HEY MY PEOPLE! I AM SO PSYCHED THOSE OF YOU WHO HAVE READ PREVIOUS CHAPTERS AND ARE COMING BACK. THAT IS WICKED COOL!!! Okay I will take off the cap-lock. :) Seriously though, thank you to everyone who has given feed back! YOU GUYS ARE THE BEST.
For those of you who have just started, I am so happy you have taken the time to check this out. A quick recap if you haven't read the previous chapters. Griffin is a teen guy who has gotten on the bad side of a wizard and the wizard has sent a dragon to kill him. However the dragon has his own agenda. Hope you guys likey. Check out my previous chapters if you are curious.
Chapter 7.
Four strands of barb wire, chest high. I bounced off it…sort of. Caught on the barbs that dug into my shirt, and into more than one spot in my flesh I couldn't move all that much. I’m not going to lie, I might have let out a yell that did not sounded entirely manly. Once I figured out what it was that wouldn’t let me go, I calmed down and did my best to untangle myself and my tee from the fence. When I was finished there was holes in the front of my T shirt and I was bleed lightly from various spots on my body. Proceeding with more care this time, I made it through the fence without further accident.
I set off across the field with a spring in my step, happy to be free of the forest at last. However, one field lead to another and four fields later everything started to feel like a bad dream. I began to realize that fields were a lot like woods, only hotter. After crossing a few more fields, one dotted with hay bales, another with waist high grass, I came to a corn field.
Cutting through that wasn’t so bad because the stalks were tall and cast shade, making the walk cooler, not to mention the road I found when I broke out of towering plants.
The road was dirt and dust puffed up from my sneakers as I walked down it. Several times a wave of dizziness hit me and I would have to stop but a half hour later I spotted civilization at last…Well at least man made buildings.
A farm sprawled a midst the rolling fields. A huge house stood dignified but shabby, it’s gray paint flaking to revealing the brown wood underneath. A barn sat behind it and off to the side, typical in it’s red color and tin roof, with a silo pressed up against it. I could make out someone moving around in the barn yard and I made my way to towards them. As I got closer I saw that it was a man working on a tractor. I tried to clear my throat to call out but my throat was so dry that it turned into a downright cough and I couldn’t seem to stop.
“You alright son?” asked a concerned voice. I swallowed the best I could without a drop of moisture in my mouth and croaked out,
“I’m fine.” Lifting my head I got my first good look at the farmer.
His face was tan and the sun had creased lines of humor at the corners of his blue eyes and around his mouth. His hair was white and tied back in a short ponytail, with just of a hint of the red color it used tingeing it, yet despite the white hair he barely looked middle age. He placed a calloused hand on my shoulder and though he was average height, I had the sudden impression of him towering over me.
“You sure about that Boy?” He asked looking me up and down. “You look like you got in a fight with a tumbleweed and lost.”
It was a fence actually, I thought without a trace of humor. What I said was,
“Yes sir, I was just hoping you could tell me how far it is to town and which direction it is in.”
To his credit the man didn’t blink. “Town’s that way.” He pointed back the way I‘d come. Then rubbing his chin he mused out loud. “ I’d say it’s about twelve miles.”
My shoulders slumped and my face must have shown my discouragement because he laid a hand on my shoulder.
“Tell you what, kid. How about we head to the kitchen and get a drink? You tell me how you ended up out here in the middle of no where and then I’ll drive you into town.
Ten minutes later I was seated on the porch swing with a glass of sweet tea in my hand and finishing up my story.
“And now I know never to take a twenty five dollar net into the woods” I wound up my tale and gulped down the last of my tea.
The farmer, whose name I had found out was Ivan Scott, wore mask of disbelieve.
“All right Kid, let me see if I’ve got this straight. You were chasing a butterfly for a school project and you followed it into the forest where you were then attacked by what you are, and I quote,fairly sure was a rabid possum that when you tried to use your butterfly net to defend yourself, this 'possum' latched on the netting with its teeth and then decided to play dead with the net still in it’s mouth. After which you came to the decision that it would be better to leave it with the possum than to carry around a, and again I quote, faking dead animal on the end of your net. However during your battle with the possum you lost your sense of direction and ended up here.”
He raised a single eyebrow at me.
So it wasn’t one of my better stories.
I smiled at him weakly.
“Well you know what they say, fact is stranger than fiction.”
He grunted unconvinced, before draining the last of his sweet tea. He spun the glass in his hands and shot me a sideways glance.
“Is that so? I’ll tell you what else is strange. The fact that you are doing a project for school when the only school within a hundred miles of these parts let out for the summer yesterday.
I just about smacked my own head.
“Uh, it is like, sort of, um, like one of those thing the teachers assigns kids to do over the summer, you know?” I stammered , digging the hole deeper.
The farmer just stared at me for a long time. His face smooth of any expression.
Then he spoke.
“No, I don’t ‘know what to you mean’ but I do know when I’m being feed a load of manure, and that story, Son is the biggest pile of manure I’ve heard in a long time.” He stood and stared down at me. There was a long lapse of totally silence.
I was busted.
“Umm.” Was all I could manage. I scratched my forehead, then gave him a what I hope was a cocky grin,
“Did I over do it with the possum?”
Scott’s face didn’t change for several moments than he laugh. A deep chuckle that, I’ll be honest, startle the dickens out of me. I chortle along weakly.
He pointed a thick finger at me.
“That dang possum is the only reason I am not tossing you off this pouch for your pack of lies right now. “ He said, shaking his head and opening up the screen door to the house, “Bring your glass into the kitchen. I’ll make you a sandwich and then drive you into town.”
I followed him into the house.
“You just have a seat there on the couch while I throw together some sandwiches” Scott instructed me. I tried to protest but he waved me off, leaving me alone in the living room. I sat on the couch for a few minutes before the plaid flannel upholstery became unbearably itchy. I stood and made my way over to the mantle, first looking at the several pictures sitting on it. One of a laughing woman, who I assumed must be his wife, the other of a boy and a girl. My gaze was inevitably drawn to the large framed map hanging on the wall above them. Hand drawn, the paper was brown with age but the draw of it was detailed. I was still studying it when Scott came back out with the sandwiches.
“You eat ham?” He asked.
“ I could eat a horse right now.” I said taking the offer food, map forgotten.
***
Thirty minutes later I was sitting the front seat of a rattling pickup truck. Ivan Scott hadn’t asked any more questions about why I was in the woods and while I was puzzled by his lack of curiosity, I was grateful. Leaning my head against the back of the seat, I closed my eyes and within minutes I was asleep.
“Hey, kid, wake up.”Blinking and rubbing my eyes, I straightened and twisted my head, trying to work a kink out of my neck. “We’re in town. Now where do you live?”
A image of what my mom’s reaction to a stranger dropping me off flashed before my eyes and I waved a hand at a gas station.
“You can just drop me off here.” I said hurriedly. “No need drive me home.”
Ivan looked annoyed. “Yes, I do. It’s getting dark and your folks are probably worried sick. So enough messing around, where do you live?”
We had stopped at a stop sign and he was tapping his thumb on the steering wheel.
I hung my head defeated and reluctantly gave him directions.
Dusk had fallen by the time we pulled up in front of the house. Light spilled from the dining room window. Scott put the car in park but left it running. He seemed to be contemplating whether or not to come in. I decide to help him out. I stuck out my hand.
“Thanks for the ride home Mr. Scott.” I said and meant it.
“You’re welcome, son.” He said, his calloused hand swallowing my smaller and slightly more pudgy one, as he shook it. “and tell your friends to stay out of the forest, it’s private property and the owner don’t take to well to trespassers.”
For a moment I was confused and then I realized why Scott hadn’t pried, he thought I was covering for my friends. I figured it would be best not to correct him.
“Yes sir.” I opened the door of the truck and started to climb out. Scott’s voice stopped me. “You never did tell me your name, boy?” He said it as a question and with what I thought was perhaps a hint of challenge.
I turned back to him.
“Griffin Matthews,” I studied his face waiting for the name to register, but his face remained clear of any recognition. He simply nodded. “Good to meet you Griffin.” I nod back.
“Like wise.” I said before stepping out of the pick-up. I watched as he drove away and then started up the sidewalk to my house, not looking forward to the scolding I was sure to be getting and dreading spend the night with a dragon under the same roof. I reached the door and after taking a deep breath, turned the knob and walked in.
I don’t know what I was expecting when I stepped into the house. Perhaps a grilling of where I had been all day, maybe a smirking dragon but the sound of silverware clinking softly against china and quiet laughter wasn’t one of them. I shut the door behind me and at the click of it there was a pause in conversation in the dining room.
“Griffin, is that you?” There was that tone of worry in my mother voice that I had been expecting but it was dampened by something else that I couldn’t quite place. A scrape of a chair being pushed back and I heard a muttered ‘excuse me’ and she appeared in the doorway to the kitchen/dining room.I walked towards her.
“I’m sorry I’m back so late Mom.” I said brushing my hair from my eyes and watching Mom’s eyes widened as I stepped into the light pouring from the room behind her.
“What happened Baby?” She was concerned and she reached out to touch the side of my face.
I had just opened my mouth to reply with a pack of lies when I glanced over her shoulder and saw who was sitting at the table, a napkin neatly draped across one knee and a plate of pork roast and mash potatoes sitting in front of him.
The Dragon.
Hope this was mildly entertaining. As soon as I get at least two reviews I will post the next chapter. (It is waiting and ready.) I would love help with story and GRAMMAR! I suck at grammar. :)
Love you people and i will probably post the next chapter without any reviews on this one but seriously guys the next chapter is amazing!
Tootles
DG
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137,630 Literary Works • 672,054 Reviews
Hello.
Thank you for providing a summary for people like me who haven't read previous parts. I shall be reviewing based on what I see here exclusively.
Technical things first. Your dialogue formatting is a little choppy, and the biggest issue is you always start dialogue paragraphs with the actual dialogue. Lines like this:
Can be flipped to more naturally read as:
You can have the action/tag of the dialogue before the dialogue, but within the same paragraph. The principle of writing dialogue is "change every time a new person speaks", but you can and should keep all actions in both the order they happen (if they do a movement before speaking, the movement should be before the spoken lines) and all within the same paragraph.
Similarly, these lines:
Should be rewritten to be:
It helps keep everything more organized.
I would also take a look at this article on punctuation and proofread your work accordingly. If you want a more detailed grammar review, let me know and I'll point out some issues I noticed!
Next up, your pacing. You do a good job with your descriptions— they're rich and detailed, with some indication of character voice which makes me really sympathetic to the character— but there's a lot of them.
Long chunks of description like you have are really hard to read through, even if this is chapter 7. Try to keep periods where the character is alone to a minimum, because aloneness is a time where the character isn't really doing anything interesting. Introspection is good every once and awhile, but unless it's really building up the stakes and feels tense, it's better to have interactions.
Really think about the purpose of your descriptions. Is it just describing for the sake of describing? If yes, cut it. If you're using description to add tension or generate a mood to the scene, then really work that in. This article can help you with the latter.
Overall, this has promise. I like your character's voice. Everything here just feels a little rough, like an early draft, and you need to work on having a purpose to absolutely everything you include. There are some interesting lines like the description of the barbed wire, and how four fields later it felt like a nightmare, but for the most part, this just feels like description for the sake of it when description needs to do more.
Hope this helps! Let me know if you have any questions or comments.
~Rosey
hello. Let me start by saying I like that you gave a recap at the start of the chapter, might start doing that myself! Haven't ready any of your chapters before, but I'm just picking stuff from the back of the green room to review and you've been waiting a long time so :p
The best thing I think this chapter has is the atmosphere; you do an amazing job of describing the grand soothing nature of a countryside. You made it incredibly easy envisioning the grassy, bright farmland and all the rustic charms it has to offer. Your skill at describing new areas is amazing -- I'm someone who tends to struggle picking up or describing new areas to a reader, but your descriptions allowed me to easily see where we're at in the story, and what's going on. It's easy to follow and pretty entertaining to read.
Now on to the negative stuff, heheh. The biggest thing I'd suggest you to do would be just to read over your work before you post it. I mean, I don't want to be accusatory, but just off a few paragraphs alone, my first impression was that you didn't proofread this at all. There are a ton of minor errors and awkward sentences that could've been fixed to give it a better sense of professionalism.
Your characterization isn't bad, per se, but they don't strike me as extraordinarily memorable, the farmer being just barely interesting enough, and the main character coming off as rather forgettable. I'd freshen up your dialogue and create more vivid and tenacious inner thoughts of your main character.
Things:
This is a longwinded sentence. I'd add a comma after flesh.
Were holes
When he said his "Tee" was caught, did he mean his T-shirt? For better consistency I'd have him say T-Shirt both times if that's the case.
This is another awkward sentence that took me a few times to try to get what you were saying. How about "Dust puffed up from my sneakers as I walked down the long dirt road." or something like that...?
Amidst is one word.
Likewise is one word.
I could probably keep pointing out your mistakes until I had a 10000 word review, but I'm not going to, because I think you can find them yourself by just reading over more carefully. I'd also suggest you to find short descriptive sentences and thicken them up a bit to make them more engaging.
So in conclusion, nice atmosphere, focus on making your characters interesting, that's where your greatest improvement will be, and read over your work. Nice chapter ^^
Hey, thanks for the review. It's always great to get feedback. I will right and tighten up my writing a bit. Thank you for the tips!
-DG