snowstorm on the yellow sea [M]
Mar 14, 2019 23:43:25 GMT
Post by girl-like-substance on Mar 14, 2019 23:43:25 GMT
Well, it's a little late, but welcome to the forums! :> And you're bringing snowstorm with you, which means I can revisit it, because honestly the last I read anything of it was a very long time ago and my memories of it are pretty hazy. So let's start with the first chapter, I guess!
Fusing the pokémon world with our own is sort of your thing, and this fic is no exception; I really like the crunchiness of the setting, for want of a better word – like this is a world where you sense a lot of systems, with history and culture and context. There are delegations, organised by municipal region; there are systems of pokémon exchange, limitations on ball use, pokémon transportation systems, tourism, lots and lots of little details that add up to give a strong impression of a living, breathing world.
I also really like how present the pokémon are! This is always something I judge a pokémon fic on, like whether the pokémon have character and personality or they're just accessories for their trainers, and they're definitely the former here – even if basically just by getting in the way a whole bunch. Throughout the whole of that early conversation, everyone is just trying to get their pokémon to calm down, and then you've got Jessica bugging Marie for inscrutable clefairy reasons too – plus those hints that she's got some potentially pretty serious separation anxieties, too! That should be fun to see developed.
However, I think sometimes you do go a bit overboard on the amount of detail you introduce at any one time. We don't need as much information about that wailord-watching boat crash as you give us, and probably not even quite as much about the process of learning to boat itself, either. I like what you give us, but in a few places I felt like the story was kinda stopping for a bit to tell us about the world.
This also kinda applies to the way you give us information about the characters: like, you do a good job of showing Marie's discomfort with the expectations she's inherited from her dad, through that conversation with Addy and the others, but then you also tell us about it in a lot more detail than we need, given that you just demonstrated it really competently. You can have a bit more confidence in your ability to convey subtleties of character, I think! The first bit worked great without the subsequent explanation, honestly.
Finally, I have to note that I'm in two minds about the premise of this? Like, trusting a bunch of teenagers to boat to a spot just a little way off the Korean DMZ is an objectively terrible idea, and in the context of a more real-world kinda universe, it's hard to see how this got approved by any of the governments involved. On the other hand … it's exactly the sort of ridiculous, borderline abusive situation that might be engineered by a League in the games, you know? So depending on exactly how much influence we're supposed to see from the games here, I think it could go either way. If you wanted to go for the latter, I feel like maybe it could be better signposted.
Anyway, there are also a bunch of little things I noted down as I read through, so let's close out with that:
That should be 'en route'.
Missing a full stop at the end of this sentence. Also, it's a comma splice – that is, you've joined two complete sentences together with a comma, which isn't grammatical, but which sometimes works anyway. I'm not sure it does here; I point it out because it recurs a lot throughout the chapter, and most of them I feel would work better if they were split into separate sentences, or joined with a semicolon or whatever.
Missing 'be' here.
The only time you punctuate dialogue like this is if it's one sentence split in two by the attribution; when it's two separate sentences, as here, the attribution should end in a full stop and the second line of dialogue should begin with a capital letter. This one happens a lot throughout the chapter, actually.
Should be a full stop at the end of that sentence.
You need a comma after 'girl' here.
I feel like both these instances of 'on' should be 'in'? Possibly, anyway.
And that's about it! Throw in like, the worst possible time for a lugia to show up and ruin things, and obviously Marie's about to have a very bad time indeed. :p Honestly, that's about what everyone should have expected. This whole expedition was more or less doomed from the start. :V
Fusing the pokémon world with our own is sort of your thing, and this fic is no exception; I really like the crunchiness of the setting, for want of a better word – like this is a world where you sense a lot of systems, with history and culture and context. There are delegations, organised by municipal region; there are systems of pokémon exchange, limitations on ball use, pokémon transportation systems, tourism, lots and lots of little details that add up to give a strong impression of a living, breathing world.
I also really like how present the pokémon are! This is always something I judge a pokémon fic on, like whether the pokémon have character and personality or they're just accessories for their trainers, and they're definitely the former here – even if basically just by getting in the way a whole bunch. Throughout the whole of that early conversation, everyone is just trying to get their pokémon to calm down, and then you've got Jessica bugging Marie for inscrutable clefairy reasons too – plus those hints that she's got some potentially pretty serious separation anxieties, too! That should be fun to see developed.
However, I think sometimes you do go a bit overboard on the amount of detail you introduce at any one time. We don't need as much information about that wailord-watching boat crash as you give us, and probably not even quite as much about the process of learning to boat itself, either. I like what you give us, but in a few places I felt like the story was kinda stopping for a bit to tell us about the world.
This also kinda applies to the way you give us information about the characters: like, you do a good job of showing Marie's discomfort with the expectations she's inherited from her dad, through that conversation with Addy and the others, but then you also tell us about it in a lot more detail than we need, given that you just demonstrated it really competently. You can have a bit more confidence in your ability to convey subtleties of character, I think! The first bit worked great without the subsequent explanation, honestly.
Finally, I have to note that I'm in two minds about the premise of this? Like, trusting a bunch of teenagers to boat to a spot just a little way off the Korean DMZ is an objectively terrible idea, and in the context of a more real-world kinda universe, it's hard to see how this got approved by any of the governments involved. On the other hand … it's exactly the sort of ridiculous, borderline abusive situation that might be engineered by a League in the games, you know? So depending on exactly how much influence we're supposed to see from the games here, I think it could go either way. If you wanted to go for the latter, I feel like maybe it could be better signposted.
Anyway, there are also a bunch of little things I noted down as I read through, so let's close out with that:
and told us that we were on route to South Korea.
That should be 'en route'.
There was an air of excitement at breakfast after the news, my friend Addy and I had talked excitedly about it in between bites of cereal
Missing a full stop at the end of this sentence. Also, it's a comma splice – that is, you've joined two complete sentences together with a comma, which isn't grammatical, but which sometimes works anyway. I'm not sure it does here; I point it out because it recurs a lot throughout the chapter, and most of them I feel would work better if they were split into separate sentences, or joined with a semicolon or whatever.
“I bet marie's already thinking about gym strategies,” he had said, “trying to a little overachiever
Missing 'be' here.
"So what are you going to do then?" Akira, a boy about two years younger than me, said, as I wrangled Jessica back, "instead of battling the gyms?"
The only time you punctuate dialogue like this is if it's one sentence split in two by the attribution; when it's two separate sentences, as here, the attribution should end in a full stop and the second line of dialogue should begin with a capital letter. This one happens a lot throughout the chapter, actually.
He was smiling brightly, dressed in a bright red hoodie,
Should be a full stop at the end of that sentence.
I noticed Sarah, a pale, practically stick-thin girl rolling her eyes at me.
You need a comma after 'girl' here.
Addy is practically lounging on his boat, more comfortable on that thing than I'll ever be.
I feel like both these instances of 'on' should be 'in'? Possibly, anyway.
And that's about it! Throw in like, the worst possible time for a lugia to show up and ruin things, and obviously Marie's about to have a very bad time indeed. :p Honestly, that's about what everyone should have expected. This whole expedition was more or less doomed from the start. :V