Moonlight Messenger

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Interesting story which grabs you with a good opening.

Some things...

"The wind whipped over Nuntius' face" only if the wind whipped over two or more guys named Nuntus. Although this looks weird, the proper grammer is "Nuntius's."

And, is it just me, or do you use way too many hypens in your descriptive paragraph about Nuntius? And what the heck does white-blue mean?

"It was a cold night and Nuntius pulled up his hood so that It covered his long sand-coloured hair. His white-blue eyes shone in the moonlight. He wore a long ragged, black cloak which was slightly too short because of his height, and knee-high black boots. His hands were rough and caloused, as if he had being doing hard labour all of his life. He carried no weapons, except for a small dagger attached to his belt."

can be changed to:

"It was a cold night and Nuntius pulled up his hood so that It covered his long sandy hair. His light blue eyes shone in the moonlight. He wore a long ragged, black cloak which was slightly too short because of his height, and knee-high black boots. His hands were rough and caloused, as if he had being doing hard labour all of his life. He carried no weapons, except for a small dagger attached to his belt. "

"Nuntius was tired after the long journey he had just completed, and he yawned deeply. He had his full concentration on the task ahead of him." This seems to contradict itself. He was tired, but he had concentration. I would think that he was trying to concentrate, or barely concentrating on anything except for the task ahead of him. Word choice is a very very powerful thing.

And "on the task ahead of him" sounds rather... forced, like you're trying to say to the reader, "Hey! I know this is slow right now, but it speeds up! Honest! See? I have a sentence here which foreshadows the impending conflict!" Which is very good and all, but it relies on false enthusiasm to keep the reader interested. Instead, describe what kind of conflict he's facing.

"He stopped in his tracks;listening intently." No semicolon is needed there and a comma will do just fine.

Um... why would he go into a forest with the sight of blood? That's another reason why you need to explain what task he is setting about doing.

So basically, describe what this mysterious task is, without stalling the story, and you should be fine. This may be a little tricky, but I would suggest only revealing only a little bit about the task, or at least the reason why he's going in a dark forest after he sees blood. Maybe all you need to say is, "His mother was kidnapped by the evil garden gnomes, and he needed to save her." Just enough to show us why he's doing what he's doing. It can be quite an incentive for us to read it.

But don't tell us too much!

Good luck!

Thank you for your opinion Snoink. I've noticed that in a lot of stories that people give away too much at the beginning, and I was trying my best not to do so. Perhaps I tried a bit too hard! There is one clue in the story that tells you what he is doing. His name. Nuntius is the Latin word for messenger. It's not a very obvious clue I know! And yes I did use too many hyphens...I was kind of secretly wishing no one would notice! And I'll try to explain what his "task" is a bit better. Thank you!

Definitely, trying too hard almost always curses a story.

There wasn't anything in particular that stood out about this for me. Snoink seems to have gotten most of it. I can tell that you know the character well. he did feel like a real person. The pace is pretty good. You're not rushing, which is something far too many people you age tend to do, but it's not too slow either. In fact, I think you could do even more with this and not ruin the pace.

My one suggestion, now that you've got the story down, is to think about tone and atmosphere. How does the character feel, and how do you want to reader to feel? For example, you say he is tired, but all you do to show that is to have him yawn. Instead, describe how he is moving. How do people behave when they are tired? Is he thinking about getting to an inn and relaxing in front of a fire with some ale or getting into a bed? Also, instead of saying "It was a cold night," you could perhaps describe the snow on the ground or say that Nuntius shivered before he pulls up his hood.

As for your character's name, I think it's a really good idea. The reader never needs to know what the name means, but it does add to the layers of the story.

I really hate these lines:

He carried no weapons, except for a small dagger attached to his belt.

If It weren't for the light of the full moon sitting among the stars Nuntius wouldn't have been able to see his hand in front of his face.

Both of these lines have one thing in common. They have an exception and an absolute in the same sentence.

First, we are told he carries "no weapons", then we are told he has one dagger. This exception violates the absolute that he carries "no weapons". To remedy this, a line like "The only weapon he carried was a dagger," might be in order.

The second one is different. What you said would be equivalent to this: "If it weren't for the sun, everything would be pitch black."

Reader reaction: DUH!

This is a line I'd use instead.

"The light of the full moon illuminated the ground well, but it made the shadows seem pitch black and menacing."

Thank you all for your opinions! They are highly appreciated. Thank you Helen, It was nice to get some positive feedback. I never really went over this when I wrote It. I'll have to take some time to edit It. Griffinkeeper, I do feel that I contradicted myself in the lines that you pointed out, and I will change them.

You're welcome. It's always good to hear positive feedback. You'll get a lot of people here thinking that you can't give a helpful critique unless you only point out the problems. But we gotta know when we're doing things right, too, don't we?

Just for the record:

If I don't mention something it means A) Someone already covered it or B)I missed it or C) It is good.

Ah! I suppose it helps to reread things, eh?

"Nuntius shivered and he pulled up his hood so that It covered his long sandy coloured hair. "

You can say instead:

"Nuntius shivered and pulled up his hood so that It covered his long sandy coloured hair."

Also... is there any reason why you're capitalizing "it?"

"He would've given an arm and a leg..."

Oh! Don't do this! What you're doing is putting a cliché in your writing. Basically, a cliché is a word or phrase that has been used so much that it has lost it's meaning. Do some linguistic exercises and come up with something better.

'The sooner Its delivered the better,'

Should be:

'The sooner It's delivered, the better,'

"The only weapon he carried was a small dagger. "

Ah... this seems out of style. You have nice sentences that flow together well, and then this breaks up the flow. And I must disagree with my lovely brother Grif. Whenever you say "except" it signifies that there is an exception to the rule. Readers have come to expect it. So you can keep that sentence, which flows a lot better than this one.

I'm still wondering why he went into a deep forest, but I figure I'll know that after chaper 2.

Thanks for the reply Snoink. To be honest, I think most of the changes I made really sucked! There's no reason that I'm capitalizing "it". I thought you were supposed to! Yeah I'm going to take out that cliche, I don't even know why I put it there... #-o

I put the sentence "The only weapon he carried was a small dagger" in because Griffinkeeper told me to. Maybe I shouldn't listen to other people too much! I agree, the other sentence was a lot better than this one.

I actually haven't got around to writing chapter 2 yet because I've been really busy...but I'm working on It! :thumb: