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This is a part of my manuscript for my fantasy Novel, passage is out a first chapter. Does the Story sound Real?
Novel is Called "Lost in the Darkness"
As I climbed up the not so steep mountain side, that seemed to have risen over the past years at the backyard of the family farm, I stopped every few boulders I climbed over and admired the sunset closing down behind a few mountains in the far distance. I got to the top and tied my hair up as the wind blew through the bushes, I thought whether I should have told Damien’s mum where I was going, but I was too angry to even see anyone at the moment. My “So Soon friend” Damien had the nerve to tell everyone that he was moving to England, even though it shouldn’t bother me considering I got pushed into this family so suddenly. Well the point is he is only two years older than me and I’m 15, I can’t believe he is doing this. He is not even 18 yet and he can expect to get away, sorry got too carried away with problems that aren’t even mine, anyway he said that it was an “unexplainable reason”, who uses that excuse? Kayte and James who are his parents said he is not leaving the house, and so like normal he started a fight with them. I have only been here for one year and 7 months and already know them inside out, though I can admit Damien has a weird tendency of calling someone at three in the morning and being in the closet at the same time all I can hear is mumbling. He is hiding something.
By now I could hear the yelling from a mile away. Damien always had to fight with one of them everyday; it was sort of like his energy boost. Finally I couldn’t hear any yelling and I started up the mountainside again. When I got to the top of the mountain I heard a yell from down the bottom.
“Sacorrah, come down, I’m sorry. You can come with me if you want!”
Damien seems to always want my forgiveness, which I don’t know whether I should give it to him this time anyway. To tell u the truth I really don’t want him to go, he is the closest I can get to a friend.
“Come down,” he yelled again.
After a while of him yelling up at me I decided to come down. As I was halfway down I heard Damien gasp and I saw him just standing there looking up at me with fear on his face. He looked like he was getting ready for battle or something like that.
“What’s wrong?” I yelled, but he just stood there. I looked around me; nothing, then I looked above me. What I saw was something that would haunt me forever…the fear was just unbearable. My past I left behind me, unfortunately came back to haunt me. Next minute some kind of force pulled me back off the mountain.
I woke up on the ground bloodied and Damien beside me with a cloth patting on my cuts.
“What happened?” I asked softly.
Why aren’t I dead, I should have been? I fell off the mountain? I thought to myself.
“You fell off the mountain side.”
“I know that,” I said slightly annoyed for some odd reason.
“Do Kayte and James know what happened?”
If either of them ever found out about what just happened they would be throwing Damien and I into a room, questioning us as if we murdered someone and they’re detectives forcing the truth out of us.
“They have gone to church,” he replied with a cheeky smile.
“Good we would not want them to find out” I said as I stood up and walked off towards the house. “Wonder what that was about” I thought to myself.
“Oh, No, Andros” I said in complete shock, as I stopped in my path.
“Who is Andros?” Damien suddenly asked appearing beside me.
“No one, Just an old Boyfriend” I said suddenly.
“There is something wrong isn’t there” he asked me.
“Since when did you care…? You’re moving away anyway!” I said really angry.
“But…”
I just ignored him; I didn’t care. I ran into my room and slammed the door so hard that the vase that was next to my door smashed for the fifth thousandth time. I sat on my bed fusing with anger, and then I looked at the picture of my boyfriend Andros who died 1 year ago today. “Could it be,” I asked myself.
I heard Damien rummaging through the kitchen draws. He later knocked on my door.
“Sacorrah, remember when you first arrived I insisted we bury a box out the back yard.”
I remember that time we put all our dreams in a box and buried it. I remember only one of those many dreams of mine in the box. The dream was for me to find someone to love forever, weather I meant a boyfriend or family member is another story. I got up and walked to the door then Damien reminded me of what had just happened not so long ago.
“What was that about Sacorrah? You know that creature on top of the mountain” then he stopped.
I stopped well in my tracks as I was just about to turn the handle, I stood there as if I was frozen with ice and no longer could I hear the heavy breathing of Damien outside my bedroom door.
I was thinking to myself maybe he had just disappeared or I would have made more sense that he had just walked away. I opened the door and peaked outside, all I could see was the back door through the kitchen and the 4 lounge chairs around the TV.
“Sacorrah!” someone yelled from outside.
I walked slowly outside being very cautious. The last thing I need is my life to get worse. I saw Damien standing there with something in his hand.
“What is that?” I asked walking briskly over to him. He handed me a letter and a small object, then suddenly I saw something that shocked me, I saw my old ring that Andros had on a silver chain around his neck when he died.
“How… huh…I don’t understand” I said thinking why was it here now.
“This was with it though” Damien said as though he read my mind handing me a small piece of paper.
I read it slowly. It read:
Your destiny awaits you!
I stood there in even more shock then I was before, I didn’t know how much more of this I could take. Those words sounded so familiar to me very familiar, but I just don’t know where I have heard them before.
“Come on their home, they mustn’t find out anything of what happened,” Damien said. Damien sometimes worries me, I didn’t even hear their car come in the drive way, he can hear the slightest most lowest noise.
Damien grabbed my hand and made me jump, he pulled me into the house and I stuffed the letter and envelope into my back pocket of my jeans right before Kayte and James walked through the door.
“Well you two missed another great lesson about god,” Kayte said, not looking too happy as she threw her ugly pink poker dot hand bag onto the couch along with her bright pink jacket.
“Why the long face mum, learnt something about god you didn’t want to hear.” Damien said back chatting which he normally does.
I started to fiddle with my fingers, and suddenly I noticed I had my old ring on my right index finger.
I was just about to take it off when I got this weird sensation throughout my entire body…
Damien suddenly nudged me. “Sacorrah wake up.”
“What huh?” I suddenly looked around, Kayte and James were both looking at me along with Damien, their eyes piercing through my head as if I just went psycho at them all.
“Darling I asked where you got that ring from.” Kayte said.
Great this is were she starts calling my darling like I am one of her kids, which I will never be as long as my dad is still alive and kicking.
“I found it… found it outside,” I lied. I never thought I could lie to them much longer but I had to, I am not really much of a liar but I want to do it so I won’t have to get tortured.
“And what happened to your face, you have got cuts everywhere,” James said immediately.
“We were playing football and she ran into a rose bush,” Damien replied quickly.
admin
Hello and welcome
Sorry I've been in hiding a bit lately, but I've been working on some interesting programs for writers. Let you all know more when they are available.
Sacorrah, I'll have a read of your story over the weekend and post a reply then. Must say that I love the title.
admin
A few comments on your story
Hello again.
You have an intriguing idea here helped along with the promise of secrets and the mystery of Sacorrah's past.
To help enhance your story, focus on the following points for your next draft:
1.) The dialogue and thought process needs some work as it doesn't sound convincing. Take note of how people talk. Usually dialogue is informal where people use contractions (it's instead of it is) and phrases of the time. Be particularly careful when explaining things to the reader through a character's thoughts.
For instance, '... Kayte and James, who are his parents, said he is not leaving the house ...' You wouldn't think in this way, you might think something along the lines of 'His parents said he ...' or 'Kayte and James said he ...' There is plenty of time to establish who these people are to the reader, there's no reason to hurry it through.
It doesn't sound realistic when the character thinks '... sorry, got too carried away.' because I can't imagine anyone would apologies to themselves.
Where you have 'I can't believe he is doing this.' is great. This is the sort of thing people say and think. It's natural.
2.) Watch out for tautologies (saying the same thing twice).
You've used the phrase 'I thought to myself.' a number of times. To think is an internal process so there is no need to add the 'to myself' bit. It's acceptable to say 'I thought out aloud'.
'... he could hear the slightest most lowest voice ...' The 'most lowest' isn't needed because slightest does a brilliant job all by itself.
3.) Watch that you don't use SMS abbreviations, such as 'U' instead of 'you'. It can be an easy habit to get into and a harder one to break.
4.) Leave out unnecessary words, such as the 'just' in '... I saw him just standing there ...' Leaving out these sort of words improves the tightness of your writing. As a general rule, avoid using words like 'really' and 'very'.
5.) Aim to show your readers, don't tell them.
For example, instead of 'I said really angrily' you might say 'I shouted'. You could follow it up with your character's face growing hot or something else that shows the reader that your character is about to explode. Think about what people do when they are angry, do they curse, throw things, or storm off. It depends on the person and how they react to things so have a think about how your character would react.
6.) There's no need to worry about the nitty-gritty of punctuation in this point; however, you may wish to file this away for future reference. The Australian rule for ellipsis points is to have a space before and after, except quotation marks sit flush against it, such as the following:
and he ... you know
'Look out for the ...'
America has a tendency to leave out the spacing.
Hope that helps. Keep working on it, like I said, you have an intriguing story that offers lots of mystery.
Twiggy
You've got my interest, Saccorah! I want to read more. I do agree with everything said by Admin, and there are a few other points that I think could be tidied up.
Quote:
As I climbed up the not so steep mountain side, that seemed to have risen over the past years at the backyard of the family farm, I stopped every few boulders I climbed over and admired the sunset closing down behind a few mountains in the far distance.
That seems a lot of information to put into one sentence. Could you spread it into more? And here the mountain is not so steep, and is at (In? Near?) the backyard of a farm - yet it was steep enough to result in a nasty fall later. Perhaps leave out the 'not so steep'? And perhaps 'at the back of the farm' instead of backyard.
I'm sure there's some mystery why it seemed to have arisen only after the last few years.
Oh! Is it not a mountain, but a rocky hill? I see a few possibilities - this is getting intriguing!
Merri
Well obviously it's not a very big mountain, as Sacchorra could hear Damien at the bottom when she was at the top.
An intrigueing opening. I did have to go back and read bits again to sort out what was happening. I felt it was a bit like sometimes when I write and my brain gets ahead of what I'm writing and I try to catch up and push information in quickly.
The action here would take about - oh say one hour? I think I need more action time while I'm absorbing all that information. Does that make sense? But I'm not suggesting rewriting the opening at this stage. It's often good to just let the whole story flow out this way, then look at it as a sort of synopsis to develop.
Whatever, make sure you have fun writing it! And keep us posted - I'm hanging out for the next instalment.
sacorrah
Thanx Guys
Thanx alot guys.
What you hav all said has helped more then you imagine.
I have been waiting for some feedback for ages, cause i know family and friends are not exactly helpful.
