Excerpts from title-less things I am writing.

[Sunshine_Kenz]

The beginning of yet another titless work.

Wynde​

​

She ran through the tall grasses, picking wildflowers as her mother balanced precariously on a wooden ladder, painting a shutter on the second floor. The day was perfect, warm but not hot with a cloudless sky coloured a wonderful shade of blue, and she was impatient for her mother to finish so she could come play. She had no one else to play with, her father being at the nearest town buying supplies, two days away.
As she stretched her small hand out to pick a brilliantly coloured red flower, she heard a small crash followed by a cry from her mother. Flower forgotten, she turned to see her mother and the ladder crashing to the ground. Time seemed to trickle to a halt as she ran to her mother, who was laying in a mangled heap among the remnants of the ladder, face pale and distorted with pain.
Tears streaming down her cheeks, the six-year-old knelt by her mother's side, futilely wishing for a miracle. Trembling, her mother pulled a simple silver band from her finger and placed it in her daughter's hand. Her mother smiled softly as the pain slipped from her face and she sank into death.
I woke, shaking. As my eyes adjusted to the pre-dawn light coming through my window, I stared at the silver ring on my finger, the ring my mother had given to me nine years ago.

---

And another...

• Niyve •​

I cursed vehemently, managing to name Atid, Nija, and Levene in the same sentence, surprising even myself with the vividness of my oaths. How I had managed to get myself cornered in a dark alley by seven men equipped with all sorts of weaponry I could not even name, I did not know, but I was determined not to let it happen again, assuming I could manage to make it through tonight. Doubtlessly, they were thief-catchers -- Why else would they be pursuing me? -- but their mannerism and coordination left me frightened. The only others I had encountered of similar profession worked alone and carried not half the weapons these men did.
I nervously fingered the rough hilts of the daggers residing in each of my palms, nervously watching the knives each of the men carried, held in front of them, trained at me, the wickedly-curved steel blades glinting brightly in the light cast by the full moon positioned high above our heads in the clear, starry sky.

---

Lol, yet another.

Prologue​

“Of course I will!” Celeste answered without hesitation. “Have you talked to Elm about it?”
Her cousin nodded, a few strands of orange escaping from the drab scarf hiding her vibrant, sunset-coloured hair. "He was the one to think of the idea. I was- am- against the notion, but I knew you'd care for her as if she were your own." She sighed and tried to rub the worried creases from her forehead. "Your family- What will you tell them?"
"I'll tell the twins she's a cousin, my brother's daughter," Celeste murmured after some moments of thought. "Her parents died in a fire, and I took her in."
"What of your husband?"
"He deserves the truth."
A noise deeper in the forest startled both women and they warily looked around themselves.
Maple embraced her cousin tearfully. "May the Aysel never find you."
"As with you," Celeste replied.
Maple laughed bitterly. "I'm afraid it's too late for that."
Celeste smiled sadly and watched her friend depart. "Her name!" she yelled belatedly at Maple's fleeting figure.
The response floated back, quietly echoing through the trees.
"Mirielle."

• • •​

"Aysel!" Ryan yelled as he ran into the small house. "They're here!"
Ignoring the questions, Celeste grabbed the three children and firmly sent them through a hidden trapdoor. "Not a sound," she warned them. "No matter what."
The door burst open and seven male Barkare entered the one-roomed house. The air turned cold and an icy wind swept through the house. Ryan took careful aim and let an arrow fly. A Barkare fell, the arrow protruding from his chest. In retaliation, one of the dead man's comrades hurled a dagger at Ryan as he was reloading. Celeste's husband dropped to the ground, a red patch spreading across his shirt.
Before Celeste could move, one of the Aysel grabbed and disarmed her. As one held the struggling woman and the leader watched with arms crossed and a scowl, the remaining four Barkare crudely searched the home, carelessly overturning tables and chairs. Finding nothing, they left, dragging Celeste behind them. Minutes later, Celeste began to scream. Abruptly, the sound cut off.

• • •​

Karsten walked into the desecration that had previously been the Galicen's home, overcome with horror. The door was lying in splinters on the floor, and the furniture was scattered everywhere, overturned and broken.
Clearly written in red on the wall was the word 'AYSEL'. Upon closer inspection, Karsten found the ink to be dried and peeling, and slowly realized it was blood. Turning his mind form it, he kneeled next to Ryan's body. Reverently, Karsten closed his eyes and removed the dagger from his friend's body, thinking all the while. Why would Aysel come to Zairn? What were they after? With a sigh, he stood, wiping his breeches.
"Rielle? Lisi? Jasper?" he called out tentatively. "Celeste?"
"Karsten?" a young girl's voice drifted up from beneath the floorboards.
Three heads popped up from a trapdoor he'd not noticed before.
"Karsten!" the youngest shrieked, barrelling into him.
He picked up the brown-eyed child and hurried over to the twins. "What happened?" he asked Jasper and Listelle softly, afraid to know.
Listelle caught sight of her father's body and turned away, eyes filled with tears. Karsten kneeled next to the nine-year-old and hugged her, unsure of what to say.
"We were attacked," Jasper relayed solemnly. "Ma put us in there and told us to be quiet."
"We heard lots of fighting," Listelle supplied in a whisper. "Then Ma was screaming, and-" She choked off with a sob that shook her small frame.
"Is she dead?" Karsten asked, more as a statement than a question. All three heads bobbed up and down in unison. He sighed and stood, still carrying Mirielle. "Let's go."
"Where?" Listelle queried, confused.
"Home with me, if you want," he offered.
"Are you our Da now?" Mirielle questioned, half-asleep on his shoulder.
Karsten smiled, sadness in his dark eyes. "Yes."

• • •​

​

One​

I stared out through one of the small windows of the carriage across the dry, acrid desert surrounding us as we jolted along the hard-paced dirt road leading to Lerone. According to the maps I had studied in my Geography lessons, the road we were following would soon veer left and enter the Kalith Forest.

---

Critiscm would be great, but please don't be too harsh, I'm new at this.

 

[goldhawk]

First of all, you'd be better off putting one excerpt per post. Second, consider calling them non-mammalian rather than titless.

 

[chrispenycate]

Well, you don't need me, either. I'll just go away then, shall I?

Possibly 'titleless'?

The day was perfect, warm but not hot with a cloudless sky coloured a wonderful shade of blue,

comma after "hot".

The door burst open and seven male Barkare entered the one-roomed house. The air turned cold and an icy wind swept through the house.

It would be better without the two sentences finishing in the word "house"

In retaliation, one of the dead man's comrades hurled a dagger at Ryan as he was reloading.

Check with somebody who does archery – MattyK recently owned up to some experience, and I know Lioness has done some – and check whether you say 'reload' for a bow (it's a pastime very rich in specialised vocabulary) I fear the main thing I learnt was that a bowstring could project a pair of glasses a remarkable distance…

we jolted along the hard-paced dirt road leading to Lerone.

packed?

 

[dustinzgirl]

I changed the thread title from titless to title-less, because well, titless is a whole 'nother forum.

 

[TheEndIsNigh]

I'll give the first one a go:

She ran through the tall grasses, (not easy to do, any flowers not choked off by the tall grass would be hellish difficult to reach and grab as the grass whipped your arms to shreads. The flower would probably end up a crushed bunch of stalks and petals) picking wildflowers as her mother balanced precariously on a wooden ladder, painting a shutter on the second floor. The day was perfect, warm but not hot with a cloudless sky coloured a wonderful shade of blue, and she was impatient for her mother to finish so she could come play. She had no one else to play with, her father being at the nearest town buying supplies, two days away.
As she stretched her small hand out to pick a brilliantly coloured red flower, she heard a small crash followed by a cry from her mother. Flower forgotten, she turned to see her mother and the ladder crashing to the ground. Time seemed to trickle to a halt as she ran to her mother, who was laying in a mangled (crumpled maybe) heap among the remnants of the ladder, face pale and distorted with pain.
Tears streaming down her cheeks, (is this the girl or the mother's cheeks) the six-year-old knelt by her mother's side, futilely wishing for a miracle. Trembling, her mother pulled a simple silver band from her finger and placed it in her daughter's hand. Her mother smiled softly as the pain slipped from her face and she sank into death.
I woke, shaking. As my eyes adjusted to the pre-dawn light coming through my window, I stared at the silver ring on my finger, the ring my mother had given to me nine years ago.

(Confusing :- is this meant to mean that the girl has been in some sort of shock/coma for nine years or that it was a dream. I hope the latter in which case the immediate aftermath of surviving for the two days on worms and stale bread would be good to read)

---

TEiN

 

[The Pelagic Argosy]

The first part: I understand that it's a dream, but is it an actual memory of the way the girl's mother died? It's too melodramatic and pat. A little girl skipping through a meadow picking flowers is a cliche. And then WHAM! And then the mom lives just long enough to give her daughter the ring before succumbing. It's too storybook. (I know, I know...it's the way dramatic deaths always happen in the movies. But that's the reason it doesn't work on the page.) I think you should try to come up with something more original.

(It's possible that this isn't an actual memory. Since it is a dream, maybe the mom died in a less-than-heroic fashion, and maybe this dream is a wish-fulfillment fantasy. In which case, the over-the-top symbolism is fine. Maybe the ladder represents something Freudian also. In which case, you'd have to explain all that after the girl wakes up.)

The rest of it...Generally speaking, I think you're jumping ahead too fast and skimming over too much. You need to slow down and fill in the details.

For example, "...How I had managed to get myself cornered in a dark alley by seven men equipped with all sorts of weaponry I could not even name, I did not know...but their mannerism and coordination left me frightened." Wow, this could be a really exciting scene, if you would go ahead and describe it. Describe these frightening mannerisms. How do thief catchers dress? Are they moving slowly and silently like ninjas or are they quick with those weapons? Are they hurling taunts at the character?

The dialogue is good in the first part of the prologue. I just need more description of the characters and setting. They're in a forest, and they're spooked by a noise, and I gather that they're being pursued by this Aysel thing. It's okay that I don't understand yet who Aysel is. But I do need to know how these two women came to meet up in the forest. Did they plan to meet at this particular spot to make plans? Or did they just run into each other in the midst of pursuit? Do they live in the forest? Do they live in the same village? How familiar are they with the forest? Etc...

The next section...Ryan is Celeste's husband. A 'small house': a cabin in the aforementioned forest? What were Celeste and the children doing before the commotion started? What was Ryan doing? Playing, working, or sleeping? Is it noon or night? Cabins are dark, so I need to get a fix on a light source. If its daytime, light could be coming through windows (but crude cabins have small windows. And maybe none at all.) Or light could be coming from a fireplace, or from a few sputtering candles. If they were asleep when this attack started, they'd be stumbling around in the dark. How do the children behave when the attack begins? Are they screaming, crying, or wide-eyed with terror? She ordered them to be quiet, but that doesn't mean they succeeded.

Well, maybe they weren't sleeping, as Ryan and Celeste were both armed when this attack started? Ryan has a bow and Celeste is armed with...something. Do they normally walk around with weapons while going about their business at home? If Barkare attacks are common, they might very well be armed while playing with the children. They might even sleep with weapons close at hand. But it would seem more realistic that they would have to scramble about the house to find their weapons. Did Ryan/Celeste attempt to bar the door? How quickly did these Barkares close in?

Btw...after reading this, I don't have any clue what a Barkare is. I don't even know if it's a man or some sort of beast. Maybe this all happened rather quickly, but I still need a few more clues.

The final section is the best of all of them. If you fill in some of the holes I mentioned above, it would stand up pretty well.

 

[TheEndIsNigh]

The Pelagic Argosy:

Maybe the ladder represents something Freudian

TPA that's deep

 

[Sunshine_Kenz]

Yeah, I'm better with screenplays then novels, one of my weakest points is description.

Thanks for the advice, everyone, I'm sure it'll help me tons. Once school starts, I may actually be able to comprehend everything and work on these a bit more, after I've turned in my summer-brain. Anyways, thanks!

 

[MattyK]

Check with somebody who does archery – MattyK recently owned up to some experience, and I know Lioness has done some – and check whether you say 'reload' for a bow (it's a pastime very rich in specialised vocabulary)

I'll be honest, I don't know if there's a more specialised word to use than reloaded, I don't think there is any way. I'm pretty sure you do "load" an arrow onto a bow so to reload it sounds right to me. I'm always prepared to be wrong though (saves time).

I fear the main thing I learnt was that a bowstring could project a pair of glasses a remarkable distance…

Did you hit the boss, though?

 

[chrispenycate]

Did you hit the boss, though?

Don't know; couldn't see that far without my glasses.

But the boss wasn't there, only me, an instructor, and a couple of other instructables. Who were behind me, and even I'm not gifted enough to release backwards. I had been aiming at a 'butte', or straw bale, rather than attempting the sophisticated targets with their rings. I don't believe I even scared it (though how could I see?)