AetherX
make plove not warble
- Joined
- Jun 10, 2010
- Messages
- 2,102
- Reaction score
- 519
Hey there! Awards review here. Congratulations on second place in Drama! It was a hotly contested category, and you should absolutely be proud of that achievement. I jumped at the chance to read this because it's been around for a while and I always like reading stories start to finish. I don't normally do categories in my reviews, but this turned out to be a long one, so I thought it might help. Away we gooo!
Plot:
I wouldn't go so far as to say that the plot is straight-up cliche, but a lot of the action/adventure genre standards are present here. Chosen one, prophecy, magical artifact, ravaged hometown, villain that wants to destroy the world... all that jazz. It's nothing brand new or super original, but something I noticed early on is that you seemed to have a pretty clear grasp of these tropes, why they worked well for so many stories before, and how to execute them. Originality is a great goal and generally preferable to the same ol' same ol', but I think a lot of people get too caught up in trying to be new and different. What you have here, on the other hand, is a relatively standard story that's just plain well paced and well structured. I can respect that, and I think writing a good story in that way is a skill that's underappreciated.
That said, there were a couple different things added to the story that unfortunately felt like they were meant to create tension or open up future plot points, but ended up getting in the way of the plot. The concept of the Deity Elect was key among these. When Matheus dies he'll become a legend! So the villains don't want to kill him! But actually if someone else kills him then he won't become a legend! But the villains don't know that! But it doesn't matter because some villains don't believe he's Deity Elect and are trying to kill him anyway! And in the end it was all basically just manufactured tension because Arceus exists as a thinking, feeling being, and can just resurrect people and turn them into legends whenever he wants. It felt a little too much like a plot mechanic that could be twisted into allowing any kind of shenanigans the story needed. A persistent deus ex machina, if you will. I suppose that's always going to be the case when one of your characters is a literal god. I might have changed it to something more vague, like Arceus promises Theus a "great gift" or something and then when he dies, Arceus just brings him back as a legend. The concept of resurrection being a possibility hurts the tension. Is it a cool idea? Sure! But when we know about it beforehand, it takes away from the drama.
Characters:
Pretty much every main character had some kind of clear arc, which is great. The one exception to this was Matheus. In short, he seemed like a character that has already seen all the development he's going to get. He didn't change much at all throughout the story, more ebbing and flowing as we learned more about his character. I'll go a bit more in depth on him since he was nominated for Best Protagonist. He actually got nominated for both Best Protagonist and Best Supporting, but that's not allowed so I kind of arbitrarily chose protagonist. Hope that's okay.
Let's start with development, since that's one of my main issues. I don't think slowly revealing a hidden past counts as development. He reminded me of Aragorn in the LotR novels (not the films). He started the story pretty much knowing what he needed to do, and then he did it (or at least tried to). The story had the occasional twist and turn, but none of them shook him up in any way. He wasn't changed by any character death or traumatic event. He just kept on keeping on. He's cool in that way, but it would have been more engaging if certain events changed his outlook some. That said, he has a long history that was planned out from his childhood through to his death, which helps a lot in making him a deeper and more believable character.
There is certainly variety to his character, which is a nice departure from the usual archetype based characters. Unfortunately this is mostly because he's just a couple different archetypes mixed into one. They don't exactly mix well either, which I'll elaborate on later.
He was, in some ways, quite original. Making the badass mentor character kind of a goofball had it's downsides, but it was at least a unique idea. Given that so much of the rest of the story relies on well executed cliches, Matheus stands out. The whole cloak and hat thing made him smell just a tad Sue-ish, but the rest of the story made up for that.
I should probably expand on that "downsides" comment. Humor is entirely subjective, so take this with a large grain of salt, but I just wasn't feeling it with him. A lot of the humor is slapstick/physical, which doesn't play as well with prose, and most of the rest of it involves his voracious appetite, which is enough of a cliche that it's almost not that amusing anymore. Don't get me wrong, I've used that trope before too. It's easy humor, but (and again, this is 100% subjective) it just doesn't work for me anymore. The worst part is that the clumsy glutton comic relief character doesn't leave a lot of room for the storied badass that this guy is supposed to be. How the Lucario who literally almost beat Arceus in a fight can keep absentmindedly falling off a raft is beyond me.
Moving on, when I think about his contribution to the story, I begin to think that I should have gone with judging him as a supporting character. He was a constant presence and a kickstarter to the plot. He helped, literally, change Laryon into the character he needed to be to beat the bad guy.
The main issue with the other characters in this fic is that I didn't feel much of a connection to any of them. By the end, the only character that I could think of as my favorite was a minor character who happened to fulfill an archetype I enjoy reading (Aram, the stoic badass with a heart of gold). The reason for this is that the personal stakes of the characters weakened after the first couple arcs. Originally, Laryon's goal of rescuing Azure and the other children from his village is a solid motivation to leave home, but then the story kind of derails into just being about stopping Arthus from destroying the world in general. Obviously, we know that's not going to happen, so we need something else to worry about. Killing off Wenstrel was a great way of showing that there was a very real chance that Azure or other characters might die, but by that point saving her had become disconnected from Laryon's goal. The emotional core of the story began to fall apart. At the end, it became about Matheus and Laryon's relationship, which was a great moment on its own. The way you described evolution through friendship was fantastic. I just found myself wishing a little more emphasis was put on their developing relationship throughout the story.
One random thought I had was that if the emotional core of the story was about Matheus dealing with his broken friendship with Arthus, it would be amazing. But Laryon being the hero of the story kind of got in the way of that.
Don't get me wrong. Writing big stories like this with a bunch of characters, alternating viewpoints, and a twisty plot is tough. You did a pretty damn good job of it as is.
Style/Writing:
Let's talk about worldbuilding. Coming up with an original region is an admirable pursuit. I've only played one Mystery Dungeon game, but this world seems very much in line with the series. It felt like a game world. However, that's not necessarily a good thing. This is a written story, not a video game. Worldbuilding-wise, video games don't need to make a lot of sense, since the rules are often stretched and distorted to accommodate gameplay. But, as they say, fiction needs to make even more sense than real life. Because of the video game-ness of the world, the story seemed kind of out of place in the setting. Not having quite enough environmental description for my taste did not help with that. You did a decent job justifying the game elements, but I still wasn't sold. It's like a lot of the items and things were in there just because this was a Mystery Dungeon fic, not because they're necessary to the plot.
I don't read a lot of MD fanfic, but I've gotten the impression that this is a staple. It is what it is, so again, take this feedback with a grain of salt. I suppose in fanfiction we all grow used to the idiosyncrasies of our fandoms, but I guess I'm just not that accustomed to Mystery Dungeon yet. Some of the justifications were clever, like civilized Pokemon receiving the blessings of the lake trio, making them superior to wild Pokemon. Others, like items being randomly generated in dungeons because that's just the way Arceus made it, were less satisfying.
There were some moments though, particularly the nomadic water-types and Deity Continent, that highlighted that you do have some good original ideas that really added to your world.
Getting a bit more technical, your writing style definitely improved over the course of the fic, and was decent overall. That said, there were some issues that held the story back a bit. Hammy dialogue during the most dramatic scenes hurt the emotional impact. I like cheesy one-liners as much as the next guy, but it really felt more like "this character needs to say this because that's what these kinds of characters say in situations like this" rather than natural, clever dialogue that reflects the characters and world (which you did just fine in other places). Arthus's very evil-villainy dialogue during the final confrontation was probably the worst offender here. But then, he was going crazy, so maybe that's justified.
I also caught more than a few typos and grammar or punctuation issues. Unfortunately I didn't write any of them down. Sorry about that
I'll give my usual advice of reading your chapter out loud, making sure to be deliberate in pacing your voice with how the words/sentences flow (pausing on commas and all that). I'm not saying you have to stand in public and talk to your computer, just whispering it under your breath is enough. I've always found that helps me catch most of my errors. A few will always slip through, though, and that's when a beta reader comes in handy.
Final thoughts:
In conclusion, this is a solid story that makes me curious to see others' takes on the Mystery Dungeon universe. It tells a simple story in an effective manner. Although the middle chapters were a bit of a slog, by the end, I was really glad I read it.
As far as general constructive criticism goes, all I can say is to keep at it. And remember to read! Not just other fanfiction, but published stuff as well. Analyze it, think about, ask what makes it good. What makes it memorable? What makes it emotional? What makes it intense? You seem to have a solid grasp on a lot of these concepts already, even if it's just an intuitive thing and not purposeful, but there's always room for improvement.
I apologize if this review seems to be more focused on the negatives than the positives. You got a lot of stuff right in this story, which kind of upgrades you to a different kind of critique for me, which tends to sound critical. I couldn't criticize emotional stakes of characters if you weren't already writing a decent plot and characters in the first place. I always struggle with adapting awards judging. I could have rewritten this into something more concise and fitting to my regular review style, but I figured after all your hard work finishing this story, you deserved a nice long review. Good job on that, by the way. It looks like you stuck to a consistent upload schedule over a relatively long period, which is tough to do. Especially without getting much in the way of feedback :/ I'm glad you kept at it, though. Let me know if you have any questions. Good luck in your future writing, and congratulations again!
Plot:
I wouldn't go so far as to say that the plot is straight-up cliche, but a lot of the action/adventure genre standards are present here. Chosen one, prophecy, magical artifact, ravaged hometown, villain that wants to destroy the world... all that jazz. It's nothing brand new or super original, but something I noticed early on is that you seemed to have a pretty clear grasp of these tropes, why they worked well for so many stories before, and how to execute them. Originality is a great goal and generally preferable to the same ol' same ol', but I think a lot of people get too caught up in trying to be new and different. What you have here, on the other hand, is a relatively standard story that's just plain well paced and well structured. I can respect that, and I think writing a good story in that way is a skill that's underappreciated.
That said, there were a couple different things added to the story that unfortunately felt like they were meant to create tension or open up future plot points, but ended up getting in the way of the plot. The concept of the Deity Elect was key among these. When Matheus dies he'll become a legend! So the villains don't want to kill him! But actually if someone else kills him then he won't become a legend! But the villains don't know that! But it doesn't matter because some villains don't believe he's Deity Elect and are trying to kill him anyway! And in the end it was all basically just manufactured tension because Arceus exists as a thinking, feeling being, and can just resurrect people and turn them into legends whenever he wants. It felt a little too much like a plot mechanic that could be twisted into allowing any kind of shenanigans the story needed. A persistent deus ex machina, if you will. I suppose that's always going to be the case when one of your characters is a literal god. I might have changed it to something more vague, like Arceus promises Theus a "great gift" or something and then when he dies, Arceus just brings him back as a legend. The concept of resurrection being a possibility hurts the tension. Is it a cool idea? Sure! But when we know about it beforehand, it takes away from the drama.
Characters:
Pretty much every main character had some kind of clear arc, which is great. The one exception to this was Matheus. In short, he seemed like a character that has already seen all the development he's going to get. He didn't change much at all throughout the story, more ebbing and flowing as we learned more about his character. I'll go a bit more in depth on him since he was nominated for Best Protagonist. He actually got nominated for both Best Protagonist and Best Supporting, but that's not allowed so I kind of arbitrarily chose protagonist. Hope that's okay.
Let's start with development, since that's one of my main issues. I don't think slowly revealing a hidden past counts as development. He reminded me of Aragorn in the LotR novels (not the films). He started the story pretty much knowing what he needed to do, and then he did it (or at least tried to). The story had the occasional twist and turn, but none of them shook him up in any way. He wasn't changed by any character death or traumatic event. He just kept on keeping on. He's cool in that way, but it would have been more engaging if certain events changed his outlook some. That said, he has a long history that was planned out from his childhood through to his death, which helps a lot in making him a deeper and more believable character.
There is certainly variety to his character, which is a nice departure from the usual archetype based characters. Unfortunately this is mostly because he's just a couple different archetypes mixed into one. They don't exactly mix well either, which I'll elaborate on later.
He was, in some ways, quite original. Making the badass mentor character kind of a goofball had it's downsides, but it was at least a unique idea. Given that so much of the rest of the story relies on well executed cliches, Matheus stands out. The whole cloak and hat thing made him smell just a tad Sue-ish, but the rest of the story made up for that.
I should probably expand on that "downsides" comment. Humor is entirely subjective, so take this with a large grain of salt, but I just wasn't feeling it with him. A lot of the humor is slapstick/physical, which doesn't play as well with prose, and most of the rest of it involves his voracious appetite, which is enough of a cliche that it's almost not that amusing anymore. Don't get me wrong, I've used that trope before too. It's easy humor, but (and again, this is 100% subjective) it just doesn't work for me anymore. The worst part is that the clumsy glutton comic relief character doesn't leave a lot of room for the storied badass that this guy is supposed to be. How the Lucario who literally almost beat Arceus in a fight can keep absentmindedly falling off a raft is beyond me.
Moving on, when I think about his contribution to the story, I begin to think that I should have gone with judging him as a supporting character. He was a constant presence and a kickstarter to the plot. He helped, literally, change Laryon into the character he needed to be to beat the bad guy.
The main issue with the other characters in this fic is that I didn't feel much of a connection to any of them. By the end, the only character that I could think of as my favorite was a minor character who happened to fulfill an archetype I enjoy reading (Aram, the stoic badass with a heart of gold). The reason for this is that the personal stakes of the characters weakened after the first couple arcs. Originally, Laryon's goal of rescuing Azure and the other children from his village is a solid motivation to leave home, but then the story kind of derails into just being about stopping Arthus from destroying the world in general. Obviously, we know that's not going to happen, so we need something else to worry about. Killing off Wenstrel was a great way of showing that there was a very real chance that Azure or other characters might die, but by that point saving her had become disconnected from Laryon's goal. The emotional core of the story began to fall apart. At the end, it became about Matheus and Laryon's relationship, which was a great moment on its own. The way you described evolution through friendship was fantastic. I just found myself wishing a little more emphasis was put on their developing relationship throughout the story.
One random thought I had was that if the emotional core of the story was about Matheus dealing with his broken friendship with Arthus, it would be amazing. But Laryon being the hero of the story kind of got in the way of that.
Don't get me wrong. Writing big stories like this with a bunch of characters, alternating viewpoints, and a twisty plot is tough. You did a pretty damn good job of it as is.
Style/Writing:
Let's talk about worldbuilding. Coming up with an original region is an admirable pursuit. I've only played one Mystery Dungeon game, but this world seems very much in line with the series. It felt like a game world. However, that's not necessarily a good thing. This is a written story, not a video game. Worldbuilding-wise, video games don't need to make a lot of sense, since the rules are often stretched and distorted to accommodate gameplay. But, as they say, fiction needs to make even more sense than real life. Because of the video game-ness of the world, the story seemed kind of out of place in the setting. Not having quite enough environmental description for my taste did not help with that. You did a decent job justifying the game elements, but I still wasn't sold. It's like a lot of the items and things were in there just because this was a Mystery Dungeon fic, not because they're necessary to the plot.
I don't read a lot of MD fanfic, but I've gotten the impression that this is a staple. It is what it is, so again, take this feedback with a grain of salt. I suppose in fanfiction we all grow used to the idiosyncrasies of our fandoms, but I guess I'm just not that accustomed to Mystery Dungeon yet. Some of the justifications were clever, like civilized Pokemon receiving the blessings of the lake trio, making them superior to wild Pokemon. Others, like items being randomly generated in dungeons because that's just the way Arceus made it, were less satisfying.
There were some moments though, particularly the nomadic water-types and Deity Continent, that highlighted that you do have some good original ideas that really added to your world.
Getting a bit more technical, your writing style definitely improved over the course of the fic, and was decent overall. That said, there were some issues that held the story back a bit. Hammy dialogue during the most dramatic scenes hurt the emotional impact. I like cheesy one-liners as much as the next guy, but it really felt more like "this character needs to say this because that's what these kinds of characters say in situations like this" rather than natural, clever dialogue that reflects the characters and world (which you did just fine in other places). Arthus's very evil-villainy dialogue during the final confrontation was probably the worst offender here. But then, he was going crazy, so maybe that's justified.
I also caught more than a few typos and grammar or punctuation issues. Unfortunately I didn't write any of them down. Sorry about that
I'll give my usual advice of reading your chapter out loud, making sure to be deliberate in pacing your voice with how the words/sentences flow (pausing on commas and all that). I'm not saying you have to stand in public and talk to your computer, just whispering it under your breath is enough. I've always found that helps me catch most of my errors. A few will always slip through, though, and that's when a beta reader comes in handy.Final thoughts:
In conclusion, this is a solid story that makes me curious to see others' takes on the Mystery Dungeon universe. It tells a simple story in an effective manner. Although the middle chapters were a bit of a slog, by the end, I was really glad I read it.
As far as general constructive criticism goes, all I can say is to keep at it. And remember to read! Not just other fanfiction, but published stuff as well. Analyze it, think about, ask what makes it good. What makes it memorable? What makes it emotional? What makes it intense? You seem to have a solid grasp on a lot of these concepts already, even if it's just an intuitive thing and not purposeful, but there's always room for improvement.
I apologize if this review seems to be more focused on the negatives than the positives. You got a lot of stuff right in this story, which kind of upgrades you to a different kind of critique for me, which tends to sound critical. I couldn't criticize emotional stakes of characters if you weren't already writing a decent plot and characters in the first place. I always struggle with adapting awards judging. I could have rewritten this into something more concise and fitting to my regular review style, but I figured after all your hard work finishing this story, you deserved a nice long review. Good job on that, by the way. It looks like you stuck to a consistent upload schedule over a relatively long period, which is tough to do. Especially without getting much in the way of feedback :/ I'm glad you kept at it, though. Let me know if you have any questions. Good luck in your future writing, and congratulations again!
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