@ Four Friends to a New Beginning ch.1, Avegaille Spellman
-clich? title that will definitely scare readers away... it spells "OT" all over it, which generally repels readers. It's possibly too revealing as well. By default you know that "well it must be a story of 4 friends starting their own Pokemon adventure and then on to the badges." Even if this isn't the truth, the readers take it by default, and won't bother to click on this story to read it then.
It may seem that time had passed
be sure to be consistent on your verb tenses. Choose between past and present, and stick with one.
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*long cultural lesson alert*
possibly a misleading allusion/symbolism by naming your character's last name as "amethyst," which not only means a pretty purple colored stone but usually demonic/pagan, or unholy in nature. Amethyst means "remedy for intoxication" and some cults/religion used amethyst gems as a mean for treatment against diseases in the past, and such an act is considered "demonic" by the Catholic church, which influences the development of the English language and this is stuck with us today. In fact, any purple gems or stones aren't the most righteous in the old Catholic church, with has indirectly instructed our language to think in the same way. Since your writing's audiences are mostly from the western world, you may also have to put their tradition into account when you're dealing with anything that's possibly symbolic in nature. This is also the reason why if we have some oriental or Australian readers coming across this name, they'll consider the last name as totally suitable and fine. You must consider cultural background when you're writing.
She had short black hair and wore an orange T-shirt, a white hooded jacket and a black skirt.
It's good that you're inserting character development. Now we'll take it to the next level to go beyond acceptable level of fanfic writing. Don't do this anymore. Don't insert a whole paragraph or sentence of nothing but physical character descriptions. Always insert a bit of action verbs in order to keep the story flowing, or else the story seems to come to a stop at a "sidetrack." Physical descriptions should always be accompanied by some action verbs in order to reduce the boring aspect of physical description. Same thing applies to the later characters' entrance as well. Also, it is advices that you don't throw out every aspect of the characters' physical description at once as well. Chop it up and feed it to your readers bit by bit throughout the story, instead of all at the beginning.
?Well, okay, then,? Avegaille murmured out as she stood up. ?I?ll see you some other time then.?
A difficult thing to avoid, but do try your best. Here "then" is repeated here, and it sounds boring in terms of diction to use the same word so frequently.
Understood that the pun is meant to be humorous, but at the same time you suddenly switched the story from 3rd narrative to 1st narrative for just 3 words, then back to 3rd narrative again... Don't switch narrative unless it's very important. Switching narratives have a dramatic effect on your story, and it can work both ways...
-some dialogues give you a really anime-feeling... in writings, some parts can be summarized and condensed as part of the narration, instead of forcing your characters to say everything, such as those "goodbyes" type of thing... condense your writing to have the least amount of words as you can in order to reduce length.
-just a note: "May Maples" is a common mistake in terms of "official" last names, similar to "Misty Waterflowers." It is just that the dubbers are saying things a bit too fast and it turned out similar to Maples when the judge of the Pokemon Competition is trying to say something else... Then some fanfic writers take that last name for May (just like what happened to Misty) and then everyone other writer copies and follow... o.o; just a note... it's fine to use that last name but it's NOT OFFICIAL >>;
-if you're trying to use the May from the anime for your May, then she isn't wearing a "white miniskirt" over her biker shorts. It's just a t-shirt of some kind that's not tucked in, or possibly the end of her red shirt is white... it's awfully too small to be even a miniskirt o.o;
-have no idea what's with the latias part...
He was currently being attacked by more than one Zigzagoon.
By not just say "attacked by a few Zigzagoons"? Try to be as fluent in your narration as possible. Hiring beta readers or proof read multiple amount of times will help.
-the battle was rather quick and short... It's similar to the anime where the hero/ine's Pokemon are invincible and one attack wipes out the opponent before they can do much of anything...
-the story is generally lacking in terms of emotional character development... the most we got out of is May being the devious one out of the four. The other three share the flawless personality which shouldn't exist at all. It makes your story feel like an anime production even more than it is already, and any fanfic that has the Pokemon-anime-style cannot possibly be a very good fanfic. Distance yourself from the anime as much as possible. Definitely and again, avoid "flawless characters."
-heavy giveaways are also not recommanded... if the readers are able to predict the outcome of the story early on, why bother reading on until the end? The story gives off heavy hints in terms of who's going to be with who in the future, set in stone... *Generally* romances in action/adventure fanfics come either instanteously, or gradually... in between of nowhere is not a good thing. (note: generally means that there are exceptions to the rule, but it's definitely very difficult to do so, and for now I'll recommand you to follow the general writing guides first)
-I'll stop off at chapter 1 as there's more than enough to work on until the next review already. As for the prediction from me before I start reading that this is definitely going to be an OT fanfic, I guess it's fulfilled then ^^; Therefore, the title must have been too revealing, and too much of a cliche, stereotypical OT.
Good Points
-beginning of character developments
-beginning of descriptions
-grammar are mostly correct
Future Improvements
-emotional character descriptions
-fix "OT errors"
-be more original; stay away from being "anime-style"
Title: 2/5
Grammar Basics: 9/10
Coherence/Readability: 9/10
Characterization: 8/20
Story Structure: 6/15
Tone/Atmosphere: 7/15
Diction: 8/20
Effort/Originality: 10/15
Lit. Device bonus: +0
total: 59
