Here it is:

Hans crept quietly up the game trail, hearing the soft patter of rain hitting the jutted rocks to his right. He was hugging those same rocks to mask his approach. His fellow hunter, Eric, Huntmaster to the Duke of Dralonias, was silently making his way through the large trees to his left. Hans had heard the loud echo of a cave lion, soon to be dead at his hands if it was found. The shy and elusive creature was a trademark hunted creature amongst the Dralonias Mountains where several species of large game animals existed. There was a year round food supply for the large creatures that inhabited the mountains, the food being large elk that never leave the confines of the mountains due to the winter snow melting and creating several large rivers, creeks and lakes nestled amongst the game trails.

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Note: Please don't hold back on the criticism, I actually work better under harshness
 

You're the victim of my procrastination. I should be doing something else, but this is more interesting. As usual, my caustic commentary is given in a constructive spirit...

You've got a fair amount of passive voice in here. I'll point it out as I go along. (I don't know you, so I'll overexplain at the risk of insulting your intelligence: Passive voice is the use of forms of "to be", usually "He was" "She was" and "They were", in third person limited.)

Richard Lanham's _Revising Prose_ and his so-called "paramedic method" helped me revise my prose (go figure) to avoid the passive voice. The relevant bit is excerpted here, under a section called "Who's Kicking Who?"

http://benninghoff.emich.edu/328/Lanham_on_Revision.html

(And yes, he knows it should be "Whom"... )

quote:

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Hans crept quietly up the game trail, hearing the soft patter of rain hitting the jutted rocks to his right.

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Rain tends to make noise on foliage, especially dead foliage, than on rocks. If there's a soft patter, I'd expect it to be on leaves, and the leaves to mask what's on the rocks.

I like the phrase "jutted rocks". Not one I would have thought of, but I think it works.

quote:

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He was hugging those same rocks to mask his approach.

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Passive voice: "was hugging". All else being equal, favor the active voice. For example, either "He hugged the rocks to mask his approach" or "he masked his approach by hugging the rocks".

I don't love "those same rocks". You've only mentioned one set of rocks, so we'll assume those are the ones you mean.

quote:

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His fellow hunter, Eric, Huntmaster to the Duke of Dralonias, was silently making his way through the large trees to his left.

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I don't love "his fellow hunter". It seems redundant, since you call Eric the Duke's Huntmaster, and you have the hunter / Huntmaster combination over the course of three words. I'm not sure I have advice to give you on that, but I'd consider playing with it.

quote:

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Hans had heard the loud echo of a cave lion, soon to be dead at his hands if it was found.

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This short bit of explanation uses "had heard" (i.e., it's a mini-flashback) and then jumps to the future ("soon to be dead"), but maybe not ("if"). I think it's more confusing than it needs to be.

(It also should use the subjunctive mood, since the future isn't certain: when using "I wish" or "if" you generally would say "if it were found" or "I wish it were found" -- I don't know why. That sounds a little funny because of the different tenses you're dealing with, but technically "if it was found" is grammatically incorrect.)

Maybe you take a slightly different tack. I'm trying not to simply rewrite the paragraph, but I'm thinking a structure like this: Hans and Eric had heard the sound of the lion.* Hans hugged the rocks on the right to cover the sound of his pursuit; Eric, Huntmaster, silently moved through the trees on the left.

* [Since that happened first, the past is in the past by the time you get to the "now", which is standard past tense.]

quote:

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The shy and elusive creature was a trademark hunted creature amongst the Dralonias Mountains where several species of large game animals existed.

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Passive voice again. Twice, if you count "existed", which is really just another way of saying "was".

I think that "shy" and "elusive", while not precisely redundant, are too similar. You're weakening your description with more words rather than enriching it. Pick your favorite and kill the other.

I'm not sure what a "trademark hunted creature" is. I have some guesses, but none of them are obviously true.

I think there should be a comma after "Mountains".

Do you say "where several species of large game animals existed" to point out that the cave lion could get food easily? If so, then it's a little clunky, and you might leave that bit to the next sentence. If not, I'm not sure why you do.

quote:

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There was a year round food supply for the large creatures

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Passive voice.

You used "creature" and "creatures" pretty close together, which caught my ear. Maybe consider different word choices here: "quarry" instead of "hunted creature", for example.

quote:

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that inhabited the mountains, the food being large elk that never leave the confines of the mountains due to the winter snow melting and creating several large rivers, creeks and lakes nestled amongst the game trails.

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A few problems here.

I think you're trying to pack too much into one sentence (clause, really, I guess). I'd break this up.

I also think that "the food being" (note: passive voice again) is clunky and should be incorporated into the previous clause, something like: "Large elk provided food year-round for the large creatures of the mountains. They never left the confines..."

Technically speaking, "due to" means something owed (as in, "The $200 fee is due to this office by May 20th"). It often gets used in the way you have here, but I try to avoid it because it makes some nitnoid people go buggy -- and because it's my job, I now get a little buggy, too. Your call, of course, if you want to ignore the buggy people. I usually substitute some form of "because" or "resulting from" if it's necessary, but often you can reword the sentence altogether to get a better result. In this case, for instance, you could say, "They had no need to leave the confines of the mountains because..."

Assuming I'm guessing your intent correctly, you might condense even more. I have a version of the paragraph that's 28 words, down from 47. I won't poison the well with it, but if you're interested I'll pass it on. While conciseness isn't everything -- far from it -- I'd say that for a fast- paced hunting scene, with the smell of blood in the air, so to speak, that's one objective to shoot for.

Speaking of concise, I haven't been. Time to shut up.

Regards,
Oliver
 

And I agree with tchernabyelo, in that there's a bit too much description in the last part. However, given that your characters appear to be career hunters, their POV would necessarily include some knowledge of terrain, and the habits of their prey. The problem here is that you have, in a sense, dumped their combined experience into a few complicated sentences.

On the whole, your scene lacks tension. Mostly because your characters lack tension. Everything feels detached, which is exacerbated by your use of passive voice and blunt description. Your concept has great potential...I mean, really...hunting cave lions? That's a good tale just waiting to be read.
 

* Tell us in line 1 they're hunting cave lions
* Tell us why we care. Are the cave lions hunting them right back? Will the king kill them if they don't come back with a mane? Something to make us care about the struggle.

It's sort of like putting a ball game in a story. You can do it, but nobody will care about the plays. They'll care about the relationships of those playing it, the grudge in the grudge match, etc.
 

Don't feel bad. I wouldn't waste my time critiquing something that wasn't fixable. The basic premise is interesting -- it's lion hunting, for Pete's sake! -- so fix the writing and try again.

Regards,
Oliver