I edited the first part of the chapter a little bit, and I released the full chapter with all three character, Ragni, Finwe and Idris. I hope you like the story, here it is:
Chapter 1
Ragni
Everything was silent. The only sound was the faint whistling of the wind blowing through the trees. There was a long dirt path, lined with a dark thicket of trees, the darkness from the woods kept any travelers on the path and away from what lurked inside. Standing on the road was a man, but coming down the road were bandits with a wagon filled with items they got after a raid on a nearby village.
“What are you doing man, get out of the way!” yelled one of the bandits.
The man stood there, doing nothing. He wore a red cloak with the hood covering his face, and a long sword at his waist.
“What are you doing?” yelled the bandits, starting to get angry. The man slowly drew his sword and pointed it at the bandits. “Let me deal with this guy,” said a large bandit with an axe.
The bandit jumped from the wagon onto the road dragging his axe behind him, yet he didn’t know the man was getting ready to strike. 15 feet, thought the man. 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, Then he lunged forward at lightning speed striking the bandit in the stomach. The bandit barely had time to react and fell to the ground with a thud, clutching his stomach.
The bandits stood there in shock, as their best warrior was defeated in mere seconds. Quickly the bandits tried to turn around as fast as they could, but the horses didn’t know of the impending danger and took their time. The man ran towards the bandits and prepared his sword to strike. A bandit jumped down and pulled out his sword at the same time, suddenly their swords clashed as the bandit swung his sword forward. The mysterious figure dodged it with ease and attacked with a flurry of moves that the bandit couldn’t parry. The bandit stepped backwards, until his back was against the wagon.
The man picked him up and pointed his sword at his throat. “I will let you and your bandits live if you give me your wagon along with everything you stole.” The bandit stood there in shock of how easily he was going to lose everything he earned. “Answer me!” the man yelled.
A spot of blood appeared on the bandit’s neck. He slowly nodded his head. The man dropped him to the ground and the bandits ran away, abandoning their wagon. The man saw one bandit sneak a small chest into his cloak before running away, but he let him take it.
“Nice work, as usual Ragni,” said a traveler rising from the bushes.
“I’m surprised they were able to rob a village, with no fighting skills,” said the man named Ragni.
“I wish I would be able to fight with you,” said Beleg.
“Perhaps I could teach you, if you learned I would maybe think about paying you more.”
“Pay me more? You do realize that you already pay me 3 Ira an hour.”
“It would be nice to have a bodyguard, and besides I already have tons of money from that recent raid on the bandit stash found in Skiens.”
“What should we do with all this stuff?” asked Beleg.
“We need to return it to the village, but we might as well keep the horses.”
“What was in the chest the bandit took with him?”
“Probably just food,” said Ragni as he climbed onto the wagon.
“I can’t wait to see the faces on the villagers when they see their items returned,” said Beleg.
Finwe
It was dark. The village of Skiens was a well-known village despite its small size. The place was filled with rich and wealthy people, and almost half the village were large estates with mansions, including one that some bandits were about to break into.
“Finwe, did you get the sign yet?” said Orophin.
“Be patient,” said Finwe. “It will come.”
“What if they failed to kill him?”
“I’m sure they could handle him, he was tiny.”
“That doesn’t mean he’s any less dangerous,” said Orophin as he peered out into the distance.
“Either way they will probably kill him.” As time went on they waited, until a light flashed in the distance, signaling Finwe.
“Now is the time to create the diversion,” said Finwe. Finwe pulled out a stick, and lit it from a torch on the wall.
“Are you sure that will start a fire?” said Orophin.
“I brought some other things that will help,” said Finwe as he pulled out a jar of oil from his cloak. Finwe walked through an alleyway behind the jewelry market, and pulled a box from his cloak.
“What is that?” said Orophin.
“It’s a lock picking kit I got it from the market last week.”
Finwe pulled out a thin piece of metal and put it in the lock. Finwe jiggled the lock, and had no success, so he pulled out another thin piece of metal, this one at a different angle. “I think I got it,” said Finwe as he jiggled the lock. The lock clicked, and Finwe slowly opened the door.
Inside was a locked chest, presumably the jewelry they were going to sell. The room led to a bedroom to the side and another door led to market where they sold the jewelry. Finwe quickly created a pile of hay and sticks he had picked up from outside and then poured oil on it. Suddenly in the room next door a creaking sound was coming.
“Finwe, we don’t want to wake them up,” whispered Orophin.
“It’s too late for that,” said Finwe as the door handle turned. Quickly Finwe lit the pile and ran towards the door.
“What are you doing in here!” yelled the man who walked through the door. Finwe escaped, but unfortunately Orophin was cornered by the man. “Trying to burn my store down?” said the man as he pulled out a dagger.
Orophin tried to spread the fire as much as he could, but his attempt was in vain as the man picked up a bucket of water and poured it on the fire. “Idiot,” said the man. Orophin knew his mission had failed and backed into a corner.
“I’m just doing my job,” said Orophin.
“Your job is burning my store down, and my job is protecting my store,” replied the man.
Orophin needed to stall long enough for Finwe to save him, so he pulled out a short sword from his scabbard. The man charged Orophin, and he reacted just in time to block his sword. Their swords echoed throughout the market as Orophin counter attacked with a swipe of his sword. The man blocked it with ease and pushed Orophin back into the corner. Orophin quickly charged the man, desperate to survive, but unfortunately the man dodged his lunge and swung at his exposed arm. Orophin held in a scream as he was pushed back into the corner.
Suddenly a hole burst through the roof and Finwe jumped down, attacking the man. The man was shocked and tripped over the bucket, falling to the ground, dropping his dagger. Orophin quickly picked up the dagger before the man could recover it.
“Nice job Finwe,” said Orophin. “I thought you were going to abandon me.”
“What do we do now? Our cover was blown but we still need to find a way to continue the mission,” said Finwe.
“Well our cover was blown to only one person, it’s not like everyone saw this.”
“What are you going to do to me?” said the man.
Finwe tied the man up and took him outside. “Be quiet,” said Finwe. They found a hole in the alleyway to put him, and they tied him to a post.
“You don’t think he will burn here, right?” said Orophin.
“Of course not, now let’s start the fire.”
Idris
“Wake Up! It’s time to leave this joint,” said the guard.
“Idris get up or the guard will whip you again,” said Amrod, his cellmate. Idris yawned as his cellmate nudged him to get up.
“We’re just going to go to another dungeon like this one,” said Idris.
“But we will get to see the world for once!” said Amrod as he jumped up eager to leave.
The guard opened the door and brought out a long chain, and started chaining the slaves to one another. As soon as the guard opened the door to one of the slaves, he ran for it, only to get whipped from behind and fall to the ground.
“That slave, always trying to escape,” said Amrod.
“Let’s go slaves, don’t want to get in trouble with the master,” said the guard.
When all the slaves were chained, the guard led them through the multiple floors of the dungeon, where each cell seemed to get better kept as they went through, until they finally reached the outside, where the brightness of the sun shocked the slaves. As soon as the slaves saw sunlight they covered their eyes, one of them even fell down but the guard continued anyways.
“It’s been forever since I’ve seen sunlight,” said Amrod.
Outside the place the village was in a state of chaos, the houses looked as if no one lived in them for years. The houses went on for miles in each direction, but towering the village was a huge castle covered in vines. The castle had been through many wars, and it looked as if it could fall apart at any moment, even one of the huge spires at each corner of the castle had fell, crushing the houses below it.
Suddenly a horn was blown four times, and everyone screamed and ran indoors. The guard cursed silently to himself and looked at the slaves. The slaves looked unsure about continuing but the guard continued them along anyways. Idris saw people peek through the windows in their house, but when they noticed Idris saw them they quickly closed the curtains.
“Are you sure we will make it?” said Amrod to the guard. The guard didn’t say anything but Idris thought he saw a hint of fear in his eyes.
The guard led them through alleyways and streets filled with garbage, and even through an underground tunnel beneath the village. The sounds of screaming echoed through the tunnel as they half crawled half walked through the damp narrow passageway.
When they finally reached the docks the guard chained them to a post nearby.
“Stay here, I’m going to get the dock master,” said the guard. The sounds of battle echoed in the distance, getting closer towards the slaves. After a while the guard hadn’t come back and the slaves soon became worried as the sounds of knights screaming drew closer. The warriors burned the houses as they went through the streets, and a great fire was seen in the distance.
Soon the guard appeared and said “The dock master says the man with the boat has already left, he had gotten too scared to wait for us. We will have to find another way off this island.” The sounds of battle drifted near and the slaves knew there was little chance of surviving.
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139,219 Literary Works • 672,513 Reviews
This is an ominous start, I saw the description of your overall novel and I'm already anticipated about this!
I love how mysterious the main character seems, yet I like how his fighting skills are so well carried out. The descriptions of the forest and what not are very powerful, it was like this chapter was a movie and I was sitting here watching it.
In the chapter, just remember to start a new line every time someone different speaks, and make sure you make it clear who is talking every time otherwise your readers may get confused.
Also, after the countdown, the 'their' should not be capitalized as you have already started a sentence.
Instead of saying that the path is 'lined' with a forest, try this instead: 'the path was trapped between two sides of a great, menacing forest,'.
But overall a mysterious start, and you've certainly got my attention with this story, keep it up!
LordofLit101
Thanks!
Storyline is boring. Medieval fights with swords or short range weapons are short. They only are long in the movies for the action effect. It would be more exciting if the so called hero was much more villain and kill at least the most of his opponents. Also some cruelty and bloody parts could have some emotional effects for the readers.
This is just the beginning, there are three characters called Ragni, Finwe and Idris. The beginning part of the book is just where you get to meet the characters, but eventually they end up in more climatic scenes. For instance, there is a scene im working on where an enemy ship clashes with a boat of slaves trying to escape an island, then the ships end up sinking and they have to fight as the ship slowly sinks beneath the ocean. I have alot of ideas to make the book alot longer and climatic, but thanks for your feedback.
Hi there, NoahBaker, and welcome to YWS! I'm new here too, but not to critiquing or writing. It's so exciting that this is your first time writing, and it takes a lot of courage to put it up publicly for review! Hopefully you find what you are looking for at YWS.
I want to start out with some grammar rules about dialogue. First is that when the dialogue finishes but the sentence isn't done yet, put a comma. Like the last line: "...the village," said Beleg. So commas before "said"s is one way to think of it. The other thing is that a new speaker should get a new paragraph. It might make it look way more spread out than you were expecting, but it's easier to read and keep track of that way. For example, where the bandits are talking, every time a different one says something, they should get their own paragraph.towards
Now onto the more subjective stuff, less about rules and more about my opinions on technique. While we're still talking about dialogue, remember that dialogue is supposed to be your characters talking to each other and having conversations. That seems obvious, but the point is, the primary goal isn't to explain to the reader. You want your characters to have personality and let us get to know them, and all the explaining-about-the-world-and-backstory-and-stuff needs to be... sneaky. Like, it still has to be there or we won't know what's going on, but it's a secondary goal, so you don't want to compromise the dialogue sounding natrual. It's common to see people using the dialogue to explain the plot or the world, even when both characters know that both characters know that information. Sometimes it's called "As you know, Bob" dialogue.
An example from this chapter is "You already pay me 3 Ira an hour." That's something they both know. If you were chatting to your friend, you wouldn't say something like, "I have English with Ms Green at 9." You'd probably say "I have English at 9" or even "I have to get to class in 5 minutes." It's not a big issue in this chapter, but I think it's a good habit to try and get into early, to think about this stuff. Dialogue is its own beast and sometimes even if the rest of the prose is great, authors can still have weak dialogue because it doesn't have enough of the character's personality in it.
Another technique thing I want to bring up is point of view. Right now, this chapter doesn't have a specific point of view, and it's written in what's called omniscient. This is opposed to "limited," where the story stays in one character's head. This is totally your choice on how to approach it, but I thought I would bring it to your attention it so you might be able to research and get a better understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of each.
The other thing I wanted to talk about is something near and dear to my heart: verbs. Notice in the first paragraph there are a lot of "was"s. Was is a pretty bland verb, and while it has its uses, I try to minimise how much I depend on it. I like to think that verbs are actually our most powerful tools as writers, more than adjectives. I think the verbs can do a lot of description/atmosphere setting in addition to showing an action. Here's an example: "The sun was shining on the ocean" vs "The sun glinted off the ocean." IMO the second one paints a stronger picture, even though it's shorter.
Here are some of your sentences rearranged to avoid the was, see what you think:
"Wind whistled through the trees."
"A forest lined the dirt path," or "The dirt path stretched through a dark forest."
"Bandits rattled down the road on a wagon filled with..."
And just before I leave the subject of verbs, keep an eye out for where the action is supposed to be tense and exciting, and you can replace an okay verb with a more interesting one. For instance "attacked with a quick swipe" or "attacked with a flurry of moves"--I might try to replace attacked in those cases. The first one could simply be "swiped" with his sword, since that's more descriptive, and it makes the sentence more efficient.
Hopefully I haven't overwhelmed you with my endless ramblings here. You're off to a great start and the story has a lot of potential. You're doing a lot of things right! Keep writing, and I hope to see more of it posted
Thanks a lot, this really helps.