I should have known she was trouble right when I first saw her. I even did; that husky voice drifting out of the dusk, lips so dark they seemed black over top a pale chin, framed by silky, dark hair flowing from the hood of a long, dark cloak. It was the first, and all we’d seen of her, when she came upon me and my friend that night on the edge of the Blackwood, our camp placed in an old pasture near the road through the forest. Many years had passed since horse or heifer grazed in those places, and the grasses were tall and green in the dusk’s light. Out of her long cloak we could see our campfire reflected in her eyes, the pair of red sparks flickering beneath the folds of cloth. The hair on my neck stood up when she spoke, like so many soldiers before an officer. If I hadn’t left him at home, my dog Xaneth would have snarled at her. All this I knew, and I still let everything happen.
“Good evening, gentlemen,” she had said, startling us into standing, both of us with our hands on our swords, the horses tied just beyond he circle of light from our fire whickered nervously at her voice. Jimmy’s mother had tried to keep us from going through the Blackwood on our way to the city, filling our ears with tales of ghouls and fiends in the woods, sirens who would call from the depths to lure us from the paths, never to find them again.

[ooc: dun dun dah! ;-) ]

Note from Kathleen:
I gave you 14 lines so you could have a finished sentence.

That said, I liked the intro; nice and descriptive. I should imagine somebody is bound to comment about you writing in the first person but it worked for me. I would say however, that a few of your sentences seemed too long to me and could probably be cut in half: maybe the third sentence after 'seen of her', and after 'swords' in the first sentence of the second paragraph. The use of 'we'd' instead of 'we had' seemed out of place too in the third sentence.

Only minor gripes though. As far as opening the story goes I thought this was good and it has certainly piqued my interest.

Further inhibiting my ability to read this start was the formating. Please break the text into blocks, so it is easy on the eye.

However, the heavy poetic style in here can, if used in moderation, be an extreme boon to writing. I'd advise you to rewrite this scene, with shorter sentences, less poetry, more story.

Adjectives, metaphors, et cetra, are like salt. Use sparingly.

You're going to need to check out a book on comma splicing and sentence structure. There are so many commas in your sentences that they are really hard to read. I too was negatively impressed by your 1st person POV. Your descriptions were effective though, perhaps a bit too wordy at times but that's a relatively minor issue. It does pique interest though.

I'm also not put off by 'wordyness' as long as each word is necessary. In this case...a lot of words could be cut without any change in the meaning. In fact, you often leave out words that would be necessary to make your meaning clear.

quote:

---

I knew she was trouble the moment I saw her. Her lips were so dark they seemed black over a pale chin--framed by silky, dark hair--and a long, dark, hooded cloak hid all else.

---

I'm also not put off by first person as long as it serves a clear purpose (artificial document is my highest priority reason to use first person). In this case, there is no apparent reason for this to be written in first person.

I also don't mind having guys named Jimmy and dogs named Xaneth if they fit the milieu...in this case, something doesn't fit.

I'm going to recommend that you read a couple of articles posted on the SFWA site. The first is Writerisms and other Sins by Cherryh. Take it with a grain of salt, but read it (also note that she suggests not blindly following all her suggestions). I also recommend The Standard Deviations of Writing simply because I like to read it every time I discover I need to do extensive rewriting.

What is framed by the hair – the voice, the lips or the chin?

quote:

---

It was the first, and all we’d seen of her, when she came upon me and my friend that night on the edge of the Blackwood, our camp placed in an old pasture near the road through the forest.

---

I think you may get away with this sort of poetic telling if you write tighter. The overall tone seems to fit what you've written.

"Looking back on it now, it seems as though even then I should have known what she was."

That would work better for me, and would set the tone more in a fantasy-ish way.

Also, I think your sentences are generally too complicated in structure. Try simplifying them and it might make the work easier to read.

I should have known something wasn't right when I first saw her. I even did; that husky voice drifting out of the dusk, lips so dark they seemed black over top her pale chin. The visible parts of her face were framed by dark hair flowing from the hood of a long, dark cloak.

It was the first time we saw her, when she came upon me and my friend that night on the edge of the Blackwood. Our camp was set in an old pasture near the road through the forest. Many years had passed since any cattle grazed those tall, green grasses.

From her hood we could see only our campfire reflected in her eyes, a pair of red sparks flickering beneath the folds of cloth. The hair on my neck stood up when she spoke, like so many soldiers before an officer. If I hadn’t left him at home, my dog would have snarled at her. All this I knew, and I still let everything happen.

“Good evening, gentlemen,” she said, startling us into standing, hands on our swords. The horses tied just beyond the circle of light from our fire whickered nervously at her voice.

Jimmy’s mother had tried to keep us from going through the Blackwood on our way to the cities, telling of sirens who would call from the depths to lure us from the paths, never to be found again.

[ooc]I know that first person writing can be cumbersom to read, but I don't think it should be dismissed out of hand. I guess some context is in order. Writing this, I see the narrator as an old man telling stories around a campfire or the hearth of some Inn. He probably wouldn't get much attention any time else, so he's milking it now for all it's worth. He's stretching out the story, using the flowery words and poetic description to keep his audience entertained: keeping the focus on him.

I guess the formatting, Phanto, is a throwback to highschool, where we were drilled that essay paragraphs were X number of sentences. so I still write like that, regardless of how connected the thoughts might be from sentence to sentence. Is this revision better?
[spoiler-storyline]
the woman, 'sheal', is a witch of sorts.(the fire reflecting from her eyes could be reflecting the hell she's from, or forshadowing the difficulties ahead if you wanna use those literary references. ) She is the worst of the stories Jimmy's mom was talking about. she grew up in the blackwood, and guides Jimmy and the narrator, Daener, through the forest. she helps fight off the other monsters of the forest, though by the end, Jimmy and Daener figure out what she is, and that the monsters are drawn to her, not them. sheal pretty much kills and eats Jimmy, but Daener escapes with minor injury... loss of an arm or something.[/spoiler] comments on a *rough* outline?

Survivor, while I appreciate the crit, just telling me "it doesn't match" isn't that helpful. Can you give me some examples of where the PoV conflicted? .. and a definition of 'milieu'? :P I needed a plain name for the narrators' companion; he's called Jim by everyone else, but the narrator has known him a long time.(it's better established later on) the narrator using Jimmy shows that he's more familiar with the person, not just some random traveling partner.

Kolona, thanks for catching the coherence errors. Is it better now?

while it is a fantasy story, Jules, I didn't want to depart too far from our own earth background... I kinda want to give the feel over the course of the story that the remenants of The Blackwood could be the forest down the street from where you grew up.

and I like Tobasco Sauce... I'm Canadian, and it's the only warmth I get sometimes.

thanks again, everyone, for the help. it is much appreciated.
[/ooc]
YIS,
Wafna

Your first few lines sound more like cliche poetry than anything else, no offense meant.

First off, have the narrator address the audience (since you have a specific audience, existing in a specific setting, in mind). This will help to clear up the kind of world in which the story is taking place (see milieu). Is this the Old West, or the ancient Middle East, or medieval Europe, or what?

Blackwood made me think Europe, Xaneth made me think light fantasy, Jimmy made me think early fifties, soldiers standing at attention made me think civilization, kids running around in the woods with swords made me think barbarian, etc. etc. etc. You get the idea? They don't really match.

It isn't the POV that conflicted, it was the language that didn't seem to match...it didn't match the POV particularly, but that's because you've left the POV undefined, and the language doesn't help me get a feel for his cultural and personal background.

I appreciate that you've added paragraph breaks, though it seems you've added a great many and I'm not real clear on why. And while you've cut some words, most of the cutting seems to be of meaningful words rather than the fluff...thus increasing the ratio of fluff to meaning.