Well I’m not too sure where to post this but since I’m planning to become a writer when I leave college I thought I might as well see what you guys (Since you have pretty good taste in writing). So here’s a sample of my writing, this is for a character background for a superhero RPG I’m playing over at another forum.
They called me an angel. Maybe it was the wings, maybe it was because I saved them or maybe it was just wishful thinking but I didn’t bother to correct them. The Reverend told me that I was a gift from god but he also says that about the smallest things in life, I owe him my life as he took me in after he discovered me huddled in a smoking crater in the courtyard of the church. He has supported me throughout my new life here, I say ‘new’ life when I’m not even sure if I had an old one. My oldest memory is waking to the touch of the old mans hands on my forehead, checking my temperature as I lay in the small shack outside the church and hearing his cracking voice muttering to himself “...falling from Lord-knows-where straight out of the sky and wings that disappear straight into his back and barely a mark on him, I’d call him an angel but his eyes show to be far more human then that, Christopher you’d of wished to see this!” From then on I started working under him, doing odd-jobs that needed to be done.
It was at this time when my strength became evident and my presence had been noticed by the citizens of the town so Reverend Nayder had to think up a way to pass me off as someone that wouldn’t draw much attention and from then on I became Christopher Nayder II, taking the name of his late elder brother and pass myself off as his son. But both me and the Reverend realised that my gifts could be used for something much greater than a simple odd-jobs man, I could be someone that could make a difference in the world, I could be a hero.
My first adventure could of gone a lot better, I underestimated my opponent for he showed no outside signs of power but as I told him to drop what he had taken from the safety deposit boxes I felt a deep chill running through my veins and my own body buckle as his icy blast stabbed into my skin like a thousand dull daggers. As my vision started to blur the robber stepped up to me, his skin shedding as if a simple disguise revealing blue skin underneath with blonde hair changing to neon yellow and eyes turning a bright red that glowed with an inner light. Then he spoke, his voice possessing it’s own chill “Don’t try your luck against Cold Snap, got it Wings?” And as if someone had just flipped a switch everything went black.
That was six months ago, I still haven’t had much luck tracking down this ‘Cold Snap’ but I have had successes elsewhere, using an abandoned church building just outside of town and the help of Reverend Nayder I hope to make my mark on this city and for them to see me as I hope they do. As someone who can make a difference in this world. A Saviour.
Mal, I really like the storyline for your character. My inner editor is twitching a little bit, but I can ignore it (her?). I could definitely see a whole series of stories written about Christopher (maybe a graphic novel or series of comic books?).
Thanks guys And please, don’t ignore the editor, I really want to try and get everything about my writing tuned up And coments, whether it’s criticism or praise is honestly welcome.
My inner editor is twitching a little bit, but I can ignore it (her?).
Same here, but I’m keeping her squashed down.
I have this really fun mental image of you and me stuffing little people down into barrels, saying, “Shh! He didn’t ask us to edit, just to read! Shh! Get back in there!”
Mal, mainly for me, it’s a matter of punctuation and run-on sentences, though there are only a couple of those. Also, something about the second paragraph seems a little awkward, but I haven’t figured out how to fix it. I know the gist of what you want to say, so that’s what my brain registers, without actually changing the wording, if that makes sense.
I always waned to become an author but i’m too lazy to. I post in other forums stories, but I’m too lazy to finish them . Plus I’m always in a hurry and i can never type properly. (Speed-typing became an addiction to me and i can never ever get used to it. Ever.) Anyway, good work Mal.
Well I’ve recently written another story for college, this time an attempt at a short comic fantasy story. I call it Prophecies.
It is said that if you were to follow the pointed mountains south, chase the muddy waters of the largest swamps and hike for about three days through the driest, most implausibly place, desert that will suddenly pop into view you will come across a great forest. If you manage to make it through the forest without alerting any of those particularly nasty wolves then you will appear right back on the north side of the pointed mountains. However, if you just went east from the mountains you would come across a large, for a village anyway, settlement known to its occupants as Hillsville. Hillsville was founded by a group of philosopher-explorers known as The Barnmen and was named by for the large hills around the village by their leader, Sir Reginald ‘Bloody Obvious’ Barns, a man famous in the wider world for his books such as ‘Money May Or May Not Be Evil But It Lets You Buy Things’ and ‘Bad things Happen to Everyone, Though They May Happen To Some People More Often.’ But this was over two hundred years ago and now the city is populated mainly by farmers, farmers wives, farmers children and various animals related to the farming profession along with all the priests and acolytes of Mord, known in the main village as ‘that group of old men who wander around mumbling to themselves in that big building up on the big hill’ and their leader High Priest Deryn, known in the village as ‘the really old one with the big beard who sometimes gets up on that big hill and shouts at everyone’. Needless to say everyone worshipped Mord and held the priests in the highest regard. But this story isn’t about them. Okay, it is about them a bit but the focus of this story is a young farmhand known as Gareth. Gareth Koroan.
Gareth had grown up in this place. Son of a farmer and the daughter of another farmer he decided to take up the family trade. Farming. He had taken on is fathers looks as well, he wasn’t too tall, an inch or two above average really, and he never could really be described as broad or muscular, but something about the way his almost-blonde hair fell across his face and the way he pale green eyes seemed to hold anyone’s attention made him seem much more than he was. This day started like any other, Gareth woke up just as the sun was rising, rubbed some flour on himself to hide most of the dirt that seemed to cake his body, grabbed and put on his rags, gathered the animal feed and walked out to the sheep. After tracking down every last one of his animal he headed back to his farmhouse and started cooking himself breakfast. Just as he was about to sit down to eat he heard a rapid knocking on his door and then the sound of an unlocked door being pushed opened. Gareth stood up a peered over to door and saw the familiar red robes of a Mordian priest “What’s it this time then?” Gareth questioned “Tithes? Missed prayers?”
The priest pushed back his heavy scarlet hood, revealing the astonishingly jet-black hair of Brother Jal. “Fear not simple farmer this is a great honour not an admonishment! High Priest Deryn is requesting your appearance at the temple!”
“Really?”
The priest took out a small scroll “Most definitely, you are Gareth Koroan correct?”
“That I am”
“Son of Steve Koroan?”
“Uh-huh”
“Then yes, it is you who I am looking for, the High Priest requested your attendance at this ceremony specifically”
“Fine, let me gather my things then…..Just wondering, Mord doesn’t accept human sacrifices right?”
“Right, well not anymore in any case.”
“Will it involve any knives?”
“None that I am aware of.”
Gareth heaved a large coat onto his shoulders and turned to the priest. “Lead the way” He said, even though almost every villager knew the route to the template like the back of their hand, except for Stumpy Pete but since he hadn’t seen his hands for little under twenty years you couldn’t really blame him.
The walk to the temple was a lot harder than normal, mainly due to the fact people stopped Jal at least once a minute to ask a question or to request a prayer or to even simply give the traditional Mordian greeting, a tapping of the fist onto the chin. One drunken villagers attempt at this ended up a small brawl and a bloody nose for Jal, luckily this was normal for the priests and he simply stuck a small rag in it and carried on walking. The grand marble pillars and sweeping roofs of the prayer house of the great cities made the Hillsville temple look like a run down shack in comparison, but to a man who had never seen anything else it could easily be a home or the most powerful men in the land. They passed the large wooden doors held open by oversized stone fists at the base both of them and walked through the hall of victories, which is this small settlement showed a group of men standing in a valley, the next painting showed the exact same picture but this time with a few buildings in the background. The hall led to a round chamber many times the size of Gareth’s house back on the farm, at the top of a raised platform in the centre of the room stood an old man, bent double with both age and the weight of his beard, which trailed down to the floor below him and appeared to be in constant danger of tripping him up as he walked toward Gareth and Jal.
“Praise Mord for bringing Him to us this day!” High Priest Deryn cried as he looked up at Gareth,
“So this is the one you requested then?” Asked Jal, apparently not convinced in Deryn’s cognitive abilities.
“Yes, yes most certainly. Have you been through the list of prophecies?”
“Not yet, shall we now?”
“Very well” Deryn turned towards Gareth and looked him in the eye. “A few years back you protected your herd from a great and powerful beast did you not?”
Gareth suddenly looked a little scared. “I don’t recall ever fighting any beasts.”
“Are you sure? You have never fought to protect your flock of sheep?”
“Well there was that bull a couple of summers ago.”
“Was this bull burning with the flames of demons?”
“No, just a normal bull.”
“Prehaps he was bewitched by some evil sorcerer!”
“He wasn’t. It was just a regular bull, probably spooked by some children, it attacked my flock so I defended them.”
“Well, it may not be as impressive but one man killed a bull with his bare hands, that must count for the prophecy!”
“Well I didn’t exactly kill it…..”
“Oh?”
“I just kind of……”Gareth trailed off and looked down at his feet. “….Slapped it a little and poked it with the end of my staff. It eventually got bored and walked off.”
As he looked up he saw Jal writing into another scroll, this one with gilded golden edges.
“Fended off….wild beast…..saved lives of many followers. There we go, one prophecy complete!”
“But I don’t think that I……” Gareth’s arguments were soon halted by Jal gripping him by the shoulders and starting to pull off his coat.
“Now, the mark of Mord should be somewhere on your back” Jal insisted as he lifted up Gareth’s shirt to reveal two large scars running down the length of his back. Jal quickly glanced at the symbol of Mord that decorated the walls behind him, two longswords with a pair of eyes hovering above. Deryn also peered over to his back. “There we go, good enough again!”
Gareth started to protest again. “But it looks nothing like it! It’s a pair of lines! Nothing like swords and eyes!”
“It looks a bit like it.”
“No it doesn’t!”
“In the dark maybe, or if you squint a bit.”
“Why would Mord need to squint?!?!”
“Then perhaps you can explain how you have the mark?”
“Well….the bull…it didn’t get bored…..it…kind of…..chased me. A lot. Old Lady Wiggins had to kill it by beating it with a broom.”
“The beast gave you these markings?” Deryn smiled at Jal and turned back towards Gareth. “It must have been an avatar of Mord himself! You are the Chosen One! Touched by Mord and imprinted with his holy symbol!” The old man seemed to dance with joy as he led a disbelieving Gareth and a grinning Jal to another chamber, this time hidden just behind a set of paintings behind raised platform. This new chamber contained a great chair, made of steel and another golden metal that Gareth could not identify. “The prophecy states that properly anointed and realises his true identity he shall become the spirit of Mord himself and the world will truly know that he exists and is just as all powerful as he claims. Now please, take your new seat.” Deryn spoke as if reading the words off of a script, as if he had practised the same speech over and over again until he knew it word for word.
Gareth slowly slid into the throne, it was not cold as the metal should be, but warm as if heated with an inner fire. He adjusted himself and got comfortable as Jal moved over to a table and took a golden goblet from it, he filled the goblet with a thin purple liquid and told Gareth to drink it, he did so and felt the cold, refreshing liquid run down his throat.
“Very nice” He said as he returned the cup to Jal “So what else is there for me to -” Gareth was cut off as the throne swung backwards, depositing him in a pit just behind it. As soon as he recovered from the fall he look around and saw hundreds of skeletons and decaying bodies surrounding him, all of them of men around his own age, and most of them with two long lines on their backs, he look up towards the small square of light he had just fallen into. “In the name of Mord what is this?!?!”
“This is us making sure we are always needed.” Deryn replied before the light disappeared.
Jal looked over to his master as they walked back through the halls. “So why exactly do we do this again?”
“Well think about it. If the chosen one of Mord actually did appear and people knew that he was real, they wouldn’t need anyone there to convince them of that fact, would they? We’d be gone like that!” He clicked his fingers for emphasis.
“Very true sir, very true, speaking of which, I’ve heard of a young man from by the Improbably Desert who recently punched a camel in the face, he got some pretty interesting scars from that fight as well.”
“Lets see if we can bring him in then.”
Hm… Good work too! I was looking to take a break from the usual fantasy stories i’m reading because they’re all cliche but when seeing this, i think of it something different. Slightly humored which is kinda what other fantasies are not. If you make it less cliche’d I’d give it a 11/10. But even know i give it a 8.5/10. Incredibly good and almost as good as good omens.
And coments, whether it’s criticism or praise is honestly welcome. 
Though the clichéness is pretty much intended. I hope 
