August 8th
I never really thought of myself as a music kind of guy. However, I apparently have the niche for it, at least according to Cole. While visiting his house, Cole decided it would a great time to practice his scratched up cello. After several minutes of out of tune bass clef notes, I asked Cole if I could mess around with it for a moment. Cole shrugged.
"Sure," he sighed. "Just don't break any strings. Especially the A string, it's a bit loose."
I grabbed the chocolate-brown cello from my friend and began playing a quick melody. Once I was done, Cole was in complete shock. I played wonderfully in tune. I have a niche for a lot of things in fact. I have a certain je ne sais quoi that bothers most of my friends. For example, all of my friends envy me when they notice how good I am at whipping their butts in Overwatch, or any game in fact. Also, maybe I should mention the fact that I messed up a chocolate-pie recipe and still won a cooking contest (which my mom forced me to enter, by the way). I perfectly mess up things. It must be the demon showing.
Oh wait, I forgot to mention that not-so-tiny detail.
Let's start over. Hello, I am Ethmegl Christanti, demon of the Under Realm, but in the human world, I am known as Barry O'Brien, a stuck teenage boy about to start his freshmen year of high school. Of course, that is just my "outer shell."
Now you may be wondering, "wait, how do you look human if you aren't"? And that is an excellent question. Ever heard of possession? It's a legitimate thing, and it's quite exhausting in fact. Why do I possess the poor young soul of Barry O'Brien? Another excellent question. I am a leech demon, and my job is to slowly suck the soul out of poor, innocent humans by possessing them, and supply their soul energy to the Under Realm. It's how we keep the place running, y'know? I have been working on Barry for about three years now. I know, I had to experience middle school. In seventh grade, puberty struck, and that was when things got real.
I've been doing this job for about five hundred years now, which isn't very long considering I have to possess a human from their preteen years to their elder years. Yep, some of the people you're surrounded by aren't even human. That's an interesting concept to think about isn't it?
The thing is though, we demons aren't so bad. Our only purpose is to possess, leech, die, and start over. It's that simple. We aren't in the mundane world to cause chaos and anarchy, unless you really want to, but that results in terrible, painful deaths. We feel pain of course... and love, hatred, happiness, etc. It's part of the job, or else you'd be cheating life and the soul wouldn't process correctly.
Enough about my demon life, I want to talk about my exciting human life as Barry O'Brien. I have several friends, my three best friends being Carter Saunders, Cole Rowland, and Gabe Keller. The three of them are practically brothers. They've known each other since the third grade. Barry is interesting. When I first possessed him when he was twelve (he was going into sixth grade year), he was extremely frenetic and cocky. Of course, I had to change this and shed his annoying shell. My reputation became more "chill", and people actually liked me. It felt like almost yesterday when I possessed him. I remember waking up in a soft, warm bed. My eyes flickered down, and I noticed I was resting in Star Wars sheets.
"Hello?" I said aloud, testing out my new voice. Slightly-deep, yet crispy.... I liked it.
When I looked in the mirror, I was welcomed by calm, sea-blue eyes, and well-cut chestnut brown hair. He's olive-skinned, and has the cutest dimples. His eyes are a bit far-apart, but nobody's perfect I guess. He's attractive, I'll give him points for that.
So since I've lived through many lifetimes, shouldn't I be like an ultra-genius by now?
I wish it worked that way, however, when we possess a new body, it wipes our slate of knowledge. So we once again, don't cheat humanity. However, demons know they're possessing a body, or else things would get a little freaky...
I should probably think twice about randomly grabbing a cello from Cole and playing it, even though I have no experience. Blowing the job will not be pretty back in the Under Realm.
...
I was told by a fellow demon that writing in a journal was a good way to keep up with past lives, and "relive memories." So, here I am writing in this journal that I bought at the store for about eight bucks. Oh yeah, I took a brief intermission from writing to eat some chicken noodle soup, which is delicious by the way. Mrs. O'Brien, or Mom, makes the absolute best. Speaking of Mom, I should probably hide this journal in a super secure place. You know, just in case if she finds it and reads it (which she would totally do), so she wouldn't have a heart attack or something. Anyways, I should be wrapping this up and heading to bed now. You never know what will await you tomorrow, except for maybe the first day of school...
End of chapter
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140,763 Literary Works • 673,687 Reviews
Hi, I’m Thundahguy, self-proclaimed demon expert extraordinaire, and here’s my review:
So exposition is a nice thing to start with. You know what else is nice? Exposition that’s directly addressing the reader. In a third person story, it’s par for the course if you start with exposition, but when your main character is a demon that sounds like it’s trying to explain everything to a human, it just brings the reader out of the story. It’s the main problem here, with how often it happens. If the demon’s a demon, then they don’t need this elaborate of an explanation.
The next thing to note is how Ethmegl is writing this diary. There’s a weird point about here
It’s very detailed. Too detailed, if the person (or thing) writing this was only recalling it. Even if it happened only a few minutes prior, this seemed a bit too active.
Then there’s Ethmegl himself. Just a major plot hole here, but if his memory is supposed to be wiped, then how does he (it?) remember his previous possessions. You, or Ethmegl, stated that his memory is wiped in order to make sure he can’t abuse that knowledge. But not only has Ethmegl said remembers his previous lives, but he even remembers that he shouldn’t possess anyone in St.Louis, which definitely seems like an abuse of said knowledge. It might be more believable if it was a recent possession, but Ethmegl took control of Barry O’Brien (Hehe, alliteration) 3 years ago.
I can’t say anything else, really. These are all just discrepancies in your text. I don’t comment on grammar, ask a spellchecker for that. I can’t say anything about the plot since there’s little to no hint on how that’ll progress, and Ethmegl is the only character introduced, so I can’t say much about him either. A diary of a not-so-wimpy demon is an idea I haven’t really heard of, but I can’t really tell where it’ll go as well.
And again, do ask a spellchecker for grammar errors.
Thanks so much for the review! Now that you mention it, the "St. Louis" thing is a major plot hole, haha. I guess I was aiming towards more like... that was his demon memories, and not like academic knowledge, but I totally see what you mean.
Thanks so much for the feedback!
This is a really interesting story idea! I'll try reviewing it sometime this week, since it looks like it's going to be pretty good. c:
dEMONS YOU SAY
Hi, Shootingmoons! I'm Pan and I'll be swinging by for a quick review. I'm going to point out small comments as I go along and then close with some overall pointers and thoughts. Small grammar/expression corrections will be shown in blue. Here we go!
Small Comments
In itself, this isn't bad as an opening line. Where it fails is the fact that the subject of music never comes up anywhere else in the intro. The opening line has to be relevant; if you open with a comment about music, then I assume that music is going to play a significant role in the story. By immediately abandoning the topic of music after first mentioning it, it leaves me wondering why you chose to highlight it in the first place.
You don't need that comma.
1) Usually you use '...' to either show an omission of words or to show a pause in an otherwise continuous sentence (e.g. 'did you...hear what he said?') However, because 'I perfectly mess up things' and 'It must be the demon showing' can both stand as sentences in their own right, it doesn't feel quite correct (if I may use that word) to connect them with ellipses. So I'd use a full stop instead.
2) This is a more subjective point, but I feel like the last sentence of that quote might have more impact if it was its own paragraph. Example:
Or maybe I should mention the fact that I messed up a chocolate-pie recipe and still won a cooking contest (which my mom forced me to enter, by the way). I perfectly mess up things. It must be the demon showing.
Oh, wait. I forgot to mention that not-so-tiny detail.
Up to you, but I thought I'd raise it as a suggestion!
Full stop fits better than a colon here.
No need for that comma.
Overall Thoughts
1) I've held off on being too nitpicky about the rest of the piece because I think it needs more substantial revision, and picking out unnecessary commas is of limited use when you need to redraft things.
2) What do I love about this piece? The concept! Demons are amazing. As someone who has written tons of flash fiction from the perspective of a demon (who is certainly not evil - just a bit nosy. He steals all the sheets from his husband, too, but that's the extent of his nefariousness) I love to see other writers' interpretations of them. I especially love that Ethmegl (how the heck do you pronounce that?) is more amoral than villainous. He feels like a person, not an evil force, which I love. It's inherently interesting to write about a character who has lived through so many different perspectives, so the story has bags of potential.
3) I also think Ethmegl could be a funny narrator. I mean, he's a bit of an arrogant jerk, but characters don't have to be nice to be likable. There are notes of humour in how he tells the story and I feel like he's got a distinctive voice already, which is great.
4) Nevertheless, the biggest issue with this intro is how expository is. I'll break it to you now: as interesting as the mechanics of your world and the history of your character may be, no reader wants to hear about them on the first page of the novel. It feels like reading a block of writing notes. We need time to settle into the rhythm of the story before we can get interested in the background information.
The best way to introduce the reader to your setting and characters is gradually, by way of actual active scenes. If J.K. Rowling opened Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone with a massive explanation of magic and Hogwarts and how the wizarding world operated, the story wouldn't be nearly as engaging. The reason Harry Potter captivates so many readers is because we get the joy of discovering Hogwarts alongside Harry. The same should apply to your story. Show us Ethmegl's daily life as Barry; show us him visiting the Under Realm or siphoning off energy. Find ways to illustrate Ethmegl's world rather than just telling us it exists.
Another key thing to remember is that you don't need to do it all at once. Too much information at the beginning of a story is overwhelming. It's best to stick with quite a simple conflict, only dropping hints of something more. Take examples from great books. The aforementioned Harry Potter starts only with an unpleasant man spotting very strange things while out at work. His Dark Materials begins with a girl sneaking into a room and having to hide so that she isn't caught. Don't give everything away immediately. There's no rush.
5) The ending of this chapter kind of drops off out of nowhere. I know you're trying to capture a diary style, but if it's too much like a real journal it's going to lack a good hook to keep the reader interested. Real life diaries are aimless. Stories have to be plotted carefully to keep your audience engaged.
In short, I'd like to see this opening have more of a hook. While I'm intrigued by the premise of a demon narrator, nothing actually happens in the opening to make me think 'what's going to happen next?' Good intros need an air of mystery. To do that, you have to leave the reader in the dark about something. We need to be left with a question in our minds, one that can only be answered by reading on.
I'm going to call the review here because I really ought to be getting to bed. I hope this was helpful, and I do apologise if I came across as too harsh. I think the idea's got a lot of potential, but it seems to me like you've fallen in love with a concept rather than a plot. That can happen with newly-fledged ideas. You just need to tailor the theme of the world and the demonic narrator around an actual inciting incident, then you'll be in business. You can say 'I want to write about a world where people fight to the death on national television', but you don't actually have the Hunger Games story until your protagonist volunteers for said fight in order to save her sister's life.
Let me know if you post any more of this! And don't hesitate to tell me if anything I said here was unclear.
Keep writing!
~Pan
Hello! Thank you for the awesome advise! I noticed I was a bit choppy on the commas, and I'll try to be less repetitive of them. I also noticed once I published the piece that I never mentioned why he brought up the concept of music. I wrote this piece at like midnight last night haha
About the information, I was trying to squeeze in all of the information, because this was a bit more like, "hey, this is a story idea I have, and here's the basics." This more like... uh, an introduction to the idea, rather than the first chapter. I see what you mean by "tmi" though.
Thank you sooo much for the feedback. It means a lot to me, because I normally really shy about letting physical people read over my stuff, if that makes sense, and I realize I'll have to break out of that shell soon.
I'm glad it was helpful! YWS is definitely a great place to get more confidence about sharing your writing. The anxiety never fully goes away, but it gets much easier with time!