“But the age level of the people that read these stories varies. A much younger person would have a harder time being able to comprehend the story if it’s written perfectly in your eyes. So I aim to make it easy to read.”
“And the water was not chlorinated; in no place in the story did i say there was chlorine. Typically bathtubs don’t have chlorine in them because of the fact that the water goes into he tub from pipes in the system. Or, at least that’a my basic understanding of pipelines.”
Also, autism continues to be super, super relevant for things that continue to not, technically, be about autism.
I know…..I hate my horrible first time :/ So much harder then original stories with little dialogue…
Yes I am not the best when it comes to grammar and spelling…however no one is. So I apologized it I annoyed you with that, for this story was made about a year or two ago as well as worked on for hours within the late night.
However as far as the names of pokemon and capitalizing them…I did that purposely because they are the main Characters of this story, and since they do not have names I wanted to show that it’s not like a general pokemon group or species. In addition there were some words I purposely capitalized and left others lower cased.
I knew nothing of the archive, so I thank you for that.
And though I appreciate you taking the time and correcting my errors…I more or so wanted feedback on the story idea and plot itself.
thank you-Mako
This is interesting because, although I don’t think it was the best idea in this case, it is true that it’s fairy tale convention to capitalize like this to indicate you don’t mean it in the general sense, but it’s impossible to do when one of the standard fandom beliefs is is that you capitalize to indicate species in the general sense.
Hello, we meet again!
For the half of the review (capitalization and Pikachu part) I have to say I actually know the info but didn’t give much attention to it. Yes, I know it is wrong to begin with, but the reason I had posted the chapter was not to have that perfect of a chapter. I just wanted the idea and the plot to be recognized, and see if anybody liked it.
For semicolumns, it has different usage in my native language, I know it’s not an excuse, but I’m trying to improve for a day I can post a story without a beta.
Also knowing that there are mainly five distinct colours for the iris, even a data base wouldn’t be cut for the job. Furthermore, for a nation fighting with evil organisations I believe such a data base is not priority. In the end I wanted to emphasize that one didn’t need to be soul mates to marry and fall in love. Well, that was the plan when I started but seeing nobody took an interest, I’ll lock away the idea to write sometime later. (If I were to continue, you could have expected reasoning to the flaw you pointed out, so that the story would be in a better shape)
All in all, what I want to say to you is: THANK YOU! By now, I have to admit that my guts say that you have the Pikachhu paragraph and so on on your computer desk, and you just copy and paste it where you find fit (again, excuse my lacking of attention). But the very last comment means the world to me. The fact that you had a quotation (which can’t be copied from the actual chapter) shows that you really took the story (ME) seriously. Thank you for living through the trouble. Oh and a question for the closing: (I know you don’t follow stories easily) Why do you think that nobody took an interest to the story? I doubt everybody thought the idea had flaw….
loverly anonymeA response to your review at https://www.fanfiction.net/r/11010332/
I appreciate your corrections on fundamental syntactic errors in my stories.
I also find National Review Writing Month to be a great idea that can potentially benefit budding writers. However, as I’m sure you are aware, I and many others disagree with your condescending tone. It’s superfluous. It renders your otherwise-constructive reviews as non-constructive because of the way you not just point out but virulently condemn others’ mistakes.
Alas, I’m certainly not the only one to voice these opinions, and clearly you haven’t changed in your approaches to reviewing despite what others have said. By all means, do as you wish.
In any case, feel free to continue to review my works. I look forward to your criticisms (copy-pasted though they may be). Have a nice day.
Thank you for the information! I never knew this is how writing speech worked and I’ll try my best to remember your words of advise.
And I understand what you mean. No, I would not capitalize animal or mouse or dragon unless that was their given name.
Well, I thank you for your input.
Dear Farla,
How are you?
Thanks for the information, on my old computer I usually don’t have to capitalise the I’s since the auto correct does it for me,so i’m kinda used to it, not sure why it doesn’t work on this new computer I bought, but thanks anyway, i’ll try follow what you said.
I don’t really write stories that much so I guess you can see why I made some errors.
Thanks a lot, though.Your review really does help me.
-Padpadpad2 :)
After your comments on Natural Selection, I tried making things more vague to keep the “twist” intact, though judging by you and the other reviewer, it seems I went overboard. Changed “green plush” to “Substitute plush” to better get the point across.
Also, thanks for spending a month attempting to deal with the category’s worst. I hope it wasn’t too much trouble.
Thank you for that disturbingly lengthy lesson in grammar and sentence structure
Even with January coming to a close, I know you are extremely busy. If you have time to respond, I’d appreciate that. If you don’t, I won’t care that much–my questions aren’t that important. Also, I’m not why you would post this on dragon-quill since it has nothing to do with your reviews, but I don’t really care what you do with this message.
Thanks,
tgr83
I’m actually not sure how that compares to a popular fanfic writer. The fact there’s PM links right on the review page means people don’t have to stop off at my profile after a review, and certainly most of them seem unaware of the whole review month thing. On the other hand, you can subscribe to an author and then never need to bother with their profile page again.
Anyway, here’s how it compares, starting at January of last year.
January Stats: For the month of 2014-01, there have been a total of 2,147 Views and 975 Visitors
February Stats: For the month of 2014-02, there have been a total of 1,150 Views and 576 Visitors
March Stats: For the month of 2014-03, there have been a total of 879 Views and 444 Visitors
April Stats: For the month of 2014-04, there have been a total of 727 Views and 396 Visitors
May Stats: For the month of 2014-05, there have been a total of 741 Views and 392 Visitors
June Stats: For the month of 2014-06, there have been a total of 543 Views and 297 Visitors
July Stats: For the month of 2014-07, there have been a total of 576 Views and 315 Visitors
August Stats: For the month of 2014-08, there have been a total of 529 Views and 283 Visitors
September Stats: For the month of 2014-09, there have been a total of 302 Views and 188 Visitors
October Stats: For the month of 2014-10, there have been a total of 461 Views and 216 Visitors
November Stats: For the month of 2014-11, there have been a total of 339 Views and 214 Visitors
December Stats: For the month of 2014-12, there have been a total of 350 Views and 215 Visitors
I didn’t look to see when I was updating stories, which I’m sure had some impact. I spent the month of October reviewing Homestuck fic (to much less effect, obviously) and on Oct 31st I dip into pokefandom to review all horror posted in the month, but as you can see, barely any change – it does look like the numbers increased slightly but given the timing, it’s just as possible September is a dead period in general since it’s when school starts back up, and by October people are back to reading fanfic. (I could try to check back more years, but just loading these pages made my computer choke up a bunch. Maybe later on a different one. It’d be more helpful to compare other people, anyway.)
But yeah, review month dramatically changes my hits. Given how it tapers off over time, either the people keep coming back for a while or, more likely, it’s new people seeing my reviews over time. Most of the profile hits may be from third parties. Homestuck is different in many, many ways, plus two samples isn’t exactly something you can plot, but maybe low reaction is due to the fact this month I review very visible fics while there I’m working my way through older fics no one looks at any longer if they ever did. Could also be that Homestuck is generally a tumblrweed wasteland.
I’m posting it because it’s an interesting question!
Alright, read your review (barely) and I appreciate the critique. Please, read MY critique of your critique, though, because you weren’t exactly acting very polite.
-Criticism is appreciated. Matter of fact, I really enjoy it when people give criticism. But… some of the stuff you criticized was based completely on personal bias, such as your views on morality.
-Again, I welcome your criticism, and this is the first review I’ve ever received that really contained bare-boned criticism. But… had you laced in some support, some praising of what I did right, it provides encouragement to keep reading the review, and helps people stay open TO the criticism.(Maybe that’s just me. Maybe it’s just people with Autism. I wouldn’t know) Leading a review with criticism just… kinda threw me off, and made me think “Does this person even appreciate the effort that went into this? mean, I put a LOT into it.
-The reason I capitalized the “Wingull” was because it is a title. However, I did forget to capitalize the B in Ballad, so I can see why that threw you off. But it isn’t something HUGE, or incredibly MAJOR, so while I appreciate that you wanted the correction, I may or may not fix it.
-Spell out my numbers? REALLY? This isn’t exactly me writing a book. This is FANFICTION. This is the league of unprofessional writers! If you don’t believe me look at some of the “stories” written by “Yoshizilla-Rhedosaurus.”
-I thought it necessary to describe what happens and say the assumed because descriptive writing is a HUGE challenge for me.
-I’m not entirely sure where you saw the “Its” and “it’s” confusion in my story.
-Also, Please note that I get straight A’s. I know the difference between its and it’s, it was just a typo. Please refrain form acting like a teacher. I can see why you did it, but it was rather degrading and insulting.
-When it comes to the matter of morality, well, gee, can’t we just ALL play Pokemon a bit differently? I have MY views on the series, be it catching them all or just your favorites, so can’t you let me write about mine?
-Also, what about the contest I left at the end of the A/N? Seriously, did you just not read the A/N at all?
-Again: I play Pokemon as though specific Pokemon were born to be with certain trainers. You play it COMPLETELY differently. But there’s the thing: that’s opinion. You can’t just say my opinion is wrong (YES, I know you never DIRECTLY said that, but let’s face it it was HEAVILY implied.)
Also, notice the fact I left little-to-no praise throughout this. Didn’t fell good, did it? Not asking for mindless praise here, just tell me what I did RIGHT as well as what I did WRONG.
-TAG (Note this is the first time I didn’t write “A response to your generous review.”
Their profile is amazing from the first paragraph to the last.
I appreciate that you’re trying to help, but I would like to ask that you’d stop. You would capitalize Pikachu because it’s name is Pikachu. And a proper noun is used for an individual person, place or orginization. You wouldn’t capitalize telephone or trainer, but in the Pokèmon books and manga Professor and multiple Pokèmon are written as proper nouns. Please stop correcting my writing. If you don’t like the way I write, just read something else.
Well, since I believe pokemon species capitalisation issue a gray area at its worst and not really tightly enforced at its best (personally, I’m for it), my personal take to it is to sidestep around it and try not to mention it whenever possible, but when the inevitable species name needs to be raised, capitalise them. My only problem with that part of your review is that I believe you presented it as if that’s absolute. Comparing pokemons to common animals is, in my opinion, like comparing sharks to dolphin. They may seem superficially similar, but there were enough devils in the details that they’re classified as starkly different beings (the former is a fish, the latter a mammal).
I don’t really think that’s a songfic; it was just that she was singing a song which shouldn’t be essential to the plot except to start firefights (as you’d see, the song has barely any effect to the rest of the firefight). I once wrote a chapter for a fic I’ve deleted (it was in Bahasa Indonesia anyway) that exactly has the characteristics of a songfic.
Assuming the reader is incredibly stupid, hmm? Sorry, but I must admit beforehand that Hirasawa’s music isn’t the most popular Japanese music around. The more obscure part of the Crusades (the most popular ones includes the Third and the First, IMHO) aren’t exactly popular, either.
As for grammars, while I do believe that good, passable grammar is important, I also think that the importance of using it perfectly is overrated (I’m a foreign speaker, just so you know).
Hello!
Thank you for your long comment on chapter 01. Part of the reason why I decided to post it on this website was to look for critique, and I’m very glad to see I’m receiving some.
I am not too sure what your point is regarding the speech verbs. If it’s a problem of typography, I am not too used to the way the English write (as my native language is French, and conventions differ). I’ll be a lot more careful with these in the future. In french, speech is marked with hyphens, and there is no difference between speech and narration (so it would look like – Hello, she said. This is it.).
[I was in a hospital, turned into a six-tailed fox, who had just escaped death ]
The who is meant to refer to herself as a fox, not the fox before she took control of her body. I will rephrase it to make it more evident.
[Although I would be taken care of by humans for a certain amount of time until I healed, I would probably eventually be released, and I didn’t see myself surviving in the wild. ]
The point of that is to emphasize the anxiety of being thrown back into the wild. The character isn’t looking at her situation properly and immediately makes assumptions that lead to the worst situation for her (that she will be released eventually). Assuming being a six-tailed fox is normal, however, IS a mistake since she still doesn’t know she is a pokemon. I could add a paragraph to discuss that possibility, where the character thinks about what being an abnormal fox would lead to. That would probably ease into the next things you pointed out:
[And in what language? The nurse was speaking english. What would happen if I replied in plain english? What if I made a mistake and actually spoke a human language when I wasn’t meant to be able to? The idea of them discovering I was a human who turned into a pokemon scared me. From the looks of it, they were not aware of that, and I felt like it was something I had to keep secret for as long as I could. ]
That might just be me, but having been bullied by pretty much everyone I’ve known for over 20 years for not being “normal”, I have an obsession with fitting in and not showing myself as special because I know it only leads to bad things. Her (and my) assumption is she will be given the wrong kind of attention and be abused for not being normal. Now that she knows she is a vulpix, the best she can do is try to fit in and avoid any further problems.
[Have someone watch her night and day. If any journalists come, you have my permission to insult them, but do not let them anywhere near her and do not answer their questions. Call the security if they are being pushy. They’ll have to deal with me if they want to learn anything about this ]
There is something special about her, but it is not related to her being a human. :3
[It was still the… 20th of May, if I remembered correctly. Why was it so difficulty to remember that single date?
I felt like my heart stopped beating momentarily after I realized what would eventually happen. Having been turned into a vulpix, I had the brains of a vulpix, and my human brain would eventually fade away together with all my memories, instincts, reflexes and knowledge, and I would turn into a completely normal and standard vulpix. My body was already an animal’s, which caused me enough grief, and mostly embarrassment, but the prospect of becoming an animal at mind was extremely distressing. I couldn’t see myself acting the way my cats and dogs did, but I knew it would eventually happen, and that made me feel down. I didn’t want to lose all my memories and the things that made me human. I had never asked to become a vulpix, especially not on the verge of death, but it had happened against my will. It was up to me to make sure that last phase of the transformation didn’t happen. ]
Here again, the assumption is she won’t turn back into a human, so this is a worst-case scenario.
I’m aware this might be a bit weird to read, but I hope I clarified some of your questions. I will fix the capitalization on English and Vulpix (shame on me) and the other mistakes you pointed out. If you have suggestions to make it clearer that the character is simply assuming the worst, please tell me.
Once again, thank you for taking the time to read this and post such a long and detailed review. I am deeply thankful for it – the reason why I stopped writing the first version was the fact that I didn’t receive any feedback and it was very discouraging. I hope I can count on your help in the future!
morphepool129A response to your review at https://www.fanfiction.net/r/11011720/
1. I am aware, but some people might think that I might have used Jirachi as an inspiration. That was just to really clarify that they have no connection whatsoever.
2. I’m pretty sure somewhere there I’ve stated Wishmaker is a little insane in the membrane. Seems legit that he would deviate from the traditional method of writing.
3. Pokemon is a proper noun because it’s a kind of animal. Not only that, it’s also something of a brand. Besides, if you’ve read, I’m pretty sure Wishmaker owns the Mega Pokemon.
Other than that, thanks for pointing out errors. Nice to know some people understand the definition of reviews.
morphepool129A response to your review at https://www.fanfiction.net/r/11011720/
If you got this, sorry about not adding it to my earlier reply, but it didn’t cross my mind until now. You might want to consider the context of the story as well as its title. Remember, this didn’t take place in the Pokemon world.
Thank you for the review. I understand these grammar rules, I just may have made those mistakes without realizing. The Pokemon comment, however, is something I believe is simply up to the writer. I know where you’re coming from on it, like how you’d mention ‘your mom’ but if talking to her you’d say ‘Mom.’ I’ve seen stories of this subject written either way, a fact that strengthens my point. Once again, thanks for reviewing, and there will be much more on the way.
That review made no sense.
Darth NightmaricusA response to your review at https://www.fanfiction.net/r/11012866/
Oh, shush. Have you NEVER heard of “Attack of Mewtwo”? The original was taken down but later reposted, but the “sekwel”, as the author calls it, has never been reposted. If not for me, it might have been lost to eternity. The two fanfics (Attack of Mewtwo and its sequel) are considered the “My Immortal” of Pokemon. I write my own fanfics, yes. It’s just that I wished to help preserve a particular fanfic that is considered to be the epitome of Pokemon badfics.
ServusSmithA response to your review at https://www.fanfiction.net/r/11012400/
Thank you for the advice with dialogue rules. I’ll do my best to get that issue under my belt quickly. I’m sure you also caught some tense blunders as well, since this is the first story I’ve attempted to write in the past tense.
As far as eggs, I received nine. I know one was competitive, and a few had hidden abilities, but I am under the impression the rest were normal spreads. Also, historically the majority of my nuzlocke deaths have occurred during training, so having to train every new pokemon from level one would in theory have made it considerably more difficult for me. Looking back, I now realize that if my true intent was to challenge myself as a pokemon game player, I would have banned the exp share and super training. My main intent though is actually to push myself as a writer, which is part of why I greatly appreciate your pointing out my errors in dialogue.
By having it be eggs from others, I have to come up with reasons why certain kinds of pokemon end up crossing paths in places very much not their native home. Reasons that play into the personalities and backstories of characters. Which requires more work in building a world to house these characters, something that I know I struggle with. Using fanfiction for this practice is akin to using training wheels while learning to ride a bike. Some of it is given, some of it conceived.
As far as beldum goes, the type chart for alphasapphire has steel giving no resistance to dark type moves. So purely going by type, he is at a disadvantage with the only typing providing resistance or weakness being its psychic typing. That, being outnumbered, and, with the arrival of the mightyena, out leveled made it a losing situation for the level 5 or six beldum. In game I actually ran into trouble a few times because I assumed he would absorb hits better than he did. That in conjunction with plot purposes have his actual power and ability lower at this point than perhaps he truly was in game. This is very likely to happen throughout the story where characters don’t exactly line up with how strong the in-game counterparts were.
His understanding of pokemon is not a new development for him. It’s source will be made clear eventually. I may not have made it clear/consistent enough, but he can actually ‘speak’ pokemon using growls, hisses, and perhaps a few barks. This is what Birch is hoping to capitalize on by having John be the leader on the communication project.
Thank you again for the review and the editorial/proofreading advice, I truly do appreciate it.
Thank-you very much for reading my first chapter and commenting with such insight on my ridicule and unoriginality! But keep in mind that this a just an extremely rough draft; I’m still changing stuff up and will probably edit this first chapter a lot. I’m still debating whether or not to have Cloud have a dratini, and yes i realize it sounds suspicious when she’s cleaning the wound. But as i tweak stuff and write more, it’ll start to make more sense. And I understand basic grammar rules and know how to start a new paragraph when there’s a new speaker. But I unfortunately will probably not end up doing that, so if you don’t like that fact, it’s all right, just don’t read. And the water was not chlorinated; in no place in the story did i say there was chlorine. Typically bathtubs don’t have chlorine in them because of the fact that the water goes into he tub from pipes in the system. Or, at least that’a my basic understanding of pipelines. But thank you for reading the chapter! :)
Well, my apologies for using the incorrect terminology.
I’m sorry but I don’t see where in the story I used dialogue like you said I did – or, in which your explanation is claiming I did – “Hello.” she said. Because I have reread it, though more along the lines of skimming, so if I have you must give me exactly where I did, otherwise you’re freaking me out for no reason. Not something I appreciate.
As for thoughts, I don’t use thoughts? Considering most of the story in and of itself was just a narrative, I would appreciate examples of where I used thoughts.
I don’t mind constructive criticism, but like I said above, you have to give me specific examples from where I messed up. No offense, but one explanation does nothing to help me out and become a better writer. It just confuses me even more.
PlasmaShinx77Hello. I just wanted to say thank you for reviewing my fanfic with all of those punctuation and grammar tips. My writing has gotton better ever since then. Anyway, I just wanted to know if you had an OC you wanted me to include in the story. Also, you’ve made so many fanfics, and that’s impressive. Keep up the good work!
Shadow Fox Ace
https://www.fanfiction.net/u/6241155/
——————–
Subject: manners
Dude if you dare write a bad review on someone’s story, then you better hope to only get
bad reviews back cause i will find you and i will kill you!
——————–
So in conclusion…
You just love to criticise my writing, don’t you now? Am I to be your only victim? Perhaps I just wasn’t careful with my writing. Fine, I’ll make my amendments, and maybe you should beta read my files, then.
Criticisms aside, how does this story appeal to you?
“A wild [Pokemon] appeared!”
The [Pokemon] is always capitalised. Explain to me why is this the case, when the Pokemon is wild (i.e. not owned) and you clearly said I “capitalize words like pokemon or pikachu or charizard”.This is an entirely different case if we said,
“A wild [animal] appeared!”
The [Pokemon] is always capitalised. Explain to me why is this the case, when the Pokemon is wild (i.e. not owned) and you clearly said I should* “capitalize words like pokemon or pikachu or charizard”.
[I just can’t get Away from capitalizing the names of the pokemon.]
Nor other words, apparently! Way to make your argument convincing.
“They are looked at more as individuals and have a lot more respect in the pokemon world than the animals in the real world.”
I think it’s time to add “…or human” to your list of words that aren’t capitalized.
“But the age level of the people that read
these stories varies. A much younger person would have a harder time
being able to comprehend the story if it’s written perfectly in your
eyes.”
Wow, what a load of crap. Way to make it clear you are making excuses on the fly.
“Does this person even appreciate the effort that went into this?”
…Do people really believe that anyone cares about them? On the Internet?
That’s not autism, that’s delusion.
“I play Pokemon as though specific Pokemon were born to be with certain trainers.”
What.
Do they talk about starters being bred for specific people (which is nonsense, generally, but less so than other options) or some kind of soulmate thing?
“In french, speech is marked with hyphens,
and there is no difference between speech and narration (so it would
look like – Hello, she said. This is it.).”
Weird. Marking the dialogue with hyphens is superior to marking it with quotation marks, in my opinion, but to not mark dialogue tags?
“Anyway, I just wanted to know if you had an OC you wanted me to include in the story.”
So, our first victim?
Actually, marking dialogue with hyphens is pretty common in a lot of languages. I remember thinking that quotation marks were weird when I first started reading/writing in English. Even without the dialogue tags, I’ve always found it easy to tell what’s dialogue and what’s narration; the work is usually structured in such a way to make it clear. So it really can just be a case of different systems and different reading/writing styles.
Of course, if you write a story in English, you really should adhere to English writing conventions, if only for clarity of reading. Most monolingual English-speaking audiences would probably be confused by a story using hyphens as dialogue markers, or at least find it trying to read.
I actually adjust pretty easily to the hyphen form and do see it’s advantages, but you can only switch around between them when everyone has a really good grasp of grammar otherwise. Quotation marks have the benefit of pretty much only being used for that (and I yell at anyone who think it’s a good idea to expand their use) so it’s easier to pick out the dialogue from the general mess that most fics in the category are.
Even when dialogue is marked with hyphens, though, it’s not always the same as in French. Polish uses hyphens, too, but they are ALWAYS inserted between speech and narration, so it would be something like:
– Hello – she said. – How are you doing?
or
– Hello. – She gave him a warm smile.
Personally, I’ve always found the French way to be somewhat confusing, but I guess it’s just something one must get used to.
Yeah, that’s how it’s done in Russian, too (well, that and also comma at the end of dialogue if there is any narration to follow).
I find weird specifically not marking dialogue tags.
…Do people really believe that anyone cares about them? On the Internet?
That’s not autism, that’s delusion.
A hell of a lot of it. He went on to rant about how I was so disrespectful to him and how it meant we couldn’t be “unlikely friends” and in fact I would now be his enemy but not one of his respected enemies and by the way I was the very first person he could say that about and GOOD GOD WHAT MAKES HIM THINK I WANT TO DEAL WITH HIM?
You do it in October too? Still a little new to this.
I reviewed all year round but did more in January. There is a clear connection. I’m more concerned with story stats and there doesn’t seem to be that big of a connection with profile stats.
January Stats: For the month of 2015-01, there have been a total of
346 Views and 245 Visitors to your Profile page. ~26 Reviews during that month
December Stats: For the month of 2014-12, there have been a total of 250 Views and 190 Visitors to your Profile page. ~8 reviews
November Stats: For the month of 2014-11, there have been a total of 222 Views and 177 Visitors to your Profile page. ~1 Review
August Stats: For the month of 2014-08, there have been a total of 379 Views and 233 Visitors to your Profile page. ~15 reviews
It’s like two/three visitors and five views per a review.
The question is what’s the seasonable variation. You reviewed more in January than August, but got more views and almost as many visitors in August. I suspect there’s just a lot of people on around August.
I didn’t notice any months that deviated from the pattern of reviews and profile hits so I didn’t post that much. It’s pretty much a scatter plot around views=200+5runfortunately, I might be in synch with the activity for reviewing.
Okay, so maybe only someone with an inactive account can provide a clear answer on seasonal activity. There’s probably someone here that fits that description.