‘’You never told me your name,’’ the woman said.
‘’Neither did you,’’ he replied to her.
‘’You are aware of that I, am the one helping you, and not the other way around? You could at least tell me your name,’’ she told him with a tone as if she expected him to tell her. Jacob did not say anything, just gave away a little smile to himself..
How old was she really? She was at least sixteen…But sixteen may be just a little too young to travel alone… He sat higher than she did, so she did not look much older than himself. Jacob had yet to see her face.
‘’Fine,’’ she gave up, dejected. ‘’Eleanor is the name, but you can call me Lea.’’
Lea. He chewed on the name for a while. I like the sound of that name. There was something familiar with it, as if he had known someone with that name in England… He looked up on the road and saw the entrance to a forest.
They rode through the entrance, and he felt a dark touch from it. This forest was more bushy and more overgrown than his English woods, giving him an uncomfortable feeling. The road was smaller here, with green trees growing over it like an arch. They blocked any sight of the sky and the sun. Even though it felt like the weather was boiling hot, he had figured out that the sunshine was the main reason for that. He decided he did not like these woods; it felt like someone was watching them.
A short break occurred before Jacob spoke again. ‘’Jacob. Jacob is the name.’’
‘’Not too common around here,’’ Eleanor admitted. ‘’But I like it.’’
‘’Where I come from, it is oft used. It is very popular actually,’’ he told her.
‘’So, how did you get here?’’ She asked him.
‘’Well, the thing is, I have no idea how it is possible, but I was going to take a bath, so I dived into this lake. Under the water, something started sucking me downwards. Not a living creature, but like the current dragging you in the river. I managed to get myself to land, and walked for a while, trying to find the road. Then I met you.’’ He explained to her.
‘’Sounds strange,’’ Lea mumbled, wearing a lost look on her face. Returning to reality, she spoke again, ''We can find out more when we get to Asgard. This may have a connection to the dragons.’’
‘’What? Dragons!?’’ Jacob called out, shocked by her words.
‘’Have you not heard of dragons in your world?’’ She asked him calmly.
This is madness.
‘’Yes, but only in old myths and legends! Are you telling me that dragons really exist?’’ He thought he was completely out of his mind. On the other hand, it could be her for that sake.
‘’Of course. There are only one left in this world, unfortunately. The dragons and their dragonriders died a while ago in the Fields of Fire, a last alliance between the true dragonriders and dragons. They fought against people from the lands of east. Those who broke the laws of light, practicing dark magic to take control over their dragons. Turning them against their will, to bring themselves power,’’ Eleanor told him, with a dark voice. ‘’It’s a long story. Can you read?’’
God, I hope this is a dream.
‘’Not too good, but yes, I can,’’ Jacob replied. ‘’How so?’’ He questioned her with a curious expression, even though she could not see him.
‘’You can have a look at some scrolls when we arrive at Asgard.’’
After a little moment of silence, Jacob questioned her, ''What about you?''
Lea didn't understand him. ''What about me?''
''Where do you come from?'' He asked her, curious of her backstory.
Eleanor tightened her grip to the reins of the saddle, and took a look down at the horse, wondering what she would say. ''Well... I grew up in a village, close to a place called Kings Hill. Now I'm heading for Asgard, waiting for anything destiny has prepared for me.'' She lied to him.
Their conversation was interrupted as soon as they came out of the forest, into a gigantic field. A big iron gate with guards on each side of it stood in the centre of thick walls of stone. Upon the parapet, archers were placed around, in case of danger. Through the gates, some were leaving, and others arriving the city. Some of them were pushing carts filled with all types of resources, while the richer ones had horses for them.
She turned around revealing her face. Her eyes was the first thing he noticed. Innocent, blue eyes. Or was it grey? A mix of those two.
‘’Do not mention anything about where you come from or who you are unless they ask you. Your name can be Henry, after your king.’’
‘’We met at the harbour where you asked for a ride to Asgard. You are coming from a small village far south, named Old Ashlock. From Old Ashlock, you got to a fishing village, taking a boat over Deadwater Lake, to the harbour Saltlake Port. A ship brought you from Saltlake Port to this harbour, where we met. Get it?’’ Impatient eyes from Lea met Jacob’s eyes.
‘’Uhm… I think I got everything.’’ He muttered in an uncertain voice.
Eleanor slowed down her horse as they came closer to the guards. They had to wait a little bit in the line before they got to the guards.
One of the guards spoke to them: ‘’Names.’’ He had a strange dialect, not quite similar to the typical British one, which Jacob was used to.
‘’Eleanor and Henry.’’ She answered in a thick voice.
‘’Where do you travel form?’’ The guard asked completely uninterested.
‘’We are both coming from the harbour.’’
‘’Just coming from the harbour?’’ He asked, sceptical in his look.
A confident voice rose from Jacob: ‘’I’m coming from a village in south called Old Ashlock. From there I got across Deadwater Lake to Saltlake Port, taking a ship towards this place. Eleanor and I met at the harbour. She was coming from a village nearby Kings Hill, heading for Asgard. So were I, so she said she could give me a ride.’’
‘’Mhm, okay.’’ The guard nodded and reached his hand out.
Lea reached her hand into a small pouch hanging by her waist. ‘’Ten?’’
‘’Fifteen silver coins. Times are rough now, so the prices needs to go up.’’ He explained to them.
From the pouch, she dug forth fifteen round pieces of silver and handed them over to the man. He gave sign to the men upon the parapet to open the gate.
‘’Welcome to Asgard.’’ He told, raising his right hand in the air.
I was really uncertain with this chapter. As you may have noticed, I tried having a bit more dialogue between both of them, instead of having so much description, like I had in chapter one. What do you think? Did you get bored of all the dialogue? More descriptions? Reviews appreciated greatly. ^^
End of chapter
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140,463 Literary Works • 673,233 Reviews
Ohhhhhhhhh... So he actually comes from reality? Becouse you chose Asgard as the name of your capital, i assumed the world was made up and that you chose Henry just becouse you like it.
I have to admit, i love stories where people from reality end up in a fantasy world. I just think that you should hold on to it tight, dont let go that fact and just continue as if your story was full fantasy. I even had a concept story about a man ending up in a fantasy world, but its on my mother language so i wont be able to post any of it here.
Now, i like where this is going. I dont think you reached the Asgard fast, as someone stated in the comments. As it is a capital, its safe to assume that it will be the center of happenings.
Other thing that i disagree sadly is the comment about conversation. It is pretty good, but once it happened all too fast, it looked like they randomly jump from topic to topic. I would add some facial expression there, or some gesture some of them said. It is this conversation i believe:
‘’So, how did you get here?’’ She asked him.
That is the last line of conversation.
Other thing about conversation is when your protagonist talked to the guard. It seemed a bit mechanical (i get that you probably wanted to get that effect of him just telling what Lea told him to), but it sounds to me a little bit too much fake. Also the guard's reception was way too naive.
But i like it. I guess i was the only one to assume they were not in England from the beggining, so not im pretty happy as story ended up having a twist. I will go on reading rest of your work, but the most impportant here for me is that you hold on to the fact he comes from reality.
-Alchemist
Thanks for your review!
I couldn't agree with you more about the guard-story-thing, I thought that in the beginning as well, but wanted to see if other noticed it. ^^
I'll try to fix that part, perhaps rewrite the whole ending.
Thanks again!
- Zontafer
Hey, Zontafer! Sorry for the delay.
The exposition's developing gorgeously. As Subtle noted, the dialogue assisted in fleshing it out. And I could gush all day about your details. Subtly incorporated, yet emphasized enough to be digestible.
I've squandered buckets of review juice nagging writers about maintaining a balance. Here, I don't need to.
Chances are, you've heard that when characters are holding a conversation, you should cut down on the narrative. It's true, and you did just that, while still making the dialogue and dialogue tags flow smooth. My eyes were glued to the screen.
Dialogue tags ... I really discourage varying them. If you do, they attract all the attention, or just kind of hover there awkward. "Said" is your new best friend. If anything, omit the dialogue tag whenever possible. The reader should be engaged in the actual dialogue.
God, the flow—I could gush about it all day. Passive voice fused with active voice, transitions shone bright, introductory phrases polished the paragraphs .... This bears all the elements of a published work.
I can see you're heading the route of typical fantasy. Two characters hopping from town to town, mounted on steeds. Two characters on a perilous journey, which's danger will bind them closer together. While I love typical fantasy, I don't like the ... typical part. I can often expect cliché themes, characters ... even a cliché ambience. This has potential, and you're fantastic writer, but it could be transformed into something more unique, somehow. I'd suggest inserting more reaction, for a small start. Reaction versus action, to really dig into the characters themselves, unveil their personalities.
The lack of contractions also sounds odd, as opposed to contributing to formal speech. Your style leans more toward lighthearted. I can already tell, you're capable of both heavy emotion and humor. Some writers can only do heavy emotion, like me.
Onto the nitpicks! Expect a short review after Subtle's
The "of" is unnecessary.
Comma after "earlier."
Should be "darker and more overgrown."
Second clause comes off ambiguous, in addition to grammatically incorrect (an adjective can't give a character an uncomfortable feeling). I'd recommend clipping it. Slightly difficult to reword.
No colon necessary.
Should be "bath." "Bathe" is a verb.
Comes off sounding a little awkward. Maybe: "Lea mumbled, looking lost."
Should be "thick." "Thickly" is an adverb. Unless you meant "sickly"?
Numbers should be spelt out, with the exception of dates, times, scores—you get the gist.
For or forth?
Also, quick lesson on dialogue: if a period concludes it, but the period precedes a dialogue tag, then the period should be exchanged for a comma, and the dialogue tag should be uncapitalized, like so: "Hello," I said. "How are you?"
That's all I have. Amazing work! Keep it up! Looking forward to hearing more from you.
Wow thanks a lot!!!
This really helped me, specially on the dialogue!
One thing about the number thing, isn't 1-9 supposed to be spelled with text and 10 spelled with numbers? I think I read this somewhere..
Do you want me to tell you when the next chapter is out?
At least, thanks a lot again!
- Zontafer
Oh yeah, the spelling-out-numbers things gets technical. I'm certain that you spell out numbers one to twenty, and digits like thirty and sixty and two-hundred, as well. But writing 31 as a number--yeah, that's fine.
No problem! And I'd love to read the next chapters when they're out! You're an amazing writer.
Heyo Zontafer, Subtle here as requested. So I'm going to start off with some nitpicks and then move onto what I liked about this chapter.
Content:
I thought the pacing was a bit fast in this chapter, so Jacob met a woman and then a short time after they were in Asgard? That's very quick trust, I get that a feeling that Jacob didn't trust Lea at first though that seemed to accelerated quickly as Jacob is now following Lea into a strange land after what seems like half an hour. For all we know, Lea could be trying to devour Jacob alive!? Ok ok, I know I'm not funny but you get my point.
I think you can probably add in something between Jacob pondering about her name and then suddenly switching into the forest. Again? Does that mean they were in a forest before, if so where? Where were they before? In fact, where were they at the start of the novel? You could use this gap here to describe the detail of the place they're in to give the readers a better sense of the situation and background information. By providing this information, we get a much more three-dimensional and realistic feeling to the story instead of just words on a page? So, explore and dig deep.
So here again, I think you can expand his shock a bit more because right now Jacob seems like a kid who's in shock instead of an adult. Also how old is Lea meant to be, is she meant to be a teenager?
You only need either "" or '' for quotation marks. The dialogue throughout this chapter is actually quite good, they are mostly relevant questions besides from the personal ones. Although the way you write them makes your character seem far more youngest than they really are. I can't exactly explain here, but if you want a more detailed explanation, feel free to hit me up in chat or send me a PM.
Also, I think you can write in more imagery and emotion into this chapter. Show don't tell. Once again, I don't want to spam this review with a page long explanation on show don't tell. PM or chat if you want find out more.
Technical:
I will point out a few spelling errors and grammatical errors, but not all of them. Since I'm not too big on them. And point out a few expression problems.
Period after name. Only single quotation before you, or double. Not opposite quotation marks.
I'm not sure if need feel tell, you've already told us she's dejected so why repeat the same thing? 'She gave up, dejected.' Is more concise and has the same meaning. Is also crisp and sharp. Just a suggestion though.
So, I think you can reword this to make it flow better. 'The tone in which she talked was an expecting one.' I may have changed it a bit, but also. Is her back facing him, if is, Jacob smiling at her back just seems a bit ridiculous. xD.
'Lea mumbled with a lost look,' or unless the trade look is Lea's trademark look? But in most cases, you use an article when it comes to this.
You came from -> past tense.
Got -> Went is a better word, got is so overused.
Taking -> Took or if you want a better word, aboard.
No need to repeat Saltlake port again, you can skip that. 'A ship brought you to his harbour wher we met.'
Get-> Got it, or if you want a better word -> understood?
Here's a tip: Use a thesaurus if you want a better word. Thesaurus is your friend, you know.
Thickly? That's an adverb to be used to describe verbs, I think you want an adjective here which is thick.
Form -> From.
Grammatically incorrect, reword it perhaps into -> He asked, a sceptical look clouded his eyes.
Well, that ended up being way longer than I expected but anyways, I want to say things I liked about this chapter now. So, I liked the fact that it was short. I hate reading long, boring chapters filled with long, dreary descriptions of places. (Though no descriptions is just as bad, I think you're somewhere in the middle wavering towards no description. So, try and add in a bit more scenery. I get close to no feeling to what place I'm in.) I also liked the fact that your dialogue was an info dump, and most were relevant. I liked the way you kept the plot moving by putting the characters in constant action. There is a bit of work to do with this chapter, mostly with the pacing and expanding the character's feelings and depth and describing more of their physical surroundings.
I hope I helped.
Keep it up! Tell me when the next chapter is out!
-S.s
WOOOW THANKS A LOT!
This really helped me on my chapter! I know I'm going to fast in my story, and using too little description.
You're so awesome!
Thanks a lot again!
- Zontafer
Also, the quotation marks was right in my document, but when I posted it here, it looks like something went wrong. o.o