TheWItch_of_Jam wrote:

Brackish: Once there was two sea serpents. One lived in the ocean, and could only breathe salt water and air. The other lived in a lake and that one breathed only fresh water and air. However the lake was quite close to the ocean, and the serpents would see each other sometimes, and eventually started to talk. They wanted quite badly to live together in the lake or the ocean, and so together they prayed to a deity. It told them that they would need to do a series of quests for it, and then it might give them what they so badly wanted. The deity said that it would first need for the serpents to help the poor clam farmer that’s farm had been overtaken by octopi. The sea serpent was able to complete this, and went ahead and took one after another octopus and threw it on to the land. Once it had finished the water serpents returned to the deity. It said it needed them to throw a piece of quartz into the nearby geyser. This one was easier for the lake serpent because its fins could lead it better on land. When the serpent dropped it in, it almost got full on sprayed by the geyser, though thankfully only two drops got on the serpent.Those scars left behind would be a permenant reminder of the quests for the rest of their life. After they dropped the quartz in they returned again to the deity. For their last quest it said it would need them to walk to the top and back down to the hill behind the lake. This was quite the task, since even though it was more of a medium-sized hill and less of a mountain, they still only had fins, not legs. Despite this, they were able to do it, after spending hours climbing the mountain, encouraged and full of determination because of the others presence. Then, once more, they returned to the deity. The deity congratulated them and gifted them two pearls. The deity said the pearls were from the clam farmer, who had been very grateful. The deity had enchanted them so that the pearls would make it so they would both be able to breathe fresh and ocean water once they ate them, as well as making a lakeish area connecting to both the water and the sea so it was a mix of both. The serpents immediately picked up the pearls from the sand with their teeth to eat them, and they lived happily ever after, living together at last.


I like this; it’s a cute story and definitely told in the style of a nostalgic fairy tale. I do like the tasks, but I think you could really benefit from extending them a little more. It doesn’t have to be a long story, but I would love to see more descriptions of their adventures and their struggle. I especially want to see how they made it up the mountain and how they encouraged each other. Especially if this story is about overcoming difficulties then I think we need to see more of those difficulties and why this is so important to them. I want to know why those particular tasks were important to the deity, if they are a deity, why couldn’t they just do it? Why did sea serpents have to do it instead? If you decide to revise this, diving further (yes pun intended) into the deity and their tasks would be a great thing to do, in my opinion. I think you’ve got a good start with some sweet themes, but overall it’s all very vague right now. But I think with some work this could be a great story. Make your readers believe in these sea serpents and root for them the way you rooted for them while writing this. Less important are a few grammatical errors I noticed. When you are describing the two sea serpents, it would probably be more appropriate to use were instead of was. There’s also a scene where you said one after another octopus, which sounds odd and would be clearer and flow better if you said one octopus after another. You misspelled permanent. I’d also suggest finding a clearer word than lakeish. I know what you mean but you’ll probably be able to find a better word. It’s a great story, but now I want you to show me it instead of just telling me.