Ah, the text wall. That's a terrible problem I admit. One of the basic rules of writing is that every time someone new speaks, they get their own paragraph. That includes action too. Giant text walls are almost unreadable and usually turn me away from stories unless they sound REALLY interesting, and even then I have to space them out in word. It's a courtesy to both reader and writer. For the writer, it makes things easier to edit once you finish. For the reader, it makes it easier to read, especially for the likes of me since I spend a lot of time on the computer so I regularly have some level of eye strain. Actually, I wrote a story once as a text wall, and looking back on it, my first thoughts are "how did I even read this?"
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What do you find is the biggest single problem with fanfics?
- Thread starter Zekurom
- Start date
Ah, the text wall. That's a terrible problem I admit. One of the basic rules of writing is that every time someone new speaks, they get their own paragraph. That includes action too. Giant text walls are almost unreadable and usually turn me away from stories unless they sound REALLY interesting, and even then I have to space them out in word. It's a courtesy to both reader and writer. For the writer, it makes things easier to edit once you finish. For the reader, it makes it easier to read, especially for the likes of me since I spend a lot of time on the computer so I regularly have some level of eye strain. Actually, I wrote a story once as a text wall, and looking back on it, my first thoughts are "how did I even read this?"
Stratelier
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...wait, what?
Tophat Dragoneye
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You know, when it's something like this:
And it keeps going on like that. I've seen a couple of those fics, but they are quite rare.
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I dunno. It's possible to write it well if the imagery is done well, you're creative about it, the purpose is right, if it serves an expositionary purpose character wise, and especially if you have a good follow-up. Like this gem from a Pokemon CYOA.
The stereotype shouldn't necessarily dictate what you should - or rather - should not do...
Stratelier
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I was dropping a hint that you were totally using the wrong word. A story that contains "only sentences" is like a sentence that contains "only words" (seriously, what else can it contain?)
Tophat Dragoneye
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Sorry, my bad XD
Okay, so, after reviewing through my folder of terribly offensive fics to read when I'm feeling bad about my own writing, (Yes, I have one of those, and yes, it does actually succeed in making me feel better), this is my master list I came up with:
.Mary Sues/Gary Stus- Whether or not you choose to acknowledge them, these characters, overall, are irritating to read about. No matter what you want to call the character, I do not want to read two of three paragraphs that describe how they look. Especially if these are the largest paragraphs. On top of this, so little usually happens to these characters, in the way of anything genuinely negative I mean, that I seldom feel any real suspense in 'tense' or 'action packed' moments. To prevent this from just becoming a rant on sues, let's move on.
.Cookie Cutter Story Locations- I respect adherence to canon, but in OC Trainer Fics especially, you're already breaking canon in your characters existence, not to mention, depending what you consider to be canon, almost every other form of media, be it the games, manga or anime, contradicts the other by either omitting or adding locations, so why not use some more creativity to at least make up your own locations. It's a simple thing, and a lot of doctors don't do it, and it really irks me to read about the same locations every... Single... Time...
.Cookie Cutter Plot Lines- It doesn't matter if the characters are OCs or Canon (although, personally, I read OC fics almost exclusively, and for that reason, will choose to pick on them, since I have the most experience to make statements there). So, for example, a lot of OC fics are Trainer or Journey fics, which is fine, but the same adherence to nearly identical plot lines, which usually seem to either be in place of a game's protagonist, or in place of Ash, gets bland after a while. Considering though that, given the relative sandbox nature of the pokemon world, it isn't that hard to come up with an original plot, so why more people can't/don't/won't do it miffs me.
.Switching Modes- What I mean by this, is when I read fics, they usually get classified in one of two very general categories; narratives or episodic. Narratives being stories that really give you the whole picture, from walking down Route 1 and not seeing anything, to challenging an Elite Four member. Episodic, on the other hand, is much more like the anime episodes, where they're basically the highlights of the story. Both of those are fine by me, so long as the Mode is consistent. What bugs me though, is when the story jumps between them, making it feel more like a story line, some parts of which the author had planned out better already, while other were ideas swimming around in their heads, if that makes any sense.
.Using Pokemon as an Outlet for Writing Soppy Romance Novels- Pretty self explanatory. Romance in Pokemon fics is fine, but if I read your story, and all it is the fe(male) protagonist angsting over the (fe)male protagonist, or even antagonist, without a mention of Pokemon once for 90% of it, I have an issue with that.
.Poor Grammar- Spellcheck... It's so simple to use there's no excuse for not using it... Also, most electronic dictionaries will give you the correct form of a word in all the tenses and the plural, use it. Don't even get me stated on 'loose' and 'lose' or 'there', 'their' and 'they're.'
.Tired Cliches- I've seen enough Pokemon that either; hang around outside their pokeballs, are shiny, have an alternate color that isn't shiny or normal, talk, understand fluent English, etc. for one lifetime, thank you very much.
Well, those are my major peeves, I could go on, but alas, I digress.
.Mary Sues/Gary Stus- Whether or not you choose to acknowledge them, these characters, overall, are irritating to read about. No matter what you want to call the character, I do not want to read two of three paragraphs that describe how they look. Especially if these are the largest paragraphs. On top of this, so little usually happens to these characters, in the way of anything genuinely negative I mean, that I seldom feel any real suspense in 'tense' or 'action packed' moments. To prevent this from just becoming a rant on sues, let's move on.
.Cookie Cutter Story Locations- I respect adherence to canon, but in OC Trainer Fics especially, you're already breaking canon in your characters existence, not to mention, depending what you consider to be canon, almost every other form of media, be it the games, manga or anime, contradicts the other by either omitting or adding locations, so why not use some more creativity to at least make up your own locations. It's a simple thing, and a lot of doctors don't do it, and it really irks me to read about the same locations every... Single... Time...
.Cookie Cutter Plot Lines- It doesn't matter if the characters are OCs or Canon (although, personally, I read OC fics almost exclusively, and for that reason, will choose to pick on them, since I have the most experience to make statements there). So, for example, a lot of OC fics are Trainer or Journey fics, which is fine, but the same adherence to nearly identical plot lines, which usually seem to either be in place of a game's protagonist, or in place of Ash, gets bland after a while. Considering though that, given the relative sandbox nature of the pokemon world, it isn't that hard to come up with an original plot, so why more people can't/don't/won't do it miffs me.
.Switching Modes- What I mean by this, is when I read fics, they usually get classified in one of two very general categories; narratives or episodic. Narratives being stories that really give you the whole picture, from walking down Route 1 and not seeing anything, to challenging an Elite Four member. Episodic, on the other hand, is much more like the anime episodes, where they're basically the highlights of the story. Both of those are fine by me, so long as the Mode is consistent. What bugs me though, is when the story jumps between them, making it feel more like a story line, some parts of which the author had planned out better already, while other were ideas swimming around in their heads, if that makes any sense.
.Using Pokemon as an Outlet for Writing Soppy Romance Novels- Pretty self explanatory. Romance in Pokemon fics is fine, but if I read your story, and all it is the fe(male) protagonist angsting over the (fe)male protagonist, or even antagonist, without a mention of Pokemon once for 90% of it, I have an issue with that.
.Poor Grammar- Spellcheck... It's so simple to use there's no excuse for not using it... Also, most electronic dictionaries will give you the correct form of a word in all the tenses and the plural, use it. Don't even get me stated on 'loose' and 'lose' or 'there', 'their' and 'they're.'
.Tired Cliches- I've seen enough Pokemon that either; hang around outside their pokeballs, are shiny, have an alternate color that isn't shiny or normal, talk, understand fluent English, etc. for one lifetime, thank you very much.
Well, those are my major peeves, I could go on, but alas, I digress.
- Thread starter
- #188
While this is good commentary, the point of the question is to ask whether any one of those stands out especially strongly amongst the crowd of bad things that can happen in fiction.
Haha, my bad, it seems in my haste to vent about everything terrible, I missed the word 'single.' :dumb: Which would actually have been a lot easier. What I find the single biggest problem is bad grammar. To me, almost any other problem with a fanfic can be worked through, but if I have not a clue what it's saying, then it doesn't matter what else is wrong with it, because I can't tell anyway. A wall of text is surmountable. A terrible character is livable (sometimes). Poorly thought ideas can be strung together, but all of them require something is at least legible. Nothing against people where English isn't their first language though, considering it's more frequently English speakers that end up writing in... I'm not sure what to call it...
I hope everyone understands what I mean, and sorry about the confusion on my part Zekurom. :XD2:
I hope everyone understands what I mean, and sorry about the confusion on my part Zekurom. :XD2:
Sweet Veil
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1.Grammar - Sometimes I just am....ARE YOU EVEN TRYING?!
2.Look at me and my team of Pokemon, a Pikachu/Eevee/Riolu/Charizard/Lucario/Infernape/Some over hyped/popular Pokemon. I'll never understand why writers feel the need to toss people any Pokemon right off the bat, there's nothing wrong with it but I expect some form of set-up. What are the chances a trainer just so happened to get a Charmander in Hoenn? Starter Pokemon are given to a trainer for a reason, most likely because they're easy to control and pose little threat to an inexperienced trainer.
3.Overpowered Pokemon right off the bat, a rookie Chimchar shouldn't know how to use Flamethrower fresh outta the lab.
4.There's nothing wrong with legendaries being owned and controlled by trainers, however the likes of Reshiram. A deity that seeks a truthful world shouldn't be owned by just anyone. Nor should a main character just have a huge assortment of legendaries. I actually don't think there's anything wrong with legendaries being in fic. under trainer control. It's something that shouldn't be done too much imo, as it comes off as a tad tacky. There's little chance a rarely fresh trainer should be able to catch a Heatran, however if the trainer is experienced and has been at the game for a while there's nothing wrong with it. It shouldn't just happen, it should come with set-up and exposition. Pyramid King Brandon owning the Regis makes sense, he's been an exploring for a long time in his life. An example of a fic. I feel that does the legendary thing correctly in one of its chapters. The main character has a Heatran but doesn't even use it an immense amount at all, it's actually one of the weaker and lesser used Pokemon of his team. That's been the only legendary in the fic. aside from a Zapdos owned by Arcade Star Dahlia, he handles their power well provided excellent set-up for both situations.
5.Anime Effects, sweat drops, face faults, etc.
6.Shiny Pokemon, main character has a whole team of them. Little sense.
7.Quick evolutions, makes perfect sense after training the Pokemon for a while and it's on the weaker side like a Caterpie. Makes no sense to have a Gible evolve into a Garchomp in one week, Dragons are rare and hard to raise as the games and mostly every other canon implies. They shouldn't evolve on a dime just because you want a main character to have a OMGBADAZZGARCHOMPZ!111
8.Weak females, I absolutely do not care for females who are damsels in distress most of the time or exist solely to be the love interest of the main character.
9.Ash Clones, aura, Rocket clones, anime reduxes, too many character with bland personality that don't stick out, etc.
10.Heavily canon characters paired with OCs, Ash falls in love with Barbara. No thanks.
11.When a writers tries too hard to make their characters "BADAZZAMAZING." It make no sense for a regular trainer to be performing backflips left and right and acrobatics out of the blue.
12.Script fic.....
13.Not gonna lie, I think the vast majority of shipping fics. are garbage. OOC-ness, character bashing, cliche plots, forced pairings, etc. galore. It doesn't help that's the most popular type of fic. on fanfiction.net when I search to try to find half decent fanfiction threads but get squat but terrible love stories. The Pokemon essentially become minor in the grand scheme of things in most.
2.Look at me and my team of Pokemon, a Pikachu/Eevee/Riolu/Charizard/Lucario/Infernape/Some over hyped/popular Pokemon. I'll never understand why writers feel the need to toss people any Pokemon right off the bat, there's nothing wrong with it but I expect some form of set-up. What are the chances a trainer just so happened to get a Charmander in Hoenn? Starter Pokemon are given to a trainer for a reason, most likely because they're easy to control and pose little threat to an inexperienced trainer.
3.Overpowered Pokemon right off the bat, a rookie Chimchar shouldn't know how to use Flamethrower fresh outta the lab.
4.There's nothing wrong with legendaries being owned and controlled by trainers, however the likes of Reshiram. A deity that seeks a truthful world shouldn't be owned by just anyone. Nor should a main character just have a huge assortment of legendaries. I actually don't think there's anything wrong with legendaries being in fic. under trainer control. It's something that shouldn't be done too much imo, as it comes off as a tad tacky. There's little chance a rarely fresh trainer should be able to catch a Heatran, however if the trainer is experienced and has been at the game for a while there's nothing wrong with it. It shouldn't just happen, it should come with set-up and exposition. Pyramid King Brandon owning the Regis makes sense, he's been an exploring for a long time in his life. An example of a fic. I feel that does the legendary thing correctly in one of its chapters. The main character has a Heatran but doesn't even use it an immense amount at all, it's actually one of the weaker and lesser used Pokemon of his team. That's been the only legendary in the fic. aside from a Zapdos owned by Arcade Star Dahlia, he handles their power well provided excellent set-up for both situations.
5.Anime Effects, sweat drops, face faults, etc.
6.Shiny Pokemon, main character has a whole team of them. Little sense.
7.Quick evolutions, makes perfect sense after training the Pokemon for a while and it's on the weaker side like a Caterpie. Makes no sense to have a Gible evolve into a Garchomp in one week, Dragons are rare and hard to raise as the games and mostly every other canon implies. They shouldn't evolve on a dime just because you want a main character to have a OMGBADAZZGARCHOMPZ!111
8.Weak females, I absolutely do not care for females who are damsels in distress most of the time or exist solely to be the love interest of the main character.
9.Ash Clones, aura, Rocket clones, anime reduxes, too many character with bland personality that don't stick out, etc.
10.Heavily canon characters paired with OCs, Ash falls in love with Barbara. No thanks.
11.When a writers tries too hard to make their characters "BADAZZAMAZING." It make no sense for a regular trainer to be performing backflips left and right and acrobatics out of the blue.
12.Script fic.....
13.Not gonna lie, I think the vast majority of shipping fics. are garbage. OOC-ness, character bashing, cliche plots, forced pairings, etc. galore. It doesn't help that's the most popular type of fic. on fanfiction.net when I search to try to find half decent fanfiction threads but get squat but terrible love stories. The Pokemon essentially become minor in the grand scheme of things in most.
matt0044
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This I have to disagree since I've seen TV shows with an Episodic format yet could go into Story arcs and have an over all linear narrative from start to finish. It works fine provide there isn't a lot of "filler" like a certain ninja-themed Anime...
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I particularly dislike when a Pokémon fanfic contains/focuses on little to no actual Pokémon at all; most of these being shipping fics where the main priority is about the human characters' relationships and rarely even mentions a Pokémon.
- Thread starter
- #193
Ah, it's quite alright. Although this can be a place to vent your frustrations about fanfics, it is generally good to follow the original topic as well.
As I told Sadrina, please single one out.
Stratelier
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IMHO trying to limit this topic to that "just one" problem with the fanfic genre may be limiting potential discussion.
Of course, it's easier to rant about one thing instead of several . . . maybe keep it to just one at a time.
Of course, it's easier to rant about one thing instead of several . . . maybe keep it to just one at a time.
- Thread starter
- #195
I wanted to try and avoid the topic becoming just "gripe about what you think is wrong with fanfics". That being said, you can list off as many as you want as long as you do eventually indicate whether there is any one that stands out especially the most.
Stratelier
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A moderator closing a different thread and directing its discussion here didn't necessarily help.
As a quick note, Spelling and grammar are definitely an easy pet peeve. Not always the biggest problem with any single fanfiction, but yes it does feel like a lot of authors just don't try/care. A big part is that there's no authority to actually enforce good language in a writer's fic. Nobody to point out the flaws and make the author correct them of their own efforts.
As a quick note, Spelling and grammar are definitely an easy pet peeve. Not always the biggest problem with any single fanfiction, but yes it does feel like a lot of authors just don't try/care. A big part is that there's no authority to actually enforce good language in a writer's fic. Nobody to point out the flaws and make the author correct them of their own efforts.
Au contrair. There are numerous groups that attempt to enforce it, at least on Fanfiction, and 'improve' the writing, that are really little more than organized groups of flamers. Which, if this was a discussion of the single biggest issue with the website Fanfiction.net, would make the top of the list. But you're right in that there really is no one who enforces proper English, a thought that will haunt me the day I start paying taxes to pay for public education...
SuperTrainStationH
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While I enjoyed reading your post in general, I have to raise my hand and say that I honestly don't see anything wrong with Pokémon being outside of their Pokéballs.
The idea of all Pokémon other than Pikachu being constantly inside their Pokéballs is really just a contrivance to allow the animators to not have to animate extra characters constantly and for the writers to not have to write in all those other Pokémon (say up to two or three per character) having to do stuff, and in the games, its simply a game mechanic.
In a world where Pokémon actually existed, I'd find it hard to believe that nearly all trainers would keep all their Pokémon inside their Pokéballs except for battles and eating.
matt0044
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Exactly. I'm actually writing a story where the Trainer keeps her Pokemon (not one, all six) out of their balls, treating them like her friends. It allows for good character interactions and development.
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My biggest problem is people whom write characters OOC and bashing fics. This has to be the one thing that annoys me like there's no tomorrow. The other problem is when they change a main character into a Mary sue.
There's an author on FFN named Sailor Star9, and ber writing is autrocious. She writes mainly sailor moon crossovers with the titular character changed to the meanest, cruelest, ice queen of the entire universe whom will kill everyone but Sailor Mercury (whom has somehow become the true moon princess, has been lied to, and is actually the strongest)... and this basically plots out each of her stories. The descriptions are horrible, the betrayals are unbelievable, and she seems to have no care for grammar.
This issue is not just limited to her... it's in each fandom. Pokemon has Misty betrayal fics where she is shown as hating everyone and trying to kill everyone---especially Brock then trying but failing to get Ash. And why? Because she's always been jealous and ugly (according to the writer.)
Now, this doesn't mean that betrayal is not okay in a fic but at least, make it a believable reason... however making someone OOC to fit in is generally just not okay. If Dawn has to become Iris to make it work then someone needs to either rid themselves of that character or change how the character is being used in the plot.
There's an author on FFN named Sailor Star9, and ber writing is autrocious. She writes mainly sailor moon crossovers with the titular character changed to the meanest, cruelest, ice queen of the entire universe whom will kill everyone but Sailor Mercury (whom has somehow become the true moon princess, has been lied to, and is actually the strongest)... and this basically plots out each of her stories. The descriptions are horrible, the betrayals are unbelievable, and she seems to have no care for grammar.
This issue is not just limited to her... it's in each fandom. Pokemon has Misty betrayal fics where she is shown as hating everyone and trying to kill everyone---especially Brock then trying but failing to get Ash. And why? Because she's always been jealous and ugly (according to the writer.)
Now, this doesn't mean that betrayal is not okay in a fic but at least, make it a believable reason... however making someone OOC to fit in is generally just not okay. If Dawn has to become Iris to make it work then someone needs to either rid themselves of that character or change how the character is being used in the plot.
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