Published May 28, 2011
This VERY short piece is something I wrote for English lesson activity in which I had to make up a story using only a metal statue of a non-descript man as "inspiration"
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Chewing monotonously, the boar was quietly eating by the stream. But it was not alone. A human was hiding the bushes nearby, armed with a sword, choosing the right moment to strike. When the beast started to lap up water from the stream, Theo saw his chance. Creeping up to the defenceless animal, he raised his sword…
CRACK! A twig snapped underfoot. The startled boar ran for its life, and he gave chase. “That creature certainly has legs,” the amateur hunter thought to himself. Fleeing along a trail, the boar was squealing, warning the other members of its species of the impeding threat. Rain started to fall. Slowly cutting his path, Theo lost his prey. Near blind because of the sheer amount of branches, he became disorientated, fumbling through the vegetation, desperate for a way out.
Finally after fifteen minutes, he saw an entrance to a cave, “shelter!” he thought to himself, gasping for breath. He could make out a figure inside the cave, a human, albeit a human with strangely remarkable hair which he could tell even from here was out of place for a traveller. The rain was coming down hard. He mustered up all his remaining energy sprinting into the mouth of the cave in order to escape the cold of the rain. Getting closer to the mysterious stranger, he called out. “Hello?” he yelled, still exhausted. He leaned against the wall for support, squinting through the darkness…
Finally, the figure responded. It slivered across the cave, and stepped out of the shadows. Theo screamed. Well, he would of if he could scream with a throat made of bronze. His face is still making that expression today, if you were to find the same cave, now lined with innumerable statues of man and beast, petrified for eternity mid-scream.
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Apart from the constant use of ellipses for drama, the biggest problem I can see with your prose is your affinity for the be verbs. You always use them. The rain was coming down, the boar was squealing, etc. You'll want to revise them so they won't contain the be-verbs anymore. Why? Because all the forms of be slow down your prose. Let me give you an example.
VS
Note how much stronger the second sentence is. It has more immediacy to it than the first one could ever hope to muster. Cutting out the forms of be from your work is a surefire way to make the prose tighter. Go through the whole thing again and look for "was" or "were" and, if possible, revise the sentence to avoid using it. (But don't bend over backwards trying to never use "was" or "were". oo")
So the thing with this is that it doesn't have much characterization. In effect, I didn't really have a reaction at the end. I was just all, "Meh." I don't care enough for the character because I don't really see him as a person as much as I see him as a doll you're acting out a story with. Try to make him more real by giving him a personality aside from the whole, "He's a hunter," shebang. The little things are as important as the big ones when you're writing a story like this, so every tiny action helps in characterization. Maybe you can also throw in more thoughts to show what kind of guy he is.
To scare the reader (which I think you were trying to do at the end), you have to give an impending sense of doom or inevitability. You have to make the reader feel sort of sick as he or she reads through it and realizes that it's not going to end very well. To do this, you use certain words that give off that kind of atmosphere.
Lastly, you have a lot of crutch phrases. Crutch phrases are phrases you use again and again, although you also seem to like the word "Finally". You'll want to go through this piece again and look out for any phrases you tend to repeat. Revise them.
Anyway, I hope this helped! PM me if you have any questions.
Sincerely,
Octave
Question: What exactly is the boar eating?
""That creature certainly has legs,” the amateur hunter thought to himself" *pictures a boar without legs and giggles* Most animals have legs. I understand what you mean, but maybe find a better way to word it?
" the impeding threat" Did you mean impending, as in 'impending doom/demise/danger'?
"It slivered across the cave" Slithered?
Not bad, but I'd like a little more emotion. Burrow a little deeper into the MC's head... Although you do have a narrator kind of figure who comes in at the end. I'm not sure how you'd best do that.
Does her gaze affect animals, too? *pictures him stumbling onto a golden boar just before he finds the cave*. Just an idea to think about, if you were interested in making it longer. That said, I think this is very good for its length. Pretty well-written, just a little polishing that could maybe be done.
There were a couple of typos/misspellings that I noticed, as well as a couple words that I think were supposed to be different-but-similar words. Did you trust spell checker with this? Because spell checker is a sneaky little gadget, not always entirely trustworthy. Be sure to double check things.
Nice job with this. Keep writing. ^^
I like it
Very haunting. I especially loved the ending. I would like to see more emotion, more feeling. When he's running, how does he feel? Is he terrified? What does running for so long feel like?
Usually thoughts are in italics. I think you might want to do that, to distinguish the difference between thoughts and speech better.I really like this sentence. You could probably get another sentence out of this at least.
Capitalize!!!
Hope this helped some,
Sierra
Hahaha! This was pretty awesome. I liked your sense of pacing and all the action in the story. In fact, it reads more like an action adventure story than a fantasy story, which (in my not-so humble opinion) makes it tons better. It made it really fun to read.
Are you thinking about fleshing this story out, or are you just posting it for fun? If you want to flesh it out... well.. I have some ideas for you!
First of all, I have been reading toooons of Greek literature lately, so I am quite spoiled. Anyway, I think you can describe the hunt a little bit better! In Homer's Odyssesy, there is a story within the story of Odysseus's first hunt, which is after a boar (and it gives him that very noticeable scar on his leg which his nurse notices... spoiler!) Anyway, the story is quite good -- heck, the whole book is excellent -- so if you haven't read that, I really recommend it!
Next thing is, get your weapons right! Swords generally are a bad idea to hunt boars with. In fact, the Greeks generally did not prefer using swords for hunting. They liked spears, arrows, and javelins. So, definitely tweak that. Amateur hunter or not, he would probably know better than to use a sword for hunting boar! Boars are really, really mean... in fact, I saw one thing in this book about pigs (yes, I'm obsessed) where it said that hunting tigers was more easy than hunting boars. Not that it can't be done, of course, but pigs are very clever creatures.
And yes, I am totally biased...
Anyway, the one last thing was I would really like a better description of Medusa! I mean, you have this big talk about the hunt, and then he sees Medusa and he turns to bronze (shouldn't he just turn to stone? Whatever...). But, the thing is that I think you can at the very minimum describe the snakes coming out of her head! A shadow, by itself, isn't too frightening, but a gorgon with snakes coming out of her head?! I would totally wet my pants. So, just take some time and descibe that!
Best of luck!
Interesting description. I actually kinda of liked it. You're pretty good, impressive!
That was... unique. It painted quite an image in my head. I like it but now I have questions! (Translation: Great ending!)
Keep Writing,
~FW~