A Brighter Future?, The story of Tara Willow. Options

[Tábrasa]

Hello! I'll start by introducing myself.

My name is Tábrasa and I'm new to the forums. I've been silently looking at some of the stories on the forums and have felt truly inspired.
Therefore I have decided to start the story of my Breton Wiccan, Tara Willow, who I've been travelling with for the past year. Below is an introduction to Tara, which will soon be followed by the Prologue...

INTRODUCTION TO TARA WILLOW

Tara Willow is a 20 year old female Breton born on the 14th of Rain's Hand, 3E 413.

She is primarily a Conjurer but also dabbles in Destruction and Illusion. She is also handy with a blade in certain situations.

Her father died when she was a teenager and her mother resides somewhere in Cyrodiil, under a new name following events in High Rock that led her to abandon Tara as an infant.

Tara's father was a man obsessed with the art of Mysticism; but in the wrong kind of way. He wanted to experiment the thought of finding a way to turn the human body itself into a soul gem; an experment not only ridiculed, but dangerous.

One day, however, he managed to succeed in his experiment; using a teenage Tara as his unwilling test subject. He managed to trap a spirit withing Tara's body, leaving her in an unusual state.

Tara now has to permanantly live with an extra spirit inside her, who she named Willow, after her surname.
Willow is able to communicate with Tara and take control of her body for brief periods; but only when Tara desperatly need's her assistance. However, Willow's possesions are almost NEVER a good thing.

Currently Tara is on a mission to find her mother, mainly for her own piece of mind. All she knows is that she is in Cyrodiil, but nothing else. The only thing she has to offer any aid in her quest is the memory of her mothers face...

This post has been edited by Tábrasa: Dec 12 2011, 01:17 AM

[Acadian]

What a horrible experience! Then saved by Aleksander.

Then,

Then. . .

Then. . .

WILLOW! Even though I sort of knew what was going to happen, this was soooo cool! I love how you introduced her and everything about her so far! I’m fully with you, Tara, this is going to be so much fun! I love it!

Nits:

Okay, the biggest nit here is what we call headhopping. This story is clearly intended to be from Tara’s perspective, so you need to limit it to telling us only things that Tara knows or feels. Like this:
’After what felt like an hour, she could feel something emerging slowly from within her’

In the following two passages, you are clearly inside Aleksander’s head, not Tara’s:
’In Aleksander’s eyes all he could see was Tara tied to a table with Riccard groping her chest.’
’Aleksander glared at him, gripping his sword tighter; anger fuelling the adrenaline he had gained. He thought Riccard was his friend; a good man. There was no way he had prepared himself for this.’

And finally here, you are inside the heads of Tara and Aleksander at the same time:
’Neither Tara or Aleksander felt any pity. ‘

It takes some creativity to get around these things. For example in the last example, Alek could have said he felt no pity and Tara could have thought to herself that she felt the same way. Or Tara could have shared her thoughts with us that she felt no pity and judging by the hard look in Alek’s eyes imagined that he felt the same. When in Tara’s head, you always have to ask yourself, how would she know this?

Okay, a couple tiny mundane nits:

’The spell lasted at least ten minutes as Tara has watched the clock in the basement as she suffered her torment.’
Tense hopping here. The fix is as simple as going to 'had'.

’Aleksander stared and Riccard, then spat on his corpse.’
I'm sure you wanted 'at' here.

This post has been edited by Acadian: Dec 23 2011, 02:59 AM