The sun bore down, warming his face. He enjoyed sitting outside, the air fragrant with the scent of early spring flowers, rich soil and animal manure.
He closed his eyes, feeling the gentle breeze on his cheek. It was cool, yet not chilling.
He lay back, enjoying the moment of peace. He opened his eyes, to study the brilliant blue sky. Clouds flecked the otherwise perfect sky, racing across from horizon to horizon.
"Hey! Tyler! Get up here."
Tyler sighed silently and stood. He knew it had been too good to last.
A boy of about sixteen, he was tall, with broad shoulders. Some had said he should be apprenticed to the smith, but those few were hushed hurriedly.
Instead he was the town handyman. Jack-of-all trades, only paid what people could spare. Yet he was pleased with that.
As a small child, he had been the envy of all the young mothers around. So quiet, they said to his mother. Raising him must be a breeze.
But when he reached the age of one, then two, without uttering a sound, the community had become alarmed. What had his parents done, to bear a child robbed of voice? Or worse, had the young Tyler become possessed? Sold to demons for some unholy wish?
Many meetings had been roused, many debates had took place. Eventually, the village ruled that Tyler be taken from his parents, the father exiled and his mother tried for witchcraft.
She had been found guilty.
But when God hadn't given Tyler the gift of voice, even when his parents had been punished, superstition rose again.
Tyler trudged up the path, wondering what wanted to be done now. It was the priest, his caregiver of fourteen years, a slow, self-confident man of middling years.
"Tyler. Time for your lessons."
Tyler sighed. The lessons consisted of copying out holy writ from the bible, while the priest snored loudly in the corner. Resigning himself to a hour of laborious writing, he entered his home.
End of chapter
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140,913 Literary Works • 673,732 Reviews
Whoa! That was a huge jump. I kind of wondered what was going on at first but then it clicked.
when you talked about the clouds racing from horizon to horizon it conflicts with the gentle breeze. Clouds racing makes me think of hurricane force winds. So you might want to change racing to something a little less dramatic.
Otherwise very good. I'm going to read part 3 now.
The first part was awesome but the second part was too much of a jump for me. It just went back way too fast and it was too much information in one little bit. maybe if you made it longer using the same information it could help but the mute idea is good hard but good. Just remember try not to jump around as much it confuses people.
It was a little weird...switching from when he hated the sun to where he's baking in it...I can only assume I've just gone back in time, and I don't like assuming when I'm not in the best part of a suspenseful book. So yeah, maybe that's just me though.
It was still too short to tell much about the story, other than that you have a good flow to it. (minus the transition)
I'm going to go read part three now! Keep it up!
-JC
This is a really neat idea, but you did a whole lot of telling about the past. Why not show us some of those scenes?
You also did a mini info dump on his looks. I got kind of confused because you used 'her' when I thought you meant tyler.
Like I said, I'm expecting pieces of eight for this:
Ok, first sentence is always the hardest. This assumes that we already partially know what the character is. Starting it with a 'his' brings the character to us, but 'his' usually expects us to know a little first. Start with giving us a little description, pretty please. If it's a small boy, old man, vengeful killer say it! You do want to interest your audience, yes, but you do need to give them something to work on.
The first clause doesn't really work. If you put 'he was' at the beginning and then just get rid of it in the second clause it would work better.
Good use of the short sharp sentence. Impact.
Read it carefully out-loud. You actually say 'an hour'. No-one says 'a hour'. It's the silent 'h'. Interesting huh?
Conclusion? A mute protagonist? Interesting idea, may be a bit unwieldy later on in the story unless you plan for it to be healed or anything. Because you didn't post much, I haven't got a great overall image of the setting, I see he's in a village where everthing is good (except for the death and exile of his parents, of course) but I don't see the 'big picture' yet. I hope that's coming.
Overall, very good. You have a nice writing style and your characters are all believeable. It's good to see the priest at least isn't flawless.
DarkLight
i liked this, very well described.
Hey Nutty.
I don't really have much to crit here, but that's probably because not too much happens. It was still interesting and helpful so we could see what kind of person Tyler is.
Just a suggestion.
The only thought that I have after this is: His poor mother. O_O I mean, I should care about his father, but I don't. But that was just exile lol.
And if she got executed or whatever the way witches did, that's worse (I think it'd be interesting to make the parents story into a real story - it'd be really interesting).
But I always do find stories about mutes interesting. i read one called... The Ill Made mute, I think it was, a long time ago. That was quite a cool book.
I'm looking forward to reading more of this. I do wonder how you'll maintain the story when he can't talk. It'll be an experience, that's for sure lol.
-Mat