[ATM] Exercise: Dialogue What I wrote for the dialogue exercise:
Sanga rounds the corner with Hiru held unconscious against one shoulder, prepared to weave the blood directly from the guards’ bodies if he must, only to discover another who has done much the same already. He stares as the vampire rises from his crouch over their latest warden’s corpse.
“I see you’ve freed yourself.” Malus’ eyes are all red witchlight in a pale and pointed face. His grin is streaked with the warden’s blood. “How convenient.”
“Oathbreaker.” The word hisses between Sanga’s teeth. “It cannot be time yet.”
Malus only laughs. “Would you have liked a few more days for Ban’s ashes to scatter to the winds? Or perhaps just until the wolf-girl tore her throat to shreds with snarling?” Feeding has lent him a malicious glow, but behind the smirk there is a measure of anger at Sanga’s assumption. “It’s just us and the wolves, now. And Ban’s pet human,” he adds as an afterthought. Sanga’s webbed fists clench.
“Where?”
“Oh, safe,” says Malus with a dismissive gesture, and Sanga’s eyes narrow. He makes a stirring motion with one hand, and what blood the vampire let spill in the narrow passageway spirals upward obediently at his command.
“Lead the way,” Sanga suggests. “Or I will pull the blood from your body, just as you have done from theirs.”
Malus’ thin face tightens, though his teeth remain visible in a grimace. Regardless of how well he has fed, Sanga’s power is greater. “…we are gathering the forgemasters for an audience,” he says at last. “The human is there.”
“And the wolf child?” Sanga presses, and Malus snorts.
“Her pack is here,” he says. “She has no need of you, or your insect.” And casting a last, disparaging glance at Hiru, he turns and stalks away in silence. Sanga follows, releasing his hold on the blood of Malus’ victims, but not his irritation at the young vampire.
“Must I ask after every detail individually?”
“Are we friends?” Malus sneers. “I don’t need to answer you.”
Sanga raises his hand again, and pulls. Malus hisses as he is dragged backward, until Sanga can grasp him by the back of the neck, claws pricking through his collar.
“Humour me.”
The vampire exhales sharply through his nose. Then he says, very stiffly, “We travelled through the moors rather than draw attention in Thinner. The wolves found us there, and when we learned you had been captured, without any of her precious negotiations going ahead—” His voice sours abruptly when he speaks of Ban. “—we moved on the city early.”
“Oathbreaker,” Sanga repeats dully, and releases him. “But broken for a cause, at least. We will want a united front if we are still to treat with the forgemasters.”
Malus tilts his head from side to side, dead joints crackling with the unfamiliar movement, and a small smirk returns. “At present, I believe negotiations will go very, very smoothly.”
What a classmate had to say about it: Beautiful work. Right from the beginning of the piece, we can see that there is some seriously interesting backstory between Sanga and Malus. You clearly show that Sanga wants directions and/or information, I believe, from Malus, who is just as clearly unwilling to give it. You also create a believable - and understandable, which is the key point - world just in this extract, with mentions of the forgemasters, the wolf child, pulling the blood from people's bodies, and Oathbreaking. A smooth and interesting read from start to end.
;_;
It's not that I think the writing is crappy, necessarily. I just think that surely these extracts make no fucking sense without the world around them, and it's nice to know that people still get it even without the rest of the novel.
I'm so over assignments. |D; My hands hurt, my neck hurts, my head aches and my eyes are blurry. None of these things are conducive to being coherent.
[EDIT] I'm glad I got in before Permanent Accounts went up to $60 (not that that's really expensive) but HOLY SHIT FIVE THOUSAND USERPICS FOR $175 FOREVER. I would never use that many. There is never a need to have that many. But. HOLY SHIT. XD