D&D Snippets II: The Snippetting

[Malrone]

Just realized this thread existed, and I am in complete agreement with its premise. Issue is, between University and the books I'm already reading, I don't know that I'll read everyone's snips! (Though I must say, Gareth, the praise is deserved. [but where does the blood go? it's only so much iron in content...])

I'll be back with a bit of story of my own, for your nit-picking pleasure; Background on a character that I can never seem to actually play.

[Malrone]

As promised, part one of three (I think). A rough, if one cannot tell from the haste of production.

Spoiler

He looked down at the withered leaf in his hand, once red flesh curled and black. A roll of the thumb rendered it to dust. It was a poignant reminder. Focus, keep control.

Steps weighted with hunger brought the young man named Danzril Farrenson to the open gate of Halderburg. Long, wet days of highland travel had emptied his pack and dirtied his clothing, a typical traveling ensemble of tunic, breeches, thick boots, and heavy cloak. He stood neither remarkably tall nor short, but was thin to fault, with a well defined face framed by shocks of black hair.

Leaning heavily on a particular glaive- his only weapon- Dan approached the guards. Adventurers were as common as the Orcs they hunted this far north; he hoped common expectations would shield him from suspicion.

“Halt, stranger, and state your business in Halderburg,” a mailed guard regurgitated with practiced formality. The other stood aside, eyes resting with with an amused twinkle on this dirty traveler.

“I seek room and board, to rest and resupply. I fear I've come too far for what provisions I had.” In truth, he should have had some rations left, but a stray wolf had convinced him to part with some.

The guards simply stared. Oh, Hells.

“I have the coin to afford to my stay,” Danzril reported, producing two gold pieces from a pocket. He held them up for inspection with a nervous smile.

The second guard did more than look. Dan winced at the contact of the man's glove, but allowed the bribe to happen. He could afford the monetary loss much more than the consequences of attention.

“Welcome, traveler,” the first guard rehearsed, accepting one of the coins sidelong.

“Keep the peace, or we'll be keeping you,” the second elaborated with a chuckle.

The young man quickened into the town, passing between the massive iron-bound hardwood doors that formed the gate. His movement was obscured by the long shadows cast by the stone ramparts of the burg; the sun already danced among the treetops, its descent quickened by the season. Danzril was not unhappy to see it go. The steel cap on his glaive's end echoed against the cobbled street as he sought a place to stay. The scattered others spared him few glances.

A great multistory lodge bearing the fitting title “Wayfarer's Rest” presented itself. A dull clamor of voices was audible through shuttered windows, and the smell of roasting meat wafted out. With his aching body yearning at the promise of a bed, Dan found himself in no place to resit such temptation. He put hand to handle.

I hope one night's stay isn't too long.

Wherein nothing especial happens, and the author feels the scene is ill-set.

[Dr Bwaa]

Took me longer than I'd hoped to finish up critique for everyone, but here it is finally!

@TheWombatOfDoom

Spoiler

General:

Spoiler

I tripped over one of these stupid round things!

While I appreciate you trying to fit description into the dialogue, this feels very forced. At the very least, "I keep tripping over these..." is a little more natural, but "stupid round thigs" is still pretty strange.

our parents will kill us if they find out we’re in here.

Too teen-movie-exposition-y this time. "...and we are dead if our parents find us" reads a little more nicely.

long oval corridors

Wow. I... can't quite decide what to do with this in my brain. I love it, but if there's some way you could clarify what you actually mean...

Glass tubes glowed blue and hummed softly along the top of the corridor as electricity ran through them.

A bit stilted. "...hummed and glowed blue with electricity" perhaps?

“Ryan, are you sure this is a good idea?” the blond haired boy whispered worriedly.

Feels like they've probably come too far for that kind of question... Also take out that "worriedly" at the end; we can get it from context.

“Don’t get cold feet on me now, Darien,” Ryan called back.

Well at least his buddy agrees with me.

Truth be told, both boys were quite nervous. Ryan decided to try and distract his friend from his sudden apprehensions. He turned around and smiled at Darien. “I can’t wait to see it, can you!? I can’t believe Larin is letting us see it!” Ryan needed no such distractions. He was too excited.

This whole passage is kind of... strange? Apparently both of them are nervous, except then it turns out that Ryan isn't nervous after all because he's too excited. The bolded line feels overly expository, and the dialogue feels awkwardly cryptic (with you clearly trying to hold back information from the readers).

Ryan had seen a Kawe on the lightning plains, but he’d never gotten to physically be near one.

Especially since you give us the name of the thing in the next paragraph.

The only time Ryan had had this sort of excitement was the time he had snuck into Darien’s house in the middle of the night.

Uh... I see. This sentence comes from deep left field. Also it gives some... implications that you may not have intended?

He glanced at a square-like chute as he passed by that was about eye level with him.

Move parts of this sentence around so that the things that go with each other are actually near each other. That goes for this whole paragraph, actually, and it could probably be split into two or three. You've also got some weirdness here:

A moment or so later, he watched another go by as they slowly progressed along the tunnel.

Apparently it's only a moment or so's walking time between these chutes, even though the pair is progressing slowly, and the chutes are "go[ing] by" which gives the impression that they're either moving on their own, or the two are on a conveyor belt or something.

He glanced back at Darien who was walking right behind him, following like a little puppy.

Don't need the explicit version (the first part) when you've got a better visual coming right after it. The same goes for the rest of this paragraph; you're beating me over the head with things that really only merit saying once, if at all. Like "he had just chastised..."? This happened half a page ago! I still remember it!

the fourth door he’d counted along the wall.

He was counting doors?

I hope, he thought inwardly.

This is a perfect example of the over-exposition problem you're having, and it's the last one I'm going to point out. Using italics for thoughts is pretty much understood, so this thought could (should) be appended onto the previous sentence, since that's where it belongs thematically. Even "I hope, he thought" would be okay, I guess--but how does one think "inwardly" in a meaningful sense? You haven't told us that there's any mind-reading or telepathy going on, so the distinction is meaningless. You can get the job done with fewer than half the words you're using, and generally speaking, you ought to (unless the extra verbosity serves some greater purpose).

He eyed the door wearily.

Do you mean "warily"? He doesn't seem the "weary" type.

heavy looking

*heavy-looking

It was set into the wall so that it did not break the line of the wall.

This is called being flush with the wall.

Darien looked around in alarm with a giddy nervousness was plain on his face.

Extra word.

After a few moments the door opened and the face of an older girl with bright orange hair and gray eyes peeked out.

Add commas after "moments" and "opened".

Larin stopped to read their faces. After a moment, she seemed to find what she was looking for.

This is great.

conspiratory

*conspiratorial

The dome itself was carved from the same material as many of the buildings in Eron

Starting here, you begin a run of using "Eron" in almost every single sentence; sometimes multiple times. See if you can find a few places to take it out (e.g. "from the frequent storms").

hardened ash

This description and concept are really cool.

Larin walked to one of the right hand entrances to the room and disappeared behind one of the round arches motioning for them to stay there.

Add a comma after "arches", or else this means that the arch is motioning for them to stay put.

This effort was quickly forgotten as awe took a firm hold, for the creature that was the subject of their adventure had emerged from the place their friend had gone into. Larin followed behind, holding a leather strap that was attached to a harness on the animal.

You use a lot of strange 3rd-party actors in your narration. It's not always literally passive voice, but it has the same effect: making your actual characters seem like things are happening to them rather than like they're doing things. For example, in the quoted passage, you've got "effort was quickly forgotten" (passive voice), "awe took a firm hold" ('awe' as subject), "the creature that was the subject of their adventure emerged" (creature as subject), "their friend had gone into" ("their friend" as subject in lieu of her name, as well as a dangling participle), and "holding a leather strap that was attached" ("strap" as subject). It's weird! It's not just here, either. Try to get in the habit of letting your characters actually do things!

As he continued to remain in contact with the Kawe, Darien’s long hair began to stand on end. He looked at Ryan with a wide smile.

lol, nice touch and good smile here.

I’ve been charged to tend the Kawe

Larin's obviously close to this creature. Why would she suddenly switch to "the Kawe" after referring to her as "her" or "Draliss"?

She seemed to be very proud of what she did.

Remove this sentence.

They were outcasts among outcasts.

What does this even mean? They are the outcasts' outcasts? Or they're just both outcasts?

glassblowers

Very cool.

there were as many as seven

...? If he has time to count "as many as seven", why not just say "there were seven"? And if he doesn't have time, why not "there were several"?

Each pen had another Kawe in it, eight in all.

Okay, so there are eight total pens. The narrator, at least, is paying attention. Of course, if you told us before that there were seven additional pens, we would already know that there were eight total.

“If you entered the tunnel you came through right now, you’d be fried,” said Larin dismissively. “And does it look like there’s anywhere to hide you here?”

This is well done. You do much better at avoiding overexposition when the characters are rushed.

if your caught or not

*you're

At the speed they were running it did not matter which – the contents were blurs quickly left behind.

What?

chase scene

This is very good.

He had told them that they had not meant to cause so much trouble; they just wanted to see Draliss. He had flinched after this because he realized he had given away Larin by telling them that he knew the Kawe’s name.

Good content, but you could trim down the delivery substantially.

disappeared down stairs going down.

The barrier of lightning that encircled the city

Uh... huh. Well, I guess that's why no one ever comes to Eron. Good foreshadowing. Now I'm wondering if this is natural or artificial...

the constant barrage of electric.

*electricity? electric energy?

Ryan wondered what had his ancestors had done to warrant such an extreme measure of confinement?

Well, I guess that answers that This sentence should end with a period, though.

That is, if I manage to get free myself.

Yes, that does seem to be a pertinent question, doesn't it? And the other one remains unanswered: if (he thinks) he can get out, then why can't he already bring everyone else out?

there is plenty of things

*are

he didn’t even know how he was going to survive on his own.

Isn't he leaving in just a couple of days? This seems like kind of important stuff to know by now.

He shuttered at the thought

*shuddered

And goodbye.

But he does still have a couple of days left, right? This is kind of weird.

Conclusions:
This setting seems really, really cool. I love it conceptually, and I really hope you write more for us. Obviously the plot is just beginning, and I have to say I'm a little worried that we'll be leaving this cool city so soon, but hopefull we'll return eventually and/or get some scenes from Larin's perspective or something.

The big issue I take with this snippet is that it's somewhat locally disorganized, and overexposited pretty substantially. You get better toward the end as you get closer to the big reveal, and as I mentioned, the chase scene also works well. There are many places though, where your paragraphs have no cohesiveness--you seem to be trying to express two or three thoughts at once. Perhaps as a result of this, you tend to repeat yourself, even when the information doesn't need to be stated explicitly at all. I've pointed out some of the worst cases of this, but I suggest you go through and read it aloud (I know it's cliche but it works), especially the first half, to see where your awkward and repetitive phrases are. Again, I really hope there's more of this to come!

Mood:

Spoiler

Since the piece is basically split into three acts, with decidedly different feels, that's how I'm going to split up my comments on the mood of the whole thing. I'm also listing what I think the intended mood of each passage is, so correct me if I'm wrong.

ACT I
Intended Mood: stealth, mischief, anticipation & wonder
The first thing that breaks my sense of this mood is the second line again, but it bothers me in a different way than it did before. In fact, the whole first dialogue falls into the conversation: there are no descriptions of how the text is spoken! As a result, as a reader I'm left to decipher the delivery (it's all whispered, as we find out later) from context. This is possible, but it doesn't come across well in a first reading, since these first lines are filled with exclamations.This is all easily fixed with a couple of narrative verbs couching the dialogue.

Some word choices stand out here and there, like "traveled" in the first full paragraph. You could replace this (and other out-of-place verbs, like "called" two paragraphs later) with something that more vividly depicts the mood you're going for (e.g. "crept").

The next thing that bugs me is the flashback exposition (starting with "Darien and Ryan had been friends for as far back as either could remember."). It completely destroys the tension that you're trying to build. Honestly, you could probably take the whole thing out, and be the better for it. Their relationship is de facto brotherhood, and all this paragraph does is confirm that.

The same goes for the construction flashback (starting with "The dome itself was carved from the same material...") as well, sort of. Granted, the tension has backed off a bit for now, but this is still kind of unnatural: we've moved on to excitement and wonder, and having Ryan (the closest voice we have to the narrator) stand around looking at the ceiling is kind of weird. Unfortunately, I'm not really sure where a better place to put this would be.

The moment with Darien's hair standing on end, and him smiling at his not-brother, remains the high point of this act for me. It communicates the sense of childish fun and wonder and we're-not-supposed-to-be-here-but-isn't-this-cool very well. Larin messing with the two boys about the Kawe's diet is good, too.

We drift into melancholy a little as we get Ryan's thoughts of home, which is fine since the act is about to close. The end of this act (which I'm calling at when Larin starts yelling) goes smoothly.

ACT II
Intended Mood: panic, exhilaration
I'd shorten Ryan's "quick study" of the mask to one line at most; he really doesn't have time to be inspecting it and therefore the narrator has no reason to spend time telling us about it. Just him realizing you can see out of them easily despite them looking opaque would be plenty.

I'd change "populated" to "crowded", since it's quicker and feels less scientific. Also, talking about whether doors are open or closed is still kind of weird. Trimming that down to just a bit about blurs of things through occasional doors would be good. You want your narration to be as fast-paced as the action it's describing, if possible. On that note, the RIGHT, LEFT, ETC works well.

When Darien starts falling behind, Ryan doesn't reach back to grab him and pull him along until quite a bit later, which surprised me. In fact, nothing is really made of his falling behind at all, which is unfortunate since the fact that he's younger and slower is an effective way to add tension.

"His adrenaline allowed him to increase his speed" is really stodgy. Don't talk about how he was able to do something: he's the hero! Talk instead about how he draws on a final desperate burst of energy and so on. If the heroes aren't given credit for being heroic, they don't come across that way! Besides, you want the narrative to keep mirroring the action: don't slow it down with big, cumbersome words when you're describing a mad dash for freedom! Likewise, when he recognizes his father, it's best if you leave "thinking" out of the equation: he couldn't have avoided the collision even if he'd wanted to, that's how fast he's going!

ACT III
Intended Mood: shame, forgiveness, inexperience, anticipation
You've put a lot of exposition in here, including your big reveal, and that's fine. You've got a lot of introspection, especially with regards to the immediate past and future, and that's good in a narrative sense as well as providing a good foundation for a relatively seamless exposition segment.

In fact, it's good bedding for all of the things you're looking to do here. It's the short, calm epilogue to the day's adventures, while looking ahead to the uncertainty of the future. Dad is well done and so is Ryan's internal monologue. The only big things I'd try to avoid is you've still got a couple of conspicuously overtechnical descriptions here and there, like when Dad turns out the light. Otherwise, this reads well.

Finally, some stats on your snippet, for fun and because I'm a nerd:

Spoiler

Total number of flags:   118
(Flags are for sentence length > 21 words, or two occurrences of an uncommon word < 17 words apart)

### Stats ###


Character Count:            25439
Letter Count:               20111
Word Count:                 4536
Sentence Count:             355
Average Sentence Length:    12.761 words
Average Word Length:        4.551 characters
Unique Words:               1168
Top Twenty Words:           the (276), to (137), and (115), of (104), ryan (94), was (91), a (89), he (86), that (70), had (64), in (56), his (55), it (48), as (46), they (43), be (40), on (34), you (34), i (32), darien (32)
Lexical Density:            25.7%

@Lord_Gareth

Spoiler

Comments:

Spoiler

It left his body with no blood whatsoever - though Laron could feel his life leaking from him, no hot wetness told him he was bleeding.

It took me a couple readings to understand this line. I have difficulty reading the first bit any way other than "it caused his body to have no blood left". That said, now that I do understand it... ow.

A rain of blows clove into his torso

I don't picture "into" as a preposition that goes with "to cleave", but I guess it works.

His assailant left the room silently, leaving a greasy smear vaguely recognizable as human.

I'm having some difficulty picturing this because of the strangeness of the weapon (or whatever is responsible for the bloodless bloodletting effect). If you could add (probably earlier) something to show what these wounds actually look like, it would make this scene more vivid.

It took more than an hour for the Sons of Fenris to realize that their temple was under attack.

Nice.

Chains made of rusty razors

Jesus I can't even really picture this in a concrete way, but the effect is vivid enough that I don't care.

Her broken bones rested in a neat pile next to the flesh.

I want to stop pointing all these out, because you obviously know they're here already, but damn. Great attention to detail.

They had barred the doors to prevent them being opened

Is there some other reason one would bar the doors?

When the dust cleared, they saw a fey woman.

Just a thought: this is almost the first time we, the readers, see the attacker. Even though we get no description until now, we do at least get confirmation that there is one assassin, right at the beginning. The "His assailant" is the only time we've gotten a narrative depiction of her until this point, but even with just that, we still see a sort of "silhouette", if you will. Personally, I think the passage works better if we don't get even that--if we're just discovering gruesome murders in the same way that the unfortunate Sons of Fenrir are, without even a shadow of the perpetrator. The only concern I'd have here is that it's not necessarily as obvious that it's a directed attack without the "his assailant" bit, but we still get that great line at the beginning of scene two, so it all works out.

The Sons of Fenris stared, dumbfounded. One of them managed to utter, "So what?"

Oh... oh you poor sons of bitches. That was - perhaps - not the right thing to say just now.

a scream filled with fury, cutting through other sound as though it were, somehow, more real.

I think I say this every time you post, but I do love your phrasing. This is beautiful.

One, perhaps wiser than his fellow, pulled a small crossbow from his belt and fired a bolt through his own temple.

My only concerns here are: first, "temple" could be misconstrued for "the temple they're standing in" (which is what I did). Second, this probably merits a trigger warning separately from the violence.

"I dedicate your death to Iron," the fey woman intoned before breaking his arms with a savage, inhumanly strong pair of twists.

It took him hours to die.

I'm actually a little disappointed with this end of the scene. The final line is great, but "pair of twists" is a little awkward and it's not really obvious why he would die in hours from two broken arms: over several days from infection perhaps, but as far as we've seen he's not likely to bleed out (as there's been no blood thus far). So how does he die? All the rest of your executions have been immaculately brutal. But here, you finish with a maiming that not only isn't obviously fatal, but the death is also implied not to be witnessed by our "heroine", which would be a first. My headcanon is that Nail stands there and watches while he dies (still not clear on how that happens), but it's not clear from the text whether this actually happens.

Five months later, an acolyte from another temple of Fenris was sent to investigate the Moontown branch on suspicions of anti-fey activity.

Oh, beaurocracy. Nice finish; very much in keeping with the rest of it.

One thing I noticed, especially in the middle of the slaughter-montage, is that some of the deaths seem to be more appropriate for their victims than others (e.g. the high priest on his altar, and the cook). What sticks out in my mind is that the only two Brothers to get names (Redfang and Laron) seem to have conspicuously random forms of death, even though ostensibly they are the characters we know best. Is there a reason for this? I would expect these two to get "appropriate" deaths, if anyone does. Just my two cents. Great damn post.

And some stats on your snippet, because I'm a nerd:

Spoiler

Total number of flags: 32
(Flags are for sentence length > 21 words, or two occurrences of an uncommon word < 17 words apart)

### Stats ###


Character Count:            6167
Letter Count:               4795
Word Count:                 1100
Sentence Count:             73
Average Sentence Length:    14.822 words
Average Word Length:        4.505 characters
Unique Words:               466
Top Twenty Words:           the (73), a (40), of (34), to (31), his (31), and (24),  (18), her (18), in (17), was (16), with (15), through (13), * (12), he (10), that (9), woman (8), fenris (8), iron (8), him (8), she (8)
Lexical Density:            42.4%

@PaperMustache

Spoiler

Comments:

Spoiler

It was a beautiful day outside. At least I figured it was based on how desperately my best friend wanted me to leave the library.

Heheh, this says a lot. Nice opening.

I asked without taking my eyes off the book I was reading.

I could probably get that from context.

Myaaaa

I read this as a cartoon villain sound. Myaaa!

I sighed, closing the book, "fine."

I'd put a period after "book" and capitolize the F.

He had on the black half-mask he wore to hide his identity at work

...Well, this just got weird.

He must have just come home from work.

Probably don't need that last bit.

"Mya! I need to talk to you." My dad called. Sam shivered.

Things have gone from fun and silly to downright creepy. Well done.

"Uh huh..." She lied.

Well done again.

"Mya." He smiled weakly, looking up at me, "sit, I have something I need to discuss with you."

You need at least one more period in here someplace. Also, bearing in mind that I've only just met the guy, if I were him I'd probably go with "Please sit" or some other more familiar phrase. He seems like a nice enough guy, or at least close enough to his daughter, and exhausted enough, that he'd use something less formal.

"Because you don't have to tell me if you don't want to. I understand why you have to keep secrets. I'm not a kid anymore."

You paint the line between cute and tragic very well here.

"God's no, Mya. Not angry, mad.

No apostrophe needed here.

"Like psychologically? Like you have a mental disorder? Because academically speaking-" he cut me off.

Ahahaha. She's great.

I've been fighting it for so long that the madness doesn't overtake me for years at a time. When it does, I sate it on the blood of monsters and animals and I find myself back to normal.

This is the best excuse to go adventuring I've ever heard. The whole thing actually reminds me of one of the best characters I've ever had the pleasure of DMing for, who had an "itch" passed down through his family as a result of some ancestor's Faustian bargian.

If you ever want children of your own, it's something you should take into account.

...Yep that sucks.

"That you love me? Of course. That you're a murderer? I'm having trouble internalizing that, yeah."

Hahaha.

He chuckled darkly as they caught his attention, taunting them in their own language.

This reads like they're the ones taunting him at first; I'd swap the first clause to "...as he caught their attention" rather than the other way around.

Were they their tribes primary defenders?

*tribe's

It was not the reserved chuckle of the man I knew. It was the wailing of a mad man harmonizing with the terrified screams of his victims.

Very poetic. Horrifying, but poetic.

"You should just run away! While you still can. Just get out of here." I pleaded.

Nice. Her particular means of choice for protecting her dad is a good reflection on how she seems to feel about the whole thing.

Seconds ago it had been a threat. Now it was a corpse, an inanimate object. I did that.

You're still doing a really good job with the not-sure-how-to-feel-about-all-this.

My dad swung the sword in some sort of addled rage, but I killed it by making it unable to fight back.

I'd use "had swung" and "had killed" here, since the actions are now in the past relative to the past-tense narrative.

"And so the monster is kept in check another day." He muttered, looking miserable.

Your tone remains spot-on.

I collapsed into his arms. Hopefully that was reassuring.

I'm having difficulty expressing all the ways I love this. She's still so calculating, but at the same time unable to do anything but fall into him, and just aware enough that it's probably not reassuring but what else can she do?

the flesh and scales would be consumed an give sustenance to mold and fungus.

*and

They would be ripped apart by mountain cats, or wolves. That seemed a pity for the mold and fungus.

lol

"Oh my gods I knew that the peripheral nervous system of reptilian humanoid species remained sensitive to stimuli up until approximately two hours after it's death, but I didn't expect it to actually move!"

lol

like an interesting bird who was about to fly away.

That's a great visual.

I need...I need to hit something." I decided aloud.

This... does not bode well.

"I'm just going to go see Inara."

"Oh. Well, give your sister my love."

This really does not bode well. Dad may be too out of it to notice, but "I need to hit something... I'm going to go see [my sister]" is not usually how happiness occurs. Great snippet. The similarities to the "canon" universe are there if you look for them, but definitely subtle (not least I suppose because her father is such a big part of this story). Good stuff.

And some stats on your snippet, because I'm a nerd:

Spoiler

Total number of flags:   43
(Flags are for sentence length > 21 words, or two occurrences of an uncommon word < 17 words apart)

### Stats ###


Character Count:            13752
Letter Count:               10366
Word Count:                 2541
Sentence Count:             292
Average Sentence Length:    8.702 words
Average Word Length:        4.300 characters
Unique Words:               771
Top Twenty Words:           i (134), the (94), to (91), a (60), it (55), and (54), he (53), my (50), you (50), was (47), me (41), of (39), hi (37), in (26), at (23), for (22), that (20), had (20), dad (17), with (17)
Lexical Density:            30.3%

@Malrone
Welcome to the thread! I feel ya on the "character I never get to play" thing. If you'd like specific kinds of critique at any point, just ask!

Originally Posted by Malrone

[but where does the blood go? it's only so much iron in content...]

I know, right??

On to the comments!

Spoiler

Comments:

Spoiler

He looked down at the withered leaf in his hand, once red flesh curled and black. A roll of the thumb rendered it to dust. It was a poignant reminder. Focus, keep control.

Nice start. The only thing I'd change would be hyphenating "once-red".

Adventurers were as common as the Orcs they hunted this far north; he hoped common expectations would shield him from suspicion.

Reasonably seamless exposition, as well as of course raising the question of "suspicion of what?"

The other stood aside, eyes resting with with an amused twinkle on this dirty traveler.

Oh? Were I a dirty traveler, I'd at least give this guy a second glance if he seems twinklingly amused.

The second guard did more than look. Dan winced at the contact of the man's glove, but allowed the bribe to happen.

This is not what I was expecting from a twinkle-eyed guy! Twinkly eyes mean it's a kindly old wizard in disguise or something! Aahhh, my worldview!

Okay, I'm over it. Also, "allowed the bribe to happen is pretty damn funny in this context. :Smallbiggrin:

He put hand to handle.

I hope one night's stay isn't too long.

Two nice phrases in a row, and solid ending! I'll agree with you that not an awful lot happens in this one, but we've gotten some background now and frankly you'll probably get more readers with shorter snippets than those of us addicted to writing these big ones do The only thing that disappointed me a little was that nothing ever came of the opening paragraph. Certainly it's foreshadowing some less pleasant events to come, but I was hoping we'd get at least another hint of it in this chapter. Looking forward to parts two and three!

And some stats on your snippet, just because I'm a nerd:

Spoiler

Total number of flags:   3
(Flags are for sentence length > 21 words, or two occurrences of an uncommon word < 17 words apart)

### Stats ###


Character Count:            2614
Letter Count:               2073
Word Count:                 446
Sentence Count:             33
Average Sentence Length:    13.455 words
Average Word Length:        4.780 characters
Unique Words:               282
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Lexical Density:            63.2%

[Lord_Gareth]

W/R/T Nail - Think of the blood as...a tribute, to Iron. It's an offering claimed by the blades - Shame & Blame - that Nail uses.

As far as the ending scene, the implication was actually supposed to be that she tortures the poor fool to death. I didn't want to go into too much detail because, well, these aren't the boards for that.

Last, but not least - Brothers Laron and Redfang were named in an effort to humanize them right before their deaths. The other deaths - the cook, the high priest - were engineered by Nail to inflict terror rather than out of any real sense of karmic justice.

Thank you guys so much for the critiques, deeply appreciated ^_^ Any takers on my challenge yet?

[TheWombatOfDoom]

Just an FYI, I tried clicking on my links to my snippets in the OP, and neither link worked. I checked the code, and it looked right...perhaps the link itself needs to be recopied and pasted? I have to do that sometimes. I hope there aren't more like me, but others should check too.

Also, thank you for the critque! I'll edit it and see if I can get out all those head beatings. A habit I need to work on, I guess. I very much appreciate the point out. I'll likely miss some on my first rewrite, but I'll do my best. How in the future can I watch out for this in my writing? Also, I had a question, but I best PM you with it.

[Dr Bwaa]

Re: link issues: Looks like that happened to all the links I added on my most recent update; I didn't use the same procedure that I usually do and it looks like google drive added some mysterious "xn--http-fb7a" junk to the beginnings of the links. I'll go fix it now; let me know if you find any that are still broken. Thanks for alerting me!

As far as how you can look out for head-beatings? ...I'm not certain. I'll give it some thought at lunch today (and I'll respond to your PM shortly!)

ALSO @challenge I'll be writing something up for this in the next couple of days. In an effort to actually post it, I'm not going to be worrying too much about polish

[Lord_Gareth]

Out of curiosity Bwaa/others, how interested would you be in reading the PbP where I'm actually playing Nail? The Moontown Massacre was a backstory event that I wrote here out of, well, a need to write.

[TheWombatOfDoom]

@ Challenge: I might as well take on the challenge, but I'm not exactly sure what constitutes a game I can use. There's games like bioshock and halflife where things happen to the player sometimes without much explaination, or the character does things yo make him do (like habitually check every nook and cranny for items) and I could put the thought process in behind it? Some more narritive based things like Dead Space, perhaps not, but skyrim even with plot aspects there's a lot of not plot things you could write about.

@ Gareth - I may be interested...how many players? Generally when there's a lot, it becomes slow going to read.

@ The Doctor (of Bwaa) - Glad to help. Just glad I checked! I'll keep an eye out for the message.

[Lord_Gareth]

Originally Posted by TheWombatOfDoom

@ Gareth - I may be interested...how many players? Generally when there's a lot, it becomes slow going to read.

The game runs sorta like an MMO; that is, while there are other players/characters, Nail's story is just between me and the GM and as a result should be remarkably clean and easy to read. In fact:

Nail's thread

Setting information

Overall game forum

[Dr Bwaa]

I love reading PbP! I'd definitely read that.

EDIT: swordsages everywhere

[Lord_Gareth]

Originally Posted by Dr Bwaa

I love reading PbP! I'd definitely read that.

EDIT: swordsages everywhere

And I'm always taking character/writing critique ^_^

[Lord_Gareth]

Originally Posted by TheWombatOfDoom

@ Challenge: I might as well take on the challenge, but I'm not exactly sure what constitutes a game I can use. There's games like bioshock and halflife where things happen to the player sometimes without much explaination, or the character does things yo make him do (like habitually check every nook and cranny for items) and I could put the thought process in behind it? Some more narritive based things like Dead Space, perhaps not, but skyrim even with plot aspects there's a lot of not plot things you could write about.

You could narrate a match of Starcraft from the perspective of a marine on the ground, or write from the role of a tower commander in a tower defense game (Cursed Treasure, maybe?).

[TheWombatOfDoom]

Originally Posted by Lord_Gareth

You could narrate a match of Starcraft from the perspective of a marine on the ground, or write from the role of a tower commander in a tower defense game (Cursed Treasure, maybe?).

Ah. Hrm. I don't have any of those. But I'll attempt to figure something out. If not, I've got plenty of projects to amuse me/post.

Edit! Oh! I think I've got one.

[Winds]

I liiiiive wriiiiiite!

With an improved (I hope) style to boot.



Another Realm

Spoiler

I blacked out from a sudden gut wound in the sunny desert, and awake with no pains in what might be the same desert.

But the sky above is like nothing I've ever seen, or even heard of. It...defies description. After a few moments, I realize that whatever is up there is beyond the ability of my senses to perceive. Being reliant on my magical senses, finding myself in a local where the ambient magic is something my mind can't make sense of should be reason for concern.

But honestly, by now it's just what I've come to expect from this whole mess.

After considering this however, I note several troubling details:

First, this is not the desert we were in. In ways I can't explain, this place is darker and colder, despite the spells that let me see through shadows.

Second, my compatriots did not move me, nor is Jessica the reason I have no wounds. If they were, they would have been speaking by now.

Third, the tower we did not find in the desert is here. It is marked with the signs of a tower held by devils.

Fourth, tying these concerns together, is my person. I do not sense the various magics in my usual equipment anywhere near me. What I'm wearing is resembles the rune-scribed leather armor I had been wearing. It was something else, though. I didn't feel the weight that it should have, nor the magic-repelling enchantment it had had. Of course, the enchantment hadn't been any use anyway. My flesh, under that...wasn't quite flesh.

In short, I have become a ghost.

Sitting up, I see that Kol is here as well, and a little girl I don't recognize. She is a ghost as well, though different than us in that her eyes are solid black. That may be a bad sign...On the other hand, I know that I probably look worse when my magics are active.

"Hello" she says. "You're very strange. Have you been dead before?"

"No" Kol replies tersely.

"Ah...after a fashion?" I say. Kol gives me an odd look at that, but doesn't comment. The girl, meanwhile, nods to herself as if that answers her question.

I take a moment to make sure my spells are active while she speaks again.

"My name is Ethereal. You're in danger, you know."

Kol starts grumbling. "We wouldn't be if we had our weapons. Where are they, anyway?"

I close my eyes for a moment, making sure the 'Beguiling Influence' I had cast on my material self still worked. Thankfully, it did. Getting this weird girl to tell me what I wanted to know should be simple with that. "If I had to guess, next to our corpses in the Material Realm. Ethereal, can you help us get our gear back, or back to our realm? Maybe help us find the being that guards this tower?"

She considers that for a moment, then nods. "I guard the tower. And I can get your equipment back. But you need to do something for me first. I want you to kill some ghost eaters. But first, you need to get to the city, or they'll be too much for you. The city is that way." She points to the horizon, where I see something in the distance that must be what she was referring to. "Make sure you get there before nightfall." With that, she vanishes.

Kol glares at the spot where she had been for a moment, then shakes his head. "We may as well get going, I guess. But...wait a minute."

He hovers into the air a bit.

"I can fly now!"

I start toward the city, not much concerned.

"Well, you're a soul right now, not a body. It isn't that surprising. Useful, though."

We float along for several hours, before noticing that the area is getting darker. There wasn't any visible light source to begin with, but the area we can see is shrinking.

Then Kol suddenly tells me he can hear a noise. We try to get around the creatures making it, to no avail. The things surround us. Ugly things, grayish-blue lumbs of ghostly matter. Four clumsy, stumpy legs hold them up. Almost the entire body is the mouth.

Kol and I glance at each other.

"Kalach...you know I can't fight these things unarmed. Can you?"


"Yes. Yes, I can. But we need to keep moving. I can hurt them, but I don't relish the idea of trying to fight them alone."

So we head for the city, thanks to Kol's unerring sense of direction. Thankfully, we're faster, and they don't follow well when we adjust our flight trajectory. I have to admit, Kol is a fast learner. I wonder if it might be because I had to get the magic right, as well as learn to use it? No matter.

We reach the city gates, and guards usher us inside. They are armed, so Kol and I agree to take a short rest before seeking an armorer.

We still have the strange girl's 'request' to fulfill. Then convince her to open the tower, and reach the pedestal room. Then I have to get the party to let me explain what's really happening, and deal with their reactions...

Being a ghost is the least of my problems right now. I have no need of sleep as a ghost, but here in the city I can rest a little while. Just for a few hours...

[Kymme]

Well, it has been ages. I got into a writers funk a couple months back, and it has taken me a while to snap out of it.

I return to you with a new story! I am actually part of the same multi-party pbp that Lord_Gareth is in. This story is aboot my character, Tucker Aurelius.

Enjoy.

Spoiler

The fist connected with Tucker’s face. It drove forward with all the anger and rage of the man behind it. The sheer force of the blow could snap wood, bend steel, and turn brick into powder. The power behind it was unrivaled, unmatched, and unable to be withstood. The might of that punch could destroy cowards, and lay low even the bravest of souls. It was a fist of doom, of hate, of CARNAGE INCARNATE.

In short, it was the kind of fist Tuck’s face was used to being introduced to. This punch came lightning fast, and the moment before it landed, he leapt backwards, rolling with the blow, and tumbling back up onto his feet about ten feet away. The boy straightened his now bent glasses, and turned his eyes to his opponent.

It was a drunkard.

A Troll drunkard.

With a mechanical arm.

The Troll before him was scowling angrily. As the brute grinded its teeth, the steam joints of its incredibly deadly prosthetic screamed and whistled, like a catcaller being attacked by an attractive dragoness. The Troll plucked up a nearby table and crushed it in the grip of its mechanical fist. The table shattered like the hopes and dreams of a glass vase that had been smashed by a hammer with the words “NO SOIL FOR YOU” embossed on its striking surface.

Tucker, the Boy-Knight, was unfazed by the show of force. He called out to his attacker.

“I must say, good sir, why exactly did you strike me? Surely you do not wish to fight someone of my power, do you?”

The Troll laughed, its deep voice rattling the foundation of the now abandoned tavern the two of them found themselves in. “I could crush you in an instant, and you question me? Who the hell do you think you are, little man?”

Tucker puffed out his chest, and broadened his narrow shoulders. “I am Tucker McFinneywidgen Aurelius, Knight Errant.” Tucker challenged, drawing his ornate rapier from its worn leather sheath. “And you, good sir, are nothing but a common ruffian!”

The Troll burst out laughing.

“Seriously? What kind of idiot are you, pointing that toothpick at me? You think that that qualifies as a weapon?” The Troll's fist began to rotate, gears and pistons beginning to activate. In a matter of seconds, the brute's mechanical hand had transformed into an arm-mounted cannon.

“THIS IS A WEAPON,” he roared.

Tucker raised an eyebrow, smirking at the contraption.

In an earsplitting blast, the cannon fired. It launched forth a cloud of smoke as black as a moonless night. Punching through the cloud was a lead sphere the size of a man’s head. The sphere was glowing bright red, pulsating with fiery energies.

Tucker’s blade shot up, faster than lighting, and with practiced ease, he sliced the burning projectile in two. The two glowing hot halves sliced through the air on either side of the Boy Knight's narrow frame, and obliterated the wall behind him, creating an opening to the busy street right outside. Passersby scattered, trying to avoid the rubble launched into the air. Most made it out unscathed. Others, however, were not so lucky.

Tucker looked upon the devastation with despair. Gods damn it, he thought. Why did I block that shell? If it had hit me, all of these people would still be safe. Idiot, idiot, idiot! In his momentary outrage, he had let his guard down. He felt an iron grip close around his torso, and the Troll growled in his ear. “Nice trick, boy. Let me show you one of mine.”

Tucker was flung end over end through the air, smashing into a wall on the opposite side of the street. He slid down the wall slowly, blood trickling out of the corner of his mouth. He stood up, clutching his rapier with one hand, and his side with the other. He felt his side, wincing as broken ribs shifted under his skin. He wiped the blood from his face, and looked to the tavern.

The Troll was stepping through the hole made by his massive attack, his mechanical arm transformed into a cannon once more. Tuck stared daggers at him.

“You BRUTE!” The Boy Knight shouted. “Look at what you have done! All these people, injured, some even dead! How dare you! HOW DARE YOU!” Tucker's eyes began to glow with an inner blue light. An orange aura formed around his rapier, and his body was engulfed in a bright blue aura. The Troll looked on in astonishment as the Boy Knight vanished into the aura. Then, with a roar of primal rage, the aura began to change shape.

The Troll backed away in fear as a colossal tiger, twenty five feet from its massive jaws, to the end of its orange striped tail. The tiger seemed to be glowing from the inside, and a piercing blue light shone from its eyes and mouth. A faint silhouette of a bespectacled warrior appeared in the beasts muscular chest, body bent back in a silent scream.

With a roar like thunder, the tiger leapt into the air, pouncing on the Troll. The last thing the brute ever saw were the monsters eyes, glowing with a blinding light.

PS, Lord_Gareth, I love reading your pbp. Nail is awesome!

[Lord_Gareth]

Originally Posted by Kymme

PS, Lord_Gareth, I love reading your pbp. Nail is awesome!

W00! Any thoughts on her characterization, the events thus far, or my writing in general?

[Kymme]

Originally Posted by Lord_Gareth

W00! Any thoughts on her characterization, the events thus far, or my writing in general?

Well, first of all, I really like how Nail has this almost unspoken air about her. Your descriptions and the general way that you write her conveys that she has had quite the eventful past, and I also like how she has such a wide range of emotions. She is a very confident person, and the way she holds herself is pretty awesome.

Now, I have no idea whether or not I am the only person who reads the other stories on that forum. Do you have any thoughts on Tucker's characterization, or my writing style? Feel free to critique if you like, I am a bit rusty. ha puns

[Lord_Gareth]

Originally Posted by Kymme

Well, first of all, I really like how Nail has this almost unspoken air about her. Your descriptions and the general way that you write her conveys that she has had quite the eventful past, and I also like how she has such a wide range of emotions. She is a very confident person, and the way she holds herself is pretty awesome.

...Huh. I don't suppose you could provide any examples of the things that make you feel that way?

Now, I have no idea whether or not I am the only person who reads the other stories on that forum. Do you have any thoughts on Tucker's characterization, or my writing style? Feel free to critique if you like, I am a bit rusty. ha puns

I've been following Tuck!Thread for a bit, actually, and my biggest complaint is that Tuck himself seems a little...flat. Or at least his delivery does. The comedic tone of your posts goes over /great/...but at the cost of Tuck himself, who seems absurd all the time instead of just some of the time.

[Kymme]

Originally Posted by Lord_Gareth

...Huh. I don't suppose you could provide any examples of the things that make you feel that way?

I sure can!

From your most recent post:
"I have no objection to your basic streetwalker but I doubt they treat the girls under their so-called care with any kind of respect, dignity, or class. At a guess, you can identify a few pimps for me. I'll make a side project out of feeding them their own spinal shavings for you."

Than causal kind of threat conveys that Nail has immense confidence, which is really cool to see. It means that she must consider herself orders of magnitude more powerful than the pimps she is talking about. I could show you more examples, if needed.

Originally Posted by Lord_Gareth

I've been following Tuck!Thread for a bit, actually, and my biggest complaint is that Tuck himself seems a little...flat. Or at least his delivery does. The comedic tone of your posts goes over /great/...but at the cost of Tuck himself, who seems absurd all the time instead of just some of the time.

I get what you mean. His current behavior is pretty over the top silly. In the last couple of posts I have been trying to show more of a serious side of him, but to be honest, he is still very much a child. He still has to grow up, and I think that over the course of the pbp, he will.

[Perkinz]

Hi all. I came across this thread earlier today at work, and I realized that I had actually been writing snippets of old campaigns for a while now. Nothing serious, or possibly even coherent, but that's pretty par for the course for me.

What I have right now is a snippet about a character of mine, Tiandra "Temperance" Valsimar. An ex-assassin that only really became ex once the order she was a part of tried to kill her as the patsy for another assassination. A sort of "Hey look! A scapegoat!" sort of thing. This is a sort of recap of her first adventure, and her impression of the party as it was at the start.

And now, the moment you've all (maybe) been waiting for...

Spoiler

Nighttime. People feared it. The so-called realm of demons, devils, and every imaginable horror that the human mind could conceive of. Even then some failed to go far enough in their flights of fancy. They were all fools, in her opinion. More afraid of a fantastical beast come to devour them in their dreams than a simple, mundane knife wielded by a simple, mundane half-breed elf. She found the dark hours to be more inviting than the daytime, with everything illuminated in blazing light and the frenzied bustle of the common folk going about their lives. The night was peaceful, calm. All things seemed to move with more languor, taking their time instead of rushing to and fro like a metronome set to a high tempo.

This night, however, had proven to be completely different than most.

Earlier events played out in her mind as she crept along the wall of what appeared to be the town's church. It certainly didn't seem a very holy site to her any longer, but she was never much a devotee to the gods in the first place. The job had gone smoothly, almost too much so with her taking advantage of a distraction unwittingly provided by a... monster hunter, she called herself, and her companion. It made her uneasy when assassination was this simple. The guards had proven to be ridiculously easy to avoid, and the kill itself had gone perfectly, with the victim being unaware of his fate and experiencing no pain, no fear. She left her calling card, the Wheel of Fortune tarot, took the required vial of blood, and escaped out the window.

That's when everything went to hell, she thought with a wry grin.

Her employer, upon receiving the news the job had been completed and the vial of blood, had transformed into some demonic... thing. Temperance hadn't guessed, but that vial of blood which struck her as an amateurish and unnecessary triviality at first had an importance that was far beyond her expectation. If she made it out alive, she certainly wasn't going to break so many of her rules about her job again. Not without guaranteed hazard pay up front, at least.

She had managed to survive the encounter, but only with the help of the monster hunter she'd seen before and several others. The two who seemed to be an aspiring knight and his squire were simultaneously the most intriguing and the most irritating people she had met thus far. Even the overly cheerful machine didn't annoy her as much as the untarnished idealism that the younger of the pair possessed. All this nonsense about "duty" and "honor." Ideals were all well and good, but in her world, they only served to make you a target to those that didn't believe in the same things. She'd taken too many jobs to silence someone on the opposite side of a moral battlefield to believe any differently.

And yet he still lives, her mind interjected. So now what? Do you think he hasn't run afoul of anyone that would employ you? Doubtful. He's loud and apparently straightforward. Perhaps his brother pulls him out of the trouble he gets in? Possibly. Even so, you have to admit they aren't driven by the same things you are. So what will you do now? You aren't bound by oaths to your order anymore, you've got no job, no employer, and nowhere to go until you're contacted again. Besides, you owe them at least some debt. Without them you'd be a corpse on that altar right now.

Quelling her inner dialogue, she approached the corner of the church, peering around to see if the coast was clear so she could make her escape. Her current run of luck held true, however, as there were a squad of several undead creatures and what appeared to be a necromancer waiting for anyone to come out of the front door of the church. With an inward groan she turned back, pried a board loose from a window, and re-entered the church where the whole lot of them were still waiting.

"I thought you were leaving," the squire said, gesturing toward the back entrance.

"I was, but plans change. If you want to survive, you might want to hear me out," she replied, no hint of emotion in her voice.

"Why should we trust you? You won't even tell us what you were doing here in the first place!"

"As I said before, the less you know about me and the work I do, the safer it is for you. The only thing you need know is that we both want to survive this night, and if we waste too much time, that might not be possible."

[TheWombatOfDoom]

Response to my critique! It's ready for second review, if anyone wants to read it through last page.

Spoiler

Alright, so, after going over my snippet very thoroughly, I believe I have a much better draft. As a preface, quite a few things I'd picked up after I'd posted, and have been waiting to fix, like some stupid dangling words from fixing or combining sentences, or for getting distracted and having disjointed thoughts. Most of that I believe I've taken care of now. Now I'll do a top to bottom approach of what's been changed and how I took you advice. Perhaps not in the order I did my fixes...but still...

To start, I changed the beginning a bit. I'd originally started it this way to give the impression of voices coming out of the darkness. As you've described, instead it was just voices with no information, because there were no details describing that, and I see that now. I guess it was a circumstance where I saw it in my head but it wasn't portrayed in my writing. I also added details to make later details more clear, and to break up what I wanted to describe in a more gradual way.

I've made significant rewrites to a lot of things to avoid over expository, so if I still have a prevalent amount, please let me know. In my overview, I also found instances where I repeated information almost verbatim to what I'd said earlier in the snippet. My apologies.

I also tried to make the mood a bit more using "searching" instead of "looking" and various other small things in the first act. Good advice there for sure.

Got rid of expositions that didn't directly apply to the focus, or manipulated them into meshing better into the snippet. I think you'll find a much better flow. Example - hardened ash. The only one I'm unsure of is the glassblowers paragraph you complimented. Let me know if it flows alright.

Adding more content certainly helped me explore the characters better, which was nice all around.

I also implemented some magic, since I kept mentioning it. It also helped me attach a little more content to the chase to make Darien's fatigue become more of a focus, and so I think it's better for it. The only drawback I see is that it extends the approach of the lab workers in the stables a bit, and I wasn't sure about making it a little longer, since its supposed to be a quick period. I tried to be conservative with description to counter act that. Still, I'm glad I added it, it gave me more to use to tie this chapter with later ones. You'll see why.

I also tried to clarify the fact that Ryan and Darien's disability (no magic) is a very rare thing in Eron a little more, to assist with later entries. This is going to be an important point, and I figured it made things consistant. I realized I can still have a big reveal even if I disclose elements of the reveal. You'll see what I'm talking about when I've submitted more.

I'm glad the exposition worked well in the third act. I feel pleased about it, because having that kind of thing at the beginning would likely be less enthralling. I want to keep the reader's attention before giving too much description, even if the information is interesting. Content is much better when served with context for appetizers.

I've also fixed some confusing aspects of Ryan's inner monolouge, particularly with his anxiety about leaving. It should make more sense now.

So! Let me know if I let my characters actually do things! And I hope it looks a lot better. I think it does, so that's something. Lastly, don't worry. This isn't your last look at Eron. I'm glad you like the setting so much!

[Winds]

Fourth page? Unprecedented! Must be fixed!


Kymme:

Hah. I like Tucker already.


Perkins:

Interesting. Seems an awfully indirect trap to spring, especially on someone whose skillset values getting out of a place quickly...