Young Writers Society

Okay, I wasn't sure where to put this: Fantasy Fiction or Other or Writing Tips. This is two paragraphs from the novel I'm working on and I need help with it. I'm trying to create a foreboding mood that reveals to the reader that 'the lady' is evil and knows too much about my main character, Strick, but I feel that the mood is not prominent enough and am asking for suggestions and critiques on how I could enhance the power of this section.

Above the city wall, dark clouds slipped across the sky. Further down the wall, Strick saw a familiar woman standing there, glaring down at him. The fur of her royal robes feathered in the wind, extravagant jewelry reflecting the dull gray dky. Her forest-green eyes smoldered with hatred and struck an image in his head of another. Hair blowing in the wind and snaking around her thin neck, her eyes flickered when they met his. An anticipating smile lifted the corners of her mouth, the dim light from the torches on the wall flickering upon her face. Strick shuddered, fear creeping into his eyes despite his effort to suppress it, uneasiness rising from the pit of his stomach. Even King Hedjlon could not smirk like that, even his eyes did not harbor that fire. Thunder rumbled in the distance, the ground trembling and the trees along the wall rustling in the silence that followed. The lady mouthed something Strick could not make out, her glowering countenance hostile and deadly. I will find you, stricken one. The words rung in his head, unbidden echoes he could not control.

Strick tore his eyes from the ladyand dug his heels into Jiastar’s side. Jiastar, snorting, walked slowly toward the gate. Strick glanced up one last time to see that she was still staring at him, her smirk strangely triumphant. Strick clenched his teeth fearfully looked away, feigning confidence as he rode through the gate after Markus.


Any help is appreciated, harsh or not harsh. I've been working on my wordiness, but it still isn't at the level it should probably be. Thank you all.

Firstly, I was drawn into the moment with the beginning sentences. Very vivid; and you noticeably have a sense of how the whole scene looks and feels.

My only and rather intense complaint would not be the wordiness specifically, but the sentence structure. It lost its impetus with sentences that came out nearly the same length every time, and rarely varied in form.

The sky was gray behind her, eerie and churning, shying from the pall that hung around her. He met her gaze suspiciously. Her emerald eyes smoldered with hatred, with pure, strong loathing, anticipation and recognition. Her hair blew in the wind, snaking around her face, her eyes intense and taunting when they met his. An evil smile spread across her face, her too pale face glistening in the darkness and her eyebrows creasing when she smiled.

Here, you see...you double beginnings with her. Then with the smile, you repeat her face twice. Probably, the whole thing could be done in one, perhaps two sentences - so that you could drop the double her and fit the two together, changing rythm with a longer sentence, and making your point with fewer words.

Strick shuddered at the sight of her and dug his heels into Jiastar’s side, Jiastar snorting and walking slowly toward the gate.

...Ought to be with the Jiastar... Jiastar, snorting, walked slowly toward the gate. And a semi-colon would be more appropriate punctuation.

He glanced up one last time to see that she was still staring at him with those sinister, menacing, hostile eyes. It’s just your imagination. Strick clenched his teeth fearfully and tore his eyes from the lady, feigningly confidence as he rode through the gate after Markus.

I would cut down on the adjectives there. You mightn't say more than menacing and get the point across beautifully. Then, feigningly ought to simply be feigning.

But, frankly, I think the mood of the piece was quite convincing. It could be more succinct, and perhaps more striking with a bit more variance in sentence length. And, as you admitted to wordiness, only watch that you're not using synonyms in a row, when you might use just one.

I enjoyed reading. It definitely set an ominous tone.

it wasnt chilling but it did have a creepy effect, it was deep and had many stong words but i think you should describe the suuroundings more cause i couldent immagine a tall women with green eyes smiling creepily in a storm.

. try describing what she was wearing

. how far was strick from this cruel hag

. and a quistion. how long did this take to write cause i need to know because im not shore spending ten miniutes on a page is long enough. keep writing

Thank you very much blob and poor_imp
I edited it
Agh, feigningly... typo!! Grrrr

okeydokey, I voted for the boring, no offense intended. However, it does have excellent potential, with a little bit of work.

The clouds darkened strangely and Strick now saw a few inches from where he had been looking a tall woman standing there

Oi vey...In the kindest sense, this is a mess. HOWEVER: there is hope! Because with a few minor touch-ups, it can be BRILLIANT. The first bit is somewhat...off. Clouds can darken strangely? I would find a different descriptive adjetive. The sentence is also quite long, it would be MUCH more effective. Here's what I would do:

The clouds darkened strangely. Strick shifted slightly and mounted his horse (TOWARDS ALLOTTED DESTINATION, UNEASY FEELING IN HIS STOMACH? DETAILS LIKED THAT MATTER). (HEARING A NOISE, FEELING THE TIPS OF HER GOWN AGAINST HIS ANKLE? I DUNNO STUFF LIKE THAT HELPS SET THE MOOD FOR A STORY) Strick turned around and sat a tall woman standing exactly where he had been.

So does that work a little bit better for you? Maybe you could integrate a few of the tips? Anyway just a suggestion.

The fur of her royal robes feathered in the wind, extravagant jewelry dull in the reflection of the sky, gray behind her, eerie and churning, shying from the pall that hung around her. He met her gaze suspiciously. Her emerald eyes smoldered with hatred, with pure, strong loathing, anticipation and recognition. hair blowing in the wind and snaking around her thin neck, her eyes were intense and taunting when they met his. An evil smile spread across her face, too pale face glistening in the darkness and eyebrows creasing. A distant thunder rumbled in the distance and her long fingernails rose to touch her face.

Okay, this is a bit run-onnish and it needs to be paragraphed. Do this:

The fur of her royal robes feathed in the wind, her extravagant jewelry dullened in the reflection of the sky. It was gray behind her, eerie and churning, shying from the pall that hung around her.

This is quite lovely, with just a few adjustments. I think you should paragraph here, but I am unsure. Paragraph after "he met her gaze suspiciously." The next sentence is lovely. The period is in the right place but "hair" is not capitalized and it isn't a complete sentence. Yes, it does get a bit wordy here. Trade the comma for a period, or at least a semi-colin. The last sentence doesn't go together. I'm not an expert paragrapher but I think this should be three or four paragraphs. Maybe a bit too much description?

A chaste fear flickered in Strick’s eyes despite his valiant effort to suppress it. Even King Hedjlon could not smirk like that, even his eyes did not harbor that fire. The lady mouthed something Strick could not make out, her grin spreading quickly to chill his self-control. I will find you, stricken one. The words rung in his head, unbidden echoes he could not control.

Oi vey...but in a good way. This is gorgey. First off, though, paragraph right before this. And ah...I thought chaste meant like, not having sex. Or was that chastity? Anyway that word seems out of place. The word "valiant" seens unnecessary. The bit about the King was good, gave us a subtle clue as to the time period. Gorgey, gorgey...Her grin chill's his self-control, eh? how odd. Actually I have no idea what that means.

Strick shuddered at the sight of her and dug his heels into Jiastar’s side. Jiastar, snorting walked slowly toward the gate. He glanced up one last time to see that she was still staring at him with those sinister, hostile eyes. It’s just your imagination. Strick clenched his teeth fearfully and tore his eyes from the lady, feigning confidence as he rode through the gate after Markus.

The bit about him shuddering was good. Jiaster is a good name for a horse but you never mention a horse before this point. In fact you say he had been standing. Just his imagination, is it? How very typical. Or should I say stereotypical? Paragraph after imagination. In fact, cut out that whole sentence and paragraph after "eyes." Whoever Markus is, I'd like to know.

So overall this is good. The thing that messes it up is the screwed up paragraphing and run-on sentences. Easily fixed. This is quite promising, and I look forward to more.

No offense taken, Misty. Thank you so much.
I'll edit this again and answer blob's last question tomorrow.

First of all, our styles are completely different, and I don't want to say, "This is what I would do if I were you" because I'm not you. I do like your style (adjective-ladened as it is) so I don't mind it too much. Besides, I don't really know the background information of Strick and this woman. However, I will ask you some questions to sort of help you along.

1) The lady sees him. How does she ract to him? Does she hate him? Is she smiling? In what way is she showing that she's evil besides staring?

Right now, you are describing the main character's reaction to the woman. Fine. But what is she doing? We know she's staring at him, yes. But what else? If you can expland that, it will help.

2) Does this guy know her? From where? Does he suspect anything from her? What? Why is he scared at her, besides the stare?

By the paragraphs, I don't know whether he knows her previously or not. By dealing less with his feelings of the stare and dealing with what he is afraid of her finding out, you meight deepen the novel somewhat.

3) What do you want to say?

Right now, we know she is staring at him. Is there anything else you would like to say besides this to create this forboding mood?

Anyway, it's a little unconventional form, I realize that, but I hope it helps regardless!

Thank you for looking at this, Snoink, and your questions did help me with this. Danke.
So, I edited the parts I agreed needed help. Thanks to all - I really appreciate all this response.

And blob, 10 minutes a page is perfectly realistic. I don't usually keep track of how much time it takes me to write a section, but I do know that in general the time varies greatly. There are days when I'm just struggling to wade through the scene because I don't have a clear enough picture of what is happening - then a half a page can taken me a half hour, but then there are days when the ideas keep feeding in and I can see the scene clearly as if it were before my eyes and than it can take anywhere from 10 minutes to 5 minutes.

Help, you say?

Well, then, here goes ...

First of all — the storm. We don't have the preceding passages, so I'm wondering; do you describe the storm before this paragraph? Or is this the first mention of it?

If it is (the first description of the storm, that is), I'd suggest breaking this into two segments: one where you introduce this idea of a brewing storm and the second, with the woman that Strick sees. In the second paragraph, now that the storm has already been (hypothetically) introduced in the first, you can slip in small descriptions of the storm and perhaps even contrast them with the woman, or use them to enhance her creepiness.

That aside, let's take a closer look at the passage:

Darker clouds slipped over the sky above the city wall and Strick now saw a few inches from where he had been looking a tall woman standing there, staring down at him.

Run-on sentence.

I'd suggest cutting off the first sentence here:

Darker clouds slipped over the sky above the city wall

The prepositions placed one after another don't work very well here. I didn't catch it the first time, but reading it aloud the second time, it really stands out:

Darker clouds slipped over the sky above the city wall

If you're going to have both prepositions in this sentence, don't use them one after another. Tweak the sentence — maybe place one of the prepositions (and its accompanying phrase) at the beginning:

Above the city wall, darker clouds slipped over the sky

(And, of course, punctuate properly.)

Also — can clouds slip over the sky? They can slip across, certainly, but seeing as they're in the sky, I'm not sure "over" is the best choice of word here.

The other thing that kind of stands out is the "darker clouds". I'm assuming in the preceding passages you mention something about dark clouds (otherwise the comparative darker is needless) but there are about a hundred (okay, maybe ten ) adjectives that would be more powerful than darker. Even "dark clouds" is more effective than "darker clouds".

Okay, let's look at the rest of that sentence:

and Strick now saw a few inches from where he had been looking a tall woman standing there, staring down at him.

A couple of things here are entirely needless and can be cut out for better sentence flow. "Strick now saw" can be snipped to "Strick saw", since the reader automatically assumes that what's happening in the story occurs in the "present", so to speak. So unless you've been fiddling with the chronology right before this ( i.e. flashbacking), the "now" is unnecessary.

So, basically: "Strick saw" = better.

Also, "a few inches from where he had been looking" can be snipped out, too. If it's really necessary — i.e. you must specify that Strick is looking in a different direction (the necessity of this hinges on the preceding passages), there are shorter ways you can say this. You don't need to specify the "few inches"; you just need to tell the reader he's looking in a different direction.

It'd be best, though, if you cut simply snip out the entire thing altogether ("a few inches from where he had been looking").

Which would leave you with:

Strick saw a tall woman standing there, staring down at him.

Remember how I mentioned potency? "Standing there" in no way indicates creepy and evil and scary. "Tall" doesn't, either. And "staring" indicates curiosity, or someone unnerving, but not scary.

Is she angry at him? Would "glowering" be a more appropriate term for the way she was looking at him? Could you replacing "standing there" with "loomed above him"? Could you find a synonym for "tall", like "towering", that would better serve your purposes?

Whatever you decide to use, replace these words with more powerful synonyms.

The fur of her royal robes feathered in the wind, extravagant jewelry dull in the reflection of the gray sky.

Speaking of word choice — lovely use of feathered.

"Dull in the reflection of the gray sky," makes no sense, though. I think I know what you're trying to say — the jewelry reflects the sky and is therefore dull. But the way it's worded here, you're basically saying that it can be seen in a reflection of the sky, and in this reflection, it's dull. Hopefully what I'm saying makes sense, but if it doesn't — the long and short of it is that "dull in the reflection of" should probably be reworded to something like, "reflecting dully against".

Her emerald eyes smoldered with hatred, anticipation and a chilling recognition.

Hmm.

The smoldering green eyes? Great visuals, although "emerald" is kind of a cliché when it comes to describing eye-colour. But, oh well. The rest of the sentence, "with hatred, anticipation and a chilling recognition," completely kills this imagery.

First of all — can a person's eyes simultaneously reflect hatred, anticipation, and a chilling recognition? - I can understand one of those things, but all of them? Is kind of difficult. Especially because they're very different emotions.

Secondly, assuming it's somehow possible to have eyes that reflect all three of these emotions at once, "smoldering eyes" indicate hatred beautifully, but anticipation and especially recognition — not so well. And last of all, if for some reason you still decide that it's a good thing to have all three of these emotions listed together, "smoldering eyes" and "chilling recognition" don't mesh so well.

The woman's emerald eyes struck an image in his head of another.

Awkward way to say "She looked familiar." Especially since:

Her emerald eyes smoldered with hatred, anticipation and a chilling recognition. The woman's emerald eyes struck an image in his head of another.

You're using a pretty memorable phrase twice in the space of two sentences. Now, if this was used to create repetition for a specific effect, it'd be understandable — but it isn't. Or it doesn't seem like that, anyway. (If repetition was your intention, then we have a whole 'nother problem.)

Hair blowing in the wind and snaking around her thin neck, her eyes were intensified when they met his, an evil smile spreading across her face and too pale face glistening in the darkness and eyebrows creasing.

Way too much of a run-on sentence, partly because it's very wordy and partly because there are way too many thoughts crammed into this one sentence.

A couple of nitpicky things:

- her eyes were intensified? Some of your word choice is great for mental imagery here — snaking hair, glistening face, stuff like that — but "eyes intensified" does nothing. This could just be me, but I think there are so many other verbs you can use here that would provide better visuals.

- "too pale face" should be "too-pale face".

- "an evil smile" borderlines cheesy. *ducks* This is always a touchy subject for people, but what specifically about her smile is evil? Is it malicious? Is she smirking? Show, don't tell; instead of hammering the reader over the head with the idea that She Is Evil, let us come to the conclusion on our own. (To be fair, you've done a great job of it so far.)

- "eyebrows creasing" is vaguely unnecessary for this sentence. I suppose it depends on its purpose — are you trying to create a better mental image of the woman in our minds? Enhance her supreme evilness? If either of those two things are your intention (or both), the eyebrow-creasing doesn't help. If you really want to mention her eyebrows in there, you're going to have to play around with that — what does it signify? "Her brow creased," is most often used to show someone who is puzzled/worried/upset, and the woman here isn't really either of those three things.

- "too pale face glistening in the darkness". I'm going to be Nitpick Queen here and demand to know about the lighting. I've assumed before this that it's something like mid-afternoon (correct me if I'm wrong), primarily because of the previous description of the extravagant jewels reflecting dully in the gray sky. Now, if it's "darkness", as you say it is, I have to wonder how her face is lit up. Before this, I was assuming that it was mid-afternoon to early evening (or even morning), and so the sun was still there (albeit hidden behind heavy cloud mass). If it is, and when you say "darkness" you mean only part-darkness, then I'm not sure "glistening" is the best word to describe her face, unless it's sweaty or wet or has some reason to be lustrous — which, as of yet, you have not indicated. If it's actually night, and the moon's out, the "glistening" works (sorta), but then we have the question of the jewels and why they're so dull when there's obviously a light source.

I think the crux of the matter is: her face is shining in the darkness, when it shouldn't be shining. If this is on purpose, and she's got some Secret Magical Power to make her face shine, you need to indicate this. If not, then you may want to re-evaluate the lighting situation.

A distant thunder rumbled in the distance and her long fingernails rose to touch her face.

There is no such thing as "a thunder". There is, however, "thunder". So "a distant thunder" should be "distant thunder". Also, "distant thunder rumbled in the distance" is redundant. Either "Thunder rumbled in the distance," or "Distant thunder rumbled." (Personally, I think the former works better.)

And finally, there's no segue between the distant thunder and her face. Either cut the sentences in two or connect them somehow (i.e. describe how touching her face relates to the distant thunder).

Even King Hedjlon could not smirk like that, even his eyes did not harbor that fire.

Smirk like what? What's so special about her smirk?

Also, this sentence (and by default, I suppose the preceding sentence) should be placed after her smirk, so:

Hair blowing in the wind and snaking around her thin neck, her eyes were intensified when they met his, an evil smile spreading across her face and too pale face glistening in the darkness and eyebrows creasing. Fear crept into Strick’s eyes despite his effort to suppress it, uneasiness rising from the pit of his stomach. Even King Hedjlon could not smirk like that, even his eyes did not harbor that fire.

And then put:

A distant thunder rumbled in the distance and her long fingernails rose to touch her face.

or some variation of it. As it stands right now, your thoughts are all over the place. You're talking about Thing Q and then jump to Thing Z and then go all the way back to Thing Q without any segue whatsoever. Or, to make that slightly less confusing, you're talking about her smile and then jump to the thunder/her fingers & face and then jump all the way back to the smile (and his thoughts on her smile). And while it's not confusing per se, it makes the narrative very disorganized.

The lady mouthed something Strick could not make out, her gloating countenance hostile and deadly. I will find you, stricken one. The words rung in his head, unbidden echoes he could not control.

It's not really a big deal, but I'd suggest italicizing "I will find you, stricken one."

Again: showing and not telling. What's hostile and deadly about her gloating?

Strick shuddered at the sight of her and dug his heels into Jiastar's side.

He shudders at the sight of her now? This seems like kind of a delayed reaction after having looked at her for so long. (I assume they've been standing there for at least a little while — a couple of minutes, minimum — have they?)

Jiastar, snorting walked slowly toward the gate.

There should be a comma after "snorting", so:

Jiastar, snorting, walked slowly toward the gate.

Also:

He glanced up one last time to see that she was still staring at him.

When you say "he" the assumption is instantly that you're referring to Jiastar, because he was the last subject. So you need to specify here that it's Strick, not Jiastar.

If you do that, of course, you'll have to change "Strick clenched his teeth," to "He clenched his teeth," and tweak the sentence accordingly.

One last thing, in regards to the overall passage. Your descriptions of the lady are conflicting — they don't necessarily contradict each other, but they do clash. On one hand, we've got:

- smoldering eyes, hatred, creasing eyebrows, intensified (narrowed?) eyes, hostility, deadly. And then, to enhance that image, she's tall (towering?), staring down at him.

and then you give us things like:

- evil smile, gloating, smirk, anticipation, snaking, chilling.

Like I said, these aren't outright contradictory, but when you merge these two separate ideas together they kind of clash. At the very least, I'd suggest cutting some of these — the "chilling recognition" paired with "smoldering eyes", for example. At the most, I'd suggest going with one of these images and using parts of the other (like the snaking hair) to enhance it.

I hope this helps. Sorry it's kind of, um, long. If you have any questions, let me know and I'll try to help. If you want to beat me over the head with a baseball bat — let me know so I at least have a head start.

Well, this ~does~ have potential... but it also needs some friendly-neighbourhood-yws-members to help out. So here goes...

an evil smile spreading across her face

^ Here is the part I like the least. Why? Simply because I don't like the idea of using 'evil' as an adjective, or at least not in a case such as this. Instead, describe how her mouth moves, how she is showing too many teeth, bared like a lions. Perhaps her face could be catlike too, or the graceful yet deadly way in which she moves. Evil deeds, maybe. Evil smile? No. You could do better with this line.

Her emerald eyes smoldered with hatred

^ I suppose if this is from Strick's point of view, her eyes ~could~ smolder with hatred, but how would he know that the expression on her face ~was~ hatred, unless he knows her already, and knows of some reason for which she could hate him. BUT, I would recommend changing it slightly. You don't necessarily have to take this part out altogether; the change could in fact be quite a simple one. How about: "her emerald eyes seemed to smolder with a kind of hatred for him, coupled with what could have been recognition..." I don't know where your story goes, so I don't know how else to help you with that one.

The woman’s emerald eyes struck an image in his head of another

^ For starters, you repeated 'emerald eyes', having used this in the sentence beforehand. You could avoid this easily, perhaps by saying that her ~glare~ or ~gaze~ struck an image. Anything that isn't so repetitive.

Secondly, I'm not too sure about the rest of this sentence. What ~exactly~ do you mean by 'an image'. Is this image some sort of fuzzy memory from the past, or a vivid one? Is it a vision? Or his imagination perhaps? It's hard to tell here; I read this not knowing what to think at this point. I'm assuming Strick doesn't remember having met this woman before, so if it ~is~ a memory, it has been suppressed or forgotten about. It might be worth thinking about this...

I will find you, stricken one. The words rung in his head, unbidden echoes he could not control.

^ I ~did~ like this part, although I'd recommend putting this first sentence either into italics or quote marks, to make it clear that this is what she's saying [or what he thinks she's saying ]

Strick clenched his teeth fearfully and tore his eyes from the lady, feigning confidence as he rode through the gate after Markus.

^ One of my favourite bits of the story here, very well-written. However, you don't really need the 'fearfully' part. Just take that word out, or replace it with 'tightly' or something similar. Remember the golden rule of 'Show, don't tell'. We can tell that he's frightened without you explaining it to us.

I ~really~ hope I've helped here, and I'll be sure to post more if I think of anything, or if you post the part that comes next.

Good luck with it!


~KayJuran~