# The World with No Sun



## godofwine (Sep 17, 2013)

(This is a quick, impromptu short story, done in 30 minutes last night based on the idea proposed of a world with no sun. I simply heard the premise and a thought came to my head and began typing. I know now that the reality of a world with no sun would be Ice Age II, but I was flying from the seat of my pants not taking into account...well...all of the ice. Here is the result)

*The World with No Sun
By Godofwine*


Marcus could hear them pursuing him even over the sound of his own breath as he ran through the frozen woods. 

How far were they behind him, he wondered, but he knew better than to turn around and look, that's for sure. You run slower when you look behind you, and he had once seen someone turn around while being chased and then get clotheslined by a tree branch and fall feet-over-head to the ground.

Marcus wondered what ever happened to him, Tony was his name. 

Who knew? But he didn't see him in his camp anymore. 

They say when the people over on the other side of the ridge caught you stealing they cut out your eyes and leave you alive blind. That was a torture worse than death. 

He couldn't go back the way he'd come because they would track him back to the village. They’d know where he’d come from. Hopping over a low vine he had an idea that just might work.

He broke left hard and fast and with one move, ducked underneath a branch and grabbed it in the same motion. He ran for a couple of steps and released it never breaking stride. 

WHAP

"Unhgh"

Next came a sickening crunch of a fall.

The branch had flown back and hit one of his pursuers. 

That was close. They were actually nearer to him than he thought. He wasn't tired any more than he was scared - and he was very scared. 

His legs pounded the ground using compact strides at times he was deep within the trees, and longer strides when the roots were farther apart. 
He listened...

And then he heard the loud roar. He clutched the duffle bag of batteries pushing his arm through the straps as he ran.

The roar got louder, and louder, and soon it was deafening. He'd heard it long before he saw his only escape - the river. 

At 50 feet up it was low enough so that he wouldn't die, but high enough to make someone less desperate think twice about jumping. 
Three...two...one...

"AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!"

He dove through the air with the bag of batteries that he had just stolen around his left arm while he clutched the bag with his right. The fall seemed to take forever because while he fell he remembered back four years ago, just before the sun went out what real life was, what a day at the beach felt like, or how great it was to pick peaches from his granddad's trees in Georgia. 

Now things that were taken for granted became necessities, and the extras that were once plentiful were no more. He hadn't seen a piece of fruit in more than three years, and leaves littered the ground between the trees like so much refuse. Those that still stood had long since died, but were too stubborn to fall, to succumb to the reality that they had indeed perished. 

Life among the humans had become us against them, and running while hoping and praying that you didn't get caught. 

And then there were the animals. Before four years ago a lion had never walked free across the land of what was North America, but that changed one some PETA nitwits stormed the zoos releasing all of the animals. 

It was good for the animals he guessed. Better to die free because once the light from the sun died out all the way the zookeepers and everyone else stopped going to work so they got no food or water. 

Now years later he could very well end up as food to a lion of all things. 

Who knew?

Animals were much more adaptable to change than people. They didn’t seem to panic like people did. 

When the light went out and the only light were the stars in the galaxy and the moon several times a month, the animals went on the best they could while the people still clung to the old ways. Some even prayed that God would flip the switch and we would be back to normal. 

But normal was done...long gone. Reality hit like an angry bull.

Splash!


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## Apple Ice (Sep 17, 2013)

Okay Dionysus (good name), a couple of things I noticed.

You repeat some words very close to each other E.g. "under his arm, pushing his arm" and "deep within the *trees*, and longer strides when the *trees"
*I would advise you change that, word repetition isn't a good thing. 

This may just be my own opinion but I don't like  the "Whap" "Ugrrh" and "AAAAAAAAHHHHHHH"

They seem a bit comic bookish and the "AAAAAAAAHHHHH" should be in quotation marks I think because otherwise It's the narrator who's jumping off as opposed to the character. 

Also, the part when he's falling, it says it seemed forever because he was remembering. Again, this might just be personal preference but I would have said it along the lines of the fall was taking forever and his mind wandered back 4 years ago.

ANYWAY, apart from those things this piece was good and engaging. Had me from the beginning and was intense. I liked him thinking about what ever happened to Tony, nice touch. So yes, a nice piece I think.


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## godofwine (Sep 17, 2013)

I fixed the repeated words, but I have to figure out a way to bypass onomatopoeia in a novel since it is "comic bookish" as you said. Thanks for the props. I am really excited about writing. I am raw, but at the same time I feel myself getting better with each short story which will make my novel much easier.


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## Apple Ice (Sep 17, 2013)

It may not be a bad thing, like I said, it may just be my preference but I do think it's better without them. No problem. That's good, so many new writers seem to get downhearted so easily but your excitement and eagerness will only help you wonders. I imagine you would feel yourself getting better, practice makes perfect after all.


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## godofwine (Sep 17, 2013)

With me being quasi-amateur, I am never going to look a gift horse in the mouth. I take advice on the structure of my stories like a mixed bag, I pull out and utilize the things I want and put aside what doesn't fit what I am trying to do. With your suggestions making sense to me and adding not taking away from the flow of the story I fully utilized the constructive criticism. I didn't even get downhearted when my job's compliance officer tore one of my stories a new one because she made me better. I showed her one of my latest ones and saw 5% of the red marks. 

Practice makes perfect, as you said. Most of us haven't have proper writing technique since either high school or college, so it isn't going to be perfect every time, but you have to be open and not negatively affected by constructive criticism whenever you write. You gave proper constructive criticism because you pointed out the bad and the good, which allows th writer to take something positive away from what they did as well as "One to grow on"


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## Sintalion (Sep 17, 2013)

Done on the fly and all, here's what I have to offer from a glance (nothing in-depth, just in passing). 


godofwine said:


> *The World with No Sun
> By Godofwine*
> 
> 
> ...




Overall there's a story here, but it's at a distance. I don't feel very close to Marcus or the scene. I love the concept and enjoyed seeing something about a world with no sun where ice isn't the main fixture.


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## godofwine (Sep 17, 2013)

Damn Sintalion, went in with the Ginsu knives. I have to pay attention to the tense more. Many rookie mistakes. I know that the end leaves the reader wanting more and likely feeling short-changed. That was largely the point other than the fact that he got away. 

I cannot explain away the errors only that I will try to do better the next time. Are you an editor in real life because you have a keener eye than me, hell, a keener eye than most. I'm going to look you up when I do something significant. I can do a story, but I don't want it to have as many flaws in it as this one obviously did. I wanted to do something different, and I succeeded in that, but I cannot make so many judgement errors.


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## Jeko (Sep 17, 2013)

Feel free to make errors as you write; editing's there to polish your work after you've crafted its flesh and blood.

The narrator in this piece is very subjective, so attempt is made to have the reader in the character's eyes. But almost everything is in the mode of comment - it's judgement, observation from a foreign source. Get rid of 'he could', 'he wondered', 'he heard' - these things distance us from the character. 

Giving description and reporting action, you give facts. Facts give readers the room to have their own observations, and in turn let them care about characters. Then you can use judgement to shape the story, rather than making it the foundation of your prose - doing so is like building a house on sand. Build on the solid foundation of dialogue, action and description and your story will always read better.

To put that into context, bits like this:

_He broke left hard and fast and with one move, ducked underneath a branch and grabbed it.
_
read better than bits like this:

_How far were they behind him, he wondered, but he knew better than to turn around and look, that's for sure. You run slower when you look behind you, and he had once seen someone turn around while being chased and then get clotheslined by a tree branch and fall feet-over-head to the ground.

_Work on unpacking this prose and you can start to get a sense of speed in the narrative, which is a great way to begin a story.


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## altraseckz (Sep 17, 2013)

I'm in agreement with Sintallion and Cadence. I don't take any issue with the use onomatopoeia. I would expect that a lot of readers do though. The same as many do with ellipses. It would be easy to replace those sounds with description. Mentioning the scream escaping his throat on the way down, for instance. Its ultimately a styllistic decision, and the rest of the story in combination with your intended audience would really determine the impact one way or the other. I did like it though. 

This is content based, hopefully that's alright. What if the missing sun, wasn't literally a missing ball of fire in the sky? What if there was something else that the characters in world also called 'Sun' that went missing and had caused the world to be in whatever state it is currently in? 

I did like this piece. I'd like to see where you take it if you pick it back up. Keep up the good work, GodOfWine!


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## godofwine (Sep 18, 2013)

*The World with No Sun*
*By Godofwine*
(This is an edit, taking into account much of what the critiques spoke about)

Marcus heard the men pursuing him even over the sound of his own breath as he ran through the frozen woods.

He didn’t know how far they were behind him but he could hear their trampling footsteps much closer to him than he liked. He thought about glancing behind him, but decided against it. He had once seen someone turn around while being chased and then get clotheslined by a tree branch and fall feet-over-head to the ground.

Marcus wondered what ever happened to him, Tony was his name. He didn't see him in his camp anymore. It was said that when the people over on the other side of the ridge caught you stealing they cut out your eyes and just leave you to die in the woods, but not kill you. That was a torture worse than death, and not one that he wanted to go through. 

He couldn't go back the way he'd come because they would track him back to the village and he didn’t want them to know where he’d come from. Hopping over a low vine he had an idea that just might work.

He broke left hard, ducked underneath a branch and grabbed it in the same motion. He ran for a couple of steps then released it never breaking stride. 

Behind him he heard the thud of the branch striking someone, a ragged shout, and then the sickening crunch of a fall. _

Maybe that would put some distance between them_, he thought as he ran on. 

He wasn't tired as much as he was scared - and he was very scared so he continued to run. He couldn’t let them catch him with the batteries, but he couldn’t afford to drop them either, even if he would move faster if he did so. His legs pounded the ground using quick compact strides at times when he was deep within the trees, and longer strides when the trees were farther apart to keep from tripping on hidden roots. 

He breathed through his mouth to quiet his breathing and listened to the sound coming from in front of him, and then he heard the loud roar up ahead. He clinched the duffle bag of stolen batteries under his arm, pushing his arm through the straps.

The roar got louder, and louder, and soon it was deafening. He'd heard it long before he saw his only escape - the river. 

He had been this way before, but when he’d jumped into the river then it was from a much lower, much safer point. Now he was at least 50 feet up it was much more risky. He also didn’t think he could avoid capture long enough to make it to the lower landing. The level of desperation was high and there was no choice but to risk it. 

He didn’t know if he would make it, but such thoughts of mortality would likely creep into the minds of his pursuers as well. What he didn’t know was whether it was high enough to keep the pursuers from following him off of the cliff. 

He would soon find out. 

While running full speed he steeled himself against the possibility of him not surviving the fall and flung himself into the air anyway. With the bag of batteries that he had just stolen around his left arm he clutched the bag with his right and released a loud gutteral scream from the depths of his lungs. 

The immediate possibility of peril caused the last four years of his life to flash before his eyes and fall seemed to take forever. He thought back to his life four years ago just before the sun went out. He thought about what real life was, what a day at the beach felt like, or how great it was to pick peaches from his granddad's trees in Georgia. 

Now things that were taken for granted became necessities, and the extras that were once plentiful were no more. He hadn't seen a piece of fruit in more than three years, and leaves littered the ground between the trees like so much refuse. The trees that still stood had long since died, but were too stubborn to fall, to succumb to the reality that they had indeed perished. 

Life that he once knew had changed so much. There was so much bickering and fighting become us against them, and running while hoping and praying that you didn't get caught. Each camp found ways of sneaking into other camp to steal whatever they could carry.

It was anarchy.

And then there were the animals. Before four years ago a lion had never walked free across the land of what was North America, but that changed one some PETA nitwits stormed the zoos releasing all of the animals. It was good for the animals he guessed. Better to die free because once the light from the sun died out all the way the zookeepers and everyone else stopped going to work so they got no food or water. 

At first it was thought that the zoo animals would not survive the colder weather, but some animals, like the carnivores, proved to be much better to adapt than first thought. The larger herbivores looked emaciated if they survived at all with little to eat, but the predators ate like Thanksgiving off of carrion and living prey alike. 

The predators lived sparsely in the abandoned parts of cities as well as in the woods. Now years later he could very well end up as food to a lion of all things. The only benefit if there was one was the fact that they were not plentiful, but they were out there.

Animals were much more adaptable to change than people making their way on the instinct that humans lacked. They didn’t seem to panic like people did. Many simply carried on carving out their niche in whatever was left, and in other cases some forced their way in and made a way for themselves.

When the light went out and the only light was the moon several times a month, the animals went on the best they could while the people still clung to the old ways. Some even prayed that God would flip the switch and things would be back to normal. Years later some people were not convinced that the world that they saw was real and refused to go on with their lives, while some gave up letting death take them.

There was no going back to normal. Normal was done...long gone. Reality hit like an angry bull.

Marcus splashed down in the river snapping him out of his daydream and he broke the surface just in time to see two men, one Asian, one Black, standing more than fifty feet above him as he sailed downstream and out of their sight. The stream would carry him five miles to where he would exit the water and walk the final two miles to his basecamp with his prize slung over his shoulder as he cheated death again to live one more day.


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## altraseckz (Sep 18, 2013)

godofwine said:


> *The World with No Sun*
> *By Godofwine*
> (This is an edit, taking into account much of what the critiques spoke about)
> 
> ...




Some thoughts and edits I'd make. I didn't really proof for grammar. Its not my strong suit as a writer. 

I like the changes you made. My biggest criticism is that there's a lot of description missing. Its almost entirely visual. I have no real since of taste, touch, smell, and only a little sound. All of those things, and little more attention of the scenery, could really help flesh out the scene.

Great effort though. I'll let you know any other thoughts I have.


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## godofwine (Sep 18, 2013)

Good stuff,altrasecz






. Funny how you don't see so much when you are right up on  your own stuff. I gotta get better with that, two double ups in such a  small piece - not good. I have to remember to include all of the five  senses in future writings, not just visual. I'm preparing an except of  my upcoming novel, so all the critiques are a huge help. What I have is  good now, but I want it outstanding.

But no, there would be no  moon because there would be nothing to reflect. Lions would likely die,  but it isn't impossible to assume they could adapt by finding dens. Food  would be plentiful for predators as I said. 

I also should have  written in there why he was stealing the batteries. It is obvious, since  it is a world with no sun, but the writer has to assume that the reader  doesn't know anything until they are told and I could/should have  alluded to the fact that the bag of batteries are heavy and that we need  them to light our camp. 

How do you include thought into stories  such as this? Would it have been better if I had made it a whole new  paragraph or was the italics enough? I've wondered about that. Are there  quotation marks?

Also, I added the piece about Tony because he  once looked back and was clotheslined by a branch - which made Marcus  think about that once he thought about looking back. I take it that  correlation wasn't enough. Because I started with a person running I  felt it necessary to give a reason why he was avoiding capture, and  having your eyes ripped out seemed like a great reason. 

Feet  over head. This was thinking that when a person is clotheslined at the  neck when running at a decent rate of speed their feet raise as their  head sinks and their head would hit the ground before their feet. Kinda  quirky, but figured I'd try something new.


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## altraseckz (Sep 19, 2013)

Yeah, I have the same problem. I get really excited about slamming out the first draft and do my best to just plow through to the end. The actual writing of what I'm working on now needs _a lot _of polishing!

Sensory detail just adds a lot of depth to a story. 

When it comes to thought I would keep it in first person. The line you used was _maybe that would put some distance between them. _Just change it to _Maybe that will put some distance between us. _That sort of thing makes it work  a lot better. As long as we can only 'hear' the thoughts of the character that narrative is being filtered through its fine. I wouldn't include other characters in this scene, because even though its third person the information we're being given comes to us as what Marcus is experiencing. http://www.scribophile.com/academy/using-third-person-omniscient-pov is an article that briefly mentions this. Its in the second excerpt in the head-hopping section. There are also many forum posts on every writing sites that address this. 

A brief allusion to why the batteries are necessary, or a later revelation are bother viable options. (I.E. Marcus gets back to camp and we are shown him using the batteries to power lights and other equipment.) Don't give the reader too much. I like a novel that keeps me guessing about somethings, because even though I didn't know what the batteries were necessarily for _I _was intrigued as to why they were so important and my mind began filling in the blanks for me. Stories that you have to do a little work for are the most compelling. It does depend on your intended audience of course whether or not you want to write like that. I'm looking forward to more of your work.


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## JermShar (Sep 26, 2013)

Just a bit of science here...

If the Sun "went out", then a year later we would see it going out. a year after that, then we would see lack of heat. Also, when a star "goes out" it turns into a black hole. So the Earth would be pulled out of orbit, bombarded with asteroids and debris, even other planets. 

So in this story, something large is blocking the sun's light and heat. Now YOU tell us what it is.


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## Terry D (Sep 26, 2013)

JermShar said:


> Just a bit of science here...
> 
> If the Sun "went out", then a year later we would see it going out. a year after that, then we would see lack of heat. Also, when a star "goes out" it turns into a black hole. So the Earth would be pulled out of orbit, bombarded with asteroids and debris, even other planets.
> 
> So in this story, something large is blocking the sun's light and heat. Now YOU tell us what it is.



I'm afraid your science is a bit off.

If the Sun 'went out' all at once (something which cannot happen according to the laws of physics) we would see it happen in about 8 minutes, not a year. We would also start feeling the cooling effects at that same 8 minute mark. Not all stars become black holes when they die, in fact a star must be about ten times as massive as our Sun to succumb to that fate. Stars follow a very well understood life cycle depending on their size. Our sun will eventually (in about 4 billion years) run out of fuel and start to enlarge, becoming a red giant and then collapse forming a white dwarf star and a very beautiful planetary nebula like this one:






or this;






Also, a black hole doesn't act like a vacuum cleaner until you get very, very close to it.


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## godofwine (Oct 1, 2013)

Terry D, I wish I could see your pictures but I got two red x's over here. 

Either way, the science on something like that would be amazing. I wished that that was my choice for a novel, but it was just something I did real quick. Maybe later. Science fiction novels are often minimally based in fact, some more than others. In one of the novels I am writing has to deal with pangea. How did it actually break apart causing the continents we now know? Little stuff like that. 

In this story here the sun was likely either blocked (how? I dunno) or went out due to some unknown phenomenon I haven't thought of to explain. I wish I could thinkof something, but at the time i wasn't thinking that far in advance, and I didn't know enough about astronomy to make more than weak hypotheses. It was just pretty cool to have a quick idea and write on it, practice the craft. As a novice I hope to one day become skilled enough to put out a novel, until then I accept my Padawan status because I know that The Force is in me.


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## connectthedots (Oct 1, 2013)

Just one minor science thing: The moon doesn't produce light on it's own, but relies on reflecting the light given off by the sun or, in turn, reflected by the Earth. If you were going for the sun being blocked there may be a way around this but otherwise it's something I'd suggest.

Furthermore, you seem to have forgotten some fundamentals of the food chain- without the sun, plants can't photosynthesize- hence, herbivores soon die out; hence many carnivores die out due to a lack of food source. Again there's potentially ways around this at least at first- the lions hunting humans and surviving herbivores- but within months the lions wouldn't pose much of a threat as I understand it.

One final science point- as I understand it within a year without the sun the temperature would drop to -100 fahrenheit. The top layers of the ocean would freeze over, it's so cold.

That being said it's an interesting story. I did like the comic book kind of feel, however- I think depending on the direction you went it would work in the context of the story.

If you want this so try grounded in reality I'd suggest more research and perhaps a change from the sun being extinguished to the sun dimming. You'd lose some of the drama but it'd be more realistic.

I'd say check out the film/book "The Road" and do some research on the effects of Nuclear Winter.


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## bezidentita (Oct 9, 2013)

You did this in 30 mins? Not bad at all. It flows really well, and you started off with an action scene. Shape this up, break it into sections, use section breaks, like a # sign. Do this especially for the part where you explain the darkness. Can't wait to see if you'll explain why the sun went out---or is that part of the mystery, the story?  You have the basis for something really good here.


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## Jamie (Oct 10, 2013)

Shorten, shorten, shorten.

Hi there, I like to shorten things. It's good fun. For example, I've shortened your opening paragraph from and to this:

----------------------

"Marcus could hear them pursuing him even over the sound of his own breath as he ran through the frozen woods."
*"Marcus could hear them following as he ran through the woods."
*
(Shorten, make more snappy. Look for a word which could mean the same as two. 'Pursuing him' becomes 'following'. We don't need the 'him' part, we can guess that. 'Even over the sound of his own breath' is clunky. You could shorten it, but I'd lose it altogether, personally. 'Frozen' you could keep, but again I'd lose it just to make the sentence more snappy. This is an action scene, with someone running. Make the paragraph short, snappy, quick, and you'll barely need to describe the action. The pace will be 'felt' by your reader instead.)

"How far were they behind him, he wondered, but he knew better than to turn around and look, that's for sure."
*"He knew better than to turn and look."
*
(The reader will already be wondering how far behind his pursuers are just from the first sentence, so keep them there. Keep it snappy. You don't need the 'that's for sure' part.)

"You run slower when you look behind you, and he had once seen someone turn around while being chased and then get clotheslined by a tree branch and fall feet-over-head to the ground."
*Lose this.

*(This sentence immediately takes the reader AWAY from what's happening and has them trying to picture something else from another time. Lose it.)*

*"Marcus wondered what ever happened to him, Tony was his name. Who knew? But he didn't see him in his camp anymore."
*Lose this too.
*
(Same as above. You're taking people AWAY from what's happening.)

"They say when the people over on the other side of the ridge caught you stealing they cut out your eyes and leave you alive blind. That was a torture worse than death."
*"If you're caught stealing they'll cut you. Leave you blind."
*
(The 'people over on the other side of the ridge' are presumably the ones who are chasing? If so, we can guess that from the described punishment, so you don't need to tell us. Also, 'they say' - who says? YOU'RE telling us, right now, that's more important.)

"He couldn't go back the way he'd come because they would track him back to the village. They’d know where he’d come from."
*"He couldn't go back."

*('The way he'd come' - what other way back is there? Lose that. The last part, again, I feel takes you away from what's happening. Just keep the attention on the chase. You're trying to say too much, too early. You have pages and pages to add things in, to piece it together. Just describe the action you've started with.)

---------------------------------

Now, my shortened parts aren't perfect, and they themselves could do with some more work, but look at how quickly they set the scene:

*Marcus could hear them following as he ran through the woods.* *He knew better than to turn and look.* *If you're caught stealing they'll cut you. Leave you blind.* *He couldn't go back.*

It isn't great, but it's told the same action in much less time and you haven't misdirected your reader. I hope this helps as a basic example.


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## Draxia (Oct 12, 2013)

Many people have made good comments here. However, I would recommend that you focus on your character. You do a good job of including aspects of the outside world, but your character is lost in the immediate moment. Think more about how your character is feeling in that moment. Imagine yourself in the same position.


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## godofwine (Oct 12, 2013)

Draxia said:


> Many people have made good comments here. However, I would recommend that you focus on your character. You do a good job of including aspects of the outside world, but your character is lost in the immediate moment. Think more about how your character is feeling in that moment. Imagine yourself in the same position.


I did that in part, though I may have gone too far considering the moment to question where he was. The reason that protagonist didn't look back stemmed from the moment when his partner fell. I likely could have said that he saw him fall but couldn't go back for him.  

I view writing as practice for my novel, and every time I write I feel myself improving. I was inspired and write this piece and it has brought me to this site and given me the help of all of you.


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