Storybook

[DeletedUser]

A rough start...

As a young man raised in Buford, Georgia, Jay excelled at tasks around the farm. He got the name 'Big Buford' due to his ability to yield more crops than any other farmer in the area. However a relationship with the local Preacher's daughter got him in trouble. The towns folk chased him out of town with torches and pitchforks, leaving him no time to grab his small fortune he had made at the farmers market. Wanting to get as far away as possible he took a train to St. Louis not looking back....

After St. Louis he fell in with a wagon train to Arizona. It was all going well till they reached some Mexican renagades. The Comanchero's attacked the train while the men defended. Since he had little experience in fights, but lots of experience in construction, Big Buford quickly broke down a wagon to make a small barrier to protect the women and children. When the smoke cleared all the bandits were dead as well as most of the wagon trains men and horses. Big Buford took the women and children and made sure they had safe passage to the nearest civilized area, Holy County. From there he went to pursue his own life in a more peaceful way. But fate has a way of intervening.

Big Bufords goal in Arizona was to start a peaceful town that traded with the locals so as to get the protection of their forts. He did local jobs with his vast array of skills and was instrumental in setting up Telegraph lines in the area for the army. One day while in the saloon catching up on gossip and having a rye his life changed. A local man had stolen a sacred relic to the People of the area. While trying to escape town Big Buford uncovered his plot and tried to get the relic back. The man was a master with a Bowie Knife and pretty soon Big Buford was cut down to size. When he awoke outside the stables he was wounded and penniless. Everyone in town was afraid to talk to him, they thought he should have been dead from his wounds. They treated him like a ghost and he knew it was time for a new chapter. There was an Army battalion leaving for Denver, Colorado. He put on his serape followed them out of town, feeling like the ghost he was supposed to be.

Once reaching Denver he knew he had to change his life or it was going to end soon. He spent 2 weeks in a saloon to clear his head. He spent all the money the town had given him as reward for trying to stop the thief. When he emerged from the Den of Sins, he decided one thing. If he couldn't be peaceful while trying to live with others, he could live by himself. As a mountain man he choose the loneliness of the hills as opposed to the town streets. With his new purpose in life he headed out into the wilderness.....

To be Continued

 

[DeletedUser]

aimed[/B] the brown rifle straight at my head, his eyes full of aggression, as if he was going to be attacked. It later then dawned upon me that he was a respectful man known as Phil Weed.

(Nazi'd)
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Joe heard a thump from behind him and spun around to watch his old friend Marcus fall to the ground with an arrow in his chest. Joe immediately dived from his position in on the platform and desperately tried to remove the arrow from his friends chest. As more blood flowed from the wound, Leo's eyes slowly grew darker and darker as the will to live left him with each pint of blood. Leo attempted to say something, but coughed and spluttered instead due to the blood in his mouth. The arrow had pierced his lung. Joe suddenly realised he had no way of saving his friend, so as to relieve his friend of pain, he drew Leo's dagger and held it in his right hand. As he gently pushed Leo's arm from his side, he started to cry. "It's ok Joe" murmured Leo. "Do it" And with the last word Joe with a war cry plunged the dagger in the side of his best friend, piercing the heart and immediately killing his friend.

As Joe rose from his previous position, he spat on to the ground and whispered "For you Leo. For you"
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What do you think? I was thinking of doing a medieval style novel.

 

[DeletedUser]

Part of my epic steampunk poetic saga. I've only written two verses so far. (P.S. This was inspired by the video of Panic!'s Ballad of Mona Lisa)

He chooses his victims with a close precision
Whoever will quench his hunger for money
Not just any ruffian will do
They've got to be of high status and wealth
And a bit of reputation to further build
The mystery of this murdering man

He scans the dark city with an eagle’s vision
Hiding in the shadow, the sky is too sunny
With a black top hat and matching shoes
He walks the black streets with grandeur and stealth
He carries a black notebook of who he has killed
The mystery of this murdering man

 

[DeletedUser31931]

An excerpt of a short story I'm writing

The Head of a Fifteen Year Old​

Still here, I can’t move, just lying here. I tried earlier. Still couldn’t. Because you’re worthless. Shut up! My subconscious quells. Fading quiet for a bit longer, but it’s not long before it’s back whispering to me. Worthless….. That’s what you are, worthless. Whispering it over and over again. I try to move, I can’t. Why can’t I move? Yer in a coma, a useless coma, you can’t do nothing. Even my subconscious is taking on a more violent, less polite tone. I remember things, how I used to be so grammatically correct, making sure I used I and not me but now my subconscious doesn’t care, and if doesn’t why should I? It’s the only thing you’ve got going for you. You stupid worthless boy. Oh great, my subconscious knows more about me than I do. I remember nothing. Worthless, worthless, worthless. I strain for my WORTHLESS! Shut up! I practically roar this through my brain, my subconscious retreats, it has won, I’ve just realised how it’s won. It got me angry, I was trying to not be angry. But I was, because I’m worthless. See even you gotta accept it. I dismiss it angrily. I still have a purpose, don’t I?

 

[DeletedUser]

7/10 The writing is alright, although it doesn't make much sense out of context.
If you were trying to write from the point of view of a madman you've succeeded. It sounds like something an insane 10-year old would write down after beating his parents to death with the toaster.

 

[DeletedUser31931]

Well, the entire story is about the fifteen year old (who as the book goes on you realise is in a coma) having arguments with his subconscious, except it turns out it's not his subconscious, it's something completely different (which you get hints to throughout the story) which I won't reveal because that spoils the ending.

 

[DeletedUser13682]

I like the sound of the steampunk saga. Hope more comes out soon.

The coma thing also sounds interesting. Also can't wait to read that.

I've got a few stories I've started. Only finished one of them. It's on the deviant art, along with bits of other things I've posted a few years ago. I guess I could put my most recent thing up, even though it's not done, and I think I need to clean it up a lot, if you guys want to read it that is.

 

[DeletedUser31931]

There is some more to the story, I could post it every time I finish a section. (more is explained as the story goes on)

 

[DeletedUser]

A fire raged through the forest. Screams and cries of agony pierced the night. The demonic laughter of the elves rang clearly, as they stabbed and slashed their way through the defences. Dwarves shouting obscenities. Men calling for help. Aeron heard all of this, but heeded none of them. Fear snatched him away from reality, and set his limbs in movement. He ran. All around him men, elves and dwarves ran, both Eastern and Western races, for the fire had turned against its masters.

Aeron stopped and rested beside a tree. A hand grabbed his shoulder and wrenched him backwards. Swinging backwards, he fended off his assailant, who was thrown to the ground. Aeron jumped on him and raised his dagger, but before he could kill the man, the beer barrels were lighted and exploded. The sudden light revealed the man beneath him. The wrinkled face. The both curious and sly eyes. The broken nose. He recognised these features, for here his father was, underneath his son with eyes full of fury.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Just an extract from the end of my first book. Not entirely finished due to being the first draft.

 

[DeletedUser31931]

This is a story I wrote for an English GCSE mock. The thing I was set was to write about an event in history from an unusual point of view. This is what I came up with:

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I wake up and read the paper. The war in Europe is over, but our war has just begun. I eat breakfast and continue on with my day, get dressed, and ready for school. My homework is done, scribbled as quickly as possible last night under a failing candle light. I live in a big city, but it’s just your average city, nothing that interesting goes on. I get on my bike and start cycling. I live a while away from my school so I have to get up early in the morning to get there.

I cycle through the streets, dodging the few cars we have here. My father is off in the Pacific, but he should be home soon with the end of the war. We are great and strong and we will win this war. Our war. I contemplate on war, on the needless death of all of those in the War in Europe.

I ride through the metropolis, my bike cutting through the sleeping city, all of civilians, all of us innocent, unlike the Americans in Pearl Harbour who all just had their own interests at heart. I wonder if the Americans will retaliate soon, they won’t take our city though, we are just a small city and they will take our capital Tokyo. But we must wait first, wait for their armies to arrive.

I brush the thoughts of death aside and carry on riding. It is good exercise for me to ride, and I like it, I got this bike last year as a birthday present, I remember my father’s smiling face he’d just been promoted and had spent his promotion pay on the bike for me. “There you are son,” he said smiling, “A new bike, so you don’t have to get up as early to go to school.”

“Does this mean that you’re going away Daddy?” I asked, innocent but then again, what would I know, I’m just a child, or as my dad refers to me “little boy”. It’s summer now, Japan, in its mighty wisdom has ignored the ultimatum of America and Britain, we will win, it is certain now, we have the strength. America has no ability to cause “prompt and utter destruction”.

Today is the 6th August and I am riding my bike to school. The summer breeze propels me along, speeding me on my way. I smile, all is going well, soon our armies will invade America through the Pacific and we will win, I saw it on TV at school.

My father is out there, commanding one of the boats, I wonder if he misses me. He probably does, but puts it aside to help the great cause. My father is a great man and I want to be like him when I grow up, but when I grow up, there won’t be a need for soldiers, as we will have won and will keep the peace. I hear a plane fly overhead, but it’s probably just a new Air Force pilot doing a drill. After all, it’s just another day in Hiroshima.

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So what do you guys think?

 

[Apelatia]

I like it... 6/10 here. I'm still an amateur here, but I wasn't so keen on the short sentences at the beginning, though that might be just me! I like the way you finished it off there.

 

[Deleted User - 819397]

Oh God, that was chilling. For the longest time I thought you were speaking from the perspective of an English boy, which made the American comment feel out of place. The Tokyo reference was very well placed though, and it helped define which war we were talking about. Those last couple lines though...they shocked me. Keeping where specifically this was taking place until the end was a stroke of genius. I had been reading along "oh, ok, war...ok, in Japan, so likely WW2...Pearl Harbor...definitely WW2...OH.

Very well written Zem. Maybe a little choppy at times, but then again I'm prone to overly long sentences so that might just be me. The end gave me chills (in case you couldn't tell, that was my favorite part) Good job! 7/10 (starts kinda slow, little choppy, otherwise solid)

 

[DeletedUser]

7/10 Quite good, didn't like the sort sentences, and I did guess it was going to be Hiroshima the moment you mentioned Tokyo, but apart from that it was somewhat chilling. Quite good.

 

[DeletedUser31931]

Thanks, the reason for the short sentences was that my english teacher had recently complained at me that my sentences were too long so this was a sort of cut back to make sure that they weren't too long. I'm glad to see you all liked it. It was given an A (that's the second top mark incase you don't know, the top mark is an A*)

 

[DeletedUser]

The Travails of Ages

If this is the wrong place to post this let me know and i will move it.


Oort Cloud, Sol System


The Megellen Class Scout, the UTS Henry Hudson, seemed to effortlessly slide though the Oort cloud, avoiding both the occasional large asteroid and the thousands of smaller chunks. At the scout’s sensor controls David Denton Dryer worked hard scanning all of the various floating rocks while, at the same time, trying to track the trajectories of the ones that posed a possible threat to the ship.

So why was David here in this desolate region of space? After all, considering it was probably the most desolate place to patrol anywhere within the Sol system. The answer was, of course, money. The pay is good, not great but good and patrolling the Oort cloud was the highest pay of all for a scout crew. David had been surprised to find that he was quickly saving enough money to be able to live a very comfortable life, even in New York, when he retired in fifteen years.

David had been amazed to find out he was regarded by everyone in the nascent Terran National Astronautics and Survey Administration as the best navigator in the Oort cloud. Why was that a bystander would ask, and was told that because, unlike the UTAF pilots who could ‘feel’ their ships, David had never once bumped into anything. Not one scrape or scratch. Everybody knew that he would never have made a good starfighter pilot, but as a NASA (National Astronautics & Space Administration) navigator he was without peer.

The job itself was fairly easy, along with the patrol duties the mining mega-corps’ would rent out the survey ships from the fleet. So the Hudson took the prospecting teams out to the various asteroids and they took core samples, then the ship would take them back to base where the core samples were analyzed. This allowed the best asteroids to be mined first.

The prospecting team currently assigned to David’s ship called themselves ‘the gold diggers’ and they where led by Gary Snyder. Gary and David had become fast friends over the last two years they had been working together.

Gary entered the small bridge and asked, “You want a cup o’ Joe, Triple D?” He said using David’s nickname.

“Sure Snyd,” David replied, as he concentrated on the controls in front of him. In the back of his mind he had often wondered why his parents had named him David Denton when their family’s last name was Dryer. As it was he thought his parents had a cruel sense of humor to name him David Denton Dryer and that had, from his earliest days at school, earned him the not too imaginative nickname ‘Triple D’.

“I’ll be back in a moment,” Gary said as he disappeared into the small galley just behind the bridge.

The Hudson carefully moved around one of the larger boulders in the area and entered a very dense cluster of small metallic asteroids. The Hudson slowed to a fraction of full power and began to negotiate the hazardous debris field. She inched through the field, mainly using radar, to avoid the dangerous chunks spinning nearby. Most of them would disintegrate if they hit the scout’s armor, but an occasional one would be large and dense enough to get through the hull. It only took one of those to make your day really bad.

David noticed the radar screen seemed to be playing games. Occasionally, he thought, he would get reflected images of something ahead of the scout. Suddenly he wasn’t getting an echo back from part of the display, so he began a systems diagnostics check. If the radar had developed a problem it would be suicide to continue the survey sweep.

As he worked though the systems check he heard the Captain, Lucas Paulson, exclaim, “In the name of God, what is that, David?” He asked, sounding very shocked.

David looked up from the diagnostic screen where he glanced at the viewscreen, and swallowed. A good third of the view was filled with a dark mass. David looked down at the radar and realized that part of the huge mass was blocking the scan. Worryingly, the rest of whatever it was did not seem to be blocking anything.

“Derelict ship of some sort, maybe?” David whispered. He looked back at the radar screen. It did not make sense why only part of the radar screen was occulded!

“Can’t be one of ours,” Captain Paulson said, sounding less shocked. “That thing is huge, and look at the size of that asteroid embedded in the side of it.”

“Ah ha, I see the problem now.” David said eventually.

“See what?” Captain Paulson said as he came up beside David and peered at the radar screen.

“This cloud seems to consist of small metallic asteroids, and they are scattering most of the radar waves, except for here,” David said, pointing at the screen. “So we are only receiving telemetry returns at the point where we have a clear view all the way to... whatever it is.”

“Shall we have a closer look?” David asked.

“Get us in close. Let’s see if it’s a ship or just an odd shaped rock,” the Captain said suddenly.

The Hudson edged forward at a crawl. Very soon they could tell it was indeed a ship. A massive ship. Vast beyond anything the Terrans had ever imagined. The most disturbing thing to the crew of the Hudson was the size of the asteroid that had impacted amidships. It was truly immense and it underscored just how large this ship truly was.

As they neared the ship they could see its surface bore scorch marks and seemed to have been breached in several dozen places. The breaches were large, they were big enough for a giant of a man to get through.

Captain Paulson was sure this was something that needed to be reported to fleet command. “Comm, prep a message for COMSPAFOR (Commander Space Forces) and include all of the data we have on this. Get it sent, ASAP.”

At that moment Gary returned to the bridge. “Mr. Snyder, I need you to prep your team for a little exploration mission.” Paulson said. Gary just stood there for a moment, slack-jawed, before heading for the team’s berth. “Aye, sir.”


---


“Are we there yet?” ‘John Henry’ Freeman said, in a parody of a small child, as Gary entered the team’s berth. Henry and the rest of the prospecting team were lounging around in their bunks. Henry was a tall and incredibly strong man. His strength often came in handy while the crew was drilling.

In a near zero gee environment you would think a person would not need strength, but in many cases to move a mass in the direction you wanted it to go took raw power and Henry had plenty of that. Behind him was Eric ‘Red Rooster’ Crowe, a small flamboyant man. The only man David had ever met with a red crest of hair attached to his helmet. Finally filling the small space to capacity was Pete ‘Quiet Man’ Hollister, who rarely spoke.

Gary ignored Henry and said, “The Captain wants us to inspect something for him, check it out.”

“Inspect what?” Henry asked and then spotted the picture Gary was carrying.

“I think we should get right to it,” Pete said. Surprising everyone with one of the longest sentences any of them had ever heard him say.

“Why?” Henry and Eric asked at the same time.

“We need to mark it and check to see if there’s anyone alive on it.” Pete said, going on in his quiet, almost a whisper, of a voice.

“There’s no way I’m going on that!” Eric said. “That’s just asking to get killed.”

“Fine,” Pete replied. “I guess we won’t be able to claim the salvage rights on it then, if it’s a ship that is.”

“According to the starmaps it’s the rock we are supposed to take a sample of,” Gary stated.

“Look at it, that’s no rock. If it’s a ship think about how much the salvage rights will be worth.” Pete said, passion now seeming to be creeping into his voice. “If it is though, we need to mark it and check for survivors or they won’t pay us.”

Someone watching the four could have picked the exact moment that each of them realized just how much the salvage would be and what it would do for their lives.


---


The ‘Gold Diggers’ arrived on the bridge just as the scout was nearing the derelict ship.

After a short search David spotted an airlock and he killed the system drive and began closing with just thrusters. The scout connected with the huge ship with a gentle clang. Small magnetic tethers closed in on the alien hull from the small craft and, thankfully, found similar magnetic linking points.

The prospecting team and made their way to the scout’s airlock. They attached their air tanks and set their E-suits to vacuum mode. Then they open the outer airlock door.
The hulks outer airlock door was jammed and they ended up having to crank it open with a handjack. Gary never did find out whom the handjack belonged to, or why anyone would have one on a space ship this size, he was just glad someone had had one!

When the team finally got the door open they found the inner lock looked like it had been ripped off of its mounting and they could see inside the ancient ship. The deck of the airlock had long scratch marks across it.

The airlock opened into a wide corridor, corridors that had lain dark for millennia. What they found would change Terran ideas about the past, forever.

“I think the universe just got a bit more interesting,” Captain Paulson commented, once the prospecting team had given their report upon returning to the Hudson.

 

[Apelatia]

5/10

It was OK. I'm not a huge fan of sci-fi, so I'm not the best judge for you. I'd have liked some more detail in describing things... The story didn't really get me going, and the ending... Well, that was a bit out of the blue...

 

[DeletedUser]

5/10

It was OK. I'm not a huge fan of sci-fi, so I'm not the best judge for you. I'd have liked some more detail in describing things... The story didn't really get me going, and the ending... Well, that was a bit out of the blue...

Apelatis, I apologize since this is not complete. When nobody replied before you I began it over again in the gfx & media forum. Still being posted over there.

I just figured that this was the wrong forum for stories since nobody replied, and moved it over there.

Go read what I have so far, still posting the story, and maybe that will change your mind on its quality.

The Colonel

 

[Apelatia]

Haha. I'll have a look there tomorrow. I'm not entirely sure which section is best suited to your aims, but this thread seems better than the Graphics, Arts etc... forum haha. Why no one replied? Don't ask me! Maybe telegram Lord Regal. He'll be able to tell you where is the best place to post I'm sure!

 

[DeletedUser]

Haha. I'll have a look there tomorrow. I'm not entirely sure which section is best suited to your aims, but this thread seems better than the Graphics, Arts etc... forum haha. Why no one replied? Don't ask me! Maybe telegram Lord Regal. He'll be able to tell you where is the best place to post I'm sure!

Thank you for the information Apelatia.

One thing the Gfx & Media forum has over this thread is that I can post my stories in one thread and not have other fine folks post theirs also. This would break up the rhythm and flow of a longer story, like the ones I write.

IIRC, this story has around 12.3K words. This is also one of my shortest ones too.

The Colonel

 

[Deleted User - 819397]

Ah, shoot, I've been so busy lately I completely forgot to reply to this...I apologize. Yes, this is the place for stories. GAM is for everything but creative writing...CS is the writing portion of creativity. However, since the majority of the section is devoted to RP-style writing, we do constrain individual works to here, which I do understand can be frustrating if you're trying to write something in chunks.

Anyway, I'd give this a 6/10. I liked how you ended it...a well-executed cliffhanger is always nice. However, the problem I had with it was you give detail about odd things at times. In short stories, character development is still important, but it's generally implied, not directly stated. The whole "triple D" explanation in particular threw off the action for me. Since it's a shorter work, you need to ensure the reader is constantly engaged, and halting the action to explain something that, while it'd be nice to get such an explanation in a longer work, is something the readers should just be able to accept in a shorter work. "David's nickname is Triple D, got it" was my thought process, followed by a "ok, got it...got it..." kind of thinking when I got to the explanation. I also felt like your sentences were a little repetitive, for example:

As he worked though the systems check he heard the Captain, Lucas Paulson, exclaim, “In the name of God, what is that, David?” He asked, sounding very shocked.

Exclaim implies that it's said in a surprised manner. It can be positive, or negative, usually given by context. "How did we make it out?!" he exclaimed, vs "Why would you think that was a good idea?!" he exclaimed. Therefore, the "sounding very shocked" part seems redundant to me. Little things like that throughout the story made it feel a bit choppy to me.

In short, interesting plot, but slightly lacking in execution, therefore 6/10