Chapter 2
James
It took a while for my eyes to adjust to the dark hallway. The walls, lined with old, dusty pictures, had a rustic look to them. I could tell it hadn’t been traveled to in a while. I looked over to Annabeth and laughed, her face had a greenish tint to it and she was leaning from one side to the other. The twins were already up and dusting off their suits, as if they were really dirty
“I… wi-will never do that again “Annabeth mumbled to me as the twins led us down the hall. A faint glimmer of light glared at me from the end of the hall.
“What made you decide to trust these psychos” I asked her still wondering why I came along myself.
“Well” She looked at me “I don’t know. It just seemed like the right thing to do. I wouldn’t have went with them if they hadn’t forced us.” I raised my eyebrows questioningly and she quickly added “but that’s still not right.”
“Where are we going?” I asked the twins still uncertain if this was a good idea. Even Annabeth’s reasoning didn’t reassure me. I could turn back now. There was really no guarantee this was going to turn out well or we would get anything out of it. Yeah we might get our candy back but we could live without, unless what the twin said was true.
“To the meeting. Every candy leader will be there.” They walked faster as if they would be late
“What do you mean?” Nothing these guys said made sense.
“Every type of candy has a leader that they obey. They each have a unique staff and power” I look at Annabeth she looked like had understood everything. No wonder, she plays too many games not to.
“What about our parents? They’ll probably report us missing for all I know!” The twins stopped, exchanged conversation and came over to where I was standing. The tall one gave me a piece of paper.
“James, Jewel, your mother knew about this land long before you were born. She left it to marry your father.”
“And how did you guys know her? That’s not even her name.” I asked suspicion creeping up my back. They didn’t even know her name.
“Because… she was the princess.” Realization washed over me. Every time I asked my mom about her family she would just shrug it off or say something weird like “Go Google it” and when I asked my dad he would act secretive too.
“You probably will never meet them now” He said disturbing me from my thoughts “The candy people are in an uproar. They say one of the humans have stolen the Queen.”
“Why would someone steal their own Queen? That’s like someone killing themselves.” Annabeth’s voice rings out from beside.
“Young, Lady,-”
“My name is Annabeth, not “Young Lady!”
“We are asking the same questions as you. Now we must go.” He turned and headed to the door. I stood there, mind whirling from all the information. Annabeth grabbed my hand, bringing me back to reality. The lavender smell of her hair engulfs me as she raps me in a hug.
“I’m sorry” she whispers, pulls away and walks down the hall.
We finally reached the door, the smell of candy wafted up from the crack under it. A key jangled from the short twins hand as he struggled to unlock the slightly rusted door. His brother bent down and swung it open.
Annabeth
Now I was already nauseated (that portal thing didn’t work for me) but when I saw my fantasy world come true I would have fainted, but James was watching for my reaction. Candy people stood in front of my very eyes. Some were humans with rods, the logos of different candies were engraved at the tip; Those must be the leaders My mind was being over loaded with wonder until a peppermint man landed right in front of me.
“Ahhh” Halve of his body was wriggling on the ground. Eyes blazing with anger, he (or she I really don’t know) got up and charged back into the riot and hit a human square in the stomach. He stumbled then pointed his rod at the peppermintman and shot him to bits. The sourness of the air didn’t help the mood. I glanced over to see James slightly backing up.
A man up stage was trying to calm them. His beard was braided with as many candy wrapper his potbelly could consume and his eyes looked like saucers “They will be here, they wi-” he glanced at Mario and Luigi (aka the twins) as they stepped up to the microphone. Everyone stopped mid swing. “Ladies, Candies, and Gentlemen we have some good news.” Mario glanced at his brother which gave him a reassuring nod. “We have found the prophesied ones; they will save us, and our Queen!” He motioned for James and I to come up stage. A deathly silence washed over the crowd as they watched us walk up to the podium. I could tell they didn’t like us or our kind.
“Humans, you bring us humans!” a random Jolly rancher shouted
“They are the only ones who can help us.” The short Mario twin said. A worried look passed over the twins faces, this wasn’t going to end well.
A beam of light shot right past James and turned the wall beside him into jello. Everyone tried to climb upstage, lights flickered as the whole building rocked. The twins kick and pushed people off the stage but they couldn’t hold up for long. The taller twin left his brother and came out with two packages.
“Go, these will help you on your journey. Just run straight into the wall behind us.” He paused. I could see the stress, the hurt, the… everything. It made me ache. “Find the clouds” We turned and ran hoping for the best.
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125,018 Literary Works • 672,861 Reviews
Hey Poseidon. I'm starting to get caught up!
I skimmed through the other reviews, but I might repeat something. Sorry if I do. I'm really excited about getting farther into this. The idea is fun.
Wow. Your descriptions of the people and candies at the meeting were very good. I'd even suggest you add a little more.
Like the last chapter, you've packed so much into this one. I'd definitely slow down and explain everything that's happening, so that your readers are with you every step of the way. Right now I'm a little lost.
Well... Yeah. Her reasoning wasn't reassuring. In fact, it barely made sense. In the last chapter she just kind of agreed to go because you needed her to agree for the plot to continue, and you didn't really go into why. Here, you start to try to go into why, then just brush it over with "Well, they would have made us anyway." Of course that's not reassuring, and it doesn't really satisfy your readers wish to know what makes Annabeth tick. I would think a lot about why she chose to come here because it's one of the first times we as the reader see her character and what pushes her to do things whether it's commons sense, compassion, or self-preservation.
I have a few questions:
If the candy world is run by human rulers, why do the candy people hate humans?
-If the candy world isn't run by humans, you need to change something because that's not at all clear.
Why does Annabeth say kidnapping your own queen is like killing yourself?
-Because it's not. I mean, you could ask for ransom. You could just watch the chaos if you're a crazy person. You could be working for someone else who is paying you. It's not really like killing yourself at all.
Alright. Again, this has a lot of potential. It just also needs a bunch of polishing, and you need to slooooow down. When you do that, I think things will improve a bunch.
Onto the next chapter,
Megs~
Would you guys like me to redo this chapter or go to the next one?
Poseidon, nice to see you again. I like how you styled the P.O.V.s, just as Rick Riordan did it. Smart guy.
I'll just tell you two things, and then we'll move on. 1) There should be a comma after "pictures". 2) "There" is actually supposed to be "their".
"The walls, lined with pictures were old and dusty."
"Meanwhile the twins were dusting there suits as if they were dirty."
Here are some more nitpicks. 1) No space after ellipsis, Poseidon. 2) Turn that quotation mark, the one after "again", around to face that word. Also, no spaces before it either. 3) Period after "ahead". 4) Comma after "asked". Watch those teeny punctuation errors! 5) No apostrophe in "psychopaths".
"“I… wi-will never do that again “Annabeth mumbled to me as the twins led us down the hall. I could see a faint glimmer of light up ahead
“Where are we going?” I asked still uncertain if this was a good idea. They acted like psychopath’s just minutes before, pulling guns on us then offering cake and milk.
“To the meeting. Every candy leader will be there.” They hurried down the hall and didn’t stop until we reached the door."
I don't do grammar errors. But, I'll make an exception for one Percy Jackson fan. "Candys" should be "candies". Replace that comma with a semicolon. In the second sentence, you can't really morph arms and legs. Just say grown.
"The logo of different candys was engraved at the tip, this must be the leaders. Others looked like candy that morphed arms and legs."
Some things to point out. "Up stage" should be one word. "Wrapper" should be plural. "Consumed" should be "consume". Period after "consumed".
"A man up stage was trying to calm them. His beard was braided with as many candy wrapper his potbelly could consumed “They will be here, they wi-”"
I'll fix this block and you look at my work as you fix yours.
"“Ladies, candy and gentlemen, we have some good news.” Mario glanced at his brother, who gave him a reassuring nod. “We have found the prophesied ones; they will save us from the rule of our enemy!” He motioned for James and me to come up on the stage. The crowd fell to a deathly silence as they watched us walk up to the podium. I could tell they didn’t like us or our kind.
“Humans, you bring us humans!” A random peppermint shouted
“They are the only ones who can help us.” The short Mario twin said. A worried look passed over the twins' faces, this wasn’t going to end well. A beam of light shot right past James and turned the wall beside him into jello. Everyone tried to climb upstage; the twins kicked and pushed people off the stage, but they couldn’t hold up for long. The taller twin left his brother and came out with two packages.
“Go, these will help you on your journey. Just run straight into the wall behind us.” He paused. I could see the stress, the hurt, the everything. It made me ache. “Find the clouds.”"
I think you should continue this book. Keep writing!
-wisegirl22
Thank you very much
Hey Poseidon!
~ I would recommend an edit to "The walls were lined with old, dusty pictures." I think that just makes it a bit clearer what you're talking about, considering if you were to put a single comma after "pictures" you'd be saying that the walls were lined with pictures, and were also old and dusty, which isn't what you want.Shady here with a review for your second chapter! Can't wait to read it!
~ Yes, yes they did. Perhaps now would be a good time to do a bit more character development, to describe to us why they consented to go. Being pushed in a portal by gunmen is good character motivation-- but your characters agreed to go mostly voluntarily. You should explain a bit more of the reasoning behind it.
Okay! I want to come out right up front and say that I really, really love alternating POV's. They are such a powerful tool; and I recently learned how much fun they are to write. Most of my recent stories have had alternating POV's, so, yeah, I was very happy to see that you give us part of the story from Annabeth's POV-- however. There is always a however, if you see a compliment coming from Shady, as many people on here will tell you,
I think now would also be a good time to mention that maybe you should work on making your chapters a bit longer in general? This is a super short chapter. I put it through a word counter, and you've got 510 words in this chapter-- which seems especially short to me seeing as you have two POV's. My average, one person POV chapters are typically 1,900+ words, and a second POV usually gives you license for a few more hundred words, at least. I have no problem with writing 2,500-3,000 words for a chapter, if I've got multiple POV's to write. You really do need adequate time to develop your characters and POV's, if you're going that route.
~ Shouldn't this be "Ladies, Candies, and Gentlemen..."? It's definitely not "Lady's" because that implies singular possessive, where this is just plural.
~
Wow! You've got a lot of interesting ideas for your story! Again, I think your story would really benefit if you slowed down especially the scene in Annabeth's POV, and gave us more description and development.
Like, why are all these candies already gathered together? Why do they hate humans so much? What's up with that laser and the Jello wall? That was intense, but you moved past it so quickly we didn't get a chance to properly appreciate the dire suspense of a situation like that! Slow your story down. Focus on making each and every scene important and impacting to your story, and to your readers.
Let me know when chapter three is up!
Hope this helped! As always, don't hesitate to ask if anything I said was unclear, or if you'd like me to explain something again. I'm here to help!
~Shady
Thanks I will.