Published March 27, 2007
Dragon Fire
Chapter 1
Beginnings
In the early morning hours, with the smell of saltwater in the air, Nasaru was shaken awake by his father Gano.
“Wah!” yelled Nasaru as he awoke.
“Wake up son, we need to get out to the water before the other fisherman,” replied his father. “Grab some nets and food and meet me outside.”
When Nasaru got up looked outside and saw his beautiful island of Najo in the Kingdom Kano. Then he went to his father’s storage hut and gathered the nets him and his father would need. And then went inside and gathered breads and dried meats for the long day.
“Got all the nets,” Nasaru’s father asked, “and a days worth of food provisions?”
“Yes, I have them all, don’t worry,” he said and left his house and headed towards the docks with his father.
The path we traveled on to the docks was covered in green with the days of spring coming in. The island had little trees but still had beautiful landscape with lush flowers and a small town in the center.
When Nasaru and Gano reached the docks, fishermen were already loading their boats for the days long work. “Nasaru, hurry up and load the boat,” Gano said urgently. “We need to get out there before they steal all the good spots.”
“Don’t worry father there are plenty of spots out there,” Nasaru said, but he still quickly loaded the boat otherwise.
A few boats already reached the water before them when they got there, but they still found a decent spot. They threw out the net and waited for the fish to swim into the net.
Nasaru got a look of himself in the water and saw a boy of sixteen, with long black hair that was crusted by the salty air, eyes of the brightest blue, and the body of a man who spent plenty of times on the water.
“C’mon boy,” yelled his father, “I can’t get this net in by myself!” Nasaru remembering his work helped his father bring in the fish filled net. The net was heavy but they were getting it in easily. Then it snagged on a rock and pulled Nasaru into the water.
Gano looked at the water, worried, but Nasaru’s head popped up laughing. “That was fun!” Nasaru exclaimed as he climbed into the boat.
The day was long for Nasaru and Gano hauling in fish and recasting the nets, eventually bringing in a good haul. “Well, son are ready to head,” Gano said tiredly. “I think we brought in a big haul.”
“Not just big, but a huge haul,” retorted Nasaru. “We’ll bring in plenty of money at the market and from any merchants at the docks waiting for great fishermen like us.”
“Well if they want any they better brought there big purses along, I’m not giving these whoppers up cheap.” They both laughed and made headway for the docks.
I decided to work on this story again after getting inspiration from the movie "Eragon". so I'l try to keep it going
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139,622 Literary Works • 672,631 Reviews
This was good start; you have some good description and your character is quite realistic. I can't wait to see where this is going. So, here is what I am going to do. I feel like you have a good grasp on this first chapter, so I am just going to go through, point out a few grammar spots, a few sentence structure suggestions and make some general comments. I believe you can go far with this, so I am going to be extremely nitpicky.
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(general comments)
Okay, in that last paragraph, 'they better brought their big purses along' is not right grammarwise, but I wasn't sure if you meant for the father to have dialect. You did not use much dialect with him, but they are fishermen, so I wasn't sure. Without the dialect, it should be 'they had better bring their big purses along.'
After reading this thoroughly, I noticed a few things I thought I should point out for you to work on.
1. Commas. Remember, whenever you have a direct address, you need commas on both sides. For instance, 'don't worry, father there are plenty of spots out there'. You have a comma on one side of father, but you also need one on the other side so it reads ' don't worry, father, there are plently of spots out there.' Besides that, just remember you need commas to separate compound sentences and clauses.
2. Phrasing. There are a few places where you have some awkward phrasing. As a young writer, it can be very hard to pick out what is awkward and what is not. A few tips are to read authors in your library and here on YWS to see how they phrase things and read all your sentences aloud. When you are reading and get that funny feeling that something is awry with your sentence, it is probably awkward.
3. Watch your connotation. You did good with this for the most part, but be sure that the word you use is truly how the character is saying something. Look it up in the dictionary as well.
The only other suggestions I can give is to make an effort to vividly describe the setting of your story. No, I don't mean adding boat loads of adjectives to every noun. I mean tactfully inserting bits of description into your writing. This will come with time as you keep writing, but just be on the look out for it.
Desipte my criticism, I really enjoyed this piece. I hope you keep writing, because (despite your Eragon comment which scared me a little) I believe if you keep writing, this can be very good.
As you have probably noticed, I am being very nitpicky. This does not mean that your writing is terrible; it means that you writing was good enough that I believed you would not be overwhelmed by some nitpicks. Nicely done and keep writing. I hope to read more of this.
If you have any questions, feel free to PM me.