I would like all readers of this to know I do not count myself as the best writer. Nor do I know if I shall continue this story. My reason for posting this quick story is to gauge the reaction of the many talents here. I would like to thank all who have taken the time to read this. Please leave a response.


Chapter I: A Thread Woven
"Deep within the Great Forest the moon shines bright on a mold ridden, dark, old shack. Within this shack sits a man driven by fear across the lands we call Cyrodill. "Hmm?...W-was that?No?No. Just my imagination?" An old Dunmer sat on a rickety and battered stool, clutching a dwindling candle, and whispering empty assurances to himself. As paranoia's grip slowly wrapped itself around the Dark Elf's senses every creak, every gust, every scratch of from a tree limb, forced the frightened old Elf to jump despite his constant assurances. But this timid and tortured creature is unaware of his presence, oblivious to the danger, of the one known as..."

Kaden would take the moment of suspense to take his final gulp of ale. Slamming the empty tankard on the bar table the Redguard looked out into the cramped room. His eyes moving slowly from left to right surveying his audience, which consisted mostly of the tavern regulars, and grinned. "Well my tankard is empty and my voice grows hoarse, so gentlemen I bid you all good night."

Angry and annoyed voices cried out from the crowd. "What! You canna end now!"One portly, white haired Nord cried. "Whoa, hey now, settle down gents. If you truly enjoyed my tale come back tomorrow." The crowd hesitantly dispersed around the bar, but not without a few drunken patrons tossing a few choice words at Kaden, who merely shrugged them off, and walked up to his room. Considering the many Nords in the inn he was lucky that was all they threw.

The room in which Kaden stayed was much like the inn; dirty and smelled of vomit. But Kaden simply didn't care. His first story in this inn and he had already captured quite a crowd. So a little stench was worth the promise of tips. Kaden stumbled onto the bedroll and slipped into sleep. The Drunken Dragon was indeed all that was promised.

Hmm... well, this is interesting. Not so much the story itself, being the plot is no where near yet exposed (as it should be, don't give anything away in the introduction. Well- perhaps a taste couldn't hurt), but the fact that you have solid writing with a few blatant mistakes. For example, you do a great job of not directly telling us he had been telling a mere story- instead choosing to let the audience infer it, but you have such awkward sounding phrases as "the brown cropped haired Redguard". I don't know what kind of background led to such unbalanced technique, but the overall feel is pretty good.

A few little things, practically typos, caught my attention:

"Cannat" - I know it's dialogue, but I don't think that is even a drunken slur. Things like "youse guys" make more sense, but I really don't see why "can't" doesn't work. Just my opinion, I really didn't like that word

"bed role" - Did you mean bedroll? Or did you think the bed had a job to do

"much like the inn, dirty" - That comma should really be a colon.

There were a few others, but you could probably catch them on a quick revision.

Now, all grammar and syntax aside, I feel that this was really a pretty solid intro. You could have done a better job of describing our character, but the simple scene tells a lot already. We can figure out that he is a story teller, a rather average citizen otherwise, and of little importance to the overall empire, all without you saying a word about it. Perfect "show, don't tell".

Back to my comment about describing him: we need a mental image of him and his surroundings to go off of. This is a general rule of thumb with new scenes, though it can get to the point where you describe too much of the scene, and it is especially important in the introduction. I'm fairly confident you can given the starting paragraph (nice work on that, by the way).

Most of my qualms could probably have been solved if you had made it a bit longer, but I'll tell you them anyways. It seems like it could have used a bit more insight into his personality. Not enough so that we lose all the introduction mystery, but so that we know who he is. Just a little comment about him laughing at something, or being disappointed, could work wonders for characterizing him.

We don't really have a story yet, just a little snippet about a bard in an inn. Give it a little something to stand out. Basically, hint at the overall plot. Be it him hearing of a death in his family, or a traumatic event, something needs to happen to get the ball rolling. This is usually best put in at the end of the introduction, a cliffhanger of sorts, after plenty of initial description and characterization.

Plot, characterization, and grammar aside, the flow is a bit too fast. It reads like you are hurrying it; take the time to sit down and write a page or two of introduction. Trust me, people will still read it if it is good. Basically, add in more description: be it about his appearance, the scene, or his personality, all of which I already said are lacking anyway. Unless this is meant to be a short story, it would be a good idea to add in some writing

Well, I have a few more thoughts, but I think they should wait until I see a bit more from this story. Oh, and if you wanted to know if you should keep writing, my answer will always be a strong yes. So, thank you for writing, and keep it up :goodjob:


PS By the way, welcome to our lovely little clique of authors And if no one has said so yet, http://www.imperial-library.info/dogate/til_fishystick.jpg

Arcry, Nice to see you throw your hat in the ring, or enter the arena as it were.

I noticed a couple awkward bits and bed role instead of bedroll as Darkom did.

If this was to float a test for talent, well here is my opinion: Yes, you got talent! Your opening paragraph alone shows enough talent that I highly recommend you work with it. As you have seen, the folks on fanfic are quite helpful.

I hope you will continue. We all need to work and get better, but you have plenty of talent to work with. :goodjob:

In hindsight should have checked this over before I had posted it. I stuck this together last night after reading over Malx's story again..But over all im rather happy with the responce.

Yes...Bedroll...Heh.

As for the brown cropped Redguard..Was a quick try at a far to early description.


I thank the both of you or reading though this. And this was, as stated in the description, only a test to gain some feed back. I feel that I may read through a few more stories here to look for more inspiration.

Arcry this is great! Your descriptions are very vivid, here is a great example:




Awesome Arcry, you have a flair for details!

Thank you Malx.

How dare you tease us with such a small morsel.
I want more, please ??

See Arcry? You have plenty of friends here. Write on!

Perhaps...I do plan to write a bit more, but not on this story. This was merely a test to gain some criticism from the many writers here. With that criricism, and some inspiration, I plan to write a more in depth and far greater story over one of my characters.

A critique is much easier to give if there is enough to work with.
Tease is a very good trick if you can convince the audience that it is leading somewhere.

More, please ? :celebration:

I see your point. Very well then?I shall find ways to continue this story.

I think that your writing does show tremendous potential. The main point i was trying to make is that it is important for all aspiring writers to just 'keep writing'.
It doesn't matter whether it is this story or another, the main thing is that you keep going.

If you want immediate feedback then i would say 'don't run your lines of dialogue into each other'. The part with the white haired Nord only made sense after re-reading it.
Let your dialogue have pace and flow.

Well have no fear I shall indeed continue to write. For now I shall rest.

Au revoir.

It was good. You know the little bit that was there was interesting and left me wanting to here more; like the nords in the inn. Yet I must say that the grammar/spelling could use work, but then again who's couldn't? Continue writing, and we will continue to give you advice. If you choose not to follow up on this particular story I will just have to hope your new thread grabs my attention.

Ah, unless you had some major planning involved with this story, I highly advise you start anew. No offence, but this one seems rather dry.

Other than that, yeah, keep writing :goodjob: I would have been more complimentative like the others, but it really ruins the mood

I popped in to see if you had posted another chapter. I caught this: - what a great touch! I loved seeing that because it instantly gives you a perfect image of what the character's accent is, helps get to know the character a bit better. (our family always said "canna" and "nae" when I was growing up, so I could just hear the character say it)

Arcry...(taps foot impatiently) Arcry...(hops from one foot to the other like Angel would) - WHERE HAVE YOU GONE? - You and your talents are missed!