NaRe, Day Twentyeight
Apr. 28th, 2010 11:45 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
farlahttp://www.fanfiction.net/s/5929410/1/Digital_Crossing
Character bios are a bad idea. If it's relevant it belongs in your story, if it's not you shouldn't be wasting time on it.
Dialogue is written as "Hello," he said or "Hello!" he said, never "Hello." He said or "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. Note that something isn't a speech verb just because it's a sound you make with your mouth, so generally stuff like laughed or giggled is in the second category.
Furthermore, if you're breaking up two complete sentences it's "Hi," he said. "This is it." not "Hi," he said, "this is it." or "Hi," he said "this is it." And if you're breaking up a sentence in the middle, it's "Hi. This," he said, "is it." If there's no speech verb in the break, you use a dash, like "Hi. This - " He looked around. "- is it."
You wouldn't capitalize animal or mouse or dragon, so you shouldn't capitalize words like pokemon or pikachu or charizard. 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 is because you only capitalize when it's a proper noun, which are the names of places or things. Similar reasoning should be applied to any other words you're thinking of capitalizing, like telephone or trainer. Or professor.
[As soon as her hand landed on the marking it glowed brightly and the word "Light" appeared below it in Unknown letters. ]
...do you mean the pokemon unown? Because if so it's spelled like that. Check your spelling.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5929889/1/Mastering_Pokemon
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 you start a new paragraph.
You wouldn't capitalize animal or mouse or dragon, so you shouldn't capitalize words like pokemon or pikachu or charizard. 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 is because you only capitalize when it's a proper noun, which are the names of places or things. Similar reasoning should be applied to any other words you're thinking of capitalizing, like telephone or trainer. Or professor.
Generally awful, get a beta reader.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5929899/1/A_Pokemon_Journey_Never_to_Forget
There are about three thousand stories just on this site in this category with "pokemon" in their title. There are about two hundred and fifty "chronicles", more if you include misspellings, almost as many with "begins" and "beginning", and god knows how many "Character Name"'s whatever. There are almost four hundred with "legend". There are six hundred and fifty with "journey", six hundred with "story", two hundred with "quest", and almost seven hundred with "adventure". "Kanto" shows up over a hundred times, as does "Johto", "Hoenn", and "Sinnoh". "Saga" similarly comes in at a hundred.
What I'm getting at here is that you want to choose an original title that has to do with your story in particular, not something that indicates it's yet another story about a pokemon trainer.
Opening your story with a character waking up for the day is generic and horribly, horribly overdone, and to be perfectly honest it's so incredibly dull and boring a start that even if I hadn't seen it, very literally here, hundreds upon hundreds of times before, I would still tell you you should have started at some other, interesting point.
Do not use " for thoughts. Ever. It just looks like your character is talking to themself.
Dialogue is written as "Hello," he said or "Hello!" he said, never "Hello." He said or "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. Note that something isn't a speech verb just because it's a sound you make with your mouth, so generally stuff like laughed or giggled is in the second category.
Furthermore, if you're breaking up two complete sentences it's "Hi," he said. "This is it." not "Hi," he said, "this is it." or "Hi," he said "this is it." And if you're breaking up a sentence in the middle, it's "Hi. This," he said, "is it." If there's no speech verb in the break, you use a dash, like "Hi. This - " He looked around. "- is it."
Thoughts follow the same capitalization rules.
You wouldn't capitalize animal or mouse or dragon, so you shouldn't capitalize words like pokemon or pikachu or charizard. 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 is because you only capitalize when it's a proper noun, which are the names of places or things. Similar reasoning should be applied to any other words you're thinking of capitalizing, like telephone or trainer. Or professor.
Similarly, when used in place of a name, it's written Mom, but in any other constructions like my/her/the mom it's written as such.
"Your" is possessive, as in, your story, "you're" means "you are".
[That's just a bit of a prologue to the story, it's very short. ]
The issue isn't the length, it's that every last sentence of it was a waste of time. You said nothing new and introduced nothing relevant. If you started the story next chapter no one would have noticed.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5929956/1/All_For_an_Eevee
You wouldn't capitalize animal or mouse or dragon, so you shouldn't capitalize words like pokemon or pikachu or charizard. 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 is because you only capitalize when it's a proper noun, which are the names of places or things. Similar reasoning should be applied to any other words you're thinking of capitalizing, like telephone or trainer. Or professor.
[Today they are exploring the abandoned town of Thistleroot, and hot on the trail of an injured Eevee they tracked to an old warehouse. ]
It's amazing people think eevee are rare, what with people stumbling over them every five minutes. The only way this could get better is if we spend a while on how awesome they are because they're so concerned for its welfare, despite the fact there's never any scenes where people try to find the injured bidoof.
Dialogue is written as "Hello," he said or "Hello!" he said, never "Hello." He said or "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. Note that something isn't a speech verb just because it's a sound you make with your mouth, so generally stuff like laughed or giggled is in the second category.
Furthermore, if you're breaking up two complete sentences it's "Hi," he said. "This is it." not "Hi," he said, "this is it." or "Hi," he said "this is it." And if you're breaking up a sentence in the middle, it's "Hi. This," he said, "is it." If there's no speech verb in the break, you use a dash, like "Hi. This - " He looked around. "- is it."
["Ahh, that's unfortunate. Sometimes bird Pokemon get trapped in large buildings. They find an open window and fly in, but then get confused and starve to death because they can't find their way out again." he said sadly ]
I don't know why people think it's such a great idea to write like pokemon are exactly the same as regular animals. The very first episode establishes your average pidgey is capable of sending a ten year old kid flying. Seriously don't think they'd need an open window to get back out.
And yes, they're still going on about how deeply concerned they are for the eevee's wellbeing.
...and now they've killed the random rhydon, because somehow knocking it out wasn't possible? And they managed to order their pokemon to beat it to death without their pokemon realizing they were killing it, because their pokemon are apparently completely oblivious to their surroundings and also morons. Despite that they're apparently about as smart as a toddler and couldn't understand what they were doing, the natural next step is to tell them that they just murdered a fellow pokemon, because emotional abuse is fun.
["We didn't have to kill him...we could have caught him, took him to a Pokemon center..." she said, choking back tears.
Zach sighed and looked around the abandoned apartment, then back at Jenn who had begun to cry.
"No...we couldn't have. It wouldn't have done any bit of good." he said sighing.]
Given that this wasn't explained to her in advance, why exactly did she jump straight on the murder wagon to start with?
...and now it's some bizarre rabies moral. Just because they're treating their pokemon like small kids doesn't mean that pokemon actually deserve much in the way of effort for treatment, so obviously catching the pokemon that was infected while trying to save the original town and seeing if anyone can manage to cure it this time around would have been way too much work. Anyway, they're sure it's happier dead, really, and that somehow despite being here for a while and the area not being quarantined in any way there aren't any other carriers around. More importantly they found a cute eevee who doesn't require any investment of actual work after the good-rescuer-person cred wears off, since it'll just get magic-healed at a pokecenter for free. (And it definitely isn't a carrier despite being mysteriously injured, because that would inconvenience them!) Truly, they are heroes.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5930055/1/Love_is_in_the_Windworks
[Helpful tips to understand this story better:
When writing is like this, this is the listed POV's experiences.
When writing is like this, (other than the POV labels and the header/footer) the narrator is speaking.
When writing is like this, someone is thinking to themselves.
When writing is like this, someone's thoughts are being emphasized/accented.
When writing is like this, it is an Author's Note (A/N)
When writing is like this, someone's consciousness is speaking to them.
When writing is like this, but is preceded with a *Flashback* message, a flashback is taking place in a characters mind.]
If you need this long of a key to explain the meaning of every type of formatting you're using, it's a sign you've done something wrong.
A mix of bold and italics, I don't want to go back and format it.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5930062/1/War_against_the_machine
Capitalize your title properly.
You wouldn't capitalize animal or mouse or dragon, so you shouldn't capitalize words like pokemon or pikachu or charizard. 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 is because you only capitalize when it's a proper noun, which are the names of places or things. Similar reasoning should be applied to any other words you're thinking of capitalizing, like telephone or trainer. Or professor.
[The Aipom looked over to the Rattata properly. The rat was slightly smaller than him, though thanks to growth formulas Pokemon all grew the same size. That is, except for the legendaries, a group of Pokemon who lived of growth formulas and used their size to claim superiority over everyone else. ]
While this is perfectly fine in concept, "legendaries" already has an established meaning. Use a different term if you have a different concept.
Dialogue is written as "Hello," he said or "Hello!" he said, never "Hello." He said or "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. Note that something isn't a speech verb just because it's a sound you make with your mouth, so generally stuff like laughed or giggled is in the second category.
Furthermore, if you're breaking up two complete sentences it's "Hi," he said. "This is it." not "Hi," he said, "this is it." or "Hi," he said "this is it." And if you're breaking up a sentence in the middle, it's "Hi. This," he said, "is it." If there's no speech verb in the break, you use a dash, like "Hi. This - " He looked around. "- is it."
["And how can I trust that?" Keronin glared at the Haunter, who remained calm, "You are all about trickery, after all."
"If I am the master of trickery…" The Haunter said, "Who cannot be trusted, why haven't I killed you yet?
]
Not what trickery means, and really, that the first thing he thinks of is murder does not suggest anything good. Seriously, imagine asking someone "Why should I trust you?" and having their immediate response be "I haven't tried to kill you yet." I would start looking around to see if they were about to lunge for a nearest sharp object.
[He was seen as a hero in many communities, even towns of ice or rock types, types who normally had a thick hatred of dragon types like him. ]
This is really sloppy. You seem to be just going with the idea that the groups are antagonistic based on type weakness, but a few seconds of thought make that ludicrous. Why would pokemon that have nothing to fear from dragon-types hate them? Along similar lines it makes little sense for ghosts and normal types to be antagonistic given both sides are immune to each other.
Sloppiness is a problem with the rest of the plot too. Your world seems shoddily constructed - you make sweeping pronouncements but don't characterize the actual world well. It's about as detailed as a greenscreen.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5930613/1/Blackthorn
You wouldn't capitalize animal or mouse or dragon, so you shouldn't capitalize words like pokemon or pikachu or charizard. 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 is because you only capitalize when it's a proper noun, which are the names of places or things. Similar reasoning should be applied to any other words you're thinking of capitalizing, like telephone or trainer. Or professor.
[butterfree's ]
Never use an apostrophe for a plural.
[my meticulate mental checklist ]
SPELLCHECK.
Dialogue is written as "Hello," he said or "Hello!" he said, never "Hello." He said or "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. Note that something isn't a speech verb just because it's a sound you make with your mouth, so generally stuff like laughed or giggled is in the second category.
Furthermore, if you're breaking up two complete sentences it's "Hi," he said. "This is it." not "Hi," he said, "this is it." or "Hi," he said "this is it." And if you're breaking up a sentence in the middle, it's "Hi. This," he said, "is it." If there's no speech verb in the break, you use a dash, like "Hi. This - " He looked around. "- is it."
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5931006/1/Pokemon_Virus
You wouldn't capitalize animal or mouse or dragon, so you shouldn't capitalize words like pokemon or pikachu or charizard. 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 is because you only capitalize when it's a proper noun, which are the names of places or things. Similar reasoning should be applied to any other words you're thinking of capitalizing, like telephone or trainer. Or professor.
[suddenly a Lickylicky ]
Lickilicky. Double-check the spelling of pokemon species.
Dialogue is written as "Hello," he said or "Hello!" he said, never "Hello." He said or "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. Note that something isn't a speech verb just because it's a sound you make with your mouth, so generally stuff like laughed or giggled is in the second category.
Furthermore, if you're breaking up two complete sentences it's "Hi," he said. "This is it." not "Hi," he said, "this is it." or "Hi," he said "this is it." And if you're breaking up a sentence in the middle, it's "Hi. This," he said, "is it." If there's no speech verb in the break, you use a dash, like "Hi. This - " He looked around. "- is it."
It's really easy to overrely on dialogue to tell your story. Dialogue is easy to write - not only have you heard people talking all the time, but you also talk yourself and you can easily imagine talking about what's happening in your story. The problem is that this doesn't mean that dialogue is actually moving the story along or interesting to read. You need to strip out unnecessary conversations and spend more time on narration, describing the setting around them, the actions they're taking and what they're thinking.
Character bios are a bad idea. If it's relevant it belongs in your story, if it's not you shouldn't be wasting time on it.
Dialogue is written as "Hello," he said or "Hello!" he said, never "Hello." He said or "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. Note that something isn't a speech verb just because it's a sound you make with your mouth, so generally stuff like laughed or giggled is in the second category.
Furthermore, if you're breaking up two complete sentences it's "Hi," he said. "This is it." not "Hi," he said, "this is it." or "Hi," he said "this is it." And if you're breaking up a sentence in the middle, it's "Hi. This," he said, "is it." If there's no speech verb in the break, you use a dash, like "Hi. This - " He looked around. "- is it."
You wouldn't capitalize animal or mouse or dragon, so you shouldn't capitalize words like pokemon or pikachu or charizard. 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 is because you only capitalize when it's a proper noun, which are the names of places or things. Similar reasoning should be applied to any other words you're thinking of capitalizing, like telephone or trainer. Or professor.
[As soon as her hand landed on the marking it glowed brightly and the word "Light" appeared below it in Unknown letters. ]
...do you mean the pokemon unown? Because if so it's spelled like that. Check your spelling.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5929889/1/Mastering_Pokemon
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 you start a new paragraph.
You wouldn't capitalize animal or mouse or dragon, so you shouldn't capitalize words like pokemon or pikachu or charizard. 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 is because you only capitalize when it's a proper noun, which are the names of places or things. Similar reasoning should be applied to any other words you're thinking of capitalizing, like telephone or trainer. Or professor.
Generally awful, get a beta reader.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5929899/1/A_Pokemon_Journey_Never_to_Forget
There are about three thousand stories just on this site in this category with "pokemon" in their title. There are about two hundred and fifty "chronicles", more if you include misspellings, almost as many with "begins" and "beginning", and god knows how many "Character Name"'s whatever. There are almost four hundred with "legend". There are six hundred and fifty with "journey", six hundred with "story", two hundred with "quest", and almost seven hundred with "adventure". "Kanto" shows up over a hundred times, as does "Johto", "Hoenn", and "Sinnoh". "Saga" similarly comes in at a hundred.
What I'm getting at here is that you want to choose an original title that has to do with your story in particular, not something that indicates it's yet another story about a pokemon trainer.
Opening your story with a character waking up for the day is generic and horribly, horribly overdone, and to be perfectly honest it's so incredibly dull and boring a start that even if I hadn't seen it, very literally here, hundreds upon hundreds of times before, I would still tell you you should have started at some other, interesting point.
Do not use " for thoughts. Ever. It just looks like your character is talking to themself.
Dialogue is written as "Hello," he said or "Hello!" he said, never "Hello." He said or "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. Note that something isn't a speech verb just because it's a sound you make with your mouth, so generally stuff like laughed or giggled is in the second category.
Furthermore, if you're breaking up two complete sentences it's "Hi," he said. "This is it." not "Hi," he said, "this is it." or "Hi," he said "this is it." And if you're breaking up a sentence in the middle, it's "Hi. This," he said, "is it." If there's no speech verb in the break, you use a dash, like "Hi. This - " He looked around. "- is it."
Thoughts follow the same capitalization rules.
You wouldn't capitalize animal or mouse or dragon, so you shouldn't capitalize words like pokemon or pikachu or charizard. 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 is because you only capitalize when it's a proper noun, which are the names of places or things. Similar reasoning should be applied to any other words you're thinking of capitalizing, like telephone or trainer. Or professor.
Similarly, when used in place of a name, it's written Mom, but in any other constructions like my/her/the mom it's written as such.
"Your" is possessive, as in, your story, "you're" means "you are".
[That's just a bit of a prologue to the story, it's very short. ]
The issue isn't the length, it's that every last sentence of it was a waste of time. You said nothing new and introduced nothing relevant. If you started the story next chapter no one would have noticed.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5929956/1/All_For_an_Eevee
You wouldn't capitalize animal or mouse or dragon, so you shouldn't capitalize words like pokemon or pikachu or charizard. 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 is because you only capitalize when it's a proper noun, which are the names of places or things. Similar reasoning should be applied to any other words you're thinking of capitalizing, like telephone or trainer. Or professor.
[Today they are exploring the abandoned town of Thistleroot, and hot on the trail of an injured Eevee they tracked to an old warehouse. ]
It's amazing people think eevee are rare, what with people stumbling over them every five minutes. The only way this could get better is if we spend a while on how awesome they are because they're so concerned for its welfare, despite the fact there's never any scenes where people try to find the injured bidoof.
Dialogue is written as "Hello," he said or "Hello!" he said, never "Hello." He said or "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. Note that something isn't a speech verb just because it's a sound you make with your mouth, so generally stuff like laughed or giggled is in the second category.
Furthermore, if you're breaking up two complete sentences it's "Hi," he said. "This is it." not "Hi," he said, "this is it." or "Hi," he said "this is it." And if you're breaking up a sentence in the middle, it's "Hi. This," he said, "is it." If there's no speech verb in the break, you use a dash, like "Hi. This - " He looked around. "- is it."
["Ahh, that's unfortunate. Sometimes bird Pokemon get trapped in large buildings. They find an open window and fly in, but then get confused and starve to death because they can't find their way out again." he said sadly ]
I don't know why people think it's such a great idea to write like pokemon are exactly the same as regular animals. The very first episode establishes your average pidgey is capable of sending a ten year old kid flying. Seriously don't think they'd need an open window to get back out.
And yes, they're still going on about how deeply concerned they are for the eevee's wellbeing.
...and now they've killed the random rhydon, because somehow knocking it out wasn't possible? And they managed to order their pokemon to beat it to death without their pokemon realizing they were killing it, because their pokemon are apparently completely oblivious to their surroundings and also morons. Despite that they're apparently about as smart as a toddler and couldn't understand what they were doing, the natural next step is to tell them that they just murdered a fellow pokemon, because emotional abuse is fun.
["We didn't have to kill him...we could have caught him, took him to a Pokemon center..." she said, choking back tears.
Zach sighed and looked around the abandoned apartment, then back at Jenn who had begun to cry.
"No...we couldn't have. It wouldn't have done any bit of good." he said sighing.]
Given that this wasn't explained to her in advance, why exactly did she jump straight on the murder wagon to start with?
...and now it's some bizarre rabies moral. Just because they're treating their pokemon like small kids doesn't mean that pokemon actually deserve much in the way of effort for treatment, so obviously catching the pokemon that was infected while trying to save the original town and seeing if anyone can manage to cure it this time around would have been way too much work. Anyway, they're sure it's happier dead, really, and that somehow despite being here for a while and the area not being quarantined in any way there aren't any other carriers around. More importantly they found a cute eevee who doesn't require any investment of actual work after the good-rescuer-person cred wears off, since it'll just get magic-healed at a pokecenter for free. (And it definitely isn't a carrier despite being mysteriously injured, because that would inconvenience them!) Truly, they are heroes.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5930055/1/Love_is_in_the_Windworks
[Helpful tips to understand this story better:
When writing is like this, this is the listed POV's experiences.
When writing is like this, (other than the POV labels and the header/footer) the narrator is speaking.
When writing is like this, someone is thinking to themselves.
When writing is like this, someone's thoughts are being emphasized/accented.
When writing is like this, it is an Author's Note (A/N)
When writing is like this, someone's consciousness is speaking to them.
When writing is like this, but is preceded with a *Flashback* message, a flashback is taking place in a characters mind.]
If you need this long of a key to explain the meaning of every type of formatting you're using, it's a sign you've done something wrong.
A mix of bold and italics, I don't want to go back and format it.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5930062/1/War_against_the_machine
Capitalize your title properly.
You wouldn't capitalize animal or mouse or dragon, so you shouldn't capitalize words like pokemon or pikachu or charizard. 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 is because you only capitalize when it's a proper noun, which are the names of places or things. Similar reasoning should be applied to any other words you're thinking of capitalizing, like telephone or trainer. Or professor.
[The Aipom looked over to the Rattata properly. The rat was slightly smaller than him, though thanks to growth formulas Pokemon all grew the same size. That is, except for the legendaries, a group of Pokemon who lived of growth formulas and used their size to claim superiority over everyone else. ]
While this is perfectly fine in concept, "legendaries" already has an established meaning. Use a different term if you have a different concept.
Dialogue is written as "Hello," he said or "Hello!" he said, never "Hello." He said or "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. Note that something isn't a speech verb just because it's a sound you make with your mouth, so generally stuff like laughed or giggled is in the second category.
Furthermore, if you're breaking up two complete sentences it's "Hi," he said. "This is it." not "Hi," he said, "this is it." or "Hi," he said "this is it." And if you're breaking up a sentence in the middle, it's "Hi. This," he said, "is it." If there's no speech verb in the break, you use a dash, like "Hi. This - " He looked around. "- is it."
["And how can I trust that?" Keronin glared at the Haunter, who remained calm, "You are all about trickery, after all."
"If I am the master of trickery…" The Haunter said, "Who cannot be trusted, why haven't I killed you yet?
]
Not what trickery means, and really, that the first thing he thinks of is murder does not suggest anything good. Seriously, imagine asking someone "Why should I trust you?" and having their immediate response be "I haven't tried to kill you yet." I would start looking around to see if they were about to lunge for a nearest sharp object.
[He was seen as a hero in many communities, even towns of ice or rock types, types who normally had a thick hatred of dragon types like him. ]
This is really sloppy. You seem to be just going with the idea that the groups are antagonistic based on type weakness, but a few seconds of thought make that ludicrous. Why would pokemon that have nothing to fear from dragon-types hate them? Along similar lines it makes little sense for ghosts and normal types to be antagonistic given both sides are immune to each other.
Sloppiness is a problem with the rest of the plot too. Your world seems shoddily constructed - you make sweeping pronouncements but don't characterize the actual world well. It's about as detailed as a greenscreen.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5930613/1/Blackthorn
You wouldn't capitalize animal or mouse or dragon, so you shouldn't capitalize words like pokemon or pikachu or charizard. 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 is because you only capitalize when it's a proper noun, which are the names of places or things. Similar reasoning should be applied to any other words you're thinking of capitalizing, like telephone or trainer. Or professor.
[butterfree's ]
Never use an apostrophe for a plural.
[my meticulate mental checklist ]
SPELLCHECK.
Dialogue is written as "Hello," he said or "Hello!" he said, never "Hello." He said or "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. Note that something isn't a speech verb just because it's a sound you make with your mouth, so generally stuff like laughed or giggled is in the second category.
Furthermore, if you're breaking up two complete sentences it's "Hi," he said. "This is it." not "Hi," he said, "this is it." or "Hi," he said "this is it." And if you're breaking up a sentence in the middle, it's "Hi. This," he said, "is it." If there's no speech verb in the break, you use a dash, like "Hi. This - " He looked around. "- is it."
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5931006/1/Pokemon_Virus
You wouldn't capitalize animal or mouse or dragon, so you shouldn't capitalize words like pokemon or pikachu or charizard. 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 is because you only capitalize when it's a proper noun, which are the names of places or things. Similar reasoning should be applied to any other words you're thinking of capitalizing, like telephone or trainer. Or professor.
[suddenly a Lickylicky ]
Lickilicky. Double-check the spelling of pokemon species.
Dialogue is written as "Hello," he said or "Hello!" he said, never "Hello." He said or "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. Note that something isn't a speech verb just because it's a sound you make with your mouth, so generally stuff like laughed or giggled is in the second category.
Furthermore, if you're breaking up two complete sentences it's "Hi," he said. "This is it." not "Hi," he said, "this is it." or "Hi," he said "this is it." And if you're breaking up a sentence in the middle, it's "Hi. This," he said, "is it." If there's no speech verb in the break, you use a dash, like "Hi. This - " He looked around. "- is it."
It's really easy to overrely on dialogue to tell your story. Dialogue is easy to write - not only have you heard people talking all the time, but you also talk yourself and you can easily imagine talking about what's happening in your story. The problem is that this doesn't mean that dialogue is actually moving the story along or interesting to read. You need to strip out unnecessary conversations and spend more time on narration, describing the setting around them, the actions they're taking and what they're thinking.
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no subject
Date: 2010-04-29 04:42 pm (UTC)When writing is like this, someone's consciousness is speaking to them.
... That needed something /different/ from "someone is thinking to themselves"? Blugh.
I'm amused the last story labeled nearly every paragraph a "chapter". And awww that chickie has a splotch of yellow between its (his? how do you tell?) eyes :3 :3
no subject
Date: 2010-04-29 10:02 pm (UTC)And awww that chickie has a splotch of yellow between its (his? how do you tell?) eyes :3 :3
That's what the comb looks like on babies. You can start to tell their sex because the comb is bigger on the boys than the girls. I think this was one of the three boys, though I'd have to check through my pictures again to match them up. (Their colors completely changed between hatching and their first set of adult feathers.)
no subject
Date: 2010-04-29 09:06 pm (UTC)Trainer. College.
Because there really needs to be an institute of higher learning for something most people learn how to do through trial and error as children.
no subject
Date: 2010-04-29 10:05 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-04-30 01:06 am (UTC)Oh, if you mount a small pole where your chick can hop and reach it, your chicken will be eternally greatful. ^^
no subject
Date: 2010-04-30 01:57 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-04-30 09:24 pm (UTC)