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This is an incomplete piece, but I am wondering what people think of it so far. Please, tell me anything you think I should fix.

One Life, One Death

The thoughts caressed Shamus Buckley’s mind, the offer setting its fangs into his thoughts as he passed through the night. Holding a great power over him, the offer of great wealth was… irresistible. He loved the adrenaline rushes gained from doing such natural tasks, letting his mind and body completely free, losing his control over himself. Strolling over the cobblestone path, the click, click of his boots on the stone creating a white noise, blocking out the other distracting sounds of the night with its own static nature, honing his concentration into a honed thought process. Keeping him from noticing when the second person of that night approached him, tapping his shoulder to get the attention desired.

Shamus’ body rotated, beginning with his toe, without any thought occurring he had the small man against the cold, damp alley wall by his throat, his other hand holding his dagger to the man's gaunt, clean shaven face. The man couldn't have been less surprised, the rumors had proven true about Shamus. Beginning to laugh, he confused Shamus even more than his own reaction had. Sheathing his dagger and releasing the man from his steely grip, he took a step back. The man's laughing slowing, standing upright and brushing himself off he pulled an envelope from his plain black vest, stitched down the center from the bottom of his sternum to his belt buckle. Shamus noticed how dignified the man looked, wearing a long sleeved black shirt, with a dark blue stitched vest over top, and well fitted spotless chainmail greaves. “I have a message for you Shamus. It's yet another request for your help from a citizen.” The man spoke, his British accent shining through, out of place in this Irish settlement.

“Who might you be and who is this person who wants my help?” Shamus asked, raising his eyebrows, though the fog of night hid the motion. Shifting his weight onto his left foot he awaited a response.

The man paused, mouth gaping open awaiting the right words to be formed in his mind. “I am but a messenger; I do not know the message, or the message sender. I was handed this letter, and told to deliver it to you.” The messenger seemed content with the answer, keeping Shamus from further questions.

“Very well, give me the letter and be on your way, I have other business to attend to on this night.” Shamus responded, taking the letter from the outstretched hand of the messenger. Watching the messenger disappear into the blackness surrounding, as quietly as he had come, Shamus opened the envelope.

Dear Shamus,
I am asking for your help in finding a dear friend of mine.
The man's name is Jameson.
He has been kidnapped by a local group of bandits.
You may have dealt with them before.
They are known as the White Glove Bandits.
They are asking for a greatly ridiculous sum of money.
While this man is a great friend of mine, I won't pay the ransom.
I'm hiring you, if you so wish it, to eliminate them.
I just want them and the threat they pose to me, gone.
If you eliminate them, and save my friend, I will be very grateful.
The only information I have gathered is that they are inhabiting the ruins on the outskirts of the city.
If you do this for me, once again, I promise the reward will be great.

Sincerely,
An Anonymous Citizen of the Empire


The offer seemed real enough, intriguing Shamus. Two offers to go into the ruins on the same day. His luck was looking up, maybe this town did have something to offer. The moonlight glistened off of his medium length salty hair, rolling down to his shoulders, as he stood for a moment longer, rain beginning to sprinkle as he basked in the idea of the rewards for each task. He was amused by the first proposal he had received earlier. It was rather peculiar in its delivery and the actual request. A hooded man had thrown a dagger, sticking into the door of the tavern that Shamus was staying in, as Shamus had reached the door. The hooded man had disappeared up the stairs before Shamus could ask any questions. Tied to the dagger's hilt had been a tattered scroll, listing the details of a certain treasure in the ruins. The request was to check and make sure that the treasure was still there, if he did so, he would receive a great sum of gold. It was strange for him to go hunting for a treasure and not bring it back to the patron.

His hood coming up over his head as his cloak was being pulled tighter to his body, in an attempt to shield him from the new downpour of rain. Considering why he had a bad feeling about these two tasks that he was being asked of him as he was unraveling the rawhide strips wrapped around his feet and rippling calves. Sitting on the bed he had rented from the tavern owner, he began to shed the layers of damp clothing he had wrapped himself in to keep warm in the dead of winter. They had done the job of taking the moisture from the air and keeping it from his skin. First shedding his sanguine traveling cloak, he continued to pull off his worn down, fur lined, fingerless, rawhide gloves and torn canvas shirt. The canvas was old and damp, creating a rather horrid smell in the room. The candle on his bedstand flickered, lighting enough of the room to show how sopping the clothes he'd stripped off actually were. His pants were surprisingly dry, and warm, happily he would leave them on.

He was happy to be back the warmth of the tavern; the night’s hunt hadn't been as successful as planned. All the interruptions prevented him from satisfying his insatiable appetite. Lying back on the bed, he wrapped his hands together behind his head on the pillow, he stared at the ceiling. Going over the day’s turmoil, the only things memorable are the proposals in the evening. Sliding under the bear skin covers he was happy he had left his dry canvas pants on. Rolling onto his still warming breath extinguished his bedside flame. It was edging closer and closer to sunrise, something he didn't want to be awake for. Beckoning sleep to him as he felt his body regain its natural warmth.

The dreams came; they had come for a long time now, ever since the incident so many years ago. That night was by far the worst in a long time. Swimming, he was swimming this time, far inside the deep blue stomach of the oceans. Calmly, his arms carried him through the water, it was cold. Thick and cold. The water, thickening as he pushed against its power, every stroke becoming harder to push his body further along it began to swallow him, taking him deeper, the cold swarms his senses. His basic senses failing him, the cold wrapped him in a cocoon of numbness. Obvious to him how futile resisting the great power of the ocean really was. Gasping for air, inhaling the thick water, as he filled his lungs with its chill, and freezing his body, he sank down.

He came upright faster than a cheetah, cold sweat drenching his skin and pouring down his back. Eyes shooting open, he took in his surroundings, thankful to know it was just a dream. Bringing his forearm up to wipe sweat from his face, he fell back on the bed. His breathing unsteady, but enjoying the fact that he was alive, and the ability to breathe unhindered. His breathing slowed adjusting, calming, after the fright. The window in his room providing light through a sliver in the drapes, letting him know that daylight was upon him. Something he despised more than anything else, pure, unhindered daylight. Blinding him, draining energy from his body, fatigue overwhelmed him the first time he’d stood out in the pure light of the sun after the incident that made him who he is today.

The covers slid off of his body, pulled by gravity. Swinging his legs onto the side of his bed and rubbing his eyes, upright, letting the dizziness sit him back down on the bed. The feeling passed standing once more, this time walking over to his work table, a scattered mess of containers, alchemical equipment and work gloves. His alchemical equipment still smelling of the last poisonous concoction, bringing back the memory of the long hunt a few nights earlier, his mortar and pestle containing a small taste, his crucible containing even more of the solution, bringing his hand to the sand bath, feeling the warmth circulate through his body. Concentrating, the warmth of his body being expanded and expelled into the sand, a long and slow heating process, slumping down into the worn down maple chair just beginning to lose its finish, he began to filter through his containers of assorted ingredients.

After many moments, hands coming upon a bag of seeds, that when ground to a fine powder, could be used to send the victim into such a feeling of high fever, that they would feel on fire. He loved the effect it had on his targets, upon feeling the burning sensation, some ran around wildly, others just began to take off everything they wore, everyone attempted to make the feeling go away. He had found once, when experimenting with the particular seed, that there was no real way to get rid of the feeling unless you could separate the poison from your bloodstream, if you could stand it, letting it run its course it would eventually leave your system. Victims he picked to use it on were generally ones who couldn’t resist the urge to rid themselves of pain, the fiery sensation pushing them beyond the edge, causing them to do themselves in.

Sliding the strings out of the knot that kept the red pouch sealed, gaping open it let a few seeds fall onto the table. Pouring the rest into his mortar as his hands once again began filtering through the many containers, searching for one more very potent ingredient. Moving through each container, his nose searched for that specific smell, a hidden smell, not as pungent as it was potent, but still recognizable. Hands coming upon a thick deer skin pouch the size of a grown man's chest, he knew he’d found it, the ingredient he needed to make the most potent of poisons that he used, his stash of psilocybin mushrooms. Causing hallucinations once entered into the victim’s bloodstream, it kept his victims busy while he could take them out from a distance.

Sliding his hands into the worn leather gloves, crusted from many spilled concoctions, and tattered from breaking the crust. Pulling the dagger that had been attached to one of his requests the night before, out of a redwood box, it was a rather dull dagger with its chipped and dented blade, and the rawhide wrapped handle. The mushrooms hopping into the mortar as the bag tipped over. He began the tedious task of crushing the mushrooms and seeds into a paste, preparing for the heating process used to thin out the paste and amplify the ability to apply the concoction to a blade or arrow tip.

Hours later, leaning back in the chair, the maple front legs hovering above the ground, Shamus watched the concoction filter through his alembic. The distillation process had begun not long ago, the idea of a more potent poison making him smirk. The memory of a former man, running around wildly, chasing a reflection of light on the floor, the vivid memory of that day popping into mind, the experiences he had undergone when experimenting with the psilocybin mushrooms. The legs of the chair clicked against the floor, bringing him back to the present, the memories gone in the wind. His eyes roamed around the room, searching for something to occupy his mind and body while the poison distilled. Landing upon his nondescript steel shortsword, the rough rawhide wrapping of the hilt beginning to fall off and the three foot long blade dull and blood splotched, his eyes offended by the appearance. The task needed to be completed, the repairing and refurbishing of his sword, his precious Tyrfing was in bad shape. He had a dark red strip of silk that could replace the rawhide handle wrappings, his sharpening stone was in good enough condition to amplify the sharpness, and his polish would repair the aged appearance, returning it to a pristine looking sword.

For the record, your prose is still too purple and sounds horribly unnatural.

Can you be a little more specific?



No. I promise.



Generally, yes it is. But if I do everything the same way everyone else does it, it wouldn't be original. I chose it as an "American" (Arrogant United States) spelling of the name.

He is Irish by heritage, born in America, so named in an American way. I plan to explain this not too far into the story, although I haven't gotten to it yet. I don't really like all the ways of American spelling but I do prefer this over the more common Seamus. Maybe it is slang for something, dunno bout that though.

Edit: In the dictionary Shamus means private detective or police officer.

Thank you for reading it all the way through, it helps to understand a bit more. Thank you for the advice. Although, I don't really plan on dropping originality, I will tone it down a bit. Which is pretty much what all of your comments boil down to.

I'll see what I can do to have a revised version done in a couple days. If anyone has something to add before then, I'll try and check this thread as I'm editing.

I don't why I bother, after our last get together. rolleyes

Say, you have a real character this time! I'm not gonna get hung up on your bad spelling of the name as I don't really care about it that much, but it really would be better if you spelled it ACCURATELY. Originality doesn't have to anything here.

Quote:

honing his concentration into a honed thought process.

You might want to replace the second honed with another word, because it sounds redundant.

Quote:

Keeping him from noticing when the second person of that night approached him, tapping his shoulder to get the attention desired.

This reads a little choppy. "into a honed thought process, keeping him" sounds a little better.

Quote:

Shamus’ body rotated, beginning with his toe,

You'd be better off omitting what's in the commas, I think. It sounds awkward and it's irrelevant.

Quote:

and without any thought occurring he had the small man against the cold, damp alley wall by his throat, his other hand holding his dagger to the man's gaunt, clean shaven face.

I added the "and" as it makes what's going on a little clearer. "Without any thought occuring" is long-winded. You could say "instinctively" or another word in there.

Quote:

Beginning to laugh, he confused Shamus even more than his own reaction had.

Shamus was confused by his own action? Is that what you're saying?

Quote:

The man's laughing slowing, standing upright and brushing himself off he pulled

Something sounds wrong. Is it a tense error? I think you might want "slowed", "standing", or "brushed" because you have "pulled". Or vice versa.

Quote:

spotless chainmail greaves.

Chainmail?

Quote:

Shamus asked, raising his eyebrows, though the fog of night hid the motion.

Um yeah, the night would hide it too.

Quote:

The moonlight glistened off of his medium length salty hair, rolling down to his shoulders,

Are you saying that his hair is salty, like he was in the ocean, or are you describing its color or something?




I have to go.

The inverted sentence structure here is a little confusing; you could try something more like, "The offer of great wealth was...irrisistible. The mere thought held great power over him." or something to that effect.


If the task is so natural, why does he still get an adrenaline rush? You'd think he'd get so used to it that his body wouldn't really react anymore.


Firstly, this is a very long, tedious sentence. Secondly, the verb tense you're using causes this sentence to read like a grocery list. You could try something like, "Strolling over the cobblestone path, the click-click of his boots on the stone created a white noise, blocking out all other distracting sounds of the night with its own static nature, sharpening his concentration into a honed thought process."

What I've done here is a) reduce comma clutter by hyphenating "click-click," b) change the verb tense of "creating" so the sentence reads like a sentence and not a grocery list, c) reduced wordiness (if we don't know what the specific noises are, we don't really need to know that they're distracting, and since you mentioned it being nighttime in the first sentence, you don't need to re-state it), and d) replaced the first "honed" with something close in meaning so the sentence at least sounds a little less redundant.


This is not a complete sentence. You could say, "The sound kept him from noticing..." Also, how is this person the second? So far, he hasn't encountered anyone, so this person would be the first. Yes, this is the second character the reader has encountered, but the third-person narrative is from Shamus's perspective, so he wouldn't count himself in the talley of who he'd encountered that night.


We don't need to know how he turned, so long as we know he turned. The action is picking up here, so you should convey the increase in speed (both in the narrative sense, the plot sense, and the sense of Shamus's actual movements) through a shortening of sentence structure and omitting tedious details. You could even say "Shamus turned" and the reader would get the same mental picture.


Economy of words, my good man. "Without thinking" or "instinctively" would work a lot better in this instance.

"by his throat" -- The problem here is that you mention Shamus holding the man's throat, and then mention his other hand. See the problem? You don't specifically mention his first hand. You go straight from the stranger's throat to Shamus's "other" hand. This gets a little confusing for the reader--whose hand and whose throat, since they're both "he"? You could say, "Without thinking, he had the small man against the cold, damp alley wall. His left hand gripped the stranger's throat; with his right hand he held a dagger to the man's gaunt, clean-shaven face."


Less surprised? I know I'd be surprised if someone came out of the blue and slammed me against an alley wall, rumors or no.


What reaction? So far laughing has been his only reaction.

And I'm going to stop now, since a) I have math to do, b) I need to study for my History exam, c) I have a writing prompt to work on, and d) I have so much to say about this that it's taking way too long. I may try and work my way through this snippet chunk-by-chunk, but for tonight I'm finished.

By the way, thank you thank you THANK YOU for not having used the word "sanguine" so far in this excerpt.


Out of curiosity, have you ever thought there might be a reason purple prose doesn't get published or critically acclaimed very often? Bad word economy doesn't make a piece more "original."

Uh... too "purple"? You haven't been to your local bookstore much, have you? Or heard of this guy called Walt Whitman? There was... like... an entire literary movement dedicated to stringing as many adverbs and adjectives as possible into a sentence as humanly possible. (It's over, by the way.) There's nothing, and I repeat, nothing original about purple prose. Why do you think we have a term for it, after all?

And since you have replied to my insistence that nothing is really original (why do we place all this value on originality anyways?) I will have to open up a big can of deconstructionism on your a**. Prepare to have your concepts of literature raped five ways from Sunday... as soon as I get around to it. Need to organize my thoughts, so it's not the world's most incoherent rant ever. And simply be thankful that I don't just link you to Foucault, because... argh. He's absolutely brilliant, but... sooo many made up/referential phrases.

*insert me ragging on you for having godforsaken chainmail, but calling a character Shamus instead of Seamus*

Ooh, and for hair, the color is salt and pepper. Otherwise it really does sound like he just took a dip in the ocean. Yes, I realize that this was addressed above, but this particular bit was not. So. Salt and pepper=color.