Many times I wondered about the moral behind my actions. Behind our actions. I wondered if it was foolish to keep living this life, just because it was life.
What is life really? Few humans can say they really made something of their time on this water planet, that they made a difference.
When I was born I lived for honour. To do what is right for my country. Disaster struck in the midst of it all. The Caesar at the time, commanded a priest to set up a strike force. A group of brave men, warriors. These men would be trained, with the sole purpose of protecting the king. There was a special ritual, referred to as the God treatment. It was a mere rumour, it wasn’t real. And even if it were, nobody would dare perform
[This message has been edited by AmiraDay (edited July 29, 2010).]
[This message has been edited by Kathleen Dalton Woodbury (edited July 29, 2010).]
If the narrator's self-examination was over a long period, perhaps it should begin with 'Many times I have wondered....' And perhaps you meant 'morality' in that sentence. The 'moral' would refer to a lesson learned.
The 'What is life[,] really?' sentence doesn't seem to fit and is a bit put-offish. The philosophizing seems focused on morality, rather than a sky-high view of life.
Good luck with it.
This passage is illustrative of the first issue:
"The Caesar at the time, commanded a priest to set up a strike force. A group of brave men, warriors." (20 words)
There is a lack of efficiency here. This would be more efficient:
"Caesar commanded a priest to assemble a strike force selected from his bravest warriors." (14 words)
Notice that two words were eliminated by changing "set up" to "assemble". The word assemble also more formal than the phrase "set up" and lends a little gravity to the sentence. Similarly, we eliminated "group" because the phrase "strike force" implies a group, so we do not need that word. Similarly, you don't need to say "brave men, warriors". By replacing this with "bravest warriors" we accomplish the same meaning, cut a word, and indicate that these are not just brave men, but the cream of the Caesars crop. I cut "the Caesar at the time" because that weakens the power of that Caesar by telling us he is no longer in power. You can tell us this later if its important to the plot. And since Caesar in Roman times was adopted as title, you can use it without necessarily referring to THE Julius Caesar.
There are several other sentences with the same problem. I'd love to see you work on this, and perhaps you can work in some more imagery. Sometimes I will reference a thesaurus when I have a weak word in mind and want to use something more evocative.
[This message has been edited by Osiris (edited July 31, 2010).]
[This message has been edited by AmiraDay (edited July 31, 2010).]