Thread: Dreaming of Watery Shellos (Ready for Grading)

The Shellos just lay there, nearly unconscious. I grabbed a Poke Ball in my bag, the somewhat used green backpack I got for Christmas last 2009. I skillfully threw the ball to the blue Shellos. It hit the Pokemon, and it turned into a mysterious red light of energy that entered through the little dot in the center of the ball. One shakes. Two shakes. Three breath-taking shakes…


I opened my eyes, seeing the beige ceiling. It was a flight of fantasy. Was it just a dream? Or was it a sign? After a moment, I stood and looked at a mirror. I do not usually notice, but I do have short black hair, I have black irises and my eyes are aided with my eyeglasses. And I do need a haircut. I prepared for the new day after that reconciliation.

Around 8:00 a.m., I went outside to exercise and to train my Riolu. He was my starter that Professor Narra gave to me. Riolu is very energetic and hasty, and that trait stayed since then. I admit, Riolu doesn’t get many battles with others, so that’s why I’m training him. In line with this, I am exercising to be much healthier. I am much of a couch potato, and I tend to stay in front of the computer, especially with this forum-based URPG I saw last week. Because of those, I’m looking for hobbies to divert me from it.

“Hey, Voltaire!” a voice of a friend greeted me.

I turned around to see Aria, a girl which I met on the day I picked my starter. In fact, we picked our starters at the same date the Professor gave to us. “Oh, hi Aria. What are you doing?” I asked.

“Nothing in particular. I was planning to train my Sneasel,” and yes, Sneasel was her choice for a starter. “Would you like to battle? It is a good opportunity for training,” she challenged.

“Why not?” I replied while getting Riolu’s Poke Ball.

And so the battle started. We both sent out our Pokemon. My Riolu versus her Sneasel.

“Riolu, Reversal!” It hit Aria’s Sneasel right in its bluish-black body.

“Sneasel, use Slash!” It slashed Riolu critically. An ouch for me and Riolu.

“Now, do a Force Palm!” It successfully paralyzed the enemy alongside with its effectiveness.

“Counter it with Icy Wind, Sneasel!” It made Riolu shiver with cold.

“Final move, Riolu! Reversal!” With that, Sneasel fainted. We won for the very first time. As Aria called her Sneasel back, she went nearer to me and sent her congratulations.

“That was a great battle for a new Trainer like you,” she commented.

“Oh thanks. I was not expecting to win, actually.”

“Okay, better leave you now. Must train, you know,” and she went her way.

As I went home, I noticed a Shellos by the sign that reads: “Floaroma Town. Our flowers are too fragrant to be true.” It was a blue slug with wavy ears. It has this fixed smile when it looked at me. The Shellos went to a nearby river and swam away. “Okay, I’ll find and catch it tomorrow,” I decided.

The next day, I went to the same place where I saw the Shellos. It was not there, not a single sign of any appearance. I tried looking at the riverside. Still, no Shellos. After hours of scanning the whole route, I gave up and went back home around 5:30 p.m

Back at home, I placed my bag in a table in our simple living room with simple appliances.

"How is your day, my son?" my mom asked me by the kitchen.

"Very much fine, mom," I replied.

I went to my bedroom and turned on the computer. The computer is relatively old yet with the newest "Doorz" Operating Systems. and a very sleek monitor. I searched over the internet for Shellos. According to the website:

Shellos are slug-like Pokémon. Both forms have yellow lining around their eyes, mouth and back.

In the West Sea form, the underside is white, its back is pink in color and has small spike-like protrusions on it. On its head is a ring of pink fleshy knobs arranged like a flower.

In the East Sea form, the underside is green, its back is blue and has two flap-like protrusions. These flaps are lined in yellow. On its head are two white-tipped knobs resembling horns.

Shellos and its evolution Gastrodon are examples of allopatric speciation, though the two forms are still able to interbreed (the child takes the mother's form).

And some more about Shellos, they do live in rivers, so it means I need to search deeper.

"Honey, dinner's ready!" my mom called me.

I went downstairs for dinner. For dinner, curry rice, fried pork rinds and orange juice were served at the simple 6-seater table. My dad is out of the town, so me and my mom ate dinner ourselves. After finishing half of the food, I left to watch television, then I brushed my teeth, and I went to my bedroom to count electric sheep in my bed.

The next day, after finishing all morning rituals every person must face, I set off to find the Shellos again. I brought some Poke Balls and Riolu. Riolu was with his usual puppy pep, which matches his blue-colored puppy looks and eyes of a raccoon. I stopped at the riverside to hide my things because I will find the Shellos deep down the river. I changed my clothes and did some stretching, and dove through the water. I did not see the Shellos, only some fish which I think were Magikarp. After some seconds, I rose up the water and regained my breath. Then next to a quick rest by the river, I dove back to the river. But after a few seconds, a painful sting hit me. Leg cramps! With the burden of the cramps, I can't go back to the surface. I can't shout for the danger of water entering my lungs. Slowly, my consciousness slipped away from me.

Note: The story is told in third-person view, starting from here.

As Voltaire Magneton sunk deeper to the river without any unexpected help, a little, slug-like Pokemon shoved and pushed the human back to the surface. The Pokemon, named Shellos, cried for help and attention. Luckily, a Trainer was passing by and saw the two and called for medication. When help arrived, the medical team performed CPR on Voltaire and was successfully revived. After a few check-ups, everyone left, except for the Shellos.

Note: The story returns to first-person view.

"Even though I have no recollection of what happened, I would like to thank you," I said to the Shellos who helped me.

The Shellos smiled in happiness.

"I would like to ask, would you like to join my team? You are the best Shellos I have ever seen in my life," I offered to the Shellos.

The Shellos agreed in joy.

I gave the Poke Ball to the Shellos, and the Shellos tapped the button in the middle. One shake. Two Shakes. Three shakes...


I woke up with a good mood on me. I'm not sure if the dream was true or not. I checked my Pokemon. There it is, my new Shellos resting on its own Poke Ball.





Author's note: I sincerely thank Bulbapedia for information about Shellos.

Pokemon: Shellos
Target: 5-10k
Characters:5,837 (not including the notes and the quote)
Ready to Grade! :)

Introduction-Story-Plot: Your story started off with a battle between a new Trainer and his rival. It was a decent way to start the story off, getting your reader right into the swing of things. Certainly, it allowed us to get a glimpse of your character and what he’s like as we got to watch him actively battling. However, your introduction didn’t matter much in the long run, being completely unrelated to the main storyline. The best stories always have stories that, one way or another, can trace back in some way to the introduction. That’ll be something for you to work on - further development of what actually happens in the introduction so that it matters.

As for the rest of your story, well, there were a few twists and turns involved, but in essence, it was a pretty basic “Trainer searching for a Pokemon” plot. Having your character drown to be rescued by Shellos was an interesting aspect to throw in there to replace a battle, and I don’t see any issue with it. It’s good progress away from that basic story plot I mentioned earlier.

I’d also like to point out that the Pokemon battle between Sneasel and Riolu early on could’ve been improved. Certainly, it wasn’t part of the climax, so I’m not looking for a super exciting battle. However, you just had the Pokemon throw a few attacks at each other, giving them a line of description before moving on to the next attack. I’m sure you’ll be writing more battles later on, so learn from this one. Flesh your battles out and describe them, and more importantly, add emotion and thought to them through what your character feels during battle as he lands attacks and takes them, and what he’s thinking in terms of his next move or his reaction to attacks that just landed. Emotion makes battles matter - get your reader invested into them. Thought makes them interesting - get your reader strategizing along with your character.

You’re still new to this, and I remember being pretty similar when I first started. However, after two or three stories (this being your second now, of course), you should begin to try getting away from that type of plot and begin to come up with your own original story. That’s what readers read stories for, and that’s what you should target for your next story - a story of your own that doesn’t resemble any of those other stories out there.

Overall, this was a reasonable result in this area. Your introduction showed signs of a good hook - now you just have to make it one that lends itself to being important to the storyline one way or the other. More important than that, however, would be coming up with a brand new storyline from scratch. That’s the number one priority for you to work on going forward to improve your stories. Good luck - I would love to see what you can whip up in the future.

Grammar-Spelling: This is your second story and it’s clear you’re fairly new to writing stories. Given this, I felt your grammar was acceptable. There were a fair amount of mistakes, but I’ve definitely seen much, much worse out of new writers. I’ll quote a few of your mistakes so that you can work on fixing them.

The Shellos just lay there, nearly unconscious.

A common mistake: lay vs. lie. To lay something means to put it down or set it down, while to lie means to rest. You’re looking for the latter here. Also, you used the wrong tense, as in the next sentence, you said “grabbed” in the past tense, meaning instead of lie, you’re looking for lied: The Shellos just lied there, nearly unconscious.

“Nothing in particular. I was planning to train my Sneasel,” and yes, Sneasel was her choice for a starter.

You only end a quote with a comma when you add on with something like “she said” or “she asked”. If you’re going to say something after a quote that isn’t something like that and is an unrelated statement, then end the quote before it with a period.

Also, the “and” there is unnecessary, since there was nothing to connect your statement to. I noticed that you liked starting sentences with “and”, as it was something done repeatedly. Never start sentences with “and” ever. It’s bad grammar karma, man.

The computer is relatively old yet with the newest "Doorz" Operating Systems. and a very sleek monitor.

Before “yet”, you need to add a comma because “yet” is a coordinating conjunction (bridge words like “and, but, or, for, so, yet”). Also, I’m guessing it’s a typo, but you can see there’s a period after Operating Systems, and that should be a comma because “and” is another one of those coordinating conjunctions.

Luckily, a Trainer was passing by and saw the two and called for medication.

More nitpicky than the other things, but medication means like a substance or a drug that you use for medical purposes. The term you’re looking for here would simply be “medical attention”.

Overall, your grammar was reasonable for a new writer. It’ll get better with time, so please put your all into improving.

Detail-Description: Not a bad job here. You gave everything a solid line of visual description, enough for us to get by with an image of what was going on. However, it’s clear there’s some work you can do in this area to get better.

What I’d prioritize mostly if I were you would simply be adding more lines of description. You gave us a little bit of everything, and I count not leaving anything undescribed as a good thing. However, now you have to describe things further - especially the important things. Take for example, Shellos.

It was a blue slug with wavy ears. It has this fixed smile when it looked at me.

That was all you told me about Shellos. It’s not much - from that, I gain that it’s a blue slug with wavy ears and a fixed smile. I could imagine a blue slug with wavy ears and a fixed smile that could look very different from Shellos. If you were to be more precise with describing Shellos, you can create a better image of the Pokemon. For example:

It was a small blue slug, with wavy ears that were white at the tips. Its eyelids and lips were yellow, and I could see that it had lining of the same color going down its neck and around its back. There were two thin flaps on its back, also outlined in yellow. The Pokemon grinned at me with an awkwardly fixed smile.

The difference should be noticeable. Obviously, that kind of depth isn’t expected for every single thing, but you should begin to focus on trying to describe important things with more depth. Not all of those descriptions have to be visual, either - it’s great to get descriptions of what things smell like or feel like, or how they respond to any of the other senses.

So, for your next story, work on that. Get more descriptions in there - it’s a huge step in getting better as a writer.

Length: You’re fine. Of course, fleshing out your story more gets you further away from that baseline expectation of 5,000.

Climax: Your climax deviated from the standard battle that most new writers offer, and you instead gave us a situation where your main character’s life was in danger, only to have it saved by Shellos.

It was a nice climax. It was nice and different from a battle (not that there’s anything wrong with battles), and had something much greater on the line than a battle. With something where your character’s life on the line, there’s so much potential to be had.

However, the main problem I see in your climax was that it struggled in getting me to care as much as I should have about your character’s life being at risk. Mainly, you couldn’t get me worried about your character, and you couldn’t get me happy that Shellos came in and saved his life. Bringing emotions out of your reader is something you definitely want to do with your climax, and you can do that by adding drama and excitement to it. Things like having Shellos struggle against all odds to carry the Trainer’s heavy body up to the surface, or having your Trainer black out right as he sees something in front of him (his savior, in this case Shellos) can make your climax so much more exciting.

On the whole, this was a decent job. It was nice to see you write up a climax with serious consequences - those are the best climaxes for dramatic stories. Work on developing your climax so that it can get the reader to really get caught up in it, that’s the next step for you.

Outcome: A good job throughout. You showed good progress away from the basic noob storyline, and that is absolutely great to see. Work on getting farther away from it next - develop your descriptions and climax, and more importantly so than anything else, try your hand at writing a unique storyline from scratch. Whatever fantasy you want to write up works, just give it a try and see what kind of wild adventure you can whip up.

Shellos Captured! This fell reasonably in line with all the expectations of a writer with your experience, and my mind is completely certain of this decision. You earned your Shellos, go enjoy it. Keep writing stories!

Originally Posted by Nitro

Introduction-Story-Plot: Your story started off with a battle between a new Trainer and his rival. It was a decent way to start the story off, getting your reader right into the swing of things. Certainly, it allowed us to get a glimpse of your character and what he’s like as we got to watch him actively battling. However, your introduction didn’t matter much in the long run, being completely unrelated to the main storyline. The best stories always have stories that, one way or another, can trace back in some way to the introduction. That’ll be something for you to work on - further development of what actually happens in the introduction so that it matters.

As for the rest of your story, well, there were a few twists and turns involved, but in essence, it was a pretty basic “Trainer searching for a Pokemon” plot. Having your character drown to be rescued by Shellos was an interesting aspect to throw in there to replace a battle, and I don’t see any issue with it. It’s good progress away from that basic story plot I mentioned earlier.

I’d also like to point out that the Pokemon battle between Sneasel and Riolu early on could’ve been improved. Certainly, it wasn’t part of the climax, so I’m not looking for a super exciting battle. However, you just had the Pokemon throw a few attacks at each other, giving them a line of description before moving on to the next attack. I’m sure you’ll be writing more battles later on, so learn from this one. Flesh your battles out and describe them, and more importantly, add emotion and thought to them through what your character feels during battle as he lands attacks and takes them, and what he’s thinking in terms of his next move or his reaction to attacks that just landed. Emotion makes battles matter - get your reader invested into them. Thought makes them interesting - get your reader strategizing along with your character.

You’re still new to this, and I remember being pretty similar when I first started. However, after two or three stories (this being your second now, of course), you should begin to try getting away from that type of plot and begin to come up with your own original story. That’s what readers read stories for, and that’s what you should target for your next story - a story of your own that doesn’t resemble any of those other stories out there.

Overall, this was a reasonable result in this area. Your introduction showed signs of a good hook - now you just have to make it one that lends itself to being important to the storyline one way or the other. More important than that, however, would be coming up with a brand new storyline from scratch. That’s the number one priority for you to work on going forward to improve your stories. Good luck - I would love to see what you can whip up in the future.

Grammar-Spelling: This is your second story and it’s clear you’re fairly new to writing stories. Given this, I felt your grammar was acceptable. There were a fair amount of mistakes, but I’ve definitely seen much, much worse out of new writers. I’ll quote a few of your mistakes so that you can work on fixing them.

The Shellos just lay there, nearly unconscious.

A common mistake: lay vs. lie. To lay something means to put it down or set it down, while to lie means to rest. You’re looking for the latter here. Also, you used the wrong tense, as in the next sentence, you said “grabbed” in the past tense, meaning instead of lie, you’re looking for lied: The Shellos just lied there, nearly unconscious.

“Nothing in particular. I was planning to train my Sneasel,” and yes, Sneasel was her choice for a starter.

You only end a quote with a comma when you add on with something like “she said” or “she asked”. If you’re going to say something after a quote that isn’t something like that and is an unrelated statement, then end the quote before it with a period.

Also, the “and” there is unnecessary, since there was nothing to connect your statement to. I noticed that you liked starting sentences with “and”, as it was something done repeatedly. Never start sentences with “and” ever. It’s bad grammar karma, man.

The computer is relatively old yet with the newest "Doorz" Operating Systems. and a very sleek monitor.

Before “yet”, you need to add a comma because “yet” is a coordinating conjunction (bridge words like “and, but, or, for, so, yet”). Also, I’m guessing it’s a typo, but you can see there’s a period after Operating Systems, and that should be a comma because “and” is another one of those coordinating conjunctions.

Luckily, a Trainer was passing by and saw the two and called for medication.

More nitpicky than the other things, but medication means like a substance or a drug that you use for medical purposes. The term you’re looking for here would simply be “medical attention”.

Overall, your grammar was reasonable for a new writer. It’ll get better with time, so please put your all into improving.

Detail-Description: Not a bad job here. You gave everything a solid line of visual description, enough for us to get by with an image of what was going on. However, it’s clear there’s some work you can do in this area to get better.

What I’d prioritize mostly if I were you would simply be adding more lines of description. You gave us a little bit of everything, and I count not leaving anything undescribed as a good thing. However, now you have to describe things further - especially the important things. Take for example, Shellos.

It was a blue slug with wavy ears. It has this fixed smile when it looked at me.

That was all you told me about Shellos. It’s not much - from that, I gain that it’s a blue slug with wavy ears and a fixed smile. I could imagine a blue slug with wavy ears and a fixed smile that could look very different from Shellos. If you were to be more precise with describing Shellos, you can create a better image of the Pokemon. For example:

It was a small blue slug, with wavy ears that were white at the tips. Its eyelids and lips were yellow, and I could see that it had lining of the same color going down its neck and around its back. There were two thin flaps on its back, also outlined in yellow. The Pokemon grinned at me with an awkwardly fixed smile.

The difference should be noticeable. Obviously, that kind of depth isn’t expected for every single thing, but you should begin to focus on trying to describe important things with more depth. Not all of those descriptions have to be visual, either - it’s great to get descriptions of what things smell like or feel like, or how they respond to any of the other senses.

So, for your next story, work on that. Get more descriptions in there - it’s a huge step in getting better as a writer.

Length: You’re fine. Of course, fleshing out your story more gets you further away from that baseline expectation of 5,000.

Climax: Your climax deviated from the standard battle that most new writers offer, and you instead gave us a situation where your main character’s life was in danger, only to have it saved by Shellos.

It was a nice climax. It was nice and different from a battle (not that there’s anything wrong with battles), and had something much greater on the line than a battle. With something where your character’s life on the line, there’s so much potential to be had.

However, the main problem I see in your climax was that it struggled in getting me to care as much as I should have about your character’s life being at risk. Mainly, you couldn’t get me worried about your character, and you couldn’t get me happy that Shellos came in and saved his life. Bringing emotions out of your reader is something you definitely want to do with your climax, and you can do that by adding drama and excitement to it. Things like having Shellos struggle against all odds to carry the Trainer’s heavy body up to the surface, or having your Trainer black out right as he sees something in front of him (his savior, in this case Shellos) can make your climax so much more exciting.

On the whole, this was a decent job. It was nice to see you write up a climax with serious consequences - those are the best climaxes for dramatic stories. Work on developing your climax so that it can get the reader to really get caught up in it, that’s the next step for you.

Outcome: A good job throughout. You showed good progress away from the basic noob storyline, and that is absolutely great to see. Work on getting farther away from it next - develop your descriptions and climax, and more importantly so than anything else, try your hand at writing a unique storyline from scratch. Whatever fantasy you want to write up works, just give it a try and see what kind of wild adventure you can whip up.

Shellos Captured! This fell reasonably in line with all the expectations of a writer with your experience, and my mind is completely certain of this decision. You earned your Shellos, go enjoy it. Keep writing stories!

Thanks!

I admit all the mistakes, but about the "Doorz":
It is meant to be a typo, just to make something humorous with the OSs these days. (rather than "Orangez" or "Curvux" xD)

Originally Posted by Voltaire Magneton

Thanks!

I admit all the mistakes, but about the "Doorz":
It is meant to be a typo, just to make something humorous with the OSs these days. (rather than "Orangez" or "Curvux" xD)

Oh nah, that wasn't the mistake I was talking about, I was talking about the period after the Operating System. I understand you got some kind of funky name for your OS, lol.

Originally Posted by Nitro

Originally Posted by Voltaire Magneton

Thanks!

I admit all the mistakes, but about the "Doorz":
It is meant to be a typo, just to make something humorous with the OSs these days. (rather than "Orangez" or "Curvux" xD)

Oh nah, that wasn't the mistake I was talking about, I was talking about the period after the Operating System. I understand you got some kind of funky name for your OS, lol.

Yes, I do know about that. I just pointed the Doorz out since you said it looks like a typo.

Originally Posted by Voltaire Magneton

Yes, I do know about that. I just pointed the Doorz out since you said it looks like a typo.

Oh, not sure if that's how it came across, but I never meant to do that. My bad.