May 27th - akoebel - Shrouds Chapter 6

[akoebel]

Hi,

 

This is the sixth chapter from Shrouds, a fantasy mystery.

 

What happened so far : gods have been disappearing and Mahau was asked to investigate. So far, he found two murdered gods. Arlon joined forces with Mahau in order to prove he wasn't involved with the disappearances.

 

I'm interested as always in any comments you might have.

[andyk]

I was pleased to find this chapter focusing on Arlon. As I mentioned on the last chapter, I'm finding him the most interesting character. I also liked the way we got a good insight into his mental state at the start, combined with a bit of scene setting. I didn't think you needed to move to first person and italics for those couple of sentences in the third paragraph - you've already got us effectively inside Arlon's head at that point, so I found this change jarring.

 

Despite the initial scene setting - Arlon in bed in the morning with naked woman - I didn't develop a strong sense of what the bedroom was like. The same thing applied in the dining room scene. When you include description of the physical setting it's well integrated with action and thought, but there isn't enough of it for me to picture the scene. This became more problematic when there was action, with the attack on Arlon.

 

There were a couple of bits I really liked that showed Arlon's character through the way he thought and spoke. First was where it didn't occur to him that his high priest might not want to pay for sex. And then there was the bit where, Forys having suggested that he go with Arlon, it occured to Arlon that he should bring Forys along, as if the idea was all his own. The appeal of this last bit may be personal - when I worked in business improvement I used to do this for real - suggest an idea to a manager, leave it, wait for them to think the idea was their own and suggest it to me. So to me it's telling about both characters.

 

I found both scenes a bit slow. Not much happened in the latter half of the bedroom scene. Then the attack on Arlon and the conversation which followed it had potential for tension that wasn't quite there. In the attack, it was because of an extended bit of Arlon's thoughts, unbroken by any action. The conversation just seemed a bit too long for what it contained.

 

I liked the resolution, the stubbornness Arlon showed and the way this gave him reason to work better with Mahau. I think it would have been even better if he was considering not working with Mahau, thus putting more at stake.

 

 

Could you please send me the previous chapters of this? I'm enjoying it enough that I'd like to read more, and I think it would probably help in critiquing - even having read one chapter before helped me with this one.

[akoebel]

Thanks for the critique Andy, it's really helpful. 

[Mandamon]

I would agree with Andy that both scenes were a little slow.  I think with some more tension they would be more exciting to read.  Aside from that I don't really have any problems.  It's interesting that the killer is revealing himself voluntarily, and I wonder where that will go.

 

On Pg 4, you mention Forys' twin sister.  Did I miss something, or am I just not remembering it from a previous chapter?

[akoebel]

Thanks Mandamon,

 

In fact, Arlon notes a few paragraphs before how much he thinks Neda and Forys are alike. In the section you mentioned, he refers to Neda as Forys' twin sister to further drive the fact that they have similar behaviours..