Flyg0n
Flygon connoisseur
- Pronouns
- She/her
- Partners
-
Tetra’s Ted Talk on Tussles
Aka,
Tetra’s Guide to Pokemon Battles
Aka,
Tetra’s Guide to Pokemon Battles
Ohohoho it’s time to talk about battles! Battles in fic, especially trainer battles (my favorite), are an incredibly fun way to tell a story through action and to showcase the relationship between your trainer and their partner! (1) Blinded Pikachu VS Inkay & Wobbuffet Ash VS Team Rocket - YouTube
Mmmmm battles. Glorious feats, epic showdowns and....
Really freakin’ annoying to get right. But hopefully, this Ted Talk will help make it a little easier.
I will split this discussion into two broad topics. Subplot and Battle.
The ‘subplot’ of the fight refers to the surrounding emotional, physical and thematic beats, while Battle naturally refers to the action itself.
Disclaimer: This is written from the perspective primarily of trainer/pokemon pairs, but the advice applies broadly as well. What follows is partially my personal author opinion. Ultimately the creative choices you make should always service the story and its characters. This is also not an exhaustive guide, there's definitely things beyond this that are helpful too. There is no single "right" way to right battles, it's what works for you and your story and what is most fun!
Lastly, I’m not an expert in battles. Reviewers have said before that they enjoy my battles a lot but I’m still learning and by no means is my word law!
Subplot
The subplot is arguably the most important part of a pokemon battle. Even a lackluster battle is important when it has stakes, consequence and motive. However the flashiest battle in the world becomes droll after a time if we don’t care about why the fight is happening. With that said, let’s discuss Subplot! *airhorn noises*.
Motive
The first thing I like to ask is ‘why is this battle happening?’ or ‘Why am I choosing to include this battle’. If you don’t have a reason, that's ok! You can still find one. (Or maybe you really can’t and you cut the fight). Take a look at the characters involved. Why is your trainer in this fight? Maybe someone on the road insulted their pokemon, or perhaps they need the money. It could be the final gym fight so they can challenge the champion and avenge their father! *gasp*
Whatever the reason, you do want to have one, even if it's as simple as ‘Raichu just evolved and needs a battle to adjust to its new body’.
If you’re having trouble coming up with a reason, try to look at your characters, both human and pokemon. What matters most to them? What are their physical or emotional needs at this specific part in the story? What are their flaws that they are either unaware or aware of that influence them? For example, in one chapter of my fic, Legendary Adventures, Koa and his friend Avis are having a battle. Koa is excited to train more and try the new move his pokemon learned, but he’s also driven constantly by his deep desire to climb Mt Coronet. For reasons (spoilers).
It's a pretty simple motive, but once paired with stakes it becomes even better.
Stakes
Stakes are an absolute must for every battle. They’re often tied to the motive as well. A battle without stakes of some kind is very nearly pointless, and I cannot impress how important this is. Particularly in writing, when there’s no epic flashy visuals to distract, this is more key than ever.
Stakes are exactly what the name says. What is at stake if your characters lose? Will they go bankrupt because they bet all their money on a fight? Do they need to beat the Team Rocket Grunt to save their kidnapped Trapinch? Will they be late for the train if they take too long to win? Stakes can often be (and should be) very internal or personal as well.
Your characters might be fighting to make a name for themselves and shake off a bad lineage. Or perhaps they’re insecure and need to become champion to prove their worth to their hyper competitive siblings.
Whatever it is, there should always be something at stake in a fight, even if it's just deciding who pays for dinner. They can be a stake for that one battle, or feed into overarching stakes for the story.
Stakes do not have to be big. It doesn’t have to be the end of the world (although it can be!) but the most important part of stakes is that they need to matter to the characters. Otherwise it truly is pointless. If the characters don’t care, it will be hard for the audience to care. Even a simple "I want to win enough to buy a gift for my friend" can be good.
So give your characters things they care about, and then put them to the test in a fight where they can lose or damage whatever it is they care so much about! This will deepen every fight and help develop your characters.
Consequence
It’s not about winning, it's about the journey.
I think sometimes there’s a notion that a character needs to win a battle for the story to be good. Wrong! There’s nothing wrong with winning (and your characters should probably want it), but they definitely should not win every battle. And they don’t need to for you to tell a good story.
Because a battle is all about what you learn.
Consequences. After a battle, there should generally be a sense of ‘because of this battle, x happened’. Naturally you shouldn’t state it in as many words, but there should be some kind of impact on the character, even if it's minor.
This can be physical changes, like a pokemon evolving, or learning a new move. Or it can be emotional. Perhaps this loss finally broke little Mudkip’s spirit and he doesn’t believe in himself. So he runs away from his trainer and gets lost. Or the 10th win in a row makes your trainer grow arrogant and convinced he’s at the top of the world so he challenges the next gym, only to be curbstomped.
At the end of every battle or fight, your character should be in some way changed, even if it's minor. Via either dialogue or internal self reflection or through subtle narrative elements, you should show this. Every fight should be important enough to a character's arc, or to the story, that removing it causes the story to make less sense.
Battle
Now it’s time to talk about the cool part! The actual battle itself! I will say I tend to lean on the anime side of things, so a bit more magical-esque, but the general advice here should help with any battle.
Vocabulary and Description
Word choice and sentence structure is key to making a battle flow and feel action packed. In general you want to stick to punchy verbs, short sentences and focus on actions. A battle scene is rarely the time for long extended moments of self reflection or internal narration. These break up the flow of the fight and can make it feel stilted and awkward.
You also want to try to use concise, strong verbs. ‘He proceeded at a swift pace across the hard rocky ground full of pointy stones’ vs ‘he scrambled over the rocks’ (I exaggerate, but the principle remains).
You’ll also want to try to vary sentence structure and length. While you want to generally keep sentences on the shorter side, it's important not to make every single sentence the same exact length or the writing can come off stilted.
I also recommend varying word choice. There’s nothing wrong with using a simple word a couple times ‘Pidgey struck Hitmonchan’ but if the battle consists entirely of ‘Zigzagoon jumped forward and struck Orbeetle. Orbeetle struck Zigzagoon. With a hiss, Zigzagoon summoned dark energy and struck Orbeetle.’ it begins to feel repetitive.
Try to think about varying ways to describe actions like ‘Zigzagoon sank his fangs into Orbeetle’s arm.’/’Zigzagoon tackled Orbeetle out of the air’
In the same way, avoid being overly descriptive in a fight. Lingering descriptions are useful to slow pacing down, so unless you’re intentionally trying to do so, try for a middle ground of descriptions.
[‘“Now!” Damon shouted, standing up straight and gesturing outwards with his right arm and curling three of his fingers into the palm of his hand but keeping his index finger outstretched and wrapping his thumb over his knuckles.
Zigzagoon jumped up at a forty five degree angle and sank his gleaming white teeth into Orbeetle’s left upper arm, making the red ladybug pokemon jerk rapidly side to side. Brown fur shaking, Zigzagoon tensed his jaws and bit down harder and refused to release the bug type.]
vs
[Damon pointedly dramatically at his opponent. “Now!”
Zigzagoon charged forward and leaped up, snagging Orbeetle from the air. It thrashed in his grip but Zigzagoon only dug in tighter.]
Although it's a bit of an exaggeration, see how the first version feels long and bloated? There’s details there that simply don’t need explaining and wording that's too long. Whenever possible, opt for simple words.
Another important thing is to try to use active voice over passive voice. The nuances of explaining exactly what those are is a bit much for me, so I will instead refer you here: Active vs. Passive Voice: What's the Difference? | Grammarly
Finally, you generally only need to be as specific about choreography as is required for basic understanding of the pokemon’s positions relative to each other.. I don’t need to know the longitude and latitude of a pokemon’s position on the battlefield, but something like say ‘Spheal rolled under Magnezone then spun and fired a water gun at its back’ is a very reasonable description of motion because we want to know that Spheal got around it and surprised her opponent.
Skills and Limitations
Generally speaking it is, in my opinion as a writer, important to try and make sure readers are aware of a main character's skill set before heading into a fight (an obvious exception being that if it's the beginning of a story, etc).
We as the readers should have a good idea how strong our main character is, what moves they know, and how good of a battler they are. This helps readers judge what they think the outcome could be (and what the main character thinks) so that a win or a loss feels both reasonable and logical, or at the very least understandable.
When defining skill, consistency is key. Not so much consistency to the games or anime (although you certainly can if you want), but internal consistency. This means that if something is shown to work one way, it should usually always work with similar results. My Crobat MC who uses Steel Wing on an Onix of medium strength and is able to one shot it, but later can’t faint a freshly hatched Geodude, doesn’t add up.
Conversely, if my MC has a newly evolved Blastoise, we can surmise that they’re likely of medium strength, so if suddenly Blastoise one-shots Champion Red’s Vensaur, this doesn’t track with generally accepted rules of pokemon. Generally a reader will have a baseline in their head vaguely similar to the games, so if you intend to diverge from this it's important to establish what you’re working with.
Next, limitations have power and breed creativity. This advice is somewhat subjective but I’ve often found that stories that have a single pokemon learn 30 moves for any situation, it begins to feel very much about just using a cool move, as opposed to making skillful use of specific moves. This is not saying that less moves is inherently superior, but rather a broad example to highlight that having your character be able to do ‘anything’ actually limits you as a writer and detracts from the impact of using strategy and skill.
Part of the reason why turn-based battles are interesting to folks is because every pokemon has limitations and strengths. Some pokemon are fast but can’t take a hit, some are very tough but move very slow. Defining limits in your story helps create tension and promote outside the box thinking. (and to be very clear I am not implying you should use turns, nor that you have to use only 4 moves; rather just using a broad example of how limits of some kind are useful)
For example, in one episode of the Sun and Moon anime, Ash has to face the ground type island kahuna and her Mudsdale. He sends out Pikachu. We as the audience know Pikachu has Thunderbolt, Electroweb, Iron Tail and Quick Attack, and we know none of these will do a lot of damage. Plus, Musdale’s ability is revealed to boost defense when he gets hit.
Now there’s tension! How will Ash find a way to win when he’s at a disadvantage? What unusual combo will he come up with (and therefore, the writers come up with). This gives a prime opportunity to have Ash display his clever and innovative battle style. Because they are battling by the seaside, Ash causes a huge splash of seawater and wets Mudsdale, basically acting like the move ‘Water Sport’, allowing him to shock mudsdale and win.
Now picture this situation with Pikachu having access to 20+ moves! No longer limited to the four moves above, He could have all of those plus just spam Alluring Voice, block with Reflect and and Light Screen, restore himself with Draining Kiss, then use Surf to stun and then use Grass Knot.
To be clear, I’m not telling you to use the four move limit. Rather I am saying that you should create a form of limitation because then you can set up tension in your battles when the ‘rules’ of the world are clear. This might look like describing stamina limits, PP, having a eight move limit, or whatever works for your story and worldbuilding
Which leads to my final note about battles...
Environment and Innovation
I’d say a final quick trick for adding spice to battles is considering how the environment affects a fight. Not every battle will take place in a wide and empty gym field. There might be obstacles, like rocks, which can be used to attack or defend. Or maybe its water field with floating platforms. How do your pokemon and trainer cope with this if they're, say, using a grass-type that can’t swim well?
Or perhaps they’re fighting evil bad guys in a cramped secret base and there’s narrow corridors. Perhaps their Plusle bounces off the walls for momentum or their Steelix simply can’t fit in the space. Try to consider in what ways the environment may be used to help or hinder your character's techniques, or force them to innovate or try something new.
And lastly, moves. One of my favorite parts of watching battles or writing them is thinking of clever new ways moves can be used. Depending on how grounded you prefer to write your battles, you can find new ways to use something. Perhaps your Graveler uses Stone Edge to summon rocks to block an incoming Hydro Pump or launch himself into the air and drop down with Rollout.
Or in a highly anime setting, there’s the infamously awesome ‘counter shield’ skill Ash came up with. This involves spinning and unleashing an attack to create a ‘shield’ (1) Buizel VS Gengar | Pokemon Gym Battle - YouTube
This acts as both attack and defense at the same time. Whatever your setting, taking into account how a move works and if there’s new ways to use it is a sure fire way to add a new layer to battles!
Closing
At the end of the day, it's important to remember that a battle is a lot like any other scene! You’re telling a story, and many of the same rules apply. You want it to have purpose like any other scene, and show more about the characters and the world.
If there’s one thing I can impress on you it's just to keep trying! Writing battles can be very tricky, but with practice you’re equally as capable of learning as any author! Just be willing to learn and listen to feedback. This guide is absolutely not the end all say all, my word isn't law and there's lots of techniques and approaches out there to make great battles.
Have fun, experiment, and don't be afraid to find inspiration across all forms of pokemon media! The only right answer in fanfic is what is fun for you!
Last edited:
