Okay, first off, a small protip. If you want us to review this like we would any other story, post in the main forum, Fan Fiction and Writing, not in Writer's Lounge. Writer's Lounge is more for the
discussion of writing, so it's more for saying things like "this is a preliminary before I post the real story" or "what do you think of my concept before I sit down and actually write." A lot of people get the two forums confused, so this is more of a way to explain to you what the difference is than it is an attempt to tell you to move it.
Second, I'll be very brief because I really,
really don't want to dissect stories quote-by-quote anymore. Basically, you need to take your time with this. There are quite a number of problems, including:
1. Capitalization. You randomly capitalized words ("Eighteen Wheeler") or didn't capitalize them when you really should have ("rapidashes"). Remember that all proper nouns (names of
specific important people, places, things, or ideas) should be capitalized, whereas all common nouns (non-important names for people, places, things, or ideas or names for them in general) don't. Likewise, if you're going to capitalize anything related to Pokémon, you need to be consistent. Don't capitalize Miltank and Rapidash elsewhere in the fic if you're not going to capitalize Rapidashes.
2. Punctuation. There's a lot that can be said here, and most of it can just be covered with
a comma rules guide. Also, a lot of your sentences ended up being run-ons (three or more independent clauses jammed into one sentence). Whenever you place a comma in a sentence, try replacing it with a period first. If you get two full sentences that make sense on their own as a result, you've got at least two independent clauses. Don't stick more than two of these in a sentence at the same time, and if you stick more than one of these in a sentence, you need to treat it as a compound (as in, add in the words
and,
but,
or,
nor,
for,
yet, or
so or use a semicolon or colon, depending on what your sentence is).
Furthermore, not every piece of dialogue needs to have a comma in it. To make this clearer, let's divide a line of dialogue into two parts: the quote and the dialogue tag. The dialogue tag is the part outside the quotes, and it
must have a word in it that describes how the line is being said. If you don't have a word in it like "said," then it's not a dialogue tag. That means you'd need a period and not a comma because the sentence you're writing isn't functioning as a sort of adjective for the quote.
3. Paragraphing. Hit the enter key
twice whenever you start a paragraph, not once. This is standard formatting for writing online because there's no such thing as indentations. It makes it easier for the reader to go through your work (especially if it gets longer than this), and it's just good form.
4. That flashback. Don't ever introduce a flashback with flashback tags. It's redundant. As in, if the first paragraph of your scene (or the last one of the scene before it) is written well enough, your readers should be able to figure out that they're looking at a flashback without being beaned in the head with that fact (i.e., without being told that they're reading a flashback by giant letters that spell it out). Otherwise, it feels a lot like a brick wall. It stops the flow of your story, and it feels awkward when your readers hit it.
Even then, it feels like it's unnecessary. Sure, we get a glimpse of a potential legendary and Lucas's father, but could we have just gotten the same effect if you left it out and let Lucas explain that he hadn't seen his dad in awhile? I mean, you don't really go into much description of the enormous Pokémon aside from the fact that it's enormous. Lucas doesn't even seem to react to it. He doesn't dwell on what it might be, he isn't really feeling any mysticism in it, and the flashback stops as soon as it pops up without going into much description as to what it is. It could be a Snorlax for all we know, and unless that's a really awesome Snorlax, we probably don't really need to know about this scene as much as we would if Lucas's dad encountered a legendary. The only other important happening here is showing us a glimpse of Lucas's dad, but you go on to have Lucas imply that he hasn't seen him in awhile anyway (what with his line about becoming a champion and all). So, you could just get away with leaving this flashback out entirely, and we probably wouldn't walk away with any less information we're keeping in mind.
5. Description. As I've said above, there's practically none. We get maybe one or two details about each important thing. Lucas has spiky hair. Mr. Thomas is old. The mysterious Pokémon is huge. The Rapidash that belonged to Lucas's dad is blue. This is, as far as I can tell, the only images you actually give us. Unfortunately, this really isn't enough. We can't really picture Lucas in our heads, and we certainly can't get a good view of his surroundings. Sure, we can sort of picture Mr. Thomas's house, but what kind of city are we looking at here? For example, when I first read this, I was picturing an image of Pallet Town, complete with dirt roads. That's why it struck me as odd that such a large truck was just barreling along. While you could probably drive an eighteen-wheeler (and yes, you need the hyphen in that phrase) on a dirt road, that sort of thing is more for pavements.
Of course, that's not the most important problem in terms of description. You don't really give us a good view of what the main character looks like, and you don't go into too much detail about a potentially massively important event. As a result, we can't conjure up a good mental image of Lucas himself (which is a problem because we're supposed to be thinking about him for the next however many chapters you want to write), and we've got nothing on the events surrounding the giant creature in the flashback. So, we can't even tell if it
is a legendary, and more importantly, we can't tell whether or not this was happening in broad daylight in the middle of a larger city. I mean, if it happened in broad daylight, someone besides Lucas and his dad would have taken notice of the Pokémon, right? Considering the fact that buildings were
shaking when this thing was coming, why was Lucas's dad the only one out there?
While I'm not asking you to describe absolutely every little detail, remember that the reader is not you. We don't know what's going through your mind, so we can't picture the characters and the world you've created until you give it to us. Try to describe what's in your head with as much detail as it would take to get us to imagine what you're trying to tell us. Is Lucas a blond? Is his city a
city and not just Pallet Town? Does the mystery giant look a lot like Lugia or some other legendary? (Yes, you can tell us about the legendary, and this wouldn't be a spoiler.) Heck, what time of day is it when all of this happens? The more you tell us, the easier it is for us to imagine what's going on, and the easier it is for us to imagine what's going on, the more likely we can get into your story.
Speaking of which...
6. The story itself. Your chapter was very brief, so there's not much to say about the characterization. However, it does start off with a very anime feel. Kid wakes up late. Kid rushes off to go to X. Kid steals a bike to do so. This isn't a compliment. Basically, a lot of people think modeling the beginning of their story off the first episode is a good idea, but it's really not because as a result, we've got over ten years worth of the same beginning over and over again. You end up having to work
extra hard to convince the reader that this isn't going to be just another original trainer story or other festival of clichés. Not to be mean or anything about that. I'm just saying that it happens so often it tends to be a bit of a turn-off for readers who have been reading fanfiction in this fandom for at least a year.
Beyond that, there's not much to say. You don't tell us what the Pokémon Gathering is or who his father might be. There's a brief conversation with a neighbor, a bike theft, a brief flashback (which I went into in more detail above, meaning I'm not going to repeat myself here), and two lines about the eighteen-wheeler. You don't give us much backstory except for what can be jammed into a couple of lines. You don't have Lucas emote (you know, show emotion) about his father, the flashback he's about to have, his feelings about the Gathering (except panic about being late)... he doesn't really do much. Mr. Thomas has more personality than him because he at least reacts and rambles, but Lucas himself? Not much to say.
As for the ending of the chapter, I'm not sure about it. On the one hand, it sounds like it's actually related to the plot. On the other, first off, it's not easy to turn an eighteen-wheeler, so it probably wouldn't be careening directly for Lucas. Second, it just feels like forced comedy because of how ridiculously overkill it is. As in, it's not a car that nearly hits Lucas. It's an entire flipping truck. Likewise, Lucas doesn't just veer off course and hit something close to the edge of the road. He veers into a brick wall. (And it's somehow only a few feet from the road instead of enough distance for both of them to hit the same spot? Buildings aren't normally super-close to a road, after all. Even in a city, there's at least a sidewalk. While Lucas might turn and still hit the brick wall if he's not trying to stop right then, something as cumbersome as a big rig might turn and hit the wall at an angle a few feet away from Lucas because the truck would probably be forced to take advantage of the room he's got. If the wall was right up against the road, then sure, the truck might end up clipping the wall as soon as it turned, but we're assuming it's got more room than that because of how streets are normally designed. And, yes, we're saying streets, not alleys.)
Back to the point, basically, it's like you can't make due with something that would be a bit more likely. Instead, you use something massive that people don't normally get hit by unless they're really trying, and you do it by sending them both to the same spot in the same wall. It just seems a little over-the-top, especially after you said the truck was careening for the wall
coincidentally. While I can tell you're trying to make this seem a little humorous, forcing your work to be funny might give it a bit of a cheesy edge. That's why I'm saying I'm not sure about it: because while it's all right to try writing something with a humorous slant, you've got to be careful to avoid trying too hard with it.
Overall, yes. It needs a lot of work. I get the feeling you're still a bit new to fanfiction, though, so don't be too discouraged. You do have the potential to improve. After all, this
is readable. It just needs polishing, and that can probably be achieved with slowing down. Sit down and take your time. Add in details. Proofread. Think your story through a bit more. By giving yourself a bit more time, you'll be able to iron out all the weak points.
