It was way past dawn by the time Caidens father returned from the hunt. Whispers said that there were a pack of wolves killing farmers livestock and father acted quickly before complaints rolled in from the westerlands. Caiden liked asking his father about the journey, he made it a song of dancing steel and swordplay. On his 12th nameday, Caiden received his own sword, forged especially for him. It was no longsword but it was short and deadly, enough to kill the enemy. Along with learning the ways of the law and lordship, Caiden was taught how to be a soldier from as far back as he could remember, the importance of a lord and heir of house Fornwood never took Caiden focus when he was young, all he was interested in was playing with the other smallfolk and his father used to always tell him ''time for playing is for later, Caiden. Think of it as a reward, pay attention in your teachings and I will let you do whatever you wish to do. The role you are playing is imporant, remember that''. Now, Caiden was drawing near too his fourteenth nameday, the age where a boy has to prove himself to then become a man. He would be taken to a far off woods, left to find his way back and on his return, he would need to bring back a beast dead. The size and type of beast determined how strong the boy is, this has been the tradition ever since Caidens great great grandfather, Forn, slayed the great beast Beorwulf with nothing but his hands in the wulfwood, now known as the fornwood. Not only did it show great strength to the villagers but it also made peace, he was their protector and they raised him to lordship giving him the title 'fornwood'. Where Beowulf lay slain a castle was erected and a city built in the mist of forest and hill. The city was named Dalinor, after his son. Other kids were to scared to enter the walls of the castle when Caiden led them, it was said that Beowulfs ghost still roamed the castle and that was the reason why maids and stewards went missing, never to come back...When caiden said that it wasnt true, the other kids poked fun at him and said that he would go missing and he would be found dead in his bed with throat torn open.
Hi Wilhelmina Lyre (Cool name by the way),
I appreciate your comment although it was years ago I wrote this (The story of which now seizes to exist) and I think I have vastly improved in terms of grammar. It is kind of funny re reading what I wrote, but at points I think, 'yeah that ain't bad for a 13 year old', haha.
There are some parts of your comment however that I can take as constructive, especially the bit about ambiguity:
"Father?" [parry, slash] "How was your" [pirouette, sweep with hand not holding sword, feint with sword] "journey?" [drops to one knee, brings sword up in arc, freezing its motion when its deadly point is mere centimetres from his father's groin]
It has given me a way as to tell a story if I am stuck in how I am telling it after describing how it makes the character feel. It is a great technique to use, was this your intention when writing it?
I thought back then that 'Beowulf' wasn't even a real thing and no one had used it, of course I was very wrong! Nothing to do with covering up ancient mythology names. And as for, ''the time for playing is later, Caiden''.........Well, lets just say nothing about it, it was awful :p
Haha, thanks
Hi, Kai!
I notice that you are a Tolkien fan. Personally, I think that he's crap. But everyone to their own tastes, hey?
I wanted to suggest a few improvements to this shared work of yours.
a) Study your apostrophes. The following all miss apostrophes where they should have them:
Caidens father
farmers livestock
Caiden focus (missing an s here, as well)
Beowulfs ghost
wasnt
And please use speech marks (one key: ") instead of hitting the apostrophe key (') twice (''). On paper, this makes no difference, but in this age of computer search tools...
b) Study the difference between "to" and "too". Learn when to use each one correctly:
Caiden was drawing near too his fourteenth nameday
Other kids were to scared to enter the walls of the castle
c) Brush up on the use of capital letters. Beginning a sentence, people's names.
d) Break long, clumsy sentences into shorter ones:
Along with learning the ways of the law and lordship, Caiden was taught how to be a soldier from as far back as he could remember, the importance of a lord and heir of house Fornwood never took Caiden focus when he was young, all he was interested in was playing with the other smallfolk and his father used to always tell him ''time for playing is for later, Caiden.
Is this REALLY all one sentence??? Does it HAVE to be?
And THIS one?:
The size and type of beast determined how strong the boy is, this has been the tradition ever since Caidens great great grandfather, Forn, slayed the great beast Beorwulf with nothing but his hands in the wulfwood, now known as the fornwood.
Even
Not only did it show great strength to the villagers but it also made peace, he was their protector and they raised him to lordship giving him the title 'fornwood'.
and
Other kids were to scared to enter the walls of the castle when Caiden led them, it was said that Beowulfs ghost still roamed the castle and that was the reason why maids and stewards went missing, never to come back...
are clumsy and need splitting up.
e) Try to avoid ambiguity:
Caiden liked asking his father about the journey, he made it a song of dancing steel and swordplay.
WHO "made it a song of dancing steel and swordplay"? This makes it sound like Caiden did. And WHAT was he making "a song of dancing steel and swordplay"? The question?
"Father?" [parry, slash] "How was your" [pirouette, sweep with hand not holding sword, feint with sword] "journey?" [drops to one knee, brings sword up in arc, freezing its motion when its deadly point is mere centimetres from his father's groin]
Other kids were to [sic] scared to enter the walls of the castle
I believe that I would be too SOLID to enter the walls of the castle. I hope that I'd be brave enough to enter the castle.
f) Try to avoid tautology:
it was short and deadly, enough to kill the enemy.
Or might I suggest the following improvement?
it was short and very nearly useless (a toy for a novice, to be quite frank), but - with a lot of luck (and facing a pretty inexperienced swordsman) - enough to kill an enemy.
Or maybe
it was short and deadly, but not quite enough so to kill a skilled enemy.
Otherwise, you should get rid of either "deadly" or "enough to kill the enemy".
g) If you're going to lightly disguise famous names from the classics of literature for use in your work (Beorwulf), make sure that you don't slip into using the original later on. Or was that first time a typo? Are you hoping that when scholars use Internet search machines for references to Beowulf, your story will pop up among the results? Quite clever, really...
I could go on and on (split infinitives, etc.), but I'll stop, with one last comment:
his father used to always tell him "time for playing is for later, Caiden."
Grammatically bad. But perhaps this is your intention? The father is a hero, not an English scholar? That's imaginative on your part. Otherwise he might say "the time for playing comes later" or "there will be time for playing later". Both grammatically correct. But a strange comment from a hero-father to his wanna-be-hero son, surely? I would have thought that most hero-fathers would say "the time for playing is past".
I hope that you find these comments useful.
Nicely done Kai, this reads well and has certainly made me want to read more.
As the previous comments say you have the flow down, I found it really easy to read.
Good luck with the rest of your project.
Hoping to read more...
Michael