Thread: A Merry Chase

Ok so this is my first ever story. Eeeep I have beautiflys in my stomach! Ok so here it is: How Alistair Von Dovewood completely trashed his mothers garden & attempted to catch a pokemon. (PS: I cut like to paragraphs of the end because I remembered it needs to be open ended, I wrote it like I definantly got one :D hey a guy can dream right)

A Merry Chase
Brightly coloured flowers, tufts of grass and thick, muddy earth flew in every direction as Alistair launched himself into yet another of his perfectionist mother’s picturesque garden beds in pursuit of the fast moving ball of pink fluff that he intended to be the first caught Pokémon. “Come on Penelope” shrieked the grimy boy over his shoulder at his starter Pokémon before he lunged over a mound of artfully arranged lily’s towards the illusive Pokémon.
It was amazing that Alistair had even managed to get this close to this capture. He had only received his starter Pokémon, a curious little Togepi whom he had named Penelope the day before. His mother and father, both of whom are quite influential socialites in the community had taken Alistair to the Driftveil City Gym on his eleventh birthday to start his adventure in the Pokémon world with his first capture. The Gym Leader of Driftveil is a family friend of the Von Dovewoods and as such he was naturally the one to help Alistair catch his starter Pokémon. As it turned out Alistair spent many hours looking for the ‘perfect’ Pokémon and finally after quite a merry chase involving a Bastiodon, an Excadrill and a whole bag of Pokéballs a very scared, little Togepi became the first Pokémon to join Alistair’s party.

Alistair had spent the rest of his birthday pampering his brand new friend to the point of ridiculousness and it was late that night when the two of them fell asleep on Alistair’s bed covered in cookie crumbs, chocolate smudges and in Penelope’s case a comically large pink bow.

Upon waking Alistair, after a night of dreams involving a party stuffed with his beloved normal type Pokémon decided it was time to venture into the estate that surrounded his family home and catch a second member for his team. Penelope, still stuffed full of comfort food had begrudgingly agreed to accompany him to his mother’s incomparable garden on their grand Pokémon hunt.

And now, after a high speed chase through daisies, lilies, daffodils and unfortunately the occasional rose bush, Alistair was still sprinting down a pathway in between two bluebell beds in pursuit of the bounding ball of pink fluff. “Penelope” Alistair screamed, “use ancient power NOW!” Penelope leapt in front of Alistair and began to glow with a brilliant white light. “Toe-gee…” Penelope formed a fast spinning ball of white energy in front of her “PEE! The ball of energy flew through the air and slammed into the fleeing Pokémon’s back sending it spinning into the flower bed to its left. “Yay Penelope” Alistair yelled pumping his fist in the air and jumping then completely ruining the moment by tripping over his feet and falling on his butt. He pulled himself to his feet and scrambled over to the cradle of crushed bluebells were the Pokémon had landed.

“I’m sorry” Alistair whispered to the unconscious Pokémon, “Here let’s get you back to the mansion. But first let’s find out what you are” Alistair drew his brand new Pokédex from his bag and scanned his catch. “Igglybuff the balloon Pokémon” a sharp robotic voice announced. “Igglybuff has a soft and plushy body that feels very much like a marshmallow. From this body wafts a gently sweet fragrance that soothes and calms the emotions of its foes.” Alistair smiled happily drawing a Pokéball from his bag. “Igglybuff” he said out loud. “Hmm I think I’ll call you… Priscilla.” Alistair pressed the Pokéball to Priscilla’s stomach and with a soft click she was engulfed in an aura of rainbow lights then with a flash, absorbed into the Pokéball.

Claiming this one!

Introduction:

So you told us about Alistair, his Pokemon, his family and their influential life. Well, there isn't much about this part, but you know the basics on introductions.

In the future, try telling more about your character. Describe his lifestyle, his apperance, a little history that is noteworthy enough on his lifetime, and much more about him. It is not enough that you explain what he does on the very start of the story. Remember, introductions were made to make readers know of what the character is all about, and maybe a little tidbit on how the story would flow.

From what I see from your story, I can see that you gave us a little biography of Alistair. It is somewhat good enough, but you can still add a lot more to make him more interesting.


Plot:

Taking up the basics of your story, it is the stereotypical plot of "Trainer finds and captures a Pokemon". For a Simple-ranked story, I guess it is still passable but I suggest you try to think of other story plots. For higher-ranked Pokemon, plots like the one I said a while ago do not usually guarantee a capture.

Focusing on the flow of the story, the plot is too fast flowing, allowing only a few events to happen, plus there are parts that do not actually contribute to the whole plot. In my opinion, they have a point somehow but they feel like unrelatable to the story itself.

Judging Alistair's actions via the story, he was too fast-acting and he is too fast when he comes to making decisions. If Alistair was really that way, either you say it on the introductions that he is very hasty, or you could make him think why would he do it. When I was reading it, I was like: "What? Why so escalated quickly?" Try to slow down what the characters were trying to do.

Returning to the very content of the story, this story has few events, and some of them were not really that major. For these "Trainer finds a Pokemon" plots, I suggest that you add a little conflict to the story, such as getting lost from somewhere, losing a majority of his items that he brought while on his adventure. Not only it brings a lot of "meat" on your story, it makes your story exciting too.

Here is another problem: Alistair caught a Igglybuff without knowing it is one. How did he know it was a Pokemon? How did it know what is that species? What if the Igglybuff was a legendary Pokemon? Logically, a Trainer would know the Pokemon first before capturing it. Next time, try to make things logical like this one plot hole.

Next time, try to slow down the story flow by adding important-to-the-plot parts and add an effective conflict.


Detail:

Sadly, you made detail to different places but never gave much detail to those who really need it. Especially to Alistair's case, I don't have any image of him forming in my mind. Usually, those who need detail are the main character, your target Pokemon, the antagonist, and the setting.

Let us focus on Togepi. In the story, you said Togepi is little and that was all. I know what a Togepi looks like, but how to those who are not much of a Pokemon fan? If you tried to give descriptions to a Pokemon, make specific details about it. How does it look like? How does it react? To test if your descrption on a Pokemon is good, try to make a non-Pokemon fan read it. If he/she viewed the Pokemon clearly in his/her mind, then you did it right.


Grammar:

Judging closely, I can see the errors in it. I will point out some, if not all, of your mistakes.

“Come on Penelope” shrieked the grimy boy over his shoulder at his starter Pokémon before he lunged over a mound of artfully arranged lily’s towards the illusive Pokémon.
It was amazing that Alistair had even managed to get this close to this capture. He had only received his starter Pokémon, a curious little Togepi whom he had named Penelope the day before.

You need to press "Enter" two times to make a space in between the paragraphs. It would look good on every story with double paragraph spaces.

“Penelope” Alistair screamed, “use ancient power NOW!” Penelope leapt in front of Alistair and began to glow with a brilliant white light. “Toe-gee…” Penelope formed a fast spinning ball of white energy in front of her “PEE! The ball of energy flew through the air and slammed into the fleeing Pokémon’s back sending it spinning into the flower bed to its left. “Yay Penelope” Alistair yelled pumping his fist in the air and jumping then completely ruining the moment by tripping over his feet and falling on his butt. He pulled himself to his feet and scrambled over to the cradle of crushed bluebells were the Pokémon had landed.

Every time the dialogue is performed by a different character, separate it to a different paragraph. Then, it would look like this:

“Penelope” Alistair screamed, “use ancient power NOW!” Penelope leapt in front of Alistair and began to glow with a brilliant white light.

“Toe-gee…” Penelope formed a fast spinning ball of white energy in front of her “PEE! The ball of energy flew through the air and slammed into the fleeing Pokémon’s back sending it spinning into the flower bed to its left.

“Yay Penelope” Alistair yelled pumping his fist in the air and jumping then completely ruining the moment by tripping over his feet and falling on his butt. He pulled himself to his feet and scrambled over to the cradle of crushed bluebells were the Pokémon had landed.

Because of it, readers would know who is speaking without returning back to know the speaker

“Penelope” Alistair screamed, “use ancient power NOW!”

On dialogues, if the dialogue is followed by a sentence or a phrase that is related to the dialogue, use a comma after that last word. Otherwise, use a period. This would be the corrected one:

“Penelope,” Alistair screamed, “use ancient power NOW!”

On this one:

Alistair screamed, “use ancient power NOW!”

You do not need to "all caps" the word "now". Just the exclamation part would do.

As a tip, try to search for websites that offer free grammar lessons and learn how to do perfect English.


Battle/Climax:

Okay, your battle was way too fast and uneven. Togepi just used a move, then you tried to capture it. Next time, try to make the Pokemon retaliate. Make it send a move to counter and defend itself. Pokemon had moves so that they could protect themselves. A Pokemon who doesn't protect himself just seems not right, like if it was forced to be a dummy.

Battle-wise, if the Togepi was that strong enough (but you said nothing about her strength), a simple AncientPower wouldn't be able to guarantee a successful capture, unless if that was a Master Ball. Try to lengthen the battle, add more rounds by sending more moves by the two Pokemon. A battle like that is somehow "fictional".

Climax-wise, it was not that climactic enough, along the fact that it was too fast. You could add more conflict or just simply lengthen the battle (a legit battle though). Climaxes were meant to make the story worth re-reading and solves the "adrenaline rush" that the readers were waiting to be filled up.

As a side note, try reading other stories and see how they make their own climaxes. Not that you copy their works, just take inspiration from them.

Target Pokemon:

Igglybuff, as a Simple-ranked Pokemon, did not make much attention since it only showed up at the last one-thrid of the story. For higher-ranked stories, more inclusion is needed to ensure capture.

As a suggestion, you can try to say that the Character wants the target Pokemon as their own so they tried to find one (based on this kind of plot). An effective way of inclusion is to make your target Pokemon their main Pokemon in their party. Another is to make it the antagonist of the story. Otherwise, you can pretty much experiment on with inclusion, as long as the inclusion is good enough.

Length:

I counted 3 553 characters which is not enough for Simple Pokemon, which needs 5 000 - 10 000 characters. It was not suprisings, since this story is too fast as I said earlier. If you tried to follow some of my advices above, I guess it could reach up to 5k characters. Remember, length dictates how much we need on a story of different ranks.


Outcome:

Sorry, but Igglybuff not captured...

You had the basics of story-writing, but it was not enough. Your story was too fast enough that it almost more of a synopsis. Try to beef up your story more, and try to reconstruct your grammar, and just call me when this story is ready to be regraded.

A MERRY CHASE
by MrBlue102

1.Pokémon targeted: Igglybuff
2.Difficulty: Simple
3.Expected length: 5k-10k
4.Length of story: 5'990

The day was bright and yet despite the sun, it stayed cold a reminder of the night of rain that it followed and that had left the perfectly manicured lawns of the large estate that surrounded Dovewood Manor slick with dew and the lovely, picturesque garden beds, soft and muddy. A teenager stumbled along one of the many polished, white cobblestone pathways that crisscrossed his mother’s gardens. The teenager was pale in every sense of the word. His skin looked as if it had never been touched by the sun that sat in the sky, far above his head. His hair, arranged in carefree disarray atop his head was the colour of white chocolate. Even his clothes were pale, a cream coloured, cashmere vest on top of a white dress shirt with white trousers and converses. The teenager’s foot slipped again on the wet stones and fell to the ground with a light thump then began sliding down the slight declination. He came to an abrupt stop hitting to one of the many ornate, marble fountains that marked a crossing of two paths.

Alistair Von Dovewood was not used to hurting himself and hurt was very much what he was presently. Alistair very rarely left the family mansion and when he did his parents usually either drove or flew him to whatever destination they were travelling to. As such lying battered and bruised at the base of a fountain that insisted on continually splashing his face was an entirely new experience for him. Ever since a young age his parents had smothered him, especially his mother who had barely allowed him to leave the mansion despite the fact that he was leaving on his adventure with his friends in a few weeks and he only had one Pokémon.

That last thought jolted Alistair back to reality. That was what he had come out here to do; he had left the safety of the mansion to catch another Pokémon to add to his party and to come with him on his adventure. So far he only had a Togepi called Penelope that had been given to him by the Driftveil city Gym Leader just weeks ago. Both of his friends had received there starter at the same time as he and both had chosen bulky, powerful ground types from Sinnoh, Shieldon and Cranidos. However Alistair did not want a big bulky ground type like the majority of people who lived in or near Driftveil city. Nor had he wanted an Electric-type Pokémon like his father or a Grass-type Pokémon like his mother. Alistair had wanted a Normal-type because that was the type of Pokémon that Alistair liked and as such that was the type of Pokémon that Alistair would be looking for.

The pitter-patter of many feet filled the air as Pokémon hurried and scurried through the gardens. Many of those Pokémon were Alistair’s mothers. She had a small army of Pokémon whose entire purpose was to tend to her gardens keeping them an image of splendour and flawlessness. Paras scurried along the ground plucking weeds from the ground, Bellossom tended to the flowers and Hoppip soared through the air cross pollinating the garden. Alistair also knew that somewhere in the garden there were a Sunflora and a Roserade, his mother’s personal Pokémon both of whom directed the massive gardening force. Alistair’s mother would destroy him if he attempted to catch one of her Pokémon but there were other Pokémon that lived in the garden one of which Alistair was sure he would find.

Alistair rose to his feet and brushed himself of. Alistair turned slowly looking at the garden around him. There were four paths leading away from the fountain that he presently stood next too. The first of the four paths was the one he had come from. It went back to the comfort and warmth of the manor but taking this path also meant giving up and that was not something Alistair intended to do. All three of the other paths lead on into different sections of the gardens. Alistair took a lucky guess and took the left path moving deeper into the garden.

A flask of pink caught Alistair’s eye. He glanced left and looked right into the eyes of a Pokémon that was attempting to hide in an artful arrangement of daisies. The Pokémon was small and spherical and completely covered in pale pink, soft-looking fur. It had a curly tuft of the pink fur on top of its head and a swirl like marking above its cardinal red eyes. “Igglybuff” Alistair whispered happily to himself. Igglybuff much like Togepi was one of the Pokémon on his ‘Superb Six’ list, an activity that all students did in Pokémon School that entailed creating a list of all the Pokémon that you want on your team.
Alistair moved his hand slowly to his belt as not to startle his fantastic find. He removed the Pokéball containing his Togepi just as slowly then produced his first ever Pokémon, Penelope. Penelope was a small yellow Pokémon still encased in her eggshell. The eggshell had red and blue markings on its surface and was very pretty to look at. Penelope also had five spikes on her head that were arranged to look kind off like a crown. The Igglybuff startled at the sudden appearance of Penelope turned and jumped away from Alistair further into the daisies. “Oh shoot” He yelped, “Penelope use ancient power on that Igglybuff before it gets away.” Togepi too leapt into the air and began to glow with a brilliant white light. The light then formed into a ball in front of her the same size as her shell. “Release” Alistair yelled encouragement despite the fact that Penelope had already mastered this particular move. Togepi pushed the ball forward with her little arms and it shot towards the fleeing Igglybuff. With a flash of Brilliant light the ball slammed into Igglybuff knocking it head over heels. “Yay Penelope!” Alistair shouted in excitement.

The Igglybuff landed with a thump sliding along the ground and crushing the daisies in its path. Penelope landed on the ground in-between the Igglybuff and Alistair. “Quick Penelope, Ancient Power again” Penelope’s body again began to glow with white light but this time Igglybuff was ready and it jumped over the ball of white light which slammed into the ground behind it digging a thick trench into the soft ground. Igglybuff landed right in front of Penelope and its arm glowed white. “Look out Penelope!” Alistair yelled “It’s going to use Pound!” The Igglybuff power slapped Penelope right across the face before she could move out of the way. “Penelope use Double Edge” shouted Alistair the tone of desperation evident in his voice. Penelope glowed bright gold then slapped the Igglybuff back and with an explosion of light they flew away from each other in opposite directions. Penelope slammed into Alistair’s chest and knocked him backwards onto the pathway.

Alistair leaped up a worn of Penelope tumbling into his arms. “Good work Penelope” he whispered to her “get some rest now.” He pressed the button on her Pokéball and she was enveloped in red light then drawn back into the Pokéball which he clipped back onto his belt. Alistair strode through the crushed garden over to where an exhausted Igglybuff was trying to rise to its feet. “You know this entire conflict could have been avoided if you’d have just played nicely and stayed still” he stated matter-of-factly as he reached down and picked it up. “Let’s get you home and rested little one” he said with a smile and began the walk back to the Manor.

Claimed by request!

Okay, this is actually a regrade:

Detail: Very much fine and it skyrocketed in level! I can see the very form of Alistair and his Togepi, along with his now-long biography. I like how you made detail by comparing them to other objects. Overall, this one turned out vivid!

Plot: Yeah, it beefed up than the first one, but let me point something out: Alistair's biography just filled up almost half of the whole story, but since you did well on it, you passed on this one.

Still, the story is yet so fast, but at least it is comparatively slow because of the biography that set me in a light mood.

Battle/Climax: Yup, you did lessened the "fast" part of the previous battle a bit, but I believe that it is somewhat uneven. From what I saw, Igglybuff only used Pound that hit Togepi somewhat badly. But still I commend you on having a logical, yet so "fast" battle. Good job on this!

Grammar: This is cleaner than ever! I can still see imperfections on grammar, but they're just minor issues.

Length: Now you passed on this one with almost 1k to exceed the minimum!

Outcome: Igglybuff captured! I liked how you put much effort on revisioning the whole story and made a much better version. Just keep on improving and make more better stories!

(yup, this is only a regrade so no much fancy on grading)

Yo, MrBlue, please just edit your original story for regrades. Don't make a whole new thread for it. I merged the threads in this case, but for future reference, the same story should remain in its original thread.

No biggie, just sayin'. #organization