Fan Fic Idea

SO i'm thinking about starting up a fan fic on serebii, and i wanted to know what people thought. Here it is: The entire pokemon world has gone to war with eachother. every region has formed an army and are constantly fighting. the main character just returned to his hometown of Celadon from trainers school in Saffron to start his pokemon jouney, only for the city to be attacked by the johto military. he then decides that with all of the worlds leaders war hungry and everyone trying to force him to choose an army to join, the only way for him to remain neutral is to end the war by forming a group to help take down the world leaders and regain peace.... tell me what you think i hope for as much feedback as possible also tell me if there are any storylines of other fanfics that are too close to this

Sound like it would be very disorganized and hard to follow, what with all the different villains and such. Besides, where is the story leading? What's the plot? So there's a big war and your guy decides to build a team... that's just the setting of the story and a small part of the plot. You have to at least have some idea of what's going to happen in the story. You need a really good conflict that you can build the rest of the story off of, rising action, a climax, falling action, and a resolution at the end. If you just go out on a whim and make up the story as you go along, the plot is likely to be weak and no clear conflict will be present, so make sure you know all this stuff BEFORE you go out and write it.

Also, you have to be REALLY careful with your characters. Ever heard of the term "Mary Sue" or "Gary Stu"? These are terms used to describe characters with little to no flaws. Make sure your characters have some flaws, make sure they're round, meaning they have a lot of diverse character traits, and make sure they're dynamic, meaning they change throughout the story usually as a result of events.

As a recap:

Plot
- Must have a clear conflict present throughout the entire story
- Must have rising action, climax, falling action, and resolution

Characters
- Must have flaws: no Mary Sues or Gary Stus
- Should be round: diverse character traits, including good and bad
- Should be dynamic: change throughout the story due to conflict or other events

i guess i could have made it more clear the plot is that literally EVERYONE has to join a region to fight for and the kid makes a rebellion and the story is about the rebellion becoming bigger and stronger and eventually (along the way probably needing the help of some legendaries) setting the world back in order by disbanding all of the worlds armies. its basically just a rough draft that i am putting together.

EDIT: also the characters are nowhere near perfect they are coming from all walks of life, from former business men who may be corrupt with greed, to hoodlums who have history of poverty and criminal activity. also some criminals. there is even a a character who is a high rank in the Hoenn military but joins the rebels

j Woo wrote:i guess i could have made it more clear the plot is that literally EVERYONE has to join a region to fight for and the kid makes a rebellion and the story is about the rebellion becoming bigger and stronger and eventually (along the way probably needing the help of some legendaries) setting the world back in order by disbanding all of the worlds armies. its basically just a rough draft that i am putting together.

When I say plot, I mean the actual specific things that will be happening along the way. What will be occurring during the exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, and resolution? You need a good idea of some of the specific events you want to take place and how they all fit into the grand scheme.

Also, I'm glad that you're using diverse characters. Make sure their flaws are pronounced, but especially make sure that their personalities are highly developed. A common mistake that people make when writing a pokemon fic (actually a mistake that I made once) is that they fill up the story with pokemon battles and keep driving the plot forward, but leave no room for character development. Make sure you make a lot of chances in the story for characters to show their personality. And another thing; I know I already said this, but make sure the characters are round. Make them act upon a wide range of character traits rather than just being flat and acting the same all the time, even if it makes sense for them to act that way.

One more MAJOR thing I want to point out is that you better have a REALLY good explanation as to why all these regions are going to war against each other. Why are they all fighting each other rather than working toward a common cause? What is the cause? What are they striving for? Why do they choose to work independently rather than working together? This has to be very clear and apparent throughout the story, otherwise these people will just be fighting for no reason and your story will seem weak.

all of the things you just mentioned i do have developed i just dont want to post a bunch of spoilers because i hopefully want people to read it since it will be on serebii. and i guess the reason isnt that much of a spoiler. basically very corrupt things have been happening such as pokemon being bought and sold from region to region in order for that regions trainer to have more diverse teams for battling in order to out-do other regions in competitions and stuff. certain regions start to feel cheated, some people think that buying selling, and shipping pokemon from their native lands is wrong, and basically internal conflict leads to some regions thinking they can force pokemon trade on other regions that are against it by taking them over, then regions try to defend eachother, are still betrayed, then it becomes civil war without end...

If you think you have everything perfect, then by all means go ahead and start your fic.

i just have a basic outline if how the story is gonna go i just want advice and stuff on what people think of the story also to tell me if they wanted to be a character in it

Wait. It is (outside of everyone thinks) really hard to write a fanfic. You need to be regular, unless you say otherwise. You need to be loyal. You need to have fresh ideas. You need a lot of things. If you think that you can do it, go ahead. I will help you in anything I can.

actually if you could help with making before-chapter art that would be great