Season champs!

Scytheteen · Oct 25, 2007

Chapter 1- The Tryouts
Chapter 2- The Battle
Chapter 3- The Final Turn
Chapter 4- A Victory Gone Wrong

The Tryouts

"And the award for best pokemon trainer in age group 13-15 is...Nick Aranoff!" said the announcer.

Nick couldn't believe what he was hearing. He knew he wasn't that great of a pokemon trainer, and he knew his pokemon weren't very good either, he thought he'd be the last person to win this award. This place where he was at, was a huge stadium. After the announcement the audience burst into applause and were all cheering his name. Most of his school was there and most of them participated. Even people who he didn't even know were cheering for him. Whilst everyone was cheering colorful streamers were being shot and glittering lights were coming from all directions. It seemed like some sort of magical dream.

"Um...I'd like to thank you all for this award and um...thanks, now gimme my trophy!" exclaimed the excited Nick.

The audience started to chuckle a little bit despite the fact that he didn't even say a joke, and it wasn't even that funny. They were all just suckups, but he didn't care, he was basking in his glory.

"And here you go...you very own..."

BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP!

The sound of an extremley loud alarm went off buzzing in Nick's ear.

"Ugh..." said Nick is his tired morning voice. "School again..."

"Nick, come on get up!" yelled his mom from downstairs.

"Yeah, yeah I'm coming," Nick shouted down.

Nick went shuffling through his drawers looking for something to wear. Eventually he found something. Normally he would just take out the first thing he found, but today, he made sure to pick out the perfect thing to wear, who wouldn't want to look their best on the semi-most important day of their lives? He picked out a short sleeved Hollister tee-shirt and a pair of his favorite jeans. He got his fleece jacket on and tied his sneakers. Nick looked in the mirror to see what he looked like in his outfit.

"This looks good," he said.

Nick was about 5'3 and weighed 105 pounds, but he wasn't fat. He had brown fair which today he flipped up in the front. He wore glasses and had blue eyes which sometimes turned green. Before Nick left the room he took a quick glance at his trophies on his dresser. He didn't have many, only about six. He had one for little football, two for little league soccer, one for little league baseball and the other two were for pokemon tournaments that he won. Nick called himself an athlete. In the fall he played football, and he wasn't half bad. He played running back, and he could really run. In the first half of winter, was a wrestler. That was something he wasn't so good at, but he beat a couple of kids. In the spring he ran track. He could run the 55 meters in seven seconds! He would always win for his school. When he got downstairs his mom stared at him for a few seconds.

"Thats what your wearing?" she said.

"Yeah, whats wrong with it?" He questioned.

"Well, its a little chilly out today, why don't you go put on a sweatshirt or get that jacket I bought for you last week," she said.

"Nah, today, i'm wearing what I want to, this is, as you may or may not know, the day for tryouts, and I will not come into school with anything less than my favorite things," he retorted.

"Okay, just remember your pokemon alright?" she said?

"Oh shoot! I almost forgot," he said while running up the stairs.

He looked at his desk and saw the four pokeballs on his desk.

"Phew, sorry guys, I almost forgot about you. Come on out, lets get some excercise!"

Four beams of a bright white light came upon the room and four rather large figures appeared before him. The first was a grasshopper like pokemon with big claws and sharp wings pointing out of its back.

"Hey there scyther, and how are we doing today?" he asked the pokemon.

"Scythe, scythe scythe scyther!" it happily replied.

The second pokemon was a small dog like pokemon. It was a dark black and it had what seemed like frightning eyes, which could easily turn friendly.

"Ah, houndour. Good morning to you," he said in a cheery voice.

"Houn...houndour!"

The third pokemon was a two headed pokemon. It had very scrawny legs and chicken feet. It had a very large middle with an extremely large beak on each head.

"Duodo, nice to see you pal!"

"Duo Duo Duo Duo..."

And finally there was the fourth pokemon. This was his newest and rarest pokemon yet. It was very small and was a light bluish color. It had a strange grey shell-like object above its head with eyes right below it. It had very small feet, with two toes and his arms didn't even have hands! Nontheless, he heard it was a strong and powerful pokemon and its final evolution.

"Nick, hurry, your going to miss the bus!" shouted his mom from downstairs.

"Alright guys, return!" and with that being said all of the pokemon returned to their respectable balls and he put them in his bag along with all his books.

He barely made the bus to school, but when he did he took his seat in the back. He was supposed to do his english homework on the ride to school, but he was to excited. He sat across from one of his best friends Chris. He was 5'2 and loyal person. He was very strong and could probably lift someone at random on his bus. He had brown hair and had brown eyes. He was really good at pokemon training, and he was trying out, but he wasn't so sure if he would make it. He only had two pokemon, but boy were they strong. They were a pidgeotto and a raticate. Most people trying out had 3 or more with them, so it would be hard for him to win. Diagonlly from his was his other good friend Jimmy. Jimmy had thick brown hair, almost black and he was a chubby person. He wasn't the fittest of kids and only did karate. He didn't spend much time training as he mostly caught. He has a team of six, but they were all weak. He definitley would not get on the team. And in front of Nick was Connor. He wasn't that good of friend of Nick's but he was friendly with him. He was only about 5'0. He was really strong and did wrestling. He could beat Nick. ALthough he was good at wrestling, pokemon training he was not so good at.. He only had one machop, and it could be easily beaten by Nick's doudo. He wasn't even trying out for the team. All Nick could think about the whole ride was the tryouts until Chris interupted his thoughts.

"So what pokemon are you using today in the tryouts?" Chris asked.

"Ha, I only have four pokemon, and your allowed to use at most 5," Nick said back.

"Oh, right, I don't think my team will stand out much, its about as common as flying pidgey," Chris said.

"At least your team is strong, I should've trained with you two, my team is all weak," said Jimmy in a sad voice.

"Have fun at tryouts, no way my machop is getting involved in all of that," Connor said from his seat.

And after that it got quiet and after about five minutes, they arrived at the school. He didn't pay attention to anything in the hall and rushed to english and sat down in his desk. He didn't do his homework and he was very nervous. After five minutes of him siting there kids started pouring in the room, and after two minutes the bell rang. His teacher was a very strict, but nice teacher. She didn't check homework for some reason today and Nick got lucky. He learned about some poet from the 1800's who married his own cousin.

"Boring," he thought to himself.

After what seemed like five hours, the bell finally rang. He went outside and some popular kid went behind him and pushed his books to the floor. Nick as you may now have guessed, was not a very popular student. He picked up the fallen books and rushed to art which was on the other side of the building. He barely made it there. He sat down at his seat across from a kid named Billy. Billy was a more popular student, but he was nice. He didn't talk to Nick that much, but when he did talk to him, it was never mean. Billy was a rather good looking person. He was 5'4 and his weight was unknown. He had a blonde hair higlight in the front of his hair. Today he wore an islanders tee-shirt with madras shorts. The shorts, obviously to big, feel down once in class, and Nick couldn't help but laugh. Billy was a really good trainer. He had five pokemon, most in the second forms. He was a rich kid as his dad bought him most of his pokemon. His first pokemon was a porygon, and Nick couldn't help but be jealous. He would probably be his biggest competition today. Meanwhile in art he was drawing a still life.

"Okay class, today we will be adding color to our drawings, so if you have not yet finished sketching the drawing, finish up quickly," said his art teacher, Ms.Roche.

Nick quickly added the color to his drawing, and it looked pretty good. Art was more of a fun class for him. And then the bell rang, signaling him to go to social studies. He would've fallen asleep in that class if his seat partner Dylan didn't keep him active. Dylan was a girl. She was 5'5 and was a heavy girl. She was also trying out for the girls team, and she was good. In social studies they were learning about westward expansion and Nick could care less.

"Why do we even have to take social studies," he whispered to Dylan, "It already happened."

She giggled at his joke and his teacher couldn't help but look up. Luckily, he didn't hear what Nick said. 4th and 5th period was more of a blur to him and he couldn't remember anything he learned in that science and writing enrichment period. Then it was lunchtime. He took his seat with three of his newer friends, Justin, Kevin and Austin. You would think by their behaviors that they would be long lost triplets. Justin was 5'3 and an obeise boy, but he keeps his weight down with football. He was a pokemon trainer and had three pokemon and he was sure to make the team. Austin was 5'1 and weighed probably 100 pounds. He had 3 pokemon as well, as he could beat anyone he wanted to if he tried. His only problem was that he got too coky at times, and let the battle go. Then there was Kevin. He was 5'3 and he was not a pokemon trainer. His parents had not believed in pokemon, and therefore, he never got one. So one day Justin, Austin and Nick pooled together their money and bought Kevin an Abra, which still remains an Abra. For lunch today it was meatloaf, Nick's least favorite school lunch. He thought of this as a bad omen. He listened to his friends jabber on about things, and he could care less as to what they were saying. He went to french and technology and that too was a distant memory to him. And finally, after a long day, the tryouts, were finally begininng...
He rushed downstairs to the huge gym to be the first one there. He was. He took a seat on the bleachers, and in about 3 minutes kids started pouring into the gym. Despite the fact it was huge, it was very cramped in there. After about 10 minutes, the three coaches came in. The first one was his math teacher. He got nervous about this for he was the head coach and he could make cuts if some kid was failing a class, and math was Nicks* worst subject. The second coach was the assistant coach, the one who was in charge of playing time and it was his social studies teacher. He got very nervous when he saw him because of that comment he had made earlier.The third was a spanish teacher. He was in charge on the discipline, he got nervous because people had told him he was a crazy workaholic when it came to sports. He could feel the meatloaf that he had from lunch moving around in his stomach.

"Alright everyone, go in the locker room and dress appropriately for the tryouts," said the head coach whos name was Mr.Dagger.

Everyone piled into the locker room. Nick rushed to his locker to avoid getting squished by everyone. It was too late though, by the same he was changing his shirt, all the guys were piling in. He eventually got changed and ran outside. When he was leaving the room, one of the popular guys tripped him. He fell on the ground and his chin broke his fall. Everyone started to laugh and Nick got very embarassed. These were all bad signs to him. WHen he got out the three coaches were sitting behind a desk with a clipboard to sign in. When everyone was finished signing in, they would tell you who your competition would be. When they were calling out names he didn't hear his own. It made him really anxious. When they finally called out his name, the name that followed was:

"Chris Leroux," Said the assistant coach whos name was Mr.Fields.

Chris was Nick's very best friend. He stomach cramped up and his face turned white. He wanted to make this team so badly, but he wouldn't want to hurt his friend in the process.

"I hope your ready," started Chris. "Cuz i'm going all out in this battle!"

To Be Continued

So...was this better than before?

Also...

*and math was Nicks* worst subject.
Should Nick have an apostrophe in there?

Grovyle42(Griff8416) · Oct 26, 2007

Your grammar was much better than mine when I first started a year ago... which is kinda sad when you think about it. ^ ^

Not a bad start. His past was kind of slapped down pretty quickly but I guess that's necessary given the time and place he's in.

I'll be reading it.

Scytheteen · Oct 26, 2007

Thanks Griff! I'll soon be posting more, but its good to know that someone likes it!

Grovyle42(Griff8416) · Oct 26, 2007

Cool, and No problem. :P ----

Alter Ego · Oct 27, 2007

Alright, you asked for a review so I'm going to give you one, but keep in mind: the criticism below is by no means meant to be a personal insult to you, the writer; these are my impressions of your fic and my suggestions for making it better, no more or less, and my primary goal here is to help you improve as a writer; not bash you.

Yes, I feel inclined to provide a little disclaimer like this because some people get very defensive about their fics, hopefully you are not one them.

scythemaster said:
"And the award for best pokemon trainer in age group 13-15 is...Nick Aranoff," said the announcer.

After the announcement the entire audience burst into applause.

"Um...I'd like to thank you all for this award and um...thanks, now gimme my trophy!" exclaimed the excited Nick.

"And here you go...you very own..."

Okay, point number one: this dream sequence...I'm just not feeling it. I mean, this is supposed to be his big day in the spotlight, so where are the dazzling lights, the cheering crowd, and the squealing fangirls? You could do with a lot more description here to really give the reader a vivid image of what Nick's fantasy of fame looks like. As it is, I am led to believe that he is a rather dull and unimaginative person whose idea of a big awards ceremony is a single announcer and some half-hearted applause. That's just not very grand or festive. O= Also, that's 'burst' not 'bursted' since 'burst' is an irregular verb.

scythemaster said:
Nick Aranoff was a 13 and a half year old boy who attened middle school in 8th grade. He was very popular and did baseball in the spring, basketball in the first half of winter, and football in the fall. But in the second half of winter, he did one of the most popular, and hardest team to make sport, Pokemon Battling! At this school, almost half of the 8th grade guys would try out to make the team, with high hopes of making the team, but a small twenty would only make it. This would be Nick's year to try out, and like 7th grade and 6th grade he would be the star.

Okay, too much information. How does Nick waking up to the sound of a loud alarm justify me getting to know his social status and hobbies? o.O This is the kind of thing I'd expect to see in a character bio, but in a narrative you should only introduce information when it becomes somehow relevant to the place or events you're describing. If you want to impress Nick's crazy sports record, then you could litter his room with trophies, posters and whatnot - the description of which could then flow into his interest in sports.

scythemaster said:
Unlike most kids his age, he got his first pokemon at only four years old! He lived in a rare pokemon filled area also, so it wasn't hard for him to get powerful pokemon, and it was even easier to raise them. His first pokemon was actually an abandoned baby pokemon. It was a charmander. Now its a very powerful charizard. After finding charizard, his parents went on a trip. His babysitter liked to go for long walks in the forest. One day he went with her and he caught himself a caterpie, his second pokemon, which is a now a butterfree. After catching caterpie, Nick and his family all moved to vermillion city. He went to beach with his dad and his dad got bit by a krabby. The only way he could fight it off was to catch it, which is now a strong kingler. After a few years he ended catching a munchlax, abra and a bulbasaur, which are now all in their final evolutions at their strongest. Thats enough about Nick's past for now though.

Gary-Stu alert!

Sorry, but I'm not buying this. For starters, a four-year old kid is not yet mentally or physically equipped to look after even himself; there's no way in heck he could win over the trust of a - probably emotionally scarred - abandoned Charmander, let alone manage to take care of it. (And I seriously question whether any reasonable parent would let a four-year old keep a fire-breathing lizard as their pet either) Trust me, I've worked with kids - even six- and seven-year olds (Particularly boys. I hate to sound sexist here, but it's true) have major trouble amassing the attention span to sit down and write the letters of the alphabet on a piece of paper and some don't even know how to hold a spoon properly yet; no way could a four-year old manage raising a semi-wild animal, especially one with a tail capable of lighting furniture on fire. A team of six is just absurd, and the vague reference to living in "a rare pokemon filled area" (an area which you haven't even dignified with a location or name) just doesn't work as an explanation. (Incidentally, your current sentence structure implies that the area - as opposed to the pokémon - is the rare thing.) Seriously, you need to make your protagonist realistic, and a kid of thirteen having a team of six, fully trained pokémon in a world where the norm for such people would be a Rattata and possibly an unevolved starter pokémon just isn't. Nick being popular, awesome at sports and good at pokémon is already making him look like a Gary-Stu (the annoyingly perfect character archetype, loved by all and always succeeding in whatever he does, who everyone secretly wants to throw a brick at) and Gary-Stus just aren't interesting to read about, at all. Don't be afraid to give your character flaws and shortcomings; they not only make him a lot more believable but also help your readers to relate to him and thus make him more likable. :3

I also notice that Nick's team bears a disturbing similarity to Satoshi's. An abandoned Charmander gone Charizard, a Butterfree, and a Kingler who pinched his trainer as a Krabby? No offense, but any reader familiar with the anime will spot the parallels and odds are that they won't like it. Always try to maintain a clear distinction between your characters and the ones from canon, especially the anime since a lot of people on these forums hate it. You also misspelled 'abandoned' and names like Vermillion City should have their first letters capitalized. It's also customary to treat pokémon names like this. My suggestion would be to do some serious rethinking on your character's history, though. I'd suggest giving him one, or possibly two, pokémon to begin with (and these should not be fully evolved forms of crazily rare species either). A weak pokémon with a proper history and personality is a lot more likable than a mindless drone with uberly power, and the development of trainer and pokémon as the fanfic progresses is a major source of material for this kind of fanfic. To make a long story short: the story of how a trainer grew up to become strong is a lot more interesting than a story about a trainer who's strong from the get-go. As it is, I'm wondering why this child prodigy is bothering with school tryouts instead of conquering the pokémon league. o.O

scythemaster said:
"Nick, come on get up!" yelled his mom from downstairs.

"Yeah, yeah i'm coming," Nicked shouted down.

Nick knew that today was the day for tryouts. He put on his favorite outfit and took all of his pokemon with him. He knew who his biggest competition would be for today and he needed to make sure to bring only his strongest and most trustworthy pokemon. He went downstairs and left his house. He got on the bus to school, and on the way there he did his english homework from last night. Something about some poet from the 1800's who married his cousin.

"Boring," he thought to himself.

When he got off the bus he entered the school. A lot of kids were talking about the tryouts. He knew that none of them would have a shot against him. He walked upstairs to english. He learned more about that poet and then after what seemed like 3 hours, the bell rang. He headed off to art, and then social studies. Then science and finally gym. Normally, gym wouldn't be something to look foward to, but it was pokemon battling season, something that he loved. His gym teacher had them all practice for the big tryouts later that day. Then he left the gym and headed to the cafeteria for lunch. He sat down with his friends, Justin, Austin and Kevin. All that they were talking about was the tryouts. Now these three were really good trainers, and were shoeins to make the team. For lunch, meatloaf. He thought of that as a bad omen. His least favorite lunch on the same day as tryouts. He got a bagel and ate it. He listened to his friends squack about stupid things. He left for math, one subject even he could understand. Math had almost been his best subject, and his teacher, Mr.Dagger, was the coach. He learned about proportions, a very easy subject. Then, French class. Then band. And finally, the tryouts, were about to start...

Okay, sorry but this is really just a big waste of space. Why bother monotonously listing a bunch of names and classes if you don't plan on using them for plot or character development purposes? Quite frankly, I don't care about Nick's schedule; I want to see him get on with the flippin' tryouts already. If Justin, Austin, and Kevin (Somehow those names give me the feeling that they're triplets) are such good friends of Nick's then I'd like to see that in the form of actual dialogue and interaction between the characters, not as a single sentence. The way I see it, you could really just have skipped the stuff in this quote and instead had him wake up after day-dreaming in band or French class, in which case you could have moved straight on to the actual tryouts. As it is, the information content of this chapter is very slim, essentially boiling down to "Nick is an all-around awesome guy who is thirteen years old, doesn't like meat loaf and has three friends called Justin, Austin, and Kevin. He's going to have tryouts.".

...

When the entire contents of your chapter can be summed up in two sentences it's time to go back to the drawing board and do some serious revisions. For each chapter you write, you should pose two questions for yourself: "Does this contribute to the plot?" and "Does this contribute to the development of my characters?". If the answer is 'no' on both counts then the chapter is redundant. As it is, I really haven't gotten anything out of this chapter that couldn't have been squeezed in as an aside during the actual tryouts. He could have his 'bad omen' meat-loaf rumble in his stomach when preparing for his first battle, his friends could be there to cheer him on, and obviously he'd get introduced when they call out his name. The tryout people could also pose questions about his experiences as a trainer in which case you could bring in his history at that point (or he could reminisce about it as he prepares for his first step into the official battling world), and somewhere along the line you're really going to have to describe Nick for us too. Speaking of which, there's next to no description at all in the entire chapter. I don't know what Nick, or anyone else for that matter, looks like, I don't what season it is or what the weather's like, how sports boy's room or school looks like or even where he lives, I don't know what he's like personality-wise and the few pieces of dialogue that exist are so generic that I can't draw any serious interpretations from them.

In short, this fanfic just looks extremely rushed to me. I'd seriously suggest re-reading your chapters before posting them and re-reading them critically. Try to place yourself in the position of an average reader and ask yourself whether you would be interested in reading a fic like that if someone else posted it. Yeah, hate to break it to you but you'll need to put in a lot of work if you want this piece of fanfiction to shine.

As a start, I'd suggest checking three very useful stickies: the Basic Pokémon Writing FAQ, the Pokémon Fanfiction Writing Guide, and the Grammar Advice thread. Frostweaver's fanfic analysis could also prove useful, but I think you should address the content issues before tackling style.

Good luck, and don't be discouraged by the workload. If you put together a revised edition, let me know and I'll come around to check it. :3

Scytheteen · Oct 27, 2007

Alrighty guys, I rewrote the prologue. Any thoughts?

Astinus · Oct 27, 2007

I received your PM, and headed right over to your fanfic! I'm not doing that extreme of a grammar review, because I'm trying to branch out my own reviews to touch more than just grammar.

(Apologies for sounding harsh in this review. I mean, really sorry if I come off that way.)

But speaking of grammar, and after looking at Alter Ego's review, I can see that you still really didn't look over your chapter before posting it. How can I tell? Sentences like this one:

"Yeah, yeah i'm coming," Nicked shouted down.

The pronoun "I" is capitalized. And you have an extra "ed" to the name of your main character. It just seems rather…sloppy to see this. I know that you can miss typos while writing, which is why it's recommended that you read through your chapter before you post it. Without proof-reading and leaving in these mistakes, your readers will begin to think that you don't care about your story, so why should they?

So I'd recommend that you type your story on a word processing program, like Microsoft Word or anything that has a spell-checker. (You can even find a spell-checker online.) But for Pokémon names, look them up in an online Pokedex. You spelled "Doduo" wrong.

He barely made the bus to school, but when he did he took his seat in the back. He was supposed to do his english homework on the ride to school, but he was to excited. He sat across from one of his best friends Chris. He was 5'2 and weighed about 115. He was very strong and could probably lift someone at random on his bus. He had brown hair and had brown eyes. He was really good at pokemon training, and he was trying out, but he wasn't so sure if he would make it. He only had two pokemon, but boy were they strong. They were a pidgeotto and a raticate. Most people trying out had 3 or more with them, so it would be hard for him to win. Diagnol from his was his other good friend Jimmy. Jimmy had thick brown hair, almost black and weighed about 118 or so. He wasn't the fittest of kids and only did karate. He didn't spend much time training as he mostly caught. He has a team of six, but they were all weak. He definitly would not get on the team. And in front of Nick was Connor. He wasn't that good of friend of Nick's but he was friends with him. He was only about 5'0 and probably weighed less than 100. He was really strong and did wrestling. He could beat Nick. As for a pokemon trainer, he wasn't much of one. He only had one machop, and it could be easily beaten by Nick's doudo. He wasn't even trying out for the team. All Nick could think about the whole ride was the tryouts until Chris interupted his thoughts.

Woah, slow down there! This is still a lot of information for one paragraph, and is, to be honest, a bad way to introduce characters. The old rule for writing applies here: "Show, don't tell." This is all information you could show to us, the readers, during the tournament. This holds true for about all the characters aside from Nick introduced in this chapter.

Honestly, I say just skip to the tryouts, and forget about the English class with the dead poet. It's uninteresting information that the reader doesn't need to know. (Unless knowing about the dead poet will save Nick's life in the future.) The tryouts are what seem to be the interesting part, so hook readers on with that. You can also use the tryouts to get past the paragraphs of other characters introduced and show them off in battles. Like have Nick face off against Chris, make Nick seem apprehensive about fighting Chris (thus showing the reader that Chris is a strong trainer), and then have an awesome battle between the two, where after they win/lose/tie, they are still good friends. Shows us the Pokémon, shows us the characters, and gets things done with interest sparked in the reader.

Nick still seems borderline Gary-Stu with the sports achievements. It's difficult to learn what makes your character a Stu and what doesn't. (Alter Ego has a test linked in his signature that might prove useful.) What might help you out here would be to show us a few flaws of Nick, instead of just focusing on what good things he can do. You were on the right track by having him impatiently ask for his trophy in the dream sequence. Having him impatiently wait for his chance to battle in the tryouts would help accentuate that flaw of his, and also make the reader wonder if that flaw will hinder him in the future.

There's still some kinks that need to be worked out with your prologue. Prologues are used to catch the readers' interest, and they are tough to do. You might want to see how things go by lengthening what you have already and placing the tryouts with the school day if you really want to keep it and making it all chapter one. (Prologues are typically used to tell something that doesn't really fit into the main plot, but is still needed to be told. Currently, Nick's school day is part of the main plot, so it would go better as the first chapter.)

But hey, don't give up. That's the worst thing you can do.

Scytheteen · Oct 27, 2007

thanks for that hanako. I did proofread, but hey, i'm only human and I do miss little mistakes such as Nicked. Maybe I should just get rid of the word prologue and make it chapter one with a little more of a length. As for the thing about the english class and the dead poet, it does have a tad bit to do with the story. For the characters being rush into the story, I feel as though that was my only way to introduce his friends. I'm really trying hard to steer myself away from the gary-stu thing, and I never did that he is some great sports person, just because some has a few trophies in his room (with most of them being little league) doesn't exactly make someone this great sports person. But i'll try and mull around it and steer even further away from it. Thank you so much for your advice.

Sorry for the double post, but I added on to the chapter.

BurstX · Oct 28, 2007

hacks and games

I am currently the spriter for the following Hacks and Games here on Pokecommunity.

Pokemon Prism by Coolboyman Season champs!

Pokemon Ancient Emerald by Melash Season champs!

Pokemon Ruby Destiny: Life of Guardians by destinedjagold Season champs!

Alter Ego · Oct 29, 2007

First of all, don't fret; as far as I know it's perfectly acceptable to multi-post in the fanfic section if you're doing it to post updates to your story. :3 Anyways, your fic has definitely improved from before, so you get a cookie for that. *Gives cookie* Nick is a lot more person and a lot less faceless Gary-Stu than before. That being said, there is still room for improvement. Time for round three. >D

scythemaster said:
The sound of an extremely loud alarm went off buzzing in Nick's ear.

Missing an 'e' in 'extremely'.

scythemaster said:
Nick was about 5'3 and weighed 105 pounds, but he wasn't fat. He had brown fair which today he flipped up in the front. He wore glasses and had blue eyes which sometimes turned green.

Okay, I think you're ready for a bit of style improvement here. Now thorough descriptions are good, but putting them into a large chunk like that is not. The thing is that huge walls of description grind the pace of your story to a dead halt, which is bad for reader interest. To counteract this, a standard trick is to mix the description with dynamic verbs. Say, have him brush aside a bit of his hair or comb it (thus getting to describe it in the process), adjust his glasses and so on. Mixing in these small actions with the description gives the impression that something is happening while you describe it, keeping the pace up. (Which is something you definitely want to do at this point)

His weight really isn't at all relevant here since there's no plausible reason he could divine it from looking into the mirror, and the same goes for the weights of his friends later on. Also, why in the name of all that is sweet and sugary do his eyes change color at times? o.O I really hope that there's a good explanation for that. The color change thing also isn't relevant at the moment (since I presume that they aren't changing color right now) so cut that out and bring it in when they actually do change.

scythemaster said:
Before Nick left the room he took a quick glance at his trophies on his dresser. He didn't have many, only about six. He had one for little football, two for little league soccer, one for little league baseball and the other two were for pokemon tournaments that he won. Nick called himself an athlete. In the fall he played football, and he wasn't half bad. He played running back, and he could really run. In the first half of winter, was a wrestler. That was something he wasn't so good at, but he beat a couple of kids. In the spring he ran track. He could run the 55 meters in seven seconds! He would always win for his school.

Okay, you've got the trophies to bring us to the subject of his achievements, but you could still do a better job at blending the two together. Instead of creating separate lists for the trophy types and his achievements in each particular field, try mixing them (E.g. (Copy directly only if you wish to be stabbed to death with a chopstick) " There was the trophy he had won last fall, when he played running back for the school football team.") See what I mean? The trophies are symbols for his achievements in sports, so the description of the achievement should meld with the description of the symbol rather than the two being separate as they are right now. (It's sort of a stream of consciousness thing, wherein his thoughts drift from seeing the trophy to the reason he got it) Also, seeing as how running appears to be his main thing I don't quite get why it's the only one he hasn't gotten a trophy for. You also don't need to underline the amount with the "There weren't that many of them", especially since - by my standards - six trophies is quite a lot. The last sentence still smells like Gary-Stu. Always wins? That should trigger your inner Gary-Stu alarm. No-one wins all the time. You could just say that he was the proudest of his running and that it's his strongest suit, without going into any further detail on that point. (Again, a trophy of this - his main thing - would make a lot more sense than a bunch of smaller ones). A brief word on what the trophies mean to him would also be nice (since obviously he would value some of his achievements higher than others). How to say...try to model your description by what would go through Nick's head as he looks at his hard-earned trophies.

Also, on a small note: those pokémon tournament trophies seem weird seeing as how he's supposed to just be in the process of applying for the school team. If they weren't there, you could make a remark about it to tie it in with the tryouts, something along the lines of "Out of all the sports he loved, there was only one he had yet to obtain some kind of trophy in. Nick's glance traveled to the empty spot between his trophies for running and football respectively. After today's tryouts, he would be one step closer to filling it.". Obviously not to be copied since it sort of sucks, but you get what I mean, right? A lack of a trophy could also serve as another source of motivation for him to push for success in that field.

scythemaster said:
"Thats what your wearing?" she said.

"Yeah, whats wrong with it?" He questioned.

"Well, its a little chilly out today, why don't you go put on a sweatshirt or get that jacket I bought for you last week," she said.

"Nah, today, i'm wearing what I want to, this is, as you may or may not know, the day for tryouts, and I will not come into school with anything less than my favorite things," he retorted.

"Okay, just remember your pokemon alright?" she said?

Okay, you have an actual dialog between Nick and his mother, which is good, but this point made me wonder. Because seriously, if I addressed my mother like that, I'd be in for a right stern talking to and I find it unlikely that a mother would take that kind of attitude from her 13-year old son. If she's a big softie or making an exception because this is Nick's very special tryout day, then you should make a remark about that after her line. I still think he'd be better off pleading than trying to assert some kind of authority, though. o.O (Sort of like "C'mon, it's tryout day and these are my lucky clothes! Can I pleeeease wear them?" possibly with a side order of puppy dog eyes. xD) They're your characters, obviously, but you should provide some kind of explanation for this kind of extreme tolerance.

scythemaster said:
"Oh shoot! I almost forgot," he said while running up the stairs.

Score. This is precisely the kind of human fault that readers like to see. (Well, at least I like to see this sort of thing) This serves nicely to emphasize Nick's impatient personality too. :3

scythemaster said:
He looked at his desk and saw the four pokeballs on his desk.

"Phew, sorry guys, I almost forgot about you. Come on out, lets get some excercise!"

Four beams of a bright white light came upon the room and four rather large figures appeared before him. The first was a grasshopper like pokemon with big claws and sharp wings pointing out of its back.

"Hey there scyther, and how are we doing today?" he asked the pokemon.

"Scythe, scythe scythe scyther!" it happily replied.

The second pokemon was a small dog like pokemon. It was a dark black and it had what seemed like frightning eyes, which could easily turn friendly.

"Ah, houndour. Good morning to you," he said in a cheery voice.

"Houn...houndour!"

The third pokemon was a two headed pokemon. It had very scrawny legs and chicken feet. It had a very large middle with an extremely large beak on each head.

"Duodo, nice to see you pal!"

"Duo Duo Duo Duo..."

And finally there was the fourth pokemon. This was his newest and rarest pokemon yet. It was very small and was a light bluish color. It had a strange grey shell-like object above its head with eyes right below it. It had very small feet, with two toes and his arms didn't even have hands! Nontheless, he heard it was a strong and powerful pokemon and its final evolution.

"Nick, hurry, your going to miss the bus!" shouted his mom from downstairs.

"Alright guys, return!" and with that being said all of the pokemon returned to their respectable balls and he put them in his bag along with all his books.

Okay, this is still a pretty big team to start out with (I'm particularly leery-eyed about Bagon since it's such a rare pokémon), but it's a huge improvement from the original fully evolved crew. For the future, though, make sure that they all display distinct personalities (cramming those in at this point obviously isn't an option, but keep it in mind) because drone pokémon are one of the biggest let-downs are fanfic writer can create.

scythemaster said:
He barely made the bus to school, but when he did he took his seat in the back. He was supposed to do his english homework on the ride to school, but he was to excited. He sat across from one of his best friends Chris. He was 5'2 and weighed about 115. He was very strong and could probably lift someone at random on his bus. He had brown hair and had brown eyes. He was really good at pokemon training, and he was trying out, but he wasn't so sure if he would make it. He only had two pokemon, but boy were they strong. They were a pidgeotto and a raticate. Most people trying out had 3 or more with them, so it would be hard for him to win.

Okay, back to the point about relevance of information. Why exactly is it relevant for me to know this guy's weight? o.O Exact sizes aren't really necessary (If you really want to include those, just have them do physical checkups before tryouts begin). You can just say that he's a big, muscular type and leave it at that. Also, I don't see how we're justified to know his team right now. If you really feel like doing it, you could always add always add in a bit of conversation (as they're all obviously chattering about the tryouts) where he can express his doubts about Pidgeotto's and Raticate's readiness, or complain how it's unfair that the others will have more pokémon to use than he does. Of course this depends on whether or not Chris is a whiny type or not. He could also be boasting that he doesn't need more than two (possibly to convince himself more than anyone else). It all depends on what kind of personality you want him to have. ;3 Also, numbers ten and below should be written in letters unless it's something like part of a code or such, so that's "three" rather than "3".

scythemaster said:
Diagonally from his was his other good friend Jimmy. Jimmy had thick brown hair, almost black and weighed about 118 or so. He wasn't the fittest of kids and only did karate. He didn't spend much time training as he mostly caught. He has a team of six, but they were all weak. He definitely would not get on the team.

Two more typos here; I'd really suggest more careful re-reading since these are starting to become a habit. And again I'd like to stress relevance of information. Why precisely are we entitled to know about his team size, his weight and his hobbies? If you want to bring out his karate hobby you could do it by something like "Jimmy wasn't the fittest of kids, owing the few muscles amongst the flab to his interest in karate, and the old saying about pokémon reflecting their trainer certainly seemed to hold true in his case: his team, while large, was poorly trained, and even though he didn't want to bring his friend's hopes down, Nick seriously doubted Jimmy's chances of making the cut." (Again, copy-paste is bad, so I'm not saying you should do that. =O). This all ties back to making descriptions flow into each other rather than having them standing on their own. Considering the contrast between Jimmy and Chris, you could start this out with an argument between the two (you know, the old quality versus quantity debate. :3); the accompanying dialogue could then be used to bring out their personalities better.

scythemaster said:
And in front of Nick was Connor. He wasn't that good a friend of Nick's but he was friends with him. He was only about 5'0 and probably weighed less than 100. He was really strong and did wrestling. He could beat Nick. As for a pokemon trainer, he wasn't much of one. He only had one machop, and it could be easily beaten by Nick's doudo. He wasn't even trying out for the team. All Nick could think about the whole ride was the tryouts until Chris interrupted his thoughts.

Okay, I've underlined the shady bits here. First off, stating that they aren't that good friends and then following it up with "but he was friends with him" sounds sort of controversial to me. If they aren't that good friends then I think a slightly less chummy expression like "but they hung out on occasion", or "but they were okay with each other", or possibly "but he was a friend all the same." would be in order to clearly mark his status as a less important friend. Anyway, the underlined bit after that is just grammatically wrong. Instead of that, you could tie it in with the wrestling bit (For instance "He was very strong and could easily beat Nick in wrestling, but he wasn't much of a trainer") to emphasize their comparative strengths and weaknesses.

scythemaster said:
"So what pokemon are you using today in the tryouts?" Chris asked.

"Ha, I only have four pokemon, and your allowed to use at most 5," Nick retorted.

I don't get this. Why is Nick 'retorting' when Chris didn't issue a challenge or insult of any kind but simply asked a question? That's just...odd. o.O

scythemaster said:
"Oh, right, I don't think my team will stand out much, its about as common as flying pidgey," Chris said.

Don't really get how the topic shifted from Nick's team to Chris' one. =O

scythemaster said:
"At least your team is strong, I should've trained with you two, my team is all weak," said Jimmy in a sad voice.

I think the 'said' bit would work better in the middle, (I.e. "At least your team is strong." said Jimmy in a sad voice, "...I should've trained with you two.". Also, 'strong' and 'weak' (direct opposites) so close to each other seem sort of awkward. You could replace that with something like "Unlike mine" (That is "At least your team is strong. Unlike mine, I should have trained with you two.").

scythemaster said:
"Have fun at tryouts, no way my machop is getting involved in all of that," Connor said from his seat.

This remark seems sort of loose and not at all connected to thediscussion. o.O

scythemaster said:
And after that it got quiet and after about five minutes, they arrived at the school. He didn't pay attention to anything in the hall and rushed to english and sat down in his desk. He didn't do his homework and he was very nervous. After five minutes of him siting there kids started pouring in the room, and after two minutes the bell rang. His teacher was a very strict, but nice teacher. She didn't check homework for some reason today and Nick got lucky. He learned about some poet from the 1800's who married his own cousin.

"Boring," he thought to himself.

Okay, important note here. Currently your notations for speech and thoughts are identical, and that has the potential to cause some major reader confusion. Always make sure to make a clear distinction between the two. (RPing standard is to put speech in "Double quotation marks." like you do now and thoughts in 'Single quotation marks and cursive.' or just cursive. As long as you make it clear which is which, it should be alright, though.). You have the problem of unlinked descriptions in this passage as well. The description of Nick's teacher as strict could be tied in with his anxiety at the beginning of class (e.g. "Their English teacher was kind, but also notoriously strict, so Nick - having completely forgotten about his homework for the day - was understandably nervous."). Also, the "She didn't check homework for some reason today" seems sort of odd, instead you could just link it with the description of what she did do instead (e.g. "Much to Nick's relief, their teacher seemed to have forgotten about the homework as well, instead proceeding to tell the class about some poet from the 1800s who married his own cousin.") Directly quoting Nick's thoughts on the matter is also placing unnecessary emphasis on them here; you could just remark that Nick got bored with it, possibly with an aside of wishing that it would be tryout time already, fiddling with his pokéballs, or something to that effect.

scythemaster said:
After what seemed like five hours, the bell finally rang. He went outside and some popular kid went behind him and pushed his books to the floor. Nick as you may now have guessed, was not a very popular student. He picked up the fallen books and rushed to art which was on the other side of the building. He barely made it there. He sat down at his seat across from a kid named Billy. Billy was a more popular student, but he was nice. He didn't talk to Nick that much, but when he did talk to him, it was never mean. Billy was a rather good looking person. He was 5'4 and his weight was unknown. He had a blonde hair higlight in the front of his hair. Today he wore an islanders tee-shirt with madras shorts. The shorts, obviously to big, feel down once in class, and Nick couldn't help but laugh. Billy was a really good trainer. He had five pokemon, most in the second forms. He was a rich kid as his dad bought him most of his pokemon. His first pokemon was a porygon, and Nick couldn't help but be jealous. He would probably be his biggest competition today. Meanwhile in art he was drawing a still life.

Your narrative is sort of incoherent here, jumping from Nick's feelings on Billy to what they're doing in art class. Some sort of bridge between the two would be nice. Also, the "as you may have guessed" bit is unnecessary highlighting his unpopularity and the vague difference to 'some popular kid'. In general, try to avoid using 'some' in your narrative; it makes it sound like you couldn't be bothered to think up a proper description, and that's not a good impression to make. :\

scythemaster said:
"Okay class, today we will be adding color to our drawings, so if you have not yet finished sketching the drawing, finish up quickly," said his art teacher, Ms.Roche.

And this would have been a very good way to draw the narrative from Nick's thoughts on Billy and back to the contents of the lesson.

scythemaster said:
Nick quickly added the color to his drawing, and it looked pretty good. Art was more of a fun class for him. And then the bell rang, signaling him to go to social studies. He would've fallen asleep in that class if his seat partner Dylan didn't keep him active. Dylan was a girl. She was 5'5 and was a heavy girl. She was also trying out for the girls team, and she was good. In social studies they were learning about westward expansion and Nick could care less.

"Why do we even have to take social studies," he whispered to Dylan, "It already happened."

She giggled at his joke and his teacher couldn't help but look up. Luckily, he didn't hear what Nick said. 4th and 5th period was more of a blur to him and he couldn't remember anything he learned in that science and writing enrichment period. Then it was lunchtime. He took his seat with three of his newer friends, Justin, Kevin and Austin. You would think by their behaviors that they would be long lost triplets. Justin was 5'3 and an obeise boy, but he keeps his weight down with football. He was a pokemon trainer and had three pokemon and he was sure to make the team. Austin was 5'1 and weighed probably 100 pounds. He had 3 pokemon as well, as he could beat anyone he wanted to if he tried. His only problem was that he got too coky at times, and let the battle go. Then there was Kevin. He was 5'3 and he was not a pokemon trainer. His parents had not believed in pokemon, and therefore, he never got one. So one day Justin, Austin and Nick pooled together their money and bought Kevin an Abra, which still remains an Abra. For lunch today it was meatloaf, Nick's least favorite school lunch. He thought of this as a bad omen. He listened to his friends jabber on about things, and he could care less as to what they were saying. He went to french and technology and that too was a distant memory to him. And finally, after a long day, the tryouts, were finally begininng...He rushed downstairs to the huge gym to be the first one there. He was. He took a seat on the bleachers, and in about 3 minutes kids started pouring into the gym. Despite the fact it was huge, it was very cramped in there. After about 10 minutes, the three coaches came in. The first one was his math teacher. He got nervous about this for he was the head coach and he could make cuts if some kid was failing a class, and math was Nicks* worst subject. The second coach was the assistant coach, the one who was in charge of playing time and it was his social studies teacher. He got very nervous when he saw him because of that comment he had made earlier.The third was a spanish teacher. He was in charge on the discipline, he got nervous because people had told him he was a crazy workaholic when it came to sports. He could feel the meatloaf that he had from lunch moving around in his stomach.

Okay, you're really going to have to split this huge chunk of text up somewhere. (I'd suggest splitting paragraphs between lunch and tryouts at the very least, preferably more splits than that). Also, you don't need to restate the fact that he's nervous at the entry of each person; that's just plain redundant. Your sentence structuring is also awry here, as this implies that the Spanish teacher is the one who's nervous. Remember, 'he' always refers to the last identified person matching the gender, and in this case that would be the Spanish teacher; not Nick. Careful with those. But as I said: don't repeat the nervousness bit; you're reader gets the gist the first time around. If you want to emphasize how his nervousness is growing with each entering teacher, you could do it by an expression like "With each teacher entering the room, Nick's anxiety grew, the complaints of the meat loaf in his stomach growing louder by the minute. [Insert teacher descriptions here]". Repetition is a feature of writing aimed at very small children; older readers will find it tedious and possibly even patronizing or insulting. :\

scythemaster said:
"Alright everyone, go in the locker room and dress appropriately for the tryouts," said the head coach whos name was Mr.Dagger.

Meh, a bit of clumsy sentence structuring here. For better tempo, you should try "said Mr.Dagger, the head coach."; same information content, less tedious to read.

scythemaster said:
It was too late though, by the same he was changing his shirt, all the guys were sandwiched in.

o.O

Sorry, but I'm not getting what this sentence is trying to say. Could you please rephrase this?

scythemaster said:
Chris, if you have forgotten, was Nick's very best friend.

No, I haven't forgotten and I do not appreciate that patronizing tone of yours, mr.narrator person. <.< Okay, important point here: do not breach the fourth wall by addressing your reader directly like this. If your entire narrative is in the form of something like a letter then that's an exception for this rule (since then it would make perfect sense to address the reader), but this isn't so don't do it. I also found the "if you have forgotten" lightly insulting (Insult from the narrator, mind you, not the writer) as it seems to imply that I have the attention span of a goldfish with ADHD and can't remember the beginning of a chapter by the end of it. Please remove that; it's another typical feature of writing aimed at small children and not at all suited for older audiences. :\

scythemaster said:
"I hope your ready," started Chris. "Cuz i'm going all out in this battle!"

...

Cuz? I certainly hope that this is there to emphasize a speech pattern, because 1337 5P33K has no place in a work of fiction. (Unless it's about people typing in 1337, obviously) It really doesn't take a lot of effort to write proper, so please do.

Finally, your cast...you're really, really going to have to downsize here, because you've introduced so many characters in this single chapter that it will be very tedious for readers to keep track of them (not to mention for your to throw in the required amount of character development for all of them). You really don't need a new character for each and every scene; recycle a little and use it as a way to build on their personalities and relations. Basically, less width; more depth. You don't need to introduce every character Nick runs into for us. Also, you really don't need to tell us about each and every bit of Nick's school day. Not only does it get tedious, but it detracts attention from what should be your main plot hook; the tryouts. Seriously, the events are spread out very thinly across the classes, so you could easily cut down on the number and cram in more events per class, then just jump over the rest.

So, to give emphasis to this pile of paragraphs you see before you. First, focus on relevance of information (What pieces of information are really necessary for your narrative and which can you justify your reader getting to know? Stick with those and discard the rest). Second, mind the flow of your story. As it is, your narrative has a very chunky feel to it because you use a lot of short, simple sentences to describe things. These get boring because they end up being extremely numerous and each full stop is like a speed bump on the grand highway of your narrative (If you'll excuse the silly metaphor), so to ease the problem, let relevant descriptions flow into each other (see above for examples) both by location and by sentence structuring. Less full stop; more comma. Third, focus your narrative: as it is, the events of your chapter are kind of all over the place with the occasional vague reference to tryouts. Let those tryouts take center stage instead; give them more information and space in the fanfic than Nick's classes (This would also reflect the character's attitude, as given his impatient nature his thoughts would be more on the tryouts than the classes) and skip over the parts that don't bear any direct relevance to his tryouts. Narrators are allowed to jump through time, and you should use that power. Finally, do not patronize your reader, cut out the "in case you forgot"s and "in case you didn't know"s; they're unnecessary and disrupt your narrative. Also, don't go out of your way to emphasize Nick's non-Stuness; that's almost as bad as being a Gary-Stu.

Whew, hope that helps some. On the plus-side, though: once you've ironed out the kinks with this chapter, you will be able to apply everything you've learned to future installments as well. Allow me to reiterate: you've shown significant improvement from the original version, so keep at it. I think now would be a good time to open up Frostweaver's Fanfic Analysis as it has a lot of good points on narrative techniques. Good luck. ;3

Scytheteen · Oct 29, 2007

Alter Ego said:
First of all, don't fret; as far as I know it's perfectly acceptable to multi-post in the fanfic section if you're doing it to post updates to your story. :3 Anyways, your fic has definitely improved from before, so you get a cookie for that. *Gives cookie* Nick is a lot more person and a lot less faceless Gary-Stu than before. That being said, there is still room for improvement. Time for round three. >D

Missing an 'e' in 'extremely'.

Okay, I think you're ready for a bit of style improvement here. Now thorough descriptions are good, but putting them into a large chunk like that is not. The thing is that huge walls of description grind the pace of your story to a dead halt, which is bad for reader interest. To counteract this, a standard trick is to mix the description with dynamic verbs. Say, have him brush aside a bit of his hair or comb it (thus getting to describe it in the process), adjust his glasses and so on. Mixing in these small actions with the description gives the impression that something is happening while you describe it, keeping the pace up. (Which is something you definitely want to do at this point)

His weight really isn't at all relevant here since there's no plausible reason he could divine it from looking into the mirror, and the same goes for the weights of his friends later on. Also, why in the name of all that is sweet and sugary do his eyes change color at times? o.O I really hope that there's a good explanation for that. The color change thing also isn't relevant at the moment (since I presume that they aren't changing color right now) so cut that out and bring it in when they actually do change.

Okay, you've got the trophies to bring us to the subject of his achievements, but you could still do a better job at blending the two together. Instead of creating separate lists for the trophy types and his achievements in each particular field, try mixing them (E.g. (Copy directly only if you wish to be stabbed to death with a chopstick) " There was the trophy he had won last fall, when he played running back for the school football team.") See what I mean? The trophies are symbols for his achievements in sports, so the description of the achievement should meld with the description of the symbol rather than the two being separate as they are right now. (It's sort of a stream of consciousness thing, wherein his thoughts drift from seeing the trophy to the reason he got it) Also, seeing as how running appears to be his main thing I don't quite get why it's the only one he hasn't gotten a trophy for. You also don't need to underline the amount with the "There weren't that many of them", especially since - by my standards - six trophies is quite a lot. The last sentence still smells like Gary-Stu. Always wins? That should trigger your inner Gary-Stu alarm. No-one wins all the time. You could just say that he was the proudest of his running and that it's his strongest suit, without going into any further detail on that point. (Again, a trophy of this - his main thing - would make a lot more sense than a bunch of smaller ones). A brief word on what the trophies mean to him would also be nice (since obviously he would value some of his achievements higher than others). How to say...try to model your description by what would go through Nick's head as he looks at his hard-earned trophies.

Also, on a small note: those pokémon tournament trophies seem weird seeing as how he's supposed to just be in the process of applying for the school team. If they weren't there, you could make a remark about it to tie it in with the tryouts, something along the lines of "Out of all the sports he loved, there was only one he had yet to obtain some kind of trophy in. Nick's glance traveled to the empty spot between his trophies for running and football respectively. After today's tryouts, he would be one step closer to filling it.". Obviously not to be copied since it sort of sucks, but you get what I mean, right? A lack of a trophy could also serve as another source of motivation for him to push for success in that field.

Okay, you have an actual dialog between Nick and his mother, which is good, but this point made me wonder. Because seriously, if I addressed my mother like that, I'd be in for a right stern talking to and I find it unlikely that a mother would take that kind of attitude from her 13-year old son. If she's a big softie or making an exception because this is Nick's very special tryout day, then you should make a remark about that after her line. I still think he'd be better off pleading than trying to assert some kind of authority, though. o.O (Sort of like "C'mon, it's tryout day and these are my lucky clothes! Can I pleeeease wear them?" possibly with a side order of puppy dog eyes. xD) They're your characters, obviously, but you should provide some kind of explanation for this kind of extreme tolerance.

Score. This is precisely the kind of human fault that readers like to see. (Well, at least I like to see this sort of thing) This serves nicely to emphasize Nick's impatient personality too. :3

Okay, this is still a pretty big team to start out with (I'm particularly leery-eyed about Bagon since it's such a rare pokémon), but it's a huge improvement from the original fully evolved crew. For the future, though, make sure that they all display distinct personalities (cramming those in at this point obviously isn't an option, but keep it in mind) because drone pokémon are one of the biggest let-downs are fanfic writer can create.

Okay, back to the point about relevance of information. Why exactly is it relevant for me to know this guy's weight? o.O Exact sizes aren't really necessary (If you really want to include those, just have them do physical checkups before tryouts begin). You can just say that he's a big, muscular type and leave it at that. Also, I don't see how we're justified to know his team right now. If you really feel like doing it, you could always add always add in a bit of conversation (as they're all obviously chattering about the tryouts) where he can express his doubts about Pidgeotto's and Raticate's readiness, or complain how it's unfair that the others will have more pokémon to use than he does. Of course this depends on whether or not Chris is a whiny type or not. He could also be boasting that he doesn't need more than two (possibly to convince himself more than anyone else). It all depends on what kind of personality you want him to have. ;3 Also, numbers ten and below should be written in letters unless it's something like part of a code or such, so that's "three" rather than "3".

Two more typos here; I'd really suggest more careful re-reading since these are starting to become a habit. And again I'd like to stress relevance of information. Why precisely are we entitled to know about his team size, his weight and his hobbies? If you want to bring out his karate hobby you could do it by something like "Jimmy wasn't the fittest of kids, owing the few muscles amongst the flab to his interest in karate, and the old saying about pokémon reflecting their trainer certainly seemed to hold true in his case: his team, while large, was poorly trained, and even though he didn't want to bring his friend's hopes down, Nick seriously doubted Jimmy's chances of making the cut." (Again, copy-paste is bad, so I'm not saying you should do that. =O). This all ties back to making descriptions flow into each other rather than having them standing on their own. Considering the contrast between Jimmy and Chris, you could start this out with an argument between the two (you know, the old quality versus quantity debate. :3); the accompanying dialogue could then be used to bring out their personalities better.

Okay, I've underlined the shady bits here. First off, stating that they aren't that good friends and then following it up with "but he was friends with him" sounds sort of controversial to me. If they aren't that good friends then I think a slightly less chummy expression like "but they hung out on occasion", or "but they were okay with each other", or possibly "but he was a friend all the same." would be in order to clearly mark his status as a less important friend. Anyway, the underlined bit after that is just grammatically wrong. Instead of that, you could tie it in with the wrestling bit (For instance "He was very strong and could easily beat Nick in wrestling, but he wasn't much of a trainer") to emphasize their comparative strengths and weaknesses.

I don't get this. Why is Nick 'retorting' when Chris didn't issue a challenge or insult of any kind but simply asked a question? That's just...odd. o.O

Don't really get how the topic shifted from Nick's team to Chris' one. =O

I think the 'said' bit would work better in the middle, (I.e. "At least your team is strong." said Jimmy in a sad voice, "...I should've trained with you two.". Also, 'strong' and 'weak' (direct opposites) so close to each other seem sort of awkward. You could replace that with something like "Unlike mine" (That is "At least your team is strong. Unlike mine, I should have trained with you two.").

This remark seems sort of loose and not at all connected to thediscussion. o.O

Okay, important note here. Currently your notations for speech and thoughts are identical, and that has the potential to cause some major reader confusion. Always make sure to make a clear distinction between the two. (RPing standard is to put speech in "Double quotation marks." like you do now and thoughts in 'Single quotation marks and cursive.' or just cursive. As long as you make it clear which is which, it should be alright, though.). You have the problem of unlinked descriptions in this passage as well. The description of Nick's teacher as strict could be tied in with his anxiety at the beginning of class (e.g. "Their English teacher was kind, but also notoriously strict, so Nick - having completely forgotten about his homework for the day - was understandably nervous."). Also, the "She didn't check homework for some reason today" seems sort of odd, instead you could just link it with the description of what she did do instead (e.g. "Much to Nick's relief, their teacher seemed to have forgotten about the homework as well, instead proceeding to tell the class about some poet from the 1800s who married his own cousin.") Directly quoting Nick's thoughts on the matter is also placing unnecessary emphasis on them here; you could just remark that Nick got bored with it, possibly with an aside of wishing that it would be tryout time already, fiddling with his pokéballs, or something to that effect.

Your narrative is sort of incoherent here, jumping from Nick's feelings on Billy to what they're doing in art class. Some sort of bridge between the two would be nice. Also, the "as you may have guessed" bit is unnecessary highlighting his unpopularity and the vague difference to 'some popular kid'. In general, try to avoid using 'some' in your narrative; it makes it sound like you couldn't be bothered to think up a proper description, and that's not a good impression to make. :\

And this would have been a very good way to draw the narrative from Nick's thoughts on Billy and back to the contents of the lesson.

Okay, you're really going to have to split this huge chunk of text up somewhere. (I'd suggest splitting paragraphs between lunch and tryouts at the very least, preferably more splits than that). Also, you don't need to restate the fact that he's nervous at the entry of each person; that's just plain redundant. Your sentence structuring is also awry here, as this implies that the Spanish teacher is the one who's nervous. Remember, 'he' always refers to the last identified person matching the gender, and in this case that would be the Spanish teacher; not Nick. Careful with those. But as I said: don't repeat the nervousness bit; you're reader gets the gist the first time around. If you want to emphasize how his nervousness is growing with each entering teacher, you could do it by an expression like "With each teacher entering the room, Nick's anxiety grew, the complaints of the meat loaf in his stomach growing louder by the minute. [Insert teacher descriptions here]". Repetition is a feature of writing aimed at very small children; older readers will find it tedious and possibly even patronizing or insulting. :\

Meh, a bit of clumsy sentence structuring here. For better tempo, you should try "said Mr.Dagger, the head coach."; same information content, less tedious to read.

o.O

Sorry, but I'm not getting what this sentence is trying to say. Could you please rephrase this?

No, I haven't forgotten and I do not appreciate that patronizing tone of yours, mr.narrator person. <.< Okay, important point here: do not breach the fourth wall by addressing your reader directly like this. If your entire narrative is in the form of something like a letter then that's an exception for this rule (since then it would make perfect sense to address the reader), but this isn't so don't do it. I also found the "if you have forgotten" lightly insulting (Insult from the narrator, mind you, not the writer) as it seems to imply that I have the attention span of a goldfish with ADHD and can't remember the beginning of a chapter by the end of it. Please remove that; it's another typical feature of writing aimed at small children and not at all suited for older audiences. :\

...

Cuz? I certainly hope that this is there to emphasize a speech pattern, because 1337 5P33K has no place in a work of fiction. (Unless it's about people typing in 1337, obviously) It really doesn't take a lot of effort to write proper, so please do.

Finally, your cast...you're really, really going to have to downsize here, because you've introduced so many characters in this single chapter that it will be very tedious for readers to keep track of them (not to mention for your to throw in the required amount of character development for all of them). You really don't need a new character for each and every scene; recycle a little and use it as a way to build on their personalities and relations. Basically, less width; more depth. You don't need to introduce every character Nick runs into for us. Also, you really don't need to tell us about each and every bit of Nick's school day. Not only does it get tedious, but it detracts attention from what should be your main plot hook; the tryouts. Seriously, the events are spread out very thinly across the classes, so you could easily cut down on the number and cram in more events per class, then just jump over the rest.

So, to give emphasis to this pile of paragraphs you see before you. First, focus on relevance of information (What pieces of information are really necessary for your narrative and which can you justify your reader getting to know? Stick with those and discard the rest). Second, mind the flow of your story. As it is, your narrative has a very chunky feel to it because you use a lot of short, simple sentences to describe things. These get boring because they end up being extremely numerous and each full stop is like a speed bump on the grand highway of your narrative (If you'll excuse the silly metaphor), so to ease the problem, let relevant descriptions flow into each other (see above for examples) both by location and by sentence structuring. Less full stop; more comma. Third, focus your narrative: as it is, the events of your chapter are kind of all over the place with the occasional vague reference to tryouts. Let those tryouts take center stage instead; give them more information and space in the fanfic than Nick's classes (This would also reflect the character's attitude, as given his impatient nature his thoughts would be more on the tryouts than the classes) and skip over the parts that don't bear any direct relevance to his tryouts. Narrators are allowed to jump through time, and you should use that power. Finally, do not patronize your reader, cut out the "in case you forgot"s and "in case you didn't know"s; they're unnecessary and disrupt your narrative. Also, don't go out of your way to emphasize Nick's non-Stuness; that's almost as bad as being a Gary-Stu.

Whew, hope that helps some. On the plus-side, though: once you've ironed out the kinks with this chapter, you will be able to apply everything you've learned to future installments as well. Allow me to reiterate: you've shown significant improvement from the original version, so keep at it. I think now would be a good time to open up Frostweaver's Fanfic Analysis as it has a lot of good points on narrative techniques. Good luck. ;3

woah. Thanks so much for the help. When Chris said "Cuz" its just diction. I don't think any thirteen year old would say because as oppose to cuz. But whatever i'm keeping it =P. I'll take out the little narrator "insultments" like in case you did not know. As for typos, come on, i'm only human and I, just like you may do, make mistakes I do not catch. But now i'm going too far away from the stuness? I think i'm staying in the middle. As for everything else, i'll kink it out (or is it up?). As for the second chapter (which I think we've all been waiting for) Will be coming out, if not tomorrow, thursday

Alter Ego · Oct 30, 2007

Ahh...no, no, no. I'm not saying that you're making him too flawed, I'm saying that you shouldn't emphasize it whenever something bad happens to him. For instance, the point where the popular kid pushes him down, right after it your narrator is doing the equivalent of saying "Look! A popular kid pushed him down! He's not popular!". By the same token, you shouldn't praise his merits to the skies either. That's what I mean by don't emphasize; let his actions and the things that happen to him speak for themselves. ;3

As for the typos...it's true that everyone makes them now and again, but the number of them that you currently have is still large enough that closer re-reading could diminish it. When you finish writing a chapter, I'd suggest putting it aside for about half an hour, then coming back to read it with fresh eyes, so to speak. When you've written for long enough, you have the words so clearly imprinted in your mind that your mental image of what should be written there will replace the information of what actually is written there so you won't spot a typo or grammatical error even if it's staring you right in the face. Once you get your mind off the fic for a bit, you will have an easier time to read it critically and thus spot typos and suchlike. ^^

Anyway, good luck with the writing. ^.^

Scytheteen · Nov 1, 2007

Okay after a long time of waiting, I think we have all been looking foward to un chapitre duex non?

The Battle

"Alright guys, since Nick has four pokemon, and Chris has two pokemon we're going to see if this will be a two on two or a four on two battle. If it's heads, it's a four on two, if tails, it's a two on two," explained Mr.Dagger.

He flicked the coin from his fingers. Nick never though that a coin could move so slowly. This dry feeling in his neck was swallowed when it finally landed on the floor. The coach bent over and picked it up.

"Heads," said Mr. Dagger.

"Alrighty, so we got ourselves a four on two battle going on here. Vamos*!" exclaimed the Spanish teacher. "Rules are double battle, you have five turns to win, and if there is no winner, you're both cut from the team," he explained.

Although it may have seemed like Nick's battle was the only one happening it wasn't, many other battles were going on around him, and the other trainers looked good-really good.

He could see Billy in his battle with some big, bulky muscular-like kid. It was a one on one match, and Billy had the upper hand. He looked to the other side of him, and to his suprise, actually saw Conner. He felt happy that he was battling, but it was a one on three match, but his Machop was kicking some serious ass there! Finally he looked to the far left, behind Billy, where he saw Dylan battling. She was one of the few girls there, and she was owning that guy she was battling. She was definitely going to make the first cuts-maybe even the team.

"Ya ready? Here I come! Let's go, Raticate and Pidgeotto!" Chris exclaimed.

A very large rat with buck teeth and a large bird with huge wings appeared before Chris.

"Um, alright, I choose...Houndour and Doduo!" Nick said.

Nick's trustworthy Houndour and Duodo appeared before him. He knew that they were ready for this. They had been training for months, and it was the time for them to make it all worth something. Chris was going first and he yelled out some commands for his Raticate. The Raticate obeyed and ran towards Duodo and bit him extremely hard. Raticate sunk its teeth into Doduo's neck, and a hollar was heard from it. Doduo got set back and was on the floor for a few seconds, until it regained its strength and got back up again. Chris again called out some more commands and Pidgeotto flew up into the sky. Now it was Nick's turn. Nick just looked at his Doduo and looked into its eyes. He could see how sad he looked. When he really looked into the eyes, it was then that Doduo knew what to do to win this battle.

"Alright Doduo, use helping hand on houndour!"

Nick could see Mr. Dagger's face light up when he used this move.

"Great job Nick, you seem to be using the moves that tag-team battles are good for. Keep up the good work."

"Thanks, now let's use that extra power, Houndour, and use an ember on raticate!" exclaimed Nick.

Nick's Houndour began to start turning red. It kept turning a darker red until it was nearly on fire! Then it took off and raced towards the huge bulky rat. It crtically hit him, and the rat suffered. He could see burns in the side of its body, and it was only then that Nick and Chris both realized it was burnt.

"Good job Houndour! You're so awesome," Nick said.

Most of Nick's pokemon upon hearing this would jump into Nick's arms and give it a big hug or lick him, but Houndour was more of a calm and quiet type. He keeps to himself and only gave Nick a bark upon hearing.

"Alright guys, one turn down, four more to go," Said Mr.Fisher.

"Doduo, use follow me!" Nick shouted out before any commands could be made from Chris.

"Excellent choice Nick, keep up the good work," Mr. Dagger said. Nick saw the coach write down some things down on his clipboard, and Nick knew this was going to be easy.

"Good job Nick, don't worry Raticate, we'll get out of this," Chris said.

Commands were shouted out and the Raticate burrowed itself underground.

"And now, Pidgeotto, come down, and fly on Houndour!" Chris exclaimed.

"WRONG! WRONG WRONG WRONG! Come on Chris, I thought you knew better. Nick used follow me, which means you can only attack his Doduo this turn," Mr. Fields explained.

Nick could see the sadness in Chris's eyes upon hearing this. He knew that he knew he was going to not make the team, and Nick felt nothing but remorse for him.

"Alright Pidgeotto, use fly on Doduo," Chris said, a little less enthusiastic then before.

The big bird flew down and harshly hit the Doduo. Doduo hit the ground fiercely, and it was apparent that it was unconscious.

"Good job Chris. Your puting up a great fight for a two on four battle," Said Coach Dagger

"You did so good Doduo, come on back," Nick said, but he wasn't mad at Chris, he was happy that one of his new friends could come out and play. "Alright, Scyther, come on out!"

A large white light appeared on the battlefield, and in the midst, there was his grasshopper-like friend, Scyther.

"Scythe-Scytha!" it exclaimed.

"Yeah, I'm happy to see you too," Nick said.

Laughter was heard from the crowd, Nick was thought to be cheezy, but he didn't care, those pokemon were his best friends, and nothing would ever come between them. Nick's Scyther was very bold and it never stood down when it came to fighting. Nick knew that Scyther was a good choice for his pokemon.

"Alright now, Houndour, use fire spin on Pidgeotto," Nick said.

Houndour powered itself up, and started to spit fire from its mouth which remained suspended in the air until a circe was formed in front of the dog-like pokemon. Houndour ran towards Pidgeotto, with the circle of fire still in front of him until it hit the bird pokemon. No burns were formed, but Pidgeotto was very fiercly hit.

"Good job Nick, attention to both of you, there is only three more turns left until this match is over," Mr. Fisher announced.

"Right, now Raticate come out come out wherever you are," Chris said in a devilish voice.

Nick became tense as he didn't know where the Raticate would pop up. And then, out of nowhere, under the quiet and lonely dog pokemon, and huge rat came up, which fired the dog high up into the air.

"NO! Houndour!"

Nick was tempted to run onto the field and catch his pokemon, but he knew if he did he would be disqualified. He looked at his scyther very sadly and nodded his head. He only could watch his poor pokemon spiral through the air and harshly fall down onto the field. He looked at Chris and they started at each for a few seconds until, probably from guilt, Chris turned away. Nick looked at his pokemon and it was very apparent that it was not conscious.

"Houndour, you did great buddy. Don't worry, I'm sure Bagon will make all your hard work worth it," Nick said. "Now return."

Nick held out his Houndour's pokeball and when he said those two words, Houndour was sucked in by a red light and went into the pokeball. The Nick pulled out his last pokeball from his pocket.

"Bagon, come on out!" Nick exclaimed.

A beam of red light appeared before Nick, and then a teal monster appeared in the midst of the light.

"Woah, that's a really cool pokemon Nick! I can't wait to see what moves you have taught it," Chris said.

"Alright now Scyther, use False Swipe!" Nick commanded.

Scyther raised its blades that were on the tip on its hands. It flew up to Raticate. It went right through its stomach. It was apparent that the Raticate had only little HP left.

"Good move Nick, only two turns left until the battle is over," Mr.Fisher said.

"Alright, good turn Nick, now Raticate, burrow underground again, and as for you Pidgeotto, fly up high!" Chris said.

The Raticate burrowed itself underground again, and at the same time the pidgeotto flew up into the sky.

"Good job Chris, you may think that you have this entire match locked up, but in fact, you don't," Nick explained.

"What do you mean? My pidgeotto will eliminate your Scyther in one false swoop, and your Bagon won't take long to defeat with my Raticate underground. You can't win!" Chris stated.

"No, because there are ways to attack pokemon when they are underground, suspended in the air and underwater. Like my bagon, with rock slide," Nick started.

Bagon obeyed Nick's commands and used rock slide on Pidgeotto. The ceiling began to detache itself and pieces of plaster were made into the shape of a rock. They began levitating around Pidgeotto until a full circle was formed. At that point all of the rocks went SLAM! right into Pidgeotto hitting it in all places possibly. Pidgeotto fell from the sky onto the ground. After the collision, the rocks that kay on the floor, return to the top of the roof and reform into the ceiling. It seems as though nothing had happened, accept for the fact that the unconscious Pidgeotto lay on the ground. But then, out of nowhere, the Pidgeotto opened its eyes and looked straight into Chris's eyes.

Chris' Pidgeotto was normally a relaxed pokemon, but now it seemed very lonely and seemed awfully betrayed by its master.

"Pidgeotto, I'm-I'm-I'm sorry..." Chris started. "But you did great Pidgeotto, and I will be sure to win this battle for you. And as for you, Nick, the battle ain't over till it's over, and the fat lady hasn't sung yet. Get ready to take the worst beating of your life, because right now, I'm putting this friendship aside and going all out from here on. Me and Raticate are going to pulverize you to a pulp. So you best get ready."

To Be Continued.

Okay so I think this might be a little better. Thoughts and comment please

*Vamos- Spanish word for "Lets go!"

Okay, everything Chris said in his last quote was diction, so don't tell me about his choice of words.

BurstX · Nov 1, 2007

really good love it, but maybe you should not space every line of speech and that stuff. yup thats it, very good though.

Alter Ego · Nov 2, 2007

Burst ninja said:
really good love it, but maybe you should not space every line of speech and that stuff. yup thats it, very good though.

No, just no. He should definitely keep paragraphing it like he does; that's basic grammar and makes the fic readable. Seriously... -.-

scythemaster said:
It hit the Raticate in its apparent weak spot and it was badly injured. It received a bad burns later after. It suffered because of that and lost more energy. It was hanging on by a thread.

Now what did we say about chunky descriptions like that? You should never start two consecutive sentences in the same manner; let alone four. The English language is very flexible so please use it accordingly. This kind of choppy narrative is terrible for the tempo, which obviously isn't a good thing in an action-based chapter like this.

Besides that...there's too much focus on the trainers here. I mean, dialogue is all well and good, but it's seriously overshadowing the point of this chapter; the battle. I'd like to see a lot more description on what the pokémon are up to, even if this means cutting down on the dialogue (I mean; do we really need to see a full quote on each and every attack they declare?); as it is, I seriously can't tell what's going on half the time. The strategies employed this far are also far too reminiscent of the game's bap, bap back, bap mechanic. We're in a fictional world now, so go wild with it: have your trainers improvise a little; try some creative use of moves and terrain to keep your reader on their toes and really get them excited about the battle. I mean, this is a double battle so where are the nifty tag-team strategies? The pokémon also remain alarmingly dronish, blindly following orders at all times and not displaying a single hint of emotion one way or the other, and Nick seems to have no problem with his "trusted companions" getting their tails kicked. Right after his Scyther has been "nearly killed" as you put it, Nick's reaction is - and I quote - "Oh well".

...

Am I the only one who thinks that he should be a bit more concerned about his pokémon's health than that? x.O Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't his battling experience thus far consist mostly of far lower level battles, wherein his pokémon generally come off on top? If this is the case, then I find it unlikely that he'd be very well adjusted to his own pokémon taking a beating in such a way. Also, considering what a high-stakes battle this is - and the pressure that it's undoubtedly placing on Nick - I'd appreciate a better view of his inner world. What feelings does Nick go through when his best friend orders his dear pokémon to get beaten into a pulp? Don't the continuous remarks about how he's making mistakes exert even the tiniest bit of pressure on him? Considering how nervous he was before the battle, this sudden change to completely unbothered seems weird. o.O

Finally, the cliff hanger at the end seems pretty artificial to me. The sole contents of this chapter is the battle, so in all honesty it was a big letdown for me to find that you didn't even finish it within the chapter. This still feels rushed. Not as bad as before, but I definitely think you can do better than this. More contents, please; more details on the battle and the feelings of those involved as well as some serious plot-time devoted to Nick resolving the issue he was wrestling with at the end of the previous chapter (The thing about his own success in the tryouts meaning that his best friend would be shut out, and vice versa) Heck, he could even lock up over it at the beginning of the battle as a means to explain how he's taking such a beating despite having twice as many pokémon as his opponent.

How to say...you made the fact that Chris out of all people was Nick's opponent the big thing at the end of the last chapter; don't just brush it under the carpet now, it was the number one thing I was looking forward to seeing here. O=

So yeah, more description - and not the chunky kind, please - and more coherence with the earlier chapter would do this one a world of good. If you look past the inflated number of paragraphs that the long dialogue creates, you'll find that this chapter is really quite short. Just take your time with the writing and make sure to really build up the mood and connect this chapter to its predecessor. :3

Scytheteen · Nov 2, 2007

Alter Ego said:
No, just no. He should definitely keep paragraphing it like he does; that's basic grammar and makes the fic readable. Seriously... -.-

Now what did we say about chunky descriptions like that? You should never start two consecutive sentences in the same manner; let alone four. The English language is very flexible so please use it accordingly. This kind of choppy narrative is terrible for the tempo, which obviously isn't a good thing in an action-based chapter like this.

Besides that...there's too much focus on the trainers here. I mean, dialogue is all well and good, but it's seriously overshadowing the point of this chapter; the battle. I'd like to see a lot more description on what the pokémon are up to, even if this means cutting down on the dialogue (I mean; do we really need to see a full quote on each and every attack they declare?); as it is, I seriously can't tell what's going on half the time. The strategies employed this far are also far too reminiscent of the game's bap, bap back, bap mechanic. We're in a fictional world now, so go wild with it: have your trainers improvise a little; try some creative use of moves and terrain to keep your reader on their toes and really get them excited about the battle. I mean, this is a double battle so where are the nifty tag-team strategies? The pokémon also remain alarmingly dronish, blindly following orders at all times and not displaying a single hint of emotion one way or the other, and Nick seems to have no problem with his "trusted companions" getting their tails kicked. Right after his Scyther has been "nearly killed" as you put it, Nick's reaction is - and I quote - "Oh well".

...

Am I the only one who thinks that he should be a bit more concerned about his pokémon's health than that? x.O Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't his battling experience thus far consist mostly of far lower level battles, wherein his pokémon generally come off on top? If this is the case, then I find it unlikely that he'd be very well adjusted to his own pokémon taking a beating in such a way. Also, considering what a high-stakes battle this is - and the pressure that it's undoubtedly placing on Nick - I'd appreciate a better view of his inner world. What feelings does Nick go through when his best friend orders his dear pokémon to get beaten into a pulp? Don't the continuous remarks about how he's making mistakes exert even the tiniest bit of pressure on him? Considering how nervous he was before the battle, this sudden change to completely unbothered seems weird. o.O

Finally, the cliff hanger at the end seems pretty artificial to me. The sole contents of this chapter is the battle, so in all honesty it was a big letdown for me to find that you didn't even finish it within the chapter. This still feels rushed. Not as bad as before, but I definitely think you can do better than this. More contents, please; more details on the battle and the feelings of those involved as well as some serious plot-time devoted to Nick resolving the issue he was wrestling with at the end of the previous chapter (The thing about his own success in the tryouts meaning that his best friend would be shut out, and vice versa) Heck, he could even lock up over it at the beginning of the battle as a means to explain how he's taking such a beating despite having twice as many pokémon as his opponent.

How to say...you made the fact that Chris out of all people was Nick's opponent the big thing at the end of the last chapter; don't just brush it under the carpet now, it was the number one thing I was looking forward to seeing here. O=

So yeah, more description - and not the chunky kind, please - and more coherence with the earlier chapter would do this one a world of good. If you look past the inflated number of paragraphs that the long dialogue creates, you'll find that this chapter is really quite short. Just take your time with the writing and make sure to really build up the mood and connect this chapter to its predecessor. :3

Woah. I just read over my chapter and I really can see every point you mentioned. I think I was so focused on spelling and grammar and such that I forgot about the most important thing...the plot! xD. No problem though, I like re-writing my chapters after I write them, it gives me time to think about my next chapter. And burst, your post was so stupid...like you xD.

(JK)

Arceus707 · Nov 4, 2007

You got some nice stuff here ScytheMaster hope your character makes the team.

Scytheteen · Nov 6, 2007

Arceus707 said:
You got some nice stuff here ScytheMaster hope your character makes the team.

Thank for that! I'm glad that you like it! Think i'll go work of the editing I was doing.

Scytheteen · Nov 7, 2007

Okay guys, I have made the finishing touches on my fanfic. Any comments?

Astinus · Nov 7, 2007

Hero, ScytheMaster will post chapter 3 when he knows that chapter 2 is good. He wants to make each chapter the best he can before moving onto the next one. And also, try to come up with some more substance to your reviews. He's posting fics to learn how to write better, to get some feed-back, so do the awesome thing and give him some. You could even just tell him what you like about his story so that he knows what the people like.

...D: Um, this weekend I might have time to look at your chapters, ScytheMaster. I don't have school on Friday, so that'll give me some time. *meanders off, singing "Everybody's working for the weekend!*

Well, actually a few things I noticed, grammar-wise.

Excellent job italicizing "Vamos!" Published works tend to use italics when another language is being spoken quickly. And nice of you to translate it. Uh...Muy bien! D:

"Um, alright, I choose...Houndour and Duodo!" Nick said.

There are ninety-nine different ways to say "said" I can think of off the top of my head, and when you have an exclamation point, you use one of the more exciting ones. I like to use "commanded" in battle scenes, though "yell", "hollered", and various other tags of that sort could work.

And that's all I can fit in for now, since I have to head out. But yes, wait for the weekend, and there should be a better review. Or perhaps Alter Ego will come by.

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