[Phantom Kat]

I'm sorry the grade is so short. D:

Plot: I enjoyed the story as a whole; your writing style made every part, whether be it a battle or a simple conversation, enjoyable to read. However, there wasn’t much that made me keep on reading to find out what happens next, and I know the reason why. This is Chapter Two of your story, so it’s not meant to stand alone; it’s meant to serve as a transition to something bigger. There’s nothing wrong with chapters that are mostly informative, but in the URPG, each chapter has to be able to meet the expectations of the Pokémon you’re going for. As great as the chapter was, I felt it needed more meat to the plot in order to capture a Scyther. This chapter mostly consisted of the three assistants getting out of the lab with their new Pokémon and Mimi, Momoru, and Kazuma hanging out and getting to know some of their background history. Although not boring to read, I was waiting for something to truly grip me and reel me in.

In the future, make sure that your chapters coincide with the Pokémon you’re capturing. Maybe you could have saved the Bug Catching Contest for a chapter that is more than just pleasant conversations and the start of a search. To do that, you could have elaborated on the assistants’ travel to Goldenrod and/or Momoru’s training. Remember, a Complex Pokémon requires a well-thought out plot, and that well-thought plot has to be somewhere in the chapter.

Also, if your story/chapter is a continuation of a previous story/chapter, please put some kind of summary of what happened before in case a new grader comes along, like me. Due to the lack of a summary, I was lost when it came to the importance of the Pokémonitor, who the assistants were, and some other things.

Something I found awkward was that you tended to insert most of a character’s history into one instance that interrupted the flow of the story, like who Neku was. Large chunks of information like that are always better to spread around the story to be gradually revealed instead of forcing it all at the reader at once.

P.S. I squealed when I read “Kazuma” and “Mamoru.” xDD

(Kazuma Kuwabara from Yu-Yu-Hakusho and Mamoru Miyano, who voices Ling Yao (points to avatar) in Full Metal Alchemist, are love. <3)

Introduction: Nice introduction, although I couldn’t visualize where they were or what had happened before the story started (aka, the battle against Peaches and Pidgey). Avoid jumping straight into the character’s thoughts when you hadn’t even explained to us what had happened or where they are. It makes the introduction confusing.

Grammar/Spelling: This was top-notch. I’m only going to point out one thing:

“He’s okay, Mimi,” Neku smiled at her. “See for yourself!”

Okay, pay attention, here. The comma after “Mimi” is incorrect because what follows after (“Neku smiled at her.”) is not a dialogue tag: you can’t “smile” words. So the comma should be a period. If you want to put anything that isn’t “she/he said, defended, yelled, remarked, etc.” after dialogue, even if it’s right after the dialogue has been spoken, you use a period.

Length: Overachiever needs a gold sticker. :3

Description/Detail: You had great description throughout the story. A good example is the description of the restaurant and the description for Kazuma. In between these bouts of awesome-ness, you had blurbs of description I know you can elaborate on. All the Pokémon were described extremely vaguely and with words I can interpret in so many ways, such as seven-foot-tall dinosaur. Pokémon are odd creatures that vary greatly in looks, so you need to be very specific. Instead of saying “dinosaur,” elaborate with “a dinosaur whose neck stretched and bore ripe bananas,” or something along those lines. If you don’t describe the Pokémon in greater detail, you run the risk of:

1) the reader interrupting their reading to look for a picture of the Pokémon.
2) the reader imagining anything and then later being contradicted by something you wrote.

Your human characters were better described, but some, like Neku, were completely neglected. Some were probably described in Chapter One, like the assistants and the professor, but Neku had his first appearance in this chapter and was left un-described. By doing that, you are leaving the reader to completely imagine the character as however they see fit. Even minor characters need to be seen, not just read. For the characters who were described in an earlier chapter, it’s always a nice refresher to add some description about them throughout the chapter. Instead of saying “Ein,” you can say “the black-haired teen” and so on. This is also a great way to avoid repeating a character’s name over and over again.

Battle: Though I could visualize everything well, I felt that more description as to how each Pokémon executed their attacks would have been nice. For example, Pidgeotto was sliced in the chest, but I never saw when Scyther actually pulled back to strike. Even if he is moving extremely fast, he had to pull back a scythe, take aim, and then attack. Of course, too much description will ruin the effect of a rapid and tense battle, but too little description will make the battle seem like a blur of one attack after another.

During the battle, Pidgeotto took a very grave blow, but after he used Roost, he seemed perfectly fine. Since Roost only heals half of the maximum HP, it’s very likely that Pidgeotto would still be visibly weak. Keep those kind of details in mind.

Outcome: Your chapter needed more meat to its bones, but I’ll say, Scyther captured! The chapter was beautifully written, and I enjoyed reading it. :3 Enjoy your Pokémon!

- Kat