Review, review
Jan. 26th, 2005 11:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
farlaEdit: Well, she says she's going to rewrite some parts, so maybe I misjudged her. I'll have to see which parts she changes before I'm certain, but this looks more positive that I thought.
Edit2: Never mind, seems she just fixed the spelling of 'decision' in the summary and left the story unaltered. Yay for my predictive abilities, boo for humanity.
I just reviewed a story, Unmei (it means fate or destiny in Japanese, as the author kindly informs us. Keleri, maybe you should update your list of evil to include destiny references in trendy languages) by Ikena.
The story's author notes, aside from the DESTINY IN TEH KAWAII JAPANESE LANGUAGE thing, contain a couple other 'warning signs'. The summary is: Kaye’s a loud mouthed 16 year old who recently moved into ‘Dullsville’. However, when she makes the desion to become a trainer, she gets more then she bargained for… so we hit the Loudmouthed!Sue and Attitude!Sue cliches immediately, as well as the OMGTEEN!Sue. However, the author does say there will be no Japanese words in the story itself, which is a good, good thing. The author also says this is her second attempt at a pokemon fanfic ('attempt' is never a good word) and later says This is about my…erm…sixth attempt on starting a FF involving Kaye. I'm sure there must be cases where writing about the same character in six different stories, across fandom lines (since this is only her second pokemon story) does not portend a sue. Actually, no, it's always a sue. Oh, and This is an OCxOC fic. Danger, danger Will Robinson! ::shudder:: If the author needs to announce their character's getting into a relationship like that, it means it's going to be something pretty horrific.
And, as nearly definite proof I'm going to be made to regret giving the review, she also says Please, no flames, I would like ways to improve my story. at the bottom. Those who ask for concrit like it the least.
Anyway, her profile rather amuses me. I think it's gotten trendy to say you don't like mary sues, much like it used to be trendy to say that any flames you got would be used to for X. Here's her list of dislikes:
Illiterates
Mary/Gary Sues
Dresses
Skirts
Singing
Pop Music
School
CHATSPEAK!
Yaoi/Yuri
So she's a Goodwriter!Anti-girly!Homophobic!Nonconformist!Elitist!author. Yeah. She says she's 'older than ten', so she's probably eleven. (Ten is such an arbitrary number, especially when thirteen's the minimum age for the site)
Anyway, preserved for posterity is the review:
Personally, I dislike the idea of opening a story with a description of the character. Take a moment to set the scene first. You didn't go into agonizing detail with her, which is a nice change from a lot of the stuff I read, but 'emerald eyes' is overused and rather sueish. (Few people have eyes the actual color of an emerald, I might add) 'Striking green' is the less flowery way of saying they were a very strong green, and there are numerous other adjectives at your disposal that do not involve the gemstone eyes cliche.
Even if there's a punctuation mark that normally marks the end of a sentence, like an exclamation mark, ellipsis or question mark, you still don't capitalize the narration after it. The only time you capitalize narration after dialogue is if it's the start of an independent sentence. ("Hey!" the character said, smiling cheerfully. or "Hey!" The character smiled cheerfully.)
'Yea' is what you say during archaic voting. It is pronounced 'Yay' and rhymes with 'nay'. 'Yeah' is probably the word you want.
"The only thing you can do around here is sit a stare!"
...sit AND stare, I believe. Proofreading would catch mistakes like this.
"Couldn’t have moved to a place with at least some action?"
You've dropped another word here, probably either 'you' or 'we'.
::blink:: Okay...they don't have enough money to buy a house in Slateport but they can afford eight acres? While I can understand differing property values, that seems a trifle extreme. Also, watch the exclamation points.
"Kaye made of face, she did indeed wanted to move into the country, but she realized how boring it was."
'Kaye made A face, she HAD indeed wanted to move into the country, but NOW she realized how boring IT WOULD BE.' Proofreading. Seriously, you've got to read what you've written at least once through.
Also, a teen who wanted to move to the country should have had at least some small idea of what it entailed - I'm only seventeen and I'm not that naive. I can see her misjudging this, but not to the totally bored, staring at nothing and whining degree.
Oh, and you need punctuation at the end of your next bit of dialogue.
"2454 Breezy Drive" There are only 150 to 200 people in the town, but there are at least 2454 buildings on a single road?
You don't need that sudden enter between 'of' and 'New Bark town', which, incidentally, should be fully capitalized. If 'town' is part of the name, then it's treated the same as the rest of it. Also, the sentence after it sounds simplistic, perhaps it'd be better to combine the two.
"Pokemon where also rare there, the only Pokemon that were regularly seen were Pidgey and a random Wurmple."
'Pokemon WERE also' Where = place.
Also, why exactly were there no pokemon? If there's that much land and so few people, why are there only pidgey and (apparently) a single wurmple?
Personally, I don't believe pokemon or pokemon names should be capitalized. They're not proper nouns. You don't capitalize 'animal' and 'pigeon' so why 'pokemon' and 'pidgey'?
::blink:: She just suddenly thinks 'oh gee, I want to be a trainer'? If she thinks pokemon are at all interesting or that being a trainer sounds exciting, she should have left six years ago.
I don't think most parents lose their grip on bowls that easily, especially not when their child seems like the sort to have yelled often previously.
'Your' is possessive, as in 'your story'. 'You're' is a contraction of 'you are', as in 'you're the author'.
No, most kids do not start at twelve. They start at ten.
::blinks again:: Okay...so, she didn't want to be a trainer because she didn't want to leave her friends...yet she hasn't mentioned missing them and apparently was in favor of moving and thus leaving them...plus she didn't even think of it until three months later after the move when she happened to be watching a battle and it just occurred to her...sure.
Plus, reasonably, wouldn't her friends have left her to go on pokemon journeys unless she went with them?
I'm amazed by how seriously her mother takes her sudden whim.
'Mom', when used as a name, is always capitalized.
"She bent down and began cleaning the mess her mother had forgotten to clean in her haste."
Try not to use the same word twice in the same sentence.
...oh god. I have seen so many 'waking up and then suddenly remembers that they're getting their pokemon' scenes. And the yelling, and the running downstairs to see their already awake parent cooking breakfast... Please, please, please try something new.
Also, please don't mark thoughts with ' as it looks very similar to ", especially when you're using smartquotes. Also, in some writing ' does denote dialogue, so it's very easy to read as speech. I'd prefer unmarked thoughts, but there's also a wealth of other symbols available that aren't almost identical to the ones for dialogue.
"She bolted upright, hair was wild and tangled."
'hair wild and tangled'. No 'was'.
Her trainer outfit is a lot more reasonable than many I've seen. Still, I'd think she'd want to at least take a change of clothing or two. Definitely a warmer shirt, a raincoat, heavier pants...You'd think someone who was living so far out they couldn't see the next house would be used to long walks and the sort of stuff one would need to bring.
'Literally' is not the best emphasis word, as it actually tends to lessen the impact. (This is in part because it tends to be used in conjunction with statements that are not literal) 'She was pushed aside' would work fine by itself.
What exactly is a 'skippy'? Skiploom?
What questions, exactly? "Hey, so are you going to be a trainer?" "Yeah." "Think you'll get all the badges?" "Yes." ... It really doesn't seem like there's much to ask, certainly not a half-hour's worth.
What gifts does she get? Are they items or other useful gear, or is she stuffing useless, heavy things into her bag?
"Inside laid a small, device"
'Inside LAY a small device'
I hope you're aware that when outside, rain isn't the minor nuisance it is to people running from their car to their house. If she's walking in rain she runs the risk of numerous fun, life-threatening illnesses, especially since she has no change of clothing. Also, like a raincoat and heavier clothing, bringing an umbrella is something she should know after living somewhere so far out. Having a less than auspicious start is certainly better than a majority of OT stories with everything perfect, but she really should know this stuff.
Gak. The pokemon world isn't sexist. The whole 'girls can't/shouldn't be trainers' concept is fanon. If her cousin and uncle were to make a remark, it would more likely be that she's a dumb city kid, or stupid, not a blanket statement about girls.
…You've written six stories about a character with the same name. Hello Sue, how you doing?
Your mechanical writing is typo-ridden but you do manage to describe the setting well enough, if quite briefly. Proofread or find a beta, or better yet, do both. Your dialogue is so-so, with some of it coming off realistic and other parts seeming wildly out of place. Your plotting needs work, as it's jumpy and horribly justified – the OC/OC mention at the bottom suggests what your response to me asking you to just write about a ten year old will be, so I'll skip that and say that if you want a sixteen year old trainer, it's perfectly possible to start the story with her already an established trainer. I will, however, remind you that many people in the category do not automatically worship a writer for including romance in their story. For that matter, some of us are quite sick of it and would prefer it not included unless actually fitting, rather than the one-dimensional versions so often given. Something to keep in mind.
No particular reason for showing that, I just felt that I put too much effort into it for it to be deleted when she decides her sixth attempt has failed and moves on to the seventh. Besides, if I collect enough reviews I'll ultimately be able to just link people here and stop writing them.
Edit2: Never mind, seems she just fixed the spelling of 'decision' in the summary and left the story unaltered. Yay for my predictive abilities, boo for humanity.
I just reviewed a story, Unmei (it means fate or destiny in Japanese, as the author kindly informs us. Keleri, maybe you should update your list of evil to include destiny references in trendy languages) by Ikena.
The story's author notes, aside from the DESTINY IN TEH KAWAII JAPANESE LANGUAGE thing, contain a couple other 'warning signs'. The summary is: Kaye’s a loud mouthed 16 year old who recently moved into ‘Dullsville’. However, when she makes the desion to become a trainer, she gets more then she bargained for… so we hit the Loudmouthed!Sue and Attitude!Sue cliches immediately, as well as the OMGTEEN!Sue. However, the author does say there will be no Japanese words in the story itself, which is a good, good thing. The author also says this is her second attempt at a pokemon fanfic ('attempt' is never a good word) and later says This is about my…erm…sixth attempt on starting a FF involving Kaye. I'm sure there must be cases where writing about the same character in six different stories, across fandom lines (since this is only her second pokemon story) does not portend a sue. Actually, no, it's always a sue. Oh, and This is an OCxOC fic. Danger, danger Will Robinson! ::shudder:: If the author needs to announce their character's getting into a relationship like that, it means it's going to be something pretty horrific.
And, as nearly definite proof I'm going to be made to regret giving the review, she also says Please, no flames, I would like ways to improve my story. at the bottom. Those who ask for concrit like it the least.
Anyway, her profile rather amuses me. I think it's gotten trendy to say you don't like mary sues, much like it used to be trendy to say that any flames you got would be used to for X. Here's her list of dislikes:
Illiterates
Mary/Gary Sues
Dresses
Skirts
Singing
Pop Music
School
CHATSPEAK!
Yaoi/Yuri
So she's a Goodwriter!Anti-girly!Homophobic!Nonconformist!Elitist!author. Yeah. She says she's 'older than ten', so she's probably eleven. (Ten is such an arbitrary number, especially when thirteen's the minimum age for the site)
Anyway, preserved for posterity is the review:
Personally, I dislike the idea of opening a story with a description of the character. Take a moment to set the scene first. You didn't go into agonizing detail with her, which is a nice change from a lot of the stuff I read, but 'emerald eyes' is overused and rather sueish. (Few people have eyes the actual color of an emerald, I might add) 'Striking green' is the less flowery way of saying they were a very strong green, and there are numerous other adjectives at your disposal that do not involve the gemstone eyes cliche.
Even if there's a punctuation mark that normally marks the end of a sentence, like an exclamation mark, ellipsis or question mark, you still don't capitalize the narration after it. The only time you capitalize narration after dialogue is if it's the start of an independent sentence. ("Hey!" the character said, smiling cheerfully. or "Hey!" The character smiled cheerfully.)
'Yea' is what you say during archaic voting. It is pronounced 'Yay' and rhymes with 'nay'. 'Yeah' is probably the word you want.
"The only thing you can do around here is sit a stare!"
...sit AND stare, I believe. Proofreading would catch mistakes like this.
"Couldn’t have moved to a place with at least some action?"
You've dropped another word here, probably either 'you' or 'we'.
::blink:: Okay...they don't have enough money to buy a house in Slateport but they can afford eight acres? While I can understand differing property values, that seems a trifle extreme. Also, watch the exclamation points.
"Kaye made of face, she did indeed wanted to move into the country, but she realized how boring it was."
'Kaye made A face, she HAD indeed wanted to move into the country, but NOW she realized how boring IT WOULD BE.' Proofreading. Seriously, you've got to read what you've written at least once through.
Also, a teen who wanted to move to the country should have had at least some small idea of what it entailed - I'm only seventeen and I'm not that naive. I can see her misjudging this, but not to the totally bored, staring at nothing and whining degree.
Oh, and you need punctuation at the end of your next bit of dialogue.
"2454 Breezy Drive" There are only 150 to 200 people in the town, but there are at least 2454 buildings on a single road?
You don't need that sudden enter between 'of' and 'New Bark town', which, incidentally, should be fully capitalized. If 'town' is part of the name, then it's treated the same as the rest of it. Also, the sentence after it sounds simplistic, perhaps it'd be better to combine the two.
"Pokemon where also rare there, the only Pokemon that were regularly seen were Pidgey and a random Wurmple."
'Pokemon WERE also' Where = place.
Also, why exactly were there no pokemon? If there's that much land and so few people, why are there only pidgey and (apparently) a single wurmple?
Personally, I don't believe pokemon or pokemon names should be capitalized. They're not proper nouns. You don't capitalize 'animal' and 'pigeon' so why 'pokemon' and 'pidgey'?
::blink:: She just suddenly thinks 'oh gee, I want to be a trainer'? If she thinks pokemon are at all interesting or that being a trainer sounds exciting, she should have left six years ago.
I don't think most parents lose their grip on bowls that easily, especially not when their child seems like the sort to have yelled often previously.
'Your' is possessive, as in 'your story'. 'You're' is a contraction of 'you are', as in 'you're the author'.
No, most kids do not start at twelve. They start at ten.
::blinks again:: Okay...so, she didn't want to be a trainer because she didn't want to leave her friends...yet she hasn't mentioned missing them and apparently was in favor of moving and thus leaving them...plus she didn't even think of it until three months later after the move when she happened to be watching a battle and it just occurred to her...sure.
Plus, reasonably, wouldn't her friends have left her to go on pokemon journeys unless she went with them?
I'm amazed by how seriously her mother takes her sudden whim.
'Mom', when used as a name, is always capitalized.
"She bent down and began cleaning the mess her mother had forgotten to clean in her haste."
Try not to use the same word twice in the same sentence.
...oh god. I have seen so many 'waking up and then suddenly remembers that they're getting their pokemon' scenes. And the yelling, and the running downstairs to see their already awake parent cooking breakfast... Please, please, please try something new.
Also, please don't mark thoughts with ' as it looks very similar to ", especially when you're using smartquotes. Also, in some writing ' does denote dialogue, so it's very easy to read as speech. I'd prefer unmarked thoughts, but there's also a wealth of other symbols available that aren't almost identical to the ones for dialogue.
"She bolted upright, hair was wild and tangled."
'hair wild and tangled'. No 'was'.
Her trainer outfit is a lot more reasonable than many I've seen. Still, I'd think she'd want to at least take a change of clothing or two. Definitely a warmer shirt, a raincoat, heavier pants...You'd think someone who was living so far out they couldn't see the next house would be used to long walks and the sort of stuff one would need to bring.
'Literally' is not the best emphasis word, as it actually tends to lessen the impact. (This is in part because it tends to be used in conjunction with statements that are not literal) 'She was pushed aside' would work fine by itself.
What exactly is a 'skippy'? Skiploom?
What questions, exactly? "Hey, so are you going to be a trainer?" "Yeah." "Think you'll get all the badges?" "Yes." ... It really doesn't seem like there's much to ask, certainly not a half-hour's worth.
What gifts does she get? Are they items or other useful gear, or is she stuffing useless, heavy things into her bag?
"Inside laid a small, device"
'Inside LAY a small device'
I hope you're aware that when outside, rain isn't the minor nuisance it is to people running from their car to their house. If she's walking in rain she runs the risk of numerous fun, life-threatening illnesses, especially since she has no change of clothing. Also, like a raincoat and heavier clothing, bringing an umbrella is something she should know after living somewhere so far out. Having a less than auspicious start is certainly better than a majority of OT stories with everything perfect, but she really should know this stuff.
Gak. The pokemon world isn't sexist. The whole 'girls can't/shouldn't be trainers' concept is fanon. If her cousin and uncle were to make a remark, it would more likely be that she's a dumb city kid, or stupid, not a blanket statement about girls.
…You've written six stories about a character with the same name. Hello Sue, how you doing?
Your mechanical writing is typo-ridden but you do manage to describe the setting well enough, if quite briefly. Proofread or find a beta, or better yet, do both. Your dialogue is so-so, with some of it coming off realistic and other parts seeming wildly out of place. Your plotting needs work, as it's jumpy and horribly justified – the OC/OC mention at the bottom suggests what your response to me asking you to just write about a ten year old will be, so I'll skip that and say that if you want a sixteen year old trainer, it's perfectly possible to start the story with her already an established trainer. I will, however, remind you that many people in the category do not automatically worship a writer for including romance in their story. For that matter, some of us are quite sick of it and would prefer it not included unless actually fitting, rather than the one-dimensional versions so often given. Something to keep in mind.
No particular reason for showing that, I just felt that I put too much effort into it for it to be deleted when she decides her sixth attempt has failed and moves on to the seventh. Besides, if I collect enough reviews I'll ultimately be able to just link people here and stop writing them.
