On a cold night years ago, a filly heard a story. Tonight, she has one question.
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TypewriterError
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Aww....
The sad is killing me.
'specially since Scootaloo's best pony in my books.
I like it, some parts need a little tweaking but otherwise it's a good story. Thumbs up.
1865004 Thank you
This is beautiful.
1865032
One error: They had taken a few too many glasses of drink and sought and inn they would find if they could follow the muddled directions of a partygoer who had also had too much.
Pretty deep, too bad there was not enough lulz or trullz.
1886990 I know, I was going for campfire ghost story but I think I missed the mark on that too. oh well. and thanks for the correction. I'll change that.
This was quite a beautiful story.
If I may be so bold - because I'm OCD enough that I have some corrections for you. Some of these are systemic errors, I expect the result of simply being unsure of the correct 'procedure' for the circumstance; others are simple one-offs or typos.
When using a dialogue attribution phrase ("he said", "she said", "Nana said", etc.), if the dialogue that precedes the phrase would normally end in a period, it ends in a comma instead, and the phrase should not be capitalized, as it's not a separate sentence. For example:
"I think I can tell you now." She said with a groan.
This should be, "I think I can tell you now," she said with a groan.
I have what I believe to be a fairly comprehensive list of this type of error within your story, which I'd be happy to provide you, but I wanted to explain the correct usage.
The second systemic error involves quotation marks when a speaker goes on for multiple paragraphs. The correct format is to open each paragraph of dialogue with a double quotation mark, and if the speaker continues into additional paragraphs, do not include a closing quotation mark on any but the last dialogue paragraph, and open each continuing paragraph with a double quotation mark as well (not a single quotation mark). An example of the correct formatting:
"This is my first spoken paragraph.
"This is my second spoken paragraph.
"This is my third and final spoken paragraph."
Omitting the closing quotation mark until the speaker is actually finished talking lets the reader know the same character is saying all those paragraphs.
The following are one-off typos, or unusual instances of the first dialogue punctuation issue I discussed; the first line is a quote from your story, and the second line is the correction.
She had said the same thing moment before and Nightlight had run upstairs to obey.
>moments or a moment
the look that said “maybe...just this once.”
>said, "Maybe
“Ok.”
>OK or Okay
“This is the story” Nana began, “of the night I became an orphan.
>story," Nana began,
half of what they said was drowning out by frustration
>drowned
Her breath was harsh as the window forced it into her lungs.
>wind
Whenever he exhaled, ice built up on her muzzle.
>she
“Oh...” she paused for some reflection, “Another pony, one better equipped to be out of a night like that came to my aid.
>She paused for some reflection. "Another pony, one better equipped to be out on a night like that, came to my aid.
Dawnflight looked to her grandmother as she shifted in her bed and blinked her familiar Magenta eyes.
>magenta
“It’s just...” she shifted in her chair
>She
A shard of pain shot through her eyes and for awhile she didn’t respond. and
It took awhile for me to forgive him.
>a while (explanation of difference between "awhile" and "a while")
when she and Nightlight would get in a tousle.
>tussle.
She had often suspected that her grandmother played favorites, though, usually when Nightlight argued it was the younger sibling who was at fault.
>This is an interesting one. You've combined two complete sentences, which can only be done a couple of specific ways, and each way would slightly change the meaning and pacing of what you've written. One way here would be to simply omit the comma following "though"; the other would be to replace the comma following "though" with a semicolon. The semicolon would naturally add more of a pause to the flow of the line.
She was growing senile, Forgetting things
>forgetting
“My mother was an earth pony.” she continued, “ The
>pony," she continued. "The
He would often watch my mother without help knowledge.
>without her knowledge
she stopped to collect herself,
>She stopped to collect herself.
Every day he would put it off, saying “Later, when I’ve worked things out.”
>saying, 'Later, when I've worked things out.' (When quoting dialogue within dialogue, the outer quotation marks are already doubles, so use single quotation marks to let the reader know the dialogue isn't stopping and starting strangely.)
One final piece of... opinion, I suppose, vague and slippery without much in the way of specifics: I felt the dialogue was a touch formal at times, especially when the granddaughter was speaking (though considering who Nana is, it doesn't seem like she'd be overly formal either, though old age may account for some or all of that). The best example is "I am" - it's pretty rare to actually say "I am" in casual conversation; most people contract it to "I'm". You might try (if you haven't already) reading your dialogue out loud to yourself to see if it sounds good and flows well.
I hope this is useful, constructive feedback; my goal is to help writers improve their work, and I mean no disrespect. If you have any questions about any of my notes, or if I've done a poor job explaining, I'd be happy to answer or elaborate. Again, I thought the story was quite beautiful, and it's earned a follow for you. I look forward to reading more of your work.
1932556 I really appreciate the time you took to give me this feedback. It's been awhile since I took a standard English class here where the focus is not on writing fiction and then I take fiction where the focus isn't the mechanics so I tend to forget. (Although I think some of tose errors might have been slips that I didn't read over again before submitting.
I definitely understand what you mean about the formal aspect. I kind of wanted a "This is a secret story from long ago" sort of idea but I probably overdid it.
Thanks for your help!
1932673
Cheers, TE. I'm not creative enough to be a real writer or even really a true prereader, but I can copyedit the hell out of stuff.
I didn't say this before, but I meant to: I liked the subtlety of Nana being Scootaloo, but never explicitly calling her out as such. I didn't notice the character tag before I read, and didn't quite pick up on it until I read the comments.
1932735 I'm really glad you liked it. I haven't complete reread and edited everything yet but I'm working on it. Thanks again.
1932748 New Hampshire has snowstorms with snow almost four feet deep and frozen solid an inch under the surface.
3084877 Actually had that in New Jersey once... it was a nightmare. We also get that in Vermont. This story was basically inspired when I went for a walk around my block last year... and a blizzard started. I actually got scared I wasn't going to make it home without frostbite. My hair was basically iced over and I couldn't feel my fingers for a few minutes after I got back home even though I was wearing gloves.
3086805 I'm used to having my hair frozen solid almost every day.
Unfortunately, you have a few too many errors to warrant inclusion into the Good Grammar Directory at this time.
The errors are as follows:
There needs to be a comma after "dark", not a period. Same here.
There should be a comma in between "say" and "and."
Should be "asked," since the story is in the past tense.
Please fix them and we will be more than happy to include your story in the Good Grammar Directory.
You may re-submit it into the submissions folder whenever you are ready.
Congratulations. This story has good enough grammar to be added to the Good Grammar Directory, a comprehensive directory of grammatically correct stories on FIMFiction.
3095039 3095016 Hold on, I'm confused. Thanks for pointing out the errors. I'll go back and fix them but who submitted my story?
3095405
Uh, woops. I defer to Carts.
3096010 lol ok :)