The Mystery of the Mysterious Old Man
One day a level 108 was training his fishing, he was very happy because he was one shrimp from reaching level 99. He cast his net into the water, pulled it up and sparks shot up around him. "Bob15728, Today is your lucky day............. You get to die Quickly!"

An hour later a level 57 was searching for his friend, "Bob, Bob", he called, "Oh! There you are noticing he friend lying down on the grass near the river, but as he approached, he saw a sword of a strange material sticking through his friend. It looked like a dragon longsword, but it was made from constantly shifting plates of red couloured material. The level 57 picked it up.

"So, Albert, You discovered my secret, but the Blood Sword of zamorak was made for me, Zamorak!"

The sword started to drip blood and Albert screamed, and with that scream, Albert's Rune Pouch exploded, vapourising him instantly.

The story will be continued, with me adding little bits whenever i get time, but for now, the mystery remains, Who is Zamorak???.

I've decided against gradually filling it in but i will release this story in full later on sometime, possibly, i might not do it at all.

Sorry its not very well structured .

That won't do anything to help stegoslash to improve. Elaborate next time please.

First thing's first stegoslash, I enjoyed your choice of the title. You take at emphasizing the definite mystery surrounding this 'Mysterious Old Man' and draw the reader in with the hope that this mystery will be solved (as stated through your title). Bravo on that for creating a title that not only explains what the piece is to be about, but hooks viewers in. Advice on this part, remember not to choose a title that gives false hope or false assumptions. I, for one, don't enjoy being drawn into a piece with the intention of reading something vivid, interesting and about war and finding out that the story is actually about a playground - or something to that effect.

What I must disprove of, however is the very first line of the story - the beginning actually.



Once I see 'level 108' - I have no intention of continuing. I believe they call it 'MSLAG' which is the abbreviation for, Making it Sound Like a Game. Level 108's, 'Noobs', JageXBob007's and Woodcutting Levels are no good way to get a reader interested. All this does is show readers that the story is poorly thought out, poorly written and not worth their time. Now that is certainly something a writer should never aim for. But fret not, being your first story (I'm presuming), you still have plenty of room for error (as does everyone else) and plenty of things to learn, understand and practice on.



This is never a good way of starting off a piece. It's what fourth graders do. Examine other pieces in the Story Mat and notice how the writers manage to weave a web of questions and details in the first paragraph. And through all this - few, if not, none, use 'one day'. Refrain from using such beginnings like 'one day', 'on a sunny morning', 'once upon a time', 'a long time ago' etc. Baby Terms I like to call them.



Notice the excessive use of ellipses (...). It doesn't emphasize the pause or lead up any more than '...' . It makes the sentence look untidy and poor actually. The below will do:

Today is your lucky day...you get to die quickly!"

There is also another piece of punctuation you can use in the stead of '...' , it's a hyphen or a dash. Both tell the reader that an explanation is coming or that there's something vital or shocking coming. In fact, '...' , '-' and ':' have the same similar effect.



Examining this section next, notice your speech:



You've put the comma outside of the quotation marks instead of inside. Remember that speech always needs some sort of punctuation to formally end it, before the end quotation mark is inputted. So for example, it should be:

"Bob, Bob!" he called

Notice how I've replaced the comma with an exclamation mark inside the quotation marks. An exclamation mark signals that the speech is meant to be loud, like a shout (which the person is doing).

Next is the rest:



The above is entirely a mess. First off, you've started it with a quotation mark, but you haven't ended with one anywhere in the text. So we have no clue what he's saying and what he's not (if we don't use common sense of course). So it should be fixed to:

"Oh! There you are,"

Next we look at the 'noticing he friend lying down on the grass near the river' . You've gotten your tenses wrong and it makes it look very confusing. 'He' should be changed to 'his'. Fixed:

"Oh! There you are," he exclaimed noticing his friend lying down on the grass near the river.

I've added in 'he exclaimed' for extra effect and to make it more clearer. Also, I put in a full stop after river seeing as that should be the end of that sentence. What follows should be a new sentence.

As he approached however, he noticed that his friend was impaled on a strange sword of unknown material.

How better does it sound now? All we did was add in some new words, changed the sentence around, and we've had it. Refrain from starting sentences with words like 'But' , 'Then' , 'Because' too. Following that we also fix up a spelling error you've made:

couloured should be coloured or colored.

Coloured is the UK/Australian spelling whilst 'colored' is the US version.

Next we look at the sentence following his noticing of the sword. It's very staggered and doesn't flow smoothly as it should. So by changing a few words here and there we have:

Picking it up, he examined the object, noting of its resemblance to a Dragon Longsword. What threw him off this observation though, was the fact that the blade was made up of constantly shifting red material.

We've made the sentence flow better and seem more professional. Along with that, we've combined both the two sentences together. Also 'dragon longsword' should be capitalized. From there you've made similar mistakes that I've pointed out above.

You have some practice and work to do in writing stegoslash, but you definitely have potential. The plot seems interesting and it gets the reader thinking of scenarios and answers to the questions raised - which is a good thing.

Keep at the work stegoslash and in time, you'll have advanced a lot!

Cheers.

Life, you're overgenerous.

I can't begin to enumerate the flaws in this story, and I'm sorry to say, nor can I the good points.

Life beat me to it.
I would also recommend you to read this guide: http://runescape.salmoneus.net/forums/inde...howtopic=271523
Although, it's currently being revised by me.

Oh hardly overgenerous. A review pointing out everything bad is not a review. And one could cannot spot the good things is not a reviewer (in my opinion). Every story has some good points to it.

Besides, everyone needs some support and good points to spur them on in writing. That's what made me go the distance.



Ah the secrecy!