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So basically I'm planning on putting all short stories I write in this one thread so as to not anger the admins. If you like my stories or have comments, questions, tips, etc. shoot me a message or comment on the thread. I try to be as patient, and kind as I can be so feel free to start a conversation with me in the mail part of this site.
The Board Game Part One: squabble at sea
(In the board game kingmaker you play out the English civil war "the war of the roses")
On the coast of southern wales at the village of Milford Haven, Me's lord Greystoke aboard the ship Le Lucas is sticking his toung out at, and otherwise making fun of, I's ship Le Nicholas
The 2 ships are in a dead race to Ireland to determine the fate of the Yorkist Prince Edmund. They have been delayed by a storm at sea and are stuck in the same village port together unable to sink each others ship
(for some reason)......if the Le Nicholas reaches Ireland first Edmund is saved and can be ferried to a safe castle in wales
If the Le Lucas reaches Ireland first Lord Greystoke will leap off and execute the infant prince as soon as he can
WHO WILL WIN?
A little background is in order
My first short story is in five or six parts, was all written a month ago. OH...and it is a squabble between me, myself, and I
The Board Game Part 2: The Royals
(in order to win the game you need to control the only king, you can crown kings to challenge this. ) The reigning king His Majesty, King Henry of lancaster, his wife Queen Margaret, and their son Crown Prince Edward are in the hands of Myself's noble Nobles.
Of the rebel Yorkists there is Prince Richard senior, (the father) executed by Myself's lord Clifford at York. And Richard's four sons, prince Edward (hiding in Harlech castle), prince George (dead because of the black plague), prince Richard junior (partying/hiding in northern France, and prince Edmund (being brought back from hiding in Ireland by I).
Edmund will be brought to LLan Stephan Castle where I is rallying all of his remaining men to hopefully withstand Me's relentless attack.
The Board Game Part 3: I's Doom
In the first days of the war I's faction was lucky and had the lord Scrope on their side
I's lord Scrope, Archbishop of York, not only had access to the major city of York but also had the right to crown a king. Scrope's home castle of Masham being right next to York where the rebel prince Richard Senior was in hiding. The plan for the start of the revolution was for Scrope to skip to York and crown the prince leaving England with two kings and a civil war in full swing. Unfortunately for I, Me caught wind of the plan (who knows how) and Me's Lord Percy of NorthUmberland raced from his castle at Alnwick immediately to lay siege at Masham.
The rest of Me's army was short in coming and upon their arrival he attacked I's Lord Scrope at Masham Castle. Scrope lost the battle and was executed, his position as Archbishop of York rewarded to Me's up-and-coming Lord Cromwell. Whom immediately wrote a letter admitting Myself's Lord Clifford into York who then executed the Rebel Prince Richard Senior.
The Board Game Part 4: The War at Large
I's host had gathered in northern Wales and marched NorthEast to save the Lord Scrope at Masham....unfortunately the battle was lost and Scrope killed before they were even half way there. I's army was now vastly inferior to that of Me annnnnd very close to Me's full assembled army at Masham.
They were thankfully able to pull a miraculous retreat and far outpaced Me's army on their way southwest again. Meanwhile Myself's army was moving from castle to castle and gathered all 3 members of the Lancaster royal family; King Henry, Queen Margaret, and Crown Prince Edward. They rallied the family to FotheringHay Castle and left them there under heavy guard. Back to the fighting in Wales. I's host got broken up, the lords Neville and Fitzalan received letters that there was peasant revolts taking place at one of each of their properties. Neville went to his Raby Castle in the north to deal with the uprising, and Fitzalan went to his Arundel castle in the far south of England. (no one in their right mind attacks a noble hurrying to stop revolt, and soldiers march at record speeds to stop them.)
This left I's Lord Herbert alone in Wales with thirty men at his banner, needless to say he ran like the dickens to a nearby port where his ship the Le Nicholas was waiting.
At this time Me's great army never actually entered Wales, it sat at Raby Castle till Neville finished putting down the revolt, then they laid siege, killed him, and took the castle.
The Board Game Part 5: The Great Siege.
The lord Courtenay joined I's faction of Nobles and helped escort Lord Fitzalan and his men to Courtenay's castle Okehampton in the Duchy of Devon and Cornwall in southwestern England. The Lord Herbert landed his ship the Le Nicholas and moved his force to Okehampton as well. So now I's whole standing army of 450 men was rallied at Okehampton Castle.
Meanwhile Me and Myself rallied all of their available men to lay siege to Okehampton Castle, their whole combined force numbered 850 men laying siege to Okehampton Castle. It was around this time that the Lord's Audley and Stafford joined I's faction and began raiding the countryside of eastern England in an attempt to draw some of Me and Myself's forces away from Okehampton. On the first day of the siege I's forces we're surprised to see no incoming attacks (thanks to bad weather delaying Me and Myself)
On the third day the first skirmish of the siege occurred. Me and Myself's forces climbed the walls and fought hard, but eventually had to pull back to their camps. I was then horrified to discover that the Lord Fitzalan had died fighting on the wall and his men lost the will to fight for I. Fitzalan's force of 150 men departed the castle and were allowed to pass through the besieging lines.
The odds are now 300 defenders against 850 attackers, and we are waiting on further reports.
The Board Game Part 6: The War's End
The Me and Myself alliance continued to press their attack at the siege of Okehampton castle and after another couple of weeks the walls were breached. I's forces fought to the last bravely.....which lets be honest didn't amount to much......and in the end were crushed. Now the ship Le Nicholas (which had the rebel prince Edmund aboard) was under the command of I's Lord Herbert. The lord Herbert died in the battle at Okehampton and his rights to the Le Nicholas were given to one of Myself's lords as repayment for their service. It was around this time that a plague in Calais, France killed the rebel prince Richard Junior, leaving Edmund as the only Yorkist Prince. So Me drafted a letter to I and the Lords Audley and Stafford, his last two lords, declaring that if they did not surrender post-haste Prince Edmund would be executed for their crimes. Wishing to not have the blood of an entire noble line on their hands I's lords surrendered and handed their master I over for execution.
In this way the great civil war was ended. THE END
A couple comments right off the bat:
* This could have been one post. Next time, just put the whole thing together (and put some whitespace between paragraphs for readability).
* It's not really a story, just relating a sequence of events. You tell everything but show nothing, and the characters are just pawns with names but no personalities. What's the hook to interest the reader?
Thank you very much for the feedback. That makes sense.
As for the story, it's a little more playing off the slight humor of dragged on titles, war having rules, and the overarching conflict of the leaders me, myself, and I. Which you are correct to make it more interesting elaborating on the characters would be a very good idea. Thank you
The Bear
I looked across the field, if I were part of any other company I would've feared for my life...But this band was different. This company of mercenaries was led by "The Bear" and he alone could level this fight in our favor. I remembered when I first joined the company.
I had been working my family's farm when my father called me in from the field. A troop was passing through the town. When I got to the elder's house I saw a number of villagers already there. And there next to the elder was a man. No ordinary man either, a giant of a man. The only name he had was "The Bear". He had a thick, scraggly brown, almost black, beard and mop of hair. He was muscled well and scarred. He stood a head and a half taller than me and broad shouldered. He already had a small band of men with him and asked the village for volunteers, his voice deep and gravely. I and three of my friends stepped forward and he kindly payed our parents for the loss also saying that he payed by the week and we would have our own share in the take.
Since then I've seen a number of fights, armored and armed myself with the loot of fallen enemies. Our numbers swelled to a respectable strength. We fought mostly bandits to start with, cleaning up my homeland. Soon enough war broke out, as expected, our company signed on with one kingdom and was now deployed in battle against another "real army".
Some high count of the rival kingdom was leading a company much like our own: Ragtag, but veteran. There were two main differences though; there were fifteen more of them than there were of us, and those extra fifteen were the count's elite bodyguard...knights!
There force came charging after us. The bear shouted his orders: "HEAR ME!! infantry form a line here!! Archers ten paces farther up the hill!!" he rode his horse and motioned the positions with his sword. We kept a careful eye on the advancing enemy as we took our positions on the steep hill. The archers were already able to fire and "The Bear" took off down the hill on his horse. He circled round the back and, with some clever horse work, and fighting, he managed to kill A bodyguard, a pair of archers and the count's own horse before returning to our line with a handful of cuts and an arrow in his shield. He dismounted and pulled his massive battle axe from the harness on his back and readied himself. Our lines collided, I jabbed down and dropped some poor young man like myself but inexperienced. I couldn't watch "The Bear" directly in the fighting but I didn't have too.
A knight crashed between my friend and I, and there he was. "The Bear" leaped through the air caught the knight with his axe and pulled him down we moved in for the kill, "The Bear" would leap from one side of our line to another, killing as he went. He targeted the knights as they charged in and cut them down before they could make too much of a difference. The battle raged for a while, at one point the count himself in his heavy armor charged in swinging his great sword, he killed four men before "The Bear" reached him. He struck the count in the back where the count's shield was hung, the blow cracked the shield and stumbled the count. The count turned and swung his sword. "The Bear" side-stepped the swing and brought his axe down full force on the count's shoulder. The count collapsed and what was left of his men began to run. "CHARRGE!!" shouted The Bear. HA HA! We chased the blighters for aways, killed several more. It was a right grand victory. We mourned, and buried, our dead. We stripped off armor and weapons from their dead to improve ourselves, and discovered that the count had woken up and fled while we chased his men. All-in-all we lived to fight another day.....beside...The Bear...
Again, it's all so vague and doesn't attach to any relatable character. Nobody cares about The Bear because we know nothing about him, the narrator or tangible details of the plot. It's wrapped up before it starts and what details you do provide are repetitive.
You do have a writing skill but I recommend you read other stories and see how character development and plots unfold.
The Bear is a cool idea but it isn't very well executed. As Delta and Calidore have touched on, your characters aren't very well developed and because of that there's no emotional investment on the part of the reader.
The other thing I notice is this is written like an outline or something I used to do for screenplays. A lot of those lines could be fleshed out and made into scenes, especially in the beginning. You're telling us what's happening, but we want to see what's happening.
It feels like you rushed through the beginning to get to the big battle and the Bear. I mean, this story is all about the bear isn't it? You should try to have a better sense of character before you begin actually writing.
Perhaps the story would be more intriguing if it were written solely about the bear rather than about someone fighting the bear?
Possibly but usually the reader wants to cheer for the character up against some kind obstacle. What do you have in mind Grit?
If it were my story I might explore the brutality of living the life the bear might live. Killing for every dollar, and being a brutal beast on the field of battle but then being a gentle and caring father off the field. Perhaps he's quite slow. His physical prowess is his gift but what are his weaknesses? What makes him vulnerable?Quote:
Originally Posted by Delta40
What if he got an assignment to slaughter a respected figure in his home village? What mission does he say no on? Does he draw the line at killing women or children? Or is that okay? If he does go through with it, how does it effect his relationship with his own family?
Any of these are interesting, I think. The anti-hero is always fun to explore.
Ok this site is way better than i thought.
Thanks again guys for the feedback, these are good ideas and someof things i had put thought into in creating the bear. I guess what happened is that i was timid about expanding the length of the story "too far" for the time being. And i will say that i typed it on my phone and the small screen restrictions were bugging me. I did build the character quite abit more inmy head and it will be fairly easyfor me to elaborate now that I'm thinking about it.
thank you again guys, it'll take me a while to rework it.
Do that Huhuran and I'll be interested to see The Bear grow...
Unreadable I'm afraid.
H
Alright, so here's a new try at it. It seems to me like it drags on a bit much, but I figured i'd see what you guys think. I ended up pulling names out of space to help with my own sanity in keeping things straight.
The Bear
version 2
I looked across the field, somewhere around sixty Landanites were charging across the plain towards our hill. Fifteen of them were knights in full armor, riding armored horses. Great, red-clad monsters with beating hooves. In the midst of these knights was the Count Tredian, some noble or other of Landan, garbed in some of the best armor money could buy. You knew it was him by the ridiculous wings flaring from his emotionless great-helm. If I were part of any other company I would've feared for my life...But this band was different. This company of mercenaries was led by "The Bear" and he alone could level this fight in our favor. The tales played in my mind, reminding me why I fight. I remembered when I first joined the company.
I had been working my family's farm when my father called me in from the field. A troop was passing through the town. When I got to the elder's house I saw a number of villagers already there. And there next to the elder was a man. No ordinary man either, a giant of a man. The only name he had was "The Bear". He had a thick, scraggly brown, almost black, beard and mop of hair. He was muscled well and scarred. He stood a head and a half taller than me and broad shouldered. He already had a small band of men with him and asked the village for volunteers, his voice deep and gravely. I and three of my friends stepped forward and he kindly paid our parents for the loss also saying that he paid by the week and we would have our own share in the take. We said goodbye to our families and set out.
We spent a number of days going from village to village, hunting robbers, recruiting more men, and gathering information. The company was led by The Bear, his seconds were Roald and Truman. A couple of Rodoans that had been with him from the beginning apparently. Every night we received training from one of the three. Tips and tricks on survival and fighting. We also learned from our experiences fighting bandits, robbers, and highwaymen. We took our weapons and armor from fallen enemies.
As it turns out, the reason The Bear had been gathering this company of mercenaries was to be prepared to fight in a seemingly unavoidable, upcoming war between my homeland, the Kingdom of Novoron, and the Kingdom of Landan to the south. The Bear was from Rodoa, a mountain kingdom on the other side of Landan that made peace with Landan a month ago. From what I gathered from Roald and Truman, something happened between Landan and the family The Bear used to have that hadn’t been repaid before the war’s end.
The Bear himself was a strange character, he took in anyone we found prisoner in the bandit camps we attacked. Gave them a place in the company so that they too could fight. None more so than a young woman that had been a captive of some bandits. Noone asked, but we assumed what she probably went through with those bandits. We had been sneaking up on the camp, but when The Bear had seen her there he went into a rage and charged alone, not one bandit escaped with his life. She was given The Bear’s own tent, and when she showed interest in fighting, The Bear himself contacted the Sword Sister’s Order for armor and a weapon for her.
Soon enough war broke out, as expected, our company signed on with Novoron and was now deployed in battle against other "real armies". I gained a nice set of armor myself thanks to Truman. After one battle he passed his claim on a poor knight’s armor to me assuring me that a crossbowman like himself didn’t need heavy armor. We all improved greatly during this time. We grew close as friends, we mourned as old faces departed, and celebrated when new faces survived their first battle.
Unfortunately The Bear, like all of us, is not perfect. There were a few times where his lack of a grasp on tactics caused the deaths of several, even with Roald and Truman trying to keep us in line. Then there was the time The Bear almost died. I don’t mean “almost died” as in fighting with sword, he was in life-threatening situations every day. I mean his spirit. Without his warrior spirit and morals he could have been any old lumberman, or even one of the greatest bandits to be known. It started with a fight against the Landanites. Their bowmen had moved forward unprotected to fire at us, and The Bear had charged alone on his horse to scare them back. As he cut in to one of them, killing the archer, the others ran. And a band of knights came charging down out of the forested hills to either side. They surprised and overwhelmed The Bear, a lance collided with the top of his great helm and cast him to the ground, unconscious. We charged forward to protect him like he had done for us, we ran off the knights initially. The Bear recovered consciousness but was weakened, and we camped there for him to recover. Our watchmen saw the knights returning with a force much greater than our own. The Bear ordered us to fall back to friendly territory while he distracted the enemy. Truman and a handful of others went with him to distract the enemy, while Roald led us away north. I turned back to the valley in time to see Truman get stabbed through and The Bear overwhelmed, the haft of his great-axe split.
We were quickly caught by another force that had been moving to cut off The Bears retreat, for the Landanites wanted to make sure this “pawn” was removed from the board. We laid down our weapons before them and were taken prisoner. We learned that The Bear had been taken alive with most of the men that had stood with him. We were beat on as prisoners of the Landanites. They had to drag our force through the field with them till they could stop at a castle and they were too busy yet. The men had been inspired for The Bear’s respect for women and the weak, and defended the woman from our company that had also been captured. We also worked to help each other. We shared rations as needed, and were able to steal some things from our captors at night. A couple days after our capture I saw a sight that surprises me to this day.
A man that had gone and stood with The Bear was suddenly among our number, after all no one notices an “extra” prisoner, who would want to become a prisoner voluntarily? He told us that The Bear had broken free with them and had already freed half our company from the other Landonite Forces. He and the men were rearmed for the most part and were going to try and free us. We developed a plan for the escape. We managed to receive a couple knives for the attempt.
The day of the escape we ate all of our rations to build strength, when the force stopped to make camp, we jumped the prisoner’s couple guards and slit their throats from behind. A small group of us snuck into a nearby supply tent for weapons and armor, while the ones in the field quickly switched clothes with the dead guards to give the illusion at a distance that we were still guarded. When the time came we charged out the south side of the camp when The Bear came charging in the south side. The whole force made it out, but we had more than a few casualties on the way. The Bear himself was already heavily injured from the blow to the head, and several new wounds, including an arrow wound in his right shoulder. We got out of the camp and we bundled the giant man onto a horse so we could keep pace and outrun our ex-captors.
A Novoron foray into Landan caught the force chasing us and we made it back to friendly territory to rest and heal. The Bear was depressed and struggling with the idea that he had almost left us all as war-prisoners of the Landanites. I came to realize something there. Whatever happened in The Bear’s past to drive him against the Landanites so harshly, having his whole company captured reminded him of it. He became even more withdrawn when news came in that a Landanite Count was ravaging a number of western Novoron villages and farms, raping, burning, and looting the livelihoods of many of my people. The biggest insult of this? The Landanites only had around sixty well trained men with them. The defending forces of that region were taking part in a siege at a Landanite castle on the border. The Bear wanted to march right then from the capital, but we were all still recovering. He had his great-axe repaired at the capital.
Soon enough we came to where I stand now. Looking across at the Count, trying to flee back to his own home. I looked over at the Bear on his horse next to me. I fight because I follow someone worth following. I fight for my home. I fight because the man leading their army is a murderer of the defenseless, shielded by money. I remind myself so that I can deal the killing blow to the young men that are mirror images of myself. I know that as much as The Bear fights for revenge, he would die for those of us that he has gotten to know. I remind myself of the maneuvers, blocks, and attacks I have learned from training and from my own experience in the field.
There force came charging at us. The Bear shouted his orders: "HEAR ME!! Infantry form a line here!! Archers ten paces farther up the hill!!" he rode his horse and motioned the positions with his sword. We kept a careful eye on the advancing enemy as we took our positions on the steep hill. The archers were already able to fire and The Bear took off down the hill on his horse. He circled round the back and, with some clever horse work, and fighting, he managed to kill a bodyguard, a pair of archers and the count's own horse before returning to our line with a handful of cuts and an arrow in his shield. He dismounted and pulled his massive battle axe from the harness on his back and readied himself. Our lines collided, I jabbed down and dropped some poor young man like myself but inexperienced. I couldn't watch The Bear directly in the fighting but I didn't have too. He passed me a number of times.
A knight crashed between my friend and me, and there The Bear was. The Bear leaped through the air caught the knight with his axe and pulled him down we moved in for the kill, The Bear would bound from one side of our line to another, killing the enemy as he went. He targeted the knights as they charged in and cut them down before they could make too much of a difference. The battle raged for a while, at one point the count himself in his heavy armor charged in swinging his great sword, he killed four men before The Bear reached him. He struck the count in the back where the count's shield was hung, the blow cracked the shield and stumbled the count. The count turned and swung his sword. The Bear side-stepped the swing and brought his axe down full force on the count's shoulder. The count collapsed and what was left of his men began to run. "CHARRGE!!" shouted The Bear. HA! We chased the blighters for a ways, killed several more. It was a right grand victory. We mourned, and buried, our dead. We stripped off armor and weapons from their dead to improve ourselves, and discovered that the count had woken up and fled while we chased his men. All-in-all we lived to fight another day.....beside...The Bear...
One more note on an idea I'm thinking about trying. I've been figuring and I think I could another story like "the board game" but focus more on the intrigue of the nobles, their personalities, and the political fighting of a 15th -ish century England, the events being wholly made up of course. The part that intrigues me about this is that while I will be completely building their interactions and personalities, I have a way to make the obstacles occur randomly. Given I would add to make the story better when chaos theory fails me, but so far in my experience with what I would use, it leaves the story more interesting than you think it could, and creates twists that are wholly unseen, which allows me to make the character's reactions more realistic because i have to react to an obstacle that I did not personally invent. Again I would retain the right to ignore the randomizer or add my own twists For the sake of the story.
I guess what I'm saying all this for is, anybody interested in this at all?
And if anyone has ideas for issues that would go before British parliament in that period I'd appreciate any extra ideas that i could add to the research I will do
I think your talents lie elsewhere - maybe designing computer games. Your plots would seem to have potential for those who enjoy such things, but unfortunately I still find your style of writing rather monotonous.
H
haha well dang
thank you though for your thoughts hillwalker, i'll keep trying at this though. I have many ideas floating around in my head and I love the opportunity here to not only get them out onto "paper", but to get feedback to improve my abilities as well. you are quite right though my new plot was incredibly "helter skelter" I believe the term is...I ended up trying more to get a tale across rather than make it more interesting.