As i had expected. This is lame. Who are you, Stephen King? THIS IS A FAN FICTION! YOU GUYS ARE VIRUSING THIS BOARD. ALL OF YOU. SHUT THE HELL UP AND I DON'T CARE. I'LL STILL FINISH THIS, EVEN THOUGH GUYS LIKE YOU WERE ... GRIMING THIS BOARD. THIS IS FAN FICTION.
You're a budding writer, and you can't take a bit of criticism? From someone who knows a thing or two about the publishing industry (read: knows/has spoken to a number of people who have actually been published and is looking into getting a job in the industry herself), let me tell you a bit about how the process works. If you're not publishing through a vanity press (something that publishes anything sent to it, regardless of quality and something that will probably not get your work noticed) or a self-publisher (also not something usually taken seriously), every publishing house has employees called "copyeditors." These are the people with red pens who scribble all over your work, and these are the people who can prevent you from getting published simply by marking up your manuscript and sending it back to you with a note stuck to it saying, "Sorry, but you've got to clean this up before we can consider it." Oftentimes, they don't actually explain how to improve; it's something that you've simply got to learn.
That being said, here in the fanfiction forum, the majority of reviewers actually take the time to explain your errors because we assume you want to improve from being a mediocre writer to a great writer. In other words, we help you out because we think that you're posting to get our feedback with the intention of refining your work. Yes, fanfiction is a hobby, but to post it online is basically to ask for our opinions. If our opinions
are "your work should probably be improved here, here, and here before you can get better," then you can't really make us change what we think. If it's something you can't handle without capslock of doom (or any sort of hostility towards a large number of reviewers on this board), then you've either got to improve or take your work elsewhere.
Granted, I'm not defending Shadow Ralts here. In fact, personally, I think that review is lacking in anything helpful, and considering he's (Going off the postbit, but if you're a she, Shadow Ralts, sorry.) essentially calling you lazy, it's rather hypocritical that he states he's lazy in his review. I'm just saying that you say thorough reviewers (i.e., decent ones, rather than the one-liner zombies who like to review on FFNet and Other Writing) are bad things when in fact, we're just here to help you.
Or, in even shorter terms, I could say reviewers like Shadow Ralts (who only seem to come into a story to insult the writer) and writers like you (who object to criticism because they think they're great enough already) are plaguing the fandom even more than friendly writers who actually want to improve and reviewers who take the time to fully explain errors with the intention of helping the author.
That being said, despite what seems to be your attitude towards us (and feel free to correct me if I'm actually wrong about you and you were actually referring to the insulting, barely helpful kind of review, at which point, I can apologize for making an assumption and thinking you were insulting the rest of us), I'm going to sit down and help you out here by trying to better explain what's going on.
By the way, before you say anything about extending the Stephen King reference to me, I take that as a compliment.
On Writing is my Bible, and it takes some serious balls to call Stephenie Meyer talentless.
There’s no mercy on Keijin’s voice.
When it comes to English, we've got all kinds of weird idioms. One of which is "in Keijin's voice." It's not really something that can be fully explained in order to help you understand why it's not grammatically correct to say "on" here (other than the fact that you can't place an emotion
on something, but something can drip with emotion
inside it), so it's really just something you'll want to keep in mind in general.
Their eyes ran over Keijin’s opponent as if it was a pile of large droppings.
Because you were speaking in present tense for the first two sentences ("there is," "stares are," that sort of thing), you'll want to change either the first two verbs to past tense or these past tense verbs ("ran," "was") to present. In other words, it's a bit inconsistent, which really shouldn't happen in writing because it's rather jarring to the reader. They actually, even for a brief moment, stop and stumble with the verb tense, and having them jerk like that is just something you don't want to do. You want your writing to be as smooth and error-free as possible because the less errors you have in your writing, the more your readers can devote their full attention to what's going on.
Basically, think of your writing as smooth, newly-waxed, wooden floors and the reader as some kid who just discovered that if they run around in socks, they can slide across the floor. If your writing is error free, they'll be able to move from one end of the room to the other with no problem so long as they've got the momentum to keep going. If, however, a nail was hammered into the floorboards incorrectly and is now jutting out from the surface of the floor, your reader might run over it and end up falling face-first into the floorboards. Obviously, you'll want to avoid that kind of thing.
The crowd began to cheer and at the same time, jeer.
Like I said above, sentence flow is important to help the reader get from one end of the story to the other. So, you'll want to read your story aloud before submitting it to make sure it's as smooth as silk. In this case, it may simply be the reader, but I'm going to have to agree with your other reviewer. Something seems off here, and it may just be that it feels like putting a pause (the comma) in the middle of this sentence makes it flow oddly. Not to mention that placing the rhyming words essentially right next to each other would probably improve the flow and make your writing sound poetic. You can still keep the "at the same time" (because it definitely describes how the crowd's reacting), but try seeing what happens if you rearrange the sentence so that the middle phrase is "to cheer and jeer." If you think it's better, then you probably know what to do. If it doesn't work for you, then it's still technically grammatically correct.
“To master a thing, you must first loose.”
Beware homophones. These little twerps are the bane of a lot of writers, and the only ways to tell them apart are either by learning what they are and trying to remember them or by getting a beta reader, or someone who can look over your work and help you iron out the oddities. In this case, however, the word you want is "lose," not "loose."
The opponent shakily squinted up to see Keijin’s face burning. “What you will witness tonight will change your perspective which I found lame.” Raiger’s roar echoed and the rattling sound of sparkling bolts of lightning flickered on its tail.
It's also a bit difficult to tell who's speaking here. At first, I thought it was the opponent because the first subject in a dialogue paragraph is usually the speaker. (As in, the first name you give in a paragraph that has dialogue in it is the one speaking.) However, this doesn't make sense to me because the opponent's also the one losing. Or, at least, that's what you're implying.
So, the next natural thought is to think it's Keijin, but on the other hand, you don't actually mention that he's the one speaking. The only one who's actually stated as making a sound is Raiger, but Raiger is a Pokémon. Unless this is a world in which Pokémon can talk, this doesn't work either.
Long story short, you'll want a dialogue tag somewhere in here. Likewise, you'll want to separate actions from speech. All of this is mainly to avoid confusing the reader and to make it absolutely clear, even for the idiots, who's speaking at all times. So, for example, rather than the above paragraph, try this:
“To master a thing, you must first loose,” Keijin drawled.
The opponent shakily squinted up to see Keijin’s face burning.
“What you will witness tonight will change your perspective which I found lame.”
Raiger’s roar echoed and the rattling sound of sparkling bolts of lightning flickered on its tail.
Yeah, you can exclude the dialogue tag when it's absolutely clear who's speaking. You could even exclude it in the first quote so long as you separate actions from speech in order to make it completely clear that the opponent isn't speaking.
The match announcer’s voice reverberated
As a random side note, I'd like to say that I disagree with Shadow Ralts. Reverberated is completely fine in this sentence.
His opponent threw an ineffective optimism
However, I do agree that this wording is also a bit off. You can't really throw optimism, and even then, the "an" isn't necessary here because optimism is a noun that can't really be counted. (You could, however, say something along the lines of, "His opponent expressed an ineffective sense of optimism. . . .")
Even if you worked out the grammatical kinks, the statement's a bit vague to us. While it's eloquently written, on the other hand, it doesn't really tell us much, and as a result, it doesn't really add anything to the scene. If anything, it takes away from the scene because we can't really see the emotion in this person, so we end up with a black spot that interrupts the suspense you're building. Rather than simply tell us he's trying to sound optimistic to hide his fear, help us get a bit further into his mind. Describe to us, for example, what is worrying this opponent. Describe the forced smile of confidence and the cold feeling of dread in his chest. The more you describe things we can sense (i.e., sight, touch, even hearing if you let us hear his thoughts), the more we can connect to the character. The more we can connect to the character, the more suspenseful this moment becomes. Likewise, if we can see this character struggling to be brave and face down Keijin, Keijin becomes a more sinister character because we can definitely see him about to crush what seems to be a helpless victim.
In other words, this part is okay, but more solid description would make it better.
Keijin is still standing amidst, not moving a muscle but his eyebrows crossed together in a scary gape.
Other than the tense switching again, this is actually a compound sentence. Try placing a period where the conjunction ("but" in this case) is. Notice how you end up with two full sentences as a result? That means this is a compound, and in order to denote something like that, you actually need a comma where the period would go in the first clause. (As in, in this case, right after "muscle.") If it's a bit confusing, just think of it like the comma is a makeshift period at the end of one sentence to tell you to keep going into the next one.
His pokemon, Raiger,
Be careful about capitalization. Because you capitalize other Pokémon names throughout this work, you'll want to capitalize "Pokémon" here to be consistent. Nitpick, yes, but as I've said before, you're better off trying to clean up every error you can in your work.
Mike’s Mewtwo
Basically, here's what Shadow Ralts was trying to say: Mewtwo is a legendary, a one-of-a-kind Pokémon, regardless of what canon you're looking at. (You can only obtain one in the wild in the games. There's only one Mewtwo in the anime. Only one in the manga. You get the idea.) Likewise, it's an extremely powerful Pokémon who, in many forms of canon, doesn't wish to be captured. (In fact, in the anime, it leveled a laboratory
and Team Rocket HQ for exactly this reason.) So, it strikes the reader as odd that an ordinary trainer would have a Mewtwo. Considering its strength, this seems to only pump up Keijin's Pokémon -- as in, make his seem even more incredibly powerful than they were already.
Now, the reason why this is bad is because it often implies the winning trainer is a male version of a
Mary Sue, or a character who bends reality in order to be all-powerful. We can assume that Raiger is a legendary, and if it defeats Mewtwo easily (considering Mewtwo can learn more than just Psychic-type attacks), then it's more powerful than Raiger. Giving a trainer a Pokémon like that just means, in the words of Dragonfree, that your character feels a little fake. We don't see him struggling because you're pretty much giving him the win. He seems super-powerful, so we can't really connect to him because he's essentially godly. We practically don't even need to read the ending of the fic because we know he's going to win the conflict with brute force and no overly elaborate strategy. In other words, even if you still gave Mike a Mewtwo (which deserves explanation anyway), having Mewtwo face another legendary that's already strong against it as the first battle in the fanfiction doesn't intrigue us as much as a battle between an Umbreon and an Alakazam. At least something could beat that Umbreon, and with some skill, it could very well be that Alakazam.
“Mewtwo, use PSYCHIC!” He ordered
Two small notes here. First off, "he ordered" is a dialogue tag. That means it's attached to the quote to modify it. (i.e. It describes who's speaking and how.) Therefore, it's technically still part of the sentence. Hence, you'd actually keep "he" lowercase.
Additionally, to add to the note I made earlier about separating what's being said from what's being done, you're better off putting a period here and beginning a new paragraph. The reason why is because you'll want to devote an entire paragraph to what's going on, but technically, when you've ended the quote, you've begun a new topic, if that makes sense. If it doesn't, just quote this part, and I'll try to clarify.
Also, what makes things convenient for Keijin in this battle is the fact that Mike is incompetent. This makes the fact that he owns Mewtwo even stranger because given how powerful Mewtwo tends to be, he would need some form of skill in order to capture it. Additionally, this story begins in medias res, so you're implying he's already battled a little bit against Raigar. What this all means is Mike should logically know that Psychic-type attacks do nothing against Dark-type Pokémon and that Raigar is at least partially Dark. Instead, he doesn't, which gives yet another advantage to Keijin.
Raiger, however, didn’t move nor flinched.
"Nor" goes with "neither" (except in compound sentences), and "flinched" needs to match with "move" to be consistent. In other words, here, you'll want either "Raiger . . . neither moved nor flinched" or "Raiger . . . didn't move or flinch."
unable to be fling off.
Because the infinitive in this phrase is "to be," anything after that needs to be past-tense. In other words, you'll want "flung" here, not "fling."
Raiger’s body, then, covered with aura.
"Covered" is a verb that really needs an object noun after it. As in, you can't simply say what it used to cover something with. You also need to state what it's covering. While it seems clear enough, you'll want to say "itself" right after "covered" so that you've got both targets (what it's covering and what the object is being covered with).
Still, I'm not sure if "covered" is an appropriate word here. "Covered" implies it's coming from a source outside of Raiger when the aura should be coming from
inside. Try something like "enveloped," "consumed," or even "was engulfed." All of those phrases don't imply a source. They just show what's happening.
Keijin’s fist clasped
Like "covered," "clasped" is another verb that just can't go without an object after it. It causes the reader to wonder, "Clasped what?"
Not to mention if he's balling his hand into a fist, the fact that he's clasping nothing seems rather redundant. Do you mean "tightened" here?
It hit the wall were the brick shattered
Again, be wary of lookalike words. These aren't exactly homonyms
or homophones because they're not pronounced or spelled the same way. Instead, they may simply be a letter off, like "were" and "where."
Raiger opened his mouth and huge amount of energy mustered.
In this case, "mustered" is something the subject should do, not the object. While "energy"
is a subject, it can't muster itself. (Mustered essentially means "someone is gathering something.") Instead, Raiger needs to muster the energy.
“Mewtwo, use Counter!”
Another weird thing: Although in past generations, Hyper Beam was physical (and thus could feed Counter), in the latest one, it's special. It's generally assumed by the reader that you're going with the latest game mechanics unless you state otherwise, so this ends up becoming another instance when Mike shows he has less skill than he should have as the owner of a powerful legendary.)
However, as the Hyper Beam landed on Mewtwo’s spot,
Genuinely not sure what you mean by its "spot." The ground? A point on its body?
There was a din and the arena heard a deafening blast.
Because the deafening blast
would be a din (loud noise), this sentence ends up being a bit redundant. You'll want to avoid repeating yourself like that because it ends up coming off as odd to the reader.
“Oh!” said the announcer. “That must’ve hurt a lot.”
I wonder what the purpose of the announcer is. A sports announcer usually offers the audience a play-by-play retelling of what's going on. As in, if a player moves, the announcer describes it. Here, however, the announcer seems to only react to the moves, not actually describe them. So, it seems like he's telling the reader something that would best be described by the situation, not another voice. If anything, the announcer feels more like he's disrupting the battle by attempting to be comic relief.
“He managed to hold for ten minutes. I can do two.” Poo said, massaging his belly and sitting his obese body on the soft grass outside the arena.
Wait. Who's Poo? O_o No, I'm being serious here.
Basically, that's a bit of a problem. If you introduce a character by name without telling us who that character is, the reader is left in the dark. We don't know anything about this person. We don't even know what they're doing there or what they look like. All we have is the name, which ends up leaving us in confusion. For example, again, who's Poo? A Pokémon? Is he associated with Keijin? With Mike? Is he the other teammate that was mentioned early in this chapter? If he's a Pokémon, is he actually speaking, or is he simply using Pokémon speech? We really don't know, and that's a bit problematic.
Keijin’s red eyes winked and gave a ‘Peace’ sign.
Since it's the middle of a sentence, you actually don't need to capitalize "peace."
One of his mates, whose name’s Sage,
Whose name is Sage. You'll want to avoid casual language like that in narration because it feels like the narrator is being a bit slanted and biased. For third-person POV, this ends up being a bad thing because the narrator is supposed to be standing on the sidelines and not associating himself with any one character.
Not to mention it's tense switching again anyway.
Overall, yeah, it was eloquent, but there's just a few oddities here and there.
1. There's a lot of grammatical errors, particularly in the area of maintaining verb tense. I know it's sometimes difficult to keep straight, but you'll want to remember whether this event is taking place in the past or the present and stick with either form. Don't switch back and forth because that tends to disrupt the flow of the narration.
1a. So does, for that matter, the other oddities I've pointed out.
2. There's some instances where you use one word but mean another. In some cases, these are mainly typos ("were" instead of "where"), but in others, it's probably the fault of a thesaurus (like incorrect use of "mustered"). Be very careful about what words you use because these kinds of things won't be caught by spell-checkers, what with all of them being real words and all. Remember to look up words you find in the thesaurus, and read over your work carefully before posting it to work out any odd typos.
For the above two, it's probably best you work with
a beta reader because some things just aren't caught by one's own self. Beta readers can help you proofread and suggest ways to improve your fanfiction from where it is now, both of which you probably want to do if you really want to be a great writer someday.
3. Description. You gave us some foundation description, but when it came to characters and setup, we were left in the dark. We could assume this was at a tournament, but really, other than the crowd, we didn't know what was going on. We weren't told that Mike had actually lost four Pokémon until the last line of the fic, so we couldn't tell if the two had been battling for awhile or if Keijin was just that confident. Likewise, we don't know what the characters look like (other than in brief mentions) or what your fan-created Pokémon look like. (Don't rely on someone's sprite to help you. Things like this should be detailed completely via text because needing to use a visual aid implies a weakness in one's writing. It also slightly insults the reader's intelligence because your story ends up reading like a picture book.)
Likewise, while you name moves, you only show their set-ups. You don't seem to follow through and describe, for example, what a Hyper Beam looks like, and you only vaguely tell us where it landed. (So, we don't even know if it hit dead-on or if Mewtwo was just caught in the shockwaves because "spot" could really be anything.) Hence, we can't really see the battle as well as we probably should, particularly given the fact that this is the first episode of what may just be a battle-heavy fanfiction. Describe as much as possible to help us visualize what's going on because if you can succeed in doing that, you'll draw the reader in and make them feel as if they're right there in the action.
4. Characterization. If you're going to introduce a character, please describe what they look like and what their relevance to the scene is. (As in, if they just walked in, if they're there to cheer someone on, if they've been sitting there all along, that sort of thing.) Randomly popping out names just confuses the reader, really.
Also, be wary of Gary Stus. Giving the characters legendary Pokémon and having the main character's annihilate someone else's in the first chapter tends to put off any reader not on FFNet for reasons I explained above. While it's still a bit early in the fic, this may mean people will feel a bit uncomfortable with your main character, which is not something you want to have happen. Remember that perfectly ordinary Pokémon (like Raticate or even Absol) are perfectly okay to use and may even make the first battle more interesting because it takes more violence and more skill for a trainer to win in a battle involving two mortal Pokémon than in a contest of which legendary can SHOOP DA WOOP more forcefully at the other one.
Or, in even shorter terms, remember that even Harry Potter and Frodo were ordinary kids before they gradually grew into extraordinary figures. Starting off extraordinary seems a little cheap.
In brief, you have potential. Clearly, you're literate, and you're not afraid to use darker plots and more artistic words (like "reverberated"). However, you just need to clean up your grammar and work out your description and characterization before this really gets good. In other words, it's okay for a start, but you have the potential to do better.
I'm not discouraging you from continuing writing, but perhaps it would be a good idea to get in contact with a beta and to slow down a bit to work out the literary oddities I've mentioned.