Eh, it's Conner. At least he'll actually get traffic.
Move along. Move along.
Might drop a review if I'm bored enough.

>After a minute of silence, another sound cut through the quiet: that of a small pony, coughing.
Capitalize after a colon.

Kinda overplaying Applebuck's need for Applejack. Then again, maybe it was that intense in the original story. Been too long since I've read it.
Yeah, it's like you're trying to hammer his desperation into the reader. Most people won't care, but you might want to consider toning it down.

>"Oh, it's okay dear." the not-Babar soothed,
Need a comma instead.

>Finding another unicorn that wasn't Dusk, but just as strong as him, to pull off the spell had been trickier,
Touting Presto as being more powerful than Dusk is rather risky. He could be capable of doing the spell and, perhaps, more skilled, but being as powerful/knowledgable as Dusk is pushing it.

I don't remember the lead-in to this particularly well. Was Presto able to just do the spell, or did he have a guide? I doubt he'd be able to use a spell of that complexity without Twilight/Dusks notes to go off of.

>"Hey." the orange pegasus
Comma, and LUS warning. Since you didn't describe Scootaloo's colour until this part, though, you get a pass. Be careful with that, though. Most of the reviewers here (unless you're Short_Skirts) will jump on you for it.

>Once again he was floored by how similar they were to his friends back home.
Comma after "again".

>just like Scooteroll. he mused
Comma. You should be more careful with this, as it's fairly common.
There's another one a few paragraphs further. I won't bother marking them anymore. I'm sure you can do a seek-and-destroy without my help. You're doing it right besides the comma/period confusion, which makes it even stranger. I do believe I told you about this in your last thread, so it's rather dissapointing to see it's still an issue.
A link to a website you should take a look at: http://www.be-a-better-writer.com/punctuate-dialogue.html

>"Scoot!" his female reflection admonished her friend,
In this case, I'm not sure if "admonished" fits a speaking role here, at least not in the way it's used. Could someone more knowledgable about this comment on it? At the very least, it's awkwardly worded IMO.

>". . . A-Ah don't see why not-"
When cutting the sentence short, you should use an em-dash (at least, that's what I've been told). You can get them by going to Insert > Special Characters, then selecting Punctuation on the left bar, then Dashes on the right bar.

Hmm, all in all, decent. I didn't go into skim-mode, which is a good sign. Still, I didn't find myself particularly enthused or anxious for the next chapter, but I'm hardly the best measuring stick for that sort of thing.

Holy Crap, Conners dropping a fic?
And it gets buried under a pile of spambot bumps almost at the same time? Go fig.

... Anyways he gets extra bonus points for using a preview link rather then an edit link, ensuring I don't have to go up and manually change it myself.

This is a unique situation in that if you read Conner's stuff, you should already know what this is. And if you don't you're pretty clueless, which is fine.

In either case it shouldn't be on page one this early in the morning, people will miss it much too easily.

Super creepy next chapter teaser though. Just my two cents. Still nothing jumped out at me as a sin against writing, but I'm not in criminal analysis mode either. ^^

>What would you do, if you met a pony who was at once your brother, and yet not?
>What would you do, if you met a pony
I see odd comma placement like this a lot in your work, Conner. Methinks you use commas where you maybe mean to use ellipses. Which is maybe not a terrible thing, as you shouldn't use too many ellipses.

Read this sentence with the comma, and then again without. I think it sounds much more natural without, but I could be wrong (and mad).

>"Oh, it's okay dear." the not-Babar soothed
Ah, these old errors. There needs to be a comma after "dear", not a full stop. My go-to references for dialogue punctuation are:
http://www.be-a-better-writer.com/punctuate-dialogue.html
and
http://theeditorsblog.net/2010/12/08/punctuation-in-dialogue/

The grammar section of the writing guide I wrote also has some info on the most basic tenets of said punctuation.
(https://docs.google.com/document/d/1xemG7BLk2rvAmQCREIaj5wX2ubvmVt7WziEvh7xXV9g/edit?hl=en_GB)

>the red-maned pony
>the orange pegasus
Lavender Unicorn Syndrome* is in full force. Please don't use "the rainbow one" or "the magician" too much in this story, if you can help it. Names and pronouns should really be the only way to refer to named characters.

*http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Lavender%20Unicorn%20Syndrome (It's on Urban Dictionary, you guys!)

>>83799
>Since you didn't describe Scootaloo's colour until this part, though, you get a pass.
Eh... it's not really great practice to use LUS to impart character information, I wouldn't say. But I guess that's subjective
http://derpy.me/LQC9h

And that's all I have time for. I guess it's cool that this is coming out now, and I'm sure your many fans will be pleased, but personally I never really dug Cross And Arrow because I always thought that the 63ed mane cast were too similar to the originals (elaboration here: http://eznwords.tumblr.com/post/16163820486/cnareview if you're interested). Again, though, that's just me and my opinions.

>Pic related: it's arrows in a cross, herp derp.

Oh look a silver lining in my day
Awesome!

Yes! I loved Cross and Arrow!

>>83799
>>83861

As I've stated in the past, I am in no capacity, a professional writer. I appreciate the critique though. What bothers me is figuring out how much of it makes SENSE.

My last editor kept telling me that I had been using too many commas. Now here, I'm being told I'm not using them enough. I'll go ahead and take your word on BonBon's line, but I'm looking at the link provided by Ion, and I'm not really seeing the portion where it says to NOT use a full-stop at that juncture.

Regarding this 'Lavender Unicorn Syndrome'. What few writing workshops I've been to have actively encouraged this, so you'll have to pardon my confusion when being faced with conflicting advice. I don't want to sound ungrateful, but what?

Well, I I'm trying to catch as much as I can. My last editor left because he figured I'd picked up enough from him, more or less. I'd ask if anypony wanted to take up the position, but then I'd feel like a real heel...

Ahh well. I hope you're at least enjoying the story so far. Updates on this will be slow, I'm afraid, but they WILL be coming.

>>83901
>My last editor kept telling me that I had been using too many commas. Now here, I'm being told I'm not using them enough. I'll go ahead and take your word on BonBon's line, but I'm looking at the link provided by Ion, and I'm not really seeing the portion where it says to NOT use a full-stop at that juncture.
I personally think you do both (not enough in dialogue, too many in arbitrary places*). =P

*I haven't elaborated on this because I don't really know what's wrong with your commas so much as some of them feel off to me. I think it's something to do with putting them in the middle of your clauses, but I don't really know how to explain that or fix it as I am not really an English teacher (much as I like to pretend otherwise).

>As I've stated in the past, I am in no capacity, a professional writer. I appreciate the critique though. What bothers me is figuring out how much of it makes SENSE.
English grammar doesn't always make sense to everyone, but here are some of my explanations and rationalisations.

>I'll go ahead and take your word on BonBon's line, but I'm looking at the link provided by Ion, and I'm not really seeing the portion where it says to NOT use a full-stop at that juncture.
Hmm... I don't know that it does say that. However, you can look in ANY book, and you will see that when dialogue precedes some variation of "said Person", it never ends in a full stop. This is because "said Person" is not a sentence.

I like to think of it like this: the verb "said" needs an object, and that object is the dialogue. A verb and its object are always in the same sentence, ergo commas, not full stops.

The difficulty comes in where you're allowed to use question marks and exclamation points and not full stops, like so:
>"Hello!" I said.
>"What's up?" I asked.
This is allowed because, unlike a full stop, a question/exclamation mark is an essential part of the dialogue's meaning.

If you really like your fullstops, you can try to use more action tags, like this:
>"You should be proud of your name." Lin turned her back on him before she could say something she might regret.
As you see, the bit after the dialogue is a proper sentence, and its placement next to the dialogue shows that Lin is speaking.

>Regarding this 'Lavender Unicorn Syndrome'. What few writing workshops I've been to have actively encouraged this, so you'll have to pardon my confusion when being faced with conflicting advice. I don't want to sound ungrateful, but what?
Those workshops are wrong in that aspect, I'm sorry. LUS takes the reader out of the story (as they have to take a moment to remember who the scholar or the red-maned pony is), and is, IMO, a crutch used by writers to avoid learning proper pronoun usage. It also really kills the flow of a fight sequence (see the final chapter of Ciroton's Sunset). Sure, you shouldn't use a character's name too many times, but in most cases, proper pronoun usage means you won't. And names are more invisible to the reader than the writer may think.

>>83901
For dashes:
To punctuate dialogue correctly, dashes indicate where a sentence breaks off, such as when one character interrupts another. Ellipses indicate that the dialogue trails off, such as when one character is unsure, or does not want to finish the sentence.

Incorrect: "I told him we would break his . . ."
"Quiet," he said. "You don’t know who"s listening."

Correct: "I told him we would break his—"
"Quiet," he said. "You don't know who's listening, or even worse. . ."

------

Well I'll be, you're right, it DOESN'T show that using a period is wrong. However, if you use the process of elimination, you WILL see that they don't use periods in direct transitions from dialogue to exposition.

Here's another link that shows it: http://www.writing-world.com/fiction/dialogue.shtml

>Mark pointed at the sky. "It's going to rain."

Here there are two separate actions, treated as two separate sentences. So you punctuate them as such, the only difference being that Mark's speech is indicated by being enclosed in quotation marks.

What if you want to make sure the reader knows Mark is speaking by including a dialog tag? If you're adding a straightforward tag like "he said," "Mark whispered," or "shouted Mark," that's part of the sentence, so you include it in the sentence with a comma:

>"It's going to rain," Mark said.

>Mark pointed at the sky and whispered, "It's going to rain."

>>83906
Yes, I noticed the comma issue as well. The flow seems to be off and I found myself regularly reorganizing sentences in my head so that they sounded better. The best thing for you to do would be to read it out loud and listen for the natural places where you take a shorrt pause or breath in.

Usually, I support LUS, as I'm a fairly purple guy. Like I said, though, it should be used in moderation or when you have to differentiate between the characters (IE you have Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash in a scene. Obviously, just using "The pegasus" would confuse the reader [Unless, of course, the dialogue told you who was speaking through mannerisms or otherwise]).
They add variety, the spice of life. Too much or too many spices, though, and it just becomes an unappetizing mish-mash of conflicting flavours, if my analogy makes any sense.

>>83907
Honestly, I think LUS is a powerful tool that should not be overused. It zooms the reader out from the fic and has them regard the characters on a less intimate level. That can be use for great effect, and I hate to see it wasted on "I'm tired of writing out these names!"

On that note, Skirt's LUS impresses me when he uses it to show/reinforce how aspects of the three different versions of the last pony bleed into one another (like when Harmony uses wasteland scavenger skills in the Pinkie Pie arc).

So I'm not as against the practice as I like to say, but I really don't think it should be used lightly or on a whim.

MY BODY WAS NOT READY!

Seriously, though. I have software of my computer that is dedicated to editing stories for grammar and spelling. If you want to email me the word doc of the story, I'd be more than happy to run it through for you and send it back.

>>83933

Oops, forgot my email:

theharbingern@gmail.com

Hope to hear from you, Conner.

So when's the next chapter going to be put up?

When it's ready I have to assume?

First off, I wanna apologize. My writing mojo has been zapped for a rather long time. And now that I finally have something, it's not even all that much.

Still, I hope that you'll all enjoy what little there is. I'm still chugging along. The only thing I can promise, is that I won't take nearly as long to produce the next chapter.

Hope you all enjoy.

Part Two: Mum's the Word.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1O4YNAvTX9e7otaW873vT20UVTyNuRll8T2LOkP-21_o/preview

>>97135
HAHAHA YES YES YES MY PONIES ARE HERE

>>97135
You might want to consider making a second version with commenting enabled. There were several spots that I wanted to bring to your attention, but not so much as to bother copying/pasting them into here.

In either case, refer to this: >>83799
Most of the general problems I noted here are still an issue. Frankly, it's dissapointing and more than a little insulting that you ignored my previous critique and made them again anyways. These aren't subjective, stylistic errors; you're making flat-out wrong mistakes, ones that are more simple than Sweetie Belle to fix.
Son, I am dissapoint.

I recently wrote a long ranty article about Lavender Unicorn Syndrome. The gist of it is that anyone who tells you to replace names with descriptions to avoid repetition is ignoring a problem of sentence structure repetition which no amount of descriptors will solve. If you vary your sentences enough and use pronouns properly, you'll be able to get away with only referring to characters by names and pronouns 95% of the time.

http://eznwords.tumblr.com/post/21010451863/ellyewess

As for dialogue punctuation, well, you putting full stops before "said Pony" is exactly the same as me doing this:
>The boy kicked. The ball.

Here's a writing guide I wrote: http://derpy.me/EznGuide

I don't consider myself any kind of authority, but I do know a few things. Please take a look at the section on grammar. This stuff isn't hard if you just take a bit of time to learn the basics.

Like yourself, I am in no capacity a professional writer, but if I can do it, so can you. These are small things that will make your writing so much nicer to read.

Sorry for sounding like a broken record, but dialogue punctuation errors and Lavender Unicorn Syndrome are my pet peeves.

>>97175
You want it. You will get it.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/17PETD-9XkLBm-G4JRSD54v-tAJ1KapMbn0wCbeKieJ8/edit

That version is commentable as far as I know. It is 12:37, past my bedtime, and I see this, so I apologize if I seem short. But if you're still seeing errors, then I invite you to point them out to me because obviously I am as blind as a bat.

I'm going to read this again in the morning and regret it, I'm sure.

>>97669
To be frank, your story isn't enticing enough for me to read twice. Make a doc with commenting for the next chapter and we'll see. However, Ezn seems to have done a much better job than I could have anyways, so you're in luck.

>>97680
Aww, but he made a copy just for you (and Ezn).