The Photo

[Infernape Warrior]

Title: The Photo
Target: Magikarp (3,000 – 5,000)
Reached: 8,265
Status: Captured

“Daddy!” a small, four-year old shouted, wearing a bright lime-green T-short that proudly had, “I’m a big boy!” print in large, dark navy blue, block letter as he waved to a lemon yellow school bus that had stopped to pick up older children. Each one of them at least a year or old older, wearing a rainbow of colors, all of whom seemed to be talking to each other and eager to start their next day at school only to dismiss the small child. If any of them reacted, it was slightly larger child who did nothing more than paused for about three second while saying something to himself before getting inside of bus as it closed its door and started to putter away, leaving a small puff of black exhaust before slowly fading away over the horizon.

“Yes, Mark,” an older man, most likely the father, wearing a simple dark blue pocket T-shirt with blue jeans and a pair of thin glasses, “I know, you want to be with your brother.”

The small child smile bright and attempted to tug the man in the direction that the bus went, “I want school, Daddy!” he shouted only to stop when he realized he was not getting anywhere fast. Within a few seconds, a small of tears started to form in the boys eyes as the man picked him up and brushed the boy’s dark brown hair.

“I know you want to go to school,” he stated, as they walked up a rocky driveway that has trees of different reds, oranges, and yellows on either side, and the sounds of migrating birds were heard clearly through the crisp air. “However, you need to b…”

Unfortunately, Mark, who was wiggling to get down, interrupted him and, once his feet were on solid ground, points to the T-shirt, “I *am* a big boy!” he proclaimed loudly as the father laughed a little bit.

“Yes, yes you are,” he nodded in agreement before bending his knees and crouching down so that he was eye level with Mark, “However, you need to be a little bit bigger.” This, of course, did not really suit the little boy very well as he crossed his arm and stomped his foot. All the while, his face was still tearing up, but he had crossed his eyes a little bit.

“I BIG BOY!” he shouted, stomping his foot and rushing off further up the driveway, but, in his rush, tripped on a small, maroon-colored stone and scraped his knee. Just then, his anger turned to pain as he started to cry loudly until his father, who was about four steps behind the boy when he fell, bent down and picked him up once again. However, when he did that, he looked at the rock and seemed to have gotten an idea as he smiled slightly before looking Mark’s knee, but there did not seem to be anything too wrong with it, nothing that a sun-like yellow-orange band-aid, a little medicine, and a kiss would not fix. The two, Mark in his father’s arms, resumed their walking silently until they entered their simple, wooden, cloud white house that had a matching porch and three windows in the front.

The inside was just a simple, aside from the occasional pile of brightly colored and partially damaged toys that were scattered haphazardly. The living room had a large, brick red recliner and two, smaller, plastic chairs with the names Mark and Thomas written in bold, black Sharpie, but they headed straight to the bathroom, which like most, had nothing more than an ivory-colored toilet, sink, and a slowly yellowing shower that also doubled as a bathtub. While Mark sat on the toilet, his father started to look in the medicine cabinet, which also doubled as the mirror when it was closed, for the band-aid and ointment, but he was unable to find the yellow-orange one. Nevertheless, he found a band-aid with a bright fiery that Mark seemed to be fine with as well, after his dad carefully rubbed in a small dab of pale yellow ointment on Mark’s knee with his finger, peeled the band-aid out of its packaging, and placed it on top of the ointment, they were back in the living room. Mark was sitting in the seat that was labeled with his name, looking at his band-aid with a large grin that stretched from one ear to the other, before looking at his dad. He was looking through a book that appeared to be several years old, and it peeked the little kid’s curiosity as he got up and started to walk over to his dad before pointing to a picture of what appeared to be Mark. However, it was a rather old picture, just like the book, but the kid still point at what he thought to be himself and proclaim, “That’s me!” with a grin that appeared to almost be too wide for his face to hold as his cheeks were shoved at least an inch on either side.

However, Mark’s dad just chuckled, “No, that’s me,” he informed, reading the caption that was under it, “‘First Catch 1975’.” The picture really showed its age as it was black-and-white and had obviously seen better days since it had a stain on corner of it from an unknown brown substance. In addition, the picture itself was starting to fade, but Mark’s father simply closed the book and looked at his son, who seemed to be confused.

“You were me once?” he asked, his eyes and face slightly off center, as if he didn’t know what to make of this situation, but he father just chuckled a little bit.

“Yes, I was like you,” his father answered, chuckling a little bit, but would you believe me if I told you that this fish, called a Maj-i-karp.” Once he finished pronouncing it, he turned to Mark and then asked, “You say it.”

“Mah-i-arp?” Mark repeated before attempting a few more time with limited improvement before finally stating, “Maj-i-karp. MAGIKARP!” Once he got it out correct his father hugged him lightly before going on with what he saying, pointing at the fish, which was no large than a foot, maybe a foot and a half.

“You see that fish changes into this…” his dad flipped a few pages to point at a teenaged version of himself and a large serpent-like beast that caused Mark to jerk back a little, alerting his dad that the picture frightened him. “Oh, there’s no need to be scared, for that’s one of my friends,” he waited until Mark calmed down before resuming, “But remember the little fish?” He stopped once again, allowing Mark to nod.

“Magikarp!” he shouted in response, still pleased about the fact he could say it.

“Yes, the Magikarp,” his dad chuckled before Mark’s stomach growled a little bit, “Sounds like somebody’s hungry, want to have a sandwich?”

“Tell more!” Mark demanded, not caring about his stomach, “What about Magikarp?”

However, his dad was already getting up and set Mark on the floor before heading into the kitchen, which had wooden cabinets and counters, but Mark did not care about anything other than getting his father to keep talking about the Magikarp. Fortunately, once his dad got him into a large wooden chair, with a phone book under his bottom so that he could see over the table and also see, if he really cared about them at the moment, the paling yellow tile that were between the counters and the cabinets that held the plate and bread. Nevertheless, Mark looked at the book that his dad left on the table and attempted to reach for it, “Uh…uh…!” he grunted, his small hands and arms not able to reach enough to grab the old and falling apart book. This grunting cause his dad to hurry with the sandwich was he reached into the cream-colored refrigerator and pull out the cheese, ham, and mayo. Putting the mayo on the bread, he looked over his shoulder to see Mark still grunting and reaching for the book.

“Once I finish making your sandwich, I’ll tell you more about the…”

“MAGIKARP!” Mark finished, throwing his hands in the air, “Hurry!”

No sooner than Mark told his dad to finish, he would place the sandwich, cut into four triangles, and then sat down in a chair close enough for Mark to see the pictures. It was still on the picture of the teenaged dad and the large serpent-like creature, “Well, that snake-like is also my friend,” he paused, “Actually, it’s the same friend as the Magikarp.”

Mark, with a bite of sandwich in his mouth asked something that came out as nothing but garbled words as his dad chuckled, reminding him not to talk with his mouth full. Once Mark swallowed his bite, he attempted again, “That’s Magikarp?” he asked, pointing at the creature.

“Yes,” his father answered, “Pokémon grow and change like we do, see the person,” he pointed to the teenage boy. “That’s still me, but sometime I wonder myself…good times.” He shook his head, getting back to the present, while clearing his throat, “However, unlike us, they go by different names when they change, here he’s called Gar-i-dose.”

Mark, swallowing another bite of his sandwich, listened to his father say the name and repeated it back, “Gor-i-dise...Gur-i-dose…Gurydose!” he shouted, unaware that he was wrong. However, he father told him to try a few more times, but it still came out as ‘Gurydose’. Eventually, Mark took another bite of his sandwich, stating on the second triangle, as his father kept talking.

“Well, you see, I can tell you exactly how I meet Magikarp,” he stated, “Or rather saved its life…” Just then, he closed the book and then his eyes, “You see it was after a heavy rainstorm had just finished, and one of my favorite things to do was to jump into puddles, mud or water. However, when my ma-ma and pawpaw, your great grandmother and great grandfather, took me down to lake for a day of fishing, I was little less that happy with that, but I went to make them happy and, they told me I could swim once they were done. While they were fishing, however, I found a small, red fish that somehow washed up on shore. It was just laying there, flopping around like it was attempting to go somewhere, but it was out of the water and tangled up in lake grass. I can still remember what it was saying, ‘Karp karp magi magikarp,’ but its voice was so weak that it sounded like it was about to die. When that crossed my mind, I did my best to attempt to free it from the grass, but when I did, it would just flop harder and faster and only to be tangled up more.

“‘Karp karp magi magikarp karp!’ it seemed to plea as I fought with the grass and it until I finally managed to get it free, but then my ma-ma and pawpaw came along and saw me saving the fish. However, I think they scared him a little bit as he flopped back into the grass again, leaving the three of us to pull off more grass from its path, but eventually we pulled all of the grass. What happened next really startled me for it started to flop, but instead of the grass, it was attempting to flop towards me where I bent down and…

[Dragoness]

Introduction:

The introduction was alright. The run-on sentence it started off with was not. When you do an intro, it's generally a good idea to start off with a fairly short sentence.

The intro did introduce me to the characters and the setting a bit, which is good. But it didn't really catch my interest. Now what attracts someone to a story is different for everyone, so there is no clear "right" way to do an intro. Some ways I like to do introductions is with: a mysterious setting; a little action; strong dialogue. You used dialogue to bring the reader into the story, which was good, 'cause readers generally want to finish reading the dialogue before they close the book. Or in this case, internet browser.

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Grammar/Spelling:

Your biggest problem here is run-on sentences. Specifically, you kept joining sentence after sentence, so it made one long sentence. Now, some run-on sentences you can fix by adding punctuation, like commas or semicolons, but your run-ons generally need to be fixed by adding periods and thus making new sentences.

Originally Posted by An example

“Daddy!” a small, four-year old shouted, wearing a bright lime-green T-short that proudly had, “I’m a big boy!” print in large, dark navy blue, block letter as he waved to a lemon yellow school bus that had stopped to pick up older children.

Can be:

“Daddy!” a small, four-year old shouted. He was wearing a bright lime-green T-shirt that proudly had, “I’m a big boy!” printed in large, dark navy blue block letters. He waved to a lemon yellow school bus that had stopped to pick up older children.

That is a bit easier to read. You fix these run-ons by looking at how many independent clauses* you have already joined together in a big sentence and deciding if enough is enough.

*(An independent clause is defined as "A group of words that contains a subject and verb and expresses a complete thought. An independent clause is a sentence." An example of an independent clause would be "Jim studied in the Sweet Shop for his chemistry quiz.")

“Yes, Mark,” an older man, most likely the father, wearing a simple dark blue pocket T-shirt with blue jeans and a pair of thin glasses, “I know, you want to be with your brother.”

"An older man" did what? Did he speak? If so, then you should say that. "An older man replied" would be more correct. Also, the bolded comma, the one behind "glasses", should be a period.

“Yes, yes you are,” he nodded in agreement

The second comma, the bolded one, should be a period. You are correct in that dialogues should usually end in a comma when what would be the next sentence depends on the dialogue ("'Of course,' he said.") However, "he nodded in agreement" is an action and does not explain how the dialogue was spoken, so treat it as another sentence.

There were a few typos I ran into. Nothing too major though. I suggest you spend more time proof-reading. There were a couple other small items, but there is no need to overkill a nice Magikarp story (:

If you have any questions about how to fix run-on sentences, then feel free to VM me, or check out this link to Purdue's Writing Lab (<<clicky) or MyEnglishTeacher.com (<<clicky). Not using run-ons, or at least not using them very much, is something that you learn not just from an English book, but also from practice. So keep practicing (:

And both of those links are "safe" according to Firefox's Web of Trust.

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Plot:

It was a short plot for a short story, which is fine. Since I like kids and I like short stories, then I rather liked the plot (: I also enjoyed how you did the capture of Magikarp as a story inside of the actual story. Neat.

At this stage, I can only suggest that you keep writing up interesting ideas and plots. If you are going to be writing for bigger stories, then I suggest you add a little to the plot. You add a little by adding some extra details in, like say were writing about a sick Pikachu and then added in the detail that the caretaker for the Pikachu has fallen sick herself. Stuff like that.

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Your use of Description:

You showed a flair for description. Sometimes though it felt that you were listing things, especially when you started describing Mark's house. Listing the objects in a room and listing other details is not always bad, but generally you want to avoid doing that. You don't have to describe everything in a room, some general sweeping details of how the style of the room is and the first impression you get when you walk into a room, or see a building, or anything that generally has a ton of little details.

I think you should use more adjectives in a story. Such as if something is neat, or hot, or sweet, or old. You vaguely described the Magikarp/Gyrados, which is good 'cause some new writers don't describe the Pokemon at all. I would like you to describe the Pokemon in your future stories a bit more though.

Oh and don't forget to include the other senses (not all in one sentence xD). The five senses are: sight; hearing; smell; touch; taste.

Also, some paragraphs on PE2K were ten lines long. You want to avoid doing more than six or so lines on PE2K. Ten lines is a bit too much information for the reader to process all at once. The eye needs time to take a little break. In these cases, split the huge paragraphs into two or three little paragraphs.
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Battle:

There wasn't an actual battle. Which is okay. Just remember in the future that if you do a battle, don't forget to describe the attacks, the effects of the attacks (bruises, dizziness, cuts, ect.) and don't forget to include the environment. Like if you had a battle on a sandy beach, then the Pokemon could use the sand to get in their enemies eyes.

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Length: I actually counted 10.5k. You can include spaces (: I'm glad you weren't thinking of doing just the minimum needed for a Magikarp; you wrote this without thought to the length, which I like. I do feel that you could have shot for a simple 'mon though, if you wanted one. Or not. Magikarp is k00l and don't let anyone tell you different!

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Outcome:

And a one and a two, and a one-two-three! Woot! You captured a Magikarp! Congratulations!

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Other: I'm eating fish sticks while writing this grade xD NAW, I'd never eat a Magikarp <3 This story was neat. I hope you keep writing URPG stories. And by the way, I hang around a lot of little kids on a regular basis and Mark's character was quite realistic :D It made me smile.

Length of Grade: (this is just so me, myself and I have an idea of how much I have written. It also helps stop me from over killing short stories) 6833