The work continues.
[Deleted]
This sort of thing should go in a blog post, not posted as a story.
Gravity Falls – What’s In A Name (A Dipper x Smabble fanfic)
This is decently written, but it doesn’t really have anything to do with Gravity Falls, even by the standards of AUs. The characters are all OCs who happen to share the names of the cast. You’d be better off publishing this as original fiction with an “inspired by” label on the top.
Being picked upon by other children due to the constellation shaped birthmark on his forehead, growing up surrounded by magical creatures, going on extravagant adventures through the woods daily.
This is a sentence fragment.
Your tenses are inconsistent, which is highly distracting and disorienting. Decide whether you want past or present and stick to it.
Mr. Powers voice
Forgot the pluralizing apostrophe here.
it’s head
And you have an errant apostrophe here.
Even by the standards of AUs, this doesn’t really have anything to do with Gravity Falls. Dipper has some resemblance to his canon counterpart, but that’s it. If your characters bear little resemblance to the canon ones, and your setting has nothing to do with the canon one, then it isn’t fanfic and doesn’t belong here. You’d be better off publishing this as original fiction with an “inspired by” label on the top.
Dr. Dipper Pines, PhD of Physics.
“Physics” is not a proper noun and therefore should not be capitalized.
The salary didn’t really bother him; it didn’t matter if he was teaching grade schoolers about gravity or trying to recreate the conditions that made the universe, he wanted the knowledge, the learning.
This makes no sense. Position has a lot to do with learning too. A college education doesn’t teach you all the mysteries of the universe, you still have to experiment on your own if you want to learn new things – that’s kind of the entire point of being a scientist. Unless Dipper is willing to content himself with the current limit of human knowledge, he should definitely be concerned about whether he’s going to get a cool research position or if he’s going to be treading water for the rest of his life.
Even if her absence felt like a gaping hole in his very being.
This is a sentence fragment.
He suppressed another sigh, it was his own fault this room was so sparse, he’d applied so late for college due to concern about loans getting approved
This is a comma splice. You need to split this sentence into multiple parts.
“Well? How badly do you want to work for me?” as if he was expecting an explanation for Dipper’s right to exist.
I think you dropped some words here.
“So, now that you know a little more about me…” he smirked and winked
When narration doesn’t contain a speech verb it’s considered a separate sentence, so “he smirked and winked” should be capitalized here.
brunette […] blonde
These are the feminine forms. You want “brunet” and “blond”.
Even by the standards of AUs, this doesn’t really have anything to do with Gravity Falls. Dipper and Mabel are reasonably in-character, but your “Bill” is an OC who happens to share a name with a canon character. If your characters bear no resemblance to the canon ones, and your setting has nothing to do with the canon one, then it isn’t fanfic and doesn’t belong here. You’d be better off publishing this as original fiction with an “inspired by” label on the top.
“You can’t save them,” the voice spoke in his head.
“Spoke” is, ironically, not a speech verb, so the dialogue needs to end in a period here.
He wouldn’t tell Mabel about his dream with Bill. He was sure it wouldn’t happen again.
That seems incredibly stupid of him. If this is post-Sock Opera he’s already learned the hard way that the central moral of his universe is “Don’t keep secrets, and that goes double for secrets about Bill.”
Dipper could tell by her tone of voice that she was worried about him. He didn’t want that. It was his job to worry about her. Not the other way around.
Where is this coming from? Dipper never displays this kind of patronizing chivalry in canon. Mabel helps him as much if not more than he helps her, and he never seems terribly bothered by that.
“Why are you harassing me? Surely you can think of something better to do with your time.”
“I’m immortal, Pine Tree,” Bill said. “I literally have nothing else to do in my shattering dimension than to bother you. So here I am – bothering you.”
But… he does have better things to do. Unless this is post-Weirdmageddon and he was soundly defeated, he has an actual plan he’s working on. His behavior in Weirdmageddon 1 also implies he has a very dismissive attitude towards Dipper, so this level of obsession is weird. It’s not impossible that he’d decide torturing a random pawn is worth his time, but this needs a bit more justification to make sense.
“Don’t worry, you don’t need to think it’s Mabel,” Bill said. “You just need to see her face as she carves into your skin.” After Bill said this, he used Mabel’s body to begin beating on Dipper.
Dipper let out grunts as he was kicked and punched by the illusion of his twin.
Your narration is so wooden and sterile that this comes off as comical. Think about what you’re writing.
I’ve barely read any fic and I’m already sick of “Mabel is a fragile woobie Dipper must protect by keeping her out of the loop” plots. Like, way to completely miss the point of the show, people.
Labeling POVs is jarring and unnecessary. POV should be obvious from context; if it isn’t, your characters are too similar to each other.
Not using commas makes me not want to read your story. Here is a decent guide on comma usage if you’re legitimately confused.
good to see you’re still beautiful
Mabel, when she’d first seen Pacifica, had hated her in the first glance.
No, she didn’t. She only started hating Pacifica after Pacifica spurned the olive branch multiple times, and this fact is important to both their characters. She was also extremely quick to forgive her, and seems to have completely gotten over it by the mansion episode, so her keeping a grudge for years seems really weird and out of character.
god knows what
“God” should be capitalized here.
He whacks her on the head, lightly, with a rolled-up newspaper for that.
The “lightly” disrupts the flow of this sentence and makes it awkward. It would flow better if it was removed or if it was moved after “with a rolled-up newspaper”.
some weird things happen here, so….
This ellipses has an extra period.
But otherwise, this is very nice. Your narration is pretty, and you write all the character interactions really well. I particularly like the bits with Dipper – they have a very genuine sibling relationship.
You’ve got some breathless and run-on sentences here; stuff like Dipper knew that as much as he could blame his shaking hands and sweating head on the party around him- too many people moving too fast for his liking, too loud of noise with the bass of whatever popular rap song playing shaking the walls and causing the windows to rattle in their frames, it wasn’t the true reason why he felt as if his body could not move, as if he were stuck to where he was, paralyzed beyond all measure. would work better broken up. Placing that much stuff into a single sentence turns it into a jumble, so it’s hard to focus on the individual details.
“Hey, Dipper!” She screeched
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. 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 to themselves, which is confusing to the reader.
Er, Well
Typo.
Referring to people with hair-based epithets is pretty awkward, especially if you do it a lot. Epithets should be relevant and important, and hair color generally isn’t. The narration would probably sound better if you used more relevant epithets or just used characters’ names.
This feels 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. There are – at the very least – dozens of fic with similar premises, and I currently have no idea how this one is going to be different. This is just a single scene, so I have no idea what the story’s going to be about or where the plot is going to go from here. The summary mentions Bill – if he’s going to be the main focus of the story, he should probably show up in the first chapter.
the nth time in a row
???
Not a snowball’s chance in hell
When referring to the singular place, Hell is capitalized.
purple bags hung heavily from his orbs
Referring to eyes as “orbs” sounds utterly ridiculous. I would advise against it.
hairs that still haven’t grown in as of yet
The rest of the story is in past tense, but this is in present.
Standard morning routines do not make for interesting stories. You would probably have been better off skipping or summarizing the first half of this chapter.
Bill gulped thickly, keeping his voice nice and light and his heart slammed against his ribs as he waited for the kid’s answer.
I thought this story was from Dipper’s perspective? Switching POVs without warning is extremely disorienting.
I’m not clear why you’re calling this original character “Bill”.
Even by the standards of AUs, this doesn’t really have anything to do with Gravity Falls. The characters are all OCs who happen to share the names of the cast. If your characters bear no resemblance to the canon ones, and your setting has nothing to do with the canon one, then it isn’t fanfic and doesn’t belong here. You’d be better off publishing this as original fiction with an “inspired by” label on the top.
“I don’t think I like your attitude, man,” he frowned
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. 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 to themselves, which is confusing to the reader.
a whole kid of different
Typo.
This seems very, very stupid of Dipper. I know this was written before the show finished, but even by The Stanchurian Candidate, it seemed very clear that he wasn’t just an amoral knowledge-seeker. If he knows he can’t trust Bill and that Bill probably has an evil ulterior motive here, I don’t see why he’d take the risk to himself and to others for a reward he might not even receive. Why doesn’t he go to Ford about this to see if there’s another way to stop Bill?
This is a mess. You need a beta reader.
This one is so bad even the other comments had the audacity to criticize it! All hope may not yet be lost.
“Um,” Dipper squinted at the menu, “I just need some caffeine.”
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. 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 to themselves, which is confusing to the reader.
Even by the standards of AUs, this doesn’t really have anything to do with Gravity Falls. Except for Mabel, the characters are all OCs who happen to share the names of the cast. In particular, it’s extremely out of character for Bill to be this genuinely nice. If your characters bear no resemblance to the canon ones, and your setting has nothing to do with the canon one, then it isn’t fanfic and doesn’t belong here. You’d be better off publishing this as original fiction with an “inspired by” label on the top.
The formatting here is a bit wonky; there are no indents, so it can be hard to differentiate paragraphs. Most people put double line breaks between paragraphs; that might work here.
in heaven
Heaven is a proper noun in this context and should therefore be capitalized.
on earth
Same for Earth.
I know, this is short but this is just the introduction!
If you know it’s short, you should expand it instead of apologizing; you don’t have deadlines. This is indeed 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 you have set up your unique setting, it’s not done in enough detail to give me any idea what the actual story is going to be like. This kind of setup exposition is the kind of thing that generally goes at the top of a first chapter, not something that stands on its own.
Anabel Cipher, Jane Cipher, Philbrook Cipher
Who are these characters?
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. 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 to themselves, which is confusing to the reader.
This is really hard to follow. I don’t have any idea what’s going on, what the story is going to be about, or what this has to do with Gravity Falls.
[Deleted]
The lack of spaces between paragraphs makes this hard to follow. Most internet text editors don’t allow indents (though AOOO does), so standard practice is to separate paragraphs with two line breaks, like I’m doing in this comment.
“What a pig,” she thought
Using quotation marks for thoughts is confusing, as it makes characters look like they’re talking to themselves.
“Uh..?”
This ellipses is incomplete.
Second– He was
That “he” shouldn’t be capitalized.
“Every day start off this great?” She whispered
You’re generally writing dialogue correctly, but you capitalized “she” by mistake here.
syllabus(though
Forgot a space here.
Even by the standards of AUs, this doesn’t really have anything to do with Gravity Falls. The characters are all OCs who happen to share the names of the cast. If your characters bear no resemblance to the canon ones, and your setting has nothing to do with the canon one, then it isn’t fanfic and doesn’t belong here. You’d be better off publishing this as original fiction with an “inspired by” label on the top.
Even by the standards of AUs, this doesn’t really have anything to do with Gravity Falls. The characters are all OCs who happen to share the names of the cast. If your characters bear no resemblance to the canon ones, and your setting has nothing to do with the canon one, then it isn’t fanfic and doesn’t belong here. You’d be better off publishing this as original fiction with an “inspired by” label on the top.
“Uh, yeah.” Dipper says
You’re generally writing dialogue correctly, but you used a period instead of a comma here.
“I’ve never been here,” he says, “I need to think about it.”
However, when splitting up two sentences with narration like this, the narration needs to end in a period, since it forms a complete sentence. So this should be [“I’ve never been here,” he says. “I need to think about it.”]
Bill is delightfully in-character here despite being human, which is a minor miracle in this fandom. Good job.
“Sabā il kẖayr! (Good morning!)” He chimed
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. 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 to themselves, which is confusing to the reader.
Even by the standards of AUs, this doesn’t really have anything to do with Gravity Falls. The characters are all OCs who happen to share the names of the cast. If your characters bear no resemblance to the canon ones, and your setting has nothing to do with the canon one, then it isn’t fanfic and doesn’t belong here. You’d be better off publishing this as original fiction with an “inspired by” label on the top.
Your tenses are inconsistent. I can’t tell if you’re going for present or past tense.
the sketch was a familiar one; him, in a rather childish drawing, standing on top of the Earth with a kings crown and a scepter in one hand.
You want a full colon here, and “king’s crown” is missing an apostrophe.
Normally, this type of drawing would be thought of as kind of cute by an onlooker or teacher; assuming the boy wanted to grow up and be the Presidant or something like that.
The correct spelling is “President”, and it shouldn’t be capitalized, as it’s a common noun. Again, this is an improper semicolon, though the correct substitution would be a comma here. As a general rule of thumb, it should be possible to replace a semicolon with a period and still get two complete sentences; for instance, what I’m doing right here.
and let’s his grin drop
“Lets”. “Let’s” always means “let us”.
He unlock the door
“Unlocks”. You need to proofread better.
It’s written “okay”, four letters. It is not an abbreviation for something else, nor is it pronounced ook, therefore it should never be written as OK, Ok, O.K. or ok.
Even by the standards of AUs, this doesn’t really have anything to do with Gravity Falls. Bill here is an OC who happens to share a name with a canon character. If your characters bear no resemblance to the canon ones, and your setting has nothing to do with the canon one, then I don’t understand why you’re labeling this as fanfiction instead of original fiction. You’d be better off unfettering this story from an irrelevant canon by publishing it as original fiction with an “inspired by” label on the top.
Blah Blah Blah…”.
That last period isn’t necessary.
‘Let’s be an ideal family so I can brag to all my coworkers about how perfect I am.”
The first quote should be a double quote, for consistency.
“Come on, be serious. You’re not actually gay, right? Joke over. It’s not funny.”
“Hello? Earth to Dipper? I’m not laughing.”
I presume there’s supposed to be a pause between these two lines. You should include some narration indicating that; otherwise, it looks like a different person is speaking.
but i don’t
Proofread.
the Summer
“Summer” is not a proper noun and thus should not be capitalized.
Thanks, mom
When a title (such as “mom” or “dad”) is used in place of a name, it’s capitalized like one.
Even by the standards of AUs, this doesn’t really have anything to do with Gravity Falls. The characters are all OCs and OCs who happen to share the names of the cast. (You yourself admit in the tags that you’re writing Mabel as an OC.) If your characters bear no resemblance to the canon ones, and your setting has nothing to do with the canon one, then I don’t understand why you’re labeling this as fanfiction instead of original fiction. You’d be better off unfettering this story from an irrelevant canon by publishing it as original fiction with an “inspired by” label on the top.
“underage- sixteen and seventeen because be honest we’re all sinners here~” Eeuugggh. I know Tumblr cries wolf on pedophilia a lot, but I really don’t think people who write things like that are teenagers themselves. At least they’re making it easier for the FBI?
Pacifica stared up at the large golden castle, she took Mabel’s hand to help her out of the carriage.
This is a comma splice. You need to split this sentence in two or use a different transition. You have many other examples of this; I’d advise reading up on sentence structure.
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. 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.
She took a deep breath to compose herself before entering.
Bill was speaking to Dipper whom was dismissed
This is missing a line break.
come we just head home before nightfall
I can’t parse this.
a little..overwhelmed
Ellipses are always three dots, never two or four.
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 just a single scene; nothing much has happened, so I don’t have any idea where the story is going.
Even by the standards of AUs, this doesn’t really have anything to do with Gravity Falls. The characters are all OCs who happen to share the names of the cast. If your characters bear no resemblance to the canon ones, and your setting has nothing to do with the canon one, then I don’t understand why you’re labeling this as fanfiction instead of original fiction. You’d be better off unfettering this story from an irrelevant canon by publishing it as original fiction with an “inspired by” label on the top.
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. 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.
Stan had taught him how to haggle pretty well, bartering at these dust bucket border planets ended in their favor more often than not
This is a comma splice. You need to split this sentence in two or use a different transition.
Hell, his only friend.
Really? Where’s Mabel?
“It’ll only be a bit until we reach Harenam, so you can relax until then.”
So… why did Ford need to tell him right this instant, if they’re going to be waiting a while anyway? Dipper’s right, fixing the engine is important.
try not to look like he was devastated about behind forced to leave Ford behind
Something seems to have gone awry with this sentence.
the supplies they were mean to drop off
Typo.
tens of languages
“Tens” isn’t really a quantity people use; “dozens” sounds more natural.
But I’m holding you back anymore in my old age
This doesn’t make sense. Something like “I don’t want to be holding you back anymore” or “I’m only holding you back in my old age” seem more like what you’re going for?
The brunette
This is the feminine form. You want “brunet”, but I’d advise against using hair color epithets in the first place. Epithets should be relevant to the situation, and appearance usually isn’t, so this is just kinda awkward.
They could make claims of going to call, of Dipper coming back to visit; but they wouldn’t, and he wouldn’t.
…Why?
border planet
Border to what? This terminology doesn’t make a lot of sense on a cosmic scale.
The expanse of sky was clear and filled with stars; like looking through a bedsheet, pinpricks of light filling the otherwise dark void.
This is improper semicolon usage, as the second clause is dependent. As a general rule of thumb, you should be able to replace semicolons with periods and the result should still make grammatical sense; for instance, what I’m doing here. “It was like…” might work, but they’re still pretty disconnected and would probably work better as separate sentences.
a stuffed unicorn Mabel had given him before he left
Okay, so Mabel does exist. Why aren’t they friends? Does Dipper never visit home?
the first suspect of the problem; the engine room
You want a full colon here, not a semicolon.
to detect any nois
Typo.
Gods
Is not a proper noun and therefore should not be capitalized.
not wanting to give the person anymore reasons to shoot him
You want “any more” here. “Anymore” is an adverb.
Us .
Extra space.
It clawed painfully at his legs, scratching them until they bled
That should kill him, especially if it got the inner part of the leg. There are a lot of arteries there.
Even by the standards of AUs, this doesn’t really have anything to do with Gravity Falls. The characters don’t act OOC per se, but I don’t see much of their canon personalities either. You might be better off unfettering this story from an irrelevant canon by publishing it as original fiction with an “inspired by” label on the top.
“Why are you crying in my orchard?” Curious, rather emotionless voice asked the crying boy.
Dropped a word.
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. 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.
You’re making a lot of errors. I’d recommend you get a beta reader.
blonde
This is the feminine form. You want “blond”, but I’d advise against using hair color epithets in the first place. Epithets should be relevant to the situation, and appearance usually isn’t, so this is just kinda awkward.
Brunette
Likewise, the male form of this is “brunet”.
Even by the standards of AUs, this doesn’t really have anything to do with Gravity Falls. The characters are all OCs who happen to share the names of the cast. If your characters bear no resemblance to the canon ones, and your setting has nothing to do with the canon one, then I don’t understand why you’re labeling this as fanfiction instead of original fiction. You’d be better off unfettering this story from an irrelevant canon by publishing it as original fiction with an “inspired by” label on the top.
This one is tagged “age difference” but not underage even though Dipper very obviously is. I started pushing against the OOC Billdip just to make the archive more navigable but oh my god get out of this fandom you creeps.
On closer inspection, a large tent can be seen
To maintain tense consistency, that should be “could”, not “can”.
there were such a large number of people
“Was”, not “were”.
the tent’s withered state was almost non-existent against the enthusiastic variety of life.
This is overwrought and awkwardly worded.
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. 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 have a lot of minor errors throughout this. I’d advise getting a beta reader.
The brown-haired youth was throwing a small dagger
I’m not sure how feasible that is. Throwing knives need a unique heft and weight to make them work right; a dagger is much larger, and not designed for throwing.
He had simply tied a flexible wire around his wrist and to the handle of the dagger so he could just pull back on it and catch it, like a yo-yo. He was never worried about missing the target or the dagger recoiling back to stab him in the face; the boy made sure that every accident that were possible was simply not possible. And if you did not believe him, Dipper had binders of diagrams and equations on thick graph paper he would happily present to you.
I was a bit uncertain over how fitting knife-throwing would be for Dipper, but an overthought engineering project like this is certainly very in-character! This is actually very in-character for everyone. I’ve been very disappointed with most of the AUs I see, as most of them warp the characters so much they’re unrecognizable, but Dipper and Mabel still retain all the traits I love about them here despite their different circumstances.
a womans
Typo.
small girl who cleaves to you like she loves you
Cleave means to cut apart. I think you mean “cling”.
“hi, kiddo — what’s your name?”
This sentence should be capitalized.
I have no idea what’s going on here.
Keep Your Heart Marching in Time
You’d think the way the drilled everything
Typo.
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. 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.
shacking his outstretched hand
???
surprised he had dropped the manor of his moving so fast.
A manor is a mansion. I think you mean another word here. Regardless, this is awkward since it’s so drawn out – just “dropped the subject” would work fine.
Dipper flinched back some. He knew that Bill didn’t mean what he said in that case, but it was hard not to take it that way.
Since the story is third person limited from Bill’s POV up to this point, this is a very jarring transition. If you’re going for omniscient, it’s best not to go into Bill’s thoughts as if we’re limited to his perspective at the start.
Bill sure was weird, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t friendly.
…Okay so. Even by the standards of AUs, this doesn’t really have anything to do with Gravity Falls. You have just informed me that Bill is an OC who happens to share the name of a canon character, and Dipper is displaying so little personality he could easily be swapped out for an OC as well. If your characters bear no resemblance to the canon ones, and your setting has nothing to do with the canon one, then I don’t understand why you’re labeling this as fanfiction instead of original fiction. You’d be better off unfettering this story from an irrelevant canon by publishing it as original fiction with an “inspired by” label on the top.
the dusty wool blanket he laid on fell him
???
Mable
?????
So here they sat; Pacifica’s long blonde hair casually tangled around her head and creating a golden halo, Dipper’s brown curly hair brushed aside.
This is an improper semicolon. 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. A comma is what you want here, I believe.
granting them both a mystic and familiar quality to the two teenagers
I can’t parse this. You seem to have had one idea for this sentence and then overwrote it with another.
a welcome background to the conversation the conversation he was having
You’ve got an error here.
“Hey, Dip-in-Dot,” She questioned, “Wanna play the question game?”
“Questioned” is what police do; it’s a synonym for “interrogated”, not “asked”.
Also, 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. 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.
have you eve-what n, that questions dumb
??? This is the fifth confusing error you have. I would advise getting a beta reader, or proofreading more thoroughly.
Also, it’s unwise to use hyphens in place of dashes, at least not without putting spaces around them, since it looks like you’re hyphenating words. A double hyphen is a good choice if you don’t have access to the dash symbol.
Soos mind
Possessives for words ending in S place the apostrophe on the end. So this should be [Soos’ mind].
Hm. Well, I’m glad to see something that isn’t Bill/Dipper for once, but I feel like you don’t sell the pairing very much. There’s an offhand reference to Pacifica getting a personality change to make her more compatible at the start, but I don’t really see why Dipper’s attracted to her or even why they stayed friends after Weirdmageddon, since canonically it seems like they go their separate ways. This is more of an established relationship fic, which doesn’t work very well for such a hectic relationship as Dipper’s and Pacifica’s. There’s more legwork that could have been done getting them from there to here, I think.
“I’ve barely read any fic and I’m already sick of “Mabel is a fragile woobie Dipper must protect by keeping her out of the loop” plots. Like, way to completely miss the point of the show, people.”
Yeah, this is a big issue. Even fics that don’t actively turn Mabel into a damsel of distress tend to focus heavily on Dipper, with Mabel being sidelined and turned into a secondary character at best.
For me, it was especially noticeable in continuation fics where Pines are older and have more skills… well, Dipper has more skills. He has magic and weird science and action heroism going for him and relations with various magical creatures. Mabel is there. I mean, really, it would be so easy to split the skills between the two, give Mabel more actiony and diplomancy stuff while Dipper gets knowledge-based skills. But nope, Dipper is the hero and Mabel is his sidekick if that.
“Tens” isn’t really a quantity people use; “dozens” sounds more natural.”
That’s probably a cultural thing. I actually do use “tens” in casual speech, and it takes me a bit of a mental effort to switch to “dozens” when I speak in English.
(Honestly, “dozens” is such an awkward unit of measurement to use. But I guess I can’t expect much from philistines who can’t even accept a clearly superior metric system in place of their abomination.)
“I have no idea what’s going on here.”
“Cordyceps” are parasitic fungi most known for that one kind that turns ants into its zombie slaves.
In other words, the fic is a cry for help.
Oh, I agree that it’s really weird that English uses “dozens” instead of “tens”. But it is what it is; using “tens” just sounds so wrong to me.
Yeah, cultural quirks like that are hard to fix, and it’s generally not a good idea to go against them in fiction unless you’re going for futurespeak or an eccentric character. The natural flow of dialogue should be observed even if it’s objectively suboptimal, otherwise it breaks the flow.
(Honestly, “dozens” is such an awkward unit of measurement to use. But I guess I can’t expect much from philistines who can’t even accept a clearly superior metric system in place of their abomination.)
I always thought that was the idea. If someone says “dozens” they may mean all sorts of numbers, including sometimes stuff that’s short of two dozen or even one dozen – the awkwardness of the number emphasizes how vague and messy an estimation it is.
Interestingly, we do say tens of dozens!
It’s the reverse for me. Tens of something mean a vague number, an estimate that isn’t intended to be taken literally (so, “two tens” can mean anything between, say, 16 and 25), while “dozen” is a specific number I’m tempted to take at face value (so “two dozens” to me mean 24).
It’s mostly just a cultural thing that doesn’t really affect much of anything.
Twelve is a much more functional number than ten though because of how well it splits. It much more useful for trading, engineering, architecture, and aesthetics. Dozens(6 factors), tens of dozen(16 factors), and grosses(15 factors) are useful terms. You’ll much soon find need for a dozen things than ten things. Tens are just something that people got used to seeing.
Also, the English is the smart kid in the Math class compared to other languages. Special names for useful quantities isn’t a drawback.