[RohanMan]

Please tell me what you think.
The harsh wind blew against Cole as he chopped wood. He would get a cold if he stayed out here any longer. The older guards of the night watch had sent him out to get wood for the fire. Cole was the youngest of the night watch.

Crack! The wood split it half as he chopped it. The boy felt and icy chill go threw his body. He shivered; he pulled up the collar of his thick wool coat. Even the big wool coat and the brown leather pants couldn’t keep him warm; the snow storm had lasted for a week so far and it showed know signs of slowing down. Cole didn’t like this snowstorm, he felt kind of weird like something bad was going to happen to him.
Cole looked out into the dense forest; he felt like someone was looking at him. But he couldn’t see anyone or anything, just trees and brush. So he got back to his work.
He was dreaming of a nice warm fire in a cozy little cottage, with food and drink.
Being in the night watch was a hard job; you didn’t get to see any women for along time and worst of all you became lonely, but the job well.
Crack! Cole snapped out of his dream and looked around intently, he heard a twig crack. He looked forward and back ward. He was getting scared now.
“Maybe I should head back now,” he said to himself. He picked up the logs he chopped and started walking down the trail.
The trail was very small and had thick forest on either side of it.
Cole walked along the small trail shaking, he still felt weird.
Cling! He heard the sound of a sword coming out of its scabbard. He dropped the logs in fright.
Ahhh! He cried out in pain as the logs fell on his frozen feet. He was picking them up when he heard leaves rustle behind him; he turned around and pulled out his sword. He looked down the trail and saw nothing. He looked the other way and still saw nothing. He turned back again and froze; he dropped his sword on the ground.
A giant black horse with red eyes stood in front of him and on the right side of it stood a tall man in black robes.
Cole lost his breath. He couldn’t see the eyes of the man; his hood covered them.
The black robed man walked up to Cole and pulled out a huge black sword.
Cole started running the opposite way but stopped. The large robed man stood in front of him. Cole looked back to see if their was two of them. No there wasn’t, how could this be? The boy ran again, but was pulled back by the Black Hand. The man turned Cole around a stabbed him.
Ahh! Cole screamed out in pain as the giant sword went through his stomach. He looked down at the sword in his body.
The large man pulled the sword back out and trusted it into the boy’s hart.
Cole fell to the ground dead.

[choppy]

This is certainly a dark opening.

I think you do a good job generating some suspense. Danger and mystery are good hooks. You managed to introduce a character and get me as a reader sympathising with him in very little space, which is difficult to do.

I would probably try a proofread on your own to correct some "homophone" errors such as "it showed know signs of slowing down."

Otherwise I think you have something to build on. The bad guy at this point seems a little generic. I'm sure you plan on developing him further as the story progresses, but remember that the prologue is usually the first thing the reader sees so you want to demonstrate what's unique about your villian right up front. The supernatural element is a nice touch.

Sometimes it is sufficient to write something like . . . he screamed in terror . . . rather than "Ahh!" he screamed - that's just my opinion though.

Watch words like "you" when writing in third person, such as "you didn?t get to see any women for along time and worst of all you became lonely". We tend to talk like this, but this potentially switches from first to second person - interrupting the flow of the story.

One question that lingered in my mind was: night watch of what? What are they guarding?

Keep writing!

[Erebus]

RohanMan, just a reminder that the forums really aren't the place for submitting your works. As I have mentioned to you before, please use the Submit page, which you will find at the top of this page, where your work can be rated etc. This is something we remind all our members of so that the forum boards are not filled with pages of text etc.

Thanks. :)

[RohanMan]

Sorry i was just tring to see if people liked it and it wasnt very long

[Erebus]

Ye, no problem. Just a friendly reminder in the interests of being consistent! :)

[wastra]

Okay, here's my two cents:

First, the story itself is fine. No problems with the basic beginning plot...a young guardsmen is out alone on a cold night, and is attacked. I'm sure it will get further developed as the story progresses, so it would be pointless to discss development of a short intro-piece.

The writing could use a couple tweaks, however. Your style definitely shows promise, but it beigns in a very choppy, disjointed fashion.

The harsh wind blew against Cole as he chopped wood. He would get a cold if he stayed out here any longer. The older guards of the night watch had sent him out to get wood for the fire. Cole was the youngest of the night watch.

If you read that aloud, you'll get a very disjointed picture...is the paragraph about the cold, Cole, chopping wood, or the night watch? You need to focus the paragraph just a bit more. If it's about Cole being in the cold, you can still include many facts about him while making the story flow a bit better. Also, you can add in the facts (such as Cole being hte youngest member of hte watch) without throwing it out there as Cole was the youngest of the night watch. Don't force feed it- let it flow out in the normal story:

"Cole drew his cloak tight about him as the cold wind bit against his exposed skin. Chopping firewood was the last thing he would have chosen to do on such a bitterly-cold night, but as the youngest member of the night watch, the duty fell to him to provide wood for the fire."

I'm not claiming that's the best way to write it, or even that you should re-write the paragraph in such a fashion, but flow is vitally important, and I believe that your story could truly flourish with some small style tweaks.

Keep writing, though. It's a good start!

[RohanMan]

Thank you very much, i will look into those mistakes and thanks for the support:) :) :D

[RohanMan]

Here is some more.

Chapter one- The Night Watch

“Damn I wish that boy would hurry up”, said Richard the leader of the Night Watch.
Three heavily muscled men sat around a small oak table in the middle of the room, they were drinking as much ale and beer as they could with their night off.
It had been an hour since they boy had left and the fire had gone out.
“Were going to freeze if he doesn’t hurry up with that wood,” said Jon.
“ Well its hard to walk out there, give him a break”, said Harry the second youngest of the night watch.
The other three men at the table turned and looked at him.
“This is your first time boy, you don’t know what cold is, look at this”. Richard pulled off his black glove and showed the boy his hand.
He was missing his pinky finger and his thumb.
Harry face twisted in grimace as he looked at the hand.
Harry hadn’t even passed the test to become a member of the night watch, but they let him join anyway because they were afraid his father would become angry with them. Harry’s dad was the top executioner.
“If the boy doesn’t hurry up he will die, its been over an hour and he is not wearing his full clothing” remarked Jon.
The men shrugged.
“That’s his fault, we warned him”, said the leader.
“But I don’t want to spend time burying him” said Jon.
The other men laughed at the remark.
“I am not going out there,” said Harry
“You would freeze before you even got there, you little worm” exclaimed Richard
“I will go find him then” said Jon
Jon got up from his seat and walked over to the coat rack.
He pulled a large black fur coat off the hook and also a scarf; he opened the door and walked out.