The hero felt a dull shudder as his cold steel sword punched through the black plate armor
Might be a little purple. Do we truly need to know the temperature and material of the hero’s blade? of the continental tyrant, Mentis the Bloody. The man, whom the hero once thought was invincible, stumbled back, lowering his huge sword in what might have been shock. The man looked down, and with a pained grunt fell backwards, wrenching the hero's sword out of his hands.
And like that, ts]The deed was done.
The hero stood for a moment there, just thinking.
I don’t like this as much. ‘Hm, so I just mostly killed a tyrant. Screw checking to see if he’s dead, I need to ponder something.’ Three of his closest companions
were had been left behind to an unknown fate so he could reach the Tyrant's inner chamber and slay the
hatred hated man once and for all. Was it worth it? Was having done a great thing for the world worth the possibility of never being able to see his beloved Lylai's smile again? He hadn't wanted to leave her ...
The hero shook his head, whether in denial or to shake off the depressing thoughts, and went to retrieve his favored weapon. As he stepped towards the hulk of a man lying there, he heard a tortured, wheezing breath. The man was not quite dead. His fortitude alone seemed to be enough for three men
., and his height one-and-one-half. Unless you mean something else here, this detail is completely extraneous.The tyrant spoke:
"Hero...,"
he rasped through his visor
., him sprawled against a wall. His gauntleted hands were open and limp, the tyrant's weapon abandoned a meter away from his grasp.
"Do a dying man a ... last wish, of sorts. My visor..."
The hero hesitated, but for some reason took his dagger and carefully raised the tyrant's visor.
Never, ever, say ‘for some reason’ unless you’re absolutely 100% sure it’s the right thing to do. The hero has a reason, an instinct of mercy, a morbid curiosity, something. ‘for some reason’ is a cop out, and your readers will chew your ankles off for it. He saw the true face of the tyrant beneath the helmet, and was perhaps one of the few in the entire world to do so. The man had green eyes, he noticed. The tyrant had a rugged face that survived four separate wars, three of them started by him. He had a scar across his eye, and were not he a villain he might have been popular with the women. He had lines etched deep around his old eyes, testimony to the long era of suffering he had perpetuated
’til now. His dry lips were apart and straining; clearly he was on his last breath.
Really consider rewording and streamlining this last chunk. See ReOrg/ReWord 1"Thank you," the tyrant managed to the hero.
Since we’ve only got the hero and tyrant here, it’s faster and more to the point to say something like the ‘the tyrant rasped’.One stood and one sat
Wait, he was lying down a second ago He slump/sprawl ore lie, but you have to pick one., and for a dozen heartbeats all was quiet.
"Hero," the tyrant said, "I know you must ... feel, must think that I am the greatest villain the continents and the archipelago has seen. And... perhaps I am. But I wish you did not see me as a through-and-through evil man, corrupted to the bone. For I, too, once was as young, as naïve, as optimistic as you and your friends were."
This man either had more than one last breath left, or spectacular lung capacity. If he is desperate for some sort of absolution in his final hour, then he needs to sound more desperate. If he doesn’t desire absolution, then why bother explaining? What is the tyrant’s motive for opening his mouth at all? Why does he still cling to life?The tyrant tried to chuckle, but could only wheeze weakly. The hero winced, but made no move.
"It's strange, you know. Empires last... If the bureaucracy is anything, it knows how to be forever there. Do not be mistaken, even a tyrant has bureaucracy in his dominion. And bureaucracy is what makes the nation tick. It's what makes all nations tick. Well, before I conquered them and oppressively annexed them, that is."
Again. He’s taking a really long time to get to any sort of point with his last breath.The tyrant made a movement, trying to sit up straighter. He only managed to sink another inch to the bloody floor.
"You know, dying kinda... hurts. They say that it gets better but I frankly do not see that."
’Kinda’ is kinda out of voice for the tyrant. This is a fallen hero, veteran campaigner, and harrowed man. It would be like Allan Quatermain saying ‘kinda’ or ‘whoops’, or like James Bond saying ‘Gee Whiz!’. It isn’t him. The tyrant managed to laugh a single deep laugh. The hero grimaced slightly in response.
"I see my attempt at humor failed. Well, where was I... Hmm, yes, empires last. When I was a freshly-minted hero, you know--yes, I, too, once fought to overthrow an evil figure of continent-arching importance, some dark wizard--my only thought was that me and my good friends must save the world, free it from evil. And free the world we did.
You’re overwriting, by a lot. Me and my good friends can be shortened to just we. He doesn’t need to talk about being freshly minted, etc."Once the wizard was dead, all rejoiced. Long live the king, except he was dead. Long live the queen... nope, dead. Do we have royalty in convenient reach? Negative, the wizard cast
ed a mighty king's kin-slaying spell and killed all of them. The countries were in disorder, what with paper-pushers vying for a little bit of power, the politically-savvy jockying around in thusfar suppressed political battles, and every minor lord attempting to claim a parcel of land for his own.
Always consider your language, particularly when writing fantasy. Would they use negative in a sentence? Could your typical soldier-hero even define a negative?"The countries were in disorder, hero, and what else would a hero exist for if not to bring peace for the people? My companions--at least the ones who were left--and I took up the mantle. And at first we did a good job."
The tyrant exhaled slowly.
"But no matter how we... how I tried to make things work out, they didn't. It's as if the ones with power never ever look beyond their own greed. If they could give up a single gold piece to make it five pieces, but cut between five men, they would never agree. They thought everyone getting power was worse than nobody having power. The minor lords were the most disgusting, vile creatures I had ever the pleasure to meet."
He had clenched his fist sometime during the past few minutes, the bulky gauntlet now looking like a rough spiked ball of metal. The beaten man's voice rose with passion.
"I knew I could not feed the starving folk of the country if for every ten pence given, the lords took nine and nine-tenths. So I organized a little accident, by counsel of a roguish friend of mine. And it worked so well. You will never know how good it is to make a decision and have it fully carried out. It was then I realized what I had to do."
"Kill thousands of men while trying to conquer every last bit of the mainland?" The hero asked in a surly tone.
Consider how you want your hero to look. Our dialogue tags are the only things we have to go by, so you need to be double careful with them. Do you want the Hero of Ages to look surly, or filled with righteous indignation."No, my hero, unite the continent for its own good, and let no man go hungry and cold. Think about it. Have you seen a man starve any time during my 'reign of terror'? Perhaps the minor and major lords took my sovereignty a bit poorly. Maybe I crushed any rebel cells I could sniff out, and snuffed out even the embers of the thought that man has certain unassailable rights to freedom and liberty and speech. But I question you, was I truly a bad ruler?"
"Food was collected, hero, every harvest, and carted away to a local storage facility. Perhaps to your biased rebel eyes it looked like I was stealing from the poor underprivileged yeomen. But enough food to comfortably live on came back every week without fail. The extras got carted away to regions with famine. Have you never noticed how, even when half the crops fail to
dough drought very few died of starvation, hero? I wish I could have told you this--" the tyrant broke into a coughing fit, bringing up blood "-- before the oh-so-mighty hero decided to inconvenience me by shoving a sharp stick into my guts, but it is over. I hope you are happy, hero. I know I am content. I did the best I could. Tyrant I might have been, I am ready to face whatever gods who shall weigh my heart against a feather, because I am the benefactor of a legion. Can you say the same, hero? I do not blame you, but neither would I commend you."
Once again, I wonder why the Tyrant clings to life. If he does not ask for forgiveness, then what does he seek? What does he still fill his lungs with life when he is ready to meet death?The tyrant... the man slumped further down the worn brick wall of his inner palace. The hero noted that the inside had nary a chunk of marble as dictators are wont to do.
Consider word choice again. Nary and wont are all very archaic words, but the rest of your language is modern. All that was there was down-to-earth, practical brick and mortar.
"Well, it seems my time on this gods-forsaken earth is drawing to an end. Thank you for listening to an old, beaten man's rant. It puts my soul at ease, or at least what is left of it. ... I did order the deaths of many people. Maybe my heart will be heavier than a feather, hero. Maybe, just maybe."
The man's piercing gaze grew dimmer. He murmured,
"Thank you, hero. I ... I sincerely hope you find your lover. Was she Lylai? I am bad at names, as I always was. Lyali... That is a good name."
The hero was taken aback. He tried, but failed to regain his stony façade. Lylai... his heart ached for her so. He turned, ready to run to wherever she was, but on some whim decided to glance back at the dying one behind him. Before the hero left, he could swear he saw the ex-tyrant mouth a name...
And thus records say Mentis the
Bloody died an lonely death in the fifth tower of the eastern wing of what is now known as the Peoples' Assembly in the capital of Zenith, a lesson to future generations of the ignominious ending to all dictators and tyrants alike.
This text was written to commemorate the sixth century of the rule of the God-King, may his grace shelter and feed us all for eternity
ReOrg/ReWord 1: ] He saw the true face of the tyrant beneath the helmet, and was perhaps one of the few in the entire world to do so. The man had green eyes, he noticed. The tyrant had a rugged face that survived four separate wars, three of them started by him. He had a scar across his eye, and were not he a villain he might have been popular with the women. He had lines etched deep around his old eyes, testimony to the long era of suffering he had perpetuated til now. His dry lips were apart and straining; clearly he was on his last breath.
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He saw the true face of the tyrant beneath the helmet, and was perhaps one of the few in the world to have done so in a long time. Green eyes stared back at the hero, edged by lines of age and strain and framed by the scars of his own wars. Once, a long time ago, he might have been handsome, but now his face was pale with death’s shadow and taut with pain; his dry lips parted as he panted out his last breaths.
Comments: Okay, first of all, this is my favorite kind of death scene, but it’s way too long. I’m putting the
Mistborn Series by Brandon Sanderson on your reading list. Sanderson is an excellent writer, and he writes a scene almost identical to this one, but he does it with one line. Just. One. Line. It’s an excellent series, and it’s a very worthwhile set of guidelines for writing this kind of death.
You need to trim this piece down a lot. It’s heavily overwritten, and the Tyrant-King sounds more like a drunken uncle justifying his many sins than a Hero fallen from crusade. Your tone is also inconsistent throughout the piece. You absolutely need to stabilize that in order to build up tension. Lastly, the Tyrant needs to have all of his dialogue overhauled. You’re a good writer, so go through this exercise. You are the tyrant, you have done what you believed was right all your life, and you have fallen now to the blade of a self-righteous upstart. Yet the years have weighed heavily on you, and you have little objection to meeting death. Why do you open your eyes to see your killer? Why do you take that next breath and speak with him? What do you need him to hear so badly that you defy the comfort of the grave to say it?
Answer those questions, trim the Tyrant’s dialogue to a core, and I think this could be a really great scene.
Author
Topic: ___/The Writer's Apprenticeship\___ (Read 314140 times)