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"Shattered Phoenix" is something to keep an eye on. Also, the author's cafe is looking particularly failtastic. Only on Serebii could people actually be debating the inclusion of filler. And then suggesting even worse ideas.
For example, say some character, named Character A, is walking along Route 7, a rather boring Kanto route. There is nothing there but trees, grass and an entrance to the Underground Passage. Instead of saying, "Character A walked on Route 7 from Saffron to Celadon.", it is probably better to say:
"Character A began walking on the currently windy Route 7, knowing Celadon was not too far away. He looked at the entrance to the underground passage, and then the violently swaying trees, which reminded him of those ones in Pallet, his hometown. Character A wondered if the trees there were also being tossed about. He knew his mother did not like wind. He hoped she was alright - after all, Character A and his mother had never been apart for more than twelve hours until his adventure had begun many months and three gym badges ago. He decided to sit under one of the trees and, ignoring the many passersby between the big cities Saffron and Celadon, several of whom looked at the ten year old with curiosity, wrote a short letter to his mother, asking about the weather and her mood. It was the first letter Character A had written since his departure from Pallet, for in his excitement about raising his Charmander and eventually his Pikachu, Mankey and Abra he had not paid much attention to communication outside of the Pokemon Center's videophone. Yet he knew she would appreciate seeing his words written in the style which uniquely belonged to Character A."
Meanwhile there's another thread on "OMG why are people so unfair and judgemental about journey fics!!!! it's just because newbie authors do them and not because we all suck let me tell you internets, i have written a journeyfic and therefore they are totally awesome done well"
There is some beautiful Not Getting It in the very first post. To take a mere tidbit from the mass of insanity:
To tackle the above reviewer's argument against journey fics, let's take this piece by piece, starting with the most common argument:
1) "They're easy to write."
Really? Then why are there only five or so (point is, not many) decent journey fics (and I'm pretty lenient on decent) in the complete section at SPPf, two (Ross Ferguson's Journey of Champion: in Kanto and Archangel A.J.'s R.J. -- Legacy of a Master) not completed? If it's "easy" then why do most authors abandon their journey fic within the first five chapters?
It gets dumber from there. I mean, the very next post on the "omg journeyfic is so oppressed by haters" is someone (agreeing, no less) chiming in that they like the genre.
There's some lone voices of sanity (...okay, only Negrek) and Dragonfree appears to... I never know quite how to classify Dragonfree, who's generally saying things that make sense in the broad sort of way, but in context are terrible, terrible suggestions. I guess basically it's a matter of being unable to accept that certain things, while not absolutely awful in every single appearance, are still, on balance, going to be worse a lot more often than other ways of doing it. So she's often fighting the good fight for "it can technically be done decently" which ends up defeating any hope people have of getting useful advice. It's like having a thread on grammar that's half people arguing that it's possible to write without capitals or punctuation and still have a good story.
Finally, on page three Yamato shows up to make me not feel guilty for never emailing him back as well as confirm my assumptions that generally, if someone on Serebii shows up to say Idea X is not a bad idea because they've made a good story about it, Idea X is a terrible idea and their story is shit.
Then there's a thread listing/collecting names. I mean what the fuck.
Sometimes I think I'd be satisfied if people on Serebii got just slightly more elitist so their terrible ideas about stories would at least stop reaching FFN, but it'd probably result in non-Serebiians getting even more convinced it's good advice and directing each other to relevant threads.
Anyway, I guess the moral here is that Unoriginality doesn't cut it, I need to make an actual original trainer writing guide. Stupid Serebii.
For example, say some character, named Character A, is walking along Route 7, a rather boring Kanto route. There is nothing there but trees, grass and an entrance to the Underground Passage. Instead of saying, "Character A walked on Route 7 from Saffron to Celadon.", it is probably better to say:
"Character A began walking on the currently windy Route 7, knowing Celadon was not too far away. He looked at the entrance to the underground passage, and then the violently swaying trees, which reminded him of those ones in Pallet, his hometown. Character A wondered if the trees there were also being tossed about. He knew his mother did not like wind. He hoped she was alright - after all, Character A and his mother had never been apart for more than twelve hours until his adventure had begun many months and three gym badges ago. He decided to sit under one of the trees and, ignoring the many passersby between the big cities Saffron and Celadon, several of whom looked at the ten year old with curiosity, wrote a short letter to his mother, asking about the weather and her mood. It was the first letter Character A had written since his departure from Pallet, for in his excitement about raising his Charmander and eventually his Pikachu, Mankey and Abra he had not paid much attention to communication outside of the Pokemon Center's videophone. Yet he knew she would appreciate seeing his words written in the style which uniquely belonged to Character A."
Meanwhile there's another thread on "OMG why are people so unfair and judgemental about journey fics!!!! it's just because newbie authors do them and not because we all suck let me tell you internets, i have written a journeyfic and therefore they are totally awesome done well"
There is some beautiful Not Getting It in the very first post. To take a mere tidbit from the mass of insanity:
To tackle the above reviewer's argument against journey fics, let's take this piece by piece, starting with the most common argument:
1) "They're easy to write."
Really? Then why are there only five or so (point is, not many) decent journey fics (and I'm pretty lenient on decent) in the complete section at SPPf, two (Ross Ferguson's Journey of Champion: in Kanto and Archangel A.J.'s R.J. -- Legacy of a Master) not completed? If it's "easy" then why do most authors abandon their journey fic within the first five chapters?
It gets dumber from there. I mean, the very next post on the "omg journeyfic is so oppressed by haters" is someone (agreeing, no less) chiming in that they like the genre.
There's some lone voices of sanity (...okay, only Negrek) and Dragonfree appears to... I never know quite how to classify Dragonfree, who's generally saying things that make sense in the broad sort of way, but in context are terrible, terrible suggestions. I guess basically it's a matter of being unable to accept that certain things, while not absolutely awful in every single appearance, are still, on balance, going to be worse a lot more often than other ways of doing it. So she's often fighting the good fight for "it can technically be done decently" which ends up defeating any hope people have of getting useful advice. It's like having a thread on grammar that's half people arguing that it's possible to write without capitals or punctuation and still have a good story.
Finally, on page three Yamato shows up to make me not feel guilty for never emailing him back as well as confirm my assumptions that generally, if someone on Serebii shows up to say Idea X is not a bad idea because they've made a good story about it, Idea X is a terrible idea and their story is shit.
Then there's a thread listing/collecting names. I mean what the fuck.
Sometimes I think I'd be satisfied if people on Serebii got just slightly more elitist so their terrible ideas about stories would at least stop reaching FFN, but it'd probably result in non-Serebiians getting even more convinced it's good advice and directing each other to relevant threads.
Anyway, I guess the moral here is that Unoriginality doesn't cut it, I need to make an actual original trainer writing guide. Stupid Serebii.
