My current latest project...I know I have far too many of these, but I want to know what the general consensus of the start of this is, to see whether I should continue with this narrative style or not.
Here There Be Dragons
Introduction
People are, in my opinion, some of the stupidest creatures in existence. Now, seeing as you’re most likely a human yourself, give me a moment to explain.
You spend most of your insignificant little life scrabbling around, trying to support yourself along with your mate and offspring. You take up a profession in order to obtain food (as if it is such a rare commodity!) and shelter (as if you’re too good for caves), and are constantly paying homage to someone who’s in a better position than you are and who holds sway over your pitiful life.
When you do finally die, you’re just replaced by your offspring, who go through the same wearisome toil. And thus it passes, generation after generation, eon after eon.
Sound fun? Well if it does, then good, because that’s your lot. If it doesn’t, then tough. You’ll die soon enough anyway, whether in battle or from disease or old age to give it much worry.
Now, all this would be just fine and dandy for you; I wouldn’t be complaining if I’d just be left well enough alone. But no, no, you couldn’t do that; you have to go and drag my kin and I into your little matters—especially those of love.
Oh yes, you humans spend a good deal of time worrying about that. Couldn’t make do with any of the females in your own village who are of the same stock and breed as yourself; no, you have to go for the finest of the brood. And look where it ends you up; she gives you some material token as a pledge, and you sally forth to do “brave deeds.”
Even this would be ridiculous but innocuous—save for the fact that the most popular of your deeds is to kill off my type.
It’s quite sickening, really.
And you wonder why we dragons don’t like you.
Of course, there are those rare exceptions. Those foolishly altruistic, idealistic humans who rave about peace between species and coexistence and are always written off as insane before they up and die. One of these pops up every century or so. I’ve met one. It was a long time ago; his bones are rotting in the ground now, I think. But I have the memories.
It was back a couple hundred years ago, when I was living in the pleasant countryside of Westerfold…
Chapter One
Our meeting started as most of these things go. I was asleep, in my cave, when the most raucous clattering and gasping reached my subconscious, drawing me out of my slumber. I kept my eyes closed (it’s best to never let on that you know they’re there; then they get all panicked and try something foolhardy. Much easier to pretend you’re unaware of their presence until—whoop!—they’re in your stomach). But I was listening intently, and with an inward sigh realized what it was.
Another enterprising young man was no doubt ascending the cliff, working his way up to my cave’s yawning mouth in the hope that he’d catch a napping dragon whose head he could easily slice off.
Well, it was my lunchtime. I stretched (silently, so as not to alarm the young man below), checked my claws (sharp and serrated, as always), and prepared myself for a bit of exercise. Call it the cat in me, but I always liked to give a young knight the feeling like he could possibly win the fight. Besides, it roiled his blood and made him much tastier than when they were frozen in fear (though of course I’d take one of those in a jiffy; can’t have the best all the time, now can we?).
There was a faint scraping sound, which I put down to the slippery part that lacked any sort of handhold. There was a muttered curse, a few rocks were dislodged, and then silence. He was probably hanging around a precarious spot, barely daring to breathe, wondering if the noise would awaken the beast within the lair. I kept in a snort of amusement and listened. Very faint—but I heard it. He was on the move again, this time going at a slower pace, more careful of his foot placement.
At this point, I gave a little cough that echoed through the cave in a warning manner, just to see what he’d do. The noises stopped; he was frozen again, most likely praying fervently and gathering his courage.
After a minute, I was beginning to wonder if he had fallen, but he started up again, rather reluctantly. I yawned; at the rate he was going, he would become my afternoon collation instead of my lunch.
I considered flying out, plucking him off the side of the cliff, and disposing of him then and there. But then, I was always such a sporting chap; wouldn’t be quite fair, and I could wait a little longer. Patience of a cat, that’s me—though I’ve already likened myself to a cat, haven’t I? Well, you know what I mean.
A gloved hand appeared on the lip of the cave floor, and my tail twitched in anticipation. I drew a little further back, into the depths of the cave, so as to be hidden by the shadows. Labored breathing, then—alley-oop!—his head popped up, and two anxious eyes scanned the cave.
I had had too much experience to let myself be shown, and there was a good deal of squinting at me before the youth decided I must be asleep deep within the cavern, since I wasn’t roaring or blowing fire (which is, contrary to popular belief, not commonly done; hurts the throat like hell). Taking heart in the silence, he pulled the rest of his clanky self up onto the ledge, then spent a good deal of time fiddling with the buckles on his helmet.
To say the least, I wasn’t impressed by what I saw. The knight looked like he was barely a man—seventeen, at most. He had a pale, sickly face with two eyeballs that seemed to strain out of their sockets and gave him a perpetually shocked expression. He was breathing hard, evidently out of shape, and his armor—well! I certainly wouldn’t be able to see myself in it without giving it a good scrubbing and soaking in vinegar, to get the rust off.
And the sword…perhaps the knight’s most critical item, seeing how it would be his main defense. I quickly spotted it, hanging from his belt in a scabby leather sheath. It looked like it was stuck in there, and I wondered if it had ever occurred to the boy who was now bearing it to check and see if it could come out of the scabbard.
The youth, in the meantime, had regained his breath and his feet, and stood warily at the edge of the cave, swaying a little as he tried to get a good look inside. The closed helmet on his head couldn’t have helped much, but he evidently felt like he should be prepared for whatever was inside (as if a bit of metal could protect him from my wrath, should I choose to unleash it!).
I toyed with the idea of simply converging on him with a frightening roar, to get that heart pumping, but I have to admit my appetite had gone a little sour at seeing how bony he’d be—not much meat or substance there.
So I decided to mess with his head a bit before doing anything else.
End of chapter
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140,703 Literary Works • 673,672 Reviews
Mwha!
(You can take that as an evil chuckle or kissing sound.)
This is excellent, lol. Really nice and fun! A rollicking kind of ride. I kind of think you have a parentheses fetish, but I'll let that one slide.
And... I have comments! Because we love comments? I don't know if there is any overlap between other comments, but... well... I am lazy and don't want to go through two pages of comments. So, yep.
I think there's too much commentary in here, but not enough action. I think it might be fun if you could talk about some of the final speeches of the knights in shining armor before the dragon decided to roast him like a hot dog, lol.
Ehhhhhhhhhhh. I think the prologue may be better suited as the beginning of Chapter 1. That's just my opinion though! Actually, all of this critique is my opinion, lol. Except for the evil laugh/kiss thing. That's more like a stupid noise... not really an opinion there!
I like the fact that the dragon listened -- but I wished the dragon smelled as well. After all, smell is intrinsically related to taste!
This is fun.
Hi there Clockie! I know this is kind of old, but I wanted to read/review each chapter, so I'm starting with the beginning. :]
Seems a little strange to me that you'd use the word "person" in the first sentence, rather than "human." I'm not sure why you did that. Maybe you wanted to avoid repetitiousness? But I actually think the repetition of "human" would work nicely here. Anyhow, it's up to you of course, but when I read it it sort of screamed "I wanna be human instead!" to me, so I thought I'd point it out. ^_^This is fairly well-polished, so I'm actually going to do a few nit-picks.
This might just be me, but I'm not really sure how to read that underlined part. Are you trying to say not to worry about it? If so, then why didn't you say "so don't give it much worry" or something like that? Again, I might just be being my usual doofus-self, but this sentence confused me.
This switch strikes me as a little sudden. One second he sounds all sarcastic and cold towards the humans that want peace between races, and the next moment he's reminiscing with apparent nostalgia and love. I'd say either make the transition less extreme or more gradual.
I thought this switch between "he" and "they" was a little weird. Since the last sentence wouldn't really work as "he," I suggest you change the whole thing to "they" like so: "Call it the cat in me, but I always liked to give young knights the feeling like they could possibly win the fight. Besides, it roiled their blood and made them much tastier than when they were frozen in fear (though of course I’d take one of those in a jiffy; can’t have the best all the time, now can we?)."
This repetition was a little distracting--maybe make the second one be "in the cave"?
You have a fantastic vocabulary, and it makes me feel illiterate in comparison sometimes... but is it just me, or are you using "converge" incorrectly? I always thought it meant a few things coming together and joining, like when two or three streams turn into one river--seems like an odd word choice, to me. But I might be wrong.
-------
Overall, I really liked this! The character is hugely amusing and his narrative is addicting to read, that's for sure. His arrogance and jaded wit remind me a lot of Bartimaeus, which is definitely a good thing. I agree with Jet that he sounds extremely English--though, being American and ignorant, it sounded perfectly genuine to me. If I didn't know better, I'd think you were English yourself. There's not much else to say, but I do like this. A lot. If I picked up a book in the library and this was how it started, I'd definitely get it out/read on. Nice work.
I see that people have been talking about your use of interjections, especially with parenthesis. Well, I actually like it. It adds character and uniqueness to his voice. Like how Bartimaeus was always using footnotes. ^_^ I think it works really well. Having a character's voice extend even to the technicalities of their grammar really helps them come alive. However! I think you need to watch out for repetitive sentence structure. You do a lot of having two fragments or short sentences joined together by a semi-colon. A lot of it. Let me show you a few examples:
Those were just the first few, there's more than that. I have to say, it got a bit tiring after a while, so just watch out for it. :]
Other than that, there's not really much that I can point out. I'm sorry this was so nit-picky! Of course, let me know if you have questions or the like.
Onto chapter 2. :}
I cried when this stopped. Why did you stop writing???? I am in love with this piece of writing and I must say it's better than my own. You are amazing and talented and don't let anyone tell you different. I could not find really anything I was not satisfied with. There was one offset bracket that I don't feel was needed because the reading didn't flow in my head. Everything else flowed fine.
That's is all I have to say.
Oh and you better keep working on this story!!
Excellent! XD As other people have already said, the narrative is enjoyable. The dragon's character really comes through in the voice. Always a good thing. I liked how he compared himself to a cat twice, and then pointed it out.
The only thing about this that I didn't like is that we don't get to see how he's going to mess with the knight's head right away.
Well... This is probably the worst review I've ever written, but other people already pointed things out, and I'm not sure what else to say other than, "I liked it."
So... Excellent work. Keep it up. XD
Day-um. Okay, you are now my favorite author on here (No offense to you others reading this!) Seriously, I've read a lot of books on the dragon subject (I'm into the supernatural/fantasy crap) and none of them are like this. They always portray the dragon as a weak piece of crap, or a murderous beat who has no mind of his own. It (the chapter) was better than my favorite sitcom, and I really have nothing bad to say about it.
I've been waiting to read this, and I wasn't disappointed. I mean who wouldn't like a good story about dragons? Dragons rock. I think that this was actually better than I expected it would be, no bluff. Good job on it, good job. I can't pick a favorite part, either, that's how good it is.
I love this story! :) You should definitely stick with the narrative style since it's different, fits perfectly, and allows you to add a ton of witty and humorous lines. I feel that your main character is very well developed and has a nice perspective on things. :) I'm quite surprised that I found absolutely no nitpicks, since I pick on just about anything. I enjoyed reading this, and sincerely hope you continue writing it. Thanks for the read! I'm looking forward to the next chapter and those to follow! :)
It was an enjoyable story overall, but it would be nice if you specified exactly what time period it's set in--if this is one of those traditional dragon-tales that are set in the time they actually believed in dragons, or if it is pretty much set in our time--with Ipods and BlackBerry's and such. When the dragon described the pitiful state of humanity, it felt more like he was making jest at our popular contemporary office culture, rather than 13th-17th century time-frame, as people weren't nearly as job-oriented then as they are now.
Secondly, it ended rather abruptly, so I would replace that instead with a cliff-hanger of some kind--like dangling the knight from a cliff, from which only the dragon could possibly save him.
On an unrelated note, the title inevitably reminded me of one of my favorite episodes of the Billy & Mandy cartoon series--"Here Thar Be Dwarves".
I will go off now to read the following chapters.
Wow, Palip! I was going to say! ;P
RH, if you ever stop this I will never forgive you! I actually might go and cry in a quiet corner somewhere... And what are you doing reading this? You should be writing more! ;P Just kidding, although the next chapter would be nice...?
(:
I STRONGLY recommend you stop this. I'm sorry, I just can't keep writing a review for every excellent piece of writing you create. You waste too much of my time. Plus you make me jealous.
. I think I've made it clear I'm going to read ALL your chapters. Post it all before I get to the end please. Thank you. ( haha 
, please don't take me seriously. Don't stop this. Ever)
Wow, thank you all for your reviews!
You sir (ahem, madam) are one talented writer!
I could feel the character development building even in this short section. Truly amazing! I already feel legitimately concerned for both of these characters (the unlikely young hero in particuar) and I can't wait to read more! Truly outstanding! Man, I do believe you deserve all your fourteen likes - er, excuse me: fifteen. *likes* 
I was immediately drawn into the story. I could imagine everything unfolding inside my head, I could see the dragon curled up in the cave, hear the youth below him cursing and the rocks from the cliff face breaking loose. And such humour! What a witty dragon, I must say.
Absolutely no grammatical nitpicks. Seriously, you're a brilliant writer. Definitely keep up the style, it really hooked me and it flows perfectly.
So, God bless, and for Heaven's sake, never, ever stop writing!!!
- Ignis
The only thing I could find to point out was that you tend to put a period outside the () after you already have an endmark. You'll see what I mean.
Clevah. Clevah clevah. I sense a Beowolf rival emerging. But Beowulf didn't escape the clutch of criticism. So, unfortunately, neither will this.
I like the voice. Based on my measly sense of your writing style, it's not so much of a surprise. But. It seems that you've gotten so caught up with this voice that you fail my descriptometer. Yes. It's very useful. You even neglected to say what the weather is. I have no idea if it's windy, or rainy, or sunny, or even tornado-y. And you do very little to describe the cave as well. I only have a vague picture of the setting. Very vague.
Use parentheses sparsely. Using them a lot, like in this sentence, only confuses the reader.
Don't need "easily."
I'll try my best to get to the rest soon.
-Kafka
Hey there, Hawk!
) But ... I kind of agree with Jetpack on your use of parentheses. Sometimes it just interrupts the flow of the story. As for the narrative style, I really liked it. 
I've been meaning to read this for a long time now but I'm just now getting around to it... Needless to say, I loved it! I didn't find any grammar or spelling issues. (Although, to be honest, I didn't really look that much. I just enjoyed the story.
Anywho, I'll read and review the next chapter ... eh, probably tomorrow afternoon. I need to get some last-minute writing in for the day.
Keep up the amazing work!
~ Moonlight
First I want to say STOP DOUBTING YOURSELF! This is entertaining and easy to read- if I found this book in the library, I would keep reading. And even when you run into rough spots or parts you aren't sure of or don't like, just keep writing! Everything looks different when you finally reach the end of a book, and you can always edit it later on.
I really didn't find anything I didn't like in here- I like the dragon's almost jaded humor, a nice change of pace. Just the sort of attitude I'd imagine a dragon would have. Knights fighting dragons is among one of the oldest fantasy 'themes', but you pull it off without any feelings of cliche. JUST KEEP WRITING!
Amazing , i love your character the voice is very refreshing and original! I will subscribe and keep read all your other chapters. Keep up the good work!
Hi RH! I saw this ages ago and remembered liking it then (the title caught me-it reminded me of classic tales of pirates and fearsome creatures) but I have only just got the time today to comment on this. Yeah, it won't really be a review. It's too good, the only negative thing I can draw from this is the constant asides you have, but this has already been mentioned by the above reviewers. When editing, try and see which ones you need and are actually interesting and which ones are just annoying.
You've written something original and funny - I felt I owed you the 'review'.
I'm off to chapter two! :]
Hehe real witty and well written. The character of the dragon is devious but at the same time very likable, and we don't know what to think about the boy yet except that he's in for a load of trouble. Somehow even though there was not that much description I got a very clear and awesome picture of all of this unraveling before my eyes. Very solid and entertaining work and I'll read the second chapter!
Ahaha...RG, I loved it! Absolutely loved it!
No negative criticism here--doesn't need any. Your writing puts such a strong image into the readers mind and I feel like the character's voice is echoing through my head. It was so truthfully ironic, you can't help but laugh at yourself for being human.
Thank you for the read! I will go check out Ch. 2...I believe you have it up? PM me when you have more after that!
--Lollipopper
Thank you all for your reviews! I'm glad you liked it and that the tone seems fairly likable. I have every intention of finishing this story; I just tend to second-guess and doubt myself a lot. But I'll do my best to finish it; thanks again!
This is a really funny story and an incredibly neat concept
I really like the idea of doing a man-hunts-dragon story from the point of view of the beast, and for that, I tip my hat to you, sir! "Eragon", go eat your heart out!
It takes a lot to hold my interest, and you have accomplished it with flying colors!
I really like the narrative voice. It's witty, sarcastic, and gives the piece a light, entertaining tone. I hope you keep this going (another review said you don't finish your stories), and while I am by no means an amateur in the fine art of scrapping stories after they've lost their flavor, I would strongly recommend you finish this, whether it be in two chapters or twenty. At least get to the part where the knight gets eaten and/or spared!
Again, really like the story
Ooooh. Haven't read anything of RH's in a while
...*reads*...
That's all I found for nit-picking. I have to say, NIIIIIIIIIICE! I loved this, from beginning to end. I'd add a little more to the prologue (if you'd really wanted to make it into a prologue) or else it would be a little short, I find.
But anyways, reaaaaaally good. I loved this narrative style; adored the dragon's sense of humour. You so need to continue this story; I'm certain that many people'll want to read it!!
Not much else to say, can't wait for the rest of it!
Niece!
I'm here to review! Firstly, is it just me, or do I remember there being another book titled "Here There Be Dragons"? Or maybe it was pirates...Oh well, I don't feel like Googling it, so you might want to check that out. You know how pesky those title names can be.
Other than that small question, I didn't find anything to merit any alarm bells--grammatical or otherwise. I really liked this. I just pictured that dragon telling tales of his youth in that way that we all pictured dragons being: slightly irritable, sometimes good-humored, and above all, genteel. You pulled it off beautifully. I have to agree with Jet about the "cat" references. One's enough. I found the humor to be well-proportioned and you made me giggle in some places, especially when the dragon was describing the boy with his buggy eyes. These were my two favorite instances of description. I seriously laughed out loud when I read the first one. I got the mental image of one of those gopher bopping machines and his head popping out for the dragon to *whack!*.
I think that overall, this is a very interesting story and that the narrative style works perfectly. Or rather, you wield it perfectly. Whichever you wish to entertain.
Happy Writing!
Auntie Bailey
Hey, Jet here. I was going to split this in two and do a full review, but as you said you were thinking about narrative style, I'll start with that and see how it goes. This is quite an interesting take on dragons, and most of what I want to cover has to do with overdoing it.
Whatever the style you choose, overdoing its crucial elements won't help the reader. In a formal piece, you can end up with really stilted dialogue; when you're writing from the point of view of a stereotypical teenage girl, you can overdo the "like", and so on. Here, you establish quite a tone of voice with an irreverent humour which has obviously come with age. In other words, it's unique and it's mostly pretty funny.
You use a lot of asides, usually in brackets. Brackets interrupt the story and tend to provide a somewhat - well, not unnecessary, but not immediately relevent piece of information. Once or twice, they're fine. The problem comes when you rely on them to provide the humour in the piece and the reader begins to notice them, and becomes distracted from the body of text. Take this example:
Personally, the last half of that sentence was overkill. Maybe it's just me, but I thought the sentence made your point without the brackets. Over the entirety of a novel, I could see the asides like this getting in the way of the plot. Or maybe just getting on my nerves - in which case, wait for a second opinion! Because there are some instances where the asides really work.
Those last four words bring across an amusement, and a fondness too, which really help with establishing the dragon's relationship with humans. It's a fairly innocuous use of the em dash and we're led into the next paragraph so well, I barely notice it.
I also don't see why the dragon has to be quite so genre savvy in places.
You could probably scrap that. It feels like you're trying to qualify every sentence you write with a joke at this point, and you don't have to for us to get the idea. Again, overdo the humour, and it'll just lose its originality. I feel like I'm taking this way too seriously, because I smiled through a lot of it, but it did start to get repetitive for me towards the end.
I apologise if I'm wrong, but I get the feeling you're not from England, because the dragon speaks like a stereotypical old English gent. Or, if you're a Buffy fan, Giles. I can't tell whether that was intentional, but I'm assuming it was, at least in part, because you mention the "pleasant countryside of Westerfold" - it just sounds quintessentially English. Again, it's not a huge complaint, but as an English reader, it's slightly offputting when you read the same interpretation of our eccentricities. It's just a matter of keeping it within reason. To be honest, as long as your dragon isn't offered "a spot of tea", I could probably cope with the voice.
- Jet.
hahaha!
Thank you for the laugh *wipes away tears of mirth*
You should definitely keep this narrative voice. I could just imagine the dragon perfectly.
I found no nitpicks, can't wait to see how this goes. I don't know why you never continue your stories: you're a very talented writer with a unique voice and outlook on life.
Great start!
Let me know when you post more.
Mum. xxx