051815 - supersoup - Glass Skies, Ch. 3

[supersoup]

Glass Skies Ch. 2 summary:

The two companions Lianye and Rendevere entered Landelwen's capitol city of Landelvae under cover of night, Lianye calling in a favor she was owed to secure room and board at Kaeve's Tavern in the slums. Lianye worries about being discovered--she's "risking everything" with each moment she spends within the walls.
 

Enter Ch. 3, in which we see the world through another perspective, and Devoleane does what he does best.
 

Fun Fact:

All of my characters began as archetypes I thought would best fit the story I wanted to tell. Early on, the cast was comprised of the Pariah, the Soldier, the Youth, the Scientist, the Ruler, and the Priestess. After my earlier iterations fell flat, I merged the elements of certain characters (Pariah/Priestess, Youth/Scientist) to form them as they appear in this iteration.

[Robinski]

Detailed comments below, but I continue to enjoy your writing and your story. One thing stood out quite clearly for me in this submission however, and that was that I am enjoying Pen and Dev’s story more than Lianye and Rend. The youngsters in the educational setting, with their focus on girls, mischief and the new aerland feels fresher than the other thread, which I am beginning to feel is the lesser in almost all aspects.

 

Dev and Pen have humour, the excitement of new romance, the rather swashbuckling angle of trying to get passage to this mysterious new aerland. Lianye and Rend’s thread is centred around for more common and almost derivative genre threads of underdog rebellion and overthrowing what is presumably an unjust and ultimately evil / bad / nasty monarchy.

 

Maybe I’ve got that last bit wrong, but I stand by my overall comment. Of the two POV’s, Pen’s is fresh and interesting, whereas I think Lianye’s needs some work to pep it up.

 

Looking forward to the next submission.

 

--------------------------------

 

Should the king not be addressed as your majesty, rather than ‘my lord’? It sounded odd to me. I see that later, Taelmera calls him ‘highness’.

 

“the steady drone of his father’s dreams made manifest” is a nice line.

 

“and yet I doubt” sounded like an unfinished thought to me. Suggest maybe “I have doubts”?

 

With “king kissed his own ring, touching it to the backs of their heads” I had a feeling of going a bit too far to find a novel form of obeisance. When I pictured this, I felt that it was a rather comical image.

 

You mention Lianye being warmed by the midday sun, but she is in an alley and therefore shaded, presumably.

 

“tossed the crust over his shoulder” strikes me as a modern thing. Can they afford to waste food in this society? I know that some food has practical consideration in its design, like Cornish pasties eaten by miners, where the thick curved edge was, I think, designed to be a handle for dirty fingers and thrown away afterwards (I stand to be corrected), but this is bread. I suppose there’s nothing to prevent Rendevere having a foible, but it struck me as being a bit off.

 

In the saying “In for a copper, in for a pound” – what is a pound? Is it a unit of currency, as in the British pound? It rang a bit odd to my ear, perhaps because of my familiarity with the original saying.

 

I was a bit nonplussed by the complete lack of reaction from Rend to Lianye’s announcement that she was going to overthrow the king. Thing this is, we don’t seem to know enough about any of their backgrounds or status to understand if this is right or wrong, good or bad, etc.

 

No problems with Pen and Dev's section - highly entertaining and I enjoyed their encounter with the King Arm, which is so Game of Thrones, by the way, and I'm not even joking.

Edited May 19, 2015 by Robinski

[Mandamon]

Comments as I read:

 

Pg 1: “Leave me,” King Driganeen said. “I should like to inspect the premises alone.”

--I understand he's the king and all, but there is a LOT of danger in a factory, and especially in an early steam factory.  The manager would insist on someone to be with the king for his own safety.  If he wants to go to a secret meeting, maybe he could have the escort move off when he gets to relative safety.

 

pg 3: "tossed the crust over his shoulder,"

--Unless that's a religious quirk of some sort, I wouldn't think a trained veteran would let food go to waste.

 

pg 4: "Linaye leaned in close, dropping her voice to a whisper. “I intend to wrest control of Laendelwen from King Driganeen.”

--interesting, but I feel like I don't have enough information on Linaye to know why she would want to do this.  We know she's an exile, but now she's trying to take over the kingdom?

 

pg 5: "Lianye chuckled. Rarely did Rendevere leave her so utterly dumbfounded"

--I don't think Linaye would be the one dumbfounded...

 

pg 6: three more "goodmans" on the last page...

 

 

Overall, this still has my interest, but there hasn't been much more talk about the new land, or any of the aerlands.  Since that was the moving event for the beginning of the story, I'm wondering when I get more information about them.  It was touched on a little with Pen and Dev, but I'm more interested in the expedition at this point than Linaye and the king (I see Robinski says the same above...)

 

As usual, I seem to be in accordance with Robinski in most things.  He mentioned a few other points above, like the king kissing his own ring, that also felt a little off to me.

[Robinski]

Ha-ha, I see that Mandamon has picked up the Health & Safety angle.

 

The only thing that we maybe don't entirely agree on is the 'goodman' thing. I rather like it - maybe a tad over-formal, but that's me to a 'T'.

 

The one thing I would say about that is I expect it to come from Dev, whereas I think Pen drops a couple of 'goodman's in there. That was a bit disorienting. I would tend to stuck with Dev, and it being a foible of his.

[Young Bard]

I'm just going to comment on the entire story so far.

 

I think this story has great potential. It develops a human character that you can easily sympathise and relate with, then makes him a catalyst for change and discovery, which is a classic writer's tool. You have the grand epic scale of an entire new aerland in the sky, balanced with the smaller, yet still instrumental plot to kill the king, and finally the tiny subplot of Pen's lovelife, for variety and comparison.

 

The one thing that I found confusing having just read the prologue through to Chapter 3 is the sheer information overload in characters. Maybe others found it easier, having read it spaced over 3/4 weeks, but you have introduced at least a dozen characters already, which we are expected to remember the name and role of. Pen and Dev I got pretty quickly. Lianye and Rend weren't too much trouble. But particularly in the dialogue between the masters, names were trotted out that went completely over my head. If we're expected to remember these names later, perhaps you should try making them more memorable.

 

The other thing I might suggest about this issue is simply avoiding such a large, unmemorable group so early in the piece. I think it would suffice to have Pen's discovery, then Master Yvole saying that he'll call a meeting of the masters. I found very little new information in that scene.

 

That being said, I do think every plotline, on it's own, looked interesting.

 

Pen and Dev discovering a new world.

Pen trying to get a girlfriend.

Lianye and Rend on a mission to replace the king (although, they should probably be keeping a lower profile, if they don't want to get caught.)

 

In short, I think the story has great potential, with the main thing being coherence - getting your readers to be able to take in all the information you want and need them to for the story.

[Mandamon]

The one thing I would say about that is I expect it to come from Dev, whereas I think Pen drops a couple of 'goodman's in there. That was a bit disorienting. I would tend to stuck with Dev, and it being a foible of his.

I think this was what bothered me more about the "goodman's" this time.  If it's Dev's thing, that's alright, but having everyone spout it is a bit much.

[supersoup]

Thank you all for taking the time to read and comment! I really appreciate your feedback =)

 

Robinski--

I agree with your perspective that Lianye and Rend's story needs pepping. However, I also hope that ultimately, their story will be interesting in Act 1 because of the slow reveal with regard to who they are exactly, and where they've been in the world. Perhaps a bit too slow here in the first draft, but I digress . . .

 

It may be my ignorance showing, but I thought "my lord" was perfectly valid for a king. I guess I have to hit the books before the second draft of this scene =P

 

When you put it like that, the whole scene with him kissing his ring DOES come off awkward, haha. Hmm, I may just the paragraph after his conversation with Taelmera.

 

"In for a copper, in for a gold"?

 

I'm getting the impression I need to build more of an impression of the king, as seen by the common folk, before having Lianye declare that to Rendevere. It shouldn't be an uncommon sentiment, but I can't make the king out to be too evil. He has his own motivations and purposes, and while they may be interpreted one way by others, that may not have been his intention.

 

If you were here beside me in the material world, I would hug you for comparing something I've written to Game of Thrones. Golly, that just butters my bread.

 

 

Mandamon--

The factory isn't operating when the king is there on inspection. That's not a detail I really show overtly, though, so I will look at ways to make that evident.

 

I may change the crust of bread to a rind of melon. Gives some diversity to the food I've already described and is more reasonable to toss.

 

Lianye has the most backstory, believe it or not, of any character you've met thus far. Her disappointment when arriving in the slums, and her desire to wrest control of the kingdom all stem from where she's coming from. I'm hoping to reveal it in satisfying bits and pieces--it would lose impact I feel if I info dumped her backstory through a monologue. It's something that will affect her all throughout the story, and guide her decision making, grand and seemingly foolhardy as it might be.

 

That scene is from Lianye's POV though. Might do for me to give Rendevere a little more body language to express his gears churning, as it were.

 

Ah, goodman . . . So much controversy =P

Honestly, maybe it should be limited just to Dev. It's meant to be a common phrase among the highborn men, so I thought it would be equally weird if just Devoleane were to say it. I don't know how to express that without it becoming distracting, so in the interest of the story I will limit it to Devoleane.

 

The aerlands are still lurking, but the immediate plot threads are all converging on the ball. It's the climax of Act 1, so I want to give it an appropriate build up. Act 2 and 3 will be aerland filled, rest assured.

 

 

TheYoungBard--

The characters that will be worth keeping in memory will return in the narrative frequently enough that I hope remembering their names shouldn't be a problem. I will consider cutting or retooling the scene with the masters though, as perhaps it is a bit too much of an info dump for so early in the story.

 

I like your comment on coherence. I'm surely going to stumble frequently through this first draft of the story, but the positive feedback is very encouraging!

 

 

I'm very thankful for each of you taking the time to help me draw out the good and call out the bad. Cheers!

[Robinski]

Hey, I might be wrong on the 'my lord' thing. I might have heard it before. I always think it diminishes the king to use a title that you would also use to any other lord.

 

'in for a gold' sounds better to me.

 

As for the GoT thing, gotta say it wasn't especially a positive comment!! King's Arm - Hand of the King. It felt to me like you'd borrowed the concept, but that is probably unfair. It's difficult to come up with things in particular areas when someone has created such a strong 'brand' (if you will) for right-hand men. My point was that I don't think it's good when reading to get a strong flash of recollection of some other work. I made the same comment to Majestic Fox about his Tarispire, which immediately made me think of Tanelorn.

 

All that said, the phrase "Golly, that just butters my head" is going straight into my next story.

[supersoup]

As for the GoT thing, gotta say it wasn't especially a positive comment!! King's Arm - Hand of the King. It felt to me like you'd borrowed the concept, but that is probably unfair. It's difficult to come up with things in particular areas when someone has created such a strong 'brand' (if you will) for right-hand men. My point was that I don't think it's good when reading to get a strong flash of recollection of some other work.

 

Haha, ok--story time!

When I'm writing, I have a MIGHTY NEED to be original. At the very least, unique. Any time I come up with a character name, or location, or organization, I will Google it to see if it crops up anywhere else. When drawing upon my biggest influences as a writer to help craft a character or other story bit, I will always do my very best to take it and make it mine. If it's immediately recognizable without intimate knowledge of my inspirations as a writer, then I step back and retool until I own it. Like they said in Writing Excuses, "good artists borrow, great artists steal", but I'm going to do my darndest to really spin it and make it something special. 

 

I must take a moment to mention that I have never read GoT personally, nor seen the show. I know it by reputation alone, as better-read friends and family members often share how much they love the series. I don't discuss it with them, for what it's worth, other than nodding and saying "Oh yeah! I'll have to read that. Adding it to my backlog."

 

Anyways, so I--of my own accord, mind you--said "King's Hand sounds like an awesome name for this shadowy, clandestine group I want to use". Well, guess what turned up on Google? So I said "Gah, whatever . . . I still like the King tag" (which was important to me after shifting from an Emperor to a King for some reason) "And I guess King's Arm sounds fairly reasonable".

 

Any similarities in characterization are literally and honestly entirely coincidental, as I have no actual experience with the source material. So that's why I will continue to see it as a compliment, thank you very much! ;P

 

Another interesting story in the same vein: (Call it Story-time Friday)

Like I mentioned in the fun fact for the first chapter, I've been developing this story for years. It has become its own entity, assimilating ideas and concepts from so many of my ideas stretching all the way back to 2008, though I didn't begin work in earnest until 2012. Fun Fact: I started working on it in earnest in 2012 to develop it into a homebrew tabletop RPG campaign for my gaming group.

 

In my earliest iteration, which was prior to reading Mistborn and only just after reading the first Sanderson book I had ever read (Elantris), the primary antagonist was an all-powerful Emperor (I've always liked Empires and Emperors in my fiction/playing Civilization or Spore or what have you). This all-powerful Emperor was secretly a user of the magic system, Song, which he planned to dominate the populace with.

 

Originally, Song had a few different attributes, namely that Shades, or other creatures of Dissonant Song (chaotic magic) could poison someone's soul. One major symptom of this would be that they would see color drained from the world around them. Users of Harmonic Song (magic of order) would still appear to be in color to a poisoned individual, and would emit a light that gave color to the world around them.

 

Ready for the kicker? I had limited Song use to be powered by what I dubbed Breath, which had to be obtained by drinking what amounted to mana potions from a particular, magical well.

 

And the very best part--I still have not read Warbreaker. My wife has, and after sharing my idea with her, she said "Wow, all that stuff about Breath and color . . . "

 

 

I've come to terms with the idea that I am the least original writer to have graced this earth. As long as I can give something my own unique spin, then I will be able to rest easy XD

Edited May 23, 2015 by supersoup

[Robinski]

Ha-ha, all noted.

 

I was probably being a bit harsh. I myself use the term kingsman in my current project (Math Bridge is not my current project, I should say) - which is hardly original, and there are many pubs in the UK called The King's Arms, which I always took to mean coat of arms.

 

I guess it comes down to the fact that the brain is always looking for connections to other things, that's its job, right? Also every story has common elements at a basic level, but it's the elements particular to that story, names, magic, plot, etc., that invite comparison to other stories and their names, magic, plot, etc.

 

All this rumination is very interesting, but actually, I spent about two seconds thinking about the similarity then read on - so it probably wasn't worth me commenting about it in the first place!

 

Thanks for the story though - character background is always interesting ;o)

[supersoup]

Ha-ha, all noted.

 

I was probably being a bit harsh. I myself use the term kingsman in my current project (Math Bridge is not my current project, I should say) - which is hardly original, and there are many pubs in the UK called The King's Arms, which I always took to mean coat of arms.

 

I guess it comes down to the fact that the brain is always looking for connections to other things, that's its job, right? Also every story has common elements at a basic level, but it's the elements particular to that story, names, magic, plot, etc., that invite comparison to other stories and their names, magic, plot, etc.

 

All this rumination is very interesting, but actually, I spent about two seconds thinking about the similarity then read on - so it probably wasn't worth me commenting about it in the first place!

 

Thanks for the story though - character background is always interesting ;o)

 

Yeah, the brain is brilliant at that. Good luck with your current project by the way, whatever it may be!

And fantasy is a genre that's been thoroughly explored it seems since Tolkien's era. Hard to really surprise yourself or your readers. Brandon does it brilliantly, and is my patron saint of thinking outside the box and following the "rule of awesome". It's a struggle, especially for someone so young in his writing career, but I figure if I don't stretch myself I'll never grow, so here I am.

 

I do appreciate your comment on it though. I don't want to distract my readers or come off as a two-bit copycat, so if it becomes something that detracts from the narrative then I'll have no choice but to change the name.

 

Of course! I do love to wax poetic. =)

[Robinski]

You are certainly nowhere near being what you said.