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If you've been online recently, you might have seen this image going around. Here's a detailed description if you haven't:

https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/orc-city

People have been making tons of memes criticizing this guy's writing, and that's fine. We've all written bad stuff. It comes with the territory of being a writer.

Anyway, I was thinking about it, and I wanted to make my own version. As a disclaimer, I don't know anything about the novel this is from, I'm only focusing on this excerpt here. I'll include some analysis of the original and an explanation of my thought process at the bottom.

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PROLOGUE

"Drink your ambrosia and don't spill a drop!

Or the big bad orc is gonna eat you up!"

- Elven nursery rhyme

King Gaelin looked out over his conquest from atop what remained of the city's ramparts. Swathes of orcs littered the streets, the smell of their burning flesh tickling the King's nostrils. Elven soldiers stabbed the bodies with their spears as they passed, even though they knew they were already dead.

The orc city was now nameless. Everything about it was to be erased from the historical records by the time the last ember stopped burning. That was the way of the elves. Not even memory could survive.

King Gaelin didn't bother gathering his troops in front of him before he spoke. His Orator's Voice spell carried his words for miles.

"My brothers!" He boomed. "Dawn is breaking! Our nightmare nears its end! The last bastion of the orcs has fallen, and soon, every one of those foul creatures shall be purged from the Earth!"

The soldiers needed no spell to amplify their voices. Their cheers roared throughout the city, and reverberated into the very bones of the few surviving orcs still in the valley.

The nightmare had barely begun.

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Now, I'll go into my thoughts on the original version, as well as my thought process on my version. A simple summary of the events in the passage is: The elf king gives a speech after the elves destroy an orc city. The content itself isn't bad, but the way it's conveyed in the original is pretty bland. I wanted to convey the same information in a more interesting way while also planting seeds for where the story might go next.

First, telling the audience that the elves hate the orcs. I thought of using an epigraph to add a bit of in-universe flavor, and I settled on an elven nursery rhyme to suggest that the elves are taught to hate the orcs since childhood. This conveys the information and provides a bit of worldbuilding at the same time. I added some extra bits, like the soldiers stabbing the corpses and the king enjoying the smell of burning flesh, just to drive the point home.

In updating the king's speech, I thought it would make sense for him to congratulate his army and point them towards their next objective. In the original, he says that they hate the orcs, which should be obvious, since they just burned an orc city to the ground.

Finally, I wanted to give an idea of what comes next. This is a prologue, after all. Since the story starts with the war ending, and since the elves hate the orcs so much, I think it makes sense that the next step is for the elves to hunt down any survivors.

______

To those who've read this far, thank you! This was a fun creative writing exercise and I hope other people try it as well.

Let me know your thoughts, and let me know if you decide to take on this challenge yourself! Maybe we should get a hashtag going?

#RewriteOrcCity

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happy electric feel friday

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Some wise words from the masterminds behind undertale and deltarune

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I can't stop watching this- it's been stuck on loop for 4 hours. Somebody- help me.

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nobody lures you into the fog anymore

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my liege we your council would not advise this course of action but we all agree it would be pretty funny regardless

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Please stop trigger tagging with #epilepsy tw/cw/warning/etc.

I need every single person to understand how horrible tumblr’s tagging system is

I go into the tag for epilepsy and its all flashing lights. We can’t use our own tag because people without epilepsy fill it up with improper warnings.

Use ‘flashing’ in place of ‘epilepsy’ in your tags. You aren’t warning people of epileptics, you’re warning us of flashing lights. Please please tag properly. Epileptics say this endlessly and constantly and it’s ignored. You are risking lives by doing this.

Here’s proof of what I mean:

THIS POST IS 100% OKAY TO REBLOG, I ENCOURAGE PEOPLE WITHOUT EPILEPSY TO ESPECIALLY DO SO!

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my son got all A’s in school so i got him a happy meal

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Omg sonadow for Valentine's ❤️💙

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David Altmejd Faces Modern Art, London January 23 – February 14, 2015

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fuckk i should put eggs near my dog

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do not joke about the advertisements, do not engage with the advertisements in witty fashions, do not, fucking, mention the contents of the advertisements. as soon as an advertisement enters your mind, you kill it, dont care how cute it is, take it out back and shoot it. install adblock, ublock, mute the volume, look away, turn off the monitor, cover your ears, paint over it. evolve your mind, your modality, your instincts, to disregard the stimuli of advertisements before you can even process it. whatever it takes, you do not let them win. and thats an order.

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A pound of smoked salmon for the lady. STAT

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it’s cheaper to buy vegetables here

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Boss is asleep, cannot stop me from frogposting

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wafel