The words on the page flickered in the soft candlelight. Niall worked quickly, writing as fast as his quill would allow, sucking ink from the vial on the desk and spewing words on the page.
A sound broke the quiet of the night, and he froze, quill in hand, waiting. The soft thump of booted footsteps outside made him pinch out the candle and duck underneath the desk, holding his breath. Every fiber of him strained to listen as the footsteps approached the window above the desk where he had been working. They slowed as they drew near, and he heard the metallic clink-clink of a raised lantern.
Only after Niall heard the lantern lowered, and the footsteps resumed their even pace past the library, did he dare to resume breathing: ragged, nervous gasps for air.
His master was clearly restless. Niall crawled out from beneath the desk, lit the candle, and forged onward. He had to get this one right. Had to. One more poor continuation to one of Evil Editor's openings, and he knew his quill would end up where the sun don't shine.
Opening: Ronald Toland.....Continuation: McKoala
23 comments:
All I can say is:
"Good."
Keep it up!
I agree with rei. I would read more of this. -JTC
very nice, very nice.
I have two suggestions. First, instead of saying "The soft thump of booted footsteps outside made him pinch out..." how about "Outside, the soft thump of booted footsteps made him pinch out..." IMHO this reads better.
Second, I'd say "away from" instead of "past the library" in the third paragraph. But that is purely personal preference.
There's a lot of atmosphere stuffed into that opening. Well done.
Hahaha! The continuation made laugh!
The story grabbed me and I wanted to keep on reading - please keep on with this one!
Yay Koala! Rock on! LOL That was hilarious.
Whether I would read on or not depends on the back copy. The style isn't bad, but it's quite redundant.
Niall is working quickly.
He's writing fast.
With a quill.
The quill does what quills do.
Fast.
He has a quill in his hand.
"Metallic clink-clink" bugged me. Why make it an onomatopoeia when it's already a word? And why describe the sound when we already have the onomatopoeia? It's like saying "the feline meow-meow of a cat."
Still, it's pretty competent, so if it has a plot, I'd give it a try.
I have never heard a lantern clink when raised.
A very odd description.
Outside, the soft thump of booted footsteps made him pinch out...
I'm not a fan of stuff making people do things. If you just say Outside, the soft thump of booted footsteps halted his work. He pinched out the candle... we'll figure out it was cause and effect.
I like it, but I wonder how secretive this person really was writing by candlelight in front of a window. In a dark night, that can be quite obvious.
I've snuffed out a few candles in my time (living as I do the second to last house on the grid). There is always a tale-tell lingering wisp of smoke for up to thirty seconds after the candle is snuffed. Perhaps you could use that to increase Niall's concern over being caught.
How about the sound made when one snuffs out the candle. And the scent of the candle.
More sensory impressions could draw this out a bit more and increase the tension.
Best of luck.
In the second sentence, I think you mean the quill was sucking and spewing, but it actually says Niall was sucking and spewing.
Nice beginning, though. I would definitely keep reading.
It's interesting how "The words on the page flickered in the soft candlelight" can strike me as simultaneously clichéd and nonsensical. (Though nowhere near as bizarre as "sucking ink from the vial on the desk and spewing words on the page".) And to be honest I see that same combination throughout, like when "every fiber of him strained to listen". (Maybe Niall is different from me, but I generally listen without straining any muscle fibers, much less the ones in my pinky fingers.)
The prose is the biggest problem here. I can't really evaluate any other problems, because the excerpt doesn't give me any idea of the plot or characterization or, indeed, anything but the prose. It's not so much that it's completely terrible prose so much as that its reach exceeds its grasp. It tries to make clichéd phrases sound original with vivid imagery, but the result is that it still sounds clichéd and now also makes no sense.
Good one, McKoala!
As for the opening, I must be tired. I think it's very good, but I still don't want to read on. It feels too good, too dramatic, too contrived for my taste. And there's no character. (Yes, I realize it's only 150 words and you can't get everything in.) And the scary threat outside the door, I'm starting to get tired of it as an opening. Oh my, I'm in a foul mood.
Sorry, that doesn't help. Smiling, trying harder here.
On the nit-picky side, "sucking ink ...spewing words"--at first I thought you meant Niall, then I realized it was the quill.
Further down, I'm not sure you could hear a lantern lowered. You might detect that from the change of the light through the window, but by sound?
These 2 small nitpicks pulled me out of the story.
Good luck.
I have to agree with the ghoti... I'm usually a fan of "overwrought" prose, but this excerpt struck me as faintly ridiculous.
I'd only read on if it became clear that this was intended as parody or spoof.
I have two suggestions. First, instead of saying "The soft thump of booted footsteps outside made him pinch out..." how about "Outside, the soft thump of booted footsteps made him pinch out..." IMHO this reads better.
The second one doesn't work for several reasons, mostly because "he" isn't outside pinching the candle. The original also struggles with proper attribution of action. The main issue is that the sound doesn't make him do anything. He reacts to the sound to do something.
Maybe "The soft thump of booted footsteps on the sidewalk/snow/whathaveyou outside his window broke his concentration. He pinched out the candle and ducked under the desk, holding his breath."
Sometimes, divide and conquer is the best method. Don't shorten things too much.
you know, I hesitated from writing a comment. I like that this opening starting out so atmosphereic and "overwrought" (to borrow a phrase from above.
I like the description of writing with a quill. I've used quills and they do suck ink at a strange rate and spew it back on the page in a way that your hand doesn't like.
I suspect this begins a historical mystery where Niall is trying to copy a forbidden text. Let the atmosphere remain, don't write it out of existense.
Niall is the name of one of the prominent members of Robert Jordan's cast of thousands in the Wheel of Time. He's head of the fundamentalist warrior sect (Children of Light? It's been a while since I cracked the tomes open). Not that you can't reuse it, just FYI. And this is fantasy, right? People in historical dramas have last names.
I agree about the cliches. "A sound broke the quiet of the night" and "Every fiber of him strained to listen" bugged me particularly.
You've used the slow-motion effects of prose--magnifying details, concentrating heavily on a few moments, describing action lavishly and intimately--on action where nothing happens. I don't know about yours, but my copy of the Reader-Author Contract reads: "The Reader shall read scenes of interesting conflict and rising action. In exchange, the Author shall deliver appropriate complications and climaxes as a direct result of such scenes. Anticlimactic let-downs are right out."
As a direct result of nothing happening, there's a waste of extremely valuable words in one of the two solid gold pages in your story: the first page and the last page.
Niall is copying something secretly, frantically, then two guards come by and nothing happens. I'm interested in what Niall is copying and why, you've got me there. Now it's time to put him in some real danger.
I liked it a lot. The "cliches" didn't bother me. (And I am familiar with several types of lanterns and have encountered several that clink. Maybe you want to change that so you don't confuse people who haven't, though). I would agree with Dave that "The soft thump of booted footsteps outside made him pinch out..." is awkward and it might be best to change that. Otherwise, I loved the atmosphere, and I would read on.
I'd keep reading, nice atmosphere, good tension.
Suggestions:
To change the "made him pinch out the candle" consider "The soft thump of booted footsteps outside broke the quiet of the night. He pinched out the candle and ducked..."
I'd revise "Every fiber of him" to "He".
I don't have any problem with the protag's name. A metal lantern could squeak when the swaying lantern scraped against the handle as it was lifted, so that didn't bother me.
I enjoyed the continuation. Kudos to both authors.
Wow! That's a lot of useful feedback!
Thanks to everyone for their comments. The novel's complete. Now I have several more ideas of what to look for when I do my next edit.
Nice continuation, too...made me laugh out loud.
(And of course, thanks to Evil Editor for running this blog)
I think my contribution's been cleaned up a bit - thank you oh evil one.
Dave, do you write on a slope? It makes a huge difference in the speed of the ink flow if you have a sloped surface and if you keep your quill at a right angle to the surface. Having done that, I'll take a quill over any dip pen going, and probably over a fountain pen.
YMMV, of course - but note that scribes in manuscript illustrations almost always have a slope and pen at 90 degrees to it.
Oh, cool. I've been wondering for the past 25 years (or just about) why writing desks used to be sloped and now they're flat. Thanks, Barbara, for solving the great mystery of my life. And why a raven is like a writing desk. :)
Barbara, I'll try slanting the desk next time.
Now, I mostly type on a keyboard.
Dang, I thought my continuation was really good but McKoala beat me out...
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