A/N: I apologize for the mess- I wrote this on my iPod so it's all... ew. But anyways...
* * *
Shaky hands folded the yellow cloth, hurrying to tuck the brownies and other assorted goodies in Crim's picnic basket. "Don't show them what's under these treats." Crim's Mama warned, her eyes locked on his.
"I won't." He promised, a promise he wasn't sure he could keep.
"Here, son." She said, draping a scarlett cloak around his shoulders. He fiddled with the strings, pulling them into the strongest knot he could think of, still she wondered if it'd hold.
"Alright," he said, releasing a sigh, "I should be back before supper." Then he headed out of the cottage and down the steps. "I sure hope this works." he muttered under his breath, nearly tripping on his skirt. Bloody thing. He tugged the extra cloth up his legs slightly, as he'd seen girls at school do many times.
The pebbled path lead him into the forest where the pebbles gave way to sticks and stones. He started humming, hoping to add to the 'innocent little girl' facade his mother had carefully organized. From his floral bodice to his cramped boots, to his lacy stockings and silk gloves, he looked no more then a gangly girl, perhaps boyish, but still a girl. If someone were to come close enough to see his square jaw, or thick brows, his Mama had instructed to pull the hood up. Crim's mother figured a little girl would get less trouble than a teen boy.
Under the canopy of evergreens, the air felt damp, and it smelt mouldy. Crim's humming got quieter and quieter as he drew deeper and deeper into the woods. The mould smell reminded him of nosebleeds- his Mama used to plug his nose with moss when he'd get one.
Li' Red
A whisper made him stop cold in his tracks. But where had it come from? He wondered, with a shiver, looking behind him.
"Over here, Crimson." Came the voice, louder this time.
Crim whipped his head around to see a ranger standing on the path ahead of him.
"H-hello Sir!" Crim said quickly, later realizing he hadn't sounded very much like a girl... But then the ranger knew his name.
Getting straight to business the ranger said "what're you up to, kid?"
Deciding to stay with the original plan in hopes he wouldn't look too suspicious, Crim answered in the best girl's voice he could pull off.
"I'm headed to my Granny's." He said, his voice cracking on the first syllable in 'granny'. This is what his Mama had told him to say if anyone asked. The truth was he was headed to his Papa's hunting hut.
"What's a pretty little girl like you doing walking to get Granny's on her own?" The ranger asked.
Crim couldn't tell if he believed the facade or if the ranger was mocking him.
"...my mother's with child, and my granny is too sick to bake for herself." He lied.
"Well then," the ranger said, starting towards Crim. Was that a smirk on his lips?
Crim flipped his hood up so fast it made the ranger pause for a minute.
"I'll walk you; I was headed this way anyway." The ranger said, taking Crim's arm.
"B-but, but!-" Crim tried to protest, but the ranger cut him off.
"Shh, you wouldn't want to get gobbled by wolves, would you?" The ranger's eyes seemed to gleam at the thought.
Crim gulped at the idea of meeting a wolf on the trail, but if that happened, he had something that would take care of that; it was the reason he was here, beneath the stawberry frosted brownies was a revolver loaded with silver bullets. His father needed that revolver, and the rangers couldn't know- they'd probably accuse them of witchcraft.
"No, no I wouldn't..." Crim gave in and let the ranger drag him down the path.
After a few minutes of walking, they came to a little cabbin with a lovely flower garden and smoke puffing from the chimney.
"Ah, here we are!" Crim exclaimed in his highest tone.
"I'll see you safely inside, and then be on my way." the ranger said, grinning.
Dammit. Crim thought.
"I'm fine Sir- I'm good now." Crim's said, flashing a reassuring smile- then he wasn't sure if his smile was very feminine, and frowned quickly.
"Go on." The ranger said, gesturing towards the cabin. "Your granny awaits."
Crim decided to humour him, walking up the stone path towards the cabin. Maybe the ranger would go as he was walking. He glanced back to see if he was right, and met the ranger's amused gaze. Grudgingly he put his hand on the knob and turned it, walking into the stranger's home. Then he turned and lifted his hand to wave to the ranger- but he wasn't there. Crim let out a sigh of relief, he must have left when he reached the steps-
"This isn't your house, li' Red."
Crim spun around to see the ranger standing just a few feet away from him, in the house.
"Uh..." Crim was trying to think of something to stall.
"Why don't you come in, rest awhile, won't you?" The ranger said, soothingly.
"Thank you, but my granny will be worried; I better go." Crim tried to sound normal- with a girl's voice, but he was terrified, and he could hear it in his own voice.
"Surely you can stay awhile," the ranger said, reaching in front of Crim and nudging the door shut.
"N-no really, I need to go." Crim's said, reaching for the knob again.
The ranger smiled, his teeth sharper then any human teeth. "Crimson? Dearest Red?"
Crim refused to answer, he fiddled with the basket, trying to feel his way to the revolver.
"Did you really think these frilly things would trick me?" He reached towards Crim, pushing his hood back. "You do make a lovely girl... But really."
Crim felt the edge of something hard and cool on his fingertips amount the gooey frosting and chocolate squares, and yanked it out, fumbling to point it at the wolf. The wolf raised an eyebrow and smirked, while Crim opened the door. Then the wolf lunged at Crim, teeth digging into his shoulder. Crim pulled the trigger out of surprise and the bullet just grazed the wolf's arm.
Seizing his chance, Crim flung the door open and bolted down the walk way. The pain from the bite numbed his shoulder, but he didnt stop to see how bad it was, he just kept running. He could hear the heavy foot falls of the wolf behind him, and Crim wondered how long it would take for the wolf to turn to complete wolf form. When it did, he wouldn't be able to out run it. He could try to shoot it again, but he hadn't had much practice with revolvers. His best bet was to reach his father's before the wolf turned. It yipped and yowled behind him, barking and growling- it wouldn't be too long.
Crim ran through the forest, every step jarring his shoulder. The blood running down his arm and onto his hand which was grasped around the basket handle. He could see his Papa's hut now, branches and leaves strewn across its roof and walls as camouflage. Just ten more metres.
But he lost his footing, he tried to right himself but the skirt got in the way and he came tumbling to the ground.
"Papa!" He screamed as he hit the earth, basket crashing beside him, the brownies crumbling out onto the dirt. He heard the wolves paws thundering towards him. The revolver was still firm in his hand, he rolled onto his back, aiming at the half human half wolf as it charged towards him, and fired.
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125,007 Literary Works • 672,815 Reviews
Yo, Holy. Pomp here for a quick review! I've noticed that Falunel's already covered a lot of the technical errors, so I won't be spending much time on the grammar bits.
I've noticed that you don't have commas in dialogue, whenever the dialogue is followed by a dialogue tag. This has already been covered in the review below mine, but I thought you might find this link helpful. *drops link* Also, when you're writing a dialogue, you often place commas as you would in full sentences. For example:
^Over here, I've placed a comma after the tag (he said) because the second part of the dialogue stands as its own sentence and is not a continuation of the first. However, if you had a dialogue like the below-mentioned, you would not need to add a period after the dialogue tag; this is because it's a continuation of the same sentence.
~ Typo: 'scarlett' should be 'scarlet'. c:
~ This 'ere hyphen marked in red oughta be a dash: — as such.
Hm. Right, so I would spend too long pestering you on your need for consistency: your world seemed at odds with itself, somehow, and things didn't really seem to fit.... For example: you have a boy dressing as a girl, and revolvers apparently exist at this time (that's not to say that if the story takes place in ... ah ... the 1500s, that revolvers don't exist, because they /did/ exist but they were also super-expensive and very different from the modern revolver). I think, that if you're looking at this from a realistic view-point, you should consider the 'props' to be adherent to the 'setting', i.e.: time and place of the story. It doesn't seem to be a modern fairy-tale, seeing as we have wolves and witches--and people are afraid of witches in this time period? It makes me think that witch burnings would also be a thing, at this point, then, so obviously the tale isn't modern. Unless it's in an alternative universe, but some background would be nice. I'm not asking for an essay--just a couple of lines littered through the piece ... some world-building ... it'd help.
Also! Because I was talking about revolvers, they became more of a commonly-owned item in the 19th century. Just for fact's sake. And if the world you've set this in is our own. XD
You also ought to know that when you've talked about Crim firing the revolver and all, it seemed you had a double-action revolver in mind, since Crim simply aimed and fired directly. I guess what bugs me is the fact that this kind of revolver is much more modern, and the single-action revolver might be suited here. I realise I've kinda gone on a tangent here, so I'll just leave you with this piece of advice: research, mon ami, is vury important. I know this piece if for FTT and research is always your last thought when you have time-constraints and stuff, but ifwhen you edit this, it might help to have a sound background on what you're writing about.
Okay, so, let's talk character development. To be honest, the story seemed to be more dependent on its plot and pace-of-events than involving itself with the characters. I'm not sure if you were going for a third person limited or third person omniscient PoV here, but you do have some internal dialogue--limited to Crim only--so I'm going to assume it's TPL. That said, I'd like some more internal dialogue where Crim is concerned because everything is rather up-in-the-air at this point. You've dropped a couple of hints but you never really expand on why they're there. Like, Crim mentions his father and how he needs the revolver, but we never find out why he needs it so badly and for what purpose; this downplays the excitement a great deal. I also felt like you wrapped this story up a bit hastily; there were a lot of loose strings and no solid resolution. It feels like you were trying to go for the 'hit-my-readers-in-the-gut' effect, but it didn't really work out because ... well, we want to know what happened to the wolf. XD Perhaps this kind of ending would be more appropriate in a novel, as a cliffhanger, but it's not fulfilling its purpose for a short story--which is to provide a stolid end and satisfy the reader + wrap up the drama. Work on this; I bet you have a fantastic continuation in mind, and I'd like to see it!
Overall, this was an enjoyable read, Holy! Sorry if I might've seemed harsh at any point, but there's a load of potential in this yet~ So keep writing! Keep it up!
Hope this helped. PM me if you have any questions~
Cheers,
~Pomp c:
Hello there!
Just some housekeeping on the grammatical front first:
If a form of "to say" follows a quote, the quote should end in a comma if it would have normally ended in a period. Also, the "to say" section should not be capitalized. So, for example,
>"I won't." He promised, a promise he wasn't sure he could keep.
should become
>"I won't," he promised, a promise he wasn't sure he could keep.
Be wary of comma splices. If two phrases on both sides of a comma can stand alone as sentences of their own, they should be separated as their own sentences, connected with a comma + conjunction, or altered so that one is not a sentence. In some cases, they may also be connected with a semicolon or emdash. So, for example
>He fiddled with the strings, pulling them into the strongest knot he could think of, still she wondered if it'd hold.
should become
>He fiddled with the strings, pulling them into the strongest knot he could think of. Still, she wondered if it'd hold.
or
>He fiddled with the strings, pulling them into the strongest knot he could think of, but she still wondered if it'd hold.
or
>Though he fiddled with the strings, pulling them into the strongest knot he could think of, she still wondered if it'd hold.
or
>He fiddled with the strings, pulling them into the strongest knot he could think of--still, she wondered if it'd hold.
Also, be careful of perspective jumps, as in the above example, where the story jumps from Crim's perspective and thoughts to his mother's perspective and thoughts ("still, she wondered if it'd hold"). Perspective jumps can be useful, but they should be done consistently--this is the only time we jump to Crim's mother's perspective, and the rest of the time, we're in Crim's head. A way to still show that Crim's mother is worried without needing to jump into her thoughts would be to show something about her that Crim observes--for example:
>He fiddled with the strings, pulling them into the strongest knot he could think of. Still, he saw her bite her lip, her eyes tight in worry.
As for the story itself, there's a continuity jump here:
>"Did you really think these frilly things would trick me?" He reached towards Crim, pushing his hood back. "You do make a lovely girl... But really."
>Crim felt the edge of something hard and cool on his fingertips amount the gooey frosting and chocolate squares, and yanked it out, fumbling to point it at the wolf. The wolf raised an eyebrow and smirked, while Crim opened the door. Then the wolf lunged at Crim, teeth digging into his shoulder. Crim pulled the trigger out of surprise and the bullet just grazed the wolf's arm.
In one moment he's a ranger, in the next, he's a wolf. As a reader, I don't know how he became the wolf--was he a wolf all along in human clothes, or did he transform before Crim's eyes into a wolf? And what sort of wolf is he? Later, he's described as half-man, half-wolf, but here we don't know if he's a wolfman or a four-legged wolf walking on his hind legs.
The ranger also seems to be familiar with who Crim is, as he addresses him by his "real" name despite Crim never telling him. There's also the wording of the last paragraph here:
>The ranger smiled, his teeth sharper then any human teeth. "Crimson? Dearest Red?"
>Crim refused to answer, he fiddled with the basket, trying to feel his way to the revolver.
>"Did you really think these frilly things would trick me?" He reached towards Crim, pushing his hood back. "You do make a lovely girl... But really."
It seems to imply that the ranger/wolf knows about Crim, even if Crim doesn't know him. Which brings me to some interesting details I noticed in the story. The first being Crim's delivery itself, the revolver loaded with silver bullets. The story mentions that if the rangers realized what Crim was carrying, they would accuse Crim's family of witchcraft. This seems to suggest several possibilities:
1. People don't believe that wolves exist (but witches do, apparently)
2. The rangers may even be in league with the wolves, and work to cover things up by offing or imprisoning everyone who's a threat to the wolves.
Which brings up an interesting question of how Crim's family knows about the wolves in the first place. Keep in mind that you don't need to explain all this in explicit detail--dropping hints and showing that there's something below the surface works just as well. In fact, sometimes it's better to drop hints rather than explain everything at once, as it'll fit better with the flow of the story. Just be sure to drop enough hints, and have them point in the right direction so your readers take notice.
Oh, and one last detail. The part about silver bullets along with the descriptions of the wolf "turning" seem to imply that these are not just wolves, but werewolves. Which brings up the question: if Crim's family hunts werewolves, and Crim (assuming werewolf bites work the same here as they do elsewhere) turns into a werewolf because of his bite, what does that mean for him and his family?
Overall, I think this story has a lot of hidden depths and backstories. It hints that there's a more going on below the surface, just as there's more to the "innocent little girl" and "her" basket of brownies. It has the potential to expand even more, I think, though I can't exactly tell you how.
An enjoyable read--thank you for sharing.
-- Review by Falah
Thanks Falc! The perspective switch was a typo >.<
But yeah, a lot in this story doesn't make a lot of sense I've realized, so I'm hoping to fix it up when I have a computer again. xD
Why the hell did I think you were Falc? xD Thanks Falunel!
I loved your story! The name Crimson was brilliant by the way!
Glad you enjoyed it!