Dec 10 - Syme - A King's Death Chapter 2 (V, S)

[Syme]

This is the topic for chapter 2 of my novel, in which we are introduced to Filista, our second main character, and learn more about the supernatural elements of this story.

[Halcyon]

This critique really just seems to be a series of questions that came to mind as I was reading. I like the flow of this chapter and Filista has a voice that is distinct from the other two POV’s so far. Though I have to wonder, is she a naturally trusting person because her questioning of Hyginos’ words and actions comes in a little late for me. If he could get close enough to see her dead family, in the dark, does that mean the Yacatu aren’t there anymore? Wouldn’t she want to go back and see her family?

Also, if they were so worried about the Yacatu in the first place, would they have risked a fire?

I like the interaction between her and her family, it helps to develop her as a character. Though she doesn’t really have any reaction to Zotikos’ death. Even if she didn’t know him that well, seeing anyone recently murdered would be a traumatizing experience, unless she has seen many people die and is used to it.

I don’t necessarily buy into her thinking she’s selfish by resisting the guy who was trying to rape her. How could she not resist, even if she knew that resisting would likely get her family killed?

After she hears of her family’s death, she is certainly thinking a lot, but I’d like to know more about what she is feeling and what effect that is having on her. “Her heart constricted, her hands shook, she couldn’t breath, etc, etc.” I think that would help the reader to sympathize with her a bit more.

Also, if Yacatu scouts are so close by that they need to leave in a hurry, would they really risk talking?

I just came to the part where they are talking about lykanides not being able to tolerate the sun. For some reason I forgot that it was nighttime. I remember you mentioned the full moon earlier, when she had first been woken up but her run through the forest completely destroyed that for me. You say at the beginning that these are dense forests. What season is it? If it’s summer, a dense forest is going to get very little moonlight through the canopy. Even in winter, if all the trees have lost their leaves, she will be tripping on underbrush, falling over fallen trees and rotting logs. I think you could really add to the tone of this chapter by describing that.

I like the discussion about the magic system and that you already have consequences and limits in place.

Overall, this was a good way to introduce two new characters. Personally I found Filista to be a bit bland. I know you’re going to be fleshing her out more as you go but I had a hard time liking her or rather, caring about her. Her reactions to things were just a little unbelievable so I had a hard time sympathizing with her. But I think this is a good continuation of your story. I’m interested to see how she fits in to the larger arc and despite not really getting behind her, I think she has a lot of potential to develop as a character.

Hope that was helpful. Thanks for sharing!

Edited December 11, 2012 by Halcyon

[Mandamon]

I liked this chapter a lot more than the prologue and chapter 1, since it introduced a character rather than a political situation. Overall, I agree with Halcyon. The reactions to everything were a bit bland. For example, I would think Filista might want to go back and see for certain that her group, including her new husband, were dead rather than taking the word of a complete stranger, no matter how what magic urges she has. Maybe he talks her out of it, but I think there should at least be some resistance to the idea that she's now one of the Lykanides.

There's also a bit of an infodump on how Lykanides work, taking up a good portion of the chapter (about half). Don't reveal everything too quickly. also, since Filista has just lost everything she's known, it might not be the best time for a history lesson, as she might not take in all that much. As Halcyon said, it might be a good time to focus on her reactions. Later, start talking about what she has become. You could push the explanation out a little, or rearrance the flow of the chapter, or even have Hyginos start blathering on, not realizing her emotional state, since he's far distant from his own Awakening, and have Filista get angry at him. It would put a little more character conflict into the chapter, and that's what it's all about!

Of course, feel free to accept or ignore as you see fit. The story is starting to draw me in, and I'd like to see more.

[Syme]

Thanks for your comments. I'm glad you both liked it for the most part.

Most of the questions you have about the chapter, Halcyon, are good questions which I would want readers to have, so I take that to be a good sign . This is a chapter in which Filista goes through a lot of disturbing and confusing things, so I find it fitting if the reader also experiences some of that confusion. Some of your questions will be answered in time, others are clues to deeper secrets. In the interest of keeping this spoiler free, I shan't reveal which is which.

However, I dropped the ball on Zotikus's death, there should be more of a reaction there.

Please keep questions like that coming. Even if I can't answer many of them without giving spoilers, they still help me figure out what new reader think while they're reading the story. When one is immersed in one's one story, it becomes hard to see one's story through fresh eyes.

Good point on this chapter being heavy on infodumping, Mandamon. I'm finding it quite hard to figure out how and where to do my info dumps. I think I have too little information in the prologue and chapter 1 and people found that confusing, but now I may have gone too far in the other direction. Any tips on that would be appreciated.

[cjhuitt]

Right off the bat, this chapter seems a little off to me. These are supposed to be refugees fleeing the savages, and since (from the last chapter) they are supposed to be a Sarkian problem, I assume that the family that is fleeing is also Sarkian. Since I got the impression before that these are the Spartan equivalent (prior to reading any comments here on the connection, mind you), I expected them to stoically endure their problems and push harder to stay ahead of the invaders. For example, if they have a cart, they should be able to take turns riding on it and thus be able to travel for longer.

Even if the family isn't Sarkian, the questions Sophia has should have been raised well before now, I would think. It should also show in more tension among the whole group of people.

If the family is Sarkian, however, it is an interesting twist on the previous chapter's words about how they treat their servants and slaves, since Filista was once a slave and then was married to her master (owner?).

I totally missed that the savage who took Filista was the leader of the group, but that might have been on me, because it was getting pretty obvious what the scene was leading up to, and I tend to skim over sections like that. I was confused (and probably quite properly) when the man started bleeding and died, and had to re-read the previous couple of paragraphs to make sure I didn't miss anything, and of course I had skimmed right over the curse thing the first time through.

Around here also, however, I also had the problem that Filista's reactions to seeing someone she knew laying dead were... missing. As was reactions from the rest of the group. Only Phokas reacts, and that only when his wife and daughter are being taken away.

I don't know what the Yacatu's plans for the family previously were, but it seemed odd that the only punishment Phokas gets to his struggles is a punch. If he's a blacksmith, he's probably very strong (and therefore dangerous). Likewise, though I was lacking descriptions of the others, I imagined him as the only man of "proper" fighting age, which would also make him the most likely to be a threat. With those reasons, it would take a lot for the Yacatu to react so mildly to the chance he was going to have a proper berserk.

The blood thing was creepy, but sickly fascinating as well.

I agree that I also forgot it was night when she made her escape. A couple reminders during the flight through the forest, and when she was trying to hide, would probably be welcome.

When she first sees Hyginos, she recognizes his clothing as Daeolian, though she sees him "from a distance". In the night. It seems odd to be able to do this -- is it a side effect of the magic?

It also seemed awfully convenient that Hyginos just happens to be following her and her family such that he can find her to help her out after she had turned. He also knew what had happened to turn her into a magic user. Also, if he was able to see the family dead, and still catch her even though she'd been running via magic fuel, he must be able to do more than appears right at first. This all adds up to a potentially very interesting character.

The background infodump at the end is a little awkward, probably for a couple of reasons. The first, I suspect, is as the others pointed out -- it isn't a good time for her to be just sitting there and absorbing it, unless there's some magical reason why it works. The second reason is that it comes via dialogue at a time when I'm not sure Hyginos should be quite so forthcoming either. Having tidbits of information that the POV character would know dumped in here and there during the first chapters is nice, and helps keep the reader engaged, but having it come via dialogue like this is a little less friendly, in my opinion.

[akoebel]

I liked this chapter far more than the two previous ones. To me, it seems you were right in your earlier comment : this should be where the book begins.

Now, I had a hard time buying that those people were supposed to be something like Spartans. I mean, those people were hard and disciplined and probably wouldn't have allowed a man to marry his slave. Maybe it's just me expecting your characters to behave in some way because I know you based them on Sparte, but right now, they seem at best weak (if not outright cowed). That being said, I think you described the relationships nicely without too much info dumps.

I too didn't get that it was the leader who took her away and I even asked myself why weren't other men tagging along to join the fun. Now, if this was the leader, I can understand better even if I'm wondering why he took her and not her step daughter.

Her killing him wasn't surprising, but I expected you to drag things along a bit farther (after all, you gave us the 'S' warning, so I was ready for more. The blood feeding was definitely interesting, including the souring of the taste (which I attributed at the time to the guy being dead for too long). Very interesting magic system, I thought if you have to replenish yourself each time you do something. As I dabbed myself into a bit of blood magic as a magic system, I saw this only as component consumption and nothing to do with eating someone's soul.

Then, comes Hyginos. The guy is creepy and I don't trust him the least bit. I expect he's lying to her about what he pretended to see. He saw her husband; doesn't mean he was dead at the time or that Hyginos wasn't himself with the attackers (which would explain why he's here). If you intended to instill in your reader such mistrust in the guy, you've succeeded well.

His explanations are very info dumpy as the others said - you could take your time here and only have him answer a minimal number of questions and lead her away. There will be plenty of time later to explain everything.

Which brings me to my biggest issue with the chapter. I was enjoying the story quite a lot until I read some mention of bats and then sunlight. I had to stop right there. This is a vampire novel? Not only have there been quite a lot of them, I feel you had enough going on with the magic system to dispense with the sunlight thing. And why does it always have to be sunlight?

I never saw it coming either - like I had been misled into reading a vampire novel when I expected a straight fantasy. Not that vampire novels are bad, I just wished I had been warned before (of course, with a real book, the packaging would have prepared me).

Aside from that, I enjoyed it quite a lot.

[Syme]

Filista's family is not from Sarkis. They are from a minor city state called Philara, which has no relevance to the story and therefore never gets mentioned in the text. Philara is part of the southern colonies, which are currently being invaded by the Yacatu. Sarkis is in Daeolia itself (which is a peninsula northeast of the southern colonies) and is not being attacked.

Since the two of you had this same misconception, I'm going to take a close look at how to make things like that clearer.

I'm a bit confused by the following comment:

Now, if this was the leader, I can understand better even if I'm wondering why he took her and not her step daughter.

Why does it surprise you that he prefers Filista over Sophia?

As for the vampire thing: This is not a vampire novel and lykanides are not vampires. Lykanides don't have superhuman strength or reflexes, they are not vulnerable to garlic or religious symbols, they can't transform into animals, they can enter houses without being invited, they have normal human bodily functions and metabolisms, they don't have pointy teeth, they (normally) don't bite people, they can't turn ordinary humans into lykanides and the list goes on.

It's true that they do share some characteristics with vampires, most notably the vulnerability to sunlight and the high life expectancy, but even those are hardly unique to vampires. At most, one could describe lykanides as sorcerors with a few vampire elements mixed in.

You do however raise a valid point with the sunlight thing being overdone. It's the one part of my magic system that I'm not entirely happy with. I introduced it as a means to keep lykanides from being overpowered. Lykanides are very powerful and if they didn't have a major weakness like that, they'd have already taken over the world by now. You could go the Kryptonite route instead, but that's hardly original, either. I couldn't come up with a good and orginal major restriction that fit into the rest of my world building, so I went with the vulnerability to sunlight.

[cjhuitt]

Filista's family is not from Sarkis. They are from a minor city state called Philara, which has no relevance to the story and therefore never gets mentioned in the text. Philara is part of the southern colonies, which are currently being invaded by the Yacatu. Sarkis is in Daeolia itself (which is a peninsula northeast of the southern colonies) and is not being attacked.

Since the two of you had this same misconception, I'm going to take a close look at how to make things like that clearer.

I don't (now) recall any mention in the text of where they were from, but it might be good to briefly mention that they didn't have much in the way of standing armies to protect their own small kingdom, unlike Sarkis, or something like that. I don't know about akoebel, but one of the reasons I thought they were from Sarkis is that in the previous chapter, Sarkis was established as being the country primarily under threat, and thus would be forced to make concessions to the rest of Daeolia. Therefore, when people were fleeing, I assumed they were from Sarkis.

Why does it surprise you that he prefers Filista over Sophia?

I wasn't surprised at this point, but that was because I had already had my "oh yeah, I need to remember she's barely older than Sophia is" moment a few paragraphs back. It might just be ingrained, but because she was trying to be reassuring to Sophia, and Sophia is the daughter of the man she married, she seemed (much) older than Sophia. That might be one explanation. I might suggest establishing the age difference between Filista and her husband right from the beginning somehow.

I had forgotten to mention the reaction I had to the bats/sunlight thing, which was about the same as akoebel, only maybe a bit less aversion (since I quite enjoyed Anne Rice's vampire books, at least). I think you can leave in the sunlight problem. If you trim the mention of bats at this point, that would probably be enough to weaken the association with vampires, at least in my mind. Alternately, find another nightly creature for them to turn into -- owls, perhaps, or according to Wikipedia, badgers, ocelots, and raccoons are also generally nocturnal.

Alternately, you could try having them be only magical during the day, which I don't believe I've seen done before. Or when the sun is shining on them. (Both of these might be better tied to fire magic, though.) This would make your discovery scene somewhat problematic, but it could be adjusted somehow. Other environmental things that might affect them could be disrupted by moving water (from Katherine Kerr's books, among others) which means the magic doesn't work when it's raining or even heavily foggy, or other options that you can probably come up with better than I can.

[Syme]

I'll remove the mention of bats. You might have misunderstood something here though: lykanides cannot turn into any animal.

I'll keep the sunlight thing. You offer some good suggestions, but unfortunately I don't think they fit very well with my magic system and the rest of my worldbuilding.

[cjhuitt]

You might have misunderstood something here though: lykanides cannot turn into any animal.

So you aren't worried about being unclear in the text, I actually did catch that they can't turn into any animal while I was reading the chapter. However, I was sloppy with my own sentences when I wrote that critique, and implied they could.