Published April 16, 2013
“Jace! Get out of here! I can hold this thing off!” yelled Grechk
“Grechk, I’m not leaving you behind! The Magical energies will tear you apart!” I yelled back, only seconds before he pushed me through the Ty’zin. A Ty’zin, you ask? Well, it’s a kind of tamed wilder magic portal. Now, that didn’t make much sense did it? Why don’t we try re-winding a little bit?
It all began, well, really strangely to be honest. It was a Monday morning, and I was at home, in the process of Febreezing my uniform because my washing machine was busted… Again. I finished applying the Febreeze, when a horrible thought occurred to me; what time was it? I quickly bolted into the kitchen, and saw my doom. It was eight forty-seven, and classes started at nine o’clock, and it was a forty-five minute walk!
I rushed out of the house, and without locking the door, or grabbing my keys, I ran. About thirty seconds after I got outside, it began raining too. I slowed down from a run, and began jogging down the street. After about five minutes, I slipped in a puddle, and fell into a ditch. After sitting there stunned for a minute or so, I remembered my situation, and nearly flew out of the ditch. I looked at my uniform, and began muttering curses, when I realized just how much I had muddied my uniform. I stood there for a few minutes, before deciding I would rather be late, than written up for messy uniform. I began to return home. As I got halfway back, I realized that it had stopped raining. I let out a breath of relief and looked around. The breath caught halfway, as I realized that there was no sign of clouds in the sky, and the pavement and ditch were completely dry. Strange, I thought, after ten minutes of rain, you would think that the ground would at least be wet.
I decided that I was either exaggerating the time, or had been paying less attention than usual. Approaching my home, I remembered that I still needed to paint my window shutters, and finish putting up the fence. I was nearly at my home, lost in thought, when I realized that there was a fence in my way. That’s odd, I thought, I never finished putting up the fence, so why is it suddenly here? I looked up at my house, and noticed that my shutters were no longer brown, but aged, peeling, and blue. What’s going on here? I nearly tripped over the un-opened buckets of paint on my way out the door. Suddenly, I had a bad feeling, and actually looked around.
I froze. The parking lot across the street was full of rusted and broken cars. I looked down the street, and saw that most of the windows were cracked and broken. The houses were all in complete disrepair, and not a single car was not rusted. If I had been paying attention, I would have noticed that Old Bertha’s garden was overgrown. Old Bertha would never let her garden become over grown. At least, not while she was alive to say so. I decided that I would go inside my house, lie down on my bed, and try to wake up, from what was obviously a bad dream. I went to hop the fence, to get on my lawn, when I realized just how broken and dilapidated it really was. Many of the boards form the fence were rotten through, and the brown paint was almost gone. All in all, the fence appeared not to have been maintained in many, many years.
Having decided not to hop the fence, and risk injury with its collapse, I continued down the road, until I hit the corner of the block. I turned and followed the fence until I came to the driveway, which shocked me even more. Yesterday, I had had the driveway repaved, because weeds were pushing up through cracks. Now, the driveway was littered with cracks the size of my hand. As I walked up the driveway, I studied the many signs of severe degradation, and age. Most of the cracks were full of dandelions and grass, but some appeared to be quite deep, and had very little growing in them. Once I reached my front door, I attempted to open it, and found it locked. I had already begun looking for my keys when I remembered; I hadn’t locked the door when I left!
Suddenly, everything around me seemed alien. I looked around once more, while trying to figure out what to do. My street, once so full of life and love, was now dead, disturbing and… foggy? I quickly looked around, and seeing a pale blue fog approach, I began to back away. As I was staring in horrid fascination at the fog, I nearly tripped over a broken paving stone. Realizing this, I decided that turning around completely would probably be my best option for escape. As I ran, I thought about what I had seen. While the entity was obviously a fog or cloud of some kind, it was at the same time extraordinarily different. As it moved, it moved in a rolling fashion, creeping over, around, and under cars, posts, and signs, almost as if it was alive.
I ran past rusted cars, broken windows and cracked pavement. As I ran, I realized that there didn’t appear to be any intentional damage in the city. It was just as if it had been instantaneously abandoned, or everyone disappeared at the same time. There were no signs of struggles, looting or violence of any kind. Everything just appeared to have been extremely deteriorated by age. Even the display items behind shop windows were still there, albeit broken or rotting.
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I agree with Anadir. I think this could make a great novel, though I'm totally with you on the whole starting a novel and never finishing it thing. then again, whenever I try to write a short story it doesn't end up being very short lol. anyways. I noticed only one spelling error.
"Many of the boards form the fence were rotten through," - you wrote "form" instead of "from"
Also, I think "rotten" should actually be "rotted." I'm not entirely sure though, so whatever.
And I don't mind the italics thing for emphasis. I actually like when writers use italics for emphasis. I'm a very animated person, and I write like the way I talk, so I use italics quite a bit and no one has ever told me they don't like it. It adds something to the writing, helping the reader understand just how important that word is. plus, sometimes sentences just sound bad if it's NOT emphasized.
other than that, I didn't think it sounded too bad. Sure, a couple parts may be considered clunky, but not the entire thing. it's better to have too much description than not enough. it's easier to take out than to put in.
anyways. great story =)
*positivity* yayyy! finally XD
Italics for emphasis is a turn-off. The words should be able to stand for themselves. If you really want to bring someone's attention to it, introduce a line break before and after it. But please don't ever, ever use bolds or italics for emphasis. It always strikes me as cheap and tacky. Italics for thoughts is okay, but not in first person.
First person means the entire thing is written as if the narrator was writing it. Now tell me, when you think of something, do you go, "A thought occurred to me: __________" You don't? I don't either. Ergo, this is something your character, as a sane human being, probably doesn't do. Thoughts should blend seamlessly into the narrative. No "I thought", although the occasional "I wonder" is forgivable (ideally you don't have either). Don't make a concentrated effort to separate thoughts from actions when using first person. As much as possible, you want the reader to believe he's inside the narrator's head. To accomplish this, all thoughts and actions must be natural. What would you think when you walk around town?
I have to say you have a voice, and that's good. However, your prose is quite clunky. It's feeling a lot more like a laundry list than an actual story. I did this, then I did that, then I go and do this. No, thank you. Try to read your favorite novels. They usually space actions between thoughts and descriptions. They also don't narrate every single thing the protagonist does, because they know the reader can probably infer what was done between step A and B.
For example, if you were telling your friend about your day, you don't have to tell them you walked from Math class to the bathroom then headed towards English and along the way you saw this really hot chick pass by and you wanted to say hi but then chickened out so you said hi to the girl behind her instead, who you don't really know but was nice enough to greet you back, and then thank God you've arrived at the English class room after passing by 100 lockers, so you open the door but someone slips in before you did and you got annoyed and when you got in the classroom you realized that hey the nice girl you greeted in the hallway is one of your classmates -
You probably get my point. Stick to the important bits. On your way to English class you saw a hot chick you wanted to know, but instead you ended up saying hi to a nice girl behind her and now you're interested in nice girl, who's your classmate in English class.
We can guess somewhere in between saying hi to her and realizing she's your classmate, you walked to your classroom.
Also, I have to say your opening paragraph is really, really gimmicky. Opening with conflict is good, but I have to say I'm against opening with battles. Opening with a battle doesn't work quite as well because although there is conflict, it's too dramatic, and the reader doesn't have a good enough connection with the characters yet to make a battle as intense as it should be. Simply put, your characters are still names to the reader at that point in your story. They're not characters yet - no personalities, no voices, nothing. The reader doesn't care about them at all. Even worse, you backtracked because you knew this, and immediately set about telling us about...something we still don't care much about.
Start with conflict, but not too much. Everything in moderation. Also, try to mix in actions and descriptions. Right now, there seems to be a clear divide between them. This is a description paragraph. The next one will be about what the protagonist is doing. Try to avoid it, all right?
You'll also want to work on your flow (the way your prose sounds when read aloud). It's unbelievably clunky. Read it aloud and edit anything that makes you pause/read twice/stumble. This should be your final concern, though - the last thing you check before posting. First, edit for the rest of the problems pointed out (if you wish - it's your piece).
Azirah
"tell me, when you think of something, do you go, "A thought occurred to me: __________" You don't? I don't either. Ergo, this is something your character, as a sane human being, probably doesn't do."
This story is not written first person present, it is written First person in the past. it is as if the character is retelling what had happened to him, so he will include the "a thought occurred to me" because you are not inside his head, he is telling you a story.
The advice on flow, and and focusing on important parts will definitely be taken into consideration, thanks.
~IS
this looks like an amazing start for a story! just a few things. in the intro paragraph, it seems completely different from the beginning of the story, so you MIGHT want to consider revising it, but I am not telling you to. just a suggestion. other than that, the story had an amazing start. you described everything perfectly, but i don't know why you put this under a short story, because it could definitely be the first chapter of a book. also, you had very few, or no grammar issues. see you around!-Andy
I seem to have a problem that whenever I start a novel, i never finish it, (Can be seen with my first attempt, Hammer of Thor) so i intend this to be a short story with two or three chapters. However,I thank you for the enthusiasm.