Fanfic: Sakura's Shattered Heart Part 1

The Core Media Forum
1

Please comment!

[LEFT]Sakura stood atop a hilltop a few kilometres from Konoha village. A slight breeze ruffled the grass beneath her feet, a few strands Of her hair blurred into her vision as she took in her surroundings. It was a particularly bright and sunny day, not a cloud in the sky. Indeed it was a beautiful day, but the fact seemed to escape Sakura even though she was standing right in the middle of it. It was not that she did not see it, she was just so totally indifferent to it. In fact she had been indifferent to a lot of things lately. For a long while now, she had not cared much for anything. Ever since he left. Ever since he left her.

It had been three years since that fateful day, and life had never returned to normal. Three years since the love of her life abandoned her. Three years since the ground seemed to have opened up and swallowed her. He had left, underlining the fact that he never cared in the first place. Through the years Sakura had known and loved Sasuke. She knew that he did not seem to return her affections in any way, but she had always believed that somehow her undying love for him would be returned some day.

As the wind ruffled her hair once again she closed her eyes, and tried to remember the happy times. The times Sasuke would actually smile at her. It had happened a few times over the years and when it did, it meant the world to her. She would be dancing on air for days, replaying it in her mind over and over, playing with the thought that he loved her back.

But he left, in his quest to kill his brother. Her inner most fear had been realized . All her love and affection had been useless. She couldn’t take it. Her mind could not cope with the fact that he did not care at all. It was all she had thought about ever since he left. It had been three long years. She was tired…so very tired

When Kakashi-sensei had broken the news to her, she had hit rock bottom Ever since she had been digging a mental hole for herself, sealing herself off from the world. For the first period of time she had sobbed uncontrollably every waking hour. She had been sitting in her room all day crying non stop, only interrupted by occasional hours of restless sleep. After some time she had become so weak, she had been suspended from her duties as a ninja. On top of that, her love had been branded a traitor and a missing-nin, one to be killed on sight. Bit she was not capable of letting him go.

Sakura bent her head backwards and stared of into the sky. All she could see was blue. It was kind of empty, just like her. Tranquill, motionless, catatonic. She could hear the breeze in her ears as it blocked out all the other sounds the forested area made around her. Nothingness and a slight buzzing. It was morbidly reminiscent of how she felt.

She remembered how she had tried to soothe his pain that time when his curse seal had first been activated so long ago. She remembered how she worried about him during the chuunin exam. She remembered the time he had given in to the power of his curse, and gone after the ones that had hurt her. In that moment she was so happy about him caring, but the way he showed it was terrifying. If only she had realized then. He was an avenger, she would never have any place in his stone cold heart. Nor would anyone for that matter. But her heart would never let go of him. No matter what.

Sakura lowered her head and looked down the cliffside. The last years her mind had constantly tumbled downwards. She had become a useless shinobi unable to shake the image of the raven-haired boy with the dark eyes from her mind. She sighed inwardly as she stepped a little closer to the edge.

To be continued! In Part 2 of the Shattered Heart! Once again PLEASE COMMENT!!![/LEFT]

2

Alright, read it. It caught my attention because it was a Naruto fanfic. My thoughts:

  1. You need to watch redundancy and wordiness. They’re killers, especially when it comes to school papers. For instance, “It was a bright and sunny day” or “Ever since he left. Ever since he left her.” Phrases like that you can shorten, i.e. getting rid of bright or the second Ever since he left her. Making it short and sweet keeps audiences entertained.

  2. Slang is a BIG no no. :stuck_out_tongue: Avoid using words like “totally”. You can also just cut out words like “kind of” in “kind of empty”. Empty will do it and it sounds less awkward.

  3. There’s some repetition as far as words go. You use certain words and phrases a bit too much, such as “She remembered”. There are also a few places where you can replace “She” with “Sakura”, or maybe “the female Chunin” (remember, Sakura is a Chunin at this point) to make it less repetitive.

  4. There are some easily corrected punctuation and capitalization errors here and there. Something that works for me is finishing whatever I’m working on, coming back to it after an hour, then re-reading it. It sounds silly, but it gives you a completely different perspective. This is also nitpicky, but I’m pretty sure it’s spelled Chunin.

  5. In terms of plot consistency, it’s pretty good, although this sounds more like Sakura at the end of Arc I of Naruto. By the beginning of Arc II (which seems where you are) Sakura is much more confident in herself as a ninja. Also, remember that it was Naruto who broke the news to Sakura, not Kakashi (it was the very end of Arc I, before Kakashi Gaiden/the dreaded filler).

  6. Some phrases you can change or just kill altogether out of making the story flow more smoothly. A sentence such as “Three years since the ground opened up and swallowed her” sounds rather awkward.

Overall, if you spruce this up I’m curious as to how it will turn out. I like how you capture Sakura’s helpless feelings for Sasuke, although admittedly it ends up seeming to me more like the Sakura at the end of Arc I. That might just be me though.

3

OFX gave good general advice. Since you asked for comments, I’m going to give some specific advice. Keep in mind I’m not a super-pro-critic here so you can probably ignore some of the stuff I say. I’m just going to throw it out there, and you can take it for what it is.

Sakura stood atop a hilltop a few kilometres from Konoha village. A slight breeze ruffled the grass beneath her feet, a few strands Of her hair blurred into her vision as she took in her surroundings. It was a particularly bright and sunny day, not a cloud in the sky. Indeed it was a beautiful day, but the fact seemed to escape Sakura even though she was standing right in the middle of it. It was not that she did not see it, she was just so totally indifferent to it. In fact she had been indifferent to a lot of things lately.
Don’t tell us the weather is beautiful. Show us how it feels in detail. Be mindful of connotations and try to take advantage of them. This chunk can evoke something, but it’s not right now. As OFX said, be careful of excessive wordiness. You don’t need the words “slight,” “particularly,” “totally,” etc. and if you don’t need them there, you’re just distracting your readers by including them.

Ever since he left. Ever since he left her.
Kill the first sentence. There’s no need for it.

It had been three years since that fateful day, and life had never returned to normal. Three years since the love of her life abandoned her. Three years since the ground seemed to have opened up and swallowed her. He had left, underlining the fact that he never cared in the first place. Through the years Sakura had known and loved Sasuke. She knew that he did not seem to return her affections in any way, but she had always believed that somehow her undying love for him would be returned some day.
Repetition can help the reader tie related ideas together. It’s a technique called parallelism. I think here you’d be better off not using it though. You can relate those ideas less awkwardly by writing something like this: “It had been three years since that fateful day when the love of her life abandoned her, and things never returned to normal. It felt like the ground had swallowed her up.”

As the wind ruffled her hair once again she closed her eyes, and tried to remember the happy times.
People don’t do this in real life. It’s almost inconsequential, but it makes your story less believable. Be mindful of that.

The times Sasuke would actually smile at her. It had happened a few times over the years and when it did, it meant the world to her. She would be dancing on air for days, replaying it in her mind over and over, playing with the thought that he loved her back.
This is good. No complaints here. You might want to remove the second “playing” though, but it’s not a big deal.

But he left, in his quest to kill his brother. Her inner most fear had been realized . All her love and affection had been useless. She couldn’t take it. Her mind could not cope with the fact that he did not care at all. It was all she had thought about ever since he left. It had been three long years. She was tired…so very tired
I don’t understand how the first sentence relates to the rest of the paragraph. Expand on it or cut it.

When Kakashi-sensei had broken the news to her, she had hit rock bottom Ever since she had been digging a mental hole for herself, sealing herself off from the world. For the first period of time she had sobbed uncontrollably every waking hour. She had been sitting in her room all day crying non stop, only interrupted by occasional hours of restless sleep. After some time she had become so weak, she had been suspended from her duties as a ninja. On top of that, her love had been branded a traitor and a missing-nin, one to be killed on sight. Bit she was not capable of letting him go.
Instead of “the first period of time” try “a while.” It’s just a little less awkward.

Sakura bent her head backwards and stared of into the sky. All she could see was blue. It was kind of empty, just like her. Tranquill, motionless, catatonic. She could hear the breeze in her ears as it blocked out all the other sounds the forested area made around her. Nothingness and a slight buzzing.
“It was empty, like her.” You don’t need the words “kind of” or “just.” They’re distracting and they give the illusion that you’re afraid to just say what you mean. Instead of separating tranquil, motionless, and catatonic with commas, try periods. It might not be better, but it’s an idea. Once again, the writer’s rule of thumb applies: If it’s not necessary, cut it. “In her ears” isn’t necessary, it’s already implied by the verb “hear.”

It was morbidly reminiscent of how she felt.
Here’s a case where I think you should use parallelism. Try “It was morbid. It was reminiscent of how she felt.” Turning morbid into an adjective instead of an adverb makes it more powerful. People ignore adverbs readily. Like the one I just used.

She remembered how she had tried to soothe his pain that time when his curse seal had first been activated so long ago. She remembered how she worried about him during the chuunin exam. She remembered the time he had given in to the power of his curse, and gone after the ones that had hurt her.
Too many remembereds. The best way to tell you what I think you should do here is by just re-writing it:

“She remembered how she had tried to soothe his pain that time when his curse seal had first been activated so long ago, and how she worried about him during the chuunin exam. She remembered the time he had given in to the power of his curse, and gone after the ones that had hurt her.”

Replacing one of them with a conjunction does wonders. It might sound wrong in the context of the story though, and I’m not familiar with Naruto, so you might be better off not changing it.

In that moment she was so happy about him caring, but the way he showed it was terrifying. If only she had realized then. He was an avenger, she would never have any place in his stone cold heart. Nor would anyone for that matter. But her heart would never let go of him. No matter what.
Turn the comma into a period, and replace the period before “nor” with a comma. This is a formal error and is wrong. Nor is strictly a conjunction and only comes after a comma.

Sakura lowered her head and looked down the cliffside. The last years her mind had constantly tumbled downwards. She had become a useless shinobi unable to shake the image of the raven-haired boy with the dark eyes from her mind. She sighed inwardly as she stepped a little closer to the edge.
No complaints with this.

I hope I wasn’t too harsh. Trust me, you have potential. I could’ve said thousands of words tearing apart a typical fanfic of this length. I usually don’t even read them beyond the first sentence, especially when I don’t care about the source material. You’re very good.

4

You didnt expect them to be like this i suppose? They should edit fanfics for a living. BTW i didnt even read it because I dont like Naruto.

5

Then why post, Simmer?

I found it a good read. Same opinion as the other two, but I think you can replace “missing-nin” with something else. Deserter perhaps, or something else that means he abandoned the village. I don’t know if missing-nin is a term used in Naruto, but it sounds awkward reading it in the middle of a paragraph.

6

Simmer, don;t post if you’re only going to be a dick. consider it a warning

7

While the comments made by Omega and Hades are mostly correct, I think they’re going a little too far considering it’s just the first chapter of an obviously emo-oriented fanfic. Personally, I believe only three things matter in a fanfic:

  1. That it is written in correct gramar, so people can understand it;

  2. That it makes sense, and not just to the author;

  3. And finally and most importantly, that THE AUTHOR enjoys writing it. He (or she) is the one going thru the trouble of writing it. Whether the readers enjoy it or not depends mostly on their own likes and dislikes, and is usually out of the author’s hands. Fan writers really shouldn’t worry so much about public reaction. Sure, you can try to please your audience if that’s what you want… just know that there are no garantees of that, NO MATTER HOW GOOD THE STORY IS. In the end, any format or genre is OK as long as the author likes it (yes, even Mary Sue stories). The rest of us are bystanders, unless we pay for reading it, which is not the case with Fanfics.

In general, I found the chapter OK, though it’s fairly obvious stuff (to Naruto fans, that is.) Btw, is the ending hinting that Sakura wants to commit suicide? Or am I reading too much in there?

8

You contradict yourself. In #3 you say the reaction of the reader shouldn’t matter, but in #1 you say grammar is important so the reader can understand. Clearly, it does matter. If the writer writes for their self, grammar is meaningless as long as they understand what they mean.

Writing is communication. If people don’t appreciate it, it doesn’t matter how much the author enjoyed writing it. It’s a waste of time and effort.

9

I dunno Wil, I don’t think it’s much fun to write if it’s not very good.

10

Hades: Grammar is a constant, something you or I could point out to and say, “Hey, that’s wrong!” and we could be right. But we cannot say things like, “Mary Sue stories suck!!” because clearly some people (at least the ones writing them) enjoy them. That’s personal taste, and should not be a rule.

Sorcerer: I’m just pointing out how quality doen’t really mean your story will be a hit. I’ve seen some very well crafted stories that get totally ignored, while others that are pure crap get acclaimed. (See: most hollywood movies. Are the ones that make the most money the best ones? Hardly ever.) I just think it’s important all Fic writers realize that ahead of time.

11

Well, the people on FF.net seem to enjoy what they do no matter how bad it is. :stuck_out_tongue:

12

I’m srry everyone this isn’t fabulous…but I am quite young and writing isn’t my best subject soooo…ya…srry.

13

Omega: Good for them, then. This is all just for fun. Really, we readers should stop acting like the writers owe us something- we aren’t paying for their stories. Give advice or state your opinion, but never demand anything. And if they don’t listen, find something else to read.

EmoAnimegirl: See my above comment. Don’t apologize- just have fun. Of course, if you want to be a REAL writer someday, pay attention to advice given. Never take it personally, though.

Oh, and welcome to the Media Board, this is your first work here, right? :wave:

14

yes this is thans