Will O' The Whisp

I wrote this as to make sure no-one forgets that I am doing about four story cycles at the same time. That and it serves as a break from the Time Of Clockwork. Enjoy.
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Once, in the marshlands of T'Gesh, when the World was young and the Great Fortress of Boetecia was yet to be built, there was a settlement called Town Upon Stilts, and in this town, there was a young boy who always sat on the edge of the deck plates, sitting there and looking over the marshes and bogs that spread far beyond his line of sight. He would spend hours sitting there, doing nothing and saying nothing.
"What do you look at out there on the marshes, son?" his father asked him one day, when the boy walked into the house, "Do you know what happens to little boys who look out over the marshes? Will O' the Whisp takes them to join his legions of the Whisps and makes them live in the bogs forever. Son", he said, stooping down, "Please stop with the looking", but the child, adventurous spirit he was took no heed of his father's warnings and went to the edge of the deck plates none the less.
One day, the boy was staring out to the edge of the bogs, trying to pick out other swamptowns which poked up from the eternal mire. Greens and yellows merged, writhed and rippled, hitting the banks in un-foreseeable ways. As he was looking, he saw what he thought to be a lantern, moving out on the bogs and a voice, calling for help. The boy ran to the end of the deck plates and clamoured down the decayed and rusted ladder to the surface of the marshes and dashed toward the light and the desperate voice of the poor soul lost on the bogs. The boy knew the safe path, remembering to keep to the ruts that the steam powered transporters leave when they drop their wares to the swamptowns. He eventually got to the light, a small lantern, sticking out of the mire. The sun was high in the sky and his home was far away, nothing more than a black smudge, miles away to the East.
"Help me", said a small voice not far away. It came from another little boy, half sunk into the mire. The boy pulled on the arms of the other and heaved him out of the carnivorous swamp.
"What are you doing out here? And what's your name, stranger?" asked the boy, wondering about his new friend as the other lifted his lantern from the swamp.

"I", he said, lifting his lantern high, "am Will O' the Whisp" and he shoved the boy into the swamp, which sank instantly.

Hi there!

I feel like this definitely has the potential to be a nice and adorable story, however I don't really know what's going on. I realize that you want this to be a short story and all, but I feel as if it might be a bit too short. Basically the problem is that this is what it sounds like, minus the two sentences of description in there: "He was on the dock and then he saw this lantern so he crossed the swamp to get to it and the lantern was a faerie who pushed him into the swamp and he died." There's no context, no description, barely any plot and no explanation.

So, one of the things I'd improve on first is what this boy thinks of the wandering lantern. Is it something they see a lot of in the forest, or is it something normal; something he's just never seen before? That would be good to know. Also mentioning, perhaps, what the faerie thinks of the boy would be interesting, that way we can see if the faerie believes humans are occupying their world or they're occupying the human world.

Another huge thing is basically the interactions between the faerie and the boy. I don't really understand how it got from the boy chasing after this lantern to the boy being pushed in and drowned in the swamp? Also, if I hadn't read the description of your story, I wouldn't know it was a faerie. All you give is a name; you never tell us what the faerie looks like, if it's flying, why it glows, all of that. So basically, just work on your description.

Aside from all that, as I said before, this has the potential to be cute. On one hand you have too much description, but on the other you don't want to have too much, because how it's written now I was able to picture a lot of it in my head, which is what's fun about books, and what some writers fail to let their authors do. Basically, describe how the faerie looks (tell is that he is, in fact, a faerie), maybe some opinions on the matter, and all around add some more scenes into this. Make it a longer process to find the faerie; add a little bit more adventure into it.

Keep writing!

Classy

Well, thank you for that constructive critism, classy. I would just like to add that this little piece is an experiment with faerie stories, as I haven't really wrote one before, so al the criticism I could get is good. On a further note, to anyone who has been following the Time Of Clockwork (the "big" cycle I am also doing) the nrxt few stories will be posted soon,

with all due respect

skutter11

adventurous spirit he was

Don't forget the comma here- thus "adventurous spirit that he was,"

when the World was young

Unless 'the World' is the name of your realm, there's no need to capitalize it.

Son",

Commas go inside the quotation marks, as a general rule.