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Mostly Human Chapter 2



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Tue Aug 09, 2011 2:57 pm
nutmegan595 says...



Chapter Two: We all have our talents—even if some of them aren’t real.
A tall, blonde woman walked into the library and pulled a few books off the shelves. Gabriela dropped them on the table where Charlotte, Rachel, and I sat. For a minute Gabriela didn’t say anything. Rachel had just opened her mouth when Gabriela began.
“Humans,” she said, “have to believe you’re normal. This means acting like that regular teenagers.” Charlotte groaned when she saw the titles of the books. “Algebra, chemistry, history—the torture for every human child,” Gabriela continued. “And you three are going to learn them in four days.” I picked up the algebra book and flipped through some pages. I had read a few math books growing up, but these were impossible. Charlotte opened the chemistry book while Rachel began reading about world history.

“Do you understand any of this?” Charlotte asked a few hours later. She pushed the algebra book toward me and I looked down at the page.
“It’s a linear function. There’s just the variable and constant. Quadratics have three terms.” I turned back to the chemistry book and read over the periodic table again.
“Here, I’ll trade with you. You have the easy one,” Charlotte said. She took the chemistry book and flipped to the diagrams in the back.
“How do you factor? It doesn’t make sense!” Rachel whined after thirty minutes of reading the same page.
“You’re the one who lived with humans. You tell us,” Charlotte snapped at Rachel.
Rachel just groaned and pushed her glasses to the top of her head. Rachel was so stressed it hadn’t bothered her when Charlotte mentioned how she lived with humans. Rachel was the only one of us who grew up without knowing she was a vampire. This usually bothered her—especially when we used our vampire abilities.
“Merde!” Charlotte shouted and flung her book across the room. Fletcher appeared in the door just seconds after the book would have hit his head.
“Whoa. Maybe I should come back later then,” he said with a chuckle.
“Maybe you should,” Charlotte snapped. “Unless you’re going to help us.” Fletcher spent the next two hours trying to teach us math while Charlotte complained about how we’d never use this stuff in our lives.
“It’s not like we’re going to be engineers or anything,” she kept saying. “How are we supposed to do anything in the human world when we age—what is it—20 times slower than they do?”
“And what if you decide to go to school? Do you want to look like an idiot not knowing the previous stuff?” Fletcher explained.
“Seriously? I can pretend I’m fifteen and take these classes. No one is going to know the difference.” Learning how to factor polynomials was hard enough. Charlotte’s constant complaining just made it more difficult.
“Stop,” I said firmly when she stood up for what seemed like the hundredth time. “Sit down and stop having fits. They said we have to do this so let’s just do it and then we can go swimming.” Charlotte’s mouth dropped but she sat down anyways and looked down at the book. Charlotte was usually somewhat annoying. This time she may have taken it a bit far but I had never snapped like that.
I flipped pages as if the exchange hadn’t just happened. Rachel nervously twirled her finger around a strawberry-blonde ringlet. Fletcher followed my lead and went back to showing us how to graph functions.
* * * * * * * *
Charlotte lay back on the dock while Fletcher and Rachel sped around the lake on Skidoos. Charlotte was lying out on a towel and wearing sunglasses at two o’ clock in the morning. The only light she was getting was moonlight.
“Isn’t this nice?” Charlotte mused.
“I think we should stay up one morning and actually be out here in the sun.” Charlotte nodded and sat up. “I’m going swimming,” I said and slid off the dock. The water was lukewarm and sparkled. I took a deep breath and dove underwater. The water was so clear I could see through it to where Fletcher and Rachel churned the water with their Skidoos. Something grabbed my ankle and I turned to see Charlotte in the water behind me. She dove deeper into the water and did a handstand at the bottom.
“You girls done playing around?” Fletcher asked. His Skidoo pulled up next to us.
“Never!” Charlotte called as she swung on behind Rachel. I grabbed Fletcher’s hand and pulled myself up behind him. We took off at top speed, Fletcher and Rachel chasing each other around the lake. I let go of Fletcher and lay back so my hair skimmed the surface of the water. Fletcher rolled his eyes at me and pulled me back on the Skidoo. Behind us, meanwhile, I heard a whoosh as Charlotte jumped off the Skidoo and spread her wings. She soared upward like a giant bat and crossed the sky. Rachel powered down her Skidoo and stretched up her arms. Charlotte flew by, grabbing Rachel’s hands, and tossed her into the middle of the lake. Charlotte made another pass over the lake and grabbed onto the end of our Skidoo. Fletcher kept accelerating and the Skidoo flipped over, pulling us under it. I clamped my mouth shut and tried not breathe through my nose. The water pressed down on me and the only way out was to go deeper. I swam under the current created by the Skidoo and rose again a few feet away.
"That," Fletcher snapped as I surfaced, "was not funny, Charlotte." Charlotte scoffed.
"You guys were fine," she said.
"Really? And had Anna been down for a minute longer do you know that she wouldn't have drowned? They aren’t fully vampires yet.” I sighed. Fletcher could be almost as dramatic as Charlotte sometimes, but he was right. We don’t become full vampires—with all of the healing powers and wings—until our sixteenth birthday.
When we jumped onto the dock, Fletcher disappeared. I figured he ran back to the house and followed.
“What’s your problem?” I said as I saw Fletcher on the back veranda. “You know that was just Charlotte being Charlotte.”
“Oh,” he said sarcastically, “so you’re the only one allowed to freak out today?” Fletcher opened the glass doors to his room.
“No, it’s just—uh! What’s your problem lately?” Fletcher looked away from me and sat down in front of his perfectly-made bed. Our beds were always flawless before we went to sleep no matter how we left it at night. It made it seem like the hacienda wasn’t lived in. Like we were ghosts instead of vampires.
“What’s this?” I asked, crossing the room. I touched a canvas Fletcher had on an easel in front of the window. The main feature was the lake with a ripple in the corner like a pebble had just dropped in it.
“Just something I’m working on.” Behind the easel were other half-finished canvases.
“I didn’t know you could paint,” I said, picking up a brush. Next the easel, a blank canvas leaned against the window. I knelt down and opened a few containers of paint.
“What are you doing?” I heard Fletcher ask. I was too focused on his painting of the lake to respond. I mixed a few couple colors and brushed them against the canvas. My eyes flipped back and forth from his painting to the blank canvas. After a few seconds, I had the bottom corner replicated. I put down the brush and stood up.
“That was some vampire-thing wasn’t it?” Fletcher didn’t answer but examined what I had done. “Fletcher!” I shouted to get his attention.
“Yeah. You didn’t use any technique, just copied the colors and brushstrokes exactly. I’ve seen vampires play or sing back something they hear—that’s how we mimic languages and accents—but I’ve never seen anyone paint exactly.”
“Whatever,” I mumbled. I didn’t have any talent at it. I could be a great forger but never make a masterpiece. Where was the value in that?
Last edited by nutmegan595 on Wed Sep 21, 2011 11:57 pm, edited 3 times in total.
  





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Tue Aug 09, 2011 3:28 pm
azntwinz2 says...



Hey...who said Chemistry was easy?!
Lol, enjoyed this chapter. Although I didn't read the first one, I have a feeling I sort of understand what's going on. Which, by the way, is not a bad thing at all. Fletcher seems a little protective over Ana...oooh? That's just me being silly. I really liked the ending sentence, it was very reflective!
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Tue Aug 09, 2011 7:19 pm
W0lfbane says...



Good chapter, although it still has the same problem as the last chapter... not enough description in their surroundings. I'm starting to quite enjoy this book I'd find it fascinating how they'll react to computers :P

Although we have been through two chapters and not really had much interaction with humans, what's their next lesson? Relationships? How to lure humans into a false sense of security? Mind Games? I'll leave that up to you.
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Tue Aug 09, 2011 10:03 pm
katngo73 says...



AMAZING!!!!!! AWESOME!!!!!!!! STUPENDOUS!!!!!!!!!!! I cannot believe someone could write just like you!!!! There is only two, tiny weeny winy flaws:

1. Chapter Name is too long, like the first chapter.

2.
She dove deeper into the water and did a handstand at the bottom. I smiled and did a backflip.

I don't really think you need that last sentence. But if you really needed that sentence, you could say, "I grinned" or "smiled happily." It just sounds too simple, so sorry.

BUT OTHER THAN THAT,
GREAT JOB AND KEEP WRITING!!!!!!!!!
~Kat
“There’s no point in being grown up if you can’t act a little childish sometimes.”-The Fourth Doctor
"Who I was, what I did, that's not who I am." - Castiel
"Friends protect you." - John Watson
  





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Fri Aug 12, 2011 12:55 am
Searria H. says...



'Ello again, Nutmegan!
You did a better job in this chapter of letting the reader develop connections with the characters before throwing them into a bunch of action. :) The story also didn't seem as rushed as the first chapter did either, so good job. :D
Nitpicks:
For a minute Gabriela didn’t say anything. Rachel just opened her mouth when Gabriela began.

I had to read the first sentence a few times before I realized that Gabriela was the blonde girl. Maybe you could give us that information through dialogue, as in having one of the girls address her in complaint. I don't know. It's up to you. Because I didn't know what Gabriela was going to say yet, I had no idea why her mouth opened. I would move that action after Gabriela begins so your reader isn't confused for a sentence. :D
This means making them believe that you are just [color=#0000FF]acting like[/color] regular teenagers.

The part I crossed out was a little redundant after the previous sentence.
Charlotte groaned when she saw the titles of the books. “Algebra, chemistry, history—the torture for every human child. And you three are going to learn them in four days.”

I mentioned this in the first chapter review: when you interrupt dialogue with action done by a different character, I assume that the acting character says the next piece of dialogue. So, I didn't know Gabriella was still talking until she addressed "you three."
Charlotte asked a few hours later. She pushed the algebra book toward me and I looked down at the page.
“It’s a linear function. There’s just the variable and constant. Quadratics have three terms.” I turned back to the chemistry book and read over the periodic table again.
“Here, I’ll trade with you. You have the easy one,” Charlotte said. She took the chemistry book and flipped to the diagrams in the back.

In the previous paragraph, Anna had the algebra book, and Charlotte had the chemistry.

She took the chemistry book and flipped to the diagrams in the back.

That was me in fifth grade - just look at the pretty animal diagrams.
“You’re the one who lived with humans. You tell us.” Rachel just groaned and pushed her glasses to the top of her head.

I would give the second sentence its own line.
“Whoa. Maybe I should come back later then,” he said with a chuckle.

I love Fletcher. :)
Learning how to factor polynomials was a whole lot harder when Charlotte kept complaining or standing up and stomping around the room.

This sentence didn't flow for me. It seemed a little too wordy or something.
They said we have to do this, so let’s just do it, and then we can go swimming.

Charlotte lay back on the dock while Fletcher and Rachel were speeding around the lake on Skidoos.

You need to keep your verb tenses the same here: "...Fletcher and Rachel sped..."
It seemed kind of pointless that Charlotte was lying out on a towel and wearing sunglasses at two o’ clock in the morning. The only light she was getting was moonlight.

You should never have to blatantly tell your reader what their opinion should be about a certain situation unless your specifically trying to state the obvious. Just describe to us the situation with Charlotte in sunny gear in the middle of the night, and your reader will find it more amusingly pointless if you don't tell us so.
Behind us, meanwhile, I heard a whoosh and Charlotte jumped off the Skidoo and spread her wings.

Did you possibly mean "as?"
She soared upward, like a giant bat, and crossed the sky.

You don't need either comma.
Charlotte scoffed and rolled her eyes.

It could just be me, but it seems like a lot of people are rolling their eyes in this chapter.
And had Anna been down for a minute longer do you know that she wouldn't have drowned? They haven't changed yet!"

I am thoroughly confused.
Fletcher could be almost as dramatic as Charlotte sometimes, but other times he was right.

So -- is he not right in this instance?
so you’re the only one allowed to freak out today

When did Anna "freak out?" Are you talking about her telling Charlotte to stop complaining?
Fletcher looked away from me and sat down in front of his perfectly-made bed. Our beds were always perfectly-made before we went to sleep no matter how we left it at night.

Because "perfectly-made" is such an unusual word, it's really distracting to say it back-to-back.
It made it seem like the hacienda wasn’t lived inThis phrase bothers me. Probably because of the dangling preposition. You could use "abandoned" or rephrase it so that the sentence doesn't end with "in," but by all means you don't have to.

Like we were ghosts instead of vampires.

Favourite sentence of the whole chapter right here. I don't know why I'm so in love with it, but I think you deserve an elephant. :elephant:
The main feature was the lake with a ripple in the corner like a pebble had just dropped in it.

The last part about the pebble was sort of choppy to me. For some reason, the "in it" really bugs me. It's up to you whether you want to fiddle with it or not. I'm just irritatingly picky. :P
Next to the easel, a blank canvas leaned against the window.

I was too focused on his painting of the lake to respond.

You sort of dropped the direction of the sentence. I was to focused on reading this chapter... and I left you waiting for more. :)
I said and rolled my eyes.There it is again

I could be a great forger but never make a masterpiece. Where was the value in that?

Psh...she would make an excellent criminal. ;)

General Critiques:
:arrow: The main thing I notice, more so in this chapter than the first, is that your characters are all a little...whiny. I would like a more range of emotion and maybe some cheer in there. Even Charlotte's little spot of teasing ended in a "pouting" of sorts. All of the complaining can get a little irritating for a reader, and even Fletcher succumbed to a little "snippy" attitude near the end. Just watch that. :D
Wow...that's all I have off the top of my head for general crits. Yay! :D

I have to tell you that I absolutely love Fletcher, and I think it might be because he reminds me of one of my own characters who also paints. Anyway, just be warned that I might be a little hard on him at times because I think he's evolving rather well. :)

Another good chapter, Nutmegan. Let me know when you have the next installments up. :D As always, don't hesitate to contact me if you have anything to say about this review. Happy writing!
-Sea-
'Let's eat Grandma!' or, 'Let's eat, Grandma!' Punctuation saves lives.

Reviews? You know you want one. :)

*Ribbit*
  





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Sat Aug 13, 2011 3:45 am
xXTheBlackSheepXx says...



Chapter Two: We all have our talents—even if some of them aren’t real.
A tall, blonde woman walked into the library and pulled a few books off the shelves. She dropped them on the table where Charlotte, Rachel, and I sat. For a minute Gabriela didn’t say anything. Rachel just opened her mouth when Gabriela began. Who is Gabriella? I don’t remember her from the first chapter.
“Humans,” she said, “have to believe you’re normal. This means making them believe that you are just regular teenagers.” Charlotte groaned when she saw the titles of the books. “Algebra, chemistry, history—the torture for every human child. And you three are going to learn them in four days.” I picked up the algebra book and flipped through some pages. I had read a few math books growing up, but these were impossible. Charlotte opened the chemistry book while Rachel began reading about world history.
“Do you understand any of this?” Charlotte asked a few hours later. She pushed the algebra book toward me and I looked down at the page.
“It’s a linear function. There’s just the variable and constant. Quadratics have three terms.” I turned back to the chemistry book and read over the periodic table again.
“Here, I’ll trade with you. You have the easy one,” Charlotte said. She took the chemistry book and flipped to the diagrams in the back.
“How do you factor? It doesn’t make sense!” Rachel shouted after thirty minutes of reading the same page.
“You’re the one who lived with humans. You tell us.” Rachel just groaned and pushed her glasses to the top of her head. who’s speaking here?
“Merde I assume this is something Spaish xP!” Charlotte shouted and flung her book across the room. Fletcher appeared in the door just seconds after the book would have hit his head.
“Whoa. Maybe I should come back later then,” he said with a chuckle.
“Maybe you should,” Charlotte snapped. “Unless you’re going to help us.” Fletcher spent the next two hours trying to teach us math while Charlotte complained about how we’d never use this stuff in our lives.
“It’s not like we’re going to be engineers or anything,” she kept saying. “How are we supposed to do anything in the human world when we age—what is it—20 times slower than they do?”
“And what if you decide to go to school? Do you want to look like an idiot not knowing the previous stuff?” Fletcher explained.
“Seriously? I can pretend I’m fifteen and take these classes. No one is going to know the difference.” Learning how to factor polynomials was a whole lot harder when Charlotte kept complaining or standing up and stomping around the room.
“Stop,” I said firmly when she stood up for what seemed like the hundredth time. “Sit down and stop having fits. They said we have to do this so let’s just do it and then we can go swimming.” Charlotte’s mouth dropped but she sat down anyways and looked down at the book. I flipped pages as if the exchange hadn’t just happened. Rachel nervously twirled her finger around a strawberry-blonde ringlet. Fletcher followed my lead and went back to showing us how to graph functions.
* * * * * * * *
Charlotte lay back on the dock while Fletcher and Rachel were speeding around the lake on Skidoos. It seemed kind of pointless that Charlotte was lying out on a towel and wearing sunglasses at two o’ clock in the morning. The only light she was getting was moonlight.
“Isn’t this nice?” Charlotte mused.
“I think we should stay up one morning and actually be out here in the sun.” Charlotte nodded and sat up. “I’m going swimming,” I said and slid off the dock. The water was lukewarm and sparkled. I took a deep breath and dove underwater. The water was so clear I could see through it to where Fletcher and Rachel churned the water with their Skidoos. Something grabbed my ankle and I turned to see Charlotte in the water behind me. She dove deeper into the water and did a handstand at the bottom. I smiled and did a backflip.
“You girls done playing around?” Fletcher asked as his Skidoo pulled up next to us.
“Never!” Charlotte called as she swung on behind Rachel. I grabbed Fletcher’s hand and pulled myself up behind him. We took off at top speed, Fletcher and Rachel chasing each other around the lake. I let go of Fletcher and lay back so my hair skimmed the surface of the water. Fletcher rolled his eyes at me and pulled me back on the Skidoo. Behind us, meanwhile, I heard a whoosh and Charlotte jumped off the Skidoo and spread her wings. She soared upward, like a giant bat, and crossed the sky. Rachel powered down her Skidoo and stretched up her arms. Charlotte flew by, grabbing Rachel’s hands, and tossed her into the middle of the lake. Charlotte made another pass over the lake and grabbed onto the end of our Skidoo. Fletcher kept accelerating and the Skidoo flipped over, pulling us under it. I clamped my mouth shut and tried not breathe through my nose. The water pressed down on me and the only way out was to go deeper. I swam under the current created by the Skidoo and rose again a few feet away.
"That," Fletcher snapped as I surfaced, "was not funny, Charlotte." Charlotte scoffed and rolled her eyes.
"You guys were fine," she said.
"Really? And had Anna been down for a minute longer do you know that she wouldn't have drowned? They haven't changed yet!" I sighed. Fletcher could be almost as dramatic as Charlotte sometimes, but other times he was right.
When we jumped onto the dock, Fletcher disappeared. I figured he ran back to the house and followed.
“What’s your problem?” I said as I saw Fletcher on the back veranda. “You know that was just Charlotte being Charlotte.”
“Oh,” he said sarcastically, “so you’re the only one allowed to freak out today?” Fletcher opened the glass doors to his room.
“No, it’s just—uh! What’s your problem lately?” Fletcher looked away from me and sat down in front of his perfectly-made bed. Our beds were always perfectly-made before we went to sleep no matter how we left it at night. It made it seem like the hacienda wasn’t lived in. Like we were ghosts instead of vampires.
“What’s this?” I asked, crossing the room. I touched a canvas Fletcher had on an easel in front of the window. The main feature was the lake with a ripple in the corner like a pebble had just dropped in it.
“Just something I’m working on.” Behind the easel were other half-finished canvases.
“I didn’t know you could paint,” I said, picking up a brush. Next the easel, a blank canvas leaned against the window. I knelt down and opened a few containers of paint.
“What are you doing?” I heard Fletcher ask. I was too focused on his painting of the lake. I mixed a few couple colors and brushed them against the canvas. My eyes flipped back and forth from his painting to the blank canvas. After a few seconds, I had the bottom corner replicated. I put down the brush and stood up.
“That was some vampire-thing wasn’t it?” Fletcher didn’t answer but examined what I had done. “Fletcher!” I shouted to get his attention.
“Yeah. You didn’t use any technique, just copied the colors and brushstrokes exactly. I’ve seen vampires play or sing back something they hear—that’s how we mimic languages and accents—but I’ve never seen anyone paint exactly.”
“Whatever,” I said and rolled my eyes. I didn’t have any talent at it. I could be a great forger but never make a masterpiece. Where was the value in that?


I liked this chapter better than the last one, m favorite scene had to be when they were at the lake, and you described Charlotte ‘sunbathing’ and Fletcher and Rachel racing on the water. It was also pretty cool when Charlotte morphed into a bat and started causing trouble. I think you did great characterization in that scene x)

Also, I knew from the first chapter that Fletcher was going to have feelings for Anna, I mean, he’s the only male character for crying out loud. In a vampire story. No romance in vampire books is like, unheard of. So I saw it coming, but I appreciate how you’re not throwing his feeling in our face and making it more subtle, with the protectiveness. Good job with that x)

Overall, much better than chap 1, but I still don’t see where this story is going x) I’ve got one more chapter to go!
The bad news is we don't have any control.
The good news is we can't make any mistakes.
-Chuck Palahniuk
  





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Sun Dec 25, 2011 7:44 am
PoetMan111 says...



Ahem, Ahem. Capítulo Dos.
Time to critique and zwiz.

Firstly, I'm a little confused as to why they have to learn to act like humans. Presumably, they don't go out much, or see people very often. They live on La Hacienda, they have a blood bank, and they normally only come out at night. If you want to justify them learning algebra, then say it's so they can become super geniuses (after all, if you have all the time in the world, why not spend it... learning...?)

Not to mention, if they were going to learn math, chemistry, and history, they would probably start with the basics and work their way up. It'd be a shame knowing how to function, and not knowing how to make a table. Or how to subtract.

Charlotte groaned when she saw the titles of the books. “Algebra, chemistry, history—the torture for every human child,” Gabriela continued.

Usually, the speaking line goes to whoever's name is said last. In this case, Charlotte. So this is a bit confusing.

And then you have a passage that seems like it's trying to teach me math... If you've read 1984, it's a bit like when Winston discovers The Book, without the usefulness to the plot. Unless the audience is going to need to know what a linear function is, try to leave out the math terms.

Ready? Here comes the counter!

The water was lukewarm and sparkled. I took a deep breath and dove underwater. The water was so clear I could see through it to where Fletcher and Rachel churned the water with their Skidoos. Something grabbed my ankle and I turned to see Charlotte in the water behind me. She dove deeper into the water and did a handstand at the bottom.

5 sentences. 6 waters. No further comments.

“You girls done playing around?” Fletcher asked. His Skidoo pulled up next to us.
“Never!” Charlotte called as she swung on behind Rachel. I grabbed Fletcher’s hand and pulled myself up behind him.

1.They can here him from beneath the surface?
2. Where did Rachel come from?

Charlotte flew by, grabbing Rachel’s hands, and tossed her into the middle of the lake. Charlotte made another pass over the lake and grabbed onto the end of our Skidoo. Fletcher kept accelerating and the Skidoo flipped over, pulling us under it

I'm a bit confused about what the motivations here are. Why is Rachel getting tossed into the lake? Why does she want that? Why would Fletcher accelerate if it was going to flip over the Skidodo bird? He seems smart enough to know not to do that... Very odd.

When we jumped onto the dock, Fletcher disappeared. I figured he ran back to the house and followed.
“What’s your problem?” I said as I saw Fletcher on the back veranda. “You know that was just Charlotte being Charlotte.”

Different scenes. Needs something to signify the change. There's a star thing above, between the lesson and the swimming. Use that or something.

Why're they acting like their PMSing? Great time for some dialogue to build up to the anger, and some character development.

There. Chapter two. Go on, read Shocked. I have only 4 pages to go, so hurry.

Edit, also, Blacksheep has one of the best sigs ever. In the world. Ever.
  








When all think alike, no one is thinking very much.
— Walter Lippmann