TITLE: Supernatural Fog
GENRE: Urban fantasy mystery
The demon is gigantic. Like, twenty feet tall. At least. It’s made of thick, white-hot volcanic rocks. He looks like a sort of evil Ben Grimm of the Fantastic Four. Only bigger. Much, much bigger. And it spits lava and fire, of course. What fun would there be if it wasn’t spitting lava?
“A little help here, Morgan?” I shout while dodging a jet of lava as big as a car.
“It’s holy ground,” growls Morgan, aka the Abomination, who was flying outside, peering through a broken window. ““If I touch the floor, I burst into flames…”
I see her point. It’s holy ground. Which doesn’t make sense. At all. I mean, we are in a church. Yeah, All Hallows by the Tower is the oldest and most haunted church in London, but it’s still, nevertheless, a church. And demons shouldn’t pop out of holy ground like daisies, not if I could have my say about it. And, of course, I cannot.
“Girl, may I remind you that you are the incarnation of the Rabbit? You know, the animal spirit, my ally?”
She says nothing, just keeps flying outside, flapping her large, crow-like wings, her monstrous mouth twisted in a grimace.
I cannot believe this. That’s super bad luck! I mean, nothing happens for a month and then BANG! Fire demon in a church, right when each and every member of my ‘team’ is out of town for one reason or another.
I can tell right off the bat that this is a really funny read. Your voice is great and the story seems really exciting and imaginative. A couple of things jumped out at me. First, I haven't seen Fantastic Four, so the Ben Grimm reference was totally lost on me. I may be in the minority (and am probably not your target audience), but it seems like a wasted chance to use a more universal description. Also, I would have liked a description of Morgan right when she's first introduced so I can picture her as she's speaking. That aside, I enjoyed this a lot! Loved the dilemma that his sidekick couldn't even set foot in the church to help. Really great stuff.
ReplyDeletethank you! I will definitely move Morgan's description higher-up, so to say. My beta readers are all under 30 (one even under 25) and they all got the Ben Grimm reference. I wuld my boks are sort of post-young adults, so my readers should be fine! :)
ReplyDeleteYour voice has a nice chatty way about it, which makes it feel natural. That can be a double-edged sword because it is very readable, but sometimes your sentence structure is very loose, which can sometimes lead to shaky grammar or your character's thoughts jumping around a lot. I'd recommend just generally being aware of that as you write and making sure to constantly be going back and tightening things up.
ReplyDeleteI thought I just posted a comment, but the internet seems to have eaten it. So let me reconstruct (and sorry if this is a duplicate!):
ReplyDeleteThe story seems a bit too in media res for me. I'm having trouble connecting with your characters. For example, you've told us that Morgan is nicknamed "Abomination;" however, you haven't told us who she is. Is the flying literal? Is she in a hovercraft? I would suggest that you introduce that she's a giant, flying crow first before telling us about her nickname.
I do like your voice, though. It pulled me in right away and made me want to stick with the story.