Introduction: You introduced two of the bigger characters in the introduction: Wartortle and Mason. You set the story up with the dark Halloween night as they two go on a trick-or-treating run. You had the beginnings of a decent introductio here. However, there are a few things you could have done and a few mistakes that you’ll have to fix for future attempts.
For starters, description. Stories mostly commonly start off with a vert detailed scene or a narrative that sets the background. You went with the former, so you want to have a few things present. The most important thing is what does the character look like. You tell us (the readers) what the costume is supposed to resemble, but never make the transition into showing us. Here’s what I mean by show”
Quote:
Originally Posted by me
My pink costume in all honestly made me look rediculuss. I had originally gone for the Clefairy costume because it was cheap, only requring card board and cotton. I had made myself a body with the cardboard, then painted it pink and added the white fluff to give me a ghostly appearance. Even my short claws looked sad.
~ You want detail, now this isn’t my best example because I don’t really know how to describe your costume, but there an example. And if you don’t get that oneI’ll have other later one.
Below are also tow things that need work because of the inconsistencies in them.
Quote:
"They have to be home!" I yelled at Wartortle. "I mean, their yard is COVERED with decorations!"
~ This struck me as odd because the character for no appearant reason yells at his companion. You’ll want to make sure everything makes sense or that you have a reason behind it.
Quote:
"Wart-ortle..." Wartortle groaned. His tummy rumbled so loud, it scared the barking Arcanine away.
~ Another weird section because you say that Wartortle scares the barking Arcanine away. But there is no barking Arcanine up to this point. You mention an Arcanine but not a barking one, nor do you give a reason why it would be barking. In order to correct this, change the ‘the’ before barking to ‘a’. This will change it from a specific Arcanine to an unspecific one. And of course you can give the reader a reason of why it was barking, this could be because of the strangers or something else.
The next problem I have also deal with detail. You want to describe the scene more so than you did. But will we deal with that in the detail section.
Plot: Short, but interesting. I couldn’t really tell the direction of the story, but I liked that. It was fresh and original because of the Clefary and Halloween themed occasion. I liked how Clefary was introduced and how you resolved the situation in the end. It tied everything together nicely.
But, there are a few things to think about for next time. The biggest problems relate to the main storyline and not some loose thread. As a reader, while I did like the intrigue of Clefary coming from the mist and trading bodies, it left me wondering what and how did that happen? Now, I know you didn’t explain this on purpose and left it as a mystory in the end. But when using this type of plot you want to be carefull that you don’t leave too much unexplained. It takes away from the tale and can leave a bad taste in the reader’s mouth. This didn’t happen here, but you did skirt the edge of aceptable. So be careful about this, you don’t want to ruin a good piece of work.
The second issue relates to the first. How did Mason get to the Pokecenter? You never talked about this and left me with a big question mark. This is what I was talking about when I said it could ruin a story. This part didn’t worry me overly much, but it sort of ruined the ending because it didn’t make much sense.
Overall, one of the better plots I’ve seen for a mon of this rank.
Grammar: I spotted some issues that I placed below. For a short story you do have numerous errors that take away some of the integrity. Because this is early in your URPG writing career I’m not going to punish you too harshly this time, but next time be careful about making this errors.
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He was thinking[,] "It's probably bacause of how bad your costume is."
~ because you are launching into a dialogue tag you need to have a comma here.
Quote:
"Nice...costume..."
~ You are using ‘...’ too many times up to this point, this is the fifth example currently. What I suggest is reading up on the rules regarding them. If you need help then PM myself or another grader and we can help.
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"Wartortle, no!" I started to walk over, when the "mist" tightened around me. The "mist" started glowing, and pieces of my costume flew in the air. Then, the "mist" started getting bigger, and covering my body.
~ “Mist” is being used here too much also. You don’t need to have the marks around mist after every use. You’ve already established it, so using it again is redundant. You also might want to change mist to fog or some other word every now and then so the reader sees something else occasionally besides mist.
Quote:
"Not if we have anything to say about it!" Wartortle heroically stated.
"Yeah!" Pichu shouted. "We may be small, but we're tough."
"Try us, stupid-heads!" Shinx said.
"I can't see this turning out well," I shrieked.
Because you are having multiple people speak there should be a paragraph space between each person’s speech line.
Quote:
Originally Posted by correct
"Not if we have anything to say about it!" Wartortle heroically stated.
"Yeah!" Pichu shouted. "We may be small, but we're tough."
"Try us, stupid-heads!" Shinx said.
"I can't see this turning out well," I shrieked.
You repeated this mistake a couple times, so in future stories be sure to remedy this problem.
Now, despite the errors above I didn’t see too many typos which meant you knew what to look for, you just had a few mechanical errors. Keep what I said in mind, but if you still need help be sure to contact another grader or myself.
Detail: Well, not good. When writing you want to have the basics down: what do people look like? What do Pokemon look like? Are the attacks described? What does the environment look like? Those are the building blocks. From there you can expand out to things like emotions and senses and other things of that nature. But for now we can focus on the building blocks.
Quote:
There were decorations all around their yard. A fake (or at least I thought, until I touched it) Gastly, an inflatable Darkrai, a singing Jigglypuff (which would be creepy enough on its own), and an Arcanine sitting at their door. This was the perfect house to start at.
This is telling, we want showing.
Quote:
Originally Posted by me
All sorts of Halloween decorations dotted the pristine green lawn. We walked up the stone pathway leading to the door, passing a Gastly, a Darkrai, and a Jigglypuff. I thought the Gastly was fake, but a quick pass through his purple body with my hand caused his gaseuous body to quickely reform to his original form. Then a set of eyes and white fangs turned toward me. I backed up and bumped in the cream colored snout of an Arcanine the dog Pokemon lifted his lips to snarl a warning at me. His orange fur standing out against the gray of the stone.”
~ You can do more, but a basically thing is color and texture. I didn’t include texture, but that can be solved by describing the course hairs of the Fire type Pokemon. So, remember to describe stuff the main character sees.
Next thing we can do is Pokemon attacks. You did good with the Clefary using Metronome, but you want to do that for other attacks also.
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I could tell Pichu was having a hard time. He was all alone and Pichu never really was my strongest. Pichu started to charge ThunderShock, and Lampent would use Shadow Ball before he could even release it.
I’m going to give an example of how a Shadow Ball appears in my mind.
Quote:
Originally Posted by me
An orb of swirling dark energy began to form in front of the purple and black form of Lampent. It swelled in size from a peanut to that of a melon. Purple bolts of electricity began to crackle within the attack.
Now Thunder Shock.
Quote:
Originally Posted by me
Electricity began to congregate around the cheeks of the small yellow Pichu. When enough of the Electricity had built up, Pichu cried out and fired a small bolt of yellow energy that sped towards Lampent.
You can make attacks look however you want, as long as they are accurate and make sense visually. You can really let your imagination go here.
The final part is about characters. The basic tenant is describe everyone who appears. You can match the amount needed to how long they appear or their importance in the story.
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Then, I saw a person who vaguely looked like me.
"Mason! It's you!" my Pokémon said. "We missed you!"
Mason, have to descibe him.
Quote:
Originally Posted by me
Then, I saw a person who vaguely looked like me. He was dressed in typical clothing of black pants and a red t-shirt. But going beyond his clothing, his face looked like mine. His long brown hair cascaded to his shoulders while percieing hazel eyes stared back at me.
~ Something short here to illustrate my point, but you can go beyond this with body shape, facial characteristics had much more. If you want ideas for this sort of thing look through other stories to get a good idea.
Okay, I hope that get’s you started about thinking what needs to be described. Be sure to consider what I put down above, but a great learning tool is to read the work of past authors do get an idea of what you need. Some good authors are: Dog of Hellsing, Kai-Mei, and Scourge of Nemo. There are of course others but you can do no harm starting there.
Length: Clefary
Overall: Some issues that need to be explored for future works, but you did a good job here. Nothing stood out as a grave error or made the story seem bad. Captured. Be sure to do what I said above so your writing will improve.
@Wartortle