Here’s a look behind the scenes at my attempt at writing a story that is not goofy. It may come as a shock to those who know me, but sometimes I am not quite able to attain a perfect state of solemn seriousness, and as a result you get the stuff on this blog, and not a Russian novel. But I did try to write a somewhat serious fantasy story a couple years ago. It was about a young thief named Alador in a medieval-ish fantasy city. In chapter 1, I think he did some sort of theft thing. Alador was also a university student, and as chapter two began he was waking up from a nap in the university library. I had a few false starts beginning that chapter, but just for fun I kept my failed attempts instead of erasing them.

Alador awoke as a shadow darkened his corner of the library. He looked up and saw his DOOM!! It attacked him. He tried to fight back, but it was difficult to defend himself against such a generic foe. He couldn’t figure out if it was stabbing him or flinging him into a pit of acid. Doom could come in so many forms. This time, though, he realized, it wasn’t his doom after all. It was someone else’s DOOM!!! It went and doomed some other poor bloke. Alador went back to sleep. And awaited his fate… or did he?

Alador awoke as a shadow darkened his corner of the library. He looked up and saw a strange-looking man looking at him. Looking at the strange-looking man who was looking like he was looking at Alador, Alador looked looky look look look.

Alador awoke as a shadow darkened his corner of the library. He looked up and saw a strange-looking man standing a few feet away. The figure was wrapped in shadows, and his features were so obscured that the only thing Alador could determine was that he was strange-looking.

Eventually I did finish the first paragraph. The second paragraph got off to a rocky start as well:

Alador was afraid the man was going to draw attention to him. He didn’t advertise the fact that he was a thief, since he only wanted clients, not guards, coming to his door. Or rather, he met them somewhere safe. Yes. Not at his house.