EVERYONE: - Complete Wally's Journey:A Rival's Story Fanfic

[maxi106]

I have started writing a fan fiction about the Hoenn games from Wally's point of view, I will be combining the original games with the remakes and adding my own ideas in, there will also be some light shipping between Wally and May although the main rival for Wally will be Brendan.
I have Wally's team and May's team all figured out but the only member of Brendan's team I have chosen is the starter so I would appreciate some suggestions for team members but try to keep them from the Hoenn region
Wally's Journey

Prologue

Wally woke up excited and grinned, today was the day he would be moving to Verdanturf Town, and he was planning to bring a Pokemon with him. He climbed out of bed and entered the kitchen, he quickly poured himself a bowl of cereal and devoured it in minutes. After placing his bowl in the sink he ran outside barefoot and still in his pajamas.

Wally lived in Petalburg City, home of Norman's Gym, he lived with his parents on the edge of town, but after today he would be living with his aunt and uncle in Verdanturf Town where the air was much cleaner. Wally was a frail child and hopefully the clean air would help him grow stronger, but he didn't want to be alone so he was on his way to Norman's Gym to ask for help catching a Pokemon.

As Wally entered the gym he noticed another kid talking to Norman, "Excuse me," Wally said, "I'm moving today and I would like to catch a Pokemon to keep me company." Norman walked over to Wally and smiled.

"Yes, absolutely, here is a Pokeball, and you may borrow Zigzagoon but please return him once you catch a Pokemon. Brendan," he looked at the other kid, "why don't you go with him to make sure he catches something."

Brendan and Wally walked over to the tall grass just outside of Petalburg City and encountered a Ralts. Wally tossed out his Pokeball and Zigzagoon came out. "Give it an order." Brendan said gesturing at the Pokemon.

"Use Tackle." Wally said, Zigzagoon slammed it's body into Ralts toppling it over. Ralts stood back up and let out a small Growl that caused Zigzagoon to become unsettled.

"That's good enough, now use a Pokeball." Brendan instructed him again. Wally obeyed and threw the Pokeball that Norman had given him at the Ralts. The ball bounced off its head and opened up, pulling Ralts inside as it was converted into energy. The Pokeball wobbled a few times before settling and Wally picked it up.

Wally and Brendan returned to the gym, and handed the Zigzagoon back to Norman. Wally went back home to pack up for his move, and a few hours later Wally and his brand new Ralts were on their way to his aunt and uncle's house in Verdanturf Town.

 

[Beth Pavell]

Hullo, a new member and a new story

Technical Accuracy/Style
Nothing wrong with the technical aspects. It's something of a matter of debate as to whether pokémon names ought to be capitalised - all the official media does it, so from a fanfiction perspective there's some justification for that. I tend to lean towards the idea that it makes more sense for them not to be, in much the same way that modern English doesn't use Cat, Dog, Mouse but cat, dog, mouse.

Stylistically there are some problems with the sentences - in short, the commas are in odd places. Here's an example to illustrate what I mean:

Wally lived in Petalburg City, home of Norman's Gym, he lived with his parents on the edge of town, but after today he would be living with his aunt and uncle in Verdanturf Town where the air was much cleaner.

That would really read better as something like:

Wally lived in Petalburg City, home to Norman's Gym. He lived with his parents on the edge of town, but after today he would be living with his aunt and uncle in Verdanturf Town, [that comma is debatable. Slowing down the sentence with it draws attention to the next clause, which emphasises it in the reader's mind] where the air was much cleaner.

Setting
This is where the story needs the most work, because there's really nothing to draw the reader into your version of Hoenn. Readers are already familiar with the broad strokes of Petalburg City, but what does yours look like? What about all those details that you never see on the game screen? Try taking a look at Emma Prescott's Land of the Roses and see how attention to detail is in the setting. Sure, Lanark is an original region but you can still give a canon region a rich setting.

How much setting you really need is debatable, especially in a prologue. There's a fine line between richness in the prose and excruciating detail. I generally lean towards the opinion that it's better to have too much than to little when it comes to fantasy of any kind, which includes Pokémon.

Plot/Characters
It's more or less a skeleton, and like the setting comments above, gives pretty much what anyone who's played the games already knows. As a Prologue you'd probably be better off selecting another event to start the story with. What was Wally's life like before the move? If you give context to his life before, what his life ends up being like after will have much more meaning.

It's worth elaborating on what the game abstracts as well. Let's face it, canon Wally is 80% "coff coff me sick". It could mean anything, and the only real consequence we see of his illness is an effeminate appearance and a timid demeanour ... neither of which are really symptoms of illness. Writing fanfic with him as the main protagonist gives you the opportunity to improve on that.

Final Thoughts
I don't know how much you read already, but reading is one of the best ways to get better at writing. Reading fanfiction is fine in itself (Though be aware that you can also pick up bad habits from fanfiction authors that way), though I'd recommend reading professional fiction as well.

 

[AceTrainer14]

First things first, welcome to the section! It's always nice to see new users pop up and add their works to the mix.

Stories from a rival's perspective are always a good place to start when wanting to reimagine the canon, and Wally is probably one of the better characters to choose from. There is a lot to his canon story that goes unexplained, namely around his illness, but there is a lot of ideas there that you can build on, and you have most of those first layers here in this brief chapter.

However, brief is the most important word there. You have a number of interesting factors to this chapter, from his moving, wanting to get a new Pokemon and meeting Brendan and Norman, but you move through things quite quickly. I think in order for all these different elements to work and have a chance to shine, it would be good to slow things down a little bit and take some time to build up the world. As Beth Pavell mentioned above, there is a lot of room to grow in terms of describing the scenery and painting your own version of Hoenn, but the same goes for the characters as well. We don't know what Wally, Norman or Brendan look like. Even if you just describe them by how they look in the game, it is still good to add your own little touches to the characters and let the audience see how you view and interpret them. Same goes for Pokemon as well: we may all know what they look like, but describing them yourself makes for a stronger connection than just saying what the Pokemon is.

BP pointed out the use of comma's in sentences, but there is one other grammatical issue around ending dialogue. It a rule that when a dialogue moves on to "Brendan said" or something similar, a comma is put instead of a full stop. You got that right at the start of the chapter but the errors popped up in the second half. I fixed one quote from the story for you to show what I mean.

"Use Tackle," Wally said. Zigzagoon slammed its body into Ralts, toppling it over.

I liked this little snapshot and I look forward to seeing how you interpret Wally's story. The most important thing to remember is to give every character personality and colour, whether that is through describing them or giving them a detailed backstory or diving into their thoughts a bit more. Wally is excited at the start of the chapter to go and catch a Pokemon, but when he does there is no mention of how he feels about getting a Ralts. What does that mean for him, how will this Pokemon help him with his illness and his move, what are his goals for it? Thinking about and answering those types of questions in the story is the first step towards writing a really great story.

 

[Gama]

Intriguing start - I'll be very interested to see where it goes. I always thought Wally was the most interesting character in RSE / ORAS, and I'll be especially interesting to see what happens in the enormous gap between him having one Pokemon and six!

 

[Flaze]

So, you've pretty much already gotten the lowdown on the big thing I have against this Prologue. For starters it's a little too short and everything in it goes pretty fast, something that clashes heavily with the fact that description in the fic is very scarce, you're really more about telling than showing so far. I don't fault you too much for that and what little there is here is well written.

I think that as a piece of advice, you should really sit down and plan out what you want the chapter to focus on, where you wan to go with each one and what you can do to get to that point. However, instead of just writing out what happens from point A to point B, think about how all of the things that happen affect Wally and the world around him, focus on his surroundings, the people he meets, the relationship she builds with them and how he feels about them.

I think that that's the key for a story like this, Wally is a character loved by fans because he's not some spunky kid with a hidden talent, he's got an illness that he has to learn to deal with and no discernable skill at training, at least at first. That already gives you a lot of room for exploration and growth on his part, such as focusing what his life has been like in living with his illness, how that's affected him and the way he bonds with others and what he's had to do to deal with it. You even get a bonus in the fact that Wally is an emotional character and can experiment with that.

Of course, you don't have to think about all of this from the get go, it's just something for you to take into consideration and take it at your own pace. Since it's an expansion you can start by pointing out what you want to expand on exactly and how. Have fun with it I'd say. Anyways, I'll stay tuned for the next chapter because I do want to know where you take this.

 

[diamondpearl876]

Wally woke up excited and grinned, today was the day he would be moving to Verdanturf Town, and he was planning to bring a Pokemon with him. He climbed out of bed and entered the kitchen, he quickly poured himself a bowl of cereal and devoured it in minutes. After placing his bowl in the sink he ran outside barefoot and still in his pajamas.

You do a pretty good job showing how excited Wally is here without just explicitly saying it. ^^

Wally and Brendan returned to the gym, and handed the Zigzagoon back to Norman. Wally went back home to pack up for his move, and a few hours later Wally and his brand new Ralts were on their way to his aunt and uncle's house in Verdanturf Town.

My main advice would be to slow down and keep adding in those details that "show, don't tell." Everything happens so fast that we don't really get to see Wally or Brendan's characters at all! We also don't get to see what your version of Petalburg really looks like or feels like! Maybe zigzagoon has a pretty cool personality, too, that you wanna show off.

Hope to see chapter 1 soon!