I don't own pokemon, and will not be making any money off of this. Pokemon is owned by The Pokémon Company and I am not affiliated. This would be my first work and I'm interested if you would like me to continue on with this story.
He awoke aside the fire, the night still having a few hours left. It had been two years ago that he started his journey alone. Let me back up a little, Blaze was a charmeleon, a psychic charmeleon. His mother being his kin while his father an alakazam. Nobody thought this was possible, there were no previous records of tales of anything like this happening. Aside from his type, Blaze's father also passed down his intelligence. In case you are not aware Alakazams are some of the brightest pokemon alive with IQ's exceeding 5000. This was a gift and a curse for the charmeleon as he lived his life being mentally superior to other pokemon, and could never find anyone to relate to. He could have civil conversations but could never get around to discussing high philosophy with others, except his father, who passed away when he was a charmander. Even though his father died while he was still young he still remembered everything he had thought him, he generally had an outstanding memory which led to more turmoil as some things he would have rather left in the past. Despite having the mind of an alakazam, Blaze was still playful when the opportunity presented itself, this lead to some inner conflict but he generally ignored it.
Moving back to where we started, two years ago, something happened that plagues Blaze's mind every night. *sigh*, Blaze stared into the fire the remnants of his past swirling in his head. He grew cold, and moved into the fire falling asleep as it gave him warmth. He awoke a few hours later the fire burnt out, he heard some pidgeys chirping in the distance. Raising his body temperature to the needed heat he ate the last of his berries, he would have to scavenge for more later. He got up, stretched and started to continue his walk. He had nothing specific in mind of where he wanted to go, in fact he had passed several towns already. He bought food he needed by fighting off trainers and taking their money. Even though he was a wild pokemon, pokeballs could never capture him, the red beam would just deflect off of him. And trainers curiously accepted his challenges, as they had never seen this kind of behavior before. Being fire psychic, he was able to win most of his bouts, leaving the trainers stupefied as to what had happened.
There was something else that was strange. Every night, before he fell to sleep he sensed something calling out to him, trying to lure him in a certain direction. He sensed this not in any of the 5, but in what had only been described to him as an aura. He had meditated for many hours on what it was, and it determined that he would follow it but to always keep his guard up. So, he walked, onward towards wherever he felt the call, ready for whatever came next.
And so the prologue ends, let me know what you think, any constructive criticism is welcome :)
* Things that jump out at me as I read:
> He awoke aside the fire.
(Beside.) What fire? This is sentence #1, you haven't introduced any fires so I can't know which/what fire would be THE fire. Or who HE is, for that matter.
>Let me back up a little…
We hereby make note that this line establishes that Narrator is a diagetic character, not just a method to deliver the diagesis.
>(¶2)
Lots of punctuation/grammar slopiness in here. Sentence fragments missing commas. (<--e.g.)
>He sensed this not in any of the 5
(Five.) How do you sense something in a noun? That's like saying "I ran there not in any of my feet."
* Afterword:
The most important mantra for a beginning writer to adopt is "show, don't tell." Anytime, and I do mean ANY, you feel like letting your narrator TELL the audience something, stop and think if there's a way the characters can SHOW it. Then, decide if you can write that instead without either it coming off like an ass-pull (as though a character suddenly gained an ability to solve the present conflict) or requiring a lot of exposition/boring-stuff to establish the detail you're trying to get across. This "prologue" is not a prologue, but an info-dump where you have rattled off your Mary-Sue OC's magic powers and the starting point of the story. (Blaze is lying in a pile of soot, dreaming of a siren.)
So, here's the moment were I whack you over the head with a newspaper. (It's good for you; builds character.) Your prologue for this story should be the story of what you talked about here. That is, open with Blaze's parents; give us a scene about this atypical origin. Were Blaze's parents trained pokemon? Wild, horny, and expecting no consequences for their carnal acts? On the same team? How did they (and/or their trainer(s)) handle the surprise? Don't just TELL me that Blaze is exceptional, SHOW me how that MATTERS. You have one sentence TELLING me about his socialization issues, why isn't that a scene SHOWING how other pokemon maybe tease him for his non-canonical origin or avoid/fear him because of his nature? The whole first paragraph suffers, and needlessly because by the end of it we are seeing Blaze has been not only sleeping but dreaming; all this backstory could have been SHOWN through a dream sequence culminating in actual dream-voice interaction.
All this material would fly high as one dream sequence scene, with Blaze remembering his way through his life (exposition and establishment for We the Audience reading about it) and ending with him waking up in the pile of ashes.
Now, where to begin. In terms of sentence structure keep in mind that I almost exclusively write and edit late at night, I know that does not excuse it, but it's the best I can do to explain it. I'll keep the "show not tell" in mind as I revisit chapters 3-5 and while I write my future chapters. The story of Blaze's parents does come in but at a later part. I wanted to story to start with him on his own, and although I agree this isn't necessarily a prologue, I feel like it gives enough information to give people a sense of what is going on. I could be wrong though I suppose that's why you're here :P
If I do end up finishing the story (which I certainly do hope for) I plan to make a revised version from beginning to end. I know it's early to me to say that, but I've tried changing my approach as i write, and I've gotten writers block each time. So I intend to keep writing with my sloppiness intact, as it seems it's the only way for me for me to write anything at all.
Now, onto chapter one.
Is the time issue because that's your only opportunity, or because as a new hobby, it hasn't been given its own slot in your schedule? I tend to write more when I write later in the day, but if I start losing track of myself, it's time to stop. Typing is just labor so it can happen whenever. The work is done in the mind, so really I write whenever my deeper mechanisms decide to show me an idea I may want to use.
The show-don't-tell method without getting into the parents issue would've been best handled by integrating the important factor of his origin (acquisition of psychic typing) into a cash battle. You'd establish both how he gets his money and how he can trick trainers by surprising them with the psychic angle. You would have to make it a strategic thing, like gleaning the trainer's commands when he decides to say them for a split-second edge, though, since adding psychic to a fire type doesn't make it suddenly resist something that usually gives fires hell and thus making the actual combat analysis novel. (Gains resist against fighting and psychic, loses resist against bug. Also adds weakness to dark and ghost.)
I'm here because it looks like you have an idea going, but a weak first chapter will sink your battleship. You have to assume that only one in five readers will load a second chapter after looking at your first, and only one in five of those will read through your whole story. First impressions count, especially in this no-attention-span internet.
I did a full re-work of Can't Escape after I thought I finished it. It grew by 25%, lost a LOT of first-timer mistakes, and I'm still not happy with it. I've gotten used to properly meaty chapters (6k-11k) that the 4k-5k par in C/E feels rather abbreviated. But, I'm also wise enough to know not to go all George Lucas and spoil a good thing. That said, writer's block is something that you should not be afraid of. I got blocked on C/E Chapter 7 for over a month. Then I decided to squeeze in a sight gag (in text) and put 'em on a train because why not? That gave me enough momentum to write through the rest of the whole piece without any significant delays. Don't be afraid of your content (again), if you can't write what's next, write something later on in the story and come back to bridge the gap later. Ivana's return to the plot in Love Lost Chapter 14 was written in 11, but I kept kicking it down the line because it didn't feel right. The first thing I wrote for Love Lost is actually a long way off, years in the story's timeline, and I don't know how much of it will actually make the cut. Don't worry about what you're writing, just keep writing. That's how you get to know your characters, and once you get to know them, you don't have to think about what happens in the next scene because they will live it out for you. Then all you have to do is write down what happened. (That bit of labor in the evenings.)
As for sloppiness, that's okay for drafts I guess, but I have enough work to do when I do my best in the draft phase. I suppose the only liberty I allow myself is occasionally writing a lot of exposition (tell) in drafts. I like a strong Narrator voice (I treat Narrator as a character who's special because he has to be interesting despite being only able to tell; I take it as a challenge) so sometimes I draft a non-dialog sort of scene with a lot of exposition and later strip it down to what matters. A draft of Love Lost 16 had a huge Narrator-telling scene (itself an artifact of an experimental draft of 16 that I decided wouldn't fly) that became a checklist of all the material I wanted to cover, and then I showed as much as I felt appropriate throughout 16 and 17.
Works for me; your milage may vary.
I've accounted for the type changes, it'll come in time.
Again thank you for all of your criticism and advice, it really helps a lot :)
All "inspired" artifice is by necessity a selfish endeavour. There's no shame in that; anyone who enjoys the art of others do it because they selfishly enjoy interpreting the expressions of others. Welcome to human nature, take it slowly and enjoy the ride.