Fanfiction Lounge

[Breezy]

You know those star ratings where they take the average of votes? That's what stupid little Iceking means. :P

 

[Dragonfree]

Regarding the discussion about characters that was going on a little while ago, mine tend to just exist... I don't really make up personality traits on purpose, I just place a character somewhere in the fic and from there the characters develop themselves, really.

My favorite character in my own work is without a doubt Scyther in The Quest for the Legends. I swear, I'll be writing one-shots about him long after I've finished the fic itself. (I was actually just making one yesterday... I've yet to write it, and I can't publicize it until certain things have been revealed in the main fic, but I'm going to write it...)

I like this new rating system... details... @_@

 

[IceKing]

You know those star ratings where they take the average of votes? That's what stupid little Iceking means

Oh, your very funny Breezy. Unlike your talking mudfish :) And actually it is 4.6/5 with ten votes, but Im going to tkae that out of my sig since I stopped writing the fic.

 

[pokejungle]

And I se you've removed it~ ^^;

I want to write a fic, but don't know what I should do it on yet =/

 

[Breezy]

Oh, your very funny Breezy. Unlike your talking mudfish :) And actually it is 4.6/5 with ten votes, but Im going to tkae that out of my sig since I stopped writing the fic.

That talking mudfish > you. It's what made me today (sadly), so nyah! :P

I want to write a fic, but don't know what I should do it on yet =/

That's the fun thing about ficcys though; you can write about the most random crap and it'll prolly be considered original. :)

 

[Frostweaver]

I'll file your fanfic review after purple drake then, how about that Phantom Mew? That should be 3 fanfic reviews away, and from now on, I should be able to get 1 fanfic review done every day on average. More good fics, the faster (less stuff to type then in terms of correction).


@ Destiny of Understanding, Flatulus

Title- 3/5
5 Title is symbolic, highly relevant and unique to the story
4 Title is relevant to and descriptive about the story
3 Title is descriptive, but is not precise in terms of descriptiveness, or is clich?
2 Title is general, and applicable to most stories
1 Title is irrelevant, and applicable to all stories

-"destiny" is always clich? and overused, but fantasy stories do have a very hard time to avoid this word. At least, it's better than "legend."

-not too precise in terms of being a descriptive title, since this title can apply to any characters who grow in self awareness.

-if your chapter title is called "introductory chapter" then might as well just call it "chapter 1" and be done with it. It's as if you're mocking your reader's intelligence that chapter 1 is when the story begins >>; This is the same crime as writing "In conclusion" for your final paragraph in your english essay.

Narrative Manner- 3/5
5 Narrative manner is excellent, and adds strength and/or hidden meaning to the story
4 Narrative manner is good, and adds some emphasize to the story
3 Narrative manner is decent, and is suitable to the story
2 Narrative manner is acceptable but not precise, or format is incorrect
1 Narrative manner is poor, and weakens the story

-the dialogue from Ninetales is *VERY* awkward and somewhat pointless. It's as if the author can't find a better way to reveal the plot, and therefore forces the character into a dialogue against a wall (well, a girl who can't understand Pokemon, which is as good as a wall then). It's as if the author is trying to maintain the objective narrative yet wanting to reveal the omniscient characteristic through one way or another... This results in 3 continous paragraph of dialogue and the occassion "Ninetales said." Oh the horror!

-even if we disregard that odd one-way conversation between Ninetales and the girl, the author steps into Ninetales's mind once in awhile, losing the objective voice in the end.

-I don't think that it's necessary to say "this chapter is written in Kitsune's point of view" Your readers should be able to sense that.

-as Lilac gains strength through ways beyond the understanding of the readers, Kitsune loses strength in the same manner O.o; again, a dramatic change from the confident self that she portraited herself to be back in chapter 1. Also, she seems to lose all signs of her cautiousness, and transformed it to weakness >>; Then suddenly, the strength sort of... "returns" when Kitsune knocks Lilac to the ground. A mysterious change is certainly working in a mysterious manner with characters in this story... Normally, for the 3rd person this would be fine and still relatively acceptable, but for the first person narrative, this change is completely unjustified... Kitsune needs to reveal more about what she's thinking and why is she reacting in this specific manner.

-I won't recommand 1st person writing for you, as I think 3rd person semi-omniscient is your strength. 1st person is a complete reliance on word play and diction choices. The narration always need to be readjusted so it's showing what the character is seeing, and not what you are seeing in your mind (sort of like a filter... the 1st person filters out every detail so only the details that pleases the narrator will remain.)

For example, you have a narrator who isn't interested in Pokemon. Because of this, the narrator will not mention anything about Pokemon, or briefly mentions their existence. Yet the writer has to be careful with the word choice to suggest that Pokemon is present. The Pokemon are doing something, yet the narrator doesn't acknowledge/notice this but the narrator accidentially includes it in his tone of voice and diction. Character description is never to be done like "I am a selfish person" but the narration should always be focused on the narrator, and not the surrounding area to demonstrate the egotism and the lack of awareness about everyone else. Diction is your main problem in writing, and 1st person relies on dicton the most.

Chapter 2 will be *very* nice if you can pull off 1st person narrative with Kitsune or Lilac, but I'll rather settle for what your best. Until diction improves, I'll advice you to stay in either 3rd person omniscient, or 3rd person limited omniscient. (The end of chapter 2 is nicely done for the 1st person though)

Grammar/Coherence- 7/10
10 Grammar mistakes are inexistent, and coherence exists throughout the entire story
8-9 Grammar mistakes are rare, and coherence exists throughout the entire story
6-7 Grammar mistakes are uncommon, but story occasionally suffers loopholes in plot
5 Grammar mistakes are common, and story occasionally suffers loopholes in plot
1-4 Grammar mistakes are common, and story suffers loopholes in plot

enough to keep out any threat

a "s" on threat is needed

If it wanted any of them it would have already of gotten one and left, no it was after something a bit bigger, something that wasn?t covered in fur quite unlike itself.

a conjunction is needed before "no." Use a dash after bigger instead of the comma.

Its eyes appeared glow, in reality merely reflecting the little amount of light there was at this time so as to make it easier to see

appeared "to" glow, and you need a conjunction before "in reality"

Every step it took was with absolute precision

More examples of awkward flow in sentences... reword this to "It took every step with absolute precision." I don't see the point of consoance here, as it's emphasizing something that is completely useless. What's so important about "was" and "with?" Avoid the consoance by breaking them apart.

Even a quick glance would make one realize it was a ninetales

"that" it was a ninetales

-be sure to check for future puncutations and conjunction mistakes for the rest of the story

Major Character(s)- 12/15
14-15 Major characters are very multi-faceted. All details are highly precise and relevant
12-13 Major characters are multi-faceted. Most details are highly precise and relevant
11-12 Major characters are multi-faceted but limited. Details are precise and relevant
9-10 Major characters are slightly stereotypical. Details are precise but not very relevant
7-8 Major characters are generally stereotypical. Details are present but need precision.
5-6 Major characters are stereotypical. Details are present but limited in amount.
1-4 Major characters have no personality traits, and no details are paid to characters.

a plain short sleeved pink shirt, a pair of pink shorts pink socks pink shoes with pink laces, and what appeared to be a pink backpack flattening a patch of grass less than a meter away from her.

Honestly, is all the repetition that necessary? Even for a repetition, it's repeating itself too much. At the same time, punctuations are missing once again.

-"excitedly" seriously doesn't fit Ninetales too well, especially after all the work you've done into describing Ninetales as a cautious and somewhat "dark" character.

-an excellent choice in naming the girl Lilac, but I have no idea with the last name... Perhaps we'll see in the future (and if Lilac got no relationship with a Castform, then it's time to change the last names... really this last name is THE last name for Castform trainers!). Be careful with this character though, as this name can be rather limiting for Lilac's character to be flexible.

-too quick of a dramatic change for Lilac from the fear in chapter 1 to chapter 2... before Lilac wakes up, she's portraited to be very fragile, and now she's trying to talk to her would-have-been murderer so easily. Even though chapter 2 tries very hard to hint her fear that lingers around, it hardly balances out o.o; To fix this problem, it's not too hard to hint the inner strength within her character back in chapter 1 to justify this change to be reasonable.

-a reasonable amount of character description exist, but due to the 1st person narrative problem, most of it sounds rather unrealistic and difficult to comprehend (except Ing?nuo's character, of course, who is the only one who greatly benefit off of the 1st person narrative) Kitsune's confidence is rather unstable due to the 1st person narrative problem. The narrative weakens the main characters, but overall they're well portraited, and they have great potential to be very interesting characters.

Minor Character(s)- omit/5
5 Minor characters are necessary and relevant, contributing to the story in multiple ways
4 Minor characters are interesting and relevant, contributing to the story
3 Minor characters are interesting, but are limited in contribution to the story
2 Minor characters are irrelevant, and are limited in contribution to the story
1 Minor characters are completely irrelevant, and are completely unnecessary to the story

-we actually got some nice irony with Ing?nuo due to Kitsune's unintentional revelation about her. Actually, I think that she's the best character in terms of how they're portraited so far in Destiny of Understanding. If only Kitsune and Lilac can be built up in the same manner...

-omit for now, since we don't know enough about Ing?nuo's role to the story yet

Story Details- 8/10
9-10 Details are relevant, contributing to at least four out of the five story components
7-8 Details are sometimes relevant, contributing to most story components
5-6 Details are lacking, not necessarily relevant and verisimilitude is endangered
3-4 Details are severely lacking, and verisimilitude is damaged
1-2 Details are almost inexistent, and verisimilitude is severely damaged

-though the wordiness certainly reduce the effect, the setting is definitely trying very hard to point towards characters, along with a bit of foreshadowing. Lilac and Kitsune form the main theme of trust and friendship (along with the title), and Kitsune's "monologue" in chapter 1 definitely reveals the plot. Only narrative manner is missing from the link. Rather strange to see this formation in this story, as usually it's setting that's missing out from the pentagonal link, and not narrative manner.

-some details seem to be thrown in there just for the heck of it, sadly. The most obvious example of this problem are the Eevess in the valley. They exist simply to exist... Remember that the "Real Pokemon world" (anime and/or manga world), Eevee isn't too rare of a Pokemon. We see them quite often, and they're definitely "common sight" in fanfics. They can't represent rarity just because they're always rare in the game. Every choice should be precise and meaningful. If they contain no meaning, then we might as well take them out.

-though weak in some aspects, 4 of the 5 story elements are starting to form links with each other. This is a good basis for the story and hopefully the link will strengthen in the future chapters.

Conflict- 4/5
5 At least 3 conflicts are present, ?good and evil? cannot be divided
4 Many conflicts are present to enhance the plot, ?good and evil? are questionable
3 ?Man vs. Man? along other conflicts, but ?good and evil? are obvious
2 ?Man vs. Man? only, good and evil are obvious
1 ?Man vs. Man? only, ending is highly predictable

-good and evil are clearly divided, but only because of Kitsune's "monlogue" in chapter 1 (I think you can tell that I really hated that part of the story by now? It ruins too much good stuff...). Otherwise, definitely 5/5. But then Kitsune made herself so clear because of that monologue, and the plot becomes obvious in terms of what's to come... There's only 2 problems left in my mind about the conflict, which is definitely a problem. By the end of chapter 2 for epics, readers should have tons of questions regarding the conflict and what's to come. Or even better, readers can have no questions because they don't even know where to start thinking about the complexity.

Diction/Tone- 6/15
14-15 Diction greatly contributes to story components. Tone is very relevant and suitable
12-13 Diction contributes to story components. Tone is suitable but not always relevant
10-11 Diction and tone are suitable but not always relevant
8-9 Diction and tone are sometimes suitable but always relevant
6-7 Diction and tone are sometimes inappropriate and are not relevant
1-5 Diction and tone are inappropriate and are not considered by the author

There was a great calmness in the air. It was not the kind of calm before a storm but the calm that was only felt just before dawn.

Why not "There was the great calmness in the air before dawn again." It's really wordy right now. The "calm before the storm" comment is really unnecessary, because it's a terribly weak and general foreshadow. It won't change a thing even if you take it out. It's guranteed that something happens in chapter 1, really. Good foreshadowing doesn't tell the readers that "Ooo something's about to happen!" Good foreshadowing tells specifically *what* is going to happen. Foreshadows are very specific, actually.

There was a little light coming from the horizon but it was still too early for there to be enough to illuminate the few clouds that were in the sky that were only visible because of some of the few remaining stars were being blocked by them.

Just because it's not a run-on sentence, that doesn't allow you to use a sentence like this. Anyone who tries to read this out loud will definitely feel a shortage of breath (because of no punctuations in between.) There's two "that" as conjunction, and we never try to use the same conjunction twice within the same sentence for the narrator. It's a terribly odd sentence that doesn't flow well at all. It's rather hard to understand and it's very wordy...

-clouds come in again right after that quote, and it's a good foreshadow for the upcoming chapter where the girl (clouds) will arrive at the sea (omen, and clouds + omen + sea = chaos). However, it's unusually wordy, and it's trying very hard to make the foreshadow obvious. Another part of foreshadowing is that the foreshadow should fit in smoothly with the rest of the story. People who can pick up the foreshadow will sense something coming. Those who can't will just read on as if the foreshadow is part of the description for the story. It shouldn't stop the story to a complete halt to carry out the foreshadow.

-there are *numerous* amounts of similiar sentences. Break them up into smaller sentences so they will flow better.

It was impossible to tell if the parents of these eevee were flareon, jolteon, vaporeon, umbreon, or espeon as all five, along with the little eevees, were a common sight here, quite unlike anywhere else.

Again, there is a problem with the long length of the sentence, even though the sentence is grammatically correct. After espeon, it'll be an ideal place to start a new sentence.

-we use "bright" and not "light" when we are dealing with "how bright it is outside."

though a quick glance probably wouldn?t of been enough to see that it was female, though certainly most Pokemon would have had a good enough sense of smell to have been able to know both those things without looking at all.

Again, 2 "though" is something we want to avoid in diction. Change one of them to another conjunction. The paragraph containing this quote needs to be broken down into multiple shorter sentences as well.

-no idea how to fix this one at all:

The light had now become bright enough to see at least some of what made the ninetales different: her fur was pure white instead of the usual creamy colour, something not often seen except in albino ninetales; her eyes were a pale blue, something that is also not often seen in ninetales, though it also proved that it wasn?t an albino making it?s variation in colour even more unusual. Soon someone would notice this, all too soon that same someone will have her direct attention.

-read to the end of chapter 2, and the "cloud prophecy" set by the setting hasn't come true yet... there's another chapter left in terms of the sea voyage, so hopefully that is fulfilled in chapter 3. If it's not, then this is a dead prophecy that totally misleads the reader... =/

Story Structure- 12/15
14-15 Story structure is carefully planned and greatly contributes to all story components
12-13 Story structure is planned and contributes to most story components
10-11 Story structure is planned and contributes to some story components
8-9 Story structure is slightly weak and sometimes contributes to some story components
6-7 Story structure is weak and rarely contributes to story components
4-5 Story structure is weak and endangers the story components
1-3 Story structure is fragile and damages the story components

-some part of the story (most obvious one being Kitsune's monlogue towards Lilac in chapter 1) greatly devastates the story...

-most of the story is dedicated to character building, which is always a good sign

-generally, story structure is able to illuminate the readers about the story in one aspect or another, but most of the time the revelation is weak and the knowledge is limiting

Effort- 10/10
9-10 A great amount of effort is shown. Author?s re-read and editing are apparent.
7-8 A good amount of effort is shown. Further double checking maybe necessary.
5-6 A good amount of effort is shown. Double checking and spell checking are necessary.
1-4 A limited amount of effort is shown. Please use spell check and other helpful devices.

-good amount of effort is shown in terms of improvement from last fanfic review

-may want to hire more beta readers, or remind them about the sentence problems (especially with punctuations.) I find it very hard to believe that 2 beta readers have proofread the first chapter, and all 3 readers failed to find all those punctuation and movement problems. The flow of the sentence seems to be neglected from the beta readers' proofreading as well... A bit hard to believe.

Literal Device Bonus- +1 /15 (Foreshadowing 0/1, Contradictive Style 0/1, Foil 0/1, Dramatic Irony 1/2, Situational Irony 0/2, Allusion 0/2, Motif/Symbols 0/3, Theme 0/3)

Good Points
-good basis for a story, with a lot of potential to greatly improve

Focuses to Improve On
-diction
-grammar
-narrative manner

Chapter 1 definitely brings the mark down by a lot... chapter 2 definitely improves from its previous chapter.

Total: 65/95 => 69

*note: difficulty in giving a mark for story structure and major characters for this story, due to the negative influence of the narrative manner in chapter 2. It's hard to pretend and ignore the 1st person narrative manner twisting everything to be so awkward, and only mark the characters and story structure... the story's mark is subject to an inaccuracy of plus or minus 4 probably.

Final Total: range 65 to 73

 

[pokejungle]

Where am I in line? *if you're not too busy to check*

And...you can post your review right here I guess. I'm not sure how you wanted to handle that, even though it isn't a fic.

 

[SilverBlaze09]

*cracks knuckles* Camp Jesus and TobyMac+dctalk and I'm back and ready for action! XD

Two things: 1. What happened to that 'FanFic Battle' thread? I thought CB was gonna do his end, and then Act and Ionem were gonna hit a couple, too... XP
2. I'd like to know what your thoughts are on original regions and how you developed the ones you may be using.

?SilverBlaze09?

 

[Breezy]

Perhaps I'm stupid, blind, or maybe both, but who's fic did you review frosty? o.o; I think it's Flatulus' fic, but I'm not too sure. Heh.

 

[Kalylia]

Thanks for your understanding IceKing and Frosty! I appreciate it with all my heart! *giggles* YAY!

 

[Negrek]

Yeah, whatever happened to the fanfic battle thing?

Warning: long and boring monologue ahead.

Anyway, I love original regions. Provided that they're done right. I have two created regions, one of which I'm using for a fanfic. The first I developed with my brother with the intent of coming up with our own set of games. That was a few years ago, and when I decided to do a fanfic set in another region I didn't want to use that one because you could tell we made it up when I was 11.

I loved some of the pokemon that we had made up, though, so I planned to use many of those in my story, though they have all been tweaked and updated somewhat, and then got started working on a new region.

First, I figured out what would have caused that region to have become isolated from the others, or in other words, why it hadn't yet been explored in the games or anime. I figured out that I could use that as a plot device as well. Next, I decided what sort of effects the region's isolation would have on its inhabitants. When had it become isolated? What sort of culture would be there? Technology? Philosophy? After that came climate and a rough map sketch. Add characters, pokemon, and poof: Waytar.

 

[Casual Billy]

SilverBlaze! I'm almost done with mine. I had to take a major break from writing and stuff because I still had a lot of summer work to do. I'm almost done with my summer work now, though, and I'm gonna post my part on monday (gone for the weekend). Yeah, sorry for the uber delay.

 

[pokejungle]

How do you exactly battle fanfics? o.o;

 

[Negrek]

Why, like this.

Basically a more fleshed-out ASB with no judges. The winner is decided by popular vote (if only the thread was more popular, in the interest of having more voters and combatants!).

 

[Frostweaver]

there's a thread that talks about how fanfic battle work ^^;

And yes it's Flatulus's Destiny of Understanding. Thanks for reminding me.

As for new region, I've seen more HARM about them... However, it seems that new region is typically used for the usually dreaded OT (you get the anime thing all over again... new people in new region with new Pokemon!). Whatever a new region can do, an old region can actually do it. Want to add new Pokemon? Sure... Need some new towns? Put it in between existing towns as if they're the smaller towns that the game didn't cover. Then again, the author can have more fun with a place that they can call "their own."

New region doesn't bother me. New Pokemon doesn't bother me either. It's how they're used and described that matters. The same technique used to describe the old stuff is the same as those used to describe new stuff anyway.

Pokemon naming... most of the time it gets on my nerves though... I do feel the irresistable urge to go "-1 mark" when I see a "Firebal" running around as the fire starter.

EDIT: Thought that the winner of the battle-fic is determined by who writes better ^^; Which battle is more appealing to the reader, and etc...

 

[Negrek]

EDIT: Thought that the winner of the battle-fic is determined by who writes better ^^; Which battle is more appealing to the reader, and etc...

Well, right. You vote for which one you thought was the best written, the most enjoyable, the one that used the coolest pokemon, whatever floats your boat.

If I saw a firebal in a 'fic I would pick it up and throw it at the author.

 

[Strawberry Delcatty]

Pokemon naming... most of the time it gets on my nerves though... I do feel the irresistable urge to go "-1 mark" when I see a "Firebal" running around as the fire starter.

If I saw a firebal in a 'fic I would pick it up and throw it at the author.

(Lagadi [Lagamorph + Diamond])

(Jacrystal [Jack rabbit + Crystal])

Would these two fall under that category?

EDIT: In case you're wondering, those two Mirror/Fire-type Pokemon will appear in HMW. They'll play quite a role in this, the sequel, and Hoenn a la Mode... but I'll stop there.

 

[Negrek]

^ Those aren't that bad. They're not screamingly obvious. Personally, I wouldn't completely spell out crystal for jacrystal, but that's a matter of taste. You rarely see longer, more complicated words like that spelled straight out in a pokemon name. Erm, I think you never see it, actually, but I'm too lazy to go check.

Generally, I don't really have such a great problem with bad pokemon names (because goodness knows several of mine stink), but when they're so bad and so obvious that you laugh whenever you see them come up there's a problem. Generally, bad names are only a minor gripe; it's the fact that they typically come piled on top of other problems that makes them a real danger sign.

 

[Frostweaver]

Agree. Jacrystal is too obvious with the second part... May I suggest Crysorid (Crystal + Leporid) or something else instead? ._.; Still not too good of a name, but at least the crystal problem is solved.

A good way to name Pokemon is take a *really specific term* for something simple, then mess around with the new word instead. I didn't use rabbit here cause it's too common, so bring out the thesaurus and pull out leporid. This is how they did Chikorita (Chicory => Chikorita) anyway. Meganium (Mega + Geranium) is another example. Instead of using a basic "flower" or "plant" they choose a specific species to make things complicated, so the name will sound nicer.

Of course, we don't know what happened to Luvdisc... guess that bad fanfic writers can have a future career. 4kids/gamefreak english department will hire them.

 

[Strawberry Delcatty]

Agree. Jacrystal is too obvious with the second part... May I suggest Crysorid (Crystal + Leporid) or something else instead? ._.; Still not too good of a name, but at least the crystal problem is solved.

Oh... I don't think I'd get used to Crysorid. Even with the sequel on hiatus and the first version completed, I've always been with Jacrystal for quite a while. At PE2K (the forum where I originally posted HMW), she was second to Psuedeon (my Mirror-type Eeveelution that also will be appearing in HMW) in popularity... although Psuedeon pretty much won by a landslide.