The cities and landscape in this story are far larger then in the game, with the exception of a few cities I think are proper. ))

Prologue: Sentenced.


"Alright, Mr.Dunharrow." the voice of a guard said to a bruised and cut Imperial male, chained in a chair across his desk, light brown hair covering his face. "We are going to try and work something out for you. Three years of labor and service, and we clear your name from our criminal records... give you a chance to start a new life, all over."

The room was dully lit with a oil-lamp and some torches hanging off there pedestals connected to the wall. There were three doors in the room, along with a ladder that lead to the top floor of the Imperial Prisons. Two of the doors would lead down a set of cells, which would go into the dungeons of the Imperial Prison, and one door.. lead to a exit. Freedom for everyone sentenced to this massive fortress.

The light brown haired Imperial slowly looked up to the guard speaking to him, a large gash seen under his right eye as he spoke in a gruff voice.

"What makes you think that I want to go free.." he said, glaring in the guards direction, "Put me up for lifetime sentence.. deepest cell you have. Feed me to the dogs below, I dont care... I dont deserve to live."

"Now Ivan." the guard said, grabbing a set of scrolls, "It says here that you are very ta-"

"I dont care!" the bruised imperial shouted at the top of his lungs, "My brother and three guards are dead because of me, and a family in Kvatch now faces poverty. Lock. Me. Up."

The guard let out a sigh as he looked the Imperial over. There was no trying to get to him... and the Empire needed more labor. Policy was if the guilty requested something to be smart, then you give them that something. Problem here was that this guilty man was not being smart, he truly wanted to rot the rest of his years away in the prisons of the Imperial City.

"Very well.." the guard said quietly, grabbing a quill off his desk and signing the form which would seal this mans fate. A cruel job the jailor had, but he needed to find some way to make money for his family that didn't risk his life to much. He couldn't go into business, to poor to buy the reagents. Adventuring could get him killed, and his family needed him alive. The jailor gestured to two guards standing at the exit of the jail, they walking forward and pulling the imperial out of his chair, began to escort him to the cells on the left side of the room.

"Take him to sell fifty three, on the very bottom floor. Keep those other prisoners off him." the jailor said to one of the guards, he nodding before beginning to escort the imperial prisoner down... into the dungeons.

Where I will be forever, I hope.. , thought the prisoner we called Ivan Dunharrow.

Now there's an interesting pov. :goodjob:

Hehe thanks. Going to see if I can get past the first three chapters this go around.

A good start! :foodndrink:

I like the fact that you are allowing the main character to be a bit mysterious rather than just giving us an info-dump on why he is in prison. It is always better when those things flow out gradually through the story.

Were you looking for critiques as well? I can see some things that could use improvements, but I do not like to just sing out with that sort of thing unless someone asks first.

Critique away! Im always looking to improve my writing.

Alright then. Please keep in mind that no one's writing is perfect (go look at my fan fic and you will see plenty of things being pointed out to me). If they were, then editors would not exist.

There are a few spelling/grammatical errors I noticed:


First is with the use of punctuation in your speech tags. You seem to be getting your commas and periods mixed up there. For example this:

"Alright, Mr.Dunharrow." the voice of a guard said to a bruised and cut Imperial male, chained in a chair across his desk, light brown hair covering his face.

ought to have a comma at the end of the dialogue rather than a period:

"Alright, Mr.Dunharrow," the voice of a guard said to a bruised and cut Imperial male, chained in a chair across his desk, light brown hair covering his face.


another example is this:
"Now Ivan." the guard said, grabbing a set of scrolls, "It says here that you are very ta-"

which has the same problem in the first block of dialogue, but also the wrong capitalization at the beginning of the second:

"Now Ivan," the guard said, grabbing a set of scrolls, "it says here that you are very ta-"


There is a good page http://mrbraiman.home.att.net/page25.html explaining how to use punctuation in dialogue. The basic rule however is that if the sentence continues then end the dialogue with a comma and begin the follow descriptive text with a lower case word. If the sentence ends then use a period and follow with a capitalized word at the beginning of the next sentence. Note that the quotation marks that show the start and end of dialogue do not also mean the sentence begins and ends at those points. For example: "Hi," she said. Is a once sentence. You also do not have to include a speech tag ("he said") at all. Instead you can use a sentence describing action between blocks of dialogue if you want.


You also have a few rather long sentences that could be broken up into several smaller ones to make them easier to read. To use the above example:

"Alright, Mr.Dunharrow." the voice of a guard said to a bruised and cut Imperial male, chained in a chair across his desk, light brown hair covering his face.

could be broken down to this:

"Alright, Mr.Dunharrow," the guard said. His cold eyes stared at the brown-haired Imperial chained to a seat across from his desk. His body showed numerous bruises and cuts, testimony that he did not come to his position quietly.


I am not sure what punctuation mark you want at the end of this, I am thinking a question mark?
"What makes you think that I want to go free.."


You also probably want an exclamation mark rather than a period at the very end of this:
"My brother and three guards are dead because of me, and a family in Kvatch now faces poverty. Lock. Me. Up."



You are looking for the word 'cell' here
"Take him to sell fifty three,
like so:
"Take him to cell fifty three,


Here you want the word 'too':
but he needed to find some way to make money for his family that didn't risk his life to much.
like this:
but he needed to find some way to make money for his family that didn't risk his life too much.



However, the big things I am seeing are related to the point of view and showing vs. telling, and in this case I believe both are linked. You are using Third Person pov, but I am not sure if you realize that there are two flavors of this. One is Third Person Omniscient, which you seem to be mainly using. Omniscient is sort of like the Olympics, where there are cameras everywhere showing everything happening at once. The reader knows everything that is going on, and is inside everyone's head at the same time. The second option is Third Person Limited. With this the reader only sees what the point of view character sees, and only knows their thoughts. You can change point of view characters, but you must end the scene completely before you do so (many writers make the mistake of writing in Third Person Limited and jumping from one pov to another back and forth in the same scene, which is called head-hopping, and is something to avoid).

Third Person Limited is by far the most common flavor to use, as it is more akin to real life. For example, if I write about a meeting I have at work, I can only describe what I see and what I think. I cannot write what my boss is thinking. Although I can write what I believe he is thinking. Most readers have an easier time with Limited as it is what they are used to in reality. Where Omniscient tends to break suspension of disbelief because the reader knows too much. It also can break the suspense that can be formed by making the reader wonder what certain characters are really thinking.

I urge going with Third Person Limited and writing this scene strictly from the pov of one character within it. It sounds like the guard doing the interview would probably be the best candidate here.


The other thing is you are doing a lot of telling rather than showing. You will see this phrase a great deal in writing fiction. Basically it means that instead of telling the reader what is happening (i.e. "John was afraid."), show it to them ("John felt his heart pounding like a racehorse. Licking his suddenly dry lips, he did his best to ignore the butterflies that seemed to have taken up residence within his stomach.") I think your use of Omniscent pov is what is leading to the telling. Much of it could be fixed by adding a few thought tags (the same as speech tags, only they are for your pov character's thoughts.

For example, you might take this:

"Very well.." the guard said quietly, grabbing a quill off his desk and signing the form which would seal this mans fate. A cruel job the jailor had, but he needed to find some way to make money for his family that didn't risk his life to much. He couldn't go into business, to poor to buy the reagents. Adventuring could get him killed, and his family needed him alive. The jailor gestured to two guards standing at the exit of the jail, they walking forward and pulling the imperial out of his chair, began to escort him to the cells on the left side of the room.

and turn it to this:

"Very well," the guard said quietly. He lifted the quill from his desk, knowing full well that one stroke of its feather would seal of the fate of the man sitting across from him. As he had a hundred times before, he set the ink to the parchment. This was justice, he told himself quietly. This man had damned himself by his own actions. Yet somehow that knowledge did make it any easier. If there were only some other way to make a living, the guard thought. But he was too poor to start his own business, and adventuring would just get him killed. He had a family to think of after all.

He sighed, gesturing to the two jailors standing at the entry to the dungeons. The two large men came forward and pulled the Imperial from his chair. One unlocked the chain that held the prisoner down, while the other held him still with a pair of meaty hands. A moment later they dragged him away to the cells, and the guard pictured his wife and children in his head. At least he had them to go home to, he thought. There would be no going home for that Imperial...

Thanks for the info :nod: Ill be sure to put the limited view and the main character of the scene's thoughts into play for the rest of the story! -salute-

Now I just got to figure out how to spread my to's and too's...

*reserved, with the agreement of Batman.*