Prologue

Samantha smiled at her mother. She was a middle-aged bosmer dressed in fine silks, a gift of her breton father. "I hate this life, being trapped in this cursed castle," the half-breed thought. A dunmeri bard walked over and started to play his mandolin. A gentle melody, but at the moment she wished for freedom.

The bard asked sincerely, "What is it, Baroness?" His red eyes were young and naive, but full of excitement. Samantha weakly smiled, as she paced treaded through the large stone castle. Her skirt was an irritation, when she walked, she stepped on it, and nearly tripped.

Finally she answered the dunmer who kept following her, "I want a life of...excitement, I am fifteen-years-old, it's already the four-hundred and thirty-third year of the third era, I want to be a hero before I die, at this rate, I'll never be." The man sighed and walked off, knowing he couldn't grant her wishes. Servants walked past her, giving her greetings and wishing her well, but she didn't want that.

The stone walls of the castle kept it fairly warm, but never perfect. After all, it was Castle Bruma, of the city of Bruma. Samantha made it to her room and looked out the window. The sun was setting. With a deep sigh of dissapointment she wrote in her diary.

Dear Diary,

It's me again, Samantha Wolfe. I hate being stuck here, it's miserable. My mother says it's safer here, but I don't want to be safe, I want to be adventurous. Father always says how lucky I have it. He is wrong, I hate it here. One day I'll be free of this hellhole. I won't have to dress in these damned clothes or get pampered. Well it's time for me to go to bed.

Sincerely,

Samantha Wolfe, Adventurer-in-Progress.

She closed the black-leather bound book and put away her stationery. Samantha slid off her skirt and blouse and donned a night-gown. After her gown was on, the sheets and blankets of her bed consumed her. Sleep eventually got to her, after a while of wishing for a life of an adventurer.

Baroness Wolfe awoke to a fright when she heard someone tapping her bed. There stood that bard, with a wide grin on his face he asked, "I've got a plan to get you out of here, milady, would you like that?" Her head bobbed almost immediately. The Dunmer frowned for a moment, but it was barely noticeable in the flickering candle-light.

His voice embroidered with fear, he said calmly after a gulp, "Give me your clothes, and I'll give you mine. In this infernal darkness, they'll think you're me, heading to the tavern, and they'll think I am you." She opened her closet and pulled out a skirt, a blouse, her undergarments, and off the bowl of fruit on her night-table, two oranges.

Samantha whispered, barely able to keep control of the volume of her voice, "All right, put on my lower undergarment first, then the upper one, after that put the oranges in each bowl-like area, then put on my blouse and skirt. Try not to stay long, they'll kill you." The young noble pulled on the bard's outfit and walked out of her bedroom.

Finally the bosmeri woman reached the double doors, and there stood a guard. He asked, "Where are you going, bard?" Wolfe gulped, nervous the plan wouldn't work. Trying as hard as possible not to mess up her disguise she simply pointed. The watchman nodded and let her through.

She smiled and headed towards the tavern. Suddenly a scream was heard from Castle Bruma, "AHHHHHHHH." A tear rolled down her cheek and she continued walking. She pulled the little gold in the bard's pocket out and lay it on the tavern counter and headed towards a room. It would be a while before she got to the nearest Imperial Legion Recruiter...

Wow, already

Well, as is my wont, I shall at least give some critique for the introduction, though I am notorious about following it up. Apologies in advance if I do the same here, I shall be away on vacation for the next week, so it's not the usual busy schedule keeping me away.

First of all let me say that anything within this post is said with the sincerest meaning of helping you, and if any of it sounds offensive or overly harsh I apologize from the bottom of my heart. You are an excellent writer, but we all have room to improve.

Regardless, I shall give you a bit of advice now, while I have the chance, with my sincere wishes that you keep up this story. Writing female protagonists can be a bit tricky, but it also opens up a whole world of oppurtunities.


Alright, my first bit of advice is a simple one: slow down your writing, and describe in far more detail. You tell us all these things: she's in a castle, she's a baroness, she lives in Bruma; without showing a single thing. I'm sure you've heard the familiar mantra, "Show, don't tell". That must apply to every bit of your writing (excluding some parts where it is necessary to tell, but for now ignore that). You need to paint a picture with your words, you need to give us a few detailed examples of what the scene looks like, along with some generic statements about the feeling of the room, and leave the rest to the imagination. You can't just say it is a bedroom in a castle, that is leaving far too much to the imagination.

I'm sure you've seen classic examples of this in any great novel or fan fiction, a scene so vivid you actually picture it in your head. Well, this is how they do that. Not to toot my own horn, but I'll pull an example from my own story for this purpose:



I am not claiming to be a great writer, nor am I saying I am the best example you can strive towards, but this is honestly a fairly good definition of showing and not telling. My hope with this paragraph is to give the reader a setting, a backdrop that they can see as they read, using a few detailed examples to give the overall feel of the scene. It's a tough concept, but one that you simply must master in order to write jaw dropping stories. I don't know how many hours I spend re-writing a description of a scene because it didn't flow correctly, or it just wasn't good enough, and I am not saying I am anywhere near done practicing it. It's something you have to work on your entire career as a writer.

I could spend all day talking about showing and descriptions, but I trust you get the general idea. So, with that set aside, I'll switch to something else that is prevelent in your writing, and one of the key things critics look for: telling too much information, in short, infodumping. Now, there's a difference between what you are doing and writing a whole block of text describing the character's life story, and it is a vast improvement from other works I have seen in the past. You are telling us the backstory in context, yes, but it comes up so frequently in such a small space it is apparent that you forced it. You need to let these things come slowly, naturally, whenever your characters find the proper moment to divulge such information.

Now, another important key in curing the infodump, is all that info even necessary to the story? If it isn't relevant, and I mean absolutely vital, to either the plot or her character, leave it out until it seems appropriate. The introduction should give the reader an idea of who she is, but not explain everything. Another thing that would help is if you simply wrote more, fill in some description, and it will space the info out, and make it feel more natural.

Using that as a springboard, I'll hop on over to pacing before I call it a night. Pacing is the speed at which your story reads, how quickly the action in the story seems to be taking place to the reader. Longer descriptions with fewer events (dialogue, significant action, etc.) make for a slower pace, and a slower pace allows the reader to take time and visualize the scene. It also helps them remember important information, because it is so slow compared to an action scene they focus more on the character. Very characterizing scenes should always have at least one slow part, if not then than sometime later, for the protagonist to reflect on what happened, and show more of their personality to the reader.

On the other hand, fast pacing is a helpful tool as well. You want a scene to go by faster if the character is moving so fast, or focusing so exclusively on one thing, that they exclude other details, thus less descriptions of the scene. This works well for fight scenes, if the character is fleeing something, or for a heated argument, to let the reader keep pace with the action realistically. You wouldn't spend three paragraphs talking about a single sword swing, it should take one, maybe two sentences tops.

Pacing is one of the keys to good writing, it draws the reader in, it makes everything seem to flow. Pacing, description, characterization, dialogue, and suspense are the five secrets to a good story. I might be overlooking a few things, but these are what makes things interesting, it's what makes people want to read more. People crave a story with all those things worked out perfectly, they simply can't get enough. They fall in love with the character, their heart pounds with the fights, and their mind paints a masterpiece of the scene. I might be dramatizing it a bit much, but the point is you need those things for a succesful story.


Phew, I hope that's not too much information all at once, I wanted to get enough in to last the week

As always Zalphon, thanks for writing, and keep up the good work :goodjob:


PS You might want to examine your plot thus far, and either check it for realism or explain things a tad better. This bard guy doesn't seem likely to throw his life away for someone it sounds like he hardly knows. Throw in some hints to infatuation, give him a driving reason to do these things. Likewise, give the protagonist a better reason for wanting to leave than just boredom. Or, make that reason be something that she's wanted for such a long time it is bordering on obsession. Thanks

See I need you to put me in shape, not leave me hanging like you did

Ive always liked your writing Zalphon. You do good work. This story is even better than the last.

Cool.

The first suggestion is hard: Cut everything above the line "Dear Diary". The diary quickly tells us a lot about who the character is, drawing us in. You can go into what she looks like awhile later.

Being a noble, she probably has a lady in waiting that would suit better than a cross dressing dark elf. Even at that, I think it's a bit too extreme to kill someone for cross dressing. It doesn't seem like she'll be back to Bruma soon anyway, might as well just have the bard get in trouble.

Also, not to disrupt the story because I don't know if you're playing off this notion, but the Legion mostly sits around guarding old forts without much action. Are you making a satire of what young people think of the military? That would be kinda cool. If not, you're in no trouble. Action can crop up all over. And being a noble, she can probably get a commission just by joining. That way in a battle she would be captured and ransomed rather than killed.

Keep it up, we're interested!

Sorry Zalphon, I took the day off yesterday and missed this - that Diary part was amazing! You do a very good job with your characters emotions and thoughts!

I'm confused. You have two new fanfic stories going now?

You continue to improve, but I don't want to get to attached to a new story until I sort out the above question.



doesn't quite make sense



Now this is beautiful. THIS is a wonderful example of how to describe something rather mundane in a captivating way! Well done!

:wave:

Closed at Zalphon's request.