Blood Stained Knight

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Applejack

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Aug 1, 2010
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Korten12 said:
Applejack said:
Korten12 said:
FinalDream said:
In honestly I would skip the prologue, its an info dump that takes away some of the mystery of the story. Use the questions of what is the infection and how did it spread as a narrative hook to keep the reader turning pages, or in this case continue reading!
hm... I might just do that.

though all what I have heard is about the prologue, how is chapter one? :(
Your character needs emotions considering his terrible experience. What he's thinking or how he can manage to cope so well while his life sorta fell apart due to the disease. We get nothing out of him and it's hard to read something about an uninteresting uncaring character.
well I was somewhat thinking of adding that in Chapter 2, 1 to get a idea of his past, and then 2 to introduce what he is like.
Oh I see. When I write I usually build up to dramatic stuff and would never cut the drama short as it happens but I have had times when I had to explain a characters background a little better further into the story and then I have a few chapters that take place in their past like flashbacks. Everyone has their own writing style and it develops as you go. Your brave putting your story on a forum I would be too embarrassed to show anything I had written at 15. My best advice is take advantage of every opportunity your story gives you and don't stop writing.
 

Korten12

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Aug 26, 2009
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FinalDream said:
In honestly I would skip the prologue, its an info dump that takes away some of the mystery of the story. Use the questions of what is the infection and how did it spread as a narrative hook to keep the reader turning pages, or in this case continue reading!
what if I also switch Chapter 1 to the prologue? then I just get rid of what I wrote for the prologue.
 

FinalDream

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Apr 6, 2010
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Korten12 said:
FinalDream said:
In honestly I would skip the prologue, its an info dump that takes away some of the mystery of the story. Use the questions of what is the infection and how did it spread as a narrative hook to keep the reader turning pages, or in this case continue reading!
what if I also switch Chapter 1 to the prologue? then I just get rid of what I wrote for the prologue.
Ideally your prologue should be almost separate from the main story, I would use it to give some kind of plot related information (thought not via info dumping) prior to starting the main story. You could use it to introduce your main character, show us what kind of a person he was before the infection started. For example you could show Krin as someone who is not strong and rather insecure, thus leading him to ultimately hide from his infected family rather than trying to help them. Then when you start chapter one you don't need to get hung up on explaining things. We already have an idea of who Krin is and how he would act.

Applejack mentioned giving him emotion, this would be a good move. Try to think what kind of person Krin is (don't try to make him someone you want him to be - let the character evolve naturally in your mind). Does he hide in the basement of the house hands over his ears to muffle the inhuman cries of the infected outside trying to block out reality, or does he recognise the danger and face up to the facts by fleeing? Only later to feel guilt at abandoning his family so easily. Does he accept the blood stained armor as his chance to save others (making up for abandoning his family) or is it a burden he doesn't want to carry?

As for chapter one I can see the idea and direction of the story (and its good) but it doesn't always read correctly. For example:

The day the infection started, Krin?s life ended and began. Forever his life was changed.

This would be better as:

The day the infection spread Krin's life changed forever.

I would advise you to not publish every chapter the moment you finish it. Keep re-reading it and editing it. Ask yourself, does this make sense? Have you jotted/typed down a rough idea for the whole story?
 

Jonluw

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May 23, 2010
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Catalyst6 said:
Copy-pasted from the comment. Also, as the forum guidelines say, the next time that you want to advertise your blog please purchase ad space, yes?

"/facepalm. Okay, this is not a chapter, this is a paragraph that you hit Enter on too much. Actually, it's more like a second prologue.

Your grammar is terrible. This has the feeling of a dump draft, where you just do an action-reaction run-through to set up the format, expecting to go back and add in detail and proper formatting. It's really rough.

For example,

"For some reason he felt drawn to the armor but also fearful of it. But due to the situation he was in he took his first thought and went on to put on the armor."

is really rough. Perhaps you could rephrase this into

"His fear of the armor conflicted with a strangely foreign desire to be near it. The situation called for him to don the (adjective) armor, however, so he took hold of his first instinct and quickly dressed in it".
Pretty much what I thought, though I wouldn't phrase myself in your manner: You come off as unnecessarily hostile. Scolding people is not the way to encourage budding writers to go through with their ambitions. If it wasn't for the fact that your rewriting of Op's sentence is rather impressive, I would be quite heavily annoyed with you.

OP: I reckon you should listen to this person on the topic of sentence design, he/she seems to know something about it. It seems you have a potentially promising story going; I say keep writing (If you want to, that is), and try to listen to feedback: Some of it might be really helpful, listening to the audience can improve a story by a lot.
 

Catalyst6

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Apr 21, 2010
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Jonluw said:
Pretty much what I thought, though I wouldn't phrase myself in your manner: You come off as unnecessarily hostile. Scolding people is not the way to encourage budding writers to go through with their ambitions. If it wasn't for the fact that your rewriting of Op's sentence is rather impressive, I would be quite heavily annoyed with you.

OP: I reckon you should listen to this person on the topic of sentence design, he/she seems to know something about it. It seems you have a potentially promising story going; I say keep writing (If you want to, that is), and try to listen to feedback: Some of it might be really helpful, listening to the audience can improve a story by a lot.
Eh, I've always held that overly-critical ("hostile") criticism (although I don't think that I was too far over the bar) is far better than soft criticism. Coddling someone never helps them, you have to viciously attack the flaws so that they'll focus on and improve them. Of course, the OP won't listen to me, but hey, it's his loss.
 

Jonluw

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May 23, 2010
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Catalyst6 said:
Jonluw said:
Pretty much what I thought, though I wouldn't phrase myself in your manner: You come off as unnecessarily hostile. Scolding people is not the way to encourage budding writers to go through with their ambitions. If it wasn't for the fact that your rewriting of Op's sentence is rather impressive, I would be quite heavily annoyed with you.

OP: I reckon you should listen to this person on the topic of sentence design, he/she seems to know something about it. It seems you have a potentially promising story going; I say keep writing (If you want to, that is), and try to listen to feedback: Some of it might be really helpful, listening to the audience can improve a story by a lot.
Eh, I've always held that overly-critical ("hostile") criticism (although I don't think that I was too far over the bar) is far better than soft criticism. Coddling someone never helps them, you have to viciously attack the flaws so that they'll focus on and improve them. Of course, the OP won't listen to me, but hey, it's his loss.
I'm not saying you should be coddling people. I am merely suggesting you should try to be pleasant. There is a long way between being pleasant and making it clear that you are not attempting to insult the person you are critizing, but rather help them, and wrapping them in marshmallows and assuring them that they needn't take your criticism seriously.
 
Aug 25, 2009
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Korten12 said:
I wanted to do this properly, so I hope you appreciate the effort, and sorry it took so long.

Paragraph One

[spoiler/]
The day the infection started, Krin?s life ended and began. Forever his life was changed.

This is pretty cliched, and while the syntax etc is fine you might want to rethink opening the story proper with this line. The idea of a massive occurence happening which both 'ends and begins' someone's life is such an old one that you can't open with it. I would recommend just getting rid of it entirely. It would be much better to open with the next line.

He was frighten and he didn?t know what to do, he was young and so he hid in the basement of his house while his family members turned to infected outside.

The first check you should always do is for spelling and grammar errors. 'He was frighten(sic)'. It's very important to get this right. You can take out the second he. 'and he didn't...' It just makes the setence a little less clumsy. Add a full stop after 'what to do.' and start the sentence new. You have the same problem of telling us too much and not letting us imagine anything. We don't need to be told directly that he's young, but the second part of that where he hides in the basement is okay.

Krin began to move boxes around to find a hiding spot when he found a door which he had never seen before.

This is too sudden. There's very little tension in your opening chapter, and you could remedy this quite easily by just spending a little more time with Krin down in the basement, stumbling around in the dark and crying about his family having died. It would be a nice little moment of character development to give him some sort of motivation for going on to become a hero.

So he opened the door fully and began to walk down the dark cave guided by the light in the distance.

Don't start this with 'So he...' It makes the rest of the sentence sound like 'he did this and then he did this and then he did this,' which again sounds clunky. It could be made better by simply getting rid of the word 'so' on the beginning.
[/spoiler]

Second Paragraph

After walking what to him felt like hours which in reality was only a few minutes he reached the light.

Don't clarify the situation. Don't tell us that it's only a few minutes in reality, just leave it that it feels to him like hours. This is a good example of the difference between showing and telling. Here you are telling, if you just removed the bit beginning 'in reality until 'he reached the light.' Then it would be showing instead.

It was another door but this one was engraved with many symbols all which were the source of the light.

More detail on this but also needs less directness. Break it into shorter sentecnes with more commas and give us many details about the door. What shapes are the engravings? Are they animal symbols or like letters? What is the door made of? Is it big, small, wide, barely enough space to fit a small child or enough space for a dozen men? This would be a great place to add a whole paragraph or more where Krin just sits and stares at the door, wondering what it is.

In the middle of the door was a engraving of a hand which Krin placed his hand on.

This is too sudden. His family have all died upstairs as he sees his entire village ravaged by a horrific plague, and now he's trapped under his home and has just found a strange door with odd symbols around it which he shouldn't even be able to see in the dim light. He wouldn't just stick his hand into the door and see what happened. He should stay there, wondering whether it would be any worse a death than what would happen upstairs. Then finally he should just rush the door and slam his hand into it, maybe even hoping that it's just a quick death. As I said before there should be much more tension in your story. Events shoudn't just follow, there should be pauses, moments of contemplation, especially in this establishing moment.

He noticed then he could push it in and suddenly his hand was caught when two slides came from the left and right of the engraving covering his hand.

Again, have a pause while he waits for something to happen, then when nothing does he tries pushing it experimentally, then finds it moves. Describe the slides a little more as well. Are they metal? Wooden? Just add a single descriptive noun there.

Krin then panicked thinking that his hand was going to be cut off but only felt a prick which reinforced the panicking but in relief the door opened from down the middle and the two slides receded letting his hand free.

Far too long this sentence, and too much happens in it, leading to the same problem mentioned above 'first this happened, then this happened, then this happened.' Get rid of every time you said but and replace it with a new sentence or a comma. You can perhaps get away with using one 'but' in this little bit. Do the same with the 'ands', because the same continuation of sentences applies to using ands and buts. Also, don't tell us he's panicking twice in one sentence, show him trying desperately to wriggle free instead.

Third Paragraph

Once free he looked at his hand and noticed a small hole where he had been pricked.

Do we really need to know this? He's been pricked by something, or course he would have a small hole. If it's sprouted an unsual tattoo, or has discoloured his hand, or done something out of the norm then mention it, otherwise this sentence needs to be taken out.

He then walked through the door which then the light was now behind him.

This sentence just makes no sense. The syntax and grammar are wrong. Also, think carefully about whether you need it or not, because unless it is necessary that the light is behind him you could just add the bit about him walking through the door to the next line and save yourself a little extra description.

Finally looking forward he then saw what was behind a door, a large suit of plain armor but with large blood stains on it.

Why the blood stains? If the armour is mystical why don't they wash off? Does it need the blood in order for its magic to work? If that's the case then shouldn't it need fresh blood? When was the last time this armour was used anyway? If it's ancient, and the room hasn't been opened in years, then take a moment to describe the room. Is there anything else in here that he could look at, or does he look around and see that it's empty apart from this armour? Is it on a pedastal, are there more weird symbols on the walls? It feels like there should be a lot more description of this room than there is, especially after all the buildup. I would recommend at least a paragraph on the room and another paragraph as he looks at the armour. Is it huge, is it average sized, full plate armour or more light chainmail and sole plates over vital parts? Is there a helmet? Tell us about the armour as Krin examines it, he could walk round it and poke it a little, try and wipe some of the blood off to see if it's fresh. There's so much more that this moment needs.

For some reason he felt drawn to the armor but also fearful of it.

This is too obvious and too much telling. Instead of saying he's drawn to it tell us that as he touches it or looks at it he feels a strange glow in his skin, or a warmth, or a crackle of electricity which he doesn't understand. Then we know that he's drawn to it, and by showing him as reluctant to go near it you show that he's afraid of it. As a general rule when writing a story you should never need to give a character's emotion directly. You should never just say Krin was angry, Krin was afraid. Let his actions show us how he feels. Also, the implications of the line hold the stink of a 'destiny' surrounding a 'chosen one' who 'must wear the armour' so he can 'save the world.' It's all well and good writing a cliche but how about not making it obvious. How about he just takes the armour and only finds out later he had a destiny to wear it? King Arthur in the original myths pulled the sword from the stone because his brother needed a sword, it was only afterwards that he even found out that it was the destined sword of the king.

But due to the situation he was in he took his first thought and went on to put on the armor.

Again, more apprehension and a little more common sense. If the armour is bigger than him he couldn't possibly hope to escape in it so the best he could hope for (as far as he knows) is to hide in it and hope no one comes down and sniffs him out. Also, why is it his first thought? he's afraid of this armour and the situation should be terrifying. He's stil trapped underground with everything he ever knew and loved dying only feet above his head, so he shouldn't just leap at the call. This is a frightened child, not a battle-hardened warrior.

The armor was much larger than him, but suddenly a large brightness covered him and the armor then was fitted to his size.

The description is too dull. How does he even get it on? plate armour is heavy, several kilograms. Is the armour already open or can he crawl in somehow? Does he spend several minutes straining to open it? Or better yet does it slide open at his touch, and starts to glow before he even gets into but he is so entranced by the internal spark both within himself and the armour that he can no longer resist the pull, crawling in only to have a spark of strenght pierce his heart as the armour heats to white hot flame that doesn't harm him, shrinking to mould perfectly to his body? Have a little fun with this. How does the armour shrink? Is it a terrifying moment when the metal seems to be closing in all around him, threatening to crush him and he wonders if he has made a fatal error and is about to be killed by a demonic suit of armour or does it change in a way that he can become one with the suit and knows that it is right that he should wear it, a sense of purpose suddenly filling his body?

Fourth Paragraph

With the armor then, he felt a sort of need to escape from the house as if the armor itself was fearful of the house.

This is alright, but you've just revealed that the armour has some sort of consciousness which Krin is aware of, he should spend a moment wondering how the heck he can feel an inanimate suit of armour's feelings. Also, let him spend a moment and examine the suit, how it suddenly fits perfectly to his body. Maybe it's even more alive than just a feeling, and seems almost like a second skin to him, or it could just still be a plain old suit of bloodstained armour that happens to be telapathic and able to change its size.

Agreeing with the armor?s feeling he felt, he left the house, he was devastated at seeing the sight of his family members as monsters once again.

Very bad sentence structure here. 'Agreeing with the armor's feeling he felt.' Just tell us he agrees with the armour's feeling. Also, the sentence needs to be broken into too, he agrees with the armour and leaves, new sentence, he was devastated. Also, you have again told us his emotion. He could see them, pause for just a moment, unable to touch them or speak to them, crying helplessly as he runs away. He's still a child, and children in fiction typically don't feel devastated, they feel helpless and alone and terrified, and that should be the emotion, not devastation, which is much more specific and a much more adult emotion.

His family members then turned and faced him and began to run at Krin.

You need to clarify this somewhere else in the chapter, either his family were in the house, and so in the sentence above he doesn't leave the house but just comes upstairs from the armour room, or his family were outside and so he finds them as he leaves the house, which is what you said he did. Either would work, jsut maintain consistency. The previous sentence makes it sound like he's outside, so maybe you should stick with that, but make it clear.

In a second Krin turned and began to run past the house and way from the monsters. He kept running and running to parts unknown.

Don't say 'in a second' just say he turned and ran. Definitely add that he's not really looking where he's going. You probably need to specify that the suit is allowing him to run faster because otherwise I don't believe that a little boy in full plate armour would be able to outrun adults, and you need to mention the other villagers coming for him as well. You should probably draw out this whole scene into a full action scene. He dodges villagers he's known for years, children he's playing with, a girl down the street he had a crush on now a deformed monster reaching for him, anything to add more emotion to his leaving this village and let us understand how terrible it is. Right now he just dons the armour, sees his family and runs for it. Really drive the point home. You could also display some more of the armour's properties. Maybe he avoids hitting them, but gets cornered and has to punch one, and his punch tears it in half or knocks it across the street. (After all, if the armour can enable him to outrun adults, it msut either be granting him strength or speed)

Fifth Paragraph

Seven years have passed since then, Krin was able to escape to the purity side of the continent as the wall was being built.

This feels like it should almost be a whole new chapter. If the moments leading up to his finding the armour and escaping are his origin then it feels like they should be the prologue, and this the beginning of the new chapter. If you weaved your current prologue together with this chapter than it would also allow you to ground your prologue a little more in the human side of things, because describing everything happening from a far off viewpoint can leave people disinterested in the story, but adding a human concern of a little boy lost and frightened lets us know that there are real people who were affected by this tragedy.

In the seven years he also was hidden from the rest of the world wearing his armor still which grew with him and only took it off to wash it.

Too much description. Also, it seems illogical that he only takes the armour off to wash it, because that implies that he sleeps in it, and also that full plate armour is not extraordinarily hot. Historical reenactment societies actually have stringent rules about their people wearing the pseudo-plate armour because of how dangerous it is to wear it for prolonged periods so you really need to clarify that it is more like a second skin, and somehow manages to remain cool. Also, the issue of the helmet needs to be clarified. While technically called something a 'suit of armour' doesn't specify a helmet, most people would assume it would, so you've just told us that in seven years he has eaten, slept and interacted with a helmet on. That just conjures up a very silly image. Also, I think it would be safe to say that the magical suit of armour grows with him so you don't really need to tell us, which removes a rather clumsy element from the sentence.

He had learned things no human should have ever learned and he isn?t going to tell anyone?

This is bad for several reasons. Firstly you should never end a chapter on a cliffhanger unless it really is a dramatic moment. You don't end someone's origin story on a cliffhanger because it implies that there is more of the origin story to go. Also, why tell us that he isn't going to tell people what he's seen? If he is going to tell people in the course of the story then it makes this statement a lie, and thus unneeded, or he won't tell anyone in which case it's pointless because we will never know the information and it will just be a massive noodle incident for the readers. It doesn't add mystery so much as say that you wanted to add mystery but didn't know how to. Effectively it's the same as finishing your chapter by saying, 'oh and by the way this character has a mysterious past which I'm not going to disclose, but he's all mysterious and spooky okay?' If he has a mysterious and dark past it should be revealed by his actions. If he's seen the worst of human nature he will be cold and hard towards people, if he's seen the worst ravages of the infection then he will be brutal and ruthless with the infected and people will wonder what makes him so cold and harsh. Show his past through his actions. Finally, don't ever use ellipses in narration ever, and especially don't end chapters on them, because that just screams 'I'm trying to add a cliffhanger to make you keep reading.'

Some general comments about this chapter
As an establishing chapter the ideas behind it are solid. He loses his family, finds a mystical suit of armour and runs away, probably swearing vengeange, or that he will never be so helpless again. It establishes the character, gives him clear motivation, and also has the potential for character development later, if he were to return to his village. It does raise some questions, like why this magic armour was buried under a simple peasant shack, but that would be the sort of question to keep people reading that you could answer later in a dramatic reveal that in fact his father had been a mystical knight, or there used to be an order who planted the armour in hopes of finding a champion, or just a single old wizard who placed it there knowing only a hero could wear it and save everyone, a la King Arthur.

Your writing needs lots of work though, most specifically in learning how to show and not tell, and in how to pace properly. The events follow one after the other without a single moment to stop and take in what's happening. You need those moments for the audience to breath because otherwise there is no chance for developing characters, and it doesn't matter how exciting your story is because without characters it won't hold people's attention.

This chapter is far too short, barely even a chapter at all, and combined with a very short prologue it makes me wonder if maybe you should combine the two and start the story from Chapter One when he is already an adult. There are very few authors who use such short chapters, and it's for a good reason. Probably the only one I know is James Patterson, but he has a writing style not best suited to fantasy novels (actually he has a writing style not best suited to anything other than James Patterson novels but that's a separate issue). Fantasy readers expect a certain level of description and verbiage and appropriate setting and pacing. You reveal nothing about his village, or his appearance, or how many people are in his family. These are details we need to know, because otherwise he has no character, he is just a plot device to keep the armour moving. A good chapter is about 2000-3000 words long. Exceptions can be made for action-heavy chapters, where it's a good idea to keep all the action together so the reader doesn't get fatigued. Your chapter is only just past 500, nearly a sixth of a full chapter. Prologues can get away with being 1000 (another reason to combine them) but you really need to consider whether you have enough ideas and enough discipline to keep yourself to writing 3000 words a chapter.

Also, the ideal novel should be anywhere between 80,000-100,000 words long, with fantasy noels often reaching to 150,000-200,000. It takes discipline, it takes an incredible amount of planning, and it takes a lot of time and effort. For my own fantasy series, I have so far written the first book totalling 114,000 words, which took me over two years, half of the second book totalling 60,000 words so far, with a probable end around 130,000, and I don't anticipate finishing it until next summer. This is only the second book out of a four book series. The series when completed will be in the region of half a million words long, and my notes ont he series exceed 250,000 words. Writing a novel, especially a fantasy novel, is a massive undertaking.

There are questions I know you won't have answered, which you may not even use in your book, but which you need to know, just in case it comes up. What are the major religions? Are they pantheistic or monotheistic? Are there great religious wars? Who are the Gods, what are their names? What are the cities called, who lives there? Are there monarchs, an elected body of people, where do the villages fit in? Do they have Knight Lords or are they ruled by their own people? You have to know every single detail of every single part of your kingdom, including all names of places and the name of the realm itself. Your plan for the chapters should be several pages alone, let alone the additional notes.

Some final comments.
I have a couple of recommendations for you, which I think you might want to try.

Firstly, read often and copy the styles you read. Read in multiple different styles and take what you think works. Don't just read a fantasy novel, read a romance and a Jodi Picoult, and definitely lots of Harry Potter, Artermis Fowl, Tamora Pierce, Derek Landy. Teenage and children authors, because your story has more the feel of a young adult fantasy than an adult fantasy (which I must say is a very good thing.)

Also, a few good writing exercises. Practice dialogue by writing down everything you hear two people say in a conversation. Mainly this will show you how dull actual communication is, so the next part is to cut out all the pauses, uhms and ahs, and repeated information until you have the gist of the conversation represented in a few concise sentences, then add narration about how they move as they deliver the lines.

A good tip for practicing controlled writing is the 'Picture' challenge. Basically, as the saying goes a picture tells a thousand words, so use a thousand words to describe a picture. It teaches you both to be concise, but also to use description correctly, which is more why I think you should try it, because if you write less than a thousand words you haven't done enough.

Finally, if you go on a bus trip, or are caught in a waiting room, or a train etc, wait until someone comes in, then write about their life. You have until you or they leave the room or vehicle. You should be able to get about 250-500 words done depending on your personal writing speed and your location.
 

Korten12

Now I want ma...!
Aug 26, 2009
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MelasZepheos said:
I will get to reading this (been busy) and take in all of the critism and try to write Chapter 2.

Or do you guys think I should continue with the story but start over?