The Duel

OK, this once got quite a lot of description in (I'm told i can go a little over the top with description, so please tell me if it is too much.)

The green valleys of Shalim lay silent as a low mist cover the land like a blanket of pure white, only to be pierced by the tops of the tallest hills. The forest lie sleeping covered in the blanket of mist with the tallest trees pointing out their green heads. The peaceful silence was broken by the most nosiest and stupid creatures on the planet: humans.
Thou they may be the most stupid and nosiest creatures, they are all so the most powerful; not even the elves of the moon glades could match their power. They could control magic like no other being, a gift from the spirit of the Earth: Mulan. They were given such power and they used it so unwisely, they destroyed nature to make room for themselves; rather than live in harmony and protect it like Mulan had intended them to do.
The older and much wiser races had tried to stop them, but to no prevail; now with no other race to fight they fought themselves. The humans split up into seven different kingdoms, all seeking blood of each other, they fought and fought, then they made alliances, then they broke them and fought again. This war continued and plagued the land, which had once been full of peace; now only a few strands of peace remained, which are now broken by the fury of war.
Breaking the silence of the valleys of Shalim were five men on top of the tallest hill, they were tall men of the highland heights with ginger beards and strong legs. They there to break the peace, like all humans did, they would kill each other in the fury of war and their blood will stain the land and shall break the last strand of peace that exists in no-man’s land.
The peaceful wet grass was disturbed by the roaring of one of the men, a fat one with bits of food stuck in his dark ginger beard. “Gentlemen” he roared making animals for miles around flee in fear “this is last chance to apologise.” He looked around at two men facing each other ten meters apart, no one moved and so the man continued roaring “this is to be a straight duel, no cowardly moves; if one of you is to fall the other man shall wait for him to get back up, understood?” Both men nodded at the man who roared “mark your ready.” The man looked at each of the men who were facing each other and they both nodded again. The fat man roared “Fight!”
Both men extended their minds, creating a magical membrane around themselves that would protect them from harm. One of them, the taller one with an ugly scar from his left eye to his ginger beard, sprouted red fire from his hands; he then proceeded to chuck the fire at the other man, who was slightly shorter. The shorter man put his hands in front of him, with his palms up to the sky, he then pushed upwards and the water on the grass rose up and formed blanket of clear water in front of him.
The fireballs from the other man began to crash against the blanket of water, the water sizzled as the red fire was launched against it. Though the blanket of water was working it was being slowly evaporated by the other man’s fireballs, the man with the scar stopped launching fireballs at the blanket of water for a moment. Then in a blink of an eye the man who controlled the water formed it into whips that surged towards the man with the scar. The man with the scar dogged the first whip of water as it cracked a few feet away from him; he didn’t have as much luck with the second one.
The whip of water smacked him hard on the magical membrane, which protected him like a shield. The man’s membrane held in tact though and stopped him from being hurt; the man fought back launching fireball after fireball at the other man. The man’s aim was wild and with each fireball it grew worse; fireballs hit grass turning it black and hit rocks cracking them in half. Soon the hill top had turned from a peaceful and quiet place to a place with scorch marks were peaceful grass had proudly once stood.
Thou most of the fireballs were completely off target some were landing near the shorter man who again tried to whip the other man, but this time a fireball collided with it and the whip turned into steam. The man with the scar pressed his advantage launching even more fireballs at the other man as fast as he could. The man with the water whip pulled more water from the grass and added it to his current whip making it grow, he then started whipping fireballs and making them go out one by one. The man with the scar tried launching more fireballs at the other man, which were easily stopped by his whip; then all of a sudden whips of water started appearing out of the ground in front of the man with the scar.
The whips started to whip him from all side and he poured more and more of his power into his membrane to stop it being breached. The man was getting whipped from every side and he started to run out of magic, his face told it; his eyes where wide and scared and his face was white as the fog. Then without a moment’s hesitation the man with the water whips, pulled the other whips back to his main one, then formed into a giant floating bubble of water that charge at the man with the scar. It struck him with a splash and lifted straight up into the air and off the hill, he then he then pelted downwards and crashed down at the bottom of the hill; blood leaking out of him and staining the ground.

cover the land like a blanket of pure white

"cover the land like a pure white blanket" reads better

The forest lie sleeping

lay

the blanket of mist

repetition of the idea of a blanket. might be better to try for varying imagery.

the most nosiest and

"most nosy" or "nosiest"

Thou they may

"Though"

most stupid and nosiest creature

again, "most stupid and nosy crature"

Thou they may be the most stupid and nosiest creatures, they are all so the most powerful; not even the elves of the moon glades could match their power.

This is the first sentence with an obvious change of tense. if humans "may" be the stupidest creatures then they "can" match the elves power (rather than 'could')
"Also" is one word, not two.

but to no prevail

"to no avail", as prevail makes no sense in this case.

This war continued and plagued the land

is "plagued" the word you want here? How can it spread if humans are already the dominant species? Perhaps it "scarred" the land?

tallest hill, they were tall

The description of the men can't be joined to the sentence in this way. Rearticulate it or put a full stop. Also, there are better descriptions of size than "tall"

from his hands; he then proceeded

if you *must* have this as one sentence, use "and". I see a trend of overlong sentences developing here.

blanket of clear water

another use of "blanket" as a describing term. I would advise the use of a thesaurus. I appreciate membrane used in this context though; most writers don't use the term even when it's what they mean.

Then in a blink of an eye the man

"Then, in a blink of an eye, the man" commas are the key

the scar dogged the first

"dodged"

The whip of water smacked him hard on the magical membrane

It sounds as though the membrane is some kind of limb, a part of the human; rather than an implement used by him. Perhaps "smacked the magical membrane" is more appropriate.

held in tact though

"intact" is also one word

Thou most of the fireballs

*Though* again

completely off target some were

you need a semicolon or full stop after "target".

pressed his advantage launching even

"pressed his advantage, launching even"

pulled more water from the grass

It's foggy and cloudy, can't he pull it from the air? Better yet, if he pulls it from the ground, show the grass to wilt and die, thus indicating the lack of care shown to nature.

his eyes where wide

"were"

hesitation the man with the water whips, pulled the other

shift the comma after "whips" and put it before "the man"

It seems to me, particularly in light of the final paragraph, that your problem is not too much desription. It is instead perhaps an overreliance on the desription of what happens rather than how it happens, telling rather than showing.

You have problems with spelling that assumedly were not picked up by a spell checker because the mistakes you make still make words, merely not words that make sense in the context you mean. This is where proof-reading comes i handy; or editing by a third party (such as we, here).


Hopefully further work on this piece will reveal the panache that every fantasy story needs to actually *be* fantasy, that thread of unique thought that separates it from the chaff.

Good Luck,

Rubric

Hey there linkasy. My name is Sureal, and I’ll be your reviewer for today.

I’m gonna go through, quote sections, and give suggestions on how to improve said section, whilst also looking out for technical stuff like errors in spelling and grammar.

Ready? Let’s go. =)

[s]Thou[/s] Though they may be the most stupid

Typo.

“Gentlemen,” he roared, making animals for miles around flee in fear, “this is last chance to apologise.” He looked around at two men facing each other ten meters apart. No one moved and so the man continued, [s]roaring[/s] “This is to be a straight duel, no cowardly moves; if one of you is to fall the other man shall wait for him to get back up, understood?” Both men nodded at [s]the man[/s] him, [s]who[/s] and he roared, “Mark your ready.” [s]The man[/s] He looked at each of [s]the men who were facing each other[/s] them and they both nodded again. The fat man roared, “Fight!”

A lot to go over in this paragraph. Let’s begin:

1) Watch out for you your dialogue punctuation - doing it wrong makes you writing look worse than it actually is. Check this link to see how it should be done. =)

2) Don’t overused words. You used ‘roared’ and it’s variant ‘roaring’ too many times here. Once is enough. I crossed out the second one because it simply isn’t needed at all, but left the third and fourth ones (underlined) so you can decide on a replacement word yourself; personally, I would recommend the word ‘said’, though.

3) Always try to avoid needlessly complex sentence structures. Sometimes simply ‘he’ or ‘they’ makes for much easier reading than something such as ‘the men who were facing each other’.

One of them, the taller one with an ugly scar from his left eye to his ginger beard, sprouted red fire from his hands; he then proceeded to chuck the fire at the other man, who was slightly shorter.

1) You don’t need to tell us the second man is slightly shorter, as you’ve already told us the first one is taller. Beware redundancy.

2) I think you’ve mentioned ginger beards a touch too often now. Simply ‘beard’ will do, IMO.

3) Also beware the phrase ‘he then proceeded to’, because it never reads well. It also sounds very odd in the context you’ve put it: it’s a very formal way of writing, but is immediately followed by the word ‘chuck’, which is very informal.

Personally, I’d change the entire sentence into something like: ‘One of them, the taller one with an ugly scar from his left to his beard, sprouted fire from his hands, and threw it at the other.’ It’s clear and clean and simple and gets across what you want to say.

The shorter man put his hands in front of him, with his palms up to the sky, [s]he then[/s] and pushed upwards; [s]and[/s] the water on the grass rose up and formed a blanket of clear water in front of him.

1) Beware the word ‘then’. It never reads good in action sequences. Very often it’s best to just put ‘and’.

2) The other alterations I’ve suggested (aside from the insertion of an ‘a’ you missed) are only there to fix the repetition my first suggestion introduced.

The fireballs from the other man [s]began to[/s] crashed against the blanket of water, the water [s]sizzled[/s] sizzling as the red fire was launched against it.

1) You don’t really need the ‘began to’. In fact, the sentence reads better without it.

2) Your sentence structure is incorrect here. You’ll want to either change ‘sizzled’ to ‘sizzling’ (as I’ve suggested above), or else replace the comma with a semi-colon or a full-stop/period. (Rule of thumb: if the second part of the sentence could stand on its own without the first part - as is the case above - you need either a semi-colon or to make it a new sentence.)

3) Personally, I would also change ‘was launched’ into something like ‘crashed’ or ‘smashed’, or whatever, but I suppose that’s just a personal thing.

Though the blanket of water was working it was being slowly evaporated by the [s]other man’s[/s] fireballs, the man with the scar stopped launching fireballs at the blanket of water for a moment.

1) We know the fire balls belong to the other man. You don’t need to tell us again.

2) You have another sentence structure problem: that comma shouldn’t be there. (See how the second part of the sentence, the part after the comma, could be it’s own sentence? That’s the sign you have a problem.) You could replace with the comma with a semi-colon, make the second part its own sentence (in which case the comma becomes a full-stop/period), or you could stick in a conjunction such as ‘and’.

Personally, I would make the second part into a new sentence.

Then in a blink of an eye the man who controlled the water formed it into whips that surged towards the man with the scar. The man with the scar [s]dogged[/s] dodged the first whip of water as it cracked a few feet away from him; he didn’t have as much luck with the second one.

Be careful with the names you apply to your nameless characters. Repeating ‘the man with the scar’ gets a bit tiresome. Personally, if I were you, I’d replace the bolded one with simply ‘his opponent’

The whip of water smacked him hard on the magical membrane, which protected him like a shield.

You might want to change your wording to get rid of the unintentional alliteration.

[s]The man’s[/s] His membrane held [s]in tact[/s] intact though, [s]and stopped him from being hurt;[/s] and [s]the man[/s] he fought back, launching fireball after fireball at the other man.

1) As above: oftentimes ‘he’ works better than something like ‘the man’.

2) Be careful with needless information. The reader can deduce that the man will be unharmed if his shield holds firms, you don’t need to state it.

3) I’ve also suggested you change your sentence structure to use a conjunction (‘and’) rather than a semi-colon here. I just think it reads better with the other suggestions I’ve made.

The man’s aim was wild and with each fireball it grew worse; fireballs hit grass, turning it black, and hit rocks, cracking them in half.

Commas help the reader to better understand what’s going on.

Soon the hill top had turned from a peaceful and quiet place into a place with scorch marks were peaceful grass had [s]proudly[/s] once stood.

1) Watch out for repetition. Delete one of the ‘peaceful’s, or replace one of them with a different word.

2) The word ‘proudly’ is oddly placed. You could get rid of it altogether as I’ve suggested above (mainly because I find it hard to imagine grass being proud: trees are proud, grass strikes me as being more humble), but if you want to keep it, move it after the word ‘once’ - it’ll read a lot better there.

[s]Thou[/s] Though most of the fireballs were completely off target, some [s]were landing[/s] landed near the shorter man, who again tried to whip the other man, but this time a fireball collided with it and the whip turned into steam.

1) I suggested changing ‘were landing’ to ‘landed’, as the former strikes me as being much too passive for an action scene.

2) I’ve underlined ‘the other man’, because, again, it bogs down the reading. Try to find something else to replace it with. You could perhaps use simply ‘he’, or perhaps ‘his opponent’.

The man with the scar pressed his advantage, launching even more fireballs at the other man as fast as he could. The man with the water whip pulled more water from the grass and added it to his current whip, making it grow[s],[/s]. He then [s]started whipping[/s] whipped the fireballs and [s]making[/s] made them go out, one by one. The man with the scar tried launching more fireballs at the other man, which were easily stopped by his whip; then all of a sudden, whips of water [s]started appearing[/s] appeared out of the ground in front of the man with the scar.

You know the drill. =)

The whips [s]started to whip[/s] whipped him from all side and he poured more and more of his power into his membrane to stop it being breached. [s]The man[/s] He was getting whipped from every side and [s]he[/s] started to run out of magic[s],[/s]; his face told it[s];[/s]. His eyes [s]where[/s] were wide and scared and his face was as white as the fog. Then, without a moment’s hesitation, the man with the water whips[s],[/s] pulled the other whips back to his main one, [s]then[/s] and formed it into a giant floating bubble of water that charge at the man with the scar. It struck him with a splash and lifted him straight up into the air and off the hill[s],[/s]. He [s]then he then[/s] pelted downwards and crashed down at the bottom of the hill[s];[/s], blood leaking out of him and staining the ground.

Careful with your repetition of ‘whip’ at the beginning.

I think the rest of the stuff here is stuff we’ve already gone over: avoid ‘then’, consider where to place commas, don’t overused clumsy phrases such as ‘the man with the scar’ (at the very least use something like ‘the scarred man’). The rest of the stuff is just sentence structure, missing words and typos. =)

---------

All in all, not a bad piece at all. You might want to open with a stronger paragraph: whilst your description is well written, it’s usually a good idea to open a story with some kind of ‘catch’, something that will immediately capture your reader’s attention. Alas, describing the countryside often isn’t a good way to capture your reader’s attention.

But aside from that, and aside from the stuff I’ve pointed out above, yeah, this is good. =) Is this a stand alone piece, or is it just an opening for a longer story? It could work as either.

Keep on writing.

-- Sureal


P.S. Oh, and just an FYI: YWS has a 'two reviews to each story/poem you post' rule. You currently have two stories and no reviews. It'd be great if you could do some reviews before posting any more stories. Thanks. =)

Though I am here for a review, I prefer to stay steadfast to the greater importance of the story, the plot. Grammer, as the other reviewers, could have been a tad bit more organized, however you seemed to keep the damge to a fair level, and was able to keep my mind in the story not on the words.

I enjoyed the battle as, like you proclaimed, the detail was immense almost as though the work was a homage to Tolkien himself. They were no ordianry hill, but they were the tallest. The man with the scar lay, but with blood pooling to prove it was no sleep. You also decided to keep the detail to the level of which did not distract from the plot. Though they were the tallest trees, they could have been imagnined as curvy or sharped along the edges, thus allowing the reader to write his or her portion of the stroyline.

I conclusion, my overall review is well. You worked to the appropriate condiitions and portions and to the best of those abilities. *****

This was a very well thought out chapter. I saw a few spelling mistakes in there, the one I can remember is where you spelled thou instead of though. A great way to keep a fight scene quick and interesting is to try and say the character's names as little as possible. This sentence is a good example:

Then in a blink of an eye the man who controlled the water formed it into whips that surged towards the man with the scar. The man with the scar dogged the first whip of water as it cracked a few feet away from him; he didn’t have as much luck with the second one.

If you read through it you can see how you get destracted when you see the phrase "the man with the scar" placed so close to the same phrase in the next paragraph. You can eliminate this problem by connecting the two sentences so it sounds like this:

Then in a blink of an eye the man who controlled the water formed it into whips that surged towards the man with the scar who dogged the first whip of water as it cracked a few feet away from him; he didn’t have as much luck with the second one.



Keep up the good work.

You should give each of the characters names so that you can identify them easier.
I have some tips to make the duel more entertaining. From reading it seemed like they just stayed in one place. Make them move around. Also, it's always cool when the underdog triumphs. If you really want the water guy to win then make him get injured. maybe have his membrane brake down.

Just remember that when you deal with magic duels, there are so many possibilities that can happen.

hope this helps.

Nice, I really liked it, I'd tone down the description a little but that's just my opinion. I hope you keep it up.