Revised the beginning of my novel Draculesti - WritingForums.com - Writing Forums, Writing Challenges, Critiques and Help for Writers

tepelus · 08-21-2008, 10:50 PM

Let me know what you think of it now. I think I like this much more than it was before. Advise me as to what I should do differently, and so on. Enjoy!

Walachia 1462

It was a cool, moonless September night in the city of Tîrgovişte. The stench of gunpowder and blood permeated the night air. The screams of dieing men, cannon fire and metal clanging echoed into the fire lit sky. A vicious battle had been ensuing for several days with both sides wearing down, but not so much as that of the side defending the city. The Walachian army was tiring quickly, their wits diminishing and strength to do battle with the larger, stronger Turkish army weakening. Upon the realization that his army was dwindling very quickly, the leader and prince of the city, Vlad Ţepeş, determined that to escape death he would have to flee to his mountain fortress refuge in the Carpathians and leave his men behind. His brother Radu, the military leader of the Turkish army would without any doubt become prince if he were to perish in battle or become imprisoned, and this he could not let happen. He gathered his most trusted men and in secrecy escaped the city, leaving his army to finish out the battle.

On secret trails along the Argeş River, Ţepeş and his handful of loyal bodyguard rode their way to his castle, unknowingly being followed by his brother and a small regiment of his army, who had received word of his escape. Once they had reached the castle, Radu had his army set up camp on the opposite side of the river on the bluff known as Poenari where he had an ample view of the small mountaintop fortress. They prepared their cannons and guns with the anticipation to begin battle at dawn.

When Ţepeş arrived to his castle, he was totally unaware that the Turks had set up camp on the opposite side of the river. He sent out a messenger to relay news to King Mátyás of Hungary about his fallout with the Ottoman Turks in Tîrgovişte and his urgency to meet with him at Braşov to talk about acquiring more men for his army that was melting away. All the while, as he was meeting and discussing matters with his men, a slave of Walachian decent had momentarily escaped from his Turkish capturers and climbed to the top of the bluff in the black of the night with bow and arrow in hand. Attached to the arrow was a letter to warn Ţepeş of the oncoming attack. With very careful aim, he shot the arrow through a dimly lit window to the main tower of the castle, and with seemingly incredible accuracy, extinguished the candle that had been sitting on a table in that room. When he had seen that the candle was relit, he thought he had seen what appeared to possibly be the silhouette of Ţepeş’s wife, Irina, in the window and had a notion that she was reading the letter.

It was indeed Ţepeş’s beautiful wife. That window was to their private chamber. She had been trying to set back to sleep Ţepeş’s son, Vlad, after he had been awakened by a nightmare. The little boy, not quite four years of age, was not hers. His mother, a mistress of his father, died shortly after giving birth to him. He married Irina only for the fact that Vlad needed a mother to take care of him. He did not love her, nor she loved him, it was merely a marriage of convenience; she cared for his son whom she adored, and Tepes took care of her.

When the arrow had shot through the window, it startled her and woke up little Vlad just as he was starting to fall back to sleep. She sat him down off of her lap and onto the bed, got up to go relight the candle and then picked up the arrow. When she had she removed the letter off from it, unrolled the letter and began to read it. The more she read, the more her blue eyes darkened and her rosy face had become white with dread.

She said with fear in her voice, “Vlad, stay on the bed for a minute, alright, sweetheart?”

With a puzzled look upon his chubby face as to why his mother seemed so frightened, the boy agreed with a nod.

She then left the room to go find her husband to show him the letter. It wasn’t more than a couple of seconds when she had found him. As she began to descend down the dark, narrow staircase of the tower he was ascending it no more than several feet from the door to their chamber. Though he had been at the castle for at least an hour, he was still dressed in his armor carrying his helmet in his hands with his long, dark curls draping over his shoulders. When they had met she handed him the letter.

Her soft spoken voice filled with dread, she frantically quivered her words to him, “Vlad, my lord, my husband, an arrow had shot through the window to our chamber, and on it was attached this letter, warning us to leave the castle before the Turks attack in the morning. What if they capture us and make us their prisoners and torture us? I could not let that happen to me and I would rather have my body be eaten by the fish in the Argeş than become a prisoner of the Turks!”

Glancing up from reading the letter, all that Ţepeş could see was a short glimpse of his wife’s long, flowing night dress and long, dark hair ascend the stairway before he lost sight of her. He began running after her, his armor clanging the entire way up to the top of the tower to the donjon. When he entered he had seen that the one lone window in the room had been opened as he ran to it. Nowhere to be found in the empty donjon, Ţepeş took it upon himself that she had hurled herself from the window. Looking down from the window towards the bottom of the mountain, he could not see his wife on the rocks of the river below, with her white nightdress and body bloodied, but he could already see the hurt look upon his son’s face.

Ţepeş came to grasp the severity of his situation. Though much more at ease about it than his wife, he decided he needed to quickly organize a small escape party and plan his and his son’s escape, since taking his own life was not part of his philosophy. He left the donjon for his bedroom and told his son what his mother had done to herself and degraded her for doing so in the hopes that it would put fear into the boy and make him hate her for doing such a abhorrent act. The boy began to cry as Ţepeş picked him up and carried him down the stairs to the main floor of the castle.

He gathered up a few of his men to the main hall and told them, “Find me the Dobrin brothers from Arefu so that they may show me the way to Königstein Castle. It is imperative that you go immediately and bring them to me so my son and I can escape the Turks, who are waiting to attack come morning on the opposite side of the river on the bluff. From there I will wait for King Mátyás Corvinus’ arrival to Braşov so he may help me to replenish my depleting army.” The men left right away, and Ţepeş, holding his son tightly in his arms, was hoping that Mátyás of Hungary would help him by giving him some soldiers and by protecting his son.

In the meantime, while he waited for his men to return, he had taken his son back up to his room. He lit a few more of the candles and sconces in the room while telling his son why they had to leave the castle, being much more subtle in explaining than he had in regards to his mother‘s death. Afterwards, Ţepeş began to dress his son in some peasant clothing that he had saved in his room for just such an emergency. He then sat down on the edge of the bed and sat his son next to him. He took off a gold neck chain from around his neck, and hanging from it was a pendant with his emblem on it. The pendant was circle-shaped with the front having the Walachian eagle on one side and a comet with a crescent upon it on the other side and between them was a long and twisting dragon biting its tail. Inscribed on the outer part of the circle read, in Old Slavonic: ‘Vlad Voevod through the grace of God is Prince of Ungro-Walachia and the duchies of Amlaş and Făgăraş.’ He then took a very sharp knife from his belt and carved out on the bare back-side of the pendant in Cyrillic Romanian ‘băiatul meu Vlad’ (‘my son Vlad’).

He placed the large and heavy pendant around Vlad’s neck and told him with sincerity, “Vlad, no matter what happens to us, I want you to keep this forever and wear it as much as you can to remember me, do you understand?”

“Yes, father, I understand. I’ll always remember you.” his son responded in a small, timid voice.

Ţepeş himself then dressed in peasant clothing so that they would not be as noticed as they would be in their royal garments when they were to escape the castle. Soon after, he picked up his son again and carried him back down to the main hall to wait for his men.

It wasn’t until about two hours before sunrise when his men arrived with the seven Dobrin brothers from the neighboring village of Arefu, who knew the area better than anyone in that region. Upon arrival they immediately began drawing out a map for Ţepeş’s escape through the mountains to Königstein Castle. They hadn’t much time left for sunrise was upon them. Ţepeş approved the escape route, which led through some of the toughest terrain in those parts of the mountains, making sure that the Turks could not easily follow him or even find their escape route. Ţepeş picked up his son and they, the Dobrin brothers and a dozen of his men set out on their journey.

The fleeing party quietly left through a secret underground passage that led from a hidden door covered with gravel next to the oval well in the courtyard of the castle down into the bowels of the mountain. With torches in hand, they walked down the long, narrow stairway into a small room with a passage leading to a cave. Then, through the cave, which had a small underground stream flowing through the middle of it, they traveled while dodging the hundreds of bats flying around within it, being led south nearly a mile away from the castle to the banks of the Argeş River. There, awaiting them at the end of the cave were some of Arefu’s swiftest horses with inverted horseshoes to leave false signs of an incoming cavalry force and peasant clothing for his other men to wear.

The sun had just started to rise and they could hear the Turkish camp starting to fire at the castle, and the rest of Ţepeş’s men at the castle returning fire. Ţepeş sat his scared little boy on his horse’s saddle and tied him loosely to it. He then mounted up onto the horse and when he was ready to ride off, the horse began to shy from the noise of the cannons. It reared up several times before it finally bucked off his son. The boy tumbled down the bank to the edge of the river where he hit his head on a log and was knocked unconscious. Ţepeş called for his son only once and not even considering finding him he had taken him for lost, being too cold-hearted to sacrifice himself or his men for his illegitimate son. Ţepeş’s party, though upset that Ţepeş was going to leave his son to die, left with him without hesitance to continue their escape route to Königstein Castle.

tepelus · 09-01-2008, 09:58 PM

I guess no one has any opinions. Tis ok I guess.

spiderwitch · 09-02-2008, 08:55 AM

I have an opinion! It's excellent. Promise me you'll never stop writing. Oh get this published, please? You did your research. I am writing a vampire novel too and even though I edited it for years, your research on the amry, cannons and geography is great! Fresh story. I like it. Well done. Well done.

tepelus · 09-02-2008, 03:00 PM

Thank you! *blushes*

Writ-with-Hand · 09-18-2008, 11:31 PM

Very good. It's certainly worthy of publishing.

The "Historian" was suppose to be a great book but I stopped reading it after... what was it... 30 or 100 pages? Something like that. The book might have been great but in this current period of my life I'm not patient enough to wait 30 or 100 pages for a story to kick off.

If your book doesn't get published it won't be because of the quality of your writing.

Wintermute · 09-19-2008, 11:28 AM

Is this a creative non-fiction piece or a spread for a history book you are writing? It reads alot like something my professor would force me to read over the weekend.

Everything happens way too fast in this. I suppose it's a case of Telling vs. Showing, and Vlad Tepes was without a doubt a relatively insane individual, but I'm not getting to know much about him through this. I can't get emotionally involved when he leaves his son because you're telling me what I should feel instead of engrossing me in a scene and letting me decide for myself.

It's all real distant, too much of characters moving from point A to point B without much concentration on specific scenes.

Anyway, I'd like to see what becomes of this.

Writ-with-Hand · 09-19-2008, 12:46 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wintermute

Is this a creative non-fiction piece or a spread for a history book you are writing? It reads alot like something my professor would force me to read over the weekend.

Everything happens way too fast in this. I suppose it's a case of Telling vs. Showing, and Vlad Tepes was without a doubt a relatively insane individual, but I'm not getting to know much about him through this. I can't get emotionally involved when he leaves his son because you're telling me what I should feel instead of engrossing me in a scene and letting me decide for myself.

It's all real distant, too much of characters moving from point A to point B without much concentration on specific scenes.

Anyway, I'd like to see what becomes of this.

Eh, she noted it was the first few pages, but you want her to condense a 300 page history book of Vlad Tepes into the first few pages of her historical-fiction piece, all the while doing this through a method of character dialogue?

Furthermore, we don't know if and when she is going to move into character dialogue. Personally I assumed she was setting up for that when the little nigga fell off the horse a bust his head.

She has good story telling ability and that's half the battle right there. She also seems to have taken the time to research her subject.

The attention span and time willing to commit to a book has shortened - at least in the United States - over the decades. Newspapers have shortened articles now and as for books few people are willing to commit to reading 10 pages on how some fucking character holds a cup in his hand, let alone tackle a 1,000 page book.

Pace.

Wintermute · 09-20-2008, 08:55 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Writ-with-Hand

Eh, she noted it was the first few pages, but you want her to condense a 300 page history book of Vlad Tepes into the first few pages of her historical-fiction piece, all the while doing this through a method of character dialogue?

Furthermore, we don't know if and when she is going to move into character dialogue. Personally I assumed she was setting up for that when the little nigga fell off the horse a bust his head.

She has good story telling ability and that's half the battle right there. She also seems to have taken the time to research her subject.

The attention span and time willing to commit to a book has shortened - at least in the United States - over the decades. Newspapers have shortened articles now and as for books few people are willing to commit to reading 10 pages on how some fucking character holds a cup in his hand, let alone tackle a 1,000 page book.

Pace.

It seems like telling the truth is frowned upon in this thread. I'll be sure to lie next time.

tepelus · 09-20-2008, 03:56 PM

The truth is not frowned upon at all, at least by me. I appreciate everybody's opinions. It helps me to think about what I need to do differently or not. I know that not everyone likes this style of writing, the tell more than show, but not everyone frowns down upon it either. I want to take in as many opinions as I can get then from there I can make my decision as to how I can make this better. I'm thinking of posting the next three pages, would any of you like to read those? Thanks to all who've replied.

Shawn · 09-20-2008, 04:20 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tepelus

He gathered up a few of his men to the main hall and told them, “Find me the Dobrin brothers from Arefu so that they may show me the way to Königstein Castle. It is imperative that you go immediately and bring them to me so my son and I can escape the Turks, who are waiting to attack come morning on the opposite side of the river on the bluff. From there I will wait for King Mátyás Corvinus’ arrival to Braşov so he may help me to replenish my depleting army.” The men left right away, and Ţepeş, holding his son tightly in his arms, was hoping that Mátyás of Hungary would help him by giving him some soldiers and by protecting his son.

I'm just going to pick on this paragraph as an example.

For one: this is a very dangerous thing to do. I can count 11 pieces of exposition in just this paragraph. That's entirely too much for this short of a passage. Upon that, the speaker is telling all of this to a group of inconsequential characters. Upon that, he is telling them information that is irrelevant to their task and, indeed, irrelevant for the reader.

The style is good; the writing isn't so much.

tepelus · 09-20-2008, 05:49 PM

So, how should I go about fixing this? Give me an example of what I should do to remedy this so I can fix it and others that are like it.

Shawn · 09-20-2008, 06:02 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tepelus

So, how should I go about fixing this? Give me an example of what I should do to remedy this so I can fix it and others that are like it.

Don't be afraid to leave out information. The reader is (hopefully) able to piece together the major points of the story without much explanation. Or, if you really need information, place it in the text, not the dialogue.

It's the difference between these two lines of dialogue:

"You're going to be late for your flight!"
And
"You're going to be late for your flight to Las Vegas, where you will stay in the Mariott with all the trimmings and eat at the buffets and play slots!"

tepelus · 09-20-2008, 07:02 PM

Ah, I see. Thanks, I'll have to change that and others I more than likely wrote like it.

Apparition · 09-24-2008, 09:59 PM

To me, it reads too fast. Slow down a little, focus on a few thoughts and details. The first half of the post should be at least two chapters.

Also - the hook is not strong enough. If a reader judges it by the first two sentences you will have lost them. Way too "It was a dark and cloudy night".

Now the good - please finish it - I want to read more.

comma127 · 09-25-2008, 02:17 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tepelus

With a puzzled look upon his chubby face as to why his mother seemed so frightened, the boy agreed with a nod.

This is an example of something that's happening through the entire piece. You're telling me he's frightend.

Plus, the first paragraphs are all telling, which would be fine, if you then didnt switch into a personal view later on.