Young Writers Society

I am writing a story not sure what i want it to be yet but the end result will be a shounen type story with lots of fighting explosions and what-not. I have an idea for a characters background along with some character development for her.

So far this is what i have it starts in the middle of a battle between her and her opponent. She is losing and she goes through a flashback where she discovers her inspiration to keep fighting and unleashes her true power.

Whats wrong little girl after all of that hype about the legendary lightning goddess this is all you have to show for it. You're weak, you're pathetic, you're far too slow to stop me!

You have failed your so called king. A knight is supposed to be his or her kings sword and shield; if his knight is this weak and slow then there is no possible way he could possibly become a god.

Shut up! You think you're better than me! "I have always been called weak and slow since the time i was a child until now. Everyone always looked down on me and told me i was nothing... worthless, I strived to prove them wrong but when it came down to it they were right i am worthless. Or at least that's what i believed until i met him I remember it clearly."

"I was in my third year of high school and I was running track. All of the students in my school came to watch me the girl known as the lighting goddess run.
There once was a swimmer and runner both revered as two of the greatest to ever run a race. A man named Arthur could run at 60 mph leaving all of his opponents in the dust while the Olympic swimmer was able to swim at 30 mph; known as the track king and the sea queen they were at the top and with their superhuman speed they won many awards and won many races until their bodies grew weak from continuous ware and couldn't race anymore."

"Beforehand they had a child named Selena an under-average child who despite their best efforts to train couldn't swim nor could she run a good race. They called her useless and a waste of space and tossed her to the side for not being able to fulfill their legacy."

"They treated her like dirt and barely gave her any food to eat or clothes to wear. Eventually ashamed of their failure of a daughter they tossed her aside and left their home to live in another country; pitying the girl they left behind money for food. The girl tried to maintain her home with the small amount of money left for her hoping and praying that her parents would return but alas they never did."
"Eventually she couldn't afford to maintain her home and the rent and was kicked out and brought to an orphanage full of kids with no hopes and dreams just like her. She knew that the reason her parents left was because she was too slow and couldn't fulfill their legacy so she ran and ran and ran until her legs couldn't move anymore but by pure instinct her body kept on moving until she collapsed from the pain and stress."

Alone on the field she ran on she met a tall beautiful woman with a sword and shield strapped to her back; her beautiful Pink hair swaying in the wind with the sunset in the background giving her the appearance of a goddess. She shouted out to the little girl That's the best you got girl! I see you want to become faster; well you can't become faster by laying on your ass get up and start movin or else you will never achieve your dreams. Don't you want all the naysayers who didn't believe in you and your parents who left you regret their decision.

How do you know about my mother and father, the girl said with a skeptical tone.

Simple i know everything there is to no about you. I have been watching you for a long time seeing how you would handle you problems and you have done nothing but impress me. Even when told that you were pathetic and worthless, being told that you could never hold a candle to your parents and even having them leave you behind. Yet you managed to not only bounce back but improve yourself so that you can advance and prove them wrong. Truly astounding.

Now get up, I'm sure you can run one more lap can't you i'll even run with you let's race shall we.

I would like some criticism and feedback on if it is well written and a good background so far before i decide to add it or if i should just scrap it and start over from scratch.

I would recommend putting the scene under a spoiler or something to separate it from the rest of your post. It was really confusing reading your explanation and then realizing about a paragraph into it that I was reading the scene itself.

The background itself is fine, and it's a pretty typical shounen setup. I wouldn't call it well-written though due to a number of grammar errors and a lack of overall organization for the scene itself. The grammar errors aren't that a big of a deal at this point though.

Flashbacks are tricky to handle, and typically shorter bursts work better, especially in the middle of a major action scene, like a battle. If you think back to the various shounen anime and manga you've seen/read, I think you'll notice that flashbacks are rarely just dropped into the middle of a scene (which is what you're doing with this). Instead, there's brief flashes of important phrases or objects or people, often in quick succession and alternated with the main action, or else there's a clear break between the action scene and the big chunk of flashback, as is the case of a flashback being shown after the climactic battle to explain a character's motivation.

I wouldn't say to scrap the scene entirely, but I would recommend either restructuring it so that it can be slipped into the spaces between the battle actions, or else save it for after the battle.

Just so you know, before I say anything, I know nothing about shounen/anime/manga, so I'm really just going to be focusing on what you're trying to say. Building off of what Kyll is saying, this scene needs a lot of reconstructing/work for it to even be necessary to your story. For a flash back like this to be even a little bit relevant to a piece you need to make it actually relevent. You ramble a lot in this and since your character is in the midst of a battle, it needs to be concise and still be pulling in what's going on around the character so we don't get lost in this memory. Because in reality, while this character might be thinking about something, they're still going to be in the midst of a battle. For example, (and I'm using a random name here and stuff like that so just ignore what I'm actually writing and focus on the way I'm writing it)

As the swords clashed and clanged, as she felt her energy wavering, Alice let herself be tugged away by memories. For a split second, she could see herself. Four years before, cold and hungry, just praying for a chance like this. A chance to fight for her king. A chance to be a knight, shining and brave. She could feel her old self, coiled like a snake in her stomach, writhing with anger that Ashley wasn't managing to fight harder, for longer. Come on, her old self spat, what are you, scared? You can do better than that!
Ashley felt her strength double as her opponent's sword came crashing down where seconds before there had been a shoulder.

Do you see how I tied in what was happening in the battle into her thoughts? How I tied it in and made it all relevant. What you're doing in the paragraph above is called info dumping, and honestly, it is extremely ineffective and just all around useless to your story. You're telling us all kinds of information we don't really need, during a crucial and exciting moment like a battle. If you can manage to combine your description skills with some action and take some editing-scissors to it and cut down this info dump, you'll have a story.