https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12027171/1/Pok%C3%A9mon-Mystery-Dungeon-Defenders-of-a-Shattered-World
[She was destined to meet a young Rioli]
Do you mean “riolu”?
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 professor.
[as of why]
“as to why”. You’re making a lot of little mistakes like this. You might want to get a beta reader.
[Prologue]
You don’t have to do this, FFN will do it for you.
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 <i>is</i> 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. 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.
This is far too short for a first chapter. Remember that your first chapter is your opportunity to hook your reader – in other words, to show them what makes your story unique and worth reading. This is… well, it’s *something*, I’ll give you that, but it’s too short to really stand on its own and give us a good idea of what the rest of the story will be like. It feels like something that should be part of a first chapter, rather than stand on its own.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12027355/1/The-chosen-one-returns
[See in story]
No. Take one minute to tell readers what your story is actually about. Readers should not have to click through just to see if the story is something they want to click on in the first place.
Also, this is incoherent. You need a beta reader.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12027507/1/Small-team-A-big-adventure
Your title is incompletely capitalized.
[the male virizion]
Isn’t Virizion a singular entity?
Using quotes, even single quotes, for thoughts is confusing, as it makes it look like characters are talking out loud. Italics or no demarkation is standard.
[my brother Riolu]
How can a jigglypuff and a riolu be related…? Are they adopted siblings?
While you’re good at not capitalizing pokemon species, you still capitalize “pokemon” itself – since you wouldn’t capitalize “animal”, it doesn’t make sense to capitalize “pokemon” either.
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 <i>is</i> 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. 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.
[Yes father]
When a title (such as “father”) is used in place of a name, it’s capitalized like one.
[Male: […] Shaymin Sky Forme
Female: […] Shaymin Land Forme]
So the awesome fighter is male and the meek lamb is female? That’s a little weird. I honestly don’t see the need to attach genders to incomprehensible god beings when they canonically don’t have any.
This is far too short for a first chapter. Remember that your first chapter is your opportunity to hook your reader – in other words, to show them what makes your story unique and worth reading. While there’s certainly stuff going on, this is barely a single scene, and one that’s really hard to follow at that. I don’t have a good idea of what the story’s about or where it’ll go from here.
It might be best to vary your prose a bit. This chapter is mostly just conversations with very little in the way of description, which makes it hard to understand what’s going on.
Blocked!
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12027690/1/The-Impassive-God
You don’t have to label chapters, FFN will do that for you.
[thinly veiled by a couple of bed sheets, it was one of the first things that drew his attention when he finally stirred from what he considered to be the worst night of sleep in his life.]
This is a comma splice. You need to split this sentence in two or use a different transition.
[At last the cold air hit him]
Shouldn’t he have felt that first? In my experience, I feel cold long before I notice any visual signifiers, let alone ones as subtle as goosebumps.
[‘Screw it.’ he spat]
You’re generally writing dialogue correctly, but you used a period instead of a comma here.
[‘Nobody’s working at the front desk,’ he took a couple of steps forward.]
And here you actually do want a comma, as non-speaking narration is considered its own sentence.
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 professor.
[‘Sweet. Arceus.’]
Using Arceus in place of God sounds ridiculous and has no basis in canon. It’s fine to assume they have a religion like Christianity and just use “God”.
This is much more original and better-written than what I’m used to, but it ends very abruptly, so I still have very little idea what the story will be like. It also doesn’t seem to have much to do with Pokemon.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12028310/1/Anywhere
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 professor. Or hero.
[Also, there are Pokemon that talk like humans]
Woah, that’s a pretty major change to the setting. Does the trainer dynamic still exist? If so, why? If pokemon are capable of making intelligent decisions on their own, then continuing to keep them like pets starts to look uncomfortably like slavery.
[Lastly, in the very heart of the Deep, lie its Colosseum.]
You want “lay”, not “lie”.
[“Tric manec.” (“That should have done the trick.”)]
Writing out both the gibberish and the translation is just kinda annoying. It’s more elegant to just use a different symbol, like {}, to represent translated pokemon speech.
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 <i>is</i> 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. 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.
This ends pretty abruptly; I still don’t have a good idea of what this story will be about.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12029372/1/1001
[that I only received try finished]
???
[I gripped onto the small pack on my back and snuggled into the fur laced around the collar of my black long coat. It was made from nice warm, light, and easy to flex materials. I had on a pair of fingerless, leather gloves made from the same material. They had steel studs on the knuckles. My gloves were the finest of their kind, crafted by a bunch of thankful Leavanny from my last two trips to Unova.]
Opening the story with a Description Paragraph (TM) is a surefire way to make your readers lose interest. You don’t need this much detail – if the specific materials are important, there are ways to let that come up organically in the story.
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 professor.
[That places seems to have the most sinful problems.]
“Place”. You have a lot of similar errors throughout. You might want to get a beta reader.
Your sentences are pretty simplistic and choppy, which tends to make readers zone out. You might want to try more complex sentences.
[He glanced behind me to see if there was anyone behind me.]
Likewise, it’s a good idea to avoid repeating sounds and words in the same sentence.
[flys]
“flies”
[There were unknown letters engraved on the blades that spelled out ‘Balance’.]
If he knows what they mean, how can they be unknown? Unless you mean Unown?
[so…Unstoppable]
When an ellipses doesn’t end a sentence, the following part shouldn’t be capitalized.
[give em hell]
“em” is a contraction of “them”, so it needs an apostrophe in front.
[I couldn’t feel their presences either.]
What does this mean? Does he have some life-sensing power?
[I ushered a silent prayer for them.]
“Uttered” is what you want, I think. To usher is to hurry.
[She set her red nails on my face]
Zoroark’s ability is purely visual. She shouldn’t be able to actually shapeshift.
[You know; make an example out of me in front of your cult of charlatans and whores”]
Missing punctuation.
[“My blades are forged from the same material as Arceus’s plates. I can absorb any attack and send it back.”]
That does absolutely nothing to explain it. Arceus’ plates only amplify powers pokemon already have, and have to be attuned to a specific type. Why would they have this power?
[And yes there is an Arceus.]
Arceus is its name, so this is a really weird way to phrase it. You wouldn’t say “yes there is a Zeus”, you’d say “yes Zeus is real”.
[I saw a Scizor launching a bullet punch at me with extraordinary speeds. I blocked the punch]
How? Even to a pokemon, Bullet Punch is too fast to react to. Is he even faster than pokemon? That’s ridiculously overpowered.
[redimption]
“Redemption”. Spellcheck.
[I would first like to know why you nine,” I quickly gazed through all those present, “believe]
You’re generally writing dialogue correctly, but interrupting dialogue with a non-speaking verb requires different notation. The most common form is dashes breaking the dialogue and the narration being normal (so this would be [I would first like to know why you nine–” I quickly gazed through all those present. “–believe]) or dashes outside the quotes bordering the narration (so this would be [I would first like to know why you nine”–I quickly gazed through all those present–”believe]).
Your protagonist is a Mary Sue. A story about an impossibly cool and flawless dude overcoming all his problems effortlessly isn’t interesting to read about.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12029509/1/Merciless
[The good win just in the fairy tales.]
This is awkward phrasing – “only [verb] in…” is the standard structure.
[curious looking]
Compound adjectives and adverbs are hyphenated, so this should be [curious-looking].
[Actually the question was a very good question.]
Repeating words and sounds in the same sentence sounds awkward, so you should try to avoid it.
[team Rocket]
Typo.
[I’m–God help me- very]
Using hyphens without spaces in place of dashes is confusing. To avoid people thinking you’re hyphenating words, you should put spaces around the hyphen, or use a double dash.
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 professor.
[“Well, and you are…?” “Aura,” she said]
Forgot to make a new paragraph here.
Overall, the wording here is very awkward, and it’s hard to understand what’s being said. Are you not a native speaker? I would recommend getting a beta reader to help you.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12029859/1/Heading-Towards-Freedom
[loose the chance]
“Lose”. Loose is an adjective.
You don’t have to label chapters, FFN will do that for you.
[my brother Reggie (a togekiss.)]
When parentheticals are part of the sentence instead of sentences of their own, the period goes outside – so this should be [my brother Reggie (a togekiss).]
[Accumula town]
For names with multiple parts, every word is capitalized.
[A gust of wind blew into my face causing my long light blue hair to flow along with it.]
This needs a comma after “face”. You have a lot of missing commas throughout this, which makes some sentences hard to understand. You might want to get a beta reader.
[I’ve never had the chance before to not have to worry about anything… well almost. I was very afraid of the boat sinking even though I could fly away on Reggie’s back.]
This is a bit confusing – the placement of the “well almost” makes it sound like he has had a chance to not have to worry about something before, not that he can almost not worry about anything.
You’re doing a good job of not capitalizing pokemon species, but you shouldn’t capitalize “pokemon” itself either, just as you wouldn’t capitalize “animal”.
[“It’s alright Reggie,” I assured. “We’ll be on land soon,” I mumbled.]
Generally, you don’t need to keep using speech tags after such a short delay – removing the “I mumbled” would be fine here.
Relatedly, you’re overusing unusual speech verbs. Don’t be afraid to use said; lovely word, won’t bite, usually more fitting than whatever trendy verb you’re using in its place. 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.
Using Arceus in place of God sounds ridiculous and has no basis in canon. It’s fine to assume they have a religion like Christianity and just use “God”.
[What ever it was, was underneath me.
I sat up]
This is a bit confusing, as you don’t explicitly say he fell down. Likewise, you don’t provide much description of the thing he bumps into, so it’s not clear what’s going on until you give enough description for us to realize it’s N.
[I gave him and unconvinced look.]
Typo.
[“So you can’t hear them too,”]
This sounds awkward, as “too” is generally inclusive. “You can’t hear them either” makes more sense.
[“Well…,”]
You don’t need a comma here.
[way to fast]
“too”. “To” is a conjunction.
[There were people standing behind a man who looked like the one I knocked over.]
…Not really? Other than the hair, N and Ghetsis don’t look anything alike.
[“They get pushed around when they are our “partners” in work,”]
When you quote inside a quote, you use single quotes instead of double quotes; otherwise, the reader will be confused about where the dialogue ends. (If you quote inside a quote inside a quote, you go back to double quotes.)
[“Liberation Pokemon?]
You want “liberating”, I think.
[leaving Me]
Errant capital.
[“your Pokemon]
Missing capital.
[The only champion I respected was Cynthia.]
Why? That seems kinda random.
[“…Cheren leave him alone,” the boy known as Touya asked.]
I think you want a different verb than “asked” here.
[thirty minuets]
“Minutes”. Minuets are songs.
[“We’re heading to Striaton city, right? I asked.]
Missing quote.
[“Then lets go,”]
Missing apostrophe.
Well, this is a bit different from the usual fare, and you’ve included a decent amount of setup in your opening. You don’t really sell the idea of N being a motor mouth, though – he tends to talk in pretty simple sentences with a lot of pauses, so it’s a little jarring to have people constantly insisting he’s talking too fast to be understood.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12029955/1/Abused-and-Saved
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…
[The trainer glared at eevee ready to strike her.]
…for instance, here. 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 professor.
[She looked back as she saw her used to be trainer staring at her with blood shot eyes. He wanted his revenge. And he will get it one way or the other.]
Why can’t he just recall her?
This is so riddled with errors it’s nearly impossible to understand. You need a beta reader.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12030526/1/The-Night-Light
Please make an actual summary.
Not capitalizing “I” makes me not want to read your story.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12030550/1/Pok%C3%A9mon-Journey-Through-Layvia
[a 16 year old new trainer]
Trainers start at ten in canon. This means that there will be no tension to your story, as if a ten-year-old can handle the challenges of a pokemon journey just fine, someone with six extra years of life experience definitely will. Difficulties and complications are the stuff stories are made of.
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 professor.
[That’s me… In all my scrawny, five-foot-nine glory]
When an ellipses doesn’t end a sentence, the following part shouldn’t be capitalized.
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 <i>is</i> 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. 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.
Also, you’re overusing unusual speech verbs. Don’t be afraid to use said; lovely word, won’t bite, usually more fitting than whatever trendy verb you’re using in its place. 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.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12030898/1/Pokemon-Mystery-Dungeon-Team-Kitcat
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 professor.
[I haven’t slept on about a week now]
I think you mean “in about a week”? Also, the rest of the story is in past tense, so this should be as well.
[I took a deep breath after hearing a loud ring coming from my bag, that’s enough sightseeing for now.]
This is a comma splice. You need to split this sentence in two or use a different transition.
Be cautious about mimicking chat programs here – FFN’s ban on script format technically extends to them as well, so your story could get taken down without warning.
Well, that ended abruptly. This is far too short for a first chapter. Remember that your first chapter is your opportunity to hook your reader – in other words, to show them what makes your story unique and worth reading. It’s good that you’re starting in medias res, but you might have overdone it – I have no idea what’s going on, what will happen next, or why I should care. The narrator makes vague references to a “he” being in trouble, but I have no idea what they mean.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12030918/1/Mango-Islands-A-Pokemon-Fanfic
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 professor. Or year.
You should separate your author notes with a horizontal line; otherwise, they look like part of the story.
You don’t have to title chapters, FFN will do that for you. Similarly, you shouldn’t include multiple “chapters” in the same chapter, because that’s just really confusing.
[Its hatching]
You want “it’s”. “Its” is a possessive.
[Its a Vulpix Mom!]
This needs a comma before “Mom”, as it’s a direct address. Your comma usage is wonky in general, which makes the story hard to follow; I’d recommend you get a beta reader to help you.
You shouldn’t have to label flashbacks and such; doing that is kinda jarring. It’s a better idea to use generalized scene transitions; time and place should be obvious from context.
[Ten years. eight]
Typo.
[I..I got]
Missing period here.
[petit Eevee.]
“petite”
[She used no move that a Pokémon could be taught or learn on their own. If a human decided to name it a move it would called something like Pleading Look. And it was super effective.]
This really undermines the serious tone you seem to be going for. Just think – people don’t take the time to make clinical, video-game-like examinations of everything when they’re upset, do they?
[There were plenty that were more powerful, had better attacks, but he chose me.”
“I was a tiny thing]
When dialogue spans multiple uninterrupted paragraphs, it’s not closed until the very end; otherwise, it looks like someone else is speaking in the next paragraph.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12031239/1/Best-Pokemon-fic-ever
Learn to troll properly.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12031928/1/Black-Parade
[What people thought were wild Pokémon]
You’re generally good about not capitalizing pokemon, but you did here.
[As odd as it was the police force missed the criminals.]
This needs a comma after “was”.
[However Rocket was not going into hiding without a fight.]
And this needs a comma after “However”. You might want to read up on comma usage and/or get a beta reader to help you.
[They still had a shred of integrity and had maintained their humanity even though they were living outside the law. Giovanni picked up wayward kids and turned them with promises of money and a home. They rarely got either, but found some solace in the fact that they belonged to something. Most of the time they were just scared to die on the streets. Under the sneering, steely-eyed veneer they were just kids.]
This sounds more like a description of Flare – dumb kids wrapped up in something bad because they don’t have anything better, and going mad once they get a little power for once in their lives? That’s Flare, not the cold-hearted Mafia butchering pokemon for money.
[but also
knew that]
You’ve got a stray line break here, an error that occurs multiple times throughout the rest of the fic. Preview your story to catch formatting errors like these.
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 <i>is</i> 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. 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.
Using hyphens in place of dashes is confusing. To avoid people thinking you’re hyphenating words, you should put spaces around the hyphen, or use a double dash.
Opening a story with a dry, expository historical overview isn’t very engaging. Ask yourself: What’s the story really about? The plot and characters, right? Chances are, that’s what readers are going to be interested in. You should get them engaged and invested in the main thread right from the start. Relevant historical details can be worked in organically as the story progresses.
Aaand I am not impressed by James being the poor rational woobie who’s right about everything and Jesse being the incompetent hysterical girl who can’t do anything without him.
[12]
What’s this doing at the end?
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12031991/1/Pokemon-Mystery-Dungeon-Forever-s-Travels-of-Broken-lifes
[5 broken teenagers]
In prose, numbers less than 13 or so are written out with letters.
[With lives at stake and realities uncovered.]
This is a sentence fragment.
[‘A new Pokemon Mystery Dungeon game?’ Arthur thought]
Using quotes, even single quotes, for thoughts is confusing, as it makes it look like characters are talking out loud. Italics for thoughts is standard.
[it’s price tag]
You want “its”. “It’s” always means “it is”.
[Hey mom]
When a title (such as “mom” or “dad”) is used in place of a name, it’s capitalized like one.
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 <i>is</i> 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. 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.
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 professor. Or summer.
[*BANG!*]
This isn’t a comic book. Sounds should be described instead of written out.
This is really bizarre, choppy, and hard to follow. I’d recommend you get a beta reader to help you plan out your story; I honestly have no idea what’s supposed to be going on.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12032343/1/The-Night-Light
Don’t delete and repost, it’s childish.
[My first ever fanfiction I hope you enjoy it ill be writing more chapters soon]
This is unprofessional and makes you look childish. Summaries should be about the story; stuff like this should go in author notes. (Also, “I’ll”. Ill means sick.)
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 professor.
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 <i>is</i> 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. 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.
Also, a new speaker means a new paragraph.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12032514/1/Alone
[my bad heh..]
Incomplete elipses.
[it’s games]
Typo. You really want to avoid mistakes in your author notes, as it’s the first thing your audience will see.
[Only the storyline, which can be used without said franchise inclusion, is mine and even then I am willing to remove this if needed and asked.]
I don’t think you need to worry, I haven’t heard of Pokemon fanfiction lawsuits happening ever.
[*Ring ring ring*]
This isn’t a comic book. Sound effects in prose break immersion. It’s better to describe them.
[After finding it, somehow I was on top of it,]
Commas don’t work for asides like these. You need parentheses in this case, I believe.
Your tenses are inconsistent, which is extremely jarring. Decide whether you want past or present and stick with it.
[“… how do they know my name?”]
Sentences still have to be capitalized, even with a leading ellipses.
[At least until I heard a gunshot outside my room, curiosity dares me to see who caused the sound but I decided that it wasn’t my problem.]
This is a comma splice. You need to split this sentence in two or use a different transition.
[If someone decides to mug someone in this part of town and does not have a way to defend themselves, it’s their own fault.]
This is confusing – it’s saying that if the *mugger* doesn’t have a way to defend themselves, it’s their fault. It sounds like you mean to refer to the victim here.
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 <i>is</i> 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. 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.
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 professor.
Well, that ended abruptly. This is far too short for a first chapter. Remember that your first chapter is your opportunity to hook your reader – in other words, to show them what makes your story unique and worth reading. This is barely a single scene, comprised mostly of exposition and mundane routine; that doesn’t really get me invested in the story, or give me a good idea of what it’s going to be about. Keep in mind that you’re not obligated to cover every mundane detail leading up to the inciting event.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12032580/1/The-Picture-Perfect-Team
[a Tropius]
You’re generally good about not capitalizing pokemon, but you capitalized here.
[the Gym Trainer]
Similarly, this shouldn’t be capitalized.
[Lucas snapped a banana off of Tropius’ neck. Tropius’ eyes widened and she glared at Lucas while he was peeling the banana. “What?” he asked before taking a bite from the tip.]
Wow, he’s a dick. This just torpedoed any sympathy I might have had for him. Why do you expect me to care about a character who treats others this callously?
[So most people in Kanto go to Pewter, then Cerulean]
Actually, it seems like you’re not literally required to get badges in the exact order you do in the games – otherwise, people from Cinnabar would be pretty disadvantaged, after all. Having more than eight gym leaders could make sense, but it seems strange that the League would still only require eight badges – if it’s a pick-and-choose, then trainers with eight badges haven’t demonstrated true mastery over pokemon battling.
[Why haven’t you ever try joinin’ the league?]
For verb consistency, that should be “tried”.
[Next, Troy released a weavile who stared at Lucas with crossed arms. Milotic looked displeased.
“She seems a little… huffy.”
“Yeah, lighten up.” Troy tickled Weavile’s sides. She yelped and giggled, and glared at Troy when he stopped.]
Ha ha, it’s funny that they’re treating creatures of humanlike intelligence like dumb animals?
[a sixteen year old girl who wore too much makeup]
In addition to being really skeevy and objectifying, that’s not a very useful description. What does “too much” look like? Show, don’t tell.
[maroon city]
Forgot to capitalize this.
[Mandibuzz lied on Butterfree’s stomach.]
“Lied” only works for “to tell a lie”. For this, you need “lay”.
[Troy order another Brave Bird]
Typo.
[Felicia ordered, “Sleep Powder”]
This dialogue needs an ending comma.
Using species names as the names of individual pokemon is really confusing, and makes this hard to follow. It also doesn’t make a lot of sense – you wouldn’t name your dog Dog, would you?
While this is a more interesting premise than usual, it cuts off abruptly and nothing much happens, which is unwise for first chapters. Most of the chapter is taken up by the battle, but battles aren’t inherently interesting, especially when the stakes are this low. I’d advise you read this discussion on how to make battles interesting: https://www.fanfiction.net/topic/11834/143300790/1/Battles-Are-Boring
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12032964/1/Braving-the-Cold
Not using paragraphs makes me not want to read your story. Also, you should separate your author notes with horizontal lines.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12033046/1/By-the-Stars-Above
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 professor.
[they’d even demanded that he stopped the effect of his magic]
For verb consistency, this needs to be “stop”.
[while a ‘champion’ still lead the region]
The past tense of “lead” is “led”. Yes, this is the exact opposite of most other verbs ending in -ead. English is where grammar consistency goes to die.
This doesn’t seem to have anything to do with Pokemon. N acts nothing like the pacifistic diplomat he is in canon, and you’ve shifted the focus to all sorts of fantasy elements that don’t fit with the Pokemon world at all.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12033124/1/Seventh-Dawn
You should separate your author notes with a horizontal line; otherwise, they look like part of the story.
[one of their Teams]
“Teams” shouldn’t be capitalized here. This is also weird phrasing – it sounds as if the criminal teams are just considered intrinsic parts of the region in this world, which, while true in the games, doesn’t make a lot of sense from a worldbuilding perspective.
[too focused in its fervor to bring new water into existence that it didn’t notice the world around it be swallowed by the torrential rains that spawned from the skies above.]
This is breathless and unwieldy – you should reword this, or break it up into multiple sentences. Also, isn’t drowning the world what Kyogre wants?
[I was lucky. I was high up in a plane on a school trip to Striaton City when it happened.]
Uhh, that doesn’t sound very lucky. Planes + apocalyptic storms = fiery crash.
[A relief effort was immediately put into place, where dams were constructed In the center of every region.]
Errant capital, also what would be the point of this if it’s rain that’s causing the flood? They’d need to encase the entire city to keep the water out.
[the advent of the Flood]
Capitalization has to be consistent – if you capitalize the “the” elsewhere, you should here too.
[Pacifiidlog Town]
??? I think you mixed up some letters here.
[a Team Aqua Grunt]
Is not a proper noun and therefore should not be capitalized.
[See, if you work for Team Aqua, your whole family gets food.]
Where exactly is the food coming from? People don’t generally store food on top of mountains, so all major food caches should be destroyed.
[To being prepared.]
???
[We all do,]
Typo – that should be a period, not a comma.
[water loving]
Compound adjectives are hyphenated, typically.
[Don’t give me that look, like we’re scum for not warning the world.
Who would have believed us?]
Why wouldn’t they? In the games, no one seems surprised by the plan, and by all indications Hoenn takes its traditions very seriously. Even if the government didn’t believe it, they’d probably save at least a few civilians.
Well, this is a lot more interesting than the usual fare. I do like stuff where the god pokemon are taken seriously, and even though this chapter is just exposition, you work in enough personality and variety to the snippets to still make it engaging.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12033434/1/Grow-Up
[a short drabble]
[Words: 2,959]
A drabble is a story consisting of exactly 100 words. It’s a writing exercise, not a word for any short story.
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 <i>is</i> 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. 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.
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 professor.
[“Please answer me boy.”]
This needs a comma before “boy”, as it’s a direct address.
[Zorua noticed there was something off about how Ghetsis said this]
This kind of thing is really trite and flattens the narrative. In the real world, evil people don’t exude an evil aura that good people can just intrinsically sense – in fact, evil people are often very good at pretending to be good and beguiling people who expect them to be obvious. Even if you’re going on the idea that animals are magic sources of Detect Evil, this still removes a lot of tension and nuance from the story. Yes, Ghetsis is evil, we get it, we already know that from canon.
(Also, if N can talk to pokemon and all his pokemon hate Ghetsis, why did he never doubt Ghetsis?)
[people and pokemon]
This implies pokemon are not people, and is thus a nonsensical thing for N to think.
[3 individuals]
In prose, numbers less than 13 or so are written out with letters.
[it’s normal spot]
You want “its”. “It’s” always means “it is”.
[N felt dizzy, still not used to the powers that the Triad had.]
The Triad are ninjas. They don’t literally teleport, they just look like they do because they move really fast (and probably use smoke bombs to confuse observers).
[“What is it, f-father?”]
When a title (such as “father”) is used in place of a name, it’s capitalized like one.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12034048/1/Long-Shadows
https://www.fanfiction.net/topic/11834/42724996/1/Beta-Signup
[I went to a knee and leaned in close to listen to anything he might say in his sleep.]
Can’t gardevoir read minds? Or does this one have a shred of decency and understands that’s a violation of privacy?
[Of course I couldn’t speak any human language, but Adam had lived in the woods with me long enough to understand pokemon speech.]
Again, telepathy? Aren’t gardevoir supposed to have a special bond with their trainers that lets them communicate?
[it’s a humanoid ghost that has managed to prevent any sane man thus far from entering the center of the forest and still have almost nobody have any idea why the center is so feared]
This clause is breathless and unwieldy; it feels like you’re trying to cram too much information into one sentence. It might be wise to split up the thoughts here.
[My father was a zoroark, and my mother was human.]
Wait, then how are they a gardevoir?
Oh wait, this is talking about Adam, but I couldn’t tell because it’s still in first person. Changing viewpoint characters in first-person narration is very risky and often a bad idea, because it’s nearly impossible to tell who the narrator is without labeling. When your characters’ narration styles are this similar, they often blend together anyway.
[Statics, like me, are the rarer ones. To anyone else I look completely human, but I have all the offensive powers of a zoroark.]
How exactly does this work for fighting and dark types, whose “powers” are almost entirely limited to fighting style? Are fighting-type statics just super strong, do dark types have sharp teeth, etc.?
[dodginglike normally]
Missing space.
[“I guess…”
“Did they ask you about battling them?”
“…I thought you were trying to stop snooping in people’s heads.”
“Sorry. I just had to know. One of those guys left from where you were picking berries, and I just got so curious..”
“…They did. Did they ask you?”
“No, but I’m sure they will. Do you think we should accept?”
“No. They’d never get sick of fighting us in the long run.”
“You can use the practice to make up for the berry.”
“Very funny.”
“Do you think we should at least talk with them? I know we’ve been here much longer than they have, but still…”
“…I suppose.”
“This afternoon, let’s go and talk with them, okay?”]
Long strings of pure dialogue like this are hard to follow, especially when your characters sound so similar. I had to read over this quite a few times to understand who was saying what.
This is too short for a first chapter. Remember that your first chapter is your opportunity to hook your reader – in other words, to show them what makes your story unique and worth reading. You’ve delivered a brief overview of the characters and setting, but nothing has happened yet, plot-wise. It might be best to skip or condense mundane details like foraging for food, at least in the early parts where readers are not yet invested. The teaser at the start does not help this; when you use that technique, its relevance to the plot should be quickly or immediately obvious in the first chapter – for instance, if the flash-forward shows two characters fighting, but present day shows them as friends. This gets the audience invested by immediately foreshadowing a big twist. One paragraph of Generic Grimdark an indeterminate amount of time in the future doesn’t give us much. I’d recommend reading this for more information: https://www.fanfiction.net/topic/11834/142411850/1/First-Chapters#142801968
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12034194/1/The-Rocket-Grunt
[Sometimes stories don’t follow the cheery young protagonist with a heart of gold, this is one of those stories, Briar Yoruha is a basic level Team Rocket Grunt who has received his first Pokemon.]
This is a run-on sentence, and a comma splice. You need to split this sentence in two or use different transitions.
[What lies ahead for Briar can only be summed up in one word, Adventure.]
This is also improper comma usage. You want a colon here instead.
You have many similar comma problems throughout the story, which makes it very hard to understand. I would advise reading up on proper comma usage and/or getting a beta reader to help you.
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 professor. Or grunt.
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 <i>is</i> 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. 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.