Young Writers Society

Hi,
I'm Aley I'll be writing this review as I read so please forgive me if I seem a little misinformed. I'll probably go back and edit that stuff out, but it should help you with some basic reading things.

A gentle breeze rustled the grasses of the plains, casting it into a rippling wave of soothing motion.

I think you've got a lot of repetition of ideas here. Not only do we already know that a gentle breeze ripples grass, but a soothing motion? Do we really need all of these things saying the same thing? Let's use some economy of time and cut it down to two.
Breezes are always gentle, that is why they are breezes, otherwise they would be gusts, gales, wind, or so forth.
Rippling wave? Yeah, that's what happens to fields of tall grass. They ripple alright.
Soothing? Well now you're just being subjective. Some people might think it's sickening if they get sea-sick easily. Does it have to be forced on us that it's soothing?

I'd suggest you pick two.

The plains rolled on, interrupted only by scattered herds of antelope, bison, and horses, and the occasional wolf, but even they were still.

Ok, so there are a few things I'd like to point out here, first, antelope, although there is a species that MIGHT be considered or called antelope in America, are not actually in America. That's a miss-naming. What America has, are pronghorn. Different than an antelope which is native to mostly Africa [warmer climate].

Bison are basically America Only, though there might be some in Europe [cooler climate].

Horses are not native to America, but came up from South America to North America when the Spanish invaded. [all climates]

Which means if you're going for a story about a place where all three of these things without the white invasion yet, which leaves you in a fantasy land. That's a really interesting place when the wolf is the thing hunting them all? What about the other wild predators or are these guys completely overwhelming the world? America has Mountain Lions and other big game to hunt these creatures aside from just humans.

Next, rolled on, it's another descriptor of the plains that we already could assume.

The breeze blew a little stronger, a cool wind coming out of the north with traces of frozen water on it. The summer was ending, and autumn was beginning. [b]The wind finally turned cold[b] and continued across the open range.

So what I have bolded here is something I'd like to call off and on again talking. I think what probably happened was you were writing a draft, got up, walked away, came back, and started back a few steps to get back into the flow of things. Well, now this is the affect. Sentence one we understand the wind is cold. Sentence two you establish the season. Sentence three we are reintroduced that the wind is cold as it FINALLY turns cold. Wasn't it cold two sentences ago?

He was a burly man, with chiseled arms, a deep and hard chest, and calloused hands. He wore a leather vest and simple hide pants. His gauntlets and boots were roughly made – hide wraps lined with fur and reinforced by leather straps. A belt hung around his hips, carrying a bone-hilt knife and a chipped iron sword.

As people, reading, we look for action in sentences. The first sentence says: He was a man with arms, a chest, and hands. That's not him doing anything, that's just what he was, not even what he is. This type of description really bodes ill for stories because nothing is happening.

I didn't bring it up earlier when I was talking about the species on this planet, because they were all stopped, which was interesting. All of the animals on these plains were frozen still, because even the wolves were still. Now that's some power.

Here, however, I need to point out the density of the description because it's not doing anything. We spend this entire long segment of your writing not getting anywhere. He's crouched on a cliff and we paint a portrait of him. Why can't he be running through the woods with his trunk-like legs, flapping around his chiseled arms? Why can't he grab a blade of grass with his calloused hands? Why is this sentence so blah? He is a man with limbs. Make him do something with his body to describe it. Make him drop his arms, or flail his hands, or scratch his butt through his pants! Do something! It's going to really help you move the plot along and keep us entertained.

Basically people can handle 2 or 3 descriptors before they get bored of what they're reading and look for the spot after the info-dump. That means they would know he's a big man with worked arms, and then probably hop down a paragraph, which means they missed the last sentence!

He sat, frozen, staring out over the camp and across the plains at a smudge of granite on a distant hill.

Oh they missed it! Crap, now what?
Also what's with frozen again? can't he just sit still? Why can't he just be staring over the camp? We already knew he was kneeling on a cliff [sorry, "perched[he's a bird] on a ledge[which is actually a sloap]"], when did he sit down?
Why is he staring at granite anyway? That seems really far away for him to see.


Moving on, once we get through the description [again very long] of the town, [which is from his memory because he's still staring at a 'smudge' of granite [by the way, granite is a very, very, hard rock, so smudging it on anything would be pretty impossible, it would just fall off]] we get to this:

There was a single watch tower on the near corner of the property, overlooking the town. The next watchtower was in the center of the town.

Saying single tells us there is one watch tower in the town, not on the property, especially while it is overlooking the town. That makes "the next" watchtower, very jarring.

He spun, reaching for his knife and ready to pounce.

The use of and here is a little odd. He was reaching for his knife while he was ready to pounce? He spun. Then reached for his knife, ready to pounce? The and makes it seem as if he is simultaneously ready to pounce with our without his knife. If you had readied, perhaps it would be a smoother transition, because that is the act of getting ready to, instead of being ready to now, before he took out his knife.

Oh dude! There are tents on this slope? Why did he Not expect people to walk up to him as he crouched on the ledge [which is a rock] on the slope apparently right next to tents?

The winter winds blow fast this morning.

Winter? It was just changing from summer to fall. How are we already at winter?

We have some…business to take care of.

Last time you used the ellipsis, you put a space after it. I'd suggest consistency.

Overall it's kinda interesting, but I don't really know that much about the world. It reminds me heavily of the Native Americans but these people, the dark elves? are a lot more vicious than the Native Americans. We seem to be in something of an America as well, because you're not doing much to contradict the idea that this is the Americas when they were first touched by Europeans. Everything from his lack of care for his weapon, having it chipped, to the clothes he is wearing suggests you're representing him as a Native American if they had a more vengeful less nature respecting, home protective nature.