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starryday November 25th, 2008 11:16 AM

Fanfic Idea
 
I love writing, but I've never written a fanfic before, much less a Pokemon fanfic. I've read a few by now and read the guides as well to see if my idea would be acceptable, but I'm still not positive if it's worth writing. So, I'm going to just ask if the plot interests anyone. Here's a rundown of it. I tried to give only enough information to describe what's going on, without giving the whole story away.

Professor Finnegan is the Triome region's expert on Pokemon. He's been studying them his whole life but still has many questions he wants answered. The Professor has been scouting out local Pokemon school for the past year, and has finally found four students at various academies across the world that he wants to help him answer those questions. He calls them to the small town of Wise Cove, but before they arrive, he gets word from Professor Birch that danger is coming toward Triome in the form of Team Sly, a collection of wrongdoers led by an ex-rocket excecutive now known exclusively as 'The Master'. The exact details of their plot will be revealed later in the story. Meanwhile, the Professor's chosen ones arrive at his lab and he gives them each an Ad-Dex, a new, more advanced Pokedex that he invented himself. It can be used to record much more information on Pokemon than a regular dex. The Professor is sending the four students out on a journey through Triome, each with a pokemon of their own to train. Their objective is to capture Latias and Latios, the legendary dragon duo that used to inhabit Hoenn(more information on that, again, in the story). Along the way, they'll use their Ad-Dexes to record information on their partner pokemon, because Professor Finnegan wants to research more on the human-pokemon bond.

There'll be a lot more content and a few sub-plots in the story itself, but I didn't want to give too much away. Oh, and these are the four starters that the Professor gives out to his students:

Ponyta
Mareep
Seel
Seedot

JX Valentine November 25th, 2008 11:39 AM

Tip: If you're making a new region, even if it comes off as cliche, you'll want to have your region match the regional norms from canon. This basically means:

1. The regional primary expert should be named after a tree. Leafy trees are best, and Wikipedia's your friend in this case. Just look at the other professors: Oak, Elm, Birch, and Rowan.

2. Three starters are handed out in order to maintain a balance between them. Grass < Fire < Water < Grass. Adding in another starter throws off this balance by introducing something else that the person who chooses the Water starter will be screwed over by. Electrics are only handed out in special cases, particularly to Ash Ketchum (and his avatar in the Yellow version) for showing up late.

3. You've got a new region. You have every opportunity to create starters of your own. This goes especially because there's really no symmetry between the starters you've chosen. Two only evolve once without any special means. One evolves once naturally and once via evolution stone. The last evolves twice naturally. And then you've got stats. Actual starters are pretty even when it comes to stats (as in, the numbers are the same, but they're distributed differently), and each one evolves twice naturally. This is to preserve some sense of symmetry among the three.

And anyway, on top of everything else, your Grass starter is probably a bad choice for a starter Pokemon anyway. I don't mean to offend you, but the only offensive attack it knows until level 13 is Bide. (And even then, Nature Power isn't guaranteed to be a damaging offensive attack.) That's a risky attack in itself (because you need to take damage twice before you can deal any out), meaning the trainer gets screwed over if the Seedot's young while trying to capture a Pokemon. Compare this with Bulbasaur, who learns two offensive attacks in the meantime, alongside two attacks that can drain the enemy's health.

So, yes. You've got a new region. Consider populating it with Pokemon, rather than use canon Pokemon that might not actually work for your purposes.


As for the story itself, it sounds pretty generic for a new trainer story. You'll want to be aware of that and consider plot points that will make your fic really stand out. My advice is to read a lot of other new trainer stories and AC's new trainer guide (somewhere in this forum) to see what you should avoid and maybe consider working from there. It could, of course, work, but you'll need to be particularly creative with it -- even more so than you would with any other plot because tons of people have already done "new trainers go out and fight against Team (insert something here) in (insert region here)" plots.

Good luck.

Scarlet Weather November 25th, 2008 12:01 PM

HEY! DON'T YOU FORGET THAT FINAL 'C'!

STANDING AT THE HEAD OF THE FANFICTION FORUM! WHEN THE CLICHES GET TOUGH, REAL MEN GET GOING! TEARING THROUGH BAD WRITING WITH MY FISTS OF FURY! WHEN PEOPLE SPEAK OF THE GREAT ACC AND HIS GUIDE... IT'S ME THEY TALK ABOUT!

Add to this speech a gratuitous scene of a giant anime robot entering a combination sequence as well as a flaming background and a soaring orchestral piece for the background music and you've got yourself my entrance. XD

As for the guide... it is located in the writing lounge. Just click on the sub-forum (NOT THE THREAD. THE SUB-FORUM) and look for "Thesis's guide to OT cliches- What NOT to include". I stil haven't bothered to update the title since getting my usename changed. So that should explain just about every pitfall I've thought of that OT fic writers often fall into. As for required reading... go to FF.net, and look up the author "Farla". Read her OT parodies (Lucki in particular) and get some insight. icomeanon6 (Or as we call him, "Anon") is a local author, and has one of the best OT parodies in the running. Then there's Astinus's "Teh Journey of Harrison!!!" which is pretty epic.

As for examples of well-done OT fics... Dragonfree's "The Quest for the Legends" suffers from more than a few flaws but she diligently revises the story as often as she possibly can to eliminate them, and her interpretation of how the Pokemon world works is particularly interesting. Chibi-Pika's The Legendarian Chronicles is up in the archives, and while it's more of a Team Rocket fic than a journeyfic it's also an example of a well-done story. Farla, once again, gives several pieces of advice concerning just how to start off a potentially well-done OT fic mixed in with her parodies. Learn from these people. Absorb their knowledge. Use it wisely.

Oh, and make absolutely certain that there's a giant robot in your fic. Can't have a fanfic without adding a giant robot, can we?

starryday November 25th, 2008 12:17 PM

Thanks for the advice, I'll go check out the thread. And I'm thinking I will re-choose the starters. The only one that I was really set on having was Ponyta, for plot purposes, but creating another equine-like Pokemon will work fine as well. Could be fun, actually. And I may as well throw in some other unique Pokemon while I'm at it. X) And a professor name... Sycamore?

I have lots of interesting(I think...) plot twists to go with the story, but I'll keep in mind how cliche it is while writing, and try to make things more interesting. I know that for one, there's going to be a big focus on Triome's contests, along with a focus on Pokemon pedigrees, which I'm fairly sure is at least moderately original, from browsing the forums. Thanks for the tips, though! *runs off to make starters while trying to think of a fourth type that would work in the 'Fire, Water, Grass' triangle*


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