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The first draft of the prologue to my fantasy novel.
By
TLParsons
| Posted:
14 May 2010
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This is the first draft of the prologue. I have four rough chapters completed and am starting the fifth. Any feedback much appreciated thankyou.
Prologue
The night was blistering cold, all she could see were the shadows of the trees inches from her face. The weight she carried now was almost too much. Her legs weak and heavy, her feet cold and wet she stumbled forwards and collapsed her body onto a tree. Leaning to take breath for just a second, she saw light in the distance, not daylight but that of a flame, a warm orange light and suddenly she felt hope swelling inside her once again. Almost running she darted through the trees, each piece of bark, every broken branch reminding her of the splintered shards in her shoulder, the pain started coming back pulsating through her body. She gasped and slid onto her hands and knees breathing heavily, holding her injured arm off the ground she rolled over onto her back in the snow, the cold feeling good against the open wound. Slowly she got back on her feet, there is no time she thought, and I can't give up now. Hauling her body through the snow she could feel warm blood making its way down her back like a serpent, she knew she was too weak to have healed herself properly, but she had expected to find some proper attention by now. Tired and in pain she carried on towards the promising light in the distance, it was hard to judge through the trees at night exactly how far it was but she estimated five hundred metres at most, not that far she thought. I can make it, I must she kept telling herself. The mountains were a dangerous place and at night any creature could be lurking in the darkness waiting for its chance to take an easy meal. Her scent she knew was of blood and fear, and now she was starting to think about the snow, she had fallen to her knees for only a short time before rolling onto her back but she knew a wolves footprint when she saw one, with the snow falling heavily it meant the prints were fresh, they must be close by, close enough to smell her. She stood still for a moment, her eyes attempting to pierce the snow and the dark, birds flew from a nearby tree, then silence fell and she ran. The beating of paws close behind her, she felt her lungs start to freeze she couldn't yell or call for help. This was it she thought I can't out run a wolf. She turned as the wolf leapt pushing her to the ground with such force to cause a clearing in the snow. With her back thudding against the ground her lungs cleared, she screamed.
***
Thomas Ashnuu a priest, young but worn with experience and a face with a wise but kind nature about it, lived in a small cottage on the mountain side, from where he would walk every morning a few hours to his church on the outskirts of a town called Noiden. The rusted old kettle whistled over the crackling fireplace, carefully with a thick cloth Thomas picked up the warm handle of the kettle and poured himself a nice cup of warm tea. Thomas had always thought you could tell a lot about a person by the way in which they like their tea, his was black with one sugar, simple and sweet. His nose drifted over his tea taking in the aroma of the strongly scented tea leaves from his hot drink. He steadied the cup in his hands and began to apply it to his lips when he saw a flash of purple from his window. He rushed over practically dropping his tea on the table, but there was nothing, not even a glow. Must have imagined it he thought to himself. Making his way back to his tea he heard a voice there is no time, it was a women's voice. He looked again, still nothing and then suddenly there it was out of nowhere another flash of purple light, not so intense this time, hurry! Said the voice. He didn't want to find out what was going on, he led a simple easy life there was no need to make things more difficult for himself, but it sounded like someone was hurt, someone needed help and he couldn't stand by and do nothing, could he? Thomas decided it was best not to think about it any longer but to do something instead. He slipped on his sheep skin coat and boots and locked the front door behind him.
It wasn't nice outside, in fact it was rather terrible, but little more could be expected from the south side of the mountain in the middle of winter. As Thomas trudged through the ice and snow he couldn't help but wonder, was it A'Lindor* who spoke to him and told him to leave his home in the middle of the night, or was it something else. Just as that thought entered his head he found a clearing where not even a single snowflake was touching the ground although it was still snowing heavily, its radius was about fifty metres and in the middle there lay a women stretched out on the ground. There was blood all over the ground, so much so that the air was rank with it. Thomas moved into a fast walk and made his way over to the body. Sure enough it was a woman and there was a large wound straight through her shoulder. He couldn't see an arrow and it was then he instantly knew. "You're a mage aren't you?" he asked delicately, her eyes met his and she stroked his face. Save my baby the voice appeared in his head again but stronger now. He looked down and saw she was holding something close to her stomach. He picked the baby wrapped in wool from her arms, she smiled you must raise him well, I'll be watching, before Thomas could even realise what was happening the smile from her face, the light from her eyes simply faded. She had died in the company of a stranger with a smile showing only trust and contempt for him, and then for some reason he realised how lonely his life had been since his own wife passed on. It was at that moment he decided, looking down at the baby and then at the heavens he said "I shall name you Atrmir".
*A'Lindor King of the Gods and the commonly followed God.
***Cord is the largest Province in Ephistolia.
All articles on this website by
TLParsons are copyright ©TLParsons and should not be reproduced
without the author's prior written consent. All opinions are the opinions of their
respective authors and are not necessarily the opinions of The Writers' Circle.
| Comments | |
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Hi Thomas and welcome to the circle. I thought that I would comment on your piece as you were good enough to comment on some of mine. I am possibly not the best judge of this genre as normally when I see yet another fantasy story I start reaching for the whiskey and a family pack of valium. This however was better than most of the postings of this type. The story flowed well and kept the interest. There were a couple of commas missing or placed where a full stop should be but nothing too serious. The only things that didn't sit right for me was "a nice cup of warm tea" and "It wasn't nice outside, in fact it was rather terrible" as they seemed either unnecessary or too whimsical for this type of story.
Please don't take this as anything other than the (hopefully) constructive comments of one other person - The object of the site is to improve ones writing, rather than a mutual congratulation society after all )
Anyway, a very good piece, and I look forward to reading more.
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Thank you very much for your post, I definatly welcome criticism and appreciate your comments. You will be happy to know that I have printed the first four chapters of my book and if I get stuck whilst writing the fifth chapter, I do some corrections. I have already made quite a few ammendments to the prologue. I don't plan on updating it until I have finished correcting what I started but as soon as I do, it will be up here.
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Reading your article, it occurred to me, you must have a lot of friends in the Circle, even though you've just joined recently, but they're pretty quiet with their comments although generous with their votes, 21, as a matter of fact, in four days. If not, I hope you weren't so generous in voting for yourself, because I'm concerned about the integrity of the competition, and the other writers like me, who hope that their articles are just good enough to win and deserve the prize.
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You make a very interesting point, people are very quiet with their comments and it has been something that I have already spoken to the editor of the website about. You say people have been generous with their votes but may I remind you that although I have had 22 votes (seems one more since you commented, maybe you voted so thank you for that). The actual average score of each of those votes is lower than some peoples here, alot of people getting nearly full marks every vote my average is less than 0.75. I am part of a writing group and have posted my link on the wall chart we have setup in the library at my university. Considering we have more than 22 members I am still delighted with the amount of votes I have recieved and if you would like to see an e-mail I got from one of them I have quoted it below. Also one final thing, I did vote for myself once. I gave myself a very generous rating of 0.5 and got called and idiot by my friends, but I said I wanted to keep things fair. Thanks for your very constructive comments Mr Anon.
"I did actually give it a read, and was impressed. Nicely done by the way, I like the descriptions."
"It's good so far mate. I understand it's the first draft so grammatical errors will be ruled out in the future. The last few lines when the priest takes the baby were a little disjointed but just those two paragraphs have left me wanting to know what the f*** is going on which is pretty much all you want out of a prologue. Nice one."
I'm not taking any of this to heart and admit that I have stretched beyond the "writers circle" for comments and votes, but I haven't been unfair. I'm new to this and want to make friends not enemies, I would love the writing software but I'm not willing to cheat for it. I have word, a pen, some paper, multi-coloured pens and highlighters. The program would help me like I suspect it would help anyone wanting to become a writer, I'm really disorganised and loose my notes or whatever else all the time. Thanks for your comment and I hope this has cleared everything up ;)
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You actually had 21 votes and 14.63 kudos in three days, not in four days as I mentioned, and one comment from one writer in the Circle, and the first day you had 7.25 kudos. You say you are part of a writing group of at least 22 members at your university. I say that gives you an unfair advantage against the other competitors who are members of the Circle. Everyone in your writing group could just join the Circle at anytime just to win the software, and would always win on their first try, as if the MyNovel is free software. Your university, just like you, know that MyNovel is a great writing software. Why can't your writing group have a competition among yourselves with the MyNovel as the award? Wouldn't that cost less if you all contribute to its purchase? Or ask your university to purchase a whole year for your monthly competition!
You say "I'm not taking any of this to heart and admit that I have stretched beyond the "writers circle" for comments and votes, but I haven't been unfair." How's that not unfair, especially since you have stretched excessively?
You say "I would love the writing software but I'm not willing to cheat for it." You just might not know that you're being unfair, so I'm inserting the Editor's plea for fairness article below for your edification. If you think you're still fair, then it's up to your conscience. If in your true conscience, you were not fair, what would you do about it? I'd keep my self-respect, take the high road and pull out of the competition, if I were you.
Here's the article:
"Keep the spirit of this website alive!
by Carl
"As you know this website is open to contributors of all abilities and of every nationality, provided contributions are written in English. This is what makes The Writers Circle an interesting and inclusive site to visit.
However, I am disappointed about the level of 'manipulation' of the competition which will adversely affect this website if I allow it to go unchecked.
Given the amount of work I have put into creating the site, I do not see that as fair!
It is pointless to continually vote for one's own work, or the work of a friend, just for the sake of it. It is not in the spirit of this site and it proves nothing about the quality of one's work.
We reserve the right to remove any article from the site which we believe to have bizarre or suspicious voting.
Or to award the prize to somebody we adjudge to merit it regardless of numerical score.
Or indeed, if all else fails, to remove the competition without notice - which would be a crying shame.
Help us keep the spirit of this site alive!
Thank you for your cooperation."
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How does that possibly make it unfair? You give me a reason, because I still don't see your point what so ever! I'm not letting you bully me out of the competition, the software is expensive and you are expecting a group of students to run a monthly competition? Have you ever been to university? I'm living on 5 pounds a week. I don't believe I have stretched excessively, I'm not asking people to vote on my work undeservingly. The editors plea does not say anywhere, anything about where your votes come from as long as you don't get the same person, or use yourself, to vote over and over again. I would also like to point out that even if I do top the table by the end of the month the editor reserves the right to choose which he thinks is deserving SO all you have to do is finish near the top, if you are so worried about me cheating then either you have over looked this or aren't close enough to the top to be noticed anyway. Yet again I assume you're not going to appologise, and well what can I do about that we're all entitled to our opinions. I hope you do well, obviously I can't change your mind but you're wrong. I see why you feel the need to post anonymously, instead of sending myself or the editor a private message with your quiery, you felt the need to try and embarrass me and degrade my work by insinuating that my intentions weren't honourable.
I don't know what else to say really, I am deeply offended now to be honest. I hope your work is good enough so you get the acclaim to so obviously crave. Good luck in the competition
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Hi, I'm a new member of the circle, I felt compelled to step in and say something about this argument, it's gotten pretty ridiculous.
Firstly, on the subject of the writing tlparsons - I was overall very impressed. I agree with the first poster that it needs a bit of refinement and editing, but it's almost entirely grammatical stuff, it doesn't detract from the quality of the storytelling itself. In particular I found the descriptions to be very vivid and easy to visualize - which is not an easy thing to achieve in my opinion. If you can refine your writing grammatically and possibly be a bit more creative with certain sentences - like the ones the first poster pointed out - then I think you're onto a winner.
Secondly, this argument with "anonymous" is starting to overshadow the entire point of this site and its competition, which if nothing else strikes me as quite hypocritical of Mr Anon.
I fail to see how it is unfair to share your work with other people who genuinely care about it - like the members of a writing group. If it were such an issue then why is the voting available to non-members? It would be oddly limiting to restrict voting to members only, so I hope that doesn't happen.
Anyway good luck to you both, I will try to put some of my own work up soon, so get ready for some more (friendly) competition!
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I don't crave any acclaim, TLParsons, and I have no entry in the competition, but if I did, and if I'd won, I can assure you I didn't have to take the low road. You want to see what you want to see, although you well know that what you're doing is unfair. It's obvious you joined the Circle for the free copy of the MyNovel software based on your responses, and not to improve on your writing, and it's obvious that your writing group behind you assures you of "winning" the software, and it's suspiciously glaring with the votes you got, the first day and after four days. There are entries much better than yours, but they don't have another writing group to call on to and vote for their work. And if I think your article really deserves to win, I'd buy the software myself and give it to you. I'm just appalled by the comments, talking about the need for editing and just for a few grammatical errors, and your article would be a winner. You even spelled definitely "definatly" in your response to the first comment. If you have pride in your work, you'd edit your article as tight as possible and with the fewest grammatical errors and spelling before posting it and entering it in the competition. Hey it's "first draft", so we should give you a break? If it's first draft, it shouldn't even be entered, because it shouldn't give you an excuse to enter a half-baked article in the competition, and expect to win. But with the writing group, you can expect to win.
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You can't possibly be arrogant enough to actually believe all your assumptions are accurate, surely?! You know nothing about the writer as a person, or their reasons for being here, and yet you make sweeping statements and attacks on his character, all the while talking about you yourself always taking "the high road".
You've done nothing but try to destabalize TLParsons hard work by making such comments - publicly yet anonymously - and I still can't understand why other than to cause trouble.
I'm pretty sure most people entering the competition have at least one eye on the prize, and there's nothing wrong with that, it's an incentive to get people writing, competing, and getting some CONSTRUCTIVE feedback on their work. All that stuff about requiring a work to be a final draft rather than a first draft is insane, in fact that's how you get from the first to the final draft - by developing it, and sites like this help that happen. The very fact TLParsons has submitted his work like this proves that he is open to critique and looking to develop his skills, not just compete in the competition.
The reason I take no offence from the grammatical and spelling errors is because it is the story that I am focusing on, and the format, not things that can be corrected by a spell checker. What you say implies that people who are naturally bad spellers shouldn't be allowed to write, regardless of whether they have better ideas for interesting and entertaining stories than people who can spell perfectly.
If you don't like his writing, his style, ability, that's fine, but it's your opinion, not a fact. I'm living proof of that because in my opinion it's a very promising piece of literature, and it seems plenty of people agree with me.
So far you have had nothing constructive to say, just preaching about this so called high road you're on. But posting anonymously does not give you a free pass to be rude and presumptuous about things you cannot know. Your road obviously can't be as high as you think.
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Ok, whatever you believe. Here are just a few of points about your previous post.
"You want to see what you want to see, although you well know that what you're doing is unfair."-This statement makes no sense.
"It's obvious you joined the Circle for the free copy of the MyNovel software based on your responses, and not to improve on your writing"-Please point out where I gave you this impression as it was never my intention.
"it's obvious that your writing group behind you assures you of "winning" the software"-I ask you to please read my previous post.
"There are entries much better than yours"-I believe that's a personal opinion, which you are entitled too.
"if I think your article really deserves to win, I'd buy the software myself and give it to you."- Firstly it should be deserved. Secondly if you truly believe what you say then buy the software and give it to you voted for as your opinion obviously is the only one that matters.
"I'm just appalled by the comments, talking about the need for editing and just for a few grammatical errors, and your article would be a winner."- These are other peoples opinions and suggestions, did someone really say my piece could be a winner? I'm flattered.
"You even spelled definitely "definatly" in your response to the first comment."-Thank you for pointing that out, how very helpful of you.
"If you have pride in your work, you'd edit your article as tight as possible and with the fewest grammatical errors and spelling before posting it and entering it in the competition."-I do have pride in my work but in an excited rush I tried to get it out to see what people thought. I actually have a corrected version sat on my desk but still not to my satisfaction. I do agree I could have waited and put it on at a later date, I'm knew to this what else can I say.
"Hey it's "first draft", so we should give you a break?"-I'm not asking you or anyone for any favours, just to read and hopefully enjoy.
"If it's first draft, it shouldn't even be entered"-Why? I didn't read that in the rule book sorry.
"because it shouldn't give you an excuse to enter a half-baked article in the competition, and expect to win."-Is this why? I don't know if I will win or not, probably not now that you have kicked up such a fuss so good job.
"But with the writing group, you can expect to win."-Can I? Really? I please ask again that you read my previous post.
Please everyone else, vote fairly. I am now posting this end of message so their is no ambiguity, I don't want you to vote because of any other reason than you actually like what I have written. I have obviously annoyed someone who does not want to be named and don't wish to annoy them further.
Thank you again for your wonderfully insightful comments Mr Anon.
TLParsons
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I guess you can't read JamBri
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I think the first draft should not be entered as a piece in the competition. There was nothing said about a final draft. I also wonder why nobody else in the WC has commented on this piece. Could it be because it's just a draft and they're turned off by what's happening from the very beginning?
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AJ, just for clarity, what was the meaning of that comment directed at me? I really don't get what your point was, or why the attack was necessary. All I've done is given an honest opinion, so I'm a bit thrown by the obvious dig, especially without backing it up.
Can we please just get back to constructive criticism and relevant comments about the work itself, instead of undermining the whole thing?
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With all that has been said and written, can I remind everyone concerned to please STOP this. The Writers Circle is composed of young and mature writers. Some of us are writing because we enjoy it as a form of hobby or an expression of ideas or oneself. Please do not upset the HONEST writers especially the young writers in the group. This is supposed to be a FRIENDLY Writers Circle. Let us ALL be guided by the Guidelines and Reminders from the Writers Circle. Please try to be more professional. Would all people concerned just make a step back, relax and get back to 'happy writing'?
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I wouldn't like anything better thank you libran, hope you enjoyed reading my work and I wish you all the best with future endeavours.
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Kudos
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From 27 votes
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Total posts: 21
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Roles:
Writer
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Portsmouth, UNITED KINGDOM
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I just hope that you enjoy my work
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