Hey ya'll! Junie here. Lately, I've been reading a lot of great fanfics with amazing storylines, but you want to know the sad thing? While I can understand what's going on plot-wise, everything seems to fall, well, a bit short.

I get it. The most important part when writing a story is to have a plot. Without a plot, there is no point to the story as it can go on and on until the writer is fresh out of ideas. Trust me, I know. I once tried writing a story with no plot, and it didn't end well.

There is just one element to a story that is needed as much as the plot. It's this element in stories that I see place in contests or gain the most amount of reads/votes/and comments. I think I can speak for everyone that seeing any one of those numbers goes up makes ya feel good.

If you haven't looked at the title of this segment, then you're probably sitting on the edge of your seat wondering what this is. That is because I'm showing you all how much detail is a big part to writing. It can build suspense, give background, gives a sense as to what's going on, and frankly, can be a lot of fun reading.

It's the opposite for writing an essay for school. When you do an essay, and you're looking up information for it, you want to find it and be done so that the essay can be done as quickly as possible. That's because not many people enjoy doing essays. It's called work. Your teacher or professor wants to find the main idea and go from there.

Writing a story is a bit different. While you can't get too side tracked—unless the main character is that kind of person—you need detail. This is because as the reader, you're choosing to read a story for your enjoyment. It's not some essay or research paper you have to get done and move on. Most of those papers are forgotten about. Stories shouldn't be forgotten about because it's an experience and not straight up facts.

If that's not a good enough reason to put detail into a story, then here's another perspective to think about. I had this wonderful high school English teacher who had us write a fictional story as an assignment. She explained how dialogue was the hardest due to all the rules, but it's the details people miss.

So what's the problem with lack of detail?

When you write, you know exactly what's going on. The picture is sketched into your mind. Whatever sounds your characters are hearing, you hear them too. You know how everything looks, feels, how your characters are feeling. It's great.

What's great is that we have this medium of Wattpad to share these stories that we come up with. What we see, feel, hear, smell, taste...we can make others do as well.

Without writing it down, your reader isn't going to feel the same way. See, your reader knows nothing about what's going on or what your characters even look like unless you tell them. If your reader doesn't have a picture in their mind, the next time s/he opens up a book, s/he is not going to remember what happened. With that happening, it's easier to put down a book.

Details matters. You don't have to be great at it at first. That'll come with time. You just have to make sure it's there.

Maybe it's best if I give a short example. As I've done throughout this entire book, I'll use examples from my own book, Swanna Girl and Braviary Man because I don't have to give myself credit, and I don't have to check with the author of the book if it's okay.

If I did that, it would be called plagiarism...which I could get to on another day.

So, here's the first chapter from Swanna Girl and Braviary Man, if I didn't use detail.

(-o-)

"Good morning, Sylvia," Nurse Joy greeted. "You're up early."

"Good morning. Do you need any help around the Pokémon Center today?" I asked.

"Go, enjoy yourself for once," Nurse Joy said. "I'll have supper ready for you."

Nodding my head, I grabbed my bag from behind the door and ran out of the Pokémon Center, going about my routine. I walked over to a small cafe, getting myself my usual black coffee and banana for breakfast.

I heard a lot of whispering around the cafe when I did this, which was strange. I looked back to see another trainer waiting in line.

"Good morning," I greeted. "How are you today?"

The trainer looked over at me shocked that I was talking to him. "Me?"

"Not much of a morning person, huh?" I asked.

"Here's your coffee Miss. Sylvia, and what can I get you this morning, young man?" The barista asked.

"A cappuccino," The trainer said, laying the money down.

As the barista went to the back to prepare the trainer's cappuccino, I took a deep breath. "So, do you know what everyone is so excited about? I've never seen so many people out and about, especially on a Sunday morning."

The trainer looked shocked.

"You haven't heard? The famous Braviary Man is making a visit here," He explained.

Of course I knew who Braviary Man was. Everyone did. He was the Unovan superhero.

"Are you alright? Usually girls swoon when they hear he's coming," He mentioned.

I didn't a word as I marched out of the coffee shop and went about my day.

(-o-)

Now, when you read that, you're probably wondering who the heck this Braviary Man character is. You're probably curious as to what do these two trainers look like, or at least why the MC, Sylvia, seems to know Nurse Joy quite well. These are just a few questions that can pop up among hundreds of other ones.

That's because the details were missing. See, without knowing what I know, you probably don't want to read on. That dialogue bit was only half of what happens, and it's less than 500 words!

While there's nothing wrong with short chapters or dialogue heavy ones, in the beginning of the story, it is crucial to put as much detail into the story. Without it, you may loose some readers.

But let's say we know the backstories of these characters. For example, Nurse Joy was mentioned earlier. Clearly, being in the Pokémon fandom, we all know what Nurse Joy looks like.

What if I told you she's Sylvia's mom. Wait, what? But all Nurse Joy's have Joy's for kids! That makes no sense.

What if I told you Sylvia never directly says to the reader, "Nurse Joy is my adoptive parent." While she never directly says that, you as the reader can figure that out. What, but, how?

That's the thing about detail, it can give you those missing links between characters that you missed. True, in SGBM, I had Sylvia tell the reader that she's been living with Nurse Joy since she was two years old due to an incident with her parents. But through that detail, she was able to explain other stuff about her life that's important to know early on.

Okay, but what if I'm just using the cast from Pokémon. Surely if I say Serena, Clement, Misty, Brock, May, and Max, you have a clear cut picture of who those characters are. I shouldn't have to say those details right?

Some would agree with you. It's fanfic. That sort of thing can be allowed; however, now you've landed yourself into a new problem. What if I told you I've never played or watched a Pokémon episode past gen 5 (now, this is all not true, but hypothetical, as there are readers like this). What happens if you're making a Pokeshipping book and you decide to have Serena get between to two lovers.

Sure, everyone should know who Misty and Ash are, but if you haven't played or watched anything that's Gen 6, you're lost. True, you could type into google, or whatever search engine you use, and figure this out, but if you start mixing in some original characters in the mix, the reader will start looking those characters up too.

As we all probably know, finding OC's are hard to find in a google search. In fact, I did a quick search of "Pokémon Sylvia Gray" into google, and most were of just Pokémon. Some were of other anime characters, such as Hilda and Valerie. One picture was from chapter 29 of the second book.

And if any of you know the picture in the chapter I'm alluding to, well, that's not a good representation as to who Sylvia is.

But yes, detail is very important. You don't have to give every piece of detail out to your readers. If you want to, you can hide an important detail out, so when it is revealed, the shock factor is still there.

For instance, in that scene above, I gave no details on anyone. There was nothing about Braviary Man, or Rudi (who is the random trainer at the cafe), not even Sylvia herself.

But what if I told you Braviary Man and Rudi are the same person. Wouldn't Sylvia have taken notice of this when she saw Rudi during this interaction? Not necessarily. In the actual story, she notices how he has blond hair and these unforgettable blue eyes. Now, if Sylvia's seen Braviary Man before, that means she's probably seen his eyes.

Well, in the next chapter, she actually gets a close encounter with Braviary Man, and during this encounter, she realizes Braviary Man and Rudi are one in the same. When I describe that in the book, she just explained who Braviary Man is, how he saves the day, and makes him out to be this arrogant jerk that wants nothing to do with anyone, just fame and glory himself.

See, that description (or lack there-of) shows how she feels about Braviary Man. We don't have to know what this guy looks like, but we already have this feeling of "Oh great, he's one of those superheroes. Yuck." If we have that feeling, we can probably assume she knows what this guy looks like, so we aren't expecting him to be Braviary Man.

Yes, detail is very, very important. Without it, there is no way to connect with the characters that are given on the page. That doesn't mean it's impossible. Back when I started writing books like these, that was how I started out. I still have ways to grow, but to show you how I've grown in the past few years (as I'm not exactly sure how long ago that was) here is the exact same scene from Swanna Girl and Braviary Man. Granted, the detail still isn't the best, but there are different ways to go about detail. Since this is in first person (which is my style of writing) we will be able to go into her mind and see how she thinks and what she feels.

(-o-)

"Good morning, Sylvia," Nurse Joy greeted. "You're up early."

"Good morning. Do you need any help around the Pokémon Center today?" I asked.

As always, the pink haired nurse shook her head. "It's your day off. Go, enjoy yourself for once. I'll have supper ready for you."

Nodding my head, I grabbed my brown satchel from behind the door and ran out of the Pokémon Center. Being that it was only 8 in the morning, not many trainers were here. There was only a few that were just waking up, sitting there with a cup of coffee in their hands, wondering why they were up in the mornings.

I could remember on my tenth birthday, Nurse Joy had asked if I wanted to see Professor Juniper to choose a starter Pokémon. Unlike any young 10 year old, I denied the chance to start on my journey. My life at the Pokémon center was good enough. It was then I revealed to Nurse Joy what I really wanted to do.

My plan was that on my 18th birthday, I'd be applying to nursing school. It helped I studied under a Nurse Joy because that's how people usually get in. There were very few non-nurse Joys who worked in a Pokémon Center, which, when I think about it, is kinda strange. It didn't matter though.

I had my whole life planned out.

It was a bright day in Nacrene City. There weren't many clouds in the sky. The chances of the weather turning bad rarely happened here, so I was fine. As any normal day would go, I walked over to a small cafe, getting myself my usual black coffee and banana for breakfast.

As I did this, I heard a lot of whispering around the cafe. The place was small with five small tables for people to sit in. Today, trainers and people who either lived or traveled here flooded this cafe. Because of this, my plan was to just get out of here and eat my breakfast in some peace and quiet had disappeared. Chatter of trainers filled the room, which was odd.

But as the barista was making a fresh pot of coffee, I couldn't help feeling a bit intrigued as to what was going on. There wasn't even a t.v. around to be showing some sort of big battle going on.

Instead, I turned to look at the trainer beside me. He kept the hood of his dark colored jacket over his head, with a flatbill hat poking from underneath. His head was down, but even so, I could see strings of light blonde hair sticking out from underneath. I also noticed a single pokeball on his belt, but it wasn't just a regular pokeball. This was a premiere one, a kind of pokeball that was completely white with the exception of a red line at circled around it.

"Good morning," I chirped, trying not use my—as Nurse Joy would call it—nurse voice. "How are you today?"

The trainer looked over at me shocked that I was talking to him. "Me?"

I laughed. "Not much of a morning person, huh?" I asked.

"Here's your coffee Miss. Sylvia, and what can I get you this morning, young man?" The barista asked.

"A cappuccino," The trainer said, laying the money down.

As the barista went to the back to prepare the trainer's cappuccino, I took a deep breath. "So, do you know what everyone is so excited about? I've never seen so many people out and about, especially on a Sunday morning."

The trainer threw his head back in shock, allowing me to catch a glimpse of these unforgettable navy blue eyes. I don't think I've ever seen anyone with that shade of blue eyes before, and I've worked with Nurse Joy healing many trainers Pokémon before. He must've noticed and quickly lowered the bill of his cap to go unnoticed.

"You haven't heard? The famous Braviary Man is making a visit here," He explained.

My stomach turned. I never understood why people fell head over heels with this guy. He was dubbed as Unova's Superhero, but for that, he needed a villain. Unfortunately, that happened soon after this superhero came and saved the day a handful of times, there was this new group of villains that came as well.

After what happened a long time ago with Team Plasma, I didn't think there could be a worse villainous team. No one did. That was why Team Miasma was so dangerous. Everyone let their guard down.

But we had Braviary Man to save the day. Yuck. I didn't care. A guy flying around with a mask and costume practically just to be saving the day in. Instead, it was just downright ludicrous.

Who was this Team Miasma anyways? Well, they were a group of bad guys who specialize in dark and poison type Pokémon, but occasionally they used other types too. The odd thing about them is that most of the Pokémon they use aren't even from the Unova region, which is strange within itself. At least we all know that they aren't from here, especially since I've seen grunts use Pokémon like Grimers of greens and purple, Weezings, Poochyenas, and Murkrows all over the news. Some did have some Unovan Pokémon, such as a Scraggy and Trubbish, but a majority of these dark and poison type Pokémon were from other regions.

To make matters worse, every time they attack, the city they land in ends up reeking for weeks. Right now, Opelucid City was off limits due to the smell being the worst on record, which made headlines. Not only did it reek there, but because the gym leader was furious and refused to leave. Apparently, no one could get her out. News reports say it would be some sort of miracle if she's alive.

Of course, Braviary Man was the one and only superhero that could save the day from Team Miasma's mysterious plans. This meant that he had to be there, and sometimes, he'd be there to help rescue people from some toxic buildings and help clog sewers. However, the news reports always made it sound like him and his trusted partner in crime, Braviary (no surprise), was always there from the top of the crime, fighting the entire time.

I never believed one word that was said when that happened.

"Are you alright? Usually girls swoon when they hear he's coming," He mentioned.

"Don't people realize the mistake he's making?" I countered. "If he's some praised superhero, then he needs to be fighting Team Miasma instead of being here."

My words caused the trainer to flinch, but I didn't care. I never liked this superhero. Hearing that he was here in Nacrene of all places made me sick. I turned around and walked out of the cafe, tired of hearing that this superhero was here.

(-o-)

As you can tell, detail also doubles, sometimes quadruples word count. Don't worry about that. As you can probably tell from the example given above, there's no need to worry about length when you start to realize the depth we've gotten into our two main characters.

Learning to write in detail will take time. It will feel awkward at first. I still write details and think "Is this what I'm trying to convey to my audience?" Sometimes the details will be missed. That's fine, but the big thing is that it's there. We need to have details to know what's going on. So, I challenge you that if your writing looks more like the first one, just try to add what you see.

You can start by asking 3 simple questions in your story:

1.) What does my character/character around him/her look like? Note: you don't have to describe what a character looks like in every scene, but a nice reminder is good every once to refresh your reader's mind. This could be as simple as the phrase "Rudi's navy blue eyes sparkled in the light" to give some depth as to what's going on.

2.) What are these characters doing as they talk? Are they nodding, shifting in their seats?

3.) How is the main character of the scene feeling? What are some thoughts that are coming into his/her brain? This isn't to be straight forward, like, "I'm angry" but gives hits of the action, such as, "My hands curled up into fists, with my fingers digging into the palms of my hands."

Hopefully, with this new information, you'll be able to improve your writings so that readers will want to continue on, rather than forgetting about it and moving onto the next Pokefic they see. Does that mean you won't lose readers? No, but this will help gain some in the beginning.

Let's face it. We've worked hard coming up with the plot. By just adding detail, we attract people to the story, making us all happy little writers.