So you describe a character, place, object later in the story as a quick reminder for the readers? Or did I miss something? Nevertheless, if that’s the case, many Authors do that. In a long story the reader may forget, for an example, Character A has a tattoo, or that the key that open the Mysterious Door is int he shape of a tiny skull.
It’s a sign of good writing skills. As long as you keep it short and sweet, it keeps the reader aware or the situation/surroundings/characters without it getting boring. Because they are rereading something again.
Just my 0.02
--- She will always be the only one. It’s only when you’re truly wise, you realize how ignorant you are.
To respond to your description thing, Ty, it all depends.
See, if you just randomly start describing something that was described earlier when it has no value to the progression of the story, then don’t do it. If you do it, remove it. Excessive things tear a story down.
Now, if its a significant reminder, say to emphasize an object or something that holds importance or to sort of foreshadow an event related to the described thing, then its a good device to use.
P.S.I’m going to post a prologue I recently wrote soon, when I’m done with my research paper. I’d like some constructive criticism.
It’s usually an emphasis on the description (as in saying “her brown eyes” rather than her eyes, usually nothing more than that) that isn’t that long, usually it’s just tucked in there for a little more of a visual enhancement. Like I said, I’m picky as hell over my work, and paranoid, but it makes sense now that I have had eight hours to think about it lol
Can’t wait to see the prologue Rage, need to read something to get some more literary ideas and my room is WAY too far for me to go and read the Lord of the Rings again. Need some new stuff.
Thanks to everyone for the thread support. (now if someone can remind my tiny little brain on how I started this it’d be grand)
Tyreaus wrote:
It’s usually an emphasis on the description (as in saying “her brown eyes” rather than her eyes, usually nothing more than that) that isn’t that long, usually it’s just tucked in there for a little more of a visual enhancement. Like I said, I’m picky as hell over my work, and paranoid, but it makes sense now that I have had eight hours to think about it lol
Can’t wait to see the prologue Rage, need to read something to get some more literary ideas and my room is WAY too far for me to go and read the Lord of the Rings again. Need some new stuff.
Thanks to everyone for the thread support. (now if someone can remind my tiny little brain on how I started this it’d be grand)
Well, if you described a girl’s eyes as brown in one chapter, then reiterated it later, there is likely to be some significance to her eyes. So, make sure you’re giving it significance. If you are just describing it at random, then don’t.
But, simple reminders aren’t bad either. Make sure you have purpose, though, is all I’m saying.
My prologue. Its a bit long, since this story is to be a full novel. I’m going to TRY to work on it throughout the summer, but I doubt it will be completed. This is also the second part to a trilogy. I’m writing the second first because I just felt like it, as I have the whole of the trilogy in my head already:
“Get up! All of you! No time to rest for we have a tedious journey still ahead!" yelled the brutal colonel over a loudspeaker on his armored transport, his growling voice intimidating enough to promptly wake the wearied war prisoners he held under his watch.
Small, triangular tents were aligned in inconsistent rows across a large field. Truth be told, this was the first time the prisoners felt comfort; most other camp sites had been in the rubble of their own cities, destroyed by the Mirainese army under the Mirai Empire. The grass of the field was soft and served as a nice bed while the flowers left a soothing waking aroma. The only discomfort was from the lack of sun, leaving the wind cold as it blew over the morning dew. The Jagonian prisoners' comfort was the colonel’s as well: he grew tired of listening to moans of complaint day after day. Thankfully, this morning left the prisoners to appreciate the comfort and bask in solace, for they knew it wouldn’t last.
The colonel’s task was to bring the mass of Jagonian prisoners to a recruitment camp in the captured city of Altea, an alpha-city in the Jagon Republic. There, the catpives would be drafted into the Mirai Empire as soldiers or laborers. “Better than execution," was the Mirainese’s reasoning which they regurgitated on the sorrow-filled prisoners. Many Jagonians disagreed; they knew sorrow and pain from torturous servitude loomed in their future for the Jagon Republic and Mirai Empire were mortal enemies. Death would probably be the best escape.
Eventually, the captives had their fill of comfort and crawled from their cramped tents. Most prisoners were thin from lack of proper nutrition, naked from trying to relieve themselves from the heat of their cargo truck transports, and dirty from never having a chance to bathe. They all, almost in unity, began to disassemble their tents sluggishly, still not completely awake from a short night’s sleep. There were upwards of one thousand prisoners under the colonel, the majority of which civilian. The task of keeping order amongst so many Jagonians was too much for a single officer to handle, so he had numerous handfuls of soldiers under his command to assist. After all, the occasional group of captives would become rebellious and would have to be quelled with extreme force. These outbursts baffled the colonel, for he could not understand how unarmed civilians would consider conflicting with battle-readied soldiers. Perhaps, he thought, they figured their brethren would join their rebellion, but most of the captives had already accepted their destiny.
After the Jagonians packed their tents, a heavy-set officer draped in a grease-stained apron called for breakfast over a loudspeaker. The prisoners moved to the tables with no excitement; their only meals consisted of protein-enhanced slop, just enough to keep them from dying quickly. Not that the officers and soldiers had much better food, but at the very least, there was more for them than for the prisoners.
Among the prisoners, no one said a word. All were too scared or depressed to even consider speaking to each other. The Mirainese, however, laughed and played throughout all of breakfast. Unlike the Jagonians, they sought to distract themselves from their daily duties and fears, granted, they weren’t about to be slaves to an oppressive enemy. When breakfast was over, the colonel’s captian commanded for the prisoners to load onto their cargo trucks so another day could be spent traveling to Altea, cramped and vile.
“I’d say two days more of this and we will have reached Altea," the captian told his commanding officer.
“If not for those beasts in the sky, we could transport these cretins by air," the colonel complained.
The soldiers started to force the tired prisoners into their trucks. The cargo trucks were only built to comfortably hold upwards of fifty people, but with only five trucks and nearly one thousand prisoners, the prisoners had to make use of as much space as they could. People were mashed together, unable to move without pushing everyone around them, causing pain as bony limbs stabbed into the prisoners' flesh. While the prisoners could handle the piss-poor food and uncomfortable sleeping environments, the cramped trucks pushed many to furious retaliation, but only in futility. The soldiers attempted to calm the prisoners by hitting them upside their skulls with the butt of their assault rifles and if that failed, then they would resort to putting a bullet into a prisoner’s head; man or woman, elder or child, resisting or quiet. After witnessing around one hundred of their own killed, the prisoners finally settled and boarded the trucks, which only had slightly more space now.
The colonel sighed at the massacre and commented, “Another futile rebellion." He scoffed and boarded his transport.
It is Mirainese custom to bury the dead when it is convenient, so in the rush to reach Altea, the soldiers were ordered to pack the bodies of the dead on the truck. As the day passed, the hot sun lingered in the sky, turning the cargo trucks into ovens, intensifying the smell of death, vomit, and excrement that littered the trucks. The prisoners were not given many chances to relieve themselves properly, so the truck beds were full of human excrement that was never properly cleaned out during each camp-out at night. The truck beds themselves had little ventilation, which trapped the vile stench and scorching heat with the prisoners. While the prisoners tried to relive themselves from the heat by stripping naked, the compact space exchanged the body heat too well, making the attempt a futile one. Nevertheless, they were willing to try anything.
During midday, the prisoner caravan stopped and the Mirainese soldiers began to move into formations around the line of trucks. Curiosity streamed in the cargo trucks, causing many prisoners to peek out of the small vents in the truck beds. For those that couldn’t see, the spectators tried to explain the situation even though they had little to no idea of what was happening.
Silence...
The air became heavy and the skies darkened. Roars echoed in the sky and the ground began to shake in rhythm to the movement of massive feet. Fear struck the prisoners and the soldiers, but no one yet panicked.
The rear of the caravan broke the silence as gunfire ensued. Screams from the soldiers were heard as the gunshots lessened in frequency. No one was sure of what was happening, until a mass of screams began to travel toward the rest of the caravan. The rear cargo truck flew through the air and landed on top of the next truck in the line with such force that it crushed all the prisoners in the two trucks. Blood began to leak from the vents of the trucks and the silence ensued. The rest of the prisoners couldn’t figure out what had happened and the soldier were hiding their fear, waiting for the assailant to appear over the path’s hill.
And it appeared...
A demon, thirty feet high, its body burning with a black fire no mortal could control. From its massive skull, which resembled that of a bull, were four horns, each curved to align with its jawline. Its eyes were black, with the black fire ferociously surging from them. It let out a monstrous roar and charged for the third truck, elbow cocked in front of him to ram the truck out of the way. When it connected, the prisoners screamed as the truck flipped from the force. When it landed, the demon crushed the truck with its foot, stomping on it over and over. Some of the soldiers vomited at the sound of crunching bodies and garbled screams. Blood sprayed from the cracks of the truck each time the demon stomped. When it finished, the soldiers realized the time for awe was through and opened fire on the demon. Unfortunately, they merely acted as annoyances as each bullet would ricochet off of its rocky skin. To quell the annoyance, the demon lifted its leg and stomped the ground with amazing force, cracking the ground all around it and bringing up the same black fire that burned from its body. The soldiers quickly fell from the force and burned from the fire, struggling on the ground like fish in attempts to extinguish their bodies. Wasting no time, the demon opened its massive jaw, inhaled, and exhaled, sending a powerful projectile toward the next cargo truck full of screaming prisoners. Upon contact, the truck was obliterated in a mixture of red and black fire which completely engulfed the prisoners. The demon did the same to the final truck, and the screams eventually died as the people did.
The armored transports had fled before the demon finished, but while they escaped the burning demon, the roar from the skies found them. The beasts of the skies left only blood and bones in their wake.
Really good. I understand the situation quite a bit, although there are some blank spaces. But of course it’s just a prologue.
Continue with it, it has plenty of detail and it sounds pretty epic.
But here are a few things I need to point out.
-Fear struck the prisoners and the soldiers, but no one yet panicked.
I think you may have worded that bit incorrectly, I think. lol
-The rest of the prisoners couldn’t figure out what had happened and the soldier were hiding their fear,
Unless I’m misinterpreting the situation, that should be soldiers, right?
- The second to last paragraph where the demon creature appears, and the struggle ensures, needs to be broken up. It simply doesn’t fit well with the rest of the neat writing style. Large paragraphs seem clunky and uncoordinated IMO.
But I must say, it sounds interesting. Continue writing. Because if you don’t, I’ll kick yer ass.
--- She will always be the only one. It’s only when you’re truly wise, you realize how ignorant you are.
Oh I re wrote Dr Jekyl and Mr hyde for a uni assignment..well re wrote a key scene from the book AND did an analysis. Got 80/100 for it. Next semester I get to do short stories for all my assignments for english so thats gonna be pretty sweet too
Oh I re wrote Dr Jekyl and Mr hyde for a uni assignment..well re wrote a key scene from the book AND did an analysis. Got 80/100 for it. Next semester I get to do short stories for all my assignments for english so thats gonna be pretty sweet too
My English teacher gets mad because all I do is short stories or narratives when she asks for a writing assignment. I tried to explain to her that writing a persuasive essay on whether or not I enjoy school was just pointless, but she keeps pushing it. (Idk what the point of writing that was, but I thought it was somewhat relevant to what you said.)
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