NaRe11, Day One
Jan. 1st, 2011 06:39 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
farlaFirst up, a review request.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6598786/1/Perspective
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.
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 really should use said more. Said is invisible. You should only use other words occasionally, when you mean to draw attention to how it's being said.
Anyway, as to the storyline, I like the idea. The rival's bratty, but that doesn't change that, objectively, the beginning of the RB series is pretty unfair to him, the sort of thing the player would seethe over if it happened to their own character. And you do well portraying the pokemon in a down-to-earth manner - they're still more potential than powerful. Particularly Blue being affectionate to his new charmander - he's mostly angry here, and he picked it because he wants to beat Red, so it's good have that showing he does care about his new pokemon for itself as well.
I find the ending a bit of a divergence - probably mostly not knowing anything, but with the original generation I generally lost on my first dozen or so replays, it was only once I actually had some experience I could beat the rival more often than not. (And gamewise, it's also the only encounter he can canonically win.)
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6612124/1/Darkness_Turns_To_Light
["Oh, you must be Cassandra, from Lilycove," he said, arching an eyebrow and motioning the girl to follow him.
"Ehm, Cassidy..." the girl whispered back]
Uh, there are a lot of nicknames for Cassandra, with Cassie and Sandra the main ones. Cassidy, to the best of my knowledge, isn't. It's a completely separate name. And even if it was a normal nickname, giving characters multiple names or versions of their names is generally a bad move.
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 really should use said more. Said is invisible. You should only use other words occasionally, when you mean to draw attention to how it's being said.
["Oh, I'm glad you are here," the man started and stood up, "I'm Professor Boot."]
Professors canonically get tree names. If you're going to break this pattern it's better to give them normal names then a bizarre AND unfitting name.
[Cassidy looked down. She was expecting Professor Birch; she had heard that he was a really nice person.
"Professor Birch was unable to come-" it was as if Professor Boot had read the girl's mind "-but I will happily give you your first pokemon."
The idea of receiving her first pokemon made the girl smile. Perhaps this Boot guy wasn't as evil as she'd first imagined.]
What? She's just met the guy. Why would she imagine he was evil? "Perhaps he was nice too" would work, "perhaps he wasn't EVIL" is a bit much.
["This is a superball," he stated and handed it to the girl, "And in it resides one of the most special pokemon we have captured."]
Otherwise known as one of the worst plot devices that show up in trainerfic.
Trainers start at ten.
[And, if it was so special, why was she receiving it? After all, she was just a tremendously shy fourteen year old girl.
"Listen, Cassidy," Professor Boot called. "I am only giving this pokemon to you because I believe you will help us on our investigation."]
So...no, there isn't any real explanation for why she's getting it, just a vague handwave.
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.
[And then it began running. What would Cassidy do? She cleared her throat and stretched her right arm, the blue ball shining on her hand.
Closing her eyes, she clicked the button and yelled: "Go, pokeball!"]
Look, one of the nice things about fanfic is how it isn't exactly like the game. This means, for example, that trainers can choose to let their pokemon out any time they want to, rather than waiting for a battle. And waiting for a battle to let a pokemon out is a spectacularly bad idea. It could be some baby pokemon or something like abra that can't handle a poochyena.
[The pokemon finally appearing, it made a low noise that the girl was unable to precisely hear, and gave a pair of firm steps towards the Poochyena, before staying still for the world to appreciate.
The girl opened one eye, and was extremely surprised by the pokemon's beauty. Its figure was similar to the one of a feline, with four long legs and dark blue claws that shined under the great sun. Its tail was long and dark blue, and so powerful it looked as if someone would get cut. A similar scythe lied on the creature's head, which was covered by a snow-white fur that also covered its chest.]
And this is really just getting more and more sueish.
Absol are overused pokemon, and honestly, authors picking first pokemon that they personally are gushing over is always a bad sign.
If you really want her to have an absol, cut out the bit about it being some ultra-special pokemon she was chosen to get and the idea that everybody else gets the standard choice of three. It doesn't have to work like that, it's entirely possible to say that the local professor just hands out a bunch of random spare pokemon, or that she gets it as a gift, or her parents buy it for her, or whatever.
If you really want her to have some ultra-special pokemon, well, figure out why she'd be given it, and make it something other than an overused pretty pokemon. If something's going to have unusual abilities or whatever, odds are it wouldn't also be, by coincidence, an incredibly popular pokemon.
[at his opponent ]
You're using "it" to refer to the absol most of the time, but periodically slip up and say "he". Proofread. If you've having trouble with using "it" consistently, just use "he" the whole time, it's okay to give pokemon genders (you can say the pokedex mentions it if you aren't sure how she'd know).
[Absol blinked to itself before giving a few steps backwards. It shook its head lightly before turning around and running away.
"Wait, Absol!"
Cassidy tried to follow the pokemon but it was just too fast, and in a matter of seconds Absol was out of sight.]
That's what pokeballs are for. Look, if you want the absol to run off, you can always say she doesn't react fast enough and the beam misses, but it makes trainers look stupid when they fail to remember something about common technology in their world.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6612174/1/First_Station
[still bustling crowds promptly kicked them into grey slush.]
Kicked seems wrong - stomped or trampled maybe.
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.
Anyway, this is pretty well done mechanically, but I found it slow and not particularly interesting. It's snapshots of a pretty mundane life, and a lot of it felt like things I've already read.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6612223/1/Beauty
If your entire "chapter" isn't even a page long, it's probably not something you should post as a chapter. This isn't even a scene. Don't post something as a story until you've actually written one.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6612278/1/Time_and_Time_Again
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."
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.
Write out numbers with letters.
You need more narration. Right now you're using dialogue to move the story along, which is clumsy.
["Mr., you are absolutely, positively, definitely, late!" ]
It's "mister".
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.
Pointless chatter is something you should cut out of your story. Start your story when your plot starts. Not with your character waking up. Not when they're screwing around doing nothing interesting with their friend. When the plot starts.
[Just as the two teens made their way toward their street, a portal suddenly appeared.]
...right. So yeah, you should have just started here. Mind, you also should have more of an explanation than "suddenly, a thing happened!" and some description of what this looked like would be nice.
No, seriously, pointless chatter should be cut. Yes, sometimes in real life conversations wander all over the place and people have to restate things over and over to get their point across. You know what else real life is sometimes? Fucking boring. Pare it down to what matters.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6612328/1/Playfully_Seductive_Frosting
"開玩笑地誘惑蒙砂 Playfully Seductive Frosting "
...seriously?
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 sugary scent, sent me into a frenzy. ]
Your sentence structure throughout is really weird and smacks of trying too hard.
You really should use said more. Said is invisible. You should only use other words occasionally, when you mean to draw attention to how it's being said.
[My tongue slipped out of my mouth, like an Ekans out of its hole, and licked up the frosting. Mm…tasty… I could tell Hikari began to blush immensely! Her face looked like she could've had scarlet fever. ]
...seriously?
[I was always the dominate one it seemed… ]
Dominant. Also, ugh.
[writing exersize ]
SPELLING. IT MATTERS.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6612525/1/Brothers
Write out numbers with letters.
[The weekend at Dads were stressful ]
Should be "weekends" and "Dad's".
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.
[he barley ]
Barely. Barley is the grain.
[And so it began, he calls me every week, slowly I'm trying to rebuild out bond, maybe someday I'll help him get rid of his shell had help him become the person I remember.]
Except you say the change came when he was age three. Look, this comes off as just regurgitating cliches for the sake of it. Lots of little kids are talkative and then get quieter, or vise versa. Most people can't even remember back to when they were four, and no one is the same as they were back then, so using the old "back to the way I remember" thing makes no sense. He can care about Paul because Paul's his brother, but this reads like you mean he cares about the three year old version only, and that's absurd because no one is going to end up back like how they were remembered when they were too young to even talk properly.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6612867/1/The_Chronicles_of_Snivy
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.
[Darrel felt an urge to slap Cindy but remembered what he had been taught about hitting girls. ("Boys who hit girls grow up to be trash collectors," his father had said once. "I had this friend once named Sid who hit a few girls when they made him angry. While all his classmates were going off to college, he was collecting trash. So unless you love garbage and want to deal with it for the rest of your life, do not, I repeat do not, ever hit a girl.") ]
Ugh.
[SNIVY WANT BE POISON MORE THAN CARE ABOUT HEALTH. SNIVY WANT TO LORD OVER OTHER SNIVY.]
I really hope you wanted that to be LOLworthy, because it is.
And really, why would being a poison type matter? It's not like there's any lack of grass/poison pokemon as it is, I think I'd have noticed by now if it was secretly the most uber unbeatable type combination.
[Limerick kept trying to show Juku how to do the move Flash, but Juku didn't want to learn any moves that Darrel hadn't taught him by technical or hidden machine or that he hadn't learned by leveling up. Juku hated the idea of a Pokemon teacher. ]
What?
[First name: Darrel Last name: You don't need to know]
So Darrel is kind of an asshole is what I'm getting here.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6613036/1/Legends_The_Kanto_Chapters
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.
Furthermore, as you may have guessed from that, this kind of story isn't exactly new. There have been a lot of stories about a trainer and even a lot of ones trying to novelize the games. This opening wouldn't have been particularly interesting in the best of times, and it's certainly not when it's basically the same thing as ever other time.
You need a plot. These scenes read like they're just treading water until you reach the next bit. Have things happen! Talking to her mother about how she's doing good in her pokemon classes but not her other ones? Not interesting. And not exactly new. Streams of pointless banter in school? Ditto. If you need to bring these things in, think up decent scenes with something happening to take place.
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.
[So I the only part of this I actually like is the battle. Everything else is just sorta blah. It speeds up in the next chapter, though, thank goodness - I can't do this sort of pace for an extended period of time. ]
THEN CUT IT. FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, WHY DO I NEED TO SAY THIS.
Look, even if it's a novelization, that doesn't mean you have to write out every little bit. If it's boring as fuck to you, it's probably boring as fuck to other people.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6613090/1/Delete
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 Sunyshore Gym had been too difficult for her skill level, and there were no Trainers left to battle. Nyaru could not go forward, nor could she go backward. She was fixed in place, a stop in the flow of time. And blockages must be erased. ]
Who the hell plays the game like that? That's what wild pokemon are for. Or the vs seeker. Or just fighting the gym leader over and over again. Why the hell would you restart the game over this?
[Would her Pokemon survive? Yes, but they would remember, even if no one else did. ]
Nope, they just got deleted. Seriously, what the hell.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6613138/1/Tikikiki
[Ash, Misty, and Brock were just hiking through the forest, unaware of what was about to happen. Heroes are often oblivious about the future, aren't they?]
...unlike everyone else, who always know exactly what'll happen?
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.
I don't see what's the problem with these things. Sure, they can swap bodies, but they haven't a clue how to pretend to be the person. If the entire group wasn't clutching desperately at the idiot ball, they'd realize this wasn't Ash because it doesn't act anything like him.
["I'm not a normal Pokémon! I'm Ash!" But it came out "Tck-it-a-tck!"]
And Ash can't write because his hands are full with his own idiot ball.
Also, you rely way too heavily on dialogue here. There should be more narration.
["I talked? I talked! Maybe these flowers tck a tck." Ash shook himself and took another whiff of the flower's scent. "These-flowers-can-help-me-talk-just-like-I'm-still-Ash-which-I-am-and-tck-a-tck-a-tck-tck-tck!" ]
Yeah I'm just going to give up here. This is nonsensical.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6613221/1/An_Advanced_New_Years
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."
Wow, people just keep talking and talking and talking here. Look, if it's utterly irrelevant, it shouldn't be there. The delete key is your friend, cut stuff that's not needed.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6613340/1/carnival_of_rust
[(But, she knows he's right, because it is the women whose painted lips and darkened lashes lure the man like a serpent.) ]
...see, you could have done something interesting here and point out that, you know, it's the serpent who seduces the woman, instead of yet again the same old conflation of the two getting the blame for corrupting the man.
The writing of this is pretty and poetic, but - well, it's not anything more.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6613346/1/The_Joys_of_Formspring
...this had better not be the new chatroom fic. You do a good job of verisimilitude, but really, this is one of those things that could be written about anyone.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6613360/1/A_Hidden_Enemy
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.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6614067/1/It_Was_Never_About_The_Bike
oh my god are people seriously still writing these
Don't center your text, it makes it incredibly annoying to read.
Dialogue is written with quotation marks. That's ". You're using apostrophes, ', stop it.
What your apostrophes should be used for are all your contractions.
[Its just great ]
It's.
[Arent you pleased]
Aren't.
Your grasp of writing mechanics is terrible, get a beta reader.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6614130/1/penumbra
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.
Anyway, this was a nice character piece. You do a good job of tying together storyline and atmosphere, and the ending is a clever one.
Current stats: 1438 reviews. So I started at 1421.
You want Red Queen stuff? My reviews. Number goes up, number goes down.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2011-01-02 07:48 am (UTC)oh my god are people seriously still writing these
"Oh my god" is right. That is the same goddamn story people have been writing since the nineties. It has now officially been written and published in three different decades. Fucking Hell.
no subject
Date: 2011-01-02 04:26 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-01-03 08:22 pm (UTC)