I wanna know what your opinons are on the characters in this. How do they come across? what do you think of them? It was to be a very simple robbery. A carriage containing two noble women, lightly guarded, would head down the north road. They would jump it, take anything valuble and be on there way. That was the plan. Once the carriage was in position two men ran towards the front. This panicked the horses. Then he swung into the carriage to take the valuables from within. However it appeared they had collectively misjudged the women as one drew a dagger and sliced his torso. It wasn't deep but it was enough to shock him a little. She took this opportunity to push him out of the carriage and onto dry dirt. To the dismay of the woman, he managed to pull her with him and they fell out of the carriage and down a steep decline. Once opon some flat land he held her down and placed a knife against her throat. "Hand over your valubles" he said firmly yet still attempting to catch his breathe and hide his accent. She did not follow his instructions and, instead, pulled of his mask and hood revealing his dark skin and sharply pointed ears. He attempted to jump away from her but she swung around and pinned him down before he could escape. She looked at him. An unreadable expression upon her, he now realised, outstandingly beautiful face. "An elf" she giggled suddenly. "A Goddamn elf!" She burst out in laughter while he lay there motionless and confused. She tossed back her thick, brown hair, which smelled like lavender. "Not a bad looking one either" she said "you should hear what people think you are". He tried to escape again but was unable. "Not so fast" she warned twisting the dagger in her hands. "What do you want?" He asked in a voice of pure exasperation, making no attempt to hide it. She then explained that if he would have his "men" return what they had stolen plus extra, she wouldn't tell a soul who, or what, he was. While he resisted at first he soon realised that there would be no reasoning with this woman. So he accepted.
Hm, it is very short. There are several points that could be more detailed; more worked out. The characters themselves are interesting, because they appear non-stereotypical. The woman with the dagger: competent, fast thinking and acting, playful, probably trained in combat, fearless The man: somewhat abashed, of medium intelligence, could be a fighter, but is out of his comfort zone, not overly violent
It's just a small part of a much bigger story I'm working on. Do you think it would be interesting if I wrote another from her point of view as well?
My main thought, based on this snippet alone, is that the robber elf is a plain old robber. He's just a guy who tries to steal from a rich ladies' carriage with a knife. I'd like to see something more particular to him, such as why he's stealing: rebelling against nobility, pay for medicine for sick child/spouse, paying off debts to even worse criminals, or just for fun. That could also provide insight to the world's nature. Is the nobility under general attack from a populist uprising? Is this a world of desperation and frequent raids and common bandits and pirates? Or is this robber a psycho who gets a thrill from attacking others? So far, this is just a "gimme all your stuff" scenario for him.
The characters seem interesting in their conception, but the execution somewhat dilutes it. Your descriptors tend to seem pretty tacked-on, instead of integral to the action (and therefore the characters.) By which I mean, they tend to fall into a format of, Action sentence, descriptive clause. While this is fine when it happens occasionally, when all of your description is of that format, it makes the description seem of secondary importance. Throw in descriptive words in the middle of sentences, and put some descriptions in sentences all their own. So, for instance, instead of You could write, "Hand over your valuables," he ordered once he'd caught his breath. He silently cringed at the hints of dangerously traceable accent he had been unable to hide. Maybe mention that she smells like lavender in the first sentence where he's pressed against her. "...placed a knife against her throat. She smelled good. Like lavender." This makes her scent more important, and makes it serve a purpose of showing he's attracted to her. (I happen to be of the opinion that any smell important enough to mention at all had better be pretty important, given how little attention we pay to our noses. For my writing, I always make smells analogous with emotion.) It will also make tossing her thick brown hair feel like more of a natural action, instead of an excuse to describe said hair. Also, this paragraph needs work: Generally speaking, it's best not to outright say that someone's face is beautiful, except through the voice of another character. This is in part because of 'Show not tell,' and partly because there are a lot of different ways to be beautiful. If I say there's a beautiful painting, you have no idea whether to visualize a Mondrian, a Van Gogh, or a Rembrandt, and those are three very different paintings. Instead, it's better to just describe some of the features. For instance, you could say, She looked at him with piercing chestnut eyes, an unreadable expression on her angular features. (I'm just making a guess here. You're probably imagining your character's beauty differently than I am.) Just make sure that the words you use have the right connotations: bright hazel eyes are beautiful, eyes like glistening mud are not. Some good words that might describe a beautiful face: Chiseled, statuesque, strong-featured, full lips, soft cheeks, high cheekbones, fine-boned, burning intensity, and so on. If your beautiful character has full, round cheeks, you might mention it. If they have gaunt, hollow cheeks, leave that out.
I feel like what you have here is a good skeleton for something much better. The characters themself seem interesting enough, and if there was more detail and ideas I would be totally hooked. What you have doesnt seem to have a really good flow, and it just goes from one scene to the next without us getting as sense of completion from the last scene. But I guess more on the actual question, I do enjoy these characters. While I haven't truly seen them doing much on their own, their interactions together are funny, and it makes me what to continue to read their interactions. I hope this helps you in your writing
I think both of these characters are great starting points. I am more interested in the woman right now, but that's only because she has a defined motivation and emotion. Motivation: She's getting robbed Emotion: Scared at first then pissed off that they robbed her. The elf seems less like a thief with a purpose and more like a spur of the moment criminal with no motivation much like @Ulquiorra9000 said.
What character? Seriously. These are nameless placeholders in the section you provided. I don't really know anything about them. They could be anyone, and I don't think that's what you want. And I think you mean their not there in the last sentence of the first paragraph.
Sorry if I diverge from your original intent. A few things distracted me. Where is "he" coming from? Who is "he?" Is "he" one of the two? (Also, those are poorly trained horses). How does she push him? Feet or hands? Describe the "pull" a little more. The dialogue sounds awkward. "Hand over your valuables" doesn't sound natural to me, but if he does have a heavy accent, perhaps is the language not his first-language? He could be using awkward language because he's not fully fluent. Either she comes off as nimble, or the robber comes off as incompetent for not slitting her throat while she had the time to pull of his mask. Why pull off his mask? I understand it's for the plot, but I'm not convinced. Why does he jump just from being unmasked? I feel like you're missing some action here. Or is he just that skittish? (In which case, he comes off as skittish) (Why is she tossing her hair? More likely that she's getting it out of her face or something, I think). Seems like there is a large racial divide between elves and humans at this point. Should probably mention the dagger before this, but more recently than the initial carriage-bit. From everything I've read thusfar, he doesn't seem like the type of be exasperated. I expected him to be surprised that the situation was flipped on him. Exasperation would be more what a more competant person would feel. He doesn't seem that competant thusfar. Did they even manage to steal anything by this point? It seems like they failed miserably. Also, how did he resist? Show that more. Overall I'm a little confused at the robber. The woman seems much more skilled and experienced with violence and ambushes, as well as quick to recover.
