Stupid grammar question. Yeah, I know, I know.

Which one is correct and why?

I asked God, "Why me?"

I asked God, "why me?"

Thanks for any reply in advance.

6152400
https://www.grammarly.com/blog/capitalization-in-quotes/

6152723
Thank you, that was very helpful.

6135817
I'd say 1-3k, maybe 4-5 if you're feeling adventurous. If your oneshot won't fit in these constraints, just split it into chapters.

6095290
Just listen to the format letters to Celestia were in the show. The language used wasn't exactly formal, but it wasn't written in just a relaxed, common manner, like one would talk to a friend.
It also depends when on the show's timeline you want to set it. Twilight changes, and so does here relationship with Celestia. Thus, the way she would write letters would change as well.

Creating A Plotline

For a long while, I've had an idea for a story that I've wanted to write - it involves two characters which have fanon personalities, but which I like to think I've put my own spin onto. The trouble is that I have no clue how to build an actual coherent plot based on these characters. I have a few locations I want to explore, a couple ways to put conflict into the story, but I don't know where I want the story to wind up or even where I want to start it. I realise this question's a little vague and general, but how do I come up with a good plot to explore two characters?

6160038
Pick a conflict. Resolve it. That is your plotline.

If you have several conflicts, resolve them all. If you have one event which does so, that's pretty good for your main, climactic scene. If the conflicts need to be resolved separately, you have to decide if they're all part of the same story or not.

If you can't resolve the conflicts, are they actually conflicts or just permanent/semi-permanent flaws of some kind?

The important part is to make sure the conflicts fit the characters, the resolution fits the characters, and it is all done in an interesting or entertaining way. Conflict and resolution can be as simple as "My refrigerator is empty. I go to the grocery store and buy food to put in it," to "the evil villain is threatening everything I love and hold dear. I go tell the villain to stop that and he does."

Genre can influence what kinds of conflicts are central to your story. The above two examples are likely Slice of Life and Adventure. A romance story will often be "I want to start a relationship with that pretty mare. So I ask her out and she says yes." Comedy can be a little challenging, but if you can come up with something absurd, subversive, or make light of otherwise innocuous or unpleasant things while presenting and resolving your conflict, comedy might be fitting. "My refrigerator isn't running. So I take it to the gym." And so on.

Where you end up with your story is dependent on how you resolve your conflicts. Do the characters end up back to normal? Better? Worse? Why was this conflict important to tell a story about?

6160612
Thanks for taking the time to reply; your phrasing of the problem as a series of conflicts has really helped me to visualise how the story will pan out in its own sections. Thanks!

So what do you guys talk about in here?

I need a proof reader and any other advice/ options on my opinions, and I'm completely new to this and still figuring out the workings of the website. Help is appreciated.

So I can essentially come to you guys for anythin' right?

I need a lecture on the show don't tell.

Knocks on a door Hello, I just joined in the group to get some help in learning how to write my own story. It got understandably negative comments as, and this is me being honest, it is a piece of slag-ridden iron that needs a serious facelift. I was directed to this group by stupidhand14 and feel it could help me grow and improve as a writer. I hope to hear back from an admin, professor or The Dean soon. Thanks for your time and have a wonderful day.

6238851
Sure! What are your questions?

6167822
Sorry for the late response. Check out the Directory for some lectures on show vs tell. Spoiler alert: Sometimes telling works better. It's all about when to use each. Implying (showing) can be powerful but being direct can be powerful too.

6240431
Thanks

6240431
Well, in general I find myself agreeing with folks in saying my story is extremely lack luster and clunky. I want to fix and improve it; one aspect that needs desperate attention is how to write dialogue, specifically how to structure it in a passage. That is only the tip of the iceberg but I think it would be best if I plopped it in this place for folks to read and give their feedback on it. Though I guess my second question is where should I put said slag heap for its go through another furnace of criticism, both healthy and otherwise. the person who invited me here did bring up very good points and I feel that this place would help me improve my writing.

6240569
1) Form a sentence.

The dog chased a ball.

2) Enclose the sentence in quoation marks.

"The dog chased a ball."

3) Attribute the quote to a speaker.

John said, "The dog chased a ball."

There are some ways you can vary this, but this is how you structure dialogue. This is basic grammar. If you need help of this level, you need to set aside your interest in criticism, and learn English. Look up, either among the lectures here in this group or online through Google, basic grammar.

If English is your first language, you should have learned this before reaching/graduating Highschool, or the equivalent level of education for your country if not from the US. A deficiency in education at this level is more than you should expect from free advice/help from others. You need to actively work on your own skills at this point.

6240815
English is my mother tongue but I've never really done story writing before. To give you guys an understanding, my story should soon be in the crossover section and you can see the thing for yourselves as I really want to make it fulfill the potential I see in it. Hope I didn't sound egocentric there.

6240569
Have you checked out the FimFiction writing guide? You can find it by hovering over the "Help" button at the top of the site and then clicking on Writing Guide.

It's a really good place for beginning writers to start.

6242007
I'll give it a read as soon as I can. I probably should've read that ages ago...Oh well, C'est la vie.

A Pony's Special Talent
I'm having trouble coming up with a special talent for my OC. I have seen videos and read some threads about a cutie mark, but there's not alot about special talent.

I accidently posted a thread

I really want to write a story about Applejack x reader. But I’m not good at writning so I want help of a ghostwriter. Do any of you have a good Idea of how I can get rid of my problem?

4371393

Discord is based off his voice actor, Mr. John DeLancie, better known as Q from Star Trek: TNG. watch episodes where Q suddenly appears out of thin air, like Discord does. He even snaps his finger, and poof, things happen, like making a Mariachi Band appear before Picard.

6349823
Write more

I'm writing a fanfic with the help of an editor, and he puts all the characters' thoughts in quotation marks. When I asked him why, he said it's because it's what the characters are saying, even if it's just inside their heads. But I've seen them without the quotation marks on other fanfics, and even in books. So why we do that? Or should we not?

6417829
The answer depends on the perspective written in. Other than that, as long as you are consistent, it is something of a style choice.

Quotes refer to spoken dialogue. It would be incorrect to not use them when a character is speaking. This is a rule.

Thoughts, particularly in a first-person perspective or second-person perspective are the narration. Your narration is fairly explicitly what the character is thinking at the time. Indeed, in these perspectives, not much else belongs in the narration: even descriptions of the environment ought to be phrased as if the POV character is observing/thinking them. Their eyeballs are the story's camera, and everything not spoken is in their head in some way.

When you get into various third-person perspectives, you need to indicate when the narration is "the world/camera" commenting on the world or when the "world/camera" is giving us a peek into a character's head. Third-person-omni, in particular, can make it unclear who is doing the thinking, and you can use "thought" (or variations thereof) like said-tags to help clarify who is thinking. For this reason, it is usually best to omit "private thoughts" from an otherwise busy and cluttered narration. It's very easy to miss the exact tag and interpret internal thoughts as spoken dialogue, resulting in confusing scenes where it is unclear who spoke and who heard what was said and why they aren't reacting to some things.

Third-person-limited will tend to focus on a particular POV (unless written poorly), and usually be able to get away with a style similar to first-person to indicate thoughts without tags. Instead, something like using italics is perfectly fine and highly readable to differentiate between narration and internal thoughts. This also has the advantage of being very obviously not spoken aloud, something that can wind up at least briefly confusing when using quotation marks.

keep writing.
How do you get yourself to keep writing even when you're sick or in pain?

6434491
We are answering this in the podcast today if you'd like to watch!

6434886
To whoever it was who pronounced my name right, by pronouncing the ll as a y, congratulations! I hadn't thought anypony would know how to pronounce it. It's Spanish and means star.

6435275
I live in Arizona and we have an Estrella mountain Community College, so I knew how to pronounce it, I got you my friend, i hope we answered your question.

im working on my story Element breakers and i dont know where to take the next chapter. i know how it ends but i dont know how to get it to there.

6443579
Try writing the end first and work backwards till you get to the beginning. That's what I'm doing with a skit I'm writing for my cousins.

6446315
i did
i have the ending now but the issue is getting to it lol

hello to all. Sorry I havent spoken in a while. Life has been crazy. But I'm back to ask for help on non MLP story I'm working on and would like help. Basic plot is MC is attacked while on his way home from work. Mystery girl saves him using small link of chain. muggers were found a mile away from the crime scene. Police find a sack of something in the muggers car that was left at the crime scene.

This book is magic based so there will be monsters and such but I would like help on the current details.

Writing a ritual chamber
I am having some trouble with writing the ritual chamber in my story I know it has giant statues of angels holding the different nature elements of fire, wind, water, earth/rock, life and death, and light, and dark

6446324
Check out my lecture on story planning methods! I also have one on Writer's Block.

Hopefully there's something in there for you.

6454737
You're going to have to be more specific on what you want help with. Are you simply looking for ideas? Here's a lecture that might give you some ideas for coming up with ideas.

6457410
You mean designing one? Or describing it? What exactly are you looking for?

6457410

It's less about detail and more about tone when it comes to description. How do you want the audience to view the object or the place that you're writing about? How do your characters feel about it? Use words with the proper connotation for what will make the audience feel what you need them to feel about what it is that you're presenting. Rely on nouns and verbs more than adjectives, but remember how much weight that a well-placed adjective can have.

If you think that advice is suited to what you're writing, then you're in luck: most description is written in such a way that you can draw on virtually anything for a good example to refer to in your own writing.

If there's nothing particularly relevant that you want to highlight to the audience about the thing, then what you should do is try to imagine the most distinctive details of the place that you're describing and then write them out in a way that reflects the character of the area that you're writing about.

Stephen King goes into this whole process below in his book, On Writing, and it's worth a look:

"One of my favorite restaurants in New York is the steakhouse Palm Too on Second Avenue. If I decide to set a scene in Palm Too, I’ll certainly be writing about what I know, as I’ve been there on a number of occasions. Before beginning to write, I’ll take a moment to call up an image of the place, drawing from my memory and filling my mind’s eye, an eye whose vision grows sharper the more it is used. I call it a mental eye because that’s the phrase with which we’re all familiar, but what I actually want to do is open all my senses. This memory search will be brief but intense, a kind of hypnotic recall. And, as with actual hypnosis, you’ll find it easier to accomplish the more you attempt it.

The first four things which come to my mind when I think of Palm Too are: (a) the darkness of the bar and the contrasting brightness of the backbar mirror, which catches and reflects light from the street; (b) the sawdust on the floor; (c) the funky cartoon caricatures on the walls; (d) the smells of cooking steak and fish. If I think longer I can come up with more stuff (what I don’t remember I’ll make up—during the visualization process, fact and fiction become entwined), but there’s no need for more. This isn’t the Taj Mahal we’re visiting, after all, and I don’t want to sell you the place. It’s also important to remember it’s not about the setting, anyway—it’s about the story, and it’s always about the story. It will not behoove me (or you) to wander off into thickets of description just because it would be easy to do. We have other fish (and steak) to fry. Bearing that in mind, here’s a sample bit of narration which takes a character into Palm Too: The cab pulled up in front of Palm Too at quarter to four on a bright summer afternoon. Billy paid the driver, stepped out onto the sidewalk, and took a quick look around for Martin. Not in sight. Satisfied, Billy went inside. After the hot clarity of Second Avenue, Palm Too was as dark as a cave. The backbar mirror picked up some of the street-glare and glimmered in the gloom like a mirage. For a moment it was all Billy could see, and then his eyes began to adjust. There were a few solitary drinkers at the bar. Beyond them, the maître d’, his tie undone and his shirt cuffs rolled back to show his hairy wrists, was talking with the bartender. There was still sawdust sprinkled on the floor, Billy noted, as if this were a twenties speakeasy instead of a millennium eatery where you couldn’t smoke, let alone spit a gob of tobacco between your feet. And the cartoons dancing across the walls—gossip-column caricatures of downtown political hustlers, newsmen who had long since retired or drunk themselves to death, celebrities you couldn’t quite recognize—still gambolled all the way to the ceiling. The air was redolent of steak and fried onions. All of it the same as it ever was. The maître d’ stepped forward. “Can I help you, sir? We don’t open for dinner until six, but the bar—” “I’m looking for Richie Martin,” Billy said."

6457410
update I have the ritual chamber finished just have to fix my description and flesh out my story

writing Minotaur and non pony swears
I am having trouble writing swears for Minotaurs, Gorgons, Centaurs, Satyrs and qilin among other kinds of taurs and hybrids. pony swears are plentiful but the others are not.

Anyone want to help me collab a Hitman (Agent 47) story, I find it lacking there are not many stories.
Basic Plot: Agent 47 becomes a changeling and is to assassinate Luna and Celestia
I was thinking of making it either a Choose your own adventure or A normal story.

query
is there a place on here to see if anyone would be willing to be a co-writer or co-author

Where would I find a list of what those words at the beginning of a thread means? (For example lecture, meta, field trip) I came across it when I first joined the SFNW but I couldn't find it again when I went looking for it.

6490848
I don't think choose your own adventure is possible on this site.

6524276
There are some, its actually pretty interesting but they are usually dating ones

6524276
But thanks for your input

6524510
There are? How did they do that? I mean, it would be easy in a paper book, but I didn't know you could do that on Fimfiction.

6524569 You can put hyperlinks in your story as far as I'm aware, so you just have the "flip to page x" sentance be a hyperlink that takes you to that page

6524569
Yeah basically what master18 said its a pretty cool concept and I would do it with a Hitman story but it would take so much time

6524688
How do you make a hyperlink?

6525705 It's on the ribbon with ways to edit your text (bold, italics, ect.) and looks like a little chin link. The actual link looks like this (with no space in the closing tag, obviously):

[url=your_url]link text[/ url]