[Razor]

Synopsis: A hunt between a dragon and a man, who is the prey and who is the predator?

The smell of rain lingers in the air, as the thunderstorm moves off to the west. In its wake lies the jungle dripping wet and without a breath of air.

The last of the rain filters down through the canopy falling like despondent raindrops around the creatures of the jungle. They lay huddled in the security of their hiding fearing more than just the rain.

Half of their fear comes from the almond eyes that flicker into focus from behind their leafy camouflage. The pungent aroma of damp moss clinging to hearty bark wavers up into his senses, while the soft ground sinks underfoot.

The bushes in front of him begin to stir, and the almond eyes narrow. Bushes shake and whole trees quiver as they give birth to an olive behemoth. The magnificence and power of the creature is awe inspiring as it rears up to its full height. At the top of its thirty or so arm-lengths is a triangular maul lined with carnivorous teeth behind smooth scaly lips. A pentagon pattern works up the elongated nose, past two large golden eyes to the head. Soft ridges roll down a long toned neck, into a large, nimble body. It’s like a serpent crossed with a thoroughbred, only the it’s the size of a mammoth.

Moving back onto its four clawed feet, the beautiful beast sweeps its nimble tail methodically to and fro, almost hypnotic in its motion. The rest of the jungle is silent, awaiting the dragon’s next move. The almond eyes of the hunter wait with trepidation.

A movement, more of a flicker draws the large golden eyes away from its stalker. The air around the almond eyes compresses, as he melds his magic into it. Like a gail from a cyclone the air explodes catapulting the wizard of a man forward onto his prey. The dragon whips out with its tail, but the man is one step ahead sliding feet first beneath it.

The man is on his feet again and charging, but the dragon’s muscles snap taunt whirling it around at an alarming speed. The maul, with glistening teeth open and ready, strikes out like a viper.

Kaboom! The air around him explodes hurtling him backwards as the razor sharp teeth snap shut. The man regains his feet trying to circle in behind, his mind whirling with fear and his body feeding off adrenaline; then, in he shoots, but the dragon swivels keeping the lethal man in front of it and way from its vulnerable flank.

Hands and feet scramble to dodge raking claws. A flurry of wind pushes him out of reach. Sliding to a halt outside of the dragon’s range, he takes in the colossal fortress of death. He pulls air into winded lungs, while almond eyes dance with zeal. The dragon squares up, its muscles coiling to strike.

At a speed that belies its size the behemoth springs and roars with might. The maul shoots out, but the man is gone streaking back into the jungle. Gnashing teeth follow the quick footed man like a snake weaving through the jungle. Just as the dragon is about to catch him, he sling shots around a tree and back towards the belly of the beast.

The tail cracks like a whip, but he is airborne streaking in like a ballista at a fortress. The tail lashes back; a pocket of wind explodes lifting him up into the branches, where he plants. Back down his soars honing in on the creatures back.

The dragon springs aside to keep the wretched man from latching on. The man hits the ground, and dives out from the striking teeth; he circles and closes in on the belly. Off-balance the beast attempts to ward him off with its tail at no avail. The man slips up under the base of the tail. Forward the dragon launches to dislodge him from his safe nook. It’s too late. The man has climbed on.

Rearing back it snaps with its maul as the man scales the dragon like a cliff staying away from those snarling teeth. Reaching the base of the neck spreads a devilish grin across his face.

Forward the brazen olive dragon bolts, storming through the jungle with the man holding tight. Wings unfold as it breaks into a clearing; leaping, it soars up through the treetops into the bright blue sky. The man takes out his sword, almond eyes gleaming.

He rears back in the whistling winds and cloudless sky, two hands upon its hilt.

“May it be that this colossal being has been bested, that I have challenged its might and survived the fight.”

The dragon ducks into a spiraling nose dive, almost freeing itself from his grasp. He hangs on by clinched legs, while the rest of him is thrown back. A grunt escapes at the sheer velocity at which they drop, his legs slipping inch by inch.

His strength exhausted, his grip all but gone, he roars in frustration before the wind carries him off its back. The dragon banks out of the daring move and works itself back into the sky, leaving the man to watch as he falls back into the treetops.


He summons a pocket of air, snaps off a branch, and finally swings off another to stop his fall. Up he climbs as quickly as possible back into the treetops. His matted brown hair and smudged, sweat covered face breaches the leafy surface.

Off in the distance, the winged beast glides towards the setting sun.

The Dragon’s Roost I would wager.

“Blasted, so close!” His almond eyes fill with disdain.

After a regrettable sigh, “I mustn't waste time. My quarry escapes.”

He works down out of the tree and starts off after his horse. Then he heads off to The Dragon’s Roost, a half a day’s ride or more.

[Nupur]

Lovely story Razor. The voice of narration is lovely. Your grammar is sound, but do take care of the typos. I love your descriptions. Your sentence framing is different from what people generally use but it looks wonderful. I like how you change the voice to reduce repetition and make it more interesting.

You have a way with language and it shows. Lovely job. Looking forward to the next part.

[Razor]

Thanks Nupur, really appreciate everything from the comment to the editorial services.

[Arnklit]

First of all I'll have to disagree with Nupur, I think this a dreadful piece of junk. This is not even a story, I guess you could call it an exercise in descriptions, but then I would have to call it a failed one.

We have a man running through a jungle, hunting a dragon, for no apparent reason. There's no characterization and no development at all - in the beginning of the story, he is hunting the dragon, at the end he is hunting the dragon. Has he changed through his first encounter? It doesn't seem so, but then since we don't know the man (he doesn't even have a name) how can we know if he has changed.

We have no sympathy for the protagonist, we have no motivation. The only reason people might continue reading is if they are curious about why there's a man in a jungle hunting a dragon, but we never get to know, instead we are fed a jumble of bad description about a struggle we don't give a crap about.

I don't know if you have a large vocabulary, but little sense of how to use it or you force-fed the text through MS-Word's thesaurus, either way, there are some bad word choices in there.

Well let's look at the text:

The lush foliage is dripping with sweat and without a breath of wind.

"Lush foliage" good word choice here. But then "is dripping with sweat" I guess you're trying to describe foliage dripping with rainwater or dew, but it's not a good description in my mind.

"-and without a breath of wind" this is a terrible sentence construction, and it needs at least to be "and is" but it's still not good.

Then we have "stalk the billowing foliage" which I think is too much too, but never mind that. Foliage is a great word, but you've just used it, say something else.

And here comes the dragon "an olive behemoth" I almost forgave the beginning because I like that word. it's a great word, meaning huge creature of enormous power, since it was originally used to describe a water-ox or hippopotamus, I have always felt that behemoth meant slow and heavy, which is why it irritated me when the dragon was then described as lithe as I felt that it kind of undermined the behemoth description, but the silliest thing is that you repeat that the body is large when you have already called it a behemoth.

well there's a lot more bad descriptions if you ask me, but I won't go through them all, there were a couple of things that didn't fit into the world, like using "fast as a jet" in a fantasy story or "cat and mouse" in a fantasy story where we're hunting dragons in a jungle with no knowledge of whether cats and mice exist in this world. The horse that he gets back to in the end. I've never heard of horses being able to traverse sub-tropical jungles, but perhaps I'm just stupid.

The entire description of a fight with whom is jumping where and doing what, is not interesting and you try too hard to get people to see it the way you see it, this is not a movie, it won't look cool inside people’s minds, they just get confused over all the jumping around and bad sentencing. You should tell us about what he's feeling when he's fighting instead, that we can relate to.

And by the way "Spinning, he summons wind reducing his speed." summons winds? If he's using magic now, can't see what else he should be doing (farting perhaps) it might have been a good idea to inform us of his abilities earlier. It seems like cheating to put your character in a dangerous situation and then just do a Deus ex machina.

You chose to write this in present tense, and you pulled that off without straying into past tense, which is quite an accomplishment in and of itself, though personally I don’t like the present tense.

I’m sorry if I seam harsh, but this is bad. The language is terrible in my opinion, but I wouldn’t mind that if there was a story there. Go back to the basics. Characterization, sympathy for the protagonist, premise etc.

I’ll read the second part of the story and if I find that I was mistaken and there was a story hidden in there somewhere I’ll give you an apology.

Good luck in all your writing endeavors.

[Zoidberg]

Well, this seems sort of odd, because I have to terribly disagree with Arnklit. The only thing that he points out that I have to agree with is "fast as a jet". It;s obvious that you are speaking of a typical medieval fantasy world, with using the Western European style of dragon.

Now, onto my comments:

I thought the sentence structure, just as Nupur said, was brilliant. The way you use the heavy amounts of detail and the short but sweet actions is excellent. Just a couple things,

The brimming foliage drips soaking wet from rain not half an hand's width ago in the steamy afternoon.

Should that be a? I don't know, it just sounds wrong to me.

Drawn to a stirring, they narrow into slits.

This sentence is nearly poetic, along with others, which is why I think I enjoy this piece so much.

The almond eyes of a hunter wait with trepidation.

I NOW DECLARE THAT THE WORD OF THE DAY IS TREPIDATION!

Razor, Bravo on such an excellent piece, and I'm gonna get right on the next one.

[Jimbalaya]

Interesting story, Razor. I'm not a huge fan of the fantasy genre, but I wanted to see what you had going.

I have to say that I don't agree with Arnklit's review. What he said was somewhat anal and borderline rude, and hardly helpful. He only made two halfway decent points and it looks like you've addressed them.

You're poetry shines through in this piece. While your descriptions are amazing, the only problem I have with them is that I want to see more of the scenes. You bluntly and beautifully, albiet quickly, describe the scenes and the surroundings incredibly well, I just wanted you to dwell on them a little more, maybe work some more senses in there if you know what I mean.

Just a couple of nits:

...half an hand's width...

I think that should be 'a'.

Razor edges snap shut,...

I loved the image here and, while I knew you meant teeth, it seems like you should mention the actual teeth in there somewhere, rather than just 'Razor edges'.

...up the 8000 lb fortress of death....

Nice image, again. Personal preferance: I don't much like seeing numbers in text unless it's stating a time or something. And I despise abbreviations such as 'lb'. It is a bit jarring. I know writing 'eight thousand pounds of death...' kind of stretches it out as well. How about rewording the whole thing? Something like: 'four tons of death...' or something like it. Just a suggestion.

...maul shoots out, but he gone....

Think you need to slip in a 'was' there between 'he' and 'gone'.

...back; he explodes a pocket of wind pushing him upwards.

This sentence reads a little awkward. Maybe '...back. he explodes as a pocket of air pushes him upwards.' Also, this is one of those I would mind seeing fleshed out a little more. Describe the feel, maybe it's crushing, maybe it's cooling, or hot, rotten leafy smells churn up from the jungle floor...etc, etc. See what I mean?

Again, it's not my favorite genre, but it was interesting and I'm looking forward to the next istallment.

[Razor]

Arnklit:

I have to say at first your critic maddened me, but I decided I needed to calm down before I did anything. So I waited a few days and then sought to look at it again. I see your point about this not having a introduction, climax and conclusion along with an underlying theme. Its not a traditional tale/story, nor is it an exercise in description, although I did try to incorporate that into my tale. Instead this is a fragment of a larger piece that I am working on. I put this here to see how well this style of writing is or isn't received. Long story short. I appreciate your time and to some extent your comments.

DnDDmD:

Thanks man! I was a little jittery after the above post. I was contemplating rewriting the whole of it. I'm so glad you liked it. You've strengthened my faith in the way I wrote this. Your excitement is well received, not to mention your flattery. Thank you so much!

Jimba:

Your comments not only flatter, but improve. Thank you; for like I said before, I was thinking maybe this was not a good form to write in and that I should go back and rewrite the whole of it. I deeply value your opinion and I have attempted to work your suggestions in. I will continue to slip additional sensory descriptions in where I can. Thanks again!

[Peppy]

Well, I think you need to improve on your writing. You've focussed all your attention on descriptive imagery that you forgot to polish the action movements. The character and the dragon's movement seem to be abstract, in fact the whole story seems to be abstract. The main character seems to "appear" somewhere for no logically reason, like you put him one place and he appears in another or he's nowhere and where he is is finally introduced intot a place when the dragon attacks.

Your writing in the end was improving, I might have to admit. It wasn't as confusing and weird like the other half, it's like you stop trying and did instead.

Now, let's talk about your grammer. It needs fixing up. I noticed you don't know exactly how to use your commas. Commas are important to tell what is exactly happening.

The man dances clear his mind whirling with fear and excitement...

There are a lot of sentences like this throughout the story. The make me, the reader, mad that I have to place the comma for you. This sentence in particular makes me think that this should be read smoothly without a pause. It should look something like this:


The man dances clear, his mind whirling with fear and excitement...

A movement, more of a flicker draws the large golden eyes away from its stalker.

A movement, more of a flicker, draws the large golden eyes away from its stalker.

One last note: You seem to put two verbs close together. Try using adverbs and adjectives, and sometimes you needed to seperate the two verbs with a comma(last comma comment).

[Razor]

I went in and pretty much reworded most of the first half of the story. I hope it works better than before.

Things I changed:

Action scenes: People said they were too abstract, so I toned them down and gave alittle more description

Wording: I replaced my lack of pronouns and odd verb placement/usage to a more formal kind

Description: Toned it down a little, some of it was kind of a mouth-full and it was breaking up the flow of the story