DARKLIGHT

DARK LIGHT

Prologue

A thousand sparks danced skyward for a brief moment, before being lost to the enfolding darkness of a starless sky. The hooded figure retrieved his staff from where it had been stirring the embers of the dying fire. Thin, mottled skin stretched across the gnarled knuckles that gripped the worn wood, this was the only thing that gave away the man’s age, or for that matter, anything about him, for his whole body was draped in an impressive crimson cloak.
I, however, already knew the mysterious looking figure. Herald was as ancient as the great oak tree that stood in the centre of my father’s field, and I suspected he had seen as many comings and goings. I cannot recall how I met Herald, he has been around ever since I can remember, sometimes he would disappear for an age, then return suddenly and it would feel as though he never left. People said he was a traveller, an explorer and dozen other odd professions, there was one thing though, at which Herald excelled.
‘Would you like to hear a story boy?’ Herald asked. His voice sounded impossibly youthful and held as sing-song quality to it. I failed miserably to stifle a yawn.
‘Well, is it another one or your home-spun yarns, or a true tale of one of your travels?’ At that moment the clouds shifted slightly, allowing a sliver of moonlight to fall upon herald's face. The shadow cast by his forehead created dark hollows where his eyes should have been so that I could not tell what sort of emotion he held in them, however I thought I saw a thin smile play briefly across his thin lips.
‘The truth...’ he began wistfully, ‘is what ever I decide to make you believe it is.’
And therein lays the power of the story teller.
So Herald began, and the fire roared appreciatively as I fed it another log...

Hey Jones,

You are a pretty superb writer. I really enjoyed this piece, and would definitely read more of it. Your prose is strong, your style intriguing, and most importantly, your story looks like it will be mystifying. I would definitely read more.

jones32 wrote:A thousand sparks danced skyward for a brief moment, before being lost to the enfolding darkness of a starless sky.

I would kill the "enfolding". It makes it just a little overdone.

The hooded figure retrieved his staff from where it had been stirring the embers of the dying fire.

Try cut out the middle part. It would read more smoothly like this, "The hooded figure retrieved his staff from the embers of the dying fire.

Thin, mottled skin stretched across the gnarled knuckles that gripped the worn wood,

End the sentence here.

this was the only thing that gave away the man’s age, or for that matter, anything about him, for his whole body was draped in an impressive crimson cloak.

Try, "This was the only indication that the man was old. In fact, it was the only indication of his mysteriousness. his entire body was draped in an impressive crimson cloak.

I, however, already knew the mysterious looking figure. Herald was as ancient as the great oak tree that stood in the centre of my father’s field, and I suspected he had seen as many comings and goings.

If he is so ancient, why are you unique in knowing him? Try rephrasing it as follows, "Despite his mysterious aura, along with many folk I knew him. Herald was as ancient... etc."

it would feel as though he never left.

he'd never left.

People said he was a traveller, an explorer and dozen other odd professions

End sentence here. Also, you can't be a profession. You have a profession. Try, "What he spent his time doing was a great mystery. Some said he was a traveler (one "l"), some said he was an explorer, but all of this was speculation.

‘Well, is it another one or your home-spun yarns, or a true tale of one of your travels?’

I'd start a new paragraph here.

‘The truth...’ he began wistfully, ‘is what ever I decide to make you believe it is.’

I don't really like the began here. A simple "said" would suffice.

And therein lays the power of the story teller.
So Herald began, and the fire roared appreciatively as I fed it another log...

And therein lies the power... The end is exceptional.

When you get the first chapter up, please PM me. I thought this was really good. There isn't much to critique, but it's a superb piece.

Have a good one!

Hey Jones, have we met? No? Well then, welcome to YWS! *throws confetti*. You can call me Stella and I will be your reviewer for today...

Just a tip, we don't like CAPS here, because we're picky, so perhaps if you change your title to 'Darklight', you might get some more responses for it. Just a suggestion. All caps makes us think you're a n00b . Which I'm sure you're not.

So, now, onto the critique!

I. NITPICKS

A thousand sparks danced skyward for a brief moment, before being lost to the enfolding darkness of a starless sky.

Perhaps replace the last 'sky' with 'night' to avoid repetition.

disappear for an age,

An age? How old is your main character?

‘is what ever I decide to make you believe it is.’

whatever is one word.

Right so. Due to the length, I don't have any specific points, so...

II. OVERALL

Your prose is pretty, although might be tending towards purple in places. Just be careful not to overdo it too much, remember, it's not the words that make the story, it's how you use them.

Would I go on reading? I don't know, it depends on what it says on the back of the book! Probably, it's quite interesting, although a bit random as well. Ah well, what can you do? It wasn't bad, not bad at all.

Hope I helped, feel free to drop me a note if you need anything!

-Stella.

I would definitely continue reading. Herald really caught my interest, and I want to know more about him and hear the story he is going to tell.

A thousand sparks danced skyward for a brief moment, before being lost to the enfolding darkness of a starless sky.

Nix the comma. It's unnecessary. Also, this sentence is a bit too chock full of description for my taste. I suggest splitting it into two separate ones: one describing the sparks, the other the sky.

The hooded figure retrieved his staff from where it had been stirring the embers of the dying fire.

Again, a bit too much description in one sentence. Yrclever had a good suggestion for improving this sentence.

Thin, mottled skin stretched across the gnarled knuckles that gripped the worn wood, this was the only thing that gave away the man’s age, or for that matter, anything about him, for his whole body was draped in an impressive crimson cloak.

"Gripping the worn wood was(were) a wizened hand(s), the gnarled knuckles and thin, mottled skin stretched over them the only indication of the man's age. The rest of his body betrayed nothing, concealed by the drape of an impressive crimson cloak." This reads a bit better.

Also, knuckles can't grip things by themselves. :P

I, however, already knew the mysterious looking figure.

To what extent is this knowing? You've worked so hard to create an air of mystery around the man, but this statement kind of kills it.

I suggest nixing this sentence in favor of "Herald was his name/we called him, and he was as ancient..."

I cannot recall how I met Herald; he has been around for as long as I can remember. He would sometimes disappear for a while before returning just as suddenly, and it would feel as though he had never left.

I've italicized suggested changes.

People said he was a traveler, an explorer, or one of a dozen other odd professions,

Semicolon, m-dash, or a period instead of a comma after professions.

there was one thing, though, at which we/I knew Herald excelled.

"Would you like to hear a story, boy? Herald asked. His voice sounded impossibly youthful and held a sing-song quality to it.

Dialogue is always in double quotations. Also, too much description just thrown at us at once. I suggest splitting it up and incorporating it into the tags when he speaks.

"Well," I said, failing miserably to stifle a yawn, "is it another one or your home-spun yarns, or a true tale of one of your travels?"

This flows a bit better than just merging the two parts.

At that moment, the clouds shifted slightly, allowing a sliver of moonlight to fall upon Herald's face. The shadow cast by his forehead created dark hollows where his eyes should have been so that I could not tell what sort of emotion he held in them. However, I thought I saw a small smile play briefly across his thin lips.

You use "thin" again too close together.

"The truth," he began wistfully, "is what ever I decide to make you believe it is."

Nix the ellipses. I'm not sure a wistful tone is appropriate. Wistful is more "Oh, how I wish things were this way," than "It's whatever I decide to make you believe."

And therein lays the power of the storyteller.

Watch the prose. Don't try and stuff description into every single sentence. It reads as purple and messy if you do. Instead, scatter the bits of description into multiple sentences and remember the general guideline that each sentence should talk about one thing. As such, each sentence should only focus on describing one thing if there is description. You can sometimes get away with describing two (or three) things, but I advise against it until you get a bit more practice with avoiding description overload.

Hey!
I loved that, and yes I would definitely want to read on. Your descriptions were great and we find out quite alot about the two characters (especially herald) in just a few short paragraphs.

There are only one or two small nit picks I would like to point out:

People said he was a traveller, an explorer and a dozen other odd professions, there was one thing though, at which Herald excelled.

His voice sounded impossibly youthful and held [s]as[/s] a sing-song quality to it. I failed miserably to stifle a yawn.

‘Well, is it another one [s]or[/s] of your home-spun yarns, or a true tale of one of your travels?’

I would suggest going through the piece with a fine toothed comb. Once or twice you made some silly mistakes like not capitalising the first letter in Herald's name.
A small problem I found in this was that you write long sentences divided by many commas. Doing this makes your piece seem messy and it confuses the reader. Divide some of the long sentences into smaller ones, this will make your story flow well and make it much more enjoyable to read.
If you post the rest of the story, please PM me! I'd love to review it.
xxmimixx

Hey!
I loved that, and yes I would definitely want to read on. Your descriptions were great and we find out quite alot about the two characters (especially herald) in just a few short paragraphs.

There are only one or two small nit picks I would like to point out:

People said he was a traveller, an explorer and a dozen other odd professions, there was one thing though, at which Herald excelled.

His voice sounded impossibly youthful and held [s]as[/s] a sing-song quality to it. I failed miserably to stifle a yawn.

‘Well, is it another one [s]or[/s] of your home-spun yarns, or a true tale of one of your travels?’

I would suggest going through the piece with a fine toothed comb. Once or twice you made some silly mistakes like not capitalising the first letter in Herald's name.
A small problem I found in this was that you write long sentences divided by many commas. Doing this makes your piece seem messy and it confuses the reader. Divide some of the long sentences into smaller ones, this will make your story flow well and make it much more enjoyable to read.
If you post the rest of the story, please PM me! I'd love to review it.
xxmimixx

That was great! I would definetely read on, just to see what Herald's story is. There's not really a lot here for me to review. The other posters seem to have pointed out most of the issues. However, there are some things I noticed...


My main questions are about the main character. I know that this is just the prologue, but you should try to give some more information about him. How old is he? Or is it a girl? I'm not sure. That's definetely some basic information to get down from the very beginning, along with a name.

And how does the main character know Herald? Do they live in the same village or something? If the main character has known Herald "ever since I can remember", I would assume that Herald has been involved in his life from the time he was born. How? As a neighbor? The crazy old man who lives on the outskirts of town? A grandfather?

Herald in himself seems an interesting character. Why does the main character ask "is it another one or your home-spun yarns, or a true tale of one of your travels?" Is Herald known for lying or telling untrue stories? Is he the kind of storyteller who just tells the story and lets you decide if it's true or not in the end?

Your story also seems a bit choppy in places, mostly because you have a couple of long, run on sentences with two or three commas. (Kind of like the one I just wrote, hehe.) I think that if you iron out the story and take the suggestions of the people who posted above it would be a lot better. At times you seem a bit wordy, too, almost as though you're getting too caught up in fancy descriptions to really get to the core of the story. That's not necessarily a bad thing - you have some beautiful, vivid descriptions and I can clearly imagine the scene - but you just want to make sure that the story doesn't get too bogged down with them. So far you seem to be maintaining that balance pretty well. Just make sure that you don't get too carried away with flowery descriptions as the story goes on.

This is definetely some writing that you're going to want to read over and edit several times, just to make sure it flows well and is easy to understand. Overall, though, I love it! This is definetely a story that I can see myself getting sucked into, just because Herald's such an intriguing character. And the ending was excellent. I can't wait to read more!

Bonjour, mon ami. *bows* This story is intigueing, but could be a little better. I will read on because there is a promise of it improving, but you want to attract everyone to your story and not just the fantasy writers. I found only two fixable problems with this story. Here they are:

His voice sounded impossibly youthful and held a sing-song quality to it.

So Herald began, and the fire roared appreciatively as I fed it another log...

This does not sound right to me as an ending. I think you should keep this, but add something after it, like: And so Herald began his tale/story . . . Or something like that, and make sure the eclipses are spaced.

Otherwise, I believe this story can and will improve, you just have to put the effort into it.



Signed,
Lethero the Werewolf