So after the worldbuilding insanity died down a bit, I realized I hadn’t done my writing exercise today. I’m trying to learn a bit when I have time to try new things, so it mattered. A lot.
I went to Holly Lisle’s site to see what she had to say about description, something I know I need help with.
Here’s “start with the biggest gun you’ve got,” using whatever jumped into my fingers from what has been milling around in my head all day.
*****
Disease or curse, his own sin or the Will of Lork, Nelit refused to just meekly die. He had left his family, abandoned his tribe, to find a way to live. Travelled months across the face of Tikrops searching for a way. Found companions and lost them, fought and fallen and got back up and simply refused to die. He was not giving up now.
Not even if ten not-human short little gold guys did want to put him in a box that hung from a rope and hoist him up a hundred feet to talk to their Master Artificer, a–man?–who had blown himself up in the pursuit of knowledge twelve times.
Or so his people boasted, anyway.
*****
Here’s my attempt at using action to convey setting.
*****
“Ah, but you have not seen,” Hafidr objected. The artificer snapped his fingers–Nelit noticed his right hand was a paler yellow than the rest of his golden skin–and pointed at a device. “This will show you.” He grabbed Nelit’s wrist and held the tribesman’s hand over the–spiked copper ball? Caught in a gentle vice, Nelit could only stare as the object flared with a red glow. “You see?” Hafidr asked as the thing let out a warning whistle and the fire on the hearth jumped and surged so wildly Nelit considered jumping out the window though they were six flights up in the cliff-face housing. “Flame responds.”
“Yes, I see!” To Nelit’s relief the Gnuj released his hand; he jerked away and the room settled.
The pale hand was not real, he realized as he rubbed his wrist. The inventor had a false hand. A miraculously life-like, extremely strong, incredibly dextrous false hand. Nelit could not believe Hafidr had made it; the master was too…scattered to have done such work. Perhaps the Gnuj were not all insane?
Just every single one he’d seen.
A mage with the skill to make that hand might be able to stop disease.