I've had this done for a couple of days now, been constantly editing to make sure it's told the right way. I hope you enjoy :)
“Ynnngh”, generally the first sound I made in the morning. Stretching as I got up from the pile of ash which supported me through the night. I got ash in my scales again, “just great.” It’s not the water that I don’t like, it’s the assholes that live in the lakes and rivers. Every time I go to clean up or get a drink some macho fish comes up to fight. I know they do it to annoy me and to feel in control, so I made sure that they saw their efforts were unsuccessful.
I went to the lake nearby to wash off, sure enough some poliwhirl hoping to evolve creeps in the distance. “What an idiot,” I think to myself. I got a drink, rinsed off in the pond, and then he shot a water gun at my tail. I blew a weak ember in counter, and the water turned to steam. I laughed a little. “Love you too man,” I said with a smirk as I walked away. “I’m a girl!” she yelled. “You all look the same to me.” As her skin purpled I knew my job here was done, I picked up some of her thoughts as I walked away. “Racist prick, who the fu-.” that was all I needed to hear.
I walked onward to find an awfully nice area where the forest met the grassy plain. At around midday I met a jolteon. He had made this area his home, and agreed to show me the best areas to gather food if I could retrieve the food and share it with him. He would have been able to do it himself normally, but he had sprained his front right paw and knew it was better to look for help than risk a fall from a tree. This area was bountiful in food, and I had no trouble getting more than enough for a good meal. So we sat, he didn’t say anything until about halfway through the meal. “So what brings you here, your kin does not often come out this far unaccompanied by a trainer.” Throughout my travels I had generally kept to myself, the pokemon I interacted with usually did the same. I had not had to think of what to say until now. “I’m looking for something,” the best answer I could come up with. “Looking for what? It must be pretty important.” I had no reason to distrust this man, so I was honest. “Honestly I don't know, I feel it calling me and I head wherever it leads.” The jolteon pondered this for a bit “Don’t the chars usually travel in packs? I’ve never heard of one going on a journey on it’s own.” “You’ll find that life is full of sounds that you don’t hear.” I tried to say it in a manner that made my travels seem normal, but this man wasn’t dumb; well not too dumb anyway, and he noticed what I was doing. “You’re beating around the bush, if you don’t want to tell me it’s perfectly alright, but don’t lie. I don’t tolerate liars.” I chuckled at the fact that he was so easily offended. “Some things I would like to leave in the past, there was a tragedy in which I had to leave my home, I’ve been on my own for a while. That’s all that’s important.” He understood, everyone has their own skeletons. “So what about you? This certainly isn't the place where one evolves into a jolteon.” He looked at the ground with an expression that I knew well. “My parent’s kicked me out when I was old enough to stand on my own. I lived on my own for a while, things weren't too bad. Then, around a year ago, I was climbing up to the top of that mountain over there,” he gestured to a reasonably distant land mass. “And a few hundred feet before I reached the top, I get struck by lightning.” “It was raining?” “Yes it was raining” His face grew a little darker. “It was the most painful thing I ever experienced, I cried out in pain. I felt like I was about to explode, and as soon the as the first strike ended I got struck again. But this time I felt no pain, in its place I feel the most energizing power I had ever experienced. So you already know what happened, and I made my way here to this paradise which I’m happy to call home.” I wasn't one to prod but this was obviously something that there was more to. “You're leaving out part of the story.” “H-how... does it matter, I can tell you what I want as you told me what you wanted to tell!” he looked furious, not wanting the situation to escalate I calmed him down “You’re right, your story is yours to tell” Unknowing to him I had already picked up the full story in my head. I honestly tried not to but this emotion was so powerful that it forced it’s way in. He intended to jump off that mountain. “I never got your name.” he sighed “I never really had one.” “Forgive me, I’m Blaze by the way.” “A little cliche don’t you think?” “Cliches are there for a reason.” I smiled at him and with that the jolteon got the past out of his mind, I envied him. “It was a pleasure to meet you, I truly hope our paths cross again.” “To you as well,” And with that, I walked off. A new face, and a new encounter in my head. I could not see it but I still knew, I had a long way to go.
* Things that jump out at me as I read:
>generally the first sound I made in the morning
I? Shall I assume the Narrator was let-go after the pilot got picked up and we're first-person perspective henceforth?
>Every time I go
>some macho fish comes
>they do it
>I made sure
One of these things is not like the others...one of these tenses is PAST. Tenses must agree.
>Racist prick
I'm familiar with the "all rook same" chiché, but I'm not sure how it applies here as racism, specifically amongst pokemon which, save for a few gimmicks and that a fraction of species exhibit some sexual dimorphism, indeed all rook same. Since the comment was about gender, I would've written her internal monologue on that subject, rather than imported a slice of generic United-States-style geographical ignorance. (Where are we, anyway? Kanto?)
>(¶3)
(Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall of text!)
Sneeking a peek at established commentary, "I didn't know where to break it down." Here's how you know:
EVERY time the speaking character changes or the narration changes which character it's following, you make a new paragraph.
[Observing Chapter 2, I see that further explaination is not necessary. You've looked into it already and merely need to straighten out this tangle.]
>I had no reason to distrust this man
Man? I thought this scene was between Blaze and a jolteon.
>"My parent's kicked me out...
His parent's what kicked him? And, which parent? (Parents'.)
* Afterword:
Mostly just the wall-o-text technical fault to fix up, here. Compared with Chapter 0 (not going to call it a prologue because it's not, deal with it. *sunglasses*) you do have a scene with things happening. However, it feels like you cared much more about getting to the dialog at the expense of SHOWING what led to their conversation. You TELL about the meeting, food existing, being gathered, sprained foot; all of this could be conveyed through SHOWING the scene. Don't be afraid of your content; you can always edit down or fall-back on narrator summary (telling) if it proves too wordy, rambling, or fails to contribute to the development of the story when you write scenes out fully, but you get nearly ZERO character development when you TELL your way through. You also wind up with a <1000 word "chapter" that is really a glorified slug line and the "interesting" half of a scene. (Pro tip: if something isn't interesting, discover something interesting about it to develop, or cut it clean away if you can't.)
"One of these things is not like the others...one of these tenses is PAST. Tenses must agree."
The tense was meant to be past tense, I must have missed that.
"
>Racist prick"
The racist comment was a crack that they all look the same no matter what gender, I would assume that it's fairly easy to tell apart males and females of your own species which led to the anger as it seemed obvious to her, and she couldn't get out of her perspective. I don't think there was any fault but I'm sure you're familiar with the expression of assuming.
Something which I can't tell if it's extremely stupid, or a good thing I do, is that I hold myself back from making any major edits to previous chapters as it seems unfair to the people that read them with the faults present. Although if it was to the point where they can't read it at all I suppose it doesn't matter anyway.
">I had no reason to distrust this man
Man? I thought this scene was between Blaze and a jolteon." This is through the perspective of Blaze, and as the jolteon was male, he referred to him as man.
">"My parent's kicked me out...
His parent's what kicked him? And, which parent? (Parents'.)" I see where I went wrong there, no arguments to be had.
"* Afterword:" You've given me a new way to approach writing this and I thank you for that. The chapters are starting to become 1500+ words each as I myself am becoming more interested in the story. I didn't give this chapter or 0 as thorough an inspection as I did with chapter 2, and I guess I suffered the consequences of it being poorly conveyed. The first read is always the most important, and although I can't change what has already been read, I can do my best to see that it improves from this point on.
I see now what your perspective was on the race/gender issue, and as you said, it requires the reader to share the assumption you made about the ability of pokemon in your world to intuit each other's essential nature. Now, I see this was a lost opportunity: you could have had her make a remark about it being strange that he could not tell, as though he had not been around pokemon enough to recognize the difference, perhaps as a "sheltered" trainer's pokemon released or escaped. That would have admitted a chance to establish (an okay moment of tell) that Blaze's gender-blindness was a consequence of insufficient socialization with pokemon, but because of their rejection of him from their peer groups.
I agree that major edits of published material is quite undesirable. That's why I keep a wide buffer for continuous projects (LL, 166k and progressing) and finish everything before posting anything for short and definite pieces. However, this isn't a matter of confusing a reader because a scene three chapters ago suddenly changed completely. This is a matter of meeting technical quality standards at the very least. If you're worried about being unfair, you've already thrown your first-timer-grade material at them; don't hurt future readers who see something like 2 (few technical faults), become interested enough to start from the beginning, and see that the POV shifted, they stepped in a backstory mire, and wading through it they walk into a wall of text with two character's dialog entangled like mating banana slugs. Shine those boots, soldier.
I contemplate going through the etemology of 'man', but I'm hungry so I'll be brief while I think about food. "Man" equals "human." "One small step for man..." is not an error. Inherent confusion aside, even explained as you have it means that Blaze views Rodney there as equivalent to a human. (Which given the social order I've seen so far, is awkward at best; that would be a contemptful view of perhaps jolteons in general given Blaze's interactions with humans.)
Just wait until those chapters become unreadably long. (Which is why I cut LL's in half every time. 6k-ish seems to be a good bite-size for readers on the internet.)
(2) I think more back story is in order, look for chapter 4 when it comes out.
(3) I'll be sure to go over and re edit the chapters.
(4) I'm going to stand by saying man, it's simply part of the character.
2. I shall.
3. I like to think that unless I put at least twice, if not thrice the time into review and edit than I do into writing, I don't stand a chance of having a document I'll be satisfied with. That's why (when active) I'll write a chapter (which for LL is 7500 words minimum; Chapters 4 and 5 were short subject before the subplots started weaving in) over between two and eight sessions, then both let it cool off for up to a month re-reading it every few days to find problems that were being filtered by my mind during the creation phase. Once in a while I'll hack and slash a scene in or out and wonder what I was thinking, but that's quite rare; most of the edits are very small dialog tweaks, word choice, and adding bits of narration or scene action that I realize in later reading I was not explaining well or overlooked in the draft. And, because I get picky on the exact words I use...
4. ...I naturally expect that use of 'man' in that context has a subtext meaning. Perhaps I am biased by my own method and designs, recognizing that as something I would do to "hide" a deeper theme intending for most to overlook it as simply part of the character when I'm actually establishing something more.