Chapter 1 - The Old Man

Nathan awakes in hospital confused and meets a mysterious man.

"Where am i?, how did i get here?" Nathan woke in a cold sweat. "Hello, do you hear me?"

"Calm down sir," a nurse replied as she tried to comfort him.

"Where's Perrie?, where's Isaac?"

The nurse gave Nathan an uncomfortable look and remained silent. Nathan repeated himself, but still no reply. Nathan became angry with the nurse and pulled himself up in the hospital bed. The nurse looked on in amazement as a man who was found half dead only two days before, managed to gather enough strength needed to do that. Nathan noticed he was wearing a madallion around his neck, it was gold with a strange inscription written on it. All of sudden everything froze, everything except the clock on the wall. In walked an elderly man, grey hair, moustache, very well dressed, Pocket watch and signet ring.
"Ah, we meet again young man," a well spoken voice said.

"Who are you?" Nathan asked.

"Don't you remember? it was i who fore warned you not to follow the path you were on."

"I've never seen you before in my life, have I?"

"Think boy!" the man said in a harsh tone.
Nathan stared at the old man intently, replaying the last few days in his head, suddenly it hit him!

"You! You're the old man from the pub!"

"Correct," the old man with a grinning.

"Now i told you not to follow the path you were on but you did it anyway, stubborn, I like that. One who is destined to lead has to have a certain amount of ignorance about them, wouldn't you agree?"
Nathan had a look of confusion on his face.
"What are you talking about, old man? and what have you done to that nurse? She's frozen stiff!"

"She's fine, I placed a minor spell upon her. As for you, you need to come with me immediately. You and your girlfriend are going to rule the mystic kingdom a lot sooner than planned."

"Perrie! Where is she? Is she safe?" Nathan was deeply concerned.

"She safe at the moment but time is running out."

"Where is she?"

"In the small town of Lagolof, staying in a tavern. Isaac is in the next town, Glido. He is staying with two young friends of mine".
"Tell me Nathan, what's the last thing you remember?" The old man stared closely at Nathan.

"Perrie, Isaac and myself were in the pub, i walked past you on my way to the bar, you looked completely different though. You looked like a man living on the streets, scruffy clothes and a long white beard. I felt sorry for you bought you an ale, you asked me to join you. I was hesitant but you insisted, you started to tell a story of a mystical kingdom."
The old man started to smoke an unusually long pipe.
"You also told me to beware of a path, i had to use the toilet. When I returned, you had vanished, on the table where you were sitting was this necklace I'm wearing!"

"Ah, interesting you dont remember facing him" the old looked to be staring into space.

"Who?" Nathan asked.

"Never mind, all will be explained soon enough. We must be on our way, Perrie could be in danger if we leave it too long. Also i suspect she will know more to what has occurred."
Then with a double click on the old mans pocket watch, everything returned back to normal again, the nurse carried on as if nothing had happen.
As soon as she left the room Nathan collected his belongings and followed the old man out of the room, Once outside the hospital, the old man waved down a black cab.

"Covent garden, as fast as you possibly can," He yelled to the driver.

Nathan had a million questions but only asked one, "what's your name?"
There was a few moments of silence, then the old man answered, "Alden."

Reviews

[Dr. YumnaKay]

This is certainly a good plot. I think magical is what you were opting for along with a bit of suspense which you have managed to achieve somehow..
However, you need to rework some parts of it. I could point them out if you want.
I enjoyed reading this although it would have been a much better read if there were less grammar errors..

[BM_2211]

Yes if you could, I would appreciate it.

[Dr. YumnaKay]

"Where am i, how did i get here" Nathan said as he woke in a cold sweat. "Hello, do you hear me?".read more"Where am i, how did i get here" Nathan said as he woke in a cold sweat. "Hello, do you hear me?".
Change into :
"Where am I, how did I get here?" Nathan cried as he woke in a cold sweat. "Hello! Do you hear me?".

"He asks again, still there was no reply."
Change into:
He asked again, still the nurse was silent.

I've never seen you before in my life" Nathan answers.
Change into:
I've never seen you before in my life!" Nathan exclaimed.

"Perrie! Where is she? Is she safe?" Nathan asks with deep concern.
Change into:

"Perrie! Where is she? Is she safe?" Nathan cried in anguish.

That's about it for now. And there are some places where you need to change your "your" into "you're"...

[Sylva Moon]

I like how the plot plays out and how there's abit of mystery to it. These are one of those book that you just wanna keep reading withput end. There's abit of grammer issues but that's fine. Keep it up. :)

[Rynn]

Technicalities: Some fundamental writing things that I noticed are,

-Punctuation needs another look

- Tense; you need to decide if you want the story to be in past or present tense. (She said Vs She says)

-P.O.V; I think it would be benificial for you to sit down and think about who you really want to be telling this story. Whether it be Nathan (first person) or the "God perspective" (third person) I think that would help you a lot in terms of deciding what tense you want it to be in. Many books are written in third person, but Twilight is a good example of a book written in first person, present tense.

-Spelling needs another look

- Pacing; make sure you're moving the action along, but don't go too fast. Quick escalation in a characters emotions or reaction are noticeable and often times come across as unnatural.

- Introducing characters; doing this too quickly can result in the reader not connecting with the characters that were introduced in quick succession. It's hard to form a bond or really care about these characters if we don't know anything about them or find them to be hard to relate to.

-Dialogue; be wary when trying to come across as obscure or mysterious. It's hard to keep the dialogue natural sounding when you're trying to hard to turn the story a certain way or make the reader think a certain way.

-Suddenly; be very wary of the word suddenly and other such words. This word is the greatest enemy of natural pacing. It is a harsh way of attempting to surprise or jostle the reader, but comes across as a little cheap. If you instead go straight into the action, it is potentially more surprising because there's no warning word. Let the audience decide when to be surprised.

-Mysteries; be careful again when trying to be mysterious. It's a fine line. You have to give us a reason to want to continue reading. Some readers get frustrated when they don't understand information or when they have to read great lengths to get it. You have to give the readers just enough info to care about the issue and continue on.

-Prophesies; Be careful with grand statements. They are a bit overwhelming in a first chapter. I believe that telling someone they are about to rule over a large scale kingdom is somewhat too much to announce right away, that is some info that would be surprising later on when we know these characters better.

- Characters; for us to fully know your characters, you have to fully know them. Know their quirks and ticks and habits down to their bones to write them well. These characters are ones I would be interested in seeing more developed. I'm part way through and don't even know what they really look like.

-Show don't tell; this is the most important advice I can pass along. In fiction - if you don't describe it, then it's not there. It's so important to have an understanding of the world you're writing in. Know it and your characters will know it. Describe it like you know it, and your readers will know it.

-Formatting; I would look up the proper formatting for dialogue. Whenever a new person is speaking there needs to be a new indent or paragraph.
Unnecessary Dialogue tags: be careful with dialogue tags (he said, she cried, he yelled.) When there are clearly only two people in the room, use them sparingly, the audience should be able to tell who is talking between the two of them.

Overall, I like what you have, it's a good draft content wise. You have the idea down. However you feel is best to edit wether it be chapter by chapter or as a whole. Good start, thank you for the read!

-Rynn

[JayG]

You're thinking in terms of plot and visuals, viewing it in your mind and telling the reader what's happening.

But think about it. If the reader could see the film they would watch the actors, who have trained for years to show emotion via tiny movements, flickering expression, and all the nuance of the human voice. And the viewer interprets that, as they do in life, analyzing actions and speech to understand purpose and motive.

But how much of that makes it to the page? None. And how much did you insert, to make the reader know the emotional state of the characters? None.

So what's left? A report: "This happened...then that happened...this character said...and after that..."

My point is that writing fiction for the page is a very different thing from what we learned in our school days. That form of writing is meant to inform, and it's always told by the author. But fiction's goal is to entertain by making the reader live the story, moment-by-moment. And you cannot do that with the nonfiction writing skills we're given in our school days. Fiction writing, like screenwriting, journalism, or even accounting, is a profession that must be mastered through study and practice. And though it might be nice if the reading we do would teach us how to write fiction, we see only the polished product. To create that product you need the process.

It's not a matter of talent, other than that talent must be trained or it's only potential.

Not good news, I know, but it's what every hopeful writer faces, because all the reports and essays we wrote trained us in nonfiction technique, which doesn't work for fiction.

So visit the local library's fiction writing section for some of the tricks the pros take for granted. Master them and you'll wonder why you didn't see them for yourself. And they make the job a LOT easier.

Hang in there, and keep on writing.

Jay Greenstein
https://jaygreenstein.wordpress.com/category/the-craft-of-writing/

[J.A. Blackwell]

Interesting start. This has potential. I can't wait to read more.

[BM_2211]

Thanks! I'll try to have more up soon