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CannedNoob97

CannedNoob97

Posts: 10,338 Opal Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile
The night of war has begun. Hundreds of zamorakians spread throughout the battlefield in a search for blood, wearing their scarlet red dragon armor with longswords sharp as a demon's tooth. It was nearly impossible to kill one...and they were coming for us.
I would know, too. I did some damage to their land in the wilderness. Well, actually, I burnt in down with my crimson fire. Yes, that's right, I'm Zack the mage, and the last mage left on Runescape.
All others were killed in a war. A sneak attack. And as I hide into the dark green forest, I saw them go by with their armored boots digging into the silty ground like a sewing needle-in and out, in and out.
They crossed by where I hid. Thank Saradomin they didn't see me! But they weren't coming for me, they were coming for my hometown, Varrock!
I sent myself out here to stop them, and I had to. But there was just too many of them to take the risk. I had to do something to stop them, but what could that be?
And then it hit me.
I made a flurry of purple spheres rolling around in my hands. I only had one shot at this. If I missed, one was bound to see it fly by and spotted me.
I focused on a target and threw the spheres.
It hit! Just like I planned, I had casted "curse" on him. Once you get really good at that spell, it doesn't weaken the enemy, instead, it actually curses him. He now temporarily thinks he's with saradomin now!
He's distracting them now, and he swung his sword at the warrior to the right of him and cut his throat. Many others tried to fight the trader, but he always swung his sword back to cut another man's throat. Blood as dark as the night sky flew across the path, illuminated only by the moonlight.
But the momentary distraction was over quickly. He was outnumbered and he was quickly killed. However, in that time, I had already charged up another curse. and shot another Zamorakian with it.
With them all bunched up attacking eachother, I pulled off an ultimate move. Spinning my hands around,

10-Aug-2010 18:18:50

CannedNoob97

CannedNoob97

Posts: 10,338 Opal Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile
I was charging up a ball of fire to throw at the army. This meant they could all easily catch fire with all of them bunched up together like that!
So I threw the fire and they noticed the flame, just in time. However, that's exactly what I feared. Most of them caught the fire, but about twenty of them fleed from the blaze of intense heat before it could smash into them.
They didn't charge towards me. Instead, they circled around me and raised their swords.
"Well now, don't we seem a little stuck?" one said with his face shrouded in the darkness of the night. "We know you're the last wizard, Zack, and we can't have you on the saradomin side, now can we? Now the choice is yours, boy. Join the Zamorakians, or die."
They closed in, pointing their swords. I knew if I made a move now, they'd all come running at me at once and attacking me. I'm not sure if I'd be able to do a strong spell back at them more quickly, and I didn't want to take the chance either.
So instead, I came up with another witty plan as they slowly closed in. When they were close as possible, at the last second, I send a burst of wind at a section of the zamorakians, sending them flying. I ran through the gap just as two infuriated soldiers clashed swords together, right where I was a second ago.
They became amazingly inept and raced after me. I did an earth spell and made a boulder from the path and threw it at them. It was no use-they were so angry and so powerful, they barged straight through using their swords and shoulder blades. Even though they bled fast, they kept running.
I had one choice remaining-to run right into Varrock and warn King Roald. So I ran as fast as I could and threw fire up in the air. This was a warning I used to say they they were coming.
The Varrock guards were coming out in a flash. They were already armored, as they suspected this. They quickly took out the army, having their elite swords cut through their platebodies like paper.
We were safe.
At least for now...

10-Aug-2010 18:36:11

CannedNoob97

CannedNoob97

Posts: 10,338 Opal Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile
That was called "The Last Mage". It's defenitely not my best work, but I tried to make it as good as possible, and I hope you liked it. :)
-EDIT-If it helps my score, I'm only 12, no joke. ;)

10-Aug-2010 18:37:03 - Last edited on 10-Aug-2010 20:24:36 by CannedNoob97

A White Wolf

A White Wolf

Posts: 8,377 Rune Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile
All right; I'd rather not do this right now but I know I won't otherwise, since I'm leaving tomorrow to record an album with my band in a city 10 hours away, so whatever.
Review forthcoming. (this might be my most timely applicant review ever O-o)

15-Aug-2010 00:17:52

A White Wolf

A White Wolf

Posts: 8,377 Rune Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile
"The night of war has begun."
Fairly cliche, but an attention-getting opener. Problem: you switch verb tense immediately from Present to Past after this sentence.
"Hundreds of zamorakians spread throughout the battlefield in a search for blood, wearing their scarlet red dragon armor with longswords sharp as a demon's tooth."
Zamorakians is a proper noun, as it's the name of the followers of Zamorak, so it should be capitalized. Other than that, great description, and you have a very good grasp on how to work complex sentence structure. Also, I enjoyed the demon's tooth simile.
"It was nearly impossible to kill one...and they were coming for us."
There are two very important three-word phrases I scream at people a lot; one is SHOW, DON'T TELL! The other is DON'T USE ELLIPSES!
They're lazy punctuation. In almost every circumstance another punctuation mark can do the exact same thing, or spacing. For instance:
"It was nearly impossible to kill one--
And they were coming for us.
storycontinueshereblahblahblahec"
"Yes, that's right, I'm Zack the mage, and the last mage left on Runescape."
Ok, several things about this sentence. Firstly, the comma after "right" needs to be a semicolon, as it separates independent clauses without a conjunction.
Nextly, "Runescape" is the name of the game, whereas "Gielinor" is the name of the place. Use that when describing the world of Runescape.
Lastly, I love how the narrator phrases his statement as if we were all asking ourselves, "Wait...is this Zack the mage? THE Zack the mage?" It's kind of comical, which I hope is the for which atmosphere you're going.
"All others were killed in a war. A sneak attack."
This is hilariously vague. I don't know what else to say beyond that, other than "good use of a sentence fragment."

15-Aug-2010 00:18:14 - Last edited on 15-Aug-2010 01:10:31 by A White Wolf

A White Wolf

A White Wolf

Posts: 8,377 Rune Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile
"And as I hide into the dark green forest, I saw them go by with their armored boots digging into the silty ground like a sewing needle-in and out, in and out."
Another great simile. Really; very, very creative. You need spaces between your dash though, otherwise it looks like you're trying to create a compound word. Also, use two hyphens to make a dash-- It looks better.
"Once you get really good at that spell, it doesn't weaken the enemy, instead, it actually curses him. He now temporarily thinks he's with saradomin now!"
Haha, very creative. However, I see a bit of a bad habit with the lack of semicolon use. Remember, if two chunks of a sentence could be sentences on their own, and aren't joined with "and, but, or, whereas, etc." you need a semicolon.
Also, watch out for redundancy within your writing. You use "now" twice within the second sentence, and a third time in the next sentence. You can create a sense of "current, ongoing action" with other words as well. Readers get bored if they have to read the same word over and over, and it robs your story of the meaning.
"He's distracting them now, and he swung his sword at the warrior to the right of him and cut his throat."
You're switching verb tense very frequently; you have to watch out for this, as it's very easy to do without noticing. "He's distracting them now" is present ongoing, or Present Participle conjugation. Immediately after that though, you swap back to past tense, with "and he swung."
Tense changes confuse a reader by making them have a difficult time immersing within the story.
"They became amazingly inept and raced after me."
You're just using a totally wrong word here; "inept" means "bumbling, ineffective, unintelligent, or unskilled." If you're not 100% sure on a word's meaning, make sure you look it up.
FINAL SUMMARY:
Well, for your age, you certainly have a lot of great potential and a lot of great things working in your writing.

15-Aug-2010 00:18:24 - Last edited on 15-Aug-2010 01:21:20 by A White Wolf

A White Wolf

A White Wolf

Posts: 8,377 Rune Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile
Your similes especially are very, very good; you likewise have a very good grasp on syntax and grammar within a sentence, and your structure is excellent.
However, with the good also comes the bad; I would recommend working firstly on ensuring a single verb tense throughout your writing, to maintain continuity and immersion for the reader. Also, I would suggest reading a little bit about proper semicolon usage, since they can provide a lot more diversity in your writing that mere commas over and over can't give.
Your spelling is great, so keep that up. While I enjoyed the first-person narrative account, as it felt like a campfire story of sorts, a bit of background about -why- this person is telling us his story would give more of a realistic air to the tale.
Is he at a tavern, entertaining travelers with his adventures? Is he camping and telling party members about his past? That sort of background can help a lot.
I don't think I can accept you into The Incredibly Gifted Authors due to reasons mentioned above, but I urge you to keep writing. You're much, much better than I was at your age, and if you keep working at this with a passion for improving you'll be incredible by the time a few years go by.
Thanks, and happy writing.

15-Aug-2010 01:21:33 - Last edited on 15-Aug-2010 01:25:53 by A White Wolf

Chuk

Chuk

Posts: 14,177 Opal Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile
Woah! Activity! That's always good. And Wolfeh, you're doing a whole album? You're gonna have to get me some of the songs. :3
Better luck next time, Canned. It sounds like you were close to making the cut.

15-Aug-2010 07:15:59 - Last edited on 15-Aug-2010 07:16:16 by Chuk

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