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[Pokémon] Pokemon: Explorers of Forever! (Isshu)

SargeantMajorKururu

Loves Pokemon Black
  • 203
    Posts
    15
    Years
    A.J. went to sleep with a wide grin on his face. He couldn't wait for the next day. He didn't know why, he just couldn't wait. He settled into his bed and quickly fell into a deep sleep.

    However, that night he had a rather strange dream. He dreamed of a voice. He couldn't see what was talking, but he understood the voice easily.
    "A.J....Have I got the right person? Your name is indeed A.J.?" the voice said soothingly.
    "Um..Yes, it is." he replied with a trembling voice.
    "There is no need to be afraid, child." the voice continued. "You are safe in my care."
    "In who's care? Who ARE you?" Asked A.J.
    "It will be revealed in due time." replied the voice. "But now you must wake up."

    He awoke quickly after the voice old him to. He looked around. This was not his home or his house, for that matter. He looked down at the ground, which was much closer to his face today.
    "Strange...Did I fall asleep on the ground?" he asked himself. He got up and saw a strange, green Snake-like pokemon standing next to him. He was startled and fell to the ground again.
    "WHO..WHO ARE YOU?" A.J. asked.
    "I've been watching you sleep." he replied with a creepy grin.
    "That does NOT answer my question! Who and what are you?" he asked with a terrified look.
    "My name is Rausch, and I am a Tsutaja if you can't already tell." he looked towards A.J. with another wicked grin. "And who are you?"
    "My name is A.J., and I am a HUMAN!" he said quickly. "But why can you talk to me? Are you just a creepy guy in a costume?"
    "A human? I've never heard of that Pokemon before. You look like a pretty normal Mijumaru to me." He said with a creepy grin.
    A.J. looked towards his hands. They were now white stumps. He also had little blue feet and a blue tail. He looked into the water and in his refection...A Sea Otter Pokemon, Mijumaru.
    "What is going on???" he yelled.


    MORE TO COME WHEN MORE POKEMON ARE RELEASED! AND WHEN I FEEL LIKE WRITING ANY MORE!
     
    As a tip, hit the enter key twice between every new paragraph so you end up with a blank line. This helps the reader because it allows them to keep their place. As in, the longer you go without a clear indication that a new paragraph is beginning (which is usually done with a little indent in books but needs to be done with a blank line online because you can't indent paragraphs on a forum without making a mess), the more likely they are to lose their place or just be, in general, turned off by the wall o' text.

    That being said, a warning about using Isshu Pokémon: it's never a good idea to fly blind. Yes, we're all excited about Gen V, but we seriously don't know that much about anything. We don't even know the majority of attacks the starters will have. That will be a massive problem if you want to center a fanfiction around them. It's best to wait at least until the games are released, if only so you can get the information to do these Pokémon justice and actually make full use of them in your fanfic.

    Beyond that, there's... not much to say here. First off, you start off by giving us pretty much absolutely nothing about A.J. We don't know what he looks like (which really doesn't matter, but still), and we have absolutely no background about him. While you might say it won't matter because this is a Mystery Dungeon plot (see note below) where the protagonist probably only knows that he's human, this is a bad thing if you're starting off with a scene where he's human.

    Put it this way: if you only give a reader a name, they won't know enough about the character to really care about them. The protagonist is a complete stranger to us, so watching him get turned into a Pokémon has less of an effect on us because, well, we don't know this kid. We don't even know what he has to do with Pokémon if anything at all. Would this be a dream come true or his ultimate nightmare? What kind of life was he ripped away from before he turned into a Mijumaru? Because you started off with your main character as a human, you open up with all these questions that, really, should actually probably be answered if you want to have the ending of the chapter have more of an impact, you know?

    In other words, it feels like you're rushing. Slow down. Develop your characters a bit more.

    Beyond that, there's the plot. While there's not much to be said about the first two scenes (because there's not really much here), the third scene... Well, it unsettles me a bit. The reason why is because at that point, the fic reveals itself to be a pretty standard Mystery Dungeon fic. Kid is addressed by a mysterious voice. Kid wakes up to meet a "talking" Pokémon. Kid discovers he's a Pokémon too after attempting to convince the other Pokémon that he's actually human. The thing that's really uncomfortable about MD fics is that a lot of them don't realize you don't have to mirror the first part of the games exactly. In this case... yeah, I think the meeting with Rausch is pretty much that, isn't it?

    Now, the dangers of that is pretty much, well, the last thing you want to do with the opening of your fic is make the reader feel like they've seen it before unless you're intending on either parodying it or otherwise hang a lampshade on it (to borrow from TV Tropes) later. Otherwise, mirroring the games closely just makes the reader feel like there might not be something really new and different, so they end up wandering off.

    (Incidentally, why does Rausch tell A.J. that he's a Tsutaja? If A.J. looks like a Pokémon, wouldn't Rausch assume he already knows? Yeah, I know this is a plot hole of the games, but still.)

    To wrap it up very quickly, I'm not trying to discourage you from writing or anything. I'm just saying you've got four major problems:

    1. Writing Gen V fanfiction will most likely not work right now because fanfiction writers don't have enough information to pull it off.

    2. Your characterization needs a lot of work. We know next to nothing about this kid other than he was human, his name is A.J., and he's now a sea otter. There's got to be more to him – a personality, some backstory (considering you're sort of starting with the backstory anyway, not doing something where you gradually reveal it later on), anything that tells us who this kid is.

    3. Your grammar could use some as well. I didn't mention too much beyond the paragraphing, but there's a number of errors in commas and dialogue that might just be explained with a comma guide. (Also, who's = who is. Whose = possessive form of who.)

    4. The plot already might put some people off because, well, it looks a lot like an average Mystery Dungeon fic and the first part of the first set of games themselves.

    In other words, take your time. Plan things out. Flesh out your characters and your plot to make the people (or whatever) in your story have depth and to make the plot seem like something new and different. Do a lot of research. If you don't have information (like concerning the starters' moves), don't write about these Pokémon until you do. It'll be harder for you to rush things and put something out when you don't have any information to go on (and when you don't really take your time with your story) because then you run into plot holes and dead ends. Moreover, you don't want to turn speculation into fact. For example, if you think Mijumaru can use Bubble when it turns out it actually can't, then you have a problem with consistency, especially if you start out with A.J. depending on an attack like that.

    Or in shorter terms, I'd say just take your time.
     
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