Heroic fantasy

[Barney]

My first posting for critique, all comments appreciated.Overhead the storm clouds churned and forks of lightening lanced downwards on to the battlefield, seeking out the tips of spears still held upright, in the corpse-grip of the fallen. Then came the rain, hissing down and turning the valley’s churned earth into liquid mud. A horse thundered past me, spraying bloodied mud onto my gritted teeth. A messenger to the front, hopefully bringing news of reinforcements. The day’s battle had become a slaughter even before the sun was at it’s highest, and the fighting had raged until nightfall. I became blank eyed in the frenzy of violence, swinging my sword, separating men from limb. Amidst the chaos, thousands of soldiers and mercenaries flushed with bloodlust, I killed indiscriminately and with a mounting excitement. I had killed many that day; enemies not only, but doubtless some on the same side. I had forgotten about the reasons for the war, just craving to bury my steely length in the guts of another man. I collapsed, sitting lumpenly in the mire, dreadful with gore. I was ravenous, and reached over to wrench the saddle from a dead warhorse. I started chewing on the tough leather. It was the best thing I had eaten all day.

 

[ysabara]

Not bad. Your writing is very descriptive and in just this one short paragraph you have managed to convey to me a clear picture of the battlefield and the conditions that prevail. Keep writing!

 

[Barney]

Thanks Ysabara, glad you got a good feel of the battlefield.

Here is another snippet, please go crazy on the critique, it is the only way I will learn.

I was still grinding the saddle between my teeth when the whelp made himself known. The leather had been seasoned by the sweat of the cavalryman but it was not half as tasty as the young man who rose up before me.

"Old man!" he called. "Your battlefield savagery has been witnessed! You are a doughty warrior but your blade has claimed as many allies as friends! And now you dare to sit here and chew upon leather as if it is your birthright!"

I said nothing, merely winking at the whelp. Then I opened my mouth.
"And how old would you have me at sirrah?"
"You are as old as the sphinx, and twice as disgusting!"

He was a saucy knave. I sprang to my feet, my half-chewed saddle dropping poignantly into a puddle as I unsheathed my livelihood. He did not like having a naked weapon pointing at his face, especially one as intimidating as the one I carried. He fled into the night, his dignity in tatters.

I roared with ribald laughter, thrusting my sword into the mud. The company joined in my merriment, and for a few short hours the bedlam of unfettered combat was forgotten.

 

[chrispenycate]

My first posting for critique, all comments appreciated.Overhead the storm clouds churned and forks of lightening

lightning

lanced downwards on to the battlefield, seeking out the tips of spears still held upright, in the corpse-grip of the fallen. Then came the rain, hissing down and turning the valley’s churned earth into liquid mud. A horse thundered past me, spraying bloodied mud onto my gritted teeth. A messenger to the front, hopefully bringing news of reinforcements. The day’s battle had become a slaughter even before the sun was at it’s

its

highest, and the fighting had raged until nightfall. I became blank eyed in the frenzy of violence, swinging my sword, separating men from limb

man from limb or men from limbs (the idea of multiple combatants with one arm between them is impractical, even for fantasy)

. Amidst the chaos, thousands of soldiers and mercenaries flushed with bloodlust, I killed indiscriminately and with a mounting excitement. I had killed many that day; enemies not only, but doubtless some on the same side.

why the inversion in "enemies not only"? And "on the same side" doesn't specify that it was his side.

I had forgotten about the reasons for the war, just craving to bury my steely length in the guts of another man. I collapsed, sitting lumpenly in the mire, dreadful with gore. I was ravenous, and reached over to wrench the saddle from a dead warhorse. I started chewing on the tough leather. It was the best thing I had eaten all day.

Perhaps some paragraphs? At least separating the berserker bloodlust from the exhaustion?

I was still grinding the saddle between my teeth when the whelp made himself known. The leather had been seasoned by the sweat of the cavalryman but it was not half as tasty as the young man who rose up before me.

"Old man!" he called. "Your battlefield savagery has been witnessed! You are a doughty warrior but your blade has claimed as many allies as friends! And now you dare to sit here and chew upon leather as if it is your birthright!"

I said nothing, merely winking at the whelp. Then I opened my mouth.
"And how old would you have me at

[colr=red]comma[/color]

sirrah?"
"You are as old as the sphinx, and twice as disgusting!"

He was a saucy knave. I sprang to my feet, my half-chewed saddle dropping poignantly

[colr=red]why "pognantly"?[/color]

into a puddle as I unsheathed my livelihood. He did not like having a naked weapon pointing at his face, especially one as intimidating as the one I carried. He fled into the night, his dignity in tatters.

I roared with ribald laughter, thrusting my sword into the mud. The company joined in my merriment, and for a few short hours the bedlam of unfettered combat was forgotten.

 

[JDP]

This reads really well; your writing conjures a vivid image of the battlefield.

My only criticism would be the phrase 'steely length', which made me stumble.

 

[BookStop]

Nice imagery, Barney.

 

[ctg]

Hello Barney,

Welcome to this side of the forum.

The first piece is very fast paced, and its message gets somewhat confusing as there are so much going on. The second piece is much better and it creates a clear image.

 

[Barney]

Thanks for your comments guys.

I had written the first extract in paragraphs but they seemed to have got lost when I copy-and-pasted.

Embarrased that I gave "its" a possesive apostrophe, that one slipped through the net. And good call on the "men from limb" Chrispenycate, didn't spot that number disagreement.

Thanks again to all for taking the time to read and comment.

 

[Mattastic]

I have to say I quite like what you've done here. It's a bit different, which is always good, and the language is very well chosen. However, it does feel awfully heavy and I'm not sure if I could read something like that through very long passages.

 

[Barney]

I have to say I quite like what you've done here. It's a bit different, which is always good, and the language is very well chosen. However, it does feel awfully heavy and I'm not sure if I could read something like that through very long passages.

Thanks Mattastic.

Can you specify what you meant about it being too heavy? I would be interested to know.
I sensed that myself, and think maybe the dialogue needs to be toned down a bit. Or maybe it's just the whole first person POV?

 

[Mattastic]

I think it's because it's all swaggering manliness. Which is fine, except that too much of it would become tiresome. It's very clear that there's a lot of testosterone floating around here, as one would expect of heroic fantasy characters, but the concern is that this attitude of the characters will go on ad nauseam. For the most part of the novel/short story/whatever you're writing, your hero and his allies have to appear tough and rugged without having to read about their recent acts of violence or exchanges of bravado, with scenes like these thrown in for good measure.

 

[Barney]

I see what you mean, and think you're right. Subtlety was never my strong point! What I posted were some early sections where I was trying to establish the setting and my POV character so I went a bit OTT!

But as the story progresses I tried to shift the tone a bit and make it more serious and thoughtful. My POV character gets maimed and has to deal with that and re-evaluate his attitude to violence.
In tandem with that he also realises something qute profound about himself which causes some soul-searching!

 

[Barney]

Some more, this extract hopefully a little more restrained (and hopefully not too long).

I had been warned about the oases, illusions of water springing up from the parched sands. I had employed the desert guides and their camels, had willingly paid in gold for their expertise, and had bitten my tongue as we seemed to creep from dune to dune. I wished that I was on open water, in the galleys of a rowboat surrounded by my people. But for this journey I had to go overland, and was alone amongst strangers.

The guides would stop every so often to sift about in the sand and chatter away in their strange tongue, rolling what I assumed were dice. It was only when my patience ran short that I scooped up one of their playthings and saw it was a human tooth.

They looked up at me with an expression I couldn't read, and without a word their circle broke up and they mounted their camels. The train carried on into the interior. I parroted some of the desert phrases I had learnt in the bazaar but none of them answered. Still concussed from the blow I had taken two days ago, I wrapped my turban about my head, numbed by the sun. I fell into a kind of trance, only prevented from sleeping by the uneven gait of the camel.

After an indefinite time I came to my senses and realised the camel trail had stopped. I looked up and saw the sun had left the sky. I tried to dismount the camel smoothly but I was more exhausted than I realised and hit the desert with all the grace of a corpse. I was desperately thirsty and reached up to the underside of my beast where the water skins were slung.

My fingers groped at the pouches and eventually I succeeded in pulling one on top of me. The guides laughed. Crazed with thirst, I thrashed about until I was on my back and could upend the skin, let the water pour over my face and down my throat. Nothing flowed. I shifted the skin, altering the angle, squeezing it. Still no water came. The laughter grew louder and then one by one the guides turned the camels around and galloped away, leaving me to suffocate in the desert.

For a while I lay in the dry grains, convinced this was my night to die. Had I had water enough in my body, I may even have submitted to shame and wasted tears in the dust. But as the night deepened at least the air became cooler, and it was then I saw the oasis, only a few dunes away. I could see a single palm tree next to the shimmering pool, and could smell the fresh water. I started crawling towards it.

As i stumbled along on all fours, like an animal, I scraped a hand on a sliver of sharp rock. It laid the skin on my palm wide open but I was so parched no blood wept from it. I seized the stone and held it tighty in my slashed hand. I knew oases were illusions, but couldn't let go of the hope that this one was real.

I vowed there and then that if I survived this ordeal I would track down the cruel, traitor guides, one by one, and make them eat the sharp desert rock, make them chew it until their teeth were smashed to splinters. Imagining more elaborate and obscene revenges gave me the stength to keep going, towards the water that may ot may not have been real.

 

[ctg]

I was tempted to edit this piece, but not for reason that there was grammatical or spelling mistakes, because there are none of them, but because in places this becomes bit confusing(.com).

First bit of confusion came with scooping the teeth. Wouldn't these Arabs draw their long curved knives and gallop in loud voice? Without you answering they would stab, steal your camel and let you die in the desert?

Second bit of confusion came with your character wrapping the turban on his head (that was numbed by the sun)? What do you mean with numbed by the sun? Are you trying to express the feeling of having a sun struck?

Third bit of confusion came by your character being suffocated by the desert, but not dyeing because of the thirst. Having the guides left the camel, why didn't he slaughter the animal and drank the blood?

Fourth one comes with the night time oasis. It wouldn't happen at the night time as whole desert is cooling down. Why is that your character chooses to travel in the heat and refuse to travel in night, when it's much cooler and he can navigate by the stars?

 

[dreir]

Am a bit pressed for time here but just wanted to mention that I was impressed with the earlier passages. The battlefield scene drew me in instantly, making me feel like I was there. And I was also quickly intrigued by the narrator as he showed his interesting character through both exposition and dialogue ("roared with ribald laughter" is great).

Will come back to this third part later

- Dreir -

 

[Malloriel]

I believe he's implying that the oasis appearing at night means that it's not a heat induced illusion, but that he's crawling toward a real desert oasis.

I think the impression he's giving with the Arabs is that they either have a specific plan for him themselves, or have been paid specifically to do something else with him, namely leave him in the desert with no water, a tired camel, no shelter, and no clear idea of how to get back out. Besides, I'm also pretty sure that not all deceptive Arab people are going to cut you for breaking into a game of Teeth.

Being numbed by the sun may be a comment on being past the point of the pain a sunburn would make leaving only a sense of numbness instead. That also implies he's going to be suffering A LOT later.

Drinking the blood of his camel right away wouldn't make any sense. He's only just been left, and you can go a few days without water before dying. Besides, his camel is his best hope of getting out of the desert and conserving energy since the camel can travel much further without the need to stop or drink, and conserves its own energy by not sinking into the dunes of sand because of the width of their feet and other adaptations. Being 'suffocated' by the desert is more imagery than anything else. Terms like 'the heat was oppressive' for example. The heat itself isn't oppressing anyone, but it's a term of imagery. 'The desert was suffocating' is along that same line. So, I think slaughtering the camel is probably the worst thing he can do for his own survival.

That's just what I got from it, though. I could be off.


And I greatly enjoyed this piece, Barney, despite the fact that I usually dislike stories told in the first person. More, though, I think I dislike the first person present tense POV, so past tense and good writing makes it so much easier to enjoy.

I love the use of period terms. It paints a deeper picture of the era and atmosphere he's in. I followed it all really easily and just sort of ticked off the little things as 'this will probably all be explained as we go along in the story', as showing an excerpt certainly isn't meant to explain all the little mysteries you set up as a writer.

All in all, very enjoyable. Not what I think I'd normally choose, but having read this much I'd be willing to go out and get it to see the rest.

 

[chopper]

ey up
this last piece actually reads to me like the POV of a man who doesn't understand the desert at all, & who is suffering the effects of concussion so much that he can't think straight. if that's the case, it's working rather well! nice work!

 

[Malloriel]

Agreed entirely!

 

[ctg]

I'm sorry I tried to fix the thing, when it didn't need fixing. I just could help but feel that geezer was going to get it. What a damn stupid move from his point of view. On the note of having no water in the desert. The problem is that you lose too much of water by sweating and the result is heatstroke, which definitely will kill you. And that's the reason why you travel in night and rest - in shade - during a daytime.

I'm sorry for being confused(.com).

 

[Malloriel]

No need to be sorry, ctg. Asking questions is how we learn, especially as writers. I think they're perfectly valid questions. And yeah, people do lose water from sweating and heatstroke and even breathing releases a lot of moisture. Another possible reason for wearing something across the nose and mouth in addition to keeping out the sand. But even in such extreme conditions it can be a few days before someone kicks it because of that. Travelling at night is definitely smart, and if you can find shelter in a sand-dune filled desert that's also the way I think wise travellers would go.

I think for this story, though, the travel done and tricks played were executed well. Personally.