Reviews for The Demon In Me |
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![]() ![]() ![]() Chapter 1 I had stared at the unfamiliar name for a moment [Because “unknown” is a very mysterious man. Or woman] Hoping vainly that there was a simple explanation [“you’re adopted” is simple. The emotional repercussions expected are not (though I don’t know why. All of the adopted folks I know care little about their birth parents and enjoy good relations with the hard-working people who actually earned the title “parent”). The issue is that very rarely is the difficulty only learning “I was adopted”, it often happens during times of pre-existing emotional and hormonal stress, AND includes hidden emotional stresses (bullies, severe accident) that makes the adoption the straw that broke the camel’s back. You state no other supporting details to make a psychological meltdown a sensible story event] my life would never be the same again [I hate seeing this line. It’s almost as bad as coming to the end of a story and seeing “but I woke up and it was all a dream”. In short terms, it’s dead air and unimportant to the plot or characters – better to get us to the actual meat of the people or events and actually tell us what her life IS] the popular ones [I doubt that there is nothing but the hackneyed, mildly-unspecific social groups identified here. What about the individual touch? It would be far more engaging to bring the focus to one person who represents each of the “cliques”, even if they are surrounded by their posse at the moment of notice (they don’t quite need to interact with the main character)] Where's a knight in shining armour when you need one? [Riding away from the police investigation in Monty Python and the Holy Grail] and I wasn't about to start now [How wise the main character is…okay, seriously, I need to mention that if you’re trying to make the audience disinterested or disliking of the main character, it’s off to an excellent start. We really have more about who she isn’t than who she is, and the fact that she seems to stand for nothing on her own makes her that more weak of a character] I was quite average-looking [How descriptive! As writer to writer, I would avoid having a character describe him/her-self whenever possible. It either comes across as vain and dislikable or artificial and untrustworthy. It’s also hard to know how to evaluate statements like this – there’s a reason why worldwide people have the saying “normal is what everybody else isn’t”. Your perceptions revolve around you, people that aren’t like you are “weird”, it’s also why we tend to make the “evil aliens” in applicable sci-fi to be distinctly non-human: it’s easier to vilify something unlike you. Other examples include propaganda about “enemy” nations or ethnicities in pretty much any war ever fought. WW2 is my favourite because it had widespread attention on media as well as plenty of records remaining (most places in the world) on events that actually did happen and claimed events and perceptions. All of these points emphasize that SHOWING is better than TELLING] but it paid quite well [In what city does a checkout girl make extremely good money? Unless she’s getting everything paid for by parents who are also giving her an allowance, it’s more likely that this job would be seen as a “barely scraping by”, or at least an acknowledgement that things will be heading that direction fast when she actually has to support herself. Maybe the truth is that the boss likes her and hence the job is extremely easy?] good little Church of England girl [Was this supposed to evoke the 1971 Clockwork Orange scene? It succeeded] Too much shit had happened to me [This is whiny, and as before is telling instead of showing. Also: unless you’re going to make a major theme in your story the conflict between the question (and humanity’s own responsibility) with suffering, possibly even explicitly mentioning the Epicurean Paradox…then don’t throw it in. Cheap shots at religion are just as cheap as cheap shots at Jews or any other ethnic/ideological group. That’s why the rule of thumb is to avoid the topic unless it’s a directly important theme, and in your story it’s obvious that it isn’t an important topic because this is the only mention of it] and she was a total bitch [I didn’t mind seeing Morooka as a complete douchebag in short order in Persona 4, but that’s because he was SHOWN to be a jerk. You’re relying too heavily on the telling rather than the showing, and it doesn’t just make me disinterested in the character but also the unreliable observer (your main character, which at this point I really care very little about: due to your emotional build, I would have absolutely no problem if you never mentioned her again and instead brought in a different character as the main)] I was a vegetarian [The chips are often fried in lard, so the choice likely isn’t due to dietary constraints] Dull, dull, dull [I got the point the first time, so let me give another piece of advice with a sprinkle of TV Tropes: you can aim for either “The Audience are Morons” or “The Audience are Geniuses”. The truth is that neither are perfectly accurate, so you’ll never hit either one, but having that aim will do a lot to consolidate your focus. Right now the narrative is meandering and I am hoping a new character comes along to take the spotlight, because there’s nothing of any value in the characters presented so far. Except Alex Celluci, who’s only really been mentioned so far and hence hasn’t had a chance to make a bad impression yet] boring as what he'd had for breakfast [Breakfast can be an exciting thing if you aren’t actively culinarily disinterested. Granted, that applies to a lot of people, but I bet a lot of people have never made their own gazpacho or freeform frittata, both of which are trivially simple to do on your own and take less than 15 minutes if you know what you’re doing] I would never return to that dark place again [Detail of mystery, but for aspects like this, look up Chekhov’s Gun if you’re not already familiar. Things like this beg to be explored and I don’t think you’re going to really utilize whatever this might have been. Like the oblique reference to ‘my life changed” above and never mentioning ‘my telekinesis woke up’, you need to put something with substance here] When I'd first learned I was adopted [You mention this a lot, but basically say nothing each time. I recommend you either hold off on going into it until you have a good place to go into detail, or don’t go into it at all] they'd sounded so upset and disappointed [Parental disappointment rarely shocks the antisocial behavior from teenagers] There was a tattoo on his left upper arm [But despite drawing attention to the detail you skip on by it. Not unexpected, really, we get superficial data-dumps about what each of the characters look like but no really good (or at all quick) description of who/what they are, and there are almost never any truly distinguishing, individual characteristics] Double shit [This looks like fear to me, and the preceding narrative I think is intended to imply that, but then you tell (not show) that your main character isn’t afraid. Not very effective] Either she was stupid or ignorant [Or is unafraid of teen-conjured reputations and runs a tight ship?] as the students looked up at their potential deaths [Very few projectors are big enough to even threaten more than simple injuries…] Then someone screamed, and chaos broke out [Not buying it. The scream part is a detail that can be more complicated than it’s worth to clarify (and thematically sometimes shouldn’t be), but the latter part of the sentence says nothing. Skip to the goings on] they were extremely to get [Missing a word or few?] I felt tremendously guilty [Why? Your main character was never clearly implied to be telekinetic, and given how bland she is I’m more inclined to think that a heretofore unmentioned god did it. The greater part of the problem is that you had several opportunities to introduce her telekinesis, the mention of the time when she “lost it” in finding she was adopted would have been an excellent one, but instead you waited until now and it feels more like you forgot about it and are scrambling to throw in something unusual to define your character rather than having something clever planned all along] like Carrie [That explains the cookie-cutter superpower] discovering that my parents had lied [There’s nothing of a lie here, more that they never told her one not-so-important element of the truth] Spark had been pissing me off [It would’ve been a little easier to accept if the thrown projector had happened in stages or something that wasn’t a singular knee-jerk action like fear tends to be. Character A says something stupid, the mounting is torn from a couple of bolts. Character A says something stupid, another bolt is wrenched from the ceiling and wires strain…] I commend you for the technical aspects of your writing. The grammar, spelling, and punctuation was all very good. However, the characters are not. Before I got to half way, I was hoping that a scene transition would bring in something that wasn’t a somewhat shallow-high-school-fiction. Your tendency to tell what people were instead of showing who they are, and the blank absence of anything in the environment to add any color to the characters didn’t lend any interest. Even worse than hating the characters, I simply didn’t care – I wanted to see something that was interesting, something gripping either philosophically or by action. I also would’ve liked to see some consistency in behavior and portrayal, but besides Telling Not Showing I didn’t get that either. If you've decided the story isn't "yours" anymore (some authors move beyond their early stories), then fully deleting/removing it would probably be the step to take. |
![]() ![]() ![]() HURRY UP AND UPDATE THIS STORY! ITS REALLY GOOD AND I CANT WAIT TO READ THE REST! I HOPE U END UP ADDING MORE, BECAUSE IF U DONT I WILL... WILL... DO SOMETHING! ITS BEEN OVER 1 EFFING YEAR SINCE U UPDATED THIS! I HOPE U HAVENT FORGOTTEN! :D PLZ, PLZ, PLZ! porkypine97 XD |
![]() ![]() ![]() ohmygosh. MUST. READ. MOOOOOORE! |
![]() ![]() ![]() ! where's the rest? GAH! TT update sooon! D: |
![]() ![]() I actually had everyone figured out with alex being half angel and carl being the other demon around the time the kid was killed and I pegged alex after the disscusion about if there's half demons then their must be half angels and I guess carls power when they had sex :) |
![]() ![]() ![]() Didn't get through the whole chapter but there are so many things that are very annoyingly cliche about this story. Here are the few things that really stood out to me: The fact that she found out she was adopted becuase she had to write an autobiography. This is a really overused idea, that and the whole "write your own family tree thing" Secondly, your writing style is highly americanised but you've based it in England. Pick one you can't mix the two. Also, the use of the word "Parentals" I have nothing against you using it, I mean it's not up to me, but once again very americanised and just about in every cliche teenage, highschool story. The indepth description of the characters is very awkwardly placed, and the fact that she's "just plain" is SOSOSOSOSO cliche. I'm not saying make her beautiful or even make her ugly, but for the mere fact that just about everything else in the chapter is cliche and archetypal it would be nice to mix things up a bit. The fact that every guy we've been introduced to in the story is gorgeous, and as someone who LIVES in England I know for a fact that this is an innacurate depiction. I don't know about you're area but the school I go to and the area in London where I live, around 4 out of every 10 guys is fit, and only at leat ONE of them gorgeous. Not only this but this a very cliche idea in itself, that all these hot boys go to her high school. there is so much more I could point out, like the fact that she only has one best friend and she's literally perfect in every way. I don't have the heart to continue to read this becuase I fear that it's only going to get more cliche. I mean i was hardly suprised that the only seat in the class was next to spark. You're supposed to entertain your readers, not give them something they've already read before. sorry if this sound harsh but it's all true |
![]() ![]() ![]() PLEASEE UPDATE SON! ... Please... |
![]() ![]() ![]() I knew something was different about Alex but is anyone normal at that school? Carl's power is so cool but so evil... lol the hints were a little subtle, more people would have known for sure if you said at some point that there were definately half angels... |
![]() ![]() ![]() Haha I knew it XD WTH WHY IS SHE WAITING? LOL! I want her parents to find out she's a bank robber XD :O he shot someone, I guess since he's a half demon he's probably the one who committed all the murders before so what's one more added to the list? |
![]() ![]() ![]() Aaw they still hven't made up... Hehe I'd laugh if the present was the book... The ending was great :D |
![]() ![]() ![]() Spark obviously cares or he wouldn't be so hurt when he saw Carl with Hallow and he wouldn't be upset about anything Hallow did... |
![]() ![]() ![]() :O I thought McDonald's and Starbucks were everywhere... Clayton seems quite deep... I wonder if the only reason he acted flirty before was because he was drunk... :( Poor Nora... |
![]() ![]() ![]() See I knew that Dmon wasn't all bad :D Clayton's back! |
![]() ![]() ![]() I don't see why se couldn't practice using her powers by herself but atleast she has onding time with her dad :) Lol does the fainting mean that that's her mum and that she recognises Hallow? |
![]() ![]() ![]() I know that spark can't be involved in Melinda's brother's murder but if he was involved in the others it would be a great twist Hmm maybe Spark doesn't care or maybe he just doesn't want to show how hurt he is... |