Am I any good at Story Writing?

Question

Hello, I'm 15 years old and thinking of writing a book (not this one - this was just to stretch my creative fingertips) and was wondering whether I needed to refine my writing skill. Here's a sample of my work.


Warm breath clouded the cold air. The wind gave chills to even the frost that lay upon the land. The full moon made the snow seem to glow and the stars in the sky made the universe gleam with wonder. A long, thunderous sigh filled the ranges. The great wolf, atop a magnificent mountain howled aimlessly at the moon. His pack joined him, packs nearby joined him and even the wolves who couldn't hear the great wolf, felt his strength and howled their savage war cry, disturbing the snow covered valley beneath the mountain.
A single snap of a twig ended the cries of the animals and they strode out of the darkness with purpose. The wolves stopped in front of the edge of the wood. Four figures, clothed in garments as dark as night, began to slowly walk towards the wolves. One drew out something shining. The moon reflected it's white brilliance on a steel blade. The figure's party drew out blades and claws of cruelty and strode up to the wolves. 
The great wolf stepped forward. He must protect his pack. He must protect his territory. This was all his and creatures with shiny sticks weren?t going to take his rightful place as king of the wood. The great wolf bared his teeth, his coat pricked up like a porcupine?s spikes and he growled deeply. This was only the first of his warnings. He then gave a quick and low bark. Spit flew through the air as he barked at them, telling them to go or they would pay with their lives. The other wolves began to do the same, all of them not as nearly as savage as the great wolf. 
For a moment, it seemed the humans were outnumbered. Then something rustled in the trees around the wolves. For every wolf there was a cloaked human with swords at the reader. The wolves began to whimper and whine but the great wolf stubbornly kept his ground. 
The humans moved swiftly, slashing at the wolves's throats, damaging their legs so they couldn't run away and finishing them off in one swift movement. 
Before the great wolf could even manage another snap at the humans, his entire pack lay dead with red staining the snow. The great wolf realized what had happened and began to attack one of the men. He sank his teeth into the man, letting his enemy's blood pool into his mouth. 
The man gave a cry and was silent. 
The great wolf attacked two other men before he accepted that he was outnumbered. He panicked and like the coward he would never thought he could be, the great wolf dived into the bushes and out of site. The rest of the men cleaned their blades. The leader of the men, put down the hood of her robe and looked at the pile of dead wolves and her dead men to the side. She spat on them. They were weak, they were stupid and she didn?t care for them? She was thinking about both the humans and the animals. A whistle from her glossy red lips echoed through the mountains. Four majestic horses galloped towards her, and her three acquaintances. They gathered the dead wolves up, some already claiming what parts they would use as trophies and what parts of the fur they would make clothes out of for their children. The party rode off, leaving the once musical mountain in eerie silence. 
The once great wolf watched them, with a hunger for revenge burning like a forest fire through his heart. This would not be the last time the great wolf would see these humans. No, the king of the wood swears revenge...

A · Accepted Answer

First of all, even legitimate, successful authors are constantly refining their writing skills. Writing tends to be fluid, and written works (especially longer ones such as novels) require hours upon hours of editing. In some cases, more hours than it took to write the book in the first place! Earnest Hemingway rewrote the ending to "A Farewell to Arms" THIRTY-NINE times before he was satisfied.

Now, I'll definitely say that you're not a bad writer, but you do have some work to do. It appears that you're trying to create a poetic, romantic, enchanting kind of feel. While this is a good start, I suggest that you consider some atypical or less common words that will make the language even more interesting and complex. Also, there's just a touch of basic grammar that needs tweaking, and you need to decide on a single tense rather than fluctuate between past and present. Some statements are redundant. That could easily be fixed by eliminating unnecessary words. Once the redundancy issue is resolved, you might want to consider combining your numerous short sentences into longer, more complex ones. You'd be able to inject more power that way and they'd have a greater effect on the reader.

Now, I'm going to take this passage of yours:

"Four figures, clothed in garments as dark as night, began to slowly walk towards the wolves. One drew out something shining. The moon reflected it's white brilliance on a steel blade. The figure's party drew out blades and claws of cruelty and strode up to the wolves."

...and implement my suggestions to create this:

"Four figures, clothed in garments dark as night, emerged from the woods and slowly approached the wolves. One of the shadowy beings drew a shining blade from her cloak. The fantastic, mirror-like dagger reflected the opalescent brilliance of the moonlight that flooded the clearing. The remaining three figures soon followed suit, retrieving blades and claws of cruelty from their billowing robes as the group advanced upon the pack."

Basically, I just threw in a lot of fancy adjectives, kept it all in past tense, and by lengthening the sentences I improved the fluidity of the passage as well, I think!


You're off to a good start, and I don't think you should stop writing at all, but a novel is a bit much to take on at 15. You still have a lot to learn about writing and for most, it seems like their personal style really isn't developed enough to hold its own until 17 or 18. You can take what I've offered or leave it- just keep in mind that it's all constructive criticism, keeping the best intentions in mind. Good luck! :)

? · Answer

Overall, pretty good. Somehow you ended up with question marks in place of apostrophes in a couple places and you almost go overboard on the commas, but there were only three homonym confusions that I caught: "it's" is short for "it is;" "its" is the possessive; "sight" is what you see; "site" is a place; and the attackers are readying daggers for the readers, apparently. With plural possessives ending in -s, you don't need to add another one after the apostrophe. The last sentence has a sudden tense change that doesn't work.  You do a nice job with the action and measuring out the description so that it's not bland but doesn't bog down the story, either, though a little more variation in your word choice wouldn't hurt. I'd like to see more.

Nahtaliee · Answer

Wow, you're really good at writing for a 15 year old! I'm 16 and no where near as good as that.
You do need to be careful of your punctuation and I noticed a few misspelled words here and there as well. The imagery is amazing though, it really paints the scene. As the first answerer said, I think you'd be great at poetry.

Answer mine?
http://au.answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=AiY7l0bA4zCAMMGAjgdlcRrg5gt.;_ylv=3?qid=20100212024243AADErZI

Gaia’s Garden · Answer

This would make a great chapter 2, with some proofreading. Chapter one should be about what caused the enmity between the humans and the wolves.

♥Ryssa♥ · Answer

I think you'd be better with poetry. You're good though. I like the beginning.

Answer mine please?

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=AoAldXNqX50N9z1owfMkVjbsy6IX;_ylv=3?qid=20100212024403AA7pjfQ

Taz · Answer

That was awesome, but what was with all of the ? marks? You had them in unneeded places.

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Am I any good at Story Writing?

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