I'm replaying the Annabeth scene, I thought. Nine days.
Hesiod, the great Greek philosopher, predicted it would take nine days to fall from heaven to Earth. Therefore, it would take nine days to fall from Earth to Tartarus. Sorry. I'm sidetracking.
Anyways, we were falling, but it felt like slow motion. It became hotter, and when I looked down, the light was blood red. I squeezed my eyes shut and tried to feel the walls around us. They were completely black, and blended in with the shadows.
I scraped my hand along one of them and my eyes widened when I saw it was bleeding heavily, cut from the sharp rocks stuck to the wall. I gritted my teeth and tore a piece from my shirt, wrapping it around my hand. I looked up to see Will falling above me and Sadie, and tried to move to the side a bit. I clung to the rocks on the side, carefully placing my hand on them. My friends did the same. We all saw the wide opening below us. We dropped down and looked around.
"Where are we?" Will asked, and I could hear his voice shaking. I did mention my friends were dumb when they're scared...
"Tartarus, dumbo!" I snapped back, and tried to get up with my hands.
Little cuts formed on my hands. I looked down at the black sand, and saw it was actually shards of glass. I breathed and instantly recoiled, almost fainting from the sulfur. I spied a river next to us, and it seemed to moan in misery. Great. The air was poisonous fumes, the sand actually glass, and the rivers made of pure misery. Tartarus was meant to hurt... It was a refuge for monsters.
"Will," I asked weakly. "Can you freeze part of that river? Maybe we can walk across..."
He nodded and spread his hands over the water, and barely was able to freeze a thin channel before he collapsed.
"Tartarus...drains my...powers," he gasped, and moaned. I pulled him up and stared doubtfully at the little ice path. I gulped and stepped forward, placing a foot on the ice. It immediately cracked. I pulled my leg back, quick as lightning, and ran across. At about halfway, I tumbled in.
"Jaz!" I could hear Sadie shout my name, see her reaching for me, before my head disappeared underwater. I struggled to stay afloat, to catch sight of my friends, but I ended up opening my eyes to the murky waters and groaning souls.
Life is hopeless, they said, and it echoed in my ears. I began to relax, drifting deeper and deeper in the river. Just stay a while, and rest...I closed my eyes and opened them again.
I suddenly broke through the surface, choking on the disgusting, garbage-like water. I could see Will shrieking my name, trying to grasp my arm. Sadie was turned away, crying. I set my jaw and treaded water, hoping to stay on the surface.
"Hey!" I called, and Sadie froze in the middle of a sob. She whirled around, and almost face-planted.
"Jaz!" She called again, and digging her toes in the glass, she reached out and grabbed my arm. I hauled myself up and sloshed out of the water, my clothes soaking and ripped. I sat down quickly and stuffed a piece of ambrosia in my mouth, luckily finding a crushed bag of it in my pocket.
I almost laughed, after falling and swimming in the River Cocytus, it was still in my pocket.
"You're alive!" Will exclaimed, and Sadie tackled me in a hug. I smiled, a genuine, carefree, happy smile. I heard Annabeth laughed in Tartarus, but I doubt anyone had ever smiled, besides the creepy, I'm-gonna-get-you-and-yo'-friends-are-gonna-watch-while-I-laugh-cruelly kind of smile.
I was smiling, but inside I was shivering and completely frozen cold. Swimming in the River Cocytus was not your weekly pool trip. I couldn't think of what would've happened if Sadie jumped in as well...
I shuddered and shook away the thought. I put my medicine in my pocket and beckoned my companions to follow me as I strolled through Tartarus. I walked on, meeting the occasional spider or skeleton which Sadie and I screamed at. We reached a little dark forest, and decided to rest.
"Hello, demigods," a voice hissed. I stopped short.
Guess we weren't going to rest after all.
Points:
Time spent:
Canary word: Present
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125,007 Literary Works • 672,815 Reviews
I like your story so far. You captured some of Rick Riordan's style of humor, and I enjoyed it, especially the part where you wrote, "I'm-gonna-get-you-and-yo'-friends-are-gonna-watch-while-I-laugh-cruelly". You have pretty good punctuation, and your vocabulary is good in a not-too-sophisticated way.
When they reached the bottom of Tartarus, you make it sound like they just landed on solid ground, piece'o'cake. Well, you have to remember how far they have fallen. In real circumstances, they should have died immediately. You need to have a reason they survived the fall.
"I looked up to see Will falling over me and Sadie, and tried to move to the side a bit."
This is a bit confusing. Did you mean that Will was "above" you? If so, maybe you should write that instead of "over".
Watch out for past, present, and future tenses.
You wrote, "I did mention my friends were dumb when they're scared." I think that sentence should be in question form as, "Did I mention my friends are dumb when they're scared?"
When describing Jaz's cuts on her hands you wrote, "A little cut had formed on them." Since Jaz has two hands, one cut can't really be on both of them. So I would change that sentence to this: "Little cuts had formed on my hands."
After Jaz gets out of the River Cocytus, and she hugs her friends, they all walk on into Tartarus. This section seems rather short, and you don't include their thoughts. I mean, sure, Annabeth and Percy already made it through Tartarus, so they know that it's possible, but I'm thinking they would still be a little scared about it. Maybe you want to consider including some of that, to make it a little more realistic?
Overall, you did good job on this!
Just remember to compare your story with the Percy Jackson series to make sure you have all the details right.
I enjoy reading these fanfics, so do your best, and keep writing!!!
I will. Who won the contest? Aqua?
Thanks!
Yes, Team Aqua won.
Ugh...
Hi! Cricket here for a review!
This is soooo cool! I'm just a huge fan of Greek Mythology, and really appreciate how you placed everything in this chapter. Although, I haven't read any of your other chapters, I will definitely go to them later on, when I'm done with this review.
On towards the meat of my revieewwwww...
Typo
I had just a typo, but looking at this part in the work I think you need to put the thought in italics. I had difficulty at first differentiating the dialogue from the actual thought process, so I would advise this.
Typo
Just a wee little typo...
Not sure about this one really
I put in bold the part where I think you're missing out on a word, or just an [ened] on the eyes.
If you want to draw attention to the "sand" in a way to make it seem important, then I would suggest putting it into italics. That way you can get rid of those nasty quotation marks!
Space after ellipses[...] always.
This part caught my eye, as she normally wouldn't know that her face was ghastly white. I'm thinking that if you want to show that her skin is white, then you could maybe mention that she glanced down, and saw that her arm or leg was ghastly white. If you want to do that, that is.
I apologize for cutting so much out, but I'd like to point out just a LITTLE bit of redundancy. I'd try to work towards different beginnings really.
I guess you could call this a little example of telling and not showing. This is basically just TELLING. The only way I've actually learned how to avoid this (I still do this blasted mistake all the time!), is to make sure I'm describing the scene as I go, but making sure the story is moving along. For example... if you want the scene to move along, but still describe, you would describe as you do the action.
So they're walking, and maybe they stub their toe on something and glance down to inspect it. That's a good opportunity to go and insert a LITTLE of description. Or they are looking around and see something horrifying. (which I think they did, didn't they?
The only other thing I can talk about with this fab piece, is paragraphing really.
PARAGRAPHING
OK, so with this I'm going to pull out a paragraph and show you what I mean. (I usually am able to help you more, if I show you)
So this is the paragraph that I chose. When writing a paragraph, you should, really, always remember that paragraphs are one solid idea. Usually on average, composed of three to five sentences, although one to two can be fine. I too long, then your reader might lose attention and not get the full gist of the idea that you are trying to represent. I'm going to split it now, in another example...
Like this! Oh, and I forgot to mention earlier that you should split your dialogue from the other paragraphs.
OK, that's it from me!
~Cricket