12.28.15 - Eisenheim - That Sweet Music (part 2) - V

[Eisenheim]

In the first section, Connor was hired by Donn to find and stop Gwydion, the rebellious bastard son of Donn's master, King Math.  Donn eventually revealed that Gwydion had stolen a horn capable of playing a tune that bound men to obedience.  With the aid of Emer and Deaf Gerri, they tracked Gwydion to the City of Dyflinn

[Mandamon]

Anther good submission, but still my biggest complaint is the lack of tension.  In the first few pages, you tell us about what is happening and who is finding out what secrets, but never really show us anything.  It makes reading about it a little dry.

I like that Connor finally takes charge at the end.  Putting Gerri in danger adds some tension, but not enough.  Gwydion's attack was somewhat anticlimactic to me.  I think the story is good, but I don't really feel connected with it or with how Connor is feeling.

I still am interested to read the rest, though.  I have a feeling Donn is not all he seems.

 

Notes:

pg 5: "welcoming as his own mother’s house"

The paragraph is talking about Donn, so I had to take a moment to remember we're in Conners POV.

 

pg 5: "As they sat to the board, Connor heard soft music sliding in from the street beyond."

--This is a very un-tense conflict.  I actually had to read the next few sentences again to realize the Big Bad had found them!

 

pg 6: "Connor ran over a counter-tune in his head, willing himself to hum or whistle it. "

--Does Conner know song-craft too?  I thought it was just Donn.

 

pg 6: "If the flute player had come in as well, Gerri could have freed the rest of the company by slaying him, "

--Isn't this Gwydion?  Last paragraph he stepped in the building.

--Also, why not just hire a lot of deaf guys to fight Gwydion?

[Eisenheim]

Yeah, I think my problem is trying to get to the action while still giving the characters space for a meaningful arc.  I re-wrote this from an earlier version that was essentially all cardboard cutouts and spear-carriers.  Even Connor was basically static, but I'm still struggling, clearly, with getting meaningful characterization into a smaller space.

[smgorden]

I wrote my notes as I read, putting down my thoughts as they occurred. This ended up being a bit long-winded, but bear with me (I'll try to be more concise in the future). 

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Wrestling for information? I'd like to see that scene play out.

 

"On the second day, Connor met a man who lied about his work, well, but not well enough.  He was engaged and charged not to speak of it, and that was news.  Gerri saw men complaining that the crewmen of a certain ship, he could not catch the name, were hounding after their debts, as sailors do when they will soon be sailing. "

What about the lying man? Do we get to know what happened? What part of that was news?

What does "hounding after their debts" mean? Does it mean they are settling their debts? Or does it means that the complaining men were chasing around indebted sailers, try to get them to pay their debts before shipping off?

 

"Still, they slept more contented with Donn’s plan than they had before."

Why were they content now? What has changed? I didn't understand the shift.

 

The Grey King of Anwn: I like this name. Since I haven't read the previous chapters, I don't know who he is or whether 'another cast of the bones against' him is good or bad for our protagonist(s), but I like the sound of it. I mention this because it piques my curiosity. Being curious is my favorite state of being when reading. I'd like to know more about the grey king, whether a person or mythological force in this setting, and how people think about him in either case. So I hope that shows up again at some point.

 

The blade-juggling is great.

 

Word choice, during Gwydion's musical spell: "Connor ran over a counter-tune in his head". The word "ran" is active and it appeared to me, at first glance, that he is able to run when everyone else is frozen. A small issue, but I had to re-read the sentence to understand that he was thinking and not running. It might be because the tension with Gwydion's spell was working so well for me, that my reader-mind wants somebody to break free.

 

Love the setup with Deaf Gerri in wait, as Gwydion and his four blades enter the hall.

 

"His voice was like dark, mellow honey, rich and warm and sweet." Love this, and would love it even more if you removed the word 'like, making it straight metaphor instead of analogy. It's good, strong wording and the sentence could stand up as metaphor, I think.

 

Regarding torture: I'm struggling with the idea that the singer would endure any torture at all. It is written that he is not experienced in enduring pain. Therefore, he's not a warrior of any kind, and there is the implication there that he is weak-willed, in general. If that is so, even if he doesn't WANT to explain where Gwydion has gone, it seems he would be pleading his case and begging for leniency, looking for a way out of the situation, before anyone even touched him, and certainly after the first blows/cuts. That's all assuming he'd even remain awake after a severe ax injury to his leg. What's keeping him conscious?
Alternately... if it's magic to blame for his inability to speak, I would totally believe it- given the severity of the spells used earlier in the scene. We might also have more pity for the guy in that situation, rather than mere revulsion at the torture itself, which could be good, depending on what you want the reader to feel in this scene. Reading further, you state that there is not any magical compulsion on him. So the question that remains is... why would he be afraid of dying at Gwydion's hands more than dying at the hands of his torturer? Seems like a mere singer would find both of those situations pretty terrible. Is there some other motivator at play here? At is stands, the torture seems to be more about characterization of the torturer, and nothing to do with the singer at all. And the characterization is good. Descriptions are solid, but so far it leaves the singer looking like a pawn of the narrative (he'll only break when the plot lets him) rather than a person with his own motivations and fears.

 

"He had hoped the singer would be closer in Gwydion’s confidence, but no, Gwydion did not have friends, only servants and enemies." Love that line.

 

"He had brought out a bodhran drum, and now he beat a racing rhythm that sent them running through the streets, faster than fire in the thatch." Awesome.

 

Reflections: This part of the story really begins at the hall where we have the encounter with Gwydion. The bits where the men are going around town investigating is interesting, but underdeveloped. Seems a bit of a montage, which is probably good. Doesn't need to be any longer, but it might be more interesting if you gave the specific highlights of the encounters in a few sentences rather than descriptions of what everone found, run together. Whatever you decide to do with that section, I would like to be a bit more engaged in the "planning" section at the start. You say "Donn repeated plans he had laid out at last night’s fire", which makes it sound like they should have already addressed all their concerns, and any review would just be putting the plan into action. Is there a reason you didn't want to write the 'last night' scene and cut to the plan in action the next day? This could be revised in just about any direction, since it's mostly exposition. You could use the scene to deny the reader information your characters have already worked out (to build suspense), or you could get us pumped up about setting a plan in motion (make us feel confidence, so that's more crushing when Gwydion shows up and wreck us- which is already pretty awesome).  Or you could cut it entirely. Nothing really happens hered, so if you don't have a specific goal for tone setting, it might not be needed.

 

Conclusion: Your action and magic are working really well for me, and the chapter ends with some well crafted prose that left me excited for the next part. Good stuff!

[Robinski]

Yup, another good submission, I'm enjoying this story. It cracks on at a good pace, however there are quieter scene sequels, but you don’t linger too long anywhere. There are good conflicts between the main characters – seems like everyone and Connor – I think it’s clear he’s a combative personality, which is ideal.

 

I particularly enjoyed the vying for control of the group, although I wonder if maybe that could have been foreshadowed a little more – not sure, maybe I just missed the signs.

 

Detailed comments below. Looking forward to the next submission.

 

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“an embassy from King Math”

 

“safest in a place that we can choose”

 

“Or are you proof against it’s its magic?”

 

So, had Donn already decided on which hall they would go to, or does that only happen in the moment? I thought it was up for grabs before.

 

“broken into pairs”

 

“We might not have needed fear in the thane’s hall” – I had to reread this sentence to get the sense of ‘needed (to) fear’ – something about it tripped me up.

 

“too afraid of being marked by some spy to venture beyond the fenced yard of the hall of the green cockerel” – this phrase seemed overcomplicated to me, and I wondered if they were actually ‘afraid’, or really just guarding against being discovered.

 

“to go to the thane,”

 

“Connor followed the man who had lied to him yesterday to a warehouse on the docks with wary sentries watching all around it” – It doesn’t seem very cautious to post such obvious guards outside. Does that not just attract the kind of attention Gwidyon is trying to avoid?

 

“word that her uncle had seen old coins”

 

“and nearly enough for dawn” – for Donn?

 

“save for a twist of the head”

 

I really enjoyed how you handled the appearance of Gwidyon’s spell, without particular fanfare, but just twining with the music that Donn was playing. I wondered what happened to the guards that Donn had posted outside, which I thought Connor might pay a thought to.

 

“A man stepped through the inn door” – Is it an inn? I think it was described before as a hall. I didn’t get that the Cockerel was an abandoned inn.

 

“and a long sword beside it”

 

“on the wind today day”

 

There was a comment before about lack of tension, and I can see where that comes from. It’s not uppermost in my mind when I'm reading, but Gwydion does feel a bit weak at the end of their encounter. You seem to show that he hasn’t mastered the horn yet, but I wonder if it wouldn’t up the tension if he were to try and use it here, so we can see a hint of the awesome power that he would attain if he mastered it.

 

“tasting the bitterness that comes after a battle in his throat” – sounds like the battle is in his throat.

 

“As he was portioning herbs an simples from his pack” - ?

 

“then screamed when they cast it roughly to the floor” – why are they screaming? Seems an odd reaction.

 

“This was cutthroat’s work” – This is a nice distinction between the two bands, as was Emer reaction. It does highlight for me the strangeness of the screaming when they brought the captive in.

 

Ha-ha, and I love that Emer then puts Connor off the job. Her line there is excellent.

 

“all out of tune with what passed (between them?)”

 

“He heard the same”

 

“she bent to her work”

 

“Gwydion would sail tonight” – Are there any tide issues here? What time of day is it? I forget.  It might be worth flagging these points here.

 

“but down Donn was no longer crouched over him”

 

“three score and ten” – I realise this is a different measure from the figure that the singer quoted for sellswords, but I found the different numbers used close together made me pause.

 

“Gwydion has thirty swords on the docks” – what happened to the 70 swords mentioned before?

 

“By the spear, what a fool.” – This is a direct thought of Connor’s, presumably, so I'm thinking it should be italicised?

 

“Why else did he run after he had felled Gerri?” – question.

 

“on your idiot craven caution” – this phrase confused me. Also, I’ve lost track of who’s line is who’s in the exchange between Donn and Connor – it’s a good feisty argument though, and it’s nice to not be sure which side is right. Often when arguments are played out in stories is pretty obvious which side the reader should be on, but I like the dubiety here.

 

I'm not entirely convinced by Donn’s sudden failure as a leader. I don’t think we’ve had any sense so far that he was lacking in ability to command.

 

“Their eyes met for a moment, and Connor felt the power of spirit that made Donn a mighty singer stab at him from those pale eyes, but he did not flinch or draw back. Donn must understand that he was no captain for fighting men” – I'm willing to accept this I just wonder if it’s been foreshadowed enough.

 

“and try to slow them” – why would he do that, once he’s accepted Connor’s leadership?

[rdpulfer]

- I was a little surprised to see the mention of Norsemen. It surprised me there were Vikings in this story, but then again, the setting seems very Celtic, so I supposed Norsemen could have easily sailed there at some point.

 

- I like the set-up - how do you fight someone who can control you with music? Really curious where this goes.

 

- I like the contrast between Connor and Donn's approach, as Connor and his allies go to gather information, while Donn and his men stay within the confines of their base and drill, afraid of being made. 

 

- You might consider a chapter break when Gwydion finds them to amp up the suspense.

 

- I really liked this submission. Lots of action and suspense, and you get to see the specialties of every member of the party in action. 

[Shrike76]

Looking above, all of the spelling issues I found have already been noted so I won't go over them again.

 

"I will listen for his music on the wind"  - I really liked this line. I thought it helped bring the magic system to life. Conversely, I thought it obvious, having stated this, that the reverse would be true and Donn would later be heard by Gwydion. It makes me wonder why Donn would be so casual about using his voice in the hall. I'd have thought he would have known that Gwydion would be listening for him.

 

This story really works for me so far. I think your pacing is spot on, and I feel like Connor is really coming into his own. Although Donn continues to act like a bit of an idiot here (the above-mentioned singing, again bowing so quickly to Connor after somewhat failing in his command). The action in the hall was excellent, and the description as the other spell came into the hall was great. I'm curious to know how the counter-songs work, given that Connor can't do the actual singing? I'm curious what it is that allows someone to break a spell unless they also have magic to cast it in the first place. I hope we get to find out.

 

If anything fell flat for me in this submission, it was Emer's interrogation of the singer, and his presence there in the first place. Her appearing to attempt to seduce him felt off, especially after Connor's beating of the man, and it didn't feel necessary to getting the information out of him. I'm not sure why, it just felt off.