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[Rujio]

I've started writing a story these past few nights. Here's the first 2660 words. I sorta got hit with writer's block at a random place. Deal with it. Huge copy-paste go!
EDIT: http://rewjeo-astory...e.blogspot.com/
Read it here for proper formatting, italicising, fonts, etc. Also, everything after chapter 6 will probably only get posted here.


Prologue
Armored bodies ran through the breach in the wall of the castle. Thunder clapped in the sky above the battle. The guards of Gassad were cut down before they could react. The occasional flash of lightning gleamed off of majestic white armor. Kertankuse, the Silver General of Guldar, had come.
Soon the Gassadian guards had organized themselves, holding the inner castle. Kertankuse and his men charged, leaving a bloody trail in their wake.

A Gassadian soldier burst into the king’s chamber. “Lord Jyron! We’re under attack! You must esc-!“ The soldier began to choke on his blood as a lance grew from his gut.
As the body collapsed to the floor, a flash of lightning revealed the gleaming white armor of Kertankuse, and the calm on Lord Jyron’s face.
Kertankuse pointed his lance at his victim. “I’m sorry, Lord Jyron, but your time is up.”
The king walked out into the open, in full battle gear. “Is that so?” Jyron drew his sword. The gilded, intricate handle of the blade and the emerald embedded in its pommel seemed to glow in the flickering torch light as it left its equally ornate scabbard. The blade itself was razor sharp, and without a single scratch. Kertankuse’s lance, on the other hand, was a crude, but effective, weapon. It had a simple wooden shaft topped by a short blade, both scarred by countless chips and scratches.
Kertankuse asked, “Do you always sleep in full battle gear, old man?” as he motioned for one of his soldiers to attack.
“A little bird told me you were coming.” Two bodies.
“I apologize, Your Highness,” sounded, almost genuinely, amongst the muffled battle sounds, “I didn’t mean to hurt your pride!” Two more soldiers lunged. Four bodies.
“I tire of this, general, a-“ Jyron gestured with his hand towards the wall behind Kertankuse. Kertankuse turned to look, and Jyron took the chance to charge.
“Not so fast, old man!” the White General grunted as he blocked the slash with the shaft of his spear. The sword had nearly cleaved the shaft in two. Kertankuse kicked Jyron back, pulling the sword out of the lance. Kertankuse split the shaft and threw the blunt end away, shattering a window.
“I guess it wasn’t all that small a bird.” Jyron charged again. In a quick flourish, Jyron found himself disarmed and with a hand at his throat. He was pushed to the window, and, with one motion, Kertankuse severed the belt with the gilded scabbard and plunged his spear tip into Jyron’s chest. He brought himself close to Jyron, and whispered, “Goodbye, Lord Jyron,” and shoved him out of the window.
“Good bye.”






Chapter 1
Prologue
A gentle breeze from the north and a soft warmth from the sun. The birds were chirping and the squirrels were chattering in the trees all around me. The crystal clear water in the streams shimmered in the sunlight, and the green leaves on the trees seemed to glow under the cloudless blue sky.
But hidden in this perfect green wood there was silence, except for the rustling of the leaves in the wind and the crackle of leaves underfoot. Even the water was still. There not a sign of any living or moving thing besides the trees. In contrast to the thriving forest I had just seen, this new, eerie setting put me on edge.
And then, a jet black figure came down onto a branch not an arm’s length in front of me, spreading feathers all around. It was a raven, a prophetic figure, often telling of misfortune or bloodshed. Or so it is said, if you believe in those things. The raven cawed raucously several times and seemed to point at my hand.
I gestured to show that I didn’t have anything in hopes it would leave, but it persisted. “I don’t have any food for you,” I said as I began to walk past it, somehow expecting it to understand me. Then it flew back in front of me, settled down in the middle of the path, and continued to call out. This time, it seemed to be pointing towards where I had been standing, but there was nothing there.
I looked farther down the line, and what I was there astounded me. A group of what I estimated to be forty soldiers dressed in blue armor. The blue armor of Guldar. But what were they doing there? This force was far too small to be an invading army, and the castle of Gassad was between here and Guldar. It made no sense for them to be patrolling so far away. I had been gone for too long. I had to get to Gassad and see what had happened. The raven made a strange, low sound- almost a laugh- and flew away.

~~~~~

A warm light very different from that of the flickering torches emitted seeped in from around the door. The last of Gassad’s armed soldiers hid down in the cellars, where the only thing that separated them from Kertankuse’s army was a thick oak door. They had barricaded this door after fighting back a wave of Kertankuse’s troops in the hopes that they could hold out until something happened.
They had also set up a barricade of barrels and shelves from which to fire arrows, throw javelins, rocks, whatever other projectiles were handy. There were only a handful of soldiers left down there. The highest ranking and elected leader, Fyrro, his sister, who had learned to mend wounds, but decided the axe was more to her liking, Seloh, who had only recently and resentfully become a soldier, Slize, one of the few horsemen of the valley, and Flygnyr, an archer, and the youngest there.
The floor was slick with all sorts of drink, and in the dim lighting the haphazard arrangement of tables and barrels and benches and whatever else was down there was difficult to traverse, to say the least. Had Guldar’s soldiers known the situation in there, they would have likely left them in the dark for however long it took for them to surrender. But they didn’t know this, and the first three in slipped down the stairs. The next one was hit in the stomach with an arrow before he could enter, and fell back. The rest tried to clamber haphazardly over the barricades. A few more were killed, but most, after slipping, tripping, and falling were forced to scramble out over the same obstacles that had plagued them going in.
“Haha, yeah! Can’t even handle some benches and wine you…” Flygnyr, the archer, continued to ramble on as Slize, the horseman, began to mention Flygnyr’s accuracy, but decided against it.
Fyrro’s sister, however, wasn’t so keen on keeping her mouth shut. “I don’t know that you’ve handled the wine well, either. You missed! A lot.”
Before Flygnyr could respond, they heard a voice outside the door- probably a captain or some such thing- and some whimpering- probably the soldiers who had made it out of the cellars. Fyrro, highest ranked there, hushed the others and told them to listen.
“Imbeciles! I bet didn’t even-“ “No, no, sir! We” “Hah! I bet you’ve just been too eager to get into the liquor!” “How? Those guys are still holding off in the-“ There was a loud bang, at which the few soldiers of Gassad jumped, and then the whimpering got louder.
Just as they relaxed, there was another bang as the door flung open and smashed into the wall. An arrow whizzed past the man’s face as he stood in the doorway. He instantly dropped to the ground and yelped, “Go! Go!” No one moved. He slowly stood up, attempting to regain his dignity. “Fine then.” The door slammed shut again. “We’ll just let them rot there!”
“Y’ missed!”
“Shaddup! It got him out of here, didn’t it?”

~~~~~

Rewjeo walked into town. More of Guldar’s soldiers. There was a woman passing by him carrying some bread. “Excuse me, ma’am.”
“Yes?”
He walked up closer to her, “What’s happened here?”
“Hm? You don’t know? Guldar sent an army here a few nights ago- you know, the night there was that big storm?”
“Mhm.”
“Well, they came and took over! Killed Lord Jyron, too!”
Rewjeo stood there, shocked for a moment. He had guessed as much, but to realize just how real it was was almost too much. “Hey!” A soldier and seen them talking. “You, there. Whadderya doin’?”
“Oh, sorry, sir. Just getting some bread.” He looked at the woman.
“Ah. Yes, sir. Just bread.”
The three just stood there for a moment. “Well, go on, take the bread! I won’t stop ya’.”
“Right, here you go” Rewjeo pulled some money out of his pocket, handed it to her, grabbed some bread, and started to walk off.
The soldier called after them, “Hey, whatt’re yer names? I’m not stupid. We need t’know what’s happenin’ with the common folk.”
“Mary, sir. My husband’s the local baker. Can I go now?”
“Sure. And you?”
Rewjeo was caught in a bad situation, but he had a plan, “Me? Oh, um, I’m Chigau. I’m a historian studying in Ilyarium. I’ve decided to wander the land to learn more. I was wondering…”

~~~~~

“So, you’re Chigau? Tell me, Chigau, do you have a last name? What does your family do?” Kertankuse lounged in the throne of Gassad.
“I’m Chigau Damasu, sir. My family is a family of scholars, sir. My mother is in medicine and my father studies animals.” Rewjeo may not have felt particularly calm, but he wouldn’t let it show. At least, he wouldn’t let it show as anything other than nerves at talking to such an important figure.
“And tell me, Chigau Damasu, why would you leave Ilyarium, the center of knowledge, to learn?”
“Things get corrupted and lost in the journey, sir. If I go to the history, that’s not a problem. I can’t believe my luck, stumbling across an event like this in my journeys, sir!”
“And you want to, er, document it?”
“Yes! I would like to ask for your permission to move freely about the castle and town, sir.”
“And why should I let you do that?”
“Why, there’s more to a story than its title! If all you knew was dates of events, history wouldn’t be worth studying.”
“And I should trust you because?”
“I’m no soldier, sir. I don’t know how to prove that I am who I am, but there’s not much a scholar could do.”
“Of course. How foolish of me to suspect you.” Kertankuse drummed his fingers on the arm of the throne. “Alright, I’ll make sure you have a room. I look forward to reading this documentation of yours, Chigau Damasu, historian of Ilyarium. I imagine it will prove invaluable to me.”
“Certainly, sir. I would be glad to share it with you.”




Chapter 2
Chapter 1
I was surprised to learn that the capture of Gassad is not complete three days after the invasion. The soldiers tell me that there are still some of Gassad’s soldiers holding out in the cellars. No one is doing much about them, though. The door has been blocked to prevent the soldiers from escaping the cellars, and at this point it’s just a waiting game. Of course, this does limit what the Guldarans can get from the castle, and they’ve been forced to largely go to the people for food and drink. But General Kertankuse, ever noble, has ordered them to treat the people with respect. I’m not sure how long that will last, though. These are soldiers with power over a new area and people, and it would be hard to stop them from exercising that power. It seems to me that Kertankuse is not one to make orders lightly, and any transgressor may find himself in a very bad place. I suspect that’s all that is holding them in check
~~~~~
Kertankuse had ordered a guard to be with Rewjeo at all times. This hadn’t been a problem while he was inside the castle talking to soldiers, but now that he was planning on leaving to talk to the people, he wanted no soldiers near him.
“Sir, I want the people to talk freely. They won’t if there are soldiers around. If they won’t say anything, or at least anything I haven’t already heard from your soldiers, then there’s no point in talking to them. It won’t add anything to my writings.”
“Then find another way. I’m not letting someone walk around freely and take resources from my army when I don’t even know for sure who you are. I’m keeping a guard with you at all times.”
“Fine. Sir.” Rewjeo did not try to hide his dissatisfaction.
~~~~~
Rewjeo walked into the town with a soldier beside him. “So, I don’t suppose you could wait outside while I talk to people?”
“General Kertankuse-“
“I know what he said,” Rewjeo snapped. “He also said to find a way to get them to talk freely, and as far as I can tell this is the only way. Besides, I’d still have a guard with me. Just not with me as much.” The soldier didn’t look satisfied. “It would help Kertankuse, too. If he really understands what the people think, he’ll have better control over the area. You wouldn’t want to be the guy to hinder him, would you?”
~~~~~
He went up to the door of a house, knocked, and gestured for the soldier to move farther away. A woman opened the door. “Hello. Oh, it’s R-“
“Chigau. I’m Chigau.” Rewjeo glanced over at the soldier, and the woman nodded. “I’m a historian from Ilyarium, and I’m writing about what’s happening here as it happens. Would you mind if I talked to you about what’s happening?”
“Oh, of course not. Come in.” She gestured for him to follow and closed the door. “Just follow me back here,” she said, trying to convince the soldier that she didn’t know Rewjeo.
“Is it still here, Malra?” Rewjeo whispered as they went out the back of the house into a small garden area.
“The tunnel? Of course. Why?”
“There are still soldiers in the cellars! I’m gonna get them out.”
“After four days? My goodness. But I have some questions for you, first. Where did you go, and what are you doing now?”
“I told you, I’m getting those soldiers out of there. If that guard asks about me, just tell him I already left. It shouldn’t be too hard to convince him.”
Rewjeo dropped through a trapdoor, closed it, and ran off into the tunnel before Malra had a chance to respond. She muttered to herself as she went back inside, “Of course, Rewjeo. Whatever you say. Oh, and thank you for explaining things.”
~~~~~
Rewjeo had pulled the flint and steel off of the guard earlier. He didn’t seem like he would notice. Rewjeo lit a torch while he could still see it in the light that came through the cracks around the trapdoor, then he trotted off into the tunnel, lighting torches on the way. You could get just about anywhere in Gassad or Gassad Castle from just about anywhere in Gassad or Gassad Castle if you knew how. There were cleverly disguised passages hidden all over the castle and you would never notice them if you didn’t know they were there.
Rewjeo was heading straight into the cellars, and with any luck he could pull the soldiers out of there and no one would notice they were gone for quite a while.
Rewjeo lit every torch along the way. At least it would be light on his way back. The tunnels, useful though they were, were not the nicest places to be. They were dark, musty, and all sorts of strange and gross things might live in there. Even the spiders seemed to have been scared off.
Walking down the hallway, Rewjeo’s mind wandered. There wasn’t anything he was doing. He didn’t have to formulate a plan or come up with an alias or work on tricking anyone. He finally had time to really take in what all had happened.
~~~~~
The soldier had gotten impatient and went to see just what was taking Chigau and that woman so long. “Oh, he left already. Didn’t you see?”
“No, and I think I would have.” The soldier said.
“Well, we were in the back, and he left through the garden gate. He walked over towards where you were waiting,” Malra insisted.
“And he could have just walked past me without me noticing?”
“I don’t know, I wasn’t really paying attention. I’ve been busy trying to get food ready for you soldiers. I-“ She almost mentioned the cellars and how it would be nice when the Guldarans had access to them and that the money was nice but she was running out of food for herself.
Fortunately, the guard cut her off before he noticed her pausing, “Speaking of which, I’m hungry. Do you have anything? I’ll pay you. More than the usual.”
“Of course.” She came out with a bowl of soup. “I was already heating water up. Good timing. Well, good luck finding him!” she said as she handed him the soup.
~~~~~
Seloh noticed the flickering of a torch flame from behind the group. “Hey, guys! Is that a torch?” Everyone reached for their weapons.
“Hello?” Rewjeo called. “Is anyone here?”
“Wait, is that?” Fyrro said, mostly to himself. “Rewjeo?”
“Fyrro?! Is that you? Who all is down here?” Rewjeo asked as he came closer to the group.
“Seloh? How’s the soldiering life been going?”
“Wish I’d gotten to go to Ilyarium with you. I’m sure it was better than spending who knows how long in-“ Seloh was cut off by Rewjeo
“Four days. It’s been four days.”
“Four days? Four days down here. The torches have all died in here, and I’ve had all sorts of sharp things pointed and thrown at me.”
Fyrro noticed that Rewjeo’s eyes and cheeks looked red. Maybe it was just the torch light. “So, there’s a tunnel into the cellars?” He asked as he gestured for Rewjeo to hand the torch to him.
“Yup. The tunnel leads to Malra’s garden. The others brightened at that prospect. “Ah, Slize! How’ve you been holding up?
“Good. There wouldn’t happen to be a tunnel into the stables, would there?”
“No such luck. I’m sure we can find a horse for you though.”
“Bah, figured as much.”
Next, his attention turned to Fyrro’s sister. “Ah, Lemina, darling,” he said, taking her hand, “how are you?”
“Wonderful now, sir,” she said, curtsying awkwardly in her armor. Everyone laughed.
Rewjeo noticed a figure on the ground. “Is that…”
“Mmh?” The figure sounded.
“Flygnyr? Of course. Who else could it be?”
“Well, to the daylight, shall we?” Slize said, impatient to escape the cellars.
~~~~~
Rewjeo knocked on Malra’s back door, with several pairs of eyes watching from a slightly opened trapdoor. She opened. “Ah, Rewjeo. How did the trip go?”
“Good,” he said, nodding. He took a breath and paused briefly. Malra shifted her wait onto one leg and crossed her arms, expecting what was coming next. “Ah, I need to take care of these guys. I have to head back to the castle now.”
“And what am I supposed to do with them if some soldiers come around? ‘Oh, that’s not real armor, I swear.’ Yeah, that’ll work,” she retorted.
“Find some normal clothes, hide the armor down in the tunnel, and tell the soldiers you have some guests over for the evening or something. I don’t know.”
“Fine,” she said, “you owe me,” and gestured for them to come into the house.
“I know. I’ll try and get to see you again in a few days, but Kertankuse is already suspicious enough on his own. I don’t need to give him any more reason to suspect me than I already have.”

[Bobryk]

I am much too tired to read through all of this, but from I saw, is some of it in first person? If so, neat. You don't see much of that, and it's a breath of fresh air for me since I've been focusing on my 3rd person for so long XD

I also liked the people's names too, since I think most of them completely made up. If it's one thing I suck at, it's naming things. (90% of the time I use real names.) So props to you

Also I lol'd at Rewjeo. I wonder where you came up with that one...

[Rujio]

Yeah, some of it is. It's in a different font in Word, but I didn't want to deal with all of the formatting here.

Hah, this story is like five years old. Wanna guess how many names in here I came up with not in fifth grade? Malra and that's it.

Technically, Rewjeo the character existed first. I just decided to use it as a username online.

[Bobryk]

Don't feel bad...a character I made up in the fifth grade is still one of the major characters in mine XD. Same personality, name, everything. (And I'm 20. That was a LONG time ago.)
and no Bobryk is not that name.

And I see. Still, though, REWJEO.

But yes, this thing's definitely got potential. I can see it!

Overcoming writer's block can be hard (it's actually the worst thing ever), but once you get some inspiration, then you may be fortunate enough to enter what I call "author's beast mode" and just going crazy.

Oh and about the no name thing, a good strategy is to just write the whole thing first and then choose a name from there. That's a strategy I use often.

[Rujio]

Lulz. That's all of mine.

Shaddup. It won't say "Rewjeo" as the author if it ever gets published. Maybe.

So you read (some of) it?

Generally I turn on music and it inspires me. Unfortunately, it doesn't always inspire me in ways that help me get past the part of the story I'm stuck at.

If my music is anything to go by, I finish it and then don't give it a name. Unfortunately, that doesn't work in the book world.

[Richter]

Hmmm. You say some of it is first person....Whats the rest of it in?(Didn't take the time to look at it)

But if your interested, I'm actually working on a forum page thats gonna have a spot for stories like this. Who knows, maybe you'll find someone who can help you get sponsored.(The site is still under construction, but I expect it will be done within a week or two.)

just be careful, cause once I finally get around to reading it, I will be very critical, and I hold nothing back when I go into Richter Judge mode(Hahahahaha, its funny cause thats what Faust means!!!!!)

[Rujio]

Third person.

That sounds good.

That's okay, I want criticism.

[Richter]

K, I'm still working on it, but the Beta is out. I'll message you with it so I dont' break any rules.

[Rujio]

Minor update. I just found some of my fish dead, so I don't think I'll get much writing done tonight.

[Rujio]

First post updated! Chapter 2, finished. Critique (and of course enjoy) away!

[Bobryk]

I said I'd try to read it and I did! Here are my thoughts:

Personally, I don't critique other people's writing much. Why? Because styles oftentimes conflict. Your writing style is vastly different from mine and what I'm used to, so it'd be extremely biased if I critiqued that, you know?

And this story hasn't developed too much yet, so there really isn't much to critique about the plot.

One thing I will say though, is that you don't tend to use "so-and-so said/replied/whatever" after someone speaks. This is fine when there's only two characters around, but when there's a bunch, it can be difficult to follow (especially early on when the reader doesn't know the dialects of certain characters yet). I had this problem in the passage that starts with "A warm light..."

That's just me though.
Also, being the editor that I am...
"You could get just about anywhere in Gassad or Gassad Castle from just about anywhere in Gassad or Gassad Castle if you knew how." Eep, this sounds kinda clunky and awkward. It actually seems like it's a mistake of reverting the words of a sentence to make it sound better but forgetting to delete some parts.

If it's anything I'm good at it's word choice and sentence structure, so I'd say my advice is solid that category, if no others.

Good work so far, though. You'll break out of your slump (unless you already have) and will be beastin' this thing out in no time. Oh, and sorry about your fish

[Rujio]

[Bobryk]

[Rujio]

Chapter 4
“Uh, do you have more than that?” Malra asked. “There’s seven of us here. Even if we used the passages, we could hardly do any damage before they figured out how we were doing it or, worse, killed us in the castle. The most damage we could do would be to kill Kertankuse and the other higher ups, but then we’d just have a horde of undirected soldiers. There’s no way we could beat them.”
“We’ll get the prisoners out,” Rewjeo replied. Everyone looked at him as if he was crazy. “Only the soldiers on guard that night were killed, and not even all of them. The vast majority are imprisoned.”
“And how do you plan on getting them out and equipping them? A bunch of unequipped soldiers won’t do much other than anger Kertankuse,” Malra wasn’t going to let them go off on some impossible quest to recapture Gassad.
Fyrro came in now, “Well, then, we’ll just take some equipment from the castle, right?” Rewjeo nodded. “There’s a passage leading right into where the weapons and armor are kept. I remember we’d head in there when we were younger.”
“One problem,” Seloh pointed out, “That passage is inside the castle on both ends. Remember that part? We’d need there to be secret passages to move us between secret passages!”
“Sounds familiar,” Flygnyr said. “Haven’t you said something about that before, Rewjeo?”
“Yeah. They’re not so easy to find, seeing as we’ve never really had a use for them, so I’ll have to do some exploring on my way back, but we can use them to get that stuff out. The bigger problem will be getting the prisoners out. There aren’t any secret passages very close to them- for good reason- so we’ll need a way to safely get them into one and out into the forest, and preferably without Kertankuse figuring out where the passages are.”
~~~~~
Rewjeo had snuck back into the castle and was walking to his room. He was just in time to find Eirk sticking a key into his door. “Excuse me!”
“Ah, Chigau. I couldn’t find you in the castle, and when I came to your room, it was locked. I figured you were inside. But then you wouldn’t answer, so I got a key to get in myself.”
“Well I had it locked for a reason, and I’d appreciate it if you would leave it that way,” Rewjeo said, putting his hand on the door as Eirk finished unlocking the door. “There’s stuff in there I don’t want some people seeing, and I certainly don’t want some drunken soldier wandering in on accident.”
“If you weren’t in there, then where were you?” Eirk asked.
“You can ask anyone who’s been at the gatehouse today, if that’s what you mean.” Eirk looked skeptical. “I spent some time in my room, and some time talking to soldiers and staff around the castle. Why didn’t you see me? Because I didn’t want you to. Why didn’t I want you to? Well, we’ve been over that enough times by now, I think. Thank you for the concern, and good bye!” Rewjeo finished slipping into his room. Eirk could here the clinking of Rewjeo locking the door from the other side.
~~~~~
Rewjeo laid in his bed and thought. He didn’t think about what to do, though. He thought about what had already happened. A year ago, he had set out to Iyarium to study. Before that, he and his friends had lived in the castle. They had explored the secret passages, although it was more him than any of the others, and used those to get all over and do whatever they wanted. Then they had grown up. Fyrro and Flygnyr became soldiers, continuing the proud tradition of their families. Seloh and he, younger than the other two, had always been more scholarly, though. The two of them had spent hours going through the castle library and discussing things that simply didn’t interest the others.
Then came our turn to grow up. I headed off to Ilyarium, and Seloh wanted to follow. But his family also had a proud military tradition, as can be expected of one that lives in the castle, and his father refused to let him. So we separated. I left, alone, for the center of knowledge, and Seloh, Flygnyr, and Fyrro stayed behind. There were some others. Lemina hung around with us sometimes. She did a pretty good job of fitting in. There was Slize, too. I didn’t know him very well, but we’d met. There were others as well, of course. The castle houses a lot of people. But at this point, most of them are either dead or imprisoned.
And that is what Rewjeo returned to. Gassad wasn’t Gassad anymore. Almost everyone he knew, Jyron, his friends’ families, they were all imprisoned at best. Except for the maids and cooks and such. They were still performing their duties, but Kertankuse had them on a rather tight leash. They were confined during the day unless they were doing whatever they did, and Rewjeo had refused as much of that as he could. He didn’t want to risk someone recognizing him, after all.
But maybe it would be better if someone did. He spent his days documenting the destruction of his home pretending to be an outsider. He had to hide constantly, both physically and mentally. No one could know who he was, and he couldn’t let himself succumb to everything that was happening. Watching the destruction was his shield from it. His home was destroyed and his friends were fugitives, but he was playing it like a game.
Well, this was a game in which every move was crucial, and he wasn’t going to make any mistakes. He was going to win.

[Bobryk]

Yay stuff's coming together! I can tell something relatively huge is about to happen.

Also, I think your chapters are numbered wrong. It goes from chapter 3 to 5 then to 4.

As for my advice:
1. Try to merge shorter chapters together, especially if the ideas are a bit similar, or expand upon them to make them more interesting. Not saying short chapters are bad, but sometimes two (or even three) can be put together for clarity purposes. However, chapters are minor at this point; you can worry about those later.

2. As for writing style, yours has quite a bit of charm to it. I'd say your narrative is a bit better than your dialogue (imo). Not saying the dialogue is bad by any means, but your narrative is much better.

3. Introducing characters. It doesn't irk me much since I'm used to fantasy stuff, but some readers get bogged down by introductions of lots of characters at the same time (especially with made up names). The average person would take one look at Fyrro and Flygnyr's names and be like WOAH WTF. In this story there's quite a lot of those, so just give them space and a few scenes before introducing more.

The main character being referred to as Chigau and Rewjeo by different people also adds to this. (I'm not saying to drop this; I actually think it's an interesting aspect of the story. But coupled with lots of other characters may make it confusing.)

I'll see what other stuff I can add to this later.

[Rujio]

[QUOTE=Bobryk,Aug 5 2011, 10:06 AM]Yay stuff's coming together! I can tell something relatively huge is about to happen. [/quote] Yup.

[quote]
Also, I think your chapters are numbered wrong. It goes from chapter 3 to 5 then to 4. [/quote]
Actually, those are the chapters of Rewjeo/Chigau's book. It makes more sense in the Word document, but I'm gonna drop it anyways.


As for my advice:
1. Try to merge shorter chapters together, especially if the ideas are a bit similar, or expand upon them to make them more interesting. Not saying short chapters are bad, but sometimes two (or even three) can be put together for clarity purposes. However, chapters are minor at this point; you can worry about those later.[/quote]
Until chapter 4 they're all 1500 words. Is that too short? I ended chapter 4 where I did because, well, it felt like a good place for chapter to end, even though it was only ~1000 words.

[quote]
2. As for writing style, yours has quite a bit of charm to it. I'd say your narrative is a bit better than your dialogue (imo). Not saying the dialogue is bad by any means, but your narrative is much better.[/quote]
Yay! I agree with you about the dialogue vs. narrative. Do you have any tips for dialogue?

[quote]
3. Introducing characters. It doesn't irk me much since I'm used to fantasy stuff, but some readers get bogged down by introductions of lots of characters at the same time (especially with made up names). The average person would take one look at Fyrro and Flygnyr's names and be like WOAH WTF. In this story there's quite a lot of those, so just give them space and a few scenes before introducing more. [/quote]
But I made those names up in 5th grade when I was obsessed with the letter y! Anyways, I won't introduce more characters for a little while. I think I'll focus on the five from the cellar and then I'll give the reader a little history lesson about the area around Gassad and Guldar. There also needs to be that big thing that's been 'hinted' at, but that would involve new characters, most likely. I'd like to have that before the history part, but then we'd get new characters who would be immediately dropped for a while. That wouldn't help the confusion.

[quote]
I'll see what other stuff I can add to this later.[/QUOTE]
Well, thank you for what you've said so far. At the very least, it's nice to know that you're reading it. Critique is always helpful.

[Bobryk]

broken quotes are broken!

[Rujio]

Not gonna bother quoting this time.

I'm not scrapping his writings, just the "chapter #" before them.

I don't think chapter three was much shorter. Maybe it just felt that way because you didn't read it along with two other chapters? It might be a little shorter, I dunno.

Yeah, something weird will probably happen there. Like did you notice how one paragraph in chapter 4 was randomly first person?

[Rujio]

(First part of?) Chapter 5.

Chapter 5
Rewjeo woke up the next morning to a loud thud. A very loud thud. He shot up and turned to see what it was. His door was being taken off, and it had just come completely off and fallen onto the floor. He ran to the doorway to see two soldiers taking the door and walking down the hallway with it. Eirk was standing there, presumably ‘supervising.’ “What are you doing?!” Rewjeo asked.
“Taking your door.” Chigau said, nonchalantly
“Why?” Rewjeo inquired.
“Lord Kertankuse s-“
“Why?” Rewjeo insisted.
“He doesn’t like the idea of you locking anyone in or out of your room.” Eirk said, just as nonchalantly as before.
Rewjeo sighed. “Won’t this make the soldiers suspicious?
“That’s a risk Lord Kertankuse is willing to take.”
“What happened to not taking risks?”
“How should I know? I’m not Lord Kertankuse,” Eirk said, still with complete nonchalance.
Tell that to your soldiers. Rewjeo thought. “Fine,” he sighed. Then his tone changed. “Tell Kertankuse he should be expecting plenty more written by the end of today.” Rewjeo had a new plan.
“All right,” Eirk said, almost asking, slightly unnerved, and walked away.
~~~~~
Fyrro sat on a rock eating bread as he watched his sister practice throwing her axe with a tree. It was pleasant outside this time of year. He could just sit there and enjoy the air. His sister was different. She had always had this drive to do something. That’s probably what had pushed her to go into the military, even though she’d said that it was because she wanted to follow her big brother. At first she got into medicine because, well, that’s all she was allowed to do. Then she asked her brother if she could spar with him. She got good- really good- really quickly. Maybe even better than he was, and he’d been practicing for years.
At that point, she talked to Jyron about becoming a soldier, and when he saw how good she was, he let her in. It happens every now and then, a girl joining the army, when someone is good enough and driven enough. But usually that was their only dimension. Lemina was different. She could be perfectly feminine, even when she was wearing her custom armor. She could do it right up until you’re sparring, and then she’d knock you to the ground. She was almost… terrifying.
Meanwhile, Seloh sat on another rock, thinking about something. It was hard to say what. There was a lot in his head. He had spent a lot of time thinking since he had joined the military, even more than before. Fyrro guessed that it was because, with Rewjeo gone and surrounded by soldiers, he had no one to discuss things with. The military may have ended up being a good place for him, though. He had grasped tactics incredibly quickly. Fyrro knew that he owed at least his freedom, and probably his life, to him. He was the one who thought to go down to the cellars and what to do once they were there. He had found the best places for every bench, barrel, or chair. Maybe he was doing something similar now, figuring out what to do if they were attacked. Or maybe he was just thinking.
~~~~~
Rewjeo put down his pen. It had been six days since his door had been removed, and his writings had nearly quadrupled in size since then. He had written just about everything he could about what had happened. He had opinions on all manner of things, from what the Guldarans thought of the Gassadian food, to what the Gassadians thought of Kertankuse’s rule, and he had a complete collection of the records. How many gallons of this drink and of that, what food they had, how many Guldarian soldiers there were and what ranks they were, how many prisoners, and what equipment there was. This would be very helpful to Kertankuse, having everything down in one place, but it would also be very helpful to Rewjeo.
There was one more thing he wanted to get in his history first, though: the history of this part of the world. As much as Chigau was a disguise, he was simply Rewjeo with a different name. This was also critical to his own plans. He had to get Kertankuse to trust him, and he would ask Kertankuse himself about this. He could see if he was trusted yet or not.
He walked down the hall quickly, as if he was in a hurry, but he held his papers in front of him with both arms like a child. He bumped into a soldier in his rush. “Oh, sorry,” he said, scrambling to not drop his papers.
The soldier brushed it off initially, but as he saw where Rewjeo was going, he stopped him. “Hey, where’re you going?” he asked, making it obvious that he was wondering if Rewjeo was heading to Kertankuse.
“Me?” Rewjeo said, turning and walking backwards, still towards Kertankuse. “I think it’s time I ask Kertankuse about all this.”
The soldier trotted up to Rewjeo, who turned back around and started his brisk pace again. “Wait, wait,” the soldier said, grabbing Rewjeo by the shoulder, stopping him and turning him to face the soldier. “Is that all you’re going to Kertankuse about?”
Rewjeo looked at him confused. “Why else would I go? Ah!” Rewjeo thought to get his paper and pen ready to take notes.
The soldier sighed and put his hand on Rewjeo’s paper, pushing it down. “You know, you don’t have to write everything down,” he said as Rewjeo slowly lifted his eyes from his paper. “Anyways, there’s some questioning as to who is seeing what you’re writing.”
“I’m the only one seeing it,” Rewjeo stated very clearly. “Who are you?” Rewjeo asked, not quite believing he was just your average soldier.
“Smyx. I’m Smyx.” The soldier said. “You sure you’re the only one seeing it?”
Well, that’s his name, but who is he? Rewjeo thought. “Yes, I’m the only one seeing it!” Rewjeo said, annoyed. “Now, if you don’t mind, I’m going to Kertankuse so that he can tell me things, not the other way around, Smyx.”
Rewjeo started walking off at his brisk pace again. Smyx trotted next to him. “Hey, hey! I wanna talk to you some more!” Rewjeo started walking faster. Smyx stopped and sighed. “Rewjeo!”
Rewjeo stopped dead in his tracks. “W-What?!” he asked without turning his head.
~~~~~



So, I'm not sure where Smyx came from or what is gonna happen with him. I wasn't even planning on him happening. There was just supposed to be some soldier who was suspicious. Then this just happened.

[Bobryk]

Woot more stuff! Anyway, here are my thoughts:

Try to avoid the use of "very" and "really" when describing something. (eg, the food was very good; the food was really good). In written form, those words are considered weak. It's ok every once in a while to use them, but try not to overdo it. (You only used them a couple times so it's no big deal, but I'm just giving the warning.)

However, the above is only relevant toward narrative and written forms. Very and really are more useful when speaking rather than writing, so the use of those words in dialogue makes it seem more human and normal.

Now: