Fantasy SS, 1400 words, Tragic

[MarkCoveny]

Howdy, please have a look and let me know what you think. Grammar and spelling "should" be correct. (I used Essayrater)



An only child born to loving parents, I had few duties. The only memories I have of childhood are of my father's book collection. At fifteen, Colby More courted me. An attractive son of a blacksmith, we both enjoyed reading. On our wedding day, he gave me a book entitled "Magical Creatures".


After the marriage, we spent several days traveling to our new home. We finally pulled up to a vine covered stone building surrounded by moors. The house looked old, dirty and rundown. The plaque at the gate read: "Bog La More."


"This is our new home. I know it's not much now, but it's got potential." Colby said.


"I was gonna name it Casa La More, which means House of More, but since it's in a swamp I thought Bog La More would be funnier." He said with a chuckle.


Stunned to silence, I noticed this hovel did not even have a roof. I glimpsed a mangled fence through the thigh-high weeds. I cringed at the sight of the broken and dirty windows.


"This could be the house of our dreams, I just need to do some work to get it back 'n shape."


"Um, yeah." I responded halfheartedly.


Over the course of the next months, Colby repaired the building and I cleaned. With the doors and windows fixed, and the walls changing color, the shack became a home. I began to take time on literature. I dreamed about what the home could become. The excitement about our future grew within me again. After finishing the house, Colby started work as a blacksmith.


Colby's business became lucrative, and he bought new books for me to read. The townsfolk asked me to teach their children, when they found out about my reading. The children loved my stories, and I felt needed and a useful member of the community. Life is better than I ever expected, and Colby is my soul mate.


I hear rumors about a black dragon in the area, but Colby discounted them as superstition. I trusted him with my life and believed him utterly. I have never seen a dragon and refused to believe anything bad could happen to us.


After nearly a year of marriage, I became pregnant, and the news elated me. I fantasized about being a mother and raising our child. I found out the baby is OK from a midwife. My life, at this point, is exceptional.


Life came crashing down on me one drizzly twilight when reality met fantasy. Colby bought some fireworks from a traveling merchant that day. When the sun began to fall, he shot them off to celebrate our future child. The loud explosions are not enjoyed by all.


"They are splendid my love." I said.


"They were expensive, but worth it." He replied.


I smiled at him. I stroked my belly, thinking of our child. I had only seen fireworks a few times in my life. Father told me Gnomes made them, but I never met one. Then I heard something large coming through the forest. It woke me from pondering baby names. Colby scooped me up and took me inside.


"What is that?"


"I have no idea, but it's big." Colby said as he drew his bow and opened a window.


Something twice the size of a wagon broke through the tree line. The ebony dragon advanced with its two powerful back legs and wings curled to its sides. The sight of it filled me with terror. It stopped to look at the clearing around our home and lifted its head. Its nostrils flared, and a foul stench overcame me as it rushed the house. Colby's arrow hit the dragon in its right shoulder. The arrow barely penetrated the skin.


I heard a deep intake of air. It snapped me out of my terror. I knew I would soon burn in the Dragon's fire. I ran to the front of the house. It sprayed not fire, but acid. It blasted through the small window, slammed Colby in the back and pushed him on top of me. I could hear the dragon clawing at the window and roof of our stone home.


Colby opened the front window. This gave me a clear view of his back. The acid had melted his shirt and skin. With the skin gone, I could see the bones and muscles on his back. The gruesome wounds on his back should have killed him. He turned, grabbed me off the floor and tossed me sailing into the front yard.


"Run!" He yelled from the window.


Paralyzed, I watched in horror as the dragon loomed over my home. Everything slowed down as the drake's acid struck Colby. The acid flowed over him like thick green drops of water. The shower melted off his face. Caught in a soundless scream of agony, all I could see of him now is bones. I lay in horror as I watched my darling devoured by this giant winged serpent. He is gone, and I am left with a hole where my heart use to be. Everythings gone. . .


I sobbed at the loss.


I began to cry.


I wailed when I understood he is gone, gone forever!


I wailed my voice ragged.


I wailed every time I relived his death, as he tried crying out to me.


He's gone.


I wailed. I knew hunger and thirst and yet I wailed.


The loss is too much, everything else seemed meaningless now. There is no world without Colby.


I wailed as my mind looped through the good times, knowing that I would never experience them again.


I wailed as I thought of all the work destroyed.


I wailed that he is gone. Truly, permanently gone. Never again would I see his smile or feel his touch.


I wailed at losing half my soul.


My throat quit working and yet I still tried to continue. Without words, other than pure sorrow, my loss still needed out.


I have no notion how long I sat there replaying the final moments of his life over and over again. I tried to yell and scream, but my body would not comply. I put every ounce of my pain and suffering into my scream. Everything fell away but trying to make my voice work again. The sorrow pounded me for release.


I felt time pass and my body transforming, still I concentrated on making my voice heard. I moved but not with my legs, my body is no longer human. The oddity of it broke my focus. I wandered to the house and realized change. Unaware of the passage of time, the yard is overgrown, the house covered in vines. I remembered the first time I looked upon this place.


I moved to the point where he died. I looked down at the scarred stone and finally drained all my grief and pain. I sounded much louder and stronger that a human voice. The keening sound of my cry shattered the windows. Some part of my mind knew me now as a banshee - the mournful spirit foretelling death.


I knew things. I knew how to cast magic. I knew I did not have milk to nurture my daughter and needed to find someone who did. About to give birth, my knowledge included the time of my pregnancy. The magic of how to mask my unborn child jumped to mind. I just needed to find a wet mother with a girl child to replace. I started looking.


I searched for homes not protected with iron. I found a defenseless cottage. The spell I cast put their child in a form of stasis while mine could develop and strengthen. As I left, the loss of my child overwhelmed me. I wandered lost, unable to find my home.


I heard sounds of merriment and waves of anger hit me.


How could they be joyous? How dare them!


I would make them pay.


I entered the clearing and screamed at them. I would stop their happiness. I gave them all my mourning and anguish. My scream killed all ten of the fairies and turned them pure white.


I did not mean to kill them, and the misery of it brought me back to thoughts of Colby. I became lost in my thoughts again. On autopilot, I headed back to where I lost everything. The place that defined me: Boglamore.

 

[chrispenycate]

An attractive son of a blacksmith, we both enjoyed reading.

You are not both "the attractive son of a blacksmith"

We finally pulled up to a vine covered stone building surrounded by moors.

The word "moor" for me does not conjure up damp and sog, but windblown and infertile. I know you want the play on words, but I just don't get "boggy" from it.

I know it's not much now, but it's got potential." Colby said.

Generalised end of quote remark; if the attribution (he said) is a continuation of the sentence (as it is here, and in most of your dialogue) comma, and no capital letter after (Hm, I'll use another example, so as to get the capital)since it's in a swamp I thought Bog La More would be funnier," he said with a chuckle.

I began to take time on literature.

Strange way of putting it. Take time for literature, perhaps?

The townsfolk asked me to teach their children, when they found out about my reading.

So, we have a town close enough for casual visits? And we've not heard about it till now, and it will play no part in the fireworks, the dragon or her susequent despair?.

Life is better than I ever expected, and Colby is my soul mate.


I hear rumors about a black dragon in the area, but Colby discounted them as superstition. I trusted him with my life and believed him utterly. I have never seen a dragon and refused to believe anything bad could happen to us.

We suddenly move temporarily to present tense (up until now, it's all been conventional past)

I hear rumors about a black dragon in the area, but Colby discounted them as superstition. I trusted him with my life and believed him utterly. I have never seen a dragon and refused to believe anything bad could happen to us.

Tenses. "I heard", and "I had never".

My life, at this point, is exceptional.

present tense

When the sun began to fall, he shot them off to celebrate our future child.

I know it's fantasy, but falling suns sound a bit dangerous.

he shot them off to celebrate our future child. The loud explosions are not enjoyed by all.

What is the relevance of that second sentence?

"They are splendid my love." I said.

comma after "splendid"

Father told me Gnomes made them, but I never met one.

probably pluperfect tense.

The ebony dragon advanced with its two powerful back legs and wings curled to its sides.

The picture I get is of it dragging itself along with it's front limbs, while the rest of its extremities are sort of wrapped round it.

Caught in a soundless scream of agony, all I could see of him now is bones.

Who was caught in the scream? As written, it is you. And I hesitate too use a "now" in a past situation.

Everythings gone. . .

Everything's

as he tried crying out to me.

I suspect this was going to be "as he died, crying" But perhaps it was "as he tried to cry out"

Without words, other than pure sorrow, my loss still needed out.

Logic is not very clear.

I felt time pass and my body transforming, still I concentrated on making my voice heard. I moved but not with my legs, my body is no longer human.

Both those commas should be at least semicolons. And the last bit… I suppose the body is still not human, but probably the tense change is still unjustified.

I wandered to the house and realized change. Unaware of the passage of time, the yard is overgrown, the house covered in vines.

Yards are generally pretty ignorant about time passing. And, since she has not yet given birth (and the midwife had checked the growing foetus, that she would not have done in the first month) has there been enough time for vines to grow over the house?

I sounded much louder and stronger that a human voice.

I think the "that" should be a "than".

How could they be joyous? How dare them!

How dare they?

I did not mean to kill them, and the misery of it brought me back to thoughts of Colby.

I had not meant?

Since you were using a mixture of romance languages (not casa del More) I was expecting a play on l'amour, or even Glamour. That'll teach me trying to guess what's coming.

 

[TheEndIsNigh]

Sorry, as a beginning I found it a little mundane.

I fail to see why the one "grab them by the eyeballs" moment is wasted with some irrelevant memory of a father which was, by all intents, plays no further part in the plot.

Much better to start with the dramatic stuff further down the page. You can always fill in with she married the second cousin of the doorman's sister's nephew later.

I asked myself if, in this pre-industrial age, a blacksmiths son wouldn't be flogged from the county for daring to turn his eye on the daughter of the gentry which anyone with a large library would be.

As for the action itself it seems a bit short. This is the turning point, he's a blacksmith, surely he deserves a bit of a fight before he puts down his hammers for the last tiem. It would fill it out more too. Also, the relationship needs some development. All this wailing for someone who, from what we are told, she's only known a few months seems a bit OTT. The long trek also seems odd. Blacksmiths sons usually take over the family business so unless the fathers donated cash to rid himself of a "disgraced dauhter" then a blacksmiths son is hardly likely to have the cash to set up elsewhere.

I would suggest starting with the beginning of the attack, followed by the flashback and relationship build up and then kill of the hubby. Followed by the main tale proper.

As an idea it has potential. Keep at it.

Hope I helped

TEiN

 

[The Judge]

Hi. Welcome to the Chronicles.

Well, if you think your grammar is correct, think again.

You start badly with a rash of dangling and irrelevant clauses. In your first paragraph of 5 sentences, you have at least 2, possibly 3 of the blighters. In case you're not sure, these are: An only child born to loving parents, I had few duties... At fifteen, Colby More courted me. An attractive son of a blacksmith, we both enjoyed reading. The last is the worst. After a construction of this 'An...' kind, the second clause has to continue with the same person as the subject in each, so 'An attractive son, Colby was...' If, as I suspect, it is the narrator who is 15, not Colby, that sentence is also wrong and should read either 'At 15, I was courted by...' or 'When I was 15, Colby More...' or something of that kind. Your first sentence is grammatically correct, since the narrator is the subject of each, but the two clauses bear absolutely no relation to each other. The lack of relationship is also a fault of the last sentence - their joint love of reading has no relevance to the fact his father is a blacksmith. This kind of thing does look amateurish I'm afraid.

Punctuation-wise, you consistently get it wrong with dialogue attribution. There are articles about this in The Toolbox, a sticky at the top of Aspiring Writers, which I suggest you read. Basically, in the sentence but it's got potential." Colby said, the full stop (period) after 'potential' is wrong and this should be a comma. You also need to watch commas, as you sometimes omit them when needed, eg "They are splendid my love." I said should have a comma after 'splendid' (and, as before, after 'love' in place of the full stop); but you have them where not needed eg The townsfolk asked me to teach their children, when they found out about my reading - there's no reason to pause after children.

You switch tenses haphazardly, lurching into present for no good reason eg The children loved my stories, and I felt needed... Life is better than I ever expected, and Colby is my soul mate. If you are writing in the past tense, stay there.

Your language is stilted at times, and there are some odd turns of phrase, which I think comes from you trying to write in a more literary fashion than you would speak eg Colby's business became lucrative - a busiiness might be lucrative, it reads oddly for it to become so; and I began to take time on literature is seriously strange.

I know this is first person narrative, and therefore you must write in your character's voice. However, the continual use of short sentences creates a very disjointed and choppy effect, quite the opposite to the mood of mellowness you presumably wish to conjure up at the beginning. It also makes her sound simple-minded, which again is presumably not the effect you want. I suggest that you learn to vary sentence length to give interest to your work.

You don't say in what period this is meant to be set. I imagine that it is meant to be faux mediaeval, with the blacksmiths, travelling pedlars (NB by and large merchants do not travel in this way - they tend to be wealthier and stay put) and particularly the illiterate locals needing her to teach their children to read. If that is the case, then you need to think about the language you are using: 'gonna', 'yeah' and 'OK' are modern slang; 'potential' is also not a word found on your average yokel's lips, nor is Italian commonly spoken by them (well, not unless they are Italian). In fact, I can't say I found any of the dialogue convincing.

If this is meant to be mediaeval, think also about the reality of society at that time, not to say the logic of your story. A blacksmith's son would likely be apprenticed to his father and remain there until well into his 20s and beyond. Newly-weds would rarely have the money to have a house of their own, they would live with their parents. Travelling long distances to find work is one thing, but here it seems completely unbelievable that they have done this. And a workman would need to start working immediately, otherwise they would not be eating - people simply did not have reserves of cash - he would mend the hovel in his spare hours. And by the way, if Colby's business takes off, presumably because lots of horses need shoeing, ironwork needs mending/replacing etc, how is it there wasn't a blacksmith there already in the town?

Make up your mind about the setting, as well. First the house is surrounded by moors, then Colby says it's in a swamp, but it's obviously close to town if the people learn of her reading and the children come to her for lessons, yet the dragons approaches through 'the' forest.

As for the story, to be honest it was far too long for me to get through. I got as far as him getting out a bow and gave up. But since I've already said a lot, I'll leave others to comment on the bigger issues of plot, characterisation and flow, all of which need work to my mind.

I dare say this critique will come as a bit of a blow to you. Please do not be discouraged. I don't know how old you are, obviously, but I get the impression that you haven't been writing for very long. Writing is like any craft - it has to be practised. Keep writing and keep reading.



PS Bum. Chris has beaten me to the punch again and covered much the same ground. At least that shows you it isn't just me being picky.

PPS Double bum. Now even TEIN's beaten me. Must learn to type faster

 

[MarkCoveny]

chrispenycate
thanks a ton. I apprecate the detail of your review a lot.

I paid for access to Essayrater to catch most of the stuff you brought up, and it doesn't seem to have worked. The program actually told me to change everything's to everythings.

The story is suppose to be in present tense, except for the first paragraph. The first paragraph is suppose to be history or setting depending on how you want to look at it. It looks like I've messed that up as well.

I was trying to show the passage of time threw her perception. Several months passed from the time he died. Vines were not a good choice of vegatation though. That would take years not months. Thanks again.

TheEndIsNigh
I looked for a mention of the father around the "The acid flowed over him like thick green drops of water. The shower melted off his face." I assume this is the part your saying when you say

one "grab them by the eyeballs" moment is wasted with some irrelevant memory of a father

. I didn't see mention of the father at all except in the first paragraph of the story. That was just a mention of his books not actually of him or a memory of him.

As for someone she just met. I put in the first paragraph that she was courted by Colby. Courting takes months. I also mentioned later that she didn't get preg until after a year of marriage.

I guess our beliefs on what makes gentry differ. A scribe, even one as good as her father, is still considered a commoner. Even if they hadn't both been commoners, the blacksmith's son would have been allowed to court her because her parents spoiled their daughter. I feel like I portrayed her as pampered and spoil. The first sentence states she had few duties growing up.

He moved because his father had more than one son, which was common for 2nd born children. She was not in disgrace. The woman's dowry provided everything they needed to buy the run down house in the middle of a swamp.

I attempted to make a tragedy. The basic plot is not about the dragon attack or action, but about a woman who falls in love and has everything taken away from her. The climax is the loss of her husband. It drove her crazy, and turned her into a Banshee.

 

[MarkCoveny]

Judge.
I just started writing about a month ago. I'm trying to find some way of getting it proofread, but the program I though would help me didn't.

As for the other stuff. Thanks I knew I had trouble with the correct tense in my writing. My grammar/spelling have been terrible my whole life. Is there a program out there you would recommend to catch this stuff? Essayrater isn't cutting it.

 

[TheEndIsNigh]

Mark:

My grab them moment comment was more about what people do when they first pick up a story, book, event, advertisement.

OK S/he read the glossy back cover and there's mention of a banshee and a dragon and a change of circumstance and a lost love and all the other stuff.

So now s/he opens the book and checks the and look at style of writing, the wedges of text; is there a lot of dialog etc. (we all do it)

Mmmm seems OK lets sneak a read at the first paragraph.

Now do we see the beginning of a tale of daring do, action and deadly forces as was hinted at on the cover.

No! What's this? A girl grew up, met someone and married him.

Where's all that blood and gore and Bansheeing.

Not only that but she was courted!

Not carried off from her caring family in a viking raid to be ransomed or sold into slavery. No mention of the death and devastation in the town as she was dragged by her hair to the longboat. The horrors and the perils of the North Sea. The near drowning as the boat capsized in heavy seas. Nair even a hint at the muscular Adonis that hefted the blacksmith's hammer in the village that took her in all those years ago on that night of horror.

So what does our intrepid book buyer do.

S/He espies another fancy cover. The one next to yours on the shelf and has a decko at that.

Although this is only my opinion and we all look for different things

 

[The Judge]

I can't help you with programs, Mark, as I know nothing about them. I do have a spell and grammar checker on Word but I switch the latter off more often than not, as it is usually incorrect (especially about the possessive apostrophe). In any event -- and please don't take this the wrong way -- if you have only been writing for a month, then it is far too soon to be thinking of having your work proof-read by machine or man (or woman). At this stage you should be writing and reading, reading and writing, and having fun with it, and not worrying about anything else: a bit like being at play school and simply daubing paint onto the paper, instead of fretting about perspective and all the rest of it. You have a great deal of work in front of you. I should imagine that most of the people who offer critiques here have been writing for years - I personally have been writing stories of one kind or another for the best part of 45 years (I was a very precocious embryo...)

If you do persist with this Essayrater, or you buy yourself another program, don't forget that this does not absolve you from thinking about your work. You cannot simply accept everything it tells you any more than you should obey a Sat Nav device which tells you to take your pantechnicon down a narrow footpath. As you will have seen from my comments on the other thread, these things can be too prescriptive and can create sterile work. A spell checker is more useful, but even then it will not flag a warning if you type 'two' instead of 'to' or 'too' - you have to read your own work and understand it.

The best thing to do is buy yourself a good guide to English. I think Ursa Major may have mentioned a good one he uses - have a look on The Toolbox I mentioned before and see if he gives details - if not he'll doubtless pop up and confirm something here. Also a good dictionary and a thesaurus are helpful in due course. As importantly, read a lot of other books. Don't limit yourself to fiction either. If you are writing fantasy based on a specific period in time, you need to have done your research properly, not just as to physical things such as clothes, but mores and values.

To deal with a few points you raise in response to TEiN and Chris:

It is possible to write in present tense and it can be done successfully. However, it is a very tricky thing to pull off and frankly your technique is nowhere near good enough at present. By all means experiment with it, but I'd suggest that you spend most of your time writing in the past tense.

It isn't always necessary to start a book with a great flash-bang scene, but when you start reading How-to-write books, you'll see that they make a great thing of having a 'hook' and this is important, as TEiN suggests in his own inimitable way. I can quite appreciate that you want to show what the narrator has before she loses it, and for this reason you don't want the dragon hurtling out of the sky in the first paragraph. On the other hand, we also don't want to be bored and we do need to feel some connection with the main character. As yet you have not learned how to achieve this, but if this is practically your first bit of writing, that is not surprising. One technique is to foreshadow what is about to happen eg 'I was 17 when my world ended forever.' grabs you from the start as TEiN wishes, but then allows you to go into backstory about the courting etc.

You also need to learn about how to show character. I had no inkiling of her background and personality until your comments to TEiN. Again, you should read a lot to see how other authors do this and you should write and write, practising all the time. Don't throw anything away, because when you come back to it in a year's time you will be able to see the progress you have made.

NB as an aside, of course a scribe's daughter is a commoner. An earl's daughter is a commoner. 'Commoner' is simply a way of saying non-royal. 'Gentry' is a social status of its own, however. You are right that a scribe would usually not be gentry, as that implies land and position of some kind, such as a gentleman farmer. However, there is a difference between a blacksmith's son and a scribe's daughter which would still create social difficulties which you ought to show. And at that level of society there are no dowries, certainly not of the kind to allow them to buy land (and in previous centuries very few people would own land, they would merely be tenants). Of course, this is fantasy and you can invent what you want, but it's like using English - you need to know what is right before you can deliberately subvert it, otherwise it can too easily appear to be ignorance.

Hope this helps.

 

[Nik]

My tuppence...

...I ran to the front of the house. It sprayed not fire, but acid. ...

At that point, my attention glitched...

FWIW, I think this tale has mucho potential. Needs tidying, needs a lot of the sentence parts re-arranged / re-punctuated to provide flow, to enhance the stasis sprung by her nascent magic etc etc.

Still better than much I've written, of course, of course...

 

[chrispenycate]

There are several professions for which moving is to be avoided as much as possible, and blacksmithing is one of them (as is miller) Transporting a decent size anvil before cranes and lowloaders was to be avoided as long as possible, and without the anvil, what is the forge? Water transport (barge, narrowboat) is strongly recommended. Even the other tools (hammers, pincers, chisels and the other metal bits) are a fair weight, and he's going to have to build his furnace and bellows on the spot; not the job of a few hours of free time while rebuilding his house (you observed its roofless state, but made no mention of hiring in labour from the local town to get the big beams up; we were given the picture of the intrepid newly wed rebuilding everything himself.) I also have a question about the smith learning to read (and enjoy reading) but that depends on your culture. The smiths I have met (we did a film about smiths and farriers) were not great intellectuals; not stupid (mostly deaf) but with a very practical intelligence.

Ooh, that would be a pig to do in present tense, with the time intervals involved. Still don't let me stop you trying, though. and don't let my various comments discourage you from trying. After all, I'm not a publisher who might put your work on the shelves. Never assume that what I've suggested is right; work out why I said it, then if you disagree, keep it as you like.

I'm sorry about your program missing things, but I think this is inevitable until the computers get good enough to write for themselves. The contraction of "everything has" into "everything's" is probably not very common (and look, I missed "used to be" in

where my heart use to be. Everythings gone. . .

And the ellipsis – I've got a … key on my computer, and it doesn't space the points), indeed my suitably lobotomised spellchecker doesn't like it either, but the plural of everything can't be that common, can it? (you took all my everythings?)

Perhaps it's my problem associating vines with grapes. Kudzu is said to have vines, isn't it? And even here virginia creeper is called "vigne vierge". I'm just a bit surprised that in the three or four months between the quickening of the embryo and her hoarse and probably waddling return to the site of her beloved's (although she never actually admits her love) decease) the place has managed to do a sleeping beauty's castle on us.

 

[MarkCoveny]

TIEN thanks for the explaination. All that you just suggested about seems better placed in action than tragedy to me. I have read about the "hook" at the beginning. I origanally put one in but editted it out to condense the story down.

Judge I think proofreading is important at any stage of your writing carreer. Especially for me, writing a bunch of bad grammar is not going to help my grammar. I actually had several people read the above short story and they loved it and couldn't find any errors in it at all. You guys found what? Like 20 and you responded in a day? Do you have any idea how great that is?

I had hoped that a program could help me with the nuts and bolts of grammar. I'm seeing that's not going to be the case. So I'll have to do it the hard way I guess. So I've started brushing up on my English. It was always my least favorite subject, but I gotta do what I gotta do right?

On the topic of Blacksmiths, Gentry and Commoners:
Scribes can not be supported in every town. For a town to be able to support a scribe well enough, so that their daughter would have few duties, the town would need to be near city size. A city would attract a artisin level blacksmith. His skills would be prized, and he would be thought very highly of. Although his profession isn't one assocaited with "higher learning" at his skill only a few in the country could produce on his level of quality. Due to this many of the gentlemen and ladies would want to stay in his good graces. Also the fact that Cobly can read shows his father has enough extra money laying around to cover the costs for lessons. Lessons most likely given by a scribe. This would put her father in the servatude role to the blacksmith.

Also woman are chattle in medevil times. Because of this a man is "paid" to take responsibiilty of a woman: a Dowry. She is considered property, and little more than a money sink. My main character is pampered even though she's a woman. This allowed her to choose who she wanted to be with. So she choose a blacksmith's son, who loves to read. (Not sterotypical, but pretty darn romantic I think) Small towns talk, that's true today as much as it was back then. Given the dynamic of his fathers position, it's doubtful anything more than talk would have transpired.

On economics:
Owning land isn't the same thing as owning a house. Land in medevil times means "cleared farmable land". Colby and his wife didn't own land, they owned a house in a swamp. The "value" for property like this could be compared like this:
1) Both parents owned houses inside a major city worth $400,000 each.
2) Colby bought some useless land with a fixer upper in the florida everglades for $20,000
Now you can call them tenents if you don't like the ownership part, I don't think I actually said he "owned" it. It could simply be a case of the lord of that area letting him live there because his need for a blacksmith. I really don't see how this isn't very plausible given history. Lords often bartered with other lords to exchange commoners in a mutaully benifital manner.

In every story things will be left out. For me, there are many things which choose not to include because I feel they take away from the focus, and don't move the plot forward. To me the plot of the story is this:

Exposition: Pampered girl falls in love with blacksmith
Complications: Moving to a new land, repairing the house, bonding with the locals, getting his blacksmithing going
Crisis Decision: Dragon shows up
Climax: Dragon kills Colby, and destroys her life
Resolution: Effect his death has on her, show the transformation mentally and physically, her accepting her fate

 

[MarkCoveny]

There are several professions for which moving is to be avoided as much as possible, and blacksmithing is one of them (as is miller) Transporting a decent size anvil before cranes and lowloaders was to be avoided as long as possible, and without the anvil, what is the forge? Water transport (barge, narrowboat) is strongly recommended. Even the other tools (hammers, pincers, chisels and the other metal bits) are a fair weight, and he's going to have to build his furnace and bellows on the spot;

A 40 or 50 pound anvil can be moved by one person. It's plenty large to make the most of what's needed. Plus it's possible to sand forge a bigger anvil if needed. A wagon could easily carry an 50lb anvil and all the other blacksmithing equipment. As for the furnace and bellows he spent months working on the house before it was ready. I did completely miss the roofing timbers though. That would require several people. I could prolly get away with thatch though. I didn't specify how big the house was. It could have a stone wall in the center for the beams to rest on. Without the center beam it would be doable solo I believe.

On a side note. I always wondered why they didn't use wax in their ears more. It became more common latter on, but I guess they just didn't get the correlation between all that noise and going deaf.

Have you done any blacksmithing Chris?

 

[The Judge]

Good grief. This was a complete short story? I hadn't realised that's what you meant by the 'SS' in the thread title. I thought it was the beginning of a long book, hence my comments. In that case, the work you have to do on this is much greater than you seem to think.

As to proof reading, I didn't mean that you should ignore grammar, only that you shouldn't be worried about bringing your work up to publishable standard at this stage - which is what the words 'proof reading' to me imply. And yes, I'm afraid you will need to do things the hard way with regard to grammar and spelling etc. Your friends sound to be very nice people if they liked your work, but it appears you cannot rely on them for objective advice.

 

[chrispenycate]

Have you done any blacksmithing Chris?

Me? I have neither the muscle nor the manual dexterity for it. I was involved with the shooting, editing and mixing of one two hour film about it. I just tried to absorb as much of the information available about it, while the opportunity presented itself, as is my wont.

There was one guy in his nineties, who had started his apprenticeship at fifteen, and still did a couple of hours swinging a hammer every day but sunday. He blamed his deafness on working in a boilermaker's, straight after the great war, when they desperately needed rolling stock. The youngest, most agile worker would crawl inside the metal cylinder, and hold his hammer against the rivet heads while two guys flattened out the protruding end. As he described it, it got quite noisy in there.

He had three anvils; a small one, his "toy" anvil, that you could do cutlery and delicate pieces on (probably the size you were talking about; twenty five kilos sounds about right), a medium sized one, with some fascinating grooves cut into it (possibly for bending bar stock?) and the big mother, on which he did things like ploughshares (had done; he wasn't accepting that sort of work any more).

He had an absolutely fascinating gadget, where a waterwheel swung an reciprocating metal lump, continuously while water was running, that had been his grandfather's and was still operational (Oh, they don't build them like that nowadays) This worked as a sort of hammer for boring, repetitive bits.

So no, you can ignore the second post technical questions; I have no direct experience (though I've watched traditional roofing being done, and despite my dislike of health and safety standards I'm coming out strongly against a forge, with all the sparks and heat that implies, and a thatched roof.) I am fully aware of the fact that watching someone else do something, discussing it afterwards and asking questions is no substitute for actually hammering out a sickle (or whatever)

 

[MarkCoveny]

Judge
Ya so far this sight has given me the best objective advice I've gotten. Would you mind expanding on what "much greater" work comment?

Chris
Blacksmithing has fascinated me for years. Most current day smiths have several different size anvils like you described. They also have a wide assortment of equipment. The waterwheel for the blower is fairly recent as I understand it. It's great for a nice stable fire with no work. I didn't want to put it in because of the time frames involved. It's my understanding molds were not even used in medevil times. Talk about a waste of time. You have to make each nail individually! heh

 

[Peter Graham]

Hi Mark,

Judge has done a splendid job on critiquing your piece, so I won't repeat what she has said - save to say that I agree with her comments.

I actually rather liked the staccato style. However, to make it work consistently you have to make every word count, otherwise you end up sounding like late-era Elroy.

I had hoped that a program could help me with the nuts and bolts of grammar. I'm seeing that's not going to be the case. So I'll have to do it the hard way I guess. So I've started brushing up on my English. It was always my least favorite subject, but I gotta do what I gotta do right?

Sorry. A computer programme will not help you write masterful prose any more than it would help you repoint a gable end or change a tyre. Words are the tools of your trade. There are no shortcuts. The good news for you is that your word choice is generally pretty good. What I think you need to concentrate on is grammar - the tense inconsistencies, the sentence structure and all the rest that Her Honour highlighted.

My big problem is that I found it very hard to suspend disbelief. I started off thinking that this was a medieval setting, then I decided it must be more contemporary, then it became medieval again. And it didn't sound convincingly medieval. It wasn't just the dialogue and the slang, but rather that the piece suggested that the medieval period was only technologically different from our own. The whole idea of modern-sounding house layouts (fences and windows), modern concepts of property ownership, modern notions of freedom of movement and modern notions of social mobility really jarred with the sudden appearance of bows and arrows. This isn't to say that you have to slavishly follow real-world examples of medieval life, or that you need a degree in history, but you do have to do enough to make it clear that This Is Not Our Time.

A city would attract a artisin level blacksmith. His skills would be prized, and he would be thought very highly of. Although his profession isn't one assocaited with "higher learning" at his skill only a few in the country could produce on his level of quality.

Can this be right? Most European medieval societies were primarily agricultural economies in which the village smith was very important. Townsfolk had the same need of smiths as country folk - shoeing horses, mending wheels, making and repairing tools and occasionally making metal bits for houses. I suppose that there might be a small number of smiths engaged in highly ornate work on churches and cathedrals, but I'm not sure that a jobbing smith would have any need or desire to go to the town to ply his trade.

Due to this many of the gentlemen and ladies would want to stay in his good graces.

Medieval ladies and gentlemen would not have considered it necessary to remain in the favour of the village smith.

Also woman are chattle in medevil times.

Really?

Owning land isn't the same thing as owning a house. Land in medevil times means "cleared farmable land". Colby and his wife didn't own land, they owned a house in a swamp.

If it's on a swamp, it is highly unlikely to be a stone house. I live in an area which is known for its pretty little stone and slate cottages. But the vast majority of these are less than two hundred years old and sprung up after the Enclosure Acts. Before then, most people lived in wattle and daub huts or houses, often with the cows and pigs in with them. And this in one of the best stone-producing areas of the UK.

Land ownership was complex - medieval English villages tended to have open fields which were held in common. They would expand and new villages would be created, but the land always belonged to someone - usually a pug-faced Norman psychopath with a name like Guillarde Du Fitzgilbert. Most houses and plots were held by tenancy (not by ownership, although you do accept this) and most would not have had names.

The other major observation I had was that there is not enough drama when the dragon shows up. This is the big, set-piece action sequence, but I got no sense of the immediacy of the scene - the build-up, terror, the noise, the smell or whatever.

On the flip side, the pacing was pretty good and the narrative voice was consistent and well-handled.

Keep it up!

Regards,

Peter

 

[The Judge]

Ya so far this sight has given me the best objective advice I've gotten. Would you mind expanding on what "much greater" work comment?

Well, I was hoping someone else would step in who knows more about short stories than I do, to help me out *waves arms desperately* but here goes.

OK. It's clear you've read some 'how-to' books already and/or you've been on a course and/or read some websites. You've picked up some fancy jargon as shown by the way you've blocked out your plot:

Exposition: Pampered girl falls in love with blacksmith
Complications: Moving to a new land, repairing the house, bonding with the locals, getting his blacksmithing going
Crisis Decision: Dragon shows up
Climax: Dragon kills Colby, and destroys her life
Resolution: Effect his death has on her, show the transformation mentally and physically, her accepting her fate

All very impressive. And no doubt a very handy exercise when plotting the story arcs of a 150,000 word fantasy. But I would be astounded if people who write shorts of 1500 words sit and think along these lines. They just write the damn story, and include (usually) a beginning, middle and end.

A short story has a different feel about it, no doubt as a result of its pacing. It has to get on with things, to get to the important bits, before arriving at an emotionally or intellectually satisfying conclusion. It has to feel complete and completed. Every word has to count, every sentence has to justify its place in the whole. There simply isn't the time and space for gross irrelevancies.

The hook is even more important in a short than a first chapter. Yet you say you had a hook and edited it out 'to condense the story' - and in favour of what? The fact that she was an only child and she read a lot. Can you not see how irrelevant this is?

To use another fancy term one should start in medias res - in the heart of things. To do that, you have to work out what is important and what is the heart, the crisis. This is what you say you have done because you have omitted things which took away from the focus and didn't move the story forward. Well, frankly I cannot conceive of anything you could have thought of including which is less focussed than you have here.

The story -- the essential story -- is that a happily married nearly-newlywed woman sees her husband killed in an horrendous way and the grief she experiences somehow turns her into a banshee. In a long fantasy where we are looking for character development and side plots and all the rest of it, her family's status, her house and its condition, the relationship with the locals, all these things may well be important. To my mind they are wholly irrelevant in a short: absolutely nothing would be lost if they were omitted entirely. Even if you want to include some as colour or by way of characterisation, you don't spend paragraphs on them, and they certainly don't feature as important plot points by way of 'complications'.

To me, it's as if you are learning to drive a car. You have stood on the pavement (sidewalk) watching cars drive by, you've been in the back of a taxi and you've read a lot about driving a tank, and you've thought 'how difficult can it be?'. Well, the answer is a lot more difficult than it appears from the outside looking in. The only way to learn to drive is to get in a car and start doing it and then practising and practising and practising, until everything becomes second nature. And even then, driving a Lada is very different from driving a Bugatti Veyron.

Sorry, this undoubtedly comes over as very negative again. Doubtless there are others here who will disagree with me. Peter for instance specifically likes your pacing and narrative voice, neither of which appealled to me, so he may well have different thoughts on these other issues also.

And to repeat what I said in my first post, I am not attempting to put you off writing. It is simply that at this stage you need to concentrate on writing and learning how to write - not by reading books which talk about story arcs and things of that kind, but simply by writing and then writing some more. You don't write to show people. You don't write to impress people. You write because your head is buzzing with ideas which you have to get down. Then you move on and write more.

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

I have to agree with everything The Judge says in her last post.

This story does not read to me like a short story. It reads like the outline for a novel. Certainly all of the background parts that you are explaining (her father was a scribe, etc.) make it sound like you have a much longer story in your head. It is a common mistake, for writers who are first starting out, to not know how much plot = novel, short story, novelette, or novella. They think of a short story as just like a novel only compressed down into fewer pages.

And, in fact, 1400 words is rather short even for a short story. The upper limit is 7,500 words, although any given magazine, e-zine, or anthology might place the limit lower. But you are just starting out, and shouldn't be thinking about publication yet. Write the story and let it assume its natural length.

But if you do not want to write something long at this point, then I think, as a short story, it ought to start shortly before the dragon attack, and not with the courtship, fixing up the house, etc. You should start out on a typical day that establishes them as a happy couple (which could include a little bit of musing on her part about how their life together started -- but not to kick off the story), and then go into the action with the dragon attack. I think you are trying to show us what she has lost so that we will feel for her when she loses it, which is the right thing to do, but it isn't working out that way.

But then you need to fill it out more, because the pace is too rushed, and there is no time for the reader to process what happens emotionally before the next thing happens. You are making the same mistake I made when I first became serious about my writing (although I was writing a novel) and that is adding in more plot instead of filling out the scenes that you have, so that they don't feel so skeletal.

As a reader, I felt no emotional connection to the characters, no emotional investment in their happy marriage, and therefore no fear or sorrow during the dragon attack. As a result, when you get to the part where she starts wailing, that part feels entirely overdone in contrast. You can't make a story into a tragedy by telling us afterward how tragic it all was. We have to feel the emotions ourselves as events unfold, and you did not make that happen, at least not for me. (It's as if Shakespeare had written the whole tragedy of Romeo and Juliet in a couple of thousand words, and then expected the audience to sit there in tears as the Prince gives his speech at the end summing up how awful it all was.)

Clearly you know these characters very well, and that is a very good thing. It is essential that a writer should know much more about his or her main character(s) then actually appears in the story.

I agree with what Peter says about the background not feeling medieval. Except for the modern dialogue -- which was particularly jarring -- something about the beginning started me thinking maybe 18th or 19th century. But it was really so short on details, it felt like it was taking place against a grey, featureless backdrop. For instance, you tell us that Colby is a blacksmith, and you seem to know quite a bit about blacksmithing, but for all the use you make of it in the story, he could be anything at all. I'm not saying that you need to put in much, just those few tiny details that say so much and bring a character to life in a beautifully written story. Your knowledge of these things should help you immensely in determining what those perfect details would be.

As for the dialogue -- one problem with making it so modern is that our contemporary mode of expression tends toward a style that is unemotional, imprecise, and lacking in individuality. In short, it is boring. Fiction usually requires more of the dialogue, and a tragedy requires much more.

From what you are telling us in this thread, you know so much about these characters, I assume you do have an emotional connection with them. Now the challenge is to share that connection with your readers.

 

[MarkCoveny]

Peter thank you very much, you put forth some excellent points. I would like to add I when I said ladies and gentlemen I wasn't refering to nobliity. I was refering to I guess what would be considered the "middle class"? Your correct a noble woman or Lord wouldn't care as he has complete control. As for woman being chattle. The world considered woman possession in that day. There are still places today that consider woman chattle. I know alot of authors ignore this to keep woman from getting up in arms. So I didn't go into great detail about it, but we've come a LONG way. Thanks again for the cirtique.


Judge. Thank you, that cleared it up for me. I'm not exactly "normal", and this may sound weird, but I prefer detailed negative feedback over positive feedback. hehe If you want a glimpse into my mind here's my reasoning: People who are being negative are most likely being honest. Our society "conditions" people to tell others what they want to hear. That prolly made no sense, but I figured I'd throw it out there.


Teresa. I think I understand what your saying but I'd like to rephrase it back to you and see if we're on the same page. You think I should:

1) Remove background, travel, house repairing
2) fill out daily life/couple interaction, and the dragon scene.

*along with clearing up the grammar, diagloue time frame errors, and inconsist use of tenses which others have stated.

As for length, I'm practicing. I intend to write a novel, but some of the writing guides I read suggested starting out with short stories. I've found this very helpful so far. It gives me a chance to work on all the elements of a story. I'm the type of person who gets into the details though, so even though it's just a short story I tend to know a lot more than what's "needed" about the characters. Well maybe it's needed, hehe, but it's hard to decide what to put in and what to leave out.

Thanks again for the cirtique. As soon as I get over this stomach virus I'll get back to work.

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

Teresa. I think I understand what your saying but I'd like to rephrase it back to you and see if we're on the same page. You think I should:

1) Remove background, travel, house repairing
2) fill out daily life/couple interaction, and the dragon scene.

*along with clearing up the grammar, diagloue time frame errors, and inconsist use of tenses which others have stated.

Yes, that is exactly what I am saying. Although it is a delicate balance in terms of how much daily life to describe: too little and there is no sense of loss for your readers at the end, but two much and you lose the reader before you get to the action part of the story. On the other hand, how much is too much would partly depend on how skillfully you write it and how successfully you engage a reader's emotions. Just remember that it can be the subtle things that touch a reader, and you shouldn't go overboard.

I intend to write a novel, but some of the writing guides I read suggested starting out with short stories. I've found this very helpful so far. It gives me a chance to work on all the elements of a story.

If you find this helpful, than by all means continue to do so. Otherwise, don't, if a novel is what you really want to write. Writing short stories helps to teach you to write, but so does a novel, and not everything you learn writing short fiction crosses over to novel writing (or vice-versa) and there may be some un-learning to do. But if you enjoy it and you find it personally of value, then continue with the short stories.

As for woman being chattle. The world considered woman possession in that day. There are still places today that consider woman chattle. I know alot of authors ignore this to keep woman from getting up in arms.

I don't know where you are getting your information about medieval society (it seems fragmentary, because while you know some specifics, it's off on a couple of other matters, too), but to say that women were chattel is an over-simplification. Comparing the status of a woman in Europe at any time to women in, say, the Middle East at any period, can be very misleading. Widows, for instance, could hold property and run businesses. Young women who were orphans inherited their father's property. This did give unscrupulous guardians an interest in "selling them off to the highest bidder" while they were still minors and could be disposed of in that way.

Yes, a lot of fantasy writers conveniently ignore the limitations that women endured during that period -- I'm not sure how often this is to keep women from getting up in arms (I know some of the writers who do this, and in their cases, no, absolutely not) and how often it simply suits the particular story they want to tell. I don't like it myself, but neither do I like it when people go too far the other way, as I have also seen it done.

As for what you said before on the subject of dowries, you're not quite right about that, either. Most marriages were business transactions as much, or more, than anything else. The dowry was the property that the woman brought as her investment in the marriage, since the man presumably already had something to bring to the marriage besides himself, or he wouldn't be ready to get married -- or very appealing to the girl's parents or guardians.


In a society that was strongly Catholic with a special devotion to the Virgin Mary, women held a position that was highly contradictory. Men regarded them with what we would consider a confused combination of reverence, suspicion, condescension, and pragmatism.


Edit -- As I think of what you said before: Why would a blacksmith set up business in a swamp? Surely his forge would be by his house? But swamps are damp. And blacksmiths have odd bits and pieces of iron hanging around their forges, and iron ... rusts.