Modern Penelope of Odysseus part 1

She didn't know how it happened. Just a random website, just an innocent intention: to practice Spanish. She wasn't looking for a hot tutor either. She didn't differentiate at all. Before she met him she chatted with so many other different people, perhaps out of curiosity, or boredom. As soon as he appeared, he consumed her time and she did not regret the unanswered messages and ignored friend requests of others. It all felt natural. She sternly believed it was no different than in real life. She wasn't the kind of girl to never go outside either, nor was she shy or obnoxious. She even dated in high school but in university, things took an interesting turn. This relationship, it was really hard to describe but in poetic terms...he awoke another world in her, a world of passion. And ever since this discovery she had to stay with him in order to stay sane in her own bland world.
Now in real life, things were not so easy. First of all no one believed her, understood her or agreed with her. So she tried to keep this a secret but when one's in love, it shows. Second of all, without realizing it, she attracted a lot of guys with her nonchalance and quite confidence. Very quickly, she lost her belief in guy friends especially after this incident...

In the tense circumstances of a naked walled apartment, something had to explode, like a volcano waiting to erupt. They sat across from each other, at a kitchen table: a stack of papers and a laptop in between. Without a doubt, Dennis stared straight into her face, and if this would go to court, the cabinets, salt and pepper would all bravely defend Celina, or even the whole apartment. At times, she looked away, while talking, landing her gaze on the walls and imagining the pictures to decorate them with: forest fairies, lavender fields, and waterfall with rays of rainbow. Finally he gained her full attention: their ideas began developing and both were engaged in a highly educational conversation, when,
"Look at me with those eyes again and I shall kiss you", Dennis astonishingly surprised Celina, yet he was waiting all along to strike. Taking the threat seriously, she hid her blue crystals under the lids with great difficulty, lowering her head. At anytime, he could reach across and destroy their distance; in fact, his hand was already moving closer.
"Reading too much Shakespeare, I see. Oopsie daisy! How could I forget? Sorry, but I need to go. ", She responded after some silence, while collecting her things, carefully walking to the door, and never letting his hand touch.
"Your actions and words are slick. They only lure me more. I will kiss you passionately against the wall." Celina's hand was about to turn the handle, but stopped out of politeness when he spoke again,
"But wait, I might be the one against the wall, it's your choice how you want it, and I know for sure you want it." he crookedly smiled.
All this time standing with her back to him, she calmly finished off,
"It's my choice then", and briskly disappeared from his view, purposely leaving the door open.
Although thankful it never happened, she wondered why Deniss did not chase her: he seemed desperate enough.
Meanwhile, he leaned against the wall, sitting on the tan tiled floor and running fingers through his forest of a hair, which occasionally got stuck: thinking up another plan. The neighbor's curious pet ran into the still opened door.
"You damn dog! Get out!" he slammed the door to his own content.
Celina never foresaw such strange consequence in their one on one meeting, only them becoming friends, but at least now, she knew his real intentions. They talked lightheartedly at the university, and easily cooperated in a group, which led her to mistakenly trust him enough to come to his house.
"It's too bad he lost my trust now. Surely, another girl in my place would have fallen for this handsome guy with Greek and Italian futures of bronzed skin and luscious curly hair." Celina chuckled to herself on the bus. She could not wait to get on the computer.

ODYSSEUSS?! DUDE WE JUST GOT DONE THIS BOOK IN ENGLISH! ha
now I have to do a brochure on one of the placed odysseus visited on
his journey back to Ithica.

Hey there!
First of all, I just have to say that this is written a little bit like a science project or something. DON'T put slashes between your words to present an alternate explanation. eg, "Greek/Italian" or "white/naked." It presents the reader with the idea that you, the author, are not sure what you want to say so you want us to decide.
You wrote "100%" instead of "one hundred percent." In creative writing - or even nonfiction - you always write out numbers. Twenty-seven, not 27. Also, it seems like there could be a better way to say one hundred percent certain of something. You could say "absolutely certain" or something instead. Just a suggestion.

Your dialogue seems a tiny bit forced and unreal. Try having a friend say the words out loud. Do they sound like something you would actually say? Unless you're trying to sound archaic, don't but phrases like "I shall" in your dialogue. Usually you'll also want "I'll" instead of "I will." So work on your dialogue a big.

You did a good job of developing the characters, and it was certainly an interesting read, although the first paragraph was a little confusing. If you were meaning to make the guy sound perverted and creepy, you did an excellent job there.
Nice work. Cheerio!
~MademoiselleKool

Hey, lluvialover!

OMG. (Seriously, did I just use chatspeak...? Ooer.) But holy goodness, I love your style. It's a bit rough at the moment, it being a first draft, but you have this long, ambling way of saying things that I absolutely love and wish I could write like. It's almost like poetry--except better, because it's prose. *biased*

In the tense circumstances of a white/naked walled apartment, something had to explode, like a volcano waiting to erupt.

*cries* That's such an amazing first line. I kid you not. ...write more of them.

A few things to chat about, though:

PAST/FUTURE/PRESENT TENSE

When you're doing a modern day retelling, you're probably going to want to either a) use modern day dialogue, or b) work your tail off to seamlessly incorporate the archaic stuff.

Granted, I'm biased--I'm not a fan of the modern-day Shakespeare retellings, where they have the actors dress in modern clothes and use the language. It feels kind of weird to me. I'm pretty sure I'm not alone, but there are ways, I'm sure, to do either one and make it awesome.

USING MODERN DAY DIALOGUE: PROS(E) AND CONS:

1) It's easier for the reader to go back and forth. You have a beautiful, slightly-archaic style already, so you're not losing any of the "timeless tale" feel.

...I do not really have any cons. I'm not certain where you're going with this story, but at this point I would suggest doing the modern-day language. If you have differing plans, PM me and explain them. ^_^

USING ARCHAIC DIALOGUE: PROS(E) AND CONS:

1) It's pretty.

2) Unfortunately, it's going to be hard to separate yourself from the "modern-day Casanova" stereotype. That is: pretty boy who additionally talks pretty.

When dealing with pretty boys, you want every odd against their favor. That is, you want to make them as flawed as possible--cootie-filled, that is. At the moment, he doesn't seem like the most believable person, considering that he's kind of sexy. In what ways can you make him seem more human?

Making him seem more human will make the audience feel closer to him. And when you've accomplished that, you've got a character they can connect to--and really care about.

STREAMLINING:

Again, I'm completely dithering over your style. But you're going to want to be careful--it's all right to have multiple-clause-flowing-pretty-blah-blah-blah, but you're going to want to make sure that you have it as concise as possible.

- Don't use slashes in narration. Pick one. (I'm going for "naked", in the first sentence.) It's not choose-your-own adventure, darling--you make us see what you see.

- Avoid ellipses. They sound kind of scatterbrained, which leads to less-conciseness. It's all right if you have a scatterbrained character, but keep them limited to dialogue.

- Make sure you streamline your plot, as well. If it helps, draw a map of the apartment and sequence things as they happen--we should know that the door is open from the beginning, otherwise it sounds invented all of a sudden.

__

*dithers* PM me if you have any questions or any more to this story. I'm kind of in love with it. ^_^

You seriously had some really good moments in there, but then your flow would get broken by an awkward phrase of some sort like, "The neighbor’s curious pet ran into the still opened door (purposely left open by Celina)". You don't need that information in the parentheses, but if you fell like you need it, rephrase it.

I really like the theme- Dennis seems like a creeper, but I think you should work on developing your main character a bit more. Why is he even there? Who is she waiting for? Stuff like that. All in all it is really interesting.

Everyone, thank you for your comments =) I did intend for Deniss to sound creepy and I am glad it worked out. Watch for the next part of my story which I am going to post. Hopefully I will be able to answer some of your questions in there.

In the tense circumstances of a naked walled apartment, something had to explode, like a volcano waiting to erupt. They sat across from each other, at a kitchen table: a stack of papers and a laptop in between. Without a doubt, Dennis stared straight into her face, and if this would go to court, the cabinets, salt and pepper would all bravely defend Celina, or even the whole apartment. At times, she looked away, while talking, landing her gaze on the walls and imagining the pictures to decorate them with: forest fairies, lavender fields, and waterfall with rays of rainbow. Finally he gained her full attention: their ideas began developing and both were engaged in a highly educational conversation, when,

”Look at me with those eyes again and I shall kiss you”, Dennis astonishingly surprised Celina, yet he was waiting all along to strike. Taking the threat seriously, she hid her blue crystals under the lids with great difficulty, lowering her head. At anytime, he could reach across and destroy their distance; in fact, his hand was already moving closer.

“Reading too much Shakespeare, I see. Oopsie daisy! How could I forget? Sorry, but I need to go. ”, She responded after some silence, collecting her things and carefully walking to the door, never letting his hand touch.

“Your actions and words are slick. They only lure me more. I will kiss you passionately against the wall.” Celina’s hand was about to turn the handle, but stopped out of politeness when he spoke again,
“But wait, I might be the one against the wall, it’s your choice how you want it, and I know for sure you want it.” he crookedly smiled.

All this time standing with her back to him, she calmly finished off,
“It’s my choice then”, and briskly disappeared from his view, purposely leaving the door open. Although thankful it never happened, she wondered why Deniss did not chase her: he seemed desperate enough.

Meanwhile, he leaned against the wall, sitting on the tan tiled floor and running fingers through his forest of a hair, which occasionally got stuck: thinking up another plan. The neighbor’s curious pet ran into the still opened door.
“You damn dog! Get out!” he slammed the door to his own content.

Celina never foresaw such strange consequence in their one on one meeting, only them becoming friends, but at least now, she knew his real intentions. They talked lightheartedly at the university, and easily cooperated in a group, which led her to mistakenly trust him enough to come to his house.
It’s too bad he lost my trust now. Surely, another girl in my place would have fallen for this handsome guy with Greek and Italian futures of bronzed skin and luscious curly hair.Celina chuckled to herself on the bus. She could not wait to get on the computer.

Ah yes... The rewrite is much better in fixing the issues mentioned above it. *thumbs up*

Very nice. I'm a little confused as to who is the POV character though. It appears that both of them have a bit from their point of view. Also, when you have the girl thinking in first person ("It's too bad he lost my trust now.") I would put her thoughts into italics, so that it is clear that it is internal dialogue. When I first read it, I was seriously confused as to why the story had suddenly jumped to first person.

Great stuff this. I look forward to it being continued.

~GryphonFledgling

Okay, first of all, this is a beautifully written, very romantic story so far, but I'm not sure what this has to do with Odysseus and Penelope. Does that bit come in later? Or are you talking about a different Odysseus and Penelope than the one in the Odyssey?
I agree with sokooll, cut the shall. Oh, and put the comma before the quotation mark at the end of a sentence.
You have a lot of talent, and I liked the story a lot.

What does this have to do with Penelope of Odysseus? well this so far has been a frequent question, so I'll finally answer it. First of all...this is just the beginning, before you decide who Celina's lover really is, read the second (it also includes the third part) and the fourth part of this story that I have posted.

Now Celina is like Penelope in the sense that she will have a lot of suitors or guys that will hope to get closer to her. They don't necessary love her, but want her for sure. The problem is that she's already taken and the guy that she loves lives far away. Through out the story she will encounter a lot of guys, yet like Penelope she will withstand desire.

Hope that clears up things for you guys.
Thank you for reading what I posted so far. =)