Okay new game: hooked or not hooked.....

[LizW65]

Well, this is a dream/premonition from a chapter of mine. Its 184 words.
Do your worst.

I was walking down a narrow brown stone corridor that was dimly lit. Everybody around me had nondescript faces, with dull noses, no eyes and no definitive facial structure at all. The only thing that set them apart was the clothing worn. When people talked, I couldn’t locate the person talking. It was confusing.
What’s going on? I thought.
There were seven people in front of me wearing black velvet robes, seemingly guarding the one in the middle, with the six ‘guards’ in front of the guarded creating a ‘w‘ formation.
“So, I see you’ve made it. I hope you realize you’re going to die here.” A creeping voice said, in a way that made me feel suffocated.
Although the faces were hooded and shaded, I deduced that the guarded was the one speaking. I felt the presence of people around me, so I looked to my side and myself and saw that two people robed in white were behind me to my sides.
But for some strange reason both of them felt very familiar. If only they had their hoods down…

Lots to play with here.  Since it's a dream, you may want to work on making it more fragmented and disorienting, maybe go with present tense.  So, if I may:

      "A narrow stone corridor, dimly lit.  A sea of black-robed figures: featureless, eyeless faces, blobby noses.  Voices, muttering, but I can't hear the words.  
      Six of the figures appear to be guarding a seventh.  He speaks, something in his voice making me feel suffocated:  "So here you are at last.  You do realize you're going to die here."
      Sensing movement behind me, I look round and see two other figures, garbed in white.  Their faces are covered, but for some reason they feel familiar..."

Anyway, since dreams seldom make sense from a logical standpoint, the trick is to play with senses, mood and emotion, all the things that do come into play in dreams.  Any smells?  Does your protag. feel frightened, curious, detached from the action?  When he tries to focus on objects, do they become less distinct?   Is this a premonition of his death, and if so, what is the most important aspect of the vision?  Has he seen the place before?  And so on.  Hope this helps.

[Gruud]

I sense a momentary bending of the rules here, as some posts are now from the middle of stories, and not from the beginning.

And all of this talk of dreams has had me picking across my hard drive, looking for ... something I could post here.

I've been dying to do so, but can't cram a properly redone opening into the word limit.

So here goes, This was written a couple of years ago for some online fiction that I was doing.

Please forgive the present tense, which makes the whole thing sound a bit loopy, but I'm at work now and have no time to re-tense it. It is otherwise unedited, although it could do with a few changes. 

It's a smidgen over the 250 word limit too, as it's part of a longer bit. Hope that's okay ...

Gru’ud starts awake, alone in Shield Hall, uncertain if he has heard screaming, or has been screaming. His body is dripping a cold clammy sweat, his limbs still twitching and jerking.

A quick glance up toward the quietly sleeping crows tells him he is safe, and that the screams were not his own. The crows make excellent watchmen. He struggles to his feet and fumbles on his robe, his hands trembling as he ties the sash.

Gru’ud’s mind is reeling from the visions he has seen, his thoughts racing now, out of control. He stops what he’s doing and closes his eye and forces his breathing back to normal. Regaining control he then calms his heart, willing it to return to its normal rhythm. Finally, he stills the spasms in his limbs, their desire to strike out now subsiding. Gru’ud opens his eyes, and begins to recall, committing all that he can to memory.

The nightmares had come to him three in a row, ever an ominous sign. And he knew for no reason that if he could just discern their meaning, much death, perhaps his own, may yet be avoided.

The first had begun with a scene from his youth, a birthing at Uncle Nazz’s compound. Gru’ud had seen many while helping his uncle, and recognized the tools and the linens. But he saw no sign of Nazz nor of the midwife and turned to look toward the bed. He could not see the woman lying there, but could hear her grunting and breathing. Attending the birth, and blocking his view, stood a black robed figure, silent, as was the mother. Her breaths were coming faster and the grunts more intense, but the mother never cried out. With one final groan the birth was completed, but Gru’ud heard no squalling from the infant.

The figure in black, who had not helped with the birthing, reached down and plucked the child up. It drew the babe close and muttered some words, then held it aloft for all to see. But Gru’ud’s dream vision had already begun to fade and he could see nothing of the child, but it filled him with dread and revulsion. As the scene slid completely from his view, his heart filled with a deep, kindred sadness, for he knew that the child was an Abomination.


Hooked, or not hooked?

[the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh]

Bump Neurovore.  So did you 'sodding' do it yet?     LOL.....

Friday is writing night. I'll take another whack at it tomorrow or Sunday.

[Starbeam]

Heh...I just wanna see what sorta comments I get for this one.  It's nothing yet, though I have ideas of where it might go.


   Belynda hugged her arms across her chest, grasping her shoulders, rocking back and forth.  Tears glimmered down her cheeks, and she muttered over and over.
   “Why did you have to leave me?  I can’t live without you.  I need you.  Please, why did you leave me?”
   Words rolled around in her head, and she reached for a pen and paper to write the poem that was forming.  She felt hollow inside, her one true love had left her, and she didn’t know why. 
   Running the pen across the paper, she kept muttering under her breath, not caring that her tears stained the paper under her hand.  It was better that way; he would know how much he meant when he saw the tear-stained paper.
                            ***
   “Who the hell reads this shit?” I said, flopping the book closed and practically pushing it back to the shelf.  A girl nearby, wearing her hair in short dyed black spikes, turned around.
   “It’s not shit; it’s beautiful,” she said, holding the book to her chest.  I eyed her up and down.  Along with the spiky hair, which was apparently also shot through with purple and pink, she had several hoops in her ears, pale makeup, and she wore black and white striped tights under an oversized black metal band tshirt.  Really, how emo could you possibly get?
   “Yeah, you keep believing that.”

[Philliph]

Lots to play with here.  Since it's a dream, you may want to work on making it more fragmented and disorienting, maybe go with present tense.  So, if I may:

      "A narrow stone corridor, dimly lit.  A sea of black-robed figures: featureless, eyeless faces, blobby noses.  Voices, muttering, but I can't hear the words.  
      Six of the figures appear to be guarding a seventh.  He speaks, something in his voice making me feel suffocated:  "So here you are at last.  You do realize you're going to die here."
      Sensing movement behind me, I look round and see two other figures, garbed in white.  Their faces are covered, but for some reason they feel familiar..."

Anyway, since dreams seldom make sense from a logical standpoint, the trick is to play with senses, mood and emotion, all the things that do come into play in dreams.  Any smells?  Does your protag. feel frightened, curious, detached from the action?  When he tries to focus on objects, do they become less distinct?   Is this a premonition of his death, and if so, what is the most important aspect of the vision?  Has he seen the place before?  And so on.  Hope this helps.

Hmm, thinking about it this way really does make room for many more options.
Thanks, the advice will likely help me in this dream, and definitely a few others.
Well Gruud, i suppose i shall post something. maybe the exact beginning of it.

Oh yeah, i'm not trying to be conceited or anything, i'm just not replying to anybody elses hooked or not hooked replies because i dont have any of the expertise wanted. just you guys wait a few years...

[Philliph]

Well, mine is 100 words over. i tried to take note of douglas adam's awesomeness and incorporate it into my own book. I have revised this piece like a bajillion times. Would this have any of you thinking "Hmm, i think i'll read this," if you picked it up in a library?

My name is Ranulf Iroquois Tesven. I’m fifteen years old and a few inches short of six feet tall. I have sun-bleached blonde hair with strips of the brown hair I used to have, azure eyes, and, for the most part, white with a slight tan. I wore tan trousers and a thin white t-shirt undershirt with a black one covering it with black, hard leather shoes as I walked down from my old white wooden house to the beige brick butcher shop a half-mile down the dirt road.
At my waist was a money pouch with a dagger containing a four-inch blade, the maximum length for a teen to carry in my town of Reor-Fliyon (Ray-oar Flee-own).
Only three more years and I would be able to carry a true hunting knife! I  thought.
 I carried with me eight dragon coppers, three leafed irons, and a single silver with the King’s face on it in a brown money pouch.
–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
Note:
The money of Pantenime, namely dataries (Day-tear-ees), is a coined type of currency. Each coin has a different value. The way they are valued is established by the materials the iron base is coated with and the insignias/emblems carved into them.
A copper with a dragon emblem would be translated to one dollar. An iron with a leaf insignia being five, an iron base with a copper lion insignia is ten, a copper base with a silver ox emblem is fifteen. A pure silver plated coin along with King Quaerine’s face being twenty.
From there the coin values jump from twenty to thirty, forty, fifty, and finally one-hundred.
An onyx plated coin with a snake symbol would be thirty, an onyx plated coin with a golden flower insignia would be forty, and a gold with a feather emblem would be valued at fifty. And last, but not least, a platinum plated coin with an eagle symbol would be one-hundred.
–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
While walking, I constantly thought about being in King Quaerine’s personal army, the glory of the kingdom. I imagined myself ten years older, muscular with a scruffily bearded face, and wearing the eagle symbol of the king on my gleaming silver armor, marching on my way to war with Galtea eighteen years ago.

[belial.1980]

Can't remember where I left off. It's been awhile, so I'll start with Liz's:

Lizwiz: Good use of descriptors and conveying the character's mood. Hooked.

Gruud: If you check earlier posts I think they ammended it so it doesn't necessarily have to come from the beginning. Any 250ish words that can stand alone. Anyway...yeah yours hooked me. Interested in knowing what kind of abomination we're dealing with here.

Starbeam: This made me chuckle. I'm not really sure where you're going with it, but I imagine Belynda as one of those "goth" kids that write laughably bad poetry about vampires and suicide and such. I liked seeing one being the butt of a joke and would be interested to see where it's going. Hooked.

Philliph: I like where you're going with this. It's easy to identify with the youthful energy. A few bits of advice: (Mind you, I'm not a professional writer by any stretch so take this all with a grain of salt.)

Ranulf gives a pretty vivid description of himself in the first person. I think it would've been more appropriate in the 3rd person, just because when you're telling a story I think you put less emphasis on giving an objective description of yourself. Now, maybe if he was very vain, and he was bragging about how handsome he is, that might be different. But it appears that his physical appearnce isn't necessarily an important facet to this character at this time and could've been saved for later.

Likewise with the description of the monetary system. It's obvious that you've put a lot of thought into it, and that's great, but I think the specifics could be revealed later on. But, as I was saying, I think most of us can relate to Ranulf's situation. Young people want to grow up and grab the world by the horns. I'm interested to see where this is going.



Alright here's mine, from Dallas Texas, weighing in at 213 words...


Jack sat in the dark whispering with his mantra while Tess bounced around the campsite, butchering I Just Want to Have Something to Do Tonight by The Ramones. The opossum's blood cooled and crusted on his hands as he walked a mental tightrope between the waking world and world of dreams. The moon sank low on the horizon and the campfire burnt to shimmering red embers. Then he felt it—a frigid wind that seemed to frost his bones.

The reflection of something dark and indescribable filled the glossy pools of the dead animal's eyes. He was suddenly reminded of the time he and his dad had gone hiking and he'd heard the warning rattle of a rattlesnake hidden in the brush alongside the trail. Jack had known something deadly was watching him, feeling his body heat, tasting him from an arm's length away with its flickering tongue. This same sense of unnatural intimacy crept over him as he stared into the eyes of the sacrifice. It's not a reflection. This death—this blood—is an open doorway and I'm looking through it. Something's on the other side, looking right back at me.   

He dropped the carcass and ran up the hill like the devil was chasing him; the idea seemed very plausible.   

[Philliph]

Philliph: I like where you're going with this. It's easy to identify with the youthful energy. A few bits of advice: (Mind you, I'm not a professional writer by any stretch so take this all with a grain of salt.)

Ranulf gives a pretty vivid description of himself in the first person. I think it would've been more appropriate in the 3rd person, just because when you're telling a story I think you put less emphasis on giving an objective description of yourself. Now, maybe if he was very vain, and he was bragging about how handsome he is, that might be different. But it appears that his physical appearnce isn't necessarily an important facet to this character at this time and could've been saved for later.

Likewise with the description of the monetary system. It's obvious that you've put a lot of thought into it, and that's great, but I think the specifics could be revealed later on. But, as I was saying, I think most of us can relate to Ranulf's situation. Young people want to grow up and grab the world by the horns. I'm interested to see where this is going.

Alright here's mine, from Dallas Texas, weighing in at 213 words...


Jack sat in the dark whispering with his mantra while Tess bounced around the campsite, butchering I Just Want to Have Something to Do Tonight by The Ramones. The opossum's blood cooled and crusted on his hands as he walked a mental tightrope between the waking world and world of dreams. The moon sank low on the horizon and the campfire burnt to shimmering red embers. Then he felt it—a frigid wind that seemed to frost his bones.

The reflection of something dark and indescribable filled the glossy pools of the dead animal's eyes. He was suddenly reminded of the time he and his dad had gone hiking and he'd heard the warning rattle of a rattlesnake hidden in the brush alongside the trail. Jack had known something deadly was watching him, feeling his body heat, tasting him from an arm's length away with its flickering tongue. This same sense of unnatural intimacy crept over him as he stared into the eyes of the sacrifice. It's not a reflection. This death—this blood—is an open doorway and I'm looking through it. Something's on the other side, looking right back at me.   

He dropped the carcass and ran up the hill like the devil was chasing him; the idea seemed very plausible.   

Thats what it was!!! ever since i wrote it i felt something was wrong. i even badgered my friends about it. 3rd person was the answer.
But, being my semi-stubborn self i am going to keep the note part in there.
Look for me on the best-selling authors list in a few years  
Hopefully.

Belial, i'm hooked. ever since i read my first Darren shan's Cirque du freak i have been looking for anything awesomely dark and vampirey. but this isn't vampirey. anyways, i'm still hooked.  

[LizW65]

Belial:  I like it.  Nice job of establishing a creepy atmosphere.  My only issue is with the first paragraph, where I had to re-read a couple of times before I realized Jack, not Tess, was the one with bloody hands.

[Gritti]

Alright I'll try the opening of the piece that I started last yeat but lost modivational steam on...let me know if i sould leave it alone or revisit it when I get a chance.

The prisoner opened his eyes and rolled over onto his stomach.  He reached out his hand to hover above a tiny speaker set into the heavy metal frame of his bed.   “4, 3, 2, 1”, he said out loud and then covered the speaker. 

“GOOD MORNING 1012 – RECOUP TIME IS OVER –TODAY YOU’RE ASSIGNED TO THE LAB AND THE DOCTOR IS ALREADY WAITING SO GET MOVING. - NORISHMENT IN 5 MINUTES.”

 Everyday had started the same way for the past 13 months.  If he hadn’t started covering the speaker during the first week he’d probably gone deaf before too long.  He rolled back over, sat up, and closed his eyes preparing for part two of this ritual awakening.  Instantly the room was filled with light so bright he could see it through his eye lids.   “That’s another point for me Doc.”  He considered anytime the Doc failed at making him miserable a small victory in their silent war.  If life in prison had taught him anything, it was to revel in the small victories because you simply never had any other kind.  He smiled the only smile he expected to have all day and began to get ready. 
The Doc is waiting….that’s just great he thought and looked around his room.  Room, yeah right, technically it was his 5 foot cube “cell” but he’d decided long ago that to maintain a positive outlook he would think of it as his, very very cozy, room.  True, he could never fully stretch his 5’11’’ frame while inside his room, but on the bright side, it was a cinch to clean up.

Hooked or Not?

[the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh]

Bump Neurovore.  So did you 'sodding' do it yet?     LOL.....

I through-read and proofed 167,000 words on Sunday, so partly..  It turns out to have been a really good idea, because doing a synopsis of this novel would really have been impaired by not remembering what happens in it.

[meg_evonne]

I through-read and proofed 167,000 words on Sunday, so partly..  It turns out to have been a really good idea, because doing a synopsis of this novel would really have been impaired by not remembering what happens in it.

  ROFLMAO   

We're you the one who said, "if I can write it in fewer words, I would have done so?"  LOL

[the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh]

We're you the one who said, "if I can write it in fewer words, I would have done so?"  LOL

I'm not the only person to have said that, but I do abide by it as a way of looking at things.

[meg_evonne]

yeah and I'm procrastinating....   geez, get to work Meg

[Philliph]

Alright, heres the first piece of a new book i'm starting to work on. Hope it catches your interest.


-----------------------
A bright spinning multi-hued flash of light. A hard something charged out to hit my head and then snapped. While I’m falling towards the ground at an awkward angle, I notice that sunlight is skimming the tops of the trees as a few small birds pass overhead. Then a rough but oddly soft surface rushed up to catch my back and another hard something hit me in the back of the head.
Then blackness.
I jolted up, becoming dizzy, then let myself fall back down. There are birds chirping, and the sound woke me up from my half sleep. I open my eyes and realized I’m in a forested area. It smells like spring, but the weather is still cold. The sun had risen enough that I can see it though the leaves. Head aching, I stood up to look around and drink in my surroundings.
I’d taken the time to think about it and I  surmised that I was in a forest but I didn’t know which one. The trees surrounding me are a mans width and five times as tall. I looked down to where I had landed and saw that I was standing on top of a flowered bush with a rock in the spot where my head had landed.
Around me I heard hushed footsteps then lifted my arm and opened my mouth to beckon them towards me, hoping to ask where I was. As I came to a realization I shut my mouth before my breath can make it there.
I’m in a forest, I told myself. I have to be cautious, dangerous animals could be living in this forest.
I quietly moved a for a few minutes, roughly circling the spot where I had awaken to get my blood flowing. I tried to remember how I got here, but I couldn‘t. I could barely remember anything past the bright flash of light, and this scared me. My heart rate started accelerating.
I could remember the basic stuff though, so I guess that comes as little consolation. For example, I knew that the something that had rushed out to hit my head was a branch. I had stopped walking, realizing that I didn’t hurt at all. I lifted up my arms to look at them, checking if they were cut or bruised from the fall, but they didn’t look like normal human hands.
They were prosthetic.
But I don’t remember what put them on my arms, nor did I know the necessity for the replacement. I examined them closely and found that they were strangely unique.
My hands…In my right palm was an inset sphere that glows with physically clashing edged strands of black and yellow that resemble electricity. Extending away from the sphere, but still connected to it, are glowing, pulsating blue strips that–are one-fourth of a centimeter in width–reach all the way down my fingers to the tips, and there they expand into a circle that is three-fourths of a centimeter in diameter. My left hand is the same way, except for the fact that the sphere and glowing blue strips are on the back of my left hand, rather than on the palm, and in the sphere, rather than black and yellow electricity, is a dull shade of purple.
Hmm, electricity, I thought.
I started forward again, walked into the shade of the trees in front of me and spotted a mound of dirt, cleared of any shrubbery to my right. I stared at it, concentrating.
I continue gazing at the mound, and I lifted my arm up, outstretched at shest level and in a controlled movement I napped my thumb and middle finger of my right hand together, creating sparks.
As I predicted, a thin and relatively weak bolt of lightning struck the dirt, solidifying the topmost patch into a glass-like substance.
I jumped back despite my prediction, and tripped over an above-ground root. I patted my hand on my leg, thinking it was going to catch fire. I stood up and took a quick glance at the glass-like dirt.
Scared of myself, I fled the area, trying to reach the end of the forest. After a few minutes of frightened running, I reached the brink and what happened next seemed completely impossible. What happened next blew my mind completely.
I was in a desert. I looked to my right and my left and there was nothing but sand except for the forested area behind, and when I focused, I could see the end of it to either side of me.
-----------------------

Sorry for going over the directed word count every time. I hope it was worth it.