Welcome to my world and beyond...

A collection of snippets of the books I write and, occasionally, my life and the things that inspire my writing...

Saturday, March 23, 2013

Weekend Writing Warriors: March 24, 2013


Week 8: "A chade fight..."
Welcome Eighters! Weekend Writing Warriors is a weekly blog-hop. Each week, participants sign up HERE at Weekend Writing Warriors, then post 8 sentences of their work, published or unpublished, to go live between 12:00 noon Saturday, and 9:00 AM Sunday EST.  Then we visit each other, read, comment, critique, encourage--all those great things that do a solitary writer's heart good.

Give it a try--we're a pretty nice bunch of people.  :-)

This week, returning to my WIP, ATNS, and immediately following last week's 8 sentence post (if you want to read it first, it's Here. This takes place about half way through the story.

The setup:


Rissa has just spent two months being trained to use a sword, trial by fire--eat, drink, sleep, think sword.  This scene is the third post of a sword fight where she bested Dhurstan. He's one of Cuylrh's guards and also his oldest friend. Dhurstan despises Rissa-- the woman from a place called Earth, who has taken his place in his friend's heart.  Cuylrh is the young King of Rialt, next in line to rule. 


"Cuylrh’s expression softened into one of growing amusement—the first time he had appeared untroubled since Rissa’s swordplay began.  A smile tugged at the corners of his lips, and one eyebrow raised while looking at his friend’s face.  Then with the slightest hint of teasing evident, he calmly quoted the words Dhurstan had spoken on the day Rissa’s training began. “I recall you announcing to all of us that there was more to sword fights than swords?”

While those words settled out of the air, the defeated guard’s defiant whining was set to rest-- along with any possible intervention on the young King’s part. Dhurstan’s face flushed red then his gold eyes looked up at Rissa’s where she glowered above him.

She was a wound spring, her teeth yet clenched, and her knuckles were white where one hand gripped and twisted his braid, and the other, a vise grip on her sword. She narrowed her eyes while she jerked his braid again, wavering the pressure on his throat for one instant. There was no thought behind it, no design of action meant to terrify him, just rage driving her."
  
That's it.  What jumps out at you, good or bad ? I'd love to hear it and am truly grateful for every bit of criticism, opinion, and shared wisdom..  Thank you so much for visiting! 

Note* If you are launching a book, offering one for free promotion, or  have a blogpost you'd like shared, tweet me @Teresa_Willow and I will retweet it for you. :-)

55 comments:

  1. I wrote a book in 2009, made the mistake of not getting an ISBN and publishing it thru LULU. Now I cannot get into my own account. May be I can send you a copy through email?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. How do the rights fall, Munir? Have you tried contacting Lulu?

      Delete
  2. A woman driven by rage?
    I want to know more about her!
    Kudos!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks, Chip! Those are wonderful words for a writer to hear. :-)

      Delete
  3. Powerful eight! Love how we can feel the rage and determination of your characters! :-D

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks, Sara--it's good to read that her emotions are getting through. :-)

      Delete
  4. I'm sorry, how did jerking his braid waver pressure on his throat? I've never seen pulling of my hair as affecting my throat. However, it is an excellent post with the king not interfering.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi Carol--part of the problem with posting only a few sentences at a time. Mentioned in a previous post, she has her sword across his throat. :-) Thanks for visiting :-)

      Delete
  5. Very powerful! I can feel her rage. Rissa is a remarkable character.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks, Debbie. I hope that readers feel that way about her when they read the two concurrent storylines in the book. :-)

      Delete
  6. Very interesting passage following on last week's. Consider a bit more to expand the sentence about jerking his braid changing the pressure on his throat--showing how the first movement causes the 2nd. Great last line about the actions only being fueled by rage. Does encourage one to read on. Nicely done.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks, Susan! Rissa's sword is laid across his throat--mentioned in last week's post. Part of the limitation of only posting 8 at a time :-)

      Delete
  7. the anonymous above is from Susan Stuckey http://wp.me/p37cEC-6W

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Ha! Thank you for this! Spam is up, and a few got through the spam filter last week. I'm hanging in there, so far, managing to keep captcha turned off. :-)

      Delete
  8. Love your use of words in showing the emotion and feelings of the characters. Rissa is so pissed! Looking forward to how these characters interact after this one.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks, HS! It's an interesting journey. People dynamics are such fun. ;-)

      Delete
  9. Very nice. I adore strong women who aren't afraid to defend themselves or even learn to defend themselves. Gotta say, romantic sci-fi is still one of my favorite genres. Love world building and enojy world building others do it well. When will this be available or is aleady? Yeah, total sci-fi geek...guilty as charged.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks, India! Haha, nice to meet a fellow scifi geek. I'm nto so drawn to straight up scifi as I am to scifi-rom. :-) You do some mighty fine world building too! :-)

      Delete
  10. He's going to regret pissing her off! Now will she be able to get her rage under control before doing something she might regret as well? Can't wait to find out!

    ReplyDelete
  11. Love it when heroines use swords! She sounds fierce and determined. Great 8!

    ReplyDelete
  12. Ha, great! As long as she can control her rage to still beat somebody (which she did) she'll be one formidable woman. Gotta love that.

    I've got a tiny suggestion. Where you say "the other held a vice grip on her sword" you might put "the other with a vice grip", only because "held" seems redundant. It's pretty minor but to me improves the flow a bit. Muchly looking forward to more.

    ReplyDelete
  13. Oh, I just thought, is it "vise grip"? Now I've gotta Google that!

    ReplyDelete
  14. She quite the lady. You've described her anger well.

    ReplyDelete
  15. I hope she can rein herself in, now that she's won. The moment is hers to lose. Intriguing story, another excellent excerpt!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yes, it sure is, Veronica! :-) Thanks for visiting. :-)

      Delete
  16. Great stuff! Really clean, descriptive writing. I'd love to read more.

    ReplyDelete
  17. I don't think this guy's going to take his defeat easily.

    ReplyDelete
  18. Scalp him! Ahem, I mean, let's not let our temper get the best of us, Rissa . . . ;)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Lol, scalp him? I sort of feel sorry for him with that thought (and he is a mean jerk). They wear long braids in deference to their Giver of All. :-) Thanks, Sarah!

      Delete
  19. Yeah!! Go, Rissa. Go, Rissa. So glad Dhurstan can't hear me ;)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. lol... Well we all now know, Dhurstan can be put in his place ;-) Thanks, S.J. :-)

      Delete
  20. Dhurstan better yield in a big hurry! I love that she kicked his butt.

    ReplyDelete
  21. Are we in Rissa's POV? If so you could remove some of the passive voice out of the last paragraph from this"
    She was a wound spring, her teeth yet clenched, and her knuckles were white where one hand gripped and twisted his braid, and the other, a vise grip on her sword. She narrowed her eyes while she jerked his braid again, wavering the pressure on his throat for one instant. There was no thought behind it, no design of action meant to terrify him, just rage driving her." to "Wound tighter than a spring, Rissa clenched her teeth and gripped her sword with white knuckles. She twisted his braid and narrowed her eyes, jerking his head back. The rage thundered through her veins and the pressure on his throat wavered." It will make the action more active and immediate. :)

    I do have a free read coming out on April 2nd if you'd like to RT about it. Thanks, Teresa. :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Awesome suggestion, Siobhan! Sometimes, hip-deep in the sentences, the words are lost to me. :-) Thank you!

      Delete
  22. "there was more to sword fights than swords?”
    Reminds me of that old adage that,"It's not the pen, it's how you sign your name."
    Nice 8.
    I'm with Siobhan on the passive voice thing, but I'm confused by the use of the verb, "wavered." Wouldn't a synonym for waver be oscillate?
    Why not select a more precise word for what you want to say. Did the pressure subside briefly -- or did it tighten? Then you could describe how he reacted to the change in pressure, either way.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks, Chip. :-) I think waver is the word that I want. I considered vacillate instead of waver--it seemed to convey very near to what I wanted, but waver felt more like the voice of the story. :-)

      Delete
  23. Uh-oh. Something tells me that besting the future king this way may have some unhappy consequences... Love this 8, really great action, and awesome characterization (I can so clearly see him smugly cocking that eyebrow!).

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Ha! You could be onto something, AJ :-) Thanks for visiting. :-)

      Delete
  24. 'A wound spring'-I love the description. There are so many expressive parts of this exciting eight. Thanks, Teresa, for quite a ride on a peaceful Sunday

    ReplyDelete
  25. Yeah, there's a lot going on here... I wouldn't want to have her that pissed off at me! ;) Thanks for sharing.

    ReplyDelete