Prologue opening

[Eczman20]

Looking for opinions. These are the opening two paragraphs for a prologue, would appreciate opinions:

The sun, setting on the horizon, had painted the sky a bloody red, and turbulent black clouds thundered in the distance. A glittering sea of sand and burning rock stretched into the distance in all directions, the fiery waves of desert abated only by the roaring downpour that the swirling black clouds unleashed. However, even the monstrous sounds of the approaching storm were drowned out by the feverish cries and screams of the battle. The arid plains seemed awash with men as great hordes clashed together. Thousands upon thousands lay dead upon the baked ground yet many more remained fighting in a titanic battle. Countless horsemen streamed around a great body of men, archers filled the sky with arrows and catapaults hurled enourmous rocks into the air, thudding down upon the battle with sickening crunches. Slighly apart from the main battle stood two groups of men, swathed in black, hurling immense forces each other, the air between them sizzling with power. Occasionally a stray soildier would stumble into the crackling air, immeadiately turning into ash.

Aran ducked with a sudden jolt as a sword whirred inches above his head. He brought his sword up in defense and parried a few blows but barely. As the man hammered at Aran's sword, Aran turned to escape. Rolling away, he came up to see his attacker lose his head to a great moon shaped axe, and he stumbled as he stared at the man in horror. He could feel men all around him. Frantically twisting, he blindly stabbed at the press of bodies surrounding him and felt his rusty sword meet slight resistance as it slid into the stomach of a nearby soldier. He yelled in triumph. Abruptly, a look of dismay entered his face and his cry cut short as he struggled with the sword which caught in the man, desperately trying to pull it free. As the man fell, he pulled Aran with him. Landing among the mutilated bodies of the dead, strewn all over the ground, he scrambled onto his knees. As he frantically tried to find a sword among the mess he could feel a sticky carpet of blood cling to his clothes. Suddenly, he retched, hit by the appalling smell of rotting flesh. Rolling about, he tried to regain his feet but suddenly felt a heavy boot stamp down on his head from the above battle. Slowly a blackness seemed to engulf him. As he limply resigned himself to it, he slowly fell among the bloody carpet of bodies on the floor, his eyes closed.

---

Thanks

[GOLLUM]

Not bad at all mate but you have several grammatical errors and some issues with word flow I feel.

I like the way you describe the general scene and some quite good imagery..

If I have time I could post a suggested version (w/o altering what you've written to any major degree of course!) if you like, up to you.

Please post more of your stuff if you want to, I'm sure you'll get plenty of useful suggestions from members here. What it's all about after all.

All the best...

[Eczman20]

Word flow sucks in second paragraph idd, becuase i wrote it over a few days line by line, just didnt have any time.

[GOLLUM]

Originally Posted by Eczman20

Word flow sucks in second paragraph idd, becuase i wrote it over a few days line by line, just didnt have any time.

No stress...

So do you want me to post something next week on this prologue? I tend to provide failry detailed critiques that are usually of some practical use.

I'll log back in tommorow to check you reply to above query.

Over and out...

[Stalker]

Not bad at all but if you asked my opinion about stylistics, I would make the start more expressive and dynamic. That means that the quiet description should be put on the background of the fiery exposion of a battle.

I would suggest something like this:
"Whizz! - the arrow missing narrowly, flapped into the yellowish grass.
The sound distracted Aran only for a moment but that was enough for his attacker who smashed at it with such a fierce energy that the shield fell apart. Aran's left arm bacame dumb. He ducked with a sudden jolt as a sword whirred inches above his head...
If it's a different world, you may even introduce the invented system of measurements instead of inches, feet etc.
Good luck!

[FelineEyes]

The two paragraphs seem too detacted from one another. You might want to try combining them. Other than that I didn't have any other problems with it.

[Culhwch]

Pretty good effort, I'd say. I'd be interested to read more to see where it's going from here. My main problem apart from those mentioned in passing above (mistakes, style, disjointedness) would be the, I don't know, over-the-top descriptions at the start. Maybe overstated is a better way of describing it. I think the description could be underplayed a bit more. In the first three sentences we have bloody, turbulent, glittering, burning, fiery, roaring, swirling, monstrous and feverish. I know it's hard to know how much is too much and how much is too little. I just think it's a little too much all at once and could be toned back. Stalker's suggestion is a good one, starting with the action and then interspersing the description, which might help with breaking up the description.

Hope that helps. Just read it back and it doesn't seem to make a lot of sense. Salvage what you can and ignore the rest. Or ignore it all, if you want. The choice is yours!

[Brys]

Very good, but I think that if you had a slightly more action-feeling start, it would work better. Start off with some short, sharp sentences forcing the reader into the battle, not the description of the storm. Put that in a bit later to enforce the chaos of the battle. Unlike most people here, I thought that your description worked pretty well, though as I said it would be better to have some more variation and to have a more punchy start. Still, it almost reads like something Michael Moorcock or Fritz Leiber would have written if they wrote epic fantasy - it just needs a bit of touching up. You may also want to have some more paragraphs - in an action scene, you want to keep the paragraphs short so that it can move fast, even if there is lots of description.