1. When you receive the Blog Award of DOOM your task is to post a short selection of your writing, 100-300 words, in which your favorite character suffers a horrible fate. It can be your favorite character from your own writing or from something you've read, it can be from a finished manuscript, a WIP or something you just made up on the spot. Your choice, but it has to be full of DOOM!
2. Pass it on to one other blogger and let them know their DOOM has come.
3. Remember that the person who passed the award on to you also received it as well. Go back to their post to read and comment on their writing sample. Make sure to thank them for sending the DOOM your way.
4. Whenever you use the word DOOM in your post, you must capitalize the whole thing.
Let me first pass this along so I can finish this post with my excerpt. Hmm, who to give it to? I wonder if Joseph Selby and Sasha Barin would be willing to share a scene of DOOM with us? They are relative newcomers for me in the blogosphere, so I am curious what they might show us.
Here is a short excerpt from my fantasy novel The Shard. The young tinker's son, Geldrath, has become trapped inside a mountain along with some soldiers. They pass over a chasm and creep along a passageway to a small cavern, where they get a big shock, and poor Geldrath learns that he is nowhere close to becoming a hero yet.
*****
Dragon! Geldrath couldn’t believe his eyes. He was never meant to see the dragon. It was supposed to be in the Great Hall beyond. He saw the awful plunge of the dragon’s head, the quick death of one of the soldiers, and panic flooded through him like a molten river. He dropped the shield he was carrying, turned, and fled.
His arm struck someone as he ran. He felt fingers dig at his side and heard a shout, distantly as if from down a deep well. His mind refused to work. All he could think was--Dragon! Dragon! Run!
A tiny portion of his mind tickled at him, reminding him that he should feel shame; that he had responsibilities to friends and couldn’t desert them. The overriding part of his mind shoved those thoughts aside and forced him to run faster.
There was another shout behind him and he felt that someone was chasing him. Through the fear his mind teased him again with another thought: I’m forgetting something import--
His front foot came down on nothingness.
His throat jerked out a strangled scream as he pitched forward headfirst, his arms flailing. The back of his shoulders and head slammed into stone, followed by his buttocks and feet. His head rang and he felt consciousness slipping away as he plunged through cold air.
Posts
Congratulations! And he's nowhere near hero status yet.
ReplyDeleteHah! I'd probably turn and run too. Good scene of DOOM. Figures it would have a REAL dragon in it. :)
ReplyDeleteL.G., I think this scene works better in the context of the scenes before and after it, but I couldn't resist using this one. My other scenes of danger for my POV characters needed more setup.
ReplyDeleteAnd the award travels onward.
ReplyDeleteGreat scene, makes me wonder how each and every one of us would react when presented with a life-threatening situation. Who would we betray, leave behind? How far are we willing run? Moments of great peril encourage us to show our brass, or maybe I'm just delving too deep. :)
ReplyDeleteI don't know why but I love that you have to capitalize DOOM every time in your post.
ReplyDeleteGreat scene!
So this has nothing to do with the old video game, then? :)
ReplyDeleteCool excerpt.
I really liked this excerpt Ted. I want more lol. It was very exciting...thank you for sharing :)
ReplyDeleteDespite how he feels, no one can blame Geldrath for fleeing. He is an untrained kid facing absolute terror for the first time in his life. I like how I manage to turn him into a bit of a hero later even though he finishes the book without ever having hurt anyone.
ReplyDeleteThese little teasers so make me want to read the whole thing.
ReplyDelete........dhole