After chaos

Sunblade returns to Equestria after Discord is turned back to stone. Seeing how concerned Celestia and Luna are, the three go off to discuss what to do with the draconequus. It is here that Celestia reveals her greater plan for the future of Equestria.

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EverfreePony

EverfreePony #1 · Jan 5th, 2020 · 1 · ·

Very nice short story, I’m surprised it seems to have gotten so little attention. Good atmosphere and flow, dynamic dialogues, and a clear message that integrates well the multiple events from the show. My biggest complaint would be a plethora of recurring errors in direct speech and dialogue tags (can explain more if needed).

Thank you for this read!

PaladinponyT

PaladinponyT #2 · Jan 5th, 2020 · 1 · ·

10019138
Thank you for your comment and advice, it is very appreciated.

EverfreePony

EverfreePony #3 · Jan 5th, 2020 · · ·

10019732
You’re welcome! Glad I could help, even if this was just a semi-advice

PaladinponyT

PaladinponyT #4 · Jan 5th, 2020 · · ·

10019138
You may explain if you wish, I would welcome any helpful tips.

EverfreePony

EverfreePony #5 · Jan 5th, 2020 · · ·

10019845
Alright. This is a more or less a universal sheet of mine about the basics of direct speech:

If a dialogue tag contains a verb that conveys some speaking action (says, replies, whispers, asks, yells, et cetera), the direct speech is connected to it with a comma, not a period. However, many people forget to mention that also the sentence containing the verb needs to start with a lowercase letter (except proper names and I) if it is present after the direct speech. Here is an example of a correct sentence:

“Oh! I’m terribly sorry,” he says.

Notice that it has both the comma and lowercase he.

That seems pretty easy, right?

So, let's make it a little more complicated now. Sometimes, you need to use the dialogue tag (e.g. she says) before the direct speech, mostly for better flow or context. Then it will look like this:

She says, "Write it like this."

Notice that both the dialogue tag and the direct speech start with an uppercase letter. Also, the comma is now before the direct speech.

Now let’s move to the use of beats. Beat is just a fancy name for a dialogue tag possessing a verb that conveys some kind of different action than speaking (for example smiles, nods or blinks). When a beat is used, comma cannotbe present. Period has to be in its place. (And of course, exclamation or question marks stay where they were.) Due to this, the beat has to start with an uppercase letter.

"Write it like this." She motions to the paper.

She motions to the paper. "Write it like this.“

Again, notice the placement of periods and the uppercase letters and compare it with the previous examples.

Those are the very basics. Of course, there are many more forms of dialogue, such as direct speech fragmented by beats. However, I believe this is enough for now. Let me know if anything was unclear or if you have any additional questions Also, I’m using present tense in the examples above, but it works with past tense just the same. If you look through the story again, you can notice that sometimes you used the punctuation and upper/lowercase letters correctly, but oftentimes you mixed them up.