29.10.12 - Haradion Drogon - The Bloodlands - Prolouge - V,

[Haradion Drogon]

Firstly, please let me introduce myself. My username is Haradion Drogon, though my Real name is Ben Lowe.

I found this site after reading Brandon sanderson's novels, and saw this group and decided to give it a whirl. I have always wanted to write and publish a book, even if it was just me who bought it - but Well, things never really picked off after the first chapter. This time however, I decided to sit down, and properly plan out the novel, chapter by chapter before writing it, so I knew where the story was going, and what was going to happen.

This change in style brought me to actualy finishing the first chapter, which is an achievement, and I actualy think I might get this book finished. So yay me. This is the first time I have ever released any of my serious work, so please be gentle.

Nnah, just kidding, if you hate it, say you hate it, but let me know why.

On to the Book.

Okay. This is the Prolouge of my first Novel I am writting. Its called: The Bloodlands. If it goes well, It will be called: The Bloodwar Cycle: Book 1, The Bloodlands.

But that is very optimistic.

This is the thread for the prologue. It serves as a little background history for the novel, because the main story takes place around 65 years later. Themes will include War, Peace, Romance, Betrayal. Pretty much your average Fantasy novel. My Wordcount Target is 75000 words, but I am only at 5000 so far, but thats the end of the second chapter so it may well exceed 75000 eventualy. For now though, 75000 is my target.

I intend to release more chapters as I write them, but for now, here is the prolouge.

I am not really looking for anything much in the way of a review, but I do want to know your thoughts and feelings, how well it holds your attention, how much you want to "read on" so to speek, as the Prolouge is designed to grap the auidence's attention and hold it. So its very immportant to me that you let me know how well it does that.

Other than that, anything you want to say is welcome, along with any tips for improving my writing.

I'll just let you get on with it now shall I?

[Eri]

Congratulations for beginning!

One thing that strikes me: Kaliban is a name from Shakespeare. OK, it's spelled Caliban, but pronounced the same. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caliban I could not help thinking about your legendary hero as that guy.

If it's incidental, you ahould probably change the name. But no need to worry: Elantris was in first draft called... Atlantis. Unintentionally.

I liked the beginning, read it with pleasure and I would probably continue to read if it was a book. The battle with the witch was rather anticlimactic — he attacked her, they fought (he must be really good BTW if he survived this long), she died without his action. I wish he had some influence on the events.

Also, if Kaliban is later revealed to be a warlock or something like that, it would be kinda predictable. But I play too much RPGs or read too much Sanderson, I'm paranoid of characters, universe and everything, so maybe you should just ignore that.

Generally, it reads really well and I think it's OK as the first version. Do not fix it, write further.

[Glaring at the Survivor]

Although it was called a desert, wasteland would be far more accurate, because it was not a hot or sandy place. It was cold, windy, dusty and dry.

A desert is actually a place that gets under a certain amount of rainfall. Up north, deserts are cold, and usually, during the night, hot deserts become cold.

They were beating the Scardrons back, but slowly. The Scardrons were almost as exhausted as the humans were but like their adversities they fought on.

When you say 'they' here, I first think you are talking about the Scardrons. You may want to say 'humans' or something.

Also, at the beginning of the bprologue, I sort of get the feeling of a third person view, which you switch to second, and it seems back to 3rd at one quick point. Other than that, along with a few spelling errors and lack of spaces, I think you did a pretty good job.

That last few sentences left me wanting to read on, but, well, honestly, I'd read on either way. I guess you can't take my say on that then.

[Haradion Drogon]

Thanks everyone for the reviews! I think they will help alot! I have been working on the next chapter, and can hopefully send it round this monday. So thank you all!

[cjhuitt]

Since you are still in the middle of writing the book, I'm not going to give a more detailed critique, because I've found that those cause me (and some others) problems while writing the first draft. (By the way, are you aware of NaNoWriMo? The whole goal is to write a story during November. Sure, you started a bit early, but you could still have a goal of writing 50,000 or more additional words on your story in November, and hopefully finish it also.)

Instead of critique, I'll give some of the impressions I got while reading it.

The "zoom in" at the beginning was decent. It's not normally something I encourage for beginnings, but it worked for me for this one.

It seems slightly unusual for me to see a lieutenant out in man-to-man fighting instead of trying to direct anything, but maybe that's the point the fighting has gotten to.

Mmm, a good demon fight. Heroic action all around, it appears, against nicely malevolent foes.

This may be described in the world as witchcraft, but it seems like some seriously powerful magic to me.

Is Kirrin going to be a main character, or at least viewpoint character, in the rest of the book? I kind of expected him to die fighting in the prologue, although that obviously didn't happen. I expected him to be able to hold his own for a bit, then be struck down and see the rest of the results as he was dying. This could also work if he is more seriously injured, though you might have to have someone else behead the bloodwitch instead if that was the case.

You do have some details and words that could be trimmed down, plus the occasional typo, but don't worry about those at this point. Those are for the second (third, fourth, etc) draft.

[Haradion Drogon]

Thanks for the review and tips. Kirrin is not intended to be used as a viewpoint character later, though I may have him pop up at some point. The rest of the story continues 65 years after this battle, with the bloodlands discovering a way to extend the reach of the Spire, and continue their battle. the rest of the world pays little attention, because newly the country is a nation of thieves, murderers, traitors and other exiles. This turns out to be a mistake as they turn out to be far more advanced then anyone gave them credit for, and have increased their magical knowledge dramatically.

The reason why its called witchcraft, is up until the war, people believed in magic about as much as they do now, in our world I mean. No one took it seriously, apart from a few quacks. Until Mardrade vaporized the Kings advisor that is.

Mardrade and Kaliban are long dead, the main view point characters will be Xerress, the bastard daughter of Mardrade, her three offspring, Lieneth, Valaessa, and Ethen, whilst other main characters are Kestyle, Kaliban's Son, who is now King, and his two offspring, Rashiki and Sarriah.

Kirrin may pop up as a veteran later on, but he would be getting on a bit now.

NaNoWriMo sounds great - and scary. I don't think I will have the time atop of everything else I am doing, to seriously dedicate the time required to do this, which is a shame cause I think I would enjoy it immensely.

[Mandamon]

First of all, welcome! It's great to see another aspiring writer. I'm going to give a little more detailed feedback, just because that's what I saw. Although, I agree with the others in that you should finish writing before doing a lot of editing. So take our feedback and store it away until you are near the end of writing the first draft. Then take it out and apply it.

Here goes...

Overall, the writing is good, but I'm not sure about the format. It's definitely a prologue, but not the type I really enjoy--not saying anthing about the story, which I might find fascinating, but having to read this before turns me off. This seems to all be backstory that can be incorporated into the text of your story.

The prologue is, in format, a long pull out view. There is no dialogue to break it up, and some of those paragraphs are long! It makes it into a long read for not much information. Further, Kirrin only learns secondhand of the method of defeat of the hordes of Scadrons, which is the entire point of the prologue. Put your recorder where the action is. If you want this to still be a stand-along prologue, have Kirrin fighting alongside the heroic Kaliban, seeing as he takes down the evil Mardrade with lots of pithy dialogue and descriptions...

You could still make this an exciting prologue and get your point across without having 13 pages of plain description. Alternately, you could take the information here and intersperse it through the story. Sometimes leaving bits of the backstory until later adds more suspense to the rest of the story:

"Why are they called the Bloodlands, anyway?" Oh right, he answered that in the first 10 pages.

Nitpicky things:

page 3 top - "Unending for three days..."

Not really unending, then?

Page 3 middle: "In his hands, he held a crude mace. The leg bone of some great animal held in a clenched fist. "

The flow of the story makes me think you're still referring to the lieutenant, but you're talking about the Scardron.

Page 5 bottom: "A Barbaric race all in all. They fought in oddly numbered war-bands, ranging from ten to a hundred men. They were beating the Scardrons back, but slowly. The Scardrons were almost as exhausted as the humans were but like their adversities they fought on."

Same sort of thing. Who fights in bands? I assume the Scardrons, but it could be either the way your sentences are set up.

Page 11: "Kirrin later learned what had happened..."

This tells me Kirrin is not really the focus, which makes me less likely to read even more pages of description about him.

Page 11: "I was there: I saw what happened. A dozen variations of the duel. Many insisted "

-jarring. This has been in third person description, and then suddenly you throw "I" in there.

You have a good writing style, which goes a long way in itself to having a good story. I think your concept is also good. It needs some editing, but that comes later. Keep writing!

[Haradion Drogon]

Thanks for the feedback, I'll bear it in mind for editing later like you said

Thank you, all of you, for your help!

[Trizee]

OK, just a few things...

Prologue- This prologue seemed sort of David Eddings style- omniscient story teller giving us the history that forms the backround to the book. Thing is you didn't stay in omniscient but rather switched to Kirrin's POV. The switch was fine, but switching back seemed kind of off- putting to me: why zoom in if you're just going to zoom out again. Also, the fact that Kirrin's part was action packed and tense and had a sort of doomsday feel made it seem like the ending of the book, especially with the bad guy being defeated and stuff. If you can make their defeat more ominous without usong the "we shall return", that would make a much better hook for me.

Otherwise, you write very well and I really got into the story- keep writing!

[akoebel]

I'd say you're up to a good start here.

If this is intended for publication, be mindful of 2 things:

* Editors really dislike Eddings-type prologues. They are OK if the prologue describes the inciting incident, but a prologue only showing backstory is a definite no for them (unless you're a well established author, that is).

* Shooting for 75k seems a bit low for an epic fantasy in today's market. I think 100k is the lowest length they will look at (though you can be published with pretty much any length, you're stacking the odds against you).

Aside from that, it was an enjoyable and fast read, which is always a good sign for me.

You're only mentioning the character's name on page 2, and I think it's too late : the reader needs to make the connection with the character as soon as possible.

I'm not really a fan of establishing shots, but you made a good job of it. Some of the wording at the beginning felt a bit too grandiose (bordering on satire, I think), but that can be smoothed down in the rewrites.

Keep on writing, get that story out of your head : it's the most important thing right now.

[Ria Raen]

Helloooo

I wont go into too much detail as your ploughing through with more chapters. I enjoyed the prologue but for me it was just to much action all crammed into one space with a lot of heavy description. I know prologues are tricky (mine is a constant fail) but with third person I always struggle with lack of character investment. I found the ending paragraphs the most engaging as it wasnt just a flow of sword swings and battle talk, you gave a good concise conclusion to what had happened and to me that information was what made the prologue work.