Thread: The Blaze across the Prairie

(First time writing a story..well, ever, really. Be gentle.)


The sun beat down harshly across the prairie that day. There had been a drought for at least 5 months straight, and the Pokemon that inhabited the area began to feel the effects of it. Food and water were on short stock, and many Pokemon began to flee the prairie for fear of their safety. That fateful day, however, the problem of food shortage would become a lot less of a priority..

"I don't know how long we can last like this.." A hushed whisper would say to another. A "garden" of Sunflora, as they called themselves, were having trouble coping with the never ending heat. "I'm afraid we may have to abandon this plain, the heat will drive us out if we don't!" An older, male Sunflora would call to another. "We cannot leave this land, it has been our garden's land for many years! We've lived droughts before, and we'll do it again!" An elder would argue. "Does that matter, elder? We'll all burn to a crisp if we stay here!" The younger, female Sunflora would speak. The group would squabble fruitlessly, coming to no agreement after an hour of fighting. The female Sunflora, exhausted of arguing with the others, retreated to a small den along a slight crevice in the plains.

"Now, now, children, stop teasing your little brother!" Sunflora would sharply say to her children, 3 Sunkern. "But Mooom, he stole our water!" The eldest son would say, with an angry tone. "N-no I didn't Mom!" The youngest Sunkern would say, with a glint of a tear in his eye. "Children, stop blaming each other, I will sort this out!" The Sunflora would take the youngest Sunkern away into a smaller back-room, all while he wailed a panicked tone.

"How dare you steal your sibling's water! You know how scarce it is!" The Sunflora would accuse. "B-but I haven't done anything! They hate me!" Sunkern would continue to wail softly, with Sunflora letting off a sigh of anguish. "That's it, no water for you tonight!" Sunflora would practically yell at Sunkern, and would immediately send him off to a small straw bed for the night.

As the sun began to set across the vast plains, the youngest Sunkern would begin to plot. His mother never believed him, no matter how much evidence was stacked for him. Perhaps it was that way because of his entrance into Sunflora's care, and how he was found after dropped by a Spearow flying over the plains. As the Sunkern continued to think, he realized something. "Everyone's asleep, I can get out of here!" He'd think to himself, surprised he had not thought of it much earlier. The Sunkern silently hopped to the cave entrance, and began to part the grass coverings of the cave. As he peeked outside, the sun barely peeking above the horizon, he leaped out into the tall stalks of grass. He began to hobble through the underbrush, before something caught his interest, a crackling sound not to far from him.

He'd hop onto a small rock, which barely peeked over the vast stalks of straw, and saw something that made his tiny heart skip a beat. Just a few yards away from him, burned an intense blaze over the dried blades of grass. He'd shriek, before leaping off the rock into the grass. He'd frantically run from the fire, before seeing a shadow lurk above him. Before he could make it out, a set of talons grasped onto his tiny body, lifting him into the air. As he looked up, he'd see a very dazed Taillow carrying him off. He'd cry in vain, but to no avail. Eventually, the constriction of the grasping claws began to knock him out. The last sight he saw of the plains were a blazing fire.

The Sunkern's body ached, and his eyes began to peel open to an unfamiliar setting. People, humans, rushed past his line of sight. After grasping his situation, he realized he was dropped in a small bush near a sidewalk, in some human city. Weak, alone, and hungry, the Sunkern let out a soft wail. For what seemed like forever, humans rushed past the Sunkern, unfazed by the small Pokemon's cries. Eventually, one human stopped along the sidewalk, and approached the bush. "Hm, what's that noise?" The human boy would say, searching the bush. Sunkern tried to move deeper into the bush, to avoid the human, but to no avail. The human grabbed onto the Sunkern, and gently pulled it out. "Hey, little buddy, how'd you get here?" The human would say. The Sunkern, slightly confused, wouldn't say anything. "...Calm down, your safe now. I can tell you've been through a lot. I'll get you some food, come on." He'd say to the small Sunkern in his hand. The Sunkern would let out a small smile, as he fell asleep in the human's palm.

Pokemon: Sunkern [Easiest: 3k-5k]
Characters: [4553]
(This is, once again, my first story. After reading over it, I can see some problems with it, but I'd like to hear your thoughts. Thanks!)

Claiming!

Helllllooooooo! First off, welcome to the wonderful world of writing. Just a little preface—critique is always subjective, or in other words: what I see as good, you may not like and vice versa. What I think you did on purpose might’ve been entirely on accident. Ultimately, you are your own writer—I’ll try to explain why I think some things should be done in a certain way, but it’s up to you. Of course, let me know if you have any questions.

With that being said, let’s jump right in.

THE BEGINNING STUFF

Stories need to have strong beginnings to keep your reader engaged. Think about it like the first five seconds of a YouTube advertisement before the “skip ad” button pops up—you want to make those first five seconds as interesting as possible so that people don’t skip your story.

In this case, your introduction gives a lot of strong background details that become important later on, but it’s a bit of a mixed bag: the sun is really hot, and it’s been really hot for a while. You talk about some consequences—not much food or water, and Pokémon are trying to leave—but it’s hard to get engaged with the stakes of this when there’s so little background information. Or, in other words, it’s hard to be invested in the fate of this little prairie when all we really know is that it’s hot.

And if you’re stopping and thinking to yourself, “but Ely, that’s hard. The easiest way to make readers care is to have stakes, but you just said I can’t use stakes”, yeah, it’s a bit of a rough hand to play from. An introduction is tricky because you can’t rely on readers being invested in your plot to care about the stakes because they don’t know about the plot yet, because the point of the introduction is to introduce them to the plot. It’s a bit circular.

So how do we make people care? Topics like the weather can be a little harder to work with, since people see it all the time. Talking about what makes this particular instance of the day more mind-blowing than the rest is a good approach—and one you tried here—but I think where it falls flat is that saying things are bad is a lot less impactful than showing them. That’s a bit of a higher-level topic that we can focus on when this grade isn’t so long. For the time being, other ways to grab readers’ attention is by having cool bits of action, interesting dialogue, a weird sentence that catches on your mind, and so forth. I like to read through the first line of books I love and ask myself what about that first page kept me reading—it’s always great to learn from the pros!

THE PLOTTY STUFF

I liked your story! It was cute and simple, overall perfect for this rank, and I think you told a decent narrative here. It wasn’t over-the-top or dramatic or mind-blowingly epic, but it really didn’t need to be, and it made for an enjoyable, fast read. I also liked the attention you gave to the rest of the cast—the main Sunkern’s family all got to play roles, and in the short time that we saw them, they were interesting and fun to read about.

One thing I’d like to see you work on a bit is pacing. The second-to-last paragraph of the story feels super important—our main character is being swept away from his homeland! Forever! And taken by strange humans! Because you spent a lot of time setting up the front half (Sunkern at home) of your story so well, this back half feels really rushed. For context, in the time it takes for Sunkern to lose all of his family in a blazing fire, you spent about the same number of sentences having his mom scold him for stealing water. Which was also important to the story, but perhaps not as emotionally-cinching as the total removal of all but one of your characters from existence.

There’s no real rules for pacing, and it’s more of something that you just do until it feels right. When you think about how your day goes, you tend to spend the most time thinking about what was more important to you in addition to what took the most amount of physical time—like you’ll focus on that test you totally failed because it was important to you, or you’ll focus on that time you spent 3 hours stuck in traffic even though it was boring because it took forever, and brushing your teeth was neither important nor long, so you probably don’t think about it. Same with storytelling—focus tends to go on important events (like the house burning down here), or long ones (there isn’t a good example here, but if you had character going on a long journey by foot or something).

THE MECHANICAL STUFF

YEAH. LOOKING GOOD HERE. There’s a couple of comma things that we’ll honestly just save for next time. One quick thing is that you should probably have a new paragraph for a new speaker to make things clearer, so:

"How dare you steal your sibling's water! You know how scarce it is!" The Sunflora would accuse. "B-but I haven't done anything! They hate me!" Sunkern would continue to wail softly, with Sunflora letting off a sigh of anguish. "That's it, no water for you tonight!" Sunflora would practically yell at Sunkern, and would immediately send him off to a small straw bed for the night.

Becomes

"How dare you steal your sibling's water! You know how scarce it is!" The Sunflora would accuse.

"B-but I haven't done anything! They hate me!" Sunkern would continue to wail softly, with Sunflora letting off a sigh of anguish.

"That's it, no water for you tonight!" Sunflora would practically yell at Sunkern, and would immediately send him off to a small straw bed for the night.

THE OVERALL STUFF

This story is great for the rank you’re aiming for. I’d focus on making your introduction a little more catchy and balancing your pacing so that important events get more focus; the rest of the tweaks can come later. This is a really great first attempt, and I have no qualms saying Sunkern captured. Congrats!

Please let me know if you have any questions!