New Frosty Rating System, again! *GASP*
I'm getting to be such a teacher ^_^; I followed a guide on writing that my summer school teacher (who is such an awesome teacher) gave to me and slightly modified it. Most thanks to Ms. Forrest for this guide =P If you think that it's too hard, don't blame me this time.
Also, this time I'll try to group my comments all together. For example, all the comments regarding characters are grouped together, seperate from the comments regarding diction. It's not going to follow the usual chronological order according to the fanfic anymore.
Let's have Katsuro's fanfic to be the first test subject to the new blade =D
@ Pokemon: Back to Kanto
Title- 2/5
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
-again, a very overused title. It won't be eyecatching enough as well.
-it reflects almost absolutely about your *own* story. All that this title tells us about your story is that Pokemon is in it, and that it takes place in Kanto, but that's all.
Narrative Manner- 1/5
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
-3rd person objective is THE toughest narrative manner. Add that on top of scriptfic (which has to be 3rd person objective) and all of its tricky formatting/special conditions, you're going against heavy odds
-you need to present everything visually. Where's the alarm clock? How does the boy turn off the clock? If we're looking at this professionally, you may even need to say where's the bed within the room (but I'll just stop there)
-stage direction is to be either italicized or within square brackets. Usually, I don't care about how you format stage direction, but right now stage direction between dashes are too easy to be confused with an actual part of the dialogue.
-scriptfics need to talk about when a character enters or exits a scene suddenly within stage direction
-scriptfic cannot use "we" or "I" in stage direction. It's to be written in 3rd person form, such as "the audience"
-the extreme challenge of 3rd person objective is probably too overwhelming for you. For such a general fanfic, any narrative manner can apply, so why not take the easiest one? I'll suggest 3rd person limited omniscient (aka most common type out there) which should be able to spice up your fanfic a little bit at least. It'll work better for you, as you can add in details much easier with this narrative instead of the current one, where everything relies on the tone and symbolism, and the likes.
suddenly remembering what day it is
Scriptfic is meant to be presented visually. So how do you see someone "suddenly remembering what day it is?" There is no such action. However, you can demonstrate an action which will imply or refer to "suddenly remembering something important." In the evil 3rd person objective + scriptfic narrative manner, you must not and cannot go into a character's mind to know what they're thinking, as you can't act out or visually see thinking. You must rely on actions and tone to do all the thinking (through implications by your readers/audience too.)
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
-spelling mistakes, and the spell checker should have caught that one.
-"Tinging" means to tint actually. If you want to describe the clock, you must reword the sentence so that the "ting" is used as an onometopoeia. Try "The clock rings, erupting a "TING TING TING" sound." That's still a terrible sentence, but hopefully you get what I mean already. (this sentence is still a sentence because onometopoeia can be used as an adjective, but is always weak as an adjective)
depressed lines cover face
I heard of personification, but depressed one dimensional figure is beyond my imagination within personfication... I'll love to know a method to tell a depressed line apart from a happy line. What you're actually looking for here should be soimething like "[blue lines run vertically down on Green's forehead]". You need to be sure if your descriptions are understandable. Though this example is technically dramatically correct, it's such an odd personification that it's getting hard to understand anything about it. Show this to someone who haven't seen any anime before, and s/he will be scratching his/her head over it terribly. At least, with the blue line example, they have a faint idea visually what it'll look like.
-most other lines are so short, and on top of that they are casual speeches... can't say much about them.
-being a scriptfic, you already have the natural advantage regarding grammar (short, informal converational dialogues can almost never make grammar mistakes.) However, there's still relatively plenty of mistakes in comparison to the length ratio and the narrative manner advantage.
Major Character(s)- 6/15
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.
-if the characters are not the same ones from the manga, then why take their names to suggest unnecessary allusions? This is like saying "my character's name is Sesshoumaru, but this is in no way related to the Inuyasha series."
-the romantic relationship... now it seems that suddenly everything explodes in this category in episode 3. How come we don't see any hint of this relationship, such as Yellow's interest in Blue, in the earlier episodes? It's all so dramatic and quick. In episode 2, it could have been a perfect time to start to introduce Green's liking towards Yellow.
-How come Yellow suddenly change to get Paras that quickly? We got absolutely no reason except "it's cute!" But, we don't even know what's so cute about Paras in Yellow's eyes.
-"The bragger who's actually incompetent, the romantically-helpless who tries too hard for the girl, and the "open" yet pretty girl who all boys will fall in love with" (Oni in the background: "WHAT?") combination of heroes. Where have we seen that before? Oh right, Canadian textbooks regarding school life about the bullies, the ones who we should befriend, and the girls who guys should stay away from. of real life back in school. What does this mean? Complete and total stereotypical characters. Are the stereotypes playing parody/satire or humor then as a reason for the stereotyping? Not really...
-all 3 main characters are one facet, flat characters. Yellow is a very "open character" (now I start wondering if you purposely implied this or not) and shares the stereotypical traditional girl behavior of saying "aww" at anything that suggests cuteness. She has two contradicting nature, making her such a confusing character (dirty stereotype and traditional girl stereotype certainly cannot coexist like what this fanfic is showing). Green and Blue are straightforward, once again being stereotypical boys. They're rude, and try hard to impress the girl(s) which will involve acts of competition. We have no idea about what or how they're thinking at all. Actually, we have no idea why are they even going off into a journey to begin with... they just go for the sake of going?
-To fix the stereotyping problem, it's always best to give them other attributes so that they aren't focused on only one personality. This way, they'll still share the same stereotype, yet they will not appear as a stereotypical character because they're a conglomerate of different personalities. If your characters are multi-faceted, even if they're combinations of common stereotypes, then you will succeed in getting out of the stereotypical label, transforming boring characters to at least an interesting character, or even a superb one.
Minor Character(s)- 2/5
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
-Oak is again, stereotyped to be THE ANIME OAK, the kind professor who's slightly clumsy but flawless in any other area of his personality. It's very boring after seeing so many years of that on TV, and so many of these same old guys too over years of thousands of fanfics... His stereotype isn't creating humor either, so no point for this stereotype.
-Oak's lines are almost completely meaningless except the "yes" and "no" to what Pokemon the main heroes can get. We know nothing about his character from his lines, and they don't give us an insight to anything at all. His lines need to be reworked quite a bit.
-Blue's parents are actually beneifical to be stereotyped, as that's how they turn out humurous. Good choice for those two characters.
-Magikarp salesman! Where have we heard that one before? His use in the story? Err... Contribution to story components? Err... Humor? Err... (seen it 6 times or so already in the exact manner in the anime, so how can we laugh at it again... on top of that, the anime got a more detailed version of the same little joke too)
Story Details- 3/10
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
-you need more details about setting. We know nothing about where this is taking place except the usual Pallet Town because we know that's where Professor Oak lives. For a 3rd person objective narrative, you should definitely try to use setting to your advantage. Use setting in order to tell the audience about what is to happen, and what the characters are thinking.
-details are generally missing in many scenes. Plot flies and the story is really rushed. You need to insert in much more content within your fanfic to give it some substance.
-versimilitude of the manga is damaged by the usage of these names
The knocking has remained polite, but has a definete impatience to it.
Again, details must be shown. How can we tell that a knock is polite yet impatient? Scriptfics are meant to be directly related to our senses. If we need to think about how it relates to our senses, then it's not too good of a scriptfic.
Conflict- omit/5
5 ?Man vs. Self? is present, with other conflicts, ?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, good and evil are obvious
2 ?Man vs. Man? only, good and evil are obvious
1 ?Man vs. Man? only, ending is highly predictable
-so far it's only one conflict, but relativley it's still early compare to the whole adventure around Kanto, so conflict will be omit for now. However, most story should be able to show the main conflict within 4 updates, so beware of that... This is probably a good indication that you're updating way too fast, and each update is too short. Before the readers are even in the reading mood, the update ends already.
Diction/Tone- 4/15
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
-spell check please... "enthusisium" is not a word.
-the only diction that can even be considered is a "oops" from Yellow that actually suggests her to be dirty. However, looking at how this idea isn't entertained at all in anywhere else, I'm starting to guess that this isn't done on purpose...
-words seem to be randomly thrown together to make a sentence that is grammatically correct and sensible, but not double checked for tone of a character's voice (a bit, but only a weak one belonging to Blue in the parent scene)
-words are unrevealing to anything but plot, and even for plot sometimes the words aren't revealing much about it. The characters' dialogues can easily be dismissed and you aren't missing too much.
-Usually, there's the lines here and there that aren't very important. In order to conserve space and boring scenes, we can cut those lines out, especially Pro. Oak's lines
-onometopoeia is used so often that they almost seem to be thrown in for the heck of using them. Why use the onometopoeias? There's always a reason to all choices in writing. Consider why you feel compelled to do so. If you cant' think of it yourself, then best not to use it.
Story Structure- 3/15
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
-structure is generally lacking. It seems that you record any idea that you think of almost immediately and put it into the fanfic, without processing it and thinking it out. For example, the love relationship material is never hinted by Green when Yellow enters in episode 2. However, Green drops face dead for Yellow from episode 3 and on. This incident is really against you in terms of how much you've done in planning the structure of the story...
-problems like this really endanger the characters. They seem so inconsistent due to the careless placements of their romatnic relationship...
Effort- 4/10
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.
-use spell check to catch mistakes like "enthusisium" Words that are just misspelled shouldn't exist in a published fanfic. Spell check is always your best friend.
-suggest to use some planning. If you have the "awesome unique plot" in your head, try writing it down on paper/word document, and think of ways to hint and foreshadow it in advance, so the Yellow-Green love incident will not repeat for the "awesome unique plot."
-there should be no such thing as "boring part" of your story. Every part, and every word of your story should be exciting and relevant to the story. If it's not relevant or exciting, then that part needs to be reworked or edited.
Literal Device Bonus- +0 /15 (Foreshadowing 0/1, Contradictive Style 0/1, Foil 0/1, Dramatic Irony 0/2, Situational Irony 0/2, Allusion 0/2, Motif/Symbols 0/3, Theme 0/3)
Total: 32/95 => 34/100
This is why I'm so against scriptfics. They're too difficult to write, yet people try to write them. The result is a fanfic that is very difficult to understand or read, hardly with any substance. The method for scriptfic to insert substance and detail is just too hard for the average Pokemon fanfic writer...
