The Defenseless One

Okay, this is my first story. I'm kind of nervous to see if the grader will except my catch.

Characters: 3,768
Target: Magikarp

Spoiler

I stare at the ocean for about a minute, if I counted my seconds correctly. The salty smell of the beach. And the beautiful Sun just above the horizon, since it`s about 6:30 AM. “Aron Ar,” says my Aron. Next to Aron is my Torchic, who seems to be looking at a Wingull in the sky. “Aron want do you want to do?” I say to my Aron who’s as well is staring at the same Wingull eating a Sitrus Berry on the tree. I catch its attention and it looks at me. I know what it wants. It wants a battle.


“Okay, Aron use Metal Sound on the Wingull!” I command Aron. “Aron!!!” cries out Aron with an extremely high pitched voiced. The Metal Sound got Torchic’s attention and now he’s looking at Aron who’s pumped and ready for battle. The Wingull then realizes that it’s in battle. “Wingull!” cries out the Wingull right before it uses Water Gun. “Aron dodge it!” I say with Aron then successfully dodging it. “Now Aron use Iron Defense!” I command Aron. Aron freezes and begins to shine like metal. The Wingull flies toward Aron and hits him with a direct Water Gun. “Aron” says my Aron trying to survive the hit.


“Aron! Retaliate with Headbutt!” Aron runs towards Wingull who’s perched on the sand. Wingull flies up and dodges the hit. The Wingull uses Water Gun from above. Aron dodges the attack. “Aron use Metal Sound!” I command. Aron uses Metal sound and hits Wingull. “Wingull Gull!” The Wingull flies down to recover from the Metal Sound. Aron runs towards Wingull without command and uses Metal Claw, then Take Down.
“Great combo Aron!” I shout out to Aron in the distance. “Wingull,” says the weak Wingull. I walk towards Wingull and gives him and Oran Berry. “Wingull,” says the Wingull munching on the berry. The happy Wingull flies away into the distance. “Good battle Aron,” I say giving Aron an Oran Berry. He then happily eat the berry. “The day’s still early. What else is there to do,” I say. I look around, and I don`t see Torchic anywhere. He must have got distracted during the battle, that’s usual of him. Aron and I follow his tracks that go down the beach.


In the distance I hear Torchic yelling. I run with Aron keeping up by my side. “Torchic! Torchic!” yells Torchic who’s angry at a Magikarp. “Karp, Karp,” says the Magikarp who’s near shore. For some reason, the Magikarp got under Torchic’s skin. “Torchic, why are you so mad at Magikarp?” I ask Torchic. “Karp, Magikarp,” says the Magikarp whose splashing water towards Torchic. “You’re mad at Magikarp for splashing water near you?” I question Torchic. “Torch,” answers Torchic. “OK, want do you want me do to about it?” I say to Torchic.


Torchic then use Scratch on Magikarp. “Wait, I don’t want you to battle Magikarp, it’s so weak and defenseless!” I say to Torchic. Torchic then uses Ember on Magikarp. “KARP!” cries out Magikarp, you can tell that was a critical hit. Poor thing, I better do something before Torchic ends up killing it. “Torchic stop!” I command. Torchic disobeys and uses Scratch. “Karp, Magikarp” says the Magikarp. It can’t do anything other than Splash. “Aron!” yells out Aron telling Torchic to stop. “Torchic!” yells Torchic. It uses Focus Energy.


Oh crud. Focus Energy, Torchic will kill Magikarp in his next attack. I throw a Pokeball at the Magikarp. The Magikarp enters the Pokeball just in time to dodge Torchic’s Ember. “Torchic, come back” I say sending Torchic back to its Pokeball. “We need to work on your anger management,” I say to Torchic’s Pokeball.


The Pokeball containing Magikarp shakes. I want Magikarp, so I can train it and make it strong. Magikarp won’t no longer be defenseless under my training. The Pokeball still shakes. It’s a waiting game. Every second you expect Magikarp to pop out. But, it doesn’t. Maybe Magikarp wants to be with a trainer. We’ll see soon.

 

 

Claiming.

 

I got my Magikarp?

 

A grader's "claim" means that the grader is reserving the story to grade. We do this so that other graders know that the story is currently under review, and there's no awkward situation in which two people were reading / reviewing a story when in fact there only needs to be one grade. ^^ Claims are nice because they mean that the grade will be up relatively soon, too.

Good luck, and have fun writing!

 

OK, thanks.

 

Introduction: We start with the main character staring meaningfully at the ocean, for about a minute. Which the character seems to have counted, but we're never told why. Why is he out at beach this early on the day? Why was he counting the seconds he was staring at the ocean?

If he was, let's say fishing it'd be justifiable since it's quieter that time of the day. If we knew he was journeying, we could know he was just taking a quick break before continuing, but we don't know the story of this character. In fact, we don't know anything about this character, while one could theoretically chalk it up to poetic license or literary style the theme of the story has to match the feeling – when the protagonist literally doesn't affect the story in any ways, or is put in second plane throughout the story.

In this same paragraph you introduce your Pokemon, Aron and Torchic. I'd strongly recommend not spelling out Pokemon cries, if in your story they don't speak then just use other ways to imply their emotions. Writing them out is quite frankly padding, it doesn't add anything to the story and is usually accompanied by a dialogue tag that already conveys the information regardless of the content. e.g.: “'Blaze ken' Blaziken yelled angrily” could just as easily become “Blaziken yelled angrily” without any loss of meaning.

Now, this passage is a bit confusing:

You begin by introducing the second Pokemon, Torchic which is fine, and then you describe something happening in the surrouding, Wingull is flying nearby. But immediately after you say something to Aron who is now watching that same Wingull eating a berry in a tree. There's no passage of time so there shouldn't be a change of actions.

You continue by saying the character catches the attention of 'it', the flow of narrative implies the 'it' is Wingull but it was just eating a second ago, it shouldn't want to fight. Any hostility it may have passed off can be interpreted because you interrupted his meal so the 'it' being Wingull doesn't make much sense. The fact you had previously asked Aron what he wanted means it could be it but he's too far from the 'it' to be the Pokemon that's being referred.

Battle 1:

Immediately after that we begin the battle, you have Aron send an attack – which further supports the 'it' from the previous sentence was Aron. You describe Aron's actions at first, but then completely ignores Wingull's attacks and Aron's final combination. As well as not describing the battlefield or the Pokemon.

Whenever dealing with Pokemon that are from Gen II and up, always assume the reader is a genwunner that won't know these Pokemon, and whenever you're dealing with Pokemon from Gen I, assume the reader only played BW. That is, always describe the Pokemons, while Pokemon like Torchic and Magikarp are easy to remember due to their iconic status in the fandom as starter and … Magikarp, others like Wingull and Aron aren't as easy to remember.

It's important to describe the background and the moves too because it can seriously influence the battle. If the battle's in a beach, for example, the Water Gun Aron dodged, could have caused the arena to become all muddy lowering his mobility. This part also comes across as padding because it has no effect to the story whatsoever.

Aron had a battle, okay, but then you completely forget about Aron to go deal with Torchic and Magikarp the next part, and, it carries no weight to the next part. Instead, of let's say trying to have Aron stop Torchic but failing because he's hurt or something of the like, this battle is completely ineffectual.

Battle 2:

It's less of a battle and more of a one-sided pounding. It starts with we hearing Torchic screaming angrily, after running to his location we see Torchic is apparently angry because Magikarp splashed water near him. Now, unless Torchic was really close to shore it should be impossible for him to splash Torchic with water.

If he's so bothered with water why would he go so close to shore? Anyways, after being irrationally irate he just starts attacking Magikarp, so to save him you try to catch it.

And then subject us to a weird PoV shift:

It starts as first person, becomes second person for a sentence there and then goes back to the first person. You might want to replace that 'you' for 'I', and merge that with the other sentence. I'm not going to say if it's wrong or not since sentences beginning with conjunctions being grammatically wrong is a bit debatable, it's still a sentence fragment, it has a subject and a transitive verb but no object (Who does, does something).

And by the way, you don't have to end stories in the “Will it catch or not?” ending, there doesn't even have to be a capture or a battle in the story.

Length and Description: There's barely no description, please work harder in this front on the future. The length's alright but most of it is essentially padding.

Overview: Since this is your first story on the URPG and this is a Magikarp story I'll pass this one, but please, be aware you'll need to work some more on the description in the future. If you need some help with writing, I'm willing to help you, or you could look for a writing mentorship.

 

:embarass:
Well, I never really took interest in this section. The only reason I wrote a story, was to get a Magikarp. So, I was planning for this to be my only story in this section. In the future I will be heavily relying on the Art Gallery for my means of capture.

Other than that, I'm claiming my Magikarp.