Draugr by Anonymous - Short, Fantasy, Horror - A Norseman travels into dangerous territory to find a cure for his dying wife. - pdf format

Writer interested in feedback on this work

Woohoo! Yes! I don't recognize this writer's style; new to OWC? One word - Awesome. If I had anything 'negative' to say... what? A couple orphans? BFD. Who cares.

I can learn a few things from this writer. Frigging great writing on display here. My kind of story, too.

Nothing else to say.

Agree with John. Excellent writing, entertaining story. Someone is a Skyrim fan. Lol

Only negative is the title page. What's going on with that?

Not much else to say. I loved it.

Hi there,
I really liked this one - the writing was clear, purposeful and just overall enjoyable. The sparse dialogue was fitting and well-written and enhanced the stark atmosphere. I could really picture the weather, the landscapes - good job!

My only real negative are a number of typos, but they are easy to fix and didn't really get in the way .

Worried by the off-centre Title page, wonder what the rest is going to be like?

Well written and engaging though not sure about flitting between English and Norse for the dialogue, it implies the characters are which would be odd, and you can lose the CUT TO: transitions, this is implied by the scene change.

Other than those niggles I really enjoyed this, story is lean and effective and you build the characters well a short space of time.

Great effort.

Not bad, each beat kept me entertained to the end.  I like how you kept the idea small and personal—Sigurd setting out to protect his family.  Clearly defined goal, stakes and urgency—all good stuff.  Dialogue felt about right—at least didn’t feel out of place.

Storywise, for me, I guess it just feels too familiar (though granted the page count doesn’t help).  Set up the quest, journey for the ‘thing’, and defeat the (insert evil thing here) to win.

I liked it enough just could have done with a fresh take on the idea or some unique twist/reveal to punch it up a bit.

Good luck.

The logline intrigued me.

The story was very well written and moved at a fast pace.

I'm currently in the middle of playing God of War and the Father's search for a cure for his dying son. Similar concept in pissing off the Gods

You packed in enough Drama/Action for a short and it was heartfelt.

Congrats and I'm sure you'll be up there with the winners

Title page is off

Quoted Text SIGURD (softly, in Nordic tongue) Ek'm mit pe'r, ok pu're mit me'r. Par til endiinn or timi

Not sure I understand why the Nordic if the characters are going to speak in English. And I don't understand why you are going back and forth between Nordic and English.

You have a lot of "beats" in there that you don't need.

You needed a new header - here:

Quoted Text He enters the cave. Wind howls through the tunnel. Strange symbols sprawled out on the walls.

We are currently working off the header EXT. CAVE - he's inside now.

Quoted Text Embla, now healthy, approaches from behind, carrying Orvar, a year older. Their small wooden home stands just up the hill behind them

Think you need a one year later super here.

You have a lot of extra spaces between words.

Interesting tale.  Writing was vivid in many places. Certainly a unique premise.

Yo ho-ho writer - I finally get to join this party!

I have chosen yours first based on the title - Because Draugrs are awesome!

It didn't disappoint, my kind of story. Writing is pretty solid, someone who knows what they are doing.

It's nothing groundbreaking, and it played out pretty much as I expected it to - But it was done well and was an enjoyable read.

If this is the quality of the rest of them, my entry is in trouble lol

But wait... are you missing one of the criteria?

Criteria 1 - ?
Criteria 2 - Skeleton
Criteria 3 - Sickness

I don't remember seeing sand, snow or space in this (A Snowstorm came in but was a footnote at best) - Am I being too harsh? did I miss something? Someone feel free to correct me

Best of luck, Writer

This type of story is not really my cup of tea but I really enjoyed this, well written and I could really visualize this. I almost didn't want it to end. This is my favourite so far.

As for the criteria, I saw snow:

"trudges through the deep snow"

And:

"The storm has arrived.  Violent wind, heavy snowfall"

Oh and the title page... So what!

Just to add:

I would like to have seen subtitles, I even tried to Google what was said. Might just be me on that, maybe it wasn't important but I would like to have known.

As I go:

- "He needs his mother." Not a fan of this exchange. They both understood that these were the stakes from the start of this argument. The baby's interjection is for the audience, and it's well placed. But they don't need to say it out loud like that. I'd have liked to see Sigurd come up with something stronger here: instead, she just sort of accepts his optimism when she didn't before.
- Confirming the above now: Sigurd needs to convince her her to let him go in a way that plays into the fears that the Draugr brings up. "I'm the only one to protect you -- I need to do this for you." Or whatever. The argument there, and the way Sigurd wins, should set up the elements that the Draugr will draw on.

Thoughts:

- Great piece, but I do think the final realization is muted a little bit by Sigurd's general sense of certainty throughout the piece. For us to feel his journey and its triumph, we need to understand the ways he could have failed -- this is done well in terms of the physical narrative here, but not so much with the emotional one. Sigurd seems too unwavering in his commitment for us to really worry. I think a seed of doubt needs to be sown in the scene with Embla that nearly leads to Sigurd's defeat with the Draugr.
- Anyway, super cool little story, and told with aplomb.

Chris

I really enjoyed reading it.  The story really intrigued me, sucked me right in. I see that your very efficient in your writing. A couple of things I would have changed here and there -- but to me, its not worth mentioning.  Good stuff!

Ghost

Final Draft always misaligns my title pages randomly, I’m glad I’m not the only one to suffer from this. I even raised a support ticket with them and all they advised was for me to uninstall and reinstall but it has made no difference.

Anyway, onto the story. Really well told, very atmospheric. Maybe a bit too prosey but in this instance it worked. Also, the beats and parentheticals distracted a little when none where required, your action and dialogue speaks for itself without any stage direction. Similarly with the scene transitions.

I normally don’t mention orphans as a few doesn’t matter but I noticed a lot in this so for the second draft I’d suggest a tidy up to fix these, the typos and extra spaces. Again, if you are using FD it is a bugger for inserting all sorts of extra spaces and lines but there’s an option in the menu to fix them.

Originality wise, it’s lacking. It would be great to see a new spin or twist on this tale but I enjoyed the read and it was very easy to follow. I can see this being up there at the top when the votes are cast.

-Mark

I loved the atmospheric setting and the obvious love story. Dialogue and action for me was spot on.
Re-reading it a couple of times had me thinking of Beowulf for some reason, not sure if this story was inspired by it or if I was just looking for similarities.
Overall I enjoyed it.

Wow. You hooked me. I loved it. Awesome visuals, which means exceptional writing. The story was pretty basic but it's what I saw that blew me away. Really...top fricken notch writing. So well done. I hate you. LOL

I do have a few thoughts...pgs 2/3...the flashback. I had no idea it was a flashback until pg 4 when it was over. So that did stop me from reading...it broke the flow. You had an excellent transition with the fire crackling, but I thought he had just arrived home. I think this is one of the few cases where telling us something is useful. Tell us it's a flashback and then BACK TO SCENE when it's over. If we were watching it on screen, there are visual clues to show us it's a flashback. Just my opinion but it did take me out of your story, which broke up the flow.

And you are blessed with the ability to convey descriptions...why use "beat"? And you use it a lot. It's void of anything. Actually, IMO, if you removed every one of them it wouldn't change anything in your story except for making me wonder what's actually happening during these beats.

Excellent writing. My fave by leaps and bounds. Great work.