[Splishee]

You've been waiting a while, haven't you? I'll grade this for ya! :]

EDIT: Done!

Grade

Plot

Three friends head to Cinnabar island for a vacation, but miss the boat so these sinister guys offer them a ride. One of the friends, Danny, encounters another boy on the boat named Zane, and they battle for some time but are interrupted when the boat arrives at Camelot instead of Cinnabar. They get scared of the scary men who want to kidnap them so they run, and run into King Diablo - the ruler of Camelot Island. He orders his soldiers against them, so they run into the castle for refuge. Sara goes into a royal bedroom and discovers a talking Abra, OMG! The Abra tells them his story and how King Diablo is a really bad guy who wants to kidnap children and make them their slaves. So they escape the island on Zane’s Skarmory, and then Abra’s teleport, and Abra asks Danny to join him on his adventures.

First off - you repeated the Arcanine vs. Wartortle battle twice. Once in the first post, and then again in the second post. I won’t penalise you for it, but just try to remember to look over your story after you’ve posted it! It can save a lot of embarrassing things like that happening, that’s for sure. :P

Now, about the plot. The whole plot just seemed… weird. Like, there wasn’t much going on and everything that did happened seemed a bit… random. Like the plot wasn’t going anywhere. Firstly, why did you bother telling that whole story about King Diablo and then just have the kids flee the island rather than try and stop the horrible things happening? It was such an anti-climatic ending, that’s all.

The plot also seemed random because the things that happened had no relevance to the ending. For example, Zane and Danny’s battle. Why? There was absolutely no point to it. It seemed like an excuse for a battle, really.

Introduction

The introduction is just kind of ‘meh’ to me. You had some humour at the start and a pretty good beginning plot wise with the kids rushing to miss the boat, but otherwise it didn’t quite manage to hook me in in the way that a great introduction succeeds in doing. Great intros start off with something quirky or interesting which make the reader interested in the story and develop a hunger to read more; not that your introduction didn’t make me want to read the story, but developing writing skills in hooks is a great skill to learn.

Also, what I found a little odd was your introduction of the characters. I understand that characters all have history, but as soon as the story started (well a few paragraphs in) you just shot through their biographies - bang, bang, bang. It was very overwhelming and didn’t flow with the story at all; my top priority with story writing is the fluidity of the writing and plot advancements. The kids missed the boat and then suddenly we had their life stories forced upon us. It was daunting and made me a little bored with the story.

It’s great to have characters with a backstory, as it gives them more depth, but often it pays off to introduce the character’s personality and faults and then give their back story later on as a sort of explanation for the character’s weaknesses and the way they have become. It adds great emotional depth to a story, but just throwing out biographies in the introduction just makes the characters seem a little bland and not interesting. Yah?

Just some food for thought. ^^

Length

50 k for a 20-30 k mon?! Wowee, you sure are dedicated. You could have gone for two Hard mons, do you realise this? Otherwise, this was fantastic. Just keep in mind that creating a massive story doesn’t guarantee you the capture. There are plenty of other factors in a story to consider. :P

Grammar

Wow, your grammar was basically flawless. Damn, really. Excellent grammar most of the time. Hardly any complaints. Just 2 things:

“So.....what can we do to escape this horrible island?”

You did this a lot of times. Whenever you use ellipses (…) you only need to use 3. Don’t use more than three dots. :P

“She was immediately elated at the sight of the island. She loved everything about it, the nature, the castle, everything. She told Diablo that she wanted to name it Camelot Island. He agreed immediately, for her idea gave him a very diabolic plan.”

“He told his wife he was going back to the mainland to get some supplies. She let him do so, and the chaos then began.”

When paragraphing speech, you don’t need the closing speech mark on the end of the paragraph. It should be:

… She told Diablo that she wanted to name is Camelot Island. He agreed immediately, for her idea gave him a very diabolic plan.

“He told his wife…

Yah? ^^

Other than that… you had a lot of typos. A LOT. I’m not going to give some, because I want to make you go back through your story and fix ‘em up for the sake of learning from one’s mistakes. ^^

Really. Simply reading through your story after you finish it can prevent a lot of embarrassing mistakes such as typos and repeating entire excerpts (the Arcanine/Wartortle battle :P)

EXCELLENT GRAMMAR HOWEVER. Apart from those things. :]

Description

I’m kind of at a crossroads as for what I think about your description. For the most part, you have an excellent vocabulary and do a very good job in describing things that your characters see and experience. However, on the other hand, your descriptions are just so… bland. Short, choppy sentences with plain adjectives. Half the fun of reading is being able to be shown a description of something with vivid, flowing language that is food for the senses (describing what they hear, see, feel, etc.) and using metaphors and similes to convey an image. Have you tried using ‘figurative language’? It’s when you write using language that contains metaphors, similes and extensive descriptions (eg: ‘her face was as delicate and soft as an angel’s, and she walked with a certain elegance that it seemed soft, feathery wings would sprout from her back at any second.’ Stuff like that.)

For example, the way you described every character was something like this: (this is how you described Jack)

He was wearing casual, denim, blue jeans with a ruby red shirt. He had huge muscles, earned by heavy weight-lifting.

See what I mean? You’re just listing what your characters look like, leaving nothing to the imagination or any language that is flowing or just feels nice to read. Here’s an example of something I’m talking about:

“ Danny stared at Jack with exasperation, and Jack returned the look just as forcefully. He swept his muscular arms across his shirt, the startling colour of rubies, and began to tap absent-mindedly on his legs which were covered by casual denim jeans. He was the ultimate picture of boredom, standing there; he would look boring as well if not for his flaming red hair being toussled softly by the wind. “

See how that’s more flowing and gives more food for the senses? I’m not saying that every single thing you describe should be like this - of course not! That grows daunting for the reader. But whenever you decide to describe something significant you should make sure to work on your descriptive skills. :]

The weird thing is: you described a lot of things exactly like that! Such as Arcanine and the hut. Beautiful descriptions, and I’m really impressed with the ones you managed to pull of excellent writing in. Consistency with this across most descriptions would be excellent though.

However, I think I may be being a little hard on you. Your descriptions were actually quite good, and I loved the types of adverbs you used. Like I said above: Arcanine descriptions and the Huts - however unnecessary and story-bloating as they may be. Try to describe only the necessary things, too. Also, your vocabulary is pretty good - heck, it’s great - in some parts, though in other parts it’s lacking. You need to be consistent with your description to make the story an all-rounded great thing!

Battle

For any story to pass, you need the Pokemon to battle. You need the Pokemon being captured to battle someone, one way or another. I’m sorry, but I cannot pass this story unless you allow Abra to battle.

He doesn’t have to battle Danny - Abra could possibly battle one of the guards’ Pokemon on the way out as they try to stop them?

Overall

Your grammar was excellent, your description was adequate for a Hard Pokemon and your length was outstanding… but, sorry, but the lack of Abra battling makes me unable to give you a pass on this story. Want my advice? Just add in a battle scene where Abra is battling someone, and make it as vivid and great as you described the battles between Zane and Danny. If you can do that for me, I’ll give you a re-grade and you can be sure that it will be a pass. :]