Tip: If you want us to have an easier time getting from chapter to chapter, it'd be easier to have an index in your first post with links to each individual post, rather than spoiler tags. Spoiler tags are an added, unnecessary hassle for you, and they really don't make things any neater for us, particularly because we'll have to open every spoiler tag
anyway to read your story all the way through. If anything, it makes things harder for readers to go back and use the browser's search feature to find a particular part if they don't know the chapter it's in because we can't do that until the spoiler tags are open. Which means if we don't know what chapter we've stopped on or if we want to go back and reread a certain part but don't know when it happened, it'll be more work for us. 'Course, it's up to you.
That said, there are some repeating errors (as in, mistakes you make over and over again in terms of grammar). I'll cover them once and assume you can spot where they happen again after that point. Likewise, I'm not in any way trying to be harsh throughout this review. I'm just trying to help you out here.
As a tip, you'll want to be sure you're spelling your locations (and other things in canon) correctly, especially in the first line. The reason why is because it doesn't reflect well on your writing in general if one of the first things a reader sees is an error. That and it's generally assumed that a fanfiction writer should know how to spell the elements that appear in the canon they're working with.
(With that in mind, Ecruteak.)
That aside, the beginning starts out with decent description. I particularly liked the mention of the trees without a single leaf on them. It just feels as if you're bumping from one place to the next in an instant. Perhaps draw it out to include his thoughts about coming home so it feels like he's actually traveling? Either that, or you may want to consider just starting at his home.
Not to mention I'm not quite clear on what you mean by "a single piece of life." Do you mean in the Burned Tower or in the town?
I looked at her and she looked up at me.
Oddly enough, you did a compound sentence correctly just a sentence before, so I'm inclined to assume the missing comma here is actually a typo. If not, try the period test. As in, replace the conjunction (in this case, "and") with a period. See how you get two complete sentences as a result? That means what you're trying to do is a compound sentence, so you need that comma to separate them.
"Neo, why have we not met?"
Clearly, they have already.
Seriously, it's okay to have a character who speaks oddly formally, but you'll still want to be very careful in what they're saying. In this case, you're actually saying they haven't met at all. What you probably meant is they haven't met at the bus stop, recently, within the past few days, on his journey… a plethora of possibilities here.
Has been three years. Was is a more solid verb form. As in, you're saying it happened once and never again. Has been implies it's happened constantly, and they haven't met constantly in three years.
Also, when writing numbers from zero to ninety-nine, you'll want to actually write them out. As in, don't use numerals like 1, 2, 3, et cetera. (Exceptions include times, dates, addresses, and ordinals.)
a 13-year old Pokemon trainer, with an affectionate look
Get rid of the comma here. It really serves no purpose.
on her face with her long, stormy hair.
She expresses herself with her hair?
Seriously, though, yeah, you'll want to be very careful and read over what you write out loud. (I know you have a beta, but there's still some awkward bits you might be able to catch yourself.) With a description, you'll want to be careful about when you write traits. You don't want to conjure odd images (like you just did), and you don't want to stop the story to read off a list. I'd suggest putting this in its own sentence and integrate it a bit better into the story.
Also, hair generally isn't stormy.
Not to mention while it's an interesting description, it doesn't really tell us anything. I apologize for being blunt, but you list off vague terms, rather than anything solid. We don't know what color or style "stormy" is (although we can assume gray and extremely messy because that's what stormy implies), we can see that her eyes are in pain but can't tell what color they are – nothing. So, we're left with a mass of pain and eccentricity (which should really be brought up in her actions and backstory, not in her physical description) when you seemed like you were trying to tell us what she
looked like. That's not exactly a good thing.
Her expression was filled with eccentric life,
Also, sometimes, your descriptions are vague in general. For example, what do you mean by "eccentric life"? Is it a dark past, or did she run away from the circus? Because I'd call either fairly eccentric.
Oddly enough, she was incredibly timid.
Given how she just appeared in someone else's house and accused him of not being in contact with her? Yep. I'd call that timid.
(Seriously, though, timid means quiet and shy. You could say that she is, but from her actions so far, she doesn't seem like it. When you write, you'll want to bring out a character's personality in his or her
actions, not just in descriptions. After all, the cliché goes that actions speak louder than words. Showing us a character who backs away shyly when someone approaches them and tries to strike up a conversation screams timid more than telling us a character is timid.)
I can't believe that I met her, but I couldn't lie at all, but I lost my opinions on returning back to Johto to get the rest of the badges and be able to move when she asked me that matter.
Well, first off, this is a run-on. Notice how you're trying to splice together multiple compound sentences? You'll want to avoid that because it's awkward in a reader's eyes.
Second, I read the last clause a few times, but I don't quite know what you're trying to say. It seems like you're saying he quit the Johto League, is indifferent about resuming it to get the badges, and wants to move when she asks him to, but the last part is a bit fuzzy.
In other words, saying things in simpler terms > doing it with flowery, pretentious descriptions. You'll confuse (and, therefore, lose) a reader more often if you do the latter, but if you keep things simple, they won't have too many problems.
"We each had a good cause Sarina-kun." I had to say.
1. When you're writing dialogue, if the dialogue tag (the part that says "he said," "she said," what have you) comes after the quote it's attached to, the sentence within the quotation marks doesn't end until after the tag. As in, the tag by itself isn't a sentence. It modifies (or describes) a quote. Therefore, if it comes after, you need a comma (and not a period) at the end of the quote to show you're leading into the tag. (You don't need to replace exclamation points or question marks.) If you need clarification, feel free to ask.
2. Please tell me you're not going to be sprinkling Japanese randomly into your dialogue throughout the fic. I mean, I can tolerate it if the character
is of that nationality, but doing it because Japanese looks cooler is
not a reason to use foreign words or forms of address in a fanfiction.
2a. That said, "-kun" is not used for females unless the person using it is both older (as in, both in age and in a higher position) and in a formal, business-like setting. For example, a boss might call his secretary "-kun." I suppose this might fit, but it still seems odd, given that this seems more like an intimate setting.
Whereabouts is not a time or another word for "journey." It's a specific place. Quite literally, it means "location."
My throat began to choke and burn up.
Usually, one would say, "
I began to choke." The reason why is because to choke means "to obstruct or constrict the windpipe." It's rather redundant, then, to have the throat choke.
I felt like I was tortured.
"Like I was being tortured." Unless he was already tortured beforehand, but I think you mean at that very moment, he was suffering.
It could not have been more throbbing.
What couldn't have been?
Luckily, I can say about going to Hoenn from a mission given to me by Oak,
Erm, whoever your beta is might want to spend a bit more time on your fic. O_o I don't mean to be mean, but this just sounds incredibly awkward. First off, no one says "say about." The term is "talk about." The reason why is because "say" just doesn't go with an object. It's the act of speaking. However, "talk" can go with an object because it can potentially mean "the act of addressing something." Just because the thesaurus says they're synonyms doesn't necessarily mean they can be used the exact same way. It just means they're closely related.
Additionally, if Neo went to Hoenn to take care of a mission, then he went
for it, not
from it. "From" implies either that Sarina got this information from hearing about this mission (which is unlikely because it's still fairly awkwardly worded) or that Neo is running or leaving
from the mission, which doesn't explain why he can talk about it. In other words, it's simply confusing.
Also, you switch from past tense ("felt," "began," et cetera) to present ("can," "isn't," "should"). You want to maintain a single tense for the sake of conformity.
Given the fact that you continue with a (better, in my opinion, because it actually details what the pain felt like) description of this pain, you might as well leave this phrase out. It sounds a bit unintentionally humorous anyway because it's just a bit over-the-top in terms of melodrama.
She looked me straight into the eye
He only has one eye?
Yeah, you may want to consider switching betas. I don't mean to offend who did it, but the least they should've done was run your work through spell check.
Hugged. Never does a past-tense verb use two E's for the suffix anyway.
It would be better to say "the burns on my body." The reason why is because you already say it's Neo's when you have him say "my body." It'd be fairly redundant to say the burns were his as well when that's fairly stating the obvious.
Also, weren't these metaphorical burns?
began being filled with tears.
Began to fill. To say "began being filled" implies that the tears just appeared out of nowhere, even if you have the word "began" there. To simply say they began to fill means they're actually going through the action of filling with tears.
"So my dream will come true..." she continued - "I want to travel with you."
First off, decide which sentence the tag (she continued) is meant to be attached to. If it's the first, don't make any changes. If it's the second (the part about her wanting to travel with Neo), you first need to capitalize the word "she." Then, drop the dash (because it's not used in dialogue unless the speaker is being interrupted) and replace it with a comma. The reason why is because these are two different sentences, but you're trying to connect them into a run-on with the dialogue tag.
I was going to meet Red again in this region that I was sure
I had to reread this a couple of times because it's worded a bit awkwardly. I get the feeling you're trying to write "that I was sure of" (or "of that I was sure"
or "I was sure of that"), at which point, that's actually a separate sentence, which means this ends up being a run-on. If that's not what you were trying to say, then I'm not quite sure what your real intention was here. O_o Either way, yeah, you'll want to try rephrasing this to make things a bit clearer.
and then I felt amazingly lightheaded.
I'd suggest putting this in its own sentence anyway to separate it from whatever you're trying to do in the part before it. (See above.)
"Not again..." - I thought to myself.
In general, as I said before, dashes are
not used in punctuating dialogue. They're only used to indicate either parentheticals (statements that would otherwise go in parentheses, like this) or when one speaker is interrupted by an action or a thought. (Note that dialogue tags do
not interrupt speech.)
I was a 14-year old gentleman with diminutive hair
While diminutive = short normally, it usually refers to the size of objects such as, for example, people or animals. It doesn't refer to hair, and it actually has the connotation that you have a receding hairline or barely any hair at all.
Point is, as pretty as the thesaurus is, I really don't recommend using it unless you've got a dictionary right beside it. The reason why is because you'll end up finding words via the thesaurus that are only synonyms in certain ways but not in all ways, but thesauri never tell you exactly how they're similar. So, you'll end up getting a synonym that isn't used to describe the object you're trying to get at, even though the original word did. (For example, if you said a man was virile, "virile" means "masculine," yes… but it's used in a sexual way. That's not something a thesaurus would tell you.)
My eyes were like the ending of the world
…Buh?
Okay, seriously, try to avoid similes like this. First off, this sounds a bit trite anyway because it's foreshadowing (and tied in with the vision that Neo just had). Second, usually, similes are used to compare two unlike objects with each other in a way that they both share characteristics. While neither (his eyes nor the end of the world) has much in the way of hope (although that depends on what you think will happen at the end of the world because
Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy has a completely different outlook on this), usually, you don't compare a vague event with a solid object.
That's a lot of the problems I'm having with your metaphors and general comparisons. You attempt to make them deep and poignant, but in the process, you end up making vague comparisons. So, in the end, what you end up doing is trying to describe something but not actually describing it. Remember, the purpose of having a simile in the first place is to describe the first object. By simply saying "it was like the end of the world" and "it had no hope," we're not actually given a mental image of what you're talking about because all we're doing is trying to figure out what that
looks like.
In other words, as cool as complex metaphors may be, they're not always a good thing because then, your readers will be too busy trying to work things out and get a description from what you're trying to say to actually pay attention to what comes afterwards.
my body was hacked dreadfully.
Usually, when you say "hacked," you mean it's currently in the process of being hacked – as in, it's currently or very recently sliced.
What wasn't? I'm assuming you mean Neo and the girl here, but even then, you'd say "we were," not "it was."
Incidentally, usually, if a man's referring to a pair without saying what pair he's referring to, he's usually referring to one of the following things: legs, a woman's breasts, or a man's (including possibly his own) genitals. So, yeah, you'll want to clarify here.
but as being a gentleman,
Being a gentleman, not "as being." The "as" really serves no function here.
I knew that she couldn't be refused and will find out everything eventually.
Would, not will. The reason why is because this sentence takes place in the past. The verb "will" is a future-tense verb. While you want a future tense, "will" usually means it's going to happen sometime after right now, but it couldn't have happened in the past. What you want here is a verb that means it's going to happen sometime after that point in the story, so it could have happened before what we call the present. (In other words, because you're using past tense in this story, it's not the present.)
Long story short, you need a verb that's the future as seen from the past. That would be "would." Confusing, but let's just say you don't use the future tense at all (unless in dialogue) if you're using the past tense in a story.
had some sunlight inside it, meaning there was hope left in the world.
Or just that it was sunny outside.
Seriously, I know it's first person, but you'll still want to explain how he arrived to that conclusion because right now, it seems out of the blue and irrelevant to the condition of the room.
Not to mention it just feels rather trite anyway. Sunlight
usually = hope, so it feels like obvious symbolism.
Well, I don't ****ing know, but come on down here anyway!"
Tip: If you're going for a serious tone, don't just throw in swearing wherever it's convenient. Swearing is meant for emphasis, not to up the rating.
That said, I'm not sure about the country you come from, but usually, commercials that air during the day do
not have swearing, sexual themes, or drug references (unless it's an advertisement for over-the-counter, take-because-you're-genuinely-sick meds) in them. Why? Because children could be watching. It's after they're tucked in or doing their homework that the ads for KY lubricant and Bacardi rum air, and even then, they don't swear because the point of an ad is to lure people into buying the product. Swearing at them gives the product an air of tastelessness, which means swearing = bad for advertisement.
In other words, as sleezy as Wario is, he probably won't be swearing in his commercials.
Also, I get the feeling this was only in here for comic relief (because it doesn't seem to be mentioned again in the story), but it still feels as if you just completely stopped the story to do it. Try to avoid things like that. It's jarring, and you just don't want the reader to stop short and wonder what the crap just happened.
Though, once we went outside, we noticed that it was sinister outside,
Sinister
how? Mind you, specifics are always good because your definition of sinister weather isn't your readers'. For example, because I live in New England, dark clouds and pouring rain isn't sinister to me. It's a
normal day. To someone else, that might be the worst kind of weather to travel in. So, saying the clouds were pitch-black and that the rain was coming down in sheets paints a better image of what you're talking about than leaving it at a vague term.
Okay, stopping here for a moment. To be blunt and honest, there's quite a bit to work on. First, you'll want to sort out what's going on with your punctuation, spelling, and wording.
Here's a list of comma rules to help you out with the first, as it seems that oddly placed (including nonexistent) commas and oddly punctuated dialogue (which involves a lot of commas) are your two major problems here. Spelling could be taken care of if you're just a bit more careful, and wording can be dealt with by burning your thesaurus.
Also, at times, you come up with original metaphors. (Like the part about the eyes being like the end of the world. It's clever. Vague, but clever.) However, the problem lies in the fact that you use them but either don't go all the way with your descriptions or get so lost in your comparison that you seem to think that it's enough to describe what you mean. You'll really want to concentrate on helping us to clarify our mental images because, really, flowery and complex metaphors aren't enough to help us figure out what things look like. If anything, they end up confusing us more.
As for the storyline, I feel as if not too much happened here, but it's a first chapter. (So, in a sense, it's forgivable.) I'm a bit unsettled by a character called Neo (which in itself made my inner MST3K fan fire out
Matrix jokes like volleys out of a machine gun) who receives disturbing visions and has the ability to be more eloquent (and possibly more sexually active, considering how he's getting rather close to Sarina, if you know what I mean) than most fourteen-year-olds. I'm already getting the feeling this is going to be one of those stories where the chosen one goes out, saves the world, and
sleeps hooks up with the female companion. This isn't a bad thing by itself, but it tends to sprout Gary Stus, which is why I'm advising you to perhaps keep an eye out on the way Neo turns out. Uber powers and uber Pokémon, for example, will probably force him down the path of the Stu.
In other words, it's a readable beginning, but you'll need to polish it a bit and keep an eye on your characters.
May continue later if I have time.
