And this is a very fat Dwemer at that. I hope Desmond ate his Wheaties today :cookie:

Just read the whole thread. I see the use of dialogue improving alot. Pace and flow still seem a bit off to me. It reads just a bit like a court recorder's account (I'm exaggerating, but that was the most effective anolagy I could come up with).

Perhaps some descriptions of the settings and so forth? For example the first sentence of your newest post: "Raven looked around and seen a gondolier. Her and Desmond walked over and said quickly,.... "
More important than the grammar nits of 'seen' and 'Her', is when Raven looked around, all she saw was a gondolier? I don't really know where she is or what her surroundings are. This might be an oportunity to paint for the reader where they are to include what it looks, smells, sounds like? Is it sunny? Night? Rainy? I can't really place myself into the setting.

I know what Desmond does, but I don't know who he is, where he comes from, what he thinks, what his hopes and fears are....

As far as the story, I must confess I don't really understand it. I am way deep into Oblivion, but don't even know what a Morrowind is. I'm sure that is part of my problem.

That all said, there certainly seems to be steady improvement. :icecream:

Thanks Acadian, I really like how you compliment aspects of it as well as show me ways to improve as well

Well, you are clearly working hard at it and you receive critique very graciously. I consider myself a bit of a novice writer.

BSparrow's too modest to recommend it herself I'm sure, but if you want to see how to 'paint' scenes and advance a story via dialogue and vivid descriptions, study some of her newest stuff. Here is her thread: http://www.gamesas.com/bgsforums/index.php?showtopic=859168 If you read even just her latest story, you will see what I mean.

Keep writing. :foodndrink:

One day I will be as good as Illusionary Nothing and Dr. Stranglelove, a ledgend amongst the RP'rs...and until I am, I have no desire to stop, hell even then, I will have no desire to stop!

Very nice job. Gold-Heart seems like a rising fan faveorite rising!

She is dead...for now... I took the fanfiction off the sentinel thing for now and more focused on politics, but sentinels will have their part once again, very, very, very soon...

That's the spirit! It may just happen if you give it a few years.

Did they become great overnight, nope, but they are now, and I will be one day too!

its not about being great. Its about doing what you wanna do. And if you wanna be great, then do it to it. I RP and Fan-Fic for fun.

Chapter XI: The Caverns

Desmond walked into the Corprusarium, with his little friend, Raven following. As the door creaked open, he seen something, horrible. Tel Fyr Corprusarium had become a vampire nest... Desmond looked at Raven and nervously said, "V-v-vampires, I didn't sign up for this!"

Raven slapped Desmond and asked rhetorically, "Are you a dunmer or a mudcrab?"

He replied, "A dunmer..."

She told him as he opened the second door, "Then let us enter, the bowels of the demonic vampire nest."

Desmond nodded and saw a vampire say rudely, "Oh fresh meat. Perhaps Lady Quarra will reward me!"

Raven muttered under her breath and suddenly a ball of red-hot flame emitted from her fingertips! She barked, "Wrong..."

Desmond charged trying to impale the demonic vampire only to miss and fall. He dropped his sword, and in the blackness of the cavern-like corprusarium, he heard a voice whisper, "You shall suffer, Dunmer."

Desmond grabbed for the ground as he was dragged into the blackness, he screamed, "Hel---". His screams fell silent as he was dragged into the blackness.

Raven screamed, "Die!"

She muttered under her breath, and a bolt of white-hot flame turned the vampire to ash. She sat down and thought, "They took Desmond, my brother... For that I will butcher them all!"

OOC: Sorry for short post.

One lsight problom with tha tlast one.



The main problom I have here is with the exclamation point. I dont see stuff like this in writing too often.

Seeing as you apologized for the post being short, I cannot actually say anything against it. However I do recommend you try your very best to drag it out: describing the scene, the feelings of the characters and dialogue between them will do that well.

My problem with the opening paragraph is that you used too many commas; at least in my opinion. I haven't had the time to read this all through but would I be correct to assume Desmond's 'little friend' is Raven? If so, then you didn't need the comma before 'with his little 'friend'. Instead I believe the sentence should have been: Desmond walked into the Corprusarium with his little friend, Raven, following. (With that said, I'm not a master when it comes down to grammar and punctuation, so the commas before and after 'Raven' may not be needed; sorry if they're not.)

If there is another person (the 'little friend') then I think it should have been worded like this: Desmond walked into the Corprusarium with his little friend; Raven followed. Again, this may not be exactly true but it seems to flow better, in my opinion.

Another comma mistake I found was this: "As the door creaked open, he seen something, horrible." Firstly: your pet peeve of saying seen instead of saw hit you. Be sure to correct that. Also, there is no need for the comma before the word 'horrible'. If you added it there for dramatic effect then you should of used an ellipse (...); otherwise it looks silly.

I liked the bit where Desmond got nervous about the vampires but you should of just kept the 'v-v-vampire' thing instead of writing, "Desmond looked at Raven and nervously said... etc etc" you should have just wrote: Desmond gulped as the sweat dripped off him, "v-v-vampires... etc etc." That way you're showing instead of just telling he's scared. See the difference?

I still feel that the dialogue is too unrealistic and robotic. Same with the flow of what you have written. I hate to say it, but it's just so boring reading: 'Desmond looked at Raven and said...'. Throughout the whole chapter you're just telling us what's going on without us using our imagination. Plus, the dialogue is always predictable and stale; it feels as if the characters have no personality what so ever and with boring characters comes a boring story. To improve it you should give both characters little quirks- Desmond may always make a little joke, for example.

One small thing that bothered me was this: 'Raven muttered under her breath and suddenly a ball of red-hot flame emitted from her fingertips!' I would really advise against using exclamation marks when describing out of dialogue- it looks like something an excited child would do, to be honest. I also think that was a good chance to describe the magic and the death but you rushed it a little; at least in my opinion.

The same problem goes with the fight dialogue. All of a sudden the characters go from boring people to barbaric apes. Maybe the vampires would get away with saying such lame battle cries because they're the villains but the heroes just going 'die!' is really lacklustre; same with, 'they took me brother, now they're all going to die'. Even if Raven is a tough girl she wouldn't just sit there like that; emotions would be spinning around her head and if she really is a normal person then she'd just be crying and upset. If one of your relatives got taken away by vampires (most likely to be fed on) how would you feel? Angry? Yes. But you'd be traumatized, too. I really think that was a great opportunity for us to get an inside looking on Raven's emotions but you didn't let that happen.

Overall that chapter wasn't great but you're still getting better. Just try to give the characters a personality and describe the scene more! Keep it up, I look forward to the next chapter.

Chapter XII: Saving Desmond

Several minutes had passed since they pulled Desmond into the blackness of the Corprusarium Bowels. Raven looked around, and she stealthfully walked in the caves. She then heard two voices speaking.

"What shall we do with the prisoner?"

"Fyr wants him dead."

"You're right, perhaps we should kill him."

"Well, maybe we could present him to Lord Fyr, as a gift, for him to experiment on."

"Perhaps; We should speak to Volrina, the clan ancient before we do anything major."

"Yes, I will go speak to her, you go tell the others not to kill the prisoner, yet..."

"I will, milord."

The voices fell silent, then loud foot steps were heard and the loud, ear-scratching, clanking of ebony armor.

Raven gently walked in the caverns, careful not to make a sound, knowing it would be certain death, or worse...

She gently muttered under her breath a spell of invisibility, and she climbed up a wall, luckily she didn't fall. She then seen Volrina Quarra, a dunmer in ebony armor, and Desmond, who had a metal collar around his neck with a chain to Quarra's hand.

The dunmer said politely, "Volrina, perhaps we should present this slave to Lord Fyr."

Volrina Quarra responded, "Perhaps, he is kind enough to feed us fresh blood, and let us stay in his caverns."

Desmond spit in Quarra's face and said rudely, "Listen, Fetcher, I am going no where!"

Quarra slapped Desmond across his face and said to a couple of vampires, "Bring the slave to his cage, he may have no food."

The dunmer said to Volrina, "Well, I shall alert Lord Fyr of your offering."

Quarra responded, "Excellent..."

Raven covered her mouth and fell to the ground, emitting a loud, bam.

Quarra shouted, "Lord Kalarn, get the men ready, find and bring this intruder to me!"

Kalarn nodded and ran off.

Raven nervously thought, "Desmond and I will share the same fate..."

looks like clan Quarra is trying to expand. Are they feeding off of the Corpus diseased? If so, wouldn't that cause them to have corpus as well? Now I know Vampire's are highly resistant to disease, but they are introducing the virus directly into their body and mostly directly into their blood stream. Oh well that was just a thought, I like the story Zalphon

Corprus is gone, when the Nerevarine kill Dagoth Ur it vanished.

But the infected still have it, there just arent any new causes.

Its been about twenty years, I am guessing he got rid of his "experiments."

And Clan Quarra was oh so generous to offer a few artifacts to Divayth Fyr, so he feeds them, and lets them live in his corprusarium.

Ahh I see. Just thought I would ask. Keep up the good work :foodndrink:

I need to finish my fight seen (yes I know that is the wrong word but I am having a mental block right now and I can't figure out of to spell it :banghead: ) for my fanfic

Ch XII. Not too much change in your style happening. One use of 'seen' this time. Maybe just me, but I would rather you slow the story progession if you need to, in order to add detail. I'm going to exaggerate a bit to make my point, but take this:


What was Raven thinking as she watched the scene below her? What did she see(I know you have some of that in there), feel, smell, hear? What caused her to fall? Why did she cover her mouth? Is a loud bam the best way to describe the sound she made? Did her bam come from her feet hitting the ground, a fart, a burp, dropping her armor? I would think that little quote above could be expanded to several parragraphs. It could create more atmosphere and perhaps bring her to life. I don't know too much about her at this point except that she is skulking around trying to figure out how to rescue Desmond, she knows a bit of magic, she seems to able to sneak and climb ok. She seems to be in some fear for her life. She still seems rather cardboard at this point.

I would try to incorporate some extended internal debates within the minds of your main chars to help bring them to life.

Your straight short dialogue parts are improving; You just need flesh things out more.

I hope you continue to take the critique graciously. Remember it is just the opinion of another writer - perhaps useful to you, perhaps not. If we didn't like what you are trying to do, we wouldn't spend the time trying to help. Keep going. :tops:

Chapter XIII: Final Peace

Raven fled down the dark caverns, smelling the stench of death, knowing hers was imminent.

Desmond scream was so loud it filled the caverns, "Help me!"

Finally she found two vampires, both armored in steel, and they both said, "Stand down, Dunmer."

Raven muttered under her breath a spell of flame, which managed to burn one of the vampires!

Suddenly a blade was to Raven's neck, and she heard the soft voice of Volrina Quarra whispering, "Come with me, Slave."

Raven walked with Volrina's blade to her neck, crying.

The vampire still alive hissed, "Lets kill this one."

Quarra barked, "Get Kalarn!"

The vampire started running.

Desmond looked at Raven and cried out, "Raven!"

She put her hand to Raven's lips and said harshly, "Silence, Fool!"

Volrina muttered under her breath, and Raven was soundly asleep, and thrown into Desmond's cage.

She did it again, and Desmond was deep asleep as well.

When Desmond awoke to Raven whispering, "Wake up, Brother."

He questioned, "Brother?"

Raven nodded and told him, "Good bye."

Divayth Fyr walked in and said to the two siblings, "Enjoy death, Fetchers, Lady Quarra has asked me to do the deed..."

Suddenly he muttered under his breath and the two were unconsious, and dead...

OOC: The person I wrote this story for has stopped reading, so I end it now, I hope you all enjoyed the story of Desmond, Raven, and Gold-Heart.

For me, Raven was beginning to come alive so her death saddened me. I never really understood what Desmond was about so I felt no connection to him.

Couple tiny typos: "Desmond scream" should have been Desmond's scream. Unconscious was misspelled near the end. Again, tiny stuff.

Your writing still strikes me as kind of a court recorder bam bam bam style - just the facts m'aam. More fleshing out is still needed.

I had a little trouble getting my head around muttering to cast a spell. Perhaps just me? You might consider: With a flick of her wrist, she disappeared. Or, the green cloud released from her outstretched hand engulfed Desmond and svcked the consiousness from his being. Or, fire flew from her fingertips....

This was very nice:



You are very, very good at creative and alternative ways to say Character X said blah, blah, blah, incorporating loads of nice variety. All of your dialogue does this very well.

I was sorry to see this end so soon. I hope you will try to incorporate some of the suggestions made on this thread and give us another story. :foodndrink:

Thinking about a story based on a dunmeri knight who loses his faith in the tribunal and is sent to a quest retrieve the ancient staff of Sotha Sil. During his time he meets many heroes, and a friend or two...

I liked it. Im sad it ended.

And their deaths where slightly anti-climatic

I am sad it ended but your next story sound interesting.