The Mystifying Magikarp [Ready for Grading]

Trying to catch: Magikarp
Easiest.
3-5k Characters


The Mystifying Magikarp
Chapter 1: Intro
Alec woke up from a deep sleep to find Charmander looking at him. "Char char!" said Charmander, eager to start the day. Alec chuckled and sprung out of bed. He took a shower and went down to the Pokemon Center's restaurant for some breakfast. Alec had some pancakes and bacon, which was his favorite breakfast meal, and Charmander had some Pokechow. After breakfast, he set out west from the Pokemon Center. He came across a bridge, and decided to figure out where it lead. As he was crossing the bridge, he saw a fisherman struggling to reel in his line. Alec said, "Wow, what did you get?" The fisherman replied, "I don't know! No fish could be this heavy!" Alec ran over to him and attempted to help him reel in his line, but it was to no avail. The fisherman's hand slipped and the pole fell into the water. The fisherman sighed. "Here, take my extra rod. Maybe you'll have better luck than I did." he said. "Thanks!" said Alec. He threw a Poke Ball into the sky and said "Come out, Charmander! Let's go catch a Pokemon!" A white ray flashed down onto the bridge and a Charmander appeared. The Charmander jumped onto Alec's shoulder, and they were off to catch a Pokemon!

Chapter 2: Fishing for Charmander!
"Ugh! Come on! It's been-" Alec checked his watch. -" 2 hours now! Maybe I should just give up. Charmander. We're leaving." Alec waited, but Charmander didn't come. "Charmander! Where are you, Charmander?" Then he heard a cry, "Char char!" He could see Charmander being carried down the river. He kicked off his shoes and dived into the water. He swam and tried to get closer, but Charmander was just gaining distance too fast! Then he had an idea. He leaped out of the water and grabbed the fishing pole as fast as he could. He then ran down the riverbank where he found Charmander just barely hanging onto a rock. He shouted "Charmander! Grab onto the line!" He wasn't sure if Charmander could hear him over the raging rapids, but then Charmander grabbed onto the fishing line. Alec reeled it in as fast as he could, and soon Charmander was lying on the riverbank. The fire on his tail had gone out. Alec was very worried. He leaned over Charmander and put his ear on his chest. He could still hear his heart pounding. The fire on his tail started burning again, and soon he was back on his feet. Then, a Magikarp

Chapter 3: The Battle

"Charmander! Are you recovered? Charmander nodded. "Good, then let's catch a Magikarp! Remember, it's a Water-type so it has the advantage! Alright then! Let's start it up with Metal Claw!" Charmander leaped into action and began running at the Magikarp. The Magikarp dodged Charmander's slashing claws and retaliated with a Water Gun. The stream of water hit Charmander dead-on, visibly hurting him. Charmander recovered and then Alec said, "All right, let's use Flamethrower!" Charmander's mouth turned red hot, and then he fired! It was a direct hit on Magikarp! Magikarp went back underwater in pain. The Magikarp recovered and jumped from the water to use Tackle. It was speeding towards Charmander, and right before it hit, Alec said, "Let's use Metal Claw once more!" Charmander leaped to Magikarp's level and attacked. They collided. There was a huge explosion. Alec could tell both Charmander and Magikarp were hurt. But he wasn't giving up until he caught that Magikarp. "Alright, Charmander, let's use Smokescreen!" The battlefield became very smoky. Alec and Magikarp couldn't see through it, but Charmander could. Magikarp sprung at what he thought was Charmander, but ended up being a tree. Charmander jumped out of the smoke and used Scratch, hitting the unsuspecting Magikarp, further damaging the Magikarp which was already injured from hitting the tree. Alec then said "Poke Ball! Let's go!" and launched a Pokeball at Magikarp. Magikarp disappeared into the Pokeball and it went "shake, shake, shake." Alec waited in anticipation.

 

Re: The Mystifying Magikarp [PLEASE SOMEONE GRADE]

Claimed for grading.

 

Snap! That other grade held me back for a while. I'm grading yours probably tomorrow, worst case Wednesday. It's a short one.

 

INTRO
What impression did I get when I started reading this?

This is a very short story, so I'll just critique the opening sentences.

You have a conventional yet efficient opening: the protagonist is woken up by his Pokemon. This gives you a good starting point story-wise and lets you establish who this story is about.

PLOT
Is it a good story?

It's an ordinary story. Boy with Charmander gets detoured from Eterna Forest to get an Old Rod and fight a Magikarp. The Eterna Forest subplot could've been removed. Nothing happened there, and Alec completely forgot about it once Charmander fell in the river.

"But suddenly X!" is kind of a cliche. Lead up to this one. Were there Magikarp in the river before? Describe them leaping and splashing in the water or something.

DIALOGUE
Do we understand what they're saying?

Nothing particularly good or bad here. The characters talk. They say rather bland things that you'd find in the games, but it moves the story along. Doing anything sophisticated would need a longer story anyway, so what you did works with what you've got. You can't say better than that.

CHARACTERIZATION
Are your characters original, well-defined, and compelling?

Just as with the dialogue, the characters are also rather bland and NPC-ey. For the same reasons, this isn't too much of a problem. You'll have to make up interesting characters with strong motivations for what they do and distinctive ways of thinking and talking for when you write longer stories.

The Magikarp, however, isn't very mystifying. In this sense your choice of title was rather poor.

GRAMMAR
Does you talk pretty?

Funny thing is, for short stories this section of my grade always turns out to be longer than the story itself...

You need a comma before the modifier on "Charmander."
"...said Charmander, eager to start the day."

Commas before "and" are used when the clauses on either side of "and" can stand as sentences themselves. Your second clause is not a sentence; therefore, drop the comma. Drop the "then," too, for efficiency. This way the verb becomes "took a shower and went down."

Time phrases like "after breakfast" need commas after them.

"To" should be "for". No comma either.

You should use "would hope" only if you say "they would set out." Since the events of this sentence are actually happening, you must say "hoped" instead.

As before with "and," you don't need a comma before "but."

Comma isn't necessary.

As with "after breakfast," you need a comma here. Put it after "bridge."

You need a comma after "said" when you put a line of dialogue after that. Also, you need to put dialogue in its own paragraph with double line breaks and use a better word than "said." It's also generally smoother to put the descriptive phrase of who's saying what after the dialogue. My recommendation:

Fix the rest of the dialogue formatting in the same way. If you don't entirely get it, look at the grammar guide in the stickied posts or at a successfully-graded story. There's no lack of those on this board.

You could try "ran over (to him)." It's more specific.

Default style: "Poke Ball." You may deviate from this style if you want, but be consistent.

Major rule: When a name is called in dialogue, it must be set off with commas. Examples:
"Have you seen Fred?" The name wasn't called, only said. No comma.
"Fred, have you seen my keys?" Fred was called. There is a comma after "Fred" since it's the first word in the line of dialogue.
"You, Fred, are the worst singer I've ever met." Fred was called. There are commas both before and after "Fred."
"I don't know, Fred." Fred was called. There is a comma before "Fred" because it's at the end. Notice that this sentence has a distinct meaning from "I don't know Fred." The first one has you telling Fred you don't know something- possibly because you're Barney Rubble. The second one has you telling someone else you don't know this person named Fred.

A popular rule in fiction writing: exclamation marks may only go in dialogue. They may appear in narration if and only if the narrator is actually speaking as a character.
Also, you need to capitalize "Pokemon." You've done it elsewhere in the story.

The regular plural of "Charmander" is "Charmander."
One Magikarp, two Magikarp, red Magikarp, blue... Gyarados?! And so.

If you're using description to break up a line of dialogue, the most elegant way is to use dashes.
Em dashes aren't hyphens, and need to be entered differently, but this is a technical thing. You can just use hyphens. If you really want dashes... on a Windows computer hold down "ALT" and press the numbers 0-1-5-1 on the number pad. If you're a laptop user, you'll need NumberLock or the Function key.
These are hyphens: - - - -
These are em dashes: — — — —
Dashes are longer than hyphens. So the way you want to write this is:

As you can see, the second "it's been" is now optional. Also, short numbers need to be written out with words, not digits. "4" -> "four." "12½" -> "twelve and a half." "12,345" -> no change.

You can't begin sentences with "and," "but," or similar words unless it's dialogue.
It's probably also better to say "follow" than "come."

You need a comma before "Charmander."
Trivia:
The famous line "Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo?" seems to violate the "commas around a called name rule."
However!
"Wherefore" does not mean "where." Just as "there" answers the question of "where," "therefore" answers the question of "wherefore." Therefore, "wherefore" means "why."
In other words, Juliet is actually saying: "Romeo, why did you have to be from the Montague family? Now we can't date!"

Using double exclamation marks is bad style.
Also, you can't have -narration-, "dialogue" when both of them have different subjects. The narration is about Alec and the dialogue comes from Charmander. No good.
Instead: "Then he heard a cry. "Char char!"

Only liquids or liquid-ey things may "flow." Fire-type Pokemon, with the exception of the Slugma family, may not be said to be liquid-ey.
Try "floating" or "being carried down" instead.

There are a lot of exclamation marks in this section. You simply can't use them.

You also overuse the phrase "as fast as * can." Try to vary it a little.

You can't begin a sentence with "but." However, what you can do is join this sentence with the previous one and use a comma to separate them. "...rapids, but."

"Go" is an irregular verb by the rules of English grammar. The proper pluperfect form is "gone out" instead of "went out."

This is not very elegant. It is simply a list of events. Try to make it flow better. Break them up into their sentences and add detail.

Typo. "Lets" should be "let's."

There ought to be a comma after "remember" unless Alec is talking too quickly to pause for commas. Also, the default style is "Water-type" with capital letter and hyphen.

Awkward use of conjunctions and not enough detail. I suggest:
"The Magikarp dodged Charmander's slashing claws and retaliated with a Water Gun. The stream of water hit Charmander dead-on, visibly hurting him."

"Alright" should be "all right."
"Lets" should be "let's."

Generally, we say "a direct hit on X" instead of "a direct hit to X."

I think you can see the problem here. You really need to vary up your sentence structure.

You need a comma after "said." Also, "let's" is messed-up again.

You started a sentence with "and."

Commas for a called name.

I think the more common spelling is "smoky," although I have seen both in books.

This is undefined grammatically. You should rewrite it to say "further damaging the Magikarp which was already injured from hitting the tree."

That "lets"/"let's" thing is really giving you trouble, isn't it?
Explanation:
"Lets" is the third-person singular form of the verb "to let."
FIRST PERSON I let. We let.
SECOND PERSON You let. In Texas: All y'all let.
THIRD PERSON He lets; she lets; it lets.
(3P PLURAL) They let.
"Let's" is a contraction. It's short for "let us."

To be honest, I think the only instance where someone or something would go "Shake, shake, shake!" would be in an obscure N64 game, "Mischief Makers." That was because in that game it's an actual line of dialogue. Poke Balls can't talk. If you're going to do the onomatopoeia in quotes thing, you need at least to remove the capitalization, but it's still awkward. Also, remove the "Alec waited in anticipation" and make it its own sentence.

DETAIL
Can we see what you're saying?

What bridge? I don't remember if there's a bridge on the route east of Eterna Forest, but even if there is (especially if there is) you ought to describe it.

More attention paid to the appearance and effect of the attacks is never a bad thing.

PLAUSIBILITY
Does it make sense?

Alec has not healed Charmander. You should say "have you recovered" instead of "are you healed." This makes it clear that it's just Charmander pulling himself together.

Magikarp is feeble, true, but using Flamethrower on a Water-type Pokemon is really bad technique, especially when you've already got Metal Claw.
Also, Magikarp can't stumble. They don't have legs. You should already know that fish-ey Pokemon tend to flop around when they're on land. To make this battle a little more favorable towards the Magikarp, you should have it be fighting from the water. That's its natural habitat, anyway.

LENGTH
Is it long enough?

Single capture.
Magikarp (SIMPLE 3,000-5,000)
You: 3,925.
You're fine.

OVERALL
What did I think, personally?

It's a basic story for a basic Pokemon. Basic isn't good, and isn't bad, and in this case is required.

FINAL
To catch, or not to catch?

Spoiler

Capture denied. You need to make some slight adjustments. 1: Grammar overhaul. This was minor in terms of its effect on the grade result, but it never hurts to fix it up. 2: Eterna Forest. You went nowhere with this. Either write it out of the story or have some sort of acknowledgment of it toward the end. Alec got sidetracked, and so did you. 3: The battle. Describe it a bit more vividly. You can see my version of the sentence mentioning Water Gun in the Grammar section. 4: Magikarp. How can a Magikarp fight on dry land? You need to justify this or have it use most of its attacks from the water beneath the bridge. It's ignored in the games, but we tend to be more descriptive in writing stories. Fix these things (shouldn't take more than a few minutes) and PM me for a regrade.

 

Thanks for the grade, will fix errors, then hopefully it will be ok, my first story, so I didn't expect it to be that good lol.

 

Eh, good enough. You're missing half a sentence at the end of Chapter 2, but I know what was supposed to go there.
CAPTURE!

Remember for next time:
Dialogue formatting. Seriously, go look at other stories. When people talk, they get their own paragraphs.
No exclamation marks except in dialogue.