Review my fanfic?

Sorry for posting in the on topic area, I didn't think this went in Writer's block.

I'm making a Pokémon fanfic, and so far it has 4 chapters, 6,508 words, and 782 hits. It has 7 reviews, all of which are positive, which is a little worrying because the whole point of the fanfic is to increase my ability as a writer, and that won't happen without unbiased criticism. I feel like I'm doing something wrong, but the reviews I have are keeping me in the dark as to whether or not I am doing a good job.

So I guess, I want you guys to tell me if I'm doing fine, or if I'm just embarrassing myself. And I don't want smoke blown up my rear end: I want you to tell me exactly what's wrong with it and suggestions on what I can do to improve. Be as caustic as you need to be to get the point across, I won't be mad. Even Trolling can have some good insight.

Here's the link to the fanfic: http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6443835/1/Pokemon_Getto_Da_Ze

If someone could help me make a trope page too, I'd be grateful.

edited 20th Feb '11 8:42:33 PM by Odonata

Courtesy link to origional thread.

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The first thing I look for in good writing is true command of the language and good skill at dividing text into paragraphs. You seem to possess this, making the story pleasing to read.

Your preamble (the bolded text above the prologue) is a little long. You could probably cut in half and it'd still be longer than it needs to be.

One thing I notice is the narrative is slightly jarring. In the prologue, it skips between narrative and dialogue paragraphs, with the non - quote portions of the dialogue paragrephs (e.g., "The fishing line twitched" in past tense while the nondialogue sections is partially in present tense (e.g., "This girl, whose name is Misty,..."). Moreover, the character is already well - known to Pokemon fans, who will be your primary audience, and will not help people who don't even know what a Pokemon is, so it's not clear an opening backstory is really needed. The story then jumps ahead suddenly without clear reason, only to flashback to the moment we left before.

Misty is clearly no Sue, at least so far, so you seem to have succeeded there.

"One thing I notice is the narrative is slightly jarring. In the prologue, it skips between narrative and dialogue paragraphs, with the non - quote portions of the dialogue paragrephs (e.g., "The fishing line twitched" in past tense while the nondialogue sections is partially in present tense (e.g., "This girl, whose name is Misty, ..."). Moreover, the character is already well - known to Pokemon fans, who will be your primary audience, and will not help people who don't even know what a Pokemon is, so it's not clear an opening backstory is really needed. The story then jumps ahead suddenly without clear reason, only to flashback to the moment we left before. "

I'm glad you noticed that! I knew there was something fishy with it, but I couldn't quite place it. My main motivation for that whole bit was to firmly establish that it was, indeed, Misty, and not some lookalike Copycat Sue. I guess I misstepped by rushing through it a bit and forgetting to check the tense agreement.

edited 21st Feb '11 11:06:29 AM by Odonata

Ah, I get it.

Thanks. ^^

I should mention that on the whole, I agree with the comments (<Lucius Malfoy voice>those were reviews?</Lucius Malfoy voice>) that this is well done and you should continue. My (admittedly limited) experience is that writing, like all art, tends to improve with practice.

Allow me to don my helmet of nitpickery.

First Chapter:

• Everything in italics: Pokemon fans, they know what Pokemon are. They know who Misty is. I even know that her Japanese name is Kasumi. I feel like I'm being babied here.
• These lines:
  • The ball twitched once, as the Pokémon struggled within.
  • The ball twitched twice, as the Pokémon inside gave a final struggle to break free.
    • I'm okay with the repetition of "the ball twitched." It builds tension, and sort of puts the reader in Misty's head. I am not okay with the reuse of the word "struggle." Consult a thesaurus in the future when you find yourself reusing a word one line after the other.
• The segue from Misty holding the Pokeball to her family life is sudden and jarring.
• I do like the how you worded the reference to Ash. I read that as "LOL, remember Ash? He was the main character before, but now he's only got one sentence devoted to him." It kind of works.

Chapter two will be nitpicked in the near future.

Also: I saw the theory that you refer to on the Wild Mass Guessing page for Pokemon.

Also, seeing as I'm in the same review dilemma as you are, I thought I'd add my own Fic in need of criticism. [1]

edited 21st Feb '11 6:16:42 PM by SalFishFin

Sorry for babying you about things you already know, but if I neglected to lay down the ground rules of Pokémon, or introduce the character that would be around for untold chapters... I don't know, that just feels like I'm slighting the audience in some way, withholding need-to-know information as it were.

As for the repitition of struggle, I hadn't noticed it, and now that it's there and I've thought about it, I can probably work it into the bookend device at the end of the story! Thank you for your cander, sir, for it is cander that spawns ideas.

edited 21st Feb '11 9:56:05 PM by Odonata

Nitpicking Chapter 2. Anything in bold is a correction.

• "An unconscious boy, not much younger than her, with slightly charred clothes and burned flesh on a gurney."
  • The gurney is wearing slightly charred clothes and has burned flesh? That's just awkwardly worded. You have several phrases here:
    • An Unconscious boy
    • not much younger then her  ^*
      ^{something's telling me that it should be "not much younger than she," but I'm not sure what}
    • with slightly charred clothes
    • and burned skin
    • on a gurney.
  • And you can word that in such a way as to be totally obvious as to what refers to whom. For example:
    • On a gurney beside her, there was an unconscious boy— not much younger than she was— his skin burned and clothes slightly charred.
• She didn't even know the boy's name, but like many others, she valued life; it could very well be her in that gurney tomorrow, or the day after.
  • Tense/ punctuation corrections.
• That is what being a Pokémon trainer is about: Taking a chance on something that you love so much, you'll stake your life on it.
  • "Taking a chance" and "Staking your life" are pretty much the same thing.
• Misty yelled in indignation, all the while knowing exactly what he was doing, and wishing he wouldn't. That bicycle was brand new!
• She didn't even know this person, and now her Brand New Bicycle was gone
  • Seriously, stick to one tense. I'm not going to cite all of them, but there are still more tense issues.
• There were no open wounds, but he wasn't breathing.
  • Having no open wounds is generally a good thing, so it doesn't fit in the list of bad things about his condition. Also, you should re-order it so that the description of his condition escalates. I.E.: charred clothes, no open wounds but not breathing, cooked arm and leg, no heartbeat.
• Be careful of breathe/breath confusion. breathe is a verb, breath is a noun.

edited 22nd Feb '11 9:02:43 AM by SalFishFin

Sorry, I'll work on my tenses, but I'll leave those mistakes in as a monument to my failure. Thank you much!