Aiya Quackform
Her High Quackiness
- 189
- Posts
- 20
- Years
- Age 36
- In a blue house with a blue window.
- Seen Jan 2, 2009
Review of Chapter 1 of Hoenn Mirror World
Oh, man, Nekomajo, I am so sorry for how long this has taken! I haven't even read it all yet! But, here's some overall opinions on chapter 1 of Hoenn Mirror World.
I love the originality! Originality scores big with me, since it's so rare nowadays. I haven't seen anything else quite like it. Overall, so far the story's good. It's just your writing technique that needs help.
Your major flaw is wordiness. Because you're used to writing in script
format, I'm sure the reason is simply inexperience. It is obvious that you're familiar witht the mantra "show, don't tell." Your problem is that you don't know where to show and where to tell. You show us her showering and dressing. Why would we want to read a paragraph about that? In this case, tell us in a quick and painless sentence--if you need to tell us at all!
The first four pages are so old and have been done literally thousands of
times before. That, with or without you interest-piquing prelude, would
have made me stop reading your fic if I hadn't been asked.
Get to the point.
Heck, you could basically delete everything up to "Mariah was in her room
to gather her belongings . . ."! Even then much of what you have after
this could be deleted or summed up and it would all flow much better into
the action.
You also do this a lot:
"________ said to his/her ________"
and
"________ said/called/yelled/shrieked in _____."
Don't! Do not be afraid to write "said." Less is more! You really
should be able to understand the tone of the character's voice by their
words, not by what you say their tone is. You could throw in "yelled," "asked" or "shrieked" instead of "said" on occasion, but don't go overboard.
When Mariah meets her mirror image, you have a wonderful opportunity to show her character, and I think you didn't do as much as you could have. Both of them accept it all so quickly. It's a bit odd in my opinion. Sure you say Mariah is astounded, but she doesn't act like it. So far there's little to no fear or uncertainty. And Mirror Mariah seems to be nothing more than a guiding voice, not a character.
In the Treecko/Poochyena battle, why didn't Poochyena get out of the way of the plummeting Treecko? I'd think they'd do that on instinct alone.
There's a lot of tense switching. You've really got to watch that. I'd suggest that you find a regular beta reader to help you out.
Stop with the "once," when," and "then's." (Yes, that's apostraphe S. I looked it up this morning.) They stop flow and distract, excpecially in action scenes when you're trying to show speed of movement and action. Also stop with the "very's" and "extremely's." You don't need them when you use strong words. For instance, instead of writing "very angry," go with "enraged."
But I really will read more of this, once I got to the action I got interested. (I've just got a really long reading list.) Keep it up, I look forward to seeing your writing progress!
(I don't give scores.)
Oh, man, Nekomajo, I am so sorry for how long this has taken! I haven't even read it all yet! But, here's some overall opinions on chapter 1 of Hoenn Mirror World.
I love the originality! Originality scores big with me, since it's so rare nowadays. I haven't seen anything else quite like it. Overall, so far the story's good. It's just your writing technique that needs help.
Your major flaw is wordiness. Because you're used to writing in script
format, I'm sure the reason is simply inexperience. It is obvious that you're familiar witht the mantra "show, don't tell." Your problem is that you don't know where to show and where to tell. You show us her showering and dressing. Why would we want to read a paragraph about that? In this case, tell us in a quick and painless sentence--if you need to tell us at all!
The first four pages are so old and have been done literally thousands of
times before. That, with or without you interest-piquing prelude, would
have made me stop reading your fic if I hadn't been asked.
Get to the point.
Heck, you could basically delete everything up to "Mariah was in her room
to gather her belongings . . ."! Even then much of what you have after
this could be deleted or summed up and it would all flow much better into
the action.
You also do this a lot:
"________ said to his/her ________"
and
"________ said/called/yelled/shrieked in _____."
Don't! Do not be afraid to write "said." Less is more! You really
should be able to understand the tone of the character's voice by their
words, not by what you say their tone is. You could throw in "yelled," "asked" or "shrieked" instead of "said" on occasion, but don't go overboard.
When Mariah meets her mirror image, you have a wonderful opportunity to show her character, and I think you didn't do as much as you could have. Both of them accept it all so quickly. It's a bit odd in my opinion. Sure you say Mariah is astounded, but she doesn't act like it. So far there's little to no fear or uncertainty. And Mirror Mariah seems to be nothing more than a guiding voice, not a character.
In the Treecko/Poochyena battle, why didn't Poochyena get out of the way of the plummeting Treecko? I'd think they'd do that on instinct alone.
There's a lot of tense switching. You've really got to watch that. I'd suggest that you find a regular beta reader to help you out.
Stop with the "once," when," and "then's." (Yes, that's apostraphe S. I looked it up this morning.) They stop flow and distract, excpecially in action scenes when you're trying to show speed of movement and action. Also stop with the "very's" and "extremely's." You don't need them when you use strong words. For instance, instead of writing "very angry," go with "enraged."
But I really will read more of this, once I got to the action I got interested. (I've just got a really long reading list.) Keep it up, I look forward to seeing your writing progress!
(I don't give scores.)
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