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 Posted: Sat Jun 20, 2009 3:00 pm
Lost
Hope in a far away place,
and in my hand remains....
I not only finished the story in general, and re-wrote
the whole thing afterwords so a lot of it flows better and
makes more sense. I may be editing it again, but who knows.
Since this is finished and all, I'm just going to post the story.
There aren't a bunch of characters or anything- the only thing
that might confuse you is the pronunciation of names.
Everything that has a strange spelling is pronounced phonetically, though.
Amandier would be "A-man-dee-er"; Nuewetta would be "New-wey-ta"; Currius would be "Cur-rie-us".
*~* would be time skips. These skips could be days, or just hours.
A flash back would be in italics, but I might miss somethings...
There aren't a lot, though, so those should be fine.
The story starts on page two of this thread
It's posted in very small chunks
Any other questions, feel free to ask.
MY STORY WAS SECOND PLACE IN THE CONTEST~!!!
A black and white print of a face.
I'll never see again...
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Posted: Sat Jun 20, 2009 7:28 pm
Comments on first three paragraphs:
You get into the swing of things as you go along, but I think your opening could be a lot stronger. The basic shape is fine, since it tells the reader exactly what kind of story we can expect, but I think your narrator is trying a little too hard to make sure everything is clear, when that's not really all too necessary.
The setup is comfortably familiar: the appearance of calm covering chaos, a power vacuum that's sucked the local nobles and citizens into disorder, a weakened society drawing parasites from all over the place. The gods laugh, and the gods' "gifts" are unreliable at best. Basically, a kingdom in distress, waiting for a hero. And then, there's our hero, skulking around the castle. Great!
So, now that it's all there, why not have fun with it? Since you're working with very comfortable, familiar elements, it's okay to mix up your sentence structure and throw in some off-beat embellishments. A few long similes, for example. Seriously, go crazy. And don't worry about originality, you're writing a fantasy with fairy-tale elements, so you don't need to have a whole lot of surprises up your sleeve. Go ahead and steal stuff wholesale.
Just as an example of what I mean: How about the metaphor of kingdom as animal? Cut off the head (the king) and then when it starts bleeding and thrashing its death throes (chaos and disorder), vultures start eating it alive (thieves move in and drain it dry). Really, Kalour could be any animal, at this point, so go ahead and pick your favorite. Maybe it's a wolf, and the flag has a wolf's head, or maybe the wolf was on the old king's coat of arms? Or how about night as a blanket, covering the city's suffering with a fuzzy layer of false calm?
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Posted: Sat Jun 20, 2009 7:47 pm
Comments on the first few paragraphs about Amandier:
Okay, I know the main character in a fantasy like yours really needs a cool name, and Amandier is fine, only. . . how the heck do I pronounce it in my head when I read? Is it "Ah-mahn-dee-ay," in the french style, or "A-man-dee-er," or "Almond-deer," or "A man-deer?" At least give him a snappy nickname at some point.
Your idea of zooming in from the description of the city straight to Amandier near the castle is good, but your narrator also wants to tell his story the way s/he has told Kalour's story, so I wouldn't have him do anything immediately.
Start with something like, "it was Kalour's vulnerability that brought Amandier to the shadows beneath the castle walls," or, "one of the men drawn to Kalour was Amandier, who now used the dark night to conceal himself as he waited for his chance to enter the castle." Then launch into the story about how he grew up into a handsome young rogue. . . and then go from there into his failed plan.
Then the narrator can do the same sort of see-saw maneuver. When Amandier walks off in disappointment: he'll move into the light and give the narrator an excuse to tell the reader that Amandier looks like an idle young lordling, who lives only to court ladies. But, poor thing, he doesn't. . . only, aha! A pretty woman! Our hero's love interest!
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Posted: Sat Jun 20, 2009 8:09 pm
Lost
Hope in a far away place,
and in my hand remains....
Zyx- I already came to the conclusion long ago that my intro needed more work, but thank you very much for pointing it out. A second opinion gives me more determination to edit it.
The beginning is so focused on making things clear because this is a world someone else created, and I'm always told my writing is somewhat vague. Either way, editing will take place! Once I finish writing, of course. It's for a contest, so I don't want to focus on editing before it's finished and then run out of time.
Second post- Now, as for Amandier, his name would be pronounced in the French style "A-man-dee-er". Almost any strange word you come across in my writings will be pronounced phonetically [(Will be adding that in the intro, now, by the way. Thank you)].
As for your views on how he's introduced, I was feeling something wrong with that, but never really figured it out... I'll have to add that to the list...
A black and white print of a face.
I'll never see again...
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Posted: Sat Jun 20, 2009 8:18 pm
Comments on Amandier meeting the Proud Young Lady:
Again, you're on very solid ground, here. Our hero meets a very beautiful, haughty young woman. He's stunned with desire for her icy perfection, she's drawn to his disreputable attractiveness. He hits on her, she rebuffs him. . . but we know they'll be in love any minute. All your narrator needs to do is show what he likes about her, and vice versa.
So, this is another good spot to let your figurative language run wild. Things like, "they might have been from different worlds" aren't bad, but you really don't need to add the "figuratively speaking" part, because that's a very well-known idiom. But you might want something more colorful, there. Amandier is fascinated by her frills. How about bee-and-flower imagery, or moth-to-flame? "The elaborate, filmy ruffles on her dress were like the petals of an exotic flower, and Amandier imagined himself a honey bee, nestling between their folds to drink the sweet nectar within." Or, actually, maybe not that one, because it strongly implies that Amandier would like to perform oral sex on a woman he just met. (But hey, you can go there if you like. He's young, horny, and clearly pretty good with his tongue.)
Anyway, you get the general idea. If you'd like this to be a fun story to read, you should also be having fun. Your sentence structure and spelling will eventually need work, and, on average, you've got a few too many words, but it's way too early to worry about that.
For now, just focus on striking a balance between clear narrative and colorful description.
I'll comment on later sections when I have time.
(Also, could you start posting in slightly shorter chunks? As Jasper Riddle very rightly pointed out in my thread, it's more fun to read/edit short posts than large walls 'o' text.)
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Posted: Sat Jun 20, 2009 10:46 pm
Lost
Hope in a far away place,
and in my hand remains....
Right now I'm just trying to get the story out. I know everything needs a bit of work, and even after I posted this I found and fixed a few errors on my computer. Right now I'm just going with my natural style of writing and getting it all out.
Anyways, on to what you said, it's explained later toward the end of the second section why he was so attracted to her... So... Yeah...
And you're right about the shorter chunks of text... This this is just how it's done for now... It's simpler for me to copy and paste. Selfish and lazy, I know, but oh well...
Thank you so much for your comments, though. They're very helpful... And the oral sex thing made me laugh, since that's the first thing I thought of as I was reading that.
^^
A black and white print of a face.
I'll never see again...
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