The Saga of Silver, blue and co.

[Dogar The Brave]

Chapter Five - Viridian City

Pearl,

Pearl raises her hand to cover her eyes as dawn strikes her face, she allows the sunlight to focus on her eyes for a few seconds before jumping out of her indigo sleeping bag. She twirls round so she is facing her pallid bag. Pearl seizes her sleeping bag and commences stuffing it into her empty school bag. She glances at Ruby, who is snoring away and smiles before treading carefully over to the slumbering teenager. Pearl reaches Ruby and starts shaking her. Ruby's eyes snap open and she glares at Pearl.

"I told you last night not to wake me up!" Ruby snaps as she rolls out of her crimson sleeping bag and begins folding it. She neatly puts it inside her jade bag and stands up so she can look the coal colour haired girl eye to eye.

"You did, didn't you?" Pearl responds sweetly. She stares at the soft, muted city in front of the two girls. For a city it seems faint and discarded, as if forgotten in a carefree world. The cherry coloured roofs of most houses are becoming more and more crimson every day. The azure buildings, the Poke mart and Pokemon Gym amongst others, are becoming paler and paler each day, and have nearly turned white. The boulevards running through the city have taken away its beauty. The pastures seem bare, desolate and in need of some proper farming. "Welcome to Viridian City." Pearl comments wryly.

"Isn't this meant to be the most beautiful city in Kanto?" Ruby inquires, muddled. She harvests her bag around her arms and embarks on getting to the Pokemon Center. She shivers, becoming conscious of the fact that it's pretty chilly.

"I don't care," Pearl mumbles swiftly. "I say we should just go to the Pokemon Center and get our Pokemon."

"Alright," Ruby concurs. The two start striding to the Pokemon Center that Blue had sprinted to the night before with their Pokemon. Silver had gone off by himself because he desired to be by himself for a while.

The pair reach the aged Pokemon Center and cross into the threshold. They distinguish a washed out boy sitting on a chair beside a door. Pearl scuttles over to him, "Blue! How are our Pokemon doing?"

Blue stares at her eye to eye before turning away and saying heroically; "I'm sorry, we did everything we could, but, your Ralts didn't get the heart. The Zigzagoon did."

"What?" Pearl's perplexed.

"Just kidding with you," Blue chortles. He proceeds to imitate Nurse Joy's voice. "Thank you for waiting, your Pokemon are now fully healed."

Ruby laughs merrily and they sit down on vacant chairs beside Blue.

Silver,

"Silver, is that you?" A recognisible voice asks.

Silver whips around, his mauve coat flowing against the wind. "Whitney!" He welcomes her existence. "How are you, and why are you here?"

Her cerise hair matches her clothes. All pink. Silver think to himself before he shakes back into reality. "I'm good, I got here two nights ago. As for why I'm here, I want to battle you."

Silver runs his hands through his lilac hair and says; "I'll battle you, but how did you know I was here?"

Whitney shrugs, "Blue told me. I also took the liberty of taking your Pokemon from him for you." She threw over the two red and white spheres.

"Thanks," Silver says. "What time is it?"

"I'm not sure, about seven O' Clock," Whitney replies.

Silver looks around, it looks about dawn as well. "Ok, the rules. Two on two, assuming you have two Pokemon."

"Which I do, continue." Whitney instructs.

"That's it." Silver grins.

The two step backwards a few steps. Whitney summoned Chikorita to the field. A bottle green coloured Pokemon lands on the ground, it's about the size of a Totodile but has its four legs on the ground, like a dog and a leaf on the top of it's head.

Silver grabs his Poke ball and sends out Larvitar. The rock lands on the grass surface of the ground and stares at his opposition. The two Pokemon circle each other for a few minutes.

Silver smirks. "Larvitar, use Bite!"

The Larvitar springs up from the ground and aims itself at the Chikorita. The grass Pokemon evades the attack and uses its Razor Leaf attack. Countless leaves start battering against Larvitar's body. He is thrown across the ground and lands fifty yards away from the Chikorita. Larvitar shakes himself as the Chikorita closes in and dodges the next Razor Leaf attack before trying his Bite technique, and succeeding. Larvitar clamps his teeth around the side of Chikorita's head. Chikorita screams in pain and uses Razor Leaf again. Larvitar slides across the ground and doesn't get up. Chikorita collapses in a heap and refuses to rise, as well.

"I guess that's a stalemate," Whitney says. "Chikorita, return. You did well."

A blue crocodile and a pink blob enter the scene.

"Totodile, Water Gun!" Silver commands.

Totodile inhales a deep breath just as Igglybuff starts singing a song. Totodile falls to the ground in a forced slumber.

"Igglybuff, Pound attack!"

Silver wills Totodile to wake up but it isn't happening. He watches his Pokemon get pounded for about two minutes non stop before he knows Totodile isn't sleeping from an enchanted sleep. Totodile's fainted.

Silver gets his Pokemon to return and turns to Whitney. "Good battle. But mark my words, next time we battle, I'll win."

Whitney nods, spins around and walks away.

To be continued in…

Chapter Six – City Tour.

 

[Dogar The Brave]

@ ACC-M: See?

@Thesilverversion: PM me - also, your post will be deleted by Hanako cuz you aren't allowed to post here, just so you know.

 

[Scarlet Weather]

I know this is nitpicking, but Larvitar is Rock/Ground Type.

And now I just feel silly. *sweatdrops* I thought that it was Dark/Rock like TTar, but I guess it has a typing switch. Whoopsies!

 

[Alter Ego]

Okay, let's try this again and hope that my computer will be less rabid this time, m'kay? 'Kay. *Deep breath*

First of all, some general notes. This is my first time reading through your fanfic and I haven't read any of the earlier versions, so there's no way for me to know how much or little you have improved from the original. Moving on...

Alright, formating. I notice that you've written your latest chapters in standard, uncolored font. This is good because it makes your fic easy to read on all layouts, and easy readability is always a plus. On the front of things that are not so good, however, I notice that you're still using colored comic sans MS on the earlier ones.

I just have to ask: why? Please go edit those tags out right away. It's a five-minute fix that makes your fic look a lot more professional.

Second, I agree wholeheartedly with Scythe-kun's remark about the names you bring out at every change of viewpoint. When such a change occurs, it should become obvious from your narration so highlighting it is just pointless and disruptive for your story. (And yes, certain readers may find the notion of spelling things out for them in this way insulting)

Third, titling. Always think your titles over carefully. It should be descriptive of what happens in the chapter, yes, but again you shouldn't spell things out for your reader. If just glancing at the title lets your reader divine the entire contents of that chapter, then their curiosity for said chapter will have been efficiently butchered in the process. Allude to the contents of your chapter, hint at things, be a bit poetic, but never EVER spell out the contents. Also, do keep in mind that you don't have to title your chapters. No title is better than a flat one.

And as a last general note: I'm going to have to agree with ACC here. This is a very difficult tense you have chosen to work with. The present tense has some merits to its name, and yes, when used right it can create a unique narrative style, but more often than not it's just going to explode in your face and the results...aren't that pretty, to be honest. Given that, by your own admission, you're already experiencing problems with this fic, I'd strongly suggest a past tense narrative. It's a far easier form to handle and in most cases works just as well as present tense. Readers will also be more familiar - and thus probably more comfortable with - fics written in past tense. Present tense is interesting, but unless there's some specific effect you seek to establish by using it (one that you can't achieve any other way) then I'd really suggest not punishing yourself with this. Present tense will still be there for you to experiment with later on anyway. :3

Now then, comments by chapter:

Chapter 1:

It's still dusk, he can tell.

How can he tell? Is it the lighting? Does he have a handy dandy window to look out through? Does he have a digital clock to confirm that? Or is he just in possession of a supernatural power that lets him tell the time of the day instinctively? Please elaborate here. You can also use this to prod in some description of the room. (E.g. (and sorry, but I don't do present tense narrative) "It was still dusk, he could tell by the pale sliver of moonlight that shone in from between the curtains, illuminating the [Insert descriptive adjectives here] floor of his room) And while we're on this note:

He groans again. He leaves his bed and walks around his room. Blue stops to look at his reflection in the mirror. Spiky white hair, brown eyes and a slightly crooked nose. Still, for a thirteen year old, he is pretty small. He walks away from the mirror but doesn't bother getting back into his four poster bed, the main reason being he thinks he is too excited to go back to sleep. Today is the day he turns thirteen, he isn't really that excited about being thirteen. No, he's excited because when you turn thirteen you are able to get your first Pokemon and start on your quest to become whatever you want to be in the Pokemon world. Blue checks his Rolex; it's four in the morning. He groans for the third time before collapsing on his bed. Maybe, just maybe, he will be able to drift off to the land of sleep.

Okay, ACC already brought up the point of dynamic description briefly, but I'm going to build on that a little. This paragraph has a fairly detailed description in it, which is good, but the description is presented in short, choppy sentences, which is not good. I mean, if I told you a story about how I went to the supermarket. The supermarket has a yellow logo with red text on it. And opened the supermarket door. The door was of a greyish white color. And stepped inside. And then I closed the door behind me. And if told you each and every thing I did in that store. With a full stop after each action. And after each description. It would be a very tedious read.

See? Those full stops got quite annoying after a while of reading that, didn't they? Obviously you don't want to annoy your reader, so to fix this you should merge descriptions. Let them flow into each other, mixing static descriptions (appearances etc.) with dynamic ones (descriptions of motion and actions in general) to create that feeling that the story is going forward (as opposed to just standing still as it feels at the moment). To exemplify:

Groaning once more, Blue got up on his feet, taking a few aimless steps until his eyes fell on a mirror. For a few moments, he inspected the reflection with its spiky, white hair and the light brown eyes staring back at him from both sides of the slightly crooked nose.

See what I mean about description merging? Depending on how you handled the whole 'it's still dusk' thing there's also a slight logic break here, since making out his appearance in such detail would require a fair bit of lighting in the room.

Also, though you say that Blue is feeling anxious, I'm just not feeling it in your narrative. There's more to conveying that than just saying "he was feeling anxious". Allude to it by having him keep checking the time and use terms and phrases with connections to anxiety. This is what we lit.analysis geeks call a 'semantic field'. Though the information content of several words and expressions may be practically identical, they often have very different collocations (associations), and if you consciously pick terms with similar associations, the association will be passed on to your reader without the actual word you're alluding to even needing to be there.

A purple-haired boy is being shaken awake by his mom. "W-What?" He asks feebly.

Hiphon needed here, unless you meant that the whole boy (as opposed to just hair) is purple. Also, do note that the point about dynamic description applies to more than just the one specific place where I commented about it. It's just as relevant here.

Indeed she is; with black hair swimming down to the tips of her shoulders, stunning green eyes and a gorgeous smile. A perfect thirteen year old girl.

Okay, important point: always make sure to avoid subjective use of language like this unless you plan on using a clearly biased narrator. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, as is perfection, so value-laden terms like this just shouldn't be used unless you're clearly placing them in the mouth of a biased character.

Ruby is pretty small for a thirteen year old. But with short, straight blonde hair and bright, inquisitive blue eyes nobody is going to care how small she is. Especially when they see her perfect smile.

Again, you have a huge chunk of description smack dab in the middle of your narrative. The effect is sort of like a road block, so please spread that around the actions.

Blue takes up a mouthful of Cornflakes with his spoon and guides it into his mouth. He wonders what his quest/adventure would have been like six years ago. Six years ago, on this very day, Red left Pallet Town to become the world's best Pokemon trainer. Red was just ten years old when he left. Everything began to change just after he left. The rules were changed; you now have to be thirteen years of age to go off on your quest/adventure, your nearest professor is able to pick your starting Pokemon for you (due to every single trainer picker Charmander as their starting Pokemon), Kanto, Johto, Hoenn and Sinnoh Pokemon got mixed together throughout the different countries. But the hardest rule of all is that you have to get at least thirty two badges before you can challenge the elite four. As for Red, Blue had heard that he was training in Mount Silver. Blue didn't care. Red never bothered calling his family and eventually, Red vanished out of Blue's life. Blue and Red are brothers.

Again, less beating your reader over the head with the information and more working it in as it becomes relevant. Do we really need to get to know about the sibling thing right now? That would have been a lovely surprise to reveal later on. The badge rule is just plain insane. Thirty-two? What, go to all the four regions or it's nothing? I'm...just not convinced about such a radical shift from canon. The everyone picking Charmander thing sounds sort of unreal too. I mean, there will only be so many Charmanders so the others will have to be picked by those who didn't come there in time for the manders. Why did league authorities see fit to quadruple league entry requirements all of a sudden, anyway? Explanation, please.

They get to the laboratory after fifteen minutes of driving. Neither of them said anything in those fifteen minutes.

And now you're suddenly doing past tense? Whatever you go with, be consistent about it.

Silver is dressed in a mixture of Tommy Hilfiger jeans and a Lacoste polo shirt. "Can we go yet?" He asks his mom.

"Yes, dear." She replies.

Gonna' have to say...these people have very well-trained parents. All of them are just being meek and obedient about everything. Sort of...disturbing, actually. o.O

They leave their apartment. Silver's mom locks it and they walk down to their car. A Nissan Micra. "Mom?" Silver inquires.

What? Does Silver own part of the apartment too? If not, then it's not their appartment. Also, a brand is no substitute for description; I for one have a terrible head for those, so to me the words 'Nissan Micra' don't mean anything, neither do all these clothing brands. If you're going to describe, describe in words that explain it for anyone.

"You mean, after he lost to Red?" Silver nods and she sighs. "I don't know. That all happened five years ago, Silver. I haven't heard from him since that happened. Of course, there have been reports. Besides, the famous photographer has dedicated his life to try and find him and he hasn't had any luck. But, Silver. You listen to me. Your father would have been the happiest man in the world to know that his son is getting his first Pokemon today."

This just looks so...incoherent, first she's saying that there are reports then the next time she's trying to convince her that there's nothing you can do about finding info. I think some restructuring is in order here. I mean...could you really picture an actual person talking like this? o.O

She is. With her nails painted red and her white Abercrombie jumper and her pink skirt, she looks stunning. "Thanks," she says. "But can we please go?"

Yeah, whatever Sue...stop rubbing your mind-blowing beauty into the combined faces of us poor mortals. Stunning, stunning, beautiful, perfect...does the narrator have some kind of crush on Pearl or something? She's getting praise heaped on her all the time and I think we got the point already. xP

They get into her car; a Porsche, and her mom starts driving. "What Pokemon would you like?" Her mom asks.

"Oh, I don't know." Pearl begins to wonder about what Pokemon she might get. Forty minutes later they arrive. "I'll ring you later!" She assures her mom. She gets out of the car and watches her mom drive off. She turns around and walks over to the lab. A pink haired girl is waiting outside.

Run, children! It's the nefarious "What pokémon do you like?" conversation! *Holds up correctional marker* Begone, spawn of genericness!

Ahem, my personal biases aside: avoid repetitions like this. Right after someone asks her what pokémon she'd like to get, we get to know that she's thinking about just that...talk about the glaringly obvious. If you already have the question and she's answering it then it's self-evident that she's also thinking about it. Thus, the latter is needlessly hammering the information into the reader's head. This would be okay in a children's book, but assuming that you aren't aiming there it's not really a good move. Careful with those.

"I really don't approve of that skirt," her mom says.

"Why?" Ruby asks.

"It's way to short," her mom frowns. "It doesn't even reach your knees!"

"It's nowhere near my knees," Ruby points out.

"Exactly!" Her mom says.

"Whatever, I'm going to go and get my new Pokemon, ok?"

"Yes, dear," her mom sighs. "But come back as soon as possible."

Well, apparently her mom doesn't disapprove too much, seeing as how she just drops it after one 'no'. Like I said before: do all of their parents have to be complete pushovers? It's like the kids are running the households. I know if I sassed my mum like that, I wouldn't get out of it that easy, and I'm way older than Ruby. o.o This is a lovely little household scene, but you're just popping the argument before it even has the time to get good, which is a pity. .__.

Ruby leaves the house. She wonders if any boys will be there.

What? In the house she just left? Erm...I doubt it. Remember, words like "there" always refer to the last suitable object, in this case Ruby's house.

Oak turns to Pearl. "Pearl, did you know that you were one of the best students I ever had?"

Okay, is he seriously planning on saying that to everyone? Mr.Oak, you are such a bad liar. xP


General impression of the chapter...just messy, to be honest. It's like, you seem to have a huge amount of material here, some of it actually very good. Pearl (despite the annoying abundance of praise in her description) really seems to exhibit personality nicely enough here, the others...not as much yet. Similarly, you seem to have some manner of backstory for each of your characters.

The problem? You don't seem to have put that much thought into the presentation. The impression I got when reading this was that you just started plowing through your material every which way, dropping a bit of this backstory here, a bit of another there, some physical descriptions here, some emotional there, some dialogue every once in a while, but no real coherent whole. The constant viewpoint jumps annoyed me because they kept the narrative from focusing on any one of the characters in the kind of depth I would have wanted. Seeing this many characters introduced in one go is also pretty overwhelming and having Oak come open the door for each and every one of them in turn just felt tedious and repetitive.

How to say...rather than trying to cover all of the characters in one go, try to focus on one or possibly two at a time and then work the others in as the story progresses. If you look at any given piece of published fiction, this is the technique the apply there as well. In series with large casts (Digimon comes to mind, since I just watched that xD) the early part typically has one episode devoted to the concerns of each main character, which is pretty much the clearest example of sorting out the main plot versus backstory conflict by spreading the latter out among the former. The point of this technique is to avoid confusing your reader/viewer early on (because seeing all these subplots unravel at the same time is just overwhelming) and to help keep the plot in focus. Besides, this is a long writing task you have in front of you, so when you get further ahead I think you'll be glad to have a source of untapped character development to delve into. Not to mention that if only one big personal conflict gets tackled per chapter, it will garner a lot more attention from the reader. :3

For this chapter, rather than going through the morning routines of each character in turn, I'd say split it between one or two and have them take the stage here. The others can be introduced indirectly (one character running into the other etc.) or preferably - since they're all assembling in Oak's room - introduce the rest in the beginning of the next chapter. Blue and Pearl would seem like the best candidates for this one since they have the whole 'ugly' thing as a common link. Also, since Blue is thinking about Red while Pearl encounters Whitney, this gives you a chance to introduce some of the others indirectly without making too big a deal of them yet.

And yes, I can see that you planned out a small speech from Oak to each and every one of them, but seeing all of them one after the other like this creates too much of a déja vu experience. You can always have a character flashback about it later on as necessary. They're handy things...flashbacks. Most importantly, however: you need to cut down on the number of perspectives. This many is pretty extreme even for a fic as a whole, but for a single chapter it's just going completely overboard. @.@

So yeah, the big points for this one are:

1. Meld descriptions together. Rather than having a chunk of appearance, then a chunk of action, then a chunk of emotion, make them one, smooth flow.

2. Cut down the number of viewpoints per chapter. You've got the right idea in the newer chapters; switching once or twice is not a bother, but switching every third paragraph or so definitely is.

3. Cut down on full stops. Simple sentences are easy to handle, yes, but having nothing but simple sentences makes for a choppy reading experience, which disrupts the flow of your narrative.

4. Avoid subjective terms (beautiful, perfect, etc.) in description. They're okay in the mouths or thoughts of your characters, though.

5. Try to make the dialogue a bit more natural. As it is, there are lots of places where the conversation jumps to a completely different subject or is just plain cut off at very bizarre places. Try reading the words for yourself and then ask yourself: would real people really talk this way?


Okay, seeing as how there's a heck of a lot of stuff on this, I think I'll post it now so as to not test my computer's patience. I'll add in my comments on each of the future chapters later on. The brunt of it should probably be here, though.

And concerning your question in the lounge: my vote is on rewrite. I think you've got potential here, you just need to work on presenting what you have in a clear and appealing manner. ^^

 

[Dogar The Brave]

Okay, let's try this again and hope that my computer will be less rabid this time, m'kay? 'Kay. *Deep breath*

First of all, some general notes. This is my first time reading through your fanfic and I haven't read any of the earlier versions, so there's no way for me to know how much or little you have improved from the original. Moving on..

Ok, that's a pity... if you knew how bad it was... I can't describe the praise I'd be getting right now.

Alright, formating. I notice that you've written your latest chapters in standard, uncolored font. This is good because it makes your fic easy to read on all layouts, and easy readability is always a plus. On the front of things that are not so good, however, I notice that you're still using colored comic sans MS on the earlier ones.

I just have to ask: why? Please go edit those tags out right away. It's a five-minute fix that makes your fic look a lot more professional.

Will do.

Second, I agree wholeheartedly with Scythe-kun's remark about the names you bring out at every change of viewpoint. When such a change occurs, it should become obvious from your narration so highlighting it is just pointless and disruptive for your story. (And yes, certain readers may find the notion of spelling things out for them in this way insulting)

I don't know, I'm not trying to ignore your advice... I'll think about it... No, that sounds insulting too... Now you're confusing me... Ok, fine, I'll edit it out and see what it looks like - but when you have four protaganists... It sort of makes sense...

Third, titling. Always think your titles over carefully. It should be descriptive of what happens in the chapter, yes, but again you shouldn't spell things out for your reader. If just glancing at the title lets your reader divine the entire contents of that chapter, then their curiosity for said chapter will have been efficiently butchered in the process. Allude to the contents of your chapter, hint at things, be a bit poetic, but never EVER spell out the contents. Also, do keep in mind that you don't have to title your chapters. No title is better than a flat one.

Forget chapters, I hate 'The Saga or Blue, Silver, Ruby and Pearl', it lacks emotion and it sounds boring... But I don't want to do: 'Four kids and an adventure' ... Just ...

Chapter titles... Fine, I won't spell it out...

And as a last general note: I'm going to have to agree with ACC here. This is a very difficult tense you have chosen to work with. The present tense has some merits to its name, and yes, when used right it can create a unique narrative style, but more often than not it's just going to explode in your face and the results...aren't that pretty, to be honest. Given that, by your own admission, you're already experiencing problems with this fic, I'd strongly suggest a past tense narrative. It's a far easier form to handle and in most cases works just as well as present tense. Readers will also be more familiar - and thus probably more comfortable with - fics written in past tense. Present tense is interesting, but unless there's some specific effect you seek to establish by using it (one that you can't achieve any other way) then I'd really suggest not punishing yourself with this. Present tense will still be there for you to experiment with later on anyway.

No offence, but I'll always stick with present tense, I don't like past tense.. It's not fun... I'm punishing myself? Please, present tense is... my tense. Well, not really, but, yeah, you get what I'm saying...

How can he tell?

Give me a few minutes to come up with something.

Okay, ACC already brought up the point of dynamic description briefly, but I'm going to build on that a little. This paragraph has a fairly detailed description in it, which is good, but the description is presented in short, choppy sentences, which is not good. I mean, if I told you a story about how I went to the supermarket. The supermarket has a yellow logo with red text on it. And opened the supermarket door. The door was of a greyish white color. And stepped inside. And then I closed the door behind me. And if told you each and every thing I did in that store. With a full stop after each action. And after each description. It would be a very tedious read.

Amazingly enough, I can see exactly where you're coming from... Yeah, I'll fix that - some day...

Again, less beating your reader over the head with the information and more working it in as it becomes relevant. Do we really need to get to know about the sibling thing right now? That would have been a lovely surprise to reveal later on. The badge rule is just plain insane. Thirty-two? What, go to all the four regions or it's nothing? I'm...just not convinced about such a radical shift from canon. The everyone picking Charmander thing sounds sort of unreal too. I mean, there will only be so many Charmanders so the others will have to be picked by those who didn't come there in time for the manders. Why did league authorities see fit to quadruple league entry requirements all of a sudden, anyway? Explanation, please.

Explanation comes later, but if you want the truth... Corruption within the government by many different teams caused all of that, but, that's for an extremely long speech for professor Oak just before the eighth gym.

As for everything else, I'll edit...

And your other notes? Yeah, I'll take those in mind...

Thanks AE - Reviews help... Well, so long as you listen to 'em.