The First Try Series, by Lucilla, is a For Want of a Nail fic that explores an alternate possibility of Naruto's development, but falls into too many stylistic pitfalls to truly do this concept justice.
The writing style relies far too much on exposition rather than dialogue, with many scenes happening offscreen, and important events like battles coming off as though the narration had skimmed over them. It feels as though we're being told about what happened rather than shown it, which is never a good thing.
Characterization is not the author's strong suit. Most of the OCs come off as bland and uninteresting, if they're not one-dimensional strawmen like Sakura's mother. Sasuke and Sakura have their jerkish tendencies exaggerated and their competence diminished, so instead of them growing along with Naruto and developing as a team, the story consists of Naruto and Tetsuo lecturing Sakura and Sakura while driving home how much better than his teammates Naruto is. To a lesser degree, Kakashi gets bashed as being obsessed with training Naruto, the child of his late sensei, and is shown as far less effective than the OC, Tetsuo.
Even Naruto himself bears little resemblance to his canon counterpart, being fouler tempered, far less patient with his teammates and generally fairly abrasive. Granted, there are reasons for this- the trauma he suffers at various points and his less pleasant teammates- but his personality gets tiresome before long.
There's quite a bit of Fanon here, from how ninja and civilians interact, to why the academy produces such supposedly poor-quality graduates. Given how many developments are driven forth by the author's poorly founded theories, the story often comes off as forced and not very believable.
In conclusion, perhaps it's for the best that Naruto didn't canonically have this stroke of good fortune, and that his manga was not written by Lucilla.
It'll take more than a case of food poisoning for this to get a passing grade
The First Try Series, by Lucilla, is a For Want of a Nail fic that explores an alternate possibility of Naruto's development, but falls into too many stylistic pitfalls to truly do this concept justice.
The plot involves a simple change to canon. Unlike in canon, Naruto passes on his first try at graduating from the academy because the proctor for the final exam got food poisoning, and because his Genin Exam was administered by a man who hates Naruto, but has to pass a relative.
The writing style relies far too much on exposition rather than dialogue, with many scenes happening offscreen, and important events like battles coming off as though the narration had skimmed over them. It feels as though we're being told about what happened rather than shown it, which is never a good thing.
Characterization is not the author's strong suit. Most of the OCs come off as bland and uninteresting, if they're not one-dimensional strawmen like Sakura's mother. Sasuke and Sakura have their jerkish tendencies exaggerated and their competence diminished, so instead of them growing along with Naruto and developing as a team, the story consists of Naruto and Tetsuo lecturing Sakura and Sakura while driving home how much better than his teammates Naruto is. To a lesser degree, Kakashi gets bashed as being obsessed with training Naruto, the child of his late sensei, and is shown as far less effective than the OC, Tetsuo.
Even Naruto himself bears little resemblance to his canon counterpart, being fouler tempered, far less patient with his teammates and generally fairly abrasive. Granted, there are reasons for this- the trauma he suffers at various points and his less pleasant teammates- but his personality gets tiresome before long.
There's quite a bit of Fanon here, from how ninja and civilians interact, to why the academy produces such supposedly poor-quality graduates. Given how many developments are driven forth by the author's poorly founded theories, the story often comes off as forced and not very believable.
In conclusion, perhaps it's for the best that Naruto didn't canonically have this stroke of good fortune, and that his manga was not written by Lucilla.