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Shorts
A Mountain Climbing Expedition
By babar
30 March 2005
Just something I wrote for fun. I am proud of the basic idea, but I am sure there are going to be many "literary errors". Hence, I posted it here. Hopefully someone can offer suggestions to help me make it more readable and better flowing.

**After seeing all the comments**

Nice to see so many people enjoyed it. You have convinced me into writing a longer piece, but it will be a while before I can work on it.

We had arrived. We set up camp at the base of the great Mt. Gilihwantaro. Our mission was to make contact with the remote mountain tribe of the Boosi n'Kaka. This tribe was rumoured to have discovered the 392 uses of goat milk. We were hoping to befriend them and gain access to their unique, but vast library of information.
My team consisted of myself as the leader; Gogo Yaki, a linguistic expert who was the only non-tribesman to speak the language of the Boosi n'Kakans; Professor Lee Chee, a learned botanist, who's knowledge we were hoping to trade for information on goat milk; and two professional mountain climbers, who had climbed mountains numerous times, without however looking for remote mountain tribes.
At the base we procured the services of three locals. They agreed to guide us with their knowledge of the area, as well as carry our luggage, in exchange for eight hours of internet time using our satellite equipment and laptop.
Our other luggage consisted of 350 highly distasteful "NRG Bars", which claimed to keep you hunger-free for one day; a water boiling and purification kit; four highly portable tents; and a goat, foreign to the region, which we were hoping to provide as a gift to the tribe. As we wished to start the climb during daylight, we retired to our tents.
When we awoke the next morning, we discovered that the three locals we had employed had fled along with most of our luggage. All they had left -unsurprisingly- were 349 NRG bars. Not wishing to look like complete fools, we decided to continue our mission. Thankfully, our climbing equipment had not been stolen, mainly due to the fact that it had been in the tents with our professional mountain climbers.

_______TWO WEEKS LATER_________

Our team was in disarray. The mountain climbing experts were hugely disgruntled. They had found out that while they had been forced to eat NRG bars day after day, Gogo Yaki and the professor had been feasting on the local foliage, which they had told the mountain climbers was poisonous. Surprisingly, despite these divisions, we had progressed quite far, and were nearing the area of the Boosi n'Kakan sightings.
I foolishly attempted healing the divisions, but aggravated them further. Soon the mountain climbers were involved in a full fledged battle against the linguistic expert and botanist. Crampons, hooked ropes, NRG bars, and multilingual insults were flying through the air. I silently backed away to a safe distance. As I left, the botanist was applying poisonous paste to his crampons, and the linguistic expert had just finished portuguese, and was warming up with pashto insults.
I returned to the site of the battle after the cries had died down, only to discover that everyone had died, either from impalement by hooked ropes and poisoned crampons, or by stuffing of NRG bars into sensitive orifices. None of the equipment was in usable condition. I was alone, stranded halfway up a mountain. Suddenly, I spied the goat. Exploding with inspiration, I jumped on it's back, and rode straight down the mountain. SALVATION!

Reviews
Well, I say!
Written by spiderbaby49 (137 comments posted) 31st March 2005
After a fairly wordy beginning, a sudden descent into anarchy and murder and a very quick ending , getaway by goat. 
 
It did make me laugh out loud! Not sure if that was the reaction you were ;ooking for! 
 
I reads like you had a plan at the beginning and got fed up with the story so killed them all off and made a quick tie up. 
 
I might very well come back to this and go over it in more detail, outlining where you could improve some things and maybe put some more into it to make the adventure complete. 
 
spidey
Good idea
Written by Lizzy_babe (10 comments posted) 31st March 2005
Hi there Babar 
 
The overall idea for this story is great and I would like to see an expanded version. I agree with spiderbaby's comment about the story perhaps finishing too abruptly; the pace of the second half was certainly a lot quicker and different to that of the first half. (I often find myself that I have an idea for an ending in mind and have to stop myself from skimming through the rest of the story to write it) 
 
I enojyed your sense of humour throughout the story, especially during the scrum towards the end. Also, bringing the goat back into the story as your salvation was a neat twist.  
 
Would love to read this in a longer version. ;)
goats rule ok
Written by Fay (16 comments posted) 11th April 2005
I agree the idea of the story is great, but it would need expanding and you would need to make the characters more credible to make it really worthwhile. An expanded version would be better.
Was it meant to read like a statement.
Written by DustinBowcott (66 comments posted) 2nd May 2005
Not very descriptive and, forgive me if you are under fifteen, a total waste of time.

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