[WAR] Season II: Creative Writing

**Neo Emolga** · 06-28-2015, 03:20 AM

Only 40 minutes left! If you're still writing, you'd better start wrapping up!

Also, starting my reading now. Let's see what you guys cranked out!

**Morzone** · 06-28-2015, 03:25 AM

Name: Morzone
Team: The prism league
Work: The Star, The Flower, and the Jungle.
Link: http://www.pokemoncrossroads.com/for...Writer-s-Board

Here's a description of the plant people: take a picture of Roselia and switch out two things: instead of lowers they have hands made of leaves, and instead of thorns they have hair made out of flower petals of different colors.

As for the a Starlet: Imagine a small version of Patrick star that doesn't look fat and stupid. Also imagine it yellow/gold, and with glowing hair, which can be any color.

*fist pumps the air for making the deadline*

**ninjaskarmory** · 06-28-2015, 03:42 AM

Name: ninjaskarmory
WAR Team: Jupiter Mining Corp.
Title of Entry: The Deepest Scars
Link to Submission: nyoom

**Neo Emolga** · 06-28-2015, 04:35 AM

Lol, dang, you people sure like cutting it close!

**Neo Emolga** · 06-28-2015, 05:44 PM

Wow, wow, wow, you guys have beyond vivid imaginations. This stuff is inspiring and I get a great kick out of reading all this.

And ONCE AGAIN, it's been almost torture to try and choose only three winners from this pack of great stories. Every story had awesomeness to it, so even if you didn't win, you definitely brought forward great themes in one way or another.

WEEK #3

THEME: DEEP INTO FANTASY

The fantasy genre, known for giving us great novels and movies like Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, and A Song of Ice and Fire, is best known for its magic, presence of mystical creatures and relics, and intriguing storylines that could only be possible when the rules of science are broken. What kinds of new territory will you find when you explore different perspectives in magic territory?

Guess what? You're going in even deeper than that.

I also want you to make your story screw with all the rules in an Alice in Wonderland, the Matrix, and Inception kind of way, and have things work in a whole new system that takes the reality we once knew and changes it as if our deepest and darkest dreams leaked out and took over. Pull off the veil that opens a door into a world that lies just behind our perception, or build your story on the premise of a "what if" scenario where even just a few simple adjustments makes a whole new reality possible.

This week, blow everyone's minds away and introduce us to a world and a reality only you could have ever dreamed possible with your darkest secrets and most intense and wildest imagination.

Parameters

Flower Power - A flower (or flowers) of strange and mystical significance needs to have a part in the plotline you design. It's totally up to you to decide what it does!
Devoted Guardian - Your main character needs to be a loyal guardian and protector of something or someone. You decide what that is and why they need to keep it safe! (NOTE: This parameter can be combined with parameter #1)
No Humans Allowed! - Rise to the challenge and make a story completely without humans! The very most you can do is have a human that wakes up in a whole new world as something completely different... (kind of like Pokémon Mystery Dungeon)

Originality is key here, people! Good luck and I'm looking forward to seeing what you guys cook up!

THE RESULTS!

[GOLD - 3 POINTS] FIRST PLACE - Reflections by FedoraChar (Phoenix Battalion)
[SILVER - 2 POINTS] SECOND PLACE - The Star, The Flower, the Jungle by Morzone (The Prism League)
[BRONZE - 1 POINT] THIRD PLACE - {symbiosis} by Elysia (Team Yoga Bears)

THE REVIEW RUN!

Exsul by NobleJanobii
Team Trainer

Originality (18/20)
Following Objectives (24/30)
Spelling and Grammar (8/10)
Flow and Transition (18/20)
Hook and Interest (17/20)

TOTAL: 85/100

You're sure off to an exciting start! Definitely lots of action going with nice description tied in, and that's a good thing. Without a doubt, you definitely really did a great job with the description, touching on details but still kept the story moving along. Big plus.

I did find a few grammar mistakes, though. Considering how much you wrote in a week, you didn't have too many, but these were a few of the ones I spotted:

"It was explore every nook and cranny of where it was currently residing before it would even think of leaving its nest." ~"exploring" maybe?

"Well I not let you!" ~a comma after "Well"

"I cannot thank you enough oh wise Willow" ~comma after "enough"

" They were menacing beasts in the night, and they had ever intention to devour their prey." ~Sure you meant "every" instead of "ever"

Just little stuff like this.

I also like how you definitely cranked this one up to be high on the fantasy scale! Great stuff! The action with the Chimera fight was great, and I wasn't expecting what came out of it at all! Meanwhile, I like how much original stuff you came up with. My only real qualm about it is that it seemed to end pretty abruptly.

I like what you came up with for the Jeweled Flower, but it kind of just showed up once and didn't get reflected on again. You definitely used it well to explain how the Elves came to be, but then it was just forgotten about. I think the problem I have is that if you took it out completely, no one would notice it was gone since the story really didn't rely on it.

Still though, you wrote a heck of a lot for only a week to work with!

Bears ♥ Flowers by Felly
Team Yoga Bears

Originality (16/20)
Following Objectives (26/30)
Spelling and Grammar (10/10)
Flow and Transition (18/20)
Hook and Interest (17/20)

TOTAL: 87/100

Definitely a nice and placid world you've created here. And I find it cool, funny, and enjoyable that you went ahead and gave your team theme a story to it. It feels and reads a lot like a playful short story fable, and it definitely gets the job done well.

Nice job with the bears versus skunks fight. I found it pretty comical and amusing, and you did have a lot of nice descriptors there. :D

Didn't notice any spelling or grammar mistakes, so your score is clean there.

You definitely made great use of the three parameters, but I was kind of expecting a lot more fantasy to get in on the action. I don't have too many qualms about it, but I still feel there was some room to dash in a little more depth and background detail. Great work though, I enjoyed it. :D

The Search For Mercedes by purple umbreon
Team Awesome

Originality (14/20)
Following Objectives (24/30)
Spelling and Grammar (8/10)
Flow and Transition (9/20)
Hook and Interest (10/20)

TOTAL: 65/100

I like the race of Yggdra you created and you definitely did a great job of describing them. You also incorporated great fantasy elements.

I can't really score it too high on the originality area because a princess getting into trouble because of their wanderlust and the typical damsel in distress is a pretty common story theme (hello Disney!). I think having Mercedes leave Pericunatu for some other pressing reason with greater depth would have helped a lot.

The story also seemed on the short side, and definitely toward the end, it felt rushed. Not too much detail is covered about how Alistar's journey went either, and the passage of time seemed to really jump around. There was a lot of potential to cover how his adventures went along the way and really build it deeper into more of a perilous journey. The fight that he has with the creature that ambushes him in the grass is over in just one paragraph. That did seem really quick.

I would definitely recommend expanding on the detail, as the story did seem quite short and I found several places where there was missed potential to expand into a deeper and more mystical story. Having Alistar get side-tracked, make new friends and enemies, and uncover a deeper mystery that goes even beyond Mercedes were possibilities to explore.

The ending was a bit of a surprise and a somber shocker, but then it just felt like an abrupt ending that could have used a bit more of the main character's reflection to consider what he was going to tell the queen, or question why it had to happen.

Reflections by FedoraChar
Phoenix Battalion

Originality (20/20)
Following Objectives (30/30)
Spelling and Grammar (10/10)
Flow and Transition (18/20)
Hook and Interest (19/20)

TOTAL: 97/100

Ha, ha, I was just thinking about something like this the other day with mirrors (MATRIX REFERENCE ACKNOLOWEDGED.). The narrator's sheepish dialogue is a nice touch. I also like how he's an "intern" guardian. The mirrorlings are definitely an interesting race of creatures you've created here and I like the way they can just become whatever they so darn well please! I also found the physical forms you had a bunch of them take were pretty amusing. :D

You made it easy to love the protagonist. He's a bit clumsy, somewhat fretful, and eccentric, but you can't help but like the way he has his aspirations and from the beginning, it's easy for the reader to want him to win just because he's that "little guy" that you hope wins in the end. I also like how you made reflections in a lake count as a mirror and went ahead with reorganizing the weekly calendar into "Pink Day" and "Blue Day." All nice touches. Also, I like what you did with having the Wish Flower take a pivotal role in the storyline. Without a doubt, you jacked up the originality to max and made clever and creative use of all the parameters.

The part where Ydylu becomes a mouse and meets the mouse tribe is fantastic and is easily my favorite part. I wasn't expecting that at all and you did a great job with it. I also snickered at the wish he makes. Reminds me of that glow stick thing (I forget the name :P) in Men in Black that makes people forget what they just saw.

I think the only things that held this back from getting a perfect score was the break just after Ydylu makes the wish and suddenly there's a cut. I would have LOVED and probably would have laughed to read about how exactly he managed to drag the flower back to the portal as a mouse. An even better added bonus would be for something to try to attack him or some other unanticipated mishap to take place as he's trying to do it. I also liked this little adventure and would have loved to see it be a bit longer, but it was great nonetheless!

This is definitely a really good story just oozing with originality. Very well done. :D

{symbiosis} by Elysia
Team Yoga Bears

Originality (19/20)
Following Objectives (27/30)
Spelling and Grammar (10/10)
Flow and Transition (17/20)
Hook and Interest (19/20)

TOTAL: 92/100

Definitely a dark and morbid intro, but judging from what I've seen in your stories in the past, it's definitely alluding to something later down the line!

You definitely had me going for quite a while trying to guess what exactly the protagonist and his adversary were. I was thinking maybe the sun and the moon or the day and the night at first. You make such great use of metaphors mixed with literal statements that it's a tough guess! I figured the way you defined the protagonist and the adversary as paradox and illusion was the literal interpretation here, and it was definitely a creative idea to take two non-sentient entities and give them personality. Or, at least this is what I think you did!

In all, it's definitely a very poetic piece with a lot of vivid descriptions and emotions. Throughout this WAR, your creative writing pieces have always been different from all the others in a unique way that makes them more of a fun and labyrinth-like enigma and riddle that needs to be read multiple times to be fully understood. And it's done in a good method that's not like "wow, all of that just flew over my head" and more of a "wow, this is deep, I want to understand it further" kind of way. Plus there's like probably over a dozen different ways it can be interpreted.

Spelling and grammar was fine from what I saw, so top score for that. Parameters seemed to have been met for the most part. You got the flower, but the protector part I kind of just saw it as a touch-and-go.

The only thing that tends to throw me off more often are the line breaks, as I'm not always sure why they're there and if there's a passing of time, a switch in perspective, a change in setting, or some combination of those that merits the break. That's the only thing that nicks this when it comes to the Flow and Transition score. It's tricky to pick up after a break and figure out what happened between the last part and this new part.

Overall, great story, you definitely have a creative way with words. :D

Lovecraftian Wonderland by LKWayvern
The Prism League

Originality (15/20)
Following Objectives (18/30)
Spelling and Grammar (9/10)
Flow and Transition (12/20)
Hook and Interest (16/20)

TOTAL: 70/100

Love X-Files, love creepypasta, but I was a little bit worried when I saw Lovecraft as I'm not too familiar with that stuff. As soon as I started the story, it definitely jumped into it FAST. Probably a bit too fast, as I didn't know what the girl looked like, where exactly she was, and how she got there in the first place, and what caused her to run into Glitch in the first place. Also, the girl was definitely human, and that didn't follow the third parameter. Also, I get that Glitch is the guardian of the Darksphere, but what is he protecting it from? Can the Darksphere be damaged and destroyed? I think that parameter too could have used a little extra development. What you did with the Heartbloom Flower was awesome though. That thing is vicious and deceptive!

Also, as a side note, it might help if you pressed enter twice after every paragraph so it separates the paragraphs and doesn't have it as one big wall of text.

My biggest point of advice would be to slow down! The story does rush though things too quickly where it would have been nice to see things described in more detail, slow the pacing of the story down to have things developed and described further, and touch base on every event and situation on the story to give them all significant meaning. The faster you fly through it, the more the reader might assume it wasn't worth mentioning.

The part where Glitch had Rachel thinking she was safe and at home before her family suddenly turned into nightmarish monsters was the best part, but it would have been nice to see further expansion on themes, language, and description to fool the reader into thinking everything is already now before you mind-screw them again and catch them off guard. Without a doubt Glitch is a total jackass and you definitely created a villain that's easy to hate. Great pluses there!

The Star, The Flower, the Jungle by Morzone
The Prism League

Originality (20/20)
Following Objectives (30/30)
Spelling and Grammar (8/10)
Flow and Transition (19/20)
Hook and Interest (18/20)

TOTAL: 95/100

Great use of description and the original creation of the Starlet was neat. You definitely didn't hold back in going deep on the fantasy themes scale.

I did see a few comma errors (they're a pain, I know), but I could tell you definitely did try to get it right. There were a few capitalization errors also.

Without a doubt, I would definitely say the description, emotion, high-level imagination, and the original characters you created for this are this story's biggest strongpoint. The floating series of islands as the setting is fantastic also, so I definitely loved the high-level creativity you used for this. It's easy to like William and the kind of job he's tasked to do, and his reaction upon meeting Amia was definitely well-captured as well. It's also easy to like and admire Amia for trying to help her mother rather than selfishly take on the throne for herself. Meanwhile, the mystery as to why William was banished was definitely a secret well-kept that got me wondering throughout the entire story.

Also, I'm VERY curious to know if "well howdy-do! My names Gerimia, your friendly drop spider!" was inspired from that spider in that animated Madagascar movie that shocks the heck out of Alex the lion (because I always laugh hard at that part).

Sam the shapeshifter was also a great character with a fun personality that was easy to take a liking to.

Overall, this was a very fun, creatively imaginative, and well-designed fantasy thrill ride. Thank you for that!

The Deepest Scars by ninjaskarmory
Jupiter Mining Corp.

Originality (18/20)
Following Objectives (26/30)
Spelling and Grammar (10/10)
Flow and Transition (18/20)
Hook and Interest (18/20)

TOTAL: 90/100

Very true point with that first paragraph. Great way to open it up there.

I love how they find a glowing flower, and decide to just eat it. It was hilarious, like someone thinking that eating a glowing ice cream sundae would be a good idea. Also, that robin should have known better than to just leave the last flower out in the open! The story starts with an interest premise and maybe moves a touch bit too quickly, but it definitely does the job it originally set out to do. I think going into a bit more detail to describe the world around and the surroundings would have helped give this story a boost, as well as adding more to the plot as well.

I also found it strange and very interestingly original how these animals had labels appear on them depending on what they were called by others. I've never seen something like that done before and it's a very cool and distinctively original idea. The use of rabbits, a robin, and a raven was a neat idea, but coming up with your own fantasy creatures would have been a neat plus also.

You definitely covered no humans and the flower part, but the protector part could have gotten a little more showtime. Not bad though, you definitely covered a lot of fascinating territory with this story. Great job!

**Neo Emolga** · 06-28-2015, 09:28 PM

Ladies and gentlemen, it has come down to the final moment...

WEEK #4

FINAL THEME: WHAT A DAY! WHAT A LOVELY DAY!

Congratulations on reaching the final round! You've made it through Pokémon being rewritten into mankind's history books, epic superheroes and powers, and the deepest plunge into fantasy you've ever dreamed of! We've broken the rules, made new heroes, distorted the timestream, and gone above and beyond imagination itself! After all that epic craziness and now that your long and incredible writing journey is coming to the last leg of the race, what could possibly be more challenging than what you've faced already? As the final arena of literary battles lies before you, what shadowy figure now emerges to be the ultimate final boss of this incredible and epic journey!?

It's me. MAH HA HA HA HA!

Yes, folks, for years... I've always wanted to do this and I feel it would make for one epic and incredible final challenge. Get your wits, keyboards, and word processors ready, because it's time to crank them into full overdrive.

As the Fallout, Mad Max, Book of Eli, and Borderlands junkie I am, I'm a sucker for a great, post-apocalyptic settings with ruined cities, wild combat, struggling for survival, and even a little humor dashed in. Whether it's a freaked-out zombie apocalypse or intense desert fighting in a world were political correctness and formality has no place, show me your best story that takes the aftermath of a messed-up world and showcases the struggle that goes into trying to put it all back together. Satisfy the action and battle freak in me and prove the apocalypse is just the end of one beginning going into another!

The nature of the cataclysm is totally up to you! Whether your story takes place after nukes incinerated the world, zombies went wild, some natural disaster caused mass destruction, or something totally unexpected wiped most life and civilization off the planet, it's up to you to choose what you want to create and how you want to make it work.

And that's not all! Not only is the theme based on some of my favorite stuff, but so are the parameters!

Parameters

And Neo is My Name-o: Your story must feature an Emolga. You leave this out and I'll... *thunder rumbles*
Big Muscle: I'll have you know I drive a black Dodge Challenger and I LOVE THAT CAR! Guess what car you're featuring in your story? Make good use of it too!
Angelic Firepower: I also have a strong liking to angels and think they're awesome. Ooh, we're getting tough now by stepping into the supernatural, aren't we?
Here There Be Dragons: "We need to feature dragons now too? Are you kidding!?" No, I'm not, because I think they're cool also! You can work them in there! Go all Sucker Punch if you have to! (actually, this kind of wild movie would be a great way to start thinking about how you want to do this).
Stand For Something: The words "Forever Gold" must appear somewhere in your story. It's a motto I've enjoyed using for years ever since Superboy told me to "Stay Gold." In your story's context, it needs to have some meaning and significance.

CAN YOU RISE TO MEET THE FINAL CHALLENGE!?

**ninjaskarmory** · 06-28-2015, 09:44 PM

Why do I get the sneaking suspicion that you were inspired by the message above my avatar? XD I'm getting excited just reading this! I won't try to finish this one 20 minutes before the deadline, so it won't be as rushed as The Deepest Scars (at least, I hope not). Can the dragons be Dragon-type Pokemon? C:

**Neo Emolga** · 06-28-2015, 09:48 PM

Originally Posted by ninjaskarmory

Why do I get the sneaking suspicion that you were inspired by the message above my avatar? XD I'm getting excited just reading this! I won't try to finish this one 20 minutes before the deadline, so it won't be as rushed as The Deepest Scars (at least, I hope not). Can the dragons be Dragon-type Pokemon? C:

Ha, ha, I didn't even see that message! Everyone loves Nux. He's insane, but his heart's in the right place.

It's perfectly fine to have the dragons be Pokemon. And yes, I'm a junkie when it comes to using Dragon-type Pokemon also. XD