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Maeve shivered as the wet grass beneath her bare feet brushed against her ankles. The sunlight was being blocked out by the surrounding trees which were shielding the warmth the sun would provide. Maeve listened intently, trying to pick out any sound showing she was not alone. Silence reigned supreme, giving the impression she was safe and had not been followed. Sure she thought sarcastically.
“I know you’re there.” Maeve murmured as a gentle breeze ruffled her golden hair.
“Give in Maeve.” A booming and deep voice whispered from the shadows.
“Never.” she snarled.
A black shadow flashed past and struck her in the chest. It felt as if she had been struck by lightning when completely wet, she could even feel the teeth buzzing in her mouth.
“Are you sure?” The voice asked, and once again a dark shape flashed past her, and struck, this time the pain seemed doubled. She dropped to her knees in shock, her hands being the only thing that was holding her up from completely falling onto the wet ground. The pain made her dumb, unable to utter a response she struggled to gain control of herself.
“You’re a coward! Come out and face me!” she yelled, finally pushing the pain away and forcing herself to stand up.
“Now why would I do that, when this is so much fun?” the voice answered from behind her. Maeve turned to find herself face to face with the speaker.
“Aurelian.” Maeve whispered, the name itself seemed a source of true power. She stared at him in horror, and found him staring back at her with his own pair of abnormal eyes. They were exactly like hers, black pupils bordered by white and an outer band of pure black which both made up his iris. She shivered as she noticed another thing that made them look alike… their golden hair. She looked down from his face and glanced at his muscled arms and chest. They stood out due to the tight sleeveless white top he was wearing, like her he also wore no shoes. Age wise he seemed to be either nineteen or in his early twenties, but Maeve knew he was much older. He seemed to be amused and pleased with himself as he gave out a dazzling smile, showing all his brilliant white teeth. She found herself thinking he was extremely good looking, and nearly kicked herself at thinking of the person she was supposed to dislike in such a way.
“Join me Maeve. No one else appreciates you, they think you’re a freak, just because of what you can do.” He said, taking a menacing step forward. In response she simply took a step back, all her senses on red alert.
“No one else understands, they’ll never accept you for being better than them.” Aurelian continued, taking another step towards Maeve. His words echoed in her head.
“I won’t help you.” Maeve said, taking a step back. She tried to keep her face expressionless, but he had hit a nerve, for deep down she knew he was probably right.
“I understand what you’re going through Maeve.”
“Stop.” She said, trying to stop him from affecting her more than he already had.
“They will never treat you like one of them. You know I speak the truth, it happened to me. Together we could make them pay, make them ALL pay!” He hissed, anger growing in his voice. Maeve felt anger in her heart too, because although she wanted to say she had never thought of making them all suffer, she had.
“STOP!” Maeve said, and she suddenly changed into her cheetah form, immediately, she felt strength flowing through all the muscles as if all the cells in her body had been given a jump start.. She gave in to her instincts and ran as fast as she could into the trees, as far away from Aurelian as she could get.
As she ran, she could not help but think about Aurelian’s words, for a second she had actually considered joining him, and had to get away just in case she did. She knew it was impossible for her to outrun him, or try to hide any more, but she would never forgive herself if she just gave in. Maeve sprinted through the trees, hardly feeling the wet grass beneath her paws any more.
She found herself getting weaker and weaker, her energy leaving her. She began to slow down, and she realised that she was in the middle of a large grassy field, hardly any cover at all. All Maeve instincts screamed run and hide, because she was completely open to attack She decided she had to risk it and began to sprint across the open area.
Suddenly pain shot through her entire body as she was hit from the right and flung a few metres away. She got up wearily, breathing heavily from her fall. Standing where she had been before, stood Aurelian in his dragon form, his tail lashing about in the tall grass around him. She was not that badly injured and quickly morphed into the form of a small mouse, the grass growing longer as she shrank.
“There’s no use in hiding!” Aurelian yelled, his voice now much lower due to the change of form. “It’s only a matter of time before I sniff you out, you may change form but your scent remains unique.”
Maeve held her breath, her tiny brown ears shaking with panic.
“You really don’t want me to have to find you Maeve.” He continued, menace becoming apparent in his voice. Maeve decided to risk it, and quietly began to scamper in between the large plaids of grass, trying as hard as she could to reach the safety of the woods again.
“I offered to play nice, but I guess you don’t know a generous offer when you see one.” With this, he changed into a form Maeve had hoped he would not – a bloodhound. With the scent clear in his mind, Maeve knew she had no chance of hiding. However, she decided to keep on. Her small legs began to grow tired, but she relentlessly scampered along, going as fast as she dared without attracting any attention.
Safety was getting closer and her hope began to soar. Maeve began to scan the different hiding places available and how much protection they would offer. Suddenly, the breath was nearly knocked out of her lungs as a huge paw grabbed her from out of a nearby bush. She struggled to breathe as the paw held her tightly. Suddenly the creature that was holding her captive came into view and she recognised a familiar face - Lentiel in his werewolf form. He gave out a disturbing laugh; somewhere in between a snigger and a howl, showing his jaws and pronounced canines.
“Desist Lentiel!” Aurelian’s voice shouted from behind. Hearing his voice, Maeve turned pale and struggled so hard in the werewolf’s grip that she managed to get loose and dropped to the floor, still in her mouse form. She took off as quick as she could but had hardly gone a few metres before she was recaptured by a now very angry werewolf.
“I’m impressed Maeve. I see you no longer use a focus word and I have never seen anyone change forms that quickly, not counting myself of course.” Aurelian said with a smug smile on his face. All she could do was watch her captor approach slowly.
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125,024 Literary Works • 672,762 Reviews
Hello! I will be reviewing your work. You can call me El or Lucy (I don't mind which).
Considering this is isn't the beginning of a story it held up really well on it's own. I had a good understanding of everything that was happening without feeling like I'd missed anything.
You're having trouble with dialogue grammar. Tags ("she said" "he said" "she murmured" etc) are considered part of the sentence in the quotation marks. These should all have a comma before the end quotation mark instead of a full stop. Snoink once did an article on it that explained it really well. That's how I learnt the rules for dialogue grammar!
Whew! Lots of commas! There are six. See, here's the thing. You're having some comma and run on sentence issues. Here's the other thing. Grammar-wise, this is my weak point. And you know ... I don't think there's an article in Writing Tips specifically about commas.
In general: run on sentences are two sentences that aren't separated with appropriate grammar. People often use a comma to separate two sentences. This is wrong. Usually it's because the person does not realise they should be two separate sentences. A quick way of identifying them is to look for green squiggles on Microsoft Word. Kind of cheating ... but it gets the job done. If there's a squiggle under a comma the problem is usually a run on sentence. You can fix them by either using a full stop or a semi-colon (;). Or you can just re-word the problematic bit to get it in one sentence.
This is a HUGE chunk of stuff considering it's supposed to be fast-paced. I think Pippiedooda mentioned this. Short sentences and short paragraphs reflect fast-paced action better than a huge block like that. Just looking at that makes me feel bogged down and slow. Great for slower bits, but this isn't a slow bit.
Also I agree with the others about the shap changing. I think you need to make more of it. Describe how it changes her experience more. You know? Rather than just "she changed into an octopus" or whatever (I know she never changed into an octopus. That was a silly example on my part). However ... if it's the middle of the story perhaps the audience is used to all her changes by the time this part happens. So maybe it's fine. Up to you. Have a think about it.
Hehe ... she should try morphing into a bird! Fast and hard to trail.
Overall I liked it. I liked how Maeve was tempted to join Aurelian. Even if it was just a second's hesitation, it shows a depth of character. She's not just a hero out to be heroic and resist evil (I assume) because she's awesome. So that's cool.
Anyway ... I'm going to have to leave it there because my family think I'm hogging the computer. I'm sorry. I might try to come back in the next few days and do more, but I will be busy so it might not happen. I hope I've given you some useful advice. Feel free to pm me with questions or comments.
Hey ^^
I enjoyed reading this. It was a random fragment, yes, but it didn't matter so much. You developped everything good enough for this to stand on its own. Well done! Now, let's get nitpicky.
This made me imagine that she gets to her feet, and then crouches, which seems odd. Why not go straight to crouching?
This sentence isn't quite a run-on, but it's getting there. Consider chopping it into two anyway. That's just my opinion.
General note: Instead of using caps, I suggest you use lower case letters in italics. It looks a lot nicer in the story, because it doesn't make the words stand out so much. When they do, they distract from what you're writing.
Show, don't tell. Show us how this happens, at least a little bit.
Run-on sentence. Chop this in half, and you have yourself a nice ending to the story.
Good job, this was nicely written.
PM me for anything.
XxxDo
Hi good story! I'm liking it so far, is this the beginning? I think it would work well if it is because you could do all the explaining later
On with reviewing!
I'd change the comma after hair to a fullstop so 'she scanned the surrounding forest' was a sentence on its own. I think it would be more effective that way
I think of a snarl as more of a sound not an expression, I'd either change it to 'she snarled' or something about baring her teeth as that is kind of snarlish.
As you use exclamation marks I think something like shouted would be better than said.
you repeat both voice and source here where I think you could replace them with other words- for instance 'face to face with the source of the voice' could be 'face to face with the speaker' and 'the name itself seemed a source of power' could be 'the name itself was powerful'.
I think you ment 'affecting her more than he already had.' I like the sentence but I think you should just leave it as stop as I think its sometimes more effective to have just one word without explanation afterwards.
Woah! This is a big shock- I think you need a bit more on it. I can't visualise the change properly because I don't know how it happens- is it a sudden poof- like one minute she's human the next she's not? Or does she merge into the form? I know its all very quick but perhaps by describing more her body as she's running afterwards- how it feels to be running on all fours and how she looks sprinting through the trees might give a better picture.
I'd get rid of the however and I don't really like the end of this- I know she's worn out but just standing up in the middle of an open space... also you mention later that she starts running really fast again. I'd say something about her slowing down as she is so tired then getting hit and falling to the ground.
To me the use of wearily here makes me think of her being bored, I'd say something else like 'she struggled to her feet'. I'd replace the comma before Maeve with a fullstop and new should be knew.
As she is a mouse here 'quitely running' could be made more interesting- you could describe her scampering across the field, showing what it is like for her in mouse form.
I'd get rid of the however and instead of a comma before house cat I'd put a dash (just my preference).
One of the changed could be altered so your not repeating the same word.
I like how you end but I'd replace 'come closer' with approach and I'd like to know how she feels at this point. Something about giving up and being helpless would work really well here.
I think once Maeve starts running the text is all in quite big chunks- if you seperated it out it would be easier to read and be more effective in its suspense. I'd also add more detail as to the whole changing form thing- I know you said this was part of a story so for all I know it could have been gone into a lot more detail before but if you are using this as the beginning it will be quite a shock to the reader and some description as to how the charater feels in her different forms would help.
Overall I really enjoyed this- if you write more I would love to read it!
Hi good story! I'm liking it so far, is this the beginning? I think it would work well if it is because you could do all the explaining later
On with reviewing!
I'd change the comma after hair to a fullstop so 'she scanned the surrounding forest' was a sentence on its own. I think it would be more effective that way:)
I think of a snarl as more of a sound not an expression, I'd either change it to 'she snarled' or something about baring her teeth as that is kind of snarlish.
As you use exclamation marks I think something like shouted would be better than said.
you repeat both voice and source here where I think you could replace them with other words- for instance 'face to face with the source of the voice' could be 'face to face with the speaker' and 'the name itself seemed a source of power' could be 'even the name was powerful'.
I think you ment 'affecting her more than he already had.' I like the sentence but I think you should just leave it as stop as I think its sometimes more effective to have just one word without explanation afterwards.
Woah! This is a big shock- I think you need a bit more on it. I can't visualise the change properly because I don't know how it happens- is it a sudden poof- like one minute she's human the next she's not? Or does she merge into the form? I know its all very quick but perhaps by describing more her body as she's running afterwards- how it feels to be running on all fours and how she looks sprinting through the trees might give a better picture.