Hatrack River Writers Workshop: Endless Horizons (title pending)

This is topic Endless Horizons (title pending) in forum Fragments and Feedback for Short Works at Hatrack River Writers Workshop.

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Posted by MorenaNiiclu (Member # 2290) on :

The forest was the color of pitch and naught but the sound of the night owl could be heard on the still air. Morena pulled the large cloak around herself tightly and walked slowly through the trees. The soft crunch of the dried twigs beneath her feet was an unexpected interruption of her thoughts and she stopped moving for fear that someone was following her. She turned her head slowly, her eyes scanning for any sign of movement. In the distance, a thick mist was beginning to cover the land. The auroral moon sat silently upon it’s perch casting shadows from the trees that likened themselves to shrouded ghosts coaxing her forward with quivering arms. Morena stood still and shut her eyes wishing the beckoning revenants to withdraw back to within the dense wall of mist. She crouched down low to the ground slowly and refused to open her eyes. Those shrouded apparitions...were they the dead calling for her? Her parents.... or perhaps...it was Landri that was reaching his arms out for her. That familiar emptiness filled her again and she fell from the crouched position. Shivering on the forest floor, she wept silently as the past few days replayed themselves in her mind.

Posted by Netstorm2k (Member # 2279) on :

Well, I can easily say that you set a good scene. However, I'm concerned about where you're going with this. It started out with the interesting hook of her possibly being followed, or imagining it, but then she is overcome by fear, loses her will, etc.
If she is worried that someone is following her, is it likely she would just fall over and give up, or are the likely pursuers so powerful that she doesn't see the point in resisting? Or are you trying to say that she is so fearful that the crunch of twigs under her own feet basically sends her into a panic attack?
There's a few other things, like run on sentences, punctuation, that kind of thing, but that's editing.
Also, it might help if you mentioned before the post what it was you wanted us to know about the piece. And what you wanted us to look for.
But it's interesting. I think if you cleaned it a bit, it wouldn't be a bad opening. Great detail.

[This message has been edited by Netstorm2k (edited January 08, 2005).]

Posted by Survivor (Member # 213) on :

Hmmm...yes. Also, it should probably be "A soft crunch" or some other phrasing that indicates that the soft crunch is a single event.

Another critical turn of phrase is "shadows from the trees that likened themselves to shrouded ghosts coaxing her forward with quivering arms." There are two basic problems here. The first is that the wording seems to indicate that Morena fully understands that she's seeing an optical illusion, so her subsequent actions don't make a lot of sense. The second (and probably not terribly serious problem, all things considered) is that she is looking over her shoulder, so I'm not sure to what direction "onward" refers here. The ghosts could be beckoning her towards them or encouraging her to continue in her previous direction, you see.

Also, when she collapses on the ground I was pretty much expecting some more breaking twigs, since she stopped right on top of some, eh?

Posted by MorenaNiiclu (Member # 2290) on :

Thanks to both of you for replying. I didn't put any other information down, because I guess I wanted to hear your thoughts on the paragraph as a single entity. Most of what you both suggested and pointed out was very close to what I was thinking myself. Now for a little background information on the piece.

It's of the medieval/fantasy genre. Morena is my main character in my writing group. I've been writing and free form roleplaying with her online for about a year and it got to the point where I had her so fleshed out in my mind and on the computer screen, that I decided it was time to write her background history for not only my guild mates but also myself. This originally started out as a small project, but eventually grew into a much bigger production. That's when I decided that I was going to take her history and turn it into my first attempt at a novel.

This is all very raw work here and the frag that I posted is actually a very small excerpt from roughly the middle of what I have down so far. If either of you would be interested in reading the complete piece of what I have so far, I would be more than willing to email you a copy. I must warn you, however, that it's very rough. I've gone from rewrite to rewrite and I'm still not quite happy with it.

That said....

Morena was kidnapped as a child and her parents were murdered, the band of theives/murderers that kidnapped her raised her and taught her the ways of their world. The above excerpt comes from the point where she escaped from the settlement and she is afraid that they are following her. Landri... the man mentioned in the excerpt was the son of the group's leader, whom she was engaged to marry before he was killed.

So she's dealing with the loss of her fiance, plus the fear that she will be captured and brought back to a life that she is running from. That might help to explain her fragile state at this point in time.

Let me know if you'd like to read the rest, and thanks again, I'm currently looking through your input..

Posted by Survivor (Member # 213) on :

Word count and market (in this case, what specific game system)?

Posted by MorenaNiiclu (Member # 2290) on :

Hi Survivor,

Word count - At this point, I'm not even going to think about word count. There is a lot to her history... and right now, I'm just concerned about getting my thoughts out on the screen. I already know that not only do I need to flesh some of my scenes out some more but I -want- to flesh them out because I just feel that there's not enough there. But... that will come later. For right now... I want to get the base ideas down then go back and add substance.

Specific game system - This isn't exactly an idea for a roleplay game. What I do is called Free form roleplaying... in other words, it's just a bunch of people that get together and act (or in this case Write)their actions without the restrictions of strict rules. Most of us mutually write stories together, but this project is mine alone.

(forgive me if you already knew what I was talking about regarding ffrp - it's part of my duty in the guild to teach others about what it is, so the explaination comes second nature.)

Posted by Survivor (Member # 213) on :

Ah, I think that I've actually done that before.

Anyway, I meant the wordcount and market of "the rest" that we might be reading.