d_s_t_e's Wattpad Reviews

Shattered Foresight by Shayminkid123 [Pokémon]

Shattered Foresight is a Pokemon fanfic about a Gardevoir named Stella who is shattered by the loss of her trainer. On her own, she makes a new friend named Shimmer, but her past soon catches up to her.

Shattered Foresight is a short story that was obviously going for a strong emotional impact. From the violent death of Stella's trainer in the very beginning of the story and the backstory surrounding it that is later revealed to what was surely intended to be a warm feeling regarding the close friendship between Stella and Shimmer, it was trying to connect with and engage the reader in a powerful way. Unfortunately, it didn't really succeed with me due to the reasons I will outline below.

To start with, there were a lot of character actions and plot details that didn't make sense. In the prologue, for example, Stella is wandering alone when she falls asleep in the forest and wakes up to see Shimmer. Shimmer calls out to her, blocks the attack that Stella casts at her, introduces herself, and immediately tells Stella that she can be her sister. To recap, Shimmer knows just a handful of things about Stella: that she was sleeping in the woods, that she attacked when woken up, and that she stuttered out, "Wha-who-wha?". She doesn't know Stella's name, she doesn't know where she came from or whether she has a trainer or a family, and she actually has more reasons than not to think that Stella may actually be a threat to her. It seems unbelievable that she would invite her to become a family member right off the bat. To continue the action, Stella then assures Shimmer that she doesn't have to be alone anymore, which is another thing that doesn't make sense because she has no possible way of knowing that Stella is or has been alone.

My biggest problem with the story, though, is that I found it confusing. The longer the story went on, the more confused I became about what was happening and why, which makes it very difficult for me to say much more about it. I can say that, for a story that's meant to be about Stella's foresight, I never really understood what that "foresight" was, why it was so important to Stella before she lost it, or what would be necessary in order for her to get it back. The situation with Stella's trainer was also very confusing for me, and, since these things are the main focus of the story, I think they're really the things most in need of fixing.

Beyond that, there were a lot of comma and punctuation issues. There were also some places where the story switched tense. Most glaringly, though, the word "prologue" is misspelled in the heading of the very first part of the story. Some cleanup would definitely not be amiss.

Overall, I think this is a story that could use a lot of work. In my opinion, it didn't really hit the mark it was going for.

** Published in December 2016 **