4. If you add the comma from #2, then this should become a period, thought complete.
5. The period should be after baking, before the quotation mark.
Looks like a lot, but mostly the same type of error in multiple places. Makes it a bit of a pain to fix, but it also means that there's really only a few things to learn to do when writing new stuff. And once you get those things down, it will all serve you well, both for writing fan-fiction and for other things, like school and/or work.
Give the entire thing another look through, looking for the types of errors I pointed out in these first few paragraphs. And then drop me another comment and I'll take another look.
Writing sure is more of a pain that one would think, huh? ![]()
>>1433376 Thankyou so much for all your help!
it sure is a lot of work! But I'm glad lots of people (or pony's heheh) are willing to help! I've taken another look through, it's still got some work needed I think, but in the chapter coming up, I'm sure my grammar will be way improved! ![]()
Alright, here we go.
Today was a strange day and Pinkie didn't[ ]know why,the earth pony didn't jump out of bed in the morning and her mane was straight and flat, she looked at herself in the mirror and tried to smile but it just didn't look right. Pinkie had never felt like this before. She was sad sometimes of course, but this was different, She felt tired and weak. Her head was aching and no matter what angle she looked at herself in the mirror, she didn't look or feel like herself.“ Maybe I'm just hungry, ”Pinkie thought to herself, as she slowly walked downstairs. Instead of trotting.
First of all, the brackets show that you had double spaces. Remember to keep caution for things like this, it looks strange if you don't.
"Today was a strange day and Pinkie didn't know"
"why,the"
What I don't even- You need to space after each comma, so it doesn't look all rushed. See what I did there? Plus, anypony- ahem, anyone can jump out bed and still be grumpy, so you need to add something that sparks imaginations, and looks like Pinkie's "normal cheery way".
"why, the earth pony didn't jump out of bed the normal, cheery way she did in the morning and her mane was"
Now, the next part.
"straight and flat, she looked at herself in the mirror and tried to smile but it just didn't look right."
You need to spice up this part, it's quite confusing. Maybe you should mash up the sentence and make it 'spicer'.
"straight and flat when she looked at herself in the mirror[, which somehow reminded her of the farm she was in when she was a filly]. She tried to smile[ as she use to], but it didn't look right. Pinkie had never felt like this before."
The brackets are optional parts. If you want to use them, just remove the brackets.
Skip part of this stuff. Now this: "She was sad sometimes of course, but this was different, She felt tired and weak."
First of all, there's a comma. You don't capitalize when your after a comma, unless it's a brand of item, place, or a person's name. Not she. If that's supposed to be a period, then change it. Sometimes needs a comma after it, because when you go straight it feels strange. Italics won't hurt, either.
"She was sad sometimes, of course, but this was different, as she felt tired and weak, which was different from those other times." or "She was sad sometimes, of course, but this was different. She felt tired and weak."
"Her head was aching and no matter what angle she looked at herself in the mirror, she didn't look or feel like herself."
This seems fine. Maybe I could find a mistake somewhere... Nah, I'm running out of time.
"“ Maybe I'm just hungry, ”Pinkie thought to herself, as she slowly walked downstairs. Instead of trotting."
There shouldn't be a space after quotation marks! Silly buns... Plus, I think the first comma shouldn't have a space after it, nor it should be a comma but three periods... But the second one is alright. There needs to be a space after the second quotation mark, so it makes more sense. ". Instead of trotting" has a big mistake. You need to make more sense. I'll just show you from the example below.
""Maybe I'm just hungry..." Pinkie thought to herself out loud, as she slowly walked downstairs instead of trotting[ like she usually did]."
Again, the brackets are slight additions.
This is my love for you. Constructive Critsizim. Derp. This was also just a whole paragraph, so clearly we need more work.
sorry, I really am trying, I'm just trying to tell the story, it always seems to work much better in my head but I really appriciate all your help, I'm going to keep trying with it!
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