[19] The Other Pokereviews, Part 98

Today’s theme was extremely awkward prose. There is also a platonic trainer/gardevoir relationship fic that still does all the annoying cliches.

Anime count: 4

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12883234/1/The-Adventures-of-Ethan-and-Airalyn-the-Gardevoir-When-we-First-Met

[“Words” Normal speech.

‘Words’ Airalyn/Other pokemon into one’s mind.

Words Thoughts.

Words A human speaking to a pokemon with their mind.]

I guarantee you do not need a speech key. If basic actions aren’t obvious from context, something has gone more wrong than a key can fix. You also shouldn’t use double quotes and single quotes to mean significantly different things, as they look too similar. I’m also not clear why human-to-pokemon telepathy needs to be marked differently than pokemon-to-human telepathy.

[The forest to the east of Pallet Town had fallen victim to an intruder. This intruder’s intentions were not hostile, however.]

That’s an odd way to phrase it, then. Don’t feel obligated to make the opening line of your story feel tense and exciting; it’s far more annoying for the first line to be a fakeout.

[This boy, no, this man]

This is also a weird thing to say. I presume you mean this to imply that an onlooker would be uncertain of his exact age, i.e. he is a teenager? Unless this story is about coming of age or a similar theme that draws importance to the difference between the two categories, this phrasing seems unnecessarily dramatic. “This young man” would be fine here.

[This pokemon trainer might not look like anything to unusual at first glance; 5 feet 10 inches tall, skin tanned from years of travel, dark brown hair that had been lazily brushed out of his face.]

This is improper semicolon usage. As a general rule of thumb, you should be able to replace semicolons with periods and still have the resulting sentences make sense; for instance, what I’m doing here. You want a full colon here. Also, giving height in exact measurements is ironically less clear than more general descriptors, as most people do not readily have an image for what a given measure looks like. Just saying “he was of average height” is fine, and much more expedient.

[The trainer wore a dark gray t-shirt covered up by a black jacket with gray stripes along the sleeves and chest. Dark blue jeans, navy shoes with white stripes, and a backpack. This backpack matched his companion, white with a green top and a red circle in the middle.]

The description of the gardevoir is also unclear – initially I thought it was describing a human. “Top” can also refer to a shirt, which is the meaning readers are primed for after the context of describing Ethan’s clothing. The chest horn is also not a circle.

[‘Ethan?’ A smooth angelic voice called]

You’re formatting dialogue incorrectly. Dialogue is written as [“Hello,” she said] or [“Hello!” she said], never [“Hello.” She said] or [“Hello”, she said] or [“Hello” she said]. This is because dialogue and speech tags are considered to be part of the same sentence, so they have to flow together. The only exception to this is if the next sentence doesn’t contain a speech verb. In that case, the second part IS considered a separate sentence, so it’s written as [“Hello.” She grinned], never [“Hello,” she grinned]. Note that something isn’t a speech verb just because it’s a sound you make with your mouth, so generally stuff like “laughed” or “giggled” is in the second category. (“Speak” is also not a speech verb.) Furthermore, if you’re breaking up two complete sentences it’s [“Hi,” she said. “This is it.”] not [“Hi,” she said, “this is it.”] or [“Hi,” she said “this is it.”] And if you’re breaking up a sentence in the middle, it’s [“Hi. This,” she said, “is it.”] The same punctuation and capitalization rules apply to thoughts, except you don’t use quotation marks (or single quotes) with thoughts. This is because quotation marks for thoughts make it look like your characters are talking out loud, which is confusing to the reader.

[I slowed my pace and turned]

The story is in third-person up to this point. It’s very jarring to switch styles like this; you should pick one POV and stick with it.

[‘This forest seems familiar, where are we going?’]

This is a comma splice. You need to split this sentence in two or use a different transition.

[Ahh my curious little Gardevoir.]

I appreciate that you’re not capitalizing pokemon in general, but you did so here.

[I jokingly patted her green air]

Typo.

[Airalyn was using psychic to clear our path.]

If you’re referring to the move, “Psychic” should be capitalized – if there’s no article in front of it, it’s being used as a proper noun. However, I find this to be an odd choice, as Psychic seems to have a significant mental component. Just saying “she used her psychic powers” or “she used telekinesis” would be adequate and raise fewer questions.

[about one more minute of walking lead us to a clearing]

You want “led”. “Lead” can only be used as the present tense.

[The light of the full moon that had recently risen]

Wait, this has all been taking place at night? That’s kind of an important detail. I was picturing the previous scenes as happening during the day. You should mention this earlier.

[One large one with a few smaller ones surrounding it, complimented by dark green leaves.]

This is a sentence fragment; I believe you can achieve the intended effect by putting a colon at the end of the previous sentence. You also want “complemented”; “complimented” means to say something nice.

[You payed me back]

You want “paid”. You’ve made multiple errors throughout this, and they are distracting. You should proofread more thoroughly, or get a beta reader to help you.

[Airalyn reminded.]

This is a very awkward word to use as a speech tag. Just “said” would be fine here, and less distracting.

[my untrained, ten-year-old body]

This is a really weird way to think about yourself, and kids often have plenty of stamina. This would make more sense if you used to say he was less athletic when he was a kid – it does sound like that’s what you mean by “untrained”, but it would be good if you used clearer langauge.

[“I guess a few minutes wouldn’t hurt.” I confidently and fearlessly marched through the trees. My little head turned all around, eyes wide with wonder as I took in the sights. Light seeping down from above, pokemon resting in the trees, lush green wrapping around the forest floor. I had been exploring when I realized it was getting hard to see. I looked to the sky, and saw a deep orange on the horizon.]

It feels strange when there’s a disconnect between time passing in the story and the time taken to read a passage. The suddenness of this is something I would normally see in cosmic horror fiction to show that reality has broken. If he spent hours exploring, he should have a bit more to report than just “pokemon resting in the trees, lush green wrapping around the forest floor”, which strikes me as something he’d see just at first glance. You can go into more detail here – what kind of unique scenes did he see, what captured his attention for so long, etc.?

[I got up to leave when I heard what sounded like a damaged cry. What the heck? I listened closer. I heard another, this time picking up on the sound. I ran towards it. I jumped over logs, pushed my way past trees, and shoved greenery out of my way. The cries were getting louder, and my heart throbbed. I really hope it’s not too hurt… whatever it is. I couldn’t imagine what could cause a creature to make such a sound. I eventually reached a thick wall of green.

“How am I supposed to get past this?” I complained to noone. Then I heard another cry from behind the green, this one weaker. I pushed those lazy thoughts aside and threw myself into the bushes. After much struggle, I got through and proceeded through the forest until I reached a clearing. There was an oak tree with purple roses on it. I couldn’t admire it for long, though. The source of the cries came from the little white and green pokemon huddled in an indentation in the base of the trunk, being harassed by weedle using bug bite.]

This strikes me as… off, given what the pokedex tells us about ralts. The pokedex says they can sense hostility and are very good at fleeing and hiding, so this one should have been able to avoid the weedle. Given that ralts have no offensive capability and their evolutions do not appear in the wild, I don’t see what good screaming for help would do – it seems more likely that it would attract another predator than something that could help, and risks drawing hostile trainers, which they avoid like the plague. (Unless this is broadcasted at a frequency only the pure of heart can hear?)

[“Hey! You leave that poor pokemon alone! Three on one isn’t fair!”]

Huh? You didn’t specify the number of weedle in the description of the scene.

[As soon as they saw me, they hissed and scurried off.]

Why? It’s a big deal that kids can’t leave town without pokemon because of the danger, and weedle will jump out at trainers all on their own. What makes these ones so afraid?

[“Oh hey, let’s pick a name for you. Hmm, you look to be a girl so…Lucy?” Ralts shook its head.

“Julia?” Nope.

“Rachel?” Still a no.

“Stella?” Ralts still shook her head.

“Hmm. What about ‘Airalyn’?” Ralts perked up at this and nodded.]

Why doesn’t she already have a name? Pokemon are social creatures.

So… is there a particular reason why a ralts was in the wrong region and conveniently right outside the starting town? It looks really contrived to have the protagonist stumble over a super special pokemon right out of the gate, and ralts are especially cliché. If you want to make a point about how he really cares about her as a person, it would be more genuine if you chose a pokemon that wasn’t super popular.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12883448/1/Tale-of-a-Mew-Explorers-of-Avalon

[When mysterious Pokémon attack villages, a new Pokémon called Myu takes it upon himself to discover why, and stop their mysterious leader before he can destroy their world.]

Summaries need to tell us more than just the genre. What’s your plot?

You wouldn’t capitalize animal or mouse or dragon, so you shouldn’t capitalize words like pokemon or pikachu or charizard. The only time you should capitalize it is if you’re using it as the pokemon’s name, ie, Ash’s pikachu is called Pikachu. This is because you only capitalize when it’s a proper noun, which are the names of places or things. Similar reasoning should be applied to any other words you’re thinking of capitalizing, like telephone or trainer. Or champion. If you want to argue about this, take it to fanfiction (d o t) net/topic/11834/55376155/1/Capitalization-Thread

[They exist in two different types: the Wild Pokémon, who roam the forests and wilderness, always on the hunt, and the Sapient Pokémon, who live simple village lives.]

That’s bizarre, considering that canon makes no distinction between the two. Why does this dichotomy exist? Do the sapient pokemon ever find it odd that they have nonsapient cousins?

[First thing he could see was aquamarine hair, around two purple eyes set in a white face. Two orange horns shaped like hairpins were on the top of her head.]

Shiny kirlia do not have purple eyes, and uh… I’m not sure what you think of when you picture a hairpin, but kirlia horns don’t look like any one I’ve seen. Hair clamps, maybe, or a very simplified barrette, but not hairpins.

[He subconsciously recognizes his species]

The rest of the story is in past tense, so this should be as well.

[“You haven’t told me your name. Why should I tell you mine?”]

Why is he so hostile? She’s done nothing suspicious.

[Hi, mom,]

When a title (such as “mom” or “dad”) is used in place of a name, it’s capitalized like one.

[“This is Myu,” she gestured to the Mew, “and]

When interrupting a sentence with a non-speaking verb, you need to use different punctuation markers than commas. For a short action like this, the standard format is dashes. So this would be [“This is Myu”–she gestured to the Mew–”and].

This really doesn’t feel like Pokemon fanfiction. You’re writing like this is a human setting, where people often are covered in clothes but have bare hands that can easily bend and grasp things at chest height. You’re even having them use human social and political structures. If you’re going to write about pokemon characters you need to think about all the ways they’d function differently.

Currently, it seems like this would work fine as an original fantasy story. I strongly recommend publishing this as original fiction with an “inspired by” label on the top instead. See here for more information: fanfiction (d o t) net/topic/11834/165030563/1/Original-Fiction

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12883507/1/Pokemon-Sun-Moon-The-Aftermath

[In the months following their journeys, Sun and Moon’s lives become routine and lack adventure. However, when Moon manages to stumble into a timeline without Mega Evolution, coming face-to-face with her other-world counterpart, both her and Sun’s lives become full of adventure once again.]

While this is a bit more descriptive than most summaries on this site, it’s still a little vague. What’s special about alt!Moon? What form does their adventure take? What are the themes of this story? It’s these details that are going to entice the most readers.

You wouldn’t capitalize animal or mouse or dragon, so you shouldn’t capitalize words like pokemon or pikachu or charizard. The only time you should capitalize it is if you’re using it as the pokemon’s name, ie, Ash’s pikachu is called Pikachu. This is because you only capitalize when it’s a proper noun, which are the names of places or things. Similar reasoning should be applied to any other words you’re thinking of capitalizing, like telephone or trainer. Or champion. Or mega evolution. If you want to argue about this, take it to fanfiction (d o t) net/topic/11834/55376155/1/Capitalization-Thread

[No person could possibly understand it; except one.]

[causing us to take notice of her anklet]

Who is “us”? You generally shouldn’t involve the reader in the story.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12883579/1/Darkness-Never-Rests

[It’s been two years since the The Corona region’s dominant crime group, the Phantom Syndicate, secretly funded a coup, and a brief yet brutal totalitarian regime. Corona’s own military may have put an end to it, but concrete evidence against the syndicate has remained elusive. Thus, the threat lingers in the shadows, perhaps plotting someone even bigger.]

This is a bit hard for me to follow. What you’re literally saying is that the Syndicate funded a coup and then also funded the totalitarian regime – does this mean they were not the regime themselves, just a shadowy backer? With that in mind, what is the “it” in the second sentence – the regime, or the Syndicate? How did Corona’s own military defeat them, when a coup generally involves destroying or subverting the existing military? This also makes it sound like the Syndicate’s involvement was pretty obvious, so I don’t understand how evidence is elusive. (The first “the” shouldn’t be capitalized, also.)

Also, while this provides a lot of information about the backstory, it doesn’t tell us much about the actual story itself. You haven’t mentioned who the main character is or what the main conflict will be. I just know that there is a shady organization in hiding that is poised to rise again… which, in general terms, is the premise of quite a lot of stories. I understand that FFN has a harsh character limit on these things, but you should try to prioritize the information that will be most important. For instance, backstory like this can be explained pretty easily in the story itself, and isn’t really necessary to draw reader attention in the first place. Something about the themes and characters would be more attractive, I think.

[a breathtaking symbol of the region’s triumph in the Pokémon world]

I’ve always felt this is a weird term to use in-universe. We don’t refer to Earth as “the human world” or “the animal world”, you know? Just “the world” would be less obtrusive, I think – it’s how we refer to similar things in our world.

[However, one thing is certain; No matter what their end game is, they are determined to fulfill it by any means necessary.]

You want a full colon here, not a semicolon.

[The horrific acts committed in Kanto is proof of how far they will go]

You want “are proof” here, for plural agreement.

[an abnormally high number of wild gastly, haunter, and gengar began to make themselves visible as nighttime approaches]

The rest of the story is in present tense, so this should be as well.

[Suddenly, a massive burst of electricity from within the Mystic Forest startles a large number of Ghost-type Pokémon. Then, the Pokémon began to vanish into the night as a humanoid, alien like Electric-type Pokémon makes its presence known, scaring off the Ghost-types with its unusual appearance and the large electric waves naturally emitting from its body. Steel toe boots can be heard echoing in the now eerily quiet forest as the strange Pokémon’s trainer walks in front of it. As the trainer scans the area with his light blue eyes, a gentle breeze causes his unusual spiky hair, shaped like lightning bolts and bright yellow in color, to sway slightly.]

You should hyphenate “alien-like”, and this narration feels oddly stiff. There is no emotion behind it; it feels like you’re describing footage from a security camera. A lot of this is in a passive tone, removing agency from the actors. “A massive burst of electricity startles”… “makes its presence known”… “can be heard echoing”… it feels like the action just kind of happen with no clear cause, even though you are describing the actors. I can’t quite tell what tone you’re going for here, but I feel a different style would be more effective.

[the male trainer]

“Male” and “female” are really weird, clinical descriptors. You’ve already give his pronouns as masculine, so there’s no need to mention this.

[The Phantom Syndicate’s trademark logo, two crossing swords and a skull, is displayed prominently on the center of his metallic yellow shirt which has had the sleeves ripped off, as well as on both sides at the top of his metallic yellow pants.]

I don’t think this sentence is quite a run-on, but it’s still breathless and overextended. I think a lot of this information is unnecessary – the important thing is the Phantom Syndicate logo, which has more impact if it’s the only detail in the passage. It’s also more dramatic if you leave it for the end, like “His shirt prominently displays the Phantom Syndicate’s trademark logo: two crossed swords and a skull.”

That’s also… kind of an underwhelming symbol, honestly. It’s just an iteration on skull-and-crossbones, which is a pretty generic symbol. If they are indeed just petty criminals, that’s reasonable, but you seem to be building them up to be much more sinister. Their logo should hint at their true intentions.

[“It’s been a while, hasn’t it, Mewtwo?” The last time we saw each other was when Kanto fell to King Phantom!”]

It looks like there’s an extra quote here.

[The trainer tauntingly and loudly remarks in a gruff, high pitched voice, giving off a psychopathic vibe to him.]

This is also way too overwrought. Speech tags shouldn’t draw more attention than the dialogue itself. Especially when a scene is about mysterious actors, less is more. You may have heard to avoid said because it’s so bland and boring, but that’s actually its greatest strength. Nonstandard speech verbs stick out; they’re used for emphasis, when how something is said is important to the story and you want the reader to stop and take notice. If you use that emphasis for every single line, the reader will become oversaturated, lessening the impact when you actually do want emphasis on a speech tag.

[Mewtwo rebukes via telepathy as he makes him visible from behind thick shrubbery.]

That should be “himself”, I believe. I’ll stop pointing out these errors, but they are quite distracting. I strongly recommend getting a beta reader to help you. Start looking here: fanfiction (d o t) net/topic/11834/42724996/1/Beta-Signup

[a young adult male with medium length, slightly spiky black hair does not seem to be having a good time. He rests his head on the palm of hid right hand, glancing over at an aerial Pokémon battle between a staraptor and a pidgeot with a serious, aloof expression emitting from his dark blue eyes. He wears an unzipped black leather jacket, revealing a black shirt underneath, and black pants to match.]

Opening the story with excessive physical description is an instant turnoff. Do you see how rushed and awkward this sounds? This early on, you should stick to information that is immediately relevant. More minor details can come after readers have gotten invested. “a serious, aloof expression emitting from his dark blue eyes” also sounds really weird – expressions aren’t often described as being “emitted”.

[“We did what was needed to be done, and we didn’t come out of it without any casualties either. The Corona region lost brave men and women during the Liberation of Kanto, and the Phantom Syndicate must pay for that and the horrific actions by both them and the Team Rocket Militia. People can try to sugarcoat it, but you can’t sugarcoat the war crimes committed in Kanto. I’m a battle hardened man because of what I saw there.”]

This doesn’t sound like how people actually talk. It sounds like he’s reciting this from a history textbook… or expositing to an audience. Despite how extreme his words are, I don’t feel any emotion from them.

…And I feel the same way about their entire conversation. People do not list off their entire life story to each other without prompting. It would be better if you explained this information through narration, and spaced it out a little.

[Through hell and back]

When referring to the singular place, “Hell” is capitalized.

The battle isn’t terribly interesting to me either. You should try to break the game mold of simply exchanging attacks. Try featuring a more dymanic flow of battle, or tactics you can’t see in the games, like using the arena. I’m not terribly familiar with the anime, but I recall it having some decent examples of how to do this.

So… overall, this story doesn’t really grab me. Like I said, it feels very robotic and artificial. I get the impression that you are not very familiar with prose writing. I recommend analyzing print books to see how their prose is typically structured.

I also feel like this chapter takes too long to get to the point. Most of it is taken up by exposition and unnecessary details, with much of the plot buried until the end, and as a result not a lot of action happens in this chapter. That’s a problem, because your first chapter ought to hook your reader. I think you should aim for Travis joining the team to be your opening scene rather than your opening chapter, by condensing the stuff that comes before it and continuing on to whatever Travis’ first task is going to be. That would give us a better idea of what the story is about. See here for more information: fanfiction (d o t) net/topic/11834/142411850/1/First-Chapters

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12883756/1/Ash-Betrayed

This belongs in the Anime world. Find your story under “Manage Stories” and select it from the dropdown menu that says “World: Any” in the “Category” section. If you have difficulties or objections, take it to this thread: fanfiction (d o t) net/topic/11834/165132256/1/World-Tags

[My own version of the whole “Ash betrayed” scenario]

Summaries need to tell us more than just the genre. Also, sentences need to end in punctuation.

[Flashback]

This isn’t a video game. You should establish time and place through context or narration. Non-general scene transitions are jarring.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12883765/1/The-Tale-of-the-Greatest-Pokemon-Master

[Right before Ash was old enough to start his journey, he made a change of plans as to how he would kick things off. Little did he know that this one simple decision would impact his life in so many different ways.]

…Such as? Summaries need to tell us more than just the genre. What’s the change specifically and why is it important? You should try to stand out from the literally thousands of other stories with the same premise.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12883979/1/Pokemon-Grand-High-School-Love-Trouble

You should separate your author notes with a horizontal line; otherwise, they look like part of the story.

A new speaker means a new paragraph. Not doing this makes me not want to read your story.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12884023/1/Hello

Summaries need to tell us more than just the genre. What’s your plot?

You should separate your author notes with a horizontal line; otherwise, they look like part of the story.

I appreciate that you’re not capitalizing the word “pokemon” itself. However, you shouldn’t capitalize species names either, for the same reasons.

[My name is Zane. I heard a human call another human that and I liked it so I chose it as my name. Not all of us have names, but I wanted one.]

Why wouldn’t social creatures have names?

[it took me awhile]

You want “a while”, two words. “Awhile” means “for a while”.

[I’m staying by this weird area has a tree barrier that isn’t that good at keeping me out that the others say is the lab.]

I think you dropped a word here.

[I’m staying here until another human captures me. I hope they’ll be a nice human.]

Why do they want to be captured by a human? Don’t they have goals of their own? The very next sentence you say they’ll leave if something interests them – such as what?

[The others say that they think that I belong to a trainer. I think that is another name for a human, but I’m not sure.]

Pokemon can understand human speech, so it doesn’t make sense that a pokemon would be confused about this.

[I’m ok with that because I don’t want to drink from the fast water or the water that makes my mouth dry.]

It’s written “okay”, four letters. It is not an abbreviation for something else, nor is it pronounced “ock”, therefore it should never be written as OK, Ok, O.K. or ok.

Also, I assume “fast water” is a stream? That is generally the preferred drinking water, as stagnant water is easily putrified. But then, why would a fire-type need to drink water at all?

This is really confusing and hard to follow. I get that you’re purposefully using an affected style, but I think you’re overdoing it.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12884040/1/Pokemon-Harmony-of-Twilight

You wouldn’t capitalize animal or mouse or dragon, so you shouldn’t capitalize words like pokemon or pikachu or charizard. The only time you should capitalize it is if you’re using it as the pokemon’s name, ie, Ash’s pikachu is called Pikachu. This is because you only capitalize when it’s a proper noun, which are the names of places or things. Similar reasoning should be applied to any other words you’re thinking of capitalizing, like telephone or trainer. Or champion. Or kahuna. Or character. If you want to argue about this, take it to fanfiction (d o t) net/topic/11834/55376155/1/Capitalization-Thread

[Son of an evil sage and a Kahuna wilds a power of twilight and can understand Pokémon. He keeps it secret from his friends as many want to use him. He sets off on his journey leaving three special ladies to wait upon his return and bring in more friends in their special secret.]

So, this may seem like a lot of information, but it doesn’t actually tell us much more than the genre. The powers a character has aren’t nearly as important as what they do with them. What is his journey like? Why would people want to abuse him; what does he need to avoid?

You don’t need a character bio. If the information is relevant, it should come up in the story. Also, Ghetsis didn’t actually want to liberate pokemon.

You should separate your author notes with a horizontal line; otherwise, they look like part of the story.

You also shouldn’t include multiple chapters in the same chapter file. Since your “prologue” is only a single scene, it’s fine to just make it part of the first chapter.

Your story is really hard to follow; honestly, you sound like a child who lied about their age to get on this site. I recommend getting a beta reader. Start looking here: fanfiction (d o t) net/topic/11834/42724996/1/Beta-Signup

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12884112/1/Wait-For-It

[Will Lupus be able to reclaim his ran as their Trainer’s partner]

I think “ran” is not the word you meant here.

You should separate your author notes with a horizontal line; otherwise, they look like part of the story.

[Also it might get a little lemony in some chapters]

Explicit sexual content necessitates an M rating.

[The Buneary had it hard enough with everyone assuming he was a female, and thinking with his cute appearance he couldn’t be a real battler. But, he had proved himself to his trainer over and over.]

Why should he need to prove himself? Why can’t he just take his business elsewhere if he doesn’t like how he’s treated?

[Whether it was one shoting a pokemon twice his size of saving his trainer.]

This is a sentence fragment, and that should be “one-shotting”.

[the unfamiliar terrine]

Typo.

You don’t need to write out both pokespeech and translation; it’s unnecessary and just looks strange. You can just write the translation, with a different marker if the distinction is important.

This is too insubstantial for a first chapter. Remember that your first chapter is your opportunity to hook your reader – you don’t need to put all your cards on the table, but you need to have something to show. This is barely a single scene, and stops very abruptly. See here for more information: fanfiction (d o t) net/topic/11834/142411850/1/First-Chapters

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12884176/1/Journey-to-be-the-Skydom-League-Champion

You might want to pick a more original title. There are quite literally thousands of titles in this category that are variations on, if not identical to, this one.

[Two boys, Nikolai and Leon, set out on there very own pokemon journey. But in this story, there will be dark twists, betrayals, fighting, and adventure. Just so you guys know, there will be no lemons. Just dont ask me about it because I want this to be all age friendly. Also, unlike most pokemon stories, this one is quite odd. I dare you to read it. go on!]

Summaries need to tell us more than just the genre. You should use this space to tell us more about your plot – for instance, how the story is “odd”, not just that it is. Due to the strict character limits on summaries, I recommend including metatextual information such as this in an author’s note instead.

Also, do you really get so many requests for lemons you need to specify this from the beginning?

Non-story chapters are banned on this site, and you don’t need to include character bios anyway. If this information is important, it should come up in the story.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12884176/2/Journey-to-be-the-Skydom-League-Champion

You should separate your author notes with a horizontal line; otherwise, they look like part of the story.

[- (The DeVir household) -]

This isn’t a video game. You should establish time and place through context or narration. Non-general scene transitions are jarring.

[“BZZT” “BZZT” “BZZT”]

This isn’t a comic book. Sound effects should be described in prose.

Opening your story with a character waking up for the day is generic and horribly, horribly overdone, and to be honest, it’s so incredibly dull and boring a start that even if I hadn’t seen it, very literally here, thousands upon thousands of times before, I would still tell you you should have started at some other, interesting point.

[my eyes had adjusted the moment i opened them]

Proofread.

[mum was going to kill me]

When a title (such as “mom” or “dad”) is used in place of a name, it’s capitalized like one.

[Then I heard a women’s voice from downstairs]

You want “woman”; “women” is the plural. Also, who describes their mother as “a woman”? You can just say it’s his mum’s voice.

It’s written “okay”, four letters. It is not an abbreviation for something else, nor is it pronounced “ock”, therefore it should never be written as OK, Ok, O.K. or ok.

[The lab was a tall 3 story building]

In prose, numbers less than 13 or so are written out with letters.

[But for now, here are Niko and Leon’s rowlets move sets, levels, and stats:]

This isn’t a video game. You don’t need to list this stuff. It’s better to bend the rules of the games and just go with what makes for a good story.

This is too insubstantial for a first chapter. Remember that your first chapter is your opportunity to hook your reader – you don’t need to put all your cards on the table, but you need to have something to show. You claim in the summary that there is something “odd” and unique about this story, but I’ve seen neither hide nor hair of it. Start where your plot starts; you’re not obligated to cover every mundane detail leading up to the inciting event. See here for more information: fanfiction (d o t) net/topic/11834/142411850/1/First-Chapters

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12884388/1/A-Good-Night

I appreciate that you’re not capitalizing pokemon.

[a circle of stones had been arranged to hold the fire in one place, however the rest of the place seemed unusually unsafe to start a fire in.]

This is a comma splice. You need to split this sentence in two or use a different transition.

[“Jaykob?” He hissed]

Dialogue rules remain constant regardless of punctuation, so this should be [“Jaykob?” he hissed].

[Possibly needing the gentle glow as a landmark to find his way back.]

This is a sentence fragment. I recommend reading up on sentence structure, or getting a beta reader to help you with this.

[Why couldn’t James’ have told me]

You don’t need the apostrophe here.

[What James was to get out of such a story, though?]

The “was” should be on the other side of “James” here.

[by Arceus itself]

Using Arceus in place of God sounds ridiculous and has no basis in canon. It’s fine to just use “God”. I am pleased that you’re not using a gendered pronoun, however. See here for more information: fanfiction (d o t) net/topic/11834/162324520/1/Pokeworld-Religion

[It was never like that with James, James was his saviour, but Mason held an inexplicable attraction there.]

Yes, it definitely is inexplicable. Why is a rock wolf attracted to a hairless monkey? Why one that he has even less emotional attachment to than James, at that?

[could not be anymore thankful]

You want “any more”, two words. “Anymore” is an adverb.

[No amount of waiting as prevented]

Typo.

[the humans husky voiced]

And another one. You should proofread more thoroughly.

[I already know you Jaykob.]

This needs a comma before “Jaykob”, as it’s a direct address.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12884390/1/Pokemon-Lemons

You should separate your author notes with a horizontal line; otherwise, they look like part of the story.

[The day was warm, the skies were clear and all seemed fine.]

This needs a comma after “clear”.

[The forest was very warm and humid, just how she likes it.]

The rest of the story is in past tense, so this should be as well. Switching tenses is very disorienting.

[only 3 feet in height]

In prose, numbers less than 13 or so are written out with letters.

[The dust; in her hopes would attract a male willing to mate with her for the first time, the dust smelled nice to other Pokemon by surprise like a nice fragrance of honey or an all to ripe berry, the smell would oftentimes attract hungry Pokemon instead.]

This is extremely jumbled. You already mentioned the dust in the preceding sentence, so you don’t need to say “the dust” at the start here. The rest of this needs to be reworded; I can’t tell what you’re trying to say.

Ellipses are always three dots, never more or less.

It’s fine if you want to write about dubious consent, but you should really tag for it in the author’s note.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12884697/1/Blackened-Seas

I appreciate that you’re not capitalizing pokemon.

[but the church will stop at nothing to kill them.]

Forgot to capitalize this sentence.

You should separate your author notes with a horizontal line; otherwise, they look like part of the story.

[the whip already coated in copious amounts of blood. Some mine, but mostly from the poor gardevoir that disrespected the leaders.]

How exactly are they enslaving gardevoir? Gardevoir are extremely powerful, even moreso after the fairy retcon. Humans can be easily enslaved because we rely on external weapons to fight, but you can’t take away magic powers – unless that is a technology in your universe, but if so you should declare that as soon as possible.

[The reason I was taking this whipping is quite stupid. If they are going to execute me, they might as well hurry up with me.]

The rest of the story is in past tense, so this should be as well. If you want her thoughts to be in present tense, you should italicize them to make it clear they’re separate from narration.

[I cringed as she was whipped by the bitch priestess again.]

It’s extremely tone-deaf to throw gratuitous slurs about in a story about prejudice and oppression. Can we not?

[“Where the hell is that lazy slob?!” She yelled]

[barnicle brained]

You want “barnacle”, and this should be hyphenated.

[The priestess screeched at him, who only groaned]

The “who” here does not refer to anything, making this sentence unclear. You need to explicitly say “the executioner” rather than “him” to make this construction work.

[with the handle wrapped in dark grey wrappings, with two ends]

Repeating sounds sounds awkward; the same applies for repeating sentence structures, such as the double “with…” here. I recommend rephrasing this.

[Then, a man walked out of the tent. His white hair was tied into a ponytail, held by the bones of what I could guess as human finger bones. Atop his hair was a captains hat, black as tar, with one of Ho-oh’s holy feathers piercing it, and the Mew skull imprinted into it on the front. The hat was angled where it covered his face, but we could see a single glowing eye, gold as a fresh coin. His clothing consisted of a black jacket, the ends of it reaching down to his ankles, with the sleeves torn slightly, the cuffs turned inside-out, showing the dark grey inside of the jacket. Chains hung from the middle of it, and inside the jacket was his bare chest, well built with small scars and bullet scars littering it. In the middle of his chest was a large scar shaped like the mew skull on his blade and hat. His pants were a dark brown, and were tucked into his black boots. Around his neck was a human skull with a thin chain threaded through it. On his chest was six pistoles holstered, one with smoke flowing from one. On his back was a long musket, made from black wood. He took his right hand, covered with a shiny gold gauntlet, with the same gem in the middle of the back, raised a single finger, and lifted his hat, showing his face.]

This is way, way too much description to use this early in the story. Opening the story with excessive physical description is an instant turnoff. Do you see how rushed and awkward this sounds? This early on, you should stick to information that is immediately relevant. More minor details can come after readers have gotten invested.

[‘Oh my Arceus…’]

Using Arceus in place of God sounds ridiculous and has no basis in canon. It’s fine to just use “God”. See here for more information: fanfiction (d o t) net/topic/11834/162324520/1/Pokeworld-Religion

Well, that ended abruptly. This is too insubstantial for a first chapter. Remember that your first chapter is your opportunity to hook your reader – you don’t need to put all your cards on the table, but you need to have something to show. I have no idea if these even are the main characters, let alone any significant information about them, and I have no idea where the plot is headed. This is a problem. See here for more information: fanfiction (d o t) net/topic/11834/142411850/1/First-Chapters

In general, your prose feels very bloated, like you’re trying to cram in every detail you can think of. Unfortunately, this actually makes the story harder to follow, as we don’t have time to focus on important details before we’re swept away by the deluge. You can see this in the fact that your paragraphs are much too long; you shouldn’t be spending this much time on every subject. You should slow down and think about what information you want to lead with and prioritize, and how to spread out information for easier digestion.

Overall, however… this doesn’t feel like Pokemon fanfiction to me. As I said at the beginning, pokemon being oppressed by humans in this manner is absurd. You are expecting me to believe that some monkeys with swords are capable of posing a threat to fire-breathing psychic foxes? This setup requires extremely advanced technology to make it even remotely possible, yet you’ve declared in the author’s note that this is actually in the past. This does not make sense to me. It looks to me like you really want to do a story about elves or orcs or something being oppressed in an original fantasy setting where there is not such an extreme power differential between the species. I strongly recommend publishing this as original fiction with an “inspired by” label on the top instead. See here for more information: fanfiction (d o t) net/topic/11834/165030563/1/Original-Fiction

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12884920/1/Let-s-Play-Nurse

You should separate your author notes with a horizontal line; otherwise, they look like part of the story.

[the brunette]

You want “brunet”. “Brunette” is the feminine form.

[the shorter boys’ sense of adventure]

You want the apostrophe inside the S here. The outside apostrophe is for plural possessives.

You shouldn’t use quotation marks (or single quotes) with thoughts. This is because quotation marks for thoughts make it look like your characters are talking out loud, which is confusing to the reader.

[What in Arceus’ name]

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12885041/1/The-Power-of-A-Shining-Diamond

[Great another rainy day at Seattle Washington]

This needs a comma after “great”. You also need a comma after “Seattle”, as that is the format for city locations.

[I had on black and white shoes with blue jeans, a blue shirt with stitch surfing on a wave, two coats, one was red while the other was blue and water resistant. I was five foot eleven and had black and brown spiky short hair. I looked like I have been working out for a little bit. But what really stood out the most was my eyes, they were green with specks of red in some parts with a diamond pattern all around the pupil.]

Opening the story with excessive physical description is an instant turnoff. A dry list of physical details sounds awkward. This early on, you should stick to information that is immediately relevant. More minor details can come after readers have gotten invested.

[my best friend Rebecca that is not a person but is actually a crow]

You need a comma after “Rebecca”, and this whole sentence sounds odd. You make similar errors throughout this. I recommend reading up on comma usage and sentence structure.

[almost 2 years]

In prose, numbers less than 13 or so are written out with letters.

This becomes harder to follow the more I read. I strongly recommend studying published books to learn how to structure prose and plot details. A beta reader may also be able to help you. Start looking here: fanfiction (d o t) net/topic/11834/42724996/1/Beta-Signup

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12885169/1/Rainbow-Against-Rainbow

You wouldn’t capitalize animal or mouse or dragon, so you shouldn’t capitalize words like pokemon or pikachu or charizard. The only time you should capitalize it is if you’re using it as the pokemon’s name, ie, Ash’s pikachu is called Pikachu. This is because you only capitalize when it’s a proper noun, which are the names of places or things. Similar reasoning should be applied to any other words you’re thinking of capitalizing, like telephone or trainer or operative or cult. If you want to argue about this, take it to fanfiction (d o t) net/topic/11834/55376155/1/Capitalization-Thread

[This story will have random chapter lengths instead of a controller length like Final Stand’s 2k s chapter and Western Crime Wave’s 3k.]

It sounds like you mean “variable” chapter lengths, not random. You should structure your stories to end at sensible and deliberate points, whether or not you choose variable lengths.

You don’t need to label POVs when they’re obvious from context.

[Okay mommy and daddy]

When a title (such as “mom” or “dad”) is used in place of a name, it’s capitalized like one.

You’re formatting dialogue inconsistently. In case you don’t know the full rules, it’s: Dialogue is written as [“Hello,” she said] or [“Hello!” she said], never [“Hello.” She said] or [“Hello”, she said] or [“Hello” she said]. This is because dialogue and speech tags are considered to be part of the same sentence, so they have to flow together. The only exception to this is if the next sentence doesn’t contain a speech verb. In that case, the second part IS considered a separate sentence, so it’s written as [“Hello.” She grinned], never [“Hello,” she grinned]. Note that something isn’t a speech verb just because it’s a sound you make with your mouth, so generally stuff like “laughed” or “giggled” is in the second category. (“Speak” is also not a speech verb.) Furthermore, if you’re breaking up two complete sentences it’s [“Hi,” she said. “This is it.”] not [“Hi,” she said, “this is it.”] or [“Hi,” she said “this is it.”] And if you’re breaking up a sentence in the middle, it’s [“Hi. This,” she said, “is it.”] The same punctuation and capitalization rules apply to thoughts, except you don’t use quotation marks (or single quotes) with thoughts. This is because quotation marks for thoughts make it look like your characters are talking out loud, which is confusing to the reader.

[the Elite 4]

In prose, numbers less than 13 or so are written out with letters.

[It’s sad that I wasn’t there for your mother when you were first born since Arceus hadn’t exactly broughten me back until a month or so after you were born.”

“The seven months you were gone were extremely difficult for me to handle,” Kandi pouted, “It was like the time you had been captured and nearly starved to death in that rotten cell of yours that Team Magma put you in.”

“It’s all in the past dear, I’m here to stay because I refuse to go on missions without you, even if we haven’t exactly done any in nearly 2 years and nearly every day has been working out and keeping our forms to join some group.”]

This reads like they are robots in a computer simulation. People do not exposit their life stories in casual conversation. All of these details should be things they know already. If you want to give us this information, you can do so in narration. Honestly, just removing the quote marks and changing the dialogue to third-person would be enough for most of this.

Wait, Kandi is an actual flareon, not a flareon pokemorph? So pokemon can talk in this and are provably sapient? How does that interact with the trainer system in your world?

[a new threat apposed in Alola]

You can’t appose “in” something, as it refers to being placed across from. It sounds like you mean “based”?

[This has allowed The to collect leaders]

Something went wrong here.

Okay, I do not understand what is going on here at all. What is this a sequel to?

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12885319/1/Betterment

You should separate your author notes with a horizontal line; otherwise, they look like part of the story.

In prose, numbers less than 13 or so are written out with letters.

This isn’t a video game. You don’t need to bold locations and attacks; it just looks jarring.

[flashback (about 4 month after I left them)]

You should establish time and place through context or narration. Non-general scene transitions are jarring.

Dragon Quill

Writing With Scales

[19] The Other Pokereviews, Part 98

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