'Tis the season for rewriting · 7:57pm Dec 19th, 2012
So apparently my writing sucks. Wait, no. Let me start at the beginning.
I like to think I'm pretty good at English. It's my third language, but I picked it up so much from television it's almost native level. I like to think I'm good at writing. And since the TWE once put one of my stories in their Padded Cell -- this being where they kept the good fics -- I thought I might ask for their refined successors to give some opinions on my favorite fic. So I sent them a link to my Flight Camp fic.
I got nearly a whole page of grammar and spelling errors. On the first chapter.
Not just that, of course. The reviewer I had was very thorough and pointed out things in the content that were genuinely wrong. But it's the grammar errors that struck me.
I was considered good at English in high school. I got a score of 99/105 on my final exam, after doing nothing the previous day aside watching 'Finding Nemo'. Fun fact: I'd have had a lower score if I'd watched any other film, because my teacher asked for an expression that they used in it. But I digress.
I'm a bit peeved at the fact that it's possible to get that many classes on English, including language camps in Oxford, and not get the basic instructions that would have prevented these mistakes. The ones that kept returning are:
-too many colons, commas and semicolons. General thing, wouldn't be criticised in school since it never comes up.
-"Blah," she said, "Blahblahblahblah." is apparently wrong when you start a new phrase after the speaking verb. The correct answer is "Blah," she said. "Blahblahblahblah." This would have been useful information before I started writing that 100-page monster. I learned about the commas and periods after speaking verbs before that, but even that I got off the Internet. Why did my school ignore this?
-no ellipses in narration. Also space after ellipsis and no capitalisation. But I like ellipses in narration! Who made that stupid rule?
So, anyway: I'll be correcting my stories the next few days. The Flight Camp one will need the biggest overhaul, so that's the one that'll be the most noticeable.
As for "Trial of Faux Pas"? I got the results, the judges liked it. I did not win, though, at least they didn't tell me I won. There was room for improvement, and said room has now been occupied by some nice waxy furniture. Chrysalis is actually given a proper motivation, and Celestia is given more credibility. The fight during the trial is also longer and hopefully more interesting without turning too Naruto-y. A sequel is under construction, but exams are up first, and the collab with Moonfire gets priority. The Faux Pas sequel will probably come out before the Flight Camp one, if only because it makes things easier for me. Juggling different Scootaloo personalities and backstories is tricky, even for me.
Anyways, happy holidays to you all, hope you enjoy the improvements.
The ellipses thing, as a Brit, is more guideline-ish.
Basically, if you get more personal in narration, like first erson or interaction with readers, it's fine, as you're trying to make it like a character is telling the story, or the author in some cases.
Also, you could do something like:
"Blahblah." She then said, "Blahblahblahblah."
Oh, and interruptions are fun to write.
I would offer myself as an editor, but I wouldn't be able to full time it. I can be a go to though!
628626
Heh, that is a very friendly offer. I'm kind of resolutely facing it on my own, though. I feel like I need to get this down, because I'm also doing my thesis in English. And all of my classes are in English. It's the little things. It's not my work that needs to be that good, it's me, if that makes any sense
Interruptions are fun to write, aren't they?
628643 yes, with the little hy-
-phons cutting off words a-
-nd restarting speech later on.
Only hard part is deciding the best part to cut off.
First off,
You're very good at English, I thought you were American
Considering you know three languages, though, I'm guessing you're European...because Europeans know like EVERY language 
You silly fillies.
Second,
Being a bit of a grammar Nazi, I can agree with you on this. It took me my entire life until last year to know that you're supposed to put 's at the end of something to show possession, but for "it" you say "its" Seems like a small thing, but in writing/grammar, that's kind of annoying to me to know that all these years, I've been wrong. Er, anyway, proper grammar isn't really all that important unless you're writing essays for college. The problem with languages is that they're all so crazy complex. So complex, in fact, that it's almost impossible to master them unless you've experienced them first hand (Like, say, on some sort of brony fanfiction website or something...as if those exist). Really...I wouldn't worry about that. I love the TWE, but they do grammar down to the bone, which is fine and all considering it's their job (Or it WAS their job
RIP TWE, you will be missed foreverrrrrrr), but it takes out like half of what makes up someone's writing style.
Okay, fine, sure, ellipses aren't really grammatically correct, but they're part of your writing style! Without some pokes at grammar here and there, all of our writing would be almost the same, bar the occasional unique word choice and all that other shit. Fanfiction may be writing, but it's by no means professional. If you were posting Flight Camp into a book, sure, scrub it down with bleach and water until everything was
NEAT UNT TIDY!!!
But we're not NEATUNTTIDY authors, we're fans. Fans of the greatest show evarrrrrrr
And for being fans of the greatest show evarrrrrrr, we also get some of the best talent evarrrrrrr. With some of the best talent evarrrrrrr we have some of the best fun evarrrrrrr. And fun can't be had evarrrrrrr (I like using r's 
) if we're worrying about the little things! So yeah, some rewriting is fine, it's nice to clean up the errors you might have missed, but don't taxidermize the entire fanfic, because it doesn't deserve that 
Also, right when I finished that last paragraph, I think I've figured out what country you're from.
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So, we've already established that you're prooobably European. I looked up the Kludde from Flight Camp and found that it was a monster from Dutch myths, AND Dutch is somewhat similar to English...okay, kiiind of similar to English. Kinda sorta. Not really. Whatever, anyway, my Dutch friend speaks English just as well as you, and you seem to be about the same age and, therefore, almost the same in experience. If you're from Belgium, you speak Dutch, French, and English. If you're from the Netherlands, you speak Dutch, German, and English. I KNOW IT
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628700
Well, I'll keep some of the ellipses, then.
Also, I am from Belgium. Even more surprising, I'm from a part of Belgium that's pretty close to where the Kludde myth originated. Other clues you might have caught:
-Bogsdown is built on a marsh. Brussels, our capital, was originally built on a marsh. That's where the name comes from: 'Bruxella'.
-there's this little snippet about Bogsdown being famous for its waffles. Belgium... well, it's tourist food. Hey, I spaced that ellipsis! Progress!
-the song "I'm into Folk" is from a Belgian band.
-the term 'Bullhead' was taken from the film 'Bullhead', which was sent to the freaking Oscars. It did not win. For reference's sake: that time they're explaining what a 'Bullhead' is and they're saying they saw it in a movie? The main character gets neutered. With a brick. So yeah, kind of an odd association, I thought it'd be funny.
And yes, my friend. You do win an Internet for looking up 'Kludde' and figuring out I'm Belgian. And I'm flattered you think my English is good. Native speakers are the only ones whose critique matter to me in that regard. Eris knows my professors aren't too well-placed to comment on it.
I swear, I cringe every time I hear one of them say "And that is how it looks like." Don't even get me started on pronunciation.
I don't believe that "no ellipses in narration" rule... I find them very useful.
628806 It wasn't JUST the Kludde that helped me figure it out. I talk to my Nederlander (Dutch words are fancy) friend sometimes, and that's what reeeaaally tipped me off...you say things just like him. So if you're Belgian, you speak Dutch, French, and English, riiight?
629052
Ik spreek Nederlands. Je parle Français. I speak English quite well. Ich spreche ein bisschen Deutsch.
So yeah, count Dutch, French and English as languages I can survive on. I speak French and English well enough that people can't tell by my accent where I'm from. But if you want to know what a Belgian accent sounds like, just look up Herman van Rompuy, the European President (or some such). He has a really thick accent.