Published July 16, 2007
The forest was green and lush, bright, vivid colours masked the sense of anticipation and foreboding in the air. No birds sang and even the wind seemed to hold it's breath. A faint rustle was heard, unnatural in the still air. A twig snapped. A flutter of movement. Then silence.
A clatter of hooves through the underbrush could be heard in the distance, laughter was carried towards the ears of the waiting presence. A hunting party rode through, oblivious to the dangers around them. They were richly dressed in blues and silvers, led by a tall, raven-haired woman robed in a purple gown that stood out boldly from the rest. She sat proudly in her saddle, aware of her obvious status. Her companions talked amiably as they rode and she listened with interest while still watching their path.
A movement caught her eye and she raised her hand to halt them. She looked towards the source and saw nothing but the trees. She frowned, sensing that something was out of place. Her horse began to fidget and she leaned down to stroke its neck, uttering soothing words to comfort it. It pranced and whinnied and as she sat back up to steady it, she found herself face to face with an arrow pointed at her heart. Her breath came sharply, shocked.
She sat straight in the saddle and followed the arrow's shaft down to the cold eyes of the man behind it. His face was one of malice and greed, undettered from his goal, yet all she felt was pity. Whinnies punctured the silence making her turn to her friends, and her sadness deepened as she beheld what had befallen them. Each one leant against their terrified horses' necks, blood trickling down and becoming matted in their steeds' manes. She shook her head and sighed, all her sorrow coming out in that one breath.
She opened her mouth to speak, but was silenced when the arrow sprouted from between her breasts. A single tear squeezed out of her slowly closing eyes. She toppled gracefully off her horse as the man stepped forward with a dagger. But there was no need. She was dead.
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141,381 Literary Works • 674,386 Reviews
I like this. Some of your description is really good and you have a nice variety of sentence lengths. I'd be really interested to see where you go from here actually. You've killed off all the characters except the malicious stranger. Anyway, I suppose I shall have to wait for the next part. Is there going to be a next part actually or is this just a short story? Right. Onto my specific point, just one little nitpick -
They were richly dressed in blues and silvers, led by a tall, raven-haired woman robed in a purple gown that stood out boldly from the rest. [I'd use 'who' rather than 'that' because you're talking about a person and it sounds better.]
A good piece of writing though and I look forward to reading more.
I've edited it to include your ideas.
Thanks guys, I prefer it as it is now.
The description in this chapter is beautiful, it applies to everything around the woman who was the person I least expected to die and I can't wait to read more from this story.
Wow, I liked this chapter very much, especially the description.
I'm guessing the raven-haired woman wasn't the main character?
Very interesting chapter! Please continue it.
Short, sharp and shiny. Me likes!
You're pretty good at getting the description to seem all natural and part of the story. Maybe in the future try and work in a simile or metaphor or two, and you'll be dandy. And you've got some nice atmosphere working there. Good tension in the first bit, where there's nothing happening but we just know something will.
Yay for short sentences and phrases! I don't agree with greenjay that there should be commas. Short bits can be good for the atmosphere. Builds the tension. Thumbs up! Although that t in then would be capitalised. But that's not hard to fix.
Otherwise I agree with greenjay on grammar. Which is handy because I find talking about grammar is rather dull, so more interesting things for me! YAY!
This is probably just me being fussy, but I don't like "raven-haired". It's a thing I have. Maybe I'm just predisposed to dislike raven-haired women because I like dark hair and have been landed as a dirty blonde. But anyway. That's a tangent. For me, that description sticks whenever I hear it. I wouldn't have brought it up, but I do hear it a fair bit, so maybe you'd want to find another way to describe her hair? Up to you. Just so long as she isn't an elf too. I may have a thing about the "raven-haired" description, but I have a bigger thing about perfect elves.
You have a couple of "could be heard"s in the first two paragraphs. It may be alright seeing as they're not in the same one, but I did notice. ALthough I suppose I was trying to notice things. But still. "could be heard"s are something I have issues with and I can never seem to find a better alternative, so I'll do my best here, and solve it for both of us.
Ok, so, you could do the question thing. Like, "Was that a rustle?" (only a bit better than that) but that would remove your "unnatural in the still air", which I quite liked. Also the questions would come from teh waiting assassin's perspective, and I don't know if you want to connect us too them so much straight off there.
Hmmm. You can't even do the "drifted on the wind" thing because there isn't any ... hold on! You did that a bit later! But you said there was no wind before! Dun dun dun DUUUUNNNNN!!! Paradox! Got to watch them, or you'll have gone back in time and killed your grandfather before you know it.
But back to the "could be heard"s. Thing is, what "could be heard" tells us is that it's a sound that just happened. But of course a rustle is a sound, and we all know it's a sound, so maybe you could just go "a faint rustle of dry leaves, unnatural in the still air" ... yay! That could work! Maybe a bit of direction too. Like "up ahead" or something. "could be heard"s seem to give location as well as showing it's a sound. It's why I use them too often.
I have a question. And that is: How come she didn't hear the other people getting killed? Or just notice it before she turned. Maybe these assassin people are good and none of the victims were alive long enough to scream, but I can envision a thousand other noises and disturbances that could occur. I mean, there are horses present. They're going to do more than look terrifed. And what about the actual sound of weapons hitting flesh? Or just twangs or humming or whatever-sound-bowstrings-make of bowstrings? And not even a gurgle? I don't know. Something for you to think about, anyway.
Just with its context, but where did this tear squeeze out from exactly?
YAY! More short bits! They end it really nicely. You could go "She was already dead" instead, but actually I quite like what you've got.
It was good. Killing off a person we don't know. I will look for the other posts,
Well thats great! Kill off your main charatcer in the first few paragraphs! But other than that it was really good. Very descriptive. Now I'm wondering if the assasigns were the main characters. I do wonder why they killed her last but thats just me being wierd. Either way...
It was very good, its wierd but since you described everything else it seems like you should have described the horses. Other than that suff it was extemely good!
~Pol
Waaaaaaaaaaaa!!!.....
Oh, sorry. *Ahem.* okay, cool, sweet, awesome. I'm interested. What's next? I really like your vivid style.
too many adjectives for the first sentance, and change those last periods to commas (don't you hate grammar).
"In the underbrush" and then "in the distance" is a bit much. I'd suggest cutting the first, makes it flow better.
(The red means added words/puncuation). One thing, you might edit this to have less "she"s. Quite a few sentances start with she, and it would read better if you changed that.
I think silenced would sound better.
Good! I really liked it, please PM me when there's more. Write more!
-The green one ends