Young Writers Society

This post is going to be a bit like Writersdomain's Terrors of Lecraesa post, only instead of explaining the process of what I've gone through in writing what I'm going to be talking about, I'm umm...asking for help at the moment. o.O So maybe it's not QUITE like her post, but I don't want to post this in the section for sharing writing because this isn't even close to being done with.

I need some help with what I've written so far of...o.O the thing that is currently title less, though I might call it Archer's Legend: The Dream Wizard,

Here's what I've written so far. My questions/concerns/whatever:

-I don't know who the "he" is that they're talking about it. o.O I was thinking that it'd be a brother that disappeared/betrayed them/something along those lines (but again, if I went with their being betrayed, it'd be leaning a bit too close to Moonlit Senata o.O). ANY ideas would be appreciated.

-I don't know much about Archer yet, outside of what I've discussed http://inspiredwriters.createmybb.com/showthread.php?tid=38 (at my Inspired Writers message board).

-I don't know a ton about dueling with swords, so...yeah. Bear with me as far as that goes, because I haven't done any research about it.

-If the person they're talking about is their brother, then I'd like to say that he's who Archer is/was closer to, and she's not very close with the brother she's dueling with.

-Umm...is this a good/bad case of "show, don't tell"? o.O Just wondering if I did it right. o.o

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Chapter One

Archer watched her opponent carefully, her fingers tapping wildly against the handle of the heavy sword held in her left hand. A strand of red hair fell in front of her eyes; she reached up to push it behind her ear quickly, just as her opponent brought his blade up against hers. Archer pulled her blade back, listening as it slid along her opponent’s. She turned on the heel of her right foot and brought the sword around to her opponent’s left side. She then quickly raised her foot up to the ground.

“Ooof,” he said as he fell to the ground. His sword fell out of his hand sliding along the stone ground and out of his reach.

“You’re learning,” he said, flashing a quick smile.

Archer moved to stand over her opponent, bringing the tip of her sharp blade to the Adam’s apple of his throat.

“I had a great teacher,” she retorted.

“It’s a shame he’s not around to see how much you’ve improved.”

Archer shook her head slightly, the anger now evident in her dark green eyes. She put one booted foot on his stomach, then pressed it down a bit on his stomach. She smiled slightly as she saw him cringe as the weight of her foot on his stomach became heavier.

“Don’t bring him up around me again and I may let you live to see tomorrow,” Archer replied through gritted teeth.

“Let me go, and I won’t,” her opponent promised.

Archer pulled the blade from his neck and moved her foot, turning away from him.

“Never turn your back on an unarmed opponent,” her enemy said suddenly from behind. A dagger with a jagged blade was at Archer’s throat now. “They just might surprise you. That’s a lesson he was never given the chance to teach you, so take it as the only lesson I’ll give you. You have to earn any other lessons.”

The dagger was moved from Archer’s neck and her opponent moved away from her; she thought she heard a chuckle from under his breath.

“You’re learning, little sister, I’ll give you that. You’ve improved a lot since we last met. With some more practice and focus, you could be quite the swordswoman.”

“Swords aren’t really my weapon,” Arrow responded, turning back to look at him. “Why do you think people call me Archer?”

“This is true,” her brother replied with a chuckle. “Taking you out of your element can be good practice, though.”

Archer, who’s birth name was Kalana by birth, slid her sword in to the sheath at her belt.

She couldn’t help but shake her head and laugh shortly, “You and your practice.”

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This is all I've written so far. What do you guys think? I suggest reading the thread I linked to above so you won't be completely confused. XD

Well, I'm not going to go into a in-depth critique or anything considering this is in Writer's Corner, but I'd be happy to give you some impressions..

-I don't know who the "he" is that they're talking about it. o.O I was thinking that it'd be a brother that disappeared/betrayed them/something along those lines (but again, if I went with their being betrayed, it'd be leaning a bit too close to Moonlit Senata o.O). ANY ideas would be appreciat

erm, I really don't know what to suggest here as I don't know much about 'he' yet
- on a more critical notes, I noticed that at one point in the chapter you ceased referring to the one guy as the opponet and called him the enemy. Unless that has significance, I suggest being consistent.

I thought your showing and telling was at a pretty good balance (even though the sudden comment about Archer's real name was a bit abrupt). I felt you could use a little more intro into the action at the beginning, but that is up to you.

All I can suggest is keep writing and get to know your characters...

UPDATE!

I've written a very rough prologue to Archer's Legend, which is here. Hopefully I'll have another chapter written...in the next few days. o.o

I'm considering whether or not the prologue I wrote is really something that the story needs. When I was thinking about writing this story, I thought about the possibility of using a prologue to set up the events that took place before Archer's birth, which would be that her parents were forbidden to be together because one is Alaycian and the other is Izarian/human, and that they got married behind their parent's backs and ran off to where Archer is born to start new lives.

The prologue certainly isn't at its best, and I blame that mostly on the fact that I was writing it after 1 AM.

So I'm planning on working on the first chapter, and will probably not include the prologue I wrote as being part of the story. Think of that as more of an experimental thing to try and get a feel for characters but failing miserably.

Update

I finished the first scene in the first chapter, and am working on the second scene. It's taking longer than I'd like to finish this next scene/this whole chapter, but I'm not going to force myself in to rushing in to it just because I'm anxious to know what people think. I'm not giving myself any sort of deadline (...other than to finish it before I die o.O or something), so there's no reason to.

Now, here's my next...predicament, I suppose. I got an idea maybe a week or two ago for a possible character idea, for Archer's Legend, but I'm not 100% sure about it. I was thinking about it while in the shower, and thought of the possibility of...basically Archer having to sort of protect a character...similar to the Childlike Empress in The Never Ending Story. The character wouldn't be childlike, but it would just be...a similar character, basically. What do you guys think?

For some reason I'm kind of imagining the character to be a mixture of Elora from Willow and the Childlike Empress in The Never Ending Story. I really have no idea who the character is, but it's at least the start to an idea. o.o

I don't know anything about this character yet, so I'm open to ideas, to a certain extent. I by no means want to make this copy be a copy of the Childlike Empress or Elora in Willow, but basically I want it to be a similar...I KNOW this isn't the right word, but archetype, I guess? I dunno. Some questions one of my friends asked are:

- what exactly does this character has to offer to the plot?
- why is Archer protecting her?
- is she just protecting her to protect her, or is there some reason she's doing it?
- will they team up then/later/never?

I think that basically the answers to these questions are all connected to each other, and I don't have any at the moment. I like the idea of them possibly having to team up, and I know there'll be some reason for Archer protecting the character, but I don't know what. Any ideas/suggestions/even starts to ideas would be greatly appreciated. ^_^

I THINK I'm going to have the first chapter ready to post soon. Like, maaaaaaybe tonight.

I was debating whether or not to have a certain plot point happen in the first chapter of it because it seemed so soon, but a friend pointed out that it's best to have the action happen right away so that the readers don't get bored. I think what might happen is the action might not really happen until the end of the first chapter. o__O At least, at the moment. I dunno, maybe by the time I go to rewrite this thing, if I do, I'll have more ideas for what to have happen in the first chapter so that it's not so short and has more action at the beginning.

So basically, be on the look out for a chapter at some point!

I'll keep an eye out for the first chapter! Can't wait to read it. Bah, as long as you have intriguing characters, you don't have to have action immediately, though I don't see anything wrong with it.

Mmm...I don't know whether or not I can say I really have an intriguing (main, at the moment) character at the moment. o__O It's really hard to tell because I don't even know her that well. o.o

Imp would be the one I'd ask about dueling. She fences.

I can however, since I'm an avid collector of vintage knives/swords as well as bayonets, give you the proper terms of the sword.

The blade itself is often called, the tang." Though only a collector will know the term so blade is probably better to use.

The ricasso simply means where you can find dates, the maker, and possibly where the sword was made. The ricasso is at the end of the blade.

Ex.

And

Both of these pictures shows the ricasso.

This is from my collection. It's a 1863 Musician's Sword produced by Christopher Roby during the Civil War.

Next is the hilt.

The area where you would hold the sword itself is referred to as the hilt. Now see where there is a "loop" in the hilt? That is referred to as the guard. It a real battle the guard would (hopefully!) protect your hand and part of your arm when in the hands of an experience (or damn lucky) soldier.

Last but not least is the pommel. The pommel is found on the very top of the hilt. It can also be an area for your pinky to be positioned depending on the maker of the sword. So, look at the above picture. See where there is a "knob" at the very end? That would be considered as the pommel.



Full scale shot of my sword, which measures 32 inches from the pommel to the end of the blade. Ain't it purty?

o_O I'm a little confused. I never asked anything about swords or dueling (at least to my knowledge). The main character in this is...well, an archer.

OH! Now I know where I mentioned it. Ha. That doesn't really apply any more because that scene was just more of a thing where I was just trying to flesh the character out. o.O

-I don't know a ton about dueling with swords, so...yeah. Bear with me as far as that goes, because I haven't done any research about it.

The subject of swords was mentioned. I am a collector but with no knowledge of dueling. I do know a bit about militery tactics though. If you are to have dueling matches it might be an idea to know the basic termanology of the sword itself.

Yeah, like I said, that doesn't apply any more because that scene where I was having the dueling and stuff isn't even going to be in my story/novel/whatever I want to call it, as far as I know at the moment. I'm not sure whether or not the main character will learn to use a sword or anything. She all ready knows how to use a bow and arrow, though I need to research it a bit more.

I finally finished and posted the first chapter of Archer's Legend. It's located here. Please go and check it out?

Yay! You posted it. I shall go and take a look at it soon. Can't wait to read more about Archer.