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NaNo Snippets

Nimue

Auror
I wanted to have a place for people to post excerpts of their NaNo piece if they want to, whether it's a line or two or a full post. I seem to remember people doing something like this in the chat of Camp NaNo, and though I didn't get much done during that challenge, I enjoyed reading what other people were working on. It'd be awesome if this was a daily or every-other-daily thing, but it's completely on a "share what you want to" basis.

If anyone wants to post feedback in this thread as well, I'm thinking that it should only be general/positive/glancing, rather than critique, because most of us are doing first-draft kind of stuff. Unless someone has specific questions, like: "Does this line make sense?"

Alright, I do want to get a glimpse of other people's projects, so I'll trade you a random out-of-context paragraph from what I wrote today. I'm working on my neglected medieval fantasy WIP, Wildwitch.


In one of the wooded stretches, they passed by a shrine of pale stone with some strange figure carved upon it, set into the trunk of a black and gnarled oak. Both stone and tree looked ancient, but the roots of the tree clasped the small altar without cracking or covering it. Vivaine stared at it a while, wondering what unseen god it belonged to, and it was only because she looked so long that she noticed one of the huntsmen leaving a round loaf of bread on the altar. A prayer without words or lingering.
 

MineOwnKing

Maester
I like your snippet though I have non to offer in return.

I like your profile of Miranda too.

I have read your portfolio and this snippet is in sync with your style. This scene is short but pleasantly intense. It starts strong and ends with grace.

My only thought is that it could be split into two short paragraphs.
 

Nimue

Auror
I had no idea what you were talking about (do I have a character named Miranda?) until I remembered who's in my avatar. I have a print of that painting on my wall, along with two of the Lady of Shallot, also by Waterhouse. Pre-Raphaelite art is the best.

The scene in my portfolio desperately needs to be edited, and I wrote it two years ago, but it's better than nothing, I suppose.

I'll just wait patiently by my thread-bait for other people to post something. ^^
 

Tom

Istar
Well, it worked. Here, have a snippet from a flashback scene in Southerner.

I hid in the last stall in the row, which was traditionally kept empty. Like all the others, the bottom halves of the walls were built of stone, and the tops of carved wood. As the sweet scent of hay and the whickering of the horses slowed my wildly beating heart, I traced the carvings. They were of sea serpents and waterhorses, once painted in rusty red and sea green and darkest grey-blue, but the colors had worn away long ago. Only chips of paint lingered here and there, stuck deep in the wild eye and tossing forelock of a waterhorse, or in the delicate rays of a sea serpent’s fins.
 

T.Allen.Smith

Staff
Moderator
Tom,

That description is well done. The language flows nicely, paints a vivid picture, and offers the reader more than mere description alone.

Keep it up!

TAS
 
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Gryphos

Auror
Yo, sick snippets, Nimue and Tom. I can't claim to have any pieces of description I'm super proud of yet, but I'll give you my opening.

Once the sun fell over the horizon, the eyes in the sky lit up. Not immediately, of course. It took a while for the sun to set from their perspective, high above the earth — an inter-period of rare, true darkness before a wave of light swept over the heavens from the east, as each and every one of the thousands of irises bloomed in canon, bathing the earth in their ethereal blue light.

And beneath those eyes, in the courtyard of an earl’s castle, Erwin E. Erwindaughter tripped over his own feet. Graceful as the True Hero he would one day become.
 
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Tom

Istar
Haha, I love it, Gryphos! The contrast between humor and grandeur is very well-done. I'd love to see more from this story.
 

skip.knox

toujours gai, archie
Moderator
OK, here's my ante.

Alavia opened her eyes to see before her a young man formed entirely of water and light. For several long moments she stared, for he was beautiful. Crystalline hair streamed over broad shoulders and down a wide chest. The sun lit him from within and he glowed golden. Muscles rippled down his arms and legs, and across his flat stomach, showing power while suggesting grace.

The form leaned toward her and it was as if a god had bent down. Diamonds sparkled in his eyes. The sound of flowing water whispered of secret ecstasies.

He kissed her.

 

Nimue

Auror
Once the sun fell over the horizon, the eyes in the sky lit up. Not immediately, of course. It took a while for the sun to set from their perspective, high above the earth – an inter-period of rare, true darkness before a wave of light swept over the heavens from the east, as each and every one of the thousands of irises bloomed in canon, bathing the earth in their ethereal blue light.

And beneath those eyes, in the courtyard of an earl’s castle, Erwin E. Erwindaughter tripped over his own feet. Graceful as the True Hero he would one day become.
Heheheh, I love the idea of a guy called Erwin E. Erwindaughter. Although the name-purist in me will point out that it's more likely to be Erwinsdaughter!


Alavia opened her eyes to see before her a young man formed entirely of water and light. For several long moments she stared, for he was beautiful. Crystalline hair streamed over broad shoulders and down a wide chest. The sun lit him from within and he glowed golden. Muscles rippled down his arms and legs, and across his flat stomach, showing power while suggesting grace.

The form leaned toward her and it was as if a god had bent down. Diamonds sparkled in his eyes. The sound of flowing water whispered of secret ecstasies.

He kissed her.

Very pretty! Also, a number of jokes involving the word "wet" come to mind ;)
 

Caged Maiden

Staff
Article Team
I saw this kinda too late, so I'll re-post my snippet here. I always do daily quotes, because I feel like it helps me stay on track, because I look forward to sharing little chunks of my daily work with the cabin:



Chapter 2: The Lion’s Lady

The Axe, The Shadow, The Lion, and Jackal…all walked into a tavern…
And every last boozer who wasn’t too drunk, wisely abandoned his flagon…
Or they would have, if Brazelton’s four crime bosses ever met in public–It’d be a hell of a fight.

Part 1


There were certainly better ways to traverse Brazelton’s poor district, than bare-footed and naked, but that morning Raisa didn’t have many options. She awoke in a muddy field, the sun as high in the sky as it dared rise so late in the year. The winter chill wrapped her skin like a wet towel, muck clinging to hair and skin all the same.
 
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MineOwnKing

Maester
I had no idea what you were talking about (do I have a character named Miranda?) until I remembered who's in my avatar. I have a print of that painting on my wall, along with two of the Lady of Shallot, also by Waterhouse. Pre-Raphaelite art is the best.

The scene in my portfolio desperately needs to be edited, and I wrote it two years ago, but it's better than nothing, I suppose.

I'll just wait patiently by my thread-bait for other people to post something. ^^

Oops, I meant avatar.

It was late.

I love Miranda because she should be so boring that no one would ever remember her. Shakespeare's gift is that he can take a one-dimensional character like Miranda and make her unforgettable.
 

Tom

Istar
Fun fact: I was named after Miranda. I don't go by that name a lot anymore, but I still smile whenever I see something relating to The Tempest.
 
C

Chessie

Guest
Nimue, what a fantastic idea. Thank you for starting this thread. :)

I'm still racking up my word count for the day, but figured I'd share the start of my story:

If true love existed as a real force in the Universe, if it traveled through time in a search for its match, if it surpassed age, death and anything that could stand in its way to manifest in Ludmila’s life, she might try to believe in it. But no man had ever stirred such deep emotions within her. And she’d bedded more than a few enough to know that not only was love not meant for her, it didn’t live or breathe anymore than her soul did. In her once honest search for romantic significance, she’d been fooled again and again by men who claimed to know the way to unlock her cold, unfeeling heart.

Love. What was its value anyway? Nothing more than carnal attachment, far as Ludmila was concerned and so to that, she took another drink.
 

Tom

Istar
I feel I've been a particularly brutal writer today. I think I've been reading too much Maggie Steifvater (if that's possible). Her writing is as precise and painful as a knife's edge, and I really admire it.

Only a few moments out of every day were a respite from the magic that boiled in my lungs and heart, blood and breath. It never stopped shifting. I could never hold it back. Black scorch marks scarred the walls, and ghostly green flames burned in the crevices between the tesserae on the floor. They had sprung to life from my fingerprints, and never died. Magic fed them like the sun’s light fed the moon; they stayed lit day in and day out.

My skin itched. I clawed at it, tearing raw red scratches along my chest and arms that wept blood. I felt like a new creature, struggling to crawl out of my old skin and shed the life I’d always been resigned to living. But it clung to me as if it had sunk thousands of tiny darts into my flesh to keep me trapped. The iron sang a cold song that curdled my blood, and for the first time I knew why the Fey hated it as they did.
 

Nimue

Auror
I'm still out of thanks, but these are all fantastic! My slow pace isn't giving me much to work with, but I feel obliged for everybody else's sharing, so here's the meat of what I wrote yesterday, basically.



As the candles guttered, a barmaid led them upstairs to a fine wide room with two beds, draped with red woollen blankets and sheepskins. The bedsteads were carved like branching trees, welcoming bowers.

Vivaine was counting the moments until she could sleep, helping Avalind brush and braid the rich length of her red-gold hair, when a knock came at their chamber. They all blinked at the door for a moment, then Merra got up and eased it open.

One of the king’s men was there, in a high-collared tunic and a short black beard. She didn’t know his name, but she knew very few of the huntsmen’s names. “Good eventide, ladies,” he said, in crystal-clear Eltish. “Dame Vivaine, the king would speak with you downstairs.”

Vivaine stared at him, Avalind’s hair still in her hands, slightly damp like cornsilk. “Me, sir?” she said, like a simpleton.

“Yes, my dame.”

She rose reluctantly to her feet, looking from the man, to Merra’s expectant face, then to Avalind–and the lady’s expression was one of bewilderment and betrayal. Vivaine’s brow knotted, and Avalind’s gaze balked her. “What does the king want of me?” she asked, feeling as though she floundered.

“He would know you and your story better, madam,” the man said, without a flicker of expression.

She swallowed through a closing throat. Her story. Her lies.
 
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Gryphos

Auror
Looking good, peeps. I think I'll drop here the ending of my second chapter.

The Ogre got to his feet and clapped his pale, leathery palms together. The cut had already stopped bleeding. “It’s in times like this that the world changes. May the Eyes Above watch us.”

Funny he should have said that. Because in the sky far, far above the world, the celestial blue eyes turned once again to Castle Butcher. Their vision pierced through brick and earth, into the Ogre’s chamber, and drank in the sensational scene, their pupils expanding like pools of blood.
 

Gryphos

Auror
Nimue said:
Heheheh, I love the idea of a guy called Erwin E. Erwindaughter. Although the name-purist in me will point out that it's more likely to be Erwinsdaughter!

I considered that, but I figured that Erwindaughter flows better minus the S. I love a good silly name.
 

Caged Maiden

Staff
Article Team
Raisa underwent a transformation when she entered the alleyway that led up to the rear of Avery de Leon’s manor. Instead of a confused woman that woke in a field, she carried herself like a noblewoman who had a bone to pick with anyone foolish enough to get in her way.
Her shoulders pulled back, adjusting her slouched posture to a dignified carriage. Her feet slowed to the proper gait. Even her face changed. She donned the cool indifference she wore like a set of steel plate armor whenever she entered the house.
 
C

Chessie

Guest
What I wrote today isn't suitable for this site, even though there's quite a bit of dialogue in it (My character's thoughts in that scene are very crass). Instead, I'll share a paragraph of what I wrote yesterday:

He was handsome, with a jawline and cheekbones that could’ve been carved from slatestone, stout and strong looking like most Mirovinian men his age that lived higher up in the mountain provinces. His black hair was long, sitting just above his shoulders in undulating waves, which matched a pair of bushy eyebrows complementing his kind, deep set eyes. The black robes he wore had some wear on them, with specks of mud decorating the sleeves and hem just above his leather boots. He had a familiar energy to him, almost melancholy, emitting the sense that she’d seen him before somewhere and somehow, she knew him.
 
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