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Eukara Vox -> RE: (AQ/DF) Legacy of Blood (7/31/2012 21:09:47)
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quote:
The forest was eerily quiet that night, moonlight creating shadows that would make bold men grow uneasy.
The peace was unsettling, as if nature was in trance under a moonlit sky. As if it tried to deny the horrors committed by monsters and men. Perhaps it was peace out of guilt, perhaps it was peace born from fear, perhaps it was peace born from denial.
I know you are trying to set a mood here, and you do well, but you could do much better. The sentences are a little choppy. Details here would be invaluable. If you truly want to create an eerie setting, think about what makes a forest eerily quiet. Close your eyes and walk around one. Once you've established what you see in your mind, write it down. Just write it down. Don't cultivate it, don't put it in perfect sentence structure, don't edit it, just write it. Once you've got it all down, then, and only then, do you pick what is most effective and begin to expand upon it and write it into your introduction.
Your reader wants to feel like they are there. Just telling me that it is eerily quiet isn't getting me sucked into your story.Think about your 5 senses. Creating an eerie scene requires at least touch, sight and hearing. Smell can be useful, as in an out of place smell.
Let's move onto the shadows. You could mess with the reader's mind here with a little description. Create the shadows that is supposed to make the bold men uneasy. Off to the side of a path, a shadow grew as a figure advanced down it. Shadows can grow and diminish, stretch, shrink, move as if alive...
"As if it tried to deny the horrors committed by monsters and men." This is a sentence fragment. It greatly reduces the flow of the writing. And since this is where you introduce what is going on, this sentence is extremely important. There are better ways to make this sentence pop out and attack than to make it a fragment.
"Perhaps it was peace out of guilt, perhaps it was peace born from fear, perhaps it was peace born from denial" Too many 'perhaps'. Repetition is not always the perfect way to convey emphasis. With this, I think the mood and setting would greatly benefit from each of these "perhaps" being their own sentence and description. You really want to pound home that this setting is not ideal, it is not where any of us want to be.
quote:
A lone bat in search of gnats found death in a hungry owl, breaking the trance and shattering the illusion. I love this sentence, especially following what you started with. It's beautiful. My one hang-up with it is, how does this break the trance and shatter the illusion? Was there sound accompanying the hunt? Did the beating of the owl's wings cause a disturbance in the very still trees? Was there a death cry, a hunter's scream?
quote:
Gnats started humming again and the sound of crickets filled the night. Do more with this. What you seem to be doing is trying to set up everything as continuing as normal. Gnats hummed, spun in a tornado of wings and eyes, looking for a place to call home for the night. The crickets once again sang their song, as if relieved of a passing horror, concentrating on finding that perfect mate.
quote:
In this forest stood a house, a hut with a roof of straw and walls fashioned out of clay bricks. For emphasis, I would make this line stand apart from the rest of the introduction. You went from describing awkwardness and eerie, to its passing and resuming normalcy. This is like punctuation in the form of a sentence. And, it's in contrast to what transpires next. Almost like you are setting up a false peace. It also is a wonderful transition to the next paragraph.
quote:
While the forest around returned to life, the house remained quiet. On the doorstep two men lay dead, one leaning against the broken door. The cuts were clean of blood and so was the blade that had made them. Outside it had started raining lightly, allowing the figure inside to imitate the sounds of raindrops to alert none of its presence. Quiet as a shadow the figure made its way up the stairs. Detail the two men laying dead. What makes them significant enough to mention. Who were they (and I don't mean name-wise)? Were they regular guys, or were they guards? If they were guards, were they royal, hired out, or familial? Elaborate on what looks to be a scene where a fight had broken out, or at least an altercation happened. You want the reader to wonder... is someone still there? Was the altercation violent, or passive? Did they have a chance, or was it such an overwhelming defeat, that these two had no hope under the stars of surviving?
"The cuts were clean of blood and so was the blade that had made them. " Why? This sentence is interesting, but with no real elaboration, I am left a bit empty. I want to know why the cuts were clean. If it was because of the rain, you need to mention it first. But then again,if is was because of the rain, you should have blood slowly running down skin, soaking into cloth, watered down by raindrops. If it was for any other reason, it really needs to have some detail explaining it. Again, readers want to be there, experience it, feel it, hear it... the more you tell them, the more they will experience.
Mentioning the rain and the lone figure mimicking the sound is a very cool process. Is there any way you can elaborate on how the lone figure accomplishes this? And climbing stairs is no quiet feat. How does he/she do this? He had to have done something,because the next paragraph begins with the woman noticing his presence and had to turn around. You have to set this up and make it believable.
Ack, must step out for a while. Will pick up where I left off.
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