Young Writers Society

Hello YWS! I decided to write a background for my RP character... So here it is! Its a little rushed i think.. but please review! P.S. I hope Ish and Puzzle like this.





The Beginning

Xalient is a realm of ice and snow, but full of warmth and compassion. They're complete opposites. This realm was ruled by a Queen and her heir, a prince.

The king had long ago died from some unknown disease, after he had come back from an adventure through the wild landscapes of Xalient. There wasn't a day the queen didn't look at her son and see her husband in him. Everthing looked just like him; his ice blue eyes, snow white hair, and determined attitude.

His name was Xalor, and he would forever change the realm of Xalient. The Queen and son were never very far from each-other, because of a special bond that had formed between them. By the time Xalor was ten, he could already design strategies, fight in hand to hand/sword combat, and have the people love him as their ruler.He was aslo one of the wisest people in Xalient...

When Xalor turned sixteen, the queen officially crowned him King. Xalor stepped up to the position without question. He had always wanted to rule as King, and now his wish had become true... But, it would become his downfall...

Three months after he became King, a report came in saying that one of the western villages had been completely destroyed by unknown forces. Xalor was troubled by the fact that a whole village had been destroyed in just a day. There had been no warning of attack, and his army had the best spies and scouts known. He decided to reinforce all the surrounding villages with additional troops, hoping that the extra support would hold off the invaders...

A week later, he got another report. But, it didn't come from a spy or a scout. It came from a villager, except his right arm looked like it had been eaten off. You could see the bite marks on the stub of what remained of the arm.

The man could barely spit out the words before he collapsed and died. The only thing he sputtered before dying was, "Dark Reavers." The words rung in Xalor's mind. Dark Reavers were just a legend...

It's said in the prophecy, that if the Dark Reavers are ever unleashed upon the land, it shall fall unto darkness... Only the Cursed Sword will be able to defeat them, but victory comes at a cost... He would have to find the the Cursed Sword, no matter what to put an end to the invasion.

He then immediately ordered his scholars to find anything and everything related to the Cursed Sword... The scholars looked and looked through the archives, but the only book that they could find, was "Legends of The Soul." It just repeated the legend in a little more detail.

Xalor was exhausted from his constant search for the Cursed Sword. He had collapsed in the archive room, opening his mind to the dream world. He was visited by a dark venomous voice... "You seek the Cursed Sword... It lies below your beloved castle... It will only reveal itself to you when your heart is full of hatred..." Then, the voice faded as he was shook awake. As he awoke, he saw the face of one of his servants.

"My Lord!" she yelled, "we're under attack! The Dark Reavers have breached the castle!" At the sound of this, Xalor jumped up and ran out of the archive room, heading towards his mother's room.

In his gut, he could feel that something was terribly wrong... He arrived at his mother's room, and instantly felt fear course through him.. The door to the room was shattered all over the ground, and blood was splattered all over the walls and furniture inside.

He rushed into the room and found what was left of his mother's body on the bed, surrounded by the creatures of Darkness... He let out a yell, and pulled out his sword from the sheath on his back. He then charged at the nearest creature, slicing it in half, only to watch it reform like nothing had even happened to it.

This made even more fear grip him... He started backing away, until he hit the wall. He knew there ws nothing he could do, but he raised his sword in a futile defensive postition. Then he suddenly remembered the dream...

"You seek the cursed Sword... It lies below your beloved castle... It will only reveal itself to you when your heart is full of hatred.." Hatred... He thought... I have plenty of that now...

His thought was cut short as one of the Reavers lunged at him. He instinctively swung his sword in a wide arc, which sliced through the creature's mid-section. The Dark Reaver fell in two pieces before him, giving him a clear shot to the door. He bolted for his escape before the creature regenerated itself...

As soon as he cleared the doorway, he sprinted towards the castle dungeons, where the voice told him the Cursed Sword was. He approached the entrance to the dungeons, swung the doors open, and ran down the winding stair case. The temperature dropped drastically as he went deeper into the dungeon.

When he finally reached the bottom, he felt a dark power within the darkness... A presence entered his mind, and said, "You seek my powwwweerrr mortal? I have felt the Dark Reavers rise to power, and spread like a disease across the land... You... You have much hatred inside of you..." Xalor fell to his knees from the sheer force of will that the voice commanded. "I can see your hatred grwoing with every breath you take... You could prove very usefull... I shall grant you my power... For Now..."

It would be nice if people could give me more ideas for this.

Hey: I'll be reviewing your story today. I'll use strikeout for parts I suggest you omit, [brackets] for things to add, blue for stuff to change, red for the stuff that confused me, and also <these things> for in text comments.

So first thing I see here is one giant block of text. Good for some types of poems, not so good for fiction. You'll want to break your story apart into paragraphs or else your readers might end up being intimidated by the sheer girth of your writing, even though this story isn't really that long at all. Fortunately I like big blocks of text so I'll go ahead and read it.

Jalmoc wrote:The Beginning

Xalient is a realm of ice and snow, but full of warmth and compassion. They're complete opposites. <Don't explain this to us, this fact is already implied in the description> This realm was ruled by a Queen and her heir, a prince. The king had long ago died from some unknown disease, after he had come back from an adventure through the wild landscapes of Xalient. There wasn't a day the queen didn't look at her son and see her husband in him. Everthing looked just like him; his icy blue eyes, snow white hair, and determined attitude. His name was Xalor, and he would forever change the realm of Xalient.

I'm gonna stop here for a second. These first few sentences leave a lot to be desired. As a reader I want to know what type of adventure was the King on, what do the landscapes of Xalient look like? What type of disease it was that killed the King, if not the name at least what sorts of symptoms he had. Whenever you mention something like this in a story your reader is going to assume that it's important, and they'll become disappointed when you don't go into detail.

Also, it's good that you're using the Queen's memory of her husband to reveal the physical characteristics of her son, but these descriptions lack context. "Icy blue eyes," is okay, but it would be better if you used a specific scene or flashback to show us this image:

The morning sunlight would shimmer in her son's icy blue eyes just like her husbands, in a way that reminded her of the ocean.

See? Using a specific image will not only give readers the feeling that they can see what you're describing in their heads, it can also reveal the relationship between the Queen, her husband and their son, thereby giving us a greater sense of her sadness from the loss of her husband.

The Queen and son were never very far from each-other, because of a specialbond that had formed between them. By the time Xalor was ten, he could already design strategies, fight in hand to hand/sword combat, and have the people love him as their ruler. He was aslo one of the wisest people in Xalient... When Xalor turned sixteen, the queen officially crowned him King.

So your protagonist is a child ruler? I can deal with that I suppose. There have been many child rulers in real life and they appear often in fiction. Will they retain their power? Will their innocence allow them to become more just leaders than their adult counterparts? Will their naiveté make them vulnerable to attack from dissenters? Will their lack of experience make them brutal and ruthless? There's a lot of potential for conflict in stories involving child leaders. Lot's of opportunities for failure. Even if your protagonist doesn't fail it's important that your story addresses the consequences of becoming a ruler at such a young age.

Xalor stepped up to the position without question. He had always wanted to rule as King, and now his wish had become true... But, it would become his downfall... Three months after he became King, a report came in saying that one of the western villages had been completely destroyed by unknown forces. Xalor was troubled by the fact that a whole village had been destroyed in just a day. There had been no warning of attack, and his army had the best spies and scouts known. He decided to reinforce all the surrounding villages with additional troops, hoping that the extra support would hold off the invaders...

I had to stop here again. For one I don't know why you keep using ellipses. Also, you've covered a huge amount of time in the main character's life, without really going into any detail. As a reader I want to know what Xalor's life was like growing up without a father and how that's going to affect him as ruler of Xalient. I also want to know how and why he became such a skilled military strategist. Also, show us exactly what it is that he does that makes him so much better than other strategists.

A week later, he got another report. But, it didn't come from a spy or a scout. It came from a villager, except his right arm looked like it had been eaten off. You could see the bite marks on the stub of what remained of the arm. The man could barely spit out the words before he collapsed and died. The only thing he sputtered before dying was, "Dark Reavers."

Other readers might not notice this but I personally am having a tough time buying this description right here. Our arms and legs each carry major blood vessels. If someone were to loose an arm, unless they sealed the wound up immediately, they wouldn't last more than 2 or 3 minutes (depending on their size and weight) before bleeding out. I'm sorry, but there's no way any normal human being could lose a limb and survive long enough to travel to the king's palace (how far away is this village anyway?) to tell him what happened. Unless in this universe, people's blood is unusually thick or something.

I know people lose arms and legs all the time in TV and movies, but this is unfortunately a case of Hollywood irresponsibly tricking people into thinking they could survive deadly injuries.

The words rung in Xalor's mind. Dark Reavers were just a legend... It's said in the prophecy, that if the Dark Reavers are ever unleashed upon the land, it shall fall unto darkness... Only the Cursed Sword will be able to defeat them, but victory comes at a cost... He would have to find the the Cursed Sword, no matter what to put an end to the invasion.

What prophecy? What Cursed sword? What do the Dark Reavers look like? Don't assume that just because this is a genre story,that your readers will automatically know what's going on. You need to make sure your audience understands the culture, religion and society of Xalient or else all these mystical sounding words will mean nothing to them.

He then immediatelyordered his scholars to find anything and everything related to the Cursed Sword... The scholars looked and looked through the archives, but the only book that they could find, was "Legends of The Soul." It just repeated the legend in a little more detail. Xalor was exhausted from his constant search for the Cursed Sword. He had collapsed in the archive room, opening his mind to the dream world. He was visited by a dark venomous voice... "You seek the Cursed Sword... It lies below your beloved castle... It will only reveal itself to you when your heart is full of hatred..."

We need to know more about Xalor as a person in order for this dream sequence to be compelling. We still don't really know anything about what type of person he is. Just that apparently he's a good strategist, but there in also lies the problem that we've never actually seen him strategize at all, we only know that he's a good strategist because you told us he was. Remember readers need to be shown what's going on, not told.

Then, the voice faded as he was shook awake. As he awoke, he saw the face of one of his servants. "My Lord!" she yelled, "we're under attack! The Dark Reavers have breached the castle!" At the sound of this, Xalor jumped up and ran out of the archive room, heading towards his mother's room. In his gut, he could feel that something was terribly wrong... He arrived at his mother's room, and instantly felt fear course through him.. The door to the room was shattered all over the ground, and blood was splattered all over the walls and furniture inside. He rushed into the room and found what was left of his mother's body on the bed, surrounded by the creatures of Darkness... He let out a yell, and pulled out his sword from the sheath on his back. He then charged at the nearest creature, slicing it in half, only to watch it reform like nothing had even happened to it. This made even more fear grip him... He started backing away, until he hit the wall. He knew there ws nothing he could do, but he raised his sword in a futile defensive postition.

Something else that could make this whole situation more compelling is focusing on the Dark Reavers themselves. What do they want? What is their reason for attacking the kingdom of Xalient, and why are they doing it now as opposed to any other time?

Readers usually don't like it when villains commit evil for the simple purpose of being evil. There needs to be some goal, some logic to their actions. Without some sort of purpose your villains seem less evil and menacing and more...chaotic, I suppose.

Then he suddenly remembered the dream... "You seek the cursed Sword... It lies below your beloved castle... It will only reveal itself to you when your heart is full of hatred.." Hatred... He thought... I have plenty of that now... His thought was cut short as one of the Reavers lunged at him. He instinctively swung his sword in a wide arc, which sliced through the creature's mid-section. The Dark Reaver fell in two pieces before him, giving him a clear shot to the door. He bolted for his escape before the creature regenerated itself... As soon as he cleared the doorway, he sprinted towards the castle dungeons, where the voice told him the Cursed Sword was. He approached the entrance to the dungeons, swung the doors open, and ran down the winding stair case. The temperature dropped drastically as he went deeper into the dungeon. When he finally reached the bottom, he felt a dark power within the darkness... A presence entered his mind, and said, "You seek my powwwweerrr mortal? I have felt the Dark Reavers rise to power, and spread like a disease across the land... You... You have much hatred inside of you..." Xalor fell to his knees from the sheer force of will that the voice commanded. "I can see your hatred grwoing with every breath you take... You could prove very usefull... I shall grant you my power... For Now..."

Look: It's difficult making a character appear realistic in writing, especially if that character is originally from (is it a RPG) a different medium. Before you write about any character you need to think about them as a real person. Make sure that you have such a deep understanding of their thoughts and feelings that you feel as if you've known them their entire lives. I did not get the impression that you really know who Xalor is. What sort of person is he when he's not busy slicing Dark Reavers into pieces? What does he like to do? What was his relationship like with his parents before they died etc.

Also, you need to work on your descriptions. To me this read as more of a summary of a story than an actual story. You need to spend more time describing the physical details of your characters as well as the world they live in. Now that doesn't mean just throwing in a bunch of adjectives and adverbs, in fact it's the opposite. You need to use concrete details that pertains to each of the senses in order to make the world of Xalient seem real. Unfortunately, doing so requires a lot more of a description than I can provide in just one post, so if you have any questions send me a pm or leave a post on my wall to let me know.

Peace,

Bad Narrator.

Hi there Jalmoc. Lavvi in to review as requested. Sorry it took so long to get to this, I've been rather busy.

I'll get right to the substance of the review.

A) Slow down. During and after I read this, I realised that everything seemed to come off as very hurried. Like there was no time for you to write this and just did and didn't put much thought into it. I apologise for being so frank, but it's what I felt. The rushed feeling of it also contributes to the sore lack of written emotion and descriptive scenes. I felt like this was a conversation I was having with somebody and not reading a piece of writing. Don't worry about telling us things: it's exactly what the reader doesn't want. Expand, and seriously, slow down. You're doing a lot more "telling" and not much "showing". And we desperately need that here.

B) Description is wanted. So, as I kind of already jabbed at above, you need some more description. In reverse, it equally contributes to your rushed feeling, lack of emotion and more "telling" than "showing". There are so many spots that you could describe, that are quite important to the movement and flow of the story. Don't be afraid to describe things: some writers are so abrupt in their writing that they can never have a reader picture something and others have problems trying not to write so much detail. You need to expand a little more in the detail category, and it won't be hard. It will also lengthen your story and make it that much more enjoyable for your audience.

Your spelling and grammar seem fairly acceptable: if I missed anything, don't hesitate to give me a shout.

Just please don't be so abrupt, and leave us hanging with descriptions. We need more detail so we can actually picture something in our brains. This, currently, feels so void of emotion it's rather uninteresting. However, it does have potential and I urge you to continue

Yours,
Lavvi

Okay...

So my main problem with this is that it's more of a summary than a story. You sound like you're telling us about a movie you saw the other night, or a book you read, giving us the bare bones of what happened without much emotion or description. We're seeing the events that occur from the outside. We can't really connect to the characters, and we can't feel what they're feeling, which makes it very hard to get into the story. It feels like you're skimming over the action, so we feel like skimming over the story, if that makes sense.

I noticed more than a few typos, as well as issues with tenses changing...

Give us some more detail. Description, emotion. Dialogue. Show us the characters interacting. Just plain 'show' us, rather than telling us.

Another thing I want to know is how the cursed sword came to be at the bottom of the palace. Why didn't anyone ever find it before? Was it in a sealed room, or was it hiding in plain sight - part of a coat of arms hanging on the wall or something? Was it a relic of his father? Did his father's illness have anything to do with anything? Was it of natural causes, or was foul play afoot?What's the price that will have to be paid for victory? He has to find the sword yes, but that's not really a price. What's the curse on the sword? All your hair will fall out, you'll be poor forever and die, you'll never find love, you'll never feel happy ever again... There are lots of curses out there, and I would think that the legends would have some more detail.

I think this has the potential to be an interesting story, but you should elaborate on everything more. Make it less of a summary, and more of a story. Also, proofread.

Keep writing. :]