Reading Excuses - 20140120 - Without Honour - Prologue and Chapter 1 (V)

[Robinski]

Hello All,

Here (hopefully in your inbox) are the Prologue and Chapter 1 of my NaNoWriMo project this year, currently at 83,800 words (Chapter 16), probably 2/3 of the way through - I don't plan to subject you to the whole thing in weekly instalments, but would very much appreciate your thoughts on the first few chapters, then will finish it with your input and post in Alpha Reader thread, I think.

Apologies for the length of this submission (4,700 words - less then the max!) - although having said that the chapters are circa 4,500 to 5,500, but I won't subject you to too many (I hope).

Comments very much appreciated.

Best, R

[Mandamon]

Well, you've got my attention with a map...

 

There's a little bit of infodump on pages 5/6, which slows down the narrative a bit, but not terrible.

 

pg 12: "had straggled beyond the limits of decency"

-this made me laugh.

 

Good writing, so I don't really have line editing comments, but here are first impressions on what I read:

 

I'm not really sure the prologue qualifies as such, and not just a first chapter.  The rest seems to flow directly from it, so there's not a big separation in time.  Usually I think of prologues happening far in the past, or being characters slightly aside from the narrative, to give a larger world view.

 

I'm certainly bought in to the story, and want to read more.  There's some good intrigue, and even though there are a lot of POVs, you give opposing ones so that we see both sides (inside the head and from an observer), which I like a lot.  The pace is good, and keeps interest going.

 

There are 6 POVs in 2 chapters and there are even 2 in the prologue.  Just from reading this little bit, this feels big, like 1000 pages big.  I know you said this was 2/3 done at 80k, but with so many POVs starting out, it feels bigger.  My biggest concern with that is that the narrative will bog down after a few chapters because we will have to keep up with too many people.

 

Speaking of people, I think I might like Teimen the best, if only for shrugging off a stab wound through the hand.  Marnar seems scary too, moving so fast, and I'm looking forward to seeing what they can do.

 

I love the map, Which now I have to to reference every time you tell me a place name...

Looks like a play off of Europe mainland, with Brekia and Svaringen taking the place of Italy.  This sets my thoughts for what to expect in culture, though from reading, it seems a bit more Norse or German "barbarian" in context than Italian.  That may not be what you're doing at all...just giving impressions of what my mind goes through when I see a map.

 

 

I'm already invested in the characters, so good job there.  Looking forward to more!

Edited January 21, 2014 by Mandamon

[Robinski]

Thank you for those comments. I must admit I needed a kick having lost a lot of momentum after Nano finished, this kind of encouragement is just what I was hoping for!

 

I realise now that there's a flaw in the Prologue. It actually takes place 5 years before the events of Chapter 1, but the reader will not realise that until probably into Chapter 2 or even 3, so that's something for me to fix.

 

I did not even register that there were 6 pov's in such a short space. Hopefully that's not a problem, and they will resolve into 4 ongoing situations. It's fascinating to hear your comments on Teimen and Marnar, the characters are the most important part of any story, so I'm glad they had some impact.

 

Glad you like the map! I'm pretty much lost without one. I've got a DP and a glossary on the go too, but there are too many spoilers to let you have those! On the geography, you are quite right, the physical arrangement does look rather like the Mediterranean, which I'm conscious of, but the cultures, names, etc. for the Svars are from Scandinavian sources, which themselves have a lot of roots in Old Germanic names, it seems.

 

On the length, I think you are right, I'm probably kidding myself at 120k - my first novel was 225k (~700pg.) and was narrower in scope!! and I've still got lots to resolve in this one.

 

Thank you again, I'll aim to put Chapter 2 up next week, slots permitting, I know there's a lot of good stuff running in parallel at the moment, and I haven't even started on 'Physical Magic' yet. (At the risk of sounding like a suck-up, I'm really looking forward to it after reading 'Seeds...').

[andyk]

I'm with Mandamon - this has got me gripped and I want to see where it's going. There seems to be an interesting story developing, and the writing flows pretty well. On reflection I also agree with the point about lots of points of view - to me, it felt like you introduced a lot of characters in a short space of time, and I think that the multiple PoVs added to that. I definitely wouldn't say slow down the pace, but maybe consider slowing down how quickly you throw lots of new characters in?

 

There seemed to be more short sentences than in your previous work, and the varying pace was good. But the way that you vary them is a little odd. You're still using long sentences in scenes of action and tension, where shorter sentences would add to the pace and sense of excitement.

 

I found the beginning of the prologue a bit too heavy on exposition in proportion to action - some of the details of the brewing conflict could probably have come out later. But I did know from the first chapter that the prologue had happened a few years before - there was something in the court scene that indicated this.

 

I like Saffen from the very first sentence. Her cynical attitude, her undermining of heroic values. But after the self-conscious, mocking string of cliches in the third sentence, the apparently straight-faced use of 'wait on them hand and foot' in the fourth slightly undermined what had come before.

 

I didn't understand why Marnar reacted in such an extreme way to Teimen, attacking him and his men. Given that the scene mostly seemed to be from Marnar's perspective this made it seem off and rather unmotivated. Also, why does no-one else in the place react with shock or outrage to the sudden outbreak of violence between these men?

 

At this point I'm interested in Marnar and Saffen, especially Saffen, and I'm looking forward to her having a chance to get out of the house and cause trouble. I'm left with the impression that they're going to get caught up in bigger events.

[Robinski]

Thanks Andy, great comments, very helpful.

 

I'm glad I've managed to weed out some of the long sentences, but it is a weakness, I can certainly accept that is takes away from momentum - must try harder )

 

I'm glad you got the time difference, but probably needs refinement in view of Mandamon's comment. Early exposition, yes, fair comment.

 

Good comment on Saffen's intro - I will look at that. You are spot-on in terms of what the future holds for them of course, and I'm glad you've picked up on those two especially, as they are (will be) at the heart of the story.

 

The scene between Marnar and Teimen is an issue - guilty as charged - I think I just wasn't willing to tackle it at the time. I will fix that.

 

Thank you again.

[The Goat]

Sorry for the delay Robinski. I got your email a little after all the others and couldn't get to it till this morning. It's been a long week. I'll try not to harp on things everyone else has said. However I will say that even though you probably had too many characters in such a short span, I had no problem keeping up with them.

 

Prologue:

 

I like the start in the prologue. That first scene with the king at the table sucked me right in. I thought the death scene was done well, especially the last 2 paragraphs when the king is thinking. 

 

I noticed quite a bit of passive voice in the work. That is probably something to look out for, especially when they are so frequent and in such close proximity. In some paragraphs, you have it multiple times. When you sprinkle it here in there, when characterizing or something, I didn't see it as a problem at all, but in some cases it was repetitive and that made it much more noticeable to me.

 

Here are some examples (only from p.8):

 

It was bloody. Magithlen was propped against the end wall, diluted blood still pooling around his corpse, eyes vacant. 

 

To me, the it was bloody is repetitive. The next sentence shows that there is a pool of blood. I imagined the sentence more like: Diluted blood pooled around Magithlen's corpse, which leaned against the end wall with vacant eyes. 

 

He heard more soldiers arriving, but his attention was caught by a mark on the wall.

 

This sentence could become something like: He heard more soldiers arriving, but the mark on the wall held his attention.

 

He was clearly affected by his father’s sudden death, but not overcome.

 

And this one might go like: Though his father's death had clearly affected him, it hadn't overcome him.

 

The motion seemed to bring King Celantorn back to the present, his gaze met Olma’s, but they were interrupted by more guards arriving from the Crown Hall.

 

To me this should be two sentences. The motion seemed to bring King Celantorn back to the present. His gaze met Olma's, but more guards arrived from the Crown Hall, forcing him to break away from his stare.

 

I don't know. Maybe this is a style issue, but it might be something to look into.  

 

I agree  with andy's comment on the short sentences. This is something I am very guilty of doing myself. Someone, possibly andy, brought it to my attention and I feel my work reads much smoother when the short sentences are more sparse, saving them for the moments with more impact.

 

 

Chapter 1:

 

I thought the intro was pretty slow- lots of backstory and history that I'm sure is important, but I thought it was pretty info dumpy for those first two grand paragraphs. After the tension filled prologue, I was expecting something more from the beginning of chapter 1.

 

I found that the narration felt slow. I was still interested when I got through the first two paragraphs of chapter 1, but the meatiness of your paragraphs made them seem longer in the reading. It wasn't an uncommon thing for you to have 7,8,9,10 sentence paragraphs. It's okay every now and then, but they were everywhere. For me, at least, breaking most of the big paragraphs up would help a lot. pages14-18 read much easier for me because you did this on those pages.

 

Other than the stuff on Saffen's intro and Marnar and Teimen's conflict I didn't see much else besides the passive voice that got to me in this one. I really like the direction the plot is going, and I am excited to read on!

Edited January 25, 2014 by The Goat

[Robinski]

Great comments, thank you - yes, I still truggle with my old nemesis passive voice - will need to work on that, also sentence and paragraph length. Having a quick look at Chapter 2, I think it might be a bit better on paragraph length. Not making any promises about passive voice though. I'm on Chapter 17 now, and I'll try and address passive from there and come back and improve the rest in the first edit.

 

Thanks again!