The Traveler

This is a piece I'm working on. Since this is the first chapter, I want to communicate these things effectively:

• The location.
• The two main characters (the boy and the traveler)

I want to know of any repetitive words, bad descriptions, or if I'm hurrying the story too much.

The Traveler

Nestled between the large hills and the Sid river, was the town of Sid's Landing. It was a rather small town, of no distinction. It was nothing more than a couple of streets, surrounded by some houses and farms. Neither rich, nor famous, Sid's Landing was a very quiet town. The inn was the only real commodity that was useful for outsiders; the adjoining bar was used more frequently than the rooms. The other services were used more frequently by the inhabitants of the town. The locals themselves were usually descendants of one the founding families. There were several other families that came later on, but they are less vocal.

One of the lesser families was that of the Raines family. While the average situation in the town was poor, the Raines family situation was dire. Mr. Raines was constantly in debt, which he constantly attempted to drink his way out of, but to no avail. Mrs. Raines worked as a wash woman; she washed sheets for the inn, when it had business. Her son, Alistair, was an only child. Had he been born to more attentive parents, he would most certainly have put his great mind to better purposes. Instead, he had put his great mind to a more sinister use.

It had happened quite accidentally. He went into the bar to bring his father back home. Before he could leave with him though, the bartender insisted he get paid. In a flash, Alistair’s hand went into his father’s pocket, and withdrew his coin purse. He paid the bartender. This had happened so quickly and come so easily to Alistair that he tried it multiple times, mostly on his father, with the same result. At age 12, he had become the town pickpocket.

Now, at age 14, he was a master. He didn’t rob from the other families, but instead he preyed on the occasional passerby. His activities went undiscovered for quite a long time, but not without near misses. He was careful to hide his ill-gotten loot; his parents would surely waste it.

Now, he looked at his latest target: A large pack mule, which was loaded with large sacks. The round imprints suggested the presence of coins. He couldn’t possibly carry one of these sacks, so he decided to attempt to open them and see if he could snatch a coin. He opened the bag easily and picked out a gold coin. His triumphant smile vanished in an instant as he felt himself being grabbed from behind suddenly.

Alistair couldn’t do anything. Something had him by the neck. The grip was very powerful, bordering on strangulation. The hand felt very unusual. It was smooth like a nail, not rough like most hands. Only the palms felt rough, but where normal hands were rough, these felt very bumpy. The hands were also very large, too large for even a big man. What man would have this sort of grip? He decided at that moment that he didn’t want to know. Conversely, the traveler wanted to know who had been stealing his possessions.

Both had conflicting wants, but the traveler had Alistair by the throat. With a quick movement, the traveler turned the boy around to have a look at him. Alistair’s eyes became as wide as saucers. He was looking into the eyes of some monster. It had a beak, like an eagle. It was covered in feathers. It had large ears coming from its head. Wings were folded alongside its body. Its front feet held talons, one of which was grasping his neck. Its back feet held paws, with claws coming out of them. Alistair had never seen a gryphon before, so it was only natural that he stared at the gryphon with a look of pure fear.

For the gryphon’s part, he was also surprised. He had expected the pickpocket to be young, but this young! The gryphon now began to set the wheels in motion. He started by calling to the bartender. He, in turn, told his patrons that the bar was closed until the Sheriff was located. This lead to a hurried search as the men inside scoured the town. Upon finding the Sheriff, they reported the situation to him. In turn, the Sheriff dispatched the men to find the boy’s parents. So it was that the Sheriff and Alistair’s parents ended up in front of the inn.

This is the end of Chapter One. Thank you in advance for any advice.

Just quickly: This seems rather flat. Im not quite sure how to explain it, I think it has to do with the whole Showing vs Telling majiggy. The way it was explained just made it rather uninteresting, thats not to say that there's not a lot of potential in the idea, far from it, but right now it's a bit dull and that has to do not with the content but with the way it was presented.

As for repetitions:

more frequently

In the first couple of lines this is repeated closely.

I agree with Nate , the first part seemed plain , as though you were an estate agent describing a village to some buyers, but dont feel poo, after that bit it got more and more interesting untill finally you introduce some cool monster , Im hooked, i wanna know what happens to Allistair , but i think you should make ure chapters longer cs although im intrested if you made this bit longer i would become way more into it, gud luk wuth yuur nuxt purt

Jigsaw, you really need to change your avvie, it's confusing blob.

blob, I'm having difficulty understanding your writing. It seems you made an entire sentence into the size of a paragraph. Use periods to end sentences. Also, chat-speak is very difficult for me to understand.

Jigsaw, thanks for pointing out the beginning.

Usually when I write, I like to start from a big focus and end on the protagonist. I think I may have made the focus too small. I'm going to edit the story so that it starts a little farther out, so as to accentuate the rural features of the community. Does this sound good?

Yeah I kinda noticed that, lol. I'll change it. As to the story, that sounds fine, of course it may turn out different but we'll just have to wait and see.

Goodluck,

~Jiggy

I also feel the plainness of the first part, also I felt that "inhabitants" was repeated too much. The rest seemed good and I think you achieved your goals well.

It was pretty good, but there were a couple of problems. It could use some dialouge to make it run a little bit better and you don't get much of Alistair's personaliy in it. But, I like some of the ideas you have and you should definitely continue it.

Peace! mas_cool:

I didn't use dialogue, mostly because it didn't quite fit in my plans. The focus was on the boy, who was trying to be found. No dialogue there.

Admittedly, I could have had dialogue between the Gryphon and the bartender, but I think it would have slowed down the story too much. By 'skipping' the long process of finding the parents, I actually progress my story faster than I would using simple dialogue.

I like your thinking though, it shows that you understand how dialogue can manipulate stories. When I write in the future, I will use dialogue to advance the story, especially when there is a lot occuring in a short period of time.

If there isn't a lot occuring over a long period of time though, a transition is more appropriate, hence the lack of dialogue.