Young Writers Society

here is my ninth chapter ithink the diologue in the beginning is a little bit...not right

PLEASE COMMENT

Chapter 9
That Was Easy



After the leaving the company of Sendoma, Grishtog was walking down a street with many worn down shacks. Not many people were on the street. It was just him , a couple walking their dog, and a poor looking man just turning onto the street. He stopped at one of the shacks. It was the best looking one on the street.

He knocked on the door twice and a woman answered and gasped, “Grishtog.”

“It’s been a while. I know,” replied Grishtog.

“I thought I told you to leave me alone,” she said in a stern voice.

“I know, but you also told me to leave Sendoma alone. However, I can not because the powers he inherited from me are beginning to surface, and I do not want him to kill himself or his friends that he traveled with,” replied Grishtog quickly, hoping that she wouldn’t interrupt him.

“So are you training Sendoma to control these powers?” she asked.

“Yes, he is somewhere in this town right now. Do you want me to continue to train him?” asked Grishtog.

“Yes, I do not want to do anything that could harm our son,” she replied looking down at the ground and not at Grishtog’s face.

“He came with me to this town. Do you want to meet him?” asked Grishtog.

“Not right now. I’m sure he just found out about you and I do not want him to be overwhelmed by emotion,” she replied looking back at Grishtog. “Would you like to come in for some food?”

“Sure, if you really want me to come in,” replied Grishtog.

“I need to ask you a few more questions,” she replied as she went back into her house with Grishtog following.



Garak walked through the streets of Kadora trying to look like a pedestrian as he followed Grishtog. The chaos council had felt Grishtog come to this world so they ordered him, their speaker, to follow him and find out why he came to a place that had no evil.

Garak followed him to a street of shacks. He saw Grishtog knock on the door of a shack and a woman answer it. They started talking and Garak couldn’t hear anything.

“Felensorrow,” he said quietly to himself. All of a sudden, his ears were flooded with sound. He had trouble concentrating, but he was able to drown most of the other noise out so he could hear what Grishtog and the women were saying.

He heard Grishtog say, “…because the powers he inherited from me are beginning to surface… his friends that he traveled with.”

He then heard the women reply, “…you training Sendoma to control….” Grishtog said something after that and then he heard the woman reply again with, “…anything that could harm our son….”

After Garak heard that he said, “Felensorrow dia.” All the sound he heard was rushing out as fast as it came in. He then Kadora as fast as he could without arousing suspicion. When he got out of the town he went deep into the woods and teleported back to the cave of the chaos council.




Sendoma waited on the hill for a few minutes until Grishtog showed up and asked, “What did you do on this visit?”

“I did a small job and got paid. Not much else to do,” replied Sendoma as he stood up.

“Ready to go back?” asked Grishtog. Sendoma nodded and stood next to Grishtog. Grishtog closed his eyes and they teleported back to the marble hall where Oracle and Valentine were. Valentine was flying and Oracle was just walking back and forth occasionally tripping over his beard. “Try the spell one more time.”

Sendoma tried using frustration from not accomplishing it before to fuel it now, but nothing happened. He then focused on the joy he felt when he first saw Tierna. He said, “Ihsanak Anso,” and all motion stopped for him. Valentine was frozen in midair, Oracle was frozen stumbling over his beard, and Grishtog was just standing there. He moved in front of Oracle and said, “Ihsanak Anso.”

All motion began again and Oracle caught himself stumbling and said, “I saw you appearing there. You can’t scare me.”

Sendoma thought for a minute then asked, “Oracle, if you can see into the future, why can’t you see when you’re going to trip over your beard?” Oracle just smiled and continued walking.

“That was good, Sendoma. Try it again,” said Grishtog excited that Sendoma is mastering this spell.

Sendoma focused on the joy of seeing Tierna and said, “Ihsanak Anso.” Everything stopped again and Sendoma was excited that he was finally getting the hang of the spell. He moved from where he was standing and said, “Ihsanak Anso,” and everything moved once again.

“That is very good Sendoma. It took me much longer to learn the spell. If I were you, I would practice this spell until I got too tired just to make sure I got the spell down,” said Grishtog with a smile, excited for Sendoma.

Sendoma nodded and Grishtog left the main hall. Valentine left soon after and all that remained were Sendoma and Oracle. Before Sendoma could try the spell again Oracle said, “So how was she?”

“Who?” replied Sendoma shocked that Oracle might be talking about Tierna.

“You know who I am talking about. The girl you met in Kadora,” replied Oracle.

“Why are you asking me this? If you know I met her then you must know how I feel about her,” replied Sendoma.

“No reason, but listen to me. She will be a major role in your future. Don’t let anything bad happen to her,” said Oracle just before he left the room.

Sendoma thought for a bit and then continued with his training. He did the spell once more then realized that he has no idea if time was stopping or not. He also realized that he was hungry and tired. He went to the kitchen and found no one there. He went looking through the cupboards for any food. He found nothing in the cupboards not even dishes.

He thought of a meal he liked and said, “Pea stew cooked.” A hot bowl of pea stew appeared in his hands. He quickly put the bowl on the counter and blew on it to cool it down. After a minute he grabbed the spoon that came with it and began eating it. He finished it and left the kitchen. The bowl disappeared before he left.

He went to the main hall and found no one there. He was still tired so he went to his room and laid on his bed. He fell asleep a couple minutes after he laid down.

That night he dreamed, of the others. About Rone, Wyvern, Sisilia, Danara, and Alexandria. He dreamed that Alexandria was evil and he was fighting her. The others were fighting the Ankishi and were being beaten. Danara was in the back doing her best to protect the others without losing too much energy. Rone was using magic to the best of his abilities although it wasn’t doing much. Sisilia was dodging attacks and was killing the most of the Ankishi. Wyvern was injuring many of the Ankishi. However, the Ankishi were pouring out of the fortress and there seemed to be no end of them in sight.

Sendoma woke up when Alexandria stabbed him in the heart in his nightmare. For a minute, he had no idea where he was. He then remembered that he was in his fathers place and fell back to sleep.

Sendoma's dream was scary. This was an interesting bit, and I am curious as to who Garak is.

Now we come to the heart of it - the thing I think you can improve most about almost all your writing.

Emphasis and Impact

You have good material to work with here, Mike, and your story is interesting, but the reason why you are often lacking description and it sometimes seems dry is that you need to emphasize the truly important parts of your chapters and word them to have maximum impact. I could keep mentioning description over and over again, but I think this will benefit you most of all.

What do you describe? You know how to describe, Mike. I've seen you; you have beautiful word choice in the sections you describe well. Battle scenes, namely. But you also need to focus on the social, personal and characterization sections of your chapters. Examples?

After the leaving the company of Sendoma, Grishtog was walking down a street with many worn down shacks. Not many people were on the street. It was just him , a couple walking their dog, and a poor looking man just turning onto the street. He stopped at one of the shacks. It was the best looking one on the street.

He knocked on the door twice and a woman answered and gasped, “Grishtog.”

“It’s been a while. I know,” replied Grishtog.

“I thought I told you to leave me alone,” she said in a stern voice.

“I know, but you also told me to leave Sendoma alone. However, I can not because the powers he inherited from me are beginning to surface, and I do not want him to kill himself or his friends that he traveled with,” replied Grishtog quickly, hoping that she wouldn’t interrupt him. [side note: if it’s been so long, then why doesn’t Grishtog explain a bit more clearly?]
“So are you training Sendoma to control these powers?” she asked.

“Yes, he is somewhere in this town right now. Do you want me to continue to train him?” asked Grishtog.

“Yes, I do not want to do anything that could harm our son,” she replied looking down at the ground and not at Grishtog’s face.

“He came with me to this town. Do you want to meet him?” asked Grishtog.

“Not right now. I’m sure he just found out about you and I do not want him to be overwhelmed by emotion,” she replied looking back at Grishtog. “Would you like to come in for some food?”

“Sure, if you really want me to come in,” replied Grishtog.

“I need to ask you a few more questions,” she replied as she went back into her house with Grishtog following.

This scene is HUGE. Here we learn that Sendoma's mother is alive. That is a massively important bit of information and yet you only give it these few bits of dialogue. This is perfect opportunity for Grishtog's characterization and his wife's. Describe their expressions, their body language, the way they say things, the aura which is hanging the room. As it is now, this just sounds like any other bit of dialogue to me. Emphasize, emphasize, emphasize! Word this part meticulously and leave the reader with words they will remember throughout the story and find themself quoting. Your island-hopping technique is not always bad. I island-hop all the time if you have read Flames, but you have to make each island substantial and essential, captivating in the reader's eyes even if it isn't. Intrigue them. Make your characters realistic, human, amazing.

Sendoma tried using frustration from not accomplishing it before to fuel it now, but nothing happened. He then focused on the joy he felt when he first saw Tierna. He said, “Ihsanak Anso,” and all motion stopped for him. Valentine was frozen in midair, Oracle was frozen stumbling over his beard, and Grishtog was just standing there. He moved in front of Oracle and said, “Ihsanak Anso.”

This is also important. Here we see a transition in Sendoma - he goes from focusing all his anger towards his father to focusing his joy in seeing Tierna. This is a major turning point; emphasize! Make it powerful! Describe, describe and emphasize! When I say describe, I don't necessarily mean that you write a full paragraph on this one bit. I mean that you focus on the juicy details and word this part so the reader recognizes what is going on here.

Drama is one of the most effective tools of a writer. By drama, I do not mean melodramatic, 'mushy', or gloomy writing. I mean that you make the most of every moment of your story, and portray the emotions of the characters to the reader. There will come a time when there will be no more scenes to write in this book - when you will finish it- and you want to live with the satisfaction that you did everything in your power to convey the major themes and characters in your story.

I'm not trying to be harsh, Mike. You have a great start here and you have lots of potential, but if you are to improve, you must keep these things in mind. I am only trying to help you to the best of my ability, and I think it you learn this, you will improve immensely. Now that you're nailing that phrasing down, this is the next step.

How do you improve in this area? There is no magical formula for this kind of judgment and writing. All I can say is...
Read. Read and examine how other authors emphasize the important spots in their writings.
WRITE! The most important aspect. Keep writing and writing and writing. The more you write, the better your writing becomes and the more you improve. Write!

To help you out, I'm going to give you a few ideas on parts to emphasize in this piece.

1. obviously, that beginning with Grishtog and his wife
2. the part where Sendoma thinks of Tierna to fuel his powers
3. Sendoma's dream
4. when Grishtog returns to see Sendoma using his powers, does he see Sendoma any differently? What kinds of things is he thinking? Is he troubled? You don't need to address these things in thought form; even an expression on his face would clue us in.
5. The part where Oracle tells Sendoma how Tierna will play a major role in his task.

You will recognize the important aspects of this scene more easily than me because you know your story better, but these are just some ideas. Again, you are doing really great, Mike. You have a lot of potential, so don't you dare start thinking that you are a terrible writer and give up on me. You're doing a fantastic job and improving greatly. I'm only here to give you some pointers.

Nice job on this, Mike, and I anticipate reading your next chapter; keep writing! PM me if you need anything; I'm always here for ya.