A Smashing Success-[Successful!]

Pokémon captured: Machop
Machop category: Simple
Character goal: 5-10k characters
6,346 characters (with spaces)
5,270 characters (no spaces)

A Smashing Success

“Meep…” Andy heard a faint sound as he was flying through the sky… (What’s that? It sounds like something I recognize…) he thought while he zoomed above the treetops…
“MAREEP!!!” the thing screamed.
“Urgh… what do you want?” Andy said sleepily as he woke up, “I was having a really good dream!” A fluffy yellow thing beside Andy's bed told him something.
"What’s that, Meep? You say you hear a banging outside which is making you not sleep?” Andy asked his Mareep. Meep, the Mareep, nodded, and then exclaimed as the banging sound got louder.
"It's getting louder! Let's go find what's making all that sound!" Andy said as he got out of bed and started to run toward the door. Meep made an embarassed sound, looking at Andy.
“What? Oh, I still have my pajamas on? Whoops…” Andy said, looking down at his clothes.
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“Okay, Meep! You can come back out of the closet!” Andy said, with his actual clothes on.
Meep ran out of the closet, going straight for the door.
“Now let’s go find what’s making all that noise!” Andy said, following Meep.
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Andy and Meep ran out of the bedroom, ran outside, and went toward the banging sound. When they got outside, they heard the banging even louder. When they went to the source, a tree a few houses away, they saw something that looked like a midget, naked kid banging against the tree! Andy gasped, and started to walk away, but then the thing turned around and looked at Andy. It said something, confused as to what Andy was.
“Whoa, Meep, do you know what that is?” Andy asked his pet Mareep, “It looks like a Pokémon that I remember…” Meep then told Andy something while looking at the other Pokémon.
“It’s a Machop? Fighting type? Cool!” Andy said, excited that he had found a Pokémon, “Hey, Machop, we don’t want to hurt you, but could you please go somewhere else? My pet Mareep here couldn’t sleep because of your banging against the tree.” Andy tried to explain to the Machop.
“Machop! Chop!” The Machop said, acting like it wanted a battle.
“Meep, the Machop wants a battle! If he wants one, get out there and show him what you got!” Andy told to Meep, getting excited. Meep yelled as it jumped into battle. The Machop started to run toward Meep, looking like it was going to land a really strong punch!
“Meep, dodge that DynamicPunch! If it hits, it you’ll be hurt really badly! After you dodge, use ThunderShock!” Andy yelled to Meep. Mareep yelled out as it dodged the Machop’s attack and zapped it with a small bolt of energy. Machop yelled furiously as he was hit with the shock. It instantly started slapping the Mareep with a Wake-Up Slap. Meep was hit, but it wasn’t down yet!
“Meep, you can take down that Machop! Use another ThunderShock!” Andy told the Mareep. Mareep instantly followed orders, zapping the Machop into shock.
“Chop…” Machop was getting really slow, and then it started not moving!
“Wow, it’s paralyzed! Meep, get in there and take it down with another ThunderShock!” Andy said excitedly.
Meep said something to Andy, disgusted that he would tell it to attack again.
“What? You don’t want to?! You’re just about to win!” Andy said, not believing his Mareep. Meep said something to him, looking at the paralyzed Machop.
“Oh, the Machop can’t do anything? You don’t want to hurt it, as it would be an unfair battle? Okay, I guess… Machop, do you forfeit?” Andy asked the paralyzed Machop.
“Ma… chop…” Machop said, nodding.
“Okay. Meep, let’s go. We found out what was causing the banging, so let’s go back home!” Andy said, walking away.
“MAREEP! MEEP, MAREEP!” Meep yelled, glaring at Andy.
“What are you so angry about… oh, I understand. You don’t want to leave Machop suffering like this. Here, I think I have a Paralyze heal with me.” Andy pulled a Paralyze heal out of his pocket, “I always carry a few with me, because you like to paralyze me, Meep, with your Static!” Meep instantly burst out laughing.
“Well, here you go, Machop! I hope this takes effect soon and helps you get rid of that nasty paralysis!” Andy told the Machop as he used the Paralyze heal on Machop, “Now, Meep, let’s go back home! I’m sure the Machop is fine now.”
“Mareep!” Meep said as it started to walk away with Andy.
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“Well, we got up really early, found a random Machop, battled it, helped it, and came back home before 7:00 AM. I think we deserve a nap, don’t you think, Meep?” Andy said, flopping down on his bed. Meep agreed, and soon both of them were asleep…
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Andy felt something poking him as he was flying through the skies again…
“Huh…? Meep, stop it! I’m having a good dream…” Andy mumbled, trying to go to sleep again.

Andy felt another poke, this time harder than the previous one.
“What is your problem, Meep?!” Andy said, getting up from his bed. “Meep, what do you wa- Whoa, how the heck did you get in here?!” Andy exclaimed as he saw the Machop that he had battled earlier that day standing right beside his bed. Machop said something, trying to get Andy to understand, while making quick hand motions.
“You say that your other trainer abandoned you, and you want to be my Pokémon?” Andy said. Machop nodded, and started getting really hyper.
“Sure, you can come with me!” Andy exclaimed.
“Machop!” Machop said, jumping around the room with happiness. He was so happy that he crashed into Andy’s dresser and smashed a clay turtle that Andy had made for school.
“Machop, calm down and listen to me!” Andy said, “First, you have to meet the rest of my Pokémon! You have already met Meep, but there is another Pokémon, the Pokémon I started with, who’s named Hornsly! Hornsly, come on out and see your new buddy!” Andy released Hornsly, the Nidorino, from his Pokéball. Hornsly appeared on the floor, looking at the Machop.
“Nido… rino?” Hornsly said, confused at what the naked little boy-looking thing was supposed to be.
“It's a Machop! He's decided to stay with us! I think I’ll call him Smash, because he smashed my clay turtle when he heard me say that he could come with us!” Andy said, liking the Machop’s nickname already, “Only if it’s okay with you, though, Machop!”
Machop jumped up and down, nodding.
“Okay, Machop, I will call you Smash!” Andy said to Smash, “It sounds cool, too!”
“Machop!” Smash said, agreeing with Andy.
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Re: A Smashing Success-[Ready for grading!]

Dibs.

 

Re: A Smashing Success-[Ready for grading!]

Introduction: What's funny is that today I decided that I want a Machop too. [/nonsequitor]

Plot: Andy and Meep the Mareep are trying to enjoy a good night's rest. However, they hear a noise outside. They go to investigate and find a Machop hitting a tree outside. A battle ensues, and Mareep paralyzes the Machop. Andy heals it and goes inside. Upon waking up from a nap, Machop returns, asking Andy to join his team, because his other trainer abandoned him.

Certainly not a basic plot, but at the same time, its not really complicated either. I did like that it dealt with Pokemon abandonment a bit (something rarely dealt with in any media, IMO). My two favorite moments in the story were when Andy forgot to get dressed and where Andy revealed that Mareep paralyzes him from time to time. For some reason, those two instances were incredibly amusing.

Length: Machop is a Simple Pokemon, and requires 5,000 to 10,000 characters. You have 6,000, which is just a little bit more than the minimum required.

Detail: Some parts are well detailed, others aren't. I liked how you described Machop as a naked midget banging on a tree. Some of the best story advice I've been given and give to others is to pretend the reader has never seen a Pokemon before, and you are describing it to them for the first time.

In other areas, the detail seems to be passed up in favor of dialogue. Dialogue is important, but it shouldn't dominate a story. :/ In the future, try to mix a few details in. Describing the environment, the characters, or even the main character's emotional outlook and inner thoughts add so much more depth to a story, and is almost necessary to catch anything beyond a Simple Pokemon.

A fair amount of your dialogue was Pokemon saying their names. It gets kind of repetitive after a while, and I think it was more than half of your dialogue. In an already dialogue-heavy story, this detracts from the story somewhat. Also, I wasn't really sure how Andy could understand Pokemon speech.

Grammar/Spelling: I saw no mistakes here, concerning spelling and grammar. Be sure to watch out for typos, however.

The main problem in this area is largely conventional. On the Internet, you can't start a new paragraph with the indent (it doesn't work for some reason). As such, common Internet convention is to separate paragraphs by hitting enter twice and having a line between the paragraphs (as I'm doing in this grade). Another minor conventional suggestion I might make is that people usually put the thoughts of a character in italics.

The final conventional problem is the dialogue formatting. Every single thing spoken ends with an exclamation mark or an elipses. Your characters were either yelling or barely able to speak. :/ Furthermore, when you add more sentence after a quotation (provide it doesn't start with a proper noun), the first word is not capitalized. For example:

"Breakfast is a wonderful meal," said Raidon hungrily.

Battle: The battle was mostly good. You described a fair deal, which was pretty good. Since it was largely a physical battle, describing Machop's attacks is fairly easy. However, if I had never read anything Pokemon related before, I have no idea what a Thundershock looks like. More description could be used in that area, and perhaps how the Pokemon look after an attack. Besides that, it was an appropriate length, both character-wise and round-wise.

Outcome: Machop not captured. I was on the fence with this one until I got to this section, but the conventional errors killed it. You were really close, really, really close. Just go back, fix the conventional errors I mentioned, add a smidge more detail, and I'll regrade. Drop me a Visitor Message when you want me to regrade.

 

Re: A Smashing Success-[Waiting for re-grade]

You didn't really fix the conventional stuff, but you added more detail. Machop captured.

 

Re: A Smashing Success-[Waiting for re-grade]

I couldn't really think of other things to change...
Thanks for the Machop anyway!