Seek and Destroy
#1
(located on the southern edge of Arachnea's Revenge about 5 miles outside of Dahlian Borders)

A few weeks had passed since the warrior of Dahlia had returned; so much had changed when he returned. Conor the pillar of the pack was no longer there, Bris and Eclipse where absent, and Nayru was now the young queen. Saluce put the spurs on his tall and menacing Shire horse, the black styled horse was a marvel of physical prowess and quite able to carry the massive wolf atop the saddle. The behemoth sat atop the horse in his full battle regalia. The plates of armor that where strapped around his shoulder, biceps, arms, chest, and legs proved suitable protection, without burdening him with too much weight. The spectacle was immense, the dark grey man clad in glinting armor with a great four foot long hammer hanging on his back. Vulcan, hung there in its splendid glory, with the inscription of purpose among the shaft and hammer. Saluce didn’t leave Dahlian lands dressed in such a manner unless it was for purpose, either to inspire fear, or for the practical use of warding off some foe.

Saluce sat there a few moments, his purpose clear, his mission was to find Eclipse wherever she maybe and return her to Dahlia and her mother. Secondary to that was to find Conor, hopefully both and if some Demon had taken the man’s mind and replaced him with malice, then Saluce would make sure the man rested at peace. Conor’s betrayal of Dahlia had ran deep, there were plenty of people who could have helped him, whatever it was that was troubling the man couldn’t be so bad that he’d run out of Dahlia tail tucked. Even if Haku was a monster, it didn’t mean Conor would be. The behemoth scratched his forehead idly, across the immense scar that started from the top of his right eye and wrapped over the top of head to the back, cutting a swath of exposed skin where his fur had not grown in.

Today he started his journey, and he would not rest until answers where accomplished.
#2
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Mentor stuff is below the post! Thanks for starting. ^^


He had lurked some time around Inferni, hoping his sisters would magically appear as they had last time — how had that happened, anyway, to have all three show up at once? — but, of course, his luck was not running quite as rampant. Just as his last visit, the smell of blood and death hung in the Inferni air, thick like smog, like smoke that closed his lungs and choked his throat. How, how could his sisters live there? Were they so blind to the horrors he believed to live there, to the horror that was his father alone?


Micah could not discuss such things with them, not yet. They were still too immature, too blinded through methods Juniper had taught them. They would never see Razekiel for the criminal he was. No, not until Micah did something. They would praise him after. Surely, they would adore him for being so smart when they were not, for being the fist of justice to destroy the murderer when they were too weak-willed and ignorant to. As he strode along, weaving through the trees, the salt-and-pepper boy smiled humbly to himself, relishing the thought of being united with his sisters once more — without their terrible father hanging somewhere over them.


The speckled boy brushed long, black curls from his face; his hair was terribly long, drastically needing a cut, and yet still its long twirls and twists down the length of his back. Perhaps it was a remnant of Juniper Peace that lived within him, as the hippies had always worn their hair long and messy. The yearling began collecting his curls into a low ponytail, humming to himself as he went, pleased with his future plans of reuniting he with his siblings. However, he froze when he realized a horse towered over him — and atop it, a male wearing ... tin cans all over his body. Micah stared, gaping like a deer in headlights, his arms still bent backwards with his frozen fingers tangled in ribbon and curls alike. The horse, gigantic. The stranger in silver, terrifying.


"Oh God!" he shrieked, then turned tail and sprinted the way he came, tripping clumsily over roots and his own feet in his mortified escape attempt. "Oh God, oh God, oh God, oh God," he panted, chocolate eyes wide as the moon, his cans of spray paint clanking noisily as the bag on his hip flapped and flailed.


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All right -- so you wanted to focus on how to describe Saluce's actions more effectively, as well as "not getting stuck" when you reply to posts. Let me just say that is a pretty great post, and there aren't too many things I can comment on just yet! Tongue

First of all, if you're not already familiar with it, get to know and love Thesaurus.com. The best way of making an action more clear and exciting is to, well, use more exciting verbs! Being creative but effective with word choice is a skill that is very hard to learn; it takes some practice and a lot of thesaurus work, but it's definitely doable. For example, you say Saluce "put the spurs" on the horse. Picture in your mind Saluce on the horse -- depending on how he feels about the horse, you could say this a thousand ways, as simple as "touched his spurs to the horse," "poked," "pointed" to "stabbed" (negative connotation).

"Saluce sat there" is another example of a time when you could have played in the thesaurus, but you also could have just reworded the sentence to switch up the impact. For example, "His mission was to find Eclipse, wherever she maybe (may be) might have been (watch your tenses and spelling!), and return her to Dahlia and with her mother. Secondary to that, he considered from atop the unmoving horse, was to find Conor..."

So, the summarized version of all that: As far as wording actions to make them more effective goes, start out by 1) putting your verbs into the thesaurus and seeing what you get, experimenting with newer verbs and terms; 2) reword the sentence, sometimes using a different verb altogether (see: "sat" to "considered"); 3) not mentioned, but read other posts! See how other members word their sentences. This is a big reason why writers are told to read so much -- we learn through each other and seeing what works and where. See how those work out for you in your next post, and I'll give you some more ideas if you're still having a hard time! ^^

What I want you to do when you reply to this is think about what exactly is giving you difficulty with replying. Do you feel there is not enough subject matter to respond to? Is there not enough dialogue? Do you dislike the character or how they react? Or are you maybe just unsure what Saluce would do? Write it down in your OOC area and try to really specify in your mind what's holding you up. ^^

One last thing:
"where" = "where is it?" "where is the place?"
"were" = "they were there" "we were going outside"
Tongue
#3
The behemoth sat there idly, not really in a stubborn fashion as he watched the boy approach up to him. His hands sat at the reigns limply, knowing the boy would become aware of his presence soon. While he waited he took in a moment to study him, coyote heritage, came from out of the northern lands, and obviously his smell shared some of the traits of most of the northern wolves he had met. But his scent spoke of other places as well, and it meant he couldn’t label him Inferni straight away. But so close to Dahlian borders meant he would have to question them.

Saluce’s eyes went wide with the reaction, the boy had beheld his sight and the intended effect of scaring the daylights out of him seemed to work almost too well! The behemoth raised a hand to wave off the hysteria but it was too late, he was running and he groaned lazily. Already he’d have to chase someone and he wasn’t too far on his journey.

“Wait! I mean you no” his voice carried down in decibels as the boy ran almost out of site “harm” the final word spoken with a sigh. Shaking his head he urged his loyal mount forward, and quickly the horse attained a decent pace considering the weight he carried. The thunder of his hooves beating the ground was another remarkable effect that would make this much harder for Saluce. For a while he caught glimpses of him up ahead before slowly starting to close the gap. He steered the horse off the path to intersect his runner’s path knowing this terrain very well, making use of a dried up creek bed to cut him off.

Out of the mass trees and brush the horse burst through, cutting off the path of the speckled boy. The rider on top looked down at him, not with fierce eyes, as he shook his head. “You are in no Danger unless you bring Danger with you boy” He spoke, his voice completely different from the visage he portrayed. The Frenchman spoke with a soft tone that carried very little bass and malice with it. “I’d like to talk to you for a few moments” he continued hoping he’d at least cause him to stop long enough to ascertain if he was indeed a danger to Dahlia, before trying to find out if he knew of Conor’s whereabouts.




(After what we talked about last night, I formed an initial plot idea to use as my post. I think I need to make sure to do this before I even start writing. Have a definite end game so to speak for that post. Then afterwards it was a bit easier, I knew I had some time to use at least in the first paragraph to address your characters appearance, which helped me get started on the post. When I'm not rushing myself I think I maybe able to do this more often.

I did use the Thesaurus quite a bit but i didn't like most of the words for the instances I was using, but I did use a couple of them that I thought fit quite well and one or two that made me restructure the sentence. I'm very happy with the result and await your thoughts!

thanks so far)
#4
Posting this up here this time because the code it weirding out if I put it below the post. O_o

Using Micah's appearance as a way to start out your post is a very normal, but useful way to get going. Writing a post is like writing an essay, in a way -- they're hard to start sometimes, but once you get going, you're usually fine. Make a note in your mind not to get blocked on that "starting" obstacle: Be creative and explore ways to keep your first paragraph always new and original. It may just solve your problem with feeling "stuck" when you reply! It might not, though, so let's keep working on that too. Smile

Another step in the writing process is, of course, watching your grammar. There are plenty of grammar refresher websites through Google if you take a look; find one you like and glance it over, if you want.

1) Remember, only nouns are capitalized: persons, places or things (important, physical things, not concepts). "Danger" is none of these (it is a concept); it should not be capitalized.

2) Dialogue is very tricky with fiction writing, but very easy to learn once you get a good example down. Take a look at how I separate my dialogue from regular text: Anytime you have dialogue that continues into the sentence (as in, "he said," "he continued," etc.), the dialogue should be separated with a comma. When you use this method, the "he said" (etc.) should also not be capitalized, as the sentence is ongoing and since there is no period cutting it off, there is no need to start a new sentence with a capital letter. Take a look at my edited version of your last paragraph:

Quote:Out of the mass trees and brush the horse burst through, cutting off the path of the speckled boy. The rider on top looked down on him, not with fierce eyes, as he shook his head.

"You are in no danger unless you bring danger with you, boy," he said, his voice completely different from the visage he portrayed. The Frenchman spoke softly, his tone devoid of all threat and malice.

"I'd like to talk to you for a few moments," he continued, hoping he'd at least...

That first bit is very well written, by the way! Another note with dialogue is that typically, if you want to go by very strict fiction writing "rules" (that everyone bends), dialogue should always start a new paragraph. The way I write, I usually do start a new paragraph, unless I flow the text straight into the quote itself, as in blending Jefferson's thoughts about something said straight into a response. Usually, it looks and works best if you create a new paragraph starting with the dialogue if the preceding sentence was a verb or an action. These rules, however, are always up to the player's discretion, as they are very commonly bent and warped, but I just thought I'd let you know. ^^

As you can see, you tend to leave out a lot of commas, so that might be something to look into refreshing yourself as far as grammar websites go.

I also want you to take a look at how I would reword/clean up your third paragraph:
Quote:[html]"Wait! I mean you no" he called, but too late — the boy had already dashed away.[/html]
Making your dialogue a little creative also helps keep up the inspiration for the post. I personally love hard dashes (a straight, unbroken line instead of two hyphens put together - you can get this in HTML by typing —) both in dialogue and in text, as you can see. Having that dash there to cut off his words makes it more effective, even if just a little, but also makes it more obvious he cut himself off in the first place. I also love semicolons, but don't use those until you are 100% sure how they work. Semicolons are pretty much THE most incorrectly used symbol in the English language, and the more one uses them wrong, the worse one gets at learning how they work, really.

Also, remember the general rule of writing: Show, not tell. You've been really good with this so far, but just keep it in your mind as you write. It will help you shape your text creatively a little more naturally.

This post was very well written! I'm wicked proud of you! I can tell you were using the thesaurus and you did so very well; keep it up! ^^

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Still the Lykoi boy scrambled away in a feeble attempt at escape; something about a man in shining silver steel atop such a burly horse terrified the yearling straight to bone. Micah still knew nothing about this 'Souls, nothing about Inferni and especially nothing the clan's neighbors, but not once had he ever considered Inferni was not the worse of the packs out there. Surely if their neighbors were running about horseback in what appeared to be thick armor, Inferni could have been the least of his troubles. Tripping over a tree root, the salt-and-pepper male stumbled several feet, only to finally lose his footing and clumsily go tumbling. He landed flat on his stomach, sprawled in the dirt, heaving heavy breaths — but when his onyx ear flicked at the sound of approaching hooves, he jumped back to his feet and tried to start away once more, but to no avail: The horse and the defender cut him off, and Micah nearly skidded straight into the great black monster as he tried to stop.


Chocolate eyes wide, the yearling stared up at the stranger, his body wracked horribly with panicked tremors. The armored man spoke gently, his voice clear of threat and immediacy, but possessed a certain command and charisma that instantly shook the young Sunrise into submission. Micah cowered back, curls frolicking down and hid his eyes beneath, his mouth agape in pure terror. Clearly he carried no danger to this armored male, but he worried for his life nonetheless; surely he looked and smelled of Inferni, and though Micah did not know it and would never admit to it, being the son of the prince Razekiel made him a prince of the Lykoi and of Inferni himself. He was a key of their ancestry, and in his veins ran the very same blood of countless murderers and madmen.


"I'm s-s-s-sorry," the boy stammered, staggering back a few steps. His heel caught on yet another root, and once more he toppled down onto his ass, staring up at the huge stallion and rider from the ground. At the fall, a few cans of spray paint spilled out of his bag and onto the ground beside him, but in his panic the boy hardly seemed to notice. "I wa-wa-was just going home, t-to Ce-Cercatori d'Arte! I-I-I wa-wasn't hurting anybody, I swear!" He threw his hands up suddenly, pleading. "I d-don't want any t-t-t-trouble! Pl-please don't kill me!"


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#5
(my muse was still way low, but I put something together)


Saluce sat idly on top of his mount, not really frustrated or pissed, no he sat there with almost a bewildered look at the young boy. His armor had worked perfectly it seemed, the boy was scared to death. The behemoth listened to his frightened words, ears perking up on his head as he did, wondering why someone would have to apologize so profusely for apparently nothing. With a shake of his head his massive frame came off the horse, landing on the ground with a thud. Saluce looked over the smaller coyote now, appraising him for his physical worth, eyes of blue eating away at the warmth between them.

Finally he shook his head in annoyance, too much apologizing, too much childlike behavior, too much immaturity for his liking. The man’s face became stern before he addressed the young boy proper.
“For Christ’s sake boy, if you are genuinely not a threat to Dahlia then calm yourself.” Such weakness… it was always present wherever he went. No one seemed to stand for their own beliefs anymore and even less could look him in the eyes and state their intentions. True this world was different from where he came from, much more attention was paid to submissive and assertive behavior instead of meeting each other’s stare to determine their worth.

“If you truly mean no harm, then I can escort your through Dahlia toward your pack, could cut a lot of time off your trip. But first, I need to know if you’ve seen Conor Soul. He stood a bit shorter than eye, his coat was warm copper color, and his eyes a lilac purple. He might have had a small child with him. You haven’t seen him have you?,” it wouldn’t matter much, he guessed he hadn’t seen anything and would run as soon as he had the chance.

Saluce’s hands settled around his waist as he waited for the boys answer, it was only fair for him to escort him through Dahlia to his homeland, he had scared the daylights out of him.
#6
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The armored stranger criticized him for his behavior and demanded he calm down, but naturally the shaking boy did not; Micah barely heard him over his chattering teeth, but caught a few names in the flurry of commands he attributed nothing to whatsoever. Christ? Dahlia? Who the hell was this man, why was he so damn weird, and why was he not just going on his way and leaving the poor Lykoi boy to his own business?


The wolf swept off his horse, landing on the ground in a noisy mess Micah jumped and withdrew into his shoulders from. The stranger offered an escort through Dahlia, confirming a name to the strange smell lurking about the stranger's armor and stallion, and before Micah could cry and whine about how he did not need help and just wanted to be left alone, he was met with a second flurry of words and descriptions. Putting each trait of this "Conor" together like puzzle pieces, he painted a picture in his mind of the lost man, and with a shaking frown shook his head.


"I don't think so," he stammered, raising slowly and cautiously to his feet, poised even as he moved as if still ready to sprint away to freedom. "I'm sorry, I'll... I'll keep my eyes open for him, though."


A pause, and the salt-and-pepper boy looked over his shoulder at the "Dahlia" that lay behind him, the place the stallion and knight emerged. The thought of entering the territory where such strange people like he resided terrified him further, but Micah bit his tongue and chose not to mention it and endanger himself further. "I-I-I can get around okay on my own," he mumbled, turning chocolate eyes back and flicking his long curls into the wind. "I-I don't want to cause anymore trouble or upset anyone or anything."


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Is it your muse for the thread, or in general? Just wondering, because if it's for the thread then we need to figure why that is.

You're doing a great job with using different vocabulary and playing with your sentences! I'm already seeing pretty big differences and a lot more impact in what you're writing. Big Grin Make sure you are being precise with your words and sentences, though; I don't really know what "appraising him for his physical worth, eyes of blue eating away at the warmth between them" means, even though I love the word choice. Tongue

You're getting better with your commas, too, which is awesome since we were talking about that pretty specifically at one point. Right now there are spots in your grammar that could use some sort of break or symbol to clean up the sentence, but they're not too big a deal. An example would be a semicolon and extra colon in your first sentence: "...not really frustrated or pissed; no, he sat there with..." But like I said, semicolons are very tricky to learn, so you can study a bit up on them if you want. A hard dash would have worked there just as well.

Make sure you're careful with your dialogue in accordance with 'Souls history -- I don't think the phrase "for Christ's sake" would exist in the Luperci world, or wouldn't be too common. Most wolves would probably not know who that is, either (but obviously not all). You'll notice Micah had no idea who he's talking about when he says that. Also, Saluce refers to Conor ENTIRELY in past tense -- if he's looking for Conor, doesn't he still think he's alive? Tongue If so, he'd refer to him in present tense ("He stands a bit shorter than the eye, has a warm copper coat...").

You may have had no muse, but that's probably the best post you've written so far in this thread. Very good, and keep it up! I don't have much more to comment on this time around, other than just make sure you're watching your grammar.
#7
Saluce could feel the animosity building within him. The soul in front of him was weak, pathetic and unappealing for him to continue to stand here waiting for any reliable answer to come forth. Arms crossed as his face contorted into a scowl at the boy’s string of answers. –Just what the hell was wrong with him-, he wondered to himself. It didn’t matter though, and as he became increasingly more and more impatient it was soon understood he’d be letting him go on his merry little way.

The behemoth turned when he felt the boy was sufficiently finished stuttering. Having no more real time left to deal with him, and indeed no more patience. Saluce climbed back atop the mount he had been riding earlier, looked back to the boy and said nothing before urging his mount back toward Dahlia for now. Oh he wouldn’t just leave north, not with a coyote stinking of Inferni hanging around Dahlian borders, no he’d make sure he didn’t set one foot in his pack lands before he’d turn back northward.


(Sorry, nothing I thought up sounded any fun to rp, they can just be on their merry little way I guess.)


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