Hi! I enjoyed reading this piece, though the ending was kind of sad. I understand that this is a contest entry, so there might be some word limit to it and the amount of description possible. Despite that, the chase was described well. Very fast paced and quite exciting to read.
A few points to note:
1) Possessives, for example, "Dragonflyers arm" (when I presume you meant "Dragonflyer's arm") and "clans" (where I presume you meant "clan's"). In the later paragraphs, there were also similar mistakes, for example "a sly ones fire dart"
2) When referring to a group, perhaps you could capitalise the word. So, instead of "the clan needed", it would be "the Clan needed".
3) "They would revel in chaos" - would suggests the future. The sly ones currently revel in chaos, don't they? So, "would" is unnecessary. Instead, "They reveled in chaos"
4) "bought forth" - brought forth
5) "emptyness" - emptiness
6) "Gliding along the currents, alert, yet relaxed, scanning for trouble. A glow in the distance." - the sentence structure reads a little staccato-ish, seemingly disjointed.
7) "The sly one had trained with Scouts, teaching fighting skills." - so this is a recognizable sly one, who was actually some spy? Is this a hint of espionage?
On general sentence structure: You seem to connect sentences with commas. While this is a common thing to do, too much of it makes it seem very disjointed. For example: "The giants of the underworld became graceful, dancing with indescribable beauty, it was a sight he would never forget." The first two parts are to do with the giants, but the last to do with the dragon's awe. So, I suggest to break off "it was a sight he would never forget" into a separate sentence.
Suggestions: I feel that this can develop into something more. Instead of letting Malafi die, perhaps you could consider letting him live, and have him as the main character of many more adventures. In particular, I did not get the sense that Malafi was attacked very viciously by the sly one. Instead, it was just a chase, without Malafi suffering from anything other than exhaustion.
I always like a story with a twist, so, perhaps in the later stories, you could show why it's not a good thing to be telepathic. That it is destructive, that the other dragons actually have a reason to be wary of this unity. Perhaps an evil, corrupt dragon at the head of the Clan? Perhaps an evil sorcerer? Or perhaps just the collapse of such an intricate system (an analogy I can think of is: we're all connected to the world wide web. but, a virus once introduced can cripple the entire system.)
Nonetheless, this is a good attempt at writing after 25 years! =) I like this story, and I'm hoping you'll write more about the dragonscouts. =) Cheers! |
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