this is one of my first stories, hehe...
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Flames and smokes engulfed the village of Houndstooth. The residents scrambled to safety, but few made it. What or who could have caused such a terrible fire? Oh well, for now, young Kal followed his father. It was most likely the elves, always plotting against the Dengar. But his family would not hold grudges, as Kal's father had fought alongside the elves during the Ocarinian War, so many years before. Aristas, Kal's father, drew his sword. He would do all he could to save his family. He lifted the sword, now dripping with steel, and sliced through the door of their small, quaint house. This only made things worse. Aristas cut blindly through the air with his sword, unintionally cutting through a post that held up almost all of the house. The roof went down, down and Aristas picked up Kal and threw him risk-takingly threw the small hole he had made when he had made the initial cut through the door. Kal landed safely outside, landing on some unburned brush. He watched in dismay as his house crumbled to the ground, father, sister, and mother all burning. He was beyond upset, experiencing a pain so terrible he could not even cry.
I'm thirteen, he thought. I can make it on my own. Finally, he broke down and cried until all the fire had ceased.
He awoke lying spread-eagle on the fire scarred ground. He had many small cuts and burns from the fire. He cried even more as he discovered his mother and father's charred-up bodies amongst the ruins of their house. He hadn't seen his sister, though. Maybe she was burned to ash, he thought. Almost the only thing left of his father was his sword, warped and melted from the unbearable heat. He did not take it, his sword along with his bow-and-arrow set were good enough for now. He sighed as he set out of the village. He felt he might have a very loong journey ahead of him.[/i]
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125,028 Literary Works • 672,774 Reviews
Good Morning/Afternoon/Evening/Night(whichever one it is in your part of the world),
Hi! I'm here to leave a quick review!!
Anyway let's get right to it,
Well that is quite the start. A very intense pace being setup nice and early there and I am loving the way things are proceeding. I think you've managed to do a really solid job with that one. You definitely manage to tap straight into some pretty strong emotional moments right away there. However, this particular approach here seems to be a tiny bit rushed here. The usage of the sword there and some of the descriptions are a bit unrealistic although I suppose this might not quite be real life so some benefit of the doubt there but otherwise I think you should try and take a tiny bit more time to describe this scene than just what we have here since this is quite fast.
This here is a pretty solid look at the effects of it. Of course this is the sort of thing you display the effect of over the course of a full story so what you have here right now is a pretty good indicator of it going on that path and it works. I think it wraps it up neatly as well and makes you want to know how this journey goes, so on the whole I'd say its a job well done here.
Aaaaand that's it for this one.
As always remember to take what you think was helpful and forget the rest.
Stay Safe
Harry
Hello there! I know this is from 2005, but I'm completing The Ultimate RevMo Checklist Challenge 2020, and I had to review an old work.
I think this is an interesting enough concept, but too much is happening in one paragraph here. Starting with the setting is a good touch, but I wish we got more of what this place looked like, even if it's in comparison to how the damaged Houndstooth is past the wreckage. Instead of just being told about "flames" and "smoke" the reader could get a really nice visual if this whole place was described at least a bit more.
In addition, I also wish we got to see more from the characters, at least more from Kal as I think we're given too much information all at once -- the mini shift change from Kal to Aristas back to Kal is confusing and I don't think it adds to much to the story overall. Even when we read from Kal's view though, I think his thoughts come back a bit hard to understand, mostly when he describes his family dying. I think I'm just confused that no one could have gotten out of the house?
Besides that, I think I'm just confused by the logic of cutting through the door? And that there was only a small opening for the entire house so that no one in the rest of the family could flee? Maybe I'm just not following the quick changes. I do think this could work as a novel idea, so that the characters and the world could be expanded on further.
Interesting work here! ^^
good good, but im a little confused. when you siad dripping with steal, Was it melting or was that supposed to be something else. (it would have to be very hot for the sword to start melting, no way for them to survive in that heat.) also, being a mortishons daughter, if they were in a fire that mealted his sword, their body would be ash. to fix these problems maybe just put deformed sword or something. theres a couple of grammatical errors, which im sure your aware of, but you can fix those later.
now for the good stuff. I like how you introduce charecters quickly, nothings worst than haveing a billion charecters and they just pop in out of nowhere at random times. this way I know whos bad, whos good, and whos involved. good job. also I love the storyline, it really shows some promise for a good book. Keep up the good work!
Okay these are just some editing comments; i'm brand new to editing and I don't excel that much beyond the normal English student, but i'll try my best. I know they'll probably be crappy, useless comments but here it goes:
Maybe change to "The villagers attempted to get to safety, but few survived."
"Oh well" doesn't really fit in when your trying to tell the story from a 3rd person view point;
Maybe modify it a bit so it seems like the question was what Kal was thinking. Like this:
" 'What or who could have caused such a terrible fire?' Kal thought as he followed his father. "
This sort of didn't make sense to me. How is the sword dripping with steel? Is it some kind of imagery? I would try to modify it, but I don't know what your implying here.
This part is sort of confusing and hard to imagine. I can imagine the father cutting through the door, but his second slash... is he still slashing at the door? Is he now swinging the other way at some posts holding up part of the roof? And the last sentence... I can imagine this but I think you should describe more how he slashed at the door; whereas in this part he would have to slash all the way across at a certain angle to have a big gape in it large enough to fit someone. And another thing...couldn't he have just opened the door? Or if you wanted some type of action, kick it down?
Maybe change this to: "He awoke, lying spread out on the charred (or burnt) ground.
Not trying to ruin the story or even what your trying to say here, but metal used for swords won't melt from just normal fire.
And one other small spelling error "loong" to "long" in the very last sentence.
Other than those things, it was good; like Emma said, just needs to be longer, however I understand that this might be sort of a prologue to the actual story your doing.
It's a good plot so far, it starts out with a touch of action to grab the reader and a touch of foreshadowing to end it. Good job
That is very good! Keep it up! And thats all I have to say, apart from: Try making it a bit longer!