Tain's hooves pounded the dusty road, his breath coming in short gasps as he raced for safety. Shia kept pace beside him, her tongue lolling from her mouth as she, too, exerted her last efforts. The sun was just touching the top of the hills and they must reach the keep before nightfall.

The centaur and the wolf crossed the bridge, running neck and neck until they pulled up heaving for breath in the courtyard. Tain bent his head down with his hands on his waist for a few moments trying to catch his breath. Shia dropped to the ground panting. Looking up at Tain, she wagged her bushy tail.

"Almost didn't make it," she said between gasps. A guttural laugh came up from her deep chest.

[This message has been edited by Marva (edited February 19, 2006).]

As far as distinguishing (sp?lol) them, I would appreciate a full description of them so I can gauge how they look like within the next few paragraphs. But I don't think its absolutely necessary at the beginning.

Thanks.

By the way, if anybody want to read the story (about 2000 words), I'll be happy to send it on. Between posting this fragment and now, I've written the first draft and would love to share it. It's my first fantasy story, so I'm interested in what people think.

* Tell us up front what the creatures are. THey know. Why shouldn't we?

I'm not sure I have a description problem. In these <13 lines, I have:

Tain hooves
Tain hands on kness
A little cryptic, but Tain is a hooved creature with hands
Both are running, neck-and-neck so both are swift or at least equally speedy creatures.

Shia lolling tongue
Shia panting
Shia wagging bushy tail
Shia looks up at Tain
Shia has guttural laugh
Less cryptic. Shia sure seems canine

I'm not sure what else I could do in 13 lines to be more descriptive.

I'm not arguing, just puzzled as to the comment. POV? Isn't the POV an outsider observer? Should the POV be either Tain or Shia? Maybe so, though I'm not certain that would add to the story.

As for "Tain bent with his hands on his knees...." The hands clued me in that this was probably a centaur, but the knees threw me out again, since horses don't have knees. "...running neck and neck" suggests that they were at (or nearly at) the same height. "Looking up" does nothing to dispel this, since Shia has already dropped to the ground. I wouldn't expect a horse's tongue to loll from his or her mouth, but a centaur's might. The only thing that really said "non-centaur" to me about Shia was "dropped to the ground" and "her bushy tail," but, you know, these could be centaur-like creatures, with knees and bushy tails, who don't mind lying down when they're tired. Which is pretty much what I'd concluded by the end of the passage.

quote:

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I kind of want it to be a surprise in the next paragraphs...

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Actually, though, despite all the above criticism, I think you almost have what you want here. I don't think you need to say "centaur" and "wolf" if your descriptions are sufficiently unambiguous. Drop the knees, and give us a few more unambiguous clues about Shia, and it would be clear to me. (By the way, the main problem I had about Shia is the strong presumption going in that, whatever Tain was, Shia would be the same thing. All your other descriptions of Shia seemed very wolfy (except maybe the guttural laugh from the deep chest--that one just didn't mean much of anything to me, since I've never heard anything laugh but people). What you really have to make clear there is that they're different beasts.

Oh, by the way, horses have knees on their front legs and hocks on the back. But maybe most people don't know that.

All that aside, the reason humans bend down to put their hands on their knees is to rest their thighs by putting some of their body weight on their arms (or perhaps to throw up, depending on just HOW hard they've been running). This doesn't work for horse anatomy. (Well, at least not the "resting" bit. If you want to have Tain throw up, that's a different issue. )

PS: regarding using the words "centaur" and "wolf". I'm not opposed to it. What I want is clarity. If you can make it clear without the words, that's fine. It isn't necessarily better. My feeling is that, if you're in Tain's POV, you should use the word "wolf" and get across the centaur more subtly. If you're in Shia's, you should use the word "centaur" and be less direct about wolf. Either character is quite likely to think of the other by type, but less likely to think of themself that way.

I'll read if you like: buce@charter.net, use Hatrack in the subject header.

I think I may just be amplyfing what has already been said. Tain running on hooves was confusing without some indication that he is not human. I think it comes across fairly well that his companion is some non-human canine though. Because I didn't know that Tain was non-human, the first sentance was confusing and disorientating. I may not have slugged through to the explination as a result.

Also, you may want to do some research on horse anatomy. Tain might place his hand on his "waist" (where the human and horse sections meet) but not his "knees." He's on four hooves so the whole concept of bending over to catch his breath doesn't work. When a horse has run too hard, his/her nostrils flare and sides heave. If the thing that has made then run is upsetting, horses will often vocalize thier concern by snorting or "blowing." But then horse descriptions need to ring truer with me than most people since I've been around horses most of my life.

The running seems a bit out of place with their more relaxed discussion. Though I would be (and am) willing to read further to find out what the rush was about.

kings_falcon: I think the hands on the waist instead of the knees would be good. If you would like to read, send me email as you don't have your email posted.

Mostly I wanted to indicate that he's breathing hard from running. I do want to have both hooves and hands to show that Tain is a centaur. Maybe I do need to come right out and say "Tain the centaur" and "Shia the wolf". I edited to include those species in the second paragraph.

It's interesting that I'm getting the same 'hit' here as I used to from users when writing technical documentation. If whatever they wanted was not on the first page, they couldn't seem to find it. Heaven forbid that they use the TOC or Index. Anyway, everything cannot go in the first thirteen lines, but it's wise to pick and choose what should. You guys have all given me some good thoughts about that.