Full Version: An Old Altmer's Tale
.
Hmm. Humans distrusting elves? Is your subconscious telling you to play Skyrim? 
Not bad, Thorny Boy, not bad.
Not bad, Thorny Boy, not bad.
I like the premise that the player character is in jail because he planned it that way. But are you suggesting Valne Dreth is an accomplice?
An old Altmer. Wow, what does it take for an Altmer to be old? He's probably been around since before Tiber Septim's reign. Ahh, now I starting to suspect that he is recounting the tale in the 4th Era, of what happened to him in the 3rd.
You would not begrudge an old man his walking stick, would you?
Gandalf FTW!
“The Knights of the True Horn?”
The knights of the who horn? Speechify on Old Altmer! Let's hear this tale!
Ahh, so it is a 3rd Era tale after all. And apparently not the story of the speaker. Well, perhaps not. I suppose we shall see, won't we?
nits:
It was early evening, but it was already looking to be a good night, the tavern virtually {filled}, the patrons {filling} the air with the sounds of good cheer, and calls for more drink.
There are a couple of things here. First is that you have a repetition of filled/filling in the same sentence. It is always best to avoid any word repetitions. Thesaurus.com is your friend here. It is one of my search engines in Firefox. The other thing is that it is a run on sentence. The best way to tell if one is or not is to read it outloud. If you find yourself running out of breath and having to stop more than once, it is too long. I would suggest breaking it up into multiple sentences. For example:
It was early evening, but it was already looking to be a good night. The tavern was virtually filled, and the patrons suffused the air with the sounds of good cheer, and calls for more drink.
{“}The Altmer chuckled, a dry, hollow sound in the near silence that filled the tavern.
Looks like that sneaky Altmer slid in an opening quotation mark when you were not looking.
One question asked in many voices, and in many different ways, ran{d} across the room.
Never trust an elf. This time he sneaked in a 'd' at the end of 'ran'.
spread in a screen in {t}he hopes of preventing any from getting close enough to harm the Emperor
I am thinking you wanted a 't' to make a 'the' here.
opened his mouth to speak only to be interrupted by the {“prisoner”}.
It is not a hard and fast rule, but just as a suggestion, you might consider using single quotation marks around 'prisoner' rather than double quotation marks. The reason being you have a lot of dialogue around it, and it makes the word prisoner look like it was being spoken aloud.
“What? Anaril? Is that you?” The Altmer in the cell coughed violently before replying.
I found this to be confusing. I thought it was the Altmer in the cell saying it. When apparently he said the line above it. The same is true of a few other lines as well. It is usually best to put the speech tags in the same paragraph as its dependent dialogue. I would consider going back and editing those paragraphs, perhaps like so:
The Captain was not happy to find the cell occupied. “What's this prisoner doing here? This cell is supposed to be off-limits,” she grumbled.
The other Blade, a Redguard, opened his mouth to speak, "I..."
“Captain Renault! You must turn back!" the prisoner interrupted him. "The way is compromised! The enemy know the secret!”
“What? Anaril? Is that you?” the Captain wondered aloud.
The Altmer in the cell coughed violently before replying. “Yes. I managed to get close enough to discover their plans, at least in part, but I could not get away undetected. I rode my horse into the ground to get here, but I couldn't risk approaching you openly. They've been watching you all for days, I would never have gotten close. So I got myself arrested, and placed in this cell. I bribed a few people to commit some petty crimes and get arrested, filling the other cells, so they had to put me in here. It was the only way I could think of to make sure you got my warning. Turn back! This way is not safe, it is a trap!”
they herded us through {t}he streets
You would not begrudge an old man his walking stick, would you?
Gandalf FTW!
“The Knights of the True Horn?”
The knights of the who horn? Speechify on Old Altmer! Let's hear this tale!
Ahh, so it is a 3rd Era tale after all. And apparently not the story of the speaker. Well, perhaps not. I suppose we shall see, won't we?
nits:
It was early evening, but it was already looking to be a good night, the tavern virtually {filled}, the patrons {filling} the air with the sounds of good cheer, and calls for more drink.
There are a couple of things here. First is that you have a repetition of filled/filling in the same sentence. It is always best to avoid any word repetitions. Thesaurus.com is your friend here. It is one of my search engines in Firefox. The other thing is that it is a run on sentence. The best way to tell if one is or not is to read it outloud. If you find yourself running out of breath and having to stop more than once, it is too long. I would suggest breaking it up into multiple sentences. For example:
It was early evening, but it was already looking to be a good night. The tavern was virtually filled, and the patrons suffused the air with the sounds of good cheer, and calls for more drink.
{“}The Altmer chuckled, a dry, hollow sound in the near silence that filled the tavern.
Looks like that sneaky Altmer slid in an opening quotation mark when you were not looking.
One question asked in many voices, and in many different ways, ran{d} across the room.
Never trust an elf. This time he sneaked in a 'd' at the end of 'ran'.
spread in a screen in {t}he hopes of preventing any from getting close enough to harm the Emperor
I am thinking you wanted a 't' to make a 'the' here.
opened his mouth to speak only to be interrupted by the {“prisoner”}.
It is not a hard and fast rule, but just as a suggestion, you might consider using single quotation marks around 'prisoner' rather than double quotation marks. The reason being you have a lot of dialogue around it, and it makes the word prisoner look like it was being spoken aloud.
“What? Anaril? Is that you?” The Altmer in the cell coughed violently before replying.
I found this to be confusing. I thought it was the Altmer in the cell saying it. When apparently he said the line above it. The same is true of a few other lines as well. It is usually best to put the speech tags in the same paragraph as its dependent dialogue. I would consider going back and editing those paragraphs, perhaps like so:
The Captain was not happy to find the cell occupied. “What's this prisoner doing here? This cell is supposed to be off-limits,” she grumbled.
The other Blade, a Redguard, opened his mouth to speak, "I..."
“Captain Renault! You must turn back!" the prisoner interrupted him. "The way is compromised! The enemy know the secret!”
“What? Anaril? Is that you?” the Captain wondered aloud.
The Altmer in the cell coughed violently before replying. “Yes. I managed to get close enough to discover their plans, at least in part, but I could not get away undetected. I rode my horse into the ground to get here, but I couldn't risk approaching you openly. They've been watching you all for days, I would never have gotten close. So I got myself arrested, and placed in this cell. I bribed a few people to commit some petty crimes and get arrested, filling the other cells, so they had to put me in here. It was the only way I could think of to make sure you got my warning. Turn back! This way is not safe, it is a trap!”
they herded us through {t}he streets
QUOTE(Rohirrim @ Nov 21 2013, 04:09 PM) 
Hmm. Humans distrusting elves? Is your subconscious telling you to play Skyrim?
Not bad, Thorny Boy, not bad.
Unfortunately I was attempting to convey distrust of Mages, though I suppose that would naturally extend to Altmer. It's mentioned in one of the two books that one of the reasons the Mages Guild collapsed was people distrusting magic, blaming it for the Oblivion crisis.
"Is your subconscious telling you to play Skyrim? :hehe"
That'll teach me to put "whatever else you can think of"
I'll try and make sure the next chapter's better.
QUOTE(ghastley @ Nov 21 2013, 05:59 PM)
I like the premise that the player character is in jail because he planned it that way. But are you suggesting Valne Dreth is an accomplice?
Nope, but I never liked the "mix-up with the Watch" excuse, and thought the easiest thing to do was have all the other cells filled. At this point I'm not even sure Valen Dreth existed in this timeline, have to wait and see if Anaril joined the DB.
@Subrosa: Thanks for catching those, that's an embarassing number of typos. My laptop has a somewhat disobedient keyboard, or maybe just a slow one. And even more thanks for the non-typos and suggestions on fixing them.
QUOTE(SubRosa @ Nov 21 2013, 08:00 PM)
An old Altmer. Wow, what does it take for an Altmer to be old? He's probably been around since before Tiber Septim's reign. Ahh, now I starting to suspect that he is recounting the tale in the 4th Era, of what happened to him in the 3rd.
Centuries, undoubtedly. If the old one lied, and is indeed a mage, it could well be 5th Era or later. An Altmer mage could live a very long time indeed.
QUOTE(SubRosa @ Nov 21 2013, 08:00 PM)
You would not begrudge an old man his walking stick, would you?
Gandalf FTW!
No power in the universe could have stopped me slipping this in.
QUOTE(SubRosa @ Nov 21 2013, 08:00 PM)
Ahh, so it is a 3rd Era tale after all. And apparently not the story of the speaker. Well, perhaps not. I suppose we shall see, won't we?
I'll be honest, at this point I don't even know
Or do I?
Greta story Callidus. I see some Star Wars references in there, too. I'll be looking forward for more.
Welcome to the Arena of Fan Fiction at Chorrol!
You are off to a wonderful start with a creative twist to the Oblivion Crisis. I enjoyed the tavern’s mistrust of mages and it really added some tension and an air of mystery to the old Altmer.
Knighthood and the Blades are fabulous elements to weave into what looks like a fine tale.
Nits – As silly as it sounds, one technique that is very helpful late in your editing process is to read the episode aloud; ideally to a willing listener but, at a minimum, pretend you are recording the episode for an audio book. This can really help to identify awkward passages or missing/extraneous words and phrasing oversights. That all said, the nits that SubRosa and I are pointing out are within the framework of very minor. Have confidence, for your writing is sound and you have plenty of talent. Don’t get discouraged by these tiny nits!
‘...speak of them yet, for their part in tale comes later.’ - - I expect you want a ‘the’ before the word ‘tale’?
‘And so the in order to ensure the safety of the Emperor, ...’ - - The word ‘the’ in the early part of this sentence confuses things. I’d recommend simply, ‘In order to ensure the safety....’
‘They were heading for a secret passage, one that was known only to the Blades, the entrance to which was found in the prison, and the prison could only be reached via a narrow bridge.’ - - Whew, this was a very long sentence glued together by a fistful of commas! Heh, SubRosa’s advice about reading aloud and breaking up long sentences applies here.
You are off to a wonderful start with a creative twist to the Oblivion Crisis. I enjoyed the tavern’s mistrust of mages and it really added some tension and an air of mystery to the old Altmer.
Knighthood and the Blades are fabulous elements to weave into what looks like a fine tale.
Nits – As silly as it sounds, one technique that is very helpful late in your editing process is to read the episode aloud; ideally to a willing listener but, at a minimum, pretend you are recording the episode for an audio book. This can really help to identify awkward passages or missing/extraneous words and phrasing oversights. That all said, the nits that SubRosa and I are pointing out are within the framework of very minor. Have confidence, for your writing is sound and you have plenty of talent. Don’t get discouraged by these tiny nits!
‘...speak of them yet, for their part in tale comes later.’ - - I expect you want a ‘the’ before the word ‘tale’?
‘And so the in order to ensure the safety of the Emperor, ...’ - - The word ‘the’ in the early part of this sentence confuses things. I’d recommend simply, ‘In order to ensure the safety....’
‘They were heading for a secret passage, one that was known only to the Blades, the entrance to which was found in the prison, and the prison could only be reached via a narrow bridge.’ - - Whew, this was a very long sentence glued together by a fistful of commas! Heh, SubRosa’s advice about reading aloud and breaking up long sentences applies here.
This was a good read so far. The elf makes a nice framing device for the story and the idea of the prisoner being a Blades agent who stuck himself in the cell to make sure he could be with the Emperor, and the idea of the Knights of the True Horn (snort!) is a cool one.
Don't really have any nits to point out (Subrosa and Acadian got them all already), so all I'll say is that I enjoyed this and I'm looking forward to more.
Don't really have any nits to point out (Subrosa and Acadian got them all already), so all I'll say is that I enjoyed this and I'm looking forward to more.
For those who didn't get the obscure reference: Host of the Horn
I think I came across another reference in Skyrim recently, but I forget where.
Edit: It may have just been Sorine Jurard - not necessarily a relative of Arielle Jurard, or Arielle Jurard, who were two two separate people, living at different times, with the same name.
I think I came across another reference in Skyrim recently, but I forget where.
Edit: It may have just been Sorine Jurard - not necessarily a relative of Arielle Jurard, or Arielle Jurard, who were two two separate people, living at different times, with the same name.
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Closed, per request of thread's originator.
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