Author’s Notes: Am I crazy? Why am I doing this, showing the world my very worst work? You don’t see J.K. Rowling publishing her work as an 11 year old, even though she professes to have been writing since age six. I honestly don’t have a good answer for that. I consider this a kind of literary experiment, a way to learn about the writing process and the evolution of learning how to write better. There is so much that could be improved upon here it almost pains me to leave it as is. If there’s one thing this experiment proves, at least, it’s that a story is so much more than a string of events.
Every writer arrives at mastery (or at least competence) by a different path. Some are born predisposed for word play or grammar, but I was never good at any of that. All I had was an insatiable imagination. If genres can be said to fall into the category of a medium, then whatever category mediums fall into—let’s call them “things”—is what I loved: stories, any kind of stories, from books or movies or comics or games, whatever ignited the flame of my imagination.
Thangar II
Chapter 5
The castle was astoundingly huge and dreadful. It looked thousands of years old with spider webs and slime. The roof reached up to the vanishing point.
All was silent and an evil cold blew in with the wind. Back to back Thangar and Sint held their swords, entering with caution. They walked silently into an area of complete darkness.
Suddenly, a blast of fire burst from the ground! It was as if the earth opened and the core blew out. A few more steps, and they would have been fried.
The fire lit up the place but turned the room into an oven. Sint and Thangar ran back, but a door slammed in front of them. Even their swords were useless against it. They had to go forward—and then the roof grew spikes and so did the floor, which elevated to crush them! They were trapped between a door on their left and fire to their right. And there was the crushing floor and roof too! The safest way, it seemed, was straight into the fire. They took a rope and tied it to Sint’s sword, then threw the sword up, which stuck to the roof. One by one, they swung across the pit of fire, giving themselves great, grave pain. Thangar went first and then Sint.
Suddenly, halfway across, the sword came loose and fell along with Sint. Sint quickly flipped across, barely making it to the other side of the pit, which was good, but his sword was lost in the fire! And he needed it to fight an enemy guard at the exit. It was Eeya-To-Shun, a Japanese samurai. His large sword clashed with Thangar’s and Sint wanted to help. Eeya karate kicked Thangar down and Thangar’s sword flew backward. Eeya then lifted his sword for the killing blow.
Meanwhile, Sint saw the rope still in the fire pit. He bravely stuck his hand into it and got the rope and pulled out his sword, which was on fire. Sint grabbed the burning sword and blocked Eeya’s sword, saving Thangar. Then, with all of his strength, Sint thrust forward, stabbing the samurai. The fire from the sword slowly burned Eeya-To-Shun from the inside out.
Sint helped Thangar up and screamed in pain, having fought with a burning sword.
The Art of Storytelling 
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