Published October 22, 2006
As the ship crested the next wave, the crew rushed to man the oars. A wave crashed up the bow of the ship, then ran across the deck to be thrown from the scuppers to join the surges once more.
With the beat of the bosons drum the ship seemed to come to life and began to claw its way up, then down the face of the waves. Below deck at the rower’s benches some of the crew collapsed, exhausted. Only to be replaced by another filled with desperation to keep the ship ahead of the waves.
Up in the crow’s nest, the lookout was watching the seagulls hover in place for a few seconds to be blown back by howling gusts. As he turned away from them, he saw it. The Maelstrom.
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140,571 Literary Works • 673,516 Reviews
Good Morning/Afternoon/Evening/Night(whichever one it is in your part of the world),
Hi! I'm here to leave a quick review!!
Anyway let's get right to it,
Okay...this is an interesting start. I'm not sure if this is maybe meant to be something of a prologue or something along those lines or if there's a little more at play here perhaps something of a test scene or the beginning of a first chapter. Either way, it does make for an intriguing piece here, so let's dive in a little deeper here.
I think you've really established a very intriguing situation there with the sea. We don't really get any sense of any real characters here but that atmosphere created there using the description of the ship and the imagery there of the sea fighting it really makes for a very powerful visual I think and it really helps sell the piece.
I think with that you do have what could be a rather powerful and strong visual opening here. It really does drag us as readers right into the midst of it and does so quite quickly I think. If this was meant as a prologue it would be on the more incomplete side but as a bit of a test scene or the start of a first chapter, I think this really works wonders here.
Aaaaand that's it for this one.
As always remember to take what you think was helpful and forget the rest.
Stay Safe
Harry
Just so you all kow i'm going to be puttin up my first chapter up when i get home from my exam tomorrow.
I second Shafter, Shadow. The "all of a sudden" really throws off the whole flowly description thing you have going. This piece is too good for such a phrase!
Again, I look forward to reading more of this....
--Cass
I saw the title of this post and couldn't resist.
Great "first slash" at writing! I particularly like the way you described the ship going up and down the waves-- "clawing." Good image.
The only thing I'd suggest is taking out the "all of a sudden." It's a cliché, and "crashed" is a strong enough verb to imply "all of a sudden."
Hope you write more of this. You're off to a great start!
Cheers!
~Shafter
I was only sending feelers out with this snippet, I have written 41000 words.
I may post other snippets from time to time
Nice. I hope you will continue this! An enjoyable brief glimpse of what is to come.
Nice start--are you continuing this? And I love your description. It's so pretty!
And near flawless grammar as well! Just two things I noticed:
Should be "bonson's" with an apostrophe because it's possessive.
I would merge these two sentences together to make it flow better. Just stick a comma where the first period is, and un-capitalize the "O".
Nice job. I look forward to seeing more of your work.
Wow! This is really good, but I think it could be better with a character in there to experience the fear and the excitement. Other than that, three thumbs up!