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Ridian

R

Ridian

New Member
Here is a story I am working on,

The gleaming water fell into the lake as it fell from the Ridges Mountains. Birds flew over the healthy trees. All was normal, all was peaceful, until.... A white horse broke from the bushes by the lake. Its rider, dead, hung only by the leather footholds of his saddle. In his neck prodded out a poisoned tip arrow with black, sleek, feathers. Birds and other critters scattered to and fro repelling from the horse.
The horse ran full speed along thee dirt path, as taught at its youth, and continued to run. The horse, tired and weak for not stopping for nearly a day. Its clean white hair and stance showed the glory of the creature. Its powerful legs sped through the dirt and ran towards the innocent village, that’s fate was about to change forever. The village that laid where tree met mountains, the village, Valnear.

Ridian picked up the wooden buckets full of water. Slinging his Shepard’s staff into the handles he hoisted up the buckets and placed the pole onto he neck and began to walk back to his mothers hut. Ridian was a young man not but six teen, his brown hair fell just before his blue eyes. Fit for his age Ridian enjoyed to play games with children and also other physically enduring activities. He wore a white robe and his sandals flopped onto the stone pavement of the villages roads.
As Ridian walked pass a dark alley way two shadowy figures walked out.
"Give us your coins and you wont get hurt kid." Said a demanding voice.
"Don't turn around either, 'k?" Said the second thief.
"Ah, but I am not but a poor boy, hell, these clothes have more money then I." Kidded Ridian. "Plus I'd never give money to you two jesters, you'd probably try to by weapons and poke your eye's out. Course your ol mums wouldn’t mind, they would be able to get back on ye for all the pranks you've pulled on there poor bodies. So, what trouble besides mugging me have you two got yourselves up to lately Teddy and Frum?"
Teddy and Frum where two brothers who acted both immature and fun. They where the same age as Ridian, and also his best friends. Teddy and Frum had a little more coins then Ridians family, yet that never really mattered. In Valnear, one always managed. Teddy had blonde hair and a thin body, along with his brother Frum. They where both quick and agile with there hands and feet.
"Always up to ruin are fun aye Ridian?" Frum said with a sorrowful yet joking voice.
"Are you always like that, you bully?" Teddy jested.
"Shut it and carry my water, at least then you might do something useful." Ridian said and slung off a bucket and tossed its contents at the twins. Wetted down the twins smiled playfully and jumped Ridian. Taking his other bucket, which had lost half of its load from the commotion. Teddy held him down as Frum poured it on Ridian. They jumped off and darted off to towards the lake. Ridian charged after the two, and soon cornered them on the docks.
"Whelp mates it ends here." Ridian said
"Nope." the twins said and jumped into the clear, cold, water.
"Idiots." Ridian muttered, as he shook his head. Then he too, jumped in.
The water enclosed Ridian ,as he opened his eyes under it. He noticed that he was starting to lose air. His arms moved to pull him up, yet despite his effort his body fell into the depths. Ridian gasped for help, yet only hundreds of little bubbles came. I know how to swim, what is going on with my body! His vision began to turn black, all was vanishing, Ridians last sight before he passed out was a glowing white fish.

[/*i
]Where am I...

What happened...

What time is it....

Ridians eyes slowly perked up yet when the light entered, he quickly shut them in reaction. He felt warm wool sheets covering him over his clothes that where put on him. His ,mouth felt dry, and his stomach empty.
"How long have I been out?", he muttered in a dry, weak, voice.
"Two days, here take this." came a rough female voice. It sounded familiar... Ridian finally opened his eyes and saw Nurse Willaflower, a big stern lady, with a heart of gold. Willaflower shoved a glass of water in Ridians hands. Ridian raised it up to his parched lips and sipped. With every drop Ridian felt his strength grow.
"Nurse...what happened to me...?" Ridian asked, his mind was blank, all he could remember was jumping in after Teddy and Frum...
"I'll tell you what happened. First off you drowned, Elder Ferrel says probably from dehydration. Secondly you are one lucky fellow, Frum noticed you didn't come up and went under while Teddy ran for help." Willaflower said. Ridian began to notice his surroundings. He was in the stone hospital, Willaflower was working on making medicines on her oak table.
"Oh," Ridian said confused.” does my mum know what happened?"
"Of course, you think we'd not tell ol mum where you have been for two days! Ha I got enough to worry bout sides parents gettin on me for healing there foolish young uns."
Ridian nodded and layed back on the feather pillow. He sat there letting his mind wonder on what happened. All he remembers was chasing the twins, drowning, and the strange fish.... 'what kind of fish was that?' Ridian thought. Just then his mom burst through the wooden door, she was a plump, kind lady who had curly black hair.
" Oh, my son, are you ok? I don't know what I would of done! Oh dearly me, I heard you talking through the door and I ran in."
"Mum no need to worry I'm OK." Ridian said reassuringly.
"I know it's just, what would i of done, I mean your father is off at war with Narnell, and I don’t think I could of survived with my other man gone." Said Sias, Ridians mom.
That’s right, Jay, I mean dad, is at war...Ridian thought.
The war was a classic good verse evil battle, the ones you read in stories. A king named Mulodovock, ruler of Karuw, wanted more land, power, and money. Mulodovock, sent his troops to attack Baltawin, a ruling nation of the country Falistin. The war has been raging on for over three years. Two years ago, Jay decided that it would be best to join the war and earn money fighting for his family. Teddy and Frums dad, Narnell, decided to join his friend.
The next night Ridian went home, ate a meal of fish, bread, a apple, and a mug of water. Feeling tired, he layed down in bed. He missed h is dad, the way he came home with unusual fish and made the greatest meals. Yet, he was gone. He listened to his mom, busy knitting clothes to sell. Coins where getting tight, even with fathers weekly income off 60 coins. Sias something cried herself to sleep worrying about father and money, Ridian wished they where rich, like the governor of Valnear, Forswoth. Foreswoth was rich, yet he was kind, not greedey, at least. [i[His daughter is also pretty, and kind Ridian thought to himself. Ridian had a bit of a crush on Cavie. She had long brown hair, a cute nose, and a smile that melted his heart.
Suddenly, a rock flew against Ridians window. Leaping from his bed, he hoisted up the old window of his top room, in the cottage. Teddy and Frum stood bellow, hiding behind some wine barrels. Teddy’s hand waved to get Ridian down here. Ridian jumped out the window, and landed skillfully on a box of hay, as he learned from experience.
"We got something to show ye." Frum said excited.
"Mad, weird I say it is." Teddy pitched in.
"Well what the hell is it you two?" Ridian asked annoyed.
"You'll have to see for your self mate." Frum said as he started down Lorgwood path, that lead to the Varnis ocean. The night was darker then usual, and the trees stood still, with no wind to push them. There footsteps echoed through the quiet night, not even the usual owls where heard. Arriving to the docks, Ridian saw a unusual thing, it was a glow, and the source, a thousand, white, glowing fish.
 
hey
im liking this actually, its a good kinda plot and i want to know about the fish...even if it is a bit random. lol i mean that in a good way.
ok now the bit where i pull it apart and give hints to what a reader thinks :D

The gleaming water fell into the lake as it fell from the Ridges Mountains. Birds flew over the healthy trees. All was normal, all was peaceful, until.... A white horse broke from the bushes by the lake. Its rider, dead, hung only by the leather footholds of his saddle. In his neck prodded out a poisoned tip arrow with black, sleek, feathers. Birds and other critters scattered to and fro repelling from the horse.
Click to expand...
u got 2 'fell' in the first section, you could change the second to 'as it flowed down from the Ridge Mountains.'
Healthy trees?? thats a bit random?? should be able to find a better description.
'all was normal, all was peaceful, until...' that seems too sudden. im guessing u want to lull the reader into some sense of security, then suddenly something is wrong. try putting the peaceful and normal bits into a sentence rather than list them. something like 'the valley lay peacefully as it settled into its usual routine of relaxation, until...' lol ok that was rubbish, but u get the idea.
'In his neck prodded out a poisoned tip arrow' if the arrow is in his neck, you cant see the tip. IN his neck prodded OUT?? in out?? it just sounds un natural. think of a different way to say it.
'birds and other critters' sorry but the word critters just makes me giggle. maybe creatures?? and maybe find a better word than repelling?? maybe scattering from the path of the horse.

The horse ran full speed along thee dirt path, as taught at its youth, and continued to run. The horse, tired and weak for not stopping for nearly a day. Its clean white hair and stance showed the glory of the creature. Its powerful legs sped through the dirt and ran towards the innocent village, that’s fate was about to change forever. The village that laid where tree met mountains, the village, Valnear.
Click to expand...
sooooo the horse is running with a dead guy on its back. i get that. but its running full speed, even though its tired??
and the last bit. why not put 'where the trees met mountains. The village: Valnear.' just to pause before the name a bit. but im not sure about it now...you choose.

and then i liked it :D i just think that the beginning and the ending are the bit the reader remembers you have to get them perfect. :D i really liked it though, have u got any more???
 
Ridian said:
The gleaming water fell into the lake as it fell from the Ridges Mountains. Birds flew over the healthy trees. All was normal, all was peaceful, until.... A white horse broke from the bushes by the lake. Its rider, dead, hung only by the leather footholds of his saddle. In his neck prodded out a poisoned tip arrow with black, sleek, feathers. Birds and other critters scattered to and fro repelling from the horse.
The horse ran full speed along thee dirt path, as taught at its youth, and continued to run. The horse, tired and weak for not stopping for nearly a day. Its clean white hair and stance showed the glory of the creature. Its powerful legs sped through the dirt and ran towards the innocent village, that’s fate was about to change forever. The village that laid where tree met mountains, the village, Valnear.
Click to expand...


I see some things I like about this story.

But, first, I shall give my reactions to various things I see that might be corrected or improved upon.

I will take one or two paragraphs at a time.

Hemingway once said that seven #2 pencils sharpened to stumps was the evidence of a good day's work. He mentions somewhere how many pages he hoped for each day. I mention this to emphasize the importance of scrutinizing each sentence and weight each word and phrase as you write. It is our natural desire to create many pages in a short time, and that is not a bad way to get a lot of thoughts down, and play with the overall plot and structure of the story. But it is also important at some point to go back polish. Experiment with different words, vary your sentences and see what difference it might make. This activity will help you to develop a style which will become eventually a second nature for you.

As you can see, I have highlighted certain words and sentences with either bold or italics.


The gleaming water fell into the lake as it fell from the Ridges Mountains.

It is not a good idea to use the same word more than once in the same sentence or paragraph.

Birds flew over the healthy trees.

One may speak of healthy house plants, but I have not heard trees in the wild described as healthy. I have a number of things to say about these sentences, but I must leave on an errand shortly. I will quickly post as much a possible, since I assume you will be pleased with some kind of feedback. I shall return in several hours, when I have more time, and continue my observations in greater detail.

All was normal, all was peaceful,


I do not feel comfortable with the use of the word normal in this scene.

Also, the above phrase is too reminiscent of “Silent night, ALL is calm, ALL is bright”

A white horse broke from the bushes by the lake

I think we should try to work on this sentence, and find a different way to describe the appearance of the horse.


In his neck prodded out a poisoned tip arrow with black, sleek, feathers.

We definitely need to change prodded out to something else… and I see a problem with the notion that the arrow is POISONED, and if one were to use that phrase, then I question whether it should be poisoned or POISON. The problem is simply that the reader is the spectator of this placid scene, which suddenly, unexpectedly erupts. How do we KNOW when we see this horse and corpse, that the arrow is a poison arrow. Another problem is, in real life, poison arrows are very tiny, since it is the poison which does the dirty work. The arrow need not skewer the victim.

The horse, tired and weak for not stopping for nearly a day.


The village that laid where tree met mountains, the village, Valnear.

These last two sentences are not a complete sentences, with a subject, verb and predicate. I realize that Annie Proulx strives for a unique style with a type of sentence fragment. But I don’t think you want to imitate her just yet.

Again, sorry I am posting in haste, but I wanted you to get some quick feedback.

I like your character names, and the underlying story.

So, when I have some time, I will try to re-write this paragraph, or rather, each sentence, to give you some ideas on how different a passage can be when you take more time to craft each sentence and choose words with care.

Anyone can hit piano keys and create a sound, but to play Bach's Well Tempered Clavier takes years of constant practice.

Anyone can generate a sentence and express a thought, but years of practice and exercise will make quite a difference.
 
It's not bad, but you need to work on puncuation, especially with quotes.
"Give us your coins and you wont get hurt kid." Said a demanding voice.
This should look something more like this:
"Give us your coins and you won't get hurt, kid," said a demanding voice.
Use commas wherever you would naturally pause if you were reading out loud. It also breaks sentences up so they're easier to read.
And it kind of annoyed me that you said "'k" and "ok" instead of "'kay" and "okay." Definitely work on that and puctuation.
 
I have only found the time to work out two sentences, but I shall post now, to give you some ideas if you return tonight.

Gleaming water, spilling from the mountain’s ridge, troubled the placid mirror of the lake.


Horse and corpse sailed in a wake of wildlife; squirrels and ravens yielding right-of-way.
Click to expand...


I am hoping this interesting exercise will benefit me.

You might try to imagine how various famous writers might approach this first page of your story. How would Hemingway handle it? How would his differ from Virginia Woof's version.

It might be a fun exercise to gather similar paragraphs from the novels of different authors and compare the language and style.

I hope to work more on this tomorrow.
 
Reply

I can tell that you have the scenes clearly in your head. I agree with another that the problem is in trying to rush it out. Take your time in developing each line to assure that the picture is being presented properly, and that your reader will desire to follow you into the action.

Let me say that the opening is a good concept of setting the mood of a dark dreary story in spite of the happy local scene that is coming. The problem is that it came across much too fast and blurry. I would give it more substance.

The initial introduction of the hero comes across okay, but it could use some expansion as well. It kinda reads as him being picked on by one local pest (okay, pests) then picked on by another pest. I would make the event under the water more tangible (probably even relating the rescue to show that the event under the water is not part of the normal daily routine).

Keep writing though. It is the only way to improve.
 
A wiser, older computer programmer commented to me in the 1980's: "A resume will list ten years of experience, but it is the same year ten times."

Don't let your writer's resume be that sort, ten years from now.

What I mean is, do not just write and write and write in this same fashion, grinding out huge quantities of manuscripts and mistake quantity for success or progress.

Faulkner was always trying to experiment and change. Faulkner said of his own work:
"As regards to any specific book, I’m trying primarily to tell a story, in the most effective way I can think of, the most moving, the most exhaustive. But I think even that is incidental to what I am trying to do…I am telling the same story over and over, which is myself and the world. Tom Wolfe was trying to say everything, the world plus “I” or filtered through “I” or the effort of “I” to embrace the world in which he was born and walked a little while and then lay down again, into one volume. I am trying to go a step further. This I think accounts for what people call the obscurity, the involved formless “style,” endless sentences. I’m trying to say it all in one sentence, between one Cap and one period. I’m still trying to put it all, if possible, on one pinhead. I don’t know how to do it. All I know to do is to keep on trying in a new way. I’m inclined to think that my material, the South, is not very important to me. I just happen to know it, and don’t have time in one life to learn another one and write at the same time. …Art is simpler than people think because there is so little to write about. All the moving things are eternal in man’s history and have been written before, and if a man writes hard enough, sincerely enough, humbly enough, and with the unalterable determination never never never to be quite satisfied with it, he will repeat them, because art like poverty takes care of its own, shares its bread."
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It will be very helpful for you to read some biographies of great writers like Faulkner, F. Scott Fitzgerald, or even Trollope, to see how they lived their lives. You can learn much about writing from such biographies.


I started to google for free writing courses or writer's tutorials. I did find this writer's course which costs $11 USD per month.

http://www.writersvillage.com/preview/workshop_guidelines.htm

I am curious to search for others and see what is available.

A special 3 month trial costs $35. or $69 for an entire year. All prices include unlimited courses, but the catch as I see it is that you will be limited in time and energy and enthusiasm as to how much you can take on. If you were in a situation where you did not have to work or do other chores, and could work 15 hours per day, 7 days per week, well, then you might have the time, but would you have the stamina and desire?

I am not certain if the above site offers a lot of help in editing and correcting. I think what you need is extensive exercise in composition, with lots of guidance in punctuation and grammar.

Also, work on building your vocabulary. Buy a good dictionary and spend 30 minutes each and every day reading a page or two, and highlighting with magic marker those words unfamiliar to you with might be used in a story or poem. Then, once per week, as an exercise, chose a few of those words and incorporate them into a story.

The process of learning the mechanics of composition is a dreary task which can at times be boring; lots of grunt work and sweat, and some tears. The same is true of piano practice, or practice with any musical instrument. Pablo Casals once said, “If I do not practice for one day, I know it. If do not practice for two days, my family knows it. If I do not practice for 3 days, the whole world knows it.”

I have always admired Arnold Schwarzenegger’s motto from “Pumping Iron”, “No pain. No gain.” When we hear that trite, hackneyed expression “suffering artist” we think of someone starving in poverty for the sake of pursuing their painting or writing. But suffering can also mean the practice and discipline necessary to acquire skills.

What you really need is a computer program, or a personal instructor, who will make you write paragraphs all day long, and then instantly correct them, and make you re-write them, until good style becomes second nature to you, and you can compose in your sleep.

One way to achieve something like this is to choose an author you admire, and then, each week, chose one paragraph to commit to memory. Memorize it until you can write it from memory. After a year of such practice, you will find that the style sinks into your consciousness and becomes second nature to you.



I joined a free writers’ forum two years ago. It is necessary to acquire permission from the administrator to log to that site, so it is not exactly public. The forum owner/admin is a published author who has enjoyed some minor success in writing. He gives an example at his site of the first page of Day of the Triffids as a good way to open a story. I forget now the details of what he said.

Also, Ridian, tell us something about yourself, regarding age, gender, education, workplace, family. The more we know about you, the more useful our advice may be.

We tend to think of a writer’s life as glamorous. When we think of being a writer, we think of being very successful and famous. One definition of success is getting published and actually earning some money. But there are many writers who achieve that level of success and yet do not become famous. And for every mediocre writer who is published there are perhaps a thousand good writers who never get published, and earn little or no money from their writing. And for every writer who never gets published, there are perhaps hundreds who attempted to write but did not have what it takes to be a good writer, and wrote fiction which was destined for the waste basket. So, if all this is true, then why write? Why even try if so very few enjoy success? The answer is, to write for yourself. If you do not have the time and inclination and discipline to study and practice the technical aspects of composition, grammar and vocabulary, then write your stories for personal pleasure, to get them down on paper. Perhaps you can find someone to work with you, and whip them into shape style-wise.

If you write for other people, in the hopes of their praise and admiration, then you are setting yourself up for disappointment. If you write for yourself, because you have a deep seated need to express yourself in such fashion, then you will be rewarded even if you never receive praise from the world at large.

What I am about to say will sound simple-minded, but a writer is someone who has something to say, and understands the mechanics of how to say it. There are certainly people who are eloquent, but have nothing to say. And there are people with lots to say, but lacking in skills of style, grammar and vocabulary.
 
It's better if you delete the first three sentences.

A white horse broke from the bushes by the lake. Its rider, dead, hung only by the leather footholds of his saddle.
 
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