Young Writers Society

I'm not a fan of fantasy writing much, but as of late, I've found myself writing ideas for a fantasy story that ties in the spiritual battles of today and yesterday. Thanks to Opeth, A Perfect Circle, Cradle of Filth, Extol, Emperor, Darkthrone, and Dimmu Borgir, this first chapter is what came out of writing for the last three days.

No clear storyline yet; a soldier/mercenary is hunting a "fanatic" throught forest. The story will become even more clear as the story progresses. To give a bit of background, this story starts in a scene in a fantasy world, where Evil runs almost rampant on the villages and cities of the world. There are some people, like the protagonist, that takes up his own fate and arms himself, planning to face off against this evil and fight it until it is defeated.

I will donate points to anyone who critiques this. It is much appreciated.

Hope you enjoy it.

kay' I downloaded it and will start reading and editing...

have no idea when I'll be done but I wanted to say I love your musical taste!

Here's my critique.

[spoiler]Editor’s Notes. (Kraemer)

Interesting, you grab attention pretty fast and hold it there.
You could work a bit on sentence structure, some seem incomplete or just don’t feel right. Also constants. Fanatic is capital right? Then it should stay that way.
You should get into Alessio’s head more, add more about what he’s thinking. And Practice describing the places a bit more. We want more about the caves then the stalagmites and so on.
If Alessio is thinking stuff put it in italics this way the reader can tell.
And what in the world is a streetsweeper? I guess a projectile weapon now, but before I had no idea. Try to find a place to describe it.
I also changed the format. Before you had it double spaced and then another space between each paragraph. If it’s double-spaced that’s not necessary.
[/spoiler]



This is my first time doing an advanced critique so I'm not sure how well I did

I tried to download this, so I could respond to it, but it basically destroyed my Microsoft Word, lol, sent it crashing.

So, I'm not so sure if I want to try again.

Just so you know, I did try.

that's odd...I apologize if I wrecked the machine entirely...don't know what went wrong exactly..

No, the machine is fine. Just caused Word to crash and scared me abit XD. I've managed to download it successfully now though, so I'll get to reading it.

Your novel caught my eye as I was scrolling through the list of works, and... it turns out that I really liked it. There were a few errors here and there, however I thought that the overall content was engaging. Now, before I get into the specifics, I would like to point out that I liked the way you opened the story. You placed us right in the action, revealing the backstory as the tale progressed. This made me want to read more, in order to find out how certain things had occurred. The detail was good. I thought that the sentences flowed smoothly, and you didn't make "Lists" of the setting or character. Instead you revealed these details as the plot began to unravel. Now, to point out the minor grammatical issues in the work. It may just be something that you enjoy using, however I believe that you overuse the semicolon in order to extend your sentences. The semi-colon can be very helpful for stringing another idea into a sentence, but I think that you use it a bit too much throughout the story. Another thing, I noticed you began many of your sentences with "And" You should never begin a sentence with that word.

"And so Alessio pursued..." Not a good way to begin the scentence. Another thing I found was that you could use commas in some areas where you broke it into two scentences.
"He paused to check the wound. The bleeding had stopped" you could have put "He paused to check the wound, only to realize that the bleeding had stopped."

I know that I am not pointing out many specific sentences, but I am just advising that you work on using the semi-colon only when needed. Aside from that I very much enjoyed the story. As I said earlier, it hooked me from the beginning and I could not stop reading! Good luck!


Zoorah

Very good. Your protagonist is very well developed, although you did leave out minor physical details such as the color of his eyes and hair and his height. Also I like that this fantasy story is very different from the fairies and elves and werewolves. But I agree with Zoorah that you overuse the semi-colon to make a bunch of run on sentences grammatically sound. They still read like run on sentences to me. I have quite a bit of nitpicks so lets dive right in, shall we?

The wind was screaming, slapping him, shoving him [s]in[/s] about; trying to erode his will.

He marched on[s]; had no choice, in fact[/s].

This sentence would be much more stronger if you kept it short and simple. And it isn't quite true, because one always has a choice.

Fortune had been on Alessio’s side [s]yet, however;[/s] the blade had not struck the bone.

This does not flow well at all. But with the words striked out it reads much more nicely and eliminates one of your many semi-colons.

For the first time in thirty years, Alessio found himself on the receiving end of a battle; he was being insulted.

Maybe I'm right or maybe I'm wrong but it seemed like you changed tenses here by saying he was being insulted. Either way it irked me when I read it. Perhaps, he felt insulted.

The pain had slowly subsided; it was still there, lingering, but was distant, just beyond the edge of Alessio’s perceptions. Great news.

Now he could get back to work.

That is, if he could find the one responsible for this insult in the first place.

One thing that you tend to do is write very short paragraphs. Typically, your paragraphs are three sentences long and I'd like you to mesh some together to form at least five sentence paragraphs. As shown in the above excerpt there really is no need to space these sentences out. You should definitely combine these sentences to form one paragraph. It flows much better.

Even if it meant no food for the day or any drink, Alessio would find his quarry.

This is the second time I noticed you used the word quarry. I'm a stickler for redundancies and if you need to use the theasaurus to find a different word.

He kept a grip on his own machete, shiny, sharp, and untained; something Alessio planned on changing very quickly if he could.

I think you meant to write untainted.

No man who called himself a true soldier standing for ALL THAT IS GOOD ever walked away from a challenge

I don't like the use of all Caps. It seems like you are yelling at the reader.

Although his mother hated this adventurous attitude, his father had encouraged it, giving Alessio his first weapon at the age of ten; a small, silver dagger; Alessio had the very same dagger strapped to the small of his back, ready for use should his machete or streetsweeper become ineffective.

This right here is a prime example of excessive semi-colons. The second semi-colon needs to be replaced with a good old period. Period.

his ears perked for the minutest sound that was within two hundred yards of earshot.

I applaud you for trying to expand your vocabulary but minutest just didn't seem right to me. I'd much rather that then slightest, but perhaps you could find a different synonoum that flows better.

And then he caught view of the Quarry.

Third time you use quarry and this time it is capitailized. Likewise with Fanatic, if you are going to capitailize something, keep it consistent throughout the whole story.

He dropped the streetsweeper halfway to the tree, and yanked his machete of the belt at his waist.

Of should be off

But this time, Alessio looked down and spotted the surprisingly-large pool of blood at the base of the tree-stump.

The hyphens are not neccessary at all.

Warnings would always be given, but it took a real man to step past the lines of caution to do the Right Thing in this world of treachery and violence.

Not sure why the Right Thing is capitailized.

Alessio knew very little besides that tall tales he’d heard as bedtimes stories

The instead of that

Alessio did not know; nor did he care, [s]really,[/s] at the moment.

But even then, the odds were against him.

One whole sentence later…

But even though the odds were against him,

Talk about redundant!! One of these sentences should be deleted entirely.

There was nothing in the caverns that Alessio had not seen for himself.

As calmly as he could muster, he turned and try to yank a few of the planks blocking the entrance open.

Tried not try

Alessio shook his hair free, allowing it to hang loose and drape to his shoulders.

His streetsweeper was removed from his coat by the fanatic’s other hand, and flung into the hole. “You shall go no further today, wretch!” Alessio found himself hurled down into the hole.

Two things here. First, fanatic needs to be Fanatic. Also you used the hole twice in the same paragraph. There are plenty of synonoums for hole, please use them.

The fall took a few seconds before Alessio crashed into shallow waters, still trying to regain his composure and his awareness. A loud splash next to him announced his opponent’s arrival. The man kicked Alessio in the stomach with a booted foot, dropping him down into the water, his face disappearing into the murkiness for a moment before he was hauled up and thrown onto shore.
Alessio rolled, but came to a halt when he struck the wall.

I know this is a fantasy story, but COME ON!! I mean you are acting like this guy is indestructable or in the very least feels no pain. First of all, he got stabbed in the freaking leg! Now he is being slammed every which way and fell down a hole and being kicked. I'd like you to describe his aches and pains, the wind being knocked out of him. The searing pain in his body. Something to make this guy a little human.

Both sunk into the water as they [s]were[/s] sped through the caverns at a rapid pace.

Rapid pace seems a bit redundant as we already know they are moving quickly by your use of sped.

Alessio couldn’t see anything but two dark arms reaching for his neck[s]; the water had broken the hold on his neck.[/s]

By striking out this last part of the sentence you remove a redundancy and one of those blasted semi-colons.

The hurtled through the river’s course, submerging here and there, just enough time to Alessio to get a quick breath of air while his opponent spurted, slowly succumbing to the choke that was ending his life. [s]For a whole twenty minutes[/s], this slow battle dragged on.

Several things here. Number one they instead of the. Number two for instead of to. Number three I'd like a more powerful word than choke, perhaps, strangle? And finally, the whole twenty minutes thing seems awkward. Instead maybe just write, The battle slowly dragged on.

He awoke later, realizing that, [s]firstly,[/s] he was very much alive.

Firstly, this isn't a persuasive essay so strike out the firstly.

And once swift glance at the darkness that welled within the entrance of the cavern convinced Alessio that the luck that ran through his blood would not favor him in a fourth try at the caverns.

One instead of once.

At the end of the bar laid a chain with a medallion attached; a shiny silver one. Alessio snatched it up, not caring where it came from. At least this would be compensation for the loss of his dagger.

Uh, what? This ending feels forced and very much rushed. How is this compensation for a sentimental gift from his father? And it is as if this medallion just pops out of nowhere. I think it would read better like this:

Something sparkled in the sand of the bar, catching his attention. Alessio scooted over, scooping up a chain with a silver medallion attached to it. Where had it come from? Not pausing to reflect, Alessio shoved the jewelry into his pocket and dusted the sand from his hands.

See it adds a bit of mystery to the medallion, wraps up the chapter nicely, and causes your reader to want to read the next chapter. All without using a single semi-colon!!

Hah, I hope that wasn't too brutal and know that I wouldn't have critiqued this story if it didn't have serious potential. You've got talent here, you just need to polish the rough edges. Keep it up, and please feel free to pm me when you have more posted.