Pokecache

[farla]

Essay yesterday, exhaustion today...some god *really* likes LilyPichu, who's gotten another stay of execution. I know better than to try to read stuff like that when I'm this tired.

But, because this just happened I sorta want to update about it, in case it vanished again. Then I go to sleep again.

So. Pokecache. I mentioned it a while back. It's claims to be dedicated to the best OT stories and there were only two in the beginning, neither of which really challenged that (I don't much like Raven: Emerald Fist MS but it's certainly decent as OT stories go) Anyway, back in October, it updated with some pretty mediocre looking stories, On the Wings of Council V2 and The Johto League. I check the page, and the charter has changed to talk about how if you want your story there, email a staff member to check it out, and to rave about how they have the best OT stories, and that people who get on the list are just awesome.

Oh, yeah. Also, the writer of The Johto League (Summary: Holly Evergreen is a trainer from New Bark Town about to start her pokémon journey. But when she saves Gary Oak’s life and meets a talking Meowth on the run, she gets a bit more than she bargained for. ... yeah) happens to be Celebi, who coincidentally happens to be one of the staff members.

I think that it's a shame, Pokecache seemed like a good idea but now it's just going to degenerate into a clique of writers boosting their own egos. And then I check back there the next day and notice that both of the new stories have been deleted and the new charter was gone, replaced with something saying how it was for good OT stories and listing as one of the requirements that it was something other than just the typical badge route.

I think, hm, dissent among the ranks.

Then nothing happens for a month. November passes.

Today the charter has changed again, back to the same sort of thing,
(A collection of the best trainer fics the staff can find!

All of these have good grammar and spelling, proper paragraphing, full effort from the authors, interesting events and wellrounded characters. If you think your fic belongs here too, contact one of the staff members!)
and On the Wings of Council V2 and The Johto League are back again, as are four new stories, Tangled Web, Heat Of The Snow, Clouded Sky and The Quest for the Legends. Now, Tangled Web is a decent, original OT story, as is Clouded Sky. However...Heat Of The Snow contains a sue that makes dear Zanna Taru's Zara look restrained, a Humor/Action/Adventure genre, and generally crappy writing (as the fact she can't capitalize her own title properly suggests) with an immensely poor grasp of grammar. And The Quest for the Legends contains one of the more poorly thought out plots I've had the experience of seeing, with the particular flaw of having said poorly thought out plot benefit the character more often than not.

So I think there's some sort of disagreement within the C2 over what sort of stories should be there. (One suspects there may be staff member removals if this continues...) Anyway, readers, watch and see what happens. Will Pokecache promote good OT stories or will it just be used as a cheap badge of respectability for those in charge and their friends?

Comments

Re: I just can't stop bothering you, can I?

[(Anonymous)]

I originally thought of the inter-Pokéball transfer when people started saying they'd love to be able to move their Pokémon between Pokéballs on the games. Admittedly it is a sorry excuse for a solution, so I do see your point now that you mention it, but still; after all, he pocketed the Clone Ball afterwards. I might make some plot twist out of that. In fact, I'll probably have to, since it's there like it matters. This is the way I work. I make stupid mistakes, then turn them into plot twists. Sure, despite being covered up they might still be plot holes - but to somebody who reads the entire thing without knowing, it doesn't appear to be a holy plot that got filled up later. Poorly thought out? Maybe, but that's what works. Almost all of my good ideas sprout from plot holes, because I tend to be creative when I make up reasons and twists from old 'mysteries'. No plot holes, no ideas. Seems lousy, I know, but doesn't look like it to somebody who reads the entire thing.

As for reviewing chapter one not helping chapters two to sixteen - in my case it will, because I'm revision-obsessed. I've done at least three tweaks of it just since I started posting it at FF.Net, the latest of which isn't up yet since it's still in progress. I don't change the basic plot - admittedly one revision out of these seven in all so far moved events around and did some tweaks to the things that happened because they just made no sense, but that was only for things that just didn't work - but being alerted of a plot hole will make me think of twists for later on, and if you do tell me that my battles are poorly described or that a scene is too long, etc., I will edit it in the next revision unless I'm either unable to or seriously disagree. And seriously disagreeing is not just small protests, because I usually end up changing stuff that I mildly disagree with either way to be at least more to the reviewer's taste even if not fully meeting up with his or her expectations. A serious disagreement in this case would mean that it would have to be entirely opinion-based and I would have to have thought about it and decided I'd rather have it my way.

But as I said, you don't need to review if you really don't want to. It's just that I'd be very thankful and definitely consider every word you say for the next revision. If you do review, I'd like it e-mailed.

Thanks immensely in advance, and again, I want to emphasize that I'm not forcing you to do anything.

Re: I just can't stop bothering you, can I?

[farla.livejournal.com]

Thing is, once you read stories long enough, you're able to pick out places where there are plot holes, or extraneous subplots, or stuff that was forgotten and then remembered a while later. To give you an idea, I'm starting see that kind of thing in published novels. Once you get used to it, it's not that hard.

I remember a few years ago reading the introduction to Speaker for the Dead where the author talked about the trouble he'd had writing it. Among other things, he mentioned how he kept forgetting about one character's children for hundreds of pages at a time, and how he kept trying to revise but it wasn't working. At the time, I remember thinking it didn't matter if he forgot they were there because the reader wouldn't notice. It was only a good deal later, after reading and writing far more myself, that I realized they would.