Forums → Art, Music, and Writing → Angel of Darkness

Hey guys I am trying to write my own novel, it is going to be called "Angel of Darkness". However, I am starting to get some writer's block and it is driving me crazy! I have been working on it for like the past month and I've only written the prologue and the 1st chapter...lol, but I think you guys could really help me out if you just read some of it and gave me some feedback. I have written tons of poems and short stories and at the risk of sounding boastful, I think I am pretty good , but I am having trouble working on something so complicated as an entire novel. I think that just by having you guys give me feedback though, it might help me to get enthusiastic about it and want to spend more time on it instead of just writing tons of poems like I have been doing lately. Okay, I am going to start with the prologue, but it is extremely long so I will break it up into a number of sections. Here is the first part of the prologue:

Damarius sat in a high backed chair, idly scanning the map of the Twelve Nations. His throne was only feet away from him, but he spent most of his time at his small and simple wooden desk, where he planned and plotted over a pile of maps and books. He was now giving his full attention to the military map of the Twelve Nations. The little red, square, wooden pieces, which marked the armies of the Red Banner, now outnumbered all other pieces on the board. It had seemed at first that the Red Banner was just a defiant, but hopeless force that would be crushed quickly. Parditia was the largest country of all, but it stood alone while the other countries had formed alliances. It had seemed hopeless, yet here Damarius sat, a puppeteer, with all the nations in the palm of his hand. He could read the naïve leaders of the other nations like an open book. He might as well give their orders instead of them, for he could easily determine how they would react to each circumstance. And he could counter them just as easily.
The actual label of war had not been declared until just within the last few decades, but it had truly started long ago. The truth of why the war started in the first place is unknown, except that it indeed happened. It could be said that it was the Lamourâs fault, when a renegade clan within their nation assassinated Gorgeon, the prince of Reinshiki. It could be said that it was the fault of the Reinshiki nation, when they sent their forces into Lamour against the unwritten law of sovereignty. It could be said that it was the fault of the other nations for joining the war instead of persuading the two to hold the peace. The only thing that is certain is that the tension between the nations had built up so much, that the tiniest spark caused by any nation could have lit the fire that would engulf the whole world. The only solution was to unite the world under one leader, Damarius.
Damariusâs plan was flawless. The world would tear itself to pieces unless someone stood up and took control, and the other nations were floundering pathetically. Someone had to take control, but not just anyone. The world needed a leader that was shrewd, strong, ingenious, and could hold the reigns of mankindâs destructive nature with an iron fist. Damarius was this man.
The war had initially started between Lamour and Reinshiki, but it quickly spread, affecting nations worldwide. When the war began to become brutal, Lamour called upon its friendly nations for aid. They initially werenât responsive, because they felt that the war was not of their matters and should be left alone. However, when the Reinshiki nation began committing more and more audacious acts of insult and disrespect in battle, Lamour convinced its allies to join the war. Thus the Triple Alliance was born. It was an alliance between three strong nations: Lamour, Reito, and Teiromon. However, no war is one sided; atrocities were being committed on both sides of the war, and when Lamourâs calls for aid were answered, Reinshiki quickly convinced its allies that all of the Triple Alliance were terrible and then the Blue Shield rose up in opposition to them. The Blue Shied consisted of a cluster of smaller nations, though powerful in numbers: Reinshiki, Bortiuvik, Dinsuku, Delfador, and Halvswic. For years the two alliances fought fiercely against each other, led by Zaire of the blue Shields and Sigmond of the Triple Alliance.
There were only four nations of the twelve that had not taken part in the war, but its affect began to pull at them too. Soon the remaining nations were grouped into powers of their own. ShriâBargdon, Ingnaseia, and Dovenia formed an alliance known as the Rose Leaf, and Parditia broke off on its own tangent and became the Red Banner. There were two main stages of the war. The first stage, also called the lesser war, and the second stage, which was later called the greater war. The first stage encompassed the beginnings of the war, when battles were only being fought between the blue Shields, and the Triple Alliance. But the war gradually inclined in brutality and breathed a plague of death down upon the earth. Thousands were being killed every day, and resources that were once used for means of progression, were now being used to create abominable contraptions of war. A once peaceful land was now transformed into a world where the lives of so many souls were being lost for a cause that their ancestors would never have wished for their so-called vindication. People fought to right an evil committed long past, but only brought evil new life in doing so. However, this was just a mere shadow to the terror that swept across the world when the Red Banner rose to power.
Damarius could be considered possibly the greatest military and tactical genius of all time. However, even though he was exceptionally shrewd about tactics and strategies, he would never have been able to gain as much power as he did without the aid of his brother, who was equally shrewd in the sciences. YinâTuang was an astoundingly ingenious inventor and scientist, and he was especially good at applying his inventions into means of destructive weapons. Damarius used this as an amplification of his lightning attacks that he would use to cripple and conquer the other nations with. Though he was not even known or recognized by the other nations until the second stage of the war, which occupied only a fraction of the full length of years that the war lasted.
The second stage of the war, or the greater war, began when the Red Banner entered the battlefield. Damarius had lain in wait while the Blue Shields and the Triple Alliance had fought for years, until they had both weakened each other enough to give Parditia a chance at victory. It would still be impossible to reach Damariusâs ultimate goal alone, to conquer the entire world, but Damariusâs brother YinâTuang was an exceptional diplomat as well as a scientist. Damarius was also, but YinâTuang was the most subtle, influential, and persuasive man alive. With YinâTuangâs power to convince the Triple Alliance that the Red Banner sincerely believed in their drive to bring about the justice of the horrid Blue Shields, the Red Banner allied itself with the Triple Alliance. Thus Damarius could manage the swift defeat of both nations by dividing them and using them against each other. He actions were very convincing to the Triple Alliance though, he used decisive and unpredictable battle tactics that the Blue Shield had never encountered before, and with the combined forces of the Triple Alliance and the Red Banner, the Blue Shield began to lose battle after battle. Then the Red Banner struck.
Damarius told Sigmond to create a final, massive army that would combine with Parditiaâs entire army and completely wipe out the Blue Shield forever. They were to gather together on the border of Reinshiki, the strongest nation of the Blue Shield, by the city of Tarz and drive their way straight into the heart of the strongest city, Rageanin. Sigmond agreed to this and after a few months he had gathered all his forces and mobilized and trained what men were left within his nation. Damarius gathered together his troops as well, which were now experienced from the battles they fought alongside the Triple Alliance, and a day was set to charge into Reinshiki and deal a blow that would shatter the Blue Shield forever. However, when the appointed day had arrived, only Sigmondâs army arrived at Tarz.
Sigmond became very suspicious and angry with Damarius, but a message was sent that Parditiaâs army had arrived, except at the city of Mortia instead. Damarius apologized to Sigmond and told him that he had decided that it would be of a greater tactical advantage to create two giant walls crashing in from either side of the enemy, rather than only attacking on a single battlefront. However, YinâTuang and Damarius had deceived all of the nations with the web of deception that they wove around them.
YinâTuang was a master of manipulation. He had spies everywhere and even covert Parditians posing in positions within the other nations. The key positions that he tried to have his spies obtain at all costs were the messengers. When the communication of a country is compromised, that country is as good as defenseless. It is a risky business, for spies must be extremely experienced and crafty to be able to go unnoticed even as a simple citizen. Having the skill to take a position where the enemy sees words and actions openly, and yet still having them be completely oblivious to the situations is hard to come by.
YinâTuang only sent his most trusted and astute spies on these missions however, and even still there was a great risk that it would backfire. The tension was so great between the nations that it could practically e touched, and people were very suspicious. It was definitely lucky, at least for the Red Banner if not for the rest of the world, that those spies were so expertly trained that they went unnoticed. It, of course, took many years to accomplish this, but by the second stage of the war the Blue Shield and the Triple Alliance had been quietly undermined by many spies while they were too busy warring with each other. Spies, however, never networked the Rose Leaf, because there was no need, but after the devastating blow to the Blue Shield, things began to change.
That great and terrible day, called the Day of Chaos by many, was a day of great bloodshed and treachery. The network of spies that YinâTuang had set up within the Triple Alliance and the Blue Shield were used immensely on that day. Intel was received by Zaire, the leader of the Blue Shield, that the Triple Alliance was gathering a large army along the border of Reinshiki and were planning to invade. The fact that Parditiaâs army was present was masked though, and their information was also laced with false Intel that stated that the Triple Alliance were not yet mobilized, but were waiting for a large supplement of weaponry. YinâTuang had his spies give many subtle insinuations that the Triple Allianceâs army was temporarily vulnerable.
Zaire, upon hearing this, seized the open opportunity and began grouping his soldiers as quickly as he could and organized them into two large armies. The larger of the two he sent to attack the enemies on the border by Tarz from behind, the other he arrayed out in a long line in the city of Oospava. His plan was to catch the enemy by surprise and at a vulnerable moment with his larger army and drive them into Oospava. There, his long line of soldier would rise up over the hill and come crashing down upon them, completely encompassing the Triple Allianceâs forces and obliterating them. It seemed that victory might finally be met for the Blue Shield after such a long war. Zaire sent his most experienced veteran, General Klavare, to lead the driving attack upon the enemy, and he himself waited with the second army that would trap and slaughter the enemy once and for all. The soldierâs moral was at its highest peak since the beginning of the war, excitement and anticipation buzzed within the ranks of soldiers. The end was near.
Sigmond was also extremely confident, as were his soldiers. They too felt that victory was inevitable. The two great alliances had been battling for years, but now they had the fresh, large army of Parditia on their side. Parditia was the largest country in the world, and Damarius was a fantastic military leader. The Blue Shield had gradually been chipped and scraped with each battle, but this was the battle to end them all, the battle when the Blue Shield would shatter and be broken forever. When the world would finally have peace and when the Triple Alliance would finally be avenged of the atrocities that the Blue Shield had wrought upon them. The soldiers raised the banner depicting the white triangle of the Triple Alliance that day, and rushed into battle shouting war cries with elevated spirits. They ran eagerly to their doom.