It is currently Thu Mar 28, 2024 9:31 pm



Reply to topic  [ 4 posts ] 
 Gian Jungle 

Is this story good?(read before voting)
Yep 100%  100%  [ 1 ]
Nope 0%  0%  [ 0 ]
Dunno 0%  0%  [ 0 ]
Total votes : 1

 Gian Jungle 
Author Message
Bug Catcher
Bug Catcher
User avatar

Joined: Sat Nov 10, 2007 12:34 pm
Posts: 3
Location: Somewhere in the Delta region
Chapter 1:Kidnapped

Luke puffed and panted as he ran through the forest. He had the feeling something....No someone was watching him. He heard a Bastiodon and Rampardos fighting and saw two Sunkern playing hide and seek. "Must reach Oliver and Will" Luke panted. Luke heard a Charizard's roar. A Charizard? That wasn't right Charizard live in mountains not jungles. Then he saw it. A huge bright orange Charizard flying straight towards him at an estimate of mach 1. Next thing Luke knew he was in a dry and clean prison cell in a cave with Oliver and Will.

_________________
Image
Image


Tue Nov 13, 2007 1:51 pm
Profile
Pokemon Master
Pokemon Master
User avatar

Joined: Wed Sep 27, 2006 12:03 am
Posts: 1559
Location: Dragon's Den
Post 
Right, well first off, welcome to Canalave Library. Having clearly missed the stickies, I'll direct you to them. ;)

The Decent Fanfic Guide

Writing Tips from various authors in Canalave Library

Okay, about your story;

First off, the chapter isn't really long enough to class it as a chapter. A good A4 page on Mircosoft word would suffice, or more if you can manage it.

Secondly, you're being too precise. I find that when you want to describe how a character is feeling, you need to make the reader feel that way too. In this case, you want your character to feel lost. I'm not saying that you should be vague, but you should certainly convey that the charrie is lost, while making sure the reader knows what's happening.

Look:

Quote:
He heard a Bastiodon and Rampardos fighting


How can he hear that the two pokemon are fighting. I mean, certainly, he could hear them battling, perhaps hearing them scraping around on the ground, but he wouldn't be able to identify them. Try and word it like this:

Quote:


He tore through the dense undergrowth, noises all about him, a sense of panic settling in his mind. To his left he heard desperate noises. Ferocious roars resounded about the trees, and as Luke looked to his left, he saw a large beast ram its head into the side of a quadrapedic Pokemon. He knew what they were, and knew that they were ferocious. The Rampardos and Bastiodon continued to fight as he fled the scene.


You see how the reader is feeling his sense of panic by describing it? Similarly, you are actually telling the reader how he arrived to the conclusion that it was those two Pokemon battling.

Another point; you've tried to grab the reader by making the opening have a good hook; you've revealed Luke's mission to find Oliver and Will, and I'm certainly wondering what predicament they are in. However, before the end of the 'chapter,' he has already completed this mission. It means that the hold you had on your reader has completely loosened. They don't really care about the story now, because you've told them 'the ending,' so to speak.

Now obviously, this is not the direct end, that was just a hypothetical reader.

Oh, and remember what I said about being a little unspecific?

Quote:
Luke heard a Charizard's roar. A Charizard? That wasn't right Charizard live in mountains not jungles. Then he saw it. A huge bright orange Charizard flying straight towards him at an estimate of mach 1.


How did he know it was a Charizard that roared? Yes, he may have good hearing, but it's more dramatic and tense for the reader if you don't tell them just that sentence before. Also, why the mach 1 part? What do you hope to acheive by this precision? Surely it would be better to leave this part vague, and ensure that the reader is left in no doubt of its speed by being vague; I'll show you what I mean:

Quote:
Luke heard another roar, but this came from the sky. Still running quickly, he looked up through the branches, just in time to see a blur of orange race over the treetops before it vanished out of sight again.
Luke barely had time to think, as it had suddenly appeared, beneath the canopy of the trees, and flying directly toward him. He didn't have chance to even contemplate escaping from the beast.


The part in blue shows you how you've mentioned Charizard, but not by name. This vagueness keeps the reader interested.

The part in redshould show you what I mean about precision; by actually stating Mach 1, it's telling the reader how fast it is, and this gives it an actual boundary. By not specifying, and merely saying 'suddenly,' and stuff like that, it's open to the reader's interpretation, and their imagination will make it as fast as possible.

Oh, and as a parting comment, the final part is far too rushed in my opinion. Why are they there? There's no indication that this will be explained in the next chapter, and as I explained, the reader has already had his/her wish fulfilled of having Luke's goal reached. He's found Will and Oliver, and now they've lost interest in what he's doing.

I really have gone to town with this extract, but I'm hoping that it will help you with the next part to this story. I look forward to the next extract, and hope you take what I've said into consideration.

_________________
Image

"Play with fire and expect to be burned."


Tue Nov 13, 2007 3:02 pm
Profile
Pokemon Ranger
Pokemon Ranger

Joined: Mon Aug 20, 2007 7:17 am
Posts: 508
Flexar wrote:

Luke puffed and panted as he ran through the jungle. He had the feeling something....no, someone was watching him. He heard a Bastiodon and Rampardos fighting and saw two Sunkern playing hide and seek.

"Must reach Oliver and Will." Luke panted. Luke heard a Charizard's roar. A Charizard? That wasn't right. Charizard live in mountains, not jungles. Then he saw it. A huge, bright, orange Charizard flying straight towards him at an estimated speed of mach 1. Next thing Luke knew, he was in a dry, clean prison cell in a cave with Oliver and Will.


That is your chapter fixed grammatically/no more careless errors.

A little short, don't you think?

Include more description. I didn't understand anything about any of the people or their surroundings.

I don't feel connected to the characters. It's almost like Luke is just some random dude running around. I don't know anything about his personality.

He identifies Pokemon through sound. GARY SUE ALERT!

Build up suspense. You revealed it was a charizard to plainly.

Mach 1 is very specific. Avoid that.

But you do have potential. You just need to improve your writing in general. Check out The Obsidian Wolf's story "The Darkness Within Him" To see what good writing looks like. Books are good, too. May I recommend Erin Hunter's "Warriors" series?

EDIT: Woah, somebody posted while I was typing.


Tue Nov 13, 2007 3:12 pm
Profile
Pokemon Ranger
Pokemon Ranger
User avatar

Joined: Sun May 07, 2006 2:33 pm
Posts: 716
Location: USA EST
Flexar wrote:
Chapter 1:Kidnapped

Luke puffed and panted as he ran through the forest. He had a feeling something, no someone was watching him. He heard a Bastiodon and Rampardos fighting and saw two Sunkern playing hide and seek. "Must reach Oliver and Will" Luke panted. Luke heard a Charizard's roar. A Charizard? That wasn't right Charizard live in the mountains not in jungles. Then he saw it. A huge, bright orange Charizard flying straight towards him at an estimated speed of mach 1. The next thing Luke knew was that he was in a dry and clean prison cell in a cave with Oliver and Will.

Sorry Thunder, but you missed and got some things wrong when you were correcting the grammar.

This is way too short, especially for a scene like this. This could potentially be a very nice scene. If you want to reference good action scenes (and you should) check out some of Obsidian's stuff. As for the overall feel of the story and getting emotions across to the readers, that's more of my specialty. But, let's not jump ahead of ourselves.

Elipses should really be used at the end of sentences. A comma creates a pause (or it should) so you can still create a dramatic effect with it. You forgot a lot of words and had a lot of poor word choices. I didn't show where you have some poor word choices because I was only correcting the chapter's grammar.

Just as the others said, he shouldn't be able to hear which Pokemon are fighting or roaring since a roar is a roar is a roar. Yes, I know it's repeated, it was done on purpose.

There's very little to intrigue the reader and coerce them to read more. You tell them everything within a sentence or so. You're telling not showing; aim for the opposite. There's no easy way to explain that unfortunately. Here's a slightly different way to open your story.

My version wrote:
His breathing was ragged as he ran through the jungle. His legs burned from the long sprint; his need to find his friends was his only motivation. As he ran, the hairs on the back of his neck stood up. He had the horrible feeling that something was watching him...


Of course that was brief and it would've continued but do you see the difference? We've still introduced his motivation for running blindly through the jungle and that there's something watching him.

Mach 1 is way too specific. Your general audience knows that's very fast but won't be able to imagine it. That makes this bit of description useless. Obsidian wrote a nice example of a different way to write this tid bit.

The pokemon fighting is kind of random and takes away from the focus of the passage. During this sort of scene, your reader shouldn't wonder about what's going on in the background. Hell, they never should be unless it'll eventually be important. Yes it's important to properly create a world around your characters but this should be done tactfully. Certain descriptions are appropriate for different parts of your story, you need to figure out which ones go to which.

You started with action, which is a good strategy. You even employed it correctly. Isn't it nice to know that you did something right?

_________________
Link changed to my library.
Image


Tue Nov 13, 2007 5:25 pm
Profile
Display posts from previous:  Sort by  
Reply to topic   [ 4 posts ] 

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 4 guests


You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot post attachments in this forum

Jump to:  
cron
Powered by phpBB® Forum Software © phpBB Group
Designed by STSoftware for PTF.