Faith - a PMD story

I only just found out that there"s a literature forum and I had to write my own story for it ;;v;;
It"s called Faith, and it is about my purrloin Meowzie and her escapades to become an explorer 8D
I really hope you like it!!

Edit: I revised the story and added a bit! :D MASSIVE thanks to Red_the_Mudkip for helping me out and suggesting a different start and ending <3 I have used some of their suggestions in the first part!

[spoilerChapter 1 (In Progress):1zeb1m3i]Snow blew over the vast expanse of forest, branches shaking as the howling wind swirled around them. The tumultuous snowstorm rushed through a small town. On a normal day, this town would be bustling with Pokémon selling various treasures and useful items or just generally chatting to each other. Over the past week a horrible snowstorm had hit Shortwind Town, effectively making the colourful town square as lively as a haunted house in June. Instead the poor Pokémon were stuck in their homes, milling about until the storm passed. The tempest still continued to swirl around well into the early hours and peaceful snowflakes that had once coated the uniquely designed houses had long been flung off and mixed into the storm. In particular a little house on the edge of the town. It belonged to a Liepard family and was full of energy.

“Give it back, Ayase!” a Purrloin snapped, reaching across a small wooden table to grab a banana from her older sister"s paw."

“Cool it, Meowzie! First come first serve, you pipsqueak!” Ayase the Liepard snickered and pushed her sister away, taking a large bite out of the yellow fruit.

“But that"s not fair!” Meowzie whined. “I only got an apple for dinner,” The young Pokémon"s shoulders drooped as she sighed dramatically. “I"m wasting away, I"m going to starve!”

Her dramatics were ignored as her older sister just laughed outright and stalked off to do whatever she usually did. Meowzie hissed to herself and leapt up onto the windowsill, staring out at the whirling snow.
“Let"s revisit an old dream of mine.” She thought as she dropped down from the edge and wandered over to her nest.

When I become a famous explorer, I"ll get any food I want! Meowzie thought as she settled down, a smile on her face as she drifted off into sleep.

[/details]

This is a pretty neat story, Sekira! I absolutely love the words you used to describe the snowstorm; they give the reader a vivid picture of what’s going on. However, you may want to rephrase some of your sentences, for several reasons…

First of all, you should try to avoid using the same word (or, two variations of it) in the same sentence. Here, you use “blow” and “blowing”. Try replacing “blowing over” with a phrase such as “rushing through”.

Second, I think it would be better if you didn’t combine more than two ideas in a single sentence. I’m not sure if this actually qualifies as a run-on, but it sounds like one. To fix this, you could either divide all of the clauses into their own sentences, or split the sentence at “the tumultuous snowstorm…”.

So, rephrased, this part would look something like:

Snow blew over the vast expanse of forest, branches shaking as the howling wind swirled around them. The tumultuous snowstorm rushed through a small town.

Snow blew over the vast expanse of forest. Branches shook as the howling wind swirled around them. The tumultuous snowstorm rushed through a small town.

I personally prefer the second example. The shorter sentences make the storm seem more dangerous, and give the story an urgent tone. But that’s just me, of course – I don’t know if you were going for what the second example conveys. Either way, both are fine.

…I think you get the idea about rewording stuff. ^^; (If you don’t, just ask, and I’ll explain further o:)

Also, remember that sometimes (but not always), short and simple sentences work better than complex and long ones. Give your work a read once you’re done with it, and try to think about whether it sounds too monotonous. If it does, you can always split or combine some sentences. Breaking the flow will help keep the reader’s attention! :la:

I found this rather funny. xP However, it feels like the reader is “viewing this part from a distance”, if you know what I mean. Although you tell us of each move the sisters made, you summarize what happened instead of showing it to us. Adding dialogue would probably help: not only would it make the passage more interesting, the vocabulary and speech style of each character would give us a glimpse at their personalities. Here’s an example of narrating with dialogue:

“Gimme it, Ayase!” a Purrloin snapped, reaching across the small wooden table to snatch a banana from her sister’s paw.

“Cool it, Meowzie. I got the banana first,” Ayase the Liepard hissed back. She shoved her sister away and took a bite of the yellow fruit.

“That’s not fair,” Meowzie whined. “I’ve only eaten an apple for dinner!”

I only rewrote a part of the original, but I’d like to ask you: does this provide a clearer image of the scene?

…One last thing: keep in mind that even if Red critiques your writing to death, it’s still super-awesome. ^^; Nobody’s perfect, after all, and I apologize if I hurt your feelings. Anyway, I can’t wait to read more of this story! Keep up the good work, Sekira! :joy:

@Red,
First and foremost can I just say thank you so much for your amazing feedback 8D
i understand what you mean and i wasnt even expecting to get any comments on this so your comment was just wow :"D
i understand what you mean about the sentence thing and, if you dont mind, i"m gonna try to incorporate the things you said into the first bit when i edit it <3
i"m originally french-canadian so i think i was just trying to include every (and any) sentence type to impress myself xD;
what i was trying to do with the “the snow blew over the etc.” bit was something ive been learning in my english lessons; you start with an idea then give another one and then a final one, and basically as they progress they"re supposed to seem more dangerous O:
I"m also really rusty with semicolons so i probably could have used one there xD

Haha i love that xD
I never really thought to make it a dialogue thing, we"re always taught not to do a lot of speech in one go as it looks more like a script but i keep forgetting this isnt my english class xD

if you don"t mind it, could i paraphrase that and add it into the original story?

again thank you very much 8D

Anytime!~

Oh, I see. o: I’ve never heard of that technique.

Of course you can! :joy:

Firstly, I’d like to thank you for having the reasoning to separate your dialogue with an empty line. I can read it, AND you’re supposed to do it!

Anyway, I’m not here to correct your grammar or any of that stuff. (I may come back and do that later if my homework permits me.) Just little writing tips if you’re interested in finishing or writing a lot of your story.

What do I mean by that? Well, from personal experience and what I’ve picked up from posts about the upcoming NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month, apparently), you’ll write a lot more if you just keep pouring out ideas.

Quoted from a nice reference post I found:

Don’t Edit!

Wait until you’re finished to edit. When you constantly go back to edit what you wrote, you hold yourself back from finishing and it takes you longer to get through the story. Allow yourself to make mistakes and wait until you can look at the whole manuscript as a finished product before you edit.

And:

that70srpc:
I find that, when writing bios, it’s really helpful to look at a list or a chart like the one above. Picking two or three traits from each chart and building a character based around them will give you a really interesting bio, because they will serve as a reminder that characters need depth and dimension.
Independent and clever.
VS.
Independent, clever, pretentious, and stubborn.
The first combination doesn’t come with any flaws, whereas the second will provide a more dynamic character.

Positive Traits
Negative Traits

Of course, you don’t need to take this to heart. You know what’s best for you. :P

Best of luck, and happy writing!