[Tes'thesula]

Hey guys,

Reading through this forum is very inspiring and has lead to me starting to work a lot more directly on the story I want to tell.
At the moment, I am just in the planning stages, trying to get the major plot arcs in place, and trying to catch as many inconsistencies as I can before I start writing. However, I am finding just writing notes and bites and pieces in a notebook a lot easier than actually sitting down and typing up some actual story - I'm not sure if any of you suffer from that affliction as well - and am hoping that making it a bit more public will give me an incentive to start producing some pages.

As to the story itself- it is nothing really groundbreaking, but is something to just help me practice writing and will hopefully end up as at least an enjoyable read.

Two neighbouring powers live in an uneasy peace, and the recent discovery of a rich node of a rare metal in their borderlands will put a heavy strain on that peace as the emissaries from the Ascendancy of Quer make their way to the court of the Lord Steward of Ventur.
An ancient and forgotten threat resurfaces as gods and sorcerers walk the world and mortals must, as always, pay the price.

[Tes'thesula]

[So this is pretty much the prologue to the story, fairly short and set long before the actual story. Let me know your thoughts]

---

The plains were not what they seemed.
To the eyes of a visitor, to a person used to the craggy vertical lands of the far north or the steaming jungles of the distant south, the plains appeared to be flat and featureless. They were a place where a man could sit on his haunches and see for miles in any direction he cared to turn his head. A place where any threat could be seen and watched, where surprise was impossible. It was easy to fall into a sense of complacency, to become convinced that if a danger could not be spotted, then it did not exist.
This, as any hunter would tell you, was simply not true.

The girl crawled achingly slowly through the depression in the earth, the long thin grass reaching up to tickle her nose. She suppressed the urge to sneeze, scrunching up her face and furrowing her brow. Like any other plainsman she knew that the ground was laced with channels such as the one she was in, folds in the earth where the cunning hunter could crawl, unseen and unexpected. Each movement she made was careful and exact, and she placed her dirty and dust stained elbows and scratched up knees only where she knew they would make no noise. She did not wish to alert her prey to her presence until it was too late.
The short girl, her blonde hair knotted and caught through with loose strands of the yellow grass, moved her weapon to her other hand, and licked her thin lips. The look of concentration on her young face might have shocked one who did not know her, but it sat well-worn on her face. Carefully, so slowly as to not give a whisper of her movement, she lifted her head, just far enough so that she could peek over the rise. A feral grin was suppressed as she spotted the telltale grey of Gru’s shirt amongst the yellow of the grass.
She was so close, a little further and she would pounce.
She paused, torn between wishing to attack and the need to keep her prey unawares. She could feel her hand trembling as the excitement and tension pumped outwards from her heart in a trill. She looked over her shoulder, as she had done many times already. There was nothing behind her but the channel, and then further, the humps and smoke towers that was her village.
She knew that she and Gru had probably wandered too far again. But playing Seek in amongst the huts of the winter village had grown boring. They both knew the best places to hide, and every game had just become a routine checking off of that list. And anyway, she was almost a grown up now, practically old enough to start braiding her hair like the women did.
The fact that the braids that she had secretly being trying to weave did not turn out looking quite like they were meant to was something that she had sworn Gru to secrecy over. He was just a baby and didn’t understand what it was like being a grown up.
She flicked her head as a beetle tried to cross from a stalk of grass onto her forehead and began to drag herself up the slope of the depression, the charred and snapped long bone that she used as her weapon clutched tightly in one small hand.
Now flat, the grey of Gru’s shirt sliced up by the grass that blocked her vision, she worked herself into a crouch, legs tucking up underneath her body. She tried to control it, but her breaths could not help but come quicker and shallower. It felt like days that she had been stalking her prey, and it was something more to her than just a children’s game. It was a chance to prove that she could hunt just as well as any of the grownups, that she was ready to join their number.
She pounced, silent and focused, leaping onto the back of the grey shape and cracking down with tip of her club. She shrieked with victory as the bone connected with the shirt. She had won, had killed Gru before he had even seen her!
But as soon as that thought passed into her head it was torn away. She grew chilled and she knew that there was something wrong. She rolled onto her knees, ignoring the empty grey shirt that had been arranged over a mound of dirt. Her eyes scanned the horizon, making every mistake that she had trained herself not to make in her panic.
Where was he?
A drop of ice ran down her spine as she straightened and she dove off the shirt, flinging herself to the right just as a shape crashed down behind her.
‘Sil!’ a boy’s voice yelled, ‘I got you! You’re dead’
She, slapped her open hand against the ground, gusting up a puff of dust, fighting down the anger that threatened to spill over into tears.
‘No you didn’t! You missed me,’ she turned and looked at her prey.
Gru’s chubby pink face was split into a large smile, and he clumsily pushed back the curls of his brown hair from his eyes, ‘I hit your leg Sil, that means I win.’
Sil snorted and put her hands on her hips, ‘That’s why you don’t win stupid, you can’t kill people by hitting their leg. Everyone knows that,’ she said, walking over to his shirt, ‘And anyway, you cheated.’
Gru was still smiling, which annoyed her most of all, even if he was shivering slightly in the cool afternoon air.
‘It’s not cheating. You’re just mad that I tricked you.’
She had to admit to herself that she was not expecting Gru to be quite so cunning and that she had fallen for it completely, but she knew that was something she could never tell him. It was a trick she would have to remember for next time though.
‘You didn’t trick me! I tricked you!’ she replied, taking a step closer to her friend.
He eyed her suspiciously, pulling back slightly, ‘How do you mean?’
Swift as a hare, Sil poked him in the chest with the tip of her bone and as he yelped in shock and pain she danced off, laughing.
‘Got you, got you! I win!’ she said, bouncing from foot to foot and waving her weapon above her head. She could practically feel Gru glaring at her back, and that just made her grin all the bigger. Part of the reason that she kept spending time with a baby like Gru was that he was so easy to rile up. And she was faster than him.
Just as Gru bent his head down and began to run after her, there was a loud bark from behind them, and their play faltered.
‘Grundil, Sil!’
They stopped mid stride, the deep pitch of the voice instantly making them aware of their ages and causing a unstoppable blossoming of guilt. From the direction of the village came Dane, one of the youngest of the herders, his cheeks brushed with rough touch of dark stubble. Even from a distance they could see his mouth was curled down in an angry frown.
He did not wait until he was close, instead he waved them over, each movement of his arm an assault on the air.
‘What are you doing so far from the village?’ he said, as soon as they inched near, ‘I’ve been looking for you everywhere.’ He jabbed his finger at Gru’s pale bird-like chest. ‘If I hadn’t of heard Sil yelping just now I would probably still be looking.’
Wasn’t me yelping stupid Dane. Just ‘cause Gru sounds like a girl when he’s scared, Sil thought thought vindictively to herself, though she couldn’t help but let a sliver of worry worm its way into her thoughts. Dane was not being his usual self. His gaze kept darting back towards the village, and he hardly looked at the pair of them. Where he would normally be trying to intimidate them with his size, seeking to prove his difference from the children, now he only gripped their shoulders and steered them back towards the village and the heartfire.
‘What do you want Dane?’ Gru asked, still shirtless and still confident from his ambush.
This time the older boy did cuff him, smacking the back of Gru’s head with an open hand.
‘Just shut your mouth Gru,’ he said, and that was all.
They walked in silence the rest of the way to the winter village, which was really just a collection of huts and common buildings, Dane’s fingers digging into their shoulders and Sil had to work hard not to squirm out of his grip. She could tell that something was wrong, but there had been no cry of alarm in the distance – just this awkward, oppressive silence which she could not understand or read.
In normal times, the village would be filled with sounds and movements, even this late in the day, when the sun was falling towards the horizon. The women would be sitting out, doing the odd chores that life on the plains required to function, preparing the evening meal, feeding and tending to the heartfire, all the while chatting and gossiping loudly, competing with the dogs for noise. If the men had returned from managing the herd of hardy cattle that were their livelihood, then they would be working still, repairing their tools, or skinning the chosen beast.
Endless number of things that all needed to be done, but as the threesome walked closer, Sil could see that none of things were happening, and that an eerie quiet had descended over her home. The jar from the ordinary sequence of events even seemed to affect Gru, who stopped muttering curses at Dane, and soon looked even younger than his eight winters.
As they rounded the daub back of the longhouse, Dane pushed them forward, and Sil cursed as she fell to her knees.
‘I found these two, they were playing way out,’ Dane said, and Sil knew straight away that he wasn’t talking to her or Gru.
She looked up, dusting her hands off on her trousers and was confronted by her entire family, all the eyes of the village looking towards her and Gru. She suddenly became very self-conscious. As far back as she could remember she had been fighting to get noticed, to be thought of as an important member of the village. And now, when it seemed that everyone, even the very oldest and respected figures, was looking to her, she found that she couldn’t match their gazes. She looked away, cheeks flushing red, towards the heartfire.
And she saw someone she had never seen before.

The Stranger was stood with his back to the heartfire, heavily bearded and layered in skins.
Sil had seen visitors to the village before, both in the winter village and in the summer grazing pastures. Sometimes they had been captives from the raids to and from the neighbouring Ceti peoples, or a wandering wickerman, who was treated to a meal, a cot and respect.
But this man, this Stranger was different.
He seemed to reflect the light of the falling sun, of the heartfire – glowing with a luminescence that Sil was not quite sure she saw. His hair was thick and the colour of fertile soil. He was not tall, but even in the company of such powerful men as Volf and her father, he radiated an assurance, a competence that gave her the chills and made her worry for all their safety.
She turned away from him and gave out a girlish gasp when she saw what the Stranger had brought to her village.
Children, a least a good two dozen of them.
Sil could not believe her eyes. She had thought that she had seen every shape and colour possible for a person. Old Magy was grey haired and crinkly skinned, as spindly as a spider, while Volf was huge and thick and red and blue eyed. But here, the Stranger had brought a cornucopia of peoples for her to gawp at. Children with skin that was as dark as night, or a liquid smooth brown. Eyes that were round and large, or tight and narrow. Tall, short, fat and thin, in one moment Sil’s horizons were stretched further than in her entire previous lifetime. They were piled into a large cart that was hitched to two docile-looking beasts with wide horns. The children stared back at her blankly, some with the wide-eyed gaze of confusion and wonder, others with a bland regard, as if they had seen the self-same scene repeated a hundred times.
What is going on?
She sought out her father, who seemed tense. His lean muscles were taut and his eyes rimmed in red. She could see him surrounded by a few of the more physical men, and Sult had his hand on her father’s shoulder, just in the same way Dane’s hand had been on her shoulder a moment ago. She met his gaze and she went to mouth something, but before she he could his mouth winced into a grimace and he looked away.
‘So, they are all here. Make your choice,’ said Volf, hands on his hips.
Sil stared at him, mind racing, still trying to understand what was about to happen. The Stranger nodded, and strode forward, seeking out the children hidden amongst the adults of the village. He didn’t seem to do anything to them, just look at them in his enigmatic way, as if sizing them up for something. She was studying him closely, looking for any trickery, any sign of the wicker magic that the village’s own Yester swore he performed.
She saw nothing but an unusual man squinting at children, but she did notice something strange as she screwed her face and peered. There was something different about many of the adults of the village. They stood differently, even Old Magy seemed straighter, her hair darker. It was odd for Sil, who looked at grownups and saw one whole group of people-who-were-older-than-her. Now she looked more carefully and saw a whole village of strangers. The thick-limbed but aging Volf, who had always been craggy featured, now had an almost smooth face, and his beard was lustrous in its fiery red colour. As Sil’s examination passed from face to face she saw that almost all of them seemed fresher, brighter than they had when the sun had rose. Even her father, her dear, precious protector, had no more grey streaks in his hair.
‘Sil,’ she felt a jab in the back of her ribs, and Gru’s hot, nervous breath in her ear. ‘What’s gonna happen Sil.’
She spun around to face her friend, angry at the interruption from her revelation, ‘Shush now Gru! I don’t know what’s happening.’
Her anger died in her throat when she saw that Gru was no longer looking at her, his mouth hanging open, and the sparkle of tears forming in the corner of his eyes.
She slowly turned back around. Turned to meet the golden eyes of the Stranger.
‘This one,’ he whispered.
Sil heard her father yell ‘No!’ but Sult was ready for it, throwing his strong arms around her father’s neck, holding him back long enough for others to reach forward and grab him still.
‘You can’t take her! You can’t let him take her!’ he yelled, thrashing in place.
Sil shrank back. She had never seen her father like this, never had his temper been anything but warm and collected. The Stranger merely smiled his enigmatic smile at her, holding out his hand. She recoiled from it like it was a reed snake.
Volf had turned on her father, pointing one thick finger.
‘You drank just as deeply as the rest of us Fen. You knew this could of happened!’
‘Not her Volf! Take it back! Stranger, take it back!’ he was pleading now, his voice as strained as his muscles, but it did him no good.
Sil felt strong hands pick her up. She was too confused, she tried to keep everything in her sight – her father, struggling with those who held him back, staring at her, the rest of the villagers, watching, guilty-faced but silent. She wanted to fight, fight for her father who was trying to fight for her, but she felt numb.
The Stranger placed her carefully in the cart, alongside a fair-skinned boy.
‘I promised that they will not come to harm. That promise is true,’ the Stranger said, his voice cool and vaguely foreign. No one in the village answered him and he nodded to himself, as if the answer was expected. He quickly rapped the haunches of one of the draft animals, clicking his tongue and leading them away.
Sil scrambled to the back of the cart, pushing children out of the way, no longer caring for their weird colours. She could see her father on his knees, tears openly streaming down his face. He yelled something at her, but she could not understand it. She reached out her arm, but she could not leap down from the cart, something held her in place. Her friend, dear Grundil, made to run after the cart but was quickly swept up by his mother who pulled him away.
The numbness spread throughout her body, clouding her mind as the cart bounced away from her village, the only place she had called home. She sank back, slumping against the rough wood, her pounding heart echoing in her ears.

Hours past and the cart never slowed. They seemed to eat up the distance and it did not seem like long before even the smoke from the heartfire was gone from the horizon. The other children avoided her, which suited Sil just fine. They were not her people, they didn’t even look like people and she didn’t want to talk to them, even if they could talk.
But then the boy whom she had been placed next to right at the beginning slid to sit down next to her. He was lanky, with pale-skin like hers with hair even lighter. On his chin where the blue tattoos that marked him as Ceti. She liked him even less.
‘You can understand me can’t you?’ he asked, grey eyes boring their gaze into the side of her skull.
Sil did not reply.
‘No one else on this cart speaks my tongue, but you must, even if you won’t say anything.’ he said, and Sil could see the beginnings of a smile forming on his lips. Clearly he had been starved of conversation for however long he had been stuck with the Stranger.
‘There are things you should know, since you are coming with us, stuff they wouldn’t have told you.’
Sil studiously tried to ignore him, hoping that he would lose interest and go away soon.
‘Our new master, the one who has taken us,’ the boy started, looking solemnly towards the gently rolling horizon.
‘You should know that he is not a man.’

[Tes'thesula]

I have a question for all the writers out there... How easy do you find it to write things out of chronological order?

[Fist Gamet]

Tes, I have some feedback for you. Hope some of this helps, and apologies if it reads harsh at times, it's not meant to but what one writes and another reads ain't always the same thing



“The girl crawled achingly slowly…” I wanted to point this out as an example of what not to do. Using two adverbs (achingly and slowly) only weakens the sentence and are not necessary. Crawling is, by definition, a slow process, and if she is doing it because she is in pain there are better ways to tell the reader this. If not, then why is it “achingly”? If you simply say “the girl crawled through the grass” there is nothing wrong with this, and, I would argue, actually captures the reader better, because then I want to know why she is doing this? Thus, the reader is hooked in the first, simple sentence.

“She did not wish to alert her prey…” this is probably not needed. I have deduced this already from the opening paragraph and, imho, it’s not good form to then explain to the reader in this manner as it’s almost dumbing down. Actually, removing such statements and allowing the reader to work it out for themselves is more engaging to read.

“She flicked her head as a beetle tried to cross from a stalk of grass onto her forehead and began to drag…” There is a bit of confusion regarding the subject of the sentence – is it her or the beetle? This will run smoother if you switch it around. “A beetle tried to cross from a stalk of grass to her forehead. She flicked it off then began to drag…” and so on.

“Sil thought vindictively to herself…” same point as before, “vindictively” jars the sentence here and you don’t need it. A good trick to avoid this is to ask yourself if the dialogue (or, in this case, thoughts) are strong and clear enough, you will not need the adverb to make the point. If it’s not god enough, rewrite it so that it is.

“What do you want Dane?’ Gru asked, still shirtless and still confident from his ambush…” This now seems to be from Gru’s PoV, otherwise, how do we know he is confident? If you have switched PoV you should be clearer about it and be sure you really need to – is his PoV now the best from which to tell the story? If it’s not his PoV then it should be rewritten in a way that makes it clear that the confidence he seems to have is the impression that Sil has.

Now, the opening dozen or so lines into the second paragraph beginning with “The Stranger” shows, for me, far stronger writing. Mentally, I sat up, intrigued. The quick and easy description of nomadic life was good and believable, and the fact you did not expand upon it or overdo it is an apt reflection of Sil’s view of it (it is just normal life to her).



In answer to the question, I have found there are two ways to attack the chronological problem: Either be vague enough to ingore it and ensure it doesn't become an issue for the reader; or do what I do and be meticulous in the planning. My own work sprawls across many days and dates, involving dozens of religiously important dates for several different religions. I have developed calendars for a number of different kingdoms and empires because I believe this is more authentic for the ancient world style setting. The religious dates have direct bearing upon the events of the story and the people involved, thus they are important.
Also, my characters all have flashback scenes to flesh out both them and the story, and so the history and chronology is important.
It's not easy at times and I make mistakes but it helps me track the story and world and make it feel more alive.

[Tes'thesula]

Thanks for the feedback Gamet! I rarely get proper feedback on things that I write so it's really helpful to get another persective on the things which I can be doing better.
As for trying to write out of chronology... I think I'm going to have get a lot deeper into the planning before just jumping into the scenes I want to write.

[Use Of Weapons]

Re: chronology. I cannot write out of sequence. Or rather, I can't write scenes I don't know the background to, but I can go back and write scenes I wasn't ready to write when I was in full flow. I have lots of placeholders of the form [AMAZING MAGIC DEMONSTRATION] or [KING'S COUNCIL SESSION: CHAR X STORMS OUT], which I couldn't quite manage at the time, but which I'd be quite happy about revisiting. In many ways, I can only write those scenes after finding out what the consequences are, and then working backwards. But I can't write forwards.

But that may be different. I know some writers who have scenes they've written with characters they love, and they're just waiting for the right story in which to insert them. I could never work like that, but horses for courses.

[Aimless]

my 2 cents: I think you should keep the sentence about Sil not wishing to alert her prey it doesn't dumb things down. Rather, it helps set the tone--serious, and then a little funny when it turns out to be a game, and then immediately serious again because of the contrast between her thoughts and the game. It also gives us our first glimpse of Sil's personality very early on, which, to me, is very enjoyable

[Tes'thesula]

Thanks Aimless, good to get another opinion on it.

The other writing is going very slowly, and I'm not even sure if it will end up being part of the story or not. I sort of wanted to write about a place/people in order to flesh out the character of the place and the people who lived there. For me it helps to actually write when trying to get a feel of people's personalities. Anyway, I've found myself slowly sort of moving into the story - but yes, progress is very slow and the style isn't ideal.

Ah well, I'm having fun creating the world and story.

[Tes'thesula]

I need a quick bit of help.

How would you describe a figure 8 shape in a fantasy world? Or is it acceptable to use that as a description even though the world most probably doesn't have the character '8'? It needs to be short and to the point.

[Fist Gamet]

Depends on the context. Having said that, it is perfectly acceptable to your reader to mention the figure 8 even if you know it doesn't exist in your world. Many, many things are assumed and accepted. Take, for example, the huge numbers of words in the english language derived from latin, french, spanish etc that are used freely. Does it matter that there are no french or spanish in your world?
Some things will matter, like measurements of weight, money and time because these things were developed over time in many different ways in different cultures and if you work something out for your own cultures it will add authenticity for sure. For numbers, well, I would say it's not an issue.

[Tes'thesula]

Urgh, this is hard work... But I feel at least that I am making progress once again. My current goal is to write at least 500 words a day. I know it's not a terribly huge amount, but it's something and I usually end up writing more anyway. Now all I need to do is keep this up for a year or two

[Fist Gamet]

Man, it shouldn't be hard, it should be fun! Remember, you can go back and edit and edit and edit as much as you want once you have written the scene (in reference to any scene) - in fact, you absolutely SHOULD go back and edit and edit again - but just get the thing written first. Don't try to make it perfect before moving the story on as this will kill your momentum and drain your will.
Hope it's going well