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VEnya's Adventure
I like to RP but I'm bad at it. So I'll just make a story!
As the sun slowly goes over the mountain a Alteria sings its beautiful song. Venya yawns and stretches her arms as a Roselia designed blanket falls onto her lap. "today's finally the day!" she smiles so brightly running her fingers through her brown short hair. She jumps off her bed and goes to her desk with a large mirror on it. all over the edges are pictures of pokemon she dreams of having. She grabbed a back witch she packed the night before in excitement and checked it real quick before she got dressed. Rope, deodorant, food, lighter, blanket, and some clothing. She was happy she managed to make some room for pokeballs, even though she plans on leaving her first pokemon out all the time. She dressed in brown shirt with a white pokeball design on the shoulders. her pants just plain black with bird toes on the bottom of it. She grabbed her favorite furrys ears hat and goes down the stairs with her bag on her shoulder. "Mom?" "in here honey!" She heard her mother in the kitchen of the small house. She runs in and see's a large breakfast has been made. "mom! I don't have time! I have to get my pokemon." "I know honey but just eat first? a little bit." "you made allot so I can stay longer huh?" "maybe." she tried to look innocent. Venya sighs and eats quickly almost choking on what little food tried to go down the wrong throat. "okay mom bye!" "honey let me go with you. I want to see your first pokemon." Mother never did like her going on my own. She wanted her to be a housewife like her. But Venya wanted to go on my own and become friends with pokemon. Finally she can do that. She dash outside not willing to wait for mother. She run to a large home that's far from the rest of the town. She can already see two other people. One of them her best friend. A young boy with a black vest on and a purple shirt with light pink pants. His black hair is long and very pretty. "Venya! there you are I was beginning to wonder." He says as Venya hugs him tightly. "Anything happen yet?" She pants looking at his gray eyes. "no your right on time." Some people may think these two go together but they do not agree. They have been friends since grade school. Venya stood along side with Her friend Takeshi. A old man comes down a path from the large house. wearing a large white coat and brown pants and black shirt. "I assume its these three." he smiles brightly. The three trainers giggled and bowed. "please give us a pokemon!" "I'll need to see your papers." he says with a smile but was very serious. They three trainers showed there papers that said there official trainers now. "please come with me." Venya giggled and held Takeshi's hand as they followed the old man. His name is professor Monty. They followed him inside a fancy home that was filled with different types of pokemon. They seem to be helping him with cleaning the house and going around organizing. He comes back with three pokemon and there balls. a Eevee, a shinx, and a togepi. |
Not a bad beginning here - could stand with some improvement though (as those basically everyone when they start writing fanfics XD), and most of that can be remedied by some proof-reading - it's a good idea to go over your story a few times before posting to catch any simple mistakes first with a spellchecker and then with your own eyes (or even a beta-reader - someone else who reads before the posting).
I'll just go through part of it to explain the general parts that could use fixing. Quote:
Looking at the last sentence there some more: Quote:
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An important thing though - tenses. The first two sentences in that last quote is in the present tense (thanks to words like humps, goes, dreams) and the third sentence is suddenly in past tense (grabbed, packed, checked, dressed), which makes it harder to read. I'd suggest keeping the whole story in the one tense if possible so it doesn't jump about. (Past tends to be the easier to write/read, but the main thing is being consistent and not using two - stick to one). Looking at another paragraph: Quote:
There's also the finer points - e.g. a comma should either precede or follow a name, nickname etc such as the comma that should come after 'Honey'. Also not that a fair few sentences started with 'She' and were of a similar length - it makes it read like a list of events then and hurts the pacing ('She ______. She ______. That _______. She _______.') - makes it sound repetitive, essentially. Try mixing it up some more. Lastly there could be some more description imo of the boy - all we know is that he had certain questionably-coloured clothing and 'pretty' hair, but not what he his like, how tall he is, or even what makes the hair pretty - is it well-cut, or gelled, or looks like Elvis' hair style? Consider such things and show them to us with description so we have more of an idea what people really look like. I'll leave it at that - so far it's a basic but steady beginning here, so I hope those comments above can help you improve this for starters - I might be able to say a few other things but that'll do for now - must be off. Good luck with your story! |
Thank you! I always have a hard time with the whole tense thing. Never seem to get it when I write this way. I'm trying to think of the next chapter but right now I need to choose a pokemon. >_<
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I think it's rather good even with the choices. You have two regular and one electric. although if she chooses eevee maybe have her get a stone to evolve eevee from normal to a better one. and Togepi hmmm... can't argue there with the awesomeness.
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Venya jumped with glee and kneels down along with the other two trainers. "I choose.... Shinx." Takeshi says petting it gently. He quickly found out it was a girl with how bright it is.
"mmmm I choose togepi." the other trainer says. Venya smiles at the Eevee and gently picks it up. "I choose Eevee!" She smiles hugging the cute brown haired and long eared pokemon. "Vee!" Vee yells happily. "Here are Your balls, and here are your official pokedex's. This device already has your information. You need this at all times." "Thank you professor!" The three new trainers say at once. Takeshi and Venya walk out together. "This is so cool!' Takeshi says watching His Shinx walk with him. Venya holding Eevee snuggling it happily. "I know! I love Eevee." "Vee!" "Shinx shi!" Shinx starts run ahead of them. Eevee jumps out of Venya's arms and runs along with it. "Hey you know what?" Venya loved the sight of the two new pokemon run. "what?" Takeshi looked just as excited. "lets travel together." Venya smiles holding his shoulder. "They like each other and..." "sure." he smiles grabbing her hand. Venya and Takeshi hold hands as they go out of the city. Eevee and Shinx play with each other. A forest surrounds the whole town. Venya and Takeshi walk on a path through the forest. Eevee runs back as they start going in the forest. "Eevee." Venya says picking him up gently. "My Eevee." she smiles letting it on her shoulders. Takeshi chuckles and kneels down to Shinx. He gently pets her. He holds her up and holds his Shinx gently. "What do you think will happen now?" "We battle, we win, we survive." Venya chuckles with a grin. |
[QUOTE=Venya;5865462]
"Here are there balls, and here are your official pokedex's. This device already has your information. You need this at all times." QUOTE] i believe you mean their instead of there before balls. |
[QUOTE=wolfeydawg;5865502]
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AAH! no I meant to say you. here are your balls and here are your official pokedex's Thank you for noticing |
[QUOTE=Venya;5865588]
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no problem, i just wanted to let you know in cause you want to publish ^^ maybe you should say pokeballs instead of just balls but just my 2 cents |
Venya and Takeshi walk through the forest letting there pokemon play with each other. As night fell Venya looked to the stars as Takeshi had gotten some wood. "hey can you come help me?" Takeshi asks putting the wood down. Shinx had a stick in her mouth with glee and put it down at the same time. Takeshi chuckles happily.
"Yeah sure." Venya takes out a box of matches from her pokeball shaped bag. its larger then it looks. They started a fire and had there first night out in the forest. Venya was so excited she stayed up and watched Takeshi sleep. She pet Eevee who was also asleep. She took out her pokedex and checked what it says about her first poke-friend. Eeevee It has the ability to alter the composition of its body to suit its surrounding environment. Has an unstable genetic makeup that suddenly mutates due to the environment in which it lives. Radiation from various stones causes this pokemon to evolve. 'Stones huh? I wonder if I should even evolve him.' Venya thought looking at her low level pokemon. She points her pokedex at her pokemon and the attacks came up. Tackle heping hand tail whip sand attack 'wow. He's really weak. Don't worry Eevee I'll make you stronger.' Venya closed her pokedex and looked to the sky with a grin on her face. |
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First off, are you writing directly in the post reply box? If so, then you'll want to stop. When writing fanfiction, you actually have to write in a word processor (Microsoft Word, OpenOffice, whatever similar program you might have) and either save it to your computer or an online storage program. The reason why is because if you don't, you end up inadvertently rushing yourself, regardless of whether or not you think you are. Stories aren't cooked up in one sitting, especially if they're chaptered works. Even if you finish writing, you still have to go back and proofread your fic to fix errors you probably can catch on your own. (For example, notice how you keep saying you know what you should have said but ended up with typos at the places people are pointing out? That's how you know you can probably do some prelim proofreading on your own.)
I say "prelim" there because there's another tip I've got to offer for you. Find yourself a beta-reader. The reason why I say this is because your most recent chapter (if it is one, which I'll get to in a moment) is riddled with errors of the same sorts bobandbill already pointed out. Going over your work with an objective reader before you post your chapter might help you to avoid repeating the same mistakes over and over again. Finally, I'll let you in on a little secret. While writing fics and RPing are sort of the same thing, they really aren't. With fanfiction, you don't just sit down and write a character's action until you decide to pick it up later. You sit down and write a full chapter from beginning to end. Now, I'm not sure if you actually consider each of your story posts chapters because you're not tagging them with anything, but your latest one especially could have simply been integrated into the scene before it. So, before I even get into the story, that's the majority of my advice: take your time. I'd also suggest looking at other fic threads to figure out how fic writing is actually done because it's certainly not a step down from RPing. That being said, let me get into the story proper. To make things easier, I'm going to do this the way I beta fics, by putting in bold, red font all my notes about grammatical errors. (Further notes will be in parentheses, like this. You'll want to delete those if you go back and edit.) If I find something to say about the plot, I'll make a note of it outside the quotes. Quote:
In other words, remember that the reader isn't you, so we don't really have a good image of what you're seeing. Describe all of the characters at least a little bit (and not just your main one), and have their actions and inner monologue give the reader the idea of what they're thinking. Don't just say Venya's mother wanted her to be a housewife. Have Venya's mother look at her daughter with worry or even say things that might point to this kind of thought. If you go at it through that angle, the reader will find it easier to not only picture these characters but also step into their shoes and imagine what they're thinking. Quote:
Meanwhile, your description, while it gives us an all right mental image (once you take out the "very pretty"), could use a bit of work as well. Like bobandbill said, this would be a case of infodumping, or a part of a story where you stop the narration to go off on a tangent. To be a bit clearer, the description of the boy doesn't continue the action either character's going through. You have it separate, in other words. This causes your narration to feel a little disjointed because you're stepping out of the story's frame for a moment just to give us an image of what this character looks like. You actually have an example of decent description earlier in the fic, so I'm going to use it as an example of what you should try to aim for instead: She smiles brightly and runs her fingers through her brown, short hair. … She dresses in a brown shirt with white pokeball designs on the shoulders. Notice how you don't stop the action at these points, but you still give us an image of what Venya looks like? Specifically, notice how these actually fit into the story? Her fingers run through her hair as part of her way of stretching. She gets dressed as part of her morning routine, but she selects specific clothes. You mix action with description to keep the story going without breaking away from the narration to describe your characters. Now, in the case of her best friend, you could try something like this: She can already see two people. One of them is her best friend. His hands are in the pockets of his light pink pants, and he leans against a tree with his usual mischievous smile. Best friend or no, Venya can only return his smile with an awkward grin as her eyes run over the black vest and the purple shirt, all of which clash in such a way that it makes Venya almost embarrassed to be approaching him. Noticing her approach, he tilts his head, letting strands of his long, black hair spill over his shoulder and across his face. Just a suggestion, of course. I highly encourage you to play with description and figure out what will work best for your characters, but the point is, don't stop the action just to describe a character. It's jarring for a reader. Quote:
In fact, it might actually be better if you just had them disagree on something to show us how they interact with one another, rather than simply tell us that they don't agree. If you just tell us, we can't actually get a good mental image of what these two are like. Showing us allows us to see for ourselves that they look close but actually argue like a married couple or something along those lines. It prevents your characters' actions from contradicting what you're saying about them, and it allows us to visualize things ourselves. Long story short, it's the old writing cliché, "Show; don't tell." Showing us how they interact by having them actually interact is more powerful than just telling us they act like X, Y, and Z. Quote:
Also, the narrator notes that Venya sees two people, but the old man hasn't come down from the house yet. You also go on to say that there's three trainers in front of the old man. Who's the third person Venya sees? Even if Venya doesn't know the name of this character, it's still a good idea to give that person at least a short description or a bit of action. Otherwise, it feels like that person is just a cardboard cut-out or a puppet whose only purpose is to round the number out to the traditional three trainers for each available starter. Quote:
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In other words, be careful about your descriptions and actions. Don't have all three trainers do things in unison like they're part of a hive mind if you want all three to appear straight as individuals with their own, separate personalities. Quote:
This is the third time you have any of the trainers giggle. I'm not sure if there's a reason for it. There's other ways of expressing excitement besides awkward schoolgirl giggling, especially if you're trying to get through some official process. I mean, this is like giggling as you go off to get a new car or your driver's license. Alternatively, it's like giggling as you get school supplies. You just don't giggle for these kinds of events, no matter how excited you are. Unless, of course, you actually inhaled nitrous or something just before doing all of this, but. Also, I'm still wondering about that "do not agree" line you mentioned awhile ago. For two people who don't actually believe they go together well, they're very close. I mean, it's perfectly possible for a girl to hurry along beside a boy without automatically reaching for his hand and giggling. Quote:
Also, I'd hate to nitpick, but why Monty? Professors in the games are usually named after trees (with the exception of Hastings, who was given a name that was a pun on his personality; P, who has a name that stands for "Pokémon"; and Krane, whose last name... is a last name). Quote:
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Furthermore, if I may ask, why Eevee, Togepi, and Shinx? Starters are normally balanced so that one starter has a weakness to another and a resistance to a third. For example, Bulbasaur's attacks are strong against Squirtle, Squirtle's attacks are strong against Charmander, and Charmander's attacks are strong against Bulbasaur. Likewise, Bulbasaur resists Squirtle's attacks, Squirtle resists Charmander's, and Charmander resists Bulbasaur's. It's a balance. With Eevee, Togepi, and Shinx, you don't really have that same balance. Two of them are Normal-types at the beginning, and the last one is an Electric-type. Neither of these types really sport a weakness or a resistance to each other. Then, after evolution, Togetic/kiss is weak to Luxio/ray, but the chain falls short because even if Eevee evolves into Leafeon (in order to be weak against Togekiss), Luxio and Luxray aren't weak to Grass-type attacks. Then, if you evolve Eevee into Vaporeon (weak against Luxray), Togekiss doesn't have a resistance to Vaporeon. Finally, if you try to evolve Eevee into Jolteon or Glaceon, that means two Pokémon in the starter trio (Jolteon/Glaceon and Luxray) are strong against the third (Togekiss). There's no real balance here, which means one of the rivals gets cheated. While I'm not saying you should go with the same grass-fire-water combination, I'm saying it'd be a good idea to figure out a way to go with a combination that makes sense, rather than just three of your favorites. You can give characters your favorite Pokémon later, but the starter trio is structured in canon the way it is so that no trainer has an unfair advantage over the other two. That and it avoids allowing your character to fall into a potential trap. Eevee really is a random Pokémon, and a lot of people choose to give their trainers one, either because they think it's cool or because it evolves into their favorite Pokémon and several others. For this reason, Eevee itself tends to be overused as a starter, so it's actually harder to make your fic feel fresh, just because the reader might look at that and think that they're looking at just another new trainer story. Of course, this doesn't mean that your story will be running along a cookie-cutter plot. I'm just saying that you'll end up having to work a little harder to convince us that it isn't. Now, getting back to the point, throwing in Eevee here ends up pitching a wrench in the works, as I've mentioned earlier. It's a random Pokémon out of the three, which sort of says that it didn't really matter what the other two might be so long as Venya can get an Eevee starter. Quote:
Seriously, though, as a note, female and male Shinx don't differ in terms of color. One can tell the genders apart by how long the locks of fur between their ears are. Males have longer hair than females. (This might tie into the fact that male lions eventually get long manes, whereas females of that species don't.) Quote:
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Second, you have this fondness of using gerunds (phrases with verbs ending in -ing), especially if you don't put a comma before it. I just want to say that it's probably better to experiment with adverb phrases like ones that being with "as," "before," and "while." That varies the sentence structure, allows you to avoid any messiness with commas, constructs sentences that don't sound quite as awkward, and generally allow you to establish a timeline of the smaller events. In other words, it's just less awkward to try fiddling with phrases like those, and it helps the reader to figure out when each action is taking place. Quote:
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Second, you know, for a couple of kids who don't agree with the idea that they're together, they're... very lovey-dovey with each other. (Again, characterization. Don't tell us that your characters are one way and have them act completely opposite to your description.) Quote:
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I don't mean to be biting, but it's really not necessary to remind the reader in every other sentence that these characters are deliriously happy. Everything that each character does is coupled with giggling, chuckling, grinning, smiling, hand-holding, or general expressions of glee or happiness. I understand that they're excited about starting a journey, but it just feels really forced. Even the tiniest chores turn into one song short of a Mary Poppins musical number. When you build characterization, you've got to think about how people naturally act. If it's difficult to imagine, just try to picture how you'd feel and how you'd express yourself when doing a chore almost a half a day after you came home from a party. Likewise, think of how you would act in these situations. It's very unlikely that you'd be giggling and smiling all the time just for little things, and if you are, I really do want to know what kind of lifestyle you're living on a serious level, just because it sounds amazing. But the point is, good characterization is not just founded on having a set of personality traits and a background. It's founded on having the characters act naturally based on those traits. You might have a bubbly personality, but you probably won't be chuckling and smiling as you grab brushwood. I mean, even Ash, the happiest kid on Earth according to the anime, isn't laughing all the time. In a similar way, your characters probably should tone it down a little. Quote:
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On a slightly more serious note, though, instead of telling us what Venya is doing, show us her sitting up and sighing. Maybe even saying to herself that she can't get to sleep. Show us the night going on and Venya still awake as hours pass. Don't just have Takeshi drop off into sleep and the narrator telling us that Venya is excited. For all we know, five minutes could have passed. Quote:
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Overall, I'm going to have to say you'll need a lot of work here. First and foremost, slow down and switch to a word processor. Only post a chapter that you've finished writing and proofread thoroughly. This includes spell-checking. If you don't want to bother with having to correct every instance of a Pokémon name, turn on spell-check as you type to get the red squiggles under every word the program doesn't recognize. This helps you see what could be an error. Of course, as I've said earlier, spell-check won't pick up instances of the incorrect word being used but spelled correctly. (For example, using "there" instead of "their.") Likewise, it won't help you with a lot of other errors you're making in capitalization, punctuation, and sentence structure. You can help yourself a little bit by reading your work aloud to listen to whether or not it sounds correctly to you. (Something that sounds awkward most likely isn't correct.) However, I think you'd benefit more with actually asking someone to be your beta-reader – more specifically, someone you don't already know. Go check out that thread to find potential candidates. As for the rest of the story, I was really distracted by the way a lot of things were worded (as you can tell with my notes about your grammar and sentence structures), but once I got past that, I just found a lot more to work on. For one, your description was patchy. In some cases (like the first line), it was okay, but it quickly broke down into either a lack of description (especially concerning setting) or infodump-style description (where you stopped the story to describe something). Try to remember that a good description shouldn't stop the story just to describe someone's hair, and remember that your readers need all the details you can give them to help them imagine what your world is like. This is really important to work on because otherwise, we don't really have much to go on, which means it's hard for us to get into your story. Characterization could be better, too. This is something you should carry over to your roleplaying as well, but basically, the trick is to have your characters act naturally. Don't create a character (like that unnamed third trainer) just to be used as filler. People notice that, and to them, that kind of thing (the characters who are practically ignored except to be given a line at an appropriate time that doesn't interrupt the main characters) makes it feel like the world is populated by two people and hundreds upon hundreds of puppets and cardboard cutouts. While I'm not saying every last extra needs depth, I'm saying every last character shouldn't just stand around and do absolutely nothing until you remember they're there. Have the main characters interact with them, or have them do something in the background. As for the main characters, don't have them follow specific tracks of predictable reactions. For example, don't have them laugh and giggle and bow constantly, just because they're excited. Build them a personality and figure out how they would express themselves in every given situation. If they're doing something as simple as gathering wood, don't have them express excitement just because you think they should be excited about one thing. People can have a whole range of emotions for every situation. Think about how you feel and express yourself as you go about your day and use it to figure out how your characters might. Now, about the plot. It might be a bit difficult. A lot of people have tried new trainer stories, and a lot of people give their trainers Eevee starters. This isn't saying I think you should stop. It's just saying that it might be a bit difficult to get your readers to look at your story and realize that it's not just another new trainer fic. So far, there's not much to go on. Venya leaves her mother's house, goes to a professor, gets her first Pokémon, and heads to a forest. She might be traveling with her best friend, but other than that, because there's not much background or depth to this character so far (sorry to say), it just feels a little generic at the moment. In other words, you don't really let us get a good first glimpse of Venya or Takeshi so far (other than they're best friends who giggle a lot). We don't really know much about them, other than the fact that Venya doesn't want to be a housewife (not that we know why). You end up following a pretty average start for a new trainer fic, so there's not much so far to separate it from any other new trainer story. Now, I'm going to say one thing. Don't be too discouraged by the above. I'm sure you can get better, but you'll need to really work on it. You'll have to clean up the way you use language here, and on top of that, you'll really have to plan out your fic and work on bringing out your characters and plot in general. I would suggest doing a lot of reading first to get an idea of how stories usually go. Also, take your time and really sit down and think about how you're going to get your characters to do things. Stories aren't just one-player RPs, after all. You have to handle a lot of different things at once. You've got to be the one to provide the reader with the background information that we might not know about prior to going into your story, and you're the one who has to "play" all the characters, including the "NPCs," or the people who aren't your central character(s). Don't worry. You'll get used to it after handling a lot of fanfiction and practicing it. Working with a beta-reader will help in this regard, too, because beta-readers are usually people who are experienced enough to know the ins and outs of fanfiction. In general, yeah, you have the potential to get better, but you'll probably need to really sit down, read a lot of other fanfic, and work with someone in order to do it. Good luck. |
I think this is third person. I'm terrible at third person. Yes I was writing it in the reply box. I think I'll start over and go back to first person. I'll have other people read it before I post it this time. Thank you for the advice it was allot to read. it comes in handy to know what I'm doing wrong.
I rarely ever red fan fic... wait no I don't read any at all. I read comic books so I'm a bad writer. but I love it so I'm not discouraged by your advice (almost was though) Thank you so much for writing all this. |
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