A story I began writing...

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This is a story I began writing...hopefully, I can finish the first "book" of it this summer at any rate, it's a historical novel, with the exception of the first chapter...

Hello, My name is Mantis.

I am the current president of the Republic of Mutanatia. Many people have wondered: just who is Mantis. Well, I’ll tell you. I am a mutant mantis. Yes, I know this concept may seem strange to you, but that is what I am: a combination of a giant mantis living in the forests where I live when I’m on vacation, and a human. Not very many people understand this.

You see, I was born thousands of years ago in a tiny village in what people call today as medieval times. I was born with what doctors were calling a cyst. Now, a cyst as we know it today isn’t like how we knew it back then. Nay, it was a common condition: a living, breathing organism born within you as you are born. Some say it was in the mother, but in a dormant form. Still others say it is uniquely what is part of you. My country still isn’t free of them, especially not in District A, and besides fusing your blood with that of a giant mantis, there is no cure for it. Many let their children die, burying them pretty much alive, rather than let them have the fate I had. I met my friend, Shade, when I fled in the forest so many years ago. I can almost remember Shade, and her husband Cedric, and my boyfriend Zach, all living happily together. Shade had her daughter, Serenity, born, and I had Jantis born on the eve of my marriage to Zach. But you see, the stone that granted eternal life that Shade and I had been given didn’t work for them, only our offspring. Zach died of old age pretty much, as did Cedric. But we lived on, not aging one bit, thanks to that stone. I have seen many, many miraculous things since I was born, with the models of the Earth being changed, to the invention of tanks, to the re-invention/invention of religions. Everything you have today I have seen invented.

But perhaps the most remarkable thing I have seen today is the changing attitude towards my kind, the so-called “mutants”. Sure, other countries brand their exiles and threats (we call them the ‘So-called mutants’), but originally my kind was hated…and feared dramatically. That all changed in the 1960s ( when a new type of humans, called “hippies,” came to be.) They preached peace, love, and happiness, but they didn’t practice it the way they should have. But still, I could come out and be with them, not just by myself. They thought be a bit weird, but they nonetheless accepted me for who I was. Flash ahead to the 2000s, and after 9/11, as part of the United States, my group of people on a tiny island off of Long Island, very rarely known, began to be hated. We broke away from the United States, winning the ensuing war with fierce precision, as our superior technology—we were pretty much left to our own devices until that time—defeated the Americans. But, however, all was not well.

Indeed, a small group of separatists on the northern half of our island declared their independence. They would see a change in leadership during our Great Unjustifiable War, a change I fear was for the worse, though I do see potential in the new leader. A constitution was formed. Soon, we were thriving. Flash ahead to 2007. I won the election following the Great Unjustifiable War. Many people feared I would have jailed those who were persecuting my kind once again, but I didn’t. My people came to love and respect me, and I showed them that not all mutant mantises were evil. I have a boyfriend named Shah Tiberius Augustus the Third, and I love him like crazy. Alas, he must go too when the time to die of old age comes about, but I will live on. Even if and when I die, as I suspect the stone wil stop working within another 60-70 years, possibly earlier—but I hope not—I will still live on in the hearts and minds of my countrymen, the people I will have been greatful to serve. You see, elections happen once a year, and unless I did something disastrous to my political life—such as start another war with Venomia—I will serve and serve and serve. I am currently grooming my daughter to follow in my footsteps.

FINALLY FINISHED IT!
I wanted it to be in proper form before I posted it, and I'm editting it as I put it up

Okay, here we go

Chapter 1S:
My Parents
Let me, Shade, tell you of how I got to be where I was. Well, it all starts with my parents. You see, my parents were sweet, kind, and considerate. They never told me I did something wrong without saying something gentle about it. And then, one day, it stopped. All of the niceness was gone. Even my neighbors noted the changes. And it wasn’t because of a change in parenting skills, no not at all. Instead, it all came back to this quest. You see, one day a man approached my family and told them of a strange sword located deep within the temples of our ancestors, and challenged my family to find it. My dad, never being one to give up a challenge, went to the temple with my mother (she was quite the adventurer as well). He came back not with one sword, but with two.
When I was a little bit older, say 11 or 12, I received a black mask. This mask I was to keep on my face at all times, and I was severely chastised for taking it off whenever I did, which was usually because it was too sweaty to wear during the summer. This marked the beginning of the end for my family as I knew it. I should have suspected something was up because when I touched my dad’s sword, I felt a burning sensation and my eyes rolled to the back of my head. Alas, being young and naïve, I did not suspect anything.
My mom’s sword was cold, freezing to the touch, but yet I felt as though I hadn’t a care in world when I touched it. When I would later examine these swords with a mage, I soon realized that my dad’s sword was possessed with an evil demon’s soul, while my mom’s was possessed with a good angel’s soul. My mom was always nice and never changed; in fact, one could say that she even got nicer as time passed by. The little things that used to drive her up the proverbial wall did not appear to bother her any more.
My dad, on the other hand, became abusive of both my father and mother. In fact, this is where my story really picks up. After a while, my dad had been approached by the same evil man, and he told him something.
My dad used the excuse of another quest and took me with them—which was unusual because I was never allowed to go on any quests for fear that I might get injured. But alas, I went with them. The man came too, carrying his bow and arrow. And that is what begins my flight to the forest.

There are a couple of points that might make your story more interesting. There is no detailed descriptions of what these mutants look like or specific instances where they encounter normal people and how they react. There are great generalities of massive social actions such as wars and elections and vague references to superior technologies without any way of visualizing what these actually were. One of the essential element of a good story is the reader's sense of actually being there and seeing and feeling and sympathizing with the characters. There is very little if anything of that in your story. It is not an easy thing to do and requires extensive imagination and hard thinking but it is very worthwhile.

Is there more that I missed?

I'm actually holding off on this for a bit. This is because I don't want to be accused of plagiarism if I can use it in my creative writing class, you know?

Eh, I figured "I've got readers, so let's give the readers what they want, eh?"

This Chapter 1M:
Growing Up
Let me, Mantis, tell you the stories and memories I have of living in the Middle Ages. OF my parents, I have little memory. But, what I can tell you is the story of how I was born, and how I got to the forest. You see…
When I was born, I was born with a cyst. Granted, a cyst back then meant that you were born with an organism that ate you up inside until the cyst remained and you died, something else entirely from what today’s cysts are. You’re either born with a cyst, or you contract one during conception. It still plagues the land of Mutanatia, and there is no end in sight. But alas, let me go back to that time. The only way for a cyst to be cured is to be infused with the blood of a giant mantis living in our forest. It wasn’t the same today as it was back then. Instead, I had to be “hooked up,” if one can even call it that, to a mutant mantis by using wooden reeds plunged deep within my skin. It was a risky procedure. They had to attach a filter, similar to that of a sand filter, but its holes were even tinier, pricked by a pin. The procedure would go that the mantis and you are strapped down to a table. The table is then rotated so the blood goes down the tube as you are upside-down, then rotated again so that the blood flows into your veins.
The procedure can have many complications, but fortunately none of them occurred while I was saved. But yet, side effects occurred. For one thing, I am twice as strong as a normal human being, and that is something to be proud of in my opinion. As a little kid and until you die, you have to wear a rubber jumpsuit, specially tailored to fit your needs. Thus, I wore one, and am wearing one even as I write. In order to further protect you from germs on the outside, you have to go and wear a pitch-black helmet…at least, pitch-black from the outside, so that no one can see you. A final side-effect, and one we have all but phased out to boot, is that you grow antennae. Thus, you walk around town (if you’re brave enough) as a horribly grotesque monster, safe only to really walk around (unless you need to work to survive as I did) on All Hallow’s Eve, or as it has come to be known, “Halloween.”
Now, you see, there’s also a real-life side effect, too. Mutant Mantises, which is what I became, are hunted for their skin (which is tougher—twice the strength, remember—and also green), their helmet, their antennae, and their giant mantis friends—the giant mantis’s hide is even more valuable than my own.

OOC: Before I continue, TIm, Cedric, and Zach are all characters I met when RPing with various people. However, the writing is all mine ^_^

Chapter 2S:
Flight to the Forest
As soon as we reached the forest, my dad’s eyes began to glow a dark red, and my mom turned to face him with fear written all over her face. She drew her sword to attack my father, her eyes turning to the white of a light bulb, are shining fiercely bright. With a lunge, she attacked my father. But alas, the attack was not coming from my father, but from the strange man. The man shot my mother through the heart. I instantly fell to my knees and began to weep. I looked up at my father. How could someone so innocent, so perfect, do such a thing to our family? When I was a child, I used to think I was in a dream, but now, now this dream had turned into a total and complete nightmare. What I saw next was beyond any of my imagination.
My father drew his sword and the man readied his bow and arrow. Without another word, what is today known as “adrenaline” coursed through my body, and I was on the run. I heard a crunch behind me, followed by a scream. An arrow pierced my back and I fell to the ground hard and passed out.
When I awoke, I was lying in a makeshift hammock, made from a giant leaf of one of the trees. I gasped as I felt make back; it had been patched up with some sort of leaf and it was wrapped around me by a—particularly strong—sort of blade of grass. I have never found out what the species of this leaf and tree were to this day. There was a hut in the middle of the woods as well. I sat on the hammock, stretching.
Suddenly, I heard a voice in my head. “Greetings,” it said, “I am Mantidae. Pleased to make your acquaintance.” And turning to my left, I saw that “it” had extended a hook-like appendage. I did the only thing someone just injured could have done: I screamed and ran towards the hut. Mantis found me; and we lived together there in peace and harmony.
I later learned that my wounds had been healed by the elder mantis, Mantitia, and that as soon as it healed, I was free to go. I asked what had become of the man and my demonically-possessed father. I learned that they had killed my father in a heartbeat but the man had gotten away, only to presumably die of starvation, as the mantises forced him into the temple and sealed it shut.
I was sobered by this; at 13 (my 13th birthday had just passed the day before), I was an orphan. Some birthday. Not only that, but I was alone in the world, and would be for quite some time. Once my wound was healed—it took about 2 months to properly heal—I went out into the world again, visiting taverns, but not drinking, wallowing in my loneliness. And that would be when I first met Tim.