In retrospect, maybe the rat—which they had chased through the market until Zoë brought it down with the bow that was normally only used on Sues—had been a bad idea.

"Can I go back with them?" George whined, banging his tail on the desk. "You never get me rats."

"Yes he does," Martha protested. "Don't be stupid."

"He gets you rats."

"Be quiet, both of you." Hermes commanded, glowing at the caduceus that was leaning up against the wall.

"But Hermes—"

"Eat your rat and shut up."

George ate his rat. Then projectile vomited one of the bones across the small office. It landed on Theia's jacket, and, annoyed, she flicked it off. "Gross."

"I hate this office," Hermes grumbled, looking around. "But I never have time to make it more appealing. Always too busy. Want to go outside?"

"Sure," Theia said, eager to see more of Olympus.

They left, and waited on the stoop of the briefing and interview building. "Which way do you want to go?" Hermes asked politely.

Zoe and Theia looked at each other. Zoe shrugged. "Wherever."

"I don't care," Theia said quickly.

Hermes nodded, as if they had said something very important, and set off in the direction of the market. The writers fell into step behind him.

"So. Setting." Hermes paused at one of the stalls and brought a pack of ambrosia squares. "Setting is crucial to your plot. Imagine how this conversation would have looked without the market, Olympus, or anything like that:

"Can I go back with them? You never get me rats." Said George.

"Yes he does. Don't be stupid." Martha said.

"He gets you rats,"

"Be quiet, both of you," said Hermes.

"But Hermes—" George complained.

"Eat your rat and shut up."

"Gross," said Theia when George spat bones onto her.

"See? You're not there. You are detached, floating in space. " Hermes paused at another stall, which sported Hercules Busts Heads memorabilia. He picked up a shirt and examined it. Theia noted that the manager of the stall was watching them carefully, lest the god of thieves steal his shirt. But Hermes slid a drachma over the counter. As an afterthought, he added the entire first season Blu-Ray package.

"But you can't just add it all at once, either. What if I said 'the market was crowded. There were lots of stalls. Someone tried to sell me ambrosia. The sun was out. Theia was wearing a blue jacket."

"That," Zoe said, picking up a replica of Percy's wind thermos, "Sounds like junk."

"Exactly. No one reads descriptive paragraphs."

Zoe tossed the thermos and they set off again.

"See, when you walk into a room, you don't notice everything all at once. You, I'm sure, have noticed that the market is loud and crowded. But you probably haven't noticed that dinky stall selling used Athena statues."

Theia looked around, finally spotting it. "No," she admitted. "I didn't."

"But whenever I go somewhere to steal something, I notice the little things. A broken window, a dog door. It's that stuff that brings to life your story. If you describe the man as broad shouldered and smirking, we can picture him. You don't need to say that he has brown hair, green eyes, and his mouth turns up at one end and he goes to the gym every Sunday afternoon.

If you say the room was swept, but had cobwebs in the corner, we get a sense of the personality of the people that live there. We get more of a feel for the room then we would if you described the patterns on the sofa."

Zoe stopped everyone then to go examine some arrowheads. She was running low on her special ones.

"These are all celestial bronze," the stall-nymph said. "But I'm afraid that Mary Sues aren't solid enough. The arrow would go right through."

"Make your settings unique," Hermes added as they kept moving. Theia wondered if anyone listened to him up on Olympus. He sure as heck talked a lot. "We know all the places in The Lightning Thief. If you are writing a quest story you can look at a map and see where your characters would pass through, pick out famous spots from the different areas. I've never seen anyone blow up the Space Needle or crash Silverwood. If it's not a quest story, maybe their house is different from a standard demigod house. Maybe instead of New York they live in a small suburb somewhere.

"No clichés," Theia decreed. "Try and at least make their school unique or whatever."

"You can use camp, of course, but show us something different about it." Zoe threw in. "We know about the cabins. Don't have your character get to camp and then describe everything that's in the book. But maybe there's something really weird inside cabin five or there's a scarecrow with devil horns at the archery range."

"Just remember." Hermes popped an ambrosia square into his mouth. "A picture is worth a thousand words, but you only really need to read about fifty."

The market stalls cut off, as if there was an invisible wall, and they were walking down an unpaved dirt road surrounded by flowers in full bloom, despite it still being winter.

"Look!" George said, finally speaking up. "A rat!"

Theia looked around. There, sure enough, was a small rodent. It was barely large enough to be called rat, but it managed to send George and Martha into a frenzy anyway.

"Stop it!" Hermes ordered as the snakes fell flat on their faces, attacking each other and trying to reach the potential food. They started to roll down the hill as they were unable to move normally. "Get back over here!"

George ignored him, stretching out his tongue as far as it would go. The rat just stared, as if it had never seen two entwined snakes before.

"No fair! You had the last one!" Martha wailed, trying to shove him out of the way. But that sent the both rolling again, and the rat scampered off.

"What did you do that for?" George demanded.

"Be quiet." Hermes held out his hand and the caduceus flew back into it, morphing into a cell phone along the way. Their complaints were quickly muffled in his coat pocket.

"So," the gods said in an overly casual voice, as if that had not happened. "Who are you talking to next?"

"Demeter."

"Ah. Well. That's for trying to make the fandom better. It needs it."

His phone rang.

"What?... oh. I'll get back to you. OK, OK, I'll tell him…. No… there isn't any post on Sundays… no, that's the rule. I'm sorry, I can't do anything about it… " he flipped the phone closed. "I gotta run. Here"

He handed Theia the Hercules Busts Heads Blu-Rays, and disappeared.

O-o

But Theia has to share because Storm wants to watch it too! : D while she's at it, Storm wants to borrow Zoe's sue killing arrows.

Starlinc—I'm writing a book too. High five.

You Know Who—Apollo covered characters. But Aphrodite on emotions will become quiet, erm, interesting, as will the Romance Debate.

Emmafer—dialogue as in explaining stuff? Because otherwise it was going to be a list.

ThEfLyInGpUrPlEhIpPo—I did get permission…?

Encre—yeah well. Ares can't stare too well with those eyes.

Singerinthesilence—I know. I double checked this one for typos.

Kal—here you go.

Theia—I double checked this one for typos. And I just write the chapters during English. You really don't want to let me and my camera into the gods garden. Just FYI.

Jake the Drake—no…

Fishpony—Wasted Wishes is a big 3 fic too. You can pull off clichés it's just harder.

Carlaina—Huh? And Alistair is already hated by the Veritas.