Young Writers Society

Untitled intro-

Jaf was lying on his bed. There was not a sound to be heard anywhere except for the occasional changing of the guard. He was sleeping with a large smile on his face, he was dreaming about something, no one knows how or why, but whatever it was, it made him discover a truth about him, a truth that was meant to be forgotten by all of humanity, a secret that could destroy the world.

It was now morning, and birds chirped happily in the grassy courtyard. Dew seemed to sweat slowly off the grass, and the morning scent filled the air. All seemed peaceful but it was not. In the menacing castle, the dictator, Jaf, was preparing for something.

“I don’t care if we’ll be low on workers!!” Jaf shouted harshly, as he spoke spittle flew from his face onto the guard's face. Jaf was in a hot temper, he almost ripped his beautifully adorned purple and gold tunic because of his rage. His face was covered in sweat, and his black hair was sopping wet. The guard protested, saying “Why would you need to take such a move? None dare attack us! If we take every available person, our country will be-“ he was cut off and felt immense pain in his chest, he looked down and saw Jaf had stabbed the guard between the rib cage. The guard’s eyes widened with the pain, and he collapsed, clutching his chest. Jaf pulled his sword out and said “Tell me when I give a damn.” The guard coughed up blood all over Jaf’s tunic, and Jaf looked down and said “I was going to let you live, you worthless, pathetic retch!” Jaf lifted up his sword and plunged it once more into the guard, but left it in there. Unfortunately for the guard, he was dead in seconds, his lifeless body left lying on the floor. Several of the nearby spectators watched in horror as their fellow guard was killed. “Attend me at once! And you, yes you, you bloody guard! Get over here!” Several stewards and stewardesses came running over and began cleaning up the corpse of the dead man, and the others retrieved him a new tunic

“You, report to your captain and tell him I want every bloody able bodied person in my kingdom fully equipped and set to the barracks! Prepare for a grand invasion!” the guard wanted to say “no, but he knew doing so would kill him, and it would’ve been of no gain to anyone because the other guards would have followed his orders. “Yes, your highness.” The guard saluted, and ran off towards the nearby staircase, his steel armor clanking as he ran. Obviously, the guard was confused and doubtful, but who dared question Jaf’s sudden demand.

Hundreds upon hundreds of warships lay in the huge harbor; thousands of soldiers were all around. From high in a fort, Giono stood watching. His armor sparkled as the sun began to peek over the mountains, and it showed the huge army preparing for war. His skin was tan, and his hair was dark brown, a large scar resided right next to his eye.
There was a sudden clanking noise as a soldier ran up the stairs and said “Sir, we are almost ready. We just need to finish loading all of the supplies and soldiers onto the boats, and then we’ll be ready.” The general turned and replied, “Good, this shall be a grand conquest!” Although in his own mind, he doubted that, as well as he doubted if his lord, Jaf, was in a proper mental state, and why he wanted to launch such a sudden assault on their western neighbors. “Sir, your orders?” the soldier said. “Ah, yes. Once the ships are ready, send seven of them to Gelinor, and surround it. At night, have each ship launch boats full of our scouts and have them begin to map the land, but make sure they stay away from guards.” The soldier in turn replied, “Yes sir. Will you be commanding the battle once it begins?” The general stood with a grin on his face. “Oh yes….Yes I shall.”

Inspired by: Guardian's "The Mati"
Co author: Guardian

Tell us what you think, and suggest a title.
keep writing =) happy reading (=

You suffer from a huge problem here, Everyone. Passive sentences are very rarely your friend. They are like weeds in a garden; one or two may make your garden look pretty, may give it some character, but if you don't keep check on the weeds and make sure they don't grow, you'll be standing in a jungle without a guide.

Basically, scratch them all out. Passive sentences draw attention to the wrong thing. The subject should be doing things, and not be having things done to him. An easy way to catch passive is usually 'was'. Check it out:

Jaf was lying on his bed. There was not a sound to be heard anywhere except for the occasional changing of the guard. He was sleeping with a large smile on his face, he was dreaming about something, no one knows how or why, but whatever it was, it made him discover a truth about him, a truth that was meant to be forgotten by all of humanity, a secret that could destroy the world.

It was now morning, and birds chirped happily in the grassy courtyard. Dew seemed to sweat slowly off the grass, and the morning scent filled the air. All seemed peaceful but it was not. In the menacing castle, the dictator, Jaf, was preparing for something.

I'll give you a simple fix for one, and you can do the same for the rest, hopefully. Just know that you need them gone, even if you have to rewrite the entire thing, and rethink your entire method.

In the menacing castle, the dictator, Jaf, was preparing for something.
In the menaxing castle, the dictator, Jaf, prepares for something.

It's simple, right? There's no reason you can't do it. Also, without wanting to bog you down with things to remember, adjectives and adverbs aren't your friend. If you need them in any large amount, you lose.

- Andy

No. Those are NOT passive sentences. Those are what we call past imperfect sentences, and they are good. Yes. Good.

If you use them right.

What they do is indicate something that was in the past done repetitiously or an undetermined while ago. So if you use them a lot, what will happen is that it'll give the piece a nightmarish effect and makes everything run together. So you won't want to use them a lot in an ordinary narrative. Instead, vary it with preterite (he did) and all that other fun stuff!

Play around with it... it's fun.

One thing you're going to want to do is choose a main character to work with (or at least not switch characters so often and make the transitions smoother) and make sure the tenses are equal. So there should be no present tense in a past tense story. (Hint: first paragraph.) Otherwise, it reads awkwardly and people bring the words "passive" into the argument when it's really not an issue.

Um... yeah. Perhaps more from me later?

Hey thank you guys alot, I now have chapter two done, and Guardian says thanks for the lesson also =) me and guardian did the intro together. He actually gave me the plot idea but I'm writing it, so I'll have his name at the end of each chapter for the inspiration.

Snoink, I was simplying for the sake of a critique. I'd have expected you to see that, but I'll make it more obvious next time. There's no need in bogging people down with definitions they'll never need.

I enjoy definitions, =)

There are no spacings! Each new speaker's dialogue should be on a new paragraph, and with an indent. You have none of these things in there at the moment, but it sounds good.

The only thing I don't understand is where is this supposed to come into the story? Is it a prologue, a first chapter or just somewhere in the middle?

RR*

I am the god of this forum.