It’s that time of year again!
Bad Egg 2: Rise of Evil
[ Its now a series! ]
“It’s” is short for “it is”. “Its” is the possessive.
[ I’d advice ]
Advise.
[ definitley ]
Spellcheck.
[her Meganium nuzzled her hand in another failed attempt to comfort its Trainer ]
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.
[“Yeah, we’ve been through that a hundred times now,” Silver sighed ]
“Sighed” generally isn’t a speech tag, because it’s not the way the sentence was said.
[ Maril ]
Also, if you’re not sure how to spell a pokemon species, look it up.
[“I get it, ok?” Sliver snapped ]
Okay, four letters, and proofread to catch things like “Sliver”.
Anyway, this is mildly creepy, but goes on way, way too long. It’s obvious the baby pokemon is evil from its introduction, you don’t need scene upon scene of random people shouting that it’s cursed.
[ “Hmm…this Pokemon seems to like you very much, but…I don’t really know how to say this but…its love for you seems almost…fake. If I didn’t know better, I’d say that it wants you to love it, but the feeling isn’t mutual. Its as if it…needs something from you…” ]
This bit is good – it makes more sense than just knowing it’s evil, it’s more disturbing for being understated about it, and it explains the pokemon’s behavior.
[Once she was released from the Pokemon Center, Lyra never spoke again, leaving Ethan and Silver to forever wonder what had happened that day.]
You don’t do a good job explaining why Lyra’s such a mess just because she saw the pokemon. It’d probably make more sense to say that the pokemon did manage to do something to her mind before being driven off.
It’s a nice pun, though.
Don’t center all your text, it’s annoying.
This feels like it’s incomplete. You have the narrator talking about some mystery pokemon no one knows about, then slowly realizing something’s wrong. [Slowly, more details start to come to your mind and you suddenly realized how strange that little creature looked. It was… kinda scary. Like something out of a nightmare ] is quite a nice bit of creepiness. But then the ending reveal is that the pokemon he was playing with was invisible to other people, which isn’t that impressive. So it looks weird, wasn’t visible to his mom, and never actually did anything harmful.
[Its just ]
“It’s” is short for “it is”. “Its” is the possessive.
[PSS]
PS stands for Post Script. Sometimes, when someone wants to add a postscript after they’ve already written one, they’ll write PPS, as in, Post Post Script. PSS would be Post Script Script, which is nonsense.
[I DIDN’T MEAN TO MAKE N A MURDER ]
Murderer. Murder is the thing, murderer is the person who does it. Also, you might want to avoid spoiling your story in your opening note. If you desperately feel you need this sort of inanity included for some reason, stick it at the end.
[We picked our Pokémon Starters: ]
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.
[ He told us his name was N. Now, that was an unusual name to name a child. Maybe his parents were screwed up or something, or that maybe a nickname. But at the time I was not sure. ]
No, the character clearly isn’t sure at all, not just “at the time”. Your writing in general is really awkward, and has a lot of errors scattered through it. You should find a beta reader.
N is sadly OOC here.
[“Na-a-ate.” She choked out. ]
Dialogue is written as “Hello,” she said or “Hello!” she said, never “Hello.” She said or “Hello.” she said or “Hello,” She said or “Hello” she said. The only exception to this is if the next sentence doesn’t contain a speech verb, which is a verb describing how the dialogue is said. In that case it’s written as “Hello.” She grinned, never “Hello,” she grinned or “Hello,” She grinned or “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 with thoughts.
You really need a beta reader, this is filled with problems.
Drabble = 100 words exactly. It’s a writing exercise, not a word for a short fic.
[Wait, used to be? No, I really am human. I have to be human because there are other humans who have been here longer than me. They try to help me adapt, to help me survive. And I’m grateful to them for it. I would’ve been devoured by Krokorok or the elder ones if I weren’t. We ghosts have to stick together, right?
No, not a ghost! Human.]
I’m not sure what the point of this waffling is. The character has the faint memories of a dead person, why bother with them being indecisive about if they are or aren’t? Your characterization of the yamask is otherwise quite good, which just makes this segment all the more jarring.
[“Of course!” he replies in a nonchalant tone. “All you have to do is join my team. Currently, I have Zweilous and Eelektross, but I can certainly make room for you. How can you say ‘no’ to that?”
Tears of joy flood my eyes as I float toward the man. He allows me to lead the way out, and I oblige without hesitation. I exit the ruins and shield my eyes from the desert storm. I turn toward him for support, but my heart sinks when I see him blocking the way back home.
“I never said that you’d get a free ride,” he sneers. “Zweilous, use dark pulse. Eelektross, use flamethrower.”]
I don’t understand this. The yamask agrees to join his team, so why beat it up? Why does it expect to go back home? If the idea is that it selflessly helps him find the way out only to be betrayed, it’d make more sense for Ghetsis to ask for that rather than going straight for saying to join him.
[The raven-haired boy and the redhead ]
Just use their names.
[ but they didn’t waste their time asking questions they couldn’t ask. ]
Second “ask” should be “answer”.
[“I-I found her yesterday…” he explained, pointing at the beautiful girl. ]
It had better be very relevant to the plot that she’s beautiful, because otherwise this seems to have no point.
Also, why do none of them think anything of the fact she’s not waking up despite being carried around and people talking loudly around her?
[Is this too rushed?]
Quite the opposite. You have scene after pointless scene of the characters chatting and being domestic. You could probably have started this story in the scene halfway down where Team Rocket actually attacks, and your story is overflowing with useless detail. Ask yourself what the point of a scene is supposed to be, then use your description to reinforce that. Don’t just keep mentioning a character has gold eyes or raven hair, or going off on an extended tangent about vegetables.
[“I’m coming, mom!” shouted Red, a young man who was anxious to start his Pokémon adventure any day now. ]
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, or in the sentence above, his mother is being referred to as Mom. This is because you only capitalize when it’s a proper noun, which are the names or nicknames of places or things. Similar reasoning should be applied to any other words you’re thinking of capitalizing, like telephone or trainer. Or professor.
[“Ow, what did ya do that for?!” questioned Blue angrily.]
Use said. It won’t bite.
[“What other Pokémon are hiding in Oak’s lab? Maybe there’s a level 100 Pokémon in that closet over there…” Red whispered. ]
Oak says plainly that the three pokemon he’s offering are his only three pokemon. If the character thinks he’s lying, fine, but you need to establish that, because otherwise there’s no reason to believe there’s any other pokemon here.
[The Pokéball was blacker than anything he had ever seen before, and was completely black with a tiny bit of grey in between the two halves of the ball. ]
This is redundant. Cut the bit about “blacker than anything” and just give the actual description.
[Red listened and considered the spirit’s offer. ‘It just…absorbed…Charmander. No other Pokémon can do that. Does that mean it can absorb other Pokémon too? Even other trainer’s Pokémon? It doesn’t seem like I have a choice, since my starter is gone…’ ]
First, don’t use ‘ for thoughts, it’s too close to the ” used for dialogue. Italicize it or don’t mark it at all, people will easily understand it’s thoughts from context.
Second, this is less a matter of Red being corrupted and more of Red just being a complete asshole from the start. He could get another pokemon. He could just not go on a journey with this murderous thing. There’s nothing here of Red not realizing what he’s doing is harmful, you have Ghost explain straight off that it killed his pokemon and very obviously will do the same to any opponents. If you want this to seem tragic or such, you need Ghost to present itself so that it’s not transparently evil from the start, and so that people other than serial killers would think it’s okay to use.
One easy option would be to just not have Ghost talk. If all Red knows is that his charmander has apparently run off and he only has the second pokemon, then going out and trying to use it makes sense.
This is a mess. So she resets a lot to get a shiny eevee…and then during the battle it keeps saying it’s trying to talk or scream and the sprite apparently starts getting bloody, because….? And it doesn’t occur to her to just switch in a different pokemon, or use a healing item, or anything. Then whirlwind knocks it out, because…? Then when she heals it it’s covered in blood and she sees its mouth sewn shut, which is presumably why it couldn’t talk earlier, but why the hell is its mouth sewn shut in the first place? And then it starts saying she sewed its mouth shut, because…? And then she gets her mouth sewn shut. Nothing leads into anything here, it’s just a jumble of ideas from other scary stories with no rhyme or reason.
This is terrible. Get a beta reader.
[My dear journal, I do not write often, no day of my life has ever been interesting enough to document.]
If “no day” was worthy of documenting up until now, then why say he doesn’t write “often”? Wouldn’t it make more sense to say he’s starting the journal now? That’d also explain why he’s talking about who he is and what he does, which is the sort of thing that would go in a first entry.
[We met in the town square in a rather secretive fashion this morning at the break of dawn ]
The town square isn’t a good place to be secretive no matter what time it is. It’d likely make more sense to meet by the edge of town in whatever direction they’re planning to set out.
[The other men were of questionable decent ]
I think you mean “descent”.
[Now I will extinguish the candle on my desk and retire to my bunk. ]
I doubt they’re carting around furniture.
[ the uncharted path ]
You don’t need to say “uncharted” here, it’s a distraction from the point.
This is starting to get rushed. Completely losing the path when they wake in the morning is hard to believe – they should have trampled things enough they can retrace yesterday’s travels at least. It’d make more sense for them to set out with the intentions of retracing their steps, only to find themselves in some new area and realize either they went the wrong way from camp or the path branched at some point and they didn’t notice. Forest paths can look very different when you’re going in a different direction, so it wouldn’t be immediately obvious something supernatural was going on.
[William’s Staraptor can’t break through to the skies for the intertwining branches above ]
That’s really a stretch. It’d be better to just not have anyone with bird pokemon, rather than that it’s suddenly impossible to break branches or, if it’s really that thick, to fell a tree in order to clear things.
[ Ser Yancy was lying still and dead with his Bidoof and Rapidash beside him. Yesterday he said that if we didn’t make our way out, he would burn the whole forest down… ]
And this would have worked better if you’d built up to it with the narrator talking about how Yancy was planning that and then saying he was dead the next day.
Also, the narrator goes crazy way too fast. He’s skipping over fear and dread into hating the other people and hoping they die, which is a lot less scary to read about.
…and now he’s at a cemetery for his dead party members. That’s just random. The lost in the woods thing is about the idea that the forest is somehow separate from humans – putting in something clearly human made just confuses things and makes what’s going on less inexplicable, since clearly, he’s just being fucked with by some really powerful but humanlike intelligent creature.
[I wou-IT HAS RETURNED! IT’S COMING FOR ME! ]
People don’t continue writing in their journal about how they need to run away from an attacker.
One of the limits of journal stories is that sometimes the journal will get interrupted or a character wouldn’t write things down exactly. If you’re writing a story in journal entries, you need to embrace that. Having it cut off suddenly and then his next entry explain what happened works much, much better.
[ I somehow ran out of the woods and right into the arms of some doctors who were standing by… ]
Why would there be several doctors just hanging out? This isn’t even necessary, whoever finds him would bring him to one because he’s presumably raving and half-starved.
[The scariest thing to me now is that I recorded and noted thirteen days passing… But the date today is only the 9th. I was only in that forest for six days… ]
Both dates are way too short for him to have such a breakdown. It’d make more sense to say the actual time was thirteen days while his own count stretched for a month or more.
[ I asked for a dictionary on pokémon and read up on that creature, that vile monster that nearly killed me. It said that Arbok are very territorial and will not give up the chase until its prey has been caught… I must have gotten lucky, I suppose, as I have not seen it since. ]
This is really, really mundane considering he ran into a magic cemetery with the rotting corpses of the other people with him.
[That hissing noise… That odd… Wait… No, no- that can’t be. I left that beast in the fore- ]
A sudden death by dumb animal isn’t that impressive, and this is the same problem as him continuing to write the last time he was attacked. If you want to end with the idea it eats him, just have him say he’s been hearing hissing and put it down to nerves. Also, you really need to think about what the horror is supposed to be. Being lost in the forest and finding yourself back in the same place even when you’re walking in a straight line is scary because you don’t understand what’s happening or how it’s possible. Being eaten by an arbok because arbok chase their prey long distances could be scary, but it’s a much more prosaic horror and one that should be built up differently – the point there is that it won’t stop no matter how far away you get, and it’s also just not that impressive compared to magic murderforest because you can still just kill it or travel too far for it to track.
This one really irritates me because it’s a type of story I really like.
This could stand to be tightened up.
[ I called my mom and asked her if she had seen my Gold anywhere.
“Oh my, was that yours?” she had said. “I saw it and had no idea what it was, so I threw it out. Sorry honey!”]
Okay, parents usually don’t throw stuff out because they don’t know what it is. It’d make more sense to say she thought her daughter didn’t want it any longer.
[ I found it on ebay for $5 (which I found to be a good price). ]
You really don’t need to explain that five dollars is a good price.
[I inserted it into my pink Gameboy Advance (me being a girl and all ]
No. “pink Gameboy Advance” is enough.
[Of course, I checked the continue option. Who wouldn’t? ]
There’s a jump here. The narrator was told this game was never used, so she should be surprised to see there’s a continue option in the first place.
[All my stats were exactly the same as my old game. I had eight Johto badges, and it had the exact same name. I found it a little weird, but was elated at the thought that maybe I had my full team back ]
Why is she just rolling with this? Wouldn’t it make more sense to believe it’s the same game as her mother got rid of, by some weird chance, rather than that somehow she’s got a game that’s exactly the same as the one she lost?
[ I wasn’t scared or anything. I mean, if my pokemon and game would be mad at anyone, wouldn’t be my mom? ]
No one would think that. As I said, the first guess about what happened should be that somehow she bought back the game her mother got rid of, and no one’s first thought would be to try to figure out which person the game would be angry at, because games don’t feel anger.
[I quickly continued and found myself right where I left off. I squealed with delight. I soon was on my way to finishing the game. I defeated Kanto’s Indigo League, and went on to the Hall of Fame. ]
It’s hard to believe her old game wasn’t complete, unless she was the kind of person to regularly restart, and if she was, it doesn’t make sense she’d put so much emphasis on wanting to get her specific team back. It’d make more sense to say she decided to go refight the pokemon league or Red because she wanted to try out her team again.
[But it seemed I wasn’t done. Red said something to me.
“You have another challenger that wishes to face you,” he seemed to say solemnly.]
First, any experienced player knows that doesn’t happen, so she should be freaking out – what does she actually think. Second, try to avoid editorializing about how the static sprites sound. It’s cheap and not very effective – let the reader fill in the gaps here.
[ He stepped aside and revealed a woman. She stepped forward and I was pulled into a battle. Her name was…Presilla. Just like my mother. ]
You really need to have room for a mundane explanation for her to guess at. For example, if she’d somehow mentioned to the person selling this that she wants it because her mom threw out her original game, she might think it’s some weird prank. The games are old enough that there’s ROMs and hacks of ROMs out there.
[When I finished, a low gurgling was heard. It switched back to the overview and the woman was now lying in the floor, the pixels around her red.
“You…you went to far,” He stepped back a few steps off screen, then a scurrying noise sounded. I had no idea what had happened.]
Since the point of this seems to be that the game is punishing her mother for what she did, why would the game also tell her she’s doing something wrong when she carries out its plan?
Capitalize your title properly.
[ my Feraligator ]
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 or nicknames of places or things. Similar reasoning should be applied to any other words you’re thinking of capitalizing, like telephone or trainer. Or professor.
[kneeled ]
Spellcheck.
[ it’s pokeball ]
“It’s” is short for “it is”. “Its” is the possessive.
[ Lets just say ]
Let’s. It’s short for “let us”.
[“If feels… ]
It, not if.
In general, you have a lot of spelling and grammar errors. Proofread better and find a beta reader to help you.
[It took me a whole day to get from the Johto region, to the Kanto region, but I made it. Who knew it would take me a whole day just to go from New Bark Town, to Lavender Town. ]
From the sounds of things, he should have visited before, so he shouldn’t be surprised by how long it takes.
[my Gangar ]
Also, always look up pokemon species if you don’t know how to spell them. It’s “gengar”.
And the pacing of this is all over the place. Once ghost Gold shows up, it’s just a jumble of imagery and stuff happening without much of a clear thread.
[ the mystical Pokemon ]
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 or nicknames of places or things. Similar reasoning should be applied to any other words you’re thinking of capitalizing, like telephone or trainer. Or professor.
[He felt bad for taking the trainer’s life but he had to. She had became too powerful, using him to destroy all who stood in her path. He didn’t mind killing, he just didn’t want anyone to become more powerful than he was. ]
How is she too powerful if her only power is ordering him to do stuff for her?
[ I wonder why it’s so easy to throw something away and forget about it. So damn easy. Trash, leftovers, a broken lamp, friends… Old toys. Every day of the year, all 365 of them, we throw away what we no longer want without a care for what may happen to it and within seconds we forget it ever existed. No other species throws so much away with so little thought as we humans do. It makes me wonder… It convinces me that maybe it’s just human nature. But mark my words, that is not an excuse for our flaky behavior- it’s merely the cause of our vile selfishness. ]
This really doesn’t make sense with the rest of the story, which is about how she only threw away the doll because she was teased about it.
[People who walk through the cemetery to this day give pause to stare at this grave. Not because the woman who died and was buried there mattered at all in the world’s scheme, but because standing before her grave is a plush doll, turned gray from use and dressed in a green burlap dress with pins sticking out of its body and a cheerful smile on its face. ]
Also, why wouldn’t people just remove something like that from a grave? If it keeps reappearing because it’s a supernatural doll, that’s one thing, but I’d expect people’s first impression is that it’s just some nasty prank.
[legendary Pokémon ]
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 or nicknames of places or things. Similar reasoning should be applied to any other words you’re thinking of capitalizing, like telephone or trainer. Or professor.
Anyway, this person’s a moron, which makes the idea of their ghost just trying to protect people rather silly – anyone else who’s halfway prepared wouldn’t get killed. They’re apparently braving the pillar without a single pokemon, they don’t even know enough to pause for the blizzard, their clothes aren’t waterproof or warm enough – and also, if there’s slush everywhere, it can’t be that cold.
[I picked yes like before. It was just a game, right? Maybe when one of my friends came over for a sleepover they found my game and hacked it to do this while I was asleep ]
There’s a reason why the common opening to a videogame creepypasta is that the main character gets a game through some secondhand source. People do sell bootleg and fanmade games under false names. If she bought this off ebay or something, then she could write off stuff like her shinx never evolving or other glitchy bits as because it was some pirated ROM stuck into a fake cartridge, and then she could think this new stuff was some addition the original creator made. Or you could just have this be her first time playing Diamond and not realizing this wasn’t a feature of the normal game. But having her believe her friends hacked her game during a sleepover to include a completely new component of battling makes her seem impossibly stupid. The rest of the story works pretty well, it’s easily one of the better creepypasta style stories I’ve seen here, but it needs a believable setup.
Now that physical bootleg games are rarer, I wonder if we’ll start to see more of these based around ROMs and such? The fact a lot of people deliberately make fake games in the style of the old creepypasta games would muddy the waters further, so you could have a character play quite far into a weird game without realizing anything’s amiss without the usual excuse that they’re too dumb to live.
Nicely described.
[ I was extremely protective; any Pokémon who dared challenge me soon found themselves sliced in two by my Dragon Claw, or paralysed with fear from my Shadow Force. ]
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 or nicknames of places or things. Similar reasoning should be applied to any other words you’re thinking of capitalizing, like telephone or trainer. Or professor.
Also, it needs to be extremely protective *of something* – it can be territory or status or its own freedom, but hacking up others isn’t inherently protective.
It’s not really breaking and entering if the door is open, you know.
And this is pretty meh. None of this is actually a joke or anything, it’s just something dumb and you turning to the reader to say “hey, this is dumb, lol!” Anyone can do that.
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 or nicknames of places or things. Similar reasoning should be applied to any other words you’re thinking of capitalizing, like telephone or trainer. Or professor.
Dialogue is written as “Hello,” she said or “Hello!” she said, never “Hello.” She said or “Hello.” she said or “Hello,” She said or “Hello” she said. The only exception to this is if the next sentence doesn’t contain a speech verb, which is a verb describing how the dialogue is said. In that case it’s written as “Hello.” She grinned, never “Hello,” she grinned or “Hello,” She grinned or “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 with thoughts.
A mediocre story with unspeakably shitty commentary. There’s more to sporking than just saying something is dumb over and over, and being excessively literal to try to pretend there’s extra mistakes just makes you look like a moron.
There’s something particularly offensive about a bad spork.
[ the trailing Milotic ]
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 or nicknames of places or things. Similar reasoning should be applied to any other words you’re thinking of capitalizing, like telephone or trainer. Or professor.
[“Are you all right?” He asked him
“Yeah I think so.” Ethan sent out his Arcanine and climbed on its back, “Why’d you call back Charizard? We can’t stay, we have to hurry.”]
Dialogue is written as “Hello,” she said or “Hello!” she said, never “Hello.” She said or “Hello.” she said or “Hello,” She said or “Hello” she said. The only exception to this is if the next sentence doesn’t contain a speech verb, which is a verb describing how the dialogue is said. In that case it’s written as “Hello.” She grinned, never “Hello,” she grinned or “Hello,” She grinned or “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 with thoughts.
This is really long and tedious. The stakes are obviously high, but since I have no real idea what’s going on and the story is just you meticulously laying out the details of characters fighting each other or traveling around, it’s hard to feel much investment.
Also-
[Obviously in an ordinary battle he’d be best off switching out, but for all he knew Cynthia may send her Roserade on him as he did. It hit him— this wasn’t an ordinary battle. He could send out his Arcanine before recalling Feraligatr! ]
And yet it doesn’t occur to him that he could send out the rest of his pokemon at the same time as well, or order them to attack Cynthia or anything else. The rest plays out like an ordinary battle anyway.
[he asked an Empoleon ]
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 or nicknames of places or things. Similar reasoning should be applied to any other words you’re thinking of capitalizing, like telephone or trainer. Or professor.
[The disease broke out when the trainers found the so called evolution stone, if you gave it to a Pokémon it would evolve instantly.
If it had any evolutions that is.]
…so, do you mean that using it on pokemon that don’t have evolutions created the zombies? Or is this just a random note, and any pokemon exposed to the stone eventually zombify?
[They needed to escape the Unova region at all costs. Away from the humans, away from the walkers.]
So the disease is confined to Unova? Also, why is getting away from the humans an important consideration, are the humans unaware of the cause and still creating new zombies or is it just because they blame humans for what happened?
[ Suddenly there was a gushing sound and blood splattered on the grass.
Staring at the blood on its unusual plush greenness. Samurott stopped looking at the blood. Horror filling his body.]
Your writing is really, really choppy. Here it’s also it’s unclear which of the two pokemon was killed, the zombie or the liepard or both, or why there’s a huge gush of blood either way. You should find someone to beta read.
[ “We’ll stay here for the night” he informed Snivy ]
You need a comma at the end of the dialogue.
[But probably when he got back she would have come back to life and become a zombie. ]
So it’s catching. Still nothing clear about how it actually started. After the first dozen pokemon turn into zombies, I’d think people would just stop messing with the stones and that’d be the end of it. Even if the zombies can make more by bite or whatever, I don’t see how there could be enough initial zombies for them to be everywhere like this.
Although I guess the fact they’re apparently too dumb to do anything to prevent the infected liepard from coming back does give a partial answer for why no one could stop the spread. But once you’ve established that the living are as braindead as the zombies, it’s hard to care if they get killed.
[“Run!” the tiny Pokémon screeched before crashing in Grovyle. “Whoa, slow down there kid” Grovyle said picking the electric zebra. “Why are you running so fast?” he questioned the smaller Pokémon. “I’m being chased by an Ivysaur!” he stuttered.
Grovyle looked behind the Blitzle and snickered. “You sure? I don’t see one” he said.]
New speaker means a new paragraph. Also, again getting back to the issue of just how stupid is it possible to be, if you’re in a situation where zombie pokemon are constantly attacking you, including situations like the liepard where it’s killed by something they didn’t even see, why wouldn’t you believe someone who said they were fleeing a zombie? If he’s so impossibly stupid he insists on sitting and waiting for the zombie to run into him, he should have been killed off early on rather than blighting this story with his continued moronic existence.
[ its eyes were unusually white. It looked around as if it couldn’t see them, then it hit Grovyle. It was blind! It would go off of scent and sound. ]
Then it can’t be what killed the liepard. One of the other pokemon called out to her and all she did before being attacked was turn toward the voice. The ivysaur should have tried to go for the person speaking.
[“I’m fine” Grovyle reassured them giving them the berries he picked. Not telling them a thing of the Ivysaur he killed. ]
Why not? Now they know the thing that was lurking and killed the liepard isn’t there to threaten them.
[ around my joints I can feel my burlap clothing chafing my skin and the weighty press of armor on my body]
Burlap doesn’t just chafe, it takes your skin off. If he can afford armor, he can definitely afford better clothing, and he’d been it to cushion that armor properly.
[“You sought to save this lawless kingdom with your poultry ideals]
Poultry means birds. You want paltry.
[The coach blew his whistle, “Alright girls! That’s enough practice for the day!”]
[“Sorry.” A man muttered quickly and swerved around her]
Dialogue is written as “Hello,” she said or “Hello!” she said, never “Hello.” She said or “Hello.” she said or “Hello,” She said or “Hello” she said. The only exception to this is if the next sentence doesn’t contain a speech verb, which is a verb describing how the dialogue is said. In that case it’s written as “Hello.” She grinned, never “Hello,” she grinned or “Hello,” She grinned or “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 with thoughts.
[Her Lilligant was pretty tried from battling the wild Pokemon as well]
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 or nicknames 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 like the idea you have here, but you don’t seem to have thought it all through. If the idea is that any area the player encounters turns static like the game, then she should have been frozen by the player’s initial passing, and the people going into the buildings should have kept disappearing. If all it takes to make it stop is to rub her eyes and wait, then when she meets the player again the same thing should happen.
It would probably make more sense to have her coming across the changed crowd after the player had passed, panicking and running to the pokemon center, and then being frozen when the player arrives there.
[Waverly continued to play with all of her dolls. She played Pokémon make-believe, cowboy make-believe, astronaut make-believe, and almost anything that a little girl’s imagination could make-believe, she made-believe. And poor Violet sat upon her shelf and smiled.]
Since the point here is that she wasn’t playing with Violet, you shouldn’t say she plays with all of her dolls, just that she’s playing with dolls.
Also, 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 or nicknames of places or things. Similar reasoning should be applied to any other words you’re thinking of capitalizing, like telephone or trainer. Or professor.
[Granny’s funeral was possibly the saddest and most heartbreaking of them all. Waverly had no one left to go home to. No one, except her dolls.]
This is ridiculous, there’s no way a six year old would be left in an empty house. It’d make more sense to have the ending come immediately after her grandmother’s death, rather than after she calls for help, people come for her grandmother, a funeral is arranged and occurs, and she somehow gets dropped back off at her house.
I like how this plays out overall, though. There’s no dramatic rejection of the doll, and things just quietly build until the end.
[The robes covered their faces, so you couldn’t see what pokemon they exactly were]
You might want to say the robes covered them completely, since it’s not like the face is the only identifiable part.
[ on it’s own ]
“It’s” is short for “it is”. “Its” is the possessive.
[The four roamed the house blindly for a while, trying to locate the sound of the agonizing screaming. ]
Would it really take that long to go toward screaming? How big is the place?
You’ve also got some wonky sentences, you might want to try getting a beta reader. Your grammar is otherwise pretty good, though.
Paragraphing has rules. You start a new paragraph with a new subject. The goal is not to divide your story up into even blocks. Also, a new speaker means you start a new paragraph.
Dialogue is written as “Hello,” she said or “Hello!” she said, never “Hello.” She said or “Hello.” she said or “Hello,” She said or “Hello” she said. The only exception to this is if the next sentence doesn’t contain a speech verb, which is a verb describing how the dialogue is said. In that case it’s written as “Hello.” She grinned, never “Hello,” she grinned or “Hello,” She grinned or “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 with thoughts.
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 or nicknames of places or things. Similar reasoning should be applied to any other words you’re thinking of capitalizing, like telephone or trainer. Or professor.
This is terrible.
ポケモンの秘密： ポケモンの恐怖 PokeDex Secrets: Pokemon Horrors
Don’t center your whole story.
[Route 111, A route that all elders of Fallarbor Town feared.]
Don’t stick a capital A in the middle of a sentence.
Anyway, this is an interesting idea but it’s way, way too melodramatic to have any impact. Cut the long leadup about how doomed and foolish the character is, focus more on the present. The situation you have can stand on its own.
ポケモンの秘密： ポケモンの恐怖 PokeDex Secrets: Pokemon Horrors Ch2
[“I dare you to go into that house alone! Yelled my friend, Martha.]
Dialogue is written as “Hello,” she said or “Hello!” she said, never “Hello.” She said or “Hello.” she said or “Hello,” She said or “Hello” she said. The only exception to this is if the next sentence doesn’t contain a speech verb, which is a verb describing how the dialogue is said. In that case it’s written as “Hello.” She grinned, never “Hello,” she grinned or “Hello,” She grinned or “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 with thoughts.
[age 9 ]
Write out numbers with letters.
[a Duskull ]
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 or nicknames of places or things. Similar reasoning should be applied to any other words you’re thinking of capitalizing, like telephone or trainer. Or professor.
Also, your summary is error-ridden. Fix that.
[ trekk ]
Spellcheck.
Eh, this doesn’t really go anywhere, and it’s pretty overwrought.
A bit spooky but rather repetitive.
[“Bingo.” I muttered again ]
Dialogue is written as “Hello,” she said or “Hello!” she said, never “Hello.” She said or “Hello.” she said or “Hello,” She said or “Hello” she said. The only exception to this is if the next sentence doesn’t contain a speech verb, which is a verb describing how the dialogue is said. In that case it’s written as “Hello.” She grinned, never “Hello,” she grinned or “Hello,” She grinned or “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 with thoughts.
[ since I was pretty much starting my game off since I still had a level eight snivy ]
Try to avoid reusing the same word within a sentence.
[I was a bit surprised that they decided to bring back the feature of your pokemon following behind from Heartgold and Soulsilver, walking around a bit and seeing Alerox follow obediently. ]
A lot of your sentences are convoluted or runon.
[ it’s health bar ]
“It’s” is short for “it is”. “Its” is the possessive.
[Hearing the little cry from lillipup ]
Should be “the lillipup”.
[ ime/i ]
When you post, it’s as rich text, not HTML. You can’t have those tags mixed in.
This is way too over the top – it’s obvious the whole time what’s going on, the pokemon’s obviously acting impossibly, and your descriptions of events are clearly not what the game could actually display on its screen. Also, your sentence structure has a lot of issues – you need to get a beta reader.
This seems like it’s the same thing as the shinx story but done more poorly.
I don’t get why no one thinks they could have drowned. Kids drown in even shallow pools all the time. If someone says they saw faces in the water, other people would go look to see what it is. And if clothes wash up from someone investigating, the first guess isn’t going to be “well, I guess it’s unsolvable!” it’ll be that he drowned there.
Also, while finding parts of humans is creepy, it wouldn’t still be in the magikarp’s stomach after two months.
[Nothing but Magikarp ]
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 or nicknames of places or things. Similar reasoning should be applied to any other words you’re thinking of capitalizing, like telephone or trainer. Or professor.
[Eto= uhhh, or Errrr…
Aho= Dumb ass.
Hai= Ok, or, I understand.]
Just stick to English, that’s what you’re writing in.
[her Dewott ]
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 or nicknames of places or things. Similar reasoning should be applied to any other words you’re thinking of capitalizing, like telephone or trainer. Or professor.
[Whites favorite days ]
White’s. Use apostrophes for possessives.
[even though she looked nothing like her mother other for hair color ]
Not “other for”, “other than”.
[Its no big deal. ]
“It’s” is short for “it is”. “Its” is the possessive.
[“This is the BEST HAUNTED HOUSE EVEEER!” She yelled ]
Dialogue is written as “Hello,” she said or “Hello!” she said, never “Hello.” She said or “Hello.” she said or “Hello,” She said or “Hello” she said. The only exception to this is if the next sentence doesn’t contain a speech verb, which is a verb describing how the dialogue is said. In that case it’s written as “Hello.” She grinned, never “Hello,” she grinned or “Hello,” She grinned or “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 with thoughts.
[12 times ]
Write out numbers with letters.
[ than Pokemon battles]
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 or nicknames of places or things. Similar reasoning should be applied to any other words you’re thinking of capitalizing, like telephone or trainer. Or professor.
[“Is it? This is a Shrine?” She questioned ]
Dialogue is written as “Hello,” she said or “Hello!” she said, never “Hello.” She said or “Hello.” she said or “Hello,” She said or “Hello” she said. The only exception to this is if the next sentence doesn’t contain a speech verb, which is a verb describing how the dialogue is said. In that case it’s written as “Hello.” She grinned, never “Hello,” she grinned or “Hello,” She grinned or “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 with thoughts.
Anyway, this really seems like a generic ghost story. You mention Celebi but it doesn’t actually matter.
Capitalize your title properly.
Dialogue is written as “Hello,” she said or “Hello!” she said, never “Hello.” She said or “Hello.” she said or “Hello,” She said or “Hello” she said. The only exception to this is if the next sentence doesn’t contain a speech verb, which is a verb describing how the dialogue is said. In that case it’s written as “Hello.” She grinned, never “Hello,” she grinned or “Hello,” She grinned or “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 with thoughts.
Paragraphing has rules. You start a new paragraph with a new subject. The goal is not to divide your story up into even blocks. Also, a new speaker means you start a new paragraph.
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 or nicknames 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 love your reviews. It’s good to know I’m not the only one who cares about grammar. I assume all the stories were chosen for being ‘spooky’/’haunting’/etc? If so, when will we get to see a review of Renn Ireigh’s work?
Pokereviews are January.
Heh… poultry ideals…
Poultry ideals pretty much amount to FOOD NOW.
Now I want to see a kingdom being run by talking chickens.
Thanks for reviewing my work! I didn’t realise all of those mistakes in ‘The Summit’ and I’m really glad you pointed them out. Thanks for telling me about the ‘protective *of something* thing for ‘Origin’, too. I think your reviews were some of the most helpful ones I’ve received so far,actually. I’m going to try out that Pokemon capitalisation correction you were talking about, since it does make more grammatical sense. :)
It’s a shame that some authors respond so rudely to you. Fair enough, some people might find you rude or a ‘troll’, but even in those cases, there’s not much point in reacting with hostility, in my opinion. It just seems so pointless to reply like that. At least your reviews are helpful and easy to understand! They should be glad. :) It also seems that some people give you rude reviews on your own work seemingly for revenge, and I don’t see the point in that either. I do like how well you deal with those people, though. It’s good that you don’t let them bother you.
Have fun on your next NaReWriMo! :)
Thanks for reviewing as well!
To be honest it’s pretty understandable for people to react badly. No one normally says a story’s bad, so when I say something’s bad, they assume I mean their story is the worst thing to ever exist in the history of fanfic and react accordingly. Usually people calm down soon after.
Yeah, that’s a good point actually. :) At least people calm down quickly most of the time.
Seeing as you did Halloween fanfic reviews in November, are you planning to do Christmas fanfic reviews in December?
I used to set NaRe right after NaNo, but all that made me do was hate holiday fic with the power of a million exploding suns. Now pokefic hatemonth is in January.