First Impression Critique: From Me, To My OC - By Pixel Berry98 · 3:06am Mar 18th, 2014
First Impression Critique: From Me, To My OC - by Pixel Berry98
Link to Story: http://www.fimfiction.net/story/162672/from-me-to-my-oc
Link to Fimfiction's Guide for Writers: http://www.fimfiction.net/writing-guide
Link to How to Write Your Character's Thoughts: http://voices.yahoo.com/fiction-writing-write-characters-thoughts-2921319.html?cat=35
Link to Bronywriter's Adoption: http://www.fimfiction.net/story/174081/adoption
Date Created: March 17, 2014
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- First Impression -
On websites such as fimfiction.net, the first thing potential readers, when choosing a story to read, will glance at is the story description. The story’s description is probably the most important detail for the entire story, for it gives expectations for readers of what to expect when thinking about what the author is capable of. This is stressed time after time, with people still screwing it up. Although there are no concrete rules in writing a perfect description, the very least that needs to be done is to make it appear appleasing.
For the story, the [Random] tag is used, which will make people assume that it correctly falls under [Random] properly. [Random] "stories are similar to comedy ones, but tend to be a lot weirder and are often full of references to internet culture." The reason for this being gone over is to make sure that authors know what to put for their tags, for tags are very closely related to the theme and tone of the story. Improperly using tags can sometimes lead people into something that they wouldn’t be interested in, or lead away from something that they would be interested from. Properly using tags are probably the most important thing in publishing a story on this site.
Quoting this story’s description, as well as Adoption, a short story by Bronywriter, will be used to compare each descriptions to another, making it easy to identify key points in which need to be pointed out for a clear understanding.
Dear Journal,
I don't know when, where, or how, but now I'm a pony. And not just that, I turned into my OC that I created two days ago! I don't know who to trust now cause I'm so confused about this new transformation...
This is the story of how I survived being a Pony; and I can tell you this, it's not as easy as it seems, but its also not hard as well. 'Strange...' But anyways, also with my new transformation, I try to adjust to my new body (that I might be with for awhile)
In From Me, To My OC’s description, a paragraph begins with “This is the story of”. This is pointed out to be something that should be avoided, for it breaks the fourth wall between the narration of the story and the reader. Although the story is a simple ‘self-insert original character into Equestria’, interaction between the reader and the story should not regularly happen, unless intended for with a character such as Pinkie Pie, who is known for that kind of behavior.
In the short story by Bronywriter, Adoption, he uses the description to shortly summarize the beginning section of the story, also to add credit for someone elses work. Treat the story’s description as if it were part of the story, without narration, for it breaks the point of view, as well as the immersion, used for, as well as in, the story.
- Grammar/Punctuation -
The first most and important thing in writing a work of literature is to remove all errors in the work. No one will be able to take a story seriously if the author had not taken the time to go back and make sure that everything in the story is correct, for this, most of the time, is the cause of the writer simply not caring for their own work. The incorrect use of grammar as well as punctuation gives a bad start for the readers who have read the description.
The following paragraphs will be going over the incorrect usage of grammar/punctuation as they appear in chronological order of the story.
In the description of the story (above), the story goes over the recommended number of parenthesis used in a story. "Ellipses should not be overused in fiction… their use in narration is often frowned on… because they are distracting… and also a cheap way to build suspense. They work better in dialogue, usually to signify the speaker trailing off…" The use of them in the description is a tad bit over the usage needed for writing a story. Although they can be distracting and a bit "cheap", they still can be used, but still should only be used sparsely.
In the line, "This is the story of how I survived being a Pony; and I can tell you this, it's not as easy as it seems, but its also not hard as well," “Pony” is capitalized incorrectly, and the semicolon is used incorrectly because of it’s use. A semicolon is used to join two independent clauses into one sentence. A conjunction is used to join together a independent and dependent clause. Using a semicolon and a conjunction, the “and”, is not needed.
Going into the story, the first person perspective is a mess, as it’s vastly incorrectly used. "First person point of view uses the word I and is told from the experience and knowledge of only one character. If you use first person point of view in your fiction writing, your character's thoughts may be handled in a different way. When this story is told by one of the characters it is not necessary to put thought in Italics or quotation marks all the time. She or she can simply share their thoughts that the reader." Two sentences that do not follow a proper first person perspective are: "I placed it on my desk and left the room, smelling the meatloaf in the kitchen. 'Mmm. Meatloaf, My favorite!'", and"'I'm almost like Twilight Sparkle and her OCD'". It is not required to place single quotation marks, nor italics, to show that the character is thinking. In a first person perspective of a story, the character’s mind is the narration of the story, which can lead to unreliable narration, due to the narration being opinionated to what the character thinks. Having extra markers to show that the character is thinking, even though that they are already thinking, is unnecessary and should be removed from a story.
Something caught before the first person perspective, but placed after for relation to first person perspective, would be the single-quote mark in “‘Dear Journal,”. Assuming that it had been used to show that the character is writing, it is not needed, for the italics are enough.
In a work of literature, it is very important never to use any kind of numbering, unless it is being used for a date, nor acronyms in a work. If needed to type the number of something, always type the word format of the number, such as one, two, three, et cetera. If needed to type the acronym for something, simply type the full name for it, such as original character, or My Little Pony.
The five tenses needed to be understood for writing literature are the present, present perfect, past, past perfect, and future tenses.
"Present: I run.
Present perfect: I am running.
Past: I ran.
Past perfect: I had run.
Future: I will run."
The sentence, "She's my number 1 idol ever since I was little" is used incorrectly, as it is a mixture of the past and present tense. It can be fixed to "She's been my number one idol ever since I was little", for now it is purely past tense.
For simple errors such as "meet them their in person", these are quite common knowledge. There is used for location, they’re is used for describing, and their is used for ownership. Googling simple errors such as these are ideal.
With the sentence, "And I usually sing in the shower... DON'T JUDGE ME!", the error is simple. Never use caps-locks for when writing a work of literature. "A trend I’ve seen in ponyfic is the use of bold text for loud dialogue. It’s not technically a correct use of boldface, but it’s probably easier to read than LONG PASSAGES OF CRUISE CONTROL FOR COOL. Of course, both ALL CAPS and bold can become crutches for weak writing, and they’re best avoided in more serious works."
Quoting characters in quotation marks can proceed the plot vastly. "Dialogue which precedes a said tag (some variation of “said Character”) can end in a comma, or an exclamation point, or a question mark, or an ellipsis, but never a full stop (or “period”).""Said tags are never capitalised. They are not complete sentences, and they should not ever follow full stops (as stated above)."
A correct usage of a dialogue which preceds a said tag in the correct format would be of "“I hope I get around to doing some reading today,” said Twilight Sparkle." The uses of ""You coming for dinner?" He asked.", ""Yes, Nyssa. I'll be out in a minute." I answered.", and ""Come in." I called" are not correct.
Parenthesis are used in literature to give information to the reader through thoughts of the narrator, to indicate plural nouns, acronyms, dates, and citations. They can be removed without altering the meaning of the sentence. The format in which the story is using them is to give off thoughts added into narration. Some usage in the story include: "It was strange cause it closely resembled my OC that I made on Friday.(Two days ago)", and "I don't know why, but I wanna see my character being free, unlike me. (Like another part of me.)" Although they aren't really required in the story, there is still a requirement in order to use them properly. The parentheses need to be inside the sentence that they are about, and they are not a sentence themselves, and shouldn’t end with periods. Corrected, it appear to be as: "I don't know why, but I wanna see my character being free, unlike me (like another part of me)."
Since the story is a book, not using them would be recommended, as an author is able to detail the things that they want to be known of the story through other means, such as adding it into another sentence directly after the sentence the information is for.
- Story -
Since there is only one chapter, there hasn’t been much room to improve on the plot, nor the characterization. Normally, critics wouldn’t detail on things such as characterization and the plot until knowing the entire story. Although, since this is First Impressions, this will detail on things such as character traits and the understood plot so far.
Scrolling down through the story, though, reveals an image of the book being described in the story, which makes me ask what would be the purpose of placing an image in the center of a book. As said before in an earlier critique, "Something that should be strayed away from while creating books is the usage of links in a story. This is meant to be a book, not some homestuck-style-reference-everything-on-the-internet type of literature, unless, of course, it was intended to be, although it would give readers even less of a reason to read, since they’re on fimfiction, to read books." Placing an image of something that is described in the story is only coming off as making the author look lazy, as they aren’t able to describe the book themselves using descriptive words, and it breaks the immersion completely for the readers. Readers go online and read fanfiction to read, not to read picture books. Unless animated art and pictures are a medium source used to relay information to the audience, then it is not acceptable to place pictures inside books, which is an entirely different medium. Unless an audience are toddlers, the reader expects an author to be able to sufficiently relay information through descriptive words to give them a good idea of what the author is talking about.
One of the very important details that come into writing would be the ability to show, rather than tell, in a story. To show, it would refer to the story being able to give a clear image of what event(s) happens in the story. It is used in literature to give interest to the reader, as the reader has a more detailed thought of the thing or an event that takes place in the story. When the character goes in the passage: "I was so memorized about that book that I accidentally hit my head on the bunk bed pole", the story didn’t spent the time needed to give the reader a clear visualization of what had happened in the story. Giving detail to things or events can extend the pacing of the story, as well making it more thought out and interesting for the reader.
Telling a story without giving detail into things or events can make the story itself extremely boring, extremely fast. Giving details to hold up interest in the story will dramatically help reader’s interest for the story, as long as the plot and other story’s devices are able to hold up on their own weight as well. Another good way of describing show versus tell would be to give examples:
Examples of uses in the story which detail telling, rather than showing include: "I closed my journal, seeing the main 6 in my front cover. I placed it back on the corner of my desk, placing the mechanical pencil right next to the book. I heard a knock on my door." and "At the moment it was too bright to see, I fell unconscious."
In the story, the plot and characters tend to flop between one point to the other without a clear given explanation for the cause. The main character is a socially awkward fifteen-year-old named Leandra Alicea, who is prone to frequent mood swings, as she says: "(I even thought of it while I took a shower. And I usually sing in the shower... DON'T JUDGE ME!)", and fits the most basic detail of an average stereotypical teenage girl. She tends to believe that her diary is the most secret of all things and puts every living detail of her life on said diary.
She tends to build relationships between fictional characters far too quickly, as she says: "I don't know why, but I wanna see my character being free, unlike me. (Like another part of me.)" This could relate to the frequent mood swings that she is prone to do, or it could be a bad case of characterization, as well as the mood swings.
With characterization, referring to the character traits and personality of a character, Leandra is a badly developed character for the “mood swings” and relationship build she puts into fictional characters for the way that she had. In the two sentences: "I somehow felt pity for the mare and wished her happiness. I didn't see that I shed one tear and it dropped onto the page on the alicorn", the character has a random sense of pity for some drawing that she has only known about until Friday, which is her own original character. For Leandra to cry in pity for something that she has no knowledge of, has had no interaction with, nor not even knowing if they’re real, this becomes into questioning the characterization used in the story.
Although it is perfectly normal for someone to become emotionally attached to something that they have had no interaction with (e.g. My Little Dashie), but have grown their development with them through familiarization and knowledge of the character, this story doesn’t exactly do that for Leandra. The plot of the story calls for her to cry onto the book, and that tear will cause “magic”, transporting her into Equestria. For the story to give that far of a stretch, creating plenty of plot holes, the plot itself and characterization suffers from it.
The only other character in the story thus far is the brother, or as she likes to call him, her “Brister”. With no real motivation nor anything else other than him receiving dialogue, there really isn’t much to go on about him.
The plot of the story is very simple to follow, and simple is emphasised:
Leandra finds teleported book.
Magic.
Teleported to Equestria.
Plot ensues.
Plenty of self-insert stories such as this have followed the same tendency to not give a buck when it comes to having a proper plot that makes sense. It is never explained later in the story, nor will ever be brought up again later in the story as well. A way to think about this, would be to think of a kid and a pool. The kid, the story, goes into the deep end, the audience, without any sort of preparation. Diving in, the kid either drowns, rises up, or their parents notice them just in time to save them from doing anything else stupid. Sadly, though, the majority of kids drown, causing the bottom of the deep end to fill with dead bodies of kids, never to be seen again.
- Conclusion -
Breaking the third person perspective for the conclusion of this story: I didn’t like this story. It’s simply another self-insert story (that definitely hasn’t been done before) with a horrible plot and horrible characters, making the grammar and spelling even worse. Although it could be something that could blow anyones mind upon reviewing, revising, rewriting, replanning, et cetera, at face value, it’s not something that I would go around and recommend for other people to read unless they wanted a good laugh. Sure, if the story had improved greatly from chapter one to chapter two, then I would probably love it, knowing that I love good self-insert stories that actually make sense. For the general reader, they won’t become interested in a story such as this simply because the amount of errors that any pre-teen could fix in a matter of seconds.
Moreover on the format of the story, the use of incorrect spelling, grammar, and punctuation may be accepted, since it is being used to show how the character normally writes. It may be a tad bit annoying for some people, but it really adds immersion to the story, and makes it more interesting to a degree, as well as the use of language characters use. Though spelling, grammar, and punctuation errors are rarely accepted in forms of literature, with the journal format in the story, as long as it’s in that specific part, it can be accepted.
Hey hey can you review my story? It goes like this. "So I was chilling at home and then I got teleported to Equestria where I became my alicorn OC and the 7th element of Harmony. It was p. cool. Peace out, bra."
I expect 20 pages minimum.
i.imgur.com/LiZi0Rw.png
1937866
Give it a go, if I think it requires help via criticism, then I'll give it a go.
Other than that:
i1.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/000/293/590/6f6.gif
1938270
No no, that was the story. I wasn't summarizing.
1940767
"Grammar errors, punctuation errors, unneeded abbreviations, misspelling, using numbers instead of worded numbers --" thirty pages later "-- no plot, horrible characterization, no character development, did not like, wouldn't recommend."
1940826