PROLOGUE
Why can’t most humans see us? It’s because our bodies are made of a substance that looks very water-like, invisible to the human eye, in most cases. We can see one another though because our eyes work differently, the colors are different as well as the way we view things. We look exactly like humans though. We can even walk onto land and become like you, though you won’t be able to see us. It’s strange, no one’s sure how it works, but we can transform to nearly anything imaginable. We don’t have tails though like in human tales. We are what you call mermaids.
Chapter 1
From the moment I looked into his eyes, I knew. It all came down to this, we could not be together. It wasn’t the fact that he was a Nymph, it was the fact that I wasn’t what he wanted; I never would be. I knew from day one that all he ever thought about was her.
It was that time of the year, the time for the great celebration. We had all lived another year without being murdered by the Nymphs. That’s when I first saw him. He was standing all alone, isolated from everyone else. I didn’t get it. I decided to approach him even though his whole body read “danger”. His face was intense and he didn’t notice me when I walked next to him. He wasn’t like the rest of us. His hair was charcoal black and his eyes were the deepest sapphire I had ever seen.
“Hi, I’m Athemest.” I said calmly.
He looked startled.
“Sorry for scaring you,” I smiled weakly.
“It’s okay,” he mumbled and continued staring into space, “By the way, name’s Nyle,”
I frowned slightly. Island names were out of date. Everyone in the society had had mineral names for the past hundred years.
“Are you one of them?” Nyle asked.
“Of course I am!!!” I snapped.
“Oh,” he sounded surprised, “Why do you have moonlight hair then? Shouldn’t you have sea green hair or gray hair like all the others?”
“Why do you have charcoal black hair then?” I challenged.
“That’s none of your business if you’re one of them,” Nyle replied.
“You’re not with the mer are you?” I questioned accusingly.
“No, I’m not,” Nyle replied.
“What are you then?” I felt scared, what if he was a Nymph?
“I’m from the Dasyatis clan,” he said calmly.
“That doesn’t answer my question,” I was frustrated.
“What are you?” Nyle asked, “For all I know, it’s not possible for you to be one of them. You must be a Hybrid or a Nymph.”
“I don’t know what I am.” I replied, “But, I’m dead positive that I’d never be something that horrid, let alone kill another mermaid for a desire so dark. You’re one, aren’t you, one of those wretched creatures.”
“You could be one,” Nyle said, “you wouldn’t know until you turned fourteen.”
“You are one,” I accused.
“What is it that you’re saying I am?”
“A Nymph and you’re here to feed.” I trembled.
“If I was a Nymph you should be dead by now, face it, we’re all alone in this dark corner and I could kill you easily if I was one” Nyle’s eyes looked possessed at this moment, he looked wild.
“You’re going to eat me now,” I said.
“No,” Nyle replied, “I’m not hungry right now and you’re much too beautiful.”
I blushed.
“Then why are you here?” I asked anxiously, immediately worried about the rest of the merpeople.
“I’m just here to observe festivities along with the rest of my clan.” Nyle replied.
“Sure, Nyle, sure” I said sarcastically, “What do you eat then?”
“We aren’t mer hunters; you know how we can eat whatever, but have the desires to hunt the mer and humans.” Nyle paused, “I’m telling you too much already, you’ll figure the rest out when you’re one of us. Remember the Dasyatis when you turn fourteen.”
Hesitantly, he touched my wrist with the palm of his hand and a crescent mark began to appear. It was a faded silver. It matched the one on his right arm. It seemed all so magical and dreamy even for a world like mine. There had to be some mistake, maybe he found the wrong person.
I blinked and when I opened my eyes, he was gone, just like that. It confounded me greatly at first.
“Nyle! Both my parents were mer!” I cried out, but he was gone. There was no point in denying the truth.
I trudged back to the crowd. There was a lot on my mind. I stared at my wrist every now and then; the silver crescent was becoming more vivid as the seconds ticked by. It was about the size of a coin. It seemed to have some sort of eerie glow that even the most unobservant person would notice. So I placed my hand over it but the light shone through. It looked a bit like paint so I decided to go with that lie, I’d gotten a tattoo. If anyone were to know that a Nymph or whatever Nyle was, gave it to me, I’d surely be killed for the good of our species.
I hadn’t noticed but I was there already, back to reality. Zinc, my best friend, was there waiting for me. He was also my only friend. Zinc had short light grey hair. There weren’t many people who would even associate with me because no one had actually met my father. They hated uncertainty and my hair made it even more uncomfortable to be around.
“Athemest,” Zinc’s face was morbid.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, immediately worried. Zinc was a Pyro, we were opposites. He usually smiled when he greeted people.
“Some of them are here,” he whispered into my ear so no one else could hear.
“What’s here?” I asked. Zinc’s warm hand was still cupped around my ear.
“Hybrids,” he whispered softly.
“Do the merpeople know?” I asked.
“No, they’re too wrapped up in the festivities. They’re always here every year anyways.”
“How do you know?” I asked.
“Their hair colors. They don’t even bother to dye it. They also have clan marks. Most of them have crescent marks.” The crescent on my hand seemed to be burning a hole through my skin at that moment. I hid my wrist as best at I could. Zinc seemed to sense my movement though… “They finally came for you…” He whispered, his voice was full of pain and anguish, “I always knew they would.”
“How?” I asked.
“You always looked like one of them, you were always different,” he croaked he paused for a minute before he continued, “Can I touch it?”
I took his hand gently and placed it on my wrist, on the crescent. He traced it lightly, as quick as possible, because it hurt when we touched.
We didn’t feel like celebrating. It was probably our last day to spend together, the last time we would see each other again. It was my fourteenth birthday tomorrow, so we sat in silence, occasionally tracing the crescent that now marked my wrist. The silence meant nothing yet everything to me. There was nothing to say but he stayed anyways. It was a sad ending to the threshold of my new life.[quote][/quote]
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125,018 Literary Works • 672,856 Reviews
Woah. Woah. Woooooah.
That was so FAST!
When people read stories, they like to get into the story, feel what the character does, look through the character's eyes. Unforunately, you didn't allow that to happen. It was really, really fast.
The entire time it felt like I was on a train that was going at break-neck speed. I tried to stop it, but it just keep going, faster and faster with each passing sentence.
My suggestion: slow doooown. We haven't even learned about Amthest and already she's met this mysterious guy at this crazy festivity! Who is she? Where did she come from? When did she meet Zinc? Give us a normal day of her life, even, before this event. I don't know what you really want to do, but slow it down!
Other than that, it was good. Just remember that you don't want to be rushing the entire time. Make it flow. Make it go smoothly. Don't be rushing to finish the chapter so much that you forget to mention what what Amthest looks like before she meets Nyle.
PM me if you ever want me to critique a story of yours.
Love & Blessings,
Aushy
Alright Crescent, I'm going to correct your work today on a couple of things that i think were either not worded properly or basically your people and plot.
the way you worded this was a little confusing in your story.Well when your starting with your prologue i honestly think it was unnecessary to have it. If you were going to include the prologue to your story still i would rewrite it.
OK for one in this sentence
Another sentence that caught my attention was this: i would also reword this too and maybe even describe the feeling that happened as he touched the cresecent.
I enjoyed your story a lot but, it sounded a little too much like twilight. It almost seems like Nyle is the mysterious one just like edward is. The other friend Zinc is like Jacob, that even there family knew as a good friend of yours.
I think though you have a wonderful story! i enjoyed it i hope to see the next chapter!
hi! this is my deferred review since your "first post" lol, i liked the first one better... but anyway...
i haven't read twilight books, so i don't know if you are really patronizing its plot here in your own.. i would like to commend however the richness of your imagination... for your age, this quite a feat.. are you really thirteen or just faking it? LOL, peace man... just can't believe you could write a thing like this at your age...
Anyways let's go technical
Setting: choosing the sea as the setting is imperative since your characters are known sea-dwellers. Choosing the setting that is quite, well not our, humans, domain, is remarkable. However, painting not only the sea but more so "under the sea", since all of your scenes are underneath, is quite different. There is a tendency for a writer to be complacent after mentioning in the earlier part that "hey, this happens under the sea" and compromise the setting for any other element of the story, which is a pitfall for most of us. One should make the readers believe that they were, in brief moment they were reading the book, were "under the sea" that they could almost feel themselves soaking wet, figuratively of course. Now, how could the writer do that? By descriptive and let-on words... say for an example, you could have said that she could have seen the guy on the vestiges of a sunken ship or dark part of a seaweed park (if there is one in your story LOL), stuff like that. Good example would be J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series, you could almost feel that you were in Hogwarts Magic School and magic community because of the minute details, the let-on’s once in a while by the author, like the odd grandfather clock in the Weasley’s, or the last flight of stairs to Gryffindor Tower that trips people or the fact that the subjects in the picture in the community were moving added up to the over-all scenario that the story is indeed happening in a magical community. Of course the characterization of the subjects was too strong that readers could not deny being carried away to Hogwarts themselves. Well, aside from the mention of ice bed in your first post, no mention of anything that could have been attributed to the sea. You could really work on this man… just add a bit here and there of anything that would help readers imagine the deep sea as you have it in mind.
Plot: You got a material here. I mean this is HUGE, or potentially huge if you would be consistent. Without taking into account that this could have been “inspired” by the twilight series (seriously, was it that good?), I really like the way you opened your story. A one paragraph stasis then BANG! There goes the potential conflict. But you excruciatingly hold on to your pen and make the readers beg for more since this is just the opening act. Sometimes, patience is a virtue for a writer and you possess that. Too much of details in the first few chapters would kill the novel. You have created quite an intrigue that would make the readers hold on to your story. Anyway let me get back to the stasis. Stasis is the “this was what happened before the first blip”. Like in a comatose’s monitor… when heart gave the first blip? The horizontal line before that blip is the stasis… there is perfect harmony, no conflict and yet no story. Your stasis was relatively short unlike in Sophies World that reached a hundred pages or so, but this was entirely good since you are writing for a fantasy genre where it requires more of an action. Most readers in the genre would be bored if you kept the stasis too long, so I think that was a good point there. Now building up the story could be hard, I hope you already have a story frame that goes for this story. I would hate to see a potentially good one being strewn to pieces because of not quite so good follow-ups. Anyway, second point: conflict. Actually there are three levels of conflict: intrapersonal (within the faculty of the protagonist); inter-personal (were the antagonist is relatively helpful) and the conflict with the environment (like something that is beyond the control of the characters or what they call in Law force majeure). Now I saw a potential conflict boiling here: actually two potential conflicts: the more obvious would be the inter (between the nymphs and the mermaid where the protagonist belong) and the more subtle intrapersonal (whether she would choose to become a mer or a nymph). Remember, conflicts are there to better project the characterization of the characters, so better use them wisely. Environmental conflict would be great as well, but I think one would be enough. Your two levels of personal conflicts would be sufficient to reveal the :who’s” of the characters. Third for the plot: the story telling. There are actually two ways of telling stories: forward looking (thriller) or the “what’s next after this” or the backward looking (mystery) “how did we get in this mess”. I haven’t read a book by an author who had used both but according to some, that would be relativle hard but quite rewarding. Anyways, I think this might work here… narrating (why does she need to choose) the present scenario by explaining her past (why is she different)… this might work for you man.
This is taking so long, anyways that would be the first installment of my critique… I won’t say anything about the characterization yet since they are in the “pre” stage… I would like to see, though an evolution for Athemest, Nyle and Zinc.
All in all I like this story and I would be keeping an eye on it… Keep me posted if you have concerns that you think I might be helpful.
Your reviews are all so helpful.
Thank you for taking your time to read Crescents 
Other than what the other person said, i love it. It is your own twist to normal things such as mermaids and nymps. I also took a twist to elves, and later phoenixes, in my book Silver Blade: topic56812.html . You can read it there. I love the story. Keep writing.
Hi crescent, I'll be your reviewer for today. I'll mostly be covering the "big issues"--namely, characterization, plot, and worldbuilding--insteadof nitpicking on grammar, since you already have a pretty good grasp of mechanics.
The first thing I noticed about your story was its prologue. And not in a good way. I could ramble on and on about how in most cases a prologue is unnecessary, especially one of the infodump variety (which yours falls in, though on a good note it's quite short), but our very own Karsten explains it much more eloquently than I could:
http://universityoffantasy.blogspot.com ... -rant.html
So basically, prologue = unnecessary = no point to keeping it. The information you give in the prologue could easily be spliced into the narrative. It's a classic case of "show, don't tell." Instead of saying outright that the mermaids are invisible, have them encounter a group of humans on the beach or something, and demonstrate that the humans can't see them. Same for their shape-shifting abilities. Heck,you ould even keep mum about them being mermaids for a while, and leave it to the readers to piece it together ("okay, they're underwater, they have tails--hey, they're mermaids! Cool!"). It'll make your readers feel smart. And any chance to make readers feel smart is a good one. And maybe more importantly, it'll make your fantasy world feel real. I think you do have the ability to do this, because in the actual narrative, there is no awkward long paragraph infodumps of doom--you just have the characters talk about the Nymphs and clans and gem names matter-of-factly, like the reader should already be familiar with those terms, because they're an every-day and natural part of the characters' lives.
Now, on to the actual first chapter.
The first thing I was immediately struck by was how...similar to Twilight it felt. You have the mysterious hot guy who implies he can do sinister things to the girl. You have them seemingly attracted to each other for little reason and start striking up friendly conversation while barely knowing each other. You have the female main character who's special is some way (though Athemest's specialness seems more outwardly obvious than Bella's). You have a twist on a popular supernatural creature.
I'll admit teen romance isn't my favorite genre, so I'm liable to be biased, but all the same...that many parallels to an explosively popular suprnatural teen romance in your own supernatural tean romance is just a little bit suspicious. (Especially since Meyer supposedly has ideas for a romance involving cannibalistic sirens...). Your story does seem to have more of an actual plot to it than just romantic wangst and navel gazing, such as the deal with Athemest's father and her upcoming fourteenth birthday, but all the same, the parallels are too strong to deny. I can understand if you read the books and liked the and were inspired to write your own story based on them, happens to everyone. But all the same, you need something--and it's not just another supernatural species--that sets it apart and makes it your own. You don't want to just follow the trends, but create something that can stand on its own.
The Twilight parallels are really a shame because your worldbuilding is interesting. I like the idea of judging group inclusion by hair color; you could make some interesing commentary on prejudice that way. I like the hints of a more sinister subset to mermaids. I like the throwaway detail about how gem names are more common these days than island name. I like the mention of how uncomfortable the mermaids are with the different and unusual; far cry from making your species utterly perfect (as Meyer's sparklepires are). I'm interesed in knowing just what a "Pyro" is. And the idea of a guy nymph? I am SO there. I always like the protective childhood friend types, so though I don't know much about him, Zinc has already grown on me. Too bad I get the feeling he won't win in the end...
You have the background for a fascinaing and original story here, even within the confines of the teen romance genre. Now all you have to do is make it less Stephenie Meyer, and more you. It's fun to find a book you like, and of course you'd want to make stories like it, but in the end if you're serious about writing you're going to hae to find your own voice and create something distinct from your inspiration. Use the basic elements--the forbidden romance, the supernatural creaures--but don't be afraid to give it your own touch. Does Nyle have to be super gorgeous? What do he and Athemest see in each other, in in their personalities, that compel them to fall in love? Just things to think about.
Happy writing, and PM me if you have any questions. ^^
...hmm, even without the line-by-line, it ended up incredibly long. Seems I'm just a long-winded person through and through.