forum Critique and Criticize my first chapter

Started April 29, 2020 by Deleted user

tune

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(Here goes nothing)
“Do I look,” God asked, “as though I WANT to do this?” Thunder.

“No ma’am,” Azrael replied. More thunder. It was a dim and stormy afternoon.

“I have to make this deal with The Adversary, The Great Beast that is called Satan, The Prince of Darkness herself, Lucifer. Not Because I want to.”

“You rang?” Lucifer asked. Lucifer looked like a cliche blonde busty secretary from a porno. It made sense; Evil is Attractive.

“Speak of the devil,” Azrael commented. Azrael looked like a busty goth chick, which she kinda was. She was the original goth before goth was a thing.

“Hello, Lucifer,” God said. God was attractive, in the way that cute people are.

“They don’t call me that, God, they call me Satan now,” Satan said.

“I know.”

“You wanted here today because why?”

“To make a deal with you.”

“Sorry, what? I couldnt hear you. Say it louder.”

“TO MAKE A DEAL WITH YOU!”

“Better.”

“Ladies, stop this,” Azrael stated.

“Fine,” both God and Satan huffed.

“Now, Let’s go make a deal,” as Azrael said that, a desk with three chairs, one behind the desk and two in front of it, appeared. The three divine beings sat down. Azrael was facing God and Satan while sitting behind the desk.

“So, Vozreal is back,” Azrael coldly stated.

“It’s as I feared,” replied God.

“Who’s Vozreal?” asked Satan.

“Vozreal is a timeless being, more powerful than God and more Evil than you, Satan,” Azrael commented.

“Hey, I’m nothing compared to the wicked humans down below,” Satan stated.

“Alright,” God boomed, “continue.”

“Vozreal is back. We need you two to make a temporary truce in order to be able to even think of defeating Vozreal.”

It’s a deal,” Both God and Satan said at the same time.

“Sign here,” Azrael said, while a scroll appeared and unrolled itself in the air. Satan signed her name with her finger, which was on fire for a second. God also signed her name, but with a pen.

“Question,” Satan said as her and God were walking down the street. On Earth, of course.

“Ask,” God added.

“What is Vozreal?”

“Vozreal is a tribrid who is a mix between a dragon, a snake, and a lion. His claws are as sharp as Azrael’s scythe, and his eyes have nothing but Evil in them. Let me ask you a question,” God added.

“Fire away,” Satan replied.

“What you said up there, about the humans down here, is that true?”

“Of course it is! Do you think I tell people to kill one another? Do you think I tell people to worship me? No! I’m 13.8 billion years old and I couldn’t think up half the things your precious humans do in an hour. Wicked, I say, wicked! Do you know what the funny part is? Your precious humans blame all of it on me! All we do, and by we, I mean all the Demons and myself, is hang around hell, train, and wait for The Big Day to come. When is that, anyway?”

“I can’t tell you, it would ruin the surprise.”

“Goddammit.”

“I’m right here.”

“Right. You know, we have more in common than I thought.”

“How?”

“We’re both parents, and bad ones at that.”

“What do you mean, Lucifer?”

“Don’t call me Lucifer. You let your son die one of the worst deaths in history, and my daughter’s the literal Antichrist.”

“Well, you do have a point…”

“Also, we both don’t do what people think we do. For example, I don’t steal Souls, or rule Hell. In fact, I’m its first prisoner! Hell isn’t a void of Evil, just like how Heaven isn’t a fountain of Good. You don’t control the forces of Good, just as I don’t control the forces of Evil. We just utilize them whenever necessary.”

“True, true… do I hear Five Finger Death Punch’s Wrong Side of Heaven?"

“That would be me, sorry…”

“Don’t be. I LOVE that song!”

“Really? I didn’t know that?”

“Yeah, it talks about how war is Hell.”

“I just like it because of the beat.”

If this is a play, good job…but if your trying to write a novel I think that you should make it more visual…like…instead of "I WANTED TO MAKE A DEAL WITH YOU" You could say… The devil stood up and shouted "I WANTED TO MAKE A DEAL WITH YOU" then sat down.

P.S You seem like a really good writer and could you critique my first chapter? It's the first or second one in discussions.

Done!

Thanks!

Okay first of all wow, I love this?? You totally got me hooked right from the first line and now I need to read the next part. I do have some feedback though!

• I love the fact that God and Satan are both women!! It makes them such interesting and non cliche portrayals of classic characters and of course I love the representation!
• Normally I don't like it when authors introduce a character then immediately tell us what the character looks like, like you did with Satan, but for some reason I love it. It just feels like a perfect entrance for such a powerful and sassy character.
• Im pretty sure "Evil is Attractive" wouldn't be capitalized.
• So I liked how you introduced what Satan looked like, but I'm undecided on weather or not I like God and Azreal's description. On one hand I really like the phrasing you use to describe them and it helped me understand their personalities more. But on the other hand, it seems a bit repetitive how you list what they look like and I know there's some writing rule that you shouldn't descibe them right off the bat, (allthough in this senario I feel like it works) But idk, that's your decision to make.
• In Azreal's brief looks description, you use "kinda", I would just say "kind of" as kinda can seem unprofessional.
• Satan says, "You wanted here today because why?" I'm just gonna assume that's a typo and you were going for "you wanted me here…" but I feel like that just doesn't flow and there's a lot of ways you could read it in your head that just don't really make sense.
• "Now, Let's go make a deal." Let's shouldn't be capitalized.
• "Azrael was facing God and Satan while sitting behind the desk." This just didn't flow when I read it, I can't really explain why, but I feel like there's a better way to phrase this.
• "…more powerful than God and more Evil than you, Satan,” Evil probably shouldn't be capitalized.
• "…wicked humans down below,” Satan stated." You've already used stated three times in a pretty short amount of writing. Especially cause you don't use a lot of dialogue tags, I would use something else here as it seems a bit repetitive.
• "It’s a deal," You're missing a quotation mark before this"
• I was a bit confused about why God and Satan agreed straight away to teaming up. I understand God as she clearly know how powerful Vozreal is and wants to defeat her, but Satan just learned who Vozreal is and she seems to butt heads with God a lot, so would she immediately agree? I feel like Satan would be hesitant to team up with God, and she doesn't fully understand who Vozreal is, so she might underestimate them and think teaming up is unnecessary?
• I like the way the sign their signatures. It was just a fun little quirk that I enjoyed and it also gave me a little more depth into the differences between these characters.
• Okay so they go straight from signing to walking down the street? Maybe there's supposed to be a break there or maybe not, but either way I didn't really get any explanation on where they were and how they got to the street. This was just pretty sudden and confusing.
• So I noticed that Satan asks God "Who's Vozreal?" then a few lines later "What's Vozreal?" and when I first read this I was confused, I thought from God's first explanation Vozreal was a them and then from God's second explanation Vozreal was more of an it (I really hope that made sense but it probably didn't oops) Then I got confused on what/who Vozreal was and I had to read it again, then I realized that when Satan asked "What's Vozreal" she was asking what creature is Vozreal. (again this explanation im giving probably doesn't make sense sry) Maybe switch "What's Vozreal?" to something like "So what is Vozreal anyways?" as I feel like that makes it clearer what she's asking and makes it so its not so repetitive.
• After God explains what Vozreal is, I feel like you could add Satan's reaction. I mean earlier she just agreed to team up against Vozreal without fully understanding who that is and how powerful they are, then God explains how powerful and dangerous Vozreal is, I wanted to see how Satan would respond to that. Idk how her character would react, make she's shocked and worried, or maybe she's like oh cool this will be fun, but how ever she would react I feel like this part is just missing some kind of response.
• "…all of it on me! All we do, and by we, I mean…" It should be We all do, not All we do.
• "and my daughter’s the literal Antichrist.” It should be my daughter is not my daughter's, cause a 's makes it seem like the literal Antichrist is in the possession of her daughter.
• "I don’t steal Souls, or rule Hell. In fact, I’m its first prisoner! Hell isn’t a void of Evil, just like how Heaven isn’t a fountain of Good. You don’t control the forces of Good, just as I don’t control the forces of Evil." I was going to comment on how souls, evil, and good should be lowercase, but now I see its intentional. Im pretty sure I told you to not make evil capital earlier, so maybe make it clear to the reader that it should be capitalized. Idk how to do this though.
• I love the dialogue at the end lol.
• So overall one thing I noticed is that it's pretty much all dialogue. I like this in some places, but most of the time it doesn't give a setting or anything for me to imagine happening. You want to paint a picture in the readers mind, even if its a really small detail, anything can help the reader imagine what's actually happening, not just what's being said. Like when they're walking down the street, explain what human things they see and how they would interact with them. When you're dealing with non human characters I think its really important to show how they interact with normal human things. Like if Satan and God stopped to get pizza, I can imagine Satan eating it normally while God gets a fork and knife and eats it was too cleanly. Idk just small things background things like that can add a setting and help explain the characters more.

Overall, you did a great job at introducing the characters and making them interesting, that was one of my favorite parts. I also loved how you hooked me right away, now I want to read more. Theres some stuff to work on, but overall I thought it was really good! (also clearly I wrote a lot and I don't feel like reading over it all, so sry for any spelling or grammar mistake lol) I hope this helps!! :)