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That time again chapter prologue and chapter 1



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Points: 5973
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Fri Feb 12, 2010 6:16 am
tigs6969 says...



Ok a few notes, put this on fantasy board ages ago but yeah stupid to do as it isn't even fantasy.
I wrote this in 06-07 and it was my first ever actual work so its not perfect. Anyway while writing my current novel, which is fantasy, I decided to reread over this see what I did so well cause I like this novel myself... I've read it quite a few times and shameless praise, I love it.
Its 16+ cause it has quite a bit of swearing which is pretty deliberate. Let me explain, I swear alot in real life like I can sit around the house saying fuck for 2 hrs over and over. Anyway I am the main character so I thought yeah there has to be swearing. I guess you need to spend a day with me to fully appreciate how good I have put myself on paper. Anyway probably a few commas lacking etc so sorry. Any chance of a review from anyone whether it be "loved it" "hated it" or detailed :P.
I'll upload rest of chapters, cause the whole book is completely done, if people want me to...
Prologue: That Time Again

It was that time again.
I mean, after ten thousand years on this planet together you would think we would’ve learnt by now - but no. I mean, it seems kinda pointless that even with all this immortality and no pain we still have to do it. It’s not the first time, and I doubt it’ll be the last. But seriously it is starting to get stupid.
As king, I have tried to put a stop to it, but you know what? Fuck them. I try and try, and they just end up attacking me and with no success. They have come in countless times to try and overthrow me, even five hundred to one, but I just stand there, whip out my chainsaw and off they go again.
You see, being immortal, you can’t feel pain(duh), but you can be chopped into many pieces and still be alive. However, despite the fact that you are able to get put back together, when I chop, I chop so they are in millions of pieces and there is no escape from that state.
I wonder how long this planet is going to last after all this. I mean, what is the use of being immortal if your planet is gone? In the end we may finish up going mental like the people of the other planets did. Maybe the reason the people do it is because of boredom, due to us being the only planet in the universe still remaining.
We have lived together on this planet for ten thousand years, so maybe they need a bit of spice. After seeing each other again and again for so long, you do get a bit shitty with each other. And then you start to want to kill each other, but naturally you do kinda forget that you are immortal.
Sitting in my palace, sometimes I just open the window and scream, “YOU ARE FUCKING IMMORTAL, PEOPLE! YOU ASSHOLES! JUST FUCKING STOP IT!” It doesn’t really help, does it? This is the time when you need friends, but even they get sick of you. My wife is someone with a lot of patience; well after all I’ve put her through. She is Goth, slim, and has black hair. She is pierced in lots of places, has vampire teeth and she’s sexy! In the beginning she hated me. I mean, who didn’t? Even I still do.
Let me go over our ways of life.
We were created ten thousand years ago in this solar system, and we were created immortal. How this happened no one yet knows. The scientists of the planet have been working on it for, God, five thousand years now. Not to mention, their discoveries since the beginning, they have had over a million theories of what happened but none of them ended up making any real sense.
We live in an evil society, which is divided into cities all ruled by me. I rule the whole damn planet, which is actually a huge planet - think half the size of our sun. We revolve around a sun called Juntolloper, which is very big - about a trillion kilometers squared. Everyone is married and anyone that cheats, well, let me just say this: I pass final judgment, and then my chainsaw has the fun of letting two people live in pieces.
How do we find out if someone is cheating on their lover? Well, it has rarely happened because we are all linked in spirit. Love is a big thing between couples. As I said, everyone is bored shitless, and sometimes they get annoyed with seeing the same person there after so long. If someone can be married to someone for so many years, then that person truly loves the other.
My best friend is called Joey, which is his nickname. Only I, his wife and a select few know his real name. I made it so it is forbidden for anyone who knows his real name, including me, to actually say it.
Some people may think that this planet seems very lame but, once you get used to it after a while, you love to call it home. So sit back and enjoy my story, for even I don’t know what will really happen but time will tell.

Chapter 1: Time Did Tell

So one day, like any other day, I was sitting down, doing shit all, listening to music at my desk in my office at the top of my palace, when I was interrupted by, my darling wife, Amy.
Everyone knows not to interrupt me when I’m doing this unless it’s something important, otherwise I get into an evil mood, which some find amusing, well, not as much as I do. So, in she comes, gliding like an angel. Just looking at her distracted me, so I didn’t mind as much when she came over.
“Darling? Darling? DARLING!”
“Yes, honey? What is it?” this has happened a lot of times.
“Taylor would like to see you in the lab. He says it’s a new discovery of his,” and that has been said to me many more times but by now I was used to it.
“Darling, you are smarter than me, tell me is it worth listening to?”
“No its not,” she said cutely, followed by a sexy smile and a snicker. “But just humor him.”
“Tell him a joke, you mean?” my way of trying to make the topic positive and seeing her laugh made me think it was a joke. “What is so funny darling?”
“Oh nothing darling, just go. I’ll be here waiting for you,” she said with a wink.
“Ok,” I said looking my girl up and down for the millionth time, “but he better not keep me damn long.”
As I got up from my evil looking chair(and it’s the truth), I saw my darling start to undress. I walked out into the hall and scowled while cursing Taylor’s name. I walked down the ten flights of stairs to the basement where the lab is located.
The basement is nothing fancy: it’s blue and has a few tables and all that usual science bullshit but think much much more advanced than the usual. Why is it nothing fancy? Cause it just isn’t but it is good enough for Taylor to do his work in.
“Tigs,” came Taylor’s voice from behind me as I walked into Taylor‘s usual corner, which was strange.
“Hello again, Taylor,” I said in my most bored voice turning around to look at him. “So what news do you have that you had to interrupt your king again?”
“Well, king,” he said with a bow( Fucking right he bowed), “I’ve found something underground on one of my latest digs. It is some strange writing on a big stone, but I haven’t been able to translate it. It is written in a language I have never seen before, and so I was hoping that maybe you have seen it. When I showed it to Amy she just laughed and told me to let you look at it. Let me show it to you,” he said turning around.
“Yes, show me it. But Amy is waiting upstairs, so the quicker the better. Chop chop.” Taylor walked over to the security vault where he kept all the stuff he found on his digs. Typing in the usual pin code as fast as he possibly could, he opened the vault and reached inside to bring out a big stone with what looked like Tyloneian writing printed on it in mine and Amy’s hand writing. “Taylor you can read Tyloneian writing, cant you?” I asked grabbing the stone and turning it around from its upside down position.
“Yes, I can, my lord.”
“So tell me, what does it say?”
In a quick voice he replied, “Tigs and Amy wur hear yaaa wat dog damn time lmao wtf.”
“It sure does,” I said now knowing why Amy wanted me to look at it, “Next time maybe, ay?” I said walking out of the lab cackling, but also pretty pissed at such a waste of time. “When will it end?” I muttered to myself again cursing Taylor’s and now Amy’s, name.
As I made my way upstairs, I ran into Joey.
“King may I have a word?”
“Yes, Joe, as long as you make it quick, Amy’s waiting for me you see.”(Fucking people interrupting this shit).
“Well, I heard you are going on a little trip soon, and I was wondering who was being left in charge?” he said slightly embarrassed about asking the question he already knew the answer to.
“Well, naturally, I’m leaving you in charge. Who else did you think was going to be left in charge?” I asked acting slightly surprised at his question.
“Well, I was thinking Larney or someone else that you really trust to take control of the planet,” he said in a shocked and still embarrassed voice.
“Nope. Plus Larney is coming with me and as my brother won’t be here, I thought my most trusted friend would be a good choice. Seriously my friend why did you even ask? It should be common knowledge. But hey, I better not keep my girl waiting. Make sure you tell your queen the good news!” I told him, winking as I walked on.
As I continued my way upstairs I heard something that sounded definitely like a chick in orgasm coming from the top room. Running upstairs to check who was getting it on, I found it was coming from my room. I walked in ready to blow up (ay I didn’t want her to start without me), when I saw Lois and Larney in my bed.
“AY! What the Hell, guys?”
“Oh balls, Tigs! Sorry, we just wanted a bigger bed for the evening and tomorrow as you know what tomorrow is. I asked Amy, she said it was ok,” Larney said, coming out from under the covers with a red face which I actually don’t think was caused by embarrassment.
“Well, where is ma girl?”
“Our room.”
“Ok, guys just don’t touch the royal throne. Oh and enjoy yourselves, as usual,” I said with a wink. “Oh and seriously, guys, help yourselves to the booze. Have a fucking good night!!!” I added closing the door. Between screams, I heard “Thanks broooo!”
Larney is my brother and Lois is Amy’s sister. This isn’t unusual - the exchange of beds. It’s usually a once a week thing, so I don’t mind. During the evening you don’t really notice the amount of screaming that occurs around the planet because you’re always joining in. You may think sex is going to get boring over time but, nope, we have ways of getting back in the mood all the time.
Porn does exist on this planet, in video form. Each couple makes videos of it. We aren’t afraid of seeing each other naked, for instance: when I and Amy watch it, always together, it helps to add a bit of spice to what could become a boring relationship. Though I doubt I would ever get bored of my sexy girl. Some people even have public displays of their affection. I mean, you walk outside and see two people getting it on, then you look at your girl, well, you actually, yeah.
Lost in a train of thought about my girl, I noticed that I had already walked passed the room, so I walked back. On my way, I heard people already getting at it. Screaming was coming from inside Larney and Lois’ room but, upon entering the room, I saw something very nice occurring…(still it was disgusting she started without me)

*******************************************

I woke up to a beautiful day. Well it was beautiful in my eyes because the rain was hammering down on the earth like never before. I love the rain it’s so beautiful.
Turning over in bed I saw something even more beautiful. “Good morning sexy,” I said with a kiss. “How did you sleep?”
“Ah, darling, you know, the usual. This and that,” she said getting on top of me. ‘This and that’ was codeword for the planet Drilpold.
“Again? Was it the same? I die and the sun comes crashing down?”
“Yep. But how would it actually happen? We are sure the planet is gone?”
“We have gone over this in millions of meetings, darling, millions of talks. We’ve discussed it with the whole planet. Drilpold is gone.” You see the planet Drilpold was destroyed by us.
One day we just went on a friendly visit to the planet and they started going mental at us. No one did anything to offend them, and out of the blue the king said to me, “It has begun when the time is ready time will not be what you make it but when it is,” then he started shooting me. Idiot, he is, shooting a bloody immortal and for no good reason. After realizing this, he decided ‘bye byes’ and got his glintle bomb ready to destroy us. Well, we got into our ship as fast as we could. We outran the bomb and sped it back their way. We saw the pieces of the planet flying towards us so we knew we’d hit it. That was the second last remaining planet. All of them were destroyed by us.
The planets were: Wanglang, Tislan, Tagular, Alopet, Wokle, Graynglar and, of course, Drilpold. All of them were destroyed in the exact same way for the exact same reason. All we wanted was peace and they didn’t.
I don’t think I have told you the name of our planet. It’s called Tylon, and we don’t know why. What happened was, Taylor found a piece of stone written in English saying: Tylon, a planet made just for you.
The Tyloneian letters follow: A: Silf, B: Dilp, C: Swalr, D: lisd, E: fil, F: stli, G: lop, h: kor, I:I, J: ser, K: lipp, L: tif, M: emi, N:N, O:O, P: wun, Q: sig, R: lrop, S: S, T: kii, U: ode, V: V, W: dill, X: X, Y: Y, Z: Z. When we found the stone, we just discovered we could read it. Even when someone is born they are able to read without any teaching. We started writing in English, but it became a bit hard as people were also using Tyloneian in the writings as well. So now we only write in Tyloneian.
Back to reality now, “So, darling, what we doing today?” asked Amy.
“Staying in bed all day, I hope, darling. You haven’t forgotten what day it is, have you?” I asked dreamily looking into her eyes.
“It is Sunda- Oh, how could I forget!” she replied, becoming dreamy as she stared down at me. Years occur every 318 days, and today is the strangest day of the year. Today is World Decapitated Fuck Day.

*****************************************

The very next day, I woke up to a bright sunny day, so I wasn’t in the best of moods. I was awoken by a knock at the door. “Come in,” I said lazily. The door opened followed by an “Oh king, you’re in here. I was looking for Larney,” Joey said in a confused voice.
“We have switched rooms for a few nights, Joe. Remember what yesterday was. What is it you wish to speak with him about?”
“Well, he said he needed help cleaning up the water supply.”
“Oh yeah, it’s fucked again, isn’t it? What is it because of this time?” I said in a very bored voice.
“Nuclear rats shit in the water again,”
“Marvelous. Well, why don’t we go shit on them and make it seem right?” I walked over to the window opened it up and screamed, “ONE WEEK FROM TODAY IS SHIT ON NUCLEAR RAT DAY,”
“Darling, what new day is it now? Why don’t you just make another stay in bed day,” she said with big eyes looking my way, her head resting on the end of the bed.
“Darling, I am making this day because those fucking rats have gotten into the damn water supply again,”
“Oh fuck again?”
Joey answered this one, “Yes, Amy, again and it is high time we shit back. The king rules!”
“Doesn’t he just,” Amy agreed reattaching her head to her body.
“Well, Joe, my friend, I’ll make it my duty to help you and Larney clean up the water,”
“Should I help, darling?”
“If you want. I would rather not see those beautiful hands of yours get dirty, but the sexier the merrier.” So we all went off to the top floor singing “We’re off to see Larney to clean up the evil water!”
On the way, we found my daughter, Seven, walking from her bedroom. “Sev, you wanna come help us clean up the water that those fucking rats shit in?”
“YAAA I DO!”
“YAA SHE DOES!” we all screamed, and, after a few minutes more of walking and singing, finally we got to the top floor Seven now joining us. We aren’t afraid to show our immature sides you know I mean we are immature mostly every second… it gets fun because no one gets pissed off at anyone else for being immature cause we are all used to it and we all act immature so yeah.
Outside the room there was nothing but silence, which was very strange. We walked into the room to find the both of them still decapitated.
“You guys still not finished having fun, ay? Well, come on! We have water to be cleaned. YAAA!”
“Oh, that was today, was it?” Lois asked reattaching her head to her body.
“Yes and we also got a new day set up for next week,”
“What day?”
“It is called Shit On Nuclear Rat Day,” I said proudly.
“Good shit! We can finally get those fucking rats for this!” Larney exclaimed.
“So should we hup-hup? Lets get this evil day over and done with,”
Just then, Jason walked in.
“My lord,” he said bowing, “I come with evil news! It is happening again,” he said worriedly.
“AGAIN? But we just got those pricks to stop doing it not even a week ago. What reason is it this time? Boredom like usual?” I asked in a bored voice.
“No, darling, it is a lack of chainsaws. This morning I heard them talking and arguing about it,” Amy said to me lazily, as she knew what I was going to do.
“Ok, let me go speak to them. I’ll meet you all downstairs,” I said walking out the door. As usual, I heard the screaming and violence, but no, I did not hurry as I walked down the stairs.
Finally, I exited the palace. “SHUT THE LIVING FUCK UP, ASSHOLES, RIGHT NOW!” I bellowed as I stepped into the middle of the violence. “YOU GUYS ARE FIGHTING DUE TO A LACK OF CHAINSAWS? WHY? THE REASON THE CHAINSAWS ARE ALL BLOODY GONE IS BECAUSE YOU ALL TRY TO KILL EACH OTHER WITH THEM. IT’S NOT MY FAULT, IT’S NOT YOUR FRIENDS FAULT, NO, IT’S YOUR FAULT!
“You guys think I don’t know why you attack each other? Boredom, am I right? You think I am not bored also? If those assholes had not attacked us then they would be here to talk to us and socialize, but no. No one on this planet is to blame for the boredom. Can we just live peaceful lives even if there is no end?
“Play some damn sports. Why do you think Wunsig (I don’t know why it is called PQ for! It just is. PQ was founded by Taylor amongst all the things left for us and the instructions to play were there so….) was created for us? Because all of you need some damn entertainment. We have video games, we have TV and we have books. Why not play or help create things to watch, read and play?
“Some may think I’m a horrible king, and I may be, but I am a horrible king who knows what it is like to live your lives as I am living it every damn second just as you are! This speech may not make everything better, but it is a damn start.
“Also,” I continued in a calmer manner, “I have decided that a few of us, me included of course, are going on a little space flight in two weeks. We are going to check out the whole universe because we have not done so in the ten thousand years that we have lived here, and I think it is high time we did. Who knows, there could be other planets apart from the blown up ones.
“Now I, my sexy darling and my friends are going to clean up this river that those fucking rats shit in. If anyone would like to help, then, be my guest. JUST STOP FUCKING FIGHTING FOR AT LEAST A DAMN MONTH. Now enjoy your day fuckers,” I finally finished and walked off. No one applauded. They were all too shocked to think anything.
Finally, I heard someone screaming, “THE KING FUCKING RULES! THE KING IS FUCKING RIGHT! WE DON’T NEED TO FIGHT! LONG LIVE THE KING!” that is when I knew they had finally agreed to give it a rest. No doubt a fight will start within another month, but, for now, peace is needed.
I actually haven’t made very many speeches. I do come out of the palace once in a while to visit my friends, but a speech is a big thing around this planet, as the other people are too shy to make speeches. Why do you think I was appointed king? I was the only one who made a speech.
The people on the other sides of the planet started screaming back words of admiration. They had heard my speech through speakers that I have placed around Tylon. Microphones, linked to these speakers, are placed on me for this very reason. They are only turned on when I will them on.
After everyone went back to their normal things I made my way to the water supply area, which is just a bit south of the palace. My darling and daughter and friends were already there cleaning with their contampacks. These are vacuum-cleaner type things that suck up the water and clean it. When you tip the water back in, it is protected from any evil things around for a few hours as not to get infected again.
Only a few people from the village turned up. My son Arson, Amy named him, and his wife Nick (Sarah to family), Jople and his wife Janet, Jotter, Shaun, Draconian, Dillum (Seven’s husband), Pilster, Pohter, Iskle, Funger, Oisle, Qilliam, Skenter and Horisis. This was not unusual, as whenever a big clean up of something took place, most of my best friends and family turned up to help ensure it was done quickly and perfectly, so that happiness, funnily enough, could continue on the planet. Nothing important happened during the clean up, but when I got back to the palace, something did happen that at first, as usual, I didn’t imagine would be important.
I was up in my office listening to music when Amy came in. Her usual screaming occurred and she held a note in front of me which read:
Lippinlop dilpilop lisdisswalrovfillropy swalroemifil Silf.S.Silf.Wun.
“Oh God, not again! It’s the second time this week! It better be damn important or I am afraid I am going to have to get my chainsaw to talk to him,” I said sighing.
“I know, darling, but you never know, it could be something new,” Amy said rolling her eyes.
We walked out hand in hand down to the lab to see what Taylor wanted. He was sitting, as usual, in his little corner looking at something very minute for a discovery of his - a first in 2500 years. Although, to me, that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s something new.
“So what is it this time? This small thing better be as big as you say it is,” I told him demandingly.
“Oh king, you have never seen anything like this, I tell you,” he said picking it up and showing it to me. What he held was a watch, but this was unlike any we had ever seen. The numbers weren’t written in English or any language we had ever seen.
Taylor pressed a button on the side and it spoke. “Time will be shown very soon to you. It will be shown to you like you have never believed it. Take your time to see how long you will wait,” than it lit up in flames and was no more.
  





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Gender: Female
Points: 3244
Reviews: 40
Fri Feb 12, 2010 5:45 pm
bear says...



Unfortunately I did not finish reading the first chapter. I couldn't. It wasn't engaging. Truth be told, as a reader I found it unbearably annoying. The reason I tell you so bluntly is because you need to know for revision, and because I am not in the mood to mince words.

It's like reading the account of a frat party. To your credit, you wrote this as a teenager. It shows through, from the way you structure your prose and your word choice to the way your characters talk, like fifteen and sixteen year olds who think they're cool. This would not be a problem if that's what you were writing about. In fact, if this was a novel about modern teenagers instead of immortal royals, your style would be your strong point, the weapon with which you could paint an accurate portrait of a set of characters and the way they behave.

However, you are dealing with immortal royals, royals who have dealt with serious things and who would, I assume, have grown up over time.

Which leads me into another thing that I noticed. They are immortal. They live on another problem, but they're behavior is so similar to a human, on our planet, between my age and yours. The same vocabulary, similar technology -- it feels identical, which takes away from the alien-ness that I think you want to get from your immortals. Assuming that this civilization developed independently of earth (which is what I'm doing, as I've yet to run into a reference to our civilization) there is no reason for these creatures to share so many similarities to us (not in terms of being humanoid -- I don't see that as important,but I do see customs and culture and language as important) You have a whole other species! You can use this to your advantage to create features that can fortify your plot.

You also need to work on dialogue. Granted, since you've written this your dialogue may have improved considerably but in this piece it feels stunted. You have the ear for it. That's great, and may actually call for a miniature celebration. When writing dialogue the first battle is knowing you have the ear for it. You can synthesize having this ear, but it's not the same. The problem is that, while you have an idea of how human (teenaged, because again, your characters do talk like teenagers, probably because the young-adult age group is the one you've really been exposed to as a writer) you stunt it. don't be afraid of using contractions. Full words where contractions work better aren't going to hide how informal your characters are. (When dealing with royalty I find it baffling how informal they are to authority but you can airbrush that with culture if it isn't part of it already.) Also, your all-caps. This is actually a pet peeve of mine, so take this piece of advice with a grain of salt. I don't think you need them. I think they're obnoxious, a substitute for showing emotion through dialogue, action, the way you use your sentences. The reader should be able to tell your character is upset by the way they behave, what their body language (which you include very little of -- body language is something like 85% of human interaction and incredibly incredibly unbelievably important. Many beginning writers overlook it, but you can't and get the desired humanity. Again, 85% of human interaction -- it's considerably more for other species.)

Don't let your all caps shout over whatever else you're trying to get across, the other attributes of your character. Another thing about all caps; they can make the reader feel like they are being assaulted by the page.

or at least I do. Again, grain of salt.

My not-quite-last point is on your main character. It's a word of warning.

Beware the Sue. That's what your MC reads like -- a certifiable Gary Stu. It's something that plagues author inserts, when the character gets a little too cool. Don't forget flaws. Don't forget that at some point you've probably been your own worst enemy.

The best thing you can do with this, I think, is revise revise revise. You can rewrite, something I think this would benefit from, stylistically in particular. I'm sorry if this review is haphazard. I haven't written a review like this in a long time. I'm not sorry if this review is tough -- this piece needs a lot of work but if you put in the time you can see a drastic improvement.
Blah blah blah blah?
  








trust your heart if the seas catch fire (and live by love though the stars walk backward)
— E.E. Cummings