~Shining~

[QuietLugia]

I was inspired by a tiny part of Stuart Little 2 when I wrote this. It's the part when Margolo stands up to Falcon.

(This is a bit short for a chapter, I know. But it is over a page on Microsoft Word.)

[SPOIL]I have a challenge for all you readers. Try to guess my age from this.[/SPOIL]

~Shining~
Chapter 1
------------
Run, run, run, as fast as you can.

Anna hurried through the forest, stumbling over branches and rocks. Her paws were aching. Beads of sweat rolled down her aquamarine forehead. Every now and then, she looked over her shoulder. She never stopped, not even to quench her dying thirst. She was always running. Running from the horror that was following her.

Come back and let me show you your place.

No chance, Anna thought. There was no way she was going back.

Let me hurt you,

She winced. Pain was all she had known, sorrow was the only emotion she had felt. Death seemed like the only relief. Many times she came close to it. But her body always healed. It was hell. She had never seen the sun, never felt the cool breeze on her skin, well, fur. She had never had the chance to fly.

Let me beat you,

Anna remembered the terrible times. Every day was a living hell. Her light blue body was so covered in bruises it looked grubby. Her fur was so caked in blood it was a sickly shade of purple. And the stench! She had never been allowed to wash. The first thing she was going to do when she got away from this fiend, was find a water source and wash until her fur was sparkly clean.

Kick you, rip you, cause you pain.

And suddenly, the forest ended. Anna ran over thickets and Diglett holes, through brambles and nettles. She didn’t feel a thing. She was used to stinging skin. It was all she had ever experienced throughout her entire life.

You think you can run away from me, from the only home you’ve ever known…

Home, bah. You call that incarceration home?? Home was where you felt safe, home was where you could have proper meals, home was where your parents loved you and cared for you and comforted you. A tear ran down Anna’s face. She had never had any parents. She didn’t even know her second name. She only knew what a home was from the other prisoners who had spoken about their lives before being dragged away to that hideous place. They had all died, of course.

There is nowhere you can go. You are all alone in this world, with nobody there for you.

All of a sudden, Anna came to a cliff. This was it. This was when she was going to be carted off back to Hell. She turned around to face the Gengar. He was a great brute, 8 feet in height. He knew Anna best, as he had been the one who made her life a misery.

What do you honestly think you’ll be in a great big place like this, Anna?

Anna stared at him with deepest loathing. She wasn’t going to let herself be captured, no way. She had promised herself she was going to live a new life, and a new life she would live. A few days ago, she had been crying in her cell, begging for a mercy that the Gengar would never have. Now, she was strong, and her true colours were going to shine. She looked over the cliff edge. A lake was at the bottom.

I’ll ask you again. What do you honestly think you’ll be in a great big place like this?

Anna turned her head to answer him.

“Free.”

And she jumped.
----------

​

Well, what do you think? Comments and crits welcome, so fire away! (In case you're wondering, Anna is a Mew.)

 

[Soleni]

That's great! I love the description about Anna's feelings, and although it was a bit short, it was still better than a lot of Fics I've seen.

 

[Comis Patronus]

I agree....you should write more. This is very creative.

 

[Soleni]

This seems more like a prologue than a Chapter 1 to me.. I'm not sure why though.

 

[Hakura May]

Really, really, good. I could almost feel as if I was running away from the Gengar.

Run, run, run as fast as you can.

I just don't think it goes with the fic. Since this is more of a serious fic, maybe something along the lines of, "Run as fast as you can. It won't matter in the end..."

Let me hurt you,

You don't need a comma there. ^^;;

I thought this was really neat. I thought Anna was a Vaporeon. ^^;; I'll be looking forward to reading the rest of the fic. Good luck!

 

[Kutie Pie]

NO! LET THE MEW SURVIVE! *mauls*

Anyway... I'm guessing you're in teenage years. That's all... um... FOURTEEN!

I liked this. EBIL GENGAR ON THE LOOSE! *grabs bazooka* And of course, Mew can fly, so... How can it die just by jumping off a cliff?

And... ooh! Shiny Mew! YAY! *hugs*

;025; - Better not let Myra see this.

;151; - *appears* Ooh! Let's this? *reads and gasps* MEW KILLER! I SHALL HUNT YOU DOWN!

Myra!

;025; - Too late. She's gone...

Grr... Anyway, I hope this is a story and not a one-shot. I want to see more! WHOO! *superglues self to thread* Crud, not again... (And you're a Mew in this, eh? I bet! Cute name, Anna!)

~~~~~~~~~~
*Kutie Pie* Please be kind to midgets!

 

[Literate]

11!.... or 12. *shrugs*

Onward to the review. First off I don't really read the author's end notes. ^_^ So until someone mentioned Mew, I was confused. I thought it was a different legendary. 'Cause I read something similar to this before.

Onward to the real review. Good job. ^_^ It was portrayed beautifully and had astonished me so. The words and thoughts flowed so well, better than mine. ^_^ It was nice to read. ^_^

~PEACE~

 

[QuietLugia]

I'm loved!

Aw.... cool! I love you guys so much! Cookies for everyone!

litestars got my age correct. I'm 12. (I guess you thought Anna was a Suicune? The clue for her being a Mew is that she's never learnt to fly)

"Run, run,run as fast as you can" The Gengar was mocking Anna. I had originally decided to put "You can't run from me, I'm the bogieman!" after it, but it sounded so childish, too childish for Anna.

Hey stop hating me! Anna isn't dead! (Or is she.... wait and see.) Oh, she isn't shiny. Let me explain. In my mad, twisted mind, Mew's are all the different colours of the rainbow, depending on their type. Anna's an Ice type. And like I said before, she never learned how to fly.

This was actually my first shot at writing a sort of Angsty fic. Or without any Humans. I might show this to my English teacher.
And, just to boast, I didn't use a thesaurus for the word 'incarceration'. I'm too smart for my own good.

The next chapter will actually be up this afternoon, because I'm a fast typer (really fast). So, keep reviewing! (Please. This is the first fic I've actually had every post praising me. Which scares me a little.)

;249; - Yes! Review, Review!
Shut up you. *Crams into Pokemon Silver*

 

[Psychic]

Silent beast of the sea! Do you remember me from what seems like a lifetime ago? Are you not that one and same QuietLugia?
I am the same as ever, but I have changed. It is good to see you back, though. *smiles* Misfortune be upon me if you are not the one I do think you to be!

Anyways, it is good to see you back, and with your very own fic, no doubt!
Well, I’m not a reviewer for nothing, so…on to the review!


When I started reading this, I immediately thought that this was just like the prologue of my own fic, The Mutations, where Kendar the winged Grovyle is running away from the colony that was chasing him away from their territory. I just thought that was an…interesting coincidence.
Now, it did start off pretty well, but it could have been better. What it mainly lacked was good, full description.

You did describe Anna’s thoughts and emotions relatively well (mostly through memories, which is very well-done), but you lacked physical description; the description of the scenery (the forest, in this case) and objects there (trees, branches, leaves, rocks) wasn’t really full enough. Remember; you want to describe a place well enough that your reader can actually picture it in their head! Also, you could have used a few more adjectives when describing actions and reactions. That gives us a better idea of how the character looks when they’re doing something for example, here is what you wrote:

Every now and then, she looked over her shoulder.

Now, you could have fleshed this action out a lot more, maybe by saying that she was looking fearfully over her shoulder. This shows that she is running away from something she is afraid of and clearly doesn’t want it to catch up to her.
But then you can become a bit more graphic and say that she is looking over her should fearfully to see a large, dark shape crashing through the forest after her. Again, this helps the reader visualize the scene even better, because the reader knows she is being chased by a very large, scary creature she is afraid of. Otherwise, we don’t even know she is being chased! So, let’s see how it looks, now:

Every now and then, she looked fearfully over her shoulder to see a large, dark shape crashing through the forest after her.

Doesn’t that sound better? Doesn’t it help you visualize her actions better?

There’s one last thing about description I need to mention, and that would be describing the characters themselves. Your problem is that you barely described them at all (which used to be my problem as well). For instance, I don’t think any of us would have known that Anna was a Mew, or that it was a Gengar she was being chased by, if you hadn’t mentioned it. What you’re supposed to do is describe the Pokémon and THEN tell us what it is, really. I mean, all you told us about the Gengar’s appearance was that it was 8 feet tall (Gengar are actually about 5 feet tall, see the PokéDex)! (Oh, and always write out numbers, so it’s eight, not 8.) So, what color is it, what kind of shape shape did it have? Any facial features?
Actually, in the case of Anna, you shouldn’t have had to say she was a Mew at all! This brings me to another very important point which I’ll discuss afterwards. But basically, you had MANY chances to describe what Anna looks like so we could have figured out by ourselves that she was a Mew. For example, Mew are very distinguishable by their tails, so you could have talked about her tail, by saying something like “As she ran stumbling through the forest, her long, thin tail trailed behind her, the oval shape at the end swinging about.” Everyone knows that only Mew have those kinds of tails, so using description like that, you could have SHOWN us that she was a Mew through description instead of just TELLING us. See?

Now, about telling us that she was a Mew: NEVER, EVER DO THIS. You can not just tell us after the Chapter is over “Oh, by the way, Anna is a Mew”! This is one of the reasons I’m bringing up ‘show don’t tell’. Basically, you can’t just go out and state something like “Anna is a Mew” if it isn’t DURING the course of the story. You have to make the readers figure this out themselves by providing hints (through description) as to what species Anna is. You must also do this when you’re saying stuff about “Mew being all different colors of the rainbow” because for example, what if this was an actual book you had written? You can’t just stop the story to say “Oh, and by the way, THIS is my personal philosophy on Mew”! If this is the case, you must express this through the story. How would you do this? Simple: maybe in a later chapter have two characters talking about why Mew are different colors! That way you’re telling us these things THROUGH the story. Makes sense, doesn’t it?
Think about The Mutations for a minute, where all the ‘normal’ Pokémon hate the ‘mutants’. I never just said in a random post “Oh yeah, and nobody like Pokémon who are different” I showed this through events in the story, like Kendar the Grovyle becoming an Outcast because he had wings!


Another thing I wanted to bring up was that this was a bit too short to be a first chapter. I know you used Microsoft Word and it was over a page long on that, but if you directly copied and pasted it onto the program without changing the font size, it isn’t long enough.
Had you added a bit more description of the things mentioned above, I’m confident that it could have been of proper length.

But as mentioned by a few other people, I think this should have been a Prologue, not the first chapter. A scene like this always makes a great Prologue that easily hooks a reader 9which is exactly what a Prologue is meant to do). Unless the next chapter is a direct continuation of the events in the first, then I really think it should be the Prologue. Just my opinion, though.



I also want to comment on the wording you used for when the Gengar spoke, and I must say you could have chosen better. Especially for the first one

Run, run, run, as fast as you can.

You might as well have added the ‘You can't run from me, I'm the boogieman’ part (spelled with two ‘o’s). You should have used different wording for this part, because it’s part of a nursery rhyme. When I first read it, I was sure you would add ‘You can’t catch me, I’m the gingerbread man!’ at the end. Seriously, because it comes from a story for little kids, you should make it different.

Kick you, rip you, cause you pain.

This part was just awkward somehow. It could have been very effective, but you just worded it badly. And I think it could have been a lot more powerful if you had use ‘…’ once or twice. I know you wanted to put an emphasis on the word ‘pain’, but I think it might have been best to leave out that last part. And also, make sure the things said relate to each other- for instance, in this case, ‘kicking and ripping’ shouldn’t be together, but instead maybe ‘kicking and punching/beating’, or ‘ripping and tearing’. So a few better ways to word it would be ‘Kick you…beat you…cause you unbearable pain’ or ‘Rip you…tear you…make you feel every single pain’ and so on. ‘cause you pain’ just wasn’t very strong and visual, which you want to be.

A problem with these things is that you seem to have a sort of lack of agreement. I mean, you don’t seem to know how to make the Gengar sound. Is it trying to be menacing and make Anna want to run away more, and as fast as she can? Is he sort of trying to lure her back? Does he want to sound sure that he will catch her? You need to decide, because I’m getting mixed messages.
Remember; how you word things is very important and can leave a bigger or smaller impact on the reader!





So, to sum things up; this sounds like a very interesting fic so far, but it definitely needs a good bit of work. You have to work on fleshing out scenes with description, and be careful with your wording. Also, make sure to develop your characters so they have clear, distinct personalities.
Oh, and just because your readers want something to happen to a character (in this case, not wanting them to die) you don’t have to make it happen just because they want it to (or not to). Remember that it’s YOUR fic, so YOU, and only YOU get to decide what happens! Don’t let anyone choose for you!

Good luck, QuietLugia!
~Psychic
PS: yay for reviews that are longer than the chapters! XP

 

[QuietLugia]

Yes, Psychic, it is the one and only QuietLugia aka LugiaMew! (I hope you havn't scrapped Beltran? Tsk, tsk if you have.)

Thank you SO much for the writing advice! But to me, the part about the "pain" just seemed to fit the way it was.

The Mew thing. Meep. I was a bad little girl...

 

[Kutie Pie]

Oh... It wasn't shiny...

Rainbow variety of Mew, eh? Clever! *hugs* And an Ice type Mew... Ooh!

Poor thing never knew how to fly... EVIL PERSON! *mauls*

;025; - You're not doing the skit from school!

*whacks* Shut up! Well, anyway... Can't wait for more. (And I'm still superglued...)

P.S. Whoa! You were once LugiaMew?! I never knew that! (I was wondering what happened to the name...)

~~~~~~~
*Kutie Pie* Please be kind to midgets!

 

[QuietLugia]

I'm very bad at rememvering passwords when I was LugiaMew, and when the Forum got moved my account just... died. So I changed my name. Wherever you see the nickname 'LugiaMew' on the net, you'll know it's me.

I lied about the time when the chapter will be put up. I only have 4 days left of my Easter vacation, and I'm going into Dundee today, raising a Super Cat Chao (experimental) on Saturday, and my cousins from Shetland are coming for a sleepover on Sunday/Monday. Then school starts again on Tuesday.
Man I'm busy.

The reason Anna never learnt to fly will be revealed in the next chapter. I'm not giving away any other secrets about her in the Authors notes anymore. It'll all be in the story.

Since you read my fic, I'll read your fic, Kutie Pie. (It's good to see another Mew fanatic.)

 

[Psychic]

Yes, Psychic, it is the one and only QuietLugia aka LugiaMew! (I hope you havn't scrapped Beltran? Tsk, tsk if you have.)

Thank you SO much for the writing advice! But to me, the part about the "pain" just seemed to fit the way it was.

The Mew thing. Meep. I was a bad little girl...

^-^ Awesome, it is you! I remember, you had told me when you changed your name before, but I didn't know if you were the same QuietLugia! You haven't been on in ages!
And of course I haven't scrapped Beltran! He's still sitting in some Word Document somewhere waiting to appear in my fic. Would you believe I'm only on Chapter 5 because of insane writer's block? Seriously, you've probably only missed two or three chapters at most. XD

And you're welcome- I'm glad I could help! It's what I do!
And hey- you're the writer, not me! I'm not in charge of making those kinds of decisions!

I lied about the time when the chapter will be put up. I only have 4 days left of my Easter vacation, and I'm going into Dundee today, raising a Super Cat Chao (experimental) on Saturday, and my cousins from Shetland are coming for a sleepover on Sunday/Monday. Then school starts again on Tuesday.
Man I'm busy.

You shouldn't feel rushed to write and post a chapter. You have to take your time and post when you CAN. If you rush when you write a chapter, it won't turn out as well because you're putting less thought and effort into it since you're trying to finish it as quickly as you can.
Don't rush yourself, and take your time! Writing takes hard work and patience!



~Psychic

 

[QuietLugia]

I do check up on your fic every month. If you need help with a bit, just ask. My teachers praise my imagination every year in my reports.

Yeah, don't expect the chapter up for a while. I just bought Animal Crossing yesterday, and I'm hooked. I only write when I'm bored and/or have a sudden brainwave. Half of my fics are unfinished and rotting in development hell. ^^;

I will be drawing Anna sometime soon (I draw ALL the time, so I don't really have much time for writing) so if you want to see her, just PM me. Or if you want to see any of my art really.