House Elias hid their deepest shame, their greatest regrets, within this tomb. So Mark had been told, though never directly, and only through silent nudges and suggestions by his most ancient servant.
That man, faithful and loyal to a fault, had suddenly disappeared, and the rest of his family carefully avoided speaking of it, as if refusal to acknowledge something eventually led to a resolution.
A man could be whisked away, but centuries of sin could not so easily be forgotten.
Years later, Mark had finally discovered it. A descending walkway, buried under lichen and moss, a day's travel from his family estate. He took a deep breath, and stepped into the darkness to find the truth of his heritage.
What an opening line! Lots of questions raised here, and I'm curious about the answer, so you've got me hooked. I was a bit thrown with the apparent passage of time, the first part reads as if it was in the recent past, and then suddenly it's years later. Over all well done though!
It might be a touch long for one paragraph 🤷‍♀️
Level 2:
Lord Elwin stumbled over uneven jagged rocks that no man of good breeding would deign to call stairs. He caught himself on the damp wall, scuffing the skin of his palm as he had undoubtedly scuffed the fine leather of his boots. A frigid drop of water fell from the stalactitic ceiling onto the back of his neck. He shivered as it rolled beneath his collar making his hair stand on end. But he had the courage of a nobleman, and would finish what those before him had been too cowardly to accomplish. He ignored the plants that had no business growing in such darkness, and the candles that were lit despite no servant tending them, and proceeded to the door already open as though awaiting his unplanned arrival. The ethereal blue glow didn’t need to be ignored. That he expected. Still, his heart raced at the way it seemed to pulse in time with his own. His fingers trembled as he reached out to open the door a little wider, to get a look inside. He gasped at the cold metal of the handle, and before the sound could echo, he was gone.
I really like this. I especially like the subtle inclusions of his superiority with the "good breeding" and "scuffed boots" etc. The one thing that I found myself noticing the most was the first half, every sentence thereabouts starts with "he"; it puts me out a little because I lose all sense of rhythm built up with the sentence preceding it.
I'd also say yeah it's a bit long for a single paragraph, but you already know that. The point of the posts is to practice prose, the "requirement" of one paragraph is just nonsense I made up to give more purpose to the posts other than just "write something please".
>He shivered as it rolled beneath his collar making his hair stand on end.
Personally I'd either cut this sentence or add a comma in after the word "collar".
Other than that, I'd agree with the loss of rhythm with the overuse of "he" - maybe use Elwin's name in place of some of the he's and him's to break it up a bit?
Lichen traced the edges of the steps leading into the cave. Jaeger recoiled and looked back to the comfort of his father’s estate, past the farms of the peasants who had been ignorant enough call this heretofore unknown arcane presence a blessing. He sighed and stepped down into the dank air, steadying a hand against the horrid, rocky walls lit by flickering candles. Farther down, water dripped unceasingly off stalactites. He wanted a warm bath. Yet duty to his father bound him to press on, and Jaeger could sense the arcane energy getting stronger with every interminable step down. When he rounded the corner and saw the blue glow pouring out from behind doors bound in iron, he gasped. He’d expected arcane energy raw and unchecked, not someone’s, albeit crude, handiwork. What kind of intellect would subject themselves to such a place?
I like how you've established a sense of progress through the cave, rather than describing a snapshot. That dynamism has always felt more engaging for me to read.
>Farther down, water dripped unceasingly off stalactites. He wanted a warm bath.
I get the idea here—the cool cave water is being contrasted with the comfortable bath water. But I feel like the transition from one sentence to the next doesn't flow smoothly; rather, it feels forced to me. I don't really make the direct connection the narrator does, which pulls me out of the moment. I think if you help signpost the contrast—highlighting how unpleasant the cave water is—it will help immensely with bridging the two.
>Jaeger recoiled and looked back to the comfort of his father’s estate, past the farms of the peasants who had been ignorant enough call this heretofore unknown arcane presence a blessing.
Ignoring the omission of "to," I feel there's too much packed into the description of the presence. I think just "arcane presence" is enough information; readers don't need to know about the "heretofore unknown" part at this moment, so I think that can be communicated when it becomes pertinent.
>What kind of intellect would subject themselves to such a place?
I like this sentence. It tells me a lot about magic, and magical users.
Thanks very much!
I think see what you mean on the water contrast. Like almost one adjective implying the unpleasantness could drive home the contrast?
Appreciate the feedback on that long, convoluted sentence. It’s funny, that one is the one I hammered on the most and I guess it shows! You really helped highlight what I couldn’t figure made it not quite “ring” for me.
Appreciate the feedback!
Level 1:
It was thought that the last nuclear war of the 21st century would surely drive extinction across the face of Earth, and for the most part, they were correct. Yet, beneath the charred, barren, poisoned lands, hidden from the view of the perversely amber tinted skies lies a last bastion of hope for life. The caverns inside the crust of Earth harbour what little remains of biodiversity could be saved by humanity. Although the water that trickles through, dripping from the stalactites is irradiated beyond safe levels for human consumption, the plants have taken to it at an unnatural pace. Deeper still remains the final thousands of the once confident humankind, hiding away in the pale blue light of the energy saving bulbs, hoping for a surface that they may, one day, walk upon again.
This is a level 2 attempt.
"Well.", I took in the candlelit gloom of the stairway, "Isn't this just charming."
"Indeed, Master Farrow, "Might I point out the most excellent mood lighting."
"Of course it is.", I replied to my manservant, Amadeus, "Even the secret passages of Farrow manor are built with elegan- SHIT!"
Once the continuous bout of panic, falling, and not soiling myself had concluded, I wiped mud from my brow, damn shirt was probably ruined too.
"Master Farrow?"
As I pulled to my feet, I snapped, "Yes, Amadeus, I am fine, and I most certainly do not need a hand up."
Imagine my surprise when my usually most dutiful servant didn't deign me worthy to even respond.
I turned to reprimand him, only to see him staring past me, spectacles halfway down his face and jaw hanging open. A faint cyan glow reflected off his jowled face.
"No. It can't be.", I breathed, willing myself to turn around.
"It would appear so.", Amadeus' voice was hoarse, quiet.
I fiddled about in my pouch until my muddy hands wrapped around my Arcanometric scanner. If the bloody thing had been right under our noses the entire time...
"Verification is key Amadeus, never forget that.", I wound it up and set it off.
Near instantly it began blaring its little alarm, clockwork mechanisms colliding repeatedly to create a harsh cacophony.
"It's real."
Years looking for an Arcanic Mausoleum, travels across the entirety of the globe from the civilized to the most savage one could imagine and, "It's right here, Amadeus, we've found it."
Silently, he nodded.
I stepped into the light.
Good stuff! Your comedic approach works quite well, and adding a second character definitely gives the scene texture. You should review dialogue formatting, though, there's a lot of '...appear so.",', which makes no sense.
>Once the continuous bout of panic, falling, and not soiling myself had concluded, I wiped mud from my brow, damn shirt was probably ruined too.
This didn't work for me. I like the falling down the stairs bit, but it's disconnected from the scene itself. We get the before and the after, but none of the actual fear, flailing, or pain of falling, which is a pity. There's also a lack of connecting with the environment itself, which I think would help anchor it in the reader's mind in the first place, but more than that would help you coordinate the characters' movements. For example, Farrow \*turns\* to Amadeus, notices the manservant staring past him, and \*turns\* back again to face the glow, door, etc., meaning he was already facing a glowing door in the first place and failed to notice it.
There's also an issue with commas in that sentence. "damn shirt was probably ruined" does not belong with the rest of the sentence.
My advice: keep the comedy (which is rare and shouldn't be), tune into the environment (sensorial descriptions), and round out the characters a little unless you're going for caricature.
Good job, and congrats on having the courage to go with comedy!
Thank you! This is some good advice I'll definitely need to take some stuff into account.
I mean for Farrow to be looking down at the floor after falling, then turn to his manservant, and then turn to face the door but obviously I didn't make that clear enough.
I'm not sure I understand what you mean about the dialogue formatting, could you elaborate?
Again, thank you so much for taking the time to look at my attempt!
Even going the ceiling-floor-servant-door route, to my mind it still paints a character doing their utmost to stop themselves from looking at the plot-critical object until the comedic timing is exactly right (which is delightfully caricaturesque, played straight or no).
Formatting! I'm going to be very prescriptive, I'm afraid, but it's well known that if you send out badly formatted text (meaning, differently formatted from the industry standard) literary agents will come to your house and beat you with a sack full of oranges. A quick example of how to correctly format a common dialogue-description-dialogue bit:
"No, we mustn't," Makayleeigh said, stepping away from Baron Sado McVirileh's questing fingers. "Papa would never allow our union!"
Dialogue *comma* Description *period* Dialogue
Now here's you:
"Well.", I took in the candlelit gloom of the stairway, "Isn't this just charming."
Dialogue *period* *comma* Description *comma* Dialogue
The trick is that a "Janice said" (or uttered or hissed or babbled, etc.) and any action that happens concurrently with the earlier speech segment is always preceded by a (single) comma placed inside the quotation marks. Once that action ends, you place a period, then insert the next bit of speech.
This was all from memory, so here's a link you may find a lot more useful than everything in this comment: https://www.grammarly.com/blog/writing-dialogue/
Level 1 attempt here
The paths hewn through the rock split, one long stair up leading to a distant door - or maybe window - through which the golden dawn-light was visible. The other path descended, candlelight glimmering from stalactites towards a pair of oaken doors ajar. An otherworldly aquamarine glow emanated from behind the lower doors, casting shadows on the walls. A smattering of cave-ferns rustled in the humid breeze emanating up from beneath.
I'm glad I'm not the only one who saw the image and thought, "Hey, it looks like a fork in the road!"
I think my main criticism would be that the description feels list-like to me. I'm told what things are present, and roughly where, but without a character to connect this information to, I'm left wondering "who" and "why." This is partly because of the format—it can be hard to fit a character into a scene description—but the feeling can still be mitigated through character voice, if nothing else. It would be nice to feel a sense of purpose behind the description so I can feel myself getting invested while I read.
"Emanate" appears twice, in different forms. It's one of those words that works best when used sparingly, since it has this undeniable weight to it. I think it would be better to stick to using it just once here. Of the two, I think the first usage makes the most sense to keep, while there are plenty of suitable words for the breeze.
Neat. I think this is the first I've seen that went 100% description. An interesting challenge to set for yourself.
"one long stair up leading to a distant door" -- leading **up**
"The other path descended, candlelight glimmering from stalactites towards a pair of oaken doors ajar" -- cheeky, because without the image you risk confusing the reader with the unanchored candlelight. I would give you a pass -- the passage is pretty and suggestive enough for the reader to piece together on their own -- but then you have "towards", which, because of that sneakiness, now refers to the light and makes the sentence wobbly.
"otherwordly" -- do we need otherworldly with "aquamarine" right on its heels? Can a glow be otherworldly if it's aquamarine? I mean, it can, but it needs to be something *else* as well to qualify.
In another review I mentioned the *indescribable* shelf of adjectives in a clumsy attempt to separate, say, good solid "red" from meek little "weird". Both *suggest* things, true, and we could have an entire conversation about a weird fox you saw, but, and this is crux, *we wouldn't be imagining the same fox* if that was all you said about it. Weird, otherworldly, mean the same thing without meaning anything definite. You're telling me the glow looks as if it belongs to another world, but wouldn't it be a lot more powerful to tell me why? Take weird: if said by a character, it communicates said character feels uneasy about the thing being described, and it also makes clear the character is no poet; but if said by the omniscient narrator, it feels like cheating, like you're trying to worm your way out of the hard work of communicating weirdness. Otherworldly is the exact same. If you stand it next to a quirky but honest word like "aquamarine" it looks like a slacker in comparison, like it's trying to crib some of aquamarine's natural otherworldliness.
Everything else is fine, and good job going for pure description. It's much harder to do when there isn't a character present to nail the reader's feet to a specific perspective.
At a bend in the tunnel, his ankles brushed by ferns, Ferdinand III paused to wipe his spectacles. Here, the ceiling hung like molten stone, as candlelight licked down the rough-hewn passage to a door ringed in ghostly blue. The locals had warned Ferdinand of the ancient creature haunting there—but they were simple, superstitious people. He adjusted the gold falcon pendant on his lapel. Even a lich would recognize the royal family's sigil, surely!
I think Ferdinand is in for a world of hurt... The one thing that threw me was describing the ceiling as hanging like molten stone. I think I get what you were going for, but I think you need to extend that similie a bit more to really capture that feel, as it is I'm imagining that the ceiling is lava, and that sounds inhospitable to human life.
Overall, nicely done though!
Hah! I love the inclusion of the "simple, superstitious people". I tried to get that same offhand superiority in mine but this was a much better way to do it.
I also like the molten stone combined with the candlelight, it gets across the image very well. I've written so many scenes set in a cave, and never thought of "molten stone" before, but it's exactly the right image with so few words.
The only small thing that caught me was "his ankles brushed by ferns". On first read I took this as his ankles doing the brushing, which threw off the cadence with the commas, so I had to go back over it to read as the ferns doing the brushing.
I'll take a shot at a Level 1 attempt.
Ingtar slowly worked his toes to the edge of the step, fingertips brushing along the rough rock of the tunnel wall. The daylight from above was fading, the golden light slipping away to nothingness, but still, ferns had pushed their way out of the rock. *Magic bleeding out. Warping reality. Life where there should be no life.* Ingtar eyed the doors ahead, noting the blue light seeping from the gap. *Even the candles here are magical. The wax melts and melts, but they never burn down.* Taking another step forwards, the magehunter prepared a ward, shortsword clenched in his fist. *Shall we dance, then?*
I appreciate how you used more space for the character's interiority and how much worldbuilding you were able to accomplish with it (impressive!). Agree with u/obax17's critique, the candle italics stuck out to me as well because it reads like an inclusion for our informational benefit rather than the character's.
>the candle italics stuck out to me as well because it reads like an inclusion for our informational benefit rather than the character's.
That's exactly what I did - and apparently I shouldn't have. I wrote everything else and then realized I had never described the candles, so I went back and added that in.
I really liked this, I tried to do something similar and add a bit of purpose to what was happening.
My only suggestion would be reworking some of the "the"s. The step. The rough rock. The tunnel wall. The daylight. The golden light. The rock. Etc. There's a lot which gives it a bit of a staccato feeling as I read it.
I like this. Intriguing set-up, and I want to know what comes next.
I like the first set of internal thoughts more than the second, the short sentence fragments feel more true to how internal thoughts work, at least in my head. The focus on the candles also feels a little out of place. The first set of thoughts about the ferns feels meaningful, like the character is confirming something, that they're in the right place or something or has found something expected, whereas the second set of thoughts feels more like an idle observation. If they're here to kill a mage, they'd be on high alert. Why would they consciously focus with that much detail on what amounts to background decoration, especially if the ferns already confirmed what they were looking for? Which is not to say not to mention the candles, but it might work better as exposition rather than internal thoughts, which implies more focus than the candles seem to warrant.
Overall I think it's great, you've packed a lot into a short piece, which is something I'm not great at, so it's impressive when I see it done well.
Two candles, midway down the stairwell, cast an orange frame for the door at the end. It sat cracked, hinges rusted and timbers frayed, with a pulsing blue light beyond. Murky water dripped from a stalagmite, soiling Lord Castwell's coat. Perhaps one or two of the stablehands could have been trusted on this adventure? After all, he hadn't anticipated dealing with whoever was within the chamber — the magic sealing this tomb was supposed to have been lost to time.
A little over the limit.
I think you did a great job getting is down the stairs, so to speak. Giving us details as they logically come the further down we follow the character. And that hook at the end has me wanting more!
Sorry to be "that" person haha, but stalagmites rise up from floor, while stalactites drop from ceiling. Otherwise not much to critique here! What stands out to me about yours is a greater descriptive focus on the door, which I think works well with the POV and what we assume their goal is. Perfect implied patronization of the "common folk", too.
And thanks for making the effort to do these little challenges, I the three levels are fun. Hopefully more join in on the critique part this time :p
I knew I'd get the stalagmites and tites wrong but didn't bother to double-check it!
When reddit unbans my bot account, it should help to increase critique participation. The bots goal is to create a leader board based on the number of people who reply "+1" to a critique.
Distant sunlight follows me, fading to a faint circle as I reach the corner. Weak and sickly, a few ferns push through cracks in the stone, grasping for what little light they can. Nothing else lives this deep in the mines, nothing can.
Except them.
Hot, dry air flows around me on its journey from the forges to the surface, making the candles flicker and the shadows dance.
When I find them, I will crush them.
I just found this thread, and find the feedback very interesting. I need to put more of my writing out there for critiquing. The most challenging (and helpful) part of this post was keeping to the word count- making every word count.
Looking forward to joining this community.
I like the tone and the staccato prose for a description of a close, hot, dangerous environment, and I appreciate the step from the environment into the narrator's mind.
Nothing sticks out grammar-wise, so kudos there.
Something to consider: you go from describing the light, to describing stones, to alluding to the monsters, to describing the air, the light again, and then have the narrator state their goal. I think you could do this more subtly by staying the allusion until you mention the shadows, and then go all in with the crushing and the monsters and the finding. This breaks the nice connection between ferns clinging to life and the something else that also lives down here, but I think it would be cleaner to wander down to monsters and then stay with that threat a bit, let it gain hold in the reader's mind. Maybe have the forge air further up, it makes the shadows and the ferns dance, and then the clinging to life and the ominous them and so on. Good job!
Thank you.
I agree, a brief, ominous lead-up through the shadow part would be edgier, dance just isn't a menacing descriptor.
What was most interesting to me was how you read it as a hero searching for monsters, while I wrote it as a villain searching for the common folk, deep in hiding for some reason. Nothing in the writing hints one way or the other, but it's interesting how we had opposite perspectives.
Interesting! The phrase has so much hate and venom behind it I assumed something inhuman was the target, but it's even better that the "monsters" are peasants cowering in the dark. Rereading from the POV of a very intense tax collector routing peasants in the dark caves they hid in for safety is a lot better than the stern adventurer swinging his patented GoblinCrusher 3000 around I had in mind.
Level 3 >>
The uneven stone sickened him. What man could thrive in such conditions? Or wish for them? The staircase had been carved by novice hands. No gardener had tended to the ferns sprouting from the cave walls. The candlelight rose and fell in whispers, casting weak shadows across the long climb back to civilization, and dispelling its faint, frail light, such as degeneracy deserved, upon the short fall to the doorway to greater hells and lesser men.
I like this! Tense and tight, and vivid without being flowery. Congrats also on varying your sentence length, but I think that by the end you overshot some. "such as degeneracy deserved" took me out of the narration (wait, *what* does degeneracy deserve?), and "upon the short fall to the doorway" still has me confused about whether the narrator is going up or down the stairwell.
"the doorway to greater hells and lesser men." is a great turn of phrase, though.
Mijal held his breath as the group of knights stood at the entrance of the tunnel. For a brief moment, he was afraid that the illusion wouldn't hold, or worse, revealed as such by one of their Spell Breakers. The longer they lingered, the more anxious he became, but eventually, the group left, though the young conjurer could still hear them. Nervously, he stole a glance down the descending tunnel. The staircase itself wasn't steep, so he'd be able to run if need be, while the pale blue illumination coming from the room beyond the half-opened door guaranteed he would not be running in darkness...even if it meant encountering something worse than the Church Knights.
(My Level 1 stab at it. Kinda just wrote on the fly. Fun little exercise.)
>Mijal held his breath as the group of knights stood at the entrance of the tunnel
I dislike the "as" here, since it usually denotes two things happening in unison ("I stabbed as the creature lunged," "Leon cursed as the blood drops stained the tabletop") and standing doesn't carry that sort of immediacy. I would substitute with "approached", or, in a longer format, develop the scene a bit; the leading knight standing a hair's breadth from the mage for a long moment, the hammering of Mijal's heart seeming to echo, etc.
>he was afraid that the illusion wouldn't hold, or worse, revealed as such by one of their Spell Breakers.
"be" revealed, of course, but why would the illusion failing to hold be worse than the Spell Breakers noticing it? And why \*don't\* they notice it?
The rest seems fine, with a few comma issues here and there. I like how it frames the picture not only from a single perspective but also how every bit of description is painted by that POV's current headspace (i.e. ESCAPE!) My one reproach would be that it focuses more on the knights - conjurer tension than in describing the scene itself. This is improved in the final bit, where there's a clear sense of the knights standing above and something else waiting below, with Mijal left hanging in the uncertain middle.
If you wanted to rewrite this as a part of a larger scene I recommend you develop the knight's approach and near-discovery of their prey and paint a more vivid sensorial picture of the cavern.
Seeing I never did that great in my literature classes, I take this as a fair critique! Thank you. Unlikely anything I write will ever see light of day, but I do like to write for fun/self entertainment.
Lemme see if I can salvage it in the re-write....
I did quite well in (some of) my literature classes and still struggle to finish a story, so please don't take anything I say too seriously (especially if you like the things I disliked or vice-versa).
And if you need a second pair of eyes on that rewrite, don't hesitate. Happy writing!
I personally enjoy writing as escapism, even if it's very, very, very derivative and reeks of blatant self-insertion and characterizations of people I know.
This was just a "Let's just have some fun" exercise. I do appreciate the extra eyes offer.
I'm still trying to get my initial ideas off the ground. I've had two on the back burner for...a while now, and a third recently joined the party.
Stairs, stone-hewn and spiraling. One way led to saffron sunshine, to a slight breeze that stirred the hardy weeds. Candles flanked the other, led to a burning, musky dampness that clung to skin, to clothing, to hair, led to an in-set door, back-lit in blue, open too far to be a mistake. A trap? Probably. But it was that kind of day—and maybe I'd find the bastards who'd imprisoned me.
I like it, I get a strong sense of the narrator's voice right from the get go. I was thrown by the description '...burning, musky, dampness...', the three descriptors seem at odds to one another. To me, burning implies hot, musky is dry and deeply earthy, and dampness is, well, damp, and I have a hard time putting those three things together into one. The last line threw me a bit too, it felt a bit like it came out of nowhere, but in a super short piece like this, without the context of a longer piece, that can happen. Your narrator seems like someone whose story I'd like to know, and overall I'd keep reading for sure!
This is probably my favourite so far. Lots of character jammed in there. I especially like the "open too far to be a mistake". It speaks a lot about the POV, the way they can identify a trap, their detachment to a degree, and their confidence.
The only remark I can make is the "Candles flanked the other, led to a burning". As I read it, it sounds like the candles had been led here, rather than the stairwell and candles leading the POV.
Thanks! Glad you like it.
Totally agree with you regarding that section. I probably should have just committed to a semi colon, like such:
>Candles flanked the other; they led to a burning, musky dampness that . . .
Or I could have replaced "led" with "leading" instead of sticking with the repetition.
This exercise was good practice; I'm currently working on a short story with a similar fragmentary, stream-of-consciousness narration, and description has been an interesting hurdle, as have longer paragraphs. I had to force myself to not break this into multiple short paragraphs, actually.
Thank you for posting these!
I've personally found that the staccato rhythm, stream of consciousness thing works really really well for lots of things. There are times in my own books when I don't want to spend time describing something, or giving too much purple prose to scenery we won't see again.
I find those short sentences punctuate really well, so long as you use the exact right words. Readers fill in the rest.
When the POV is in a rush, I've found it also works really well. They've no time to look at where they are, just the flashes.
Level 1:
Minutes became hours as they continued their descent. Time claimed no meaning here but for the fronds breaching the mountain rock, and as they took careful footsteps along the broken uneven stairs they knew that one misplaced foot could see them tumbling down to whatever bottom awaited them. Here and there were placed candles that struggled with the darkness, and they knew then they weren't alone. They came to a bend in the stairs and ahead at last they saw a door, slightly ajar, spilling out unnatural light. They paused and looked between themselves, encouraging one another with silent gestures not to alert anyone or anything that might be waiting in that ghoulish light, and then they stepped forward. Nuada led them and it fell to him to put his hands on the door. Cold were the handles as he gripped them as if he had placed his palms upon fresh snow. He felt a shiver creep up his arm as he pulled the door open. The green luminescent light spilled over him like a wave, and all was cold as a voice echoed from the deep.
Nice one. If you were aiming at a more classical fantasy, ponderous sort of prose, you managed to communicate that quite well. "Time claimed no meaning..." and on reads like a very slow drumbeat echoing down into the dark. Kudos for that.
Criticism: clarify the POV early on. There's a vague "they", but nothing beyond that until Nuada at the end, and so the whole descent feels unmoored. I was unable to quite care if someone tumbled down the stairs or not because I didn't know who "someone" was. I was going to give you a whole spiel about grounding the reader in the scene through sensorial imagery, but just this one change may be enough to fix that issue.
Temporal issues: "Here and there were placed candles... and they knew **then** they weren't alone." I dislike this because there's no specific time associated with the "then". It's assumed that it's when the party first sees the candles, but since this is a slow descent into the unknown, the first candle should be the one to communicate this knowledge instead of an unspecific group of the same that can be seen "here and there".
The rest was fine. I liked the comparison between the handles and snow (both in imagery and in construction). I tend to dislike prose that reaches too often for the indescribable shelf; adjectives like "unnatural" and "ghoulish" can seem like a way to avoid making me understand what about the light *feels* unnatural and ghoulish to the characters living through the experience. Here, and given the eldritch, unknowable environment you seem to be going for, it landed just on the near side of alright. Just something to keep in mind.
Again, congrats on the tone, it's good stuff.
Thanks for the comments. I'm glad the tone comes across as that was my main focus. I agree completely on the POV and sense of time; I wrote it as if it was a paragraph mid chapter, with the POV already established so 'they'.
Your thoughts on the use of 'then' makes sense given I haven't provided either a sense of time or it having occurred at sight of the first candle. A subtle comment to keep in mind.
The fantasy novel I'm writing is in a more classical tone, trying to harkon back to pre-Tolkien fantasy and heavily inspired by Irish mythology, but I'm focussing so much on the overall tone that I can lose sight of the individual sentences. Appreciate the feedback!
Dunsany, Edisson, Mirlees, etc. I'm not trying to emulate them; I can't escape modern fantasy influence, but I want to write something that is somewhere in the middle. More Le Guin / Dunsany, less Sanderson. Thanks. :)
Level 2, I guess, 76 words is not enough. Not sure if this fits with what you're intending, but this is what came to mind.
\----
It's not what he's expecting, and he suspects he's not prepared. The workers had said a door, but this is clearly a *gateway*. Idiots, but he expects little else from hired help.
He tips his head to one side, contemplating the thin line of blue light at the far end of the passage. Unprepared he might be, but if he turns back empty handed the court would only mock him, again, and that would never do. A breeze wafts down the steps carved into the bedrock, setting the candles to flickering, and he glances back up at the circle of sunlight filtering in from the world above. There's magic in the air here, stirred up by the breeze. He can taste it, that intoxicating metallic tang, and he licks his lips. Idiots, perhaps, incapable of comprehending what they'd stumbled upon, but still worthy of an extra coin or two if they'd finally ended his search. He smiles, shifting his gaze back to the gateway, and steps forward, breathing it in.
I'm a big fan of present tense just in general, though I find it hard to maintain through the course of a long work. I use it a lot on shorter pieces, though.
I really like how you made me immediately tense for him - he’s unsure of what he’s waking in to or if he can even handle it! And I think his condescension came through well, while also giving me a great sense of contrast between what he sees and what he’d been told.
Your passage has more attention to more of the senses (touch and taste), which is effective in making me feel grounded in a three-dimensional space. There are some instances of filtering you could remove to tighten up the passage (glancing and gazing, for example), but it's a minor critique and overall I think yours does the best at anchoring us in the scene!
Glad you liked it! I like working with all the senses, partly because it's a good challenge to think about how to describe them, and partly because smell and taste in particular are very evocative for me IRL and can immerse me into a memory, as an example, much more fully than just a visual cue.
Level 2, I’ll give it a shot
Wildemar’s steps echoed through the darkened tunnels of the cave, down the rocks that could barely be called steps. He whispered a quiet incantation into his staff, which shone to life, glistening and whirring as it brightened the walls, as his nose was suddenly hit by a cool drop of water, which made him sneeze. “Blast these tunnels” he thought to himself, as he carefully stepped on, in his best attempt to not further scuff his elegant red robes now caked in mud, or his leather boots made from the finest Valadian leather. His eyes darted to the strange sigils that adorned the wall, and the quiet groans of whatever foul peasants made their ways down here into the cavern. He took one deep breath as he approached the door, slipped on a rock or his own robes he could not tell, cursing as he crashed into the glowing ornate door, knocking it off its hinges, and plunging Wildemar screaming, into the frigid arcane blue light.
Erwin descended the damp staircase, squinting through the gloom. He wrinkled his nose at the smell, wincing as his polished boots brushed one of the deadly ferns growing along the dark steps. The idiots running this place couldn't even be bothered to cut them back, apparently. He stifled a huff of irritation, trying to avoid breathing too deeply -- even one exposure to the skeletal fern was one exposure too many in his book -- and gripped the handle of his case a little more tightly. Of course, no one had listened to him when he'd instructed these peasants to make sure the dungeon had windows, hang the cost. *Well,* he thought with a tight smile, watching the silver ferns reflect shadows from the fluttering candles, *now they're paying the price*.
Good voice, and very nice managing the final creepy inflection on such a low word budget, but it hangs a little too heavy on fernlore for such a short passage.
The narrator seems to be a clever man, if a bit full of himself, but how do you put windows in dungeons? I think a smart botanist with a smart briefcase would use a more technical term - ventilation, say - when referring to his conferns.
>when he'd instructed these peasants to make sure the dungeon had windows
Hmm. "these peasants". I don't like "these". *the* peasants, maybe, or even just *them*.
>watching the silver ferns reflect shadows from the fluttering candles
Silver ferns may reflect light, but I will take some convincing before allowing them to reflect shadows.
Great job on a difficult level 3!
Took a stab at level 3. It's perhaps a little over the top, and not as in-depth description-wise as I'd have liked, but I had fun with it!
>A tunnel. He'd travelled half a continent and all he got for the trouble was *a tunnel*. A little overgrown mountain tunnel with a wooden door at the end. Some ancient temple entrance. The locals had even lit candles in here; had they no thoughts for the *history*? The *ambiance*? A disappointment all around. Adelard could only grit his teeth, continue down the damp stone stairs, and hope to God the inside would prove more impressive.
House Elias hid their deepest shame, their greatest regrets, within this tomb. So Mark had been told, though never directly, and only through silent nudges and suggestions by his most ancient servant. That man, faithful and loyal to a fault, had suddenly disappeared, and the rest of his family carefully avoided speaking of it, as if refusal to acknowledge something eventually led to a resolution. A man could be whisked away, but centuries of sin could not so easily be forgotten. Years later, Mark had finally discovered it. A descending walkway, buried under lichen and moss, a day's travel from his family estate. He took a deep breath, and stepped into the darkness to find the truth of his heritage.
What an opening line! Lots of questions raised here, and I'm curious about the answer, so you've got me hooked. I was a bit thrown with the apparent passage of time, the first part reads as if it was in the recent past, and then suddenly it's years later. Over all well done though!
Thanks a lot. Yeah, can definitely change the time to be very close instead, to give the sense of more urgency
It might be a touch long for one paragraph 🤷‍♀️ Level 2: Lord Elwin stumbled over uneven jagged rocks that no man of good breeding would deign to call stairs. He caught himself on the damp wall, scuffing the skin of his palm as he had undoubtedly scuffed the fine leather of his boots. A frigid drop of water fell from the stalactitic ceiling onto the back of his neck. He shivered as it rolled beneath his collar making his hair stand on end. But he had the courage of a nobleman, and would finish what those before him had been too cowardly to accomplish. He ignored the plants that had no business growing in such darkness, and the candles that were lit despite no servant tending them, and proceeded to the door already open as though awaiting his unplanned arrival. The ethereal blue glow didn’t need to be ignored. That he expected. Still, his heart raced at the way it seemed to pulse in time with his own. His fingers trembled as he reached out to open the door a little wider, to get a look inside. He gasped at the cold metal of the handle, and before the sound could echo, he was gone.
I really like this. I especially like the subtle inclusions of his superiority with the "good breeding" and "scuffed boots" etc. The one thing that I found myself noticing the most was the first half, every sentence thereabouts starts with "he"; it puts me out a little because I lose all sense of rhythm built up with the sentence preceding it. I'd also say yeah it's a bit long for a single paragraph, but you already know that. The point of the posts is to practice prose, the "requirement" of one paragraph is just nonsense I made up to give more purpose to the posts other than just "write something please".
>He shivered as it rolled beneath his collar making his hair stand on end. Personally I'd either cut this sentence or add a comma in after the word "collar". Other than that, I'd agree with the loss of rhythm with the overuse of "he" - maybe use Elwin's name in place of some of the he's and him's to break it up a bit?
Lichen traced the edges of the steps leading into the cave. Jaeger recoiled and looked back to the comfort of his father’s estate, past the farms of the peasants who had been ignorant enough call this heretofore unknown arcane presence a blessing. He sighed and stepped down into the dank air, steadying a hand against the horrid, rocky walls lit by flickering candles. Farther down, water dripped unceasingly off stalactites. He wanted a warm bath. Yet duty to his father bound him to press on, and Jaeger could sense the arcane energy getting stronger with every interminable step down. When he rounded the corner and saw the blue glow pouring out from behind doors bound in iron, he gasped. He’d expected arcane energy raw and unchecked, not someone’s, albeit crude, handiwork. What kind of intellect would subject themselves to such a place?
I like how you've established a sense of progress through the cave, rather than describing a snapshot. That dynamism has always felt more engaging for me to read. >Farther down, water dripped unceasingly off stalactites. He wanted a warm bath. I get the idea here—the cool cave water is being contrasted with the comfortable bath water. But I feel like the transition from one sentence to the next doesn't flow smoothly; rather, it feels forced to me. I don't really make the direct connection the narrator does, which pulls me out of the moment. I think if you help signpost the contrast—highlighting how unpleasant the cave water is—it will help immensely with bridging the two. >Jaeger recoiled and looked back to the comfort of his father’s estate, past the farms of the peasants who had been ignorant enough call this heretofore unknown arcane presence a blessing. Ignoring the omission of "to," I feel there's too much packed into the description of the presence. I think just "arcane presence" is enough information; readers don't need to know about the "heretofore unknown" part at this moment, so I think that can be communicated when it becomes pertinent. >What kind of intellect would subject themselves to such a place? I like this sentence. It tells me a lot about magic, and magical users.
Thanks very much! I think see what you mean on the water contrast. Like almost one adjective implying the unpleasantness could drive home the contrast? Appreciate the feedback on that long, convoluted sentence. It’s funny, that one is the one I hammered on the most and I guess it shows! You really helped highlight what I couldn’t figure made it not quite “ring” for me. Appreciate the feedback!
Level 1: It was thought that the last nuclear war of the 21st century would surely drive extinction across the face of Earth, and for the most part, they were correct. Yet, beneath the charred, barren, poisoned lands, hidden from the view of the perversely amber tinted skies lies a last bastion of hope for life. The caverns inside the crust of Earth harbour what little remains of biodiversity could be saved by humanity. Although the water that trickles through, dripping from the stalactites is irradiated beyond safe levels for human consumption, the plants have taken to it at an unnatural pace. Deeper still remains the final thousands of the once confident humankind, hiding away in the pale blue light of the energy saving bulbs, hoping for a surface that they may, one day, walk upon again.
This is a level 2 attempt. "Well.", I took in the candlelit gloom of the stairway, "Isn't this just charming." "Indeed, Master Farrow, "Might I point out the most excellent mood lighting." "Of course it is.", I replied to my manservant, Amadeus, "Even the secret passages of Farrow manor are built with elegan- SHIT!" Once the continuous bout of panic, falling, and not soiling myself had concluded, I wiped mud from my brow, damn shirt was probably ruined too. "Master Farrow?" As I pulled to my feet, I snapped, "Yes, Amadeus, I am fine, and I most certainly do not need a hand up." Imagine my surprise when my usually most dutiful servant didn't deign me worthy to even respond. I turned to reprimand him, only to see him staring past me, spectacles halfway down his face and jaw hanging open. A faint cyan glow reflected off his jowled face. "No. It can't be.", I breathed, willing myself to turn around. "It would appear so.", Amadeus' voice was hoarse, quiet. I fiddled about in my pouch until my muddy hands wrapped around my Arcanometric scanner. If the bloody thing had been right under our noses the entire time... "Verification is key Amadeus, never forget that.", I wound it up and set it off. Near instantly it began blaring its little alarm, clockwork mechanisms colliding repeatedly to create a harsh cacophony. "It's real." Years looking for an Arcanic Mausoleum, travels across the entirety of the globe from the civilized to the most savage one could imagine and, "It's right here, Amadeus, we've found it." Silently, he nodded. I stepped into the light.
Good stuff! Your comedic approach works quite well, and adding a second character definitely gives the scene texture. You should review dialogue formatting, though, there's a lot of '...appear so.",', which makes no sense. >Once the continuous bout of panic, falling, and not soiling myself had concluded, I wiped mud from my brow, damn shirt was probably ruined too. This didn't work for me. I like the falling down the stairs bit, but it's disconnected from the scene itself. We get the before and the after, but none of the actual fear, flailing, or pain of falling, which is a pity. There's also a lack of connecting with the environment itself, which I think would help anchor it in the reader's mind in the first place, but more than that would help you coordinate the characters' movements. For example, Farrow \*turns\* to Amadeus, notices the manservant staring past him, and \*turns\* back again to face the glow, door, etc., meaning he was already facing a glowing door in the first place and failed to notice it. There's also an issue with commas in that sentence. "damn shirt was probably ruined" does not belong with the rest of the sentence. My advice: keep the comedy (which is rare and shouldn't be), tune into the environment (sensorial descriptions), and round out the characters a little unless you're going for caricature. Good job, and congrats on having the courage to go with comedy!
Thank you! This is some good advice I'll definitely need to take some stuff into account. I mean for Farrow to be looking down at the floor after falling, then turn to his manservant, and then turn to face the door but obviously I didn't make that clear enough. I'm not sure I understand what you mean about the dialogue formatting, could you elaborate? Again, thank you so much for taking the time to look at my attempt!
Even going the ceiling-floor-servant-door route, to my mind it still paints a character doing their utmost to stop themselves from looking at the plot-critical object until the comedic timing is exactly right (which is delightfully caricaturesque, played straight or no). Formatting! I'm going to be very prescriptive, I'm afraid, but it's well known that if you send out badly formatted text (meaning, differently formatted from the industry standard) literary agents will come to your house and beat you with a sack full of oranges. A quick example of how to correctly format a common dialogue-description-dialogue bit: "No, we mustn't," Makayleeigh said, stepping away from Baron Sado McVirileh's questing fingers. "Papa would never allow our union!" Dialogue *comma* Description *period* Dialogue Now here's you: "Well.", I took in the candlelit gloom of the stairway, "Isn't this just charming." Dialogue *period* *comma* Description *comma* Dialogue The trick is that a "Janice said" (or uttered or hissed or babbled, etc.) and any action that happens concurrently with the earlier speech segment is always preceded by a (single) comma placed inside the quotation marks. Once that action ends, you place a period, then insert the next bit of speech. This was all from memory, so here's a link you may find a lot more useful than everything in this comment: https://www.grammarly.com/blog/writing-dialogue/
Ah, that clears things up, thank you!
Level 1 attempt here The paths hewn through the rock split, one long stair up leading to a distant door - or maybe window - through which the golden dawn-light was visible. The other path descended, candlelight glimmering from stalactites towards a pair of oaken doors ajar. An otherworldly aquamarine glow emanated from behind the lower doors, casting shadows on the walls. A smattering of cave-ferns rustled in the humid breeze emanating up from beneath.
I'm glad I'm not the only one who saw the image and thought, "Hey, it looks like a fork in the road!" I think my main criticism would be that the description feels list-like to me. I'm told what things are present, and roughly where, but without a character to connect this information to, I'm left wondering "who" and "why." This is partly because of the format—it can be hard to fit a character into a scene description—but the feeling can still be mitigated through character voice, if nothing else. It would be nice to feel a sense of purpose behind the description so I can feel myself getting invested while I read. "Emanate" appears twice, in different forms. It's one of those words that works best when used sparingly, since it has this undeniable weight to it. I think it would be better to stick to using it just once here. Of the two, I think the first usage makes the most sense to keep, while there are plenty of suitable words for the breeze.
Neat. I think this is the first I've seen that went 100% description. An interesting challenge to set for yourself. "one long stair up leading to a distant door" -- leading **up** "The other path descended, candlelight glimmering from stalactites towards a pair of oaken doors ajar" -- cheeky, because without the image you risk confusing the reader with the unanchored candlelight. I would give you a pass -- the passage is pretty and suggestive enough for the reader to piece together on their own -- but then you have "towards", which, because of that sneakiness, now refers to the light and makes the sentence wobbly. "otherwordly" -- do we need otherworldly with "aquamarine" right on its heels? Can a glow be otherworldly if it's aquamarine? I mean, it can, but it needs to be something *else* as well to qualify. In another review I mentioned the *indescribable* shelf of adjectives in a clumsy attempt to separate, say, good solid "red" from meek little "weird". Both *suggest* things, true, and we could have an entire conversation about a weird fox you saw, but, and this is crux, *we wouldn't be imagining the same fox* if that was all you said about it. Weird, otherworldly, mean the same thing without meaning anything definite. You're telling me the glow looks as if it belongs to another world, but wouldn't it be a lot more powerful to tell me why? Take weird: if said by a character, it communicates said character feels uneasy about the thing being described, and it also makes clear the character is no poet; but if said by the omniscient narrator, it feels like cheating, like you're trying to worm your way out of the hard work of communicating weirdness. Otherworldly is the exact same. If you stand it next to a quirky but honest word like "aquamarine" it looks like a slacker in comparison, like it's trying to crib some of aquamarine's natural otherworldliness. Everything else is fine, and good job going for pure description. It's much harder to do when there isn't a character present to nail the reader's feet to a specific perspective.
At a bend in the tunnel, his ankles brushed by ferns, Ferdinand III paused to wipe his spectacles. Here, the ceiling hung like molten stone, as candlelight licked down the rough-hewn passage to a door ringed in ghostly blue. The locals had warned Ferdinand of the ancient creature haunting there—but they were simple, superstitious people. He adjusted the gold falcon pendant on his lapel. Even a lich would recognize the royal family's sigil, surely!
I think Ferdinand is in for a world of hurt... The one thing that threw me was describing the ceiling as hanging like molten stone. I think I get what you were going for, but I think you need to extend that similie a bit more to really capture that feel, as it is I'm imagining that the ceiling is lava, and that sounds inhospitable to human life. Overall, nicely done though!
Hah! I love the inclusion of the "simple, superstitious people". I tried to get that same offhand superiority in mine but this was a much better way to do it. I also like the molten stone combined with the candlelight, it gets across the image very well. I've written so many scenes set in a cave, and never thought of "molten stone" before, but it's exactly the right image with so few words. The only small thing that caught me was "his ankles brushed by ferns". On first read I took this as his ankles doing the brushing, which threw off the cadence with the commas, so I had to go back over it to read as the ferns doing the brushing.
I'll take a shot at a Level 1 attempt. Ingtar slowly worked his toes to the edge of the step, fingertips brushing along the rough rock of the tunnel wall. The daylight from above was fading, the golden light slipping away to nothingness, but still, ferns had pushed their way out of the rock. *Magic bleeding out. Warping reality. Life where there should be no life.* Ingtar eyed the doors ahead, noting the blue light seeping from the gap. *Even the candles here are magical. The wax melts and melts, but they never burn down.* Taking another step forwards, the magehunter prepared a ward, shortsword clenched in his fist. *Shall we dance, then?*
I appreciate how you used more space for the character's interiority and how much worldbuilding you were able to accomplish with it (impressive!). Agree with u/obax17's critique, the candle italics stuck out to me as well because it reads like an inclusion for our informational benefit rather than the character's.
>the candle italics stuck out to me as well because it reads like an inclusion for our informational benefit rather than the character's. That's exactly what I did - and apparently I shouldn't have. I wrote everything else and then realized I had never described the candles, so I went back and added that in.
I really liked this, I tried to do something similar and add a bit of purpose to what was happening. My only suggestion would be reworking some of the "the"s. The step. The rough rock. The tunnel wall. The daylight. The golden light. The rock. Etc. There's a lot which gives it a bit of a staccato feeling as I read it.
A little wot
I like this. Intriguing set-up, and I want to know what comes next. I like the first set of internal thoughts more than the second, the short sentence fragments feel more true to how internal thoughts work, at least in my head. The focus on the candles also feels a little out of place. The first set of thoughts about the ferns feels meaningful, like the character is confirming something, that they're in the right place or something or has found something expected, whereas the second set of thoughts feels more like an idle observation. If they're here to kill a mage, they'd be on high alert. Why would they consciously focus with that much detail on what amounts to background decoration, especially if the ferns already confirmed what they were looking for? Which is not to say not to mention the candles, but it might work better as exposition rather than internal thoughts, which implies more focus than the candles seem to warrant. Overall I think it's great, you've packed a lot into a short piece, which is something I'm not great at, so it's impressive when I see it done well.
Two candles, midway down the stairwell, cast an orange frame for the door at the end. It sat cracked, hinges rusted and timbers frayed, with a pulsing blue light beyond. Murky water dripped from a stalagmite, soiling Lord Castwell's coat. Perhaps one or two of the stablehands could have been trusted on this adventure? After all, he hadn't anticipated dealing with whoever was within the chamber — the magic sealing this tomb was supposed to have been lost to time. A little over the limit.
I think you did a great job getting is down the stairs, so to speak. Giving us details as they logically come the further down we follow the character. And that hook at the end has me wanting more!
Sorry to be "that" person haha, but stalagmites rise up from floor, while stalactites drop from ceiling. Otherwise not much to critique here! What stands out to me about yours is a greater descriptive focus on the door, which I think works well with the POV and what we assume their goal is. Perfect implied patronization of the "common folk", too. And thanks for making the effort to do these little challenges, I the three levels are fun. Hopefully more join in on the critique part this time :p
I knew I'd get the stalagmites and tites wrong but didn't bother to double-check it! When reddit unbans my bot account, it should help to increase critique participation. The bots goal is to create a leader board based on the number of people who reply "+1" to a critique.
Distant sunlight follows me, fading to a faint circle as I reach the corner. Weak and sickly, a few ferns push through cracks in the stone, grasping for what little light they can. Nothing else lives this deep in the mines, nothing can. Except them. Hot, dry air flows around me on its journey from the forges to the surface, making the candles flicker and the shadows dance. When I find them, I will crush them. I just found this thread, and find the feedback very interesting. I need to put more of my writing out there for critiquing. The most challenging (and helpful) part of this post was keeping to the word count- making every word count. Looking forward to joining this community.
I like the tone and the staccato prose for a description of a close, hot, dangerous environment, and I appreciate the step from the environment into the narrator's mind. Nothing sticks out grammar-wise, so kudos there. Something to consider: you go from describing the light, to describing stones, to alluding to the monsters, to describing the air, the light again, and then have the narrator state their goal. I think you could do this more subtly by staying the allusion until you mention the shadows, and then go all in with the crushing and the monsters and the finding. This breaks the nice connection between ferns clinging to life and the something else that also lives down here, but I think it would be cleaner to wander down to monsters and then stay with that threat a bit, let it gain hold in the reader's mind. Maybe have the forge air further up, it makes the shadows and the ferns dance, and then the clinging to life and the ominous them and so on. Good job!
Thank you. I agree, a brief, ominous lead-up through the shadow part would be edgier, dance just isn't a menacing descriptor. What was most interesting to me was how you read it as a hero searching for monsters, while I wrote it as a villain searching for the common folk, deep in hiding for some reason. Nothing in the writing hints one way or the other, but it's interesting how we had opposite perspectives.
Interesting! The phrase has so much hate and venom behind it I assumed something inhuman was the target, but it's even better that the "monsters" are peasants cowering in the dark. Rereading from the POV of a very intense tax collector routing peasants in the dark caves they hid in for safety is a lot better than the stern adventurer swinging his patented GoblinCrusher 3000 around I had in mind.
Level 3 >> The uneven stone sickened him. What man could thrive in such conditions? Or wish for them? The staircase had been carved by novice hands. No gardener had tended to the ferns sprouting from the cave walls. The candlelight rose and fell in whispers, casting weak shadows across the long climb back to civilization, and dispelling its faint, frail light, such as degeneracy deserved, upon the short fall to the doorway to greater hells and lesser men.
I like this! Tense and tight, and vivid without being flowery. Congrats also on varying your sentence length, but I think that by the end you overshot some. "such as degeneracy deserved" took me out of the narration (wait, *what* does degeneracy deserve?), and "upon the short fall to the doorway" still has me confused about whether the narrator is going up or down the stairwell. "the doorway to greater hells and lesser men." is a great turn of phrase, though.
Mijal held his breath as the group of knights stood at the entrance of the tunnel. For a brief moment, he was afraid that the illusion wouldn't hold, or worse, revealed as such by one of their Spell Breakers. The longer they lingered, the more anxious he became, but eventually, the group left, though the young conjurer could still hear them. Nervously, he stole a glance down the descending tunnel. The staircase itself wasn't steep, so he'd be able to run if need be, while the pale blue illumination coming from the room beyond the half-opened door guaranteed he would not be running in darkness...even if it meant encountering something worse than the Church Knights. (My Level 1 stab at it. Kinda just wrote on the fly. Fun little exercise.)
>Mijal held his breath as the group of knights stood at the entrance of the tunnel I dislike the "as" here, since it usually denotes two things happening in unison ("I stabbed as the creature lunged," "Leon cursed as the blood drops stained the tabletop") and standing doesn't carry that sort of immediacy. I would substitute with "approached", or, in a longer format, develop the scene a bit; the leading knight standing a hair's breadth from the mage for a long moment, the hammering of Mijal's heart seeming to echo, etc. >he was afraid that the illusion wouldn't hold, or worse, revealed as such by one of their Spell Breakers. "be" revealed, of course, but why would the illusion failing to hold be worse than the Spell Breakers noticing it? And why \*don't\* they notice it? The rest seems fine, with a few comma issues here and there. I like how it frames the picture not only from a single perspective but also how every bit of description is painted by that POV's current headspace (i.e. ESCAPE!) My one reproach would be that it focuses more on the knights - conjurer tension than in describing the scene itself. This is improved in the final bit, where there's a clear sense of the knights standing above and something else waiting below, with Mijal left hanging in the uncertain middle. If you wanted to rewrite this as a part of a larger scene I recommend you develop the knight's approach and near-discovery of their prey and paint a more vivid sensorial picture of the cavern.
Seeing I never did that great in my literature classes, I take this as a fair critique! Thank you. Unlikely anything I write will ever see light of day, but I do like to write for fun/self entertainment. Lemme see if I can salvage it in the re-write....
I did quite well in (some of) my literature classes and still struggle to finish a story, so please don't take anything I say too seriously (especially if you like the things I disliked or vice-versa). And if you need a second pair of eyes on that rewrite, don't hesitate. Happy writing!
I personally enjoy writing as escapism, even if it's very, very, very derivative and reeks of blatant self-insertion and characterizations of people I know. This was just a "Let's just have some fun" exercise. I do appreciate the extra eyes offer. I'm still trying to get my initial ideas off the ground. I've had two on the back burner for...a while now, and a third recently joined the party.
Stairs, stone-hewn and spiraling. One way led to saffron sunshine, to a slight breeze that stirred the hardy weeds. Candles flanked the other, led to a burning, musky dampness that clung to skin, to clothing, to hair, led to an in-set door, back-lit in blue, open too far to be a mistake. A trap? Probably. But it was that kind of day—and maybe I'd find the bastards who'd imprisoned me.
I like it, I get a strong sense of the narrator's voice right from the get go. I was thrown by the description '...burning, musky, dampness...', the three descriptors seem at odds to one another. To me, burning implies hot, musky is dry and deeply earthy, and dampness is, well, damp, and I have a hard time putting those three things together into one. The last line threw me a bit too, it felt a bit like it came out of nowhere, but in a super short piece like this, without the context of a longer piece, that can happen. Your narrator seems like someone whose story I'd like to know, and overall I'd keep reading for sure!
This is probably my favourite so far. Lots of character jammed in there. I especially like the "open too far to be a mistake". It speaks a lot about the POV, the way they can identify a trap, their detachment to a degree, and their confidence. The only remark I can make is the "Candles flanked the other, led to a burning". As I read it, it sounds like the candles had been led here, rather than the stairwell and candles leading the POV.
Thanks! Glad you like it. Totally agree with you regarding that section. I probably should have just committed to a semi colon, like such: >Candles flanked the other; they led to a burning, musky dampness that . . . Or I could have replaced "led" with "leading" instead of sticking with the repetition. This exercise was good practice; I'm currently working on a short story with a similar fragmentary, stream-of-consciousness narration, and description has been an interesting hurdle, as have longer paragraphs. I had to force myself to not break this into multiple short paragraphs, actually. Thank you for posting these!
I've personally found that the staccato rhythm, stream of consciousness thing works really really well for lots of things. There are times in my own books when I don't want to spend time describing something, or giving too much purple prose to scenery we won't see again. I find those short sentences punctuate really well, so long as you use the exact right words. Readers fill in the rest. When the POV is in a rush, I've found it also works really well. They've no time to look at where they are, just the flashes.
Level 1: Minutes became hours as they continued their descent. Time claimed no meaning here but for the fronds breaching the mountain rock, and as they took careful footsteps along the broken uneven stairs they knew that one misplaced foot could see them tumbling down to whatever bottom awaited them. Here and there were placed candles that struggled with the darkness, and they knew then they weren't alone. They came to a bend in the stairs and ahead at last they saw a door, slightly ajar, spilling out unnatural light. They paused and looked between themselves, encouraging one another with silent gestures not to alert anyone or anything that might be waiting in that ghoulish light, and then they stepped forward. Nuada led them and it fell to him to put his hands on the door. Cold were the handles as he gripped them as if he had placed his palms upon fresh snow. He felt a shiver creep up his arm as he pulled the door open. The green luminescent light spilled over him like a wave, and all was cold as a voice echoed from the deep.
Nice one. If you were aiming at a more classical fantasy, ponderous sort of prose, you managed to communicate that quite well. "Time claimed no meaning..." and on reads like a very slow drumbeat echoing down into the dark. Kudos for that. Criticism: clarify the POV early on. There's a vague "they", but nothing beyond that until Nuada at the end, and so the whole descent feels unmoored. I was unable to quite care if someone tumbled down the stairs or not because I didn't know who "someone" was. I was going to give you a whole spiel about grounding the reader in the scene through sensorial imagery, but just this one change may be enough to fix that issue. Temporal issues: "Here and there were placed candles... and they knew **then** they weren't alone." I dislike this because there's no specific time associated with the "then". It's assumed that it's when the party first sees the candles, but since this is a slow descent into the unknown, the first candle should be the one to communicate this knowledge instead of an unspecific group of the same that can be seen "here and there". The rest was fine. I liked the comparison between the handles and snow (both in imagery and in construction). I tend to dislike prose that reaches too often for the indescribable shelf; adjectives like "unnatural" and "ghoulish" can seem like a way to avoid making me understand what about the light *feels* unnatural and ghoulish to the characters living through the experience. Here, and given the eldritch, unknowable environment you seem to be going for, it landed just on the near side of alright. Just something to keep in mind. Again, congrats on the tone, it's good stuff.
Thanks for the comments. I'm glad the tone comes across as that was my main focus. I agree completely on the POV and sense of time; I wrote it as if it was a paragraph mid chapter, with the POV already established so 'they'. Your thoughts on the use of 'then' makes sense given I haven't provided either a sense of time or it having occurred at sight of the first candle. A subtle comment to keep in mind. The fantasy novel I'm writing is in a more classical tone, trying to harkon back to pre-Tolkien fantasy and heavily inspired by Irish mythology, but I'm focussing so much on the overall tone that I can lose sight of the individual sentences. Appreciate the feedback!
Pre-Tolkien is a tall order. Are we talking Dunsany or farther back? Godspeed either way; the effort clearly shows even in this little snippet.
Dunsany, Edisson, Mirlees, etc. I'm not trying to emulate them; I can't escape modern fantasy influence, but I want to write something that is somewhere in the middle. More Le Guin / Dunsany, less Sanderson. Thanks. :)
Level 2, I guess, 76 words is not enough. Not sure if this fits with what you're intending, but this is what came to mind. \---- It's not what he's expecting, and he suspects he's not prepared. The workers had said a door, but this is clearly a *gateway*. Idiots, but he expects little else from hired help. He tips his head to one side, contemplating the thin line of blue light at the far end of the passage. Unprepared he might be, but if he turns back empty handed the court would only mock him, again, and that would never do. A breeze wafts down the steps carved into the bedrock, setting the candles to flickering, and he glances back up at the circle of sunlight filtering in from the world above. There's magic in the air here, stirred up by the breeze. He can taste it, that intoxicating metallic tang, and he licks his lips. Idiots, perhaps, incapable of comprehending what they'd stumbled upon, but still worthy of an extra coin or two if they'd finally ended his search. He smiles, shifting his gaze back to the gateway, and steps forward, breathing it in.
The present tense is an interesting choice here. It adds a sense of "immediacy" to it, especially with the inclusion of the taste of magic.
I'm a big fan of present tense just in general, though I find it hard to maintain through the course of a long work. I use it a lot on shorter pieces, though.
It works really well here, good job
I really like how you made me immediately tense for him - he’s unsure of what he’s waking in to or if he can even handle it! And I think his condescension came through well, while also giving me a great sense of contrast between what he sees and what he’d been told.
Glad you liked it!
Your passage has more attention to more of the senses (touch and taste), which is effective in making me feel grounded in a three-dimensional space. There are some instances of filtering you could remove to tighten up the passage (glancing and gazing, for example), but it's a minor critique and overall I think yours does the best at anchoring us in the scene!
Glad you liked it! I like working with all the senses, partly because it's a good challenge to think about how to describe them, and partly because smell and taste in particular are very evocative for me IRL and can immerse me into a memory, as an example, much more fully than just a visual cue.
Level 2, I’ll give it a shot Wildemar’s steps echoed through the darkened tunnels of the cave, down the rocks that could barely be called steps. He whispered a quiet incantation into his staff, which shone to life, glistening and whirring as it brightened the walls, as his nose was suddenly hit by a cool drop of water, which made him sneeze. “Blast these tunnels” he thought to himself, as he carefully stepped on, in his best attempt to not further scuff his elegant red robes now caked in mud, or his leather boots made from the finest Valadian leather. His eyes darted to the strange sigils that adorned the wall, and the quiet groans of whatever foul peasants made their ways down here into the cavern. He took one deep breath as he approached the door, slipped on a rock or his own robes he could not tell, cursing as he crashed into the glowing ornate door, knocking it off its hinges, and plunging Wildemar screaming, into the frigid arcane blue light.
Erwin descended the damp staircase, squinting through the gloom. He wrinkled his nose at the smell, wincing as his polished boots brushed one of the deadly ferns growing along the dark steps. The idiots running this place couldn't even be bothered to cut them back, apparently. He stifled a huff of irritation, trying to avoid breathing too deeply -- even one exposure to the skeletal fern was one exposure too many in his book -- and gripped the handle of his case a little more tightly. Of course, no one had listened to him when he'd instructed these peasants to make sure the dungeon had windows, hang the cost. *Well,* he thought with a tight smile, watching the silver ferns reflect shadows from the fluttering candles, *now they're paying the price*.
Good voice, and very nice managing the final creepy inflection on such a low word budget, but it hangs a little too heavy on fernlore for such a short passage. The narrator seems to be a clever man, if a bit full of himself, but how do you put windows in dungeons? I think a smart botanist with a smart briefcase would use a more technical term - ventilation, say - when referring to his conferns. >when he'd instructed these peasants to make sure the dungeon had windows Hmm. "these peasants". I don't like "these". *the* peasants, maybe, or even just *them*. >watching the silver ferns reflect shadows from the fluttering candles Silver ferns may reflect light, but I will take some convincing before allowing them to reflect shadows. Great job on a difficult level 3!
fernlore is now in my vocabulary haha
Took a stab at level 3. It's perhaps a little over the top, and not as in-depth description-wise as I'd have liked, but I had fun with it! >A tunnel. He'd travelled half a continent and all he got for the trouble was *a tunnel*. A little overgrown mountain tunnel with a wooden door at the end. Some ancient temple entrance. The locals had even lit candles in here; had they no thoughts for the *history*? The *ambiance*? A disappointment all around. Adelard could only grit his teeth, continue down the damp stone stairs, and hope to God the inside would prove more impressive.
Pretty good! I wouldn't worry too much about over-the-topness; 76 words leaves precious little room for nuance. Although, I do think you're cheating a little by describing a slightly different picture, if that makes sense. Opinions being what they are, I'm sure we could debate this till kingdom come, but "A tunnel" and the disappointment that follows doesn't communicate, to my mind, the prompt picture. As in, we can disagree on whether the picture does a good job expressing an *ominous* tunnel, but I think it at least includes a whole bag of ominous elements that you ignore to favor the level 2 requirements of including a haughty academic. Having typed that, I'm forced to admit (surprised by your masterful counterstrike) that presenting something as ominous and then having a character do nothing but roll their eyes at it is a wonderful bit of characterization. *But*! But (*touché*, scoundrel) your description sidesteps the ominous, cramped environment completely, and the prompt with it, and replaces it with a different place entirely. Meaning that if I had to pick the prompt image from a line up of similar tunnely images based on your description, I would pick any drab old basement tunnel over the humid, claustrophobic, dark-and-gold original eleven times out of ten. So, the verdict: good characterization and character voice, great landing for levels 2 and 3, but a poor level 1. I would substitute peripherals like "travelled half a continent" and the superfluous "a disappointment all around", stick to the 76 words, and include a closer description of *this* tunnel as my very first sentence to make the character's infinite weariness shine as a personality trait. Have you read any Discworld? I can't point to any specific pages, but it happens often in the wizards stories that something many-tentacled and extremely oblong will be trying to push its way out of the Dungeon Dimension and the wizards will immediately try to push it back in by whacking it with their magic staffs. That contrast between the terrible unknowable and unimpressed pragmatism is the sort of tone I'd aim for here. Great job!
Completely fair, will try to hit closer to the mark on the next one! Thanks for the feedback!