This is a story of a boy named Landon Chronic, Who just turned 13, when he finally gets his first Pokemon! The Story:
As Landon woke up, he heard his mother saying" Landon, come down, now!". Landon jumped out of bed and found out his mom was just watching TV..... But he looked at the Tv screen, it was Prof. Bell's commercial for his Pokemon student enrolling today. He was saying something about some of the Pokemon giving away like Chimchar, Turtwig, and Piplup. Soon his Mom said to him, " Go on, you need to pick your Pokemon before nine- thirty" Landon noticed that it was nine-twenty. Then he ran out the door and started walking down the grass pathway.Then he stumbled across Max, his friend. His said he was going to Prof. Bell's labrotory too. Landon said" Lets go together.", so they walked on and on, and finally found Prof. Bell's labrotory in Gitalory town, The town of water.
They went inside and found out that only saw Chimchar, Turtwig, and Piplup. So they chose hardly and wondered which one is better? Then Landon said"....... I want Chimchar!" Prof.Bell said" OK, here you are, he is of the Fire type." so then Max picked Piplup who was of the Water type. So then Prof. Bell said, " Well,since I have been enrolled in my Pokemon academy you need to have this, the Pokedex, they hold and record all of the pokemon you see. When you complete your pokedex, I will give some land that you can call your own, the personalized day care!" max and Landon shouted" AWESOME!"
Prof. Bell said" Alright here are six pokeballs, go ut and travel the world of Pokemon!"
*Comes out of temporary retirement*
In a world of paragraph-long fanfic chapters with serious problems and extreme issues, one man must decide between watching AMVs on youtube and playing children's card games in his spare time... or sacrificing his own personal happiness in order to clean up the forum. (Now would be an excellent time to cue the happy theme music and start watching the opening animation as ACC-M dons his reviewer mantle once again and flies in to save the day.)
Okay.... silliness aside, consider yourself privileged because I've been slacking off with my official post in the forum for at least three months (probably more if you count), and you're the first fanfiction I've decided to review for my big comeback tour. Let's start with the basics, shall we?
Let me put it bluntly: This is one of the worst first chapter begginnings you could have started with. Why? Well, partly because it echoes the game plot so heavily, not to mention the anime (what with Ash Ketchum's late start). Not only that, but you spend no time introducing us to the characters or giving them any personality, and that's a real pity because when you write a fanfic, who are you writing it about? The characters. What does everything happen to? The characters. So what about your story should be the most developed aside from the setting? The characters. How do you develop the characters, you ask? Well, let's start with the basics: creating a first impression. Obviously your main character is the one you want to tell us about the most. Now, in your fanfic's opening chapter what do we know about Landon's personality? Aside from the fact that he presumably likes Pokemon and is friends with Max, not a lot. Presumably he's a little more three-dimensional then that. Perhaps he's a daredevil who lives for the moment? Or is he more of a laid-back kind of guy? Why does he like Pokemon so much? Is there a reason he picks Chimchar over the other two? Is there anything else we should know about him? Your first chapter, while it doesn't have to be a treatise on Landon, should lay a little bit of a foundation of him as a character so the readers know they aren't reading about a cardboard cutout.
How do you do this, you ask? The answer's pretty simple, really. If you want to effectively introduce your character to the reader, show, don't tell. In fact, you may even want to give him a physical appearance. Though I've heard a fairly convincing argument recently that the physical appearance of a character doesn't really matter unless it pertains to the actual story, I'm of the school that says you really want to have a physical appearance because it helps to add to the story. Say you want to give an impression to the reader that Landon is one of those people who's rather unconcerned about their appearance. A mention of his unkempt hair or his torn jeans might help that. Perhaps you want to make him extremely concerned about his own appearance. Fine then, have him wear something completely unsuited to traveling out of doors. (This, actually, might make the story more interesting. A character who isn't the stereotypic teenage Pokemonaholic who has some sort of twist going for him is one that readers may actually enjoy more because he's one that isn't seen as often.) More then that, though, have Landon do things that show his personality. Remember to use words that carry a connotation that fits what your character is doing best. If you want to say that Landon ran to the lab and you want to imply he did it extremely quickly, perhaps saying that he sprinted towards the lab would be better as opposed to jogging towards it. Technically, you could assume that sprinting and jogging are two forms of the verb "to run", but each one is more suited to a particular activity and carries a different meaning.
Not only that, but you've put astoundingly little detail into your setting. If you want to draw readers into the world you're presenting. It can't just be "the gym", you've got to describe the building. You can't just say "the forest", you need to put a little more into it then that. Through physical description of the environment, you can draw a reader into the action. You want to make them feel like they're there, experiencing what the main character experiences or sympathizing with them. The best two ways to do that are to give the reader a sense of the character's surroundings and to create a believable, human main character with problems and issues the reader can understand. And for the love of all that is sacred, don't just write "he's a daredevil", "His hair was brown", "The gym was white and gold and had little angels painted on it" and leave it at that. First, form a mental image of what you're writing. Then think of the best words to describe it, and write them as if you were preparing to turn this in to your English teacher (or a publisher).
In regards to your grammar... I won't go into specific mistakes. Why? Because anyone with a basic grasp of the English language and access to a grade-school-level English textbook or teacher knows what the heck you're doing wrong here. I can trust that if I tell you to proof-read your work you can use the resources already available to you to do it yourself. I gurantee, if you actually apply something you're learning in your English class your writing will improve exponentially. If you're from a foreign country and don't speak English, tough cookies, you aren't off the hook. There is a stickied thread in the writer's lounge dedicated to teaching you proper English grammar, and in addition to that there are at least two non-native English speakers with perfect grammar on this forum. In fact, they're probably better at typing with proper grammar then I am myself, mostly because I'm writing this review in the reply box (technically a big no-no but it helps me think) instead of a word processor (which is where you really should be typing your fic. Seriously, having spellcheck helps a heck of a lot).
Finally, the chapter's too danged short for you to do anything in. You can't honestly expect us to be hooked after a faulty paragraph of badly-written (from a grammatical standpoint) prose and expect us to be instantly hooked, can you? I mean, when you read a book you don't get one paragraph chapters usually. Not unless it's a stylistic choice on the part of the author and the story is written in a less standardized style (which you can't use as an excuse, since stories written in that style really have their own rules and aren't as appealing to a wider audience, as far as my research shows). My standard reply is that your chapters should be at least four pages in length on a standard word processor before being posted. For first chapters, however, I'd reccomend somewhere closer to ten. For my part, my first fanfiction that I've posted was at least eight pages on the word processor when I posted it, and I still think I should've added a little bit more to it. Yours needs an obvious makeover. You don't have time to establish characters and setting in such a short space. Writing fanfics is like writing a short story for English class. You want to do the best job possible, and do the most you can in order to get a good grade.
Now, if I decided to expand this review and go over all the chapters I'd probably have something to say about the Sue-ishness present in Landon's instantaneous defeat of Roxa (who presumably owns several extremely well-trained Pokemon and has had time to develop tactics to counter type disadvantages) with his (by comparison) barely trained Marril and Monferno and your improper use of levels, but I'm borderline ADD and I don't feel like concentrating that much into one review, so I'll wait until your next chapter to comment on that. (Hey, I'm only human, and I do have a life outside of reviewing this stuff, ya know.) So yah, for now concentrate on updating that first chapter. (And don't forget, secondary characters like Max, Professor Bell, and Landon's mom need to have personalities too, no matter how briefly they appear!)
Well, until next time...
*rolls end credits*
