15.01.18 – ICanDream - Iron and Honour Chapter One - 3044 words

[ICanDream]

Write your critiques to my story here!

Edited January 15, 2018 by ICanDream
Forgot word count

[Chuck Hossenlopp]

Page one: I'm having trouble staying interested in the world when there's no characters yet. The chapter is named for a character, but I know nothing about him or her yet.

Page two: Illy has cool vision powers! Let's see how this works (I'm calling him Illy because this forum is googlable)

"...with one of them crossing the plains every . These marked..."  -Looks like you edited a few words out here

Hereditary quake powers? Yup. A family that could crack a castle in half at will would definitely become a dynasty. (Or a Salem witch trials thing)

The fault lines are misbehaving? I wanna know why!

Page three: "Last time..." Is Illy just growling about what these guys did, Or is this an intro to a flashback?

Page four: Wait a minute. This horrible Slave King villain... Is he the leader of a slave revolt? Is the story about Illy learning that he's on the wrong ethical side?

Page five: Illy goes from begging to threatening a superior force. Plenty of room for character growth. So far I see Illy as a sheltered aristocrat that is unaware of his own arrogance. I feel like the story is promising to knock him on his chull a whole bunch so that he can learn humility and compassion and a wider view of the people in his world.

Page six: Five hundred armed men for bandits? Either that's a big city, or he's not fooling anyone.

Illy seems pretty naive is a guy who said "What the hell do I need a title for?" would play by such chivalrous rules as "Don't kill the guy with a title." Again, this gives the character room to grow

So I guess this kid-killer Slave King isn't the great emancipator I thought he might be. Now he looks like a straight up villain

Page seven: "Be strong my boy..." Illy's a kid-killer? Wait, this kid lead an army. How old is Illy?

Illy threw his little buddy in front of a bus. It's going to take something big to earn my empathy back

Illy screws up the negotiation, gets his friend killed, and now he's throwing a seismic tantrum. He's almost as unlikable as Gilgamesh at the beginning of his epic

Pulling a gun while surrounded by an army? That's not chutzpah.

Now I'm thinking that Illy's just going to straight up die, and Sen is going to be our main character

Page eight: Illy is a hate monster! I seriously have no idea where this story is going. I'm expecting a redemption story if anything I thought Illy was younger because he was bewildered that he would be chosen for peace negotiations, and how inept he was at anything political. Whoever chose him as a negotiator sucks at choosing negotiators. It seems like fantasy elements aren't very common in this world, and magic is only in the hands of the cultural elite. I want to see where chapter two goes.

 

[ICanDream]

19 minutes ago, Chuck Hossenlopp said:

Page one: I'm having trouble staying interested in the world when there's no characters yet. The chapter is named for a character, but I know nothing about him or her yet.

Page two: Illy has cool vision powers! Let's see how this works (I'm calling him Illy because this forum is googlable)

"...with one of them crossing the plains every . These marked..."  -Looks like you edited a few words out here

Hereditary quake powers? Yup. A family that could crack a castle in half at will would definitely become a dynasty. (Or a Salem witch trials thing)

The fault lines are misbehaving? I wanna know why!

Page three: "Last time..." Is Illy just growling about what these guys did, Or is this an intro to a flashback?

Page four: Wait a minute. This horrible Slave King villain... Is he the leader of a slave revolt? Is the story about Illy learning that he's on the wrong ethical side?

Page five: Illy goes from begging to threatening a superior force. Plenty of room for character growth. So far I see Illy as a sheltered aristocrat that is unaware of his own arrogance. I feel like the story is promising to knock him on his chull a whole bunch so that he can learn humility and compassion and a wider view of the people in his world.

Page six: Five hundred armed men for bandits? Either that's a big city, or he's not fooling anyone.

Illy seems pretty naive is a guy who said "What the hell do I need a title for?" would play by such chivalrous rules as "Don't kill the guy with a title." Again, this gives the character room to grow

So I guess this kid-killer Slave King isn't the great emancipator I thought he might be. Now he looks like a straight up villain

Page seven: "Be strong my boy..." Illy's a kid-killer? Wait, this kid lead an army. How old is Illy?

Illy threw his little buddy in front of a bus. It's going to take something big to earn my empathy back

Illy screws up the negotiation, gets his friend killed, and now he's throwing a seismic tantrum. He's almost as unlikable as Gilgamesh at the beginning of his epic

Pulling a gun while surrounded by an army? That's not chutzpah.

Now I'm thinking that Illy's just going to straight up die, and Sen is going to be our main character

Page eight: Illy is a hate monster! I seriously have no idea where this story is going. I'm expecting a redemption story if anything I thought Illy was younger because he was bewildered that he would be chosen for peace negotiations, and how inept he was at anything political. Whoever chose him as a negotiator sucks at choosing negotiators. It seems like fantasy elements aren't very common in this world, and magic is only in the hands of the cultural elite. I want to see where chapter two goes.

 

Thanks for the feedback!

You got a lot of what I was going for so I guess it isn’t all bad. Serakor is another viewpoint character (my next chapter will probably be from his perspective) so you will learn more about him. In this story none of the factions are entirely right. However, characters will learn they’ve been fighting for the wrong things and such. 

I didn’t mean for Illyris to come across as so irritating before he gets angry. That will require some fixing.

If you think that any of this writing is sub-par, it’s because I’m thirteen. I refrained from putting this in the email or anything as I fear it would make peoples critiques less critical.

Thanks again!

[Chuck Hossenlopp]

Don't go thinking that me being an old guy makes me any less of a rookie than you are. I will say that the first chapter, especially the first line, of my own story has been rewritten dozens of times. Keep going forward, dude

[Mandamon]

Congrats for putting this out there to get critiqued!

I'll agree with @Chuck Hossenlopp that the beginning is a little slow, but you actually get to Illy pretty soon, so it's nothing a few edits can't fix.

The main issues I have with this is that Illy seems very immature for being the, not sure--protector maybe--of the heir to the throne. Speaking of whom, you may want to, er, adjust Kash's name a little...the middle is kind of an unfortunate spelling.

The first few pages are a little too jokey, which makes it hard to determine if the characters actually want (or think they can get) peace. That said, I actually enjoy Sen's character. He has some good lines and seems to be the most competent of the crowd.

You may want to investigate your gender dynamics too. As far as I can tell, there are no females in this chapter, and I have it on good evidence that they make up a good portion of humans. Unless this is a species with only a male gender, which would also be an interesting read ;-)

By the end, I'm firmly on the side of Sera. The empire seems like slavers that have reached past what they can hold, and are now training incompetent leaders. You say Illy is Kash's teacher, so I'm guessing he's supposed to be older, but he acts like a teenager.

Overall, this does have some interesting characters that have a lot of growth potential, so I'm interested to see where it goes. I remember how I wrote when I was thirteen, and it was much worse than this, so you're ahead of me there!

 

Notes while reading:

pg 1: "Obsidian was holy"
--show us, don't tell us.

pg 1: “These are going to be the most terrifying negotiations I’ve ever witnessed,” 
--I'm not sure if you meant it this way, but this is really funny. I'm imagining trying to negotiate with an army so big it can squash the biggest city in the world.

pg 2: “Do you honestly believe these people want peace?”
--wait, they do? No, I don't believe that.

pg 2: "So you’re sure there is no chance of peace?” “It’s most likely.”
--ok, now I'm getting confused. Are they there for peace or not? If this is banter/joking, then it's starting to go on too long.

pg 2: "different shades of grey"
--As in he sees the world in grey and these are different shades? Except then you go on to to describe color...

pg 4: "His appearance, however, was no different to any others."
--huh?
--ah, you describe this a few lines down, but the separation makes it hard to understand.

pg 4: "He had hoped..."
--So he did think he could negotiate peace? He's very naive then...

pg 6: uh, Kash's name has an unfortunate middle section I have trouble reading in any but a certain way...

pg 7: by this point I'm mostly on Sera's side. These Triangulum folks aren't too bright, and have obviously built their empire on quicksand.

pg 7: Repeating Kash's name a lot is not helping...trying not to giggle.

[kais]

Welcome to RE!

Overall

The writing is nice! There's a good flow and rhythm to it. The content is a bit lacking, unfortunately, in terms of buy in. There's also a really poor gender balance in this piece.  Keep at it, and know revisions are what turn manuscripts into books!

On 1/15/2018 at 11:19 AM, ICanDream said:

it’s because I’m thirteen

You're a fine writer for thirteen! My major suggestion, noting this piece and your age, is to see beyond your immediate sphere when imagining characters. Remember that women and gender minorities exist. You may not notice them on a regular basis, but they were historically a major part of every war, every battle, every kingdom. In any given army there are bound to be a number of women fighting as men, or as women. There is always a caravan trailing armies, made up of cooks and prostitutes or wives, etc. Their stories are just as interesting, and often moreso, than a standard man's, because they are the often untold stories. 

 

As I go

- page two: fault line magic? Okay, I'm interested. The first page was a bit slow though, all things considered. For a cold open on chapter one, you might consider something more dynamic

- page three: a reminder that women make up roughly half of any given population, and should therefore also make up roughly half of any story, baring obvious settings like boys' boarding schools, etc. There have been a large number of characters mentioned thus far, and page three is our first mention of a female in world, and she's a mother. 

- page four: I'm bored. I don't know enough about our lead character to care about this war, or his feelings about it, or what it means for the land. I need more buy in before politics and attempts to tug at my heartstrings

- page seven: the boy's death doesn't do anything for me, because I do not yet care about this world

[industrialistDragon]

 

Hello and welcome!

 

Here are some tutorials on how to do double spacing on a few different word processor programs:

MSWord: From support.office.com and from a different site ; 

WordPad: From WikiHow ;

GoogleDocs: From support.google.com and from WikiHow ;

Apple (* -- I don't actually have a mac so I can't verify these instructions. They look right though) from support.apple.com  ;
Adobe inDesign: (* -- again, I don't have inDesign, so I'm mostly guessing. Seems decent, though) from forums.adobe.com . 

 

Double spacing really helps with readability on screens and is a pretty common function, so if you can't find a website with a walkthrough, usually your program's help file will have an entry about line spacing in it.

 

Now that the administrative issues are taken care of onto the comments!

As I go:

"had often found ... were ... unbreakable." So Ily has tried breaking these walls before? That's interesting.

 

" had been assembled for twenty years" So... assuming at least age 15 to sneak into the army to see that kind of fighting, that puts Ily at around 35+ years old. That is also interesting. I was assuming him to be a decent amount younger... 

 

I'm having a hard time reconciling Ily saying to the boy "you got yourself into this" with the force of his reaction when the boy dies.  The switch seems very abrupt and I'm left thinking "well, what did he expect to happen?" honestly. I am also wondering why the powers-that-be sent someone so horrible at negotiations to negotiate. It doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me.

----

 

Overall -- This is well written, especially for how young you are. I know I sure didn't sound this poised at 13! (and I thank all the kitten gods of the internet I had the foresight to keep those awful early writings off the web for the most part XD ) There are a lot of summaries and explanations in this chapter, and I think that is making the situation seem less tense than it is supposed to be. I was also thrown off a bit by the "negotiation" conversations. That section in particular seemed more stilted and abrupt than the rest of the piece.  It's a solid premise and I am interested to read more, but I had a bit of difficulty keeping focused on what I was reading, and I think that's because I didn't feel a lot of tension or emotional investment in the scene.  

[Robinski]

Again, welcome to Reading Excuses. I’m always excited to read the work of a new submitter. Off we go!

• Hey, I’m Scottish, so you go ahead and spell words correctly and never apologise for doing it, after all, they were our words first!  
• On the double space thing, what Word Processor are you using? In Word, the double line spacing option sits in the ‘Paragraph’ menu. I’m sure the software’s ‘Help’ function will make it easy enough to track down. I don’t mind so much on here, but publishers will tend to reject immediately on opening the file, from all I've heard.
• I like the opening paragraph. It’s a bit standard fantasy, so doesn’t hook me by being unusual and unexpected, still it’s solid enough to keep me reading. There’s a kind of oversized reality vibe that I think might be a thing, and I can go with that. And then the second paragraph introduced the idea of conflict and weakness where there was strength. Nice.
• Those are really big campfires. Not sure about that effect, but I'm suspending my disbelief, because it’s a nice image. In reality, I think a fire would need to be enormous to do that. Usually, it’s the smoke that reaches the sky.
• Seven thousand doesn’t seem enough men to shatter a kingdom, which makes we think it must be a tiny kingdom. I suggest G**ling some of the historic battles of our times in sizing your army.
  • Battle of Bannockburn (1314): 2,000 English cavalry and 15,000 troops versus 7,000 to 10,000 Scots.
  • Battle of Naseby (1645) – English civil war: Parliamentarians (Cromwell’s lot) 14,000 men versus Charles I’s Royalists 7,400 men.
  • First battle of Bull Run (1861): Abe Lincoln’s Union 35,000 troops, plus a side force of 18,000 which were ‘not engaged’ (says Wiki), so total of 53,000 troops. Confederate States 34,000 troops, although only 18,000 were engaged, apparently.

When you get to WWI and WWII you count military strength in the millions of soldiers. Admittedly, that’s multiple nations, so not the same thing. My point is to always do some research so that you have a plausible explanation for the numbers and facts that you make up, just so you can explain them to people if they question why it’s the way that you’ve set it out. Doesn’t need to be a lot of research. The simple answer might be that it’s a small kingdom, but the point is, when it comes to a whole kingdom being overthrown, a big proportion of the population will take up arms to defend themselves, so 7,000 men is unlikely to be enough to overthrow a country of population in the 100,000’s.

• “He still found their size incredible.” – As per above, not really all that incredible, in my view
• I’m questioning too why they’ve send Ill to negotiate. Do they have no politicians or statesmen? Seems a bit unusual. As an experience soldier however, I would expect Ill to have some ideas about why he was sent. Have you listened to any of the Writing Excuses podcasts? There are some good ones on character sliders, the different components most frequently used to control how a character comes across in a story. Competence is one of the sliders, so, how good the character is at their job, at fighting, magic, detecting, whatever. I would expect an experienced soldier to be competent at strategy, enough to have an opinion about why he was in a particular situation.
• Those slider podcasts are really useful for character development. Worth a look if you haven’t already.
• “They think that could happen at this meeting.” – missing word, I guess.
• I’m just noting that your paragraph indenting is kind of all over the place. What are you writing on, software-wise?
• The lines of colour sound interesting, but the text kind of breaks down there. Missing words and such.
• I would have thought they would know about the progress of the fault lines over time, if they live there, or he would think it’s something to do with the newcomers/invaders.

Pausing at this point to talk about style, I find your writing solid. I’m having very few grammar issues, which is an excellent foundation for any writer, and really lets you concentrate on character, plot and setting without being weighed down by wrestling with the raw material of writing. I’m not having a trouble reading your story, and I can concentrate my thoughts on the ideas. That certainly makes the critiquing more pleasurable

In terms of the story, I'm interested without being blown away or enthralled. I would hope in this situation that I knew more about the character, so I can identify with them and start to care about what happens to them. Ill is pretty much a blank slate at this point, although it’s good to know that he doesn’t know why he’s been picked for this job. I’d like to see him churning that over and looking more competent rather than asking others to answer his questions. I know it’s a mechanism for conveying the information, but you could make Ill the one who had the answers. There a danger by making Send look more competent that the reader identifies more with him than Ill. Certainly, your telling more about his character traits than Ill, it seems.

• (page 3) “It was unusual. Send was definitely right.” – beware of repeating yourself. This second bit is redundant, it’s not serving any purpose (Ha, like I just did!)
• “knife bayonets fixed” – a bayonet is a specialised knife.
• “let out an inward a sigh” – ah, really awkward and kind of contradictory, (in/out?).
• “unobtainable” – unattainable is a better word here, I believe.
• “The slave ruler wore steel plate and sat astride a horse” – You’ve already told us he has rode forward, so this is redundant.
• Again, Send dominates Ill, and I’m wondering why Ill is sent in preference to Send. Just because Ill is the commander? So, why is he the commander and not Send? I would enjoy this more if I had a better grounding in the character and knew more about him, just through hints, and short asides: it doesn’t need to be a big explanation, which would slow things down a lot.
• There’s some nice banter between Ill and Send, and it reveals more about Ill’s character, but I think it comes at the wrong time, or it goes on too long when the slave ruler is sitting waiting. UNLESS, you make a joke out them making him wait while they conduct this rather inane, certainly irrelevant dialogue., i.e. make more of a deliberate joke about it. At the moment, it tends to look like bad judgement on Ill’s part, which I don’t think you want at this point. If you keep the dialogue here and don’t make it deliberate to frustrate the slave ruler, I would stop it after Send’s poet line, which is a nice punchline to end on before Ill moves forward.
• “Red Sword” – I think we need to know what this is much earlier, so we understand why Ill is the centre of attention, and why he has to do this, even though he is less qualified.
• References to Ser’s eyes get a bit repetitive.
• The contact between Ill and Send surely must be visible to Ser too? It makes Ill look very weak to the reader, and maybe to Ser if he can see it. Certainly, he can see Ill turn, which looks weak in itself, like Ill is not in charge. Maybe you want Ill to look weak? At the moment, I’m not sure where my sympathies lie. Slavery being bad and all. I rather like the moral ambivalence going on here between the two sides.
• Double ‘that’ is awkward for the reader. I would rephrase, personally.
• The dialogue and I think some of the logic around the discussion about surrender is confusing. I think that at least one of them speaks two lines of dialogue without interruption? If that’s the case, they should be part of the same paragraph, even if separated by a dialogue tag. I think the talk about surrender is rather simplistic. They are both talking about the other surrendering, I think, which is what confuses it.
• The thing about the heir was confusing and seemed to come out of nowhere. However, you then explain it. Fair enough.
• The boy being like a son to Ill confuses me, because I felt that Ill behaved like he was quite young, maybe 25 or so. He doesn’t come over particularly mature/adult.
• Yeah, there are way too many paragraphs which really breaks up the flow. “Ill felt his throat…” and the next three lines can all be the same paragraph. I would strongly suggest, especially when in a discussion like this, only changing paragraphs when you change from one person to the other, otherwise it’s hard for the reader to keep track of what’s going on.
• I like the stakes presented for opening the city gates. It’s an impossible situation for Ill, and that creates excellent conflict, I'm very interested to see what he does now.
• Whoa now. How does Ill know it’s a bluff? I’ve seen nothing to indicate that. I don’t mind him taking a chance, but I'd rather he wasn’t so certain about the bluff, that just seems foolhardy, and it robs the situation of some tension, if Ill believe his ply will be successful. I think he should show more doubt and understanding that he’s risking the enemy killing the heir.
• “He might as well ask the sea to be still.” – Good line, like it.
• The K has impact, but Ill’s reaction is rather naïve, linked to what I though before about his foolhardiness. I’ve got to say it smacks of stupidity in Ill.
• Repetition of ‘earthquake’ is awkward, and robs Send’s line of its impact, I think.
• Peace is off?” – typo.
• “Kill them. Kill them all” – Sorry, but this line is now a massive cliché. I swear to you I've read or heard it three times this week, in different places. This is, I think, a case of low hanging fruit, i.e. going to the first, easiest option, and not looking beyond it to find a new and different form of the same phrase. I agree you need a punchy line here, but why not try some others. Try thinking of another five variations on the original line and seeing if you get something better, or at least as good, but different.
• Okay, see that last line? At that moment, I lost any sympathy or feeling that I had for Ill. So, he is the kind of general who sits in his high tower and orders others to their deaths? I know that what generals traditionally do, but that doesn’t mean the reader has to like it. I think the reader wants someone to root for, and Ill really hasn’t presented any likeable or honourable traits in this opening. I have to say that, so far, I think I'm on the side of the slaves.

So, I really rather enjoyed your submission. I know I had loads to say about it, and I'm sorry this is such a huge wedge of comment, but I usually only go off on one like this when I'm drawn into a story and want to try and help make it better. It’s your story, of course, but I think there are issues with it, as described. However, I think your prose style is very easy to read, not overly fussy, direct, and pretty tidy. There was a lack of description, as I didn’t have much feeling for the location, or the appearance of the characters. I would recommend working in aspects of description using all the senses. Smell, for example, can be a really powerful one, and sound, but even sight could be included more. It doesn’t mean give a big list of descriptions that takes away from the action, just a hint of ‘colour’ here and there, to make the reader feel the setting.

Nice work. I hope you're going to submit some more stuff.  

<R>

Edited January 19, 2018 by Robinski

[Robinski]

On 16/01/2018 at 1:21 AM, Mandamon said:

Illy seems very immature

I agree with Mandamon...

On 15/01/2018 at 8:23 PM, Chuck Hossenlopp said:

me being an old guy

Hail, fellow old guy, well met!!  

On 16/01/2018 at 1:21 AM, Mandamon said:

Repeating Kash's name a lot is not helping...trying not to giggle

Yeah, must say I had this problem too. It's not the character's fault, but it does distract in the reading. I don't think you'd need to change much, just one letter probably. Say, the 'i'.

On 17/01/2018 at 8:29 PM, industrialistDragon said:

all the kitten gods of the internet

All praise the mighty kitten gods, lest Earth be batted around like a bowl of wool.

[ICanDream]

Thanks for all the feedback guys! I very much appreciate it!

Just a quick question - how do I make you relate more to the character? It’s been mentioned multiple times, and I’m really not sure how to effectively achieve it. Any tips or anything?

[Robinski]

2 hours ago, ICanDream said:

Thanks for all the feedback guys! I very much appreciate it!

Just a quick question - how do I make you relate more to the character? It’s been mentioned multiple times, and I’m really not sure how to effectively achieve it. Any tips or anything?

In my opinion, there are several ways to do it.

(a) give more personal background about the character. So, when you mention the dark things that happened to Illy before, but don't reveal them; you could consider instead actually revealing them. Not in huge detail, but just give us something more than hints. E.g. the last time there was a war with the slaves, they came to Illy's farm and slaughtered all his animals, maybe they hanged his elderly parents; his aunt and uncle - for example. CAUTION: Beware of fridging. Don't make up a female character just so you can kill her off to create sympathy for Illy. That is textbook fridging. I am not the expert on this subject, but it's about respecting female characters and roles, treating them equally to male characters, making them real people who affect the story and don't just exist to influence the reader's feelings about the main (male) character.

(b) show the m/c doing something incredibly capable, like the slave general speaks in sign language to his lieutenant, but Illy memorises the signs so he can discuss them with Send afterwards. I don't know, I'm making stuff up on the hoof. Also, you could allude to significant weakness in the m/c. Maybe the last time there was a war, he failed in some way, made some mistake that cost the lives of two hundred troops. The king forgave him, but he never forgave himself. What I mean is show us his biggest flaw, make him seem fragile, without being incompetent.

(c) show us something that he is aspiring towards, some personal goal. He promised his father he was going to return the estate to profit and success, and he's darned if this revolt is going to make him break his promise to his dying/dead father.

(d) show us a major conflict or secret that he has not shared with his colleagues. If he's a general, I figure maybe he also is a slave owner himself, or his family is. Maybe they treat their slaves well, and are respected by them, and respect them in return. Maybe he promised his slaves to speak for change, but this revolt will end up making enemies of people who he almost considers his friends.

(e) is he married? If he's not, maybe he is having a secret relationship with one of his slaves, and he was going to leave the country and take his love with him, bolt to somewhere far away where they could live in peace as equals, but this war will throw the whole thing into jeopardy and possibly lead to his love being imprisoned or even under threat of death, or capture / freeing by the slave general. CAUTION: this one could be straying into fridging territory. In this scenario, his love would need to be strong and independent, and not just an object of his affection, but a character that influenced the story, imo.

These are some very, very quick-fire illustrations of ways to give something to hang character on. In summary, what I'm saying, I think, is to give us some interesting detail to latch onto, something that defines what Illy is about, what makes him do the things he does. We don't need paragraph after paragraph about it, just enough of a hook to judge his actions and reactions by.

That's my tuppence-worth! Hope it helps    

Edited January 19, 2018 by Robinski

[industrialistDragon]

6 hours ago, ICanDream said:

Just a quick question - how do I make you relate more to the character?

My suggestion would be to go back to your favorite characters from television or books. Go to the character's introduction and read/watch that intro with an eye towards figuring out what the script or story is doing to make you care for or sympathize with what's going on. In this case, it's less about what the character is doing than how the story is framing it. Do we-the-readers-or-viewers get a lot of emotion right away from the character, do we see them doing cool things, are they fighting with someone we cared about earlier? Do the camera angles or descriptive passages convey anything about your favorite character, their likes or dislikes, whether they're supposed to be "good" or "bad?"  What makes you, personally, care about and feel closer to Cool Character and not That Other Guy?

[ICanDream]

Last thing before I stop pestering you guys and rewrite this chapter. What did you guys think of the opening? Should I make it character related instead? Did you like it?