Warning: This work has been rated 16+ for language, violence, and mature content.
A.N: I may not have all of my history correct this is just a draft and I am not super knowledgeable about my English history.
The ten men stood in a line backs straight and caps low on their faces to hide their identity. Everyone had an air about them that gave off a sense of danger. The candle lite room made their grizzly hands and large frames look more intimidating than if just sunlight shone on them. They had all made there judgments on the other men as they waited for their host to arrive. The host instructed them to arrive at the house go into the foreroom and stand in a single file line against the wall until they got there.
“Anyone else think this is a little strange?” A brisk voice asked glancing to his left and right. He unfasted his coat and sat against the wall and sighed heavily. He rubbed his hand over his shaved head and the other men began to relax except one.
“If you think this is strange then what are you doing here?” A scar faced man leaned against the wall and scoffed at the seated person.
“No but we’re just supposed to wait here for them to show up and what?” The scared man sighed in annoyance and answered his question gruffly.
“I don’t know but how about we shut up and find out.”
“Well well I guess we all better shut up and find out then.” The door swung open to produce the person who said this. He was well groomed and his accent rang with the tone of a classic brit. The whole room tensed and the two men who spoke stood and straightened, raising their chins in the air. Two large men followed the British person and stood behind him with arms folded. He smiled at the group and nodded at each one as he introduced himself.
“Sir Arthur Cartwright of England, it’s so lovely to meet you all.” As his eyes scanned the group he saw the strangest of the group. Each person looked about the same and fit the standard strong man American type. Large, rough, sometimes bearded and always hard headed literally and metaphorically. Which is exactly what he wanted but one boy. He was slender and small in stature. His clothes were black and worn but not in bad shape just well used. His coat went to the top of his boots and his hood covered his eyes all the while black fabric covered his mouth and nose completely concealing who was underneath. He stared at this boy for a good couple seconds hoping he would turn but got no response and continued his introduction.
“You are all wondering what you are going to do here to show your worth and that is what I am explaining now. Each of you will face off with another until only one remains. There is too be no weapons of any sort and only clean fighting will be permitted.” He explained waving his hand slightly in the air and pacing in front of the group. The shaved headed guy spoke up with a scoff.
“You expect us to fight like dogs for some stupid job. No way I’m out.” He said buttoning his coat to leave. A couple others began to mummer and shift as if to leave as well. The knight clicked his tongue and shook his head.
“Too bad because you get to come back to England with me and your pay would be roughly 20 euros a month which here in America is 22 dollars. Roughly. Oh and free housing three meals a day.” The group heard the amount and stopped moving and even breathing. Everyone looked at the man with bewildered expressions and even the masked boy raised his head towards the man but not enough to see his face. Quickly their spots were filled back up and the Knight began his explanation again as if there was not an interruption. “This will proceed throughout the night and whomever remains victorious in the morning with come with me. The winner is determined by whom becomes unconscious or by calling defeat. Are these clear?” There was a distinct yes that was called out and Cartwright walked to the other side of the room and reviled a table that the group hadn’t really noticed before. “Weapons here please.” Everyone dropped knifes, small blades, brass knuckles and even a gun onto the table and then pulled their pockets out to show they had nothing else to give. After the formalities the game began. Each person fought and one lost.
Arthur watched the mask boy to see his reactions of the fights. He seemed indifferent to it all and even sometimes looked in a different direction until Arthur called him out to fight. “Okay you.” He pointed to the scar faced man then swiveled on the balls of his feet and looked the boy in the face. “And the masked boy.” A couple people chuckled because the boy was show. Every inch of his skin was covered with black clothing and as the other man shred his clothes to fight the boy didn’t. As soon as the words were announced to begin the scar face man was already taking blows left and right. To the face and to the diaphragm. Before he could raise a fist the boy had backed away. The attack was so fast that even Arthur was shock by how it had happened.
“What the fu-“another blow to the mouth then the neck. He didn’t wait for him to recover he just hit him until he bent over then kicked him to the ground and refused to let him up. The Knight stepped forward to call a winner because of the broken rule of fighting clean the scarred man called uncle. The boy stopped and the man stood rubbing his sore parts. “I don’t want the money this bad. Kid you got something wrong with you to fight like that.” He grabbed his coat and left with those words lingering. It was true no one fought like that because it wasn’t what was taught. You give the other person a chance it’s only fair but this kid cared nothing about fairness.
End of chapter
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140,377 Literary Works • 673,127 Reviews
I just posted chapter two if anyone is interested.
Hey there, Zee6!
I really like the language you've used here. It's simple but descriptive and suits the piece well. I love history, and your story successfully delivered me into the time you were writing about; I could imagine the scenes taking place and it was believable. I found a few little errors which I'll point out below to help you make this even better.
The ten men stood in a line backs straight and caps low on their faces to hide their identity. You've missed a comma here, one is needed after 'line'. The host instructed them to arrive at the house go into the foreroom and stand in a single file line against the wall until they got there. Again, you need a comma after 'house', Read through and check whether or not an extra breath is needed anywhere to make a sentence make sense, in these instances, you can insert a comma.
Too bad because you get to come back to England with me and your pay would be roughly 20 euros a month which here in America is 22 dollars. This bit confuses me a little. If he comes from England, surely he would be paying in pounds rather than euros? It just sounds odd and unfitting to say euros. It's up to you whether you change it.
Arthur's speech was exceptionally fitting to his proud, controlling character. Well done with that, you know your characters well.
You give the other person a chance it’s only fair but this kid cared nothing about fairness. I liked the way you finished by summing up the character, saying he cared nothing about fairness. I think the chapter ends with a little bit of surprise on the reader's part; surprise at how skilled this 'underdog' character actually is. Overall, it was quite good. You just need to focus on adding in some extra commas to make sentences flow nicely. Thanks for sharing.
Thank you so much and try to use commas more. I'll be posting another chapter today so if you would like to review that I would be than happy.
Hey there! ^_^ Care for a review?
I think this is a pretty strong start for a novel! There's mystery, conflict, intrigue, more mystery, and a character whom I want very much to learn more about! Seriously, this masked boy has captured my interest; where'd he come from? What's his story? I'm excited to find out!
I think the biggest thing I noticed in this chapter that could use some work, is the imagery. In the line above it says they all gave off an air of danger, but what does that look like? What tipped people off that these were dangerous people? Are they all frowning and glaring? Is there smoke leaking out between their teeth? A way to really give people a solid image/feel/voice of a work is to be more detailed- I don't mean describe every little detail, I just mean it can really create an awesome image for us if there's one or two different images that are a bit more focused on the little things. Doing this also really gives a good sense of what the setting and characters are like! Try to show us what's happening, rather than telling us-- this is something I need to work on myself, too! I tell people everything! XP
I liked this, and it made me giggle a bit because everything was so serious and mysterious, and I was trying to figure out what was happening... and than it was like "hey, one of the character's is just as unsure about things! This is good!" so I really liked that for some reason. It was almost a comedic relief- only I'm not sure if that's what you were going for, but I also thought it was a brilliant time to introduce dialogue to your novel, because it really flowed into it nicely there I thought.
This particular piece of dialogue I found a bit confusing. It sounds like the scared man said the first line there, but I'm pretty sure it was actually the other guy, and the bit about the scare man sighing and answering was actually meant for the next line of dialogue. This is a super easy fix, and all that it would take if to add a little "so-en-so said" to the first bit of dialogue, and put the Scared man sighing bit with the second line of dialogue. Just my thoughts, in any case. Though I think it would make it a lot more clearer who is saying what! ^_^
The other thing I noticed with the dialogue is that it might benefit from a little more punctuation! Commas are very important in dialogue (and in general) because they can really help us understand exactly what's being conveyed. Here's an example:
Commas are also super great for giving the reader a break from a sentence- long or otherwise, sentences can be tough to concentrate on if there's no breaks for our internal voice to pause and catch up with itself!
Overall I think you have a great start full of mystery and suspense! Another thing I'm interested is to know what exactly their jobs will be like! I quite enjoyed the read, and I hope you continue! C:
-Socks
Thanks so much for the review and I'll try my best to do these things.
You're welcome! c:
Hello there! I hope you do not mind that I read and edit at the same time, I do not want this to become a problem in between me and the authors. This way I do two things at once and give you twice the help by giving you the edits right off the bat, when I read it and find the mistake. I do not like reading and then forgetting where the mistake was because the work is a bit longer and I need to scroll up and down to find the end and then the start again. Now that we have said that, let's go with the work. Of course, I will pass the parts I read and found no mistakes so this review does not become a long messy story which is just copy paste thing. I will only leave the parts that needs the edits.
The ten men stood in a line, backs straight and caps low on their faces to hide their identity. Everyone had
an aira/that feeling about them that gave off a sense of danger. The candle literoom made their grizzly hands and large frames look more intimidating than if just sunlight shone on them. They had all made thereir judgments on the other men as they waited for their host to arrive. The host instructed them to arrive at the house, go into the foreroom and stand in a single file line against the wall until they got there.“Anyone else thinks this is a little strange?” A brisk voice asked, glancing to his left and then to his right. He unfasted his coat and sat against the wall, and sighed heavily. He rubbed his hand over his shaved head and the other men began to relax, except one.
“If you think this is strange, then what are you doing here?” A scar faced man leaned against the wall and scoffed at the seated person.
“No but we’re just supposed to wait here for them to show up and what?” The scared man sighed in annoyance and answered his question gruffly.
“I don’t know but how about we shut up and find out.”
“Well, well, I guess we all better shut up and find out then.” The door swung open to produce the person who said this. He was well groomed and his accent rang with the tone of a classic brit. The whole room tensed and the two men who spoke earlier stood and straightened, raising their chins in the air. Two large men followed the British person and stood behind him with arms folded. He smiled at the group and nodded at each one as he introduced himself.
“Sir Arthur Cartwright of England, it’s so lovely to meet you all.” As his eyes scanned the group, he saw the strangest of the group. Each person looked about the same and fit the standard strong man American type. Large, rough, sometimes bearded and always hard headed literally and metaphorically, which is exactly what he wanted but one boy was something else. He was slender and small in stature. His clothes were black and worn but not in bad shape, just well used. His coat went to the top of his boots and his hood covered his eyes all the while black fabric covered his mouth and nose, completely concealing who was underneath. He stared at this boy for a good couple seconds, hoping he would turn but hegot no response
andso he continued his introduction.“You are all wondering what you are going to do here to show your worth and that is what I am going to explain
ingnow. Each of you will face off with another until only one remains. Thereis toowill be no weapons of any sort and only clean fighting will be permitted.” He explained, waving his hand slightly in the air and pacing in front of the group. The shaved headed guy spoke up with a scoff.“You expect us to fight like dogs for some stupid job. No way, I’m out.” He said buttoning his coat to leave. A couple others began to mummer and shift as if to leave as well. The knight clicked his tongue and shook his head.
“Too bad because you get to come back to England with me and your pay would be roughly 20 euros a month which here in America is 22 dollars. Roughly. Oh and free housing, three meals a day.” The group heard the amount and stopped moving and even breathing. Everyone looked at the man with bewildered expressions and even the masked boy raised his head towards the man but not enough to see his face. Quickly their spots were filled back up and the Knight began his explanation again as if there was not an interruption. “This will proceed throughout the night and whomever remains victorious in the morning with come with me. The winner is determined by whom becomes unconscious or by calling defeat.
Are theseIs this clear?” There was a distinct yes that was called out and Cartwright walked to the other side of the room and reviled a table that the group hadn’t really noticed before. “Weapons here please.” Everyone dropped knifes, small blades, brass knuckles and even a gun onto the table, and then pulled their pockets out to show they had nothing else to give. After the formalities the game began. Each person fought and one lost.Arthur watched the mask boy to see his reactions of the fights. He seemed indifferent to it all and even sometimes looked in a different direction until Arthur called him out to fight. “Okay, you.” He pointed to the scar faced man then swiveled on the balls of his feet and looked the boy in the face. “And the masked boy.” A couple people chuckled because the boy was show. Every inch of his skin was covered with black clothing and as the other man shred his clothes to fight, the boy didn’t. As soon as the words were announced to begin, the scar face man was already taking blows left and right. To the face and to the diaphragm. Before he could raise a fist the boy had backed away. The attack was so fast that even Arthur was shock by how it had happened.
“What the fu-“(space)another blow to the mouth then the neck. He didn’t wait for him to recover he just hit him until he bent over then kicked him to the ground and refused to let him up. The Knight stepped forward to call a winner because of the broken rule of fighting clean, the scarred man called Uncle. The boy stopped and the man stood rubbing his sore parts. --
Oh god! The story was so interesting! I want to read more or it if possible! Anyways, I did my best to edit everything that needed the correction. Good job and hope to see more.
Thanks so much for this and I'll be posting another chapter to it today so feel free to review that too.