Silver Flame

A wolf’s howl broke the silence over Mourner’s Peak. Jake shivered and pulled his cloak
tighter around him. Flickering embers made shadows of his features.

Seeing the youth’s reaction, Bran leaned towards him. The look in her eyes told Jake to
brace for a lesson. Her voice creaked and sighed like an old willow. “They say those beasts
are souls of people trapped in this life. They lament their fate by night as they trouble the living."

As if to add emphasis, the cry came again. "That sound," Bran continued, "is the reason they named this place Mourner's Peak. Lost souls or no, everyone fears the wolf."

Jake could understand the sentiment, but he had his doubts about the "lost souls" bit. He knew, though, that the old woman wouldn't take kindly to corrections.

WHy's everyone fear the wolf Kyte?

It's a good introduction. You've piqued my interest.

, "is the reason they this

place Mourner's Peak.

you missed a word there.


Otherwise, very nice. I definitely want to read more.

Interesting hook, but did you have to end it so soon!? I'm interested! So what happens next?

Yeah, that'd be my main gripe with this piece, in that it was so short. Make it longer! Tell the rest of the story! AGH! *is frustrated with lack of reading material*

Also, the format needs to be tweaked a little bit. As is, it is all jammed together in strange ways. I thought that YWS fixes that now, but you seemed to have slipped through the cracks. My recommended formatting would be:

A wolf’s howl broke the silence over Mourner’s Peak. Jake shivered and pulled his cloaktighter around him. Seeing the youth’s reaction, Bran leaned towards him. The look in her eyes told Jake to brace for a lesson. Her voice creaked and sighed like an old willow.

“They say those beasts are souls of people trapped in this life. They lament their fate by night as they trouble the living."

As if to add emphasis, the cry came again.

"That sound," Bran said, "is the reason they this place Mourner's Peak. Lost souls or no, everyone fears the wolf."

Also, since Bran is still the one talking, the last "Bran said" could be changed to "Bran continued" just to make it clear.

Anyway, nice work here. Continue it! Me wanties to readies moreness!

*thumbs up*

~GryphonFledgling

Short but interesting. I would work on changing up your sentence structure, and varying the length because right now they almost all read "subject-verb-object".

I like that you've bottled your characters' personalities into so few lines--readers can already get a feel for them. One question is when this is supposed to be set. You've got a character named "Jake", which is very, very modern and one named "Bran" which... is not. Setting of time must be established quickly or you will confuse readers.

Other than that, well done! Let me know if you continue.

Avens

Great work, Kyte! Although, as the others said, you may want to organize it a bit. It has no flow. you need to break it up more. You know sentences, paragraph and all that grammatical nonsense! (JK about the nonsense part, but anyway...) and definitely do need to write more.

Hiya!

As soon as I saw the word 'wolf' I had to read it. Anyway, this does feel a bit short, even for an intro. (Incidentally, is there more to this??? I know it was just posted today, but I'd like to read more. PM me if/when you post more.) The double spacing was also a little weird, since it made it look like you were trying to make it look longer.

So. It’s pretty hard to give us much to go on when it’s only about half a paragraph long. Instead of going over what you haven’t told us, let’s go over what you have:

1: You have introduced two characters. Bran is obviously a bit more developed than Jake, who is presumably your main character.

2: You’ve also introduced some of the setting. We know it might be cold out, because of your reference to the cloak. We also know, (again, because of that reference) that the story probably takes place in a medieval-type setting. If this is the case, then I suggest changing his name. Jake sounds a bit too modern.
3: You’ve introduced the wolves, and Mourner’s Peak. I’m guessing that the wolves will play a big part later on in the story. I guess I’ll leave this for now. You did interest me in your story, which of course is a key point.

Ok, now I’ll tell you a couple points which you didn’t have, and which I would like to see more of:
1: Length: As has been said before, this piece is REALLY short. Short pieces in my opinion are generally better, since more people will end up giving in-depth critiques. However, in this case, it feels as though you’ve cut and pasted the first paragraph.
2: Description: We as yet no nothing of what his surroundings look like. In fact, the only thing you’ve described for us so far is Bran’s voice. Your reader is left thinking through the whole thing: “I wonder what his clothes actually look/feel/smell like. I wonder if he’s outside/in a small hut/etc. “ Even though this is fantasy, we still need to have some idea of what is happening around the character. This gets back to length as well. If there is more description, then the piece will be longer.
3: I don’t know how to describe this, but you seem to be missing words here and there throughout the piece. Here is one obvious example:

"That sound," Bran said, "is the reason they this
place Mourner's Peak. Lost souls or no, everyone fears the wolf."

Ahem. You need a ‘call’ between ‘they’ and ‘this’.

4: Spacing: Like I said before, the double spacing was a bit odd. I also noticed, (and I see this a lot) is that your sentences don’t have two spaces before each one. This isn’t a big deal, but getting back to the length thing again….
Alright… So sorry for the long review. I think I got carried away. Anyway, if you have any questions, post more of this, or you want a critique, (and I actually mean that) feel free to PM me.
See ya around!
~Lupis

you copied my title. that aint fair. stop, or i'll report you.
-Cobra. the real Cobra

Kyte wrote:A wolf’s howl broke the silence over Mourner’s Peak. Jake shivered and pulled his cloak
tighter around him. Flickering embers made shadows of his features.

Seeing the youth’s reaction, Bran leaned towards him. The look in her eyes told Jake to
brace for a lesson. Her voice creaked and sighed like an old willow. “They say those beasts
are souls of people trapped in this life. They lament their fate by night as they trouble the living."

As if to add emphasis, the cry came again. "That sound," Bran continued, "is the reason they named this place Mourner's Peak. Lost souls or no, everyone fears the wolf."

Jake could understand the sentiment, but he had his doubts about the "lost souls" bit. He knew, though, that the old woman wouldn't take kindly to corrections.

Make sure you start each line of dialogue on a new, well, line:

As if to add emphasis, the cry came again.
"That sound," Bran continued, "is the reason they named this place Mourner's Peak. Lost souls or no, everyone fears the wolf."


> also don't know if the word "emphasis" fits right in here. Or "Youth's".

> The look in her eyes told Jake to brace himself for a lesson


Overall, a very intriguing beginning and I'd like to read more!!

Okay, so. From what I can see from the other crits, you've pretty much fixed missing word errors, and the like. So, moving on!

First off, what exactly is this? It seems a bit too short. Is it a first chapter? Prologue? Are you even planning on expanding it? I'm just a little confused.

There seems to be good character developement. I get the idea that Jake is a little bit twitchy to be up on Mourner's Peak. I can't get a good read on Bran, though.

All in all, seems decent enough. Just a little expanding would be nice.

Sachi

Awesome, Kyte! I love this piece, though I wonder the same as everyone else: where's the rest?

Flickering embers made shadows of his features.

I'm not sure this part makes sense, maybe "Flickering embers made his features hidden in shadow."
Just curious, why are they on Mourner's Peak, and why does everyone fear the wolf?

A really great piece, not everyone can write a good story about wolves. No offense. I heard something about a story from the wolves's point of view, and I'm curious about that, too. Great work again, I applaud you!
BTW, I know where you live.






-ClimberSquirrel

A very gripping introduction, though a little short, but I can really visualize what's happening. It sounds very interesting. From what you wrote, Jake strikes me as a young, carefree kid. And I see Bran as a wise old woman who is a little superstitious. I wish it was longer and more detailed. Also, there was one thing in particular that confused me:

Kyte wrote: Flickering embers made shadows of his features.

Where are the flickering embers coming from? A fire? What features? It's a little confusing. Another thing is when you said, "brace for a lesson", I think "lecture" would have been a better word. But so far I think you have a good start. Some advice is that you should let the characters just do what they do, and the story will shape itself. Keep writing, you're doing a good job!

Hello,

I would say this is not long enough or detailed enough to catch my interest. From an intro I usually expect about a chapter or at least a page. The setting needs more description, as do the characters, though you have a very good start. I like the imagery you have going with the fire. Jake, who seems most likely to be a main character, is flat for lack of dialogue or personalized thoughts., and Bran is not much better though I like her name. The part about lost souls is just confusing to me, but perhaps you want to make it a loose end that the reader has to read on for. Either way, just a bit more would be appreciated. good work, I look forward to reading more.