Death; The only state which no living man has knowledge or memory of. The man's eyelids were once again closed, and his whole body gave up to the departure of the soul. Utter darkness was the only thing he could see, yet he felt a sense of relief, for his problems were over. No colors to journey to, no need for knowledge of his self, and certainly no need to worry anymore. He then heard a noise he once heard when he first held the staff; a noise he did not think he would experience in the relieving embrace of death. The noise submerged him in agony and torture, but amid all the noise of thousands of an incomprehensible souls, a single voice emerged "Learn to control it" the voice said "It will be over soon" The pain did not end, but even grew stronger. The man thought of the voice's words, and the voices stopped, but this time they halted abruptly unlike the gradual stop of the last time.
In a scenery of utter darkness, a single dim light grew bright. The voice spoke again "There is always hope." The light grew intensely, and the darkness turned to light. The blinding brightness gradually dimmed, unveiling a scene his eyes were not accustomed to.
"Where am i?" the man said as he, for the first time, stood on ground. The man fell, for this was his first time to walk. He fluttered his hands to regain balance as he did in space, but it proved useless. He looked around; The scenery was completely different from the great space. Vast fields of green, trees of magnificent looks, and clusters of flowers all around. The wind brushed over his face, and he closed his eyes to grasp the moment. The mesmerizing view was moving. He looked behind him and saw a house. The house was simple as it was elegant, but he had not seen the masterpiece yet. The man looked up. A carpet of blue with splashes of beautifully carved white blotch. Only one thing his eyes felt accustomed to; The yellow star was shining bright on the blue painitng, but it stood solely. He kept looking up so much that he did not even notice a man opening the house's door.
"Good morning" the stranger said. The stranger was a man of average frame. His white beard dangled to his chest. An old worn hood covered his head. The stranger looked nothing like our old dweller. His skin tone was of olive color, and his hazel eyes were outlined by a white color. "Where am i?" the dweller said. "I was about to ask you the same question" the stranger said while reaching his hands to our dweller. The stranger helped him up, but once he left him the man fell again after a while of standing. The stranger helped him up again "Use your legs" while pointing at his legs. The man used his legs, transfering his force to his lower body parts. "It is working!" the man said surprisingly. The stranger smiled, but he had to teach him how to walk.
"Now do as i do" The stranger said while moving his lower limbs to walk. The man found it difficult at first, but he will get used to it. "Thank you" The man said, for the stranger taught him an essintial action, but most importantly the man was happy; this was his first contact with another being. "Lets get inside" the stranger said. The walk was not long, but since this was the man's first encounter with walking, it proved to be rather tedious.
Finally they have reached the house. The man found the idea of living in a room of such small size really odd. His idea of a home was a boundless space, but he liked the warmth in the small house. "Is this your home?" the man asked. "No i was just passing by, and needed a little rest" The stranger said "Who are you if i may ask?". The man thought about the question for a while "What would be the proper answer?" he thought, but the truth is he did not know. Thoughts stopped roaming through his mind once he uttered " I dont know." The house was made of wood. It's contents were really simple. Two chairs by a fire place, A small bed, and a small area for cooking. The stranger, sitting across from the lost soul, did not seem surprised by the response, nor did he reply. "Were you the voice that i heard earlier?" The man asked. The stranger laughed "Those are a lot of questions to share with a man you just met, don't you think?", but before the man could answer the stranger talked again "Lets make this fair shall we. Here is the deal; a question for a question". "Fair enough" the man replied.
"Great, then the answer to your last question is yes, yes i am"
"What are these voices?"
"No, a question for a question" the stranger said " Where did you come from?"
"From the great shade"the man said "What are these voices?"
"Some beings in the universe, or what you call the great shade, possess an ability; an ability which was bestowed upon them from powers beyond their comprenhension. The gift was the ability to hear beings that lived, still live, or will live in our universe. It seems that you my friend are blessed. Now to my question; What brought you here?"
"I am not sure. I thought i was seeking a place where i would find out who i am, but it was just a trick of the mind. What brought me here was my end, my soul abandoned my body and with it my quest for knowledge." The man said, with a heart full of grief and lament.
"death you mean. I was on an errand of mine once; my first actually. I was to place a precious gem, which was called a moonstone as i recall, in a chest. The hard part was finding the chest. I looked for it for months, and my enthusiasm dimished with each passing day. Later i sat on a lonely rock in the desert weeping for days. After days of grief and sorrow, i stood up determined never to venture in another errand, but as i turned, i saw the chest laying behind the rock. If i had only continued looking for another minute i would have found it. If i had only allied with patience instead of hopelessness, i would have saved myself days of sorrow."
The man's sorrow melted before the stranger's words of wisdom. "Who are you kind soul?" The man said.
"Ohh i have many names, but you may call me the weaver." The stranger said "Go out there my friend, seek your answers, and never give up. I too have errands of mine." A smile drew on both of their faces.
"But i am dead, as you said. How can i go back?" the man said
The man laughed warmly " My friend i never said you were dead. you are only sleeping; Its an action your body does when it's worn out. You will wake up right about now"
His eyes opened as soon as the man uttered his final words. The man was back to the solitude of space, yet this time with a stronger spirit. The words of the old man awakened his determination. With a wave of a hand, the man moves again through the endless void, and to the colors.
to be continued...
So I haven't read any previous chapters, but man, what a boring, dense opening paragraph. That opening line was nearly unintelligible. This sounds like some post-climactic resurrection monologue, but this is chapter three. Way too early for that. Now's the time to be immersing your reader in your story, not pushing them away with some long, incoherent paragraph on souls and colors and whatever else.
Also, his hearing the voices seems like a pretty significant plot point, so you're going to want too facilitate your reader's comprehension with organized, articulate phrasing. Start by establishing a firm sense of present and of consecution: this happened, then this happened, then this happened. Blending it all together like this makes it impossible to follow and ultimately a turn-off. I'm not against dense, descriptive writing%u2014in fact, I think it's some of the most effective styles of diction out there, when done well%u2014but it's an art form, and frankly, you're no Joseph Conrad.
Moving on, I have to second Stella in that your protagonist is a complete mystery. Admittedly, reading chapters one and two might help, but from what I can gather here he's a personalityless nameless male who thought he died but is actually just asleep. By chapter three, it'd be nice to have some insight into the main character%u2014his name, if nothing else.
In fact, neither character intrigued me that much. Their voices are identical. The other guy seems like some supernatural guide figure at first, then just as ignorant as the mc, then supernatural again at the end when he calls the mc waking up.
Lastly, you need to get someone to proofread this. The number of errors make it very difficult to get through.
-Kafka
HI kafka i'll surely correct the errors but regarding the boredom i think you should read the previous chapters to overcome that. Thank you
Hey there, Stella again!
of which no living man etc. Avoid prepositions at the end if you can!
"magnificent looks" looks a bit strange.
I think "moving" and "mesmerising" together is a bit much
Remember this: he's, she's, it's, but his, her, its
Okay, so there's more grammatical issues here. You really need to proofread anything before you let anyone else read it- there were a lot of uncapitalised i's and other silly mistakes that you really need to pick up. This is a really helpful article written by our very own Demeter that tells you how to punctuate dialogue which I know is really really hard to do. Which is why I can't recommend the article highly enough. Again, it's all about making your work more polished and professional.
Overall I didn't really like this as much as Chapter 2. I liked how we got a little backstory about the man- but I didn't feel like it was enough! By Chapter Three we should have finished introductions and really be moving into the meat of the story- plot and character development and exposition. None of that really happened here. I know about the moonstone, but that's all I learnt about him that was new. And that makes me sad- because he's such an intriguing character!
Last review I talked to you about sentence structure, now let's think about story structure. It's those basic things you get taught in English class: every story has a beginning, a middle and an end. You can go further than that, you can talk about five acts etc. And you can think, after so many words in my story, what should I be doing? In the first chapter, you should introduce your MC, their current predicament and conflict, and you should hint at where the plot is going. From there on you begin developing those things- character, conflict and plot. Right now, I can't really see much of any of them and while it would be okay in a kooky indie beginning, in Chapter Three it's a matter of concern to me. Sit yourself down and look at what needs to happen in the story, and where certain things should happen, how we're going to find out about "the man", how we're going to unravel the mysteries surrounding him and his story. Planning, unfortunately, counts for a lot.
Jeez, I make writing sound so unglamourous in my reviews don't I? Planning and punctuation, ugh! But I still enjoy it and it's clear you love writing too
Hope I helped, drop me a note if you need anything!
-Stella x
Stella hey again. once more your review was a lot of help to me. i just want to point out that the story we'll be a bit long, and i already planned ahead for whats gonna happen dont worry
, but i will surely correct the errors you pointed out, and i would love if you read and review the rest of the story(i will be publishing ch.4)