Lanto Journeys

[General Blaze]

Fwee! My first Pokemon fic! I'm so excited about this. Oh, yeah if your wondering what is going to happen to Kanto, the Untold Legends, then your going to have to wait for it. It's taking longer than I thought. But here is something that will keep you waitin for it. Please enjoy. Oh yeah, this is taking place in a made up reigon of mine, Lanto, which is basically an entire chain of Islands.

Lanto Journeys

Chapter One: School is now in session!​

“Zapdos, use Drill Peck!” the young trainer yelled out. With a loud squawk, the legendary bird of thunder slammed into its opponent’s chest, its beck spinning at incredible speeds. After the damage had been done, the Machamp fell over, groaning. For a minute, the stadium that the battle had taken place in was dead silent. Then, as if a bomb had gone off, the stadium was full of noise, the crowd whooping and cheering. The trainer who had won was practically jumping to the moon and back in joy.

“I DON’T BELIVE IT FOLKS!” the announcer yelled. “WE HAVE A NEW CHAMPION!”

“HECK YEAH!” The trainer yelled, still jumping. “I won! I won!”

“THAT’S RIGHT FOLKS!” the announcer yelled. “THE NEW CHAMPION OF LANTO IS…”

“WAKE UP!” A female voice suddenly yelled out.

Immediately the boy’s eyes snapped open, his body getting out of dream mode faster than a Ninjask. The young boy’s brain, not ready for the sudden interruption, gave the boy only one situation that the boy could do immediately.

“GAAAAHHH!!” The teenager screeched, falling out of the bed and hitting the floor with a loud ‘BANG’, his body tangled up in his bed sheets. The girl who woke him up looked at him with a smug look on her face.

“Mom said that if you don’t wake up soon, you’re going to be late for Trainers School,” the preteen said.

“Okay…” the boy said groggily, his voice slightly muffled from the fact that his mouth was covered by one of the bed sheets.

With that, the younger sister left the room, the smug look still on her face. As soon as her footsteps were gone, the boy got up, his face showing that he was still very tired. “Man,” he muttered, “sometimes I really hate Cassy”. And with that, he began to get ready for the day.

The first thing he did was walk over to, at a first glance, what appeared to be a tan-colored ball. The boy walked over to it and kicked it gently, and said gently, “Hey, Longclaw, time to wake up”.

The ball unrolled to reveal what looked like some sort of mouse. He was a little on the chubby side, and his belly and under-chin was white. His small arms ended with three claws on each paw. The Sandshrew’s blue eyes still showed some signs of being tired as he looked at the boy. “Dang it Andrew,” he said. “I was having the nicest dream”.

“Ah, quit complaining,” Andrew said jokingly, running his hand through is spiky black hair. “We’re going to be late for school”.

“Whatever,” Longclaw slurred, his sleepiness beginning to get the best of him again.

“Hey, if you don’t wake up, I’m sure Cassy’s Marill will have a ball of a time using you for target practice,” Andrew said.

This woke the Sandshrew up immediately, his eyes widening in fear of the idea of the Marill’s Water Gun hitting him. “WHAT THE HECK ARE WE WAITING FOR?!” Longclaw yelled. “LET’S GO!”
And with that, the duo began to get ready for school.


A few minutes later, the two friends began to go downstairs to get some breakfast. Andrew, instead of taking the stairs, slid down the railing, Longclaw following. At the end of the stairs, Andrew jumped off the railing, and landed on his two feet. “Yeah! Three point landing!” he exclaimed, but then Longclaw bumped into the back of his head with an ‘Oof!’

“Sorry about that,” Longclaw apologized, scratching the back of his head in embarrassment.

“That’s okay,” Andrew said. “Now, if you don’t mind, please get off me.”

Longclaw didn’t say anything, but got off, which allowed Andrew to get up slowly. “Okay,” Andrew said, after straitening his St. Louis Cardinals baseball cap. “Now let’s grab a quick bite to eat then we will be on our way.”
“Okay.”
Andrew and Long then entered the Kitchen. After walking on the red tiled floor for a bit, the both off them sat down and began to eat their breakfast. Andrew’s mom was at the sink washing dishes, and Cassy was sitting next to Andrew eating a bowl of Cocoa Puffs. Andrew also poured himself some cereal as well, and began to chow down on his meal. Longclaw, meanwhile, settled himself at his food dish and began to eat the Poke’Chow in it. Cassy’s Marill, Aqa, was next to Longclaw, although she was done with her food.
“So, mom,” Andrew said. “You said you got a job last night. What is it?”

“I’ll tell you after school Andy,” his mom said to busy with the dishes to pay much attention.
“Mom!” Andrew moaned. “You know I hate being called that.”

“But I think it suits you perfectly dear,” his mom joked, turning around in order to smile at him.
“Whatever.”

After breakfast was over, Andrew and Cassy, along with their respective Pokemon, left for school. For a few minutes, the two siblings walked down the street, not saying anything, but looking to see what their neighbors were doing. One of them was already out, his Growlithe sitting with him on the porch. Other than that, no one else was out yet. Finally, the two reached their school, Palm Island’s Trainers Academy. It was time for school, and both of the siblings wondered what was in store for them.

End Chapter One​

Critics are welcome, so long they aren't to harse. Flames will be used to roast marshmellows, which will be given out to people who reveiw, and please to the three R's (Read, Rate, and Reveiw). Peace out!

 

[Psychic]

I have to say, it really isn't as bad as I thought it would be.

Seeing as this is only the first chapter, it's hard to give good critic, but there are things I can still comment on.


Spelling/Grammar: Great you use Microsoft Word! ^^ However, despite using this program you still made a few careless mistakes, such as writing 'is' isnstead of 'his' in one place. This is why proofreading is always a must. Most people have to go over their work four or five times before they find all their mistakes, and even then, reviewers can often find other errors the writer missed. You never want to have silly mistakes like that in your story.
Also, keep your paragraphing constant. Always go down two lines whenever a new paragraph starts, including speech.
Another things was that you said 'with that' waaaay too many times in this paragraoh alone:

With that, the younger sister left the room, the smug look still on her face. As soon as her footsteps were gone, the boy got up, his face showing that he was still very tired. “Man,” he muttered, “sometimes I really hate Cassy”. And with that, he began to get ready for the day.

Always try to avoid being repetitive with phrases, heck, you don't even want to repeat words! I mean, in this sentence alone you used the same ajdective twice:

The boy walked over to it and kicked it gently, and said gently, “Hey, Longclaw, time to wake up”.

One last thing is that I don't quite know why you're putting the punctuation outside the quotation marks. They should always be inside, whether it's a period, comma, colon or semi-colon. So instead of this:

“Ah, quit complaining,” Andrew said jokingly, running his hand through is spiky black hair. “We’re going to be late for school”.

It should just be

“Ah, quit complaining,” Andrew said jokingly, running his hand through is spiky black hair. “We’re going to be late for school.”

That is also the place where you put 'is' instead of 'his'. Again, this is why proofreading is a must.



Description: So far, this is your weakest area. You really need to be describing not only the actions of the characters, but also what they look like, be it human or Pokémon, objects in the story, and especially their surroundings. What a person looks like can often be tied in with their personality, because readers get an idea of what the person is like from the way they dress, the way they style their hair, how muscular or thin/fat they are and so on. Either way, you still want to tell us what the humans look like. So far, all you described was Longclaw. Of course, we always describe Pokémon in fics, so describing the Sandshrew was fine (though your description wasn't so amazing), though you should have described Maril and I think even the Zapdos and Machamp in Andrew's dream.
Also, don't try to go out of your way to describe things. Description should never interrupt the flow of a story, so the trick is to just slip it in. For example, a trainer sees a wild Spinarak. Well, instead of just saying

The Spinarak was green and had six yellow legs. It had red mandibles and beady black eyes.

Instead you can say:

The green spider Pokémon's six yellow legs twitched as it snapped its little red mandibles, its beady black eyes eyeing its surroudnings.

Doesn't that help you get a better picture of the Spinarak? Because it's doing actions you can slip in details of what it looks like. It doesn't interrupt the flow of the story, it looks nicer and it helps the reader get a good idea of what the Pokémon looks like when it's doing the actions.



Character Work: So far, the characters don't have a whole lot of personality. They just don't all seem to be distinct, different people with different attitudes. All characters have different personalities, but right now they feel more like robots. Now, they aren't completely soul-less right now, but you need to work on their personalities more.
Of the the good things I want to note is that your Pokémon aren't life-less robots that do everything their trainers say- Pokémon are people too! Very nice job with that!
Now, I too enjoy making up names for my characters. In my fic, The Mutations (see sig) my characters have names such as Heekali, Shazaro, Kendar, Lumerah and Batarek. I've always liked making names for characters, HOWEVER the names have to make sense in the way they're spelled and they need to follow the rules of grammar. There is always a 'u' after a 'q'- that's a RULE of the English language, and you need to follow it. If it's pronounced 'Ak-ah' then it should be written 'Akkah', although I must say this doesn't sound like the name of a happy little Maril (but that's just me).
Another quick note about character names is that in one fic, Pokémon names must be constant. Meaning that either they're all made up names or they're all combinations of two words, so instead of having one of each ('Aqa' and 'Longclaw'), have them both be either made up or a combination.



Plot: Well, so far there isn't much to comment on, seeing as it's so short. It isn't bad, but I must warn you that the whole 'PokéSchool' thing is very popular, and it's been practically overdone to death. Not that just going to a Trainer Academy counts as an entire plot (I hope for your sake that there's more to the story than that) but it's often the basis of beginner fics that often don't do well.
There are a few plot-holes in your fic right now, though since it's only the first chapter, this is understandable. Still, you need to tell us things like how Andrew and Cassy got their Pokémon, how old they are that they're finally going to school, maybe a bit of the geography of their home and so on.
The plot-hole I'm about to talk about falls under Character Word in a way, but it's really strongly ties in with the plot: Pokémon can't communicate with humans in the sense that they don't speak English. Pokémon have their own languages, as seen in the shows and so on, and only a select few were exceptions in the way that they spoke human talk. Now, there was always a good reason behind each of these instances, however in your fic, all the Pokémon seem to automatically be able to speak English. There was absolutely no reasoning behind it; you didn't provide explanations or anything as to WHY. You HAVE to provide an explanation for this, and it will have to be one that is logical and makes sense, because right now, this is the biggest problem with your story, and it will only ruin your fic later on. You need to think and plan ahead about these things so they make sense and they all tie in.




Anyways, to wrap up: this is a pretty good fic for a first-timer, though it still needs a good deal of work. I think you need to plan ahead for your fic more, because some of the plot-holes will only get bigger and bigger as you go along. You need a work a good bit on your characters, as well as your much-needed description, the two connecting together because we still don't know what anyone looks like aside from Longclaw.
I suggest you go and read (or even reread, if that's the case) Advise for Aspiring Authors, as it is a HUGE help to any writer. Also, you might want to check out a few five-star fics (trainer-like fics, anyway) like those of Dragonfree and Chibi Pika, as I think you'd learn well from examples.
Keep up the nice work, and I hope to see improvements from you!

~Psychic

 

[General Blaze]

Thank you Psychic for pointing out those nasty grammer and spelling boo-boos. That area isn't really my strong suit, but as for the description of the story, I guess I could have made it a little better, but I thought I did alright. I'll edit the chapter a bit in order to fix the mistakes. I'm glad you like the story tough! I was wondering if anyone was going to like this. Thanks again.

 

[pokeinuyasha]

Cassy’s Marill, Aqa, was next to Longclaw, although she was done with her food.

Huh, the Marril's name is "Aqa" or "Aqua"?

 

[General Blaze]

Huh, the Marril's name is "Aqa" or "Aqua"?

Yes, the Marill's name is Aqa(pronoucned Ak-ah) I felt that most of the Pokemon in my fic should have unusal names, thus the reason why the Marill's name is Aqa.

 

[Psychic]

I just wanted to tell you that I edited in the rest of the review; everything from Character Work onwards was edited in. I also added a few things into the section on Description. I hope it helps!

Yes, the Marill's name is Aqa(pronoucned Ak-ah) I felt that most of the Pokemon in my fic should have unusal names, thus the reason why the Marill's name is Aqa.

I added this into my review, but I want to say it now anyways:
I'm also a person who likes making up names for characters for my fic, however there are still grammatical rules I still need to follow, such as I can't put 'i' before 'e' (except after 'c') and so on. In the English language, there is ALWAYS a 'u' after 'q', and you can't ignore that rule, even for a character name. I suggest that if it's pronounced 'Ak-ah' then you should spell it 'Akkah'. I'm sure pokeinuyasha just meant that 'q' is always followed by 'u', and he wasn't sure why you were ignoring the rules of grammar.




I'd also like to quickly mention, while on the topic of names, that either all Pokémon names should be two words put together (like 'long' and 'claw') or they should all be a made-up name (such as 'Aqa' or 'Akkah', as I hope you will consider changing it). I mean, I also like combining two words, which is why in my upcoming fic, the main character, a Butterfree, is named 'Flyfree', and his team-mate is- wel, I better not say. I don't want anyone who's read my preview to get any spoilers. *looks around suspiciously*

~Psychic

 

[General Blaze]

Ah, the reason why I'm having Andrew and Cassy go to trainers school is because in Lanto you can't train/breed/research Pokemon without a trainers lisence, which you get after grautating the Pokemon Academy. The people who do grautate get to go on their journey, but it they only grautate when your around fifteen and sixteen. Thus the reason why I', having them go to school. And don't worry Psychic, the school year is only a small part in the story. The next three chapters are going to be the last we see of Poke'School. After that, Andrew goes on his jorney with Longclaw. And thank you for pointing out about Aqua's name (I'm going to renamed her to Aqua). I really appreciate the help.

 

[Psychic]

Ah, the reason why I'm having Andrew and Cassy go to trainers school is because in Lanto you can't train/breed/research Pokemon without a trainers lisence, which you get after grautating the Pokemon Academy. The people who do grautate get to go on their journey, but it they only grautate when your around fifteen and sixteen. Thus the reason why I', having them go to school.

You just made a rather large mistake in story writing. See, you can't just go out of your way and explain things like you just did. I don't want you to tell me what you just told me in the above post; you have to incorporate all that into the story, explain in within the story.
See, if this was a real book, all there is are chapters. You can't suddenly stop in the middle of a chapter to tell us these things. You need to explain it DURING the course of the story. To do this, all you need to do is really just have the characters have a conversation about it, maybe Cassy will suddenly ask "Why do we have to go to Trainer School before going on a journey? People in *other region* just leave home when they're ten! Why can't we do that?" Then all you have to do is get another character to answer her question and voila! You just explained everything you just told me IN the story.
Now, I don't think you should use that exact example, as it would be better if you tried to think of something on your own, but you get the idea.

And don't worry Psychic, the school year is only a small part in the story. The next three chapters are going to be the last we see of Poke'School. After that, Andrew goes on his jorney with Longclaw. And thank you for pointing out about Aqua's name (I'm going to renamed her to Aqua). I really appreciate the help.

So Andrew is near the end of his school year? Well, you'll have to make sure to express that properly in the story; I'm sure there will be Final Exams the students will need to pass, as well as some sort of Graduation Ceremony, then there will probably be some kind of thing all the students will have to do before they leave on their journey- go to a professor's lab to get a PokéDex, items, a Trainer Card and so on. Remember: you need to make it realistic!

And I'm glad I could help, even with the name thing, but like I said: if it's pronounced 'Ak-ah' it would be spelled 'Akkah'. 'Aqua' is pronounced differently (it's pronounced more like 'Aw-kwah').



Anyways, if you're going to change the name of the Maril, you should go back and edit your first chapter. Also, the mistakes I pointed out before also need to be fixed. Remember: nobody likes to read a fic with mistakes!

~Psychic