Tales from Philemon- The Daring Duel - Writers Forum

Philip Baily · 07-05-2006, 10:58 AM

Prologue
Philemon is home to many creatures. In the northern region, Requ, bold warriors are bred. The eastern region, Parcel, is where hardworking peasants create many of Philemon’s tools and foods. In the western region, Runesmitt, magicians are taught the skills of wizardry. The southern region, Verr, is where the amazing archers train their bow and arrows. In the dead center of Philemon, the great island city of Winget lies. The ruler of Philemon lives in his impressive castle there, making his decisions that he feels best favor the citizens of his amazing country. Winget also hold many tournaments, gives homes to nobles, and is the center of trade.

Forests separate the four regions from each other- Halo Wood lies in the northwest, Cfo Forest is located in the northeast, Muy Wood grows in the southeast, and Nubgrove Wood covers the southwest. The raging Skylow Sea separates Winget from the regions. Thus, transportation is everything. Horses travel through the woods, while boats sail through the waters. Anything can happen at any time in Philemon. Adventure is inevitable…

Philip Baily · 07-05-2006, 11:05 AM

The Daring Duel
The rain from above was drowning the island city of Winget. Its peoples were being dowsed by a steady fall of water drops. It had been raining for the past week, a record in the country of Philemon. King Barson had explained this occurrence as necessary, for a drought had been torching the land for the past few months leading to the week. The people began to groan about flooding in their homes, but King Barson just waved them off.

Cobalt Arctic opened the creaky door of the local pub, Bernie’s Beer. Flipping a gold coin to the bartender, he sat down at the bar and wiped the rain off his tan face with a napkin. He noticed two other people at the bar, a man and a woman. The man had jet-black spiky hair and was wearing blue dragon hides and carrying a bow. A quiver full of iron arrows hung over his shoulder. The woman had strikingly dark red hair tied into two ponytails, and was carrying a steel scimitar. Cobalt could have sworn he saw some bronze throwing knives hanging out of her leather chaps, but he made no comment of it. She was also wearing a dull tan shirt, which didn’t quite attract Cobalt.

As the bartender presented Cobalt with his mug of rum, the woman said something out loud, but Cobalt could not understand.

"Pardon me?" he asked the stranger.

"Nothing, I just burped," the red haired lady replied.

"I thought that ladies weren’t supposed to belch," the ranger stated.

"Well, I’m not your typical girl next door, now am I?" she challenged as she got up from her stool.

"You’re from Requ, are you not?" Cobalt asked.

"Of course. That’s the only place where true warriors come from," the woman answered as she put on her dark hooded coat.

"I always wanted to go there. Maybe duel some of your kind. After all, us wizards become quite bored of just practicing our spells and enchantments on nothing more than chickens," Cobalt said.

"Oh, is that so? Why don’t we fight here, then?" the girl suggested.

"Fine. By the way, I’m Cobalt Arctic, wizard of Runesmitt," Cobalt agreed.

"And I am Crimson Conflict, warrior of Requ," the red head spoke.

"I can be judge. By the way, I’m Sage Plasma, one of the worst rangers in Verr. However, I am the smartest," the archer said with a smile.

"I don’t care who you all are, just do your business outside my pub!" the bartender shouted at the trio.

"No one yells at me!" Crimson said, wielding her scimitar.

"Crimson, control yourself! I think you’ve had too much to drink," Cobalt said as he lowered her weapon. Sage watched nervously.

"Okay, then we’ll battle outside. I hope you aren’t afraid to get wet," Crimson grinned as she pushed Cobalt aside and trudged out into the flooded streets. Cobalt and Sage tagged along.

Philip Baily · 07-05-2006, 11:16 AM

Feeling the cold raindrops beat against him, Cobalt took off his overcoat and put on his pointy blue wizard’s hat. His blue wizard robes shone in the light. Wiping a strand of his brown hair away from his eye, he presented his staff made of magic wood. A crystal clear orb was firmly on top of the staff. Glancing at Crimson, Cobalt noticed that she looked a bit afraid. But once Crimson whipped out her iron square shield, she looked like her usual drunk, not lady-like self.

"This contest will be over once one of you cannot fight any longer. And don’t kill one another, either. Ready, go!" Sage said in an announcer’s tone.

Cobalt gripped his staff and spoke these words: "Hetro mundo!" In a second, Cobalt’s body was gone. He had disappeared.

"Bloody coward!" Crimson shouted with rage. As Cobalt crept up behind her, Crimson whirled around and struck Cobalt with her shield. Cobalt fell to the ground in pain.

"How did you know I was there?" Cobalt asked.

"Because all invisible wizards come from behind. It’s like a curse your people have or something," Crimson replied.

"
You want to know something your own kind always does?" Cobalt whispered so that Crimson couldn’t figure out where he was.

"What?" Crimson asked as she began to move around in a circle.

"You never finish off your opponents when you have the chance," Cobalt answered as he struck Crimson down with a fury of water in the size and weight of bowling balls. Crimson flew against a stone wall and fell to her knees. She didn’t get up.

"I declare Cobalt Arctic the winner of this duel!" Sage cheered, raising his hands in the air. But Cobalt was bragging, nor jumping for joy in that matter. Becoming visible and reaching out his hand, he picked Crimson up from the wet ground.

"I guess there’s a lot of things we do and don’t know about each other," Cobalt said in a sympathetic voice.

"Yeah, I guess," Crimson concurred weakly.

"So, how would you like to come to Runesmitt with me and learn some of my skills?" Cobalt suggested.

"Hey, what about me?" Sage whined.

"Yeah, you can come to. So, how about it, Crimson Conflict of Requ?" Cobalt asked.

Sighing, Crimson nodded. Then she grinned.

"You want to know something else wizards never do right?" she joked.

"What’s that?" Cobalt questioned with a smile.

"They never know how to ask out Requ girls on dates," Crimson said as she smiled at Cobalt and hurried on down the street.

"Dates?" Sage asked Cobalt in disgust.

Cobalt never responded. Instead, he chased after Crimson to the boat dock, with Sage following behind him. Maybe love can occur between the different races. Or can’t they?

(-THE END-)

snorrie · 07-05-2006, 12:05 PM

I noticed your writing is very passive. You need to strength it by involving the reader more. Right now your just telling and not showing.

Philip Baily · 07-05-2006, 03:29 PM

Okay, could you maybe give an example? I'm trying to take in what you're telling me.

mwd · 07-05-2006, 04:03 PM

Hey Philip,

Yeah, there are a few writing lessons that are common to give to a new writer. One is "show don't tell" and the other is "avoid passive voice." Unfortunately a lot of times no one really explains what those mean in detail. I'll try and explain it using an example from your story...

This is telling: Glancing at Crimson, Cobalt noticed that she looked a bit afraid.
This is showing: Glancing at Crimson, Cobalt noticed that her hands where shaking, her eyes were wide, sweat was running down her forehead, etc.

Basically, telling is saying something. Showing is giving examples of what you're saying, without actually stating it outright. This engages the reader's imagination, and makes them think about how the characters are feeling. This also makes your characters more unique. Different characters, just like different people in real life, will respond to fear in different ways. What one character does when they're afraid may be very different than what another does. A certain character might make particular facial expressions, or start fidgeting in a particular way. By showing how your character's respond to emotion, you can make them more "real" to the reader.

There are other ways where you can show and tell, but I tend to focus on the emotions of the characters, since that's where I find telling hurts the most.

Don't get me wrong, sometimes you have to just give some information to the reader straight -- like when you need to pass some specific information to your reader, and you don't want to take up a lot of words with it, you just want to give them the info, and then move on. Like everything else in writing, you need to find a balance that works for you. Always look over the changes you make, and see if they strengthen or weaken your writing (you can definitely show too much, as well as tell too much. as you write more, you'll find a balance that works for you between giving specifics to engage the reader's imagination, and saying general statements to keep things moving quickly).

Your prologue looks like an info dump. I'm not sure if it really adds anything to the story that couldn't be woven throughout your story itself, which is usually a better way of giving information the reader, *unless* what you're telling them is really interesting and can stand on its own merits. As it is, I felt like I should just skip over the prologue and get to the meat of your story itself (which more interesting than hearing about your world).

As for passive voice which snorrie was mentioning, I don't see any in your story itself (I'm sure there are a couple sentences, but passive voice only becomes a problem when there's a lot of it, so don't worry about the odd thing here and there). Where I do see it is in your prologue, which as I've already said, I think should either be cut or woven into your story itself.

For a description of active/passive voice, check out this link: http://owl.english.purdue.edu/handou...g_actpass.html

For an example of a passive sentence in your story itself...
Passive: In the northern region, Requ, bold warriors are bred.
Active: The northern region, Requ, breeds bold warriors.

It's still not a very nice sentence, but it's no longer passive.

Anyways, hopefully this clears things up somewhat. Let me know if you want me to clarify anything. The main offender in terms of telling is your prologue. If you cut that out, that will eliminate most of your problems in this regard.

RachelA · 07-05-2006, 10:54 PM

That was very good advice by mwd. I would also add that the best way to grab the attention of the reader right from the start is to start with a character rather than laying out a scene. Your characters are a bit wooden and it's difficult to care about any of them because we don't really know them. I would probably have started this by really concentrating on Cobalt. He appears to be the central character. You could have told the entire prologue through him. Instead of matter-of-factly telling us all that information about the drought, you could have given us Cobalt's thoughts on the rain (ie: Cobalt squelched along in his rain-sodden clothes. He hated the rain with a passion but, as King Barson so often reminded them, the land had been so long without rain that it was badly needed. Well, it might be badly needed, Cobalt smirked to himself, but it certainly wasn't great for travelling when your shoes sunk in the mud so far that it almost reached your knees and your clothes stuck to your body like an ill-fitting skin.) That was a quick example but it not only allows us to get to know Cobalt better before the action starts but it also helps to set the scene in a more interesting way. Doing it this way would make your prologue and first chapter much longer and "flesh" it out a little more too. Good luck