2/27/2012 LongTimeUnderdog, C&F Prologue

[LongTimeUnderdog]

The Prologue to a story I insist on finishing, if for nothing else, practice.

[Hubay]

Hey! We've missed you around here.

I've read all of your last run through C&F except the prologue (if you had one last time around?), and if anything this prologue makes me even more confused over what your world is like. You've given us three very different settings, between this, the desert, and the city. I think that's alright, though, since your story seems to be set pretty far back in time and there would be a lot of variety between nomadic and settled people.

Anyways, I liked this and it hinted at some pretty interesting possibilities. You still seem to awkwardly alternate between flowery descriptions and sharp actions, but it's a lot smoother than I remember. You've definitely improved.

My major gripes are with how you're withholding information. I get that you don't want to explain everything right away, and you want to pique the readers interest, but a few of your protagonist's thoughts are too cryptic; you're calling attention to it. I don't think you need to give us any more information, or add any exposition, just be a little more subtle in not telling us about the past. Does that make sense?

Anyways, I'm looking forward to reading your submissions once again.

[LongTimeUnderdog]

It's nice to be back and thank you for reading. I never have quite figured out what to do with this prologue, only that it needs to be there. And not so much because of some awkward desire, but because of Traxix and Salem. I suppose several more drafts are in order to make it less confusing. Anyway, thank you for your input, very helpful.

[cjhuitt]

I'm pretty sure this is the first thing I've read from you.

In short: I was very confused.

In a little longer, I was confused from the start, kind of thought I was getting the hang of things, then everything when crazy on me once more and I felt I knew less than I did at the beginning.

To start with, the beginning drops right into a scene without much explanation. That's really not uncommon, and from what I can tell it is relatively easy to understand even without the explanation. This Traxix fellow made a cage for himself, and is now in it. We get to see Traxix being happy everyone is safe, and there are a couple of confusing aspects to it (a Valsish eye?), but I can mostly grasp what's going on here, and hope that either the Valsish eye isn't important, or that it would have a more complete explanation later.

The part about the door (that isn't a door) was a little confusing also, but I was able to grasp it on a second read. Right after that, however, came "the voice of long friends laughing", which completely threw me off. I kind of hope it was just an editing mistake, because otherwise I am completely confused by it. Especially at the beginning of a fantasy (I think) story, where I can't be sure what is or isn't meant to be metaphor.

The conversation with Salem (somewhat like banter, but not quite) was good. I didn't feel overly confused by anything, and was actually starting to get intrigued by some of the things hinted at in the conversation.

It diverts to him filling the cage with her image, which is a little confusing but not overly so. I can assume it is set to psychically mirror what he thinks about or something, like a super-advanced biofeedback device set up for punishment. However, you describe his wife as having a broad chest, sculpted muscles, coarse hair of a stubbly beard... and somewhere in there I realize that you somehow decided to describe him instead of her, despite all my expectations from the opening of the paragraph.

How long was the slat closed between Salem and the woman he thought might be his daughter? I read it as moments, maybe a few minutes, which kind of meshed with the surreal vibe I was getting from the whole thing anyway, and reinforced it. If that wasn't your intention, you might want to consider a bit more emphasis on the passage of time.

Once the Calor enters the picture, I begin to think I see the course for the rest of the prologue, more or less. Of course, it doesn't go anywhere near the way I thought, so I won't belabor that. I mention this mostly so you know what one reader thought around this point, and that the changes from what I expected weren't pleasant surprises as much as reinforcing the confusion I was starting to feel before.

On a second read, I can see that the reappearance of the woman at the slat, with her read hair, was only an image he conjured. The first time through, I thought it was another visitor, or possibly the same one, but there was no interaction between them.

The jump between the warden appearing to inform him of the trial and his appearance in the Cathundrum was quite abrupt, to me. Perhaps you meant it to be.

I was also confused by Charoh and the judge floating on song and harmonies. Again, I wasn't sure if this was poetic description, or meant to be an accurate description of what was happening. This was also the first time we saw anything much apart from the cage, which I imagined to be fairly bland and sterile. However, there is little in the way of description to place it. I actually was wanting a bit more description through here, of some of the lesser aspects. The judge, the crowd, the building they were in, maybe the weather and what it reminds Traxix of... things like that. Especially the judge, who is simply described as having skeletal hands, a white skull of a head (metaphor or "real"?), and the legs and tail of a running lizard. Since this is pretty far from the mental image of a judge that I have, you might want to explain a touch more for it.

I thought the turn about of Charoh was pleasantly unexpected, when she started testifying for Traxix instead of against him. Her death was much more unexpected, not pleasant, but speaking as an author, a nice touch.

From her death (or, at least, wounding) to the end read to me like a series of cars on an icy highway. A lot of things are happening, some of them predictable and some not, but when taken together it's a mass of confusion and unpredictability. So far as I can tell, you've pushed everything together here, mixing the action, the crowd's reactions, and Traxix's reactions all together at once. However, it reads almost like three parallel things happening, instead of each one causing another, and being caused by a previous.

Near the end, I was also intrigued and confused by the idea of a large amount of time before the sun would shine again. I would hope this is developed further.

Finally, the end, with Salem killing Traxix. This was also totally unexpected to me, and not in a good way. I didn't think it was set up enough to support that twist (and still don't, on a reread). Also, in doing this, you've killed (or apparently killed) the only character to whom I've cared about, or at least been intrigued by. Even absent the confusion, I have little incentive at this point to keep reading. There is some curiosity about the setting, but nothing I feel drive me to chapter 1. I am slightly curious why Salem would do this, and what he thinks he would gain, but I mostly don't know him enough well enough to want to find those things out.

This ended up being a longer amount than I expected (although you could have read the short version I started with). I'll mention again that there were parts in there I thought were well-written, and some of the twists throughout the prologue surprised me in good ways, so don't take my criticisms too out of proportion.

[LongTimeUnderdog]

Thank you very much for your input. It is much appreciated. Trying to find a good run that incorporates all the aspects I want into this little diddy has proven . . . more difficult then I hoped. The other complication I'm dealing with (or perhaps putting too much stock in) is a Point of View problem. As the world is unveiled to Traxix, things that seem very odd to us are very common place to him. "Yep, it's a flying Dais." This is some tenth incarnation of this prologue. I tried cutting it, and things were worse off (in my opinion anyway). So it's back.

thank you again, and I look forward to more of your input.

[cjhuitt]

The other complication I'm dealing with (or perhaps putting too much stock in) is a Point of View problem. As the world is unveiled to Traxix, things that seem very odd to us are very common place to him.

Just today, I was listening to WE 6.12 (Revising for Description) and in it, Brandon mentions that a lot of starting authors struggle with just this issue. You might try giving it another listen, if you think it would help.

I sometimes hit shuffle on the playlist with the episodes and see what comes up. Occasionally it's quite appropriate, and I often find another perspective on some part of the story I'm working on at the time.

[Asmodemon]

Hey LTU, good to see you back here, it’s been a while since I read something of yours. It’s nice that you’re coming back to this story. I’ve read what you submitted of the two previous iterations of the Canticle and the Forge, back when it was still also the Name of God, and the prologue instantly feels familiar to me. I like to see where you’re taking it this time.

I did have some problems with the language while reading the prologue. You’ve got some really flowery parts that were a bit confusing here and there. The confusion comes in two variations, the first is that the flowery descriptions create a contradiction in my mind. The first sentence is an obvious example of this, “hollow echo of happy tears”.

The other thing is that the flowery descriptions take too long before you get to the point, or subject, of the sentence. Take for example: “The blood long since dried and clotted made a dark stain on the bed which he, so high and so fallen, sat.”

You go into the description of the blood, making me wonder where you’re going with it, before saying the blood stains a bed. Only at the very end of the sentence do I know it’s the bed on which Traxix sits.

The prologue suffers from some missing words here and there. I can fill in the blanks in a couple places, but elsewhere it leaves a sentence that I can’t parse. That made the prologue a bit jarring to read. You also raised some expectations here and there, which you then broke for no reason I can discern. For example, when Traxix starts to imagine Charoh in his cage I expect to be given her description, but instead you write how Traxix looks. Later I expect Charoh at the slats, not his daughter. At first that confused me, did Traxix marry his daughter? It was only later I realized that this wasn’t Charoh at all.

Plotwise I liked the chapter – I recall Traxix (or who I think must be Traxix) from the interludes of the previous iteration. This prologue answers a lot of questions I had about him from those interludes. It also raises questions that, without the knowledge of what I’ve already read before, are more confusing than tantalizing. I understand that to Traxix certain things are so normal he doesn’t even think about them, but to the reader these things are not normal.

Things like the “Eye”, “Dissonant”, “Shroud”, “the Calor”, etc. It’s a lot to take in and combine that with sentence structures that are confusing that makes the prologue harder to read than it should be. Do you need to mention everything right now, or can some terms be cut, or explained, or likened to something the reader would know?

The trial confused me too. You never explain why Charoh condemned Traxix only to speak up for him at the trial she instigated.

I like the reversal at the end, the attack of the Calor and the best friend who wasn’t so good a friend after all. Maybe you could have laid a little bit more groundwork when they talked in his prison, but in all it didn’t bother me at all. Looking forward to more, though that’s more based on what I’ve read before than what I got in the prologue – right now the confusion hampers the story.