Thread: PMD2 Logbook(s)

I decided to write this when I restarted my PMD2 file. I thought about Sunflora's and Bidoof's journals and thought "What if the player and his/her partner had their own journal?" So now while I play through the game, the two protagonists will have their own journal to recount each day's events.

I will make some minor changes that hopefully shouldn't affect the overall story much. Just to let you know.

Day 1

“Uh…hi. My name is Treecko, and this is my journal. I don’t know why I decided to start one now, but I figure it can’t hurt to write down my experiences. Hopefully this might help me be a little braver.

Today started like it always does. I left home, saying hello to some of the locals of Treasure Town. Many of the pokemon have started getting ideas of opening their own stores; some have already opened for business. I can only wish them the best of luck. The day slipped into the afternoon, nothing of particular interest happened, though (although, one of the soon-to-be store-owners, Duskull, said something about a bank. I know how ghosts are prejudiced around here for their whole supposed death thing, so he might not be so successful).

Close to sundown, I went out to the guild. What’s the guild, you ask? I’m talking about the famous Wigglytuff guild, the place to go if you want to learn about/become an exploration team. There are other guilds that I could possibly join into, but Wigglytuff is the most famous and most public; I’m a little embarrassed to admit, but I don’t even know where any others are. Taking extra motivation, I even brought my special treasure—my “relic fragment” as I call it—but even that couldn’t stop me from getting scared and backing out as soon as the security system went off. Deeply disappointed and ashamed of myself, I headed down to where I usually go when I feel down on myself: the beach. As soon as I stepped on the sandy shore and could taste that slightly salty air, I was already finding myself being cheered up. The scenery was beautiful too; the sun reflecting on the waves, the Krabby out and blowing bubbles that sparkled like floating pearls. Being uplifted from the view, I looked over to see something odd in the distance. Getting closer, you wouldn’t believe what I found: A Chimchar unconscious on the sand. I wondered, and still do, about how he ended up like that. Was he washed up from the sea from some distant land? Or did the storm last night drain his vitality and knock him out? Yes, I know that only the Charmander species have to fear their health around water, but maybe, since Chimchar are also fire-type, this one was affected the same way they are. Thankfully, it wasn’t too hard to wake up the chimp, but as soon as he heard me speak, he sort of freaked out, like he’s never heard another pokemon talk before. Further along the conversation, after the pokemon’s initial shock, I found out his name was Chimpyro (I laughed a little on the inside, but pokemon giving themselves names aren’t unheard of), and shockingly, that Chimpyro was a human! Unfortunately, Chimpyro seemed to have some sort of amnesia, so he could neither prove he was a human nor remember what he was like. I’m still debating over whether he’s telling the truth or not.

Well, soon after meeting Chimpyro, two pokemon snuck up and tackled me. At first I thought it was a pokemon who wasn’t paying attention to where they’re going, but I also noticed my relic fragment seemed to have been knocked out of me. The two thieves, Koffing and Zubat, took it and ran into the nearby Beach Cave. They must have been stalking me for a while, since before running off they made fun of my…lack of courage. I’ve heard rumors that Beach Cave had recently turned into a dangerous place. Knowing that I most likely wouldn’t last long in there, I pleaded to Chimpyro to help me recover my treasure. He seemed a little hesitant at first, but he agreed.

As soon as we took our first steps into Beach Cave, I soon found out how wrong I was in fearing this place. Granted, almost every pokemon we met in there were hostile, but they all were water or ground type. After finding that out, my fears turned towards Chimpyro and how he would fare here. Turns out, for a supposed human, Chimpyro caught on to fighting very quickly and even figured out how to use the items we found in there after only a brief explanation. It wasn’t long before Chimpyro and I reached the cave pit and found the thieves. Of course, like all criminal-like pokemon, Koffing and Zubat decided to put up a fight rather than willingly give my fragment back. I’m a little ashamed to say that I hardely did anything; Chimpyro was clearly more than a match for the the two. After having their poke-hindquarters handed to them, Koffing and Zubat showed more criminal-like behavior and fled the scene. Fortunately, they, reluctantly, gave me back my relic fragment.

When we were safely away from the cave, Chimpyro seemed to show a bit of a daredevil-like side of him. He took a piece of driftwood and actually attempted to slide across the shallow waves. I was watching completely stunned, but Chimpyro actually seemed to be doing it…for a few seconds, anyway. After that, he fell off, actually skipped across the water twice, and crashed into a rock before stopping. The Krabby on that rock were scared out of their wits, and I couldn’t stop myself from giggling like an idiot. After calming down, I took advantage of Chimpyro tending to his (minor) injuries to ask him the question that was forming in my mind: I asked him if he wanted to come with me to the Wigglytuff Guild and form an exploration team together. Chimpyro was even more hesitant with this than with the cave, but he agreed again. As much to my excitement, I think we should wait till tomorrow. Chimpyro was able to get up pretty well from that wipe-out, but I know he must be a little sore, so we’ll rest for tonight and then head over to the guild (but note to self: keep Chimpyro away from Sharpedo Bluff, at least for a while. I saw him eyeing the cliff eagerly, and I don’t think it was for the view)."

-Treecko

Hmm... Not bad, but you mispelled Treecko. Just a question, though, and not one to be interpretted as me trying to be mean either... Have you read journal/log formated fictions? They usually get pretty in depth with the narrating character's thoughts and feelings about the events and stuff that happen to him/her. So, you should work just a bit more on elaboration. Otherwise, it seems like this could be a decent fic.

I don't know if I should call these chapters or not, but here's the second day.

Day 2

“Well, turns out getting to the Wigglytuff Guild took longer than I thought. Not only did we sleep in till around mid-day, but Chimpyro continually made detours to anywhere and everywhere that struck his interests, most of them places where he could injure himself with one of his “eccentric actions”. We arrived at the gates of guild, the eyes of the Wigglytuff tent gazing at us intently. I’m thankful that I wasn’t the only one a little freaked out by it, even Chimpyro said he was a little unnerved (but then again, he also thought that the guild hunted some giant Wigglytuff, and…well, I’m not going to finish what he said). I guess that knowing that I wasn’t the only nervous one helped me finally stand through the security system, and after waiting for a few tense minutes, it decided that I seemed fine. However, as soon as Chimpyro stepped on the examining grate, the system seemed to malfunction and, unusually, started arguing with itself. After a while, Chimpyro was accepted too.

The inside was amazing…after you stepped inside and went down a ladder. So many pokemon were there, and one came up to us and introduced himself as Chatot. I’m not sure what to make of Chatot, he seems to change emotions as quickly as a Ditto will its shape. Supposedly the exploration training course is rough, and many pokemon have fled because of it; I can only hope that that’s not true.

Chatot took us to see the Guild master, Wigglytuff. At first Wigglytuff seemed really scary, but he turned out to be pretty nice, although also a little odd. Our new exploration team name is Fusion. It was Chimpyro’s idea and I like it. Wigglytuff gave us a starter kit and Chatot took us to our room. And that’s about it. I’m anxious about tomorrow, but I write about that next time”

-Treecko


“Ok, how the heck do you start these things? Name? I guess that would be Chimpyro, at least, that’s what I told Treecko anyway. But that doesn’t sound anything like a human name, thinking about it. I know it’s not my real name, it can’t be, but then why do I feel that this name means something to me? That bird, Chatot or something like that (unpredictable little feathered thing, I might add) gave me this journal, so let’s see... If you want my species, I’m a Chimchar, but it was not always like this. I distinctly remember being a hu…uh, “Different species”. It’ll probably be a good idea to keep that secret, and that means keeping this thing as ignorant as possible from any wandering eyes. Well, if you want a story I can remember, then it started when I woke up on a beach and saw Treecko. At the time, I had no idea pokemon could talk, and I sure was shocked when Treecko expressed his worry, and my heart nearly gave out when I saw I was a Chimchar. So then stuff happens, Treecko loses his rock to a couple of thieves, we chase them through a supposedly “dangerous” cave, more stuff involving creaming some savage pokemon happen, we beat the thugs, showed them what losers they are…Yeah, when you think about it, this really wasn’t that exciting. In the end, Treecko gets his rock back, shows it to me, and upon seeing some sort of ancient plant-looking thing implanted on it, I mentally promoted the rock from ‘rock’ to ‘fossil’. Well, after that, I got bored and decided to have some fun. I don’t know why, but I feel the urge to try out these awesome stunts that I think of. I guess it has to do with gaining more resistance towards pain now that I’m a pokemon instead of a human, and I like to abuse that new ability as much as I can. Don’t know how right that is, but I’m pretty sure that rock I crashed into would have killed, if not seriously injure, me as a human, but instead I was only bruised in multiple places.

Treecko started talking about stuff, and somehow I was tricked into going with him to some guild the next day. So we went there, more stuff happened, one incident involving Treecko stopping me from launching myself from a makeshift slingshot made out of two trees, and now we ended up becoming an exploration team. How that ended up is beyond me—I wasn’t paying much attention to anything going on after thinking about that Wigglytuff tent—but I made up the name Fusion for the team name. At least Treecko likes it. After that, we got some starter kit and were showed to our room, and now here we are. Training for us will start tomorrow; I hope this will not be some sort of school.

Hmm…this thing is not as ignorant as I hoped it would be. I’ll just have to hide this thing very carefully.”

-Chimpyro

Okay, okay, hold it. You didn’t even read what I wrote, did you? I’m not trying to be rude, but when someone offers up advice, you should take it. It’s meant to help improve your writing skills so you can avoid turning what is actually a decent concept compared to the countless other PMD fics out there (and trust me, almost none of them are even half-good anymore…and don’t even get me started on the lack of creativity…)

Now, don’t get me wrong when I say this, but you really should write log entries so they’re a little bit fuller. From what I’ve read up until now, Treecko’s background is just that blank slate that Game Freak and Nintendo leave players so they can fill it in with whatever type of stuff they can come up with (which I’ve always criticized because the secondary Pokémon titles would benefit a lot from more character driven stories, like Final Fantasy’s usually games do). And, that really is the biggest problem here; Treecko could have given a lot more insight as to who he is as a character, as well as go into a little more detail as to what he was doing the rest of the first day or maybe even a few events up to the night of the storm (I was going to say something like that last time, but it slipped my mind…sorry…). I know, it’s hard to deviate from the central plot when doing a rewrite/novelization of a game, but there are tricks to doing it without really breaking away from the storyline.

If you need an example of this, might I suggest looking at bobandbill’s rewrite of Pokémon Colosseum? Not the exact same thing, per say, but it could give some better insight as to what would help you improve, flaming infernape.

Aside from character issue, I’d say you should work on showing more than telling (which I know is hard to do considering the log format). Describing the events that the narrator goes through and characters that he meets is a necessary part of any first-person POV fiction. It builds a better picture and interest by having an active tone to it as well. Like a lot of new writers, you seem to be using a passive voice, like stuff happened and that was it. I know it’s hard to get over an automatic assumption of how to write records, but even in logs, you should make it sound like the character was deeply involved by better describing their thoughts and feelings in an engaging way, as if the events are still happening, and not like the character was just an observer making factual notes.

It’s still a decent fic, nonetheless, but if you took these things into consideration, you’d see a huge difference in your writings.