The Lightning Awards Season 3 [IN SESSION]

Beyond The Dream

Judged by Shawn (Snowwhitewolf09)

Category: General

[ Author: AllvishTOV]

Title (4/5): "Beyond The Dream" gives a bit too much about the true nature of the story in my opinion, but I still find it to be a good name. It's straight to the idea of the story. The use of the phrase "beyond the dream" and other phrases using the word "dream" make the title seem revealing, but it does show the connection between the title and the work.

Summary (7/10): I am a fan of the events you've put into your summary. You tell just what to expect, and you don't shy away from giving the overall plot. I think the main attracting point is the wild stuff you've explained, that distinguishes itself from other fanfictions. Your summary even says it "an unpredictable storyline". Reading the details makes one try to guess how you'll be twisting IE to your fantasy adventure.

The first paragraph is full of really long, awkward sentences, though the second one is more manageable. There are also some odd phrases which detract a bit— "only key for all the chaos", "which has just saved", and "mess the track of life time". I get the general idea of what you're trying to say, though.

You state the stakes right at the get-go. This isn't some innocent quest, it's one to save Daisuke and obtain a powerful artifact to break the curse. The last paragraph puts further emphasis on the severity of the situation, and gives clues on how they are supposed to solve the problem.

Overall, your summary tells us that this is a high-stakes, time-saving quest that shouldn't be taken lightly and full of revelations. This promise is fulfilled with your story later on.Try to cut up your sentences a bit more. Compound sentences are good but sentence variety is better. Capitalise 'vision'. 

Plot (20/25): The goal was simple. To get the Chrono Stone and use it to stop whatever was happening. The twists and turns you added made things complicated, but the overall goal of Endou was the same. The Chrono Stones.

There are many events that I found to be notable. One of them is when the true nature of our MCs are revealed, which did answer some of the strangeness of the story. Another is the emergence of Saru, who opened up a whole new avenue that showed the extent of the projects. There were a lot of good ideas, but they were lost to me because of how thick the story is.

While I enjoyed the liberties that you have taken, I feel like the plot relied heavily on Endou. This didn't affect the points as much, since the setting of the story justifies it. The number of revelations you had shows that you definitely put a lot of effort into the mystery, it just had problems with pacing, as you feed exposition upon exposition and put a twist too quick (One particular person swapped allegiances in the space of two chapters).

One thing though, you've got a lot of plot going on. Despite the problems, there's so much meat that I wish you took a bit more time to flesh out, so they could be more impactful. What was originally a hunt for the Chrono Stone really got deep quick, and though the pacing might need to be tweaked, I have no complaints about the depth that you went for.

 Characterisation (10/20): You have a huge cast of characters. From the beginning, you had an entire team of eleven, that only increased. With every chapter, a new character was introduced—either as an ally who joins, a new enemy, or some clone. A lot of the characters had a premise and idea, with some basic character traits. But the huge cast and short focus on any of them reduces them to side characters that seem one note.

On one hand, I understand that some of them are just figments of the imagination brought to life. However, they also appear a lot and seem important. You haven't touched on them enough. This could be fixed with having some of the characters become important in some way, but as it stands, many of them just look like they are there to fill in a football team. There's a lot to the characters, it just wasn't translated into the writing very well.

Endou's personality is at least clear. He's very determined and can have a temper. Though his mood swings a bit too quick. Like that battle against The Lagoon.

A lot of your characters pretty much only share superficial traits and Hissatsus with their canon counterparts. So I think that's also something that makes it difficult to go through your work. But Yuuichi, Endou, and Atsuya are some individuals that I found interesting.

Grammar and Writing Style (10/15): Good points first. You've got decent technical ability. I like the effort put into making the sentences. I don't find too many punctuation errors. I think you could polish up your grammar a bit more, but I think there are more recurring problems to talk over.

You frequently use a sentence, end it with a comma, then connect it to dialogue. Even if the sentence has already started, your characters are speaking in full sentences. So you have to capitalise. Something like this.

He grabbed her hand, "Don't do this!"

Your wording can be awkward at times, like "Passed through the thick sealed door", which should be "Past the thick, sealed door". "A distance whisper" should be "A distant whisper". There are also times when you lack capitalisation, though most of them are related to your errors with dialogue. 

Originality (9/10): I don't think I need to say much here. Your story was basically an original one with several references to IE. While I think that might be a bit strange to people expecting Inazuma Eleven, you've already established in your summary that it would be something wildly different. And wildly different it is. You used many characters in ways that make sense, though different— Yuuichi as a Guardian, Daisuke as a father to Endou, and the Dub Versions as evil counterparts. It's personally hard to understand because they're so different, but they are original.

Feels Factor (8/15): I could feel for certain characters, but most of them were just 'there'. Many of the characters didn't do enough or stay long enough for me to build an attachment to them, besides the fact that they had the names of familiar characters. But of course, let's talk about those that I connected with.

Yuuichi serves a bit too much like a trump card at times, but throughout the story, we see glimpses of his connections with the other characters. But most important is his connection to Tsurugi, which we get a flashback of. I think that with better execution, it could have been an equally tragic story to his Go counterpart. But it's good here too.Endou has the world on his shoulders, and was constantly bombarded with truths that destroyed his perceptions. Again, while I think it could have been developed more, you at least made me think about how he must feel as the revelations drop like bombs.

[Raw] 68/100 [Total] 68%