Chapter 1

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This is the first chapter of a story I have had in my mind for a long time. I thought I would throw it out for you guys to give opinions about. I have consciously made it rather generic here at the start so people and readers can feel comfortable and it is mostly about getting to know the character. This is the second draft of the beginning of the story and I know it is alot better than the first but I would like to hear all you literature fanatics tear it apart. I am mostly interested in what can and should be improved even if some moderate positive criticism always is nice.


I

Jacen panted heavily, he had been running up and down the field for almost an hour now and he was getting tired of running without ever getting the ball. He knew he wasn't the best kid on the meadow but he sure wasn't the worst. He continued to run after the makeshift ball made of tightly bundled rags while he seethed on the inside on the futility on even bothering at all. Then all of a sudden as he for once had bothered to run all the way to the opponents goal he noticed that he had the ball at his feet and everyone was looking at him expectantly. "Oh" Jacen though "I must score now, the goal is empty I will never get a chance like this again." That ran through his mind in a split second and before he knew he had put his foot to the ball and managed to make it slide out side of the hurriedly put together goal posts consisting of two largish rocks. "Blast!" Jacen muttered for himself and as he looked up he could see that he was not the only one that had an opinion about what had transpired. His teammates looked at him in despair while the others sniggered and giggled without making the slightest attempt at hiding it. Rado, the girl that had taken pity on him and passed him the ball gave Jacen a look of hopelessness and started to walk away, if that had been the only repercussions it would have been bad enough but there was more to come. Teppo, one of the boys that gained all his prestige by racking down on others and who unfortunately was rather good at football stalked towards Jacen. "****, chubby! Can't you do anything right? We would have won if you just had put it in the goal! How in the name of the Angels could you miss it? Were your legs so fat that you couldn't lift them properly to just push the ball into the goal? I swear to the Angels that if you were not the son of the Reverend I would not let you play with us at all, I don't even know why you would want to, you just destroy for the rest of us." Teppo looked at Jacen with disgusts and then turned to address the rest of the crowd. "Come on lads, mass starts in half an hour so we better get going back, I have no idea how a great man like the Reverend could have fathered such a worthless turd like Jacen."

Jacen fought hard to keep the tears from overflowing his eyes as he stone faced watched the other children walk away to get ready of the daily groveling and honouring of the blessed Angels. As soon as they were out of sight Jacen ran in the opposite direction finally letting the tears flow freely, silently cursing his worthlessness and imprinting a fine hate for Teppo in his brain. Not until he felt a searing pain in his side and could hear his heart thumping wildly in his chest did he stop. He looked around at his surroundings for a good place to catch his breath and to brood over the injustice of the world. Jacen found a large moss covered rock who looked very inviting and he sat down on the wet moss.

While sitting there and fantasizing about showing them all he heard a slight whimper from underneath the large pine tree behind him. Jacen startled and jumped up, he grabbed a nearby branch to protect himself from whatever danger may lurk in the old pine forest that he first now realized he had run into. He slowly and with much hesitation snuck up towards the tree and gently pushed aside the hanging branches with his stick.What he saw was not really what even a ten year old boy would deem as threatening. It was a small bundle of fur , almost greenish in colour, blending neigh on perfectly in with the dead pine needles on the ground. It lifted up a tiny little head and looked at the boy. The sight was horrible, it had a blunt little nose underneath a pair of perfectly black eyes and when it noticed Jacen it made a pathetic little attempt at growling at him showing up a rather impressive assortment of very sharp and pointy looking teeth. However, it wasn't this which made the sight so horrible. It was the fact that almost the entire top left corner of the animals head had been bitten off. Large tufts of hair had been torn out and its fur was punctured in several places of what looked like the claws of a bird of prey. The worst of all however was the left ear, or rather the absence of it. Where there had once been a soft little ear there were now only a wet, bloody mass of dried blood and torn flesh and skin.

Jacen first shied away from the awful sight but soon regained his composure. "Oh my, what has happened to you little fellow?" He bent down and slowly moved his hands towards the pup like creature. Jacen was instantly forced to pull his hands back as the pup made a pitiful attempt at a launch at him. "Calm down there boy, I mean you no harm." Carefully making sure his hands were well out of reach from the needle sharp teeth he bent down again and picked up the animal. It weighed a lot less than what he had expected, most of its size was due to its thick fur and underneath it Jacen could feel that it was only skin and bone. "My you are a small one, I really don't think I should leave you out here alone. You don't appear to be in any state to take care of yourself and I see no trace of a mother or anything around, so what do you say about following me home?" The only answer Jacen got was a number of tiny little teeth sinking into his hand as the pup had finally managed to wriggle into position to strike at its captor. "Whoa! You are a feisty one! I better watch out for you." As Jacen walked home with the pup in his arms it finally started to understand that there were no immediate threat and it promptly fell asleep in his arms. A wide smile spread on Jacen's face as he walked home, oblivious that he had missed mass and already forgetting the injustice he had suffered a mere hour ago.

 

Have you ever read the book The Rapture?

Let's see, you could change some of the run's or running to something else, as well as describe the character a bit more, just having a bully yell out that he's fat doesn't work all that well.

 

I thought that was very good. I think you did a good job of showing that he had been bullied for some time, and you can see a little of his personality coming out. Good job!

 

Nope, never read the Rapture but this set up is quite common and I have read many variants of it.

I am vary about writing things on the readers nose, I prefer to let the reader find things out through reading the story and not listed descriptions but I am pondering inserting a quick physical description of Jacen. He wont be a kid for long though so I dont know if I should wait or if I can do it more than once.

 

First off, I think it's great. You do have a way with descriptions when you get into it, and I think it's very interesting.
There are only a couple of things I can really point out from what's here. I really think you need to end sentences sooner, or use more punctuation in them; Because you try to cram a lot into one sentence, it makes the story sound very rushed, which in turn makes it sound as if you're trying to explain things too quickly. Slow the sentences down and don't be afraid to break them up. On the same note, think of it this way... pretend as if what you're writing is intended to be read out loud, and any time you pause or take a breath, put a comma. Also, if you read a sentence out loud and find yourself rushing to get it said, then split it up; you can use a semi-colon just as well as a period.
And besides that? Truly wonderful.