Mountain Journey

Dear Hikers,
This is me. This is my story. It is engraved everywhere upon me, waiting for a reader. My story can be read by many, but hikers are the most skilled at my reading. And by hikers I mean all who walk across my terrain, rugged and gentle.

I am an old mountain. My name is not known as I lie awaiting in valley of my siblings, hidden by mist and the power of time. Many creatures walk across me, happy to be in a place free of human touch. Trees lay root deep within me, along with flowers and grasses.

My beginnings are simple. I was made at the start. I was young then, free of all who wish evil. The start was a time for moving and seeing. At first all was one and few creatures cared to notice my grandeur for they were of weak minds.

Then, at the end of this time of unity the lands split causing all dear to me to leave. More land was created all the time from the center of the Earth, where all my roots lie. Few creatures resided on me, and few plants as well. My distant cousin released the power of the center, destroying all of our life as we were joined at the base.

For years we remained life less together next a great land mass, also free of life. We waited, holding our earthly breath for any sign of life. One day among billions a small creature stepped on me , coming from the water. Its presence gave me life. From its single metronomic heart I drew power, causing the land to bloom with power and might.

My green dress of life spread to my cousin and what remained of the landmass as it long moved ago by the power of the core. At this time I was moved by force below me causing me to rise beyond the height of all. Life continued nicely for a wonderful period of time. My cousin nor I felt the call of the core.

One century after this great event, I felt a changing. The Earth shifted and so did I. I left my cousin behind, glad to be moving albeit slowly. The organisms across me grew and prospered to a great size. My size grew as well nearly doubling bringing new creatures and more room to grow.

At some point in time I joined with a group of small lands each separated with miles water. I believe most call these islands. I moved to the center of these islands, influencing them all with my new life. I stood, towering above them, a tropical king of sorts. I was happy, but not content.

By the force of the Earth I continued my journey. For a time longer than that of which I would like to count I was alone. All around me rose a land coming from the core. It was young, but it understood my power and treated me with a deep respect. I waited for this land to calm, then I spread by greenery to it. Again I was happy. But not content.

I shook my way free of the land and continued my journey, always heading towards my past. I journeyed through and around lands seeing glimpses of what all fearfully whispering creatures call man. My weak creatures were kept safe from this horrid beast. Even as I moved I grew towering over all.

Before realizing my destination, I arrived. It was my birthplace. All my siblings were gathered. We spoke in whispers, telling our tales of life after separation. We spread our life, only to find we were mostly the same. I stood greater than all, towering from the center of my family. Land spread all around us, but it was a vicious land keeping us safe from humans.

Dear hiker, my tale is all around you. You can see it in my great height, and influence of life across the Earth. I am crossed with animal tracks and my head is covered in a white cap. Despite my old age I continue to grow, overseeing my people. No one has dared penetrate our rock hard walls, but they would see, dear hikers, a wild beauty unmatched by all.
Goodbye,
Me

Hi You,

We read your tale with great interest. In particular we liked the sense of metanarrative and clever use of adjectives.

Howsoever, dearest mountain, I feel the need to criticize a few aspects of your writing style. First, it does not look like a letter. Paragraphs in letters tend to be longer, and letters rarely have double-spaced paragraphs, so these things should be avoided when writing letters (both in narrative and real life). Second, there are a few small grammatical errors. To pick out a few examples, "I felt a changing" should be "I felt a change," and "each separated with miles water" should be "each separated with miles of water." There are others, and you can find these by doing a close reading of your text.

The next thing to watch is your sentence structure. While it is good to see that you are varying the lengths of your sentences, you should learn to group similar ideas and make sure no sentence has too many different ideas. For example:

My story can be read by many, but hikers are the most skilled at my reading. And by hikers I mean all who walk across my terrain, rugged and gentle.

... would be better as something like this ...

Although all can read my story, only those who know me will understand it. Only those who care to walk across my terrain, both wild and gentle, will know me. Only the hikers care to walk across my terrain.

While our alternative is by no means optimal, see how it conveys the same message but with easier to read sentences, while maintaining a varied sentence length? It also avoids putting a conjunction at the start of the sentence, which is a big no-no.

Fourth, make sure your story actually makes sense. We were rather confused by the end, for example, whether the mountain hates all humans or makes an exception for us hikers, as the story seemed very unclear. You also said that time and mist were hiding the mountain, sheltering them from humans, but not hikers - are we now super-human? Finally, we feel that you should engage in some critical reflection on your meta-narrative. What does this all mean? Why should hikers, or anyone else for that matter, bother to read this? What do we gain, what insight do you bring us? Your piece does not appear to have import, other than the standard self-mystification that mountains engage in (please excuse our feeble pun). Give us a message, a subtext, a reason to read. Make this really gripping, or alternatively, thought-provoking. Reflective narratives are better than purely descriptive ones.

Overall, therefore, I feel that this letter is of some quality even if the execution was somewhat lacking. If we were to assign this piece an absolute mark, it would probably be around 6/10.

Be not put off by our critical tone. We are human, we will have forgotten about these things soon enough. I think I speak for us all when I say we look forward to hearing what you come up with next. In particular, your short, punctuated and descriptive style would seem to lend itself well to poetry. But good luck regardless.

Best,
Hikers

I am very interested with this short story. Content Wise it was very good ! However I do agree with larztheloser

I feel the need to criticize a few aspects of your writing style. First, it does not look like a letter. Paragraphs in letters tend to be longer, and letters rarely have double-spaced paragraphs, so these things should be avoided when writing letters (both in narrative and real life)

there are also some grammatical errors given above. But all in all, very interesting ! Nice job!

Wow, I never even considered something like this. This piece really makes you think because I've never really stopped and considered that something like a mountain has a story, or how old it is, or powerful, or where it wants to be. I specifically loved how it reminded me of a children book-- not in the style exactly, but the refreshing, pure-hearted tone of it. I absolutely loveloveloved it.