Alchemists 3: Alchemist Tricks

Chapter Three: Alchemist Tricks
Candise dragged Felicity’s corpse-like body over against the wall of the cave. She sat Felicity on a rock and leaned her head against the cool stone of the wall. She turned her back on Felicity and faced the others.
“I have been working on something for a while which you guys might find quite impressive.” She took three steps forwards and crouched down so low, her arms were folded up near her ears. She smiled as her pupils began to grow. They completely covered her usually crystal blue eyes in jet-black darkness. Her white, slightly crooked teeth turned black and pointed. Her highly manicured nails grew three inches and also turned black. She suddenly jumped into the air, turning three times and back-flipping twice before landing silently in a dark corner of the cave. She raised her hand and the shadows which surrounded her came to life and ripped her normal clothes from her. The shadows settled lightly on Candise’s body and materialized into a charcoal-black halter top and jet-black leather pants. She walked forward, one foot perfectly in front of the other. As she walked, the last remnants of shadow attached to her shoulders trailing down in a long, velvet cape.
James rolled his eyes,
“We’ve seen that before Can. And don’t look at me with your Alchemist eyes, those pupils kinda creep me out.”
Candise held up one claw-like finger.
“I’m not finished. You all know how I can manipulate shadows to materialize into just about any sort of healing item or pretty much useless junk you can think of. Right? Well, watch this.” She turned to another corner and slowly twisted her hand. The shadows flexed and warped, but didn’t do much else. Cameron choked on a laugh and quickly covered it with a cough. Candise frowned in concentration. She twisted her other hand. The shadows suddenly exploded violently. Something solid became visible in amongst the shadows. Candise ran at it and jumped up the wall, grabbing the shadowy object on the way. The shadows disappeared and a gleaming, grey sword was sitting comfortably in Candise’s hand. The others stepped back in amazement.
“Wow” Leona whispered, “Nice. You have finally managed to materialize weapons as well as the other things. That’s cool Shadowess.”
Candise frowned,
“My name isn’t Shadowess! I changed it. Shadowess just sounds stupid. From now on, when I’m like this, I am Darka, the Shadow Alchemist. I told you that before!”
Natalia shrugged,
“Whatever floats your boat, Darka.”

Darka smiled and pointed her sword at Cameron.
“Your turn. What new tricks have you got to show us?”
Cameron sighed theatrically. He walked over to Darka and wrapped his hand over the edge of the sword. He slid his hand down the blade, causing it to cut a three inch slice down the middle of his hand. His own blood dripped down the length of the blade and onto Darka’s hand. Darka looked thoroughly disgusted. Cameron raised his uninjured hand. Both the blood on the blade and the blood dripping from the wound started floating upwards. Cameron stretched both hands out in front of himself. The blood, which seemed to have doubled in quantity, coiled and twisted around his hands, then down his body. His white shirt turned pink, and then red. Cameron took a step back and then turned and ran at the wall. He jumped and landed on the side of the wall. He crouched and started crab-walking up the cave wall. As he climbed, the blood clung to his jeans, turning them a very deep crimson. The blood turned acidic and melted his shirt away from his chest. The remaining blood stuck to his cheek and twisted down his neck and across his chest. It set on his chest and became a twisting tattoo. Cameron’s eyes turned bright red and his pupils disappeared. His usually chocolate-brown hair turned a muddy red and it grew about four centimeters. He jumped off the wall and landed with a heavy thud in front of Darka.
“I’ve got a couple of tricks actually.” He said, wagging a finger in front of Darka’s eyes. He walked around behind Leona and closed his eyes. Leona’s hands started to move. Leona looked terrified. Leona suddenly kicked out at James, who dodged her foot by centimeters, and kicked the wall.
“Fuck! What was that for?!” He yelled as a shower of debris fell on him from above.
“Sorry! I’m not doing it! My feet have a mind of their own!” Leona yelled as she ran towards Natalia. Natalia jumped out of the way and flicked water on the ground at Leona. Leona squeaked and yelled at Cameron.
“Cameron! What the fuck are you doing to me?”
Cameron smiled cruelly.
“Cameron? Sorry, no one here by that name.”
Jason darted across the cave to where Cameron was standing.
“Fine. Blair, If don’t stop doing whatever shit you’re doing to Leona, I’m gonna pick you up, fly you up to altitude, and see if your blood power can teach you to fly before you splat on the sidewalk.”
Cameron looked at Jason for a moment, and then dropped his arms. On the other side of the cave, Leona regained control of her limbs. She sighed in relief and then got angry. She turned to Cameron.
“Why didn’t you stop when I told you to?”
Cameron shrugged.
“I refuse to be called by my normal name when I’m like this. What happens if we were out fighting criminals and you called my by my real name? Not good. Say it with me: normal, Cameron, Alchemist, Blair. Got it?”
Leona glowered,
“You’re an asshole!”
******************************
About an hour later, Felicity stirred. She groaned and slowly opened her eyes. Blair was sitting on the ground next to her, holding her hand and humming. The others were farther away, playing what looked like Truth or Dare.
“Morning Sleeping Beauty. Have a nice nap?” Blair asked, tracing circles on her hand.
“I had another meltdown again didn’t I?” Felicity asked, standing on numb legs. Blair nodded. Felicity sighed and took a few shaky steps forward. When she didn’t fall flat on her face, she relaxed and walked with renewed confidence.
Darka looked up and smiled.
“Felicity’s awake. Hey Fel! Wanna play?”
Felicity shrugged and sat down beside James. Natalia looked at Felicity,
“Ok Fel, truth, dare, double dare, kiss, love or torture?”
Felicity blinked, “Come again?”
Natalia sighed, “Truth, dare, double dare, kiss, love or torture?”
“Um, truth?”
“Ok….why do you hate water so much?”
Felicity groaned, “Do I have to?” The others nodded. Felicity sighed,
“Ok the reason I hate water is….”

Hello.

I read a bit into this, and it seems like an interesting concept of stuffing 7 people who seem to have elemental powers together and they have to get along. While the concept is interesting, the dialogue and formatting could use a little bit of work.

Firstly, your formatting. In this chapter, everything that marks who's speaking is on the paragraph above the dialogue, with a comma to denote they're saying something. This causes a lot of confusion because people are used to seeing tags (what indications of who's speaking is called) on the same line as the dialogue. Tags can either be "said tags" (he said, she whispered, I yelled hoarsely) or "action tags" (He went to stand. "This is unacceptable.").

Just to show you what I'm talking about, here's a segment of your story with proper formatting:

Felicity choked up water. "Nat,Y-you are a bitch. You know how much I hate water, it's my polar opposite, yet you continually push us into its."

Cameron floated over and light-heartedly shoved her shoulder. "Lighten up Fel. Nat was just er.... helping us out?" Cameron looked at the others for support.

Caandise nodded slightly. "Hey Nat, where are we going?"

She <- Extra note on this. Who is "she"? It's not clear. was still chewing on a slightly soggy potato scallop.

Jason and James rolled their eyes and Jason flicked water at Candise. "Well, if you didn't go off in a hissy fit, you would know where we are going." Candise pouted and James wrapped his arms aroung Candise.

I've made it so the "action tags" don't introduce the dialogue with a comma (the only time you'd do that is if the line read, He looked at her and said, "this isn't good.") and put it all on the same line for clarity's sake. If you do that throughout the whole piece, and in all your writing later, then it will help readability a lot.

Next, I'd suggest you work on picking a narrator and sticking with them. Right now, we're only getting actions from the characters. I'd like some emotions of one, or even a handful, of people. That is most easily accomplished through "third person limited". This is a point of view where you use third person like you have now, but you only look at things through the eyes of one character, who then gives their opinions and side-comments about what's going on. You can switch between narrators (usually only one narrator a scene, though) but third person limited really helps us form a connection with characters, which I find you're lacking a bit here.

Overall, work on your formatting and creating a really strong emotional connection between the reader and your narrator, to help carry the story and make it easier to read.

Drop me a line if you have any questions or comments!

~Rosey

Whatever Rosey said. I'm cool with that. She gives good reviews and good advice. *nods*



Juuuuust kidding.



I do agree with her, though. The concept is very interesting, but the execution needs work. You need to figure out how to show, not tell, what the characters are doing. This is something that can be very difficult to grasp, so don't worry if you can't get it at first. Writing is a process--you're always learning! That's what makes it fun. Be thinking-- How can I make this better? Do I need more description? Less description? What words would best convey my meaning in this context? How can I portray to the reader what I can see so vividly in my head? Those are questions I think every writer should be continually asking--I do my best to keep them in mind.

I'm not entirely sure why Felicity would have such a strong reaction to water, though--elementals usually have more trouble with the person using their opposite element, rather than the element itself. (If you've seen Avatar: The Last Airbender, Zuko, a firebender, is an incredibly capable swimmer, and uses his firepower to keep himself from freezing in frigid waters.) I would understand snow, actually, but water? Is there some sort of traumatic backstory that I'm missing, here? Because that would be interesting. Did someone try to drown her as a child, and was that how she found out about her power?

....oooorrrr that could be completely different from your idea of the character.

Anyway, it's good, it just needs some work.

Hey Serenity! I'm back again. Sorry it took me so long to get to this!

I'm still liking what you have going on here very much. I also like that I'm slowly piecing together who's who as a bender/whatever title you're using. I've got Felicity down as fire, obviously, and Nat is obviously water, with Jason as air. The cool part being that you didn't just write, "Jason could bend air."

I also love the rapport between all of them. It's enjoyable to read! Reading close friends like this is fun in general.

My biggest concern/advice bit is still to slow down some and take your time. You've got... six? seven? characters here and keeping track of them is still difficult. If you slowed down and added more description here and there, that'd help us keep track of who's who while we're getting to know them. Also, you might was well in general. I want to get to know these characters and would love to get some descriptions of what they look like. (But, obviously, not too much, because too much'd distract from your pacing... just little bits, here and there, pretty please with cherries on top? )

Also, on another note, make sure that your dialogue tags are tagging as you want them to!

Felicity choked up water,
"Nat,Y-you are a bitch. You know how much I hate water, it's my polar opposite, yet you continually push us into its." Cameron floated over and light-heartedly shoved her shoulder,
"Lighten up Fel. Nat was just er.... helping us out?" Cameron looked at the others for support. Caandise nodded slightly,

Well, I guess it's more your paragraph spacing that's off here. But, as you have it formatted now (ignoring commas), Cameron is the one calling Nat a bitch, not Felicity. You want to format it like this:

Felicity choked up water. "Nat,Y-you are a bitch. You know how much I hate water, it's my polar opposite, yet you continually push us into its."

Cameron floated over and light-heartedly shoved her shoulder. "Lighten up Fel. Nat was just er.... helping us out?"

Cameron looked at the others for support.

Caandise nodded slightly. "Hey Nat, where are we going?" She was still chewing on a slightly soggy potato scallop.

Jason and James rolled their eyes and Jason flicked water at Candise.

Yeah, I know, lots of short sentences there. Also, periods instead of commas before the dialogue. Why? These are indirect tags you have going here. In other words, the reader assumes that because the character is the subject of the action in the sentence, he or she is also the speaker, even though you're not using a verb like 'said' or 'answered'. And because the reader assumes the subject of the sentence is the speaker, you have to split the paragraph whenever you get a new sentence subject.

...I hope that made sense. If not, come bug me.

Anyway, that's it for now. I look forward to more still, and if you have any questions or want help on anything, let me know!

Rach

There were a few spelling mistakes. Like this on Candise spelled candis. I recommend you do a draft then read it and correct it on Microsoft word or something. Then copy it. But I thing it's great but I'm confused with the guardians which guardians which. I know Felicity is the fire one and Natalie is the water one. I think Cameron is the blood one.