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Categories > Anime/Manga > Full Metal Alchemist

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• Stubborn Love

  (#) Electric_Sapphire 2007-01-01

  Okay, dear... I'll say this only once, but it goes for all of your stories. (And I'll warn you now: I'm a jerk to people who write even though they don't seem to have a grasp on basic grammar and spelling. J-E-R-K. I'm aware of it.) EDIT YOUR SUMMARY. There are no words strong enough to stress the importance of this without going into PG-13 or R-rated territory. EDIT EDIT EDIT. Spellcheck is your friend. A beta would be brilliant. A summary is not a crappy little blurb you tack onto your story as an afterthought: It is the cover of your book, the advertisment, the opening statement, the first impression... however you put it, a summary is IMPORTANT.
  
  NEVER say "My summary isn't very good but the story is better." Never, okay? If you can't come up with a decent summary (or can't ask someone to help you with one- I volunteer) then your writing isn't apt to be much better. Never ask, beg, threaten, plead, or throw a tantrum for reviews- not in the summary, not at the beginning of the chapter, and not in the author's notes. It's tacky and cheap. If your writing is good, it'll get reviews; if it's passable, people will tell you so; if it's bad, they'll criticize or flame or offer to help you out. If you really need more reviews, post your stories on more sites.
  
  Never use !!!, ???, .........., or any other unnecessary punctuation. ONE ! or ? gets the job done, and anything more is juvenile. When using an elipse, three dots will suffice. Truly. On the same note, ... is not a catch-all sentence separator: it's used for emphasis when trailing off from a sentence, whether mysteriously, sadly, or forebodingly.
  
  Emoticoms like ^_^ o__O or even :) are a big no-no. Writing is writing, not visual art. Writing is supposed to remain in character, and interspersing it with little smilies will break the reader out of the story and remind them that it's a fabrication, a work of fiction, not a real happening. Good writing will draw in the readers and paint them a captivating picture, if not a WORLD.
  
  Misspellings and typos should simply be eliminated. I'll admit that everyone's fingers slip on the keys once in a while, but typos are easy enough to remove from a chapter with the help of a beta, or even just a second go-over. Editing typos from a three-sentence summary should be mandatory. Not doing it is just plain lazy.
  
  These are just a few glaring errors from your summaries, and they should be fixed quickly. Again, I volunteer to help you out there: I'll beta your chapters, I'll rework your summaries, I'll gladly do whatever it takes to help a fellow author.
  
  'storys' 'truely' 'RIza' 'plez' 'sequal' 'Fullmetals' And worst of all, using 'your' incorrectly immediately after you claimed to have fixed up your grammar and spelling.
  
  This was a harsh review, and not the kind I like to give. To make you feel a little better (although I know from experience that this review will HURT everytime you read it) keep in mind that I spot grammar and punctuation errors everywhere: restaurant menus, billboards, TV ads, movie subtitles- you name it and somebody in a PROFESSIONAL line of work is either lazy or uneducated. Keep in mind also that I am not an English teacher, a university professor, a PhD-holder, or any kind of published author. I am a fourteen year-old girl. I think that you are not much older or younger than me. All it takes to make your writing great is a little bit (okay, a lot) of editing and refinement.
  
  Please drop me a line sometime, and I would positively leap at the chance to help you with this, in the same way other reviewers of my own stories have helped me to fix my writing over the years. goldfurs_friend@hotmail.com

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