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kentb123
05-12-2009, 05:25 PM
This is my first attempt at letting anyone read anything I have written. Be gentle.







Chapter One


The cold automs breeze rushed acrossed Gabriels face. Bringing with it faint whispers of the harsh winter that was soon to follow. The mountains to the north where already laden with snow, and the passes to the northern lands where closed untill spring. The passes to the south would be impassible within a few weeks time, leaving the small village of Torga alone in the world, cut off by the icy grip of winter.

Gabriel only fifteen summers of age, already showed promise of the man he would soon become. He stood at six feet with eyes of glacier blue and jet black hair to the middle of the fair skin on his back. Although he was slender he was very strong from loading and unloading wagons full of suplies for his fathers tavern. The Broken Wheel was far from an upscale establishment, but it was the only such estabishment for several weeks ride in either direction. So, few men complained of the humble inns small inadiquacys. Gabriel loathed the thought of another long winter in isolation from the rest of the world. His young mind constantly recalling stories of high adventure and forbidden treasures. Tales the patrons of his fathers tavern would weace once there tounges had been loosened by too much or too strong of drink.

Torga was a resting point and a resuplying depot for those venturing to the north or to the south by land. The only route by land through the Celestial Spires. This particular mountain range seperates the northern and southern continents.

The sun was setting and dusk fast aproaching. Gabriel started home from a long fruitless day of hunting. He knew if he wasn't home soon to help his father with the tavern there would be hell to pay.

Gabriel, still a good hour from home noticed black clouds moving in from the north. He picked up his pace but the clouds were moving very fast and threatened to take away what little light remained in the day. He put haste in his step but the faster he moved the darker it seemed to get. In a matter of minutes the valley was blanketed in an almost unnatural dark.

Gabriel could barley see his hand in front of his face let alone his feet or the path they trod. He knew the path well but never had he traversed it in the total dark. A sudden web of lightning ripped across the night sky, illuminating the path for a brief moment. The thunder clap that followed was almost deafining making Gabriel cover his ears and duck a bit out of instenct. The storm had come out of nowhere. There was no rain but lightning and thunder raged overhead. He stumbled down the path drawing ever closer to town. As he topped the last hill what gabriel saw mad his heart sink in disbalief. It seemed as if the whole town was on fire. Through the strange dark and foggy haze however, it looked no more than an angry red glow.

He broke into a frantic run and the closer he drew, the more horrifying the trueth became. Falling more than once befor reaching the village gate, Gabriel ran through clouds of acrid smoke that filled the air, burning his eyes and lungs. He ran through the streets coughing and wipping the tears from his burning eyes, searching the best he could for his fathers tavern.everywhere her turned however, he found only choking smoke and fire. the whole town was an inferno.

through all the panic and confusion, Gabriel had failed to notice he had not seen one person. in a town of around two hundred people, he had not seen or heard a single soul. When it finally dawned on him, the fear
that welled up inside him was overwhelming. Everything her knew was being reduced to coal and ash.

Finaly Gabriel stood in front of the Broken wheel. The doors where chained and all the shutters had been drawn and nailed shut. The tavern, like the rest of the town was a raging fire.

Gabriel ran to the chained doors and grabed the steel handles ignoring the seering heat that immediatly blistered his hands. He pulled violently with all his strength to no avail. Tears began running down his smoke blackened face. A painfull light flashed behind his eyes and he felt as though every hair on his body was standing on end. He closed his eyes and a wave of energy blew the doors inward off there hinges. Gabriel opened his eyes only to see bones and mounds of burning flesh. The smell made him vomit and the little strength that was left in his legs drained away. His vision blurred and everything went dark.

kentb123
05-13-2009, 02:48 AM
Come on guys. Can I get any feed back. Be brutal I dont care. Just be helpfull as well. I know my grammer and spelling are not quite perfect but im working on it. What can I say, I went to school in Kentucky. Please leave some feed back or help. I have much much more written.

Veva
05-13-2009, 02:13 PM
well, I do like it, though there are a few things that could be pointed out...my suggestions are:
I think that there is to much of his name, try to avoid them in your narration, I find it too disturbing.
As well as this, you could change the way the paragraphs come after each other, it should be more fluent, I think that if you wish to write something like a folk story, its form should be folk as well. In my culture this means that the story unwinds like a flow of a river...;)
But keep on writing, the worst thing to do is to get scared off...:thumbs_up

kentb123
05-13-2009, 04:11 PM
I'm learning about formats. I plan on it being a novel, even it it's just for me in the end. I see what you mean about flow and his name. This is my first attempt and I don't usualy start small. I have maps of the world the towns and info on the people who populate these towns. :) I went to grammer school in KY so I'm a work in progress as well but I'm a spounge.

tailor STATELY
05-16-2009, 01:02 AM
Good start to your story... I'm hooked.

Spelling mistakes may be lessened by using a word processing program that has a built-in on-the-fly spell checker... I use Open Office Writer (freeware); but cutting and pasting to most modern email programs may help with most spellings if a word processing program is not readily available (for instance if you are using Notepad as your main writing platform).

Perhaps finding a friend/teacher/mentor to help proofread for you to root out common spelling and syntax errors (ie: there, their, they're) might be another step to polishing up your manuscript.

Look forward to reading more.
:tailor STATELY

Monamy
05-18-2009, 01:38 AM
I agree with tailor on what he said; proofreaders are people authors can't do without, I have my university proffessor backing me up with that (even though sometimes I feel embarrassed when he finds silly mistakes and start writing on my soft copy in red font lol)...

Back to your story, I like how things turned up gradually; I'm writing a novel myself and I can understand why the 'flow' was somewhat boring at some point, or should I say slow, because I went through this same experience. Try putting something to hook the readers up from the first paragraph--my proffessor once told me that if the author can't 'catch' the attention of his readers in the first paragraph, then he/she failed and that reader most likely isn't going to read more. In my opinion, your opening was not half bad at all; in fact it was so wild I could picture the atmosphere and I actually 'shivered' in chill reading those lines. If you're planning on a novel, try applying that trick in every chapter's opening, and you'll get amazed at how many people would beg you to continue. (^.^)v

You sure won me as a reader, I'm a fantasy maniac by the way.
Happy to make your acquaintance!

DickZ
05-18-2009, 01:44 PM
Good start to your story... I'm hooked.

Spelling mistakes may be lessened by using a word processing program that has a built-in on-the-fly spell checker... I use Open Office Writer (freeware); but cutting and pasting to most modern email programs may help with most spellings if a word processing program is not readily available (for instance if you are using Notepad as your main writing platform).

Perhaps finding a friend/teacher/mentor to help proofread for you to root out common spelling and syntax errors (ie: there, their, they're) might be another step to polishing up your manuscript.

Look forward to reading more.
:tailor STATELY
I agree with much of what tailor STATELY says. You should certainly use a spell checker, but you should also show your readers that you take the time to check your work yourself before you post it. Spell checkers don't get everything, and people who rely on them exclusively never quite get there. Still, they're better than nothing.

And until a writer learns the difference between there, their, and they're, he/she probably shouldn't even be posting.

There's no bigger turn-off to readers than lousy spelling and punctuation, or an inability to know which words apply in which situations.

Assume your readers will stop reading your piece after encountering the first major screwup, and adjust your approach accordingly.