So, here goes.
Kyros went down to both knees in the moist leaf-covered ground where a stag lie dying.
An arrow protruded from its body behind the foreleg. Kyros grinned meekly at the precision of his shot placement. Shallow and labored breathing confirmed that death was imminent.
“Not to worry my friend, it will be over soon,” he said grabbing the antler nearest the ground and placing the other hand on the muzzle. He took a deep breath and prepared himself for what he was about to do. Closing his eyes and using all the strength at his disposal, Kyros pulled on the muzzle. The stag struggled feebly until its neck snapped, ending its pain.
Kyros sat back on his feet and sighed deeply, and rested as he pulled out his knife and began to recite a prayer that his father taught him when he was a young boy.
“My most humble apologizes Artemis. This magnificent beast is a necessary sacrifice. The taking of its life means the lengthening of my family’s. I return the life of this beast back to the earth, from whence it came.” He then slit the throat of the stag and let the precious life-giving blood run into the ground.
A black vulture landed on a branch about Kyros and screeched its arrival. The scavenger’s eerie cry echoed throughout the forest and brought the hunter back to his senses.
Sorry guys I put 'antler' where I should've put 'muzzle'. Thanks for pointing it out to me. It shows that he uses the antler as a pivot point.
-Bryan-
[This message has been edited by Monolith (edited January 18, 2005).]
Also, you could paint the scene in a little more detail, and also some more precision with regards to relative placements (watch "where" and "about"). Maybe back up a bit to where Kyros tracks this deer down, so he can enter the scene and look around.
The little ritual didn't quite sound right, I particularly lurched at "magnificent beast" and "life-giving blood" for some reason. There were some grammatical oddities too, but I didn't worry about them much. Also, when you say that the vulture's cry brought Kyros "back to his senses", that kinda implies that he was in some kinda trance or something. Which would also generate a POV issue in describing the bird landing on the branch.
I had the impression, from the comment of the arrow placement, that he had gotten it in the heart, if that was the case it would have been dead already, if that was not the intent of the "arrow placement" comment, then what was?
I'd also use native american references for the ritual he performs or maybe druidic depending on how you want it flavored. The ritual is flat in the current implementation.
Look forward to seeing more.
Kyros went down to both knees in the moist leaf-covered ground where a stag lie dying. Shallow and labored breathing confirmed that death was imminent. An arrow protruded from its body behind the foreleg.
Kyros grinned meekly at the precision of his shot placement. “Not to worry my friend, it will be over soon.”
The breaking of the neck made sense to me. He's ending the animal's pain, and demonstrating an ability to empathize. I agree on eliminating coming "back to his senses." I think he's had his senses about him the entire time.
As for the ritual, I'd say elaborate only if the detail is essential to your story. Short and concise works well for me. I see what Survivor means when he lurched at "magnificent beast" and "precious life-giving blood." The adjectives seem excessive, now that I look again. I get the sense that this is a familiar ritual to Kyros, so those adjectives are there to impress the reader, not as a natural thought pattern. Just be careful of falling into clichés.
Same adjective thing with "the scavenger's eerie cry." The bird's already screeched in the previous sentence, and we know he's a black vulture, a scavenger. Do I really need to know that his cry is also eerie?
For me it seemed a big risk to try and break a stag's neck when he could have slit it.
Anyway, yeah. Breaking the neck is for, like, ducks and stuff. I was also slightly disturbed by the fact that the manner in which Kyros broke the stag's neck seemed to involve pressing its muzzle into the ground. But for all of that, I'm still curious as to why he does it.
This type of hunter is going to be more concerned with the meat of the kill and salvaging it's hide intact, as such he would be far less concerned with damaging the head, like a modern hunter (concerned about the trophy) would be.
That may impact shot placement etc. as well.
Also, my understanding is that bowhunting is quite humane. The animal probably wouldn't be in pain, especially if there was a clean shot.
The vulture bit threw me a bit, but probably because I am used to envisioning a turkey vulture. The habitat that I associate with vultures (hot, arid desert) is very different from the habitat I associate with deer (cool, lush forest). A raven or magpie, though perhaps less impressive in presence, seems closer to the type of carrion bird that might be in the same forest as a deer. Just some thoughts.
I wouldn't want to eat this deer after. Talk about fear-soaked meat.
For purposes of draining blood quickly, it is best if you slit the throat while the heart is still beating strongly and allow the animal to bleed out. This isn't usually too practical, so you just open the carotid arteries and jugular veins when the opportunity first presents itself. You can't leave it too long after death or the blood will congeal, which is disgusting.
Killing with primitive weapons is almost never really humane unless you use poison (and there are poisons and poisons, when it comes to questions of a humane kill). But opening the carotid arteries will decrease the blood flow to the brain well below that necessary for consiousness, especially if the jugulars are opened as well. This is best done with a knife, though. Hitting targets very precisely with an arrow can be done on a range with a bit of practice--unmoving targets at fixed distances. When hunting a skittish animal prone to bounding away, you're doing well to get an arrow in it at all. There is also the issue of power vs. aim. Before the developement of compound bows used by modern hunters, the draw weight of a bow was a direct measure of the force you needed to exert (with one hand) while aiming. 50 lb. is about what I would call the minimun for hunting deer, 75 lb. would probably be more reasonable powerwise, but it becomes very difficult to aim properly. And going for a head shot using a primitive bow is really out of the question. To penetrate the skull you need to hit it directly, even if you max out with a 150 lb. composite recurve warbow (not entirely primitive, either). Which means that the target area you need to hit is quite a bit smaller than the brain itself, which already isn't that large a target compared to the heart.
The main reason that bow hunting can be thought of as more humane is because the entire population isn't put under the same kind of stress during the bowhunting season. Animals that don't actually get shot won't really notice much happening. But for the animals that get shot, it isn't any less unpleasant.
[This message has been edited by Kickle (edited January 19, 2005).]
-Bryan-
Kyros followed a blood trail through the forest from a stag he just hit with an uncanny shot. The blood trail was small and barely noticeable, but the his keen eyes knew what signs to look for. He came to a clearing and saw the deer through some ferns and dense vegetation. He grinned as he walked towards the deer and noticed it didn’t get up to run, or try to take its final stand.
Kyros went down to both knees in the moist leaf-covered ground where a stag lie dying. An arrow protruded from its body behind the foreleg. Shallow and labored breathing confirmed that death was imminent. “Not to worry my friend, it will be over soon,” he said staddling the animal. Placing his large hands on the thick neck to hold the dying animal still, he closed his eyes and began to recite a prayer.
“My most humble apologizes Artemis. This magnificent beast is a necessary sacrifice. The taking of its life means the lengthening of my family’s. I return the life of this beast back to the earth, from whence it came.” He produced a large knife, slit the throat of the stag, and let the blood run into the ground.
A black vulture landed on a branch a few trees away from Kyros and screeched its arrival. The cry echoed throughout the forest and brought the hunter back to his senses, and reminded him to finish what he started.
[This message has been edited by Monolith (edited January 20, 2005).]
There are some tense errors where you describe an action that happens immediately before an action that is the focus of the text. There is also still a bit of fuzziness about some of the relative locations. The vulture's position is a little clearer in terms of distance, but we still don't have a heading.
The part where Kyros "produced a large knife" is not an improvement for me, it feels like you're breaking away from his POV there. And I'm still a little sketchy on just why watching a deer bleed puts him to sleep. That's kinda strange, just by itself like that. I guess if you put the prayer there, along with a little grateful reflection (to give us a bit of context for this particular hunt), that could work out nicely though.
It would not be unthinkable to say a small prayer to Mother Nature (or another Gaia type entity) when you remove a life from her kingdom.
Ok, Mr. Survivor, I'll try to be a little more careful of POV violations, as well as putting in a retrospect of how hard it was to bring this deer down, I agree with you on that.
Anymore questions that arise from this I'll be more than happy to answer.
-Bryan-
And I concur on Artemis, she's got jurisdiction over wild game hunts, and you don't want to piss her off. I'll try not to brass harrass you too much more, I promise
To begin, you seem to really be working hard at this opening scene, for which I have already offered a suggestion. However, regarding this scene specifically:
The first line just doesn't work for me. I don't know why -- which probably means it's simply a personal preferrance/style issue. It just doesn't introduce the story well enough for me to buy into it. I feel like I'm stepping right into the middle of something and am playing catch-up. Perhaps one of our grammar savvy folks could sum it up, but to me, I think changes in tense and word choice would make a big difference. Something more along the lines of:
"Kyros followed the blood trail through the forest."
Would be fine for the first sentence. Then you can expand upon the source of the blood trail after that.
Also, he came to a clearing and saw the deer through ... dense vegetation. How? Was he in the clearing or was the deer. If the vegetation was dense, how did he see through it? Perhaps he saw through an opening in the dense vegetation. Perhaps he saw through an opening in the dense vegetation a clearing ahead, where the stag lay dying.
The following sentences are okay. The prayer bit doesn't bother me at all, except to say that the vulture's cry bringing him back to his senses was a bit off -- he had already made his prayer and finished the beast off. I had no prior indication that he was dazed or otherwise unfocused mentally.
Also, if he SAW the bird approach, then its cry would not have shocked him much. If he DIDN'T see it approach, then he doesn't know it was a few branches away or that it landed. All he knows is he heard a cry, it shook him back to his senses, and he found a vulture resting on a branch nearby (obviousely the source of the cry)...
my 2 pennies.... good luck (and yes, it IS getting MUCH better each time I read it).
The first line seems a bit jerky though; maybe:
Kyros kneeled in the leaf-litter beside the fallen stag.
Or perhaps "where the dying stag lay.'
The 'kill' phase seems brutal and excessive and I don't think that is what you intend. If gentleness and respect is intended perhaps he could slit the animal's throat and sit with bowed head until it bleeds out. Or place a hand on its forehead or something.
Sometimes you seem to 'double-up' on ideas like 'body' and 'behind the foreleg' when the sentence could be tighter. I would delete the word'placement' as the idea is implicit in 'shot' and 'precision'
Also 'grinned' doesn't strike me as the right word here.
I think you have done a good job of quick characterisation.
The vulture strikes me as a harbinger.
If this man believes in a world inhabited by daemons and other unseen beings; what would he make of the vulture?
I hope this opinion is useful.
[This message has been edited by hoptoad (edited January 24, 2005).]
Now pay attention. I said "exercise"! I'm not suggesting that you change this to first person, just that you convert it to first person to see how it reads. Take the first line of the latest posted version, for instance:
quote:A straightforward conversion into first person gives:
Kyros followed a blood trail through the forest from a stag he just hit with an uncanny shot.
quote:Now it sounds like the character is bragging about his "uncanny" shot. That tells you that in the 3PLO POV, either the character is so stuck-up that he brags even to himself, when no one else is around (which the rest of your characterization doesn't support), or it's YOU, the AUTHOR, praising the shot of your POV character--in other words, a POV violation.
I followed a blood trail through the forest from a stag I just hit with an uncanny shot.
This won't catch all of the potential POV problems (for instance, I don't think it would help with the one rjzeller mentioned, about knowing where the raven landed), but I think it could help you with a lot of them.
[This message has been edited by rickfisher (edited January 25, 2005).]
Kyros followed the blood trail through the forest, which was a day’s journey from his village of Atrados. The blood trail was small and barely noticeable, but his keen eyes knew what signs to look for. He saw the deer in a clearing through some ferns in the dense vegetation where it lay dying. He grimaced as he walked out of the vegetation towards the deer, and noticed it didn’t get up to run, or try to take its final stand.
Kyros went down to both knees in the moist leaf-covered ground where the stag lay dying. An arrow protruded from its body behind the foreleg. Shallow and labored breathing confirmed that death was imminent. “Not to worry my friend, it will be over soon,” he said straddling the animal. Placing his large hands on the thick neck to hold the dying animal still, he closed his eyes and began to recite a prayer.
“My most humble apologizes Artemis. This magnificent beast is a necessary sacrifice. The taking of its life means the lengthening of my family’s. I return the life of this beast back to the earth, from whence it came.”
A black vulture landed on a branch a few trees away from Kyros and screeched its arrival. The cry echoed throughout the forest and brought the hunter back to his senses, rending his thoughts of how long and hard it was to find the beast after he shot it.
[This message has been edited by Monolith (edited January 25, 2005).]
quote:
Kyros followed the blood trail through the forest, which was a day’s journey from his village of Atrados. The blood trail was small and barely noticeable, but his keen eyes knew what signs to look for. He saw the deer in a clearing through some ferns in the dense vegetation where it lay dying. He grimaced as he walked out of the vegetation towards the deer, and noticed it didn’t get up to run, or try to take its final stand.
I don’t like the use of “blood trail” twice in the first two sentences.
Try cutting “which was a day’s journey from his village of Atrados. The blood trail was small and barely noticeable, but his keen eyes knew what signs to look for.” Is this information necessary? This would take care of your “blood trail” repeat as well.
Why did he grimace?
quote:
Kyros went down to both knees in the moist leaf-covered ground where the stag lay dying. An arrow protruded from its body behind the foreleg. Shallow and labored breathing confirmed that death was imminent. “Not to worry my friend, it will be over soon,” he said straddling the animal. Placing his large hands on the thick neck to hold the dying animal still, he closed his eyes and began to recite a prayer.
“Moist leaf-covered ground” is heavy on the adjectives to me. Do I need to know that the ground is both moist and leaf-covered? You could add a comma after ground, to separate the prepositional phrase. I had a thing about passive verbs lately, but “confirmed that death was imminent,” could be said “confirmed its imminent death,” or “confirmed an imminent death,” making the style more direct. Last two sentences use the word “animal” twice. Is this a clue that the ideas can be condensed? Maybe put the straddling in that last sentence. Should the spoken quote start a new paragraph?
quote:
“My most humble apologizes Artemis. This magnificent beast is a necessary sacrifice. The taking of its life means the lengthening of my family’s. I return the life of this beast back to the earth, from whence it came.”
The above speech works fine for me.
quote:
A black vulture landed on a branch a few trees away from Kyros and screeched its arrival. The cry echoed throughout the forest and brought the hunter back to his senses, rending his thoughts of how long and hard it was to find the beast after he shot it.
I agree with hoptoad, the vulture is an omen. “from Kyros” can probably stand deleting. I understand the proximity without it. Like I said before, I think Kyros always had his senses, and didn’t need “bringing back.” Now that he’s rending all those thoughts, does your narrator go on to render his thoughts as well?
Nice trick, rickfisher, rewriting in first person to look for point of view slips. I’ll have to remember that one.
Take the note that this forest is "a day’s journey from his village of Atrados." Now, there are actually a number of plausible reasons he might think of this. He's going to have to find this animal and carry it back home, and time-frame could be important. But you don't mention anything like that. The way it is written, this information pops up for no clear reason and has no apparent effect on the immediate scene.
The key function of POV is to put the readers into a situation where they experience the story from the point of view of your character. I know that sounds obvious when it's phrased thus, but it is one of the first things that writers forget about POV. Anything that helps the reader to imaginatively experience the same things which the character is experiencing is good POV. So it is key that the presentation of information make sense in an intuitive flow of the narrative. I currently know a great many things, but a good writer using my POV would not mention them unless making the point that I was just in the mood to think about random things that I know. Good POV restricts itself to information that is purpositive or decisive, information that the character has a reason to think about or information that is affecting the actions of the character. If it isn't immediately clear why the character is thinking something and that thought doesn't have clear consequences, then you need to either justify it or cut it. Littering your text with nuggets of information that the reader is simply to remember "for later" makes reading into a chore.
[This message has been edited by Kickle (edited January 26, 2005).]
Oh, I'm preening and we all know it. I'll just run and make myself some tasty peanut-butter fudge now
Thanks,
-Bryan-
A day’s journey from his walled village of Atrados, Kyros followed the blood trail through the forest. The trail was small and barely noticeable, but his keen eyes knew what signs to look for. Following the blood drop by drop through the dense undergrowth of the forest, Kyros knew that the stag was close-by. Smashed, broken and bent bushes and ferns made a path that was easy for him to follow. Coming to the edge of the dense vegetation, he pulled down some ferns and branches gently and saw the stag lying against a tree, laboring for every breath.
Sniffing the air, the stag caught the scent of the hunter and tried to get up. Standing shakily on its weak legs the stag tried to run.
Seeing this, Kyros slipped his bow off his shoulder and lined up a shot. “Apollo guide my arrow,” he said as he let the string loose.
The arrow impacted the stag in the jugular and it fell back to the ground, bleeding heavier than before.
Emerging from the vegetation, he slipped his bow around his shoulder, and walked towards his fallen prey.
Thanks for the time people.
-Bryan-
quote:
A day’s journey from his walled village of Atrados, Kyros followed the blood trail through the forest. The trail was small and barely noticeable, but his keen eyes knew what signs to look for. Following the blood drop by drop through the dense undergrowth of the forest, Kyros knew that the stag was close-by. Smashed, broken and bent bushes and ferns made a path that was easy for him to follow. Coming to the edge of the dense vegetation, he pulled down some ferns and branches gently and saw the stag lying against a tree, laboring for every breath.
I'd still prefer to see a more active voice. "Kyros tracked the injured deer for a full grueling day, following the small tell tale blood spatter.." etc.
quote:
Sniffing the air, the stag caught the scent of the hunter and tried to get up. Standing shakily on its weak legs the stag tried to run.
You don't really need "sniffing the air" it's redundant with "the stag caught the scent".
quote:
Seeing this, Kyros slipped his bow off his shoulder and lined up a shot. “Apollo guide my arrow,” he said as he let the string loose.
Drop "Seeing this" and just have "Kyros slipped his bow from his shoulder...".
quote:
The arrow impacted the stag in the jugular and it fell back to the ground, bleeding heavier than before.
This passage feels too technical. "The arrow took the stag in the throat, it stumbled back to the ground, blood flowing freely from the new wound." Paint us the picture.
I'd really like to see you focus in on Kyros' POV and firm up his voice. This scene is visceral and intense, but your using a remote POV and it diminishes the impact of the scene.
Keep up the good work!
[This message has been edited by HuntGod (edited January 28, 2005).]
I like the addition of the broken plants, etc. But my nit now is the phrasing about how hard the blood trail is to follow. Does the blood trail even matter, now that the deer is leaving an obvious trail like broken plants.
Easy to fix though, just remove the "blood trail so hard to follow phrasing".
One thing I notice is you have a tendency to follow a given pattern when it comes to a character "doing" something. For intance:
***
Sniffing the air, the stag caught the scent of the hunter and tried to get up.
***
or
***
Seeing this, Kyros slipped his bow off his shoulder and lined up a shot.
***
or
***
Emerging from the vegetation, he slipped his bow around his shoulder, and walked towards his fallen prey.
***
sort of a "while he's doing this...he does that" type of narrative. Most, if not all of these, could be fixed simply by deleting everything in front of the comma.
"Sniffing the air...the stag caught the scent" redundant.
"Seeing this....Kyros slipp" also redundant.
Emerging from the vegetation...walked towards the beast", again, redundant.
The latter would be okay to keep the first clause -- but reword it chronologically:
"He emerged from the vegetation and walked towards his fallen prey."
Avoid beginning your sentences with 'ing' and you're fine
Z