[Pokémon] Nothing new... (Rated T)

[Azuka]

Chapter one: The beginning

Azuka was neither special nor had been told she had a very important task. There was nothing special about her. She was just your plain sixteen year old girl that was always bored at home, went to school and did whatever a normal teenager did. The only different thing about her and the rest of the world was that she had no interest in the creatures that roamed around the world freely. These creatures that could be kept as pets, trained to battle, or even used to do tasks for one. These creatures that the whole world was deeply obsessed with. These creatures called pokemon.

It wasn't because she wanted to be different. It wasn't because she felt that they weren't supposed to be around. I was because of her fear of them. A condition she came to have back when she was five when her parents took her to a camp and late at night she felt she needed to go to the bathroom. She got out of the tent, and in the midst of the night, a ghost-type pokemon appeared. A misdreavus. It appeared so suddenly, letting out that feared shriek that Azuka fell back screaming and crying. Her parents came out of the tent, but it was too late. She had already been scarred for life.

But her idea on pokemon changed the night when a pyromaniac burned down her house. As the walls were falling, and everything was on fire, she could not possibly be able to leave the house. Her thoughts that moment were "I'm going to die," and it seemed that way. She got third degree burns all over the right side of her body, where a piece of the ceiling fell on her. As she was screaming for help and was in pain, she suddenly saw the same pokemon that scared her. A misdreavus. It started to get closer to her and as she was about to faint from the pain, the gasses and the fear, she was taken outside, next to the ambulance.

The paramedics saw her and took her to the hospital for the burns, but she was still half conscious and couldn't stop thinking about that misdreavus on the way, until everything finally turned black and she fainted.

She woke up the next day, in an alien room. She guessed as much that she was at the hospital. She then proceeded to look at her burns and realized that she was technically bandaged all over her body, including her face. She was turned into a mummy, so she wondered just how much of her body had been burnt. As she lied in bed, wondering whatever happened to that misdreavus that went out of the way to save her from the fire.

A few hours passed, and nobody seemed to go visit her, not even nurses, nor doctors. She started to feel lonely, and bored. She couldn't do much because of her burns too, so she just lied in bed until someone finally showed up.

"Good morning, Miss Ramone," the tall doctor said. He had a rough face, with small brown eyes. His nose was big, and there were two big dimples at either side of the face, showing that he smiled at lot. Which he wasn't this time. "How are you feeling?"

Azuka felt weird. She couldn't answer. She opened her mouth but no sound came out.

"Ah, I see. I certainly didn't expect this," he said, touching his chin as if he were thinking to himself, "I hope this isn't permanent, though."
She looked at him, and tried to say something again.

"Don't over exert yourself. You are still recovering. Even this small thing as trying to speak might be a lot for your already weak muscles."
Azuka this time did nothing. Just sat there and stared at the doctor, to which he suddenly broke the ice once again.

"I'm pretty sure that you've realized that you're covered in bandages. You see, during the fire, you got badly burnt. Basically one third of your body is covered in burns, mostly the right side, which even extends to your face. And… Uh… It got your eye. You won't be able to see from the right eye any more."

Azuka opened her left eye as wide as it possibly can and moved her hands swiftly towards her right eye to check. It was covered in bandages, but she was pretty sure she wouldn't be able to see from there any more, and with that thought, she let a tear flow down her cheek.
"To recover from your burns you will have to remain here at the hospital where you'll be treated for all of it."

She wasn't even listening to him this time, she was only thinking of how badly she had been hurt. She thought that it probably was better if that misdreavus had left her inside in the fire. After a while of thinking to herself and ignoring the doctor she finally realized. She was too busy thinking of herself all that time that she had forgotten her parents. She grabbed the paper and pen that always come in the hospital rooms and wrote, "Where are my parents?"

"Ah. For that matter… We lost them in the fire. Your father was able to make it to the hospital, but passed away a few hours after…" there was a pause for a few seconds, which was an eternity for Azuka, "I'm sorry to be the bearer of the bad news…"

She couldn't believe it. Her parents were dead. She had no one else in this world. And to top that, she had been horribly scarred and left blind from one eye. There could have been no worse fate for her. She turned to her side, as if she were going to sleep, and wept in silence hoping to fall asleep, and then wake up from the nightmare she was in.

The doctor was wise to leave the room that instant. The room was left empty with the now mute, half blind and scarred Azuka, who could not stop crying of sadness, when suddenly a shadow she recognized appeared looking straight to her face.

As it had appeared so suddenly, as if it had just materialized in front of her eyes, she jumped back startled but couldn't let any shrieks nor screams out. The shadow that she saw was the misdreavus that saved her the night before. It moved closer and closer to her, and she could do nothing to stop it. She was immobilized in bed. Then she realized. Misdreavus's face looked apologetic and seemed to be looking for forgiveness. It rubbed its face on her arm and then looked back at her again. Azuka, with all the courage she had, moved her hand towards misdreavus and petted it.

Misdreavus looked pleased and with that it accommodated itself next to her and fell asleep under her arm. She looked at it wonder what had happened just then and then let that thought sink in. "It saved my life, but also left me like this… It was just saying sorry… But maybe she also needs a friend in her life, much like I need someone to be with… She might end up being my only family now." And with that final thought, she decided to keep that misdreavus around. The one that saved her life, and would become her family.

She looked down to check on misdreavus, and suddenly her fear of pokemon was gone, and with a smile, she brushed her hand over its head. Then, with the last hope that she would speak again, she said a word.

"Thank you."

With that she fell back and slept with misdreavus in her arms.


----
I wrote this a few days ago when I was sleepy. I like the story so I am continuing it. I hope everyone likes it even though the themes are sort of... dark. I promise it will get better though =D

 

[bobandbill]

First off, I'll link you to this. In short you'd want more spacing (at least a line gap, so i.e. enter hit twice rather than once) between each paragraph or dialogue spoken by a different person because as-is it is hard to read like that (not so in books, but on the computer it is), and that thread explains more on that subject.

I took a read anyway, and it was a rather interesting beginning - interesting concept to have a person befriend a ghost Pokemon in such a manner, along with having the main character start the story off by getting burnt, going blind in one eye and losing her parents... it seems well thought out, and not rushed either for the most part.

I will note though that the manner of the house burning - a pyromaniac setting fire to it - seemed like a rather random way for the house in this story to be burnt - and one could argue why it burnt down isn't even that important. Nevertheless I do question the unlikeliness that a pyromaniac went about and just set fire to a house like that. =p I also feel maybe a bit more setting up her fear of Pokemon could have been done as well - might be just my thoughts on it but I would have liked to she how she reacted to other Pokemon in her life before the house-burning-down event, even if only mentioned in passing.

A few other things to mention:

Azuka is neither special nor has been told she has a very important task. There is nothing special about her. She is just your plain 16 year old girl that is always bored at home, goes to school and does whatever a normal teenager does. The only different thing about her and the rest of the world is that she had no interest in the creatures that roamed around the world, freely.

Firstly, numbers less than 100 ought to be typed out as words rather than numbers, so here sixteen over 16. Also there isn't any reason to put a comma before 'freely' there tbh (it only creates an unnecessary pause), so you can delete it. Also note that most of the story was in the past tense (with words like was, had, jumped, fell, slept, etc), yet the beginning was written in the present tense which was a bit odd to read - it's usually better to keep to the one tense.

"Good morning, Miss Ramone," the tall doctor said.

You forgot the comma there, but you did use punctuation in dialogue every other time so I assume you just forgot to have it there.

His nose was big, and there were two big dimples at either side of the face, showing that he smiled at lot, which he wasn't this time.

This sentence seemed to be continued a bit too much here - I feel you could have ended the sentence at 'smiled a lot' and made the following bit its own sentence (with a bit of rewording) for added effect and to prevent the sentence as-is from reading somewhat like a run-on sentence.

Overall though it is a neat start I thought, and I quite liked the scene after the doctor had left and she became friends with the Misdreavus, as well as the waiting bit before the doctor came in - the slow pace of that bit worked well I thought. Just got to clean up the small mistakes here and there and space it out so it's easier on the eyes for readers, is all. =p Keep it up!

 

[Azuka]

Yes, it slipped my mind when I posted it, sorry about that. I'll edit it now. I did read the rules though. My mother just happened to call me so I just copied and pasted it here.

About the pyro and the fear of pokemon, I had decided on showing him later on, why he burned the house and those things. The fear... I thought of making it more as flashbacks. From the moment of the misdreavus scared her to the point it was hard for her to even be in the same room as the pokemon.

The reason for the sudden change in tenses I can't really explain. I wrote the first paragraph before. I left my computer for a while and continued when I came back. That is my fault.

The other things you mentioned, yes, things that slipped my mind at the moment too. The numbering and the comma. Not much of the smiling part. That one just seemed okay when I wrote it, I know the difference now.

Thanks for reading up and I'll make sure to do the appropriate changes and be more careful about that in the future!

 

[JX Valentine]

The reason for the sudden change in tenses I can't really explain. I wrote the first paragraph before. I left my computer for a while and continued when I came back. That is my fault.

Always, always reread your work as carefully as possible before posting, especially if you're writing in any state of mind besides alert and focused (like sleepy, as you said you were). While proofreading by yourself doesn't guarantee perfection, it at least removes a lot of the errors you would be able to see yourself. For everything else and for a second glance, you could always get a beta reader.

That being said, on to the story comments.

She was just your plain sixteen year old girl that was always bored at home,

A few other grammar rules bnb didn't cover, but whenever you state someone's age and use it as a single descriptor (either a noun or an adjective that describes how old someone is), you actually need to hyphenate it so that it becomes something like sixteen-year-old. Like I said, it's because it's a single descriptor. You're not saying they're sixteen years old. You're actually saying they're a person who's sixteen years old.

Also, whenever you talk about a person or another character who's alive, you'll want to avoid using "that" (as in, "a sixteen-year-old girl that was always bored at home"). This is because "that" is a word that's reserved for inanimate objects, things without genders, or anything else you want to describe as something that isn't alive. Instead, use the word "who," which implies that the character associated with it actually has that spark of life.

I'm bringing this up because it's the first line of the fic. Really, I'm not going to be spending too much time discussing grammar (for once) because I want to focus completely on the story itself; I just wanted to say it's a bit jarring to go into a fic and have a few things to point out right off the bat. I know that a number of readers might not notice, but just in case someone does, you'll want to make sure your first paragraph at the very least is error-free to make the reader think they don't have to worry too much about scouring your work for problems.

A condition she came to have back when she was five when her parents took her to a camp and late at night she felt she needed to go to the bathroom.

However, I will bring up the way language is used itself because this isn't so much a matter of grammar as it is a matter of the way you build tone through wording.

That being said, I'm going to have to say this is a bit lengthy for a sentence fragment. While a lot of writers use fragments to make something sound blunter (plainer, dryer, like it was a plain fact), you'll want to remember that... well, they use that kind of thing to make a statement sound blunter. What I mean is that when a writer uses a fragment to highlight something, what they'll usually want to do is make the sentence shorter. By doing this, the information it's conveying packs more of a punch because that's all the reader is getting out of that statement. It's stark, bare-bones information. You lose that effect the longer you go on, such as in a fragment like this. As a result, you end up creating the feeling that you're missing a predicate, not that you're trying to convey information that's packing a punch.

With that in mind, I'd suggest just rephrasing this sentence to make it seem complete. There's really no reason why you'd need a fragment here, really, because you're not so much conveying information with a punch as you are transitioning to a flashback.

Speaking of which, while I'm okay with your idea to explain Azuka's fear of Pokémon through flashbacks, it feels like you're going too fast with them. For example, instead of presenting Azuka's encounter with a Misdreavus as its own scene, you capture it in a single paragraph. This might not work for two reasons:

1. You're not really highlighting the importance of these events if you just tell us about them instead of showing us how they happened. The Misdreavus scene especially is the basis of a really important character trait for Azuka, so you really want to spend some time building up what happened.

2. It doesn't evoke much emotion in the reader. We don't feel as we're right there by Azuka's side when she encountered Misdreavus, so we don't feel that same sense of fear as we would if you described Azuka standing in front of a Misdreavus in the middle of a dark, cold night or the Misdreavus's long, mournful cry. In other words, if you spend only a paragraph on this kind of thing, you don't really build connections between the reader and Azuka's past because you're not really letting the audience watch what happened to her like they would any other scene.

she was technically bandaged all over her body

And I said I wouldn't do this, but the word "technically" is used to describe more abstract concepts. For example, you could say that this sentence is technically grammatically correct if you want to describe that it is according to grammar rules and basic fact. However, you can't say that someone is technically bandaged because there's no reason to look at it any deeper and define whether or not they're bandaged based on specific facts. You look at them, and they're bandaged. You don't have to argue whether or not they are based on exact data.

As she lied

The past-tense of "to lie" (as in, to lie in bed) is actually "lay." "Lied" refers to the definition that means the opposite of telling the truth. Homonyms and homophones are often tricky like that, so it's best to just memorize them.

When you go into the description of the doctor, it feels like it should come earlier. The reason why is because you go from talking about the fact that no one is in the room at all to someone's line of dialogue, so it feels like it's coming out of nowhere. I would suggest describing the doctor walking into the room first, considering Azuka would most definitely notice someone arriving if she's focusing on the fact that no one is visiting her.

Doing this will also solve another problem at the same time: it feels like the doctor magically knows that Azuka is awake. It may be a good idea to have him comment on the fact that she's awake, rather than address her right off the bat as if he knew before he walked into the room.

Additionally, his dialogue seems a little too casual for a doctor's speech. For example, he says "you got badly burnt." "Got" in this sense is actually a casual usage. In a slightly more formal way of speaking, you would say "you were badly burnt." The difference is all in the word "get," which implies that something was received. However, "burnt" is its own verb; you can't receive a burnt the same way you'd receive a burn. As such, "were" is a helping verb in this case that describes when the action verb took place.

Likewise, he hesitates when he mentions her eye was burned. ("And... Uh... It got your eye.") A doctor is usually used to conveying to a patient the extent of their injuries and conditions, so it seems a little unnatural for this doctor to pause as if he's not certain what exactly he should be saying.

As a side note, a burn can't really "get" any particular organ because it doesn't spread like cancer or a flesh-eating bacteria. What you might say is "your right eye was also burned," although this is also debatable based on science. (Burns in the medical sense are usually confined to just the skin and occasionally muscle and bone. Eyes aren't made of skin, so it'd probably be more accurate to say, "Your right eye was blinded by the fire.")

Also, while we're on the subject of nitpicking the possible, if your entire body was bandaged, you're probably not going to be moving swiftly because your joints are tightly bound. Of course, if Azuka was in a full-body cast, she wouldn't be moving at all.

She grabbed the paper and pen that always come in the hospital rooms

First off, you'll want to avoid explaining things in this manner (like, right in the sentence where they're relevant and not before) because it makes the reader feel like it's more like an afterthought to explain what you think is a plot hole than it is a natural detail of the story. Instead, perhaps have Azuka look for a pen and paper and notice a bit to the side.

Second, hospital rooms aren't hotel rooms. While I don't know about childrens' hospitals, I've been in enough adult ones to safely say that, no, they don't always stock paper and pen without the patient requesting it first. Pens especially for certain units because of the risk that the patient might accidentally (or intentionally) injure themselves further. With ICUs (intensive care units, which Azuka most likely is in considering she was seriously burned and just woke up), this idea probably applies more than the more long-term units.

Third, she's also bandaged, which would make writing (or even gripping a pen) nearly impossible. Here's an experiment for you: if you have a first-aid kit at home, crack it open and find the ace bandages. (That's a roll of stretchy cloth that's used to wrap wounds and things of that nature.) Take it and wrap your writing hand exactly the way you'd imagine Azuka's hands to be bandaged. Now, try picking up a pen and writing. Depending on how her hands were bandaged (i.e., whether or not her fingers were exposed), this is probably not going to be as easy as it looks.

For that matter, when you're in a hospital suffering from some pretty serious injuries, you can't really move around too quickly. Most likely, Azuka is also on anesthetics due to only half of her body being covered in third-degree burns. (The other half would most likely carry a lot of second- or first-degree burns because you just can't have third-degree burns by themselves. While third-degrees aren't exactly painful because your nerves are dead by then, the other ones hurt like a mother.) That just means her reaction time is probably going to be slower than normal. And even if she wasn't, she just woke up after hours upon hours of being under anesthetics (most likely, especially if she received surgery to remove dead tissue/graft new tissue onto her body) and fainting, which means she probably won't be super-alert. So, yeah, she probably wouldn't be jumping around as much, and it's hard to say whether or not she'd feel the same sense of shock someone who's more alert would experience.

She looked at it wonder what had happened just then and then let that thought sink in.

This might be missing a couple of commas. ("looked at it, wondered what had happened just then, and then let that thought sink in") Additionally, you'll want to switch "wonder" with "wondered" to make the verb tenses consistent in that list, and I would advise dropping "just then" because the last item in the list already starts with "then." (So, you're dodging a feeling of redundancy.)

She looked down to check on misdreavus, and suddenly her fear of pokemon was gone, and with a smile, she brushed her hand over its head. Then, with the last hope that she would speak again, she said a word.

The first sentence is actually a run-on. Notice how you have multiple comma-conjunction pairings in it? That signals that you've actually got three dependent clauses strung together. You can't really do that because the sentence becomes too wordy and unwieldy for the reader.

Second, "thank you" is not a word.

Third, this point feels rather awkward. She's spent over ten years of her life being deathly afraid of Pokémon, and although one saved her life, it's seriously not that easy to get over a phobia. It's just not an instantaneous thing or something that happens within a day or two. For example, arachnephobia. I have it, but it's not as bad as it was when I was a kid. (When I was young, I used to flail and scream whenever I saw a spider at all. Now, I'm okay with looking at spiders after years and years of seeing them, but I'm most certainly not okay with touching them or their webs.) In other words, it just feels like you've built her up to have a really interesting character flaw, but just like that, without any internal struggle over the fact that she's deathly afraid of Pokémon (as you've mentioned in your reply with how she couldn't stand to be in the same room as them), she gets over it to bond with the exact Pokémon that caused her phobia in the first place. (In fact, it seems weird that she doesn't react at all to the fact that it's the same species as the one that scared her when she was five.)

In all, I have to say the first chapter wasn't too bad. I do have to admit I like the idea of this girl becoming buddies with a Pokémon. (As bnb said, the last part of the chapter, even with it's oddities, was a Crowning Moment of Heartwarming.) It's just that I'm afraid that you might make this a little too easy for Azuka. The reason why is because there's a lot of strange things that happened in this chapter that aren't particularly realistic or otherwise seem to imply that you could use a bit of help from Google. (It's perfectly okay to do a bit of research as you're writing a chapter. A lot of amateur writers think, "Oh man. I don't want to do research because that's hard work," but actually, it doesn't take long to look things up via Google if you know how to ask for information. On top of that, it's an easy way to learn about how the world actually works and the crazy things that can actually happen.)

Tangents aside, the more frequently that happens, the harder it is to get into the story because it feels like you're not really acknowledging the restrictions you're putting on your character. For example, she's mute. Instead of struggling to communicate with the doctor, she automatically finds a piece of paper and a pen to write down her question. She's bandaged. Rather than struggle to move and grip a pen, she can do those things as if she's not bandaged up. She just woke up from a coma and is recovering from burns on 50% of her body. However, she's also alert and doesn't seem to need anesthetics. She's afraid of Pokémon. Instead of having reservations about being in the same room as one, she gets over her fear of the same species that induced her phobia within a short period of time.

You see what I mean? A lot of the times, you set up really interesting barriers between your character and her ability to function as a normal human being. However, as soon as you do, you seem to forget how significant these restrictions are and have her function as a normal human being anyway. Continuing this habit will most likely break your story later on because you're dealing with a lot of other flaws that will leave long-term affects on her. (For example, being blind in only one eye screws up a person's depth perception, so they can't really judge how close or far away objects are anymore. This seriously affects the way they walk, the way they reach for things, and all sorts of other fun stuff. For another example, third-degree burns leave permanent scarring unless you spend loads of money on surgery to get that fixed. That will deeply affect her socially unless it's of your opinion that the Pokémon world is full of rainbows and candy and people who don't really judge based on appearance. And, of course, there's the phobia, but it'll be awkward to go back to that after this chapter's instance of, "She got better.")

The reason why I say it'll break your story is because not only does it put Azuka at risk of becoming a Mary Sue (a character around whom reality bends so that everything goes her way in some form), but because a lot of these problems are serious ones, they should be setting up a lot of barriers and problems she'll need to overcome that normal characters wouldn't face. These problems would make her journey (wherever she goes) more interesting, but if you don't acknowledge that these problems would exist for her, it'll just make things very awkward.

Now, I'm not saying you're not thinking about all of this. I'm sure that, on some level, you are. Otherwise, you wouldn't be giving your character these problems. I'm just saying that in this first chapter, she got over a lot of obstacles she really shouldn't have been able to get over that quickly, and it made a lot of this chapter seem a little weird to me. My advice would be to take things slowly, think things through, and do a bit more research, and you should be able to overcome those kinds of oddities.

Good luck with future chapters!

 

[Azuka]

Wow, thanks for going so in-depth about my mistakes. And yes, there are soooo many mistakes I hadn't noticed nor realized. Most of them came from the sleepiness, others came for the fact that at the beginning I intended to make this a one-shot, but when I showed it to some of my friends the next day they told me to continue it so I did.

As I can see from what you said, and realize, is all the grammatical mistakes. I'd usually blame it on english being my second language, but now that I read over it again, I realize they are the very basics. Next time I will write it when I'm very fully awake.

The lie, lay thing. I know the difference, that one is just one of those things that slipped my mind when I was writing. Next time I'll make sure to re-read over the chapter many times to spot my mistakes.

As I said before, the rush in the introduction of characters, problems, etc, was because of my intention of this being a one-shot. Which changed during the course of the next day.

The major problem I encountered when writing this was in fact making the doctor. I hardly go to hospitals due to me being in good health most of the time, and the very few times that I am is usually a common flu, so I have no idea what a real doctor sounds like. I had to base him over my school nurse, who is still very young, and talks to us students in a very friendly, yet teenager-like way.

As a side note, a burn can't really "get" any particular organ because it doesn't spread like cancer or a flesh-eating bacteria. What you might say is "your right eye was also burned," although this is also debatable based on science. (Burns in the medical sense are usually confined to just the skin and occasionally muscle and bone. Eyes aren't made of skin, so it'd probably be more accurate to say, "Your right eye was blinded by the fire.")

Also, while we're on the subject of nitpicking the possible, if your entire body was bandaged, you're probably not going to be moving swiftly because your joints are tightly bound. Of course, if Azuka was in a full-body cast, she wouldn't be moving at all.

The first part, about the fire burning the eye was also one of the hardest things to describe at the moment. I just didn't seem to phrase what I meant into words, so in the end I let it be like that.

And I guess the bandages part was my fault for not describing properly what I meant. I'll be sure to change this. What I meant to begin with was she was covered in the kind of bandages that cover the burns when they are healing. Similar to the ones used for sprains and minor injuries. So her mobility was still good. She can still move. But again, I've never been bandaged more than my ankles, so I don't know if it would differ.

All the other points are about me rushing over the chapter. I'll make sure to update it and change it into a more slowly paced beginning.

Well, thank you for taking your time at reading and reviewing this. I appreciate it a lot. It will help me in writing in the future. I mean, nobody ever went as far as to show me my exact mistakes, everyone was very vague about my writings so I had no idea what I needed to change. I appreciate it a lot.

I'll try to get a beta reader if any are available, and thanks again for your time!