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Aranas; PG-13, gets intense at times
Topic Started: Wednesday, 30. January 2013, 17:44 (291 Views)
Frezon
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The Man
Herp derp I wrote something else. Rated pg-13 like all my other stuff, but it’s probably going to be a little more intense than anything else by me on here. Especially because it’s a serious story. Anyway, enjoyth.

Aranas

Chapter 1

Kurnon was a beautiful city on the surface. One could eat some of the finest food in the galaxy in its eateries, shop for goods from across the stars, and meet with a variety of specialists in any field you could desire. In addition, the architecture was astounding and praised by all.

Of course, this was what most people wished see when they came to Kurnon. Like all cities, Kurnon had a darker side, where poverty and gangs ruled, and where the things one could discover were just as numerous but far more illegal in nature. Prostitution, illegal drugs, powerful weaponry, and interstellar smuggling were all common finds in Kurnon if you knew where to look. Which made the place a sort of second home for Aranas Drool.

Aranas was a member of the shapeshifting species and family known as the Drools. Able to take any form he desired, and being nearly unkillable, the Drools conquered large portions of the galaxy with their armies, a race of snake-like creatures known as the Zykar. Most Drools were drawn to grandiose worlds and pursuits in their free time, from exploring the diamond moons of Seeria to manipulating the genetic codes of bacteria from Exdon. Aranas, however, had always seen things in a different light then his family. To him, true power resided in the shadows, the darkness, and in places so evil that even his family, considered amoral at best, would find to be unsavory. And thus he was drawn to the underbelly of Kurnon.

Though Aranas could assume any form of evil he desired, and he had plenty to choose from, at the moment he assumed the shape of a normal Kurnian human. Of course, he was far faster and more powerful than any human, but there was no need for anyone else to know that. Humanity puzzled Aranas. They had such weak bodies, were easily killed, and were normally not exceedingly intelligent, yet were spread throughout innumerable worlds. Did they originate from one main planet and cross the stars from there? Were they a natural end point of evolution? Aranas doubted both of these. From what he had learned from those more read on this subject then he, humans across all worlds had believed their species had originated there, and very often, there was no evolutionary path in the fossil records that would lead to their species’ creation. More likely, Aranas reasoned, they were seeded by a superior race that somehow had remained hidden for millennia. But who were these others, and how did they still remain concealed? These questions bothered Aranas, but he put them aside. There was business to conduct.

Aranas was currently en route to a store which apparently was selling gravity based weaponry. Such tools were very destructive, with large gravity bombs able to devastate entire worlds. The small ones were no joke either, and could wipe out entire cities in a blink of the eye. While Aranas had no burning desire to save the population of this world, it would be a pity to waste the treasure troves of information he had yet to discover, and thus he had to see if the man’s claims were true, and if so, forcibly remove the weaponry from his possession. He giggled. It had been a while since he had a plan so simple and direct. He was looking forward to this.
You hear about that thing down in Samothrace?
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Warrior Poet
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If you lead me, I will go.
Well, nothing happened yet, so there's no story to review. The premise seems to be that there is space and people fly in it. I like the idea of a "hero" who just cares about the planet as a library, though :D

Where'd you come up with all the names, though?
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Dekky
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The Rock Raptor
I see a couple o' things to comment on already, Mr. Frezon. But you're doing well so far.

While you've done a good job of cutting out adverbs, there are some still in there, particularly in this sentence:
Quote:
 
...and were normally not exceedingly intelligent, yet...

Adverbs, I've been told, are a mortal sin. Having two that close together is not the best look, I'm afraid.

Quote:
 
Able to take any form he desired, and being nearly unkillable, the Drools conquered...

I think you mean "Able to take any form they desired." Just a small point.

There are a couple of places where you get 'then' and 'than' mixed up, for instance here:
Quote:
 
...had always seen things in a different light then his family

"Different light than his family?" I found this quite noticeable the first time I read it, but the second time it wasn't so obvious.

And one more thing, there are a few occurrences where you put 'and' after a comma. Please refrain from doing so. Simply leave out the comma and continue the sentence as normal. The word 'and' has basically the same purpose as a comma.

Apart from that it's a good intro. I do look forward to reading more about Mr. Drool. Rock on!

This week: I am now taking requests! If you want me to model something for you on 'Art of Illusion,' just send me a message. If you'd like to see samples of my work, check out my Art Topic! (hint: it's in the Art forum)

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Cow!
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Moojestic Queen Moomay the Resplendent and Hot
Sorry, I have to interject here.
Quote:
 
there are a few occurrences where you put 'and' after a comma. Please refrain from doing so. Simply leave out the comma and continue the sentence as normal. The word 'and' has basically the same purpose as a comma.

This is totally a stylistic decision. I personally am an unapologetic fan of the oxford comma, for clarity's sake, but it's not wrong either way.

Anyway. Good start as far as worldbuilding goes. There were a couple of complaints that I had, but apart from a rocky transition from exposition to action at the end of the section, I can't remember any now. So. Gj! Write more!
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Warrior Poet
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If you lead me, I will go.
The commas are just fine.

Adverbs are just fine too. They're not evil. They're a good and useful part of the English language. You should use all the tools necessary to build your story. You shouln't use them badly though, and the example Dekar pointed out is pretty bad.

Sometimes it's good to use a technique sparingly, or not at all, for consistient tone and style. I'm all for efficient prose, but I disagree with Dekar when I say one style shouldn't be the only way. I prefer Orwell's style to Tolkien's, but it's kind of Orwellian to say it must be done his way.
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Sfabulous
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Sleepy Kat
It's great that you're trying something different! Definitely a promising start so far.

The tone of the story came across to me as wryly dark, and that's helped along greatly by your development of the protagonist, who I'm assuming is more one of those anti-hero blokes than a villain. He does have a couple of appealing qualities, such as his curiosity and dark humour, and I'm interested to see how you'll balance that with his exceptionally evil tendencies.

At the same time, I felt that you were trying to do too many different things with this chapter. Cow pointed out the rough switch form exposition to action, which was the first thing that caught me off guard (3rd to 4th paragraph and 4th to 5th to some extent). You go quite heavily into the description of the planet and the Drools and Aranas himself. So when you suddenly transition to Aranas' actions in real-time narration, so to speak, the distance between the character and the reader from the descriptive part remains. The story loses a bit of its hook and excitement. The lengthy segments on humans and gravity weapons further removed me from whatever action was happening, such that by the end I wasn't particularly concerned with whatever evil plot Aranas was going to pull.

If you intend to revise this chapter, my main suggestion would be to split it into two parts. I'd have your background information go in a prologue or something, so you can go into worldbuilding more extensively to flesh it out even better, then have the action start in a new chapter to break away from the passive tone.

Minor technical issues you might want to look into:

Of course, this was what most people wished see when they came to Kurnon.
Wished to see? Also, a sort of clumsy way to go about shifting the mood. Suggestion: Of course, some people had other business on Kurnon. Leave it if you like, I don't want to mess with your voice.

Most Drools were drawn to grandiose worlds and pursuits in their free time
Being drawn to a world and being drawn to a pursuit are not directly comparable things. I'd suggest just "grandiose pursuits".

Did they originate from one main planet and cross the stars from there?
Had they originated from one main planet and crossed the stars from there?

gravity based weaponry
gravity-based weaponry

Overall though I'm really interested to see where you're going with this plot, and that's the main thing. Keep writing! :D
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Frezon
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The Man
Yay comments!

Most of these errors are due to my terrible editing skillz and the fact that I wrote this chapter at around midnight one day.

On the point of the commas, I was taught to do it that way and habits are difficult to break. If I think it sounds nicer with a comma, the comma goes in.

Then and Than has always and will forever trip me up.

I always have problems starting stories (especially serious ones, because I can't abuse humor as much to get readers interested), as I always want what I write to be perfect, so I essentially have to just bite the bullet and accept that overediting will ensure that a story never gets written. This has happened quite a lot for me, and is the main reason why I post so few serious stories.

Chapter 2 has been written, just need to edit it and make sure it's ready for public eyes.
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Frezon
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The Man
Chapter 2

Aranas was meandering down the street when he noticed a figure that seemed rather out of place. It was tall, far taller than any of the humans surrounding it, at least 8 feet in height. In addition, its skin, in contrast to the varying shades of brown and tan that most humans in Kurnon had, was pure white. It also wore far different clothes. While most inhabitants of the city wore some sort of tunic or robe, this creature wore a pure black suit with a white undershirt and a black tie, all very clean. Combined with its claws on its long fingers, this was a creature that should be noticed, and probably avoided, by the majority of people. Yet no one paid it any attention as it surveyed the masses. Naturally, Aranas was curious about how it managed to remain undetected by the population, so he approached it.

"Hello there," he said to the creature in a pleasant voice. The thing turned its head towards Aranas. While its pure black eyes showed no sign of emotion, Aranas could detect other, more subtle clues that the creature was surprised, and possibly angry that someone had approached it. It closed its eyes for a moment, and the people in the area bean to cough and gag, running away from the area.

"What are you? How do you see me?" The creature had a raspy, though deep voice.

"Well, I wanted to know the same thing, only the opposite. How do you hide yourself from the others?

"Others?"

"The humans, of course." Aranas said, though the thing was not listening anymore, diving at him with its claws slashing at his neck. However, Aranas was far faster than most beings, and this thing was still most beings. Though its speed was phenomenal compared to humans, Aranas dodged it with ease, then morphed his arm longer and grew a blade from his hand, which he used to decapitate the creature at its mouth.

As Aranas stepped back from the creature, he looked around to see that the street was completely empty except for a lone figure walking towards him. Even if his eyesight had not been excellent, the figure was easily recognizable: his father, Orham, a technological genius and the Drool's master of arms.

"Hello there father," Aranas called out, "What brings you to this lovely street?"

"Rumors of gravity bombs," Orham had a direct way of speaking, very different from Arana's flowing and feathery tone. "They were nothing but that: rumors. I killed all involved for wasting my time."

"Oh excellent. I had heard the same and was en route when I discovered this." He motioned towards the ground.

"A severed head?" Orham asked, peering down

Aranas looked down as well, noticing that the body of the creature has dissolved into ash, leaving only the head of the creature lying on the ground. "Yes, though it was connected to a body earlier, which appears to have vanished. Apparently the humans cannot see it."

"Well then. You should take it to Acteron. Perhaps he will know what it is."

"I will do just that then," Aranas said, storing the head inside a box he had meant for the bombs. "Well father, enjoy your stay." With that Aranas lifted the box onto his shoulder and made his way back to the spaceport, so he could return to the Drool home world, Zykarna.
Edited by Frezon, Saturday, 2. February 2013, 21:29.
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DannieBug
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Captain Awesome
Review of chapter 2
Good start :) Though, you initially introduced a character as his father, but he was directly greeted as his uncle. Other than that, good chapter :)
"Daniela: What's this tonteria that I'm seeing on the street?
I thought I'd never see the day...
Since when are Latin people scared of heat?
When I was a little girl
Growing up in the hills of Vega Alta
My favorite time of year was Christmas time!
Ask me why

Carla: Why?

Daniela: There wasn't an ounce of snow
But, oh, the coquito would flow
As we sang the aguinaldo
The carnaval would begin to grow
Business is closed, and we're about to go
Let's have a carnaval del barrio!"
"Carnaval del Barrio"- In the Heights :)
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Frezon
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The Man
woops, forgot to change that. Kinda a last minute change, so only edited the introduction lol.
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Cow!
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Moojestic Queen Moomay the Resplendent and Hot
I'm guessing you're fixing the quotation marks right as I'm posting this so I won't complain about that x)
edit: yep you were

here's where I get harsh


You're a good writer and you're building an interesting world,
and

I'll be interested to see where the story goes next.
Edited by Cow!, Saturday, 2. February 2013, 21:49.
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Frezon
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The Man
Hm, good points. The main reason why none of them care about anything is that due to their shapeshifting, they're essentially immortal and consider themselves above everything. They've lived for hundreds, if not thousands of years and have seen so many horrors that they've essentially rid themselves of all emotion, simply so they stay functional. Plus, they've seen so much in their travels across the stars that they've become jaded to new things, as finding new stuff happens all the time for them.

I'll try and get more motive to their madness in the next few chapters. There's a direction I want to go, and these early chapters are mainly just setting up characters and worlds.

Oh, and copying from Microsoft word and realizing you forgot to edit something sucks. Jussayin.
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Sfabulous
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Sleepy Kat
I don't have the time to read this now (I will!), but your quotation mark qualms are easily fixed. It's happened to me plenty of times. If you want to change something in your post, don't use quick-edit, use the full featured one. Q-edit brutally kills your quotation marks.

/salute
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Frezon
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The Man
Darn website making me do more work! But seriously, thanks for the advice.
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Frezon
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The Man
More character introduction, this time my favorite character in this universe.
In case you're wondering, yes, I have multiple stories about these characters, but I can never get any of them written down. A slight flaw of mine, I prefer to work on these stories in my own head. But hopefully this is changing with this story. Well, anyway, enjoyeth.

Chapter 3

Zykarna was a beautiful world. Unlike many so called civilized species, the Zykar and Drools had not polluted or otherwise destroyed their home world, a rare occurrence when a species wished to achieve space travel. However, Zykarna was rather special. Occurring naturally on the planet was an ore that resisted gravity, and was used by the Zykar to achieve their limited form of levitation, and later to exit the planet’s gravity well. Because of this, nuclear fission or carbon based fuels were unnecessary to the technological evolution of the planet.

Aranas cared little about this when he arrived on the planet’s surface. He only cared about meeting with Acteron, his cousin and a biological genius. Aranas barely noticed the reptilian forms of the Zykar hovering around the area as he walked towards Acteron’s lab, a place that he rarely left. Sure enough, when Acteron reached the room, he saw the tall form of his cousin peering into a microscope. Taking a moment, Aranas pulled out his personal mirror and changed his form from the human shape he had on Kurnon into one far taller, near eight feet, with green, smooth scaled skin wearing a dark green robe. Once the transformation was complete, he strode over to the door and pressed his palm to a reader, informing Acteron that he had a visitor.

“One moment please,” the bored voice of Acteron said, coming to Aranas through speakers in the hall. Due to the nature of some of his work being microbial in nature, Acteron’s lab was completely sealed with multiple airlocks that could only be accessed by Acteron himself and his father, the essential king of the Drools, Karaktus. Aranas tried not to think about Karaktus too much. Those sorts of thoughts could ruin a perfectly good day. In any case, his thoughts were interrupted by the hissing of the outer door. Aranas walked into the first airlock, then waited as the rest of the airlocks opened for him.

When he finally emerged into the lab proper, Acteron barely spared Aranas a glace. “Greetings cousin,” Aranas said, looking around at the variety of equipment, the purposes of most he could only guess at.

“Aranas, back from your visit to Kurnon I see.” Acteron continued to work with something under a microscope, the several dozen thin tentacles on his body moving with precision around the room, grabbing various apparatuses and chemicals. “How went that?”

“Well. Though I did not find what I was looking for, I found something that you might be interested in.” Aranas pulled out his box with the head inside it, placing it on the table in front of Acteron. The box was a transdimensional box, containing a worlds worth of space inside while still fitting in the palm of a human’s hand. While they were remarkably unstable over long periods of time, collapsing into black holes after less than a year of use, for transportation between worlds there was no equal, due to their space efficiency along with their personalization, namely their ability to be locked with unbreakable codes of their owner’s choice. Aranas entered this code into the box, the pulled out the head of the being he had discovered and killed on Kurnon. “Orham said you might be interested in this.”

“He was quite right” muttered Acteron. Muttering something inaudibly, he contracted his tentacles and grew two more or less average arms, then moved out of the way as his experiment was moved to another section of the lab. He bent over the head and examined it for several minutes, rotating and flipping it several times. Aranas waited patiently, and eventually Acteron stood, a small smile on his face. “Well, I must thank you for finally obtaining the head of a Convixen for me, Aranas. These have been quite difficult to obtain.”

“Convixen? I have not heard of that race before.”

“It is because they do not officially exist. To most races, they are invisible for whatever reason, which I expect will be apparent when I dissect this brain.”

“Do you not have any other of their heads? I imagine that you have seen them before, at least through testimonies of the others.” Aranas was fascinated at this creature’s power. If he could use it for himself…

“Well, contained within the medulla, or so I assume, is a biological self-destruct switch. If they are to be fatally wounded, the switch will trigger and dissolve the body. All of the specimens I have were decapitated at the spine, leaving no head to observe. But you appear to have cut above the switch, disintegrating the body I imagine.”

“Quite right,” Aranas said, but Acteron was ignoring him once more, examining the head with even more scrutiny. Aranas sighed and left the lab. He had hoped to discuss other matters with Acteron, but it appeared he was engrossed in this new project. No matter, Aranas could come at another time. He could use this discovery and the obvious pleasure that Acteron took from it as leverage. With those thoughts, he walked back through the airlocks to retreat to his personal chambers.
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Cow!
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Moojestic Queen Moomay the Resplendent and Hot
Well this is all very interesting. I'm enjoying the extra detail we get here, and even though I don't quite understand the "self-destruct switch", I appreciate it. It seems awfully unlikely that Aranas could unintentionally decapitate the convixen in that specific spot above the medulla, but I know nothing about convixen anatomy, so maybe it makes more sense than I think.

I'm also starting to get used to the detachment of the characters. Since they're all that way, it's easier for me to swallow than if it was just the main character. If this is the environment of his family, that he presumably spent his formative years in, then I can definitely understand why he is the way he is.

I hope we get more scenes with science boy here. He interests me, and he provides a good foil for Aranas.

In sum, good work, I'm sorry you had to wait so long for a comment, still looking forward to learning more about this world and the happenings within.
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Frezon
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The Man
Yeah... his formative years were rough. Eventually I might get around to writing about that, still working on this "writing" thing and not just making stories in my mind :P. This will get brought up probably next chapter, but essentially he has problems with his uncle Karaktus, who enslaved all the Drools. If you find these guys detached and remorseless, wait until you meet Karaktus...

Aranas cutting off the Convixen's head right there makes about as much sense as you believe. It was pretty much dumb luck. Though he only has to chop off the head above a certain point, so maybe not that much luck. Anyway, I'll go into more detail about the self destruct switch in future chapters, your questions about it gave me an idea.

And happy to hear you like Acteron, most of the stories in this universe that I write are about him.

Next chapter will be up as soon as I can find it... I wrote it in a journal of mine and forgot which journal, so as soon as I find it and type it up, it'll go on. Probably around monday when I get back to college and can look though my stuff.
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Sfabulous
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Sleepy Kat
Heyo, sorry I haven't replied to this in a while. It's good to see you've written more! It's nice to have more characters and worldbuilding. I particularly like some of the more sciency details, which definitely fit in with the tone of your story.

One thing that bothered me though: remember this?
Quote:
 
To him, true power resided in the shadows, the darkness, and in places so evil that even his family, considered amoral at best, would find to be unsavory. And thus he was drawn to the underbelly of Kurnon.

If it's as frowned on as you say it is, why does Acteron sound like he's asking about a vacation? And why on earth is Orham there for the same reason, and looking a lot meaner than Aranas at it?

It's nice to have another species detailed too, and you painted a pretty good picture, except for one thing. For all the importance of the head, I don't actually know what it looks like. Is it monstrous or is it human-like? How big is it? If you have an alien dressed up for a black tie event, I definitely want to see his face.

What's up with the personal mirror? Aranas can clearly shapeshift without it. Is he just being vain there? :P

That aside, I think you've come some way since the first chapter. The second was still a little choppy, a bit short for what feels like an important scene, and the introduction of a big character. The third was good though, and you managed to transition from an overview to the action smoothly for a tight and distinct scene. Nice work!

Hope you find the next part soon!
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Frezon
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The Man
Haven't found the next part (i'm rewriting it because I have doubts about ever finding it) so that'll be up sometime soon. Hopefully by the end of the week.

Aranas likes to study the evil of the world so he can use it for a plan of his that will be elaborated on in the next 2 chapters. And Orham was there because he was looking for the same weapons Aranas was, as they are pretty bad news for cities/countries/planets.

Never realized I never described the head. Probably becuase I can see these things in my head so well I forget you can't (get on my level with some mind reading tech sons/daughters!) I'll toss a sentence into one of the next 2 chapters about that.

And yeah, it's a vanity thing. I wanted to set up his vanity now so when it becomes slightly more of a plot point it's not just "oh and btw he's really vain".

Thankies for reviews! :D
Edited by Frezon, Tuesday, 2. April 2013, 02:01.
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