The deafening clang of two heavy iron pots being smashed together not two feet from his head brought young Rovaalian out of his small cot. He arose to find Stu, a large, grey haired man, sitting on a stool smashing two very lare pots together rhythmically while singing in a deep drinking-song style voice that was actually quite livening:
Up you get! Up you go!
Where you're going I don't know!
What'll happen? I don't care!
Who'll you meet when you get there?
A damsel dressed in satin, blue?
A filthy begger, maybe two?
Untill you rise you'll never know!
Up you get, boy! Up you go!
He laughed heartily when he was finished, a jolly belly laugh that only Stu could conjure. Stu was enormous, two beefy arms ending in fists the size of cannon balls, and a broadness of him that rivaled that of fat dwarves, and the height to mach. Wherever he went, Rovaalian guessed, he would have to duck through doorways. Grey eyes twinkled under big, bushy grey eyebrows. His nose was small compared two his face, upon which grew a thick beard that barely reached his chest. He through the pots on Rovaalian.
"Get up! You've got a raid to go on!" said Stu, still smiling.
"Honestly, Stu," said Rovaalian. "you are no bandit. You're too kind to be a bandit."
"Aye!" said Stu. "But it's fun! Now come, and bring your swords. You'll be doing this one by yourself."
"Again?" complained Rovaalian. "I'm twelve bleadin' years old! Wait untill I'm at least thirteen. Then wake me up for a raid." he said, shoving the pots off of him and pulling the blankets over him, as if to go back to sleep.
"Oh, no you don't! Get up you lazy..." he began, but interupted himself by fliping Rovaalians cot over, spilling him over the side. "...worm! Now come on!" he finished. Rovaalian sighed as he gathered himself. He looked over his small tent, a large sheet of canvas thrown over a tight rectangular frame, and staked on four corners to form a tight box. The ground was covered by a tarp, and several knives were in a small chest on the floor. In another chest, a long, black chest, were his two short swords, ones he had been given by his master, who's name was also Rovaalian. They were very pretty to look at, and the highest quality blades around. They each had a snake slithering from the pommel to the blade, etched into the glistening steel that refleced all of the colors of the spectrum, depending on which angle you looked at it from.
"Rovaalian!" a voice called, higher then that of Stu, cracking with the effort of shouting so early in the morning. He threw on his cloak, a dark green hooded cloak inside which were several pockets, and his swords, which he wore on his belt. They were meant for a larger wielder, and hung low over his legs, dangling down to his knees, but he seemed used to them by now.
"Coming!" he called back. "I'm coming! Don't leave yet!" But it was too late. His master, Rovaalian Senior, burst through the entrance of the tent.
"Get out here!" he snarled. He looked like an angry jungle cat, with a small nose and broad face, his black hair falling over his eyes that burned in his fury. His lips were pulled into a savage half smile, revealing his yellow canines. "Lie down, flat on your stomach. You'll be doing this raid injured! You may not be ready next time!" he said. Rovaalian, knowing full well what followed, removed his cloak and assumed the position. A moment passed silently by, anticipation wracking young Rovaalian's mind. Then... Crack! Crack! Crack! the whip fell thre times accross the back of his legs, rending his pants and skin so that fresh blood crept accross his tan skin. The feeling was like fire being carved swiftly through his skin, and he bit hard on a thick branch that had been laying near by.Another silence followed. Rovaalian was beginning to push himself back up, tears of pain blurring his vision, when Crack! The whip came back down on his arm, causing him to fall and roll over. He was now on his back, the branch long for gotten as he clenched his teeth against the pain, his face now a twisted mask of agony. Crack! Crack! The whip fell again on his chest, opening new wounds and ruining his shirt.
"Now get up, boy! There'll be a small trading cart coming down. There'll only be two guards, and a civilian, nothing you haven't handled before."
"I wasn't injured, though!"
"Shut up. It'll be on the west road. Now go!" he said pointing the arm that held the whip in the direction on the east road. Rovaalian shook his head. He retrieved his cloak and made his way in the correct direction, towards the west road.
When he got there, he didn't even have time to climb into a tree and wait. So he just hid behind one, laying low on the ground with both swords already drawn in his hand. The feeling of dead leaves in the wounds on his chest were unpleasant, to say the least, but he wasn't dying yet. When the first guard came into view, Rovaalian burst from his concealed position and cut his throat before anyone could react. His horse bolted in the opposite direction, and the other guard drew his own sword and charged him. Rovaalian, in one motion, spun out of the way and cut the horses leg deeply, causing it to stumble and fall. Rovaalian was on the fallen soldier before he could react, taking his head off with a pass of his sword. He than made his way to the cart driver, who had tried to flee but had fallen off of his cart. The man jumped up with a sword and swung madly, a flailing mess of wasted steel. Rovaalian, seeing as how this was the last witness, took his time. He could easily keep up with the mad slashes and jerks of the poor man. The ring of steel was music to Rovaalian's ears as he carelessly parried his attacks. Suddenly the man stopped. Putting his sword down. Rovaalian realized that his hood had fallen off.
"You..." said the man. "You're just a boy! You're my son's age! You..." but Rovaalan cut him off, running him through the stomach.
"And you..." said Rovaalian. "Now have a boy's sword in your stomach." he said. He was going to say something else, when another voice rang out over the silence, an anguished shriek, a young shriek. A young boy had appeared from behind the cart, clutching a small knife used for eating.
"MY FATHER!" he shrieked. Tears flowing from his eyes. Rovaalian wondered that if that kept up, would the boy shrivel from lack of water? Even more, he wondered at the name the boy had called him.
"What did you call me?" He said indignantly, raising a sword to point at him.
"YOU KILLED MY FATHER! YOU... YOU KILLED HIM!" the boy wailed, his knuckles white against the handle of the knife.
"This man? Your father?" asked Rovaalian. What's a father? "Is that like some sort of servant title? Or are you his servant, and 'father' is just another word for 'master'."
"AAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!" the boy yelled, his sorrow and anger overcoming all sense of fear. Rovaalian wasted no time cutting the boys hand off at the wrist.
"Unwhise, boy. Most unwhise." said Rovaalian, as he brought the point of his blade up and stuck it through the boys chest. With a final breath, the boy muttered "why..." but Rovaalian didn't have to answer that. So he didn't. Seemingly from nowhere, Rovaalian heard a slow clapping.
"I'd give it about a six out of ten. You could have finished the driver alot earlier, and you wasted time talking to the boy. He could have ran away and told the officers. Plus, the horse no doubt returning riderless will rise some suspicion." said Rovaalian Senior, his attitude changed drastically from earlier. His face, briefly, was one of satisfaction. It was more a sense of self satisfaction than anything. He promptly handed Rovaalian a very dented pot, similar to the one that Stu had used to wake up Rovaalian. "Fix that." he said. "Stu broke it waking up the rest of the camp." he said. "That reminds me: the forge went out again, you are going to relight it."
Rovaalian forgot to be discouraged. Instead, he put his swords away, and took the pot from his master. The pot really was dented, a crater right in the middle of the bottom of the pot. But Rovaalian still had that strange word on his mind. Father... "What's a 'father'?" he asked, as they started walking back to the camp.
Rovaalian Senior was taken a bit off guard, but after a moment of walking silently he responded. "A father and a mother are two people required to make a person, a baby." he said.
"Oh," said Rovaalian Junior. "Are you my father?" he said.
"No, you Dolt!" said Rovaalian Senior, giving Rovaalian Junior a hard smack upside the back of his head. "I'm not your father!"
"Oh," said Rovaalian Junior. "Are... Are you my mother than?"
"Idiot! Only women can be mothers!" said Rovaalian Senior, smacking him hard in the head again. Rovaalian stumbled a bit, and came to his feet.
"Where are my mother and father?"
"Dead."
"What happened?"
"We killed them. I got your father with a spear, straight through the stomach. Those were his swords, we found them in his house."
"How did you know it was him?" said Rovaalian Junior.
Rovaalian senior looked at Rovaalian Junior in the face. "You look like him. You look like your mother, too. She was in the house when we got her."
Rovaalian Junior pondered this. Both of his... creators, so to speak, have been killed. When the boy saw his father die, he was torn appart. Why wasn't Rovaalian? Should he be? He never knew his father. "What was my fathers name?" he said as they came to the camp.
"Hell if I know. Now fix that damned pot!" said Rovaalian Senior, kicking Rovaalian Junior behind the knee.
He made his way to the "forge", a metal fire pit with a crude anvil under a roughly built shelter to keep the rain off. It was far off from the rest of the camp, so it was regularly kept unatended. The coals were still hot, so he simply added a few sticks and blew on it, and fire sprung to life. The "Bellows" was a large hand crank that ran into some strange machine that did some spinning, and somehow made air rush through the coals. Rovaalian didn't know how it worked. Rovaalian burned himself fixing the pot, and the bottom came out a little thin, but it wasn't dented any more. He burned himself again while trying to give it back to Stu, forgetting to quench it. His mind was heavy with stray thoughts, and he slept restlessly that night. He did get it back to Stu, though, who in return gave him a stale piece of bread.
"What's the matter, there, boy?" he said. "You didn't fail, did you?"
"No, just..." he began. He looked at Stu, hard in the eyes. "You're a good friend, Stu." he said, his voice lined with sincerity. Stu nodded.
"Aye. I don't really think you're a lazy worm. I think it's more one or the other. You're lazy, or your a worm." he said, fake thinking up a solution. "I'll get back to you in the morning on that one, boy. Go to sleep."
Rovaalian Junior smiled. "I'm serious, Stu. Good nignt." he said.
"Good night, boy." said Stu. Rovaalian lay awake for several hours, motionless, before truly succumbing to sleep.
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125,021 Literary Works • 672,738 Reviews
Hi meth!
Again, grammar has been covered before me. No need to point that out.
Now this chapter I liked more. And yet, I have to agree, it works even better without the prologue. It makes things so much more interesting. Without it, questions arise, but they are good questions, because the character and location is indeed set in our minds. Then you can, eventually, further in the novel, pull the prologue as a flashback chapter, and the readers will be all like "OHHHHH. This makes TOTAL sense now" and leave with a feeling of comprehension, of mysteries and dilemmas solved.
Rovaalian Senior (why that, incidentally?), sounds like an interesting character. A cruel master, yes, but I sense something fatherly, in his own twisted way. Why did he keep Rovaalian? I'm also sure he feeds him and gives him a roof to sleep under. That means more expenses, and yet he does so. Why? That there is another good question which I'd love to have answered.
On the other hand, Rovaalian himself doesn't sound too interesting to me. I'd love to learn more of his psyche, his thoughts, why does he stay with the bandits and not run, why he even joined up (and stayed) with them in the first place. Again, good questions, but these I would have liked to be answered in the first paragraphs. More on his personality, please. Ultimately, interest in Rovaalian himself is what will spark the reader's interest and will to continue, not Senior.
Of the things Senior does for the boy, one thing is for him to fight. And very well too, because he deflects the driver's attacks with ease. On the edge of his sword, I assume. Sword's can't really do that. They break. No joke. He can also carry a sword, and run with it, and cut armor (or well, a helmet) with one. That's ah, physically impossible, for a boy of thirteen (or ten. Probably ten). Let's not forget, a scarred boy of ten can't exert himself that much -- I say scarred because the name across his back would flare up and impede his movement every time he bent or stretched his legs back, or moved his neck. Man, my suspension of disbelief is really being stretched at the moment.
Overall, I liked this one far better than the prologue. Do fix up your grammar, however, and think about the gaping plot hole I just brought up.
Hope this helped
~Ita
Yo Rirr!
~ Smashed doesn't sound like the right word to me. Smashed seems to imply destruction (i.e. I smashed the bug), where this dude is just banging the pots together to wake someone up. Maybe rephrase and use clanged, or banged or something...Here with your review, at last. Sorry about the wait, I've been sick this past week.
Anyway, you're familiar with my reviews, so I'll jump straight to business.
~ The same thing as before, smashing doesn't seem to fit here. Also, typo- large.
I like his little diddy, it's catchy.
~ Firstly, let me say, that I love cumulative sentences, and I love the description you have here, but it might go a bit better if you cut out some linking words and just let your sentence flow: "Stu was enomous, having two beefy arms that ended in fists the size of cannon balls, his chest as broad as that of fat dwarves, and the height to match."~ From which you can easily add more description, if you want to combine some of the following sentences. Also: typo, match.
~ Threw, not through, in this situation.
~ Capitalize.
~ Capitalize this one as well...also, I'd advise changing the bolded 'him' to 'his head'. "Pulling the blankets over his head."
~ I, personally, would replace that with 'he paused as he flipped Rovaalian's cot over, making the groggy boy tumble to the floor' or something similiar, but that's or choice. If you leave it like this "interrupted" "flipping" and "Rovaalian's" needs corrected.
~ Alright, a nitpick, but Id rephrase this to read "He looked over his small tent, a large sheet of canvas thrown over a tight rectangular frame, stakes on four corners to form a tight box, the ground being covered by a {specify more (brown canvas? Made of something else?)} tarp." And end the description there with one sentence.
So you can continue with ~ rephrased like this, "A small chest along the wall contained several knives. Sitting nearby was a second, long, black chest that contained two short swords, gifts from his Master, whose name was also Rovaalian."
Also: Following Stu's mini-rant (which I term affectionately, I enjoyed it), you should start a new paragraph. You give enough description of his room to warrent an entire paragraph to itself.
~ This= amazing! I love description like this. Great job!
~ I know that everyone always *says* 'full well', but it's technically supposed to be 'fully well'. Also, start a new paragraph with this sentence-- your paragraphs are too long and hard to read, especially when people try to review. It's hard to find your place once you lose it.
~ Two typos, three and across. Also. O.o That sounds really, really harsh for oversleeping...I am quite interested in the Rovaalians' relationship...
~ The first comma is unneccessary, nix please.
I don't like the vast white space for a line break. It looks like a formatting error, not a break. You should use a symbol. I chose ~~~ three squiggles, though I've seen *** used, or simply a row of dots. ....
~ Choose: Swords already drawn, or swords in hand, not both.
Seperate.your.paragraphs.
The attack was amazing, your description great, but the paragraph far too long, making it seem to go far too quickly.
~ Mwahahaha, I love this. The derogatory saracasm is right up my alley. > : ) The 'he said' is unneccessay, since you specified Rovaalian was talking in the middle.
~ one sentence, "He shrieked, tears flowing from his eyes."
~ Rovaalian wondered, if the boy kept crying, would he shrivel up from a lack of water?
~ This interests me. The boy's 12. Even if he doesn't have a father, he knows what one is...unless Rovaalian senior has kept him overly sheltered?
~ The statement before this is very good. This is just a bit repetitive and childish. I liked the "Or are you *his* servant", though.
~ "Boy's", possessive.
~ There is no 'h' in wise, therefore, none in unwise either.
~ "Boy's", possessive.
~ The first Rovaalian lets us know who's perspective this is from, so the second Rovaalian is unneccessary. Try "Used to wake him up earlier." Instead.
I love the conversation of Rovaalian Sr trying to explain fathers to Rovaalian Jr. It's an adorable scene, the little boy questioning his master-- and it's a good insight into the stiff, unfeeling nature of Rovaalian Sr. However, you use WAY too many tags. There are only two of them.
~ This doesn't need tags, though R. Senior hitting him can be added, it's a nice touch.
Also, I laughed very hard at R. Junior asking if R. Senior was his mother. xD
I like the name Rovaalian, it's very nice and it's a unique name, and it's an interesting flair that you added, making R. Senior naming the boy after him, but you use the name too often.
Like here: ~ Try, instead, something like "Rovaalian senior whirled around on the boy."
and here:
~ You made it clear that R. Jr. asked, so it's expected that R. Sr. will answer, so you can just said "He snarled, kicking the boy behind the knee". It gets tedious all the Rovaalian Seniors and Juniors.
~ Possessive.
~ Typo, unattended.
~ This is a strange description of a bellows. Did you make them invent thier own bellows on purpose, or are you just guessing what a bellows looks like? Also, I don't like the "bellows", perhaps, "Thier makeshift bellows" would suggest a lack of professional quality and still make a point?
~~~
Wow, that review got waaaay longer than I intended. I really did like your story, it had some great character development. I enjoy Stu alot, he seems live a very believable character, as was most of the other things you presented-- ignorant boy, cruel master. Very nice.
You made it entertaining, while staying fairly serious, which I admire. It usually makes for a good piece, and you, dear sir, most definitely delivered us a good piece. Aside from the grammatical errors and the Rovaalians getting a bit cumbersome (which is easy to do when you have characters who had the same name), I didn't see any other errors.
As always, if you need any more help just ask!
Keep Writing!
~Shady
P.S. I fully intend to take you up on the offer a review. I would really appreciate your perspective on my novel.
Get well soon. and yeah, PM me about anything you need reviewed.
i liked this story,
it's got this cutting edge and it's different.
i like the names you've used by the way, stu sound cool
adelina
Hi there Methrirr,
My name's Rachael, but I'm more commonly known as Rach, Rache, Rache Drache, or simply Drache. I'm old bones compared to you, and have been here on YWS for a while, though I haven't been very active recently. Your chapter here caught my eye, so I thought I'd drop by and give you a review.
First, I have to commend you on your dialogue. It's not often that I like the dialogue I read. I'm more than a bit picky. It comes from more or less studying dialogue at the university, and obsessively analyzing the words that come out of people's mouths. So when I say that your dialogue has good flow and reads naturally and has good kick to it (without being an unending string of unrealistic one-liners), I mean it. So keep that up. Just trust your ear on what sounds right, and good dialogue will lead you to good characters and keep you from botching your plot.
That said, watch your dialogue punctuation. Grab a favorite novel and study the punctuation, the capitalization, and most of all, the tags.
You have dialogue tags everywhere. And you don't need half of them. Your dialogue is good enough to stand on its own two legs without the crutch of unneeded attribution. Example:
What I did with:
[quote]"No, you Dolt!" Rovaalian Senior gave Rovaalian Junior a hard smack upside the back of his head. "I'm not your father!"[/quote[
is simply turn that direct tag you had into an indirect tag. It's just the action, but when the subject of the action (here Rov Senior) matches the speaker (here also Rov Senior) you can save yourself a little typing and the readers a little reading and cut the "he said." It's a quick way to make your reading look spiffier and read at a classier level.
Another quick change with high pay off: Break up your paragraphs. You have some massive description chunks that disrupt the fast flow of your action. Description and background details are like vegetables: most people don't like them raw and plain and offered in mounded heaps. To get your reader to digest what is good for him/her, you at least have to break the helpings up into smaller, less daunting paragraphs.
That can be accomplished by simply moving a few lines of description to elsewhere in the scene. It's easy copy and paste, with maybe a word or two adjustment.
But if you really want to have people raving about your writing, you learn how to dice and blend your description to the action. You hide a little bit here. You work a little bit in there. You tuck a piece into a dialogue tag (Bob gestured at the trees of the surrounding forest!) or into the action (Bob raced across the deserted cobble road!).
Yes, I realize that some people really love vegetables. I love vegetables, both the plant kind and the description kind, especially when that description is fresh or dressed up nicely or happens to be aspargus. But I am not most people, and I am most certainly not most readers. I can read the ingredients list for Bran Flakes or laboratory audits and be entertained. True story.
All that aside, I just have a handful of questions for you. I don't need or want answers to these. I'm just giving you these to ponder as you continue onward with your writing and this novel here:
Is there a reason Stu and Rovaalian have such different names? By different, I mean Our World vs. Not Our World, as well as Sounds Like A Ruffian and Sounds Like A Secret High Class Ruffian or Someone Who Wants To Sound Like A High Class Ruffian.
Apart from the first paragraph after the time break, Rovie Junior never mentions the wounds. And dang do those things have to hurt. Is he secretly some magic whiz or prophesized hero capable of withstanding intense pain? And if he is, and you want that to be a little less obvious, maybe you could try that nifty description-tucking I was talking about and remind the reader that this poor kid was whipped by this older Rovie dude?
Speaking of the latter... because I'm a sucker for complicated character relations, I would love for Rovie Jr.'s idolization and complete trust for Rovie Sr. to come through. That is kind of what their relationship is right now, right? I can pull that out because I tease apart power dynamics for fun, but I'd love to feel Jr. feeling that he deserved the whipping or that Sr.'s methods are teaching him something awesome.
Mind the world "feel" there. I'd start gagging if you reverted to spelling our relationships in such blunt terms. You do a good job of showing, not telling here, so keep that up, and maybe push your skills to see if you can do even more with the relationships. The more impactful it is now, the more impactful it'll be when Jr. realizes what Sr. is really about.
I hope all this helps you with your writing! Let me know if you have any questions. I'm fairly accessible by PM these days.
Rache Drache
I understand the whole tags thing, but hear me out when I say that, in the prologue, I had people bother me about two people having the same names, and it got confusing. I feel I HAVE to do it between Rovaalian's Senior and Junior, otherwhise they don't know which is which. Any other two characters, and it'd be as easy as you put it.
and again, I gotta say, READ THE PROLOGUE.
1) I never had an issue distinguishing between the two Rovs, same name or no. They sound different. Good dialogue doesn't need excess tags.
2) I [b]did[/i] read your paragraph, after I read this. It held no surprises (I've read fantasy my whole life. I know how it works.) I'd actually suggest cutting the prologue. It's more interesting this way, in my opinion, and Rov Sr. sounds less like a bad bond flick villain and more complex.
the way I have it planned out, is that Rov. Sr is a bad guy. He gets worse and worse untill the reader starts to hate him. He corrupts this child Rov. jr, and it has some serious concequences... you'll have to read on
well this is my first review and i'm probably the last person that should be doing one because i'm to big hearted but here it goes,
i think your a really talented writer! This story really pulled me in not being able to wait to see what happends next. It also made me laugh. the part where he asked "well are you my mother then" i legit almost died laughing. well as you can see i had nothing negative to say. hehe oh well!!!
did you read the prologue? It's pretty important. I would recomend reading the prologue. It got one good review, and many complaints regarding grammatical errors, which I think are unimportant anyway.