Here’s another excerpt. Feedback is appreciated.

It was not long after that Detra stopped riding and waited for the others to catch up.
“How are you holding up?” she asked. The hood of her cape had fallen around her shoulders, and her long brown hair danced wildly in the wind and rain. Her cheeks were rosy either side of her grin as her eyes danced with exhilaration.
“We’re cold and wet and if we keep moving at your pace one of us isn’t going to see the ground anymore and the horses will trip,” growled Trill, who looked soaked to the bone and not at all happy about it. An explosion was only one annoyance away.
“There’s a copse of trees as the bottom of the hill,” Detra gestured, “And something of a stream, with this weather. We can camp there till morning.”
“I think that would be wise,” Vetra suggested, huddling in the recess of her hood. Jesse rubbed her arms vigorously, willing them to be warm. Detra led Eclipse on foot towards the trees.
“We should have stopped hours ago,” growled Trill
“Well, this way we’re further away then they expect us to be,” replied Detra. Trill snarled at the rain, as though that might make it stop.
“Riding in the dark like that is dangerous,” she added.
“Oh stop complaining. It’s too late now anyway,” Detra dismissed. The copse of trees provided limited shelter against the weather, but Jesse was glad of it anyway. A normally tiny stream was swollen with the downpour as it dragged sticks and debris with it. Veltra calmly enchanted the ground, willing it upwards and shaping it to become a makeshift shelter against the wind and rain. It curved over at the top, producing a small pocket of sanctuary from the harsh storm.
“About time,” muttered Trill as she eagerly dived under it. Jesse quickly follower suit. Detra pulled over an armful of branches and dropped them at Trill’s feet, who lit them with more energy that was strictly necessary. Blizzard, Eclipse and Dasher stared nervously at the huge flames, Storm didn’t seem to care. Steam drifted off the horses’s sides. Nothing was said as Detra and Veltra unsaddled their horses. Jesse and Trill continued to defrost by the fire.
“We have food,” Veltra offered as she inspected the saddlebags. “Just get me some boiling water and we can have soup.”
“I’ll do it,” declared Detra, reaching for the pot.
“Good,” snapped Trill, “You can wander off in the wet and cold to that stream. I’m staying here were it’s warm.” Detra calmly held the pot outside the shelter Veltra had created and let it fill with rain. Jesse heard Trill muttering in a language she did not understand. In uneasy silence Veltra began to prepare a soup from the few supplies they had, while Trill finally decided to tend to Storm. Detra leaned back against the wall of their shelter, and pulled her soaking hood over her eyes. Storm headbutted Trill gently as she brushed him, but the elf was clearly in no mood for it and pushed his head away. Veltra silently gestured to Jesse that perhaps she should tend Dasher too, before some small annoyance caused Trill to explode. Jesse hesitated. In all her previous experience with angry people, the worst they could ever do was scream at her, and possibly slap her. Trill would probably set her on fire. Oh well, if she does set me on fire I’ll just have to go out into the rain, she decided eventually. Dasher was relieved to unburdened of her saddlery, and steam still rose off her flanks where rain and sweat were evaporating.
“So, uh, it’s not so cold in here,” Jesse offered as a means to break the silence. Trill glared at her for a moment before returning her attention to Storm.
“And now we’re warmer and a bit dryer the world doesn’t seem so bad, now does it?” hoping to somehow make the small part of the world she was in right now a better place.
“Shut up Jesse,” whispered Trill. “That’s not what’s upsetting me. You stupid humans with your juvenile minds wouldn’t understand.” Jesse couldn’t decide whether she should be insulted, or relieved that she wasn’t on fire.
“You never know,” said Jesse as she moved to the other side of Dasher, “I’m a different sort of human. From a different place. We don’t even have any elves.”
“Unlikely,” Trill scoffed. “They’ll be there, they just don’t want to be found.”
“Nope, we’ve looked everywhere, in very way,” Jesse assured her, “With highly technical equipment I couldn’t even begin to explain, but there are no elves.” Trill considered this for a moment.
“Then it’s probably a world where humans are finally happy,” she snarled before stomping back to her fire.

In the previous blog post I mentioned that using ‘Said’ is often frowned upon by those who consider themselves to write at higher levels than us normal people. ‘Said’ is a perfectly functional, useful word to use in any piece of prose, it’s just mind-numbing when used without variation, endlessly.

So to add some colour to your talkative characters, I have made a short summary to help you. Read the rest of this entry »

Well-meaning but misguided English teachers spent the bulk of my schooling trying to ‘improve’ my writing. “Show, not tell,” was one phrase that was touted about frequently. As was their insistence that we students replaced ’said’ with some other variation. This led to the impression that using ‘Said’ was for tiny children who didn’t know better only, and once you were old enough to write with a pen you would have to find other words.

One particularly keen chubby old English teacher was keen on pointing out pieces of prose that left out pieces of information. Pieces that didn’t describe the character’s appearance, allowing the readers to imagine. Better yet were those pieces “with such strong dialogue that you can identify which character is speaking without actually being told.” In other words, writers who had dismissed the need to attribute each spoken word to a character at all! Never a need to use ‘Said’ ever again!

But in reality readers like to know who said what, and how. There is a certain amount of ‘telling’ which is needed, and using ‘Said’ on occasion isn’t as big a Sin as it might have seemed in school. It’s a perfectly functional word, if lacking a little variety. It’s like a plain, white wall: perfectly functional, but if that was all you had to look at for days on end you’d go insane. (This may explain English teachers.) Use ‘Said’, but be sure to jazz it up as needed.

Below is a bad version of text. It will numb your brain. You wont want to read it. But do anyway, because it’s short and you’ll understand what English teachers have to put up with, and why they encourage as little use of the word ’said’ as possible. Read the rest of this entry »