Hows this read?

[Damiynn]

Golden haired and tall, a young captain in the city watch stood proudly on the other side of the pit, surrounded by men glaring down at the female cleric with a hate filled looks.

“Thaedrann,” Damien hissed, the name sounding more like a curse coming out of his mouth.

Kendle groaned, quickly he placed a restraining hand upon Damien’s shoulder as he now stepped towards the edge of the pit.

“Remember what Travis said Damien, no trouble, no fighting and not
to do anything stupid.”

“I remember exactly what Travis said,” echoed Damien, giving the dwarf a mischievous half tilted grin. “He told you not to do any of those things. He never said anything to me about not doing them.” He continued stepping forward till he reached the edge.

Kendle knew that from that lopsided grin, that there was going to be trouble.

Eyeing Thaedrann across the open expanse of the pit, Damien took a close look at his old nemesis. He had definitely grown bigger, he could tell even from here that he was well over six feet tall and most certainly outweighed him. Thaedrann had also let his hair grow long, in much the same manner as their father and a lot of Gaderians.

Damien noticed that he was a very good-looking with a handsome face and green eyes like his mother’s. The young battlemage knew from Logan that Thaedrann was very vain. Women found his handsome features and impressive physique that he had inherited from his father very attractive. Thaedrann took advantage of it.

He could see the bars of a captain in the city watch gracing the epaulets of Thaedrann’s blue and silver uniform, explaining the presence of the men around him. This was the man who had made his life as a child a living hell. Damien realized he still harbored a lot of bad feelings for Thaedrann, for all the embarrassment and pain he had caused him over the years.

Taking a deep breath he yelled mockingly over the sounds of the crowd, using a bit of magic to amplify his voice, “What’s wrong Captain, can’t the City Watch handle their battles? Or do they always have to find someone else to fight for them.”

Heads everywhere spun in his direction. Damien added, “Everyone knows though that they have always had a little trouble in handling the ladies.” Pointedly he looked downward, towards his midsection.

Kendle muttered something incomprehensible and shook his shaggy haired head at Damien’s bold words.

The crowd around the pit went quiet again in stunned silence. Everyone was craning their necks, trying to see who had said the bold words, knowing the challenge in them was very clear.

The group of watchmen along with their captain whipped their heads around also, all of their eyes searching for the source of the insult.

Thaedrann found Damien. He knew the large man recognized him, he saw his eyes widen slightly then narrow hatefully.

“Well, well,” Thaedrann called out scornfully, “if it isn’t little Damien, fresh from Mage School in Westlake! Shouldn’t you be hiding somewhere with your nose in a book?”

The crowd laughed, turning once again in his direction. The young battlemage only smiled, shaking his head. “Can’t handle a woman by yourself? Do you have to always have somebody else take care of them for you? Or,” said Damien with a knowing smile on his face, as if he already knew the answer to his next question, looking about conspiratorially at the crowd, playing up to them a little as he had seen Kendle do hundreds of times before, “is it true that you’ve always had a bit of trouble in that area?”

The crowd erupted into raucous howls of laughter and jeering, all of it directed at Lord Richard’s bastard son.

Not used to being the butt end of anybody’s jokes, Thaedrann glared angrily at Damien, hints of menace showing clearly in his slitted emerald green eyes.

Thaedrann considered the returned Damien. He wasn’t really sure what to make of the young battlemage and was trying to figure out what it was that had so changed the young ward who he’d tortured and harassed as a child, into the young confident man who was challenging him so openly here and now in front of half of the city’s residents. He was a captain in the watch, a man not to be mocked in any sort of way, especially in front of people who were supposed to respect, fear and obey his orders.

Thaedrann also realized he was losing face in front of his own men, even now they were looking at him with slight jeers on their faces. Rage bubbled up inside his body. He knew that he couldn’t let Damien’s insults go by unchallenged. Snarling like an angry beast, he grabbed the bottom of his captain’s tunic, lifted it up and over his head and tossed it down to the sand.

Women squealed with delight at the sight of the handsome, young captain’s huge chest and well-defined body. Thaedrann, Damien saw, was definitely Lord Richards’ son, possessing the same type rippling muscle and powerful physique.

With a venomous look in Damien’s direction, he walked forward to the pits edge and jumped over. Thaedrann dropped the fifteen feet down, easily landing with a soft thump, gracefully like a large cat.
The crowd went eerily silent, as Thaedrann, his green eyes still shining with menace, crouching catlike with his legs spread wide and one hand on the ground, his long golden hair fanning out behind him over his muscular shoulders, waved his other hand, beckoning Damien as he looked up saying, “Come down little mage, if you have the courage.”

Damien tilted his head slightly sideways in a cocky manner, looking over at Kendle he said, smiling his trademark half tilted smile, “It seem as if I have been challenged.”

Giving the young battlemage a grim look the dwarf answered, “It would seem so.” In a whisper too low to be overheard, he asked, “Do you think that you can handle him? Thaedrann’s a dangerous adversary Damien. He’s brutal, bloody, vicious and mean and usually he tries to maim opponents he doesn’t like, permanently.”

Seeing the pair huddled together at the pits edge, Thaedrann called out mockingly, “Don’t worry Damien. I promise I’ll make this quick. A two hit fight, me hitting you and you hitting the sand!”

The semi silent crowd erupted into jeering howls. Damien could tell by their enthusiasm that Thaedrann was a favorite, like Uligar before him. He recognized it because crowds had cheered for him in much the same manner for the past couple of years in Westlake every time Tiko made him fight during his training.

All he had to do was steal Thaedrann’s audience, that would take the wind out of the arrogant man’s sails. Damien gave Lord Richard’s bastard a wry look. There was more than just a fight going on here. This was also going to be a game of one-upmanship. Already saw a weakness, Thaedrann’s glowing green angry eyes. If he lost his temper, the fight would be short.

He heard Tiko’s voice in his head saying, an angry man or woman who lets his or her emotions control them rather than they being in control has already lost the fight. Anger is the mind killer, the destroyer of reason and fear kills the thought process.

For the first year of their training Tiko had found numerous ways to anger or taunt him, deliberately teaching him how to control his emotions, rather than the opposite. Kendle also was an expert at taunting. The dwarf could irritate his opponents way beyond the bounds of reason. Between them, Damien figured he had learnt enough to push a few of Thaedrann’s buttons.

He began by laughing, a long, loud, drawn out condescending laugh, in such a derisive manner that the crowd fell silent again. In a deliberately, loud, offhand manner, he said to Kendle, casually passing him his fighting staff. Thaedrann’s face, was already changing colors. “Could you hold this for me please? I’ll be back momentarily to retrieve it.”

Kendle shot the young battlemage a warning look, not understanding his intentions he clamped a hard hand onto Damien’s wrist, whispering in an emphatic voice, “Don’t play games with him lad and don’t underestimate him! I’m warning you, even though Thaedrann is an arrogant hot headed fool, he is a veteran at this and well trained by both me and Travis.”

Damien casually looped his hand under and around the outside of Kendle’s grip, pushing against the dwarf’s wrist with his fingers. With hardly any effort, he easily dislodged his tight grip, saying to the suddenly shocked Kendle, who didn’t quite understand how Damien had gotten free.

“Stop underestimating me Kendle.” Damien fixed the dwarf with a hard look. Then relented, letting the look soften some. “I have to do this if I ever want to be able to hold my head up with any sort of dignity here in this city or with my family and to have peace within myself.” As he said the words, he realized he didn’t feel any sort angst towards Thaedrann any longer. Gone were the feelings of hatred that had flared up at first sight of the other man, but he also knew that this had to end between them and today seemed as good a day as any.

Kendle sniffed loudly in exasperation through his bulbous nose, which set his long mustache quivering, but he nodded. Damien was right. Travis wouldn’t see it that way, but he understood. “Well lad,” answered the dwarf with a slow roll of his reddish brown eyes. “As my father Edrynn always says, go in and fire him up.”

The young battlemage returned the grin with another of his half tilted smiles, saying, “Don’t worry about me Kendle.” He cleared a space by spreading out his arms and motioning for all the people around him to step back, then looked over to where Thaedrann stood waiting and said, “It’s him you should be worried about!”

Kendle shot him another dark glare, but Damien ignored it as he reached into his pocket and drew out an old piece of old sweat stained leather, which he used to tie back his long black curly hair. If it was in his face while fighting, it would be a distraction. He had learned early on that loose hair could be used as a weapon. Once in Westlake, one of his first opponents had used his to smash him into a pit wall.

Reaching down Damien gripped his shirt to and pulled it up over his head, revealing a body honed by years of hard practice in martial arts and physical exercise combined with the rigorous training of the battlemage’s school. Corded muscles rippled on his lean frame and the same women who had earlier squealed for Thaedrann now showed their delight at the sight of him. While not as heavily muscled as Thaedrann whose body possessed power and strength, Damien’s muscled, whip cord-like frame was built for speed and quickness but one could sense the power in it.

Kendle whistled softly at the sight of Damien’s uncovered chest
and then again at his back. It wasn’t the hardened muscles though that had drawn the dwarfs’ attention. Instead it was the well-healed scars covering his chest, arms and back, of all shapes and sizes. Those testified to fights and his time and prowess in the pit.

“Hells teeth lad!” Kendle cursed in startled astonishment, “Where did you get all of those?”

Without turning around, he said back over his shoulder, “When you train to fight, you fight. I’ve been around the pit a few times. In fact I’ve been the city champion in Westlake for the past two years, both in hand to hand and weapons combat.”

Damien turned back to the dwarf, showing traces of a smile that didn’t quite reach his dark blue eyes, “When I asked Travis if we could see who was placed on the fighting charts for the tournament, that wasn’t true. I actually just wanted to make sure that they had spelled my own name correctly. I’m not just here for a reunion with my family Kendle, I’m here to compete and hopefully win the Tournament of Cities. I’m third on the list out of fifty.”

At hearing this, Kendle’s eyes gaped wide and his mouth fell open. To be considered third on that list meant Damien had to know what he was doing.

“Stop worrying, you can check the lists. Besides,” Damien added mimicking Kendle’s evil grin of earlier. “This is revenge.” He turned away and went over to the pits edge. Before the dwarf could offer any more protests he bent over at the waist. Placing his hands at the edge of the pits lip he gripped it tightly with his fingers. Thinking about the deliberately showy entrance that Thaedrann had made, he decided to make his better. Shifting his weight onto his hands he gracefully moved into a handstand, then drawing on a tiny bit of magic, Damien propelled his body high up into the air, did a compete flip, accompanied by a twist so that he was facing Thaedrann while still up in the air. With his arms outstretched along side his body, he used his magic to slowly lower himself down onto the sand, landing softly with a flourish that would have made Logan proud. After a deep bow to the cheering crowd, he smiled pleasantly at Thaedrann.

[chrispenycate]

[/quote][quote]

Originally Posted by Damiynn

Golden haired and tall,

no comma?

a young captain in the city watch stood proudly on the other side of the pit, surrounded by men glaring down at the female cleric with a hate filled looks.

“Thaedrann,” Damien hissed, the name sounding more like a curse coming out of his mouth.

Kendle groaned,

period or semicolon

quickly he placed a restraining hand upon Damien’s shoulder as he now stepped towards the edge of the pit.

“Remember what Travis said

comma

Damien, no trouble, no fighting and not

to do anything stupid.”

“I remember exactly what Travis said,” echoed Damien, giving the dwarf a mischievous half

hyphen?

tilted grin. “He told you not to do any of those things. He never said anything to me about not doing them.” He continued stepping forward till he reached the edge.

Kendle knew that

without this "that"

from that lopsided grin, that there was going to be trouble.

Eyeing Thaedrann across the open expanse of the pit, Damien took a close look at his old nemesis. He had definitely grown bigger, he could tell even from here that he was well over six feet tall and most certainly outweighed him. Thaedrann had also let his hair grow long, in much the same manner as their father and a lot of Gaderians.

Damien noticed that he was a

without the "a", or a noun that makes it a something

very good-looking with a handsome face and green eyes like his mother’s. The young battlemage knew from Logan that Thaedrann was very vain. Women found his handsome features and

the; and perhaps avoid the repetition of "handsome"

impressive physique that he had inherited from his father very attractive. Thaedrann took advantage of it.

He could see the bars of a captain in the city watch gracing the epaulets of Thaedrann’s blue and silver uniform, explaining the presence of the men around him. This was the man who had made his life as a child a living hell. Damien realized he still harbored a lot of bad feelings for Thaedrann, for all the embarrassment and pain he had caused him over the years.

Taking a deep breath he yelled mockingly over the sounds of the crowd, using a bit of magic to amplify his voice, “What’s wrong Captain, can’t the City Watch handle their battles? Or do they always have to find someone else to fight for them.”

Heads everywhere spun in his direction. Damien added, “Everyone knows though

comma, and

that they have always had a little trouble in handling the ladies.” Pointedly he looked downward, towards his midsection.

Kendle muttered something incomprehensible and shook his shaggy haired head at Damien’s bold words.

The crowd around the pit went quiet again in stunned silence. Everyone was craning their necks, trying to see who had said the bold words, knowing the challenge in them was very clear.

The group of watchmen along with their captain whipped their heads around also, all of their eyes searching for the source of the insult.

Thaedrann found Damien. He knew the large man recognized him, he saw his eyes widen slightly then narrow hatefully.

“Well, well,” Thaedrann called out scornfully, “if it isn’t little Damien, fresh from Mage School in Westlake! Shouldn’t you be hiding somewhere with your nose in a book?”

The crowd laughed, turning once again in his direction. The young battlemage only smiled, shaking his head. “Can’t handle a woman by yourself? Do you have to always have somebody else take care of them for you? Or,” said Damien with a knowing smile on his face, as if he already knew the answer to his next question, looking about conspiratorially at the crowd, playing up to them a little as he had seen Kendle do hundreds of times before, “is it true that you’ve always had a bit of trouble in that area?”

The crowd erupted into raucous howls of laughter and jeering, all of it directed at Lord Richard’s bastard son.

Not used to being the butt end of anybody’s jokes, Thaedrann glared angrily at Damien, hints of menace showing clearly in his slitted emerald green eyes.

Thaedrann considered the returned Damien. He wasn’t really sure what to make of the young battlemage and was trying to figure out what it was that had so changed the young ward who he’d tortured and harassed as a child, into the young confident man who was challenging him so openly here and now in front of half of the city’s residents. He was a captain in the watch, a man not to be mocked in any sort of way, especially in front of people who were supposed to respect, fear and obey his orders.

Thaedrann also realized he was losing face in front of his own men, even now they were looking at him with slight jeers on their faces. Rage bubbled up inside his body. He knew that he couldn’t let Damien’s insults go by unchallenged. Snarling like an angry beast, he grabbed the bottom of his captain’s tunic, lifted it up and over his head and tossed it down to the sand.

Women squealed with delight at the sight of the handsome, young captain’s huge chest and well-defined body. Thaedrann, Damien saw, was definitely Lord Richards’ son, possessing the same type rippling muscle and powerful physique.

With a venomous look in Damien’s direction, he walked forward to the pits edge and jumped over. Thaedrann dropped the fifteen feet down, easily landing with a soft thump, gracefully like a large cat.
The crowd went eerily silent, as Thaedrann, his green eyes still shining with menace, crouching catlike with his legs spread wide and one hand on the ground, his long golden hair fanning out behind him over his muscular shoulders, waved his other hand, beckoning Damien as he looked up

comma

saying, “Come down little mage, if you have the courage.”

Damien tilted his head slightly sideways in a cocky manner, looking over at Kendle he said, smiling his trademark half tilted smile, “It seem as if I have been challenged.”

Giving the young battlemage a grim look the dwarf answered, “It would seem so.” In a whisper too low to be overheard, he asked, “Do you think that you can handle him? Thaedrann’s a dangerous adversary

comma

Damien. He’s brutal, bloody, vicious and mean and usually he tries to maim opponents he doesn’t like, permanently.”

Seeing the pair huddled together at the pits

pit's

edge, Thaedrann called out mockingly, “Don’t worry Damien. I promise I’ll make this quick. A two hit fight, me hitting you and you hitting the sand!”

The semi silent crowd erupted into jeering howls. Damien could tell by their enthusiasm that Thaedrann was a favorite, like Uligar before him. He recognized it because crowds had cheered for him in much the same manner for the past couple of years in Westlake every time Tiko made him fight during his training.

All he had to do was steal Thaedrann’s audience, that would take the wind out of the arrogant man’s sails. Damien gave Lord Richard’s bastard a wry look. There was more than just a fight going on here. This was also going to be a game of one-upmanship. Already saw a weakness, Thaedrann’s glowing green angry eyes. If he lost his temper, the fight would be short.

He heard Tiko’s voice in his head saying, an angry man or woman who lets his or her emotions control them rather than they being in control has already lost the fight. Anger is the mind killer, the destroyer of reason

comma

and fear kills the thought process.

For the first year of their training Tiko had found numerous ways to anger or taunt him, deliberately teaching him how to control his emotions, rather than the opposite. Kendle also was an expert at taunting. The dwarf could irritate his opponents way beyond the bounds of reason. Between them, Damien figured he had learnt enough to push a few of Thaedrann’s buttons.

He began by laughing, a long, loud, drawn out condescending laugh, in such a derisive manner that the crowd fell silent again. In a deliberately, loud, offhand manner, he said to Kendle, casually passing him his fighting staff. Thaedrann’s face,

no comma, and it would be better that this entire sentence be after the quote, rather than between the "he said" and what he said.

was already changing colors. “Could you hold this for me please? I’ll be back momentarily to retrieve it.”

Kendle shot the young battlemage a warning look,

semicolon

not understanding his intentions he clamped a hard hand onto Damien’s wrist, whispering in an emphatic voice, “Don’t play games with him lad and don’t underestimate him! I’m warning you, even though Thaedrann is an arrogant hot

hyphen

headed fool, he is a veteran at this and well trained by both me and Travis.”

Damien casually looped his hand under and around the outside of Kendle’s grip, pushing against the dwarf’s wrist with his fingers. With hardly any effort, he easily dislodged his tight grip, saying to the suddenly shocked Kendle, who didn’t quite understand how Damien had gotten free.

“Stop underestimating me Kendle.” Damien fixed the dwarf with a hard look. Then relented, letting the look soften some. “I have to do this if I ever want to be able to hold my head up with any sort of dignity here in this city or with my family and to have peace within myself.” As he said the words, he realized he didn’t feel any sort angst towards Thaedrann any longer. Gone were the feelings of hatred that had flared up at first sight of the other man, but he also knew that this had to end between them and today seemed as good a day as any.

Kendle sniffed loudly in exasperation through his bulbous nose, which set his long mustache quivering, but he nodded. Damien was right. Travis wouldn’t see it that way, but he understood. “Well lad,” answered the dwarf with a slow roll of his reddish brown eyes. “As my father Edrynn always says, go in and fire him up.”

The young battlemage returned the grin with another of his half tilted smiles, saying, “Don’t worry about me

comma

Kendle.” He cleared a space by spreading out his arms and motioning for all the people around him to step back, then looked over to where Thaedrann stood waiting and said, “It’s him you should be worried about!”

Kendle shot him another dark glare, but Damien ignored it as he reached into his pocket and drew out an old piece of old

repetition of "old"

sweat stained leather, which he used to tie back his long

comma

black curly hair. If it was in his face while fighting, it would be a distraction. He had learned early on that loose hair could be used as a weapon. Once in Westlake, one of his first opponents had used his to smash him into a pit wall.

Reaching down Damien gripped his shirt to

too?

and pulled it up over his head, revealing a body honed by years of hard practice in martial arts and physical exercise combined with the rigorous training of the battlemage’s school. Corded muscles rippled on his lean frame and the same women who had earlier squealed for Thaedrann now showed their delight at the sight of him. While not as heavily muscled as Thaedrann

comma

whose body possessed power and strength, Damien’s muscled, whip cord-like frame was built for speed and quickness

I'm not sure about "quickness" after "speed". Perhaps something more like "agility"?

but one could sense the power in it.

Kendle whistled softly at the sight of Damien’s uncovered chest
and then again at his back. It wasn’t the hardened muscles

comma

though

comma

that had drawn the dwarfs’ attention. Instead it was the well-healed scars covering his chest, arms and back, of all shapes and sizes. Those testified to fights and his time and prowess in the pit.

“Hells teeth lad!” Kendle cursed in startled astonishment, “Where did you get all of those?”

Without turning around, he said back over his shoulder, “When you train to fight, you fight. I’ve been around the pit a few times. In fact I’ve been the city champion in Westlake for the past two years, both in hand to hand and weapons combat.”

Damien turned back to the dwarf, showing traces of a smile that didn’t quite reach his dark blue eyes, “When I asked Travis if we could see who was placed on the fighting charts for the tournament, that wasn’t true. I actually just wanted to make sure that they had spelled my own name correctly. I’m not just here for a reunion with my family Kendle, I’m here to compete and hopefully win the Tournament of Cities. I’m third on the list out of fifty.”

At hearing this, Kendle’s eyes gaped wide and his mouth fell open. To be considered third on that list meant Damien had to know what he was doing.

“Stop worrying, you can check the lists. Besides,” Damien added mimicking Kendle’s evil grin of earlier. “This is revenge.” He turned away and went over to the pits

pit's

edge. Before the dwarf could offer any more protests he bent over at the waist. Placing his hands at the edge of the pits

pit's

lip he gripped it tightly with his fingers. Thinking about the deliberately showy entrance that Thaedrann had made, he decided to make his better. Shifting his weight onto his hands he gracefully moved into a handstand, then drawing on a tiny bit of magic, Damien propelled his body high up into the air, did a compete flip, accompanied by a twist so that he was facing Thaedrann while still up in the air.

repetition of "up in the air"

With his arms outstretched along side

alongside

his body, he used his magic to slowly lower himself down onto the sand, landing softly with a flourish that would have made Logan proud. After a deep bow to the cheering crowd, he smiled pleasantly at Thaedrann.

[Malloriel]

Ugh. This is the fourth time I've tried to post my critique, and the darn box keeps eating all the useful formatting, like SPACES BETWEEN THE PARAGRAPHS! Fortunately, a little extra effort seems to have it cleared up.

Well, first of all, I'll say I like where this is going, and you've got some very good bones. You're also quite excellent at dialog and creating personalities that are easy to connect with. However, I feel you still have a long way to go, not just grammatically, but structurally as well.

You change perspective from paragraph to paragraph, making it difficult to keep track of who the true main character is. The easiest way to tell from who's perspective you're speaking, is by the observations you give the reader. If we're given Damien's thoughts on Theadrann, then we know that for the time being, we are Damien. If you then switch to what Theadrann's thoughts on Damien are seven paragraphs later, switch back to Damien one paragraph after that, and then back to Theadrann's throughts again two paragraphs further, then you're not effectively telling the story you want to tell.

You as the author may know Theadrann's throughts, as Theadrann certainly must, but if we're Damien, then we know only what he knows, what he hears, and what he sees. We see his observations of Theadrann and what he believes the man must think of him, but we can't, in the middle of the chapter and without notice, switch to Theadrann, or Kendle's head. My advice here would be that, while you're very good telling things from the third person limited perspective, each time you move to address another character shouldn't be approached the same way you address Damien. So when ";Kendle knew that from that lopsided grin, that there was going to be trouble", because we're in Damien's perspective, it should read more like "Damien could tell that Kendle knew already that there was going to be trouble, just from the lopsided grin on his face." You give the same information, but keep to the perspective you want to establish.

Point the second (there are, I'm afraid, quite a few): In the first sentence, which I think should be eliminated all together, you mention a female cleric. You reference her again in Damien's mockery of Theadrann in paragraphs 11 and 17, though never again as a cleric, and never as anything important. Now, obviously, because this is just a piece, I don't know if she plays a key role later, but it almost seems like you're better off not mentioning her at all. First we think she's in the pit. We also don't know who this "golden haired and tall" young captain is, who isn't even actually explained until paragraph 9, so we're left thinking Damien is the captain. Or perhaps all the men around the pit are captains, because the prisoner, we assume the woman, is too dangerous to leave to simple foot soldiers. This leads me onto another point, but I'll finish this one first. If the woman plays a vital role later, or even shortly after this scene, make her a part of the scene, and not a device simply so Damien can pick a fight. It's like mentioning a potted plant that gets hurled at someone's head, and then never addressing the fact that it leaves a mess and remains a part of the world in which the characters live. It's like the plant is thrown, hits the guy and then disappears.

The next point I have is that what you want to do to establish continuity in your story is to point out to the reader who your main character is right away. You don't want to clutter things up by drawing attention to secondary characters first, unless they're speaking directly to the main perspective character. So if you want to establish Captain Theadrann and his men standing around a pit in an obviously crowded place, presumably with some woman inside it, establish it through Damien's observations of the scene. And, since it becomes a part of the atmosphere itself, mention the state of the environment briefly. Like: "Damien (always give a last name when first introducing a character) frowned as he glanced over the faces of the city watch. The combat pit, usually reserved for city championship tournaments seemed to hold their attention, though with the crowd so quiet and no hint of battle in the air he knew that what drew the men today was not going to be so innocent an attraction as that.

It was easy to spot the leader of this band of upstanding gentlemen. In addition to the epaulet bars of rank denoting captaincy, the arrogance and sense of entitlement dripped off the man like the sweat currently creeping down his face. A face Damien knew some would call handsome, but which he could find no place in his thoughts for anything but downright hatred.

The sand grated beneath his boots as he moved closer to the scene.

'Thaedrann,' he hissed, giving as much power as possible to converting the name into a curse."

Now, obviously that's more than a simple sentence or even opening paragraph, but it's got a LOT of the information you want to get across, it keeps it all in Damien's perspective, and it sets the scene. You're in a city, it hosts combat tournaments, it's hot and sandy, Damien is the main character and therefor the one we care about, he dislikes the captain of the city watch, who is a handsome and arrogant man. Scene set. Now we can do things like introduce Kendle. I'd do something like have him shift beside Damien or make a sound to get his attention, have Damien break away from glaring at Theadrann, and then give the speech.

Which brings me to my next point: You introduce names of characters without context and don't explain them. Travis, Logan, Lord Richard, and Tiko. We can gather that Travis holds some sway over Damien, if only a little, and certainly Kendle, and that it had something to do with Damien's training as a battlemage. Logan is left completely undefined in relation to Damien, Tiko has some mentor association with him, which is nice to know, but needs to be established when you mention him to begin with, and Lord Richard is given no context to the city. Is he the lord of the city itself? A minor lord within the city? What does he govern? What is his purpose other than to give Theadrann a father from whom to be a bastard? As well, when referring to someone of power, status, or even little consequence, last names should be used. First names denote familiarity, and few people are ever familiar with lords. Certainly not enough to be on a first name basis with them, and definitely not if they have such hatred toward an illegitimate child. So after introducing him as Lord Richard Corval, let's say, you then establish him as "the city's parliamentary representative". Your passage in paragraph 18 would then be: The crowd erupted into raucous howls of laughter and jeering, all of it directed at the bastard son of Lord Richard Corval, parliamentary representative to the fine sandy city.-- Or something like that. That way you're not saying that Lord Corval is a major figure to the story, but that he's a fairly important one to the city itself, making Theadrann something more than some annoying jerk of a city watch captain.

Now, I noticed that the observations Damien had of Theadrann, and those that Kendle had of Damien taking his shirt off, are far too similar to those that women would have, even if Kendle's reasons weren't mere admiration. Damien doesn't like Theadrann, so his observations would likely be grudging admission that the man wasn't ugly. In fact, he was probably quite handsome, as many people thought, but his awareness and exploitation of that fact helped to confirm Damien's dislike, and prove that he's not as attractive as everyone seems to think. This IS your antagonist for the scene, after all. Let's garner a little extra dislike for him so the readers feel what you know Damien feels.

And when you get to the scene where Damien seems to let all of those harsh feelings go because of a moment of clarity, it feels almost like a cop out. Though I do admit, it's a particularly well written sentence. It's like you set up all this hatred and bad blood between them, and then he has one of these "oh . . . oh, I'm being just like everyone else," or "oh, it's so simple. Of course it was always me. I've always had it in me to get over how he made my every waking moment a living hell." I mean, do you see some of the incongruity there? If you were to have this person hounding you, making your adolescent life just pure misery until the day you could finally get away, would you then just "get over it" the moment before you could have a real confrontational fight to pay him back for those years of hardship? It doesn't sound like he's been away long enough to work through those tough emotions enough to let it all go before showing him up and kicking his ass in front of all his peers. I really can't complain that he takes the high road, just that perhaps the high road should come later, if at all.

A minor note would also be that if Kendle was a trainer of Damien's, as it's implied, wouldn't he have already seen the scars on his back? (paragraphs 39 and 40) And the explanation makes itself almost unnecessary, though it reveals a lot, when, from Kendle's perspective, we learn what they're from. If you keep the revelation of where they came from, I'd leave it at that and let the reader wonder a bit about just how much experience Damien has, and let Damien show them by fighting Theadrann. I think after he wins (as we assume he does), he should tell Kendle his standing in the city's list and the experience he's had.

Other than that, it's just minor phrasing. You over use a few words, like jeering, and handsome and "green eyes", which, after being established as being a certain shade of green (and emerald is the standard, so I personally would choose something less common in fantasy), you really don't need to point it out so much. We know his eyes are green, and that he's well built and handsome and all of that, so the more you mention it, the more it's like watching you beat a dead horse. Or rather, beat us over the head with the same dead horse. The thesaurus can sometimes be used too much as a crutch, but if you find yourself using the same words over and over, you might think of looking up a couple synonyms, or changing the phrasing of a sentence to avoid it.

I hope this doesn't come across as too critical, but I know that as a writer, if my writing just isn't able to withstand a critical eye, then I'd like to know so I can improve and make something that I can not only be proud of, but that can draw people in and make them a part of the world that I present to them. So I really hope that this is more helpful than it is harsh, because I really didn't intend it to come across that way. Editors, I think, will be just as formal about it, though. I can't say for certain as I've never gotten to that stage yet, but I edit myself as much, and even more critically than I ever approach someone else's work.

[chrispenycate]

Oh, look, there's another "pit's" I missed. And there are occasional possible confusions with "he"s and "him"s as to whom is being referred to.

He had definitely grown bigger, he could tell even from here that he was well over six feet tall and most certainly outweighed him.

But I've been assuming the characters were the same I'd already met in: Short and sweet
A King's Court, prologue, need critiques and
critique, check tension of situation

so was less confused. Wrong, perchance, but definitively so, not confusedly.