Be Excellent To Each Other

Chapter 1

“Bum.”

Jayne slumped against the rough stone wall and slid down until he was sitting on the floor in a dejected heap. The iron banded oak door which provided the only way out of the room was holding for now, but the repeated hammering on it was eventually going to cause it to give way. Well, he thought, it would if the angry men outside realised they needed to go and get something heavy to batter it with. Otherwise he and Renard would be here long enough to starve to death. It was a very well made door. Which was why, in his defence, he’d thought they’d be safe behind it. He just hadn’t realised there wasn’t another door behind it. He propped his head on his knees and stared dejectedly at the dusty flagstone floor.

The other man in the room, a tall, dark haired man who clearly spent a lot of time outdoors, looked across at Jayne from where he had up until now been leaning against the window frame, staring through the bottom panes of glass as if a ladder might magically appear outside them if only he stared hard enough.

“’Bum?’ Jay, we’re shortly going to be killed in a very slow and inventive way by His Knoblessness and you still can’t bring yourself to cuss properly. It’s a good job there’s no sort of interview process before becoming an outlaw,” he said, with an inflection to his voice that was something bordering on affection.

“Look, there’s nothing wrong with being polite, Ren. Just because you learnt to talk from your mother’s “clients” doesn’t mean we should all sound like dockhands,” Jayne replied.

Renard snorted. “Oh, but not so polite we’re not going to start on the whole “your mother’s a whore” skit, eh?”

Jayne gave him an innocent look and said “yes, but your mother is a whore, Renny, which is hardly my fault.”

Renard sighed and stared up at the ceiling. He took a deep breath and said, “Well, there’s no point arguing with that. What there is point arguing with is dying horribly. What are we going to do? It was your bloody idea to go up instead of down, and now we’re stuck here with a lot of angry men with pointy metal things who are waiting to get in here with us and demonstrate just how pointy those pointy metal things are.”

Jayne glared at him. “Oh I see, so now this is my fault. Look, how was I to know this would be a dead end?”

“It’s a bloody tower, you idiot! It’s the very bloody essence of a bloody dead end!”

“Then why on earth did you follow me? Anyway, it’s your fault we’re in the castle in the first place. If you hadn’t talked me into this addlebrained idea I’d be spending the afternoon in the Old Orchard drinking cider. But no, I’m here waiting to be dismembered instead. Some friend you are.”

A change in the pitch and volume of the next thud from the door suggested that someone slightly higher up the food chain than the average knuckle-dragging member of the city guard had arrived and suggested that said knuckle-draggers stop hitting the door with their feet and instead use one of the many handy makeshift battering rams that castles replete with statues and stone plinths tended to provide. Renard ran across from the window and braced himself against the vibrating door.

“Come on, help me! Now they’ve worked out that they can’t just kick in a 3 inch thick oak door they may get through before we die of dehydration.” With the next thump of a heavy object hitting the door a small shower of dust jumped out from the gaps in the wood, lightly coating Renard’s hair and shoulders and causing him to sneeze. He yelped as he was momentarily pushed away from the door by the force of the next blow from the other side. “Ahh! Can you grab that desk and drag it over here? We need to do something other than just sit and wait for them to get in, you know,” he shouted, his feet scrabbling for purchase on the floor as he turned and wedged his back against the door.

Jayne levered himself up off the floor and, with much scraping of wood from the desk and pained groaning from Jayne, started dragging the desk away from the far wall and over to the door. “What’s the point?” he grumbled. “They’re only going to get in, carry us off to Lord Cheiveny and start pulling bits of our insides out. There’s no need to face that on top of being tired from dragging furniture around.”

“Just do it, for the gods’ sake!”

I like this, and wish to see more.
Except I had to read the first paragraph three times to work out who was which side of which door.

Yeah, I'll happily take a bit of constructive criticism. Or, frankly, unconstructive criticism. I'm a big lad.
Metaphorically.

However, my inner pedant can't help but point out that the first para is, in fact, a single word, so any confusion there is probably due to head injury.

Well if you can take a bit more criticism then I wouldn't repeat the word(s) knuckle-draggers.

Apart from that I genuinely want more please.

Yup, a very compelling read so far, more please

?

Between the two of them they managed to wedge the desk up against the door. Renard stepped back and surveyed their handiwork. “Right, that should hold for a moment while we pile the rest of the furniture up as well,” said Renard. He turned to the nearest cupboard and started pulling it along the flagstones with Jayne’s help, the sound of the cupboard scraping across the floor momentarily eclipsing the sound of the guards trying to batter their way in.

Once they had pulled the cupboard across to the door, Renard stopped to catch his breath, and then cocked his head.

“Hang on, they’ve stopped hitting the door. What do you think is going on?” he asked.

Jayne looked up from where he was squatting by the cupboard, and said “I’ve no idea. Why don’t you go out and look?”

“Hah hah. Let’s get this cupboard up on the desk, while we’ve got a chance”. Between the two of them they managed to manoeuvre the large wooden cupboard up onto the desk, comprehensively barricading the door.

“Right, that should keep them out for a while, unless they can bring a siege weapon up here. Which, given our luck, isn’t outside the realms of possibility. We’ve bought ourselves a little time to try to figure out what to do,” said Renard. He crossed back to the window he had been forlornly looking out earlier. “Is there anything in here we could use as a rope, to climb down to the next window?”

Jayne started rifling through the drawers of the handful of pieces of furniture in the apparently unused room. After a few minutes of searching, Jayne threw his hands up in exasperation. “Nothing, nothing at all we could use to get out of here. How inconsiderate could they be, eh?”

“Damn it. What are they up to? It’s still quiet,” Renard said, looking out of the window across the few towers and spires of the town of Redfall.

“I refer you to my previous response on the matter. Seriously, Ren, why am I here? Why? Rosie will be at the Old Bear, too, and I’m sure I’ve been winning her round. But no, I get talked into your stupid idea of breaking into the castle and stealing Lord Chieveney’s [quest item] because some man in a tavern, a man in a tavern, mark you, told you that he’d pay you two thousand gold coins’ worth of jewels for it. I’ll admit that a thousand gold coins sounded pretty good, but good grief, we could have thought this through a bit more,” complained Jayne.

“I thought this through just fine, Jay. We got in through the sewer, made our way through the castle with no one noticing, all the way to Lord High Tiny Winky’s chamber. We’re not exactly inexperienced thieves, are we? There are few better than us at relieving people of things that other people have greater need of.
It was only when you screamed at the chambermaid coming out of his dressing room that anyone noticed we were even here. Thank the gods I’d managed to find the [quest item]. And then, if you recall, you spent so long having hysterics at a magically appearing woman that the guards had blocked off our escape route back downstairs, leaving us with no option but to run up here. By my reckoning that makes this all. Your. Fault.” Renard punctuated his final statement with what Jayne felt were somewhat accusatory jabs of a finger in his direction.

“I… “Jayne started to say, before Renard interrupted him with a hiss.

“Shhhh! Look, it’s really, really odd that it’s been so quiet out there for so long. I think we should take a look-see. Maybe we can make a run for it. Help me move some of this furniture back from the door – quietly” whispered Renard.

Jayne looked at Renard incredulously. “I’ve just put my back out shifting that lot alrea… Oh, okay”, he finished, when he saw the less than tolerant look in Renard’s eyes.

The two men between them started to drag the pile of furniture away from the door at one end, to make room to inch the door open. Just as Renard thought they had moved the makeshift barricade enough and he gestured to Jayne to stop, Jayne kept pulling and, overbalanced, pulled the cupboard along the desktop until it tipped over onto the floor with a resounding crash.

Renard glared at Jayne as the echoes seemed to carry on forever.

“Um, sorry”, Jayne proffered, although even he felt that this was perhaps inadequate in the circumstances.

When Renard decided he still couldn’t hear any movement outside the door, he prised open the door a few inches in order to look outside.

“Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu….” Renard began, and then took a deep breath in.

“What!? What can you see?” Jayne asked, slightly panicked.

Renard puffed air out of his cheeks, and seemed to collect himself. He said “I’m not sure how long we’ve been stuck in this room, but whilst we’ve been in here someone’s decided to redecorate the corridor”

Jayne’s face took on its almost customary furrows of puzzlement. “What the hells are you on about, Ren? Where are the guards?”

“Come and have a look for yourself. I think it’s safe to say we can make a run for it now, by the way. Quite carefully, though.” Renard pulled the door open a few more inches, and stepped aside to let Jayne poke his head out of the door. On doing so, Jayne promptly doubled over and started vomiting.

“Yep, Jayne, that’s where the guards are. All over the walls, floor and ceiling.”

I have cast my eye over this. I'm interested to see where it goes next.

From a technical perspective, you're missing a few commas here and there. You also need to vary your choice of words, there are too many "said"s during the dialogue.



Don't use dejected twice. I would suggest getting rid of the first instance as it doesn't really suit 'heap'. The descriptions of the door are also slightly confusing, in that you imply twice that it can be broken but then twice say that the door will hold.



Can you say that in one breath? I can't: it's far too long. It should be broken into two or three sentences.



"Oh, but not polite enough for you to avoid starting the whole..." is how I would phrase that. It doesn't flow well otherwise.



That's another sentence/paragraph to make you blue in the face. I note that you've used the same humorous repetition trick twice, first with the pointy things and now with the knuckle-draggers.



The first sentence needs a rewrite. Levered himself off the floor? Lifted, hefted, something else would work better. You should end the sentence there with 'floor' and start the new one from 'With', throwing in a 'he' to make it 'he started dragging'.



Of of of!



Of of of of of of! "Looking out the window," perhaps?



Is the chambermaid male or female? Is the chambermaid the 'magically appearing woman' you later refer to? I suggest 'this' as opposed to 'his final statement'.



"With great care" or "with great caution" would suit better than "quite carefully" in my opinion.



Ooooh! What's happened?

First of all, thanks for the constructive ciriticism.

The use only of "saids" is something I noticed with Pratchett, and decided I like. It is a high risk approach, mind. And I'm not Pratchett.

Yeah, not the bestest. The door is strong, can't be battered down by a booting, but coudl probably be done in by a battering with a plinth or something.


Yep, very clumsy sentence.


Heh - this is literally how I talk.



(a) yes, it is a long sentence, but variation of sentence length is important, I think. That one went on a bit long, though.

(b) the repetition of the repetition is noticeable, yes.



Hmm, going to disagree there, as yes, you can lever yourself up and I like the passage of that sentence. But you know, horses.

Well, yes!


Ah, now it's annoying me too, yes.



Dude, chamber[i[maid[/i]. Chambermaids are always female, by definition.

"this" vs "final statement" is a definite improvement, though.



Hmm, he's quite a colloquial guy, though. I'll have a think.



My problem with this is that I haven't the faintest idea! I just started with an idea of a door and started writing.

Many thanks for the constructive comments - it's really interesting having someone basically act as editor for you. I've done it for other people, and it's not something you automatically do for yourself. I can see why authors have editors!

I've also come to the conclusion that whilst I can write a mean contract, and bitch slap any motherfucker when it comes to law fu correspondence, I can't write fiction for shit. Everyone has a novel inside them? Well, I must have ate one.

I don't like Pratchett. I know that I am beneath contempt because of this.



A rearrangement of the order the information is presented would help. Say they're kicking it, and that it's a very well made door that could possibly keep their pursuers out until the universe implodes and all is entropy. However, even this door would not be impervious to an object stronger than a boot, and our heroes are counting on the Bad Men not figuring this out.



Literally!

There's just something about the way the opening is phrased that doesn't seem right. I understand what he's trying to say but it's very clunky.



(a) Absolutely right, but it still needs to be readable aloud. You risk the reader getting lost and confused halfway through. That's an easy trap to fall into, especially with the use of semicolons.

(b) There's no harm in repetition as a means to a punchline. However, be wary of it seeming like the only piece of wordplay in your arsenal. Part of the problem in this instance was it made me feel like the author (you) and Renard were practically the same person as they were using such similar sentence structure. S S S S!



Indeed. In my humble opinion it would work better as a stage direction than in a piece of narrative. Levering, to me, is one person applying force to something else to force it to move. You could contrive a comedy situation about a character having to lever a body part due to stiffness or some other obstruction, but I can't picture it for what amounts to just standing up.



That's what I thought too. But... if the chambermaid is female, who is the 'his' who owns the dressing room? Once that's cleared up, I'm still unsure who is meant by the 'magically appearing female'. This is mostly due to your use of 'And then' which seemed to imply a second encounter after the androgynous chambermaid, which Jayne had a second panic attack over.



Excellent! Might it be something to do with the quest item? If not the item itself, some else who either wants it for themselves (placing our heroes in the wrong place at the wrong time, stealing it just moments before this all powerful person arrived for their own attempt) or wants it out of the castle? A curse, perhaps? Maybe even something completely unrelated but that fortuitously swept through just in time to turn the guard inside out!



Well, thank you too! You got my brain working in the right gear for me to go and finish one of my assignments for college. Good luck with the story! Cider! Wenches!