8-29-16_Hobbit_Of the Mountain Stream, Prologue[V] - 5075 words

[Hobbit]

Hello everyone!

I'm so excited to be submitting!  

In terms of feedback, I'm looking for any and all reactions.  Vreeah-style report-as-you-read's are awesome.  Notes on character and believability are great.  LBL's are also welcome - even if I end up changing huge chunks later, I'll still learn a lot from fine tuning now.  As we go on in the story I'll want thoughts on plot pacing and whether I'm fulfilling on promises (actually, what promises I'm making would be helpful to know too), but really, tell me anything!  I'm here to listen.

 

Thanks for reading, and enjoy the story!

 

ETA:  I forgot to double space my submission... Sorry about that.  Please message me if you'd like a double spaced version.

Edited August 29, 2016 by Hobbit

[kais]

Welcome welcome!

Overall

I'm not certain I have any strong feelings about this submission, because I don't have any feel for the world or Elias. This was eight pages of Wolf V. Man, and I had a hard time getting into it. I don't mind solid action sequences, but as an opening chapter I have no idea what the stakes are, who the characters are, and why I should care. Without those things, battles are meaningless. 

In terms of wolf control and wold scenes in landscape settings, I suggest reading at least one of Tara K. Harper's Wolfwalker books. They might give you more of a feel for wolf control and wolf movement writing.

I'm glad you submitted and I hope my feedback is helpful. First subs are always nerve wracking! See you next week?

As I go

- the first paragraph is really heavy in adjectives and imagery. I had to read it three times to clarify what you were trying to say. The 'It was all gone' part kept confusing me, because the imagery makes it seem like it is in fact there.

- Would the place where he had tied Stormarast have survived the landslide? <-- This is a very confusing sentence

- he would care so much about his horse - ATREYU! 

- page one: I don't get any emotional impact from the horse being alive because I am not yet invested in the protag or the horse as characters

- The door was open.- page one. This is the first note of tension, and it is at the bottom of the first page. There is a lot of discussion about the rubble. We really only need this once. Suggest moving the tension up earlier.

- page 2: erm... we're skirting refrigerators here. Not directly in them, but suspicious activity. Raising a yellow card and offering a link.

- If this was to be a battle, he needed to face it as one. - As one what?

- page three: It's hard to keep reading the battle stuff. I still have no grounding in the POV character, or know why I should care about his struggles. This extended battle scene with no buy in makes it boring.

- page 4: So, wait. Every time you say 'beast' are you talking about wolves? I think this needs clarified. If wolves are the only enemy, I'd like to offer my services as forest aficionado for 'things that are scary and can kill you in a forest that are not a misunderstood carnivore that is actually vitally important to the food chain'.

- Foam from Stormarast’s chest and mouth flecked - the horse is foaming from its chest?? That's terrifying.

- page four Where had this man come from - Intentional pronoun use? You're telling us a lot about society with your POV character's gender assumption here

- page 6 - the horse was fridged. I don't...I don't know how I feel about that. Better the horse than a person I suppose. Hung jury on this one

- page 7: this wolf thing is going on far too long

[Hobbit]

Thanks for critiquing @kaisa!

1 hour ago, kaisa said:

but as an opening chapter I have no idea what the stakes are, who the characters are, and why I should care.

*hits head on keyboard*  Yes, that makes perfect sense.  It's a good thing I joined this group, so I can see how things look to people not inside my head.  

1 hour ago, kaisa said:

we're skirting refrigerators here.

Whoops, that's not good.  Thanks for catching.

1 hour ago, kaisa said:

Intentional pronoun use?

Keep telling me when you see things like this.  The world definitely has a lot of traditional gender norms, and so I'm trying to do that author-writing-in-a-world-she-disagrees-with dance.  Since I'm a new writer, I know I'm going to get it wrong (painfully wrong) in places.  Though in this case I actually just carried over a pronoun from a previous draft.

Yes, your feedback is definitely helpful!  But what does ATREYU mean?  

[kais]

On August 29, 2016 at 1:38 PM, Hobbit said:

 But what does ATREYU mean?

He's the horse from the Never-ending Story. When it was clear the horse was a goner from the beginning, all I could think of was the kid calling ATREYU! as his horse sank.

Your pronoun use is fine if you're trying to define the world. So if this is a patriarchal society, then it makes sense that your MC automatically defines everything via male gender. 

ETA: This was bugging me last night, so I checked Wikipedia. My brain (again) messed up names. The horse's name is 'Artax'. The boy in the story who helps Sebastian is Atreyu. Sorry about that.

Edited August 31, 2016 by kaisa

[Tariniel]

Hey! Just popping in to add my two cents to what kaisa already said above. By the way, I should mention that it's great to be able to welcome someone new into this group aside from myself, so thanks for unintentionally joining with me

First and foremost I loved the story! Great action throughout, and I also felt it was paced at quite a decent clip. I really liked how the environment heavily influenced the character's actions, as it made the cold mountains seem all the more real to me. Can't wait to see what else you have in store for this world! I did have a little trouble feeling for the character himself, however, likely because I don't have much of a reason to care about Elias or what happened to him. I do think that can be somewhat excused due to this being a prologue scene, but...

There were also times, specifically after Elias killed the grey cloaked man, when the short, choppy sentences annoyed me a little. I'm assuming you were trying to speed up the pace of the narrative, but a longer sentence just to balance things out can go a long way as well. Don't get me wrong, during the fight scenes they were great, it's just that I personally wasn't so fond of them in the immediately following reflection scenes...

As for Stormarast (love that name!) I think we can all agree that his death could be seen a long way off. I have to admit that that small change on page 6, though, when the man says to "Leave the horse, for now." definitely threw me off. I let my guard down for just enough time that I believed for a second the horse would survive. Still got the "knew that was coming" feeling when he saved Elias, but it was much closer to the surprising, yet inevitable ending than if that little twist hadn't been in there. Kudos for that!

Now here's my little martial arts brain nitpicking at something... At times, I felt like you were ignoring the factor of momentum and the role it plays in a fight. For example, if the wolf is leaping towards him and Elias cuts its throat (bottom of page 5), the wolf's momentum would still carry it into Elias, likely knocking him down. Unless, Elias moved aside as he was slicing? Maybe I'm just confused by the blocking here...

All in all, a great start to what I'm hoping will be an even greater story! Just this little piece had the perfect rise and fall in action, showing the natural talent that you have. Thanks for the read!

20 hours ago, kaisa said:

Intentional pronoun use? You're telling us a lot about society with your POV character's gender assumption here

This is golden! It's little things like this that can slowly build a world in the reader's mind without them noticing it, until, when they suddenly look up, they're in a completely different place. Nifty little trick to learn...

[Hobbit]

Thanks Tariniel!  Glad to hear there were parts that worked!

4 minutes ago, Tariniel said:

I think we can all agree that his death could be seen a long way off.

Yeah, this is definitely an issue.  I'm toying around with alternatives to fridging the horse.  Or maybe I can add some more compelling red herrings / twists in there.  Thanks for the feedback!

11 minutes ago, Tariniel said:

Now here's my little martial arts brain nitpicking at something... At times, I felt like you were ignoring the factor of momentum and the role it plays in a fight.

Please do lots of nitpicking.  Another reader said the same thing (he's a fencer).  Physics is important.  I'll do another scan for those.

19 hours ago, kaisa said:

He's the horse from the Never-ending Story.

Whoa, a throwback!  I got it now.  I saw those movies when I was really little and I was sooo scared.  I should really read the books.

21 hours ago, kaisa said:

If wolves are the only enemy, I'd like to offer my services as forest aficionado for 'things that are scary and can kill you in a forest that are not a misunderstood carnivore that is actually vitally important to the food chain'.

Your comments are making me realize I could do some way cooler things with this than I'm doing right now.  The wolves aren't the only enemy, but even so I'm interested in other ideas.  These wolves aren't native to Elias's area - they are supposed to be coming from a colder climate (taiga/tundra areas).  If you have suggestions, I'm happy to hear them!

[king007]

Hey, congrats on your first submission!

As for my thoughts, I share a lot of points with kaisa. The imagery in the first page was not clear; I could not understand where the MC was exactly. I actually thought for a moment that he was floating in a fast moving river. I had to reread lots of time. I think this is called "Blocking." I'm not entirely sure.

The quick transition from the MC being confused and shocked, to the moment when he found his horse, make it seem like there was no danger at all, and ruins whatever tension you tried to build. So we don't get that moment of relief when the horse is finally found, because relief comes after a struggle that we feel is important. I couldn't care less about the horse for example, because I didn't get why it was important to the MC.

And like kaisa mentioned, the battle scene here was not adequate for a first chapter, and it was way longer that it should have been. I was also quite surprised when the MC drew his sword. I didn't think he had or that it was that kind of a story.

You description of the MC and how he feels left much to be desired. It felt superficial and didn't make me empathetic towards him.

Overall, I wasn't satisfied by this submission. I skimmed a lot of parts especially when the wolves and the man-on-the-horse came on board. Those are my thoughts as a reader. I hope you're not discouraged and that you continue writing, bearing in mind the thoughts evoked in this thread.

[Hobbit]

Hey @king007, thanks for reading and no worries! I appreciate the feedback. It's very helpful to hear what people think so I can calibrate my internal editor.

[rdpulfer]

Welcome to Reading Excuses!

- My overall feeling on prologues is they aren't necessary unless they help establish the plot in an interesting way. I'm a bit concerned this might just be tragic backstory, but I'm only going of generalizations and could be completely wrong.

- I do like the description of the action, as well as the desperation in Elias.

- Overall, I did like the action, but I felt that's all it was. Action. There's wasn't much context to anything this going. I am curious where this is going, but I feel as the introduction to a narrative, there's not much to go on. 

 

[Hobbit]

Thanks @rdpulfer. I'll be interested in what you and everyone else thinks about the prologue as the story progresses. I have my ideas about what I want it to do, but we'll see if it accomplishes them. Thanks for the feedback!

[kais]

If it helps, @Hobbit, agents are not generally fans of prologues anymore. Many will ask you to flat out not submit them when doing a query. 

[Hobbit]

Good to know @kaisa.  I suppose I can always re-work it into a bonus story.  

[Mandamon]

Late as seems on par for this week...

Welcome to Writing Excuses, and congrats on the first submission!  I think everyone's covered the main points I saw, but I have a few other comments.

First, I do agree the first page or so is confusing ,and I had to read the descriptions a couple times.  After that it get better.

I was giving the side-eye to the maybe-fridged women as well.  I guess my main question, is why didn't they come out when the town was sinking into the ground, and how did Elias avoid it, for that matter?

I also had a big ARTAX! moment over the horse.  I think his demise was telegraphed clearly, but I was hoping against hope he would survive.

Overall, I actually enjoyed this quite a bit once I got into it.  I started out expecting a lot more, but as this settled into a man V beast fight, I liked it for what it was.  It reads very Tolkien-esque with one normal man alone in the big forest with the wild animals.  It might have been a bit too long in all, but the action kept me reading and not asking too many questions.

I'm interested to see what the rest of the story is about, and I'll echo what everyone else said on the prologue.  Does it move the story forward?  If not, it might indeed be best kept as a short story.  I think it could work by itself fairly well, with a little polish.

[Hobbit]

Thanks @Mandamon.  One of my many takeaways from the comments on this thread is that I didn't bring out the important bits of this prologue clearly enough.  I focused too much on the action.  This scene covers the aftermath of a really important plot point, and is supposed to set up some of the unique aspects of the world.  But I wrote those reveals into the main story as well, so I probably don't need the prologue.  There's a lot happening in the scene that got lost.  For instance, the guards at the outpost were actually killed purposefully before the landslide, so they would not be able to report it, but I didn't take time to hint clearly that way (even though Elias wouldn't know this).  I might resubmit it later and see what you all think, but for next week at least I'm submitting Chapter 1.

And thanks again to everyone who read.  Even if I didn't comment on a suggestion directly, I certainly appreciated it and found it helpful!

[Coop]

Hey Hobbit, I'm glad you've joined Reading Excuses! It's nice to have your friendly, upbeat personality around here.

I drafted some thoughts the other night but didn't have time to post them, and it seems that much of what I was going to say has been covered already. So I'll spare you that and suggest a couple things you can take or leave. Concerning this long action scene, I think I would be fine with the same sequence of events that you've covered in this prologue but perhaps condensed to around four pages. One suggestion you might use for dealing with the action is to use some summarizing sentences to describe the action rather than providing a complete play-by-play. For example, you might start the fight by describing exactly how Elias and the wolves are battling (a play-by-play, as you've already provided), so the reader can get a sense of what it looks like. And then you could throw in some summarizing descriptions such as: "The battle continued down the mountainside and left a trail of blood and three dead wolves." Then, the reader's mind will immediately fill in the gaps, imagining all of the lunging and slicing and biting that you don't need to describe. We don't need a complete play-by-play because, for example, a boxing match is exciting to watch, but reading a full play-by-play of the dozens and hundreds of punches thrown would get tedious--"And then he leaned left and punched upward. But the other countered with a right. The first fell back and..."

A big thing for me when reading is the mood of the story, and I really liked the atmosphere and this world (as little we know of it yet) in this submission.

Oh, I would recommend varying sentence constructions a little more. For example, I think they're called participle phrases, but I started noticing a lot of sentences that use a comma and then an -ing verb to finish the sentence. At one point (the top of page 3) there are five of these sentences in a row.

Did the horse really intentionally take an arrow for him? I find that hard to believe. Maybe I read it wrong.

Confusion: Did the man with the bow slit his own wolf's throat? Did a branch suddenly fall on Elias--wild coincidence or magic?

Again, if the events in this prologue were consolidated to three or four pages, I wouldn't need to know more of the stakes or anything at this point. I know that a major and mysterious landslide occurred, causing destruction, and that Elias is getting attacked by unknown assailants. That is enough to keep me reading. Looking forward to chapter 1!

[Robinski]

Hey Hobbit, great to have you onboard, and congratulations on your first submission. In honour of that, I’ve kind of thrown the kitchen sink at it, apologies for the length of this. Skimming through, please forgive me if it seems harsh in places. I tend to be the second grumpiest critic on here, but it comes from a place of seeing the good in things and wanting more. Honestly!!!

So, all detailed comments coded according to MRK’s espoused ABCD method. (A) = Awesome; (B) = Boring; (C) = Confusing; and (D) = Disbelief (-inducing). Now also including their nerdy classmate who nobody spoke to in high school, (G) which is for Grammar/typo, an essential adjunct to the ABCDs! Also, I’ve started highlighting my main comments, just for my own benefit as much as anything else!

Also, summary of impressions at the end

(A/C) – Diving straight in, the first paragraph has some nice imagery, but I'm a bit unclear as to where the pov character is. Above the pass? But staring at the mountain through trunks. He seems to be up high, in danger of being thrown down, like the village? So the village must have been up on the mountainside? I think the opening can be tightened up in the blocking department. There certainly is decent tension in this opening though.

(D) – The thought about the horse comes over very impersonal. He's not worrying about the horse being alive, but whether the place is still there, it seems.

(C/G) – I'm not keen on 'sheer as ice', to me, sheer implies steep, but ice is not automatically steep, it can be flat. Long way round to saying this sounds like a mixed metaphor.

(C/G) – 'unclipping from the tree' sounds like the horse is clipped directly to the tree, like wall-mounted, lol. He's untying the horse's reins presumably, isn't he? So where does clipping come in?

(A) – "they could all at least comfort each other" - ooh, harsh reality. For all his apparent emotion (although see horse comment above), Elias seems to have a brutal/fatalistic edge to him.

(C) – I'm intrigued to learn his position in this community, it's not clear yet, but he seems to assume he will be in charge of the soldiers. At the moment, I don’t have any idea whether he’s the mayor or a blacksmith, which is information I would prefer to have at this point, so I can better relate to what’s going on.

(B/C) – I'm not entirely convinced by the combat. The pacing seems okay, not flat out, but a kind of testing, almost standoff situation, which is fine, but some of the moves and word choice could be improved, I think. For example, 'slice' appears a lot. Maybe consider mixing it up. ‘Slash is a good word. Also, 'wolf he had hit on the side' is rather clumsy, 'wolf he had wounded' is tidier, I think.

(C) – The wolf's teeth are white, not yellow/ivory-coloured? That seems a bit strange.

(B) – There's a lot of repetition of the horse's name, rather distracting.

(C) – Clearly, the pain is not paralysing him, because he immediately clutches at his back.

(D) – I feel like the timing is off here. They are in close combat, I don't feel Elias has time for all these calm thoughts, surely the wolves are not so far away for him to carefully consider his mental state while waiting for them to arrive. My impression was that they were closer.

(B) – I feel there is a lot of repetition in this fight with the wolves, repetition of the same words, 'swung' and 'sliced', but the fight itself I'm feeling dragging on. This early in the story, I'm not sure I care enough about Elias to feel much about the outcome of the fight.

(D) – Also, quite a big issue, have you read Wheel of Time? Elias and wolves? These are very, very, VERY closely linked in WoT (Ok, it's Elyas, but still.

(C) – I struggle to believe this is a prologue, there's little background or establishing information.

(B) – My heart sinks a bit when I realise that the fight with wolves isn't over after all.

(G) – It's been a long time, but I'm going to have to wield the Grammar Stick here. (Sweeps aside dusty cloak to reveal a leather scabbard, cracked by age. The wooden handle protruding from it is worn smooth by the hands of untold hundreds of wielders, all long dead. On closer inspection, it is not a wood-wrought handle, but the polished end of some sort of stick.*) 'Wise' is not a verb, it really isn’t. People may have started saying 'wise up' about 2 years ago (or whatever), but that's slang in my book, colloquial, not formal language. Ergo, I really don't like the use of 'wizened', which in any case is a different word, 'wiz(z)ened', as in wrinkled with age.

(C) – I'm curious that the horse can keep galloping for hours, but you've implied it's a special horse, so I'll go with it.

(A) – I like how things get worse as the rider turns out to be a foe. That’s good.

(C/D) – “Elias reined in Stormarast and leapt off the road” – I thought he had leapt off the horse here.

(C/G) – “If his attacker had a bow” – I know what you mean, but the phrasing sounds to me like Elias is unsure if the attacker has a bow, which clearly, he isn’t – but that’s how I read it first time.

(D) – Suddenly the wolves seem a minor inconvenience and almost to have been forgotten.

(G) – “and knocked nocked an arrow”

(D) – “Stormarast turned and danced under Elias, snorting” – I'm still somewhat disbelieving that the horse has not had a heart attack by now. I’ll buy the special breed argument, but I think you might mention the miraculous qualities of the breed again, maybe just once more, twice at most, to drive it home and make the reader believe.

(C) – “He urged Stormarast after the man” – Why is he giving chase, he seems to have broken the attack, and he still has wolves on his heels?

(B) – At the start of Page 5, I started skimming. The amount of action is overwhelming, it’s relentless, and I am learning virtually nothing about the character, the setting or the plot – which I dislike. I start paying attention again at the top of Page 6, when Elias’ assailant speaks.

(A) – Yes, controlling the wolves is cool, but it’s taken waaaaay too long to get to this point, I think. Then the man kills the wolf – I'm really interested now, although I'm not sure why he did it.

(G) – “The man in the gray cloak knocked nocked another arrow” – I think. He did just sink one in Elias’ leg after all.

(D) – “The man shot. Stormarast threw himself in front of Elias, and the arrow thudded against the horse’s skull.” – It’s not that I disbelieve the horse doing this, but Storm must be moving before the arrow is fired or he won’t get there in time, based on the picture I have of the scene. Sorry, I know I have a tendency to editorialise, and I apologise for that (I'm good at that too, I hope), but – suggestion – “Stormarast threw himself in front of Elias as the man shot, and the arrow thudded against the horse’s skull.” – I feel is a more realistic order of events, maybe?

(D) – “as the knife landed in his stomach” – This sounds to me like the knife is on the surface of something, rather than lodging in the man’s gut.

(G) – “There was a sickening crack in Elias’s leg, but he screamed and followed through with his blow” – the scream does not feel contrary to the leg cracking, however I think it’s suppose to be associated with anger, not pain at the leg break. It’s not entirely clear, I think. Also, I have no idea what mechanism broke his leg.

(C) – “The sun was hidden behind a layer of thick clouds” – Hang on, it was moonlit night not so long ago, back at the cabin. Maybe the sun rose in the bit I skimmed.

(B) – “He cried out and shouted curses at the air. Gods, it hurt.” – The last statement is redundant after the crying and cursing.

(A) – I like how capable he appears at dealing with the wound, and also taking inventory of his injuries, but I still don’t know why he is capable, I have no context to place him in. He could be the villain for all I know about him.

In summary, there’s some good writing here. I like your style, and the pacing. It’s a bit wordy in places, and I feel that names are repeated a bit too often for my liking, but it wouldn’t put me off reading. The major, major problem that I have is that, for me, there is too much action and an almost complete absence of character, setting and context. It’s breathlessly exciting, but that gets wearing after a bit when there is not context. I need something to hang that off. I still don’t know why I'm supposed to care about Elias, which really makes it hard to relate to what happens and the pickle he is left in.

I'm interested to read more just to find out something about the story.

Also, really the Elias and the wolves thing is a big deal for anyone who’s read Wheel of Time, which is a lot of people, genre-wide.

<R>

 

(* - ‘grammar stick’ is a brand of P*ttery Barn, available in all stores or online. Pay no more than $5.99 – scabbard not included.)

 

Edited September 1, 2016 by Robinski

[Hobbit]

 

Thanks @Coop and @Robinski.  These are both very, very helpful sets of comments.

8 hours ago, Coop said:

And then you could throw in some summarizing descriptions

I know this is something I'm bad at - my discovery writer brain doesn't do this naturally.  Every time I read Mercedes Lackey, I'm so inspired by her summarization skills!  Definitely going to employ some summarizing in the edits.

8 hours ago, Coop said:

I think they're called participle phrases, but I started noticing a lot of sentences that use a comma and then an -ing verb to finish the sentence. At one point (the top of page 3) there are five of these sentences in a row.

Hahaha, yeah, my subconscious mind is addicted to participle phrases... it's a problem.  

8 hours ago, Coop said:

Did the horse really intentionally take an arrow for him? I find that hard to believe. Maybe I read it wrong.

Going to make this clearer.  The horse is supposed to be responding to Elias's distress, but not necessarily intentionally blocking the arrow.  Except maybe he did intentionally block it... hmmm... I need to think more about this.  Discovery writer problems.

8 hours ago, Coop said:

Confusion: Did the man with the bow slit his own wolf's throat? Did a branch suddenly fall on Elias--wild coincidence or magic?

Yes, he did.  And yes, it's magic.   But I think I need to make a bigger deal out of this.

5 hours ago, Robinski said:

In honour of that, I’ve kind of thrown the kitchen sink at it, apologies for the length of this. Skimming through, please forgive me if it seems harsh in places. I tend to be the second grumpiest critic on here, but it comes from a place of seeing the good in things and wanting more. Honestly!!!

No apologies necessary!  I quite appreciate it.  You have great suggestions when it comes to word-smithing.  And many corrections, which are just as important... I think I got all the "reigns" out of there but I'm sure you'll find some I missed...

5 hours ago, Robinski said:

Also, quite a big issue, have you read Wheel of Time? Elias and wolves? These are very, very, VERY closely linked in WoT (Ok, it's Elyas, but still.)

Crap, crap, crap.  I started WoT series maybe ten years ago, but I didn't make it all the way through (unfortunately, because I've heard Sanderson did a great job with the ending, and I love his other work).  But I've had to squish too many parallels to this series in my book already.  Even over ten years, my brain hung on to lots of pieces.  Seems like my Elias needs a new name.

Thanks for all your other suggestions, Robinski.  I could say, "Oh yeah, that makes sense!" and "Great idea!" for each one, but suffice it to say that they were all very helpful.

I have so much to work with.  When I re-write this, it is going to be awesome.

[neongrey]

Okay, I tend to go by page because that seems to strike a happy medium for me between literally spending hours going over it and h and giving what I hope will be useful. 

Just before going into it, yeah, I am not a huge fan of prologues either-- either they're information that really doesn't need to be conveyed in order to understand the story or it's just a first chapter in a funny hat. If you don't need to know it you don't need to include it, and swapping in a more normal hat for the chapter just makes things a bit more palatable overall. It's a bit of a shame if only because I always like things that reward second or closer reads but especially on an opener, you want to open off with things that are both pertinent and will attract readers. This

So yeah.

P.1

There's not a lot grabbing me from the outset; I'm reading and rereading the first paragraph and I keep sliding off. The prose just feels out in general here; a lot more distant than it should be for wanting to be immediate and blowing snow and all that. Some odd redundancy with 'mind still imagined'; not much else does any imagining after all.

So many questions that are effectively rhetorical right off... definitely not loving those. It's a clickbait headline technique and it's a truism that the answer there is always 'no', rendering the question effectively pointless. The same holds true with how you're using them; it's not meaningfully adding tension.

The overall impression I'm getting from the first page here is that it doesn't really mean a while lot as-is; without familiarity I'm not sure why what's going on uniquely matters. The attempts to build tension toward the end of the page that don't use rhetorical questions don't really do their job without the narrative having previously sold us a reason to care.

P.2

So I see you've killed some women without ever showing their faces, for the sole narrative purpose of raising stakes for the viewpoint character and to make the reader feel bad for him. On the second page. Please do consider the message this sends about the role and value of women in your narrative, and realize that this is a hard dealbreaker for many readers.

Such as myself; I won't be continuing past this point with this submission.

[Robinski]

20 hours ago, Hobbit said:

because I've heard Sanderson did a great job with the ending

He did. I must say I prefer his style to Jordan's, but the marriage of his style and Jordan's material was better than both as individuals - in my view.

20 hours ago, Hobbit said:

When I re-write this, it is going to be awesome.

Yes, this is what I love to see. Go, go gadget, edits!!!

[AuthorityHellas16]

Hi Hobbit!

Welcome to Reading Excuses. I'm sure you'll get a lot of good feedback from some of these guys!

As I go:

• I like the opening, but some of the word choices could be better, such as "clenching" of the cloak. I'm sure you'll get all of those when you re-read it, so not to worry
• I'm nitpicking, but "unable to believe what he saw" seems a little mundane. If you show his shock, like his jaw dropping or including some disbelieving dialogue, I'll buy into it a lot more
• Perhaps describe Elias' surroundings in more detail, or be careful of your word choices. It may be just me, but I'm confused: has a mountain collapsed? In that case, maybe use the words "gorge" or "fissure" rather than "pass" to describe them
• I'm interested to see why Stormarast is so important to Elias, especially given that there's such obvious carnage around him. I'd perhaps try and justify this; perhaps Elias is not from here, or Stormarast is his only friend...or he's just an cremhole (which would also be interesting!)
• Perhaps it's a stylistic choice (which is fine), but there's a lot of stuff that's being thrown at the reader without much of a break, and things are tending to be just told. I find that having dialogue, even if the characters are talking to themselves or to animals is a good way of revealing emotions and information. Might be something to try
• I like the fight between Elias and the first black wolf. Again, a bit rough around the edges (which is fine) but overall I like it. I'm interested to find out why they are here when clearly they're not supposed to be, but I do worry that you may be falling into the well-trod monsters-as-harbingers-of-doom or monsters-fleeing-worse-monsters tropes. If you're going down these roads, try and give them your own unique twist
• There's a lot of Elias fighting with his panic here; I feel like you can't have him "shoving aside his panic" too often, otherwise he comes across as almost bipolar in his mood swings. If you focus on the initial panic, maybe have him have his butt kicked initially and then allow the training to take over which makes him a better fighter, then it would resonate more. It may also give him a flaw i.e. a coward until he absolutely HAS to fight. 
• I do reckon the fight with the wolves could be cut down a bit. Again, nothing a good revision won't fix. This would make me more interested in his encounter with the archers. Right now, I just think he's having a rotten, awful, very bad, no good day. It would also be nice to have a hint of overarching purpose here, because it all feels like meaningless action at the moment and that can lose readers quickly. Just a hint would be fine, however; no need to spoil everything.
• Watch the repetition of things "grazing" Elias
• I feel like there's too much "no"-ing. There are so many other ways to express the myriad emotions you're trying to convey here. Spice it up a bit.
• Again, watch the ol' "show don't tell." You tell us that Elias "cried out and shouted curses at the air." There's nothing wrong with giving us the exact litany he provides.
• I know they are meant to be inseparable companions, but Stormarast sacrificing himself for Elias seems a little trite. If you want to really hammer in the despair, have him dying helpless and in agony, and have Elias hide behind something else

Overall, there's some good action here. Unfortunately, it reads a little bit like a Michael Bay film at present. I don't know where Elias is, why he's here, why the wolves attack him (especially with the revelation that they were under the control of someone else) and who any of the other characters are. Now given that it's the first chapter I don't HAVE to know any of these things now, but hints here or there would enrich the story a lot more. Spend more time establishing your characters and the setting and suddenly the violence and action (which as I said is pretty great) suddenly has meaning and purpose. And I say this from personal experience!

I'm interested as to where all this goes, so keep writing and I'll keep going!

[krystalynn03]

I know I'm super late to the party, but I hung onto your submission for when I was done with other priorities, and it looks like you've already been handed a handful of stuff to look at. I'll just say I have to second everyone who had trouble finding something to hang onto. I don't know anything about Elias so it made it hard to invest in anything following. I am glad you've joined the group and I'm going to move on to see your other subs now. It seems the first couple subs are always the 'roughest'--opening a book seems a lot harder than continuing a story once you've got it in your readers' minds.