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I just wanted to know what you people thought of this. It's for the Forlorn II, and it will be much better than the first one (it will actually have story).

 

You quickly run back to your fire.  Unfortunately, you can hear the beast following right behind you. Once you reach the fire and turn around swiftly, you find yourself staring face to face with an angry hotha. The dim orange glow of the flickering fire makes him appear even more menacing than he already would. His thin white hair and grizzled features reveal him to be an older creature, and a long deep scar is carved across his face, covering one eye.

Holding up your spear defensively, you begin to circle the fire pit, as does the hotha. You are getting closer to your rifle, but this hotha might launch itself at you before you could ready the gun. A lucky stab in the neck might down the beast, but a well aimed shot with the rifle would be a much more certain way to finish the hotha off.

"Grrrrr..." the hotha makes a deep rumbling growl somewhere in its throat.

"Easy now," you reason, "easy." It's more of an attempt to calm yourself down as opposed to calming down the beast itself.

 

This isn't the  very beginning, just to clarify.

I like the imagery you used in the passage. Though, I think instead of using the onomatopoeia "Grrrr" you should just stick to "the hotha makes a deep rumbling growl somewhere in its throat." Good work, Beardon.

Frankly, I like the use of an occasional onomatopoeia...

Agreed. If used properly, they can provide excellent immersion and imagery.

I'm a proponent of gutting almost every adverb in a story and replacing them with stronger verbs. A lot of times, less is more. A tight strong sentence can often produce better imagery than a long adverb laden one. Unless you write like Tolkien of course, then by all means, adverb away. You have some superfluous clunky words in there too that tend to distract from the story and hurt the immersion. Try reading the story out loud. That should help you pick out areas that could be edited.

I'm intrigued, but some polishing could make this better.