First story

[bdeboare]

Hello everyone, as you can see I am new to this forum. I'm also quite new to story writing and was hoping to find a forum where I could post some of my stories to get some reactions to it. Hopefully this is the right forum for this and the right section. I do know that this site revolves around a game, but perhaps I'll get welcomed with this here too

Alright, I wrote this not so long ago, and it's still a work in progress. The story in short will be something like this:
A group of soldiers (battalion) is waiting for the Shroud of the Crescent, an elite scouting party to return from a distant enemy village.
However, they don't appear to be coming back... They finally decide to move on but notice that they are cornered, soon they discover
the gruesome fate of the scouting party
Situation goes from bad to worse, last stand n stuff

So it begins:
A cold winter breeze whispers trough the valley, it is not yet midday before the first raindrops pour. Fresh tracks left by wandering beasts in the packed snow are beginning to fade. As the wind grows in strength, the Captain clutches the frosted hilt of his sword, barely able to stand. Weeks of starvation have left their mark on him. Seeing the leader of our battalion suffer so deerly, it is a sight one shouldn't be forced to behold. A painful howl stirs up the encampment, the wolf pack that razed the evening before remembered our position. The feral beasts must be looking for a chance on retaliation after underrating our strength before. Netharia is the first to leave the comfort of the hut, she instantly grasps for her twin blunderbuss, a true Ranger indeed. She challenges the rest of us by spinning her weapons around with supreme finesse and then smiles playfully. It is considered an honor to be accompanied by the daughter of Nethirion, few have endured alongside her in battle. With her hand she removes a scope from the leather belt she carries, attaching it to one of her rifles. Her movements are swift, I must strain myself to keep track of them. In one quick motion she loads both weapons and points them towards the hill a few hundred yards further. I look in the direction of where Netharia is aiming, but have yet to see any sign of life. In the faint light, the hill that protects us from the severe weather outside the valley, has an eerie touch surrounding it. A dark purple glow envelops the weathered trees atop. When the remainder of the battalion braces for the lurking danger everything turns quiet, until the crackling of the bonfire suddenly gets interrupted by the clicking sound of the trigger.


Alright, I hope you enjoyed it, do note that this is my first written story ever, I would like some comment on it, feel free to post anything you want (hopefully constructive)

Thanks
bdeboare

[Gossamer]

Hey bdeboare-

Welcome to Mizahar. We're a group of writers and roleplayers, but we do have sections for story crituqes and help. It's called the writer's workshop and you can post things there for people to review. Here's the link:

Writer's Workshop

Now for comments!

First off, I think you write great (especially for a first try!), but there's some things you should remember. Most stories aren't from first person point of view unless you're writing in a journal form, and in this story you lead the leader to think its third person... then hit them with first person and almost drift back to third person again... so watch your point of view and keep it consistent. Secondly, your mixing two different time periods - or giving that impression - with the use of both swords and guns... so I would be clear about the technology level from the get go or omit the sword comment so that it doesn't mislead the reader as to what the story is about or what the technology level is.

Nice start!

Goss

Ps. Feel free to create a character and write stories with us.

[Tarot]

Welcome bdeboare!

I do think your writing is very good for your first attempt, and I agree with what Goss said. The choice of narrator and tense is possibly the single most important decision you have to make. First person narrator tends to work best in a "chronicler" scenario. It is used a lot when the author does not want to show the main character's thoughts and reasonings (Watson exists so we don't get direct insight into Holmes' mind), or when the real author would have us believe that the narrator is also the author writing his autobiography. The reader also assumes the narrator survived all the way to the end of the book!

In general, I tend to think a first-person narrator should serve a purpose as a character to justify its existence (i.e. it should be more than just a camera recording the facts), or else a third-person narrator can do the same or a better job with less distraction. Of course, I don't know what happens in the rest of your story, but so far it seems to me that an omniscient narrator focusing on Netharia might be the best choice.

Now, on to realism! People here know I'm quite the "hard fantasy" freak as I want everything to make sense and be consistent with the history, cosmology, etc. So... guns. I don't mind swords and guns co-existing in the same time frame - that was the case in our world for centuries. As long as there is a reason, such as guns being unreliable / slow to reload / expensive / rare, we can find an excuse for it. However, sniping is another matter entirely. You are implying a technological level that's around the American Civil War (definitely post-Napoleonic). In order to snipe, you need to know about rifled bores and most likely have discovered elongated ammunition (i.e. the "Minie ball" replacing earlier spherical lead balls).

That's not all. You mention a twin blunderbuss. A blunderbuss flares at the muzzle, like a cone. It is not loaded with a single bullet, but with shot (a lot of tiny lead balls) - it is, in fact, the ancestor of the shotgun. It's not meant for long-range sniping, but for delivering a wide cone of fire. The projectiles spread and quickly lose momentum, so it's neither lethal nor accurate at the kind of ranges you'd use a scope for.

I have one more remark. What Netharia's army did was a major tactical blunder - they didn't take the vantage point, not even with a few explorers. You always want the high ground, or someone stationed there to keep an eye on the surrounding terrain, or else a last stand is exactly what happens next (or at least an uphill battle). They really have no excuse as you mentioned having set up camp in this place... they haven't just arrived.

As an aside... you should consider splitting your text into paragraphs for easier reading! You have no idea how much better something looks when it's arranged into neat paragraphs.

[bdeboare]

Thanks for the replies!
I'm sorry I am not that all familiar with language. Also my native language is not English, but Dutch. I'm afraid I'm not getting what you are trying to say with the tenses and where I switch. I don't see it.
Also, should I recreate this post in the Writer's Workshop and keep this WIP updated there?

EDIT: I'm trying to follow a normal soldier (who perhaps later grows out to be a small hero) in a group of soldiers.
I was going for the blunderbuss because I really like the way the weapon looks, but if you say it is not realism I'll try and use this, musket:
https://rowellsapushistory.wikispaces.c ... musket.jpg
I like the short one: N, it still has quite the look of the blunderbuss somehow, is there a synonym I can use for this type of gun? (N) I didn't want to use bows, because I have a feeling it's always bows with a ranger in fantasy stories.
The hill protects then from the almost unendurable weather outside the valley, it's a great storm that would blow away the encampment.

bdeboare