Quote:
Originally Posted by ZariusTwo
Mate, I wish more people would give me a load more detailed reviews, I can count the people who do that on one hand on that site.
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Not sure if you only want reviews on ff.net, in which case I'll move this. But here's some critique. This has just been nagging at me for while (after I read
My Seer, My Secretary). Since you want detailed reviews...
First, good stuff:
The spelling and formatting mistakes are not that big of a deal. Basically, having a good plot is the important thing. An experienced beta can always fix that stuff for you, and as long as people can tell what you intended, it's not much of an issue.
I loved the ship-teasing between Irma and Donatello! It felt genuine, and they both felt very in-character, and since Don is my favorite turtle, it was nice to see his skills alone for a bit.
I liked the scenes in the restaurant where Irma is seeing the future. It felt like something straight out of the cartoon!
Stuff I didn't like:
The sex jokes and toilet humor really irk me. It's that and one other thing that really stops me from liking the story. Now, a successful joke can be made out of pretty much anything, depending on the context. But I saw no reason for any of those jokes except for maybe when Vernon becomes Verna (apologies if I don't remember everything 100%, I read the story a week ago).
To explain the problem, I'll borrow from one of my favorite writing guides,
How Not to Write a Novel:
While gross details have their place, they should not be relentless. Readers will generally find such descriptions repulsive. They will go on to find your characters repulsive, your book repulsive, and harbor strong suspicions about you. This is not the progression likely to end in a generous book advance.
More importantly:
A final note: despite what you learned in junior high school, gross things are not, in and of themselves, funny. The jokes you laughed at again and again in Farrelly Brothers movies work only in conjunction with actual comic material.
You see, the problem is that the material you're working from, the OT, does not match in tone at all to those jokes. An occasional "getting crap past the radar" joke or double entendre could work, but I don't think what you are doing worked at all.
Younger people find this stuff funny because they associate it with a rebellion against authority, but once they get older, they generally won't find it funny anymore. Now, when that happens is different for everybody, but generally older adults will not laugh at this stuff if it doesn't work in context.
This is the second problem I have, which is it doesn't seem to have a good tone in general. It fluctuates between being like the OT, to darker, with more adult humor, for no good reason that I can tell.
Now, most of your reviews have been positive, so not listening to me might not cause you any problems. But these things may be important for your future work.
I know I'm being "that guy", and I'm usually waaay more mild-mannered, but I can tell that you are taking this seriously, and I really want to help.
You are this close to being awesome.
EDIT: It's fanfiction and you can do whatever you want. But using images from the OT, and saying that it "lives on" through your story gives fans a certain impression.