Caterpie Capture

The sun shone down through the trees that covered Viridian forest as the young trainer entered the wild landscape. She nervously pulled her hat down over her eyes, and she kept one hand in her pocket, rubbing the pokeball with her only Pokemon in it like a worry stone.

The forest was as silent as a tomb, the quiet only broken occasionally by a screeching Pidgey or a howling Poochyena. As she walked on tiptoes, Maya saw many Pokemon dart across the path, but there was only one she wanted.

Her friends had all made fun of her, as they excitedly grabbed there Bubasaurs, Charmanders, and Squirtles, while Maya had gingerly picked up a Bulbasaur and sighed, “This will do.” As time went on, she learned to love the little Seed Pokemon she had gotten as a starter, but now she longed to have another Pokemon. Preferably one more creepy and crawly.

Maya loved bug Pokemon. At home, her room was covered with posters of the top bug Pokemon trainers. No one had yet beaten the Elite Four with a team entirely of bugs, but she would be the first. Secretly, she was hoping she would spot a Butterfree, her favorite, but more realistically, she wanted to find a Caterpie.

Where could they be, she thought angrily, they're one of the most common Pokemon! I've seen every other Pokemon in this forest! They must be around here somewhere.”

But even though she searched the forest high and low all day, she couldn't find a Caterpie. Several times, she had seen Weedles, Wurmples, and even a Kricketot, but she didn't consider them for a minute. No, her first bug Pokemon would be a Caterpie.

She searched and searched to no avail. At lunch, she wouldn't have even stopped to eat if her Bulbasaur hadn't popped out of it's pokeball to demand a cucumber sandwich. Finally, when the sun was low in the sky, she saw a familiar green shape squiggling along the path.

Please, please, please, don't let it be a Burmy, she prayed hastily.

As she got closer, her heart leaped in her chest, “It is a Caterpie!”

“Go, Bulbasaur!” she cried as her fingers did what they'd been itching to all day. They pulled the pokeball out of her pocket, and threw it towards the small caterpillar Pokemon in front of her. As soon as her Bulbasaur materialized out of the pokeball, she began barking orders.

“Let's start off with a Vine Whip!”

Two long vine tendrils appeared out of the bulb on her Pokemon's back, and struck the Caterpie head on.

The Caterpie retaliated with a weak Tackle. When it struck, Bulbasaur barely seemed to feel it.

“This is easy, Bulbasaur! Now let's try Razor Leaf!”

The vines were sucked back into the Bulbasaur's bulb, and were replaced by razor sharp leaves that twirled through the air and cut at the Caterpie's hide.

It weakly tried to hit the Bulbasaur with a sticky String Shot, but missed by a mile.

“Let's finish this with Sleep Powder!”

White powder rained down on the Caterpie, and it immediately closed it's eyes and fell asleep.

Maya smiled as she threw a pokeball, and crossed her fingers as it rocked back and forth....

 

Introduction:

As the story opens, we spot the main character walking through Viridian Forest. A little more description of both the forest and the character would do well; right now, all we know about her is that she’s wearing a hat; hopefully, she’s wearing more than that. It was good to include the actions she was taking, but if we get more description of what she looks like, it helps us visualize things better. For instance, I pretty much had the mental image that it was a female Ash, since he’s the trainer I most often associate with hats; that may simply be my prejudice, but it’s something to consider for future stories.

And one nitpicky bit: “through the trees that covered Viridian forest”. I think you mean that made up Viridian Forest, unless it has layers of trees. Also, the F in Forest would be capitalized because it is part of the proper name of the forest.

Plot:

Girl goes hunting in forest for Caterpie because she likes bug Pokémon. Pretty basic, though you do spice it up a little with the backstory of why she is hunting for it, and have her passing up other Pokémon in the meantime. However, the target Pokémon doesn’t need a very complicated story, so you’re fine there.

Dialogue:

Not very much of it here; the main character called attacks to her Bulbasaur, who then executed them. There was also a bit of internal dialogue, which I wanted to look at.

You put the quotation marks at the end, but not in the rest of the sentence; likely just something you missed in the proofread. And even though it’s internal, it is deserving of the quotation marks because it’s something that is being thought specifically, as opposed to something like this:

Without there being more examples of it, I can’t really tell how strong your dialogue writing skills may be; however, there was only one English-speaking character, so other than calling attacks, she had nobody to talk to but herself.

Grammar:

A couple minor errors; for instance,

You’d want to use their in this case, as it refers to possession. Also, you forgot the L in Bulbasaur.

Another error was with commas around quotation marks;

It should actually be a period before her statement, since the two are separate sentences. And I would have used italics on the is; that would put the sentence emphasis that she’s using in the right place.

Instead of “and it” I would have used “who”; it’s less repetitive that way.

Other than that, things look good. You started new paragraphs when you should have, used the right words at the right time, and were consistent with your capitalization; afaik, it’s personal choice whether to capitalize Pokéball. I always do, but you never did, and were consistent about it, so no qualms there.

Detail:

I covered this a bit in the first section; at times, it was hard to visualize from the story the events that were going on. I had mental pictures that I’ve accumulated from years of watching the show and playing the games, but in some places it was nearly all I had to go on.

“familiar green shape” is only familiar to people who are involved with the fandom; someone with no experience wouldn’t be able to easily picture it. I would mention the rounded body, enlarged head, or yellow underbelly; it would help things be fleshed out a bit more. Within the next few lines, you mention it as a Caterpillar Pokémon, but that’s about as far as you go.

You described the Bulbasaur a bit more, talking about the bulb on its back where the attacks all came from; however, you never mentioned what color it, or the vines, or the Pokémon were.

The attacks had a bit more description to them, which was good. We could definitely see them in action, whether it was the small Caterpie hurling itself at the larger Bulbasaur, or the white spores being released to cover it.

This is where I would focus more attention; detail can be critical to visualizing and understanding a story. Without detail, stories generally will devolve into a series of actions; that doesn’t refer to just adjectives. You do touch on what your main character is feeling, and occasionally thinking, which is good. Just remember to describe things so other people can see them as clearly as you did while writing it, and to give us more depth behind the actions, like why the actions are occurring.

Length: Caterpie is in the Easiest category, needing 3-5k; you had 3,046 chars with spaces, which is within the range, though it falls on the low end. If you were to put more detail in the stories, I can see it easily increasing that to the middle of the range.

Reality: The hardest thing to believe in the story was that the main character was a girl who liked bugs. It’s not that big a stretch, though I would have remarked in the story how it was something that set her apart from most girls, who don’t tend to. It also took a while for her to encounter a Caterpie, which is about all I find when I’m traveling through Viridian Forest. Overall, the story was completely believable within the world.

Personal Feelings:

The story was a bit short, which didn’t really let me get a grasp of it; I’d have to look at more things you’ve written to get an overall sense of your writing levels in general. Overall, it wasn’t bad, and because of the difficulty level of the Pokémon in question, it didn’t detract much from it.

Outcome:

Caterpie Captured. Make sure in future stories you’re keeping an eye on your detail levels, and I think you’ll do fine; most of what I saw in this story just needs practice to get down. Enjoy your Caterpie.