Love ponies and writing. So why not put them together?
Cutie Mark Crusaders4,485 stories ·1,745 members
Slice of Life8,152 stories ·1,460 members
Comedy4,731 stories ·1,291 members
Scootaloo3,262 stories ·2,569 members
I Just Want a Comment15,703 stories ·3,671 members
It's Hearts and Hooves day at Ponyville. Snails didn't get any cards for some reason. Scootaloo feels sorry for him and she gave him one of hers. Sending him a wrong message towards him.
Based on a Simpsons episode.
Both edited by JR Black Wing and Altoids
Page generated in 0.097 seconds
Total duration
780 users online
1,098,116 hits today, 2,280,440 yesterday
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
Designed and coded by knighty & Xaquseg - © 2011-2024
Support us
SubStar
Chat!
Discord
Follow us
Twitter
MLP: Friendship is Magic® - © 2024 Hasbro Inc.®
Fimfiction is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by Hasbro Inc.®
It was a nice story, but - and I mean this with all due respect - are you sure you posted the edited version?
Because I saw a lot of errors.
4043007
I had my editor do that for me. Because grammar and spelling is very hard for me.
4047545
I can understand that — I'm guilty of making such mistakes myself. My early works are full of grammar mistakes, which I am rectifying — even going so far as to edit (and in some cases, rewrite) every story I've ever written.
This was still a nice story, though.
4047744 about I get second opinion when my editor is done. Instead of posting it right away.
Sounds fair?
4047744 about I get second opinion when my editor is done. Instead of posting it right away.
Sounds fair?
4068673
You shouldn't have to ask for my opinion. You're the writer, you do what you think is right for your story.
4068680
But like I said grammar is hard for me and rather not have, say my friends or family know I do this. So I need some kind of help.
4068721
I can edit the story around if you want me to, I mean check out my work if you don't believe me.
4594515
Sure go for it
Not too shabby. You've earned a like :3
4637075
Your so awesome!
Thanks
4594515
Certainly an improvement over the original draft -- however, there's still a few things you missed, which you really need to watch for if you're going to be an editor.
Mixing of past and present tenses within the same sentence or paragraph is not permissible, especially not as part of the narrative. (In actual dialogue, it can be used to suggest that a character is either uneducated and talks poorly, or that they're a non-English speaker unfamiliar with the language.)
Generally, most stories are told entirely in past tense; it is possible to do a story entirely in present tense, or even to construct a story such that "present-day" scenes are in present tense and flashbacks are in past tense (see EquesTRON's Light The Sky On Fire from my Favourites list as an example of this), but it's tricky to pull off if you don't have a firm grasp on what you're doing.
A lot of missing and misspelled words, I'm afraid:
Don't depend on a spellchecker. it won't catch missing words, and it can only tell you if what you typed is a word, not whether it's the right word.
On that last one: "there", "their", and "they're" are different words; make sure you use the right one. Same for "your" vs. "you're", "its" vs. "it's", and so on.
I don't think this word means what you think it means...
This does bring up something else, though. Nine times out of ten, you should just stick with "said", "asked", or "replied"; the reader doesn't notice them, but over-using fancier attributions like "snorted", "insisted", "responded", "chimed", etc. sticks out like a sore thumb. Save them for when you really need them for a specific effect. And definitely don't try to use verbs that aren't even "speech verbs", like "cracked up" (which is not hyphenated, BTW) to indicate a character speaking. If you catch an author doing this (or if you're doing it yourself in your own stories), point it out to them and make them change it.
Hope that helps!
4679643
I'll go fix that thanks for the pointers
4679643 Actually, those are some things I SHOULD have caught. However, I was more focused on improving details and the story's presentation that I apparently skipped over my own grammar check. Therefore, I apologize for those errors.
As for using not over-using words like "said," "asked", or "replied," that is just my personal preference since I like to help convey the emotions / expressions of the characters since our own human speech isn't generic and bland. It can be full of happiness, joy, depression, and / or even haste. Therefore, it makes sense to add texture to a quote, which helps the reader imagine the situation (even if it sticks out).
A story that does a fantastic job with this is this one ---> Secret Between Siblings
Also, for the past and present tense mix up... I should have only changed "are" to "were" since that whole paragraph was reflexive to Scootaloo's hate of Hearts and Hoofs day.
Also, I will *facehoof* myself for that stupid there, their, and they're mistake.
4730517
It's okay it's not that big of a deal. I understand you missed a couple mistakes. This story isn't that good anyway
4730517
True, but constantly using "high-dollar" synonyms in place of "said" gives rise to the "swallowed a thesaurus" syndrome, more often than not, and draws attention to itself.
To convey tones of voice, it's usually better to use adverbs to describe the tone of voice when needed.
The other issue with your dialogue tags is that a lot of what you're using aren't actually "speech verbs", and cannot be used to convey tones of voice in the manner you're trying to use them:
"Winked" is an action performed by the eye, not a vocal inflection, so you can't use it as a dialogue tag directly. You can say:
Also, don't directly tell the reader things, like this:
Do it like this:
or
Punctuation of your dialogue is also a problem. When the character's sentence ends, so must the dialogue tag. You can't put a comma at the end of the tag and continue on into the next sentence of dialogue, like you're doing here:
The mother's dialogue consists of two sentences:
"Aw, that's so cute."
"You two would be a darling couple."
Therefore, dialogue-plus-tag must end after "cracked-up" (which is not a valid speech verb either, by the way), and a new sentence must be begun. Like this:
Past/present-tense mix-ups: Actually, the entire story is full of tense switches; that was just one example to cite. Either all of the narration has to be present-tense verbs ("is", "are", "sees", "knows", "looks"), or all past-tense ("was", "were", "saw", "knew", "looked").
4741021 Thank you for that and actually... You are right on my inconsistencies of keeping ether in past or present tone. To which, I think that is something I personally need to improve on / watch out for. Although, I am still bashing my head on the punctuation mistakes since that is a grade school level of fail.
This version is much better! But why did you keep the old version?
5678851 I had two people edit this for me. So I didn't think it was fair keep one version and delete the other.