2012-07-30 - TheSadDragon - The Lady and The Fool - Chapter 1

[TheSadDragon]

Hello all,

Here is the first chapter of the novel I'm currently working on. The working title being "The Lady and The Fool" -- a title that is probably going to change as soon as I think of a better name XD

I hope you all enjoy reading it, for I will enjoy reading the feedback

-TSD

[Asmodemon]

It’s nice to read a detective in a fantasy setting again. It has been done, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be done again. You do invite comparisons though. I’ve enjoyed Glen Cook’s Garrett PI series and Eddie LaCrosse by Alex Bledsoe. Your main character is Eodral, which is shortened to Ed, which looks a lot like Eddie. You might want to consider that.

So far I haven’t seen enough of the setting yet to really appreciate it or see how it differs from other settings. The same for the main character, but that might come with time. I enjoyed the ending, but the rest doesn’t really hook me all that strongly.

Slow start: The start of this chapter doesn’t really hook me. It feels like I’ve seen this kind of beginning many times before, the detective is waiting for a case, one happens, delivered by a (beautiful) woman like most detective stories, he talks to the client, investigates a little by going to a bar, doesn’t get anywhere until some goons show up (which also happens quite often in detective stories), and then follows them. Now, the ending of the chapter I liked, that’s a hook to continue reading, but it should happen sooner.

Previous night’s endeavours: Maybe the previous night was the finishing touch on a previous case or perhaps something else happened, but Ed got in a fight, got hurt (though that’s never mentioned anywhere later), but took the guy who attacked him down. This sounds like a more interesting point to start the story.

Had: You use the word ‘had’ an awful lot in the chapter (40 times, approximately) and it slows the pacing of the piece down. Everything ‘had happened’, which feels further in the past compared to when they ‘happened’.

Inexperienced: I don’t know if you were going for this, but Ed seems very inexperienced. He wonders how Eral and Gray fit together, but can’t figure it out. Makes perfect sense, since he doesn’t know either person and was given little to work with. The fact that he dwells on that makes him seem very young. If you made it like the following he’d seem smarter:

It would seem that our friend Eral was mixed up with some less than reputable people. Putting the note down on the desk I looked back up at the young aristocratic woman. “If I might ask miss, what exactly is your connection to this man?”

Also, when he says “You don’t need to answer that miss”, he’s too quick on the draw. The woman only blushed, she made no significant sign that she was offended or wasn’t going to tell him, yet he immediately gave her an out.

Five = Ten: The woman asks if five crowns will be enough, but she puts ten crowns on the table.

Language: Language is a little rough here and there, missing words and the like or the occasional run on sentence such as:

“From her raised eyebrow I figured she was a bit sceptical as to what I was about to get her dragged in to but her curiosity eventually won out and with a sigh she asked me what it was all about.”

And instead of ‘subtle’ you use ‘subtitle’ or ‘Subtil’.

Goons: The bruisers who threaten the barman aren’t very good. All muscle and no brain power, they wouldn’t know what to do to find someone. He lets himself be schooled by his victim, he can’t read the situation at all and he doesn’t seem smart enough to actually lead a search. It feels like he’s just there to be stupid and provide a lead to Ed.

Conclusion: In all this chapter was a quick read, but nothing much happened that I haven’t seen before. I think that’s something to consider as you move along.

[Jack the Halls]

Asmodemon is right on the money about everything. He hit on almost every point I had in my notes, so...

Some additional thoughts:

The inexperience thing. An example of how to get past it: He thinks, "What's her connection?" then thinks about it some more and decides to ask her. Instead, he should just ask her because that's always the first question he asks.

If you're going to have a beautiful woman walk into his office, he needs to be way more suspicious. Especially about the ring bit. You do not want to him to come across as a dupe because a ) it doesn't make sense that he could stay in business, and b ) too easy. Also, him being an elf, maybe he doesn't really think she's beautiful, though he knows other humans might. That's at least a little bit more interesting, and it brings the fantastical element of the world more into the foreground.

I like the idea of the dog, but the fact that he can't take care of it doesn't really ring true. This is a fantasy setting, which means even if it is a big city, it shouldn't be that hard for him to keep a dog. Go home, feed him. In the real world, people who work a lot don't need dog sitters, especially if they train their dogs well. Also, the dog could stay at his office. Either way, I like that he has a dog. Reminds me of The Last Detective.

People calling each other by their names (or variants thereof). This is most prevalent in the scene with his sister where he keeps calling her sis, and she keeps calling him Ed. People don't use names like that, and it makes the dialogue feel stilted. I have two sisters and I've probably called them by their names, to their faces, when no one else was around, maybe like... twice in their entire lives. I could understand if there was a chance of confusing who was talking to whom, but this is one on one conversation and it's unnecessary.

Edited August 1, 2012 by Jack the Halls

[JamesW]

I already talked with you about a lot of this chapter in the IRC chat, but maybe a few other things I can add here.

Firstly: I agree with what the other two posters have said. It feels very familiar, and while that isn't a bad thing, it almost feels 'too' familiar. If you're using this familiar and then are going to totally pull the rug out from under us, I'm all for that, but if this becomes predictable, or if the familiar stays much too familiar, there might be issues.

I was totally jolted out of the story when you mentioned "since the shattering." I started wondering what was shattered, and what happened, and it seemed to me to be a much more interesting thing then a guy looking for a noblewomans lover.

Overall I like the setting, I didn't get a feeling for the steampunkyness of the setting, but I know you were saying that it's there.

I know you're blending the steampunk/fantasy setting, and have Trolls and elves and such, but the second reference about a Troll seemed a little forced. "Even the densest Jotunn bouncer" and "Even the most socially inept Troll." Those two lines seemed much too similar to me, so it felt like you were forcing the reference to a troll.

Maybe you could say something like, "Even that socially inept troll in the corner, (description of how he's socially inept, at least visually), would have done a better job..."

I don't know what adding a troll in the tavern would do for your story, but if he had a reason for making this reference it might help the flow.

[cjhuitt]

I think the others covered most of my thoughts on the content of the chapter, so I'll just mention a few things about the style.

The detective stories I've read generally have a stark tone to them, noir or not. (Mostly noir, though). As a general observation, most of the sentences in this chapter were long and complex, with multiple phrases in each sentence. If you are going for a starker tone, I think this detracts from the feeling. Shorter, more declarative sentences would help, although of course you can go overboard that way as well.

For example, you wrote:

It had been a quiet day, and for once that was a good thing. With next month’s rent already in the bank, I had spent the better part of the day nursing the iron-bruise that the previous night's endeavours had earned me. It had almost been funny the way the fellow had been waving that iron-rod around like some night candle.

This could be recreated as:

It had been a quite day. Not normally my thing, but good this once. The bank had next month's rent, and I nursed an iron-bruise. Both courtesy of the previous night's work. It was almost funny the way the fellow swung that iron-rod around. What did he think it was, some kind of night candle?

Now, I tried to just use your words in a different style, but undoubtedly some of my own style leaked through. Still, hopefully the contrast is useful. Also, per Asmodemon's observation, I'll repeat the two with the "had"s emphasized:

It had been a quiet day, and for once that was a good thing. With next month’s rent already in the bank, I had spent the better part of the day nursing the iron-bruise that the previous night's endeavours had earned me. It had almost been funny the way the fellow had been waving that iron-rod around like some night candle.

It had been a quite day. Not normally my thing, but good this once. The bank had next month's rent, and I nursed an iron-bruise. Both courtesy of the previous night's work. It was almost funny the way the fellow swung that iron-rod around. What did he think it was, some kind of night candle?

The descriptions seem a little hit-and-miss. For example, the pillow clad basket for the dog, but the Miss Gray was just "the stunning human lady", with soot-less shoes and a fancy ring. We don't get a description of the shoes or the ring, and this is one way that detectives (or other characters) can look smart -- or at least competent -- to the reader: by having the reader get the details as well, then the character interpret them properly. In this case, we don't know enough about the environment to remark on those things, but it's not necessarily a bad idea to start establishing that pattern; show the details, then deduce something from them.

My last style observation is a general one, and I mention it often because I think it is important, and that is removing extra words. You certainly don't need to do so at this stage in the game, but I think that would make the chapter flow more quickly and get us in and (hopefully) hooked by the last part of the chapter before we start thinking about how similar this is to other detective setups.

Finally, one nitpick of the believability aspect. The note that Miss Gray finds: would it really have Eral's name on it? Maybe you need it to be that way for plot reasons, but it seems the name is unnecessary, and could be too specifically damning if the wrong people find it. Besides, how many people are going to see a note left in the middle of the table in Eral's apartment? Generally speaking, probably only Eral.

I'll end by echoing Asmodemon on the end of this chapter being a good hook.