# Enamored Gods



## LadyF (May 22, 2017)

This is the beginning of the first part of a sequel I am working on. It's a fairy tale for adults, featuring Roman and Greek Deities. If you want to read the whole story - pm me. 

Enamored Gods





​
_On the planet of Alpha Gem
there are 8 divine Kingdoms,
their coasts are splashed
by the Great Silent Lake,
to the North and to the East
there lies the Great Olympus –
where Ancient Greek
and Roman deities
are glorified._​ 
One of these hot summer mornings, young and ancient Mars and Venus were having a picnic in the meads of the Olympus outskirts. Mars and Venus are always in their prime, incredible, immortal and inimitable. Venus looks as a Goddess should: golden hair, pensive eyes, amber curls, perfect feminine form, sweet fragrance and perfectly formed lips. Her finely chiseled shoulders and neckline and the passion in her gaze give her husband intense and pleasant inspiration. Mars exudes such potency and virile power, that around him even the flowers start emitting sweeter fragrances from excitement. Mars scents of battle and of sex. One look at the young God of War, and the ancient Goddess is in rapture. His body smooth and strong, his hands warm and supportive, his chin bristling with a beard, his kisses which suck a little on the lips…Mars is godly in all aspects. 

Mars was about to remove Venus’s lacy undergarments when they saw a large party heading to Olympus from the fields below. The figures of wild, naked nymphs and feverish, bearded satyrs could be distinguished clearly from above. The nymphs had soft white skin and their excited yells sound-screened the landscape. The satyrs were uncomely, but merry creatures who weren’t too picky and mostly craved for a chalice of wine. They walked with flowers in their hair and moved with dance steps and played musical instruments and all of them looked really intoxicated. 

Right in front of them, there was a young, well-built, masculine deity in a chariot. Venus had seen the devastating Olympian Gods, but she had never seen anything like this. His body sparkled in gold, his hair adorned with a tiara, his form – a manifestation of manhood. He cast a heavy glance at them from below and spurred the horses towards them with a sonorous yell. From the sound of his voice, almost in a climax, Venus felt almost dishonored. Venus, the Goddess is a sensitive thing, especially sensitive, when it comes to matters of desire. 

The procession headed towards the Palaces of The Gods- protruding with their turrets in the sky, shiny, fairy-tale palaces, perfectly sculptured by a genial architect. All of the Gods swarmed on the Square to meet the new God. He presented himself as Bacchus – the god of the grapes, winemaking and wine, of ritual madness, fertility, theater and religious ecstasy, and the Gods did not love him immediately. If the Gods were kids, they would pull at Bacchus and push him in a circle around him, to and fro like the new kid from the neighborhood. But no, the Olympians are all adult and they welcomed Bacchus with some lofty speeches and some fake smiles. 

When he showed them some dance moves from a different planet, all of them thought the new God is crazy in a disrupting way. Zeus himself welcomed the newcomer to the Bright Olympus and called him “My Son.” All Gods wished to know why Bacchus had ascended from the fields and the forests. Tired of the constant festivities, Bacchus had decided to cancel his celebrations for a while, take his suite and mingle with his equals. He did not find it necessary to mention his recent desire to be domesticated…

One look at the female Goddesses one could certainly say – Bacchus meant trouble. He was simply too sexy, sparkling as pure gold. He had the perfect form and the most glorious manners. He looked at people straight in the eyes and he smiled at them. He laughed loudly, he joked and talked as if he was on the top of the world, which actually he was. He had collected every enchantment of the masculine sex. All the nymphs ogled around him, and one could say by their steamy eyes that he’s been extra friendly to them. Then he cast his saturated, blue gaze upon Venus…and that was it. Her heart sunk. On the Bright Olympus, where the Love Queen reigns when you exchange glances with her – you fall in love. Venus could smell trouble, and it smelled of forest and freedom, and red wine, smelled of falling like a star. The Great daughter of Zeus thought about trouble prevention. She didn’t like his entourage, no; she didn’t like them at all.

“We are afraid the nymphs and the satyrs are lustful creatures and need to stay away from the holy mountain of Olympus. You may stay with us, but I am afraid your friends and girlfriends will have to inhabit the forests, fields and caves in the outskirts.” – banished them Venus with her lovely bell timbre, touching the pearl stone in her pocket. Suddenly the satyrs and the nymphs were teleported into the fields and Bacchus looked at her in disbelief. He saw the most pleasant to the senses female creature in all the worlds. Oh, but why she had to be so temperamental?

- Excuse me, young Goddess! Is there a chance that my companions stay with me? Nights here on this mountain are cold, coldness cuts through you like scissors. For a person to recover a little, at least 2 nymphs are needed. 
- Aw– cried Venus as if she’d just seen a cockroach. Obviously – she continued in a moody, but pleasant tone – those nymphs are really lustful and Olympus is not a place for fornication – the Great Goddess of love, desire and sex said. - Only high, sublime passions are allowed here. 

“But the nymphs look great, darling!” Mars teased his bride and Venus’s face darkened from jealousy. He hugged her from behind and kissed her neck. Then he took her to their palace – an ornate and lavish place. They had freshly brewed coffee, and he got to caress her through the tender tunic. Venus was lying helpless in his arms, sitting on his lap, while he was ravishing her neck and back with kisses. Venus was smitten with desire, intense, insane. A jealous Venus meant at least three climaxes for him for half an hour. It meant Mars would faint with delight. But before that, he enjoyed making out with her for hours. For Mars was above all a God of sexual achievement. 

Bacchus listenedto their cries from passion and he imagined stuff. Clearly, he couldn’t forget her gaze and obviously nothing like this had happened to him. What were the nymphs compared to this creature – this loveliness? 
Bacchus felt overwhelmed. He tossed and turned in bed all through the night imagining her touch. She was nothing like the salacious nymphs – he knew what he can do to them, but she exuded innocence, maturity, and godliness he hadn’t met before. He could die from passion in her arms. He imagined really downing Venus, and taking her right there on the ground, both of them scorched with unsurpassed passion. Venus and her golden, silky hair with the intoxicating divine smell, Venus and her breasts like delicious apples, Venus no man could look at without feeling infatuated. Bacchus was insane, ruined, devastated. 

There passed a week and Bacchus hadn’t visited the insulted nymphs in the forests. All he could think about was Venus’s supple forms. He imagined burying his fingers in her golden hair, in an act of love. He could not sleep from her cries of joyful passion. The nymphs invocated their Great God in the forest in vain, he had forgotten their caresses, he was no longer enticed with their beauty – there was one woman on his mind – Mars’s Bride.


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## bdcharles (May 22, 2017)

Hi,

Okay, there's alot in here that I really like:

in the meads of the Olympus outskirts

and the Gods *did not love him* immediately

Loads of finely-crafted phrases, of which these 2 are just a tiny sample. I'm stealing "meads" by the way. There, I said  it. The town I grew up in had a road called Something-Something Mead,  and now it all makes sense, so my WIP's gonna have some too!  I like  the premise also - everything being perfectly la-di-da there among the  foothills of Olympus somewhere in Alpha Gem til Bacchus rocks up with an  entourage and a tear-it-up glimmer in his eye. And I am a buy-in for a reimagined mythologue; my own WIP - back to that - puts Echo in a love war with a steampunk Narcissus as they go crash-bang through a gaslamp-fantasy universe. So yeah - your whole imagined world is pretty compelling.

I would however try and expand out on some things a bit. As it is, it reads like a very lovely synopsis that could in theory cover a good whack of narrative clock-time. It  enumerates what happens whereas what you need to do is make that stuff  happen. For example, take this paragraph:

Right in front of them, there was a young, well-built, masculine deity in a chariot. Venus had seen the *devastating Olympian Gods*,  but she had never seen anything like this. His body sparkled in gold,  his hair adorned with a tiara, his form – a manifestation of manhood. He  cast *a heavy glance *at them from below and spurred the horses  towards them with a sonorous yell. From the sound of his voice, almost  in a climax, Venus felt almost dishonored. Venus, the Goddess is a  sensitive thing, especially sensitive, when it comes to *matters of desire*. 

And rather than informing me of the things that happened, evoke it in real time. Never mind about Venus and Mars - _you _are god in this world and what you say goes, so say it and make it go. Think about who we are - are we Venus, swayed from her aromatic calm by the sight of the golden charioteer? We would be privy to her thoughts. Are we Mars, suddenly sidelined? Let us experience his inner diminishment. Paint the world around us and let it shape our mood and perception of the place and your story.


You may receive advise about changing tense in your first paragraph, where you switch from *past *to *present*. 

One of these hot summer mornings, *young and ancient Mars and Venus* *were *having a picnic in the meads of the Olympus outskirts. Mars and Venus *are *always in their prime,

I would say keep that because stylistically it works. It gives it a certain fable-ness, despite risking grammatical incorrectness and flirting with exposition. It lends it a slightly prologguey feel though - if that is what you want.

Lastly - WF formatting is a bit of a black art and some of your text has come out bold. Not sure why that is so I decided to ignore it but it may just cause readers' eyes to stutter a little. 

Anyway hope this helps


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## LadyF (May 22, 2017)

It does not simply help, it inspires!


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## Arrakis (Jul 20, 2017)

...I'm going to have to be prickly.

Everything. About this piece. Is wrong.

For start: Too much telling, not much--if any--showing. The first thing I noticed was that, for the most part, it was a wall of text with NO dialogue. Like a date wearing too much fragrance, this is a real turn-off for hardcore readers like mineself. That said, I had to push mineself to get through this excerpt. Also, the characters are so one-dimensional, they could probably split a hair. Lastly, too many damn adjectives.

The best thing about this excerpt was that it was well-worded. However, while it's one thing to be able to write properly, it's another thing to have an imagination. And this piece lacked it.

In the beginning, I would recommend writing a meaningful conversation between Venus and Mars that expands upon their personalities; their quirks, flaws, and redeeming qualities. And when the foreplay begins, that's when I would subtly show their physical traits.

Same goes for Bacchus. Once he interrupts, I would recommend adding plenty of interactions--verbal and non-verbal--that would show his personality. Or at least his public persona. So he's well-mannered and whatnot. What lies beyond the facade? This, I would reveal overtime through showing and not telling. For instance, the scene where he hears Venus and Mars bonking wasn't NEARLY as emotional as it could have been.

Overall, you have what could be a chaotic, enthralling love triangle, but...well, see above.

Keep reading and writing--especially reading. Trust me, if I did not believe you had the potential to become something better, I would not have scolded your work in the first place.


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## LadyF (Jul 21, 2017)

I am going to work on this narrative implementing your ideas - just for an exercise. It's something like a very short first draft of a series and this is not by far its final appearance. So any ideas about it are welcome. I like how Arrakis suggested I should deepen the characters psychologically and then introduce their appearance, I presume I should involve more meaningful dialogue. One of the problems with all my drafts is that I trot about in the text, skipping on very important details of the plot. Drafts are not good for reading, but they are a starting point for me, to create...actually this is only the skeleton of the work, and here I get to play a little. I love your critique. Very appealing ideas!


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## Jay Greenstein (Jul 21, 2017)

> One of these hot summer mornings, young and ancient Mars and Venus were having a picnic in the meads of the Olympus outskirts.


One of "these?" We're in present tense? That doesn't track with the next paragraph's, "Mars was about to remove Venus’s lacy undergarments. "

Pick a tense and stay with it. But as a general thing, using present tense as a means to seem more immediate is a mistake. To a reader used to the convention of past tense storytelling it can be off-putting.

But that aside, you're transcribing yourself telling this story aloud, and our medium won't support that because verbal storytelling is a performance art, one where the reader _must_ be able to at least hear the emotion in the storyteller's voice, and preferably, view the performance. Remember, the storyteller is alone on stage and _explaining_ the events. There are no pictures of the setting, or actors, so they have to set the scene, as you do here. And since the storyteller can't really provide a conversation in real time, playing all the characters, they give an overview of it rather than dialog—as you do here.

Only you can hear the emotion in your voice, as you change tone, cadence, intensity, and make use of the tricks of that marvelous instrument, the human voice, to provide the necessary emotional content that is what the customer craves. only you can visualize the storyteller's performance—the expressive glance, the flicker of anger of amusement that says so much, the body-language, and the gestures you visually punctuate with, and feel, as you read your own words. All the reader gets is an emotion free voice, and what the words you've chosen suggest _to them._ Have your computer read the story aloud and you'll hear the problem

In short, it's not a matter of talent or good/bad writing. It's that you're using storytelling techniques incompatible with our medium. And that's not obvious to you because you get the performance as you read.

Here's the deal: Sight and sound are parallel senses, as is the memory of the visuals of a scene. So your visualization of the scene as you read provides that ambiance beginning with the first line. Print is a serial medium, though. And the reader does not have that picture, so you have to spell out, one at a time, things you know with a word or two. Added to that, the writing techniques we learn in school are those of nonfiction, to prepare us to hold a job, not write fiction in a way that a publisher, and reader expect to see. For that you need to learn the tricks of the fiction writing profession. They're not hard to find, your local library system's fiction writing section is filled with books on the subject. But learn them you must.

There is good news, though.  First, pretty much everyone who comes to writing fiction does so not knowing that the approach to creating a story on the page is not like either verbal storytelling or our schooldays writing. So you have lots of company. And second, if you truly are meant to be a writer, the learning will be fascinating.

Hang in there and keep on writing.


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## max acorn (Aug 30, 2017)

i like the idea of stories and myths living on another planet. 

but there is too much telling and not even showing. plus, the "romance" between venus and bacchus was too fast for my tastes. i tend to like slow burns but that's just me. 

your best bet is to go deeper into the relationship between venus and mars before introducing bacchus as a potential rival for her affections.


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## Lizzie Brookes (Jul 24, 2019)

I do think the language is very beautiful as in pensieve eyes, chiselled shoulders etc.


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