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This review was conducted by the Fanon Review Squad and reflects our best judgment of writing and fanon authorship quality. Please don't take offense if the review wasn't positive. We always give advice!
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MibuWolf here with another review before diving into finals...
Today, I'm looking at Tales of Their World by Snip101. I would like to start out by saying I was extremely confused by the chapter progression. I know they are all one-shots, but I found myself rather bewildered at the five different chapters listed on the page, the six in the chapter box which omitted one of the listed, and then the chapter that wasn't listed anywhere that could be found on the scrolling bar at the top. It actually took me longer to figure out what I was reading than to actually read the content. Now, I don't think there's any where I can take points off for this, so I'm just going to say this here: Snip. Figure out the chapter order and make it consistent everywhere throughout your page so that all the chapters appear on all the lists. I can't figure out anyway of sugar-coating what I'm trying to say, but it shouldn't be as difficult as it was for me to just figure out how to read from chapter to chapter.
Writing Categories[]
- Mistakes/Grammar: 6.9 In all honesty, I was impressed with how many grammar rules Snip hit dead-on that I didn't know about when I was his age. However, there was a surplus of awkward mistakes in grammar and such. Most notably, there were a few issues in consistent agreement of tenses--not exactly tense ships, but like one verb ending in "ing" and another related one ending in "ed" when it should also end in "ing". Then, there were some missing commas and a handful of mistakes with "its" versus "it's" that stood out to me.
- General Writing: 7.1 I found myself rather confused at times with some descriptions that just seemed plain... strange. More often than not I found myself going back to re-read, thinking "did he really just say that?" And most of the time he did say what I think he said. Then, there were a couple of moments of repetition that I felt balanced the line between seeming not purposeful and artsy, leaning a bit more to the former. All that taken into account, I could really tell that Snip worked for some of these descriptions, and after pushing through my confusion I could tell what was going on and there were some really good moments of description with characters in there.
Writing Score: 7.0... C-
Content Categories[]
Omitted, as they are a series of one-shots
Content Quality Categories[]
- Creativity: 8.4 I've seen a decent amount of one-shot series out there, and I personally didn't feel like this one brought much more to the table... What I do like about this fanon in particular, however, is that I felt like I was reading the author's thoughts and ideas. At least for me as a reader, I didn't feel so much like I was reading a story or series of stories as I did like I was reading an author's thinking and practice. This might sound like a complaint, but it is far from it. It felt like looking through a writer's journal, tracing their ideas, watching them change things they didn't like and overall improve as he writes. I don't know if this is purposeful or not, but if it's not I guess you just tapped into this idea yourself, haha. One way or another, I thought this was brilliant for that reason.
- Believability: 6.7 Honestly, there was very little that I found believable... The romance chapter seemed forced in what the characters were doing, the funeral chapter was kind of clunky, and there were quite a few moments where I felt like the characters would not have said things that they did say, or would not do things they did. If these chapters are designed as extensions of the given canon, I don't think they'd particularly fit. But what I did appreciate was when Snip jumped out of the canon. He was much better with writing his own characters, and though he didn't expand on them too much, I did think that he did a fine job of making them believable.
Content Quality Score: 7.6... C
Overall Score: 7.3... C-[]
My advice for Snip101: Other than what I mentioned at the top, I'd say get a beta-reader. Having someone read what you write can really iron out some awkwardness and other descriptions that don't entirely make sense. If there's any part that would make any person have to go back and re-read, a good beta-reader can generally catch it and point it out. I know I'd be dead and in a ditch by now (metaphorically) if it weren't for my beta-reader/editor catching all of the mistakes I wouldn't have caught no matter how many times I re-read it. (You know how sometimes your mind is just in that place? Like when you just completely and totally believe six times seven is thirty-five even though you know it isn't?)
Then, I'd recommend writing with OCs more often. That or kind of re-watch the series and study the characters really closely (when I'm writing with non-OCs, I always go back and re-read some important transcripts of episodes) so that you can make sure that you really understand them as much as their creators, in this case Bryke, understand them. You don't have to do everything as extremely as I do, but just kind of keying into some details in another viewing will help immensely.
And that's about it. You're doing good for yourself so keep it up and I look forward to seeing where this goes.
What sort of person would enjoy Tales of Their World? Anyone looking for a good little compilation of interesting stories ^^