The Talk (short story)

[InterNutter]

Posted over on the sister site. Submitted to Equestria Daily [no word back, alas]. And now posted here.

Next: Tumblr!

...I feel like such an attention hog, sometimes.

Spoiler:

[Linguz]

EqD will reply within the next few hours that it's too short. 2500 words is their minimum for a one shot.

Immediately: Do not shove a southerner's accent down the pony's throats.
The rest of it is a lot easier to read.
Now for Grammar Nazi:
> Nellie isn't capitalized. Line 4.
> "She got herself so flustered..." sounds kinda rough, don't you think? How does one get themselves flustered?
> Borned is double past tense... and incorrect... I can't see Applejack making that mistake just because she's southern.
> Filly isn't capitalized. Line 14.
>"...sniff..." missing space after the fire ellipsis.
Very good for the rest of it, except the only plot is Applebloom asking a question so... not much plot.

[InterNutter]

Thanks for the critique. And thanks for the word count. I shall address the crits in order [Heh, I just invented that short form and it already sounds right. Partway between critique and critical hit to my ego ;)]

Dialect: I used it to avoid using names with every paragraph, and mentally set the scene. Even in a short story it can get tiresome to do he said, she said.
Capital Nellie: Okay, now I know better - how do I teach my fargnaxing autocorrect?
Flustered: You're the elder of a little kid with no parents around, asking where she came from. She's the equivalent of 5 years old. You're late-teens to early-adult. Would you *not* get flustered?
Borned: I dunno... I used it for flavour and it... *felt* right. Applejack strikes me as the street-smart [or farm smart] kinda girl. She doesn't like fancy mathematics and she probably doesn't like fancy speaking, either.
Capital Filly: I had though, as a term of address or title, I could get away with that. Fixing.
Lack of space: I can fix that.
No plot: I didn't want one. You can have a story without a plot. Heck, it's a genre: PWP, short for "Plot? What Plot?" Silly short stories [longer ones tend to acquire a plot] with little more than a theme to them. They're fun.

[Linguz]

I shall answer your answer 'cause that's what I do.

Dialect: I didn't mean the entire dialect. I meant the AMOUNT of dialect. You don't need to change how each word is said to produce the dialect, only a few.

Nellie: I'm guessing that it's a proper name. Searched it up on google and it seems that it might usually by "nelly" instead of "nellie."

Borned: It's not fancy speak either. Born is the past tense of birth.

Filly: No you can not. Under no circumstance should it be capitalized unless it is the first word in a sentence or a proper noun.

I have no problem with no plot stories. Heck, if you make enough that they get to 2500 words, you could probably get it into EqD. Titled "Inter Nutter's Short Shorts" or something like that.

[InterNutter]

I toned down the dialect and got rid of "borned" since it seemed to be sticking in your craw.

[Linguz]

2 things:

1) Thanks. When I read it with "borned" I read "bored" instead. You don't want to incorrectly spell a word for the sake of spelling it incorrectly which is basically what you were doing.

2) When you've got more (if you'll be making more that is) I suggest putting it into a google document (if it's not already on one) and go to ponychan.net's fic area and asking a reviewer (or put it on the training grounds) for a review mostly on grammer and general thoughts. All I know about grammer comes from when I was submitting my fic (which is on indefinite hiatus) over there.

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