NaRe, Day One
Dec. 1st, 2009 06:33 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
farlaOkay, so I'm posting.
If someone wants to try playing good cop, best of luck. But don't take this as encouragement to dogpile them, that kind of thing doesn't help.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5445131/1/Prepared_For_Trouble
That was terrible. You just changed a couple of words, in the process making sure the lines no longer scan properly.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4955202/1/Elite
"Custructive critisism is alright, but I'd rather the reviews posted weren't too discouraging... I'm Kinda sensative in some aspects."
You'd have better luck with that if there weren't misspellings in your author's note. And if you didn't capitalize random words. Crappy writing before I even hit your story is not going to make my review nicer. If you're trying this into your story after uploading, either learn to write it into the document instead, or copy-paste it into a Word file and spellcheck, or download Firefox or some other browser that comes with spellcheck.
Dialogue is written as "Hello," he said or "Hello!" he said, never "Hello." He said or "Hello." he said. The only exception to this is if the next sentence doesn't contain a speech verb, in which case it's written as "Hello." He grinned, never "Hello," he grinned.
"The television, dimming in color, blared"
What does dimming in color have to do with the fact the sound is high? Why would it dim in color at all?
"roar of the small crowd jostled"
I'm pretty sure roar is a sound and so can't jostle anyone.
"artificial lipstick"
As opposed to natural lipstick?
"Glancing away from the television, mom was nearby"
And? Your writing is nothing but a series of disconnected phrases. What does any of this have to do with each other?
When used in place of a name, it's written Mom, not mom. It's only in constructions like my/her/the mom that it's written as such.
"I muttered, insincerely."
"She effortlessly responded."
"Her interest surpassed mine in a matter of milliseconds, as could be expected."
For fuck's sake, just use "said". It's not going to bite you. You don't even need to be putting stuff at the end of every line of dialogue in the first place because there are only two speakers.
Also, while it's admittedly hard to notice over how incredibly irritating everything about your purple prose is, this is also pretty boring. An opening should have something actually going on.
"dull, crusaded green eyes"
What?
"His attempts were a little too clashed with his haughty personality. His chestnut hair spiked like it usually did, and his eyes formed a nearly translucent confidence."
I officially give up. This is nonsense.
In conclusion, Jesus Christ don't try to write a couple miles above your actual ability because you think that makes you look smart. It doesn't. Coherency is more important than looking special.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5549410/1/A_Simple_Teardrop_Binds_Us
Write out numbers with letters, especially for things like age.
"This story will be told in a flashback format. This takes place 4 years ago in the Hall of Origin. (Character's Name - Age) means it's a current time character telling a flashback about themselves."
No, that looks hideous. It's best to avoid any sort of tag as much as possible. If your character is meant to be narrating about four years ago, you don't need to say his current age, have him babble, then when he starts talking about four years ago put in another annoying break with his age then. You can just have him narrate. That's all. Simple.
Alternatively, if he's only going to be talking about the story in short bursts, you can just italicize that.
Alternatively, you can remove it entirely, because it's generally unnecessary and just serves to screw up any suspense.
You wouldn't capitalize animal or mouse, so you shouldn't capitalize words like pokemon or pikachu. The only time you should capitalize it is if you're using it as the pokemon's name, ie, Ash's pikachu is called Pikachu. A similar thing applies to the term legendary.
"I simply stated to myself"
He what? I've been staring at this trying to figure out what the hell "simply stated" could mean, and no matter how I look at it it still doesn't make sense. Adding in extra words to sentences doesn't make your writing better, especially when their addition makes no sense instead of just being unneeded, like in garden-variety bad writing. More, people generally just say things. Stated is for when they're doing something specific, and when someone's rambling with gratuitous use of ellipsis, they're most definitely not doing any stating.
"I know what you're thinking...why am I complaining when I must be the luckiest person alive? I mean, it's true...very few people get to see the Legendaries, let alone live alongside them. The answer to that question is not as simple as you may think... "
THE ELIPSIS IS NOT A SUITABLE SUBSTITUE FOR A PERIOD. STOP IT NOW.
"The major ones that I have to avoid are Darkrai (He tries to torture me through Nightmares), Giratina (Likes to mess around with my life span...don't ask), and Dialga (...Okay...I can't tell why she's pissed at me.) "
What the hell? "This one bothers me, and this is how it does it. This other one bothers me, and this is how it does it. This third one bothers me, but I don't know why." One of these things is not like the other, one of these things makes no sense whatsoever in the same paragraph because it's on a completely separate train of thought.
"they really do stick out from the mob of Legendaries that're always trying to kill me. "
I must have missed how nightmares = trying to kill someone. There's kind of a difference between enjoying hurting someone and trying to kill them. Not that it would make emo kid here any less whiny-annoying, but he could at least figure out what he's whining about.
Also, unless I'm confused, I'm pretty sure that if the average legendary pokemon is trying to kill a human, they just step on them and then emo kid is dead. There is no try involved.
"Who do you suppose set up a coup against me led by Giratina in order to try and get rid of me? "
So in sum:
Some legendaries enjoy having him around to torture him. Except they're trying to kill him (and somehow failing). Except that actually they're just trying to get rid of him, but emo kid won't take a damn hint and leave. Now, as sympathetic as I am to wanting emo kid gone by any means, this is painting the legendaries as utterly incompetent, and either unforgivably stupid or inexplicably depowered given that they should just step on him and be done with it.
In sum, you seem to just have this character whining without any coherency on what he's whining about, because the three things in the paragraph above all conflict.
Oh, and the bit about how Arcues' real name is something else is inane and pointless.
I'm too bored and annoyed by emo kid to continue, so I'll end this review here.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5442817/1/Marinas_Journey
"Hey guys this is my first story on fanfiction! GO EASY!!!"
HahahahaNO.
Don't use multiple punctuation marks.
"Any way it’s about a 11 year old girl have a freak accident and waking up to be ash’s sister!!!!!"
It's "anyway".
Write out numbers with letters, especially for things like age.
Capitalize names.
Include all necessary words in a sentence, not just most of themselves. In addition, pay some attention to tense.
Don't write retarded mary sues.
Oh, and since you shouldn't put author's notes in the story, you have no need of a key to tell us that bold means author's notes.
Given how much fail we've just hit, I'm not even going to bother with the story.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5382701/1/Untitled
Don't open with a long and unnecessary list of exactly what a character looks like and what the character is wearing.
Dialogue is written as "Hello," he said or "Hello!" he said, never "Hello." He said or "Hello." he said or "Hello," He said. The only exception to this is if the next sentence doesn't contain a speech verb, in which case it's written as "Hello." He grinned, never "Hello," he grinned or "Hello," He grinned.
If you're writing scenes that have nothing to do with how the canon cast acts, you're writing original fiction that belongs on fictionpress.
Mind, if your scenes are nothing but a long string of tired cliches, it's arguable that you're even writing.
"It was a really romantic sight to behold."
I LOLed. I kind of want to say show don't tell here, but that's really the least of your issues.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5549640/1/The_Best_Starter
Huge text blocks are bad writing. You don't just make new paragraphs at random when you think your current chunk is getting too big.
"Nick Silver was the world's best Pokemon trainer... Or, at least, he would be, eventually. Ever since he saw his first pokemon league championship at age 5, he had looked forward to the day that he could become a trainer."
This is a boring opening rehashing stuff a thousand other fanfics have already said. If there's anything worthwhile about your story, start it there instead of telling people that this is yet another poorly written fic about some random trainer.
Do not use the same formatting for thoughts as dialogue. Ever.
"This dream has had its setbacks, like when the age requirement was increased from 10 to 16 "
Speaking of things everyone does and are a bad idea, this is another one. If you want to write about a sixteen year old, just start with an established trainer. Don't change random bits of the setting because it's just that important your sue is the right age for you to properly live through them.
You wouldn't capitalize animal or mouse, so you shouldn't capitalize words like pokemon or pikachu. The only time you should capitalize it is if you're using it as the pokemon's name, ie, Ash's pikachu is called Pikachu.
"landed prone (face down) on the ground"
I hate you for assuming I'm even stupider than you.
I'll stop here, because this is boring and the formatting makes it even more of a chore to read than otherwise.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5002816/1/Pokemon_Nishi_Region
I'm currently reading through the category. I feel you should know that to have proper context for when I say your inane opening was worst idea I've seen so far. What, exactly, made you think it was such a clever idea to write something as indescribably pointless as "On the road (Hayley running on the road)"?
I do give you credit for at least having her start at ten, though.
"He would be twenty now, she hoped that she’d meet up with him sometime in her journey."
Uh, if he's her beloved brother, why has she failed to make any other attempt to contact him? I can believe that it might not be possible, given Team Rocket/how much he's traveling/that he probably avoids being identified, but I'd expect her to have tried, not just figured that when she left on her journey she might run into him by chance. And if she did try and fail, she'd think it might be hard to get in contact with him, that something weird might be going on, and that meeting up with him would probably require more effort than wandering around as a trainer.
"She came to a large fallen tree and tried to jump it. It almost cost her, her life. She fell and fell off the cliff she been running along."
Just say she slipped. Seriously. When you're doing something contrived, you want to attract as little attention to this as possible.
"She screamed an ear-piercing scream"
Redundant.
"Hayley opened her eyes and gasped, she was riding on the back of the Legendary Pokemon, Raikou!"
This is so not a good idea.
Look, I'm not going to say you absolutely can't have legendaries showing up, or rescuing your character. But you're going to have to put a lot of work into it to not look like it's there to show off how terrible special and sueish your character is.
Incidentally, you wouldn't capitalize animal or mouse, so you shouldn't capitalize words like pokemon or pikachu. The only time you should capitalize it is if you're using it as the pokemon's name, ie, Ash's pikachu is called Pikachu. The same goes for capitalizing legendary.
"Hayley had never heard of any Legendary doing this, so she just held on tightly. "
a) What, running? That's like their whole thing
b) If what you were trying to say is saving people, no, some legendaries are all about rescuing people, and I mean both "they do" and "it's common knowledge they do". Hell, this is first-gen canon - why's Blaine a fire type trainer? Because he says Moltres saved him.
c) The whole legendary thing is because they're basically mythical, as in, people know very little. This is like someone making a big deal over the idea that Bigfoot is eating leaves because they've never heard of him doing this. People have barely heard of legendaries even existing, so it's not a big deal if you haven't heard of them doing something in particular.
d) Your characters should not be pointing out how little sense your story is making, as this serves only to attract your readers' attention to the fact.
Okay, look. I know you've got some sort of plot-related reason for Raikou. How good of one remains to be seen and I maintain you're not doing a good job with it, but I can see what you're doing.
There is, however, no reason to add to the contrivance by having her get dropped off at a town devoted to electric types. There isn't any desperately plot-related reason for the legendary pokemon that just saved her to, by coincidence, happen to drop her off at a electric-focused town, nor would it make the slightest bit of sense to assume that he did it on purpose just because you thought it'd be cute. Moreover, it's not even like you did it in the hopes of justifying her getting a pichu, since the starters offered are still a mix of types. So it's utterly pointless and just serves to further highlight how stuff is happening because you feel like it.
"Miles away in the Sinnoh Region.
James woke up with a start and breathed heavily. What a strange dream. A girl that looked like his baby sister had fallen from a cliff and Raikou had saved her. James couldn’t shake the feeling that it really happened and he wondered if it meant something about his sister, if it even was her. He hadn’t seen her in seven years, so he had no idea what she looked like now. He lay back down and tried to go back to sleep."
Everything about this is unnecessary and forced. Cut it.
"She browsed through the clothes and finally selected her traveling outfit and very special outfit."
People need more than one outfit for traveling. Also, even if she stole a reasonable chunk of money from her family before going, she shouldn't have so much she can afford to blow some on some extra special outfit, and also, I don't care how much you want to dress up your sue, if she hates her family's obsession with appearance and normally wears plain clothing, she is not going to want to buy a "very special outfit" in the first place.
Oh, and if they're so mean why didn't they just throw away her plain clothing so she had nothing else to wear but the fancy stuff? It's not like they couldn't keep buying new outfits if she got them dirty.
Once she’d paid for her purchases she went to the Pokemon Centre and changed. She then went to the front desk in her new clothes, which consisted of a light purple long-sleeved jacket over a short-sleeved yellow shirt with black markings, light purple shorts and white socks and sneakers with black and yellow markings. Her long brown hair with blue bangs and blue streaks was pulled back by a yellow headband. Her yellow and black backpack was packed with all the essentials for a journey."
This is never a good idea. A long infodump of what a character looks like is boring. Here, it's extra bad because, as I said above, she shouldn't be acting like clothing is important to her. You even say she doesn't think clothing is important. Yet the narration is going on about what color it is, not whether or not it's warm or comfortable or has pockets or is waterproof or anything at all relevant and that she should actually care about.
And blue? Seriously? She doesn't care about what she looks like, but she dyes her bangs?
No, Nurse Joy don't give out starters. If you're in anime canon, it's professors. If you don't want to go to a professor, she could do something like ask Nurse Joy if the pokemon center, which does keep unwanted pokemon at times, had any pokemon for adoption. This would additionally mean I wouldn't complain about the next part:
"we have Seedot, Magby, Buizel and a Pichu"
See, the starters are starters for a reason. They're usable. Baby pokemon are absolutely terrible fighters - I know because I actually tried playing the game with a team of babies, and it was a disaster, because they've made by taking pokemon that are already set at a normal baseline and making them even weaker. Now, you could argue that you're not intending for strict adherence to stats, but in that case the fact they're, you know, baby pokemon should be an issue. Buizel is from fourth gen, so it's odd it'd be found anywhere near where she lives, and seedot is absolutely impossible to use as a starter. Seriously.
Now, the idea that a pokemon center might have baby pokemon hanging around without owners, as well as weak pokemon and pokemon from completely different areas is totally plausible. The idea this is part of some system for handing out starters is what's ridiculous here.
Moreover, you're once again not really paying attention to the fact this girl isn't entirely your own OC to play with, but is supposed to fit into an existing area of canon. Now, we know they kept a pet growlithe, and that Jezebel had a grass type. So if the backstory has anything to do with her current personality, you'd think it would enter into her thought processes in some way. Not that she absolutely has to try to get a growlithe, but that she has reason to want a fire type, and wanting a pokemon that's terrible against grass is downright bizarre.
In fact, writing this, it occurs to me that really you should have just said she had a pet pichu that she took with her, as that'd avoid dealing with this whole section.
"“What!” said Joy and the Seedot, Buizel and Magby let out cries of rage at the freak Pokemon being chosen over them. "
Please stop trying to make her picking a popular pokemon look like some noble awesome thing she did. Especially when by "freak" you mean "is an extra-special sue pokemon that looks special".
Finally, if Nurse Joy doesn't think people would want or pick a pichu, why does she offer it? Especially when starter picks are normally only supposed to include three options in the first place?
"She got looks from everyone because of Sparks and the poor Pichu was scared but Hayley just told him to ignore them, he was perfect the way he was. "
I made it through the whole story without even slightly disliking your character, despite the whole canon character relative/saved by legendary/special outfit business. But in a few short lines of you trying to show how nice she is, you have made me absolutely loathe her.
Do not try to set up your character as nice by making everyone else act inexplicably antagonist and stupid. Never do it after handing your character something you made up to be extra special because an ordinary thing wasn't good enough for your precious sue.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5472545/1/The_Rising_of_a_Champion
"When it once again was dark, I tried to find a sign of life."
How exactly would you do this? If you can't see anything, and then there's light, and then you wait until you can't see anything again...
I mean, are they looking around despite the fact they can't see anything, or are they doing something (calling/listening/stumbling around)?
"Then, a scene of a graveyard came in front of me."
What? Is a graveyard appearing in front of them, or is some sort of distinct area of the darkness replaced with a flat image, or are they finding themselves in a graveyard, and how does this fit with the whole so-dark-they-can't-see business? Is it still dark behind them, or is it getting brighter allowing them to see the graves, or what?
I mean, I assume you're going for dream imagery here, but that means you have to work at describing, you can't just throw up the bare bones of a scene and expect the reader to do all the work.
"the engravings on the grave"
You want to avoid reusing the same word sounds, even if it's technically a different thing. Here, "writing" would have worked better.
Also, really, seeing your own name on a tombstone is both a rather cliche concept, and not actually that horrifying. "Oh no, I'm dreaming of...a perfectly nonthreatening tomb that happens to indicate I am dead! But I'm still fine here reading it, and no one's trying to stuff me in and I'm not looking down to see I'm rotting or anything else that would actually be horrifying. Because my worst nightmare is to either be falsely declared dead and buried in absentee/discovering that after death I will go on existing in a perfectly ordinary manner.
I mean, really, it's not like Scrooge is simply all "OMG I SEE MY OWN TOMB I REPENT".
(Oh yeah, and reading in dreams actually functions pretty weirdly, so you missed an opportunity to actually indicate this is supposed to be running on dream imagery as I mentioned above. Given that this is the more charitable interpretation of how choppy and nonsensical this is so far, you really should make it clear.)
(Oh, and dammit, haven't you ever seen an actual gravestone? They don't say just "Name/Died Whenever.")
"I uttered to the strange cloaked man"
Uttered? Seriously? You don't get bonus points for mangling rarer speech tags. Said or asked would be fine here.
NEVER WRITE DIALOGUE AND THOUGHTS THE SAME WAY. EVER.
Dialogue is written as "Hello," he said or "Hello!" he said, never "Hello." He said or "Hello." he said or "Hello," He said. The only exception to this is if the next sentence doesn't contain a speech verb, in which case it's written as "Hello." He grinned, never "Hello," he grinned or "Hello," He grinned.
Which, minus the " that you shouldn't be using for thoughts, is also how you should be punctuating thoughts.
"I gazed at the large Pokémon egg beside my table. I had rescued that egg from the evil clutches of Team Toxic. They were murmuring something about using the Pokémon from that egg and turning it to evil and wreaking havoc and all kinds of junk. I was out walking with my mother’s Eevee. With the help of Eevee I battled a grunt and stole that egg. I’m surprised I won my first Pokémon battle. When that egg would hatch it would be my first Pokémon! "
Okay, so I often say that I wish people would begin the story at an interesting point, instead of making us start at the very beginning before anything at all had happened. But that doesn't mean skipping over something interesting counts. You're still opening with a subtle-as-a-sledgehammer prophetic dream followed by boring new character waking up.
Plus, god, that is a horrible mush of cliches.
Oh, and you wouldn't capitalize animal or mouse, so you shouldn't capitalize words like pokemon or pikachu. The only time you should capitalize it is if you're using it as the pokemon's name, ie, Ash's pikachu is called Pikachu.
"I forgot to introduce myself. My name’s Alicia. I’m a twelve year old who always wanted to be a Pokémon Master and Coordinator. I live in Lilycove in the Hoenn region. I have a lot of friends here but I am ready to leave them and begin my quest. I am 5 feet and 2 inches tall and weigh 93 pounds. I have grey eyes and golden-brown hair. Well that is enough for my introduction."
Don't infodump.
Trainers start at ten.
Twelve year olds are generally not over five feet tall.
People who are over five feet tall are generally not ninety pounds.
Neither of those two facts even need to be brought up.
(If she was the proper height for a twelve year old, you'd have her weight right, incidentally. That's around four and a half feet. She shouldn't be an extra eight inches taller and still weighing ninety pounds, especially for an athletic kid. I'd be bitching less about this if you'd made her mildly overweight rather than a budding anorexic, mind.)
"I went to the bathroom and washed my face. I looked at my clock; 7 a.m. Might as well get up. I dressed up in a parrot green shirt with a black mini-skirt. I tied around a Pokémon belt my waist since I didn’t want to carry a bag along my journey. I took a blue sparkling dress for contests and extra pairs of clothes. My dad is a scientist and created the item shrinker. It shrinks items to a small size and also un-shrinks it. He gave me one for my journey along with a purple Pokénav device. I shrank my clothes and put them in my belt. I put shrinker in a separate pocket and some great balls along with it. I went to kitchen and ate a chocolate croissant from the fridge."
You make me despair of ever managing to actually parody an OT fic.
NONE OF THIS MATTERS. IF SOMETHING INTERESTING IS GOING TO HAPPEN, PUT HER THERE AND THEN START THE STORY.
"Excuse me madam but I never saw you around Lilycove. Are you new?"
"...because obviously I've met absolutely everyone who lives in my city! Because it's not like Lilycove is big or anything! And everyone in Lilycove lives there because we definitely don't have any sort of "hotel" for "visitors"! No one ever comes in to buy stuff from our massive department store or see the contests that take place here or visit our art museum or any other facet of our massive tourism engine, people only show up if they've moved here!"
"Yes dear, I am new but have grown old. Would you like to take this Feebas I caught? Please. It really has no purpose of staying with me."
What.
"I, knowing about Feebas’ shabby appearance, still accepted it."
THEN I NOBLY ACCEPTED AN EEVEE AND A CHARMANDER TOO. BECAUSE IT IS A SIGN OF HOW GREAT I AM THAT WHEN OFFERED AN INCREDIBLY RARE POKEMON THAT EVOLVES INTO SOMETHING INCREDIBLY POPULAR AND POWERFUL FOR FREE, I TAKE IT.
"Suddenly, the Pokémon egg began glowing and a blue Pokémon with a black mask on its eyes and black feet came out. "
Suddenly indeed. This whole story so far is just random events happening to your character.
"I had never seen that Pokémon before and called from my Pokénav. My dad and I were friends of Prof. Birch and called him often."
Or she should just look it up. Or, as an inhabitant of the world, actually recognize a pokemon on her own or something.
"by the way do you know whether Feebas is a strong Pokémon"
So not only does she not know much about, she doesn't even know when they're an incredibly powerful contest pokemon despite living in a town with a huge contest-devoted area and wanting to be a pokemon coordinator?
Even if you didn't take it to such ridiculous levels, this would still be a terrible idea. Because you're writing pokemon fanfic, which means it's getting read by people who know what pokemon are, and don't need to have it all explained to them through a proxy of the most incompetent twelve year old in existence.
Would you say you're going to the Dr's? No? Then don't write "Prof" like it's a synonym for professor rather than a title that goes in front of their name.
"You’re very lucky to receive such a Pokémon as a starter!"
Look, it's bad enough you're doing it, you don't need to turn to the reader and point out what a terrible, sueish decision it was.
"Then I told dad"
When used in place of a name, it's written Dad, not dad. It's only in constructions like my/her/the dad that it's written as such.
"I bade my farewells and head off for my first destination: Fortree City. While walking, her Riolu came out of her Pokéball. It began walking with me. "
So did this start out in third person, or was that a slip? Because really, third person's generally the better idea.
"Behind the tree stood a very timid looking girl. Her hair was pink in colour and she wore a red blouse, a white capri and a black mini skirt above it. She stood there and stared at me. Suddenly she fainted and fell in my arms. I panicked and took her back to Lilycove where I took her to my house. My mother said she was just scared and fainted. Probably from my Riolu and its powerful Force Palm. When she woke up, I went to visit her. She opened her deep pink eyes. She once again panicked but didn’t faint only began asking questions quickly."
Okay, so my suspension of disbelief has been well and truly strangled. I'll stop my review here.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5540790/1/Majyk_A_Kanto_Adventure
So why did you decide to so horribly mangle the word magic in your title? It doesn't look clever, it looks absurd.
"My name is Juliette Mirror Woods (yes, my middle name is Mirror). But, no one calls me Juliette, or even Julie. I’m better known as Mira (pronounced Mee-rah)."
Okay, you know what? If you find yourself writing a sentence starting with "yes, my whatever is" it's a sign you've done something wrong. You're repeating yourself there because you are, apparently, aware that having her middle name be Mirror is stupid. But then you did it anyway. And having the character insist it's her name doesn't change that it's a stupid name.
Then you go on to establish that not only are you so overattached to this character you gave her a full three names, but she's also got a nickname on top of them.
If you want her called Mira, just call her that. Also, don't tell people how to pronounce the name.
I will, however, give you credit for at saying she's ten, even if she isn't acting at all like she's that age.
"Let me tell you right here and now, I am not pretty. At least, no one ever tells me that I am. They’re always going gaga over Melody, my twin sister. I guess you could say that she’s pretty, very pretty."
Okay, for one thing, insisting your character isn't pretty isn't going to save her. For another, you just established she's a blue eyed redhead, so any claims you weren't intending all along for her to look special are already dead in the water.
"And partly because without me, they’d be known as the Mary Sues."
I assure you little miss Juliette Mirror Woods call me Mira it's pronounced MEE-rah is not helping them out here.
"I’m not popular, and I don’t really have any friends."
Yes, she is. Because she has a hot, smart brother and a pretty sister. Unless those two are using their popularity to hurt her, other kids should have attached to her like leeches just to be near the other two. And no emo whinging about how such people would be "not really her friends" because she'd be getting included in stuff enough that people would end up knowing her and being her friend. She just wouldn't be as popular as they were.
The only way she could be unpopular and friendless is if there's something seriously wrong with her personally.
Oh, and if she doesn't have any friends, how does she have a nickname?
"No more of hearing whispers of “the Woods would be a perfect family without that little girl, Mira” going around among the gossiping old ladies."
NO ONE ACTUALLY CARES THAT MUCH. "Look, she's not a sue because everyone spends all their time talking about her!" is making her more of a sue. Stop it.
"And no more of no one ever understanding what it’s like to be an outcast."
Considering how whiny she is, I'm sure the rest of her family is very familiar with how outcasts feel by now. Again, unless her family hates her, she shouldn't be able to pull this whole nobody loves me everybody hates me I'm gonna eat some worms business. And if her family hates her you'd think she'd be talking more about how they judge her for not looking pretty and less that it's SO UNFAIR TO BE LESS PRETTY THAN THE PRETTY PEOPLE WOE.
"I opened my eyes to see seven year old, Waverly Coast, my only real friend."
Wonder how poor also-absurd-name would feel about how she just said she has no friends? Pretty insulted, I'd guess.
"Even though she’s adorable and a genius for her age, Waverly is also considered an outcast in town. I guess it’s because she’s crazy about taking pictures, especially candid, of everything."
Unlike emo girl, genius kids are often outcast in the sense, as their emotional and intellectual abilities are out of sync, they have trouble relating to people their own age (who are emotionally right but not as bright) yet similar problems with older people (who may be intellectually at the same speed, but are likely infinitely more emotionally mature). It is not for a completely unrelated reason.
Now, if you just want to say kid is outcast because she takes pictures, then for one thing the whole genius bit was unnecessary, and for another, I think you really need to take a look at what outcast means before you go on about it any more.
You wouldn't capitalize animal or mouse, so you shouldn't capitalize words like pokemon or pikachu. The only time you should capitalize it is if you're using it as the pokemon's name, ie, Ash's pikachu is called Pikachu.
Dialogue is written as "Hello," he said or "Hello!" he said, never "Hello." He said or "Hello." he said or "Hello," He said. The only exception to this is if the next sentence doesn't contain a speech verb, in which case it's written as "Hello." He grinned, never "Hello," he grinned or "Hello," He grinned.
"it looked like an ordinary charm bracelet, but it had a sort of purple crystal connected to the gold chain"
And here's the random bling. Look, I get that it's not a pendant, but just because you avoid a mary sue test question on a technicality doesn't actually change the issue.
"Pallet town" should be Pallet Town.
"which is good because, unlike Melody, I wouldn’t have a ride to get my starter."
Why? As I keep mentioning, you have yet to give any indication that her family is mean to her. It's all people-are-mean-because-I'm-less-pretty-that-the-rest-of-my-family.
"Every guy in our class has a crush on her."
Like I said, I'm glad you acknowledged that trainers start at ten, but dear god are these not ten year olds.
"“Hello, Mary Sue.”I replied, earning a scowl from her."
So my theory that the reason Juliette Mirror Woods call me Mira it's pronounced MEE-rah is friendless is really that she's just a jealous, crazy bitch is confirmed. It's nice to see authors writing flawed characters and using unreliable narrators, I must admit.
When not used in place of a name, it's written dad, as in my/her/the dad.
And yep, Mira = crazy. So she apparently just decided that she'd walk, and then when her sister GASP SHOCK actually asks for a ride and gets it, it's a sign her dad favors her sister. Because he should have read her mind while she had her poor me emofest and offered it without her saying anything. And there are only two seats and her father doesn't say that her sister, the one who asked first and actually seems to care about getting a ride will have to walk after all so Mira can take her place when Mira asks if she can get a ride "too". Therefore, Mira is persecuted.
And then she attacks her sister for saying that she's jealous. Clearly the aggrieved party in the matter. How dare her father show concern for the daughter who's just been attacked instead of her? How dare he act like she did something wrong! It's only because she's the pretty one! ONLY BECAUSE SHE'S THE PRETTY ONE!
I can't wait to see how Mira's pokemon journey explodes due to her own neurosis.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5540790/2/Majyk_A_Kanto_Adventure
"Me and Lucy, my Squirtle, who I named after my one and only porcelain doll"
I see her fixation on appearance is only getting worse. (Oh, and it's "I". A way to tell is if you remove the other party in the sentence. That would make it "Me made it to Viridian city that very same day". If "me and Lucy" was at the other end, it'd be correct to use me.)
"As we looked around town, I wondered what job I wanted, to be a coordinater, breeder, or trainer."
Um, I'm pretty sure that simply getting a pokemon and traveling is just being a trainer, maybe a coordinator starting out. I mean, you could be collecting pokemon to breed later, but the basic traveling bit is collecting and beating up pokemon.
"making pretty displays(seeing as I have failed to all my life)"
Oh, I hope she gets roped into this. Her existing issues will only be more interesting once generalized to the idea people hate her not only for not looking pretty, but for not making pretty enough designs. Alternatively, if she's good at it, I'm sure she'll find some way to reinterpret that into confirmation of her existing obsession with not being personally pretty enough.
"Lucy was small, and a kind of greenish blue color. I guess you could say that she was a shiny or something."
I admit, I find this funny. But back to the story, I wonder how her pokemon's different appearance will end up being handled? Will she be jealous her pokemon looks special, or live vicariously through her attractive pokemon, or decide that her pokemon's appearance makes her "outcast"?
"when we heard a cry for help"
Only we find out she heard no such thing. Look, people investigate stuff all the time without it actually containing a cry for help, you could just say she heard sounds of a pokemon battle and went to go see.
"Yeah. Since he likes being out of his pokeball, he won’t evolve. It be strange to have a Golem or Graveler following you around"
Grammatical errors aside, I don't actually see any logical connection between "likes to be out" and "won't evolve". You're going to have to better explain. Are pokemon intelligent, to the point you can explain to them that if they evolve they'll have to stay in their pokeball? (And what would happen if it evolved anyway) Or did he just hand the geodude an everstone since he doesn't want to be followed around by a graveler? (Also, your phrasing makes it sound like geodude can evolve into either golem or graveler. Why is golem even mentioned, especially given it's a trade evolution?)
All in all, an entirely pointless conversation. No plot-relevant stuff is there unless the bit about the Viridian gym is going to come up again (and even that's pushing it, because that's pretty common fanfic knowledge) nor does the conversation intersect Mira's prettiness issues. She doesn't even say anything about whether the boy is properly attractive or not, odd given her fixation.
"I searched around for Pokémon to catch. Unfortunately, the only Pokémon I found was a wild Pinsir who tried to attack us. "
I'm sorry, but I thought this was taking place in Viridian City, not Viridian Forest.
"I ran down the block with the three Pinsirs still after me"
Seriously.
Oh, and bubblebeam? Look, I'm not calling for strict level/move accuracy, but it's still a good idea to pay some degree of attention to it. Making sure to write newbie pokemon as inexperienced with only a couple weak moves is generally a good idea, because it better shows that they are inexperienced, and gives you space to show how they increase in ability over time. Or put another way, squirtle learns bubble before bubblebeam, and once it knows bubblebeam there's little reason to ever show bubble. Skip to the major moves and you make for very repetitive battles.
"Then, the crystal on the bracelet started to glow, and a bright light flashed, blinding my eyes. I grabbed Lucy and huddled next to the brick wall, as the light got brighter. As the light dimmed, I opened my eyes to see all three Pinsir knocked out."
As I said, just because it's a bracelet rather than a pendant doesn't mean there's any meaningful different in terms of sue bling.
"The next morning, my thoughts kept wondering to the previous day’s events as we headed towards Viridian forest"
Uh.
Look, why didn't you just have it take place in Viridian Forest? You could have used the conversation earlier to establish Viridian Forest is full of unusually dangerous pokemon for the area, thus setting up for her attack. Then, when she's nearly killed and only saved by a mysterious power she isn't even sure of and certainly isn't confident will show up next time she's in danger, it won't seem like she's an emotionless zombie when she heads right back out even further from the pokemon center and safety. Instead, you can have the pokecenter scene in Pewter, and have her hanging around there, maybe venturing out to the very edges of the forest from that side if you have any pokemon you want caught in the area, then she can continue on without ever going back in.
"it’s name"
It's means "it is". Its is the possessive, as in, its name.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5540790/3/Majyk_A_Kanto_Adventure
"After finishing my lunch and thoughts, the male (I used my Pokedex to check his gender) Pidgey decided to come with me."
You seriously need to stop going on about stuff like this. She was confused, and now she's figured it out. We don't need to spend all this time on it.
I'm disappointed that, yet again, you're writing this story with little to no description. You mention the pidgey is thin, admittedly, but little beyond that. Does he have ragged, dull feathers (a common result of malnourishment) that make Mira see him as a kindred outcast? Or does he show hints of beauty that makes Mira covet him, or perhaps make her consider the concept that one can start off ugly only to become the most beautiful of all? The ugly duckling is a well known story.
Eh, if the random seven year old can tag along, it ends up begging the question of why Mira didn't leave earlier. It's explainable, but you didn't take the time to do so.
"Her aunt’s pretty cool, and sees me like another niece."
Another chink in Mira's story that she's despised. Interesting.
"I stared at her, happy that I had a human to travel with, but shocked that she actually told a fib. I mean, she looks so cute and innocent; nothing at all like some lying troublemaker."
If she's actually been friends with the girl for a while, you'd think she'd be shocked/not shocked by lying based on the kid's actual personality, not appearance. A sign of Mira's general inability to consider people based on anything but looks, or a sign of Mira's sociopathic lack of regard for others?
Um, not to disparage low level sort of battles, but, having established Trevor as a thirteen year old with badges from other areas, you gave the indication that trainers at a variety of levels were around, and also people like him should be a good deal stronger than newbies. So then seeing him having a geodude vs rattata fight is pretty bizarre - if the other trainer is on a similar level to him, you'd think he'd have a better pokemon to use against a geodude than a rattata, and also that his rattata would be pretty high level and know better moves than scratch. While if he's a newbie, then there's no need for stuff like iron defense - the geodude wins.
Basically, you seem to be treating things as if everyone's at the same newbie level, with only a handful of pokemon, even when you're saying that they're years older and have been through multiple regions.
Also, you really need to work on better describing...well, everything, but it's especially glaring in the battle, where you're barely one step above just "pokemon used move".
"I saw three other people who had also been watching the battle"
Why? With people like Mira and seven year old it's understandable they'd be interested in any pokemon battle. But I find it unlikely that a rattata vs geodude fight was so interesting everyone else was similarly enthralled.
"I used to be a trainer, but now, I just help him work on his techniques."
Uh, explaining how kids can take time off to run around battling pokemon on occasion is hard enough as it is. Adding in older kids who do nothing but follow around those kids for even less purpose makes utterly ridiculous, and only serves to further highlight the existing issues with the regular trainer bit.
"Don’t bore the girls with your time warps"
What?
Anyway, Mira's getting more boring by the minute. She's rapidly reducing to a cardboard cutout wandering through the stage notes for a movie scene.
"We just walked nonstop, and for a while, I was really bored."
For one thing, more bored than all that walking she did before on her own? For another, why doesn't she talk or something if she's bored?
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5540790/4/Majyk_A_Kanto_Adventure
"From this point forward I’m telling the story in third person instead of first person, that way you can see what everyone’s thinking, not just Mira. Anyway, enjoy!"
While I do say that third person is usually the better choice, there are two issues here. For one thing, switching POV in the middle of the story is a terrible idea. For another, even reduced to her current cardboard state Mira is still the only interesting character here, as at least she was interesting and possessing of a personality, more than any of the rest have displayed at any point.
My views on the matter are only confirmed by the fact this chapter opens with a boring argument. Look, your goal here is not to recreate the tedium of camping, it's to tell an interesting story. "Yes you did!"/"No I didn't!" repeated again and again is not that.
"You guys, please don’t fight. We need to work together or something to get through this, I guess"
On second thought, no, Mira is not simply a cutout, she's a pod person violating established characterization. So I guess I retract my earlier bit about her still being mildly interesting.
"“Well, since you’re trainers, you might not want to have to drag us around.”Mira explained. “I’d hate to keep you guys busy.”"
Seriously, the idea that issues girl would be saying this honestly makes me feel sad.
Look, I know you didn't mean for Mira to be interpreted as nutso. But you set her up as having a personality of a sort, and that happened to include a vastly more interesting alternative characterization. Now, you're completely ignoring her character, both the one you established on purpose and the one that actually showed up in the story. Whether or not she was delusional about being an outcast, she should still be displaying some sort of sign of that kind of thing. It's been, what, two days? And already she's just generic trainer #7.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5468622/1/Dawn_of_Something
You wouldn't capitalize animal or mouse, so you shouldn't capitalize words like pokemon or pikachu. The only time you should capitalize it is if you're using it as the pokemon's name, ie, Ash's pikachu is called Pikachu.
Dialogue is written as "Hello," he said or "Hello!" he said, never "Hello." He said or "Hello." he said or "Hello," He said. The only exception to this is if the next sentence doesn't contain a speech verb, in which case it's written as "Hello." He grinned, never "Hello," he grinned or "Hello," He grinned.
"We really don’t need any more Grunts, but we do need a janitor for some rooms"
Uh, given they're a secret evil organization sort of thing, you'd think they'd just be using grunts as janitors.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5549959/1/Westerly
I can't tell if you intended for your writing to be ridiculously melodramatic to better contrast with the absurd, abrupt end, which does lend it an unusual feel. But personally, even if so, it just takes too long to get to the point, especially for such a simple idea. This is the sort of thing that would probably work best as a drabble. Also, there's a good chunk of the writing that crosses the line from purple prose to actual grammar mistakes.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5542102/1/Guess_Its_Christmas_Time
Oh, god.
Look, a lot of dialogue about people talking about something that isn't happening is not interesting. Especially when that dialogue is terribly generic, and violates the way most of the characters' actually talk. I think you could get a cute story out of this, but you'd have to cut out the filler. Also, let's admit it, this is original fiction with pokemon names slapped in. Don't do that.
Dialogue is written as "Hello," he said or "Hello!" he said, never "Hello." He said or "Hello." he said or "Hello," He said. The only exception to this is if the next sentence doesn't contain a speech verb, in which case it's written as "Hello." He grinned, never "Hello," he grinned or "Hello," He grinned.
These rules continue to apply when the speech tag comes before the dialogue. So it's He said, "Hello." but never He grinned, "Hello."
"Ash wined"
It's "whined".
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4648333/1/Pokemon_Survival_Remake
You start off in present tense and change into past. You should really be more careful to just keep to past tense.
You really don't need to go into that much detail about the virtual reality bit, especially since it's not like the detail you give makes it sound any more plausible. It's best glossed over.
Also, "Their release would be with a hugely expensive chamber where only one client could enter at a time and be transformed into digital data "? No. For one thing, if everyone's doing it it can hardly be something like that, and for another, look, you aren't actually being turned into data when you go someplace virtual, okay? That's stupid. You should know that's stupid.
"For example, if a client would be entering a world that did not need any physical changes, such as the gaming title ‘Resident Evil: Global Outbreak’, then they would be transferred to that game at their original state and would rely on wit to survive a zombie apocalypse. But if said client were instead taking on a game such as the title ‘Starfox Galaxies’, then their body would be reformed to an anthro character they would have had to create at the start of the game when they bought it."
Also, could you just think a little, instead of regurgitating a bunch of games you like? Would someone actually want to be represented exactly as they are while playing a game with zombies? If nothing else I'd like my sense of smell turned off. Meanwhile, why exactly would no player want to look like they did just because the game originally had anthromophic characters?Why wouldn't you just let players build an avatar, and maybe for multiplayer stuff give limits? It's like you think up this idea and then absolutely fail to follow through. This whole paragraph can be summed up as "there's this new thing that lets you do stuff exactly the same as before".
(This is without even getting into the fact you seem to think this means actually being there, and trust me, if you're making it seem like physical you is there with all the bits, your brain would snap if someone tried to plug in a fifth limb. If this is a representation of them, they can only make slight changes, if it's not, you need to stop going on about how faithful it is while at the same time acting like you can get fur, mobile ears and a tail without problem. Seriously. Snap. Snap like spun glass into a billion pieces. Absolute best case you would utterly screw your ability to do things like walk because your brain keeps remapping nerves to limbs you don't have. You can't plug extra limbs into your brain like that, and if this is getting layered over like clothing, it's going to be freaky and unpleasant and no one would do it.)
"The Defeat Room was where those that were defeated in a game world were thrown in, quite literally. From almost two hundred feet high, they would fall and return to their normal form and hit the ground in the most painful-looking fashion, yet feel no pain at all, for it was not real. It was very entertaining to watch."
Continuing on our you didn't think this through tour - what, seriously? Plenty of people would have fun doing that, and plenty of other people are terrified of falling. You wouldn't have any sort of system that automatically did this to everyone, no matter how funny you find the idea. Especially not if this is open to kids.
"Whenever I tried to get online in the daylight, I was always playing with either Russians or Koreans, and I didn’t know what the hell they were saying. "
Because digitizing people including their entire brains which basically means ultrafast mindreading is easy, and them making them furries with way different shapes will be no problem, but translating what the damn ruskies are saying is forever beyond us.
And now we've gone back to present tense. Seriously, pay attention.
And they're talking.
And talking.
They won't stop talking.
Talking about stupid, boring things.
Okay, I'm more than halfway to the chapter and you have yet to actually get to anything resembling a plot.
Okay, random vague guy who is vague in the traditional vague manner and wow I don't care. You know if you'd started around here I might have been willing to keep going, but not now.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5534362/1/Pokemon_Jacks_Journey
Okay, I want you to go click on search. Now check how many titles involve the words "pokemon" and "journey". Now change your title.
Paragraphing has rules. You start a new paragraph with a new subject. The goal is not to divide your story up into even blocks.
Also, every time a new person talks you start a new paragraph.
You wouldn't capitalize animal or mouse, so you shouldn't capitalize words like pokemon or pikachu. The only time you should capitalize it is if you're using it as the pokemon's name, ie, Ash's pikachu is called Pikachu. This also applies to pokemon types.
You do know that infamous is not just a way to say extra famous, right?
"A trainer with messy black hair wearing a light gray vest over a black shirt with a white poke ball symbol on the chest along with some blue jeans stood facing the gym"
wondering why on earth anyone needed to know all.
This story is incoherent and incredibly boring. It's just you saying "And then this thing happened" over and over again.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5550169/1/25_Days_Til_Christmas
I'm not sure why you needed a long author's note explaining how you were planning to do one thing but now you're doing something else.
Dialogue is written as "Hello," he said or "Hello!" he said, never "Hello." He said or "Hello." he said or "Hello," He said. The only exception to this is if the next sentence doesn't contain a speech verb, in which case it's written as "Hello." He grinned, never "Hello," he grinned or "Hello," He grinned.
Thoughts should follow similar punctuation and capitalization rules.
"I would bet all of my Pokemon that my mascara is running down my face from the melted mascara"
What?
"Why can’t I just spread wings and fly to the Pokemon Center? "
...because she doesn't have wings? Like the rest of the human race? Seriously, what?
"May ripped her way through the snow"
Uh, no. Snow doesn't rip.
"May knew that walking was way cheaper than taking a taxi to her contest, even if it meant crossing through a few snowy landscapes."
For someone who spent a while walking around the country, she doesn't seem to have any basic understanding of travel or the problems that come up. So not only contrived, but in such a way as to make her an idiot.
"A snow plow came and dumped a massive amount of snow on the side. Great, she thought bitterly. Her short cut field had been turned into a snow deposit for the snow plows!"
...or she could just use the path the snowplows made to cross? And how do you not see massive piles of snow on a flat field? Seriously, have you never seen snow or something?
"If she took that way, her toes were bound to fall off. They were so numb that she could hardly feel them!"
And she wasn't even bright enough to dress properly? Again, it's not like she hasn't been traveling. This kind of thing would only make sense if someone who'd never tried something like this had assumed it'd be easy. Anyone with any experience would not be making the billion screwups she is.
...so what exactly was assist supposed to do? She says to do it, then it seems to copy the move, then she's surprised and it takes her a moment to realize that it's copying the move, so what on earth was she expecting, anyway?
Plus, seriously, she's a moron for thinking that would work out well. That seems like the theme of this fic so far: May does something stupid, is dismayed it works out badly.
But luckily a male has arrived to rescue her from herself!
In sum, this is basically pretty standard and really, the actual pokemon related bit was arbitrary and could be exchanged with anything else. Plus, seriously, you don't rip through snow. You slog.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5532469/1/Pallet_Party_Panic
So basically, original fiction. Mildly homoerotic original fiction I'll grant you, but still, original fiction.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5490375/1/Pokemon_Missingnos_Revenge
Well, that was terrible.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5550179/1/Threes_Company
Lrn2troll.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5550184/1/Changing_Directions
Meh. You don't have purple prose and this seems to actually be about the characters, which is a rare plus, but still, it's readable.
"He just had to make it worse; "
Did you means this to be a colon?
You wouldn't capitalize animal or mouse, so you shouldn't capitalize words like pokemon or pikachu. The only time you should capitalize it is if you're using it as the pokemon's name, ie, Ash's pikachu is called Pikachu.
"Was Dawn a bad trainer? Or an even worse Coordinator? She debated on whether to give up all together; perhaps her mother’s brilliance hadn’t been hereditary after all…"
Mind you, just the fact this seems in character doesn't mean the whole emofest is less annoying.
Dialogue is written as "Hello," he said or "Hello!" he said, never "Hello." He said or "Hello." he said or "Hello," He said. The only exception to this is if the next sentence doesn't contain a speech verb, in which case it's written as "Hello." He grinned, never "Hello," he grinned or "Hello," He grinned.
"He had always been the observant one, it was in his nature. She shot a look of gratitude as best possible through her solemn eyes."
If she so desperately doesn't want to talk, why doesn't she act like an adult and go off by herself, instead of hanging around but getting upset any time anyone tries to interact with her?
Okay, seriously, stop using semicolons. They don't work like that.
If used as a name, the word professor should always be capitalized. When professor isn't being used as a title or in place of a name, it should not be capitalized, as in this sentence. In general, if there's a "the" or similar article in front of it, don't capitalize. If not, do.
It's "Johto".
Pretty sure it should be "Battle Islands".
The start of dialogue is always capitalized, and only one speaker per paragraph.
Okay, your capitalization is steadily deteriorating, as is my will to keep reading this story.
...and now we're using the fancy speech tags and extra long description because we're too good for "said".
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5532448/1/Think_Twice
"The cruel wind clawed at his hair, his face."
This is not only a cliche but it's not even the good kind. No, cold wind doesn't feel like it's clawing at your hair, because when it's that cold, you do not care about your hair blowing around. It's more like knives into your face. Yeah, there might also be some tugging, but mostly you're noticing the bit with the knives and your face. Now wind of a more normal temperature such that your nerves are still functioning, that might claw at hair.
"The apparently harmless white powder wanted to chain his limbs to the frozen ground and keep him there."
Am I the only one who's ever actually been around snow?
First, if the snow is powdery, it's not the snow that's causing the trouble, it's the wind. Second, the kind of snow that prompts this kind of melodrama is heavy snow, that actually does stick to you and make it hard to move, and soaks into your clothing and forms ice crusts on you and all that. I'll grant you that if there are really thick drifts you might run into trouble, but you have yet to describe the ground beyond that it's frozen, and also if it's that windy it should have blown the snow away. Third, you do not have fog at the same time as you have blowing powdery snow. Fog requires wet, still air, not dry, fast moving air.
Look, moving a story at a glacial pace isn't helping verisimilitude, it's just a bit annoying. This was basically your standard prologue that took too long setting up something that remains out of sight.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5550228/1/No_Air_OrangeShipping
"THIS IS MY FIRST SONGFIC !!!"
HERE'S YOUR FIRST REVIEW POINTING OUT SONGFICS ARE BANNED!!! And it's because these stories suck.
Don't start your story with a list of ages, especially when said list is wrong. Misty is older than Ash. Deal with it.
Dialogue is written with quotation marks. That's ". It makes it easier to see. Also, a new speaker means a new paragraph. Also, this is OOC original fiction songfic crap and so I'll be moving on now.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5230274/1/The_Longinus_Directive
You wouldn't capitalize animal or mouse, so you shouldn't capitalize words like pokemon or pikachu. The only time you should capitalize it is if you're using it as the pokemon's name, ie, Ash's pikachu is called Pikachu.
Don't use multiple exclamation marks.
Dialogue is written as "Hello," he said or "Hello!" he said, never "Hello." He said or "Hello." he said or "Hello," He said. The only exception to this is if the next sentence doesn't contain a speech verb, in which case it's written as "Hello." He grinned, never "Hello," he grinned or "Hello," He grinned.
""I placed a part of myself within you all." He said. "There is nothing you can grant me that I do not already require. However, you can help me"
What the hell? Do you even know what these words mean?
And now they're talking. It takes rare skill to make the legendaries OOC within a few lines, and yet, you have succeeded. This is boring and tiresome, so I'm not going to continue.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5550386/1/Auramancer_Chronicles
Paragraphing has rules. You start a new paragraph with a new subject. The goal is not to divide your story up into even blocks.
Also, a new speaker means a new paragraph.
Also, ignoring those two things makes your story unreadable.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5517809/1/I_Hate_You_But_I_Love_You
I want to say some sort of quote about this being all sound and fury signifying nothing, but that'd be a step up, really.
If someone wants to try playing good cop, best of luck. But don't take this as encouragement to dogpile them, that kind of thing doesn't help.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5445131/1/Prepared_For_Trouble
That was terrible. You just changed a couple of words, in the process making sure the lines no longer scan properly.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4955202/1/Elite
"Custructive critisism is alright, but I'd rather the reviews posted weren't too discouraging... I'm Kinda sensative in some aspects."
You'd have better luck with that if there weren't misspellings in your author's note. And if you didn't capitalize random words. Crappy writing before I even hit your story is not going to make my review nicer. If you're trying this into your story after uploading, either learn to write it into the document instead, or copy-paste it into a Word file and spellcheck, or download Firefox or some other browser that comes with spellcheck.
Dialogue is written as "Hello," he said or "Hello!" he said, never "Hello." He said or "Hello." he said. The only exception to this is if the next sentence doesn't contain a speech verb, in which case it's written as "Hello." He grinned, never "Hello," he grinned.
"The television, dimming in color, blared"
What does dimming in color have to do with the fact the sound is high? Why would it dim in color at all?
"roar of the small crowd jostled"
I'm pretty sure roar is a sound and so can't jostle anyone.
"artificial lipstick"
As opposed to natural lipstick?
"Glancing away from the television, mom was nearby"
And? Your writing is nothing but a series of disconnected phrases. What does any of this have to do with each other?
When used in place of a name, it's written Mom, not mom. It's only in constructions like my/her/the mom that it's written as such.
"I muttered, insincerely."
"She effortlessly responded."
"Her interest surpassed mine in a matter of milliseconds, as could be expected."
For fuck's sake, just use "said". It's not going to bite you. You don't even need to be putting stuff at the end of every line of dialogue in the first place because there are only two speakers.
Also, while it's admittedly hard to notice over how incredibly irritating everything about your purple prose is, this is also pretty boring. An opening should have something actually going on.
"dull, crusaded green eyes"
What?
"His attempts were a little too clashed with his haughty personality. His chestnut hair spiked like it usually did, and his eyes formed a nearly translucent confidence."
I officially give up. This is nonsense.
In conclusion, Jesus Christ don't try to write a couple miles above your actual ability because you think that makes you look smart. It doesn't. Coherency is more important than looking special.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5549410/1/A_Simple_Teardrop_Binds_Us
Write out numbers with letters, especially for things like age.
"This story will be told in a flashback format. This takes place 4 years ago in the Hall of Origin. (Character's Name - Age) means it's a current time character telling a flashback about themselves."
No, that looks hideous. It's best to avoid any sort of tag as much as possible. If your character is meant to be narrating about four years ago, you don't need to say his current age, have him babble, then when he starts talking about four years ago put in another annoying break with his age then. You can just have him narrate. That's all. Simple.
Alternatively, if he's only going to be talking about the story in short bursts, you can just italicize that.
Alternatively, you can remove it entirely, because it's generally unnecessary and just serves to screw up any suspense.
You wouldn't capitalize animal or mouse, so you shouldn't capitalize words like pokemon or pikachu. The only time you should capitalize it is if you're using it as the pokemon's name, ie, Ash's pikachu is called Pikachu. A similar thing applies to the term legendary.
"I simply stated to myself"
He what? I've been staring at this trying to figure out what the hell "simply stated" could mean, and no matter how I look at it it still doesn't make sense. Adding in extra words to sentences doesn't make your writing better, especially when their addition makes no sense instead of just being unneeded, like in garden-variety bad writing. More, people generally just say things. Stated is for when they're doing something specific, and when someone's rambling with gratuitous use of ellipsis, they're most definitely not doing any stating.
"I know what you're thinking...why am I complaining when I must be the luckiest person alive? I mean, it's true...very few people get to see the Legendaries, let alone live alongside them. The answer to that question is not as simple as you may think... "
THE ELIPSIS IS NOT A SUITABLE SUBSTITUE FOR A PERIOD. STOP IT NOW.
"The major ones that I have to avoid are Darkrai (He tries to torture me through Nightmares), Giratina (Likes to mess around with my life span...don't ask), and Dialga (...Okay...I can't tell why she's pissed at me.) "
What the hell? "This one bothers me, and this is how it does it. This other one bothers me, and this is how it does it. This third one bothers me, but I don't know why." One of these things is not like the other, one of these things makes no sense whatsoever in the same paragraph because it's on a completely separate train of thought.
"they really do stick out from the mob of Legendaries that're always trying to kill me. "
I must have missed how nightmares = trying to kill someone. There's kind of a difference between enjoying hurting someone and trying to kill them. Not that it would make emo kid here any less whiny-annoying, but he could at least figure out what he's whining about.
Also, unless I'm confused, I'm pretty sure that if the average legendary pokemon is trying to kill a human, they just step on them and then emo kid is dead. There is no try involved.
"Who do you suppose set up a coup against me led by Giratina in order to try and get rid of me? "
So in sum:
Some legendaries enjoy having him around to torture him. Except they're trying to kill him (and somehow failing). Except that actually they're just trying to get rid of him, but emo kid won't take a damn hint and leave. Now, as sympathetic as I am to wanting emo kid gone by any means, this is painting the legendaries as utterly incompetent, and either unforgivably stupid or inexplicably depowered given that they should just step on him and be done with it.
In sum, you seem to just have this character whining without any coherency on what he's whining about, because the three things in the paragraph above all conflict.
Oh, and the bit about how Arcues' real name is something else is inane and pointless.
I'm too bored and annoyed by emo kid to continue, so I'll end this review here.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5442817/1/Marinas_Journey
"Hey guys this is my first story on fanfiction! GO EASY!!!"
HahahahaNO.
Don't use multiple punctuation marks.
"Any way it’s about a 11 year old girl have a freak accident and waking up to be ash’s sister!!!!!"
It's "anyway".
Write out numbers with letters, especially for things like age.
Capitalize names.
Include all necessary words in a sentence, not just most of themselves. In addition, pay some attention to tense.
Don't write retarded mary sues.
Oh, and since you shouldn't put author's notes in the story, you have no need of a key to tell us that bold means author's notes.
Given how much fail we've just hit, I'm not even going to bother with the story.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5382701/1/Untitled
Don't open with a long and unnecessary list of exactly what a character looks like and what the character is wearing.
Dialogue is written as "Hello," he said or "Hello!" he said, never "Hello." He said or "Hello." he said or "Hello," He said. The only exception to this is if the next sentence doesn't contain a speech verb, in which case it's written as "Hello." He grinned, never "Hello," he grinned or "Hello," He grinned.
If you're writing scenes that have nothing to do with how the canon cast acts, you're writing original fiction that belongs on fictionpress.
Mind, if your scenes are nothing but a long string of tired cliches, it's arguable that you're even writing.
"It was a really romantic sight to behold."
I LOLed. I kind of want to say show don't tell here, but that's really the least of your issues.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5549640/1/The_Best_Starter
Huge text blocks are bad writing. You don't just make new paragraphs at random when you think your current chunk is getting too big.
"Nick Silver was the world's best Pokemon trainer... Or, at least, he would be, eventually. Ever since he saw his first pokemon league championship at age 5, he had looked forward to the day that he could become a trainer."
This is a boring opening rehashing stuff a thousand other fanfics have already said. If there's anything worthwhile about your story, start it there instead of telling people that this is yet another poorly written fic about some random trainer.
Do not use the same formatting for thoughts as dialogue. Ever.
"This dream has had its setbacks, like when the age requirement was increased from 10 to 16 "
Speaking of things everyone does and are a bad idea, this is another one. If you want to write about a sixteen year old, just start with an established trainer. Don't change random bits of the setting because it's just that important your sue is the right age for you to properly live through them.
You wouldn't capitalize animal or mouse, so you shouldn't capitalize words like pokemon or pikachu. The only time you should capitalize it is if you're using it as the pokemon's name, ie, Ash's pikachu is called Pikachu.
"landed prone (face down) on the ground"
I hate you for assuming I'm even stupider than you.
I'll stop here, because this is boring and the formatting makes it even more of a chore to read than otherwise.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5002816/1/Pokemon_Nishi_Region
I'm currently reading through the category. I feel you should know that to have proper context for when I say your inane opening was worst idea I've seen so far. What, exactly, made you think it was such a clever idea to write something as indescribably pointless as "On the road (Hayley running on the road)"?
I do give you credit for at least having her start at ten, though.
"He would be twenty now, she hoped that she’d meet up with him sometime in her journey."
Uh, if he's her beloved brother, why has she failed to make any other attempt to contact him? I can believe that it might not be possible, given Team Rocket/how much he's traveling/that he probably avoids being identified, but I'd expect her to have tried, not just figured that when she left on her journey she might run into him by chance. And if she did try and fail, she'd think it might be hard to get in contact with him, that something weird might be going on, and that meeting up with him would probably require more effort than wandering around as a trainer.
"She came to a large fallen tree and tried to jump it. It almost cost her, her life. She fell and fell off the cliff she been running along."
Just say she slipped. Seriously. When you're doing something contrived, you want to attract as little attention to this as possible.
"She screamed an ear-piercing scream"
Redundant.
"Hayley opened her eyes and gasped, she was riding on the back of the Legendary Pokemon, Raikou!"
This is so not a good idea.
Look, I'm not going to say you absolutely can't have legendaries showing up, or rescuing your character. But you're going to have to put a lot of work into it to not look like it's there to show off how terrible special and sueish your character is.
Incidentally, you wouldn't capitalize animal or mouse, so you shouldn't capitalize words like pokemon or pikachu. The only time you should capitalize it is if you're using it as the pokemon's name, ie, Ash's pikachu is called Pikachu. The same goes for capitalizing legendary.
"Hayley had never heard of any Legendary doing this, so she just held on tightly. "
a) What, running? That's like their whole thing
b) If what you were trying to say is saving people, no, some legendaries are all about rescuing people, and I mean both "they do" and "it's common knowledge they do". Hell, this is first-gen canon - why's Blaine a fire type trainer? Because he says Moltres saved him.
c) The whole legendary thing is because they're basically mythical, as in, people know very little. This is like someone making a big deal over the idea that Bigfoot is eating leaves because they've never heard of him doing this. People have barely heard of legendaries even existing, so it's not a big deal if you haven't heard of them doing something in particular.
d) Your characters should not be pointing out how little sense your story is making, as this serves only to attract your readers' attention to the fact.
Okay, look. I know you've got some sort of plot-related reason for Raikou. How good of one remains to be seen and I maintain you're not doing a good job with it, but I can see what you're doing.
There is, however, no reason to add to the contrivance by having her get dropped off at a town devoted to electric types. There isn't any desperately plot-related reason for the legendary pokemon that just saved her to, by coincidence, happen to drop her off at a electric-focused town, nor would it make the slightest bit of sense to assume that he did it on purpose just because you thought it'd be cute. Moreover, it's not even like you did it in the hopes of justifying her getting a pichu, since the starters offered are still a mix of types. So it's utterly pointless and just serves to further highlight how stuff is happening because you feel like it.
"Miles away in the Sinnoh Region.
James woke up with a start and breathed heavily. What a strange dream. A girl that looked like his baby sister had fallen from a cliff and Raikou had saved her. James couldn’t shake the feeling that it really happened and he wondered if it meant something about his sister, if it even was her. He hadn’t seen her in seven years, so he had no idea what she looked like now. He lay back down and tried to go back to sleep."
Everything about this is unnecessary and forced. Cut it.
"She browsed through the clothes and finally selected her traveling outfit and very special outfit."
People need more than one outfit for traveling. Also, even if she stole a reasonable chunk of money from her family before going, she shouldn't have so much she can afford to blow some on some extra special outfit, and also, I don't care how much you want to dress up your sue, if she hates her family's obsession with appearance and normally wears plain clothing, she is not going to want to buy a "very special outfit" in the first place.
Oh, and if they're so mean why didn't they just throw away her plain clothing so she had nothing else to wear but the fancy stuff? It's not like they couldn't keep buying new outfits if she got them dirty.
Once she’d paid for her purchases she went to the Pokemon Centre and changed. She then went to the front desk in her new clothes, which consisted of a light purple long-sleeved jacket over a short-sleeved yellow shirt with black markings, light purple shorts and white socks and sneakers with black and yellow markings. Her long brown hair with blue bangs and blue streaks was pulled back by a yellow headband. Her yellow and black backpack was packed with all the essentials for a journey."
This is never a good idea. A long infodump of what a character looks like is boring. Here, it's extra bad because, as I said above, she shouldn't be acting like clothing is important to her. You even say she doesn't think clothing is important. Yet the narration is going on about what color it is, not whether or not it's warm or comfortable or has pockets or is waterproof or anything at all relevant and that she should actually care about.
And blue? Seriously? She doesn't care about what she looks like, but she dyes her bangs?
No, Nurse Joy don't give out starters. If you're in anime canon, it's professors. If you don't want to go to a professor, she could do something like ask Nurse Joy if the pokemon center, which does keep unwanted pokemon at times, had any pokemon for adoption. This would additionally mean I wouldn't complain about the next part:
"we have Seedot, Magby, Buizel and a Pichu"
See, the starters are starters for a reason. They're usable. Baby pokemon are absolutely terrible fighters - I know because I actually tried playing the game with a team of babies, and it was a disaster, because they've made by taking pokemon that are already set at a normal baseline and making them even weaker. Now, you could argue that you're not intending for strict adherence to stats, but in that case the fact they're, you know, baby pokemon should be an issue. Buizel is from fourth gen, so it's odd it'd be found anywhere near where she lives, and seedot is absolutely impossible to use as a starter. Seriously.
Now, the idea that a pokemon center might have baby pokemon hanging around without owners, as well as weak pokemon and pokemon from completely different areas is totally plausible. The idea this is part of some system for handing out starters is what's ridiculous here.
Moreover, you're once again not really paying attention to the fact this girl isn't entirely your own OC to play with, but is supposed to fit into an existing area of canon. Now, we know they kept a pet growlithe, and that Jezebel had a grass type. So if the backstory has anything to do with her current personality, you'd think it would enter into her thought processes in some way. Not that she absolutely has to try to get a growlithe, but that she has reason to want a fire type, and wanting a pokemon that's terrible against grass is downright bizarre.
In fact, writing this, it occurs to me that really you should have just said she had a pet pichu that she took with her, as that'd avoid dealing with this whole section.
"“What!” said Joy and the Seedot, Buizel and Magby let out cries of rage at the freak Pokemon being chosen over them. "
Please stop trying to make her picking a popular pokemon look like some noble awesome thing she did. Especially when by "freak" you mean "is an extra-special sue pokemon that looks special".
Finally, if Nurse Joy doesn't think people would want or pick a pichu, why does she offer it? Especially when starter picks are normally only supposed to include three options in the first place?
"She got looks from everyone because of Sparks and the poor Pichu was scared but Hayley just told him to ignore them, he was perfect the way he was. "
I made it through the whole story without even slightly disliking your character, despite the whole canon character relative/saved by legendary/special outfit business. But in a few short lines of you trying to show how nice she is, you have made me absolutely loathe her.
Do not try to set up your character as nice by making everyone else act inexplicably antagonist and stupid. Never do it after handing your character something you made up to be extra special because an ordinary thing wasn't good enough for your precious sue.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5472545/1/The_Rising_of_a_Champion
"When it once again was dark, I tried to find a sign of life."
How exactly would you do this? If you can't see anything, and then there's light, and then you wait until you can't see anything again...
I mean, are they looking around despite the fact they can't see anything, or are they doing something (calling/listening/stumbling around)?
"Then, a scene of a graveyard came in front of me."
What? Is a graveyard appearing in front of them, or is some sort of distinct area of the darkness replaced with a flat image, or are they finding themselves in a graveyard, and how does this fit with the whole so-dark-they-can't-see business? Is it still dark behind them, or is it getting brighter allowing them to see the graves, or what?
I mean, I assume you're going for dream imagery here, but that means you have to work at describing, you can't just throw up the bare bones of a scene and expect the reader to do all the work.
"the engravings on the grave"
You want to avoid reusing the same word sounds, even if it's technically a different thing. Here, "writing" would have worked better.
Also, really, seeing your own name on a tombstone is both a rather cliche concept, and not actually that horrifying. "Oh no, I'm dreaming of...a perfectly nonthreatening tomb that happens to indicate I am dead! But I'm still fine here reading it, and no one's trying to stuff me in and I'm not looking down to see I'm rotting or anything else that would actually be horrifying. Because my worst nightmare is to either be falsely declared dead and buried in absentee/discovering that after death I will go on existing in a perfectly ordinary manner.
I mean, really, it's not like Scrooge is simply all "OMG I SEE MY OWN TOMB I REPENT".
(Oh yeah, and reading in dreams actually functions pretty weirdly, so you missed an opportunity to actually indicate this is supposed to be running on dream imagery as I mentioned above. Given that this is the more charitable interpretation of how choppy and nonsensical this is so far, you really should make it clear.)
(Oh, and dammit, haven't you ever seen an actual gravestone? They don't say just "Name/Died Whenever.")
"I uttered to the strange cloaked man"
Uttered? Seriously? You don't get bonus points for mangling rarer speech tags. Said or asked would be fine here.
NEVER WRITE DIALOGUE AND THOUGHTS THE SAME WAY. EVER.
Dialogue is written as "Hello," he said or "Hello!" he said, never "Hello." He said or "Hello." he said or "Hello," He said. The only exception to this is if the next sentence doesn't contain a speech verb, in which case it's written as "Hello." He grinned, never "Hello," he grinned or "Hello," He grinned.
Which, minus the " that you shouldn't be using for thoughts, is also how you should be punctuating thoughts.
"I gazed at the large Pokémon egg beside my table. I had rescued that egg from the evil clutches of Team Toxic. They were murmuring something about using the Pokémon from that egg and turning it to evil and wreaking havoc and all kinds of junk. I was out walking with my mother’s Eevee. With the help of Eevee I battled a grunt and stole that egg. I’m surprised I won my first Pokémon battle. When that egg would hatch it would be my first Pokémon! "
Okay, so I often say that I wish people would begin the story at an interesting point, instead of making us start at the very beginning before anything at all had happened. But that doesn't mean skipping over something interesting counts. You're still opening with a subtle-as-a-sledgehammer prophetic dream followed by boring new character waking up.
Plus, god, that is a horrible mush of cliches.
Oh, and you wouldn't capitalize animal or mouse, so you shouldn't capitalize words like pokemon or pikachu. The only time you should capitalize it is if you're using it as the pokemon's name, ie, Ash's pikachu is called Pikachu.
"I forgot to introduce myself. My name’s Alicia. I’m a twelve year old who always wanted to be a Pokémon Master and Coordinator. I live in Lilycove in the Hoenn region. I have a lot of friends here but I am ready to leave them and begin my quest. I am 5 feet and 2 inches tall and weigh 93 pounds. I have grey eyes and golden-brown hair. Well that is enough for my introduction."
Don't infodump.
Trainers start at ten.
Twelve year olds are generally not over five feet tall.
People who are over five feet tall are generally not ninety pounds.
Neither of those two facts even need to be brought up.
(If she was the proper height for a twelve year old, you'd have her weight right, incidentally. That's around four and a half feet. She shouldn't be an extra eight inches taller and still weighing ninety pounds, especially for an athletic kid. I'd be bitching less about this if you'd made her mildly overweight rather than a budding anorexic, mind.)
"I went to the bathroom and washed my face. I looked at my clock; 7 a.m. Might as well get up. I dressed up in a parrot green shirt with a black mini-skirt. I tied around a Pokémon belt my waist since I didn’t want to carry a bag along my journey. I took a blue sparkling dress for contests and extra pairs of clothes. My dad is a scientist and created the item shrinker. It shrinks items to a small size and also un-shrinks it. He gave me one for my journey along with a purple Pokénav device. I shrank my clothes and put them in my belt. I put shrinker in a separate pocket and some great balls along with it. I went to kitchen and ate a chocolate croissant from the fridge."
You make me despair of ever managing to actually parody an OT fic.
NONE OF THIS MATTERS. IF SOMETHING INTERESTING IS GOING TO HAPPEN, PUT HER THERE AND THEN START THE STORY.
"Excuse me madam but I never saw you around Lilycove. Are you new?"
"...because obviously I've met absolutely everyone who lives in my city! Because it's not like Lilycove is big or anything! And everyone in Lilycove lives there because we definitely don't have any sort of "hotel" for "visitors"! No one ever comes in to buy stuff from our massive department store or see the contests that take place here or visit our art museum or any other facet of our massive tourism engine, people only show up if they've moved here!"
"Yes dear, I am new but have grown old. Would you like to take this Feebas I caught? Please. It really has no purpose of staying with me."
What.
"I, knowing about Feebas’ shabby appearance, still accepted it."
THEN I NOBLY ACCEPTED AN EEVEE AND A CHARMANDER TOO. BECAUSE IT IS A SIGN OF HOW GREAT I AM THAT WHEN OFFERED AN INCREDIBLY RARE POKEMON THAT EVOLVES INTO SOMETHING INCREDIBLY POPULAR AND POWERFUL FOR FREE, I TAKE IT.
"Suddenly, the Pokémon egg began glowing and a blue Pokémon with a black mask on its eyes and black feet came out. "
Suddenly indeed. This whole story so far is just random events happening to your character.
"I had never seen that Pokémon before and called from my Pokénav. My dad and I were friends of Prof. Birch and called him often."
Or she should just look it up. Or, as an inhabitant of the world, actually recognize a pokemon on her own or something.
"by the way do you know whether Feebas is a strong Pokémon"
So not only does she not know much about, she doesn't even know when they're an incredibly powerful contest pokemon despite living in a town with a huge contest-devoted area and wanting to be a pokemon coordinator?
Even if you didn't take it to such ridiculous levels, this would still be a terrible idea. Because you're writing pokemon fanfic, which means it's getting read by people who know what pokemon are, and don't need to have it all explained to them through a proxy of the most incompetent twelve year old in existence.
Would you say you're going to the Dr's? No? Then don't write "Prof" like it's a synonym for professor rather than a title that goes in front of their name.
"You’re very lucky to receive such a Pokémon as a starter!"
Look, it's bad enough you're doing it, you don't need to turn to the reader and point out what a terrible, sueish decision it was.
"Then I told dad"
When used in place of a name, it's written Dad, not dad. It's only in constructions like my/her/the dad that it's written as such.
"I bade my farewells and head off for my first destination: Fortree City. While walking, her Riolu came out of her Pokéball. It began walking with me. "
So did this start out in third person, or was that a slip? Because really, third person's generally the better idea.
"Behind the tree stood a very timid looking girl. Her hair was pink in colour and she wore a red blouse, a white capri and a black mini skirt above it. She stood there and stared at me. Suddenly she fainted and fell in my arms. I panicked and took her back to Lilycove where I took her to my house. My mother said she was just scared and fainted. Probably from my Riolu and its powerful Force Palm. When she woke up, I went to visit her. She opened her deep pink eyes. She once again panicked but didn’t faint only began asking questions quickly."
Okay, so my suspension of disbelief has been well and truly strangled. I'll stop my review here.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5540790/1/Majyk_A_Kanto_Adventure
So why did you decide to so horribly mangle the word magic in your title? It doesn't look clever, it looks absurd.
"My name is Juliette Mirror Woods (yes, my middle name is Mirror). But, no one calls me Juliette, or even Julie. I’m better known as Mira (pronounced Mee-rah)."
Okay, you know what? If you find yourself writing a sentence starting with "yes, my whatever is" it's a sign you've done something wrong. You're repeating yourself there because you are, apparently, aware that having her middle name be Mirror is stupid. But then you did it anyway. And having the character insist it's her name doesn't change that it's a stupid name.
Then you go on to establish that not only are you so overattached to this character you gave her a full three names, but she's also got a nickname on top of them.
If you want her called Mira, just call her that. Also, don't tell people how to pronounce the name.
I will, however, give you credit for at saying she's ten, even if she isn't acting at all like she's that age.
"Let me tell you right here and now, I am not pretty. At least, no one ever tells me that I am. They’re always going gaga over Melody, my twin sister. I guess you could say that she’s pretty, very pretty."
Okay, for one thing, insisting your character isn't pretty isn't going to save her. For another, you just established she's a blue eyed redhead, so any claims you weren't intending all along for her to look special are already dead in the water.
"And partly because without me, they’d be known as the Mary Sues."
I assure you little miss Juliette Mirror Woods call me Mira it's pronounced MEE-rah is not helping them out here.
"I’m not popular, and I don’t really have any friends."
Yes, she is. Because she has a hot, smart brother and a pretty sister. Unless those two are using their popularity to hurt her, other kids should have attached to her like leeches just to be near the other two. And no emo whinging about how such people would be "not really her friends" because she'd be getting included in stuff enough that people would end up knowing her and being her friend. She just wouldn't be as popular as they were.
The only way she could be unpopular and friendless is if there's something seriously wrong with her personally.
Oh, and if she doesn't have any friends, how does she have a nickname?
"No more of hearing whispers of “the Woods would be a perfect family without that little girl, Mira” going around among the gossiping old ladies."
NO ONE ACTUALLY CARES THAT MUCH. "Look, she's not a sue because everyone spends all their time talking about her!" is making her more of a sue. Stop it.
"And no more of no one ever understanding what it’s like to be an outcast."
Considering how whiny she is, I'm sure the rest of her family is very familiar with how outcasts feel by now. Again, unless her family hates her, she shouldn't be able to pull this whole nobody loves me everybody hates me I'm gonna eat some worms business. And if her family hates her you'd think she'd be talking more about how they judge her for not looking pretty and less that it's SO UNFAIR TO BE LESS PRETTY THAN THE PRETTY PEOPLE WOE.
"I opened my eyes to see seven year old, Waverly Coast, my only real friend."
Wonder how poor also-absurd-name would feel about how she just said she has no friends? Pretty insulted, I'd guess.
"Even though she’s adorable and a genius for her age, Waverly is also considered an outcast in town. I guess it’s because she’s crazy about taking pictures, especially candid, of everything."
Unlike emo girl, genius kids are often outcast in the sense, as their emotional and intellectual abilities are out of sync, they have trouble relating to people their own age (who are emotionally right but not as bright) yet similar problems with older people (who may be intellectually at the same speed, but are likely infinitely more emotionally mature). It is not for a completely unrelated reason.
Now, if you just want to say kid is outcast because she takes pictures, then for one thing the whole genius bit was unnecessary, and for another, I think you really need to take a look at what outcast means before you go on about it any more.
You wouldn't capitalize animal or mouse, so you shouldn't capitalize words like pokemon or pikachu. The only time you should capitalize it is if you're using it as the pokemon's name, ie, Ash's pikachu is called Pikachu.
Dialogue is written as "Hello," he said or "Hello!" he said, never "Hello." He said or "Hello." he said or "Hello," He said. The only exception to this is if the next sentence doesn't contain a speech verb, in which case it's written as "Hello." He grinned, never "Hello," he grinned or "Hello," He grinned.
"it looked like an ordinary charm bracelet, but it had a sort of purple crystal connected to the gold chain"
And here's the random bling. Look, I get that it's not a pendant, but just because you avoid a mary sue test question on a technicality doesn't actually change the issue.
"Pallet town" should be Pallet Town.
"which is good because, unlike Melody, I wouldn’t have a ride to get my starter."
Why? As I keep mentioning, you have yet to give any indication that her family is mean to her. It's all people-are-mean-because-I'm-less-pretty-that-the-rest-of-my-family.
"Every guy in our class has a crush on her."
Like I said, I'm glad you acknowledged that trainers start at ten, but dear god are these not ten year olds.
"“Hello, Mary Sue.”I replied, earning a scowl from her."
So my theory that the reason Juliette Mirror Woods call me Mira it's pronounced MEE-rah is friendless is really that she's just a jealous, crazy bitch is confirmed. It's nice to see authors writing flawed characters and using unreliable narrators, I must admit.
When not used in place of a name, it's written dad, as in my/her/the dad.
And yep, Mira = crazy. So she apparently just decided that she'd walk, and then when her sister GASP SHOCK actually asks for a ride and gets it, it's a sign her dad favors her sister. Because he should have read her mind while she had her poor me emofest and offered it without her saying anything. And there are only two seats and her father doesn't say that her sister, the one who asked first and actually seems to care about getting a ride will have to walk after all so Mira can take her place when Mira asks if she can get a ride "too". Therefore, Mira is persecuted.
And then she attacks her sister for saying that she's jealous. Clearly the aggrieved party in the matter. How dare her father show concern for the daughter who's just been attacked instead of her? How dare he act like she did something wrong! It's only because she's the pretty one! ONLY BECAUSE SHE'S THE PRETTY ONE!
I can't wait to see how Mira's pokemon journey explodes due to her own neurosis.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5540790/2/Majyk_A_Kanto_Adventure
"Me and Lucy, my Squirtle, who I named after my one and only porcelain doll"
I see her fixation on appearance is only getting worse. (Oh, and it's "I". A way to tell is if you remove the other party in the sentence. That would make it "Me made it to Viridian city that very same day". If "me and Lucy" was at the other end, it'd be correct to use me.)
"As we looked around town, I wondered what job I wanted, to be a coordinater, breeder, or trainer."
Um, I'm pretty sure that simply getting a pokemon and traveling is just being a trainer, maybe a coordinator starting out. I mean, you could be collecting pokemon to breed later, but the basic traveling bit is collecting and beating up pokemon.
"making pretty displays(seeing as I have failed to all my life)"
Oh, I hope she gets roped into this. Her existing issues will only be more interesting once generalized to the idea people hate her not only for not looking pretty, but for not making pretty enough designs. Alternatively, if she's good at it, I'm sure she'll find some way to reinterpret that into confirmation of her existing obsession with not being personally pretty enough.
"Lucy was small, and a kind of greenish blue color. I guess you could say that she was a shiny or something."
I admit, I find this funny. But back to the story, I wonder how her pokemon's different appearance will end up being handled? Will she be jealous her pokemon looks special, or live vicariously through her attractive pokemon, or decide that her pokemon's appearance makes her "outcast"?
"when we heard a cry for help"
Only we find out she heard no such thing. Look, people investigate stuff all the time without it actually containing a cry for help, you could just say she heard sounds of a pokemon battle and went to go see.
"Yeah. Since he likes being out of his pokeball, he won’t evolve. It be strange to have a Golem or Graveler following you around"
Grammatical errors aside, I don't actually see any logical connection between "likes to be out" and "won't evolve". You're going to have to better explain. Are pokemon intelligent, to the point you can explain to them that if they evolve they'll have to stay in their pokeball? (And what would happen if it evolved anyway) Or did he just hand the geodude an everstone since he doesn't want to be followed around by a graveler? (Also, your phrasing makes it sound like geodude can evolve into either golem or graveler. Why is golem even mentioned, especially given it's a trade evolution?)
All in all, an entirely pointless conversation. No plot-relevant stuff is there unless the bit about the Viridian gym is going to come up again (and even that's pushing it, because that's pretty common fanfic knowledge) nor does the conversation intersect Mira's prettiness issues. She doesn't even say anything about whether the boy is properly attractive or not, odd given her fixation.
"I searched around for Pokémon to catch. Unfortunately, the only Pokémon I found was a wild Pinsir who tried to attack us. "
I'm sorry, but I thought this was taking place in Viridian City, not Viridian Forest.
"I ran down the block with the three Pinsirs still after me"
Seriously.
Oh, and bubblebeam? Look, I'm not calling for strict level/move accuracy, but it's still a good idea to pay some degree of attention to it. Making sure to write newbie pokemon as inexperienced with only a couple weak moves is generally a good idea, because it better shows that they are inexperienced, and gives you space to show how they increase in ability over time. Or put another way, squirtle learns bubble before bubblebeam, and once it knows bubblebeam there's little reason to ever show bubble. Skip to the major moves and you make for very repetitive battles.
"Then, the crystal on the bracelet started to glow, and a bright light flashed, blinding my eyes. I grabbed Lucy and huddled next to the brick wall, as the light got brighter. As the light dimmed, I opened my eyes to see all three Pinsir knocked out."
As I said, just because it's a bracelet rather than a pendant doesn't mean there's any meaningful different in terms of sue bling.
"The next morning, my thoughts kept wondering to the previous day’s events as we headed towards Viridian forest"
Uh.
Look, why didn't you just have it take place in Viridian Forest? You could have used the conversation earlier to establish Viridian Forest is full of unusually dangerous pokemon for the area, thus setting up for her attack. Then, when she's nearly killed and only saved by a mysterious power she isn't even sure of and certainly isn't confident will show up next time she's in danger, it won't seem like she's an emotionless zombie when she heads right back out even further from the pokemon center and safety. Instead, you can have the pokecenter scene in Pewter, and have her hanging around there, maybe venturing out to the very edges of the forest from that side if you have any pokemon you want caught in the area, then she can continue on without ever going back in.
"it’s name"
It's means "it is". Its is the possessive, as in, its name.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5540790/3/Majyk_A_Kanto_Adventure
"After finishing my lunch and thoughts, the male (I used my Pokedex to check his gender) Pidgey decided to come with me."
You seriously need to stop going on about stuff like this. She was confused, and now she's figured it out. We don't need to spend all this time on it.
I'm disappointed that, yet again, you're writing this story with little to no description. You mention the pidgey is thin, admittedly, but little beyond that. Does he have ragged, dull feathers (a common result of malnourishment) that make Mira see him as a kindred outcast? Or does he show hints of beauty that makes Mira covet him, or perhaps make her consider the concept that one can start off ugly only to become the most beautiful of all? The ugly duckling is a well known story.
Eh, if the random seven year old can tag along, it ends up begging the question of why Mira didn't leave earlier. It's explainable, but you didn't take the time to do so.
"Her aunt’s pretty cool, and sees me like another niece."
Another chink in Mira's story that she's despised. Interesting.
"I stared at her, happy that I had a human to travel with, but shocked that she actually told a fib. I mean, she looks so cute and innocent; nothing at all like some lying troublemaker."
If she's actually been friends with the girl for a while, you'd think she'd be shocked/not shocked by lying based on the kid's actual personality, not appearance. A sign of Mira's general inability to consider people based on anything but looks, or a sign of Mira's sociopathic lack of regard for others?
Um, not to disparage low level sort of battles, but, having established Trevor as a thirteen year old with badges from other areas, you gave the indication that trainers at a variety of levels were around, and also people like him should be a good deal stronger than newbies. So then seeing him having a geodude vs rattata fight is pretty bizarre - if the other trainer is on a similar level to him, you'd think he'd have a better pokemon to use against a geodude than a rattata, and also that his rattata would be pretty high level and know better moves than scratch. While if he's a newbie, then there's no need for stuff like iron defense - the geodude wins.
Basically, you seem to be treating things as if everyone's at the same newbie level, with only a handful of pokemon, even when you're saying that they're years older and have been through multiple regions.
Also, you really need to work on better describing...well, everything, but it's especially glaring in the battle, where you're barely one step above just "pokemon used move".
"I saw three other people who had also been watching the battle"
Why? With people like Mira and seven year old it's understandable they'd be interested in any pokemon battle. But I find it unlikely that a rattata vs geodude fight was so interesting everyone else was similarly enthralled.
"I used to be a trainer, but now, I just help him work on his techniques."
Uh, explaining how kids can take time off to run around battling pokemon on occasion is hard enough as it is. Adding in older kids who do nothing but follow around those kids for even less purpose makes utterly ridiculous, and only serves to further highlight the existing issues with the regular trainer bit.
"Don’t bore the girls with your time warps"
What?
Anyway, Mira's getting more boring by the minute. She's rapidly reducing to a cardboard cutout wandering through the stage notes for a movie scene.
"We just walked nonstop, and for a while, I was really bored."
For one thing, more bored than all that walking she did before on her own? For another, why doesn't she talk or something if she's bored?
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5540790/4/Majyk_A_Kanto_Adventure
"From this point forward I’m telling the story in third person instead of first person, that way you can see what everyone’s thinking, not just Mira. Anyway, enjoy!"
While I do say that third person is usually the better choice, there are two issues here. For one thing, switching POV in the middle of the story is a terrible idea. For another, even reduced to her current cardboard state Mira is still the only interesting character here, as at least she was interesting and possessing of a personality, more than any of the rest have displayed at any point.
My views on the matter are only confirmed by the fact this chapter opens with a boring argument. Look, your goal here is not to recreate the tedium of camping, it's to tell an interesting story. "Yes you did!"/"No I didn't!" repeated again and again is not that.
"You guys, please don’t fight. We need to work together or something to get through this, I guess"
On second thought, no, Mira is not simply a cutout, she's a pod person violating established characterization. So I guess I retract my earlier bit about her still being mildly interesting.
"“Well, since you’re trainers, you might not want to have to drag us around.”Mira explained. “I’d hate to keep you guys busy.”"
Seriously, the idea that issues girl would be saying this honestly makes me feel sad.
Look, I know you didn't mean for Mira to be interpreted as nutso. But you set her up as having a personality of a sort, and that happened to include a vastly more interesting alternative characterization. Now, you're completely ignoring her character, both the one you established on purpose and the one that actually showed up in the story. Whether or not she was delusional about being an outcast, she should still be displaying some sort of sign of that kind of thing. It's been, what, two days? And already she's just generic trainer #7.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5468622/1/Dawn_of_Something
You wouldn't capitalize animal or mouse, so you shouldn't capitalize words like pokemon or pikachu. The only time you should capitalize it is if you're using it as the pokemon's name, ie, Ash's pikachu is called Pikachu.
Dialogue is written as "Hello," he said or "Hello!" he said, never "Hello." He said or "Hello." he said or "Hello," He said. The only exception to this is if the next sentence doesn't contain a speech verb, in which case it's written as "Hello." He grinned, never "Hello," he grinned or "Hello," He grinned.
"We really don’t need any more Grunts, but we do need a janitor for some rooms"
Uh, given they're a secret evil organization sort of thing, you'd think they'd just be using grunts as janitors.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5549959/1/Westerly
I can't tell if you intended for your writing to be ridiculously melodramatic to better contrast with the absurd, abrupt end, which does lend it an unusual feel. But personally, even if so, it just takes too long to get to the point, especially for such a simple idea. This is the sort of thing that would probably work best as a drabble. Also, there's a good chunk of the writing that crosses the line from purple prose to actual grammar mistakes.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5542102/1/Guess_Its_Christmas_Time
Oh, god.
Look, a lot of dialogue about people talking about something that isn't happening is not interesting. Especially when that dialogue is terribly generic, and violates the way most of the characters' actually talk. I think you could get a cute story out of this, but you'd have to cut out the filler. Also, let's admit it, this is original fiction with pokemon names slapped in. Don't do that.
Dialogue is written as "Hello," he said or "Hello!" he said, never "Hello." He said or "Hello." he said or "Hello," He said. The only exception to this is if the next sentence doesn't contain a speech verb, in which case it's written as "Hello." He grinned, never "Hello," he grinned or "Hello," He grinned.
These rules continue to apply when the speech tag comes before the dialogue. So it's He said, "Hello." but never He grinned, "Hello."
"Ash wined"
It's "whined".
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4648333/1/Pokemon_Survival_Remake
You start off in present tense and change into past. You should really be more careful to just keep to past tense.
You really don't need to go into that much detail about the virtual reality bit, especially since it's not like the detail you give makes it sound any more plausible. It's best glossed over.
Also, "Their release would be with a hugely expensive chamber where only one client could enter at a time and be transformed into digital data "? No. For one thing, if everyone's doing it it can hardly be something like that, and for another, look, you aren't actually being turned into data when you go someplace virtual, okay? That's stupid. You should know that's stupid.
"For example, if a client would be entering a world that did not need any physical changes, such as the gaming title ‘Resident Evil: Global Outbreak’, then they would be transferred to that game at their original state and would rely on wit to survive a zombie apocalypse. But if said client were instead taking on a game such as the title ‘Starfox Galaxies’, then their body would be reformed to an anthro character they would have had to create at the start of the game when they bought it."
Also, could you just think a little, instead of regurgitating a bunch of games you like? Would someone actually want to be represented exactly as they are while playing a game with zombies? If nothing else I'd like my sense of smell turned off. Meanwhile, why exactly would no player want to look like they did just because the game originally had anthromophic characters?Why wouldn't you just let players build an avatar, and maybe for multiplayer stuff give limits? It's like you think up this idea and then absolutely fail to follow through. This whole paragraph can be summed up as "there's this new thing that lets you do stuff exactly the same as before".
(This is without even getting into the fact you seem to think this means actually being there, and trust me, if you're making it seem like physical you is there with all the bits, your brain would snap if someone tried to plug in a fifth limb. If this is a representation of them, they can only make slight changes, if it's not, you need to stop going on about how faithful it is while at the same time acting like you can get fur, mobile ears and a tail without problem. Seriously. Snap. Snap like spun glass into a billion pieces. Absolute best case you would utterly screw your ability to do things like walk because your brain keeps remapping nerves to limbs you don't have. You can't plug extra limbs into your brain like that, and if this is getting layered over like clothing, it's going to be freaky and unpleasant and no one would do it.)
"The Defeat Room was where those that were defeated in a game world were thrown in, quite literally. From almost two hundred feet high, they would fall and return to their normal form and hit the ground in the most painful-looking fashion, yet feel no pain at all, for it was not real. It was very entertaining to watch."
Continuing on our you didn't think this through tour - what, seriously? Plenty of people would have fun doing that, and plenty of other people are terrified of falling. You wouldn't have any sort of system that automatically did this to everyone, no matter how funny you find the idea. Especially not if this is open to kids.
"Whenever I tried to get online in the daylight, I was always playing with either Russians or Koreans, and I didn’t know what the hell they were saying. "
Because digitizing people including their entire brains which basically means ultrafast mindreading is easy, and them making them furries with way different shapes will be no problem, but translating what the damn ruskies are saying is forever beyond us.
And now we've gone back to present tense. Seriously, pay attention.
And they're talking.
And talking.
They won't stop talking.
Talking about stupid, boring things.
Okay, I'm more than halfway to the chapter and you have yet to actually get to anything resembling a plot.
Okay, random vague guy who is vague in the traditional vague manner and wow I don't care. You know if you'd started around here I might have been willing to keep going, but not now.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5534362/1/Pokemon_Jacks_Journey
Okay, I want you to go click on search. Now check how many titles involve the words "pokemon" and "journey". Now change your title.
Paragraphing has rules. You start a new paragraph with a new subject. The goal is not to divide your story up into even blocks.
Also, every time a new person talks you start a new paragraph.
You wouldn't capitalize animal or mouse, so you shouldn't capitalize words like pokemon or pikachu. The only time you should capitalize it is if you're using it as the pokemon's name, ie, Ash's pikachu is called Pikachu. This also applies to pokemon types.
You do know that infamous is not just a way to say extra famous, right?
"A trainer with messy black hair wearing a light gray vest over a black shirt with a white poke ball symbol on the chest along with some blue jeans stood facing the gym"
wondering why on earth anyone needed to know all.
This story is incoherent and incredibly boring. It's just you saying "And then this thing happened" over and over again.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5550169/1/25_Days_Til_Christmas
I'm not sure why you needed a long author's note explaining how you were planning to do one thing but now you're doing something else.
Dialogue is written as "Hello," he said or "Hello!" he said, never "Hello." He said or "Hello." he said or "Hello," He said. The only exception to this is if the next sentence doesn't contain a speech verb, in which case it's written as "Hello." He grinned, never "Hello," he grinned or "Hello," He grinned.
Thoughts should follow similar punctuation and capitalization rules.
"I would bet all of my Pokemon that my mascara is running down my face from the melted mascara"
What?
"Why can’t I just spread wings and fly to the Pokemon Center? "
...because she doesn't have wings? Like the rest of the human race? Seriously, what?
"May ripped her way through the snow"
Uh, no. Snow doesn't rip.
"May knew that walking was way cheaper than taking a taxi to her contest, even if it meant crossing through a few snowy landscapes."
For someone who spent a while walking around the country, she doesn't seem to have any basic understanding of travel or the problems that come up. So not only contrived, but in such a way as to make her an idiot.
"A snow plow came and dumped a massive amount of snow on the side. Great, she thought bitterly. Her short cut field had been turned into a snow deposit for the snow plows!"
...or she could just use the path the snowplows made to cross? And how do you not see massive piles of snow on a flat field? Seriously, have you never seen snow or something?
"If she took that way, her toes were bound to fall off. They were so numb that she could hardly feel them!"
And she wasn't even bright enough to dress properly? Again, it's not like she hasn't been traveling. This kind of thing would only make sense if someone who'd never tried something like this had assumed it'd be easy. Anyone with any experience would not be making the billion screwups she is.
...so what exactly was assist supposed to do? She says to do it, then it seems to copy the move, then she's surprised and it takes her a moment to realize that it's copying the move, so what on earth was she expecting, anyway?
Plus, seriously, she's a moron for thinking that would work out well. That seems like the theme of this fic so far: May does something stupid, is dismayed it works out badly.
But luckily a male has arrived to rescue her from herself!
In sum, this is basically pretty standard and really, the actual pokemon related bit was arbitrary and could be exchanged with anything else. Plus, seriously, you don't rip through snow. You slog.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5532469/1/Pallet_Party_Panic
So basically, original fiction. Mildly homoerotic original fiction I'll grant you, but still, original fiction.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5490375/1/Pokemon_Missingnos_Revenge
Well, that was terrible.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5550179/1/Threes_Company
Lrn2troll.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5550184/1/Changing_Directions
Meh. You don't have purple prose and this seems to actually be about the characters, which is a rare plus, but still, it's readable.
"He just had to make it worse; "
Did you means this to be a colon?
You wouldn't capitalize animal or mouse, so you shouldn't capitalize words like pokemon or pikachu. The only time you should capitalize it is if you're using it as the pokemon's name, ie, Ash's pikachu is called Pikachu.
"Was Dawn a bad trainer? Or an even worse Coordinator? She debated on whether to give up all together; perhaps her mother’s brilliance hadn’t been hereditary after all…"
Mind you, just the fact this seems in character doesn't mean the whole emofest is less annoying.
Dialogue is written as "Hello," he said or "Hello!" he said, never "Hello." He said or "Hello." he said or "Hello," He said. The only exception to this is if the next sentence doesn't contain a speech verb, in which case it's written as "Hello." He grinned, never "Hello," he grinned or "Hello," He grinned.
"He had always been the observant one, it was in his nature. She shot a look of gratitude as best possible through her solemn eyes."
If she so desperately doesn't want to talk, why doesn't she act like an adult and go off by herself, instead of hanging around but getting upset any time anyone tries to interact with her?
Okay, seriously, stop using semicolons. They don't work like that.
If used as a name, the word professor should always be capitalized. When professor isn't being used as a title or in place of a name, it should not be capitalized, as in this sentence. In general, if there's a "the" or similar article in front of it, don't capitalize. If not, do.
It's "Johto".
Pretty sure it should be "Battle Islands".
The start of dialogue is always capitalized, and only one speaker per paragraph.
Okay, your capitalization is steadily deteriorating, as is my will to keep reading this story.
...and now we're using the fancy speech tags and extra long description because we're too good for "said".
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5532448/1/Think_Twice
"The cruel wind clawed at his hair, his face."
This is not only a cliche but it's not even the good kind. No, cold wind doesn't feel like it's clawing at your hair, because when it's that cold, you do not care about your hair blowing around. It's more like knives into your face. Yeah, there might also be some tugging, but mostly you're noticing the bit with the knives and your face. Now wind of a more normal temperature such that your nerves are still functioning, that might claw at hair.
"The apparently harmless white powder wanted to chain his limbs to the frozen ground and keep him there."
Am I the only one who's ever actually been around snow?
First, if the snow is powdery, it's not the snow that's causing the trouble, it's the wind. Second, the kind of snow that prompts this kind of melodrama is heavy snow, that actually does stick to you and make it hard to move, and soaks into your clothing and forms ice crusts on you and all that. I'll grant you that if there are really thick drifts you might run into trouble, but you have yet to describe the ground beyond that it's frozen, and also if it's that windy it should have blown the snow away. Third, you do not have fog at the same time as you have blowing powdery snow. Fog requires wet, still air, not dry, fast moving air.
Look, moving a story at a glacial pace isn't helping verisimilitude, it's just a bit annoying. This was basically your standard prologue that took too long setting up something that remains out of sight.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5550228/1/No_Air_OrangeShipping
"THIS IS MY FIRST SONGFIC !!!"
HERE'S YOUR FIRST REVIEW POINTING OUT SONGFICS ARE BANNED!!! And it's because these stories suck.
Don't start your story with a list of ages, especially when said list is wrong. Misty is older than Ash. Deal with it.
Dialogue is written with quotation marks. That's ". It makes it easier to see. Also, a new speaker means a new paragraph. Also, this is OOC original fiction songfic crap and so I'll be moving on now.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5230274/1/The_Longinus_Directive
You wouldn't capitalize animal or mouse, so you shouldn't capitalize words like pokemon or pikachu. The only time you should capitalize it is if you're using it as the pokemon's name, ie, Ash's pikachu is called Pikachu.
Don't use multiple exclamation marks.
Dialogue is written as "Hello," he said or "Hello!" he said, never "Hello." He said or "Hello." he said or "Hello," He said. The only exception to this is if the next sentence doesn't contain a speech verb, in which case it's written as "Hello." He grinned, never "Hello," he grinned or "Hello," He grinned.
""I placed a part of myself within you all." He said. "There is nothing you can grant me that I do not already require. However, you can help me"
What the hell? Do you even know what these words mean?
And now they're talking. It takes rare skill to make the legendaries OOC within a few lines, and yet, you have succeeded. This is boring and tiresome, so I'm not going to continue.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5550386/1/Auramancer_Chronicles
Paragraphing has rules. You start a new paragraph with a new subject. The goal is not to divide your story up into even blocks.
Also, a new speaker means a new paragraph.
Also, ignoring those two things makes your story unreadable.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5517809/1/I_Hate_You_But_I_Love_You
I want to say some sort of quote about this being all sound and fury signifying nothing, but that'd be a step up, really.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2009-12-02 12:50 am (UTC)...this is not helping my essays get written.
no subject
Date: 2009-12-02 12:56 am (UTC)No one's going to see it, mind, but that just means they're jackasses who failed to read my profile and deserve what they get.
So in conclusion, will do!
no subject
Date: 2009-12-02 05:25 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-12-02 05:27 am (UTC)I'm a bannable offense! :)
no subject
Date: 2009-12-02 06:30 pm (UTC)I wonder if there's some rule in the mod forums named after you.
no subject
Date: 2009-12-02 10:55 pm (UTC)It's kind of like how they delete posts to remove drama. It's never clear if that's because they're honestly proactive about smothering it and think this is the best solution, or if they're protecting whoever was the idiot in the matter from further attack. To this day I'm not quite convinced they actually have any set system or if it's basically just people doing whatever so long as another mod doesn't call them on it.
no subject
Date: 2009-12-02 02:35 am (UTC)I feel like I was over five feet when I was twelve, and I'm not particularly tall, but maybe I'm delusional or remembering wrong
no subject
Date: 2009-12-02 02:45 am (UTC)The weight is a little more problematic (and weirdly specific).
no subject
Date: 2009-12-02 02:47 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-12-02 02:50 am (UTC)From my own memories, I suspect most aren't four and a half, and the whole numbers are averaging out kids who got their growth spurt at ten and kids who won't until thirteen. Really, we need a median here, not an average.
no subject
Date: 2009-12-02 02:46 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-12-02 04:46 pm (UTC)I'm sure I was over five feet tall by a couple inches at twelve but I was also freakishly tall compared to the rest of my grade. But yes, I despise terrible height to weight ratios. There is no need to use numbers where adjectives would go better. It's only funny when someone who's male does it out loud in real life because you can see them guessing then lowering it twenty more pounds before saying it.
no subject
Date: 2009-12-02 05:32 pm (UTC)If five feet at twelve, then pokemon writer on the internet. Aside from all the interesting questions that opens up, it presents an alternative possibility that the authors are basing the character on their own height at that age.
But then if they were going off their height you'd think they'd do the same with weight, and they can't all have been eighty/ninety pounds.
no subject
Date: 2009-12-02 06:26 pm (UTC)The charts I've just looked up put average height at 12 at 5'0" and average weight at 100 lbs. It is ever so slightly more admissible to skew things for prepubescent kids who are said to be in shape than the crazy height/weight ratios for teenagers or adults that often happen. I remember the nine and ten years olds I used to teach martial arts to were made of rubber bands and twigs, no muscle but no fat. For kids who have high metabolism and haven't hit really bad obesity genes, puberty might change how fat is stored, particularly in girls. I know body mass index is measured differently for children.
no subject
Date: 2009-12-02 10:48 pm (UTC)"I remember the nine and ten years olds I used to teach martial arts to were made of rubber bands and twigs, no muscle but no fat."
Maybe, but I suspect that's selection bias. The kids in my brother's aikido class certainly fit that description, but the ones in his school class are pretty chunky. I'll need to hunt down one of those size/weight graphs to really be sure, admittedly.
Come to think of it, if we're assuming Japan, then I suppose you're more likely to get thin kids...but they're also a lot shorter.