Midnightblink's Story

[midnightblink]

Hi, I'm writing a story and it is in very early development right now, but I want to ask a community of people about some of the elements of the story for parts I am indecisive in.

Basically, it's about magic, but a unique form of magic. In my universe, magic is a scientific tool that is kept secret from the general populous. It revolves around the manipulation of energy in its different forms, heat energy, electrical energy, mechanical energy, chemical energy and radioactive energy. The ability to use magic is a genetic trait, and those that do have the ability keep it a secret kept only to the scientific community, as part of the effect of the trait is an easier understanding of how things work scientifically and higher intelligence, leading most magic users to become scientists. It is kept secret as to prevent prosecution and other discrimination, as magic users who are discovered and not killed can become worshiped as gods (which, while that sounds cool, never ends up going well for anyone).
This leads me to the protagonist, Michael Barrowman, a modern day high schooler. He's a quiet kid who, while being considered really smart, could never do very well in school. One day, his school has all the students take a standardized test that seems strange from other tests, but, it's actually a test used to find people who have the ability to use magic and Michael and his sarcastic best friend, Cecelia Payne, both turn out to be magic users. They are given scholarships to a school made to train magic users, and the rest of the story unfolds from there

I'm still figuring out some of the major parts of the story, but I want to ask people what they think about the storyline, and maybe answer some questions about what I should do about certain things.
The question I'm thinking about now is what to call the institute where they would manage the use of magic. I've already figured I like the acronym M.A.S.S, but I don't know if I want it to mean the Magical Association of Scientific Studies, or Magic for the Advancement of Scientific Studies.

I might post chapters as I finish them on this site, but that won't be for a while at least.

[midnightblink]

Hello, I haven't posted about my story in a while, mostly because I haven't been doing much with it in a while, but I've finished the first chapter and I'm planning on spending more time on it. This is my first story, so it's probably going to suck, but whatever, I'm having fun writing it. Some background on it: I do not yet have a title for the story, but I'm working on it. I'm keeping it very SFW, with very little cursing as the main character is loosely based on myself and I rarely ever curse. There will be violence, but it won't be gory or gratuitous and won't come in until much later in the story and very few if any sexual situations as that's not what this story is about. I'm planning on having it be pretty long, basically novel size, so it will move very slowly. I accept any and all criticism, and would appreciate any advice.

Chapter 1

BZZZ BZZZ BZZZ BZZZ

My usual, and might I say ANNOYING, alarm clock blared, pushing me from the wondrous haven that is sleep. Have I mentioned it’s annoying? But I’m not being fair, it’s not the alarm’s fault I have to wake up for school, it’s probably just trying to support its family, with watch children and a wall clock wife, maybe it’s trying to pay through clock community college, or maybe I’m just a crazy person that’s personifying a freaking clock. Anyways, now I’m awake and have to prepare myself for the adolescent torture of high school, where the dumb get smart and the smart get, I don’t know, bored? Stressed? The desire to cause physical harm to others? Not that I think I’m the smartest person in the world, but some of these other kids can’t even pronounce words like jurassic, plutonic, or pneumatic. I swear, if I hear one more person pronounce it puh-new-MA-tic I’ll assault someone. As I process the abrupt light of the new day, the door to my bedroom squeaks open.

“Are you up for school Michael?” my mom asks as her head pops into my room.

“Yes mother” I reply, grabbing my glasses from my nightstand.

“Good, then start getting ready, Celia will be here soon.” She shuts the door and begins preparing to leave for work

I grab my towel, leave my room, head towards the stairs and up 2 flights to the bathroom. After washing the grime of the previous day off my body and brushing my teeth, I return to my room to clothe myself, sporting a slightly too big pair of jeans, as my mother is insistent in buying a size too large because I’ll “grow into them”, even though I stopped growing 2 years ago, and a shirt with the TARDIS from Doctor Who on it. You know, classic geek chique. as I walk back up the stairs to grab something to eat, my mother calls from her room upstairs.

“Don’t forget to ask Celia if she can take your step-brother home with you today”

“Ya know, she’s not my or my siblings schofer” I call, putting 2 slices for bread in the toaster

“I know, but I’m working late tonight, so I won’t be able to pick him up today, just put it on her tab of how many times she has to drive you around.” She replies.

My step dad, Martin, begins to leave and we share a quick “bye” before he walks out the door.

“Maybe I wouldn’t need her to drive me around if I had a car.” This conversation was quite normal in our house, as I had gotten my license months ago, but had yet to receive a car, unlike my two sisters who had cars before they got their licenses.

“You help pay the mortgage and we might be able to scrape enough money to get you one.” She says as she walks down the stairs. “Now, I have to go. Remember I’ll be home late, so make yourself something for dinner, love you.” She gives me a quick kiss on the forehead before she walks toward the front door.

“Love you too, see you tonight.”

With that, she shuts the door behind her and begins her commute. After she leaves, my toast pops out, so I put my usual order of peanut butter and my mother’s homemade jelly on it and I sit on the couch watching TV for a couple minutes. From outside I hear a car honk in the driveway. I grab my backpack and books, finish my last bite of toast and walk out the door. Outside, Celia is in her truck, waiting for me.

“Whats up, nerd, ready for another enriching day in our nation’s wonderful education system?” This thinly veiled sarcasm is something you get use to, being around Celia.

“About as ready as I am to jump into a pool of lava”, I say as I jump into the passenger seat.

“I hear that that can be really good for the skin, really opens up the pores”

“And by ‘opens’, do you mean completely burns off?”

“Yup, the things some people will go through for beauty”

We drive the rest of the way talking about anything and everything, but first I feel like I should explain my relationship with Celia. We’ve known each other for years, since fourth grade. I was new to the school and, with my anti-social attitude, I had a hard time making friends. Celia sat next to me in class, and we got along pretty well, but we really connected when we noticed each others shared interest in books.

“You read the Tyler Andersen series?” She asked, seeing the cover of one of her favorite books

“Is Odin the Allfather? Yeah, I love the series, the whole Norse mythology concept is so cool”

“I know right? I love the part of the book where they fight Nidhogg and then ride him through the roots of Yggdrasil.”

“That part is so cool, and Ratatoskr is so funny as a character, but I guess being the god of gossip, you tend to hear some pretty killer jokes.” The rest of the school day, all we did was talk about were some of our favorite book series.

We started talking a lot more after that, mostly about books at first, but soon we found we had similar likes in other things, like video games, TV shows, and one of the most important things for me when finding a new friend, science. We began spending every day in class together, and we went to each others houses every weekend. We were together so much, people would think we were dating, which was weird. Not that she’s unattractive or anything, she’s quite cute actually. She has very soft features, with bright blue eyes that were always moving, never able to focus on one thing, and her mouth has a perpetual smirk as if she finds everything she sees amusing. Her jet black hair is always in a pixie cut that partially covered one of her eyes. I never really wanted to date her, she was always more like another sister for me, and she isn’t really my type when it comes to dating. Actually, I don’t really know what my type is yet, but I can tell you it’s not her.

I, on the other hand, am quite unremarkable when it comes to looks. I have a very round face, accented by my lack of exercise and a slower than average metabolism. I’m not fat, maybe pudgy is a better word. I have dark brown hair that was about an inch short of the Justin Beiber look. I never really cared about how my hair looked, so mostly I just let it grow out until my mom forces me to have it cut. One of the first things people always point out when they see me is my heterochromia, or multicolored eyes. My right eye is a dark green, like an evergreen tree, while my left is a dark, vibrant blue. When I was younger, I was very insecure about it because some kids would make fun of me for it, calling me a “freak” or a “mutant”, so when it was decided I needed contacts for my nearsightedness, my parents bought me contacts that would change the color of one eye and not the other. I decided I liked my green eye more, so for most of my childhood, I had green eyes. Unfortunately, in middle school I developed a sore on my eye that made it so I was in horrible pain when I wore my contacts, so I had to switch to glasses and was once again heterochromic. It was actually pretty funny the first couple days, as most people at my school didn’t know I wore contacts so their reactions to my sudden change of eye color were hilarious. One girl thought I was possessed by an evil spirit, and even made a crude cross out of colored pencils to see if it burned when she touched me with it. After a while, everyone just got use to it and nobody really cared, and I grew an admiration for them.

Celia and I were only a couple blocks away from the school now, and we were talking about our teachers.

“Did you finish the writing assignment Mr Johnstone gave us about Fahrenheit 451?” Celia ask as she turned the corner.

“Nah, barely even started it, but you know how Johnstone is, I could turn it in a month from now and he’d still take it.” I was gripping the roof handle of the truck tightly, as Celia still needed work on her turns.

“C’mon man, I know you, you’ll probably procrastinate, saying ‘I’ll do it in a minute, I’ll do it in an hour, I’ll do it tomorrow” until you get to a point where you won’t be able to turn it in at all” I give her a short shrug before she continues “you and I both know you could ease through every class with half the effort others put in, why don’t you act on that?”

“I don’t know, what’s the point? I use to love school because I love to LEARN things, but ever since high school started, it stopped being about learning and is more about taking up our time until we’re adults.”

Celia was on my back all the time about this thing, because she has strict parents that want her to get straight A’s. She doesn’t like the school system either, but she at least goes along with it. I, on the other hand, seemed to stubbornly refuse to do school work out of spite. I still do enough to get passing grades (most the time), but only just enough. I just get bored so easily in school now, and at home, it’s almost like I put a barrier in my mind to keep school out of my head. I always ace any test teachers give me, but it’s the pure busy-work that they call homework that I have the hardest time with. The way I see it, homework is a way to force students to study a certain amount of time, regardless of how much study time a student actually needs to understand the material. If you already know the material, the only thing homework does is give you a grade, which is NOT a good enough reason for me. Grading for the purpose of grading is the antithesis of what the purpose of school should be. I could go on like this for hours, but you get my point.

“Whatever man, as long as you don’t flunk out of school” Celia said as she pulled into the school parking lot.

[midnightblink]

Is there anyone on the forum who is Muslim? I'm asking because one of the characters in my story will be Muslim and I wanted to have an actual conversation with someone about Islam, just to ask some questions. I don't want to take everything off the internet because you can never know what's true and what isn't. If there is and if they're ok with talking to me about it, they can send me a PM to talk to me. If there either isn't anyone or if they don't want to talk, I could always just go to a mosque, but I would prefer it if the exchange could be online, as my social skills are somewhat lacking xD