Demigod

this is the first two chapters, so if your confused about anything hopefully it will be explained in later chapters! =p


Chapter One-Small Town Life
Life isn’t supposed to be complicated like this is it? Always hoping for more. I mean, I guess its meant to be confusing at first, but is it normal to wonder if your even human?

I live in an average sized town named Zeeland, in Michigan. Its not exactly the type of place for finding yourself.
But if you try hard enough, you can recognize pieces. The hard part is getting those pieces to fit.

My name is Iris Calypso Carter. My house is creamy yellow, and is averaged sized, placed a little bit further back from the rest of the houses on my street. I have a room that faces the rail road tracks that I live near, and the trains rattle the glasses on my night stand a little when they go by. Pretty much every second of the time I spend in my room, you can hear the cars rushing. Not like New York City or anything, but like a town that you would use as a pit stop on a vacation.
We have a down town, it’s a couple of blocks long, and I live a few streets away from it. Not many chain places settle down here, but we have a teeny strip mall that has a Jimmy Johns and a Vitales along with a few local businesses. Hungry Howe’s is right by the two gas stations, and that’s where most people order in food.
If you want to dine in, you have to go to Jay’s Again, a small local restaurant that everyone likes for its waffles.
And that’s pretty much the whole town except for a Family Fare.
Yeah, Zeeland is lucky it makes it on the map. Most of the time, we just pretend like we live in Holland, otherwise even other people from Michigan have no idea what town we are talking about.

I wonder if I’m human, because I do things that don’t seem human. Not like super powers or anything… but I just don’t seem to fit in. Me and my small group of friends just kind of are… there. We aren’t a particular clique we just fit in-between.
I was sitting eating lunch with them, thinking about life, while they blabbed about random things that happened the night before. I was wondering what was wrong with me, hoping something would be different so that I would have at least some type of explanation, even if I couldn’t tell anyone else. I would at least know why, and I wouldn’t have to stay up late at night trying to figure it out.
Looking back on this now, I feel like I should warn you. Be careful what you wish for.

Chapter Two-Sugar, Candy, and Death
“Wake up in the morning, feelin’ like p-diddy” my I-pod blared. I unzipped my sweat shirt and took it off, dancing a little to the music. The rare sunlight was warm on my face and it felt awesome to be standing outside in a tee-shirt like I hadn’t done since summer.
It was the beginning of march. There was still snow on the ground, but I didn’t care; as I danced, my shoes caught the wet slush in their grooves, flinging chunks of it in the air.
My friends came up next to me and laughed at my spins. India joined in, turning on a completely different song and doing a cartwheel. I smiled a little but mostly ignored her so that I could listen to my own music.
Deanna just stood awkwardly, not sure what to do, and eventually decided to throw her backpack next to ours and flop down on the ground.
A few seconds later, she realized her mistake and jumped back up with a squeal. The ground was soggy, and she had just caused the bottom of her black sweatshirt to be soaked through.
“Deanna! You should be smarter than that!” India giggled and gasped mockingly. “Well… Maybe not.” She added as she rolled her eyes.
I stood silently as the play list shuffled to my favorite song. (Call Your Name by Daughtry) I rocked back and forth completely immersed in the tune as my friends bickered, mouthing the words that I knew.
I hadn’t realized that I had the song on replay until Deanna waved her hand in front of my face and yelled “Helloooo?!”
I jumped back, startled, but laughed, “Sorry… I was zoned out”
“Hey, do you wanna head over to Family Fare?” Deanna said suddenly.
Our high school is right across the street from the grocery store. It was a Friday after class, and the three of us had decided to hang out. So naturally we wanted sugar and caffeine, like any normal teenager would.
“Sure” I answered, and threw my heavy backpack over my shoulder. I swear, that thing had to weigh at least 60 pounds. I mean, I had three text book, three binders, and some books to read for fun. Its so full that the zipper has broken on several occasions.
India and Deanna grabbed their bags, and followed me as we walked to the part of the side walk that we could use to cross the street. We waited until the light turned red, then bolted towards the store.
Once inside, we shivered and put our coats back on. Family Fare always kept its store freezing, and today was no different.
I browsed the isles, looking for some Mountain Dew, Doritos and Cheetos. Instead what I found was a guy staring at me from the other end of the row.
India and Deanna walked up behind me, chatting happily, but they stopped as they saw the man.
“Let’s go to another isle” India said, assessing the situation quickly.
She gently tugged my arm towards the soup, and I followed, not taking my eyes off the dude until the last second.
“Well… that was a little creepy” India laughed nervously.
“A little?!” I stared at her.
Deanna turned pale as she glanced over her shoulder, “Uh…”
The man was following us. He was not more than 15 feet away, throwing chicken noodle soup into his cart.
With a frightened look, I pulled India and Deanna in the direction of the check out.
“Wanna leave?” I asked.
India nodded, “Yes please”
Deanna shrugged, but followed us as we raced for the exit.
I didn’t say anything about it at the time, but out of the corner of my eye, I saw the stalker push his cart away and come storming after us.
Be careful what you wish for.

(oh and yes there are a lot of gramatical errors... x.x and probably spelling errors too... sorry)

This is just my kind of fantasy. the, mythical, fantastical stuff that really sparks! i like the main character, i feel my mc and your mc would get along great (like two peas in a pod, or they would kill eachother for being too alike). just a warning, the title 'demigod' gives a percy jackson-ish vibe, just stear clear of that and make this book YOURS. I love your choice of music in this chapter too, but thats just my opinion.
I'll be on the lookout for your next post!

Well hey there Tori,

I'm Tanya, here for a review. First of all, I would change the title because it gives the story up right away.

That being said, I would totally cut out the first chapter. It has no use in your story. All you do is describe the house and neighbourhood but really, what does it have to do in your story? How does it improve it?

Another thing you're going to have to work on is show, not tell. That is when you show us the scene instead of telling us. For instance, you could have a scene when the Mc is in her room when the train passes and the windowpanes rattle. See? We got the picture. But only if it advances the chapter, if it moves your story forward. If we don't need to know the house is buttery coloured, then cut it. If we absolutely need to know, then mention it only when your MC is passing the house, or entering it or something clever.

Also, show us why they are different. Have the other kids shun them at school. Have one of them trip with a platter full of food and have the other kids laugh. Maybe one of the girls is a rebel who'll yell back at the kids, defending her friend. Maybe another one hides under the table, trying to escape the mocking. In just a short scene like that, we find out much about your characters because it is by their actions that they are defined.

Another thing I would like to point out; when you write in 1st person, you plug your readers directly into the MC's mind. Which means we get to feel her emotions and see her thoughts better than anyone else. She saw the man in the isle. What did he look like? Why was he creepy? how was he creepy? A look in his eye? How was she feeling at being pursued? This are all things we need to know. You want to pull us in, make us feel for your characters, so show us what is happening to them.

Also, reread this whole piece because you keep switching tense from past to present.

Your story is intriguing but needs to be developped more. Make sure to steer clear of the whole 'Percy Jackson' feel, as Wolf mentioned before me. Make sure you fully develop your characters so that they don't sound the same, but instead have clear and distinctive personalities.

Hope this helped, if you have any question, Pm me and when you post another chapter, I'd love to read it

Tanya

hey, yeah, i don't have a title for it yet, so that's just what i have it saved under on my computer. =)

and i totally hate these first two chapters, so thank you very much for saying how i can make them better. =)

I agree about needing to get into your character more, but I like the tone you established. Just build upon it! I'd like to see more in-depth work with the MC's friends, as they seem a little flat to me right now, but it is still early in the story, too, I understand. Things like describing the town can be mentioned on the fly as you need them for your story, to make it easier to keep track of and make sure you have your reader's attention. I am interested to see what happens next in the storyline, though, which is always a good thing. Just flesh out your characters' personalities, add to the MC's feelings and reactions, and maybe a bit more detail to the important elements and events around them, to bring this story to the next level.
Good luck!!

Hey there, let me start off by saying that the story is very interesting to read and I feel like the characters are believable which is the main thing I normally look for in something. Of course, the minor grammatical and spelling errors are easily fixed later on, so I will just focus on the story itself.

As for the first chapter, I read some of the comments that were made, and I think that though I agree that it shouldn't be a full chapter in itself, you can combine it with the second chapter to get rid of the choppy feel that it had. What I normally do instead of making many smaller chapters, I make a few big ones with bigger spaces or a line of some sort to section it off with the time jumps or what not. Other than that, I feel that the first chapter does a good job in getting the setting over with and I think could be worked on but should stay. But that's just me, of course.

What else is there... I don't like repeating what has already been said, but I should say that the 'creepy man' could use more description. Even if it is only to make him seem more creepy to the girls.

Hi, Torigirl, let me take a crack at these first two chapters. Be warned that my style is very in depth and nitpicky, so if you see big walls of text, don't get intimidated. Most of that is just substanceless rambling, anyway.

Chapter one--
All right, to be honest, I feel that picking apart this first chapter word for word would be a waste. Because as it is...this isn't a chapter. It's an infodump. A stupendously long infodump filled with information that I don't expect to ever become relevant again. Well, I might be wrong. Maybe the eact location of Hungry Howe's relative to the two gas stations will become an important plot point in the future, or the villains will make Jay's Again their base of operations. I don't know, but it's very intimidating to read through walls and walls of text describing the minutiae of a small town--especially when you opened the book expecting a fantasy tale.

I guarantee you that this opening will not hook anybody. In fact, it may well turn many people away. I would've stopped reading if I wasn't reading this to review.

Maybe this information is relevant, or it will become relevant. But don't dump it all on us at once. Introduce information only as it becomes relevant. Maybe the main character and her friends want to eat lunch at Jay's Again one day--that will be a fine place to mention it. Maybe one night she's staring out the window, listening to the trains and cars, while she's in deep thought. That would be a nice time to mention the trains and cars. What I'm saying is, don't vomit out every detail you could dream of at once. Intersperse details and descriptions through the narrative. Put them where they belong, where they work, where they are relevant.

I assume that you want to tell a story. Right now this is not a story. It is a textbook. Or, perhaps a reference for your own writing. I assume this story will involve the town quite heavily. It would be nice for you, the writer, to have a reference as to where everything in the town is and how the main character's house looks like. In fact, I admire you for having created such a detailed picture of the main character's hometown. I know I could never do that. You must have thought this through long and hard. That's admirable. You're probably eager to show the reader everything you've conceived of. But stories aren't good unless they're properly paced; hold off a little and try to introduce things only when they relate to the story at hand, okay?

A few more little things I picked up on--please, do not fall into the "My name is" trap. Every time I see a story that opens that way, I want to put it down (or if it's on this site, click the back button). That is just a lazy way to open a story. Hell, we readers won't mind being introduced to a main character whose name we don't know until another character says it. Nor will we be worse off if we never find out her full name. A first chapter should immerse us into another world, into the main character's thought process and feelings and her current situation. I'm not seeing so much of that here.

Also...I have issues with the whole "I suspect I'm not human" deal. It can be done well, so I wouldn't propose a blanket ban on it, but the way you've set it up so far...it's questionable at best. I mean, Iris' reason strikes me as the most flimsy justification possible. So she and her friends don't fit into an established clique? Okay. That doesn't mean they have any reason to suspect they're not human. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, yeah? Occam's razor and all that states that it's most logical to assume that they just are what they are--a group that doesn't fit into an established clique. Such a thing is not that unusual. I mean, using this justification, you could say that me and my friends from high school were not human, because we didn't fit into an established clique.

One last thing, and then I'll lay off chapter one:

Its not exactly the type of place for finding yourself.
But if you try hard enough, you can recognize pieces. The hard part is getting those pieces to fit.

I love these lines. They have a kind of special beauty that's hard to describe...it's just there. The kind of words that work out perfectly together. There's nothing overly deep to them--they just say what they say. But what they say is beautiful.

This first chapter as it is needs major reworking, but I hope that whatever incarnation it takes in the future, these lines will always be there.

Now I'll move on to chapter two (about time!). Nice, idiosyncratic title.

I-pod blared.

I believe Apple prefers the name of their product to be rendered as "iPod."

I unzipped my sweat shirt and took it off, dancing a little to the music.

Minor quibble, but I find it rather hard to take my clothes off when I'm listening to my iPod. The headphone cords kind of get in the way.

It was the beginning of march.

The month of March is capitalized.

It strikes me that you haven't yet introduced the setting. Until the next sentence I didn't even realize the characters were outdoors. Are they on a patio? The sidewalk? A street? Lay down the setting as early as possible, unless you're trying to be deliberately mysterious about it. I wouldn't advise that.

All these constant mentions of the "ground" really drive home the fact that the setting doesn't exist. I'm getting frustrated. There are lots of different kinds of grounds! What kind of ground is it? Even just knowing if it's asphalt or concrete or dirt will help lay down a strong picture.

I do like the image here, of a bunch of teenage girls carelessly and happily dancing to iPod music. It feels very spontaneous and fun. Gives a picture of what kind of people Iris and her friends are, too.

she had just caused the bottom of her black sweatshirt to be soaked through.

Aww, now this is using too many words to describe something so simple--"the bottom of her black sweatshirt was soaked through."

A handy rule when you're writing is to use the least words to say the most.

India giggled and gasped mockingly. She added as she rolled her eyes.

I find the reactions here rather overplayed, but maybe that's just my tastes. During dialogue, I don't like seeing character reactions/movements described in this much detail.

(Call Your Name by Daughtry)

Why does this have to be in parantheses? You could've mentioned the name of the song in the last paragraph.

I rocked back and forth completely immersed in the tune as my friends bickered, mouthing the words that I knew.

I get what this sentence is trying to say, but it's very awkward. There's a missing comma (between "forth" and "completely") and the way it's written sort of implies that the friends are the ones mouthing the words.

“Sorry… I was zoned out”

This is a sentence, so it needs a period at the end, yeah?

suddenly.

Douse this word with gasoline and set it on fire.

Okay, just kidding, but every time you use the word "suddenly," look at it long and hard. Very hard. It is one of the most overused words out there and is often included just as a lazy transition. In some situations it's necessary, but not this one.

Its so full that the zipper has broken on several occasions.

I think you mean "It was," not "Its." (Its is a possessive, It's is a contraction). Also, if you were trying to say "It's," then you'd have switched tenses. This scene has been in past tense so far, so keep it in past tense.

we walked to the part of the side walk

Two "walks" in close proximity? Must excise one of them. Preferably the first, since "sidewalk" is one word. But you could just say that "we waited to cross the street." Same meaning, but much shorter.

I browsed the isles, looking for some Mountain Dew, Doritos and Cheetos.

The word is "aisles." "Isles" means islands.

Also, this is completely irrelevant, but wow, Iris sure doesn't eat healthy! XD

Be careful what you wish for.

? This seems to have come completely out of the blue. I can't see how it's relevant to the story at all, and it's a cliche too. You've shown the ability to invent some nice, meaningful turns of phrase before, so no need to slip back to relying on stock phrases.

The one thing that's bugging me the most about this scene is the "mysterious stalker" part. It's just...completely devoid of tension. It should get us on edge--stalking by its nature is creepy. But you don't delve very deeply into Iris' psyche (which leads me to question why you're using first person in the first place--more on that later), so we don't get to really feel her fear. I mean, the fear that comes from stalking is a visceral, animal-brain kind of fear. The feeling that someone dangerous--a predator--is tailing you, and your only choices are fight or flight. You start sweating, your heart starts pounding, your mind conjures all sorts of bizarre scenarios. In your story, the stalking is not presented that way. There's fear, but it's all intellectual, restricted to the level of "okay, that's creepy," and the main characters' knowledge that stalking is not a good thing.

Plus, it's kind of hard to take the scene seriously when the stalker keeps getting referred to as "guy" and "dude."

Honestly, all this ties back to the first person perspective. Or rather, I have to ask--why are you even using it? First person is the perspective that allows us to get closest to the main character. If third person limited is a little narrator imp sitting on the main character's shoulder, then first person is the imp sitting inside the main character's head. We should get all of the main characters' thoughts, feelings, motivations. All their hidden worries, everything that makes up their inner psyche. We should feel intimately connected to him or her. The trouble is, I do not feel connected to Iris in the slightest. The story uses "I"s a lot, but honestly it could be in third. There's just not much a focus on her emotions or even her unique perspective.

Actually, there's not that much description overall. Where are the characters at the beginning? How do they even look? I don't think you've ever even described Iris, which is strange because you described the entire town in loving detail in the first chapter. And though this story is presumably a fantasy, there are absolutely no fantasy elements so far. We get Iris' vague (and unfounded) belief that she and her friends aren't human, and the stalker at the end. But even those elements can be viewed in an entirely mundane light. Even urban fantasy stories should make it clear from the beginning that there's a fantastic element. Harry Potter, for example, begins with the Dursleys noticing all the weird people and owls showing up after Voldemort's defeat.

Sorry if it came across like I hated it. I think it could be a lot better. I think that your prose can be quite nice at times and the first scene was a fun, refreshingly simple look at a normal girl and her friends interacting as they do every day. I do think you're pretty good at writing realistic character interactions, at least when the characters are all teenage girls. I remain in hope of an interesting fantasy-themed plot.

PM me if you have any questions, and good luck with your writing.

Hey ppl that are reviewing this, please check out the revised version of these chapters, cause i know these are not very good. =) hahah sorry that you read it all, i enjoyed reading it, but this is not what i'm using in my novel!! =p