Oh hai. *considers hugging*
Warning: this post is not great. lol
I had to do a bit of editing for this part, because this excerpt was taken from quite early in my story when i obviously wasn't as skilled as i am now. I realised i was using the word 'swung' sometimes 3 times in a paragraph, so this needed a bit of work.
Most of it is straight from the story though.
KK...
As i've mentioned before, Coltrane is the hidden traitor of the story, but also kinda my main character. He's working for the shadows, but at this point the reader is still unaware of his motivations.
The purpose of this piece is to show the reader exactly the sorts of things that Coltrane has to do, with a little shock value. It also gives Coltrane something to stew over in his mind later on and battle his own thoughts regarding what is right and what is wrong. Oh, and of course, to progress the shadows' plans as well.
Here, Coltrane was given a task by the Shadow King. He had to warp into the tower of the under-attack-by-shadows Thoughts World, slay the guards inside, steal the Thoughts Orb they were guarding and bring it back to the Shadow King. The Thoughts Orb is the source of power for the Thoughtians, as long as it is still in the Thoughts World... lol. Anyways, without their Orb, the Thoughtians will be weak and useless, and the shadows will have the Thoughts Power, which is the power of persuasion.
eg. "stab yourself" says Thoughtian.
*stabs self*
:)
Something you should know:
- Coltrane was given a golden capsule-like object by the king that can cut off a warp point's power temporarily.
I'm aware this isn't great and needs a lot of work. It does kinda get into a mess as it progresses, but that's why i'm posting it up here. :P
And don't forget this is from early on in my story and not a complete rewrite. :P
I might rewrite it if i get some good feedback. :)
...
Coltrane appeared from the warping point at the top of the tower. It was the tallest tower in the whole Thoughts World and housed the Orb in the very top. The Orb sat on a soft red cushion on a gold pedestal and had an aura of incredible power. There was a mist inside it that floated around randomly.
There were a dozen guards with long spears and swords and shiny armour and helmets. They stood on their designated spots, with blank faces. They all looked sad, like they knew that one day soon their jobs would be obsolete.
Coltrane was here. That day was today.
The orb room of the tower was round. There was a balcony overlooking the bland sky and poisoned ground of the once great world. There was one small room behind a door where the guards ate and slept in their shifts. There was an indent in the wall where the warp point was and there was a big steel door nearby that led to the steps of the tower. It could be locked from the inside with a steel bar…
Coltrane walked out of the warp point. The guards didn’t move, but he knew their eyes were on him.
People came up to the orb room many times a day, so for all the guards knew, Coltrane was just here to check out the situation.
He knew he would have to be quick.
He dropped his gold capsule next to the door and innocently flicked a switch on it with his foot. He could feel the air in the room thickening while the guards watched him. He wondered if one would jump on him with a sword just for doing that…
As he eyed one of the guards, he saw a pair of squinting eyes. He could tell they were suspicious but confused.
Sprinting to the door, Coltrane grabbed the steel bar beside it and slammed it down to jam the doors so that it couldn’t be pulled back out without a lot of force.
That was it. The guards raised their spears and unsheathed their swords.
Coltrane yanked out his own sword and jumped around to face the first guard upon him. Two swords clashed but a quick punch from Coltrane disarmed the guard and gave Coltrane the opportunity to whip his sword around and slice the neck of his foe. There was now a spray of silver blood on the wall, and Coltrane could see the horror that this caused in the rest of them and felt sickeningly pleased.
One of the guards grabbed the Orb and ran for the warp point, but it wouldn’t activate.
Side by side, two guards came at Coltrane, with their swords at the ready. The first guard's attack was easy to dodge, and then Coltrane stabbed at the leg of his attacker, jumped up and finished him with a slice to the gut. The other guard went for Coltrane’s torso and Coltrane slid to the side, but he got a big cut along his shoulder and had his first taste of pain. A swift round swipe of Coltrane's sword left another enemy on the floor.
A tough battle ensued with other guards and Coltrane received various wounds.
Coltrane dispatched another three foes but suddenly felt a sharp pain in his leg.
A guard with a spear had stabbed him, and at the same time another Thoughtian met Coltrane’s sword with his own blade. Coltrane tried to fend him off but suffered a deep gash along his right arm. Coltrane’s sword fell to the ground, but he wasn’t going to let this stop him.
He put both his hands on the spear and wrenched it from the guard with all his energy. He bashed the other guard over the head with the blunt end. He then spun around and thrust it at the spear guard’s chest.
With his spear spinning, he jumped around once again and finished off the other guard with a blow to his waist.Stooping to pick up his sword in his left hand, Coltrane set upon the other four guards. One of them had a golden helmet, and Coltrane figured he was the captain. He decided to save him for last.
A quick thrust of the spear killed one and Coltrane let the guard fall with the spear still lodged in his gut.
One of the other two came for him with his sword raised. Coltrane ducked the guard's lunge and cut him off at the legs.
The other guard had a spear, which he thrust at Coltrane. Coltrane jumped to the side and brought his sword down on the head of the spear, which snapped off. He then finished the guard off with a blow to the neck and kicked him out of the way.
Coltrane looked at the captain. From the corner he could hear the whimpers of the guard with the orb, as he desperately tried to make the warp point work.
He eyed the captain, and the captain glared back with sullen eyes.
He could see the anger in the captain’s eyes, as well as the growing fear.
He could feel his blood trickling down his arm. And he felt the pain in his leg. The adrenaline was wearing off, and he was starting to realise what he had just done.
He felt sick.
The captain spoke, “What foulness is this, that a Powerian would slay his own allies?”
“Your kind are not my allies.”
“Dare I ask who is?”
“The shadows are my allies.”
“You traitor…”
“I do what I have to do to survive.”
“You pathetic excuse for a soldier! I hope your soul spends an eternity inside one of those shadows!”
The captain jumped forward and whipped his sword towards Coltrane’s stomach, but Coltrane dodged to the side. The captain swung again hastily, this time nicking Coltrane on the hip. The next time the captain came at him, Coltrane blocked with his sword, and their blades slid down until they met at the hilt. The captain pushed forward and shoved Coltrane backwards and he stumbled, before falling backwards over a body.
The captain dashed forward, wasting no time. He stood over Coltrane, but Coltrane still had his sword, which he stabbed into the captain's leg. The captain shouted in pain, and Coltrane rolled away and got back to his feet.
"Even if you kill me," Coltrane panted, "your people will not survive the onslaught of the shadows. Yes, it’s coming. It could be any day now, and all the worlds will fall. You will lose, even if you kill me today.”
Coltrane went forward again with his sword held firmly in his hand. He went for the captain’s face but missed. Coltrane then blocked another swing from his enemy.
He whipped his sword forward again, this time catching the guard on his left wrist, but the captain swung his own sword around and brought it fiercely down on Coltrane’s, which flew from his hand across the room, clanking against the hard walls. The captain butted his helmet against Coltrane and forced him to the floor.
Coltrane kicked the captain hard in his shin. The Thoughtian's feet were shod in plate boots and they slid backwards and he fell forward.
Coltrane swiftly grabbed the sword of one of his fallen enemies and jumped to the side of the captain, who was struggling to get back to his feet. The captain held his sword up to block the expected attack from Coltrane.
Coltrane whipped his sword around and bashed the sword from the captains weakened hand.
He lifted his sword again and brought it down with all his energy, piercing the captain’s chest armour.
The body jerked forward, then came to a rest with the sword still jammed.
Finally, Coltrane picked his own sword back up, and went over to the guard who had taken the Orb.
The guard cowered in fear.
Coltrane stabbed him through the chest, and watched the Orb roll from his quivering hands down into a silver pool of blood.
It was finished.
Coltrane knelt down, exhausted and drained. He was terrified that he would die and his people would find out what he had done. But everybody in the room was dead. He was safe.
He looked around at the slaughter in the room. The walls were sprayed with silvery blood and the bodies lay silent and still.
Coltrane himself was drenched in blood - his enemies' and his own. He had deep wounds on his leg, shoulder and wrist, and they were starting to affect him now.
His pulse was pounding through his head. His whole body shook with every heartbeat.
He didn’t want to have to do this.
He stood back up, and went over to pick up the orb. It was silvery like the Thoughtians’ blood, and the movement of the shiny mist floating through it seemed to have sped up.
Once he was back at the Death World, he could place the Orb next to the Death Orb, Sound Orb, Beasts Orb and Shadow Orb.
The Shadows would be even stronger.
A message.
-
I occasionally revisit my blog when I need to look up a date or some other
detail from my past. It's convenient to have chronicled every major life
event f...
11 years ago
17 comments:
Although i am not qualified to comment on the technical aspects, the story itself is really good. Coltrane sounds like one bad ass dude. Thanks for the post. :)
HEY THIS IS GOOD! I CAN'T HELP YOU WITH TECHNICAL ADVICE. I BARELY SPEAK SOUTHERN. SINCE YOUR SERIOUS ABOUT WRITING LET ME RECCOMEND A BOOK "SOMETIMES THE MAGIC WORKS" BY TERRY BROOKS HE IS ONE OF MY FAVORITE AUTHORS. HE WRITES BOOKS YOU CAN'T PUT DOWN TILL YOU FINISH. GOOGLE IT, IT HAS SEVERAL REVEIWS MAYBE AVAILABLE IN YOUR LIBRARY. IT'S ABOUT WRITING AND ADVICE ON HOW TO WRITE. STAY STRONG WE'RE ALL BEHIND YOU KEN
Hey MB,
I was warmed by the improvement you have shown from this piece compared to the 'later' piece in your previous post.
Some things I noticed, whether you are consciously aware or not:
Your later piece introduces 'sounds'. It has an enourmous effect, especially when you are describing battles or a battlefield. The second improvement I saw, was your new habit of starting sentences out differently. For example, if you start out more than two sentences in a row with 'The', or 'Coltrane', the reader will start to focus on the repetition, rather than the story.
A good friend of mine and I enter short story competitions whenever we can. It's a great way to hone your skills. What we both have done, is taken chapters or sub-plots within our respective budding novels, and re-written them as complete short stories. We crit each others work honestly.
And another thing you may consider is NaNoWriMo in November each year. Google it and join. A lot of fun too, and a great place to meet fellow budding writers.
Keep it up. JK Rowlings was once a lowly housewife, and Tolkien a teacher in a boring little school.
WOW! Whaddaya mean "not great"? This has been very good for me. Why, is not easy to explain. I think you know what makes it so appetising and will not lose that through whatever editing may be required.
One thing, I suppose the Thoughts die easily, as they didn't require a final finishing off?
While at the library, look for any Maeve Binchy - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maeve_Binchy - Irish, female centric but .. just see how she writes. Old and large soul, much in common with you and highly successful.
@Sethy: I thought Tolkien was a professor of linguistics. o.O
Anyways Mboy, not here to bash. This was a thoroughly good read. But, since you mentioned that the Thoughtian power was that of persuasion, why didn't the guards utilize that power? Is it because only Thoughtians "specialized" in its use could do so?
It'd be really cool if during the "duel" between Coltrane and the captain, that the captain used persuasion on Coltrane and he had to break free of it. Just a thought and opinion here. :P
I like the introspection of Coltrane, his thoughts. Perhaps I'm suffering from the fact that this was an excerpt, but I don't know how Coltrane appears here. Is he wearing armor? Is he in dark thief-like clothes?
Also, what's the size of the golden capsule? I thought it was pretty small, until I read that he flipped a switch on it with his foot (right?).
Sorry for all these nit-picky questions. Just trying to be thorough with my "analysis."
Another great excerpt Mboy! Aek makes a very good point about the Thoughtians not using their power though. What about, maybe, the capsule (once activated) also dampens the Thoughtians telepathic/pursuasion abilities? Oh well, just a thought. Lol!
Keep up the great work,
Col
When he started writing, he was a lowly teacher in a small town in South Africa. The writing came from boredom.
Yay for another post. I thought there wasn’t going to be another one. :D
As always, nice work. Of course I’ve got a lot of comments, but I tend to only focus on the areas I think need improvement, so don’t feel like I’m ‘ripping you a new one’, I’m just being constructive.
Comments:
Paragraph one – pretty bland introduction to the orb. I think it would be better to describe it as Coltrane sees it – “surveying the room slowly, Coltrane counted twelve armed guards, staring blankly over the tips of their spears, their faces like pictures of sadness in the knowledge that they would soon be obsolete, tossed away like last night’s dinner by the Thoughtian leaders.
“Right in the centre of the circle of guards, atop a plush red felt cushion akin to a ring bearer pillow, nestled Coltrane’s target. Swirling with a mesmerizing cloudy mist, the small glass ball exuded an aura of power, respect and peacefulness.” …
The difference between this and the way you wrote the first couple of paragraphs is that the sentence structure is different – remember you don’t always want ‘it was,’ ‘there was’, ‘the’ starting your sentences – see the battle scene for the changes you made last time, and there's a lot more description to 'set the scene'.
Same thing goes for paragraph 4 – ‘the’, ‘there was’, etc. Vary that sentence structure, and it would be nice (although I know it’s not ‘natural’ for you) to see it from Coltrane’s perspective, not just from the third person. It personalizes it more and we get to see what he actually thinks of it all.
With paragraph 4 as well, you’ve got a real lilt in the pace of the sentences – I think it’s because all your sentences are the same length and similar structure. It sort of disrupts the flow/rhythm of the chapter, and I think it would be better with a bit more variety.
In general, I think you need to apply a lot of the stuff from the battle scene rewrite – ‘Coltrane walked out of the warp point’ – is very bland, and could do with some descriptive stuff about how he was walking, what he was thinking, etc. Look for more descriptive language right the way through.
‘There was now a spray of silver blood on the wall, and Coltrane could see the horror that this caused in the rest of them and felt sickeningly pleased.’ That’s got a cool element to it – you’re describing how the battle is affecting the fighters. Nice work. I’d still look at changing your syntax around a little though, and using some more descriptors – ‘a glow of sickening pleasure’ adds a bit of evil to it for example.
‘A tough battle ensued with other guards and Coltrane received various wounds.’ I get the feeling this was edited by you just recently? I think it’s good to cut out bits of the battle, but you could be a bit more descriptive about the bits you’ve cut out – talk about the noises, the smells, etc maybe?
‘He could feel his blood trickling down his arm. And he felt the pain in his leg. The adrenaline was wearing off, and he was starting to realise what he had just done.’ Who is this referring to? The captain? Or Coltrane? It’s great – bringing in the element of pain and feeling into the battle. Just remember again, the sentence structure gets a bit repetitive, so work on it.
In the dialogue section that follows, it flows pretty well. You could, if you wanted to, put some ‘he said’, ‘she said’, in there in the form of – “You traitor…” snarled the captain, straightening his body and clenching his spear in anticipation of finally wiping out this infidel.
Something like that which sets the mood and describes what’s going on so that we don’t just have bland talking back and forth, if you know what I mean? I guess my point is to remember that this dialogue is still a part of the battle, so you should be including elements of the battle in the dialogue so we know what action is going on, and that they haven’t just sat down to have a cup of tea in the middle of the battle, yeah?
‘The captain jumped forward…’ Have you noticed how often you are using the same sentence starters here? And the repetition of the word ‘forward’? If you want to portray that he kept lunging forward and getting repelled backwards, you could always just say something like ‘again and again he lunged at the cold blooded traitor, but each time was blocked, parried or knocked backwards.’ – It just makes things less repetitive.
‘The body jerked forward, then came to a rest with the sword still jammed.’ I think you could work on making this more descriptive? If you want to be really horrific you could talk about his facial expression, the split second of horror before he lost all brain functions? That might be too graphic. Play around with it, see what you can come up with.
‘the walls were sprayed with silvery blood’ – you’ve already used this once before in the piece, I would suggest you use another descriptive word.
‘He didn’t want to have to do this.’ - Why not? Was he feeling a sense of betrayal? Some guilt? Obviously not knowing exactly where we are in the story I can’t really comment, but if you can include in here something about the pang of guilt for betraying his people, it might tell us why he doesn’t want to have to do this.
Sorry this isn’t as clear as my earlier posts – I’ve focused more on individual phrases and words etc, rather than concepts. Concepts are more applicable to the rest of your writing, so help out more, but tbh I’m too hung over to be thinking about concepts right now lol.
I do think this one needs a rewrite though.
Summary:
Keep varying your sentence structures, keep working on painting the picture (from the eyes of the protagonist is often a good way to do it) with description, keep broadening the readers’ understanding of what’s going on in the surroundings.
Work on finding the strategic points in the story to skip or gloss over for effect, and others where you need to go deeper into describing them.
Remember to use the senses, help us to feel, taste, smell and hear the story, not just see it.
That’s it from me.
Keep it up buddy. I love your enthusiasm :D
Looking forward to the next one!
~kiwi
PS, just read other people's posts - Aek's nit-picks are good on the details. The thoughtians didn't use their powers at all, they came across kinda weak. And it would be nice to know what Coltrane looks like, what he's wearing, what sort of weapon he's using, etc.
and sethy's got a good way of putting things - i like the way you've improved in your later writings because a lot of the above stuff is better in the later pieces.
That was an uber long comment. my bad. o.O
It's a good, coherent story line, and there's little I would add to the preceeding comments.
I agree with kiwi about a rewrite, tho I'd say it's worthy of a rewrite, rather than needs it.
There is much in the excerpt that is good, and if you apply the same principles that you did in rewriting "battles" to this excerpt, you'll have another excellent chapter.
More generally, I'd suggest you write as you do, get the thoughts, concepts, and ideas onto paper first - treat it as a draft - look at it later using using what you've learnt about style, presentation, grammar, to rewrite it. If you focus (initially) too much on presentional feedback, you run the risk of losing the creativity.
Anyway, as we've already talked about, i've done my usual "demolition" job on this piece (as with others). It's too long to post, and I won't take you're sapce up by you mailing this time.
Mboy spcifically:
If you want to read it, go to
baz1949.spaces.live.com/blog.
If you're logged into windows live, you should go straight there, if not you'll be asked to log in - use your windows live ID. Any probs. mail or IM me
Luv, Baz
Sorry, link should be
baz1949.spaces.live.com
@DW - He sure is. :P Thanks pal.
@Path - Thanks for the support. :)
@Sethy - Yeah i've definitely made some improvement as i went further into the story and the repitition gets better, i hope. :P
Thanks.
@MrMcC - Thanks for the support. :)
@Aek - I considered the use of the Thoughtian power and decided against it for a couple reasons.
1. It would be really hard to write. :P
2. I decided that because the Thoughtian power is just so... well, cheap, lol, it will only work if the soul of the user is stronger than that of the person it's being used on. Or something like that.
Thanks. :)
@Col - lol thanks. The good thing about creative writing is that you can make anything up and the reader just has to believe it. It's your rules. :P
@kiwi - Yay for another comment from you. :P
You make a lotta good points and you're right too, as always. :)
Thanks a lot.
@Baz - Thanks pal. I checked it out and left a comment. :)
Thanks to everyone. This really helps.
Mboy
Thanks for your gracious comment.
I've added a comment to your comment - no criticism, hopefully just a bit of clarification, and a few words of encouragement!
Glad Jemima finally came home!
Luv, baz
MB,
This was actually a great post man. Since I am late to the game most of the criticisms have already been addressed.
The main problem is consistency. Your styles change from excerpt to excerpt. I know this is an early excerpt.
When you get around to the point where you want to publish, your entire work has to be cohesive. Instead your novel sounds like it will start off amateurish and end professional.
That is a common byproduct of your evolution as an author. Just keep my comment in the back of your mind when you finish your book.
You are going to be exponentially better at writing when you finish your book compared to when you started. I would periodically go back through your writings and adjust and manipulate your excerpts to reflect your progress...
Other than that...keep it up homie!
thank you for sharing
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