astroguy

Yep. Though don't expect Nate to end up as just a boring house husband.

It was Thursday morning when Nate brought the pair into a clear alleyway downtown, a few blocks from the building where Susan worked. They walked out onto the busy pedestrian street, blending in with the crowd of people. It was late Spring and the weather was warm, the bright sun adding to the ambiance as if to say that it was a day like any other. Nate looked around, taking in the buildings, trees, and everyone walking by. Some passed with bags, others with strollers containing young childr

"What the hell was that! Where did he go!?" Susan exclaimed. "Watch your mouth young lady. He obviously teleported out somehow, if we're lucky ... ah! There it is. He left the crystal where it fell. We can follow him," Joanna replied. Joanna gestured her hand towards the stand and the old book went flying towards her. "Let's see ..." she muttered to herself as she leafed through the book. "Teleportation can be tricky ... have to … exactly where ... ah, here we go. Take my hand." She

I actually think I'm in that position now, but I really don't want to take that step of "let's just be friends." Though this isn't due to any religious disagreement per-say.

Good to hear (well, read). I think the next few chapters you'll find are generally smoother and have *generally* more extended scenes. Pretty much ch. 1 through 4.5ish are setup for the story I want to tell. Length-wise, I've written all of ch. 6 and 7 and most of ch. 8. Those three together are as long as the first 5 chapters.

Sam, could you give me an example of where it's choppy? Maybe I can work from that example in making it flow better.

I think a lesson for me here is that when I re-read something before posting it and it raises an eyebrow but I continue on, I need to stop and re-work it.

Agreed. IF the sequels are good and unique and not, "Ohhh ... people like this, I'm gonna churn this out of my butt and make more money." Examples: I thought the Harry Potter sequel books were good and each had their own plot and were reasonably well told. Meanwhile, the Oz series tanked after book 6 and became more of an assembly line.

Thanks for the review. The majority of this story is actually not at all "Charmed"-like, it's the novel for which this story is a prequel. VERY perceptive readers who are Charmed fans may recognize a young Prue/Piper/Phoebe in the characters Shawn and Will (who are only VERY briefly mentioned so far but may come in a bit more later). Also some of the fundamental structure of how magic is set up in that show is used here (witches having an inherent ability plus spells/potions/etc.), as well as some of the hierarchy of good/evil.I'm curious where it's pretentious? A character, the story in general, my writing ...?I agree that finding Susan may have been a bit forced; it was something I needed to happen to introduce that family and to get the plot going, tying together some threads to get to the climax (it is a "short" story). My goal is to have him integrate while still remaining somewhat private.My goal with his training with the elves was to give him a very thorough background in "grounded" (for D&D fans, basically "archaic") magic, a fear of interacting with people, and only the most basic social skills and familiarity with human culture to get by. I imagined it as an alien visiting a city on Earth once or twice a year for a day for maybe a century and then trying to teach someone how to live there. He'll get the basics - money, stores, clothes - but will miss details and get others wrong (what's a handshake?, for example).Nate warning him about the bag being stolen didn't actually occur to me to be a plot hole (curse my bf for an editor!). I would have chalked it up to (a) not thinking about offering the information and/or ( just not occurring to Michael to ask. Hmm. Changing that now would result in major changes to the plot, so I'll leave it in but try to remain cognizant of it in the future.

I think you'll find that out fairly soon. A little birdie told me ....

"Outlandish?" Hmm ... not sure if that's a good thing.

After talking with you last night in chat, I agree with you upon re-reading that it focuses a lot on the secondary of the two main characters, opening from his point of view. But, I did that in order to limit the amount of information you have to start with in order to not go through pages of exposition. Do you have a suggestion on how I could accomplish that without it being confusing?

Yeah, sometimes it helps, sometimes not. At the moment, I'm trying to outline a few chapters ahead so I can connect to how I want to end and hopefully link it all together. We'll see. Deadlines in this case won't work for me. I'm a research scientist by day and so this is way down on the priority list.

[Duplicate post. Darn mouse double-clicking.]

Michael woke the next morning and rubbed his head. As he sat up in bed, he winced at the other soreness, and after a brief flashback, reached to the nightstand for his pendant. His hand came back empty. It did not take Michael long to start to panic. He had no idea what to do in this situation. He was 18, he had a house, he had some money, but he knew no one and for the last few weeks had relied upon the crutch of having a jinni upon whom he could call. He thought back to the Glen, but h

"My glamour seems to be working for you." "Yes, but you shouldn't mention such things out loud," the man chastised the teen in a soft voice as the pair walked down the street. "Humans don't know what that is, but they are curious types and might overhear you." "But I am human." "Yes, but you are a different sort of human. We've been over this, Michael. In my world, magic flows with us and through us. We can manipulate it as the humans can manipulate electricity, magnets, an

Michael was exhausted at the end of the day. The all-mighty dollar seemed to work its own magic in this world. Michael reflected on that with both cynicism and amusement as he recalled his visits to cities and towns years ago. With only a very little use of his glamour to create an ID, the bank was happy to open an account and deposit his check into their coffers, much as the real estate agent was happy to close on the house that very day when presented with the appearance of proper documenta

I was still holding the diamond and the chain was beginning to cut into the back of my neck. The discomfort caused me to let go, and I felt the cold metal setting rest back on my chest. I couldn't see them anymore. I knew one day I might again, but I also knew that what Corther said was true: The jinni I had turned that scum into lacked the ability to give me back my world. Well, their world. All the magic essence he had gathered before had been used to fuel his transformation and entrapment.

Blank. Well, perhaps shadows flitting about, but in a blank canvas so empty it's not even black. That's when he tried to remember where he was, how he got there, and who he was. All he knew was he was falling through a long, narrow passageway and then landed on something soft. Catching his breath and propping himself up on his elbows, he looked down at the cushioned surface but could not tell what it was. He looked around and saw he was in a broad enclosure, large enough that he could not e

A young man ventures into the human world after being raised by elves. His companion is a young jinni with little power and a blocked memory. Together and with contacts they make, the protagonist must figures out how to make a life without attracting the unwanted attention that you know will find them. A story about love, magic, and sacrifice.

I like it when the stories are believable, as others said. Characters that have more dimension to them helps, but good descriptions and a host of tertiary characters make it more believable. I've noticed that of the stories I really like, there are maybe 1-4 main characters, 2-6 supporting secondary characters, but then dozens of named and unnamed tertiary characters to fill it up. Even something as simple as, "Emily kept getting bumped in the hallway so was late to class and had a hard time finding her seat in the crowded lecture hall," is much more satisfying to me than, "Emily walked to class and sat down, almost arriving late." It's something I'm working on in my own writing, and it's something I need to go back and add, I think. I also like stories that are paced well, which is hard (I personally think my stories are too slow moving). You need time to build sympathy for your main character(s) and turn them into "real" people for the reader, but at the same time, 5 chapters in a row about how they woke up, went to work, out to lunch, back to work, made dinner, and then went to bed is just boring. Yes, you get to know the character and may be more inclined to sympathize with them when they get into trouble, but you want to kill the author.

I'm having some issues with this lately. I have a beginning and I know how I want to end (final chapter or two). I'm having some issues getting from A to C, though (well, more like from G to X). This is a "short" story that I've been working on for 8 months, though there was a huge hiatus to finish my dissertation (and I just kinda forced that sucker out). But this short story comes on the heels of being half-way through Book 1 of a 2 or 3 book series that I started writing in 2007. That's been on a major pause for awhile because the bulk of it needs to be rewritten by changing a major secondary character (about whom this side-story is being written). At some point, I think I'll just skip over steps H, I, J, ... U, V, W, and write steps X, Y, and Z. I've asked my boyfriend for advice, but he's busy starting a new job so hasn't been able to get to it. Actually, this is why I just joined this site -- I'm hoping to now have my 5 forum posts (not just filler, but content posts!) up so that I can submit the first few chapters of this short story and get feedback and possibly ideas.

It depends. I have a lot of coping mechanisms "built in," but I remember the first time they all broke down. It was a physics lab where I had spent 7 hours (the lab was 4 hours) wiring up a memory circuit with wires crossing all over the place, fired it up, and it didn't work. The old sexist professor comes over and tells me it's probably a dead chip. Only problem is that removing the chip would require unwiring everything because of all the wires crossing over it, physically holding it down. I went into a corner and blew up several LEDs by putting one end to -12V and the other to +12V. That lasted several minutes. Then I went back to my dorm room and someone sent me REM's song, "Everybody Hurts." That's actually still my go-to song when I'm really upset. To relieve stress that's not caused / related to being upset, I try to watch a short TV show that's comedic (Big Bang Theory lately), stupid (Judge Judy, anyone?), or, well, I do something that only guys can do and take a nap. In writing, I actually have a document where I detail my main characters in about a page and a half. Under the basic information, one trait that I put in is their method of stress reduction. I have one character who just goes running. Another bakes ... a lot ... and mostly chocolate.

As an atheistic agnostic, I'm dating a guy who is some form of Christianity. I'll admit - there are issues. I find that I can very easily tick him off with what I consider to be legitimate if naïve questions (I asked him around Christmas why people thought Mary was a virgin versus just having gotten knocked up -- though I phrased it more kindly). In general, I try to avoid the topic with him. He's not orthodox nor ultra-religious, doesn't really go to Church, but, yeah, there are just some things we can't discuss.

Hmm. Around 7th grade when I first decided to find out what an orgasm was. I didn't realize that fantasizing about Aladdin (the Disney series was on TV then) was gay until about a month later.