A typical trainerfic with a typical shiny, a sort of out of focus fic revolving around comforting a character, a superhero sort of story set in the regular world with a pokemon falling in, a story featuring Kyurem that’s doing its absolute best to not be about Kyurem, and what appears to be setup for a sue to get Mewtwo.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13794976/1/Pok%C3%A9mon-Golden-Heart
Opening your story with a character waking up for the day is generic and horribly, horribly overdone, and to be honest, it’s so incredibly dull and boring a start that even if I hadn’t seen it, very literally here, thousands upon thousands of times before, I would still tell you you should have started at some other, interesting point.
[Hello, my name is Ty, I had my 12th birthday recently, and now my mom wants me to start my Pokémon journey today. For as long as I could remember, my dream was to become the greatest Pokémon Trainer in all of Johto, maybe even the world!]
Write out numbers with letters.
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 trainer or professor or gym. That also applies words like “mom” and “dad” – if they’re being used as a person’s name, they’re capitalized, if they’re not, they’re not.
If he wants to be a pokemon trainer so badly, why did he wait so long and why is he only going now that his mother decided it’s time for him?
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. (“Speak” is not a speech verb.) 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 or any other ones with thoughts.
[“Mom? Uh… Well, this is gonna be quite a long journey, so I have a favour to ask if you. You see, could I get you to look after a small bit of the prize money I receive? I’m sure it’s a great idea to save up my earnings as a Pokémon Trainer, right?”.
“Right, and the only real way to send money digitally is through a Pokégear, which yours was recently fixed! I asked Daya to give you your Pokégear, so be sure to register Daya into your phone contacts later, ‘kay?” She requested, to which I nodded.]
This is incredibly clunky writing. You don’t need to include minor game mechanics, let alone put them front and center for no reason, and your characters should not be explaining things to each other that they both already know.
[“Professor… Correct me if I’m wrong, but this Cyndaquil… It’s shiny, i-isn’t it?!” I gave him an incredulous look. The professor looked at me just as dumbfounded.
“My assistant caught this Cyndaquil, but he never told me it was shiny, I guess he just wanted to surprise the lucky trainer who would have chosen the Pokémon.]
Pointless yet insanely rare cosmetic elements like shinies are generally a bad idea because they seem to only be there for the sake of making your character extra special without actually doing anything interesting for the story. This is even worse when it’s an event that has no connection to your character at all – someone going through the effort of finding one, or being willing to spend that much money, or so on, at least has some connection to the character and world.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13795063/1/Footsteps-Outside-the-Door
[Samuel finished the tea and found Gary sitting on the couch, pencil and paper in hand, his tongue sticking out like it did when he was in deep concentration.
He sat beside Gary, whose focus still didn’t break. Gary looked tense, and there was a haunted look in his eyes. No child’s eyes should look like that; what had done that to Samuel’s bright, confident grandson?
“Gary…”
“Grandpa,” Gary said suddenly, desperately. “Have you ever seen a pokémon that looked like this?”
He held up a drawing and Samuel studied it. It was… a menacing sight, but not a familiar one. He shook his head. “I’m sorry, Gary, I’ve never seen anything like this before.”
The way Gary’s face fell broke Samuel’s heart. Gary sighed. “Figures. The pokédex didn’t recognize it either.”]
It feels really strange, sort of disorienting, that there’s no actual description of what the picture looks like. It is possible to guess, with the mention of the Indigo League being the most recent major event and that Gary tried the pokedex on Mewtwo, that it’s probably Mewtwo and the Earth Gym, but for one thing it takes me out of the story to try to put those pieces together and for another it just doesn’t feel right to be in someone’s head as they say they’re looking at it without being given anything about what they’re looking at. There’s incidental details – the tea, the couch. But there’s not much sense of things existing beyond this immediate scene and Gary’s feelings.
And I guess that’s kind of what feels off to me about the whole thing. It’s a string of scenes of Gary being comforted by Oak, but there’s not much context to any of them, so it’s someone getting comforted without doing much setup for why they need comfort, and only the faintest sense of Oak as a person himself – no interest in an unknown pokemon or it did beyond concern for Gary, just as he seems to have taken the loss of his own son and sudden injection of Gary into his life remarkably in stride.
(And, while I get that this is character-gets-comforted, it does seem off to me how Oak is handling this purely with listening and reassurance and being there, given Gary’s personality issues and how much he’s materially spoiled – he gave Gary a car, and it seems like Gary also got double starter pokemon given we know the three other kids from Pallet had the three regular starters but his eevee is treated as his primary pokemon. I can believe Oak was a good listener too, but he seems to be the sort of person who sees crying and buys a mockingbird and diamond ring.)
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13795305/1/Merry-advanceshipping
Capitalize your title properly.
[“I never said anything like that” Exclaimed the only girl of the group May maple the fifteen year old girl with Brown hair tied into ponytails that went to both side’s of her head and sapphire eye’s that paired nicely with her red shirt that had black circle around her neck area and black bike shorts which had a white skirt around it plus a red bandanna with white pokeball on her head to top it off.]
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. (“Speak” is not a speech verb.) 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 or any other ones with thoughts.
Stop capitalizing random words.
Stop putting apostrophes before “s”. That’s only to indicate that something possesses ownership of the following word.
Don’t write an enormous single sentence of description. Space that out and think about which parts are relevant.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13795656/1/Sacred-Swordsmen-of-Justice
[ He had planned it all out; 10 minutes before the final bell, which would mean the end of Friday, meaning the weekend, meaning another week closer to the end of the school year.]
That’s not a plan.
Semicolons should only ever be used when connecting two complete sentences and even then almost never.
Write out numbers with letters.
Why do you have a scene break between Vera helping him up and him brushing himself off?
You’re missing punctuation from the ends of a number of your sentences. Proofread better.
[“I just…I don’t know. I don’t wanna think about what he’d do to you?” Cody questioned more than stated.]
“Questioned” doesn’t mean “asked”. Just say “asked”.
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. (“Speak” is not a speech verb.) 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 or any other ones with thoughts.
[“I don’t know!” Keldeo snapped back “That was the first time I ever used that kind of power, I don’t know what happens after that. I don’t know what to do!”]
Okay, I do like the idea Keldeo is pretty out of his depth here, but at the same time, there’s a difference between say, not knowing how Cody’s supposed to activate the power because Keldeo’s not clear on exactly every step, and saying that his lack of personal experience means he doesn’t have the slightest clue what the power does or anything about what’s going to happen.
[“What the heck is a Cobalion!?”]
Given pokemon don’t appear to exist in this world, why is he assuming it’s “a” anything instead of the person’s name? If Keldeo is Keldeo, surely it’s “Who the heck is Cobalion?”
[You helped me. I want to help you.”
Keldeo finally turned to face Cody, eyeing him up and down before snorting “Take away the medallion and what are you? Some scrawny human who doesn’t stand a fighting chance against what’s about to happen.”
Keldeo had a point, what place did a gamer nerd have in a battle like this “I’m the scrawny human who knows this world better than you do.” Keldeo’s glare hardened, the wind picking up “Let me help you, and I can try and…-!?”]
I’m really not getting this argument. Whether or not he’d be useless without the medallion doesn’t matter because they’ve got the medallion. You don’t tell someone with a gun that they shouldn’t fight on the basis if they threw away the gun they’d be a lot worse at it. If Keldeo doesn’t want to risk someone else’s life, or thinks that a kid in particular shouldn’t be involved, he should just say that rather than that if he intentionally refuses to give the kid a superweapon the kid will be less useful than when he does have the superweapon.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13795983/1/Rising-from-the-Ashes
Nonstory chapters are banned and this is pretty much exactly why – just put your couple sentences of author’s note on top of the chapter.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13795983/2/Rising-from-the-Ashes
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. (“Speak” is not a speech verb.) 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 or any other ones 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 of places or things. Similar reasoning should be applied to any other words you’re thinking of capitalizing, like trainer or professor or gym. That also applies words like “mom” and “dad” – if they’re being used as a person’s name, they’re capitalized, if they’re not, they’re not.
This is also ridiculously short for a chapter and nothing happened. Your first chapter should be showcasing what’s actually interesting about your story. This was him waking up and finding out that he should go somewhere else because someone else had something else to show him, and then ending.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13796023/1/FROZEN-The-Story-of-Kyurem
[ I was quite powerful at that time; I reigned as the most powerful pokémon in Unova. Even of all the legendary pokémon, I was the strongest. ]
This seems kind of a weird angle to be taking. Whether or not Kyurem is powerful and then lost that seems a whole lot less important than the whole tearing apart in a personality conflict bit.
[You know this part of the story as well. As time passed, the two siblings grew distant from each other. One had been hardened by battle and was analytic and truthful about the joys and sorrows of the world, and the other was still idealistic about the future. Perhaps the truthful sibling saw that the only way this would end was with war. Or perhaps the idealistic sibling saw it as the best means by which to ensure Unova pursued those ideals; the ends justify the means. ]
“Perhaps”? Kyurem was right there. And as you say, the next thing they do is both present their case to Kyurem. This is in first person about someone who was dead center for all of this but you’re writing it like it’s a report on ancient history where everything’s being reconstructed out of tertiary sources.
[To this day, I don’t know how this was possible. It must have been the will of some legendary far more powerful than me. Probably from the Sinnoh region. Maybe even Arceus. Or perhaps my love for those to humans was too strong, and my own desire to please them both manifested as a horrible split. Regardless, the experience was horrible. I could feel something in my thoughts like two other once-unconscious minds, now bubbling to the surface. It was like what humans call madness; one body couldn’t hold three minds.]
Similarly, this is taking a very interesting conflict and turning it into a wizard did it. You have Kyurem claim that they believe in both siblings’ viewpoints, claim they couldn’t bring themselves to choose…but instead of actually showing this, you spend more time trying to explain how some force could’ve made it happen. You don’t show them listening, you don’t show them feeling torn. There’s no actual sense given here that Kyurem is the other two, just that the other two suddenly appear – they could as well be a magic double pregnancy.
[And then: oh God, oh Arceus, I was splitting in half.]
This is written like you think everyone fundamentally thinks according to a specific culturally Christian mindset but just swaps around the exact words for the same universal concepts.
[ I could see myself in both of them. Despite the fire burning in her tail, Reshiram has my cold way of looking and the world, my caution, but she also had my fiery passion when it came to protecting who and what I had determined was right. Zekrom had the bursting idealism that had led me to live with and love humans in the first place.]
You need to actually characterize your characters. You can’t just have your first person narrator whose only actual personality trait has been bragging about being really powerful claim to have caution or protectiveness or love.
[I was discarded, presumed dead by the heroes, and now useless to them, in a distant field near the small village of Lacunosa
town (an area infamous for being unwilling or unable to supply manpower to the fight). Did they grieve for me? Probably not, or not much]
Again: actually lived this. As they appear to still have been aware, they don’t need to wonder how the heroes reacted, because they would’ve actually experienced it. Also, weird spacing issue there.
[My mind, too, was colder and harsher. I had been abandoned by friends and left to freeze and die in a distant field. Betrayed by humans, like so many pokémon who’d been captured by bad masters or had their homes paved over.]
That’s not colder and harsher, that’s just weirdly delusional.
[Still, I was Kyurem, and post-meteorite, back to my old level of power. ]
Pretty sure they are not canonically meant to be exactly as powerful as before, and I really don’t see how it fits into whatever the intended message is here – they were incredibly powerful, then they were hurt for, you say, up to several months, then they were back to being the same incredibly powerful creature but differently typed.
[Crime rose; it soon became apparent that my chasm was an ideal place for illegal deals and for assaults. My view of humans changed one night, when a man dragged his wife there and threatened to kill her. He said outright that my Giant Chasm was the perfect place for such a crime, where her screams would go unheard, and his crime unseen in the cover of darkness. In that moment, I realized that humans in power were utterly wicked, but those at the mercy of others, well…]
And none of these crimes ever involved humans harming pokemon? The only possible thing that could come up is them rushing out to heroically save a human?
[After that, I ran out and ate every human that committed a crime, even if they were merely littering inside my chasm. I once ate a policeman who falsely accused a man of one illegal activity or another, merely for walking alone at night.]
The idea of Kyurem as a near-amoral force that just responds to everything with murder is kind of interesting. Trying immediately to walk back from that by your specific example being a crooked cop, less so.
[Perhaps you want to know what I do with those gifts. The rare candies… I share those with the local pokémon. The nuggets… Well, I’ve listened to human folk stories for centuries, including those of the saint that brings gifts to the good in the middle of the Winter Solstice Festival. I distribute those nuggets to the good, and in the largest proportions to the poor on that very night each year.]
And somehow it goes from there to Santa Claus Kyurem.
So overall I just really don’t see what the point of this being Kyurem is. It’s apparently not to get a personal perspective on the events, or to dig into the psychology of what happened that caused the original dragon to split, or to explore how weird of a mind the discarded husk body might have. This is just an ice type pokemon who for some reason gave a very vague retelling of the BW origin story of the legendaries and who likes to eat criminals.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13796047/1/Illusion-of-Fate
[The metal plates glide silently as the psychic type lifts its hands towards its opponents; several Grunt pokemon clearly standing no chance against it trembling in fear.]
Don’t capitalize “grunt”.
Semicolons should only ever be used when connecting two complete sentences and even then almost never.
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. (“Speak” is not a speech verb.) 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 or any other ones with thoughts.
[With that, the pokemon turns and floats back to their holding chamber, a massive machine that arches over a platform. It’s connected to the main computer Dom has access to so he may monitor Mewtwo 24/7, its brain activity and if it speaks to itself out loud. ]
[“While its control of its power is getting better, there are moments in which he’s vulnerable. Times when its emotions are getting the best of him, leaving his mind open for control.”]
You should have consistent pronouns for Mewtwo.
[He recalls the young girl that was there too, a shame she wasn’t around to witness their bond grow. Giovanni prevented any contact with her, wanting to know how she will grow organically without a single hint to what’s inside. An admirable endeavor, but Dom’s logical mind sees no point in it. If she’s the control, she should be here.]
That seems a contrivance.
There’s only one of her, so why is it more interesting to see what she’d turn out to be left alone than what she’d turn out to be not left alone? Especially when with the second option they could actually be studying her and already know a lot about how she’s growing.
[For weeks he’s been looking for a way to slip in a bit of control on the pokemon. Pokeballs don’t have an obedience factor in them, pokemon caught in them want to stay, and Mewtwo is too volatile to trust them to want something like that.]
That’s a contradiction in terms. What exactly does catching involve if it only means the pokemon want to be inside and there’s nothing influencing that? If you don’t want pokeballs to be the answer, you don’t have to redefine pokeballs to be non-catching catching devices, you can just say he doesn’t think their influence is strong enough for Mewtwo.
[“The girl,” Dom replies, leaning back and crossing one leg over the other. He doubts Giovanni will agree, but it’s always worth it to rile him up a bit. “She’s supposed to have this bond with it. Why not let them grow together?”]
How would adding a random person who you have no control over and who is probably going to be actively antagonistic to you to a situation where you’re barely keeping control through constant extremely careful lying help? Why would her coming with a bond so Mewtwo is even more likely to disregard you in favor of her be in any way a benefit?
I thought he disapproved of leaving her be because he wanted to poke her brain and see if there’s anything useful he could replicate, not because this is one of those mad science labs that exists solely to hand awesome things to main characters.
[“Do you think I could maintain her?” Giovanni frowns. “She’s the child of my brother, it’s not plausible to take her and keep her hidden from the world. I may have money but not enough for the movement, building and destruction of a new base every few months to keep her out of sight of her father.”
A hiccup Dom didn’t expect. Makes sense, however, despite the executives working for Giovanni; Aaron is resourceful. He’d no doubt sniff out his daughter at every turn.]
I mean, the solution to that is to shoot Aaron while you’re kidnapping the kid. It’s plausible Giovanni might decide he doesn’t want to do that, but he shouldn’t be acting like there’s no possible way he could manage this.
People really need less “the character just came preloaded with a special bond” and more “the character actually forms a bond, which we see, through their own actions”.
And so January 15th is done!