The sea roared in its anger
The sea roared in its anger. It seemed uncontrollable; in containable, and unstoppable in its rage as it crashed into the cliffs that held stiff with fear, the howling wind seemed to lament with the sea, sympathetic to its cause. Both seemed to raise their voices together, singing a song interlaced with anger and woe. This haunting song was sung often as the sea could not help but voice the sorrow of its loss, the loss of one so dear, the most beautiful of its people, in being and spirit.
Whenever a person listened closely a single word could be discerned from the seas sorrowful song “Ara”, and for does that knew the cause of the seas grief it revealed more of its song so they too could mourn for its loss.
“ My sweet, my sweet,
Come and now rest your weary body,
Come and now rest your spirit, my sweet,
Come now my sweet, Oh Ara my sweet,
You shall now be allowed to sleep. ”
Very few get to know the tale behind this saddening song and those who did rarely spoke of it. The tale of Ara, the sea’s first love.
At the very beginning, when the Creator created the universe, the earth was formless and void of all life. The raging ocean that covered everything was engulfed in total darkness, and the Creator’s spirit moved over the water. The Creator then commanded for light to be- and light appeared. She saw this light and thought it good, so the Creator separated the light and the darkness and called one day and the other night…She later again spoke in a resounding voice “Let the water beneath the sky come together as one and let it be known as the sea. Let the sea become a mighty warrior that might punish the land and it inhabitants when I so command him ”; and so the sea became what the creator commanded. The Creator then became still and looking at all that had been created, pleased; she sat and rested.
The sea then became restless; he was weary of all those that were on the land so did not draw close to them; but the sea became lonely. It called up to the Creator saying “You have created me as a mighty warrior to punish those that dwell on the land when you command me to do so” he cried “because of this I cannot befriend any on the land but I no longer wish to dwell in solitude ”.
Hearing this the creator felt compassion for the sea, she commanded for the sea to be filled with all sorts of living beings. The sea then filled with numerous amounts of fish, coral and beauties unknown and unfathomable to those that dwelt on the land. The sea was then happy; he was no longer alone.
The sea saw the beauty of all that inhabited with him and he was amazed.
“The beauty here is individual and separate” the sea thought to himself, “each are beautiful but what if the beauty was together and as one ”
At this thought the sea called one of each animal and took an essence of its spirit and from each plant he did the same. The sea then combined them together and finally he added an essence of himself also. Out of these actions a new being was given life.
The sea could then taste a new... tenor? Essence? Life? With him, part of him, of himself, and yet completely different. The sea could sense its purity, its beauty.
“Who are you?” the question exploded through the sea. Every creature stopped and became still.
Rising up, the being looked at the sea waiting for an answer. The sea did nought but stare. Reluctantly the sea tore his gaze from her; he did not answer but instead asked a question himself.
“What is your name?”
The being stared, thinking before answering.
“I feel as if I had one, once upon a time, or maybe I did not. Perhaps I never did.” the being said, a confused aura surrounded her. “Ara, yes Ara are the only words that make sense to me although I feel as if it was a part of something so much bigger, so much… more” an aura of sorrow then settled on the being, on Ara. The sea said nothing to this but a pain seemed to coarse through him, he felt Ara’s sorrow.
Ara roamed the sea, she travelled its depths, saw its beauty, its mysteries and its secrets. The sea seemed to be where ever Ara was, she entranced him, but this was also true for any who met her although none drew near to her; the sea was a jealous being and fickle in mood. As much as the sea tried Ara could not be restrained, he tried to keep her to himself but always seemed to fail. Although he had a jealous nature Ara treated the sea with great affection, but she did not love him or adore him the way he did her.
Ara was beautiful but her beauty was not one that could be truly described. One of the reasons for this was because her form never stayed the same for long. Ara could emulate any creature of the sea, she could shift to their shape, her countenanced changed as often as the sun shifted in the sky above the sea yet when her shape changed she resemble the creature she had shifted to yet her radiance nearly made the creature unrecognizable.
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125,005 Literary Works • 672,805 Reviews
Hey there *trumpets sounding* I’ve come to review!
So to start off, I will throw my nitpicks in whenever I find them (since i review as I go) but at some point I will stop because you have to learn to find them on your own… Anyways, here we go!
First nitpick: “In containable” should be “uncontainable”
Also, this is a run on sentence so you should split it up. Doing this would also help the reader to understand exactly what you are trying to get across by the seas and the cliffs.
You write beautifully, but this is close to a run on sentence as well. Don’t be afraid to split things up because it can give your words more of an edge and make them resonate deeper with the reader when you make us pause.
Again, another run on sentence, but those are easy to fix
There needs to be a period or comma before “Ara” because it is a quote and you have to set it up that way (per english language rules)
Finally, I think that you meant to say “for those that knew...” instead of “for does that knew…”
Just nitpicky things that are easy to change
This last line of the song seems kind of harsh. Is there a way you could change it to be something more like “you can forever sleep in me” or something of the like instead of the authority being expressed with being “allowed” to sleep.
There was no direct lead into the story. It just went “there is a story… At the very beginning…” Lead into this and it will make the story seem like an even more important thing to write about since it is rarely heard of. Make it special.
You can use a comma instead of a dash here.
So a few typos in here:
“it inhabitants” needs to be “its”
The space before the quotation marks needs to be deleted and, instead, a comma before the marks, then you don’t need the semi-colon after
I find your use of Genesis intriguing in how you changed it. It is interesting and a risk for a lot of stories, but I will leave you to do with it what you want, I only wish to say that it did make me think...
I think a better flow of terms might be “grew still” or something of the like rather than “became still” then you might also want to put commas around “looking at all that had been created” then add in “grew pleased as well” instead of just the “pleased” because you have a long moment in there so that we forget a little what had grown (or became).
How long of a time before the sea became restless? Was the sea always restless? I’m curious
You are missing a “and” in between “land” and “so”
Also, you do not need the semi-colon because you can attach that with a comma.
Okay, so the idea is there, but the accomplishment is not. There are a few things with this:
The dialogue tag can go because you already said at the beginning “he called up to the Creator” therefore you do not need to tell me that he cried. Pick one and stick with it.
You need a comma before the dialogue tag anyways (me to do so,” he cried. “Because of….) and capitalize the next thing.
The period needs to go inside of the quotation marks
The same thing happened here with a repeated dialogue tag and missing comma and capitalization (don’t worry, it will click with your mind and fingers someday hahaha)
This is a very important quote, but just before this you gave no incllination that the being seemed to be thinking or feeling anything, just that she floated. You are attempting to tell me her actions through the way that she is speaking, but you need to show instead, such as the sea’s perception of how the being looked, is it a light that dims and brightens the more it speaks or thinks? What? Show me visually with a kind of body language and then you wont have as many dialogue problems.
Now, I will not quote your entire second to last paragraph because that would be a lot, but it is only two sentences- that means that the first is most definitely a run on sentence. Get rid of the semi-colon and start chopping everything up like a lumberjack. It will make is flow a lot better separated than it will all squished together.
And my final thoughts:
The legend is the good idea and has a good toehold, you just need to fix a few of your dialogues and add a little bit more showing with your characters and make the story extremely special since it pains the sea so much and it hardly ever shared this story with anyone. There were a few redundant parts in there and the best thing that I can tell you for that is to read the story aloud to yourself or copy and paste it into Google Translate so that it will be read to you, this way you can hear the spots and not skim over them. Good story, I enjoyed it a lot.
Happy Writing!
Ara
Ara m'bada
I thought so, when I saw the title, but dismissed it. How glad am I to be wrong.
There is a lyrical, almost songlike, quality to your writing and your words, as though you were transcribing an alo or itan.
It is beautiful.
I hope to get more of a sense of Ara, but for now she is as elusive as you have portrayed her to be.
So, on to to nitpicks.
1. Sentence structure:
This is rather long, there are so many details being thrown at the reader that it is hard to really get everything. What do you really want us to 'get' from this? Consider condensing the words, or chopping the sentence
2.
Why? How? Did she evade his power? Walk on land? Ignore his commands? I sense that this is the beginning of the conflict; can you elaborate on this point?
3.
A fellow reviewer once recommended to me that I read my work out loud, to hear the pauses and stops. Allow me to show, rather than tell, what I mean.
At this thought, the sea called one of each animal and took an essence of it's spirit. From each plant, he did the same.
I recommend that you do the same; a few punctuation changes would really improve how this story reads.
I hope to learn more about the sea's love.
Thank you.
Thank you for the review. I realize I don't use as much punctuation as I should.