Remembering the Past, Fighting the Future (Not Ready for Regrade)

(Hi, so I'm clearing all of my stories out for personal reasons. I have copies on my hard drive if, for legal reasons, I'm not allowed to do this, but otherwise I'd prefer for this old shame to die old shame. ._.)

 

Re: Remembering the Past, Fighting the Future (Ready for Grading!)

Miiiiinnnneeeeee.

 

Re: Remembering the Past, Fighting the Future (Claimed)

I basically wrote most of this in one night, while rushing to get it done before I left. It's certainly not low quality, 'r anything. Spent two weeks thinking about it, anyway. It's just a bit messy. And I think I forgot to finish a paragraph. SO IF SOMETHING LEAVES OFF AT AN ODD, SLIGHTLY UNCONCLUDED PLACE, THAT'S WHY. Apologies in advance. Also, I packed my glasses, and as such couldn't see the screen after I took my contacts out. Typos were difficult to spot. I TRIED TO FIND THEM.

Also. I can capture a Hard Mon with this thing's length. Bahaha.

Introduction/Detail: As a complete function, your introduction worked to show me the character, story, and setting while it built a hook. Those aspects were all decently clear. Making Amber the explicit focus on the introduction hinted that this story would revolve around the situations and relationships she forms, which it does indeed. There are two tricky points to pulling off a descriptive lead, both of which I’d say you made it about halfway in: What you’re describing has to be interesting, and what you’re describing has to be as good as you think it is. Both of these aspects are handled directly through description, as the name of the hook would imply.

Now, concern number one. This character. While you portrayed her as a figure that has a certain enigmatic air, and left enough of this ambiguity to create a slight friction of interest, I’d say that some of the description was wasted. Your main goal with the first paragraph seems to be setting her up as “apart” from humanity (mainly through blindness), a theme which is pretty present throughout the piece. Despite this, though, the details you honed in on didn’t always build this idea. The focus of a descriptive lead should be working out what you’re trying to say, and how you’re going to say it. If a detail included doesn’t both show the object and create the feel of the object that you’re aiming for, it should probably be avoided.

The third paragraph, which is still part of the hook, describes the way her hair is fixed, the clothes she is wearing, and her body build. While all of these details could emphasize her blindness, they kinda just sat uselessly. Outside of a descriptive lead, this would be more of a stylistic choice—inside of it, though, this breaks down the very functions of what you’re trying to achieve. Being blind, there’s no way she’d be able to get a perfect braid. You could take a moment to mention that she’d had someone braid it for her, or you could show us a braid that, while consistent in thickness and pattern (only because of years of practicing blind hair-fixing), was an inch or so crooked in its angling. In the instance of the clothing, you could say that, perhaps, she tended to dress in off-kilter colors, or make a mention of some process she went through to establish a matching wardrobe. On a separate note, patterns, habits, and markings are quite common with functioning blinds; although she can sense auras, she still can’t see, and would realistically have attempted to work out some semblance of organizations to prevent herself from becoming any more embarrassed in public than necessary.

On to the second aspect of a descriptive lead. Choosing something to attack with detail in an introduction insinuates a certain level of importance and awesomeness. If the story proceeds to reveal that, while you have told us details about this object (especially something as omnipresent as a main character), you have not shown us the meaning, relevance, or even existence of these things… the success of the piece can be hindered. Staking it on a character is even more daring than an object, as no one can really dislike objects (unless they’re massive phlebotonum; everyone hates phlebotonum). Characters, however, are pretty much hit-and-miss. When you set them up for massive scrutiny like this, they better be able to carry through.

As to whether or not Amber carried through… Some people might debate me on this, but I’d say that, although she did have the promised disturbing past and a traumatizing blindness event, there were a few areas that could’ve been polished. One of those, and probably the primary one, would be the blindness itself. At points, it didn’t feel like you thought it all the way through. While there was the issue with the reading, there should also be a lot of other issues—even with the aura considered. There are a lot of vague limitations to the aura, it would seem; it would also seem that most of these should affect Amber regularly, even if in small ways. Most of these would occur, like the reading incident, in the company of others. For instance, while talking to people, it’s highly like that, although she does know where the people are and roughly where their heads are located, even if she tried to make eye contact, the affect would be all, “UH. HI, MISS. THAT’S… UH. WELL. THAT IS TO SAY. I, UH….” Disconcerting, that is to say. A mention of small things like that would’ve added a lot more dimension to her character, and shown her as someone who, although she is capable of finding her way around, is also undeniably crippled. More of this under the plot section.

At any rate, the other aspect of Amber in need of more attention was the fact that she’s not all angsty, despite everything she’s been through. Some of the happiest-acting people I know are also the unhappiest; this isn’t what I’m talking about. It’s more the fact that she has this upbeat, optimistic, compassionate attitude that doesn’t usually spring from situations like hers unless there have been “personality balancing occurrences” along the way. It’s not exactly a unique outcome, but her usual niceness does deserve a certain level of attention. The clear-cut way to give Amber her due would be to just blatantly mention it in the narrative. I wouldn’t recommend this. Building the idea subtly, through the impressions of Ri and her other acquaintances, would be the most effective way that comes to my mind. You might be able to plot something up that suits your style more. At any rate, even if the person doesn’t know about her fast, anyone who’s read the whole text does—so an offhand thought about how incredibly optimistic the girl can be, or something to that extent (especially in a negative way), could work well. This’d also elucidate her personality further, which she could use.

So all that said, your introduction was risky. Had a lot of affect on the later assessment of the story—which is actually what the best of intros should do. It was handled decently, although not perfectly. All things considered, though, you did well: especially for a first attempt at a URPG story.

Plot: I was not particularly enraptured by the plot itself. This was more because of the handling of certain sections than because of the plot itself. It felt like there was far too much battling—even for a tournament fic. The death of Lu was the only point that made me really sit up and pay attention, simply because it was so dang oops and sniffly. For a fic this length, it felt like very little happened. That said, a lot did happen; it just didn’t leave a large enough impact to feel like a massive succession of plot events. This is more of a detail issue than a plot issue, but you should also keep in mind with your detail that it does impact the way readers perceive the events they’re reading about, which directly impacts the plot. The basic layout was… Amber walks by emotionally disturbing place, Amber gets into Pokémon battle, Amber decides to join tournament. On its own, that’d probably make it as a hard-level concept. With the incorporation of the events in Amber’s past, which move from the death of her mother to the murder of her guardian at her own hands, things get quite a bit more complicated. The main plot arc, however, demonstrates a worrisome lack of… plot relevance, almost. It kinda bled into the background in a bad way, at points. Much of it seems to serve directly as a tool to get to the explanation of Amber’s blindness. Although this is this definitely works, it is slightly wasteful. Like I keep telling you, take advantage of it. This is the beginning of a story, so it’s expected that there is some lull in activity, action-wise. That just means you should take Amber’s walks and fill ‘em with twice the amount of character development, or twice the amount of theme setting up, or twice the amount of witty wordplay. Mix and match, even. Just use it for something more than a little show-and-tell that really only serves to build her past.

I’ve already mentioned the blindness as a character device, and how it seems somewhat weak. This is partially because of weaknesses in the way auras were explained and employed. Auras only glow off of living things. This begs a few pretty darn important questions. i.e., how Amber handles items. If she has a crutch like the auras to at least direct herself towards people, small inanimate objects are going to give her some trouble, if they don’t start off in her hand—she won’t have the sixth-sense it’s rumored blind people develop, because she has a completely different sixth sense to employ. That one also seems like it’d fail her quite a bit. Chairs, tables, rocks… Even absurdly active shepherding from Ri (which I didn’t really see) wouldn’t prevent her from smacking into the occasional rock. Unless it had lichen on it. BUT NOT ALL ROCKS HAVE LICHEN. And sheesh, walls. Do dead plants (wood walls) give off faint auras? Do plant-based materials give off auras? I assume not, from her issues with reading the paper. Does she ever worry about being stuck somewhere that has no life? Like I said, without the natural hearing/touch intensification that often develops in the wake of sight deprivation, getting locked up somewhere with not even a potted plant, or lost in an alleyway if Ri walks away for just a second, could be a major worry. If she has developed the hearing/touch feelers, there wasn’t mention of it, either. Stuff like this is a detail issue that makes problems for the plot. Consider it a bit.

Grammar: You didn’t really have any mistakes. A typo here or there, sometimes in grammatical matters—all of which you did correctly in other instances. Although… remember to double-check your dialogue tags. You typoed ‘em pretty often. I can assume you know what you’re doing. The things you do need to watch out for are redundancy, confusion caused by tense, and awkwardness.

Redundancy was just… you saying the same thing in three different sentences. While each sentence may shed some more light on the issue, it’d be better to just say one sentence, or to find a way to say the same things with the impact of one sentence (note that I didn’t say the length of one sentence—impact is the important bit there). You also repeat words frequently within sentences; unless it’s a deliberate stylistic choice, or you check it over and it doesn’t feel particularly awkward, you should try not to do this. It can usually be avoided.

Right in the first few paragraphs, when you talked about Amber, you said that she looked different from any of the girls who lived in her town. This is an issue, because in subsequent paragraphs, you tell me that she hasn’t lived in a town for quite awhile. The confusion lies in the tense of the word. While there are girls living in her town, and while she at one point lived in her town, the simple past “lived” insinuates, when combined with the rest of the sentence, that she is still living in her town. Clarifying this is kinda really tricky, as the “girls lived” and “Amber once lived” are both correct, but Amber is the subject and the girls are the object. Since they’re both applied to the same verb, everything gets icky. It’d be best to reverse the structure so that the girls in the town Amber had lived in look different from her (…and have the subject place instead of the object place). Obviously, this is a rough where-it-goes sentence, not a copy-paste suggestion. XD You do this darn often, though. Keep a lookout for it on your read-throughs. Can be hard to spot.

Awkwardness happens decently often. It’s your punctuation’s fault, mainly. You use… commas, and that’s about it. There are a wide variety of other wonderful little marks to employ. When you get into sentences that have a lot of parts… (“Amber breathed a sigh of relief and was preparing to order a second attack when the Pidgey simply turned around, still cloaked in the glowing light from before, and rammed into Ri, knocking the tiny Pokémon to the ground, visibly winding it.”) …you should consider incorporating a good old period. Either that, or try for a different structure—something that revolves around an em-dash (which I saw you use a few times, and am relatively sure you can employ at a basic level) or a semi-colon (which I didn’t see quite as often as the em-dash; ‘s just a use when you want to “break up one sentence with two separate, complete, stand-alone clauses” thing.)

This one is not an example of the funky ing clause; it’s just awkward. The subject is “the tip of its tail.” The way this sentence breaks down, the tip of the tail is what gets closely followed by a pink blur. Your grammar doesn’t reflect that. Cross out the “as” clause, and the “closely” bit works; with the “as” clause as a distraction, the sentence makes more sense if there’s an “and was” before the closely, just to clarify what’s happening. This is something you do a lot, just by nature of using long sentences. Long sentences need to be done really, really right, or clipped down to a shorter length. Your writing will fare better if you start giving more very, very careful attention to the grammatical structure of these long ones. Either that, or, as I said, start cutting them down. One thing I should note: You alter your sentence lengths pretty darn effectively. A lot of the writers who use REALLY LONG SENTENCES tend to ONLY use REALLY LONG SENTENCES. That doesn’t work, writing-wise. You shift sentence length pretty naturally based on the situation, which will definitely be to your advantage in the future.

Details: I kinda ranted you out on the detail aspects of your intro already. XD A lot of what I said, particularly in the area of consistency with the blindness, applies to the rest of the story. While an all-around more precise use of detail could improve your writing by leaps and bounds, precision also isn’t anywhere near as important outside of “pinpoint situations” such as climaxes, massive plot point switches, introductions, conclusions, et cetera. You tend to show things in a way that doesn’t necessarily add to imagery, plot, or characterization. The details build a picture in the reader’s mind, but don’t really influence their perceptions of the matter. You leave a lot up to the imagination. Sometimes, too much. While this is a perfectly valid writing technique, you should consider beginning to twist your details in ways that strengthen the images and thoughts you’re trying to represent.

This paragraph, for instance… I see what’s happening, but not how it’s happening. The how is what builds really powerful imagery. You say “poor Pokémon” in relation to Feebas, which is about the only bit that really has a feel to it. How does Feebas rush at Zubat? Does it writhe helplessly, somehow making an awkward, flopping progress? Does it manage to sail gracefully, despite its ugliness? And Zubat. It’s zipping, but what does that look like? You say zip, and I see a blur in my head, and then a little Zubat incisor-grin. Maybe that’s how you see it; maybe that’s not it, at all. Give me more. When Feebas is thrown to the ground, is it a dust-cloud-raising throw, a gross crunch throw, a wow-a-sandbag-just-fell-from-the-rafters throw… What does the impact feel like, look like, sound like? Any one of these, or combination thereof, would build a more interesting battle scene. Feebas struggles. I’m unclear as to how it got up, as the anatomy of a Feebas makes little sense to me in the first place. You could clear that up a bit. Quick fishy fin flip? Or is it more like an extended pushup? And good heavens, a Trapinch rushing… I only see that as being awkward. It’d be all SMALL BODY HEAD AGH *splat*. That’s what I see. I want you to tell me what you see, though, and then make me see it.

Now all that said, massively overhauling that entire paragraph, and then every other paragraph, in that manner would probably completely overwhelm the story. What you want to do is figure out which details you can use best to your advantage. Choose carefully. Write carefully. Bend every little thing to your whims.

Battle: Your battles were innovative. The move sequences were entertaining, and you incorporated environment well. I’d advise you to keep working on that, as it’s going to be a valuable skill as you proceed in URPG. Lengths were good. What needs your attention in battles is, again, the details. The detail section showed a pretty darn good instance of how this can be spiffed up. The why is rather important, though, especially with a plot layout like this. If you’re going to write a tournament fic, you darn well better have a REALLY ENTERTAINING BATTLE LINEUP. Feebas and Trapinch alone provided a darn good amount of entertainment for the tourney battles. The Larvitar kid’s sparring was obnoxious, to say the least, and made me irritated enough to keep reading. The incorporation of people Amber actually knows (or at least has randomly run into) in the tournament battles was a good move, as it added an otherwise absent degree of intimacy to the procession of the battles. Sometimes, the hero’s personal journey just isn’t enough to make us care. (ASH. KETCHUM.) Bringing in those outside influences was a darn good move, as the battles mean more to the reader if characters they recognize are getting beat by characters you also recognize.

At any rate, even with these well-done attention-capturers, once you’ve got attention, you have to hold it. The foolproof way to do that is to have darn good battle description. It doesn’t matter how complicated the battle maneuvers are if the reader can’t see them in their heads. And more than that, they won’t even be that impressive unless they’re in color. Gotta give it that edge of imagery and relevance. Try to make it feel like every sentence matters.

Length: 82k.

It’s said that a writer should be able to put every single useful thought down, then remove a third of their piece and revise the remaining two thirds, just to reach optimum quality. As a writing experiment, sometime, give it a go. Obviously, keeping yourself strictly to the removal of one-third is probably asking a bit much. Just pretend it’s not. XD Snip out a sentence here or there, and maybe a paragraph or two—try to make every word matter at a higher degree. That said, don’t view it as limiting yourself; view it as trying to make everything stronger, more effective, worth more time and energy. I’d say you definitely could’ve gotten away with a 60k character story, especially if you edited this down with specific bulk-up in mind. You want it buff, not fat. Six times the muscle mass for half the weight.

And all that said, I know that’s a ridiculously hard thing to attempt. I’ve tried it myself more than a few times.

Verdict: Feebas Captured. You certainly wrote a genuine story, and did so quite well. Plot, character, idea—what you said was indeed communicated and perceivable. Admirable venture, here. Very nicely done. What’ll get you the Trapinch is a honing of those details. While you consistently had details, they didn’t always pack the punch they should’ve. At a lower level, you would’ve gotten the capture no problem; with the Feebas and the Trapinch, though, you’re held to a far higher standard. Part of succeeding at the high level captures is learning how to consolidate what you’re saying so that you can put it out at its most potent concentration. I can see you standing up to this standard, no problem. Just work on tweaking things to make Amber's character make more sense, and to give the battles a greater magnetic pull. I know what I said about detail was probably a bit daunting. Don’t worry; I’m not expecting it all overnight, ‘r anything. Not even a perfect breakout within this story. Start small and work your way up. While I want to see you improve the detail, I’m asking for improvement, not a freakish complete overhaul, ‘r anything. That’s more of a “next time you’re writing, consider this” type thing.

AND YES. I TOTALLY GAVE YOU REAL HOMEWORK IN THE LENGTH SECTION. Although I wouldn’t do it on this piece, just ‘cause that’d be WAY TOO MUCH TO ASK. ‘s more a “keep in mind for the future” thing, if you wanna try something challenging. I wouldn’t recommend it if I couldn’t see it doing good.

I'll be out of town for five days, but PM me for a regrade at any time, 'n I'll get back to you once I can.