Profreaders needed Please

STORY

Comments

[AliCentaur Br0ny]

I read the summary and while the premise seems interesting, I generally tend to avoid sad stories, unless there is comedy mixed in to balance it out. I am going to pass on proofreading this, but good luck.

[LightShadow]

128638 thanks anyway. :(

[AliCentaur Br0ny]

128643 You're welcome. Maybe next time.

[Keeria]

Consider this a bit of a demo of what my proofreading is like, since while I'm not often in this position, I know I'm going to be harsh. I'm an avid reader and a Grammar Nazi, so you get what you ask for. If you like this, I can do more. Here's what I found in the first paragraph and in the first sentence of the second:

a wide expanse of trees that reach
"Reach" should be "reaches". It is the expanse that's doing the reaching, not the trees. The trees are part of a prepositional phrase, and are not what the verb is referring to here.

Vines hang from the trees that strangle anypony unlucky enough to run into them.
Nothing is techically wrong here, but the exact wording struck me as kind of odd. Perhaps you could change it to "Vines hang from the trees low enough to strangle anypony unlucky enough to run into them."

Mushrooms litter the ground forming fairy rings on the ground.
Ground ground redundant ground. Get rid of one of the two instances of that word.

Large taodstools gave off light as fireflies flew around them.
Two issues. One, "taodstools" is a typo and should be "toadstools". Two, this sentence is in past tense, while the rest of the paragraph has been in the present tense. Fix that.

Timberwolves and Chimera's dominate the woodlands, eating any meat that come to close to them.
"Chimera's" should not have an apostrophe, as that noun is not possessive. It probably also shouldn't be capitalized, as it's not a proper noun so much as it's a species of monster. "Come" should also be "comes", since "meat" is not plural.

Yes the Everfree is a very scary place and very few ponies ever go near it, except for one individual.
There should be a comma after the "yes", and "except for one individual" feels slightly redundant. Consider alternate phrasing, either ditching the word "individual" or changing the phasing a bit. Probably not technically wrong, but it caught my eye for some reason.

Queen Chrysalis the changling, trots the pathways with a heavy heart.
The wording here is awkward. Consider "Chrysalis, Queen of the Changelings," or perhaps "Chrysalis, the Changeling Queen," instead.

[LightShadow]

128685 Thanks that actually helped alot. I'll PM you when the canges are done.

[Keeria]

Queen Chrysalis the changling, trots the pathways with a heavy heart. She has a black coat, with long dark blue hair. Her eyes are green and have a black slit in the middle. Her wings are insect like and have holes. Her hooves have holes in them too, and her crooked horn jutts out from her head. Her fangs barely visible in the darkness of the forest. A tear runs down her face as she goes deep into thought.

Your descriptions here don't flow and they end up feeling like unrelated sentences. Rather than just out and telling us what she looks like via bland descriptive statements, try and work some dynamic into the descriptive structure. As a friendly example of how I'd write this (and bear in mind that I'm not a writer, so this probably isn't as good as I wish it would be), I'd word this paragraph more like:

The snapping of twigs and the soft clopping sound of hooves on dirt can be heard through the otherwise eerie silence of the unnatural wood. A creature black as night moves sullenly through the forest, one of her slitted emerald eyes obscured by a long tuft of deep blue mane, and from the other a wet trail flows down her cheek. Her insect-like wings are folded at her back, tattered like the rest of her; indeed, all across her body, small pieces of her seem to be missing. From her hooves to her neck, holes dot her body and wings, and yet they don't appear to be the result of injury, nor do they pain her in any physical way. Her slightly off-skew horn hung low, her head angled down and her fangs concealed behind the grimace of someone miles away in her own thoughts, Chrysalis the Changeling Queen weeps.

I apologize if that was offensive. I was just having a bit of fun with it. But you see how sentences in a description are supposed to blend into one another, rather than be a series of statements-of-fact. Again, I'm not a writer by any stretch of the imagination; this was just me amusing myself with that paragraph and seeing how I could improve it, however slightly.

[LightShadow]

128712 Thanks that was perfect. I will try something like this. Also have you ever considered becoming a full time writer like me. I know some good publishers if you ask.

[Keeria]

128720
I actually have almost no skill in writing, and most of what I know comes from being an avid reader. If I wrote a story, I'm afraid I'd end up with repetitive blandness and a plot that goes nowhere. Thanks, however, for the kind words.

[LightShadow]

128724 Well as an avid reader myself, I tend to be harsh to sometimes. Though my grammer and spelling leave something to be desired. One thing I learned from reading is that no matter how bad a story can get, it will improve with a little hard work and help from a friend. As an auther of childrens stories I tend to think the same way, but seeing the smiles on the faces of my editers make it worth the effort I put into each story. Also I made the necisary changes. You may read over it if you like.

[Keeria]

I'm going over it. Instead of pointing out each error, I'm just going to send you a corrected version which will have been fixed for grammar and spelling, but I'll be rewording and nitpicking as little as possible. This is your story, and all I'm trying to do is make sure it's written in sound English, not rewrite the whole thing. That paragraph above was a one-time thing; I'm here to improve the technical quality of the story, nothing more.

I will give you my thoughts on the narrative and on your writing style in the form of a series of critical questions and comments when I'm done though. I'm taking notes as I read to make sure any concerns I have are remembered by the time I'm finished. This shouldn't take very long; apologies for the hold-up till now, I was in the middle of something.

[MossMoss]

128732 Grammar, author, childrens', editors, necessary. I am so sorry, but SPELLING ERRORS. Sorry.

[Keeria]

Technical Issues
One thing that needs fixed is tense. Your writing is very inconsistent when it comes to past and present tense. I'm changing all the sections outside of flashbacks to present tense, because despite looking weird, that's what you started the story in. The flashbacks will be done in past tense. If you don't like that, it's easy enough to change again.

Apostrophes are used to indicate contractions and possessiveness. "Kits death" is incorrect; "Kit's death" is correct. "Chimera's" is incorrect; "chimeras" is correct. And so on.

Hyphenated phrases are all over your story, but you keep separating them with spaces rather than hyphens. Cold-hearted, cat-like, etc. When you have two words that are connected like that, you need to remember the hyphen.

Capitalize all proper nouns. King Charles, Stalliongrad, Helm's Deep...all those needed to be capitalized. And don't capitalize common nouns, such as chimeras and castle.

I'm also indenting your paragraphs because I'm anal like that. And use the words "soon" and "however" less if you can help it. They're all over the place. And you need to quit telling the reader THIS IS SO SAD, CHRYSALIS WAS SAD, SHE FELT SAD, CHRYSALIS IS FRIGHTENED. One of the worst things you can do is to just tell us something rather than show us. You need to try and use words to paint emotions, not just announce a series of facts.

Plot Issues/Holes/Inconsistencies/Quandaries
No magic ever happens in the forest? Did you mean to say that magic isn't natural to the forest? Because magic has definitely happened there on at least a few occasions.

She dreamed of the glory of her people as an infant? Also, how did she become the queen? In a monarchy, rule is hereditary, unless you're referring to queen as in the queen of an insect hive, which would require a sort of evolutionary process. To go from an commoner hatchling to queen in the human sense of the word, she'd have to have been involved in some shady stuff. With either approach though, you could probably have had a whole story arc about her growing up. A chapter at the very least.

Where were they getting their food from? Why can't they support their own population? If times were good and they didn't need to invade foreign lands, what's the deal with their "traditions of kidnapping and trickery"?

Instead of just telling us that the war was what made her cold-hearted, you could have shown us. Let the reader see as she grows from a young, wide-eyed hopeful to a cold and calculating queen, and feel her pain as she becomes hardened by the terrors of war. Instead of just saying "She had a husband but then he died," let the reader get to know and like him and THEN kill him off.

Again, with her children, I'm thinking you might have meant queen in the sense of an insect queen? Or do you mean that she has motherly feelings toward her subjects? It's kind of ambiguous here.

She wanted revenge for Kit's death. That makes sense. Why, though, is her revenge not aimed at her own people? The ponies didn't have anything to do with his death.

Helm's Deep is a very famous name from Lord of the Rings. I didn't change it myself because this isn't my call, but I highly recommend you remove that name, lest the raging monster that is the criticism of others less kind than I tears out your eyes in its endless bloodlust.

A fifteen year time-skip during the preparation for the war? That's a bit much, don't you think? How did NOTHING change over fifteen years? I thought their food was running out, so shouldn't they have all died? Also, you say Celestia and Luna are the current rules of Equestria, as though it were a democracy or something. They've been the only rulers for at least a thousand years, so that seems a bit silly to say. And why would Chrysalis send Celestia a message before the attack? There has to be a reason for this, something she gets out of it. Otherwise, broadcasting your attacks is a pretty silly way to go about war.

You also could have used her dreams to convey her subconscious if you wanted to have some real fun. Instead of just saying "her dreams were dark as always," why not let the reader in on them?

The earlier parts of the story were fair enough not to have dialogue, as it was mostly a flashback and we were essentially reading a history lesson, but I was disappointed by the lack of words once she moves in with the Zebra tribe. Honestly, this story could have spanned several chapters. You need to rush less, and be more careful about your choice in words. It's not a terrible story, but it could have been told better, and it came across as more of an outline. You skimmed over all the events, but you didn't bother to detail any of them.

In Conclusion
So...uh...yeah. There you go. I sent you the revised story in a PM, free of spelling and grammar errors but otherwise touched as little as possible. I apologize again for the harshness, but I did warn you.

Best of luck!

[mau5!]

128786 hey fuck you and your bisexal group im sorry i didnt mean it fuck nuck

[mau5!]

and the story ill give it fuckall out of 10 im sorry

[Keeria]

129026
Huh?

[mau5!]

129042 watch slenderman

[Keeria]

129049
I don't get it. Did I upset you or something?

[mau5!]

129051 maaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhh!