Find below the first 13 lines to one of my short stories - it's called Faith of the Nine - this is a heroic/adventure fantasy complete at 12K words ( a bit wordy I know! and would take ALL your comments to cut short whatever is irrelevant ) - Kindly take a look and help me out weed some words out or structure this better
So here goes the first 13!
“Bring me the boy’s head, Red.”
Red had sworn allegiance to the Circle of Hands way back, no more than sixteen summers old. No more than a downy mush of a beard and bony legs, riding high on teenage angst and a warped sense of “right-aw-ful” way of justice.
Today he not only questioned his choice but was dangerously close to destroying whatever slivers of faith he’d in the Gods of his fathers. Risk being an Un-believer and staying true to oneself?
“I don’t think the boy is faithless, your Lordship.” “You dare defy the Council?”
The voice was a whiplash that cracked into his head. Red looked up at the balustrade. There was no one there. Just shimmering
Anyone looking to enjoy this weekend afternoon reading some adventure fantasy? willing to send along the full story and Looking forward to any crits!
Thanks a ton!
Regards xenomaniac.
[ April 23, 2012, 05:16 PM: Message edited by: Kathleen Dalton Woodbury ]
Posted by Denevius (Member # 9682) on :
"Today he not only questioned his choice but was dangerously close to destroying whatever slivers of faith he’d in the Gods of his fathers."
is this sentence missing a word?
either way, i'll take a look at the whole thing.
Posted by D2 (Member # 8930) on :
Sure, I'd love to read it. Send it along!
Until then ...
"... no more than sixteen summers old. No more than ..."
This doesn't sit well with me; I'd lose one of those "no more than"s. Maybe the summers -- unless it's important to you that they use summers to mark years, I'd stick with something simpler, like "... way back, on the day he turned sixteen" or something. In fact, while we're at it, I'd take the "way back" out, too, but that's pretty nitpicky of me. "Red swore allegiance to the Circle of Hands years ago, when he turned sixteen."
You have two speakers (or at least it reads that way to me) with "I don't think ..." and "You dare defy ..." but then you immediately refer to a singular voice. That tripped me up -- if it is indeed one voice, I think those lines need to mesh a little better, although I'm not sure how!
Anyway, color me intrigued. If you send it I'll try and give it a read through when I can.
Posted by xenomaniac (Member # 9790) on :
Thanks guys for those nuggets! sending it your way - and looking forward to more of those small insights.
![[Smile]](smile.gif)