Thread: The Poisonous Nidorans (Ready to Be Graded)

Target Pokemon(s): Male Nidoran
Required Characters: 5k - 10k Characters
Characters: 5250
Notes: A Sequel to Magical Magikarp

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In a region called Johto, there was a young boy named Jack, who wanted to catch all of the Pokemon. His grandfather, a Pokemon Scientist, had just passed away. Jack and his grandfather were best friends. He wanted Jack to keep on raising, training, and keep on taking care of Pokemon. He gladly accepted his challenge. He got a Pichu, named Sparky, from Professor Elm, and caught a Magikarp at a nearby lake. He believes that his Pokemon are strong, and will help him surpass any obstacle he encounters.

He threw Sparky's Pokeball up the air and called him out. Sparky front flipped out of the Pokeball. "We are going to go to the Safari Zone." Jack said seriously. “My grandfather told that there are many different types of Pokemon located at the Safari Zone. You may also meet many friends there.”

“Pichu!” exclaimed Sparky. He started jumping up and down in excitement.

“Okay, follow me! We are heading to Route 48. There is a train right there. We are going to ride it and travel west of Johto,” said Jack. They rode on the train and arrived at Route 48. They traveled up toward the Safari Zone Entrance.

They went to the Front Desk and found a worker there. “Hello there. It seems like you want to enter the Safari Zone. Let me tell you some of the rules here. You aren’t allowed to bring Pokemon in here. You may lure the Pokemon with bait, and throw mud at the Pokemon if you would like. You need to use Safari Zone Pokeballs to catch Pokemon. You can purchase these by talking to that guy on the other side of the desk,” the young worker explained.

“Okay, thanks,” Jack said to the worker. “Sparky, seems like you can’t come here, sorry. Come back to the Pokeball,” He threw the Pokeball at Pichu and the Pichu was returned to the Pokeball. “Okay, I would like to have 5 Safari Zone Pokeballs please!” he asked the other worker.

“Alright! Here you go.” He gave Jack 5 Safari Zone Pokeballs.

“Thank you!” he told the worker. He then walked toward the sunlight.

“Woah, these place his huge! There are many different types of Pokemon here also. I hope I don’t get lost here. Grampa, if you can hear me, I hope you are happy,” Jack said emotionally. A tear fell off of Jack’s eye. “I am not crying, I am just sweating through my eyelids.” In a faraway distance, he saw two fainted figures. They appear to be stuck in a tree. He came closer to investigate. There was a Houndour barking at a male and female Nidoran.
“Nidoran!” the Nidorans cried simultaneously.

Jack ran closer to the scene. He saw some meat near the tree. He brought out his rod, hooked the meat on the hook, and lured the Houndour out of the way. “Are you okay?” he asked the Nidorans. They nodded their heads. “Good! Let me help you down,” he grabbed them, one by one, down the tree. He was aware of their poisonous horns. “Now, quickly, run away, before the Houndour comes back.”

“Nidoran…” said the Nidorans.

“Oh, you want to come with me. Okay, but you have to fight me in a man to Pokemon battle,” he said kindly.

“Nidoran!” said the female Nidoran. She scurried off into the bushes.

“Nido, Nidoran,” nodded the male Nidoran.

“Alright then,“ he picked up some mud, and threw it at the Nidoran. It quickly dodged it and threw out toxic spikes at Jack. He jumped and threw a Safari Zone Pokeball at it. The Nidoran quickly smacked the ball into Jack’s face. “Ow! That really hurts,” a red mark was left on Jack’s face. He saw the Houndour coming right back for the Nidoran.

“Nido? Nidoran!” the little purple figure ran away, the same way the female one scurried off to.

“Houndour! Houndour!” cried out the aggressive Pokemon. He began chasing Jack. Someone began playing some 1980’s chase music.

“I wonder where that noise is coming from. I wonder why there are a lot of unusual things happening to me today,” he said awkwardly. He then notices the toxic spikes spell out “H - I - A – S –C.” This means Houndour is a Scaredy Cat. “Wait, isn’t he a dog? Well, it doesn’t really matter. I guess I should follow the Nidoran. Jack, away!” he ran right after the Nidoran. The Houndour got tired, and went to sleep.

After several minutes of searching for the Nidoran, he saw many of them near a very old tree. There seems to be many nests. There is a door on the tree. It seems to be a safe house for Pokemon. “Oh, I see, you were trying to keep these Nidorans safe from any harm,” Jack said to the leader of the Nidorans.

"Nidor, Nidorans, Nido Nidorans," exclaimed the leader.

"That is why two of the Nidorans ran away after I talked to them. Also, I think the Nidorans can survive without a leader. They need to know how to grow up, and how to survive on there own. They look like they have been here for most of their lives," Jack said softly.

"Nidoran..." the leader nodded its head and wanted to battle Jack.

"A battle, eh? Okay, let's get started," he yelled out loud like a maniac. He grabbed some mud and threw it at the leader's face. The Nidoran's face was dirty. It couldn't see anything because of all the mud on its face. "Alright, Safari Zone Pokeball, go!" He threw the Safari Zone Pokeball at the Pokemon. It was sucked in to the Pokeball. The Nidorans began chatting among themselves. The Pokeball shook all around, then the Pokemon was...

Mine until I say it is yours.

Plot/Introduction:

Introduction ~ You have a good introduction here that is well suited for a mon of this rank. The opening paragraph opens up with exactly I want to know: who is the main character? What is the background? Do I get a feel for how the story is going to be told?

With that in mind you run across an immediate problem. The first and second paragraph have no real connection. You talk about who the kid is and what happened, then abruptly switch to where Jack is calling out his Pichu. What you is need is a smooth transition, something that connects the two in a relevant manner. For example, at the start of the second paragraph you could have started by talking about where Jack is and how that relates to his grandfather.

Originally Posted by me

After catching his last Magikarp, Jack knew that in order to fulfill what his grandfather wanted of him he knew that he would need to get more Pokemon. Jack knew where he had to go, the Safari Zone.

~ That would be an example of a transition as now the second paragraph ties into the first and they are not stand alone.

Plot ~ You don’t need anything spectacular, you only need something that works. You have the cliched plot line: ‘boy walks into forest and finds Pokemon’ but you added a few details that made it not so cut and dried as that.

You have the details of the grandfather, the story takes place in the safari zone, and he rescues the Nidoran. It adds some elements to the story that makes it slightly entertaining and not a bore to read. That being said, you don’t want to use this plot line too much, for mon of lower rank it works perfectly fine, but when you get into ranks such as medium to hard you’ll want something that has more substance to it. Like a Pokemon gets poisoned and is close to death so the trainer climbs a rare mountain to battle a rare Pokemon to obtain a rare flower to cure their Pokemon. Just an example of what I mean.

Finally, you had a few sentences that didn’t make much sense, here’s an example of one:

In a faraway distance, he saw two fainted figures.

~ As you read on it is clear both Pokemon are not at all fainted. Watch out for the things, they can be distracting.

To sum things up, you have a good enough plot for the mon you are going for.

Grammar: You ran into a few errors that you’ll need to watch out for in later issues. None of them were mind boggling though, so good job in this section.

He gladly accepted his challenge.

~ Based on the previous sentences , the he could mean the grandfather, but as I read on I know it was the grandson. Because you are changing the subject you should replace he with Jack to solve the above vagueness.

"We are going to go to the Safari Zone[.]" Jack said seriously.

~ Because you have a speech action word - said in this case - you need to have a comma instead of a period.

“Woah, these place his huge!

~ Couple wrong words here. These should be this and his should be is. A couple of minor mistakes, you have to proofread your work to catch this stuff as a spell check will not.


Detail: Major problem in this area. You have none, Even though this story is for an easy mon you want to have a few basic things done. First: you want to describe the main character. This means you tell the reader what he or she looks like. Take a picture in your mind then transfer that to the paper. Start with what the person is wearing then move onto things like eye and hair color, what their body type is: fat, skinny, large, tall, short. You are allowed to describe the character in whatever means you want to.

Second, move onto Pokemon. Seeing as how there are a ton of Pokemon now, it is generally a good idea to describe them as well. Here’s an example of Pichu: The yellow electric mouse bounced up in down in excitement, its luminous eyes twinkling in eager for what was to come. It’s black tipped ears quivered as well, giving the Pokemon the look of a child about to receive a piece of candy. Nothing spectacular just tell us what the Pokemon look like.

Now onto environment and surroundings. This is also an important factor because it is the backdrop to what is happening. In this area your description can run from the most basic to vivid images. It all depends on what you want to accomplish. Let’s link this to what you did.

In a faraway distance, he saw two fainted figures. They appear to be stuck in a tree. He came closer to investigate. There was a Houndour barking at a male and female Nidoran.

Let’s add some detail here:

Originally Posted by me

He squinted my eyes as he thought he saw some movement in a tree in the distance. Jack couldn’t make out in fine details among the leaves, but he saw the faint outlines of Pokemon in the trees. Jack sprinted across the small field os bright green grass that sprang up from the earth like hair. Sure enough there were Pokemon in the tree, two Nidoran were watching a barking Houndour below the. The face of the small black and orange dog was twisted into one of rage as it bounded on its two legs up at the tree, never quite coming closer to the Nidoran.

~ By adding detail you not only get a visual image you give the reader a better idea of what is taking place. Naturally you could have described what the tree looked liked or the weather, but that is just somethings you can add.

Here’s another example of some detail.

He grabbed some mud and threw it at the leader's face

.

Originally Posted by me

Jack bent down and scooped up a handful of dark, wet mud that oozed through his fingers and coated them with the mucus like dirt. He threw the mud like a baseball at the horned head of Nidoran. The mud splattered on the face of the Pokemon, coating its eyes with the gunk.

~ That is what kind of detail you need. You don’t have to do it in that manner or anything, but you want to provide the reader an image of what is taking place, don’t just tell them, show ‘em.

There are more facets to detail, but for now you need to concentrate on these three, the other ones can come at a later date.

Length: Meh.

Overall: You had a few problems with your introduction and plot and a issue with your details, but you have a good enough story for a mon of this rank. Captured. Work on what I pointed out and be sure to work on the detail aspect for future attempts.

@Ebiltun