Kartys - 01/12/2014 - Chapter 1: The Docks of Dray (2243)

[Kartys he/him]

Hello everyone,

 

So this is my first submission to the Reading Excuses site.  Really looking forward to all types of feedback.

 

Here is a quick pitch of the story:

What does a centuries dead wizard, a faceless gang of assassins, and an over-zealous group of magical law enforcement have in common. They are all standing in James “Griffon” Bates way of doing his job; keeping his latest client, archaeologist Juliet Westings, alive. With only days before she is marked for death, the clock is ticking, but the secrets his client is keeping may be more lethal than he could ever imagine.

 

[Lord Juugatsu]

Alright. I don't believe I recognize you, and you seem new, based on the amount of posts you have (I'm pretty new myself), so welcome. I'll start with my standard disclaimer: The following thoughts and opinions are based on how I'm perceiving the work. It is up to you as the writer/author to determine how to interpret my feedback, what to use, and what to discard.

I've read through the entire thing once, and as I'm providing the feedback, I'm kind of skimming back in case there were any specific points I wanted to make. Starting on a bit more general scale, I felt a little drowned in description and adjectives earlier in the story, particularly with the carriage. A fair amount of detail went into painting the carriage, so I had a pretty solid image defined in my head without having to fill in much of anything for blanks, and at this point, I'm half expecting that carriage to be something super pertinent to the story, despite how not very pertinent it seemed this chapter.

The writing style as a whole felt pretty good. The pacing felt pretty slow as a whole, more so in the beginning, but nothing really came across awkwardly on a first read. I mention the pacing felt slow, but I did find myself getting more into the story a little after Juliet and Shippet's dialogue, once I understood what was going on, the ship was introduced and we were told that it was Juliet's destination/goal. I also didn't really get a good feel for Juliet as a character until that same point.

The dialogue felt pretty good to me, I liked the brief introduction of magic in the form of weather weavers and the mention of Archmage Drayith's relics. It added history to the world and city, answered the question of what Juliet was antsy about, and acted as a key so that we readers can guess what the following commotion is about, even if it was a bit of (no offense intended) cheaper cliff-hanger (in the sense of 'something happens, but we don't know what' versus 'something happens, we learn what it is, but we don't get to see the effects/reactions of the characters until next chapter'). We can at least guess though, otherwise I'd probably have more of an issue with that cut-off point.

Juliet, as the PoV character, felt kind of inconsistent in... how to say it... immersion(?). In some areas, it felt like we were really in her head, then in other areas it felt like we were behind the eyes of a random person watching the scene. I picked up on a few areas where my internal editor was thinking 'Changing this word here would really add a bit more character and get behind Juliet's eyes', and it's not a major issue by any means, but she has active thoughts in the form of "Not entirely true, she said to herself... ", but then there's other areas such as "Juliet waved Krusk over and whispered in his ear." that felt very distant.

There were also some areas that felt like 'tells' where a 'show' could present more opportunities for characterization of Juliet or others or opportunities for world-building, but I'm getting /really/ nit-picky at this point. That's mostly because as a whole, the quality felt pretty good, so for anything constructive, it feels like I need to get a bit of a nit-picky level, so really I think it's a good thing that I feel these are the things to point out. My lunch break is over though, so I'll have to call it here. Thanks for the submission.

[Mandamon he/him]

Welcome to Reading Excuses!  It's been a slow month with NaNoWriMo, so you may have some more responses in later weeks.

 

Generally I agree with Juugatsu.  I thought this this was well written and flowed very smoothly.  I didn't have a problem with the description of the carriage.  It helped me get into the story, although it was a very fancy carriage...  I was surprised at the amount of comforts it had.  I didn't notice the distance from the character in the first read, but I see what Juugatsu is saying.  Again, I didn't really have a problem with it, as I felt it fit the atmosphere of the writing.

 

In scope, this reminded me a lot a Bram Stoker's Dracula, with the ship coming into dock, the fog and recovering something important from the ship.

 

I'm interested to see what happens with Juliet, especially with the hints about her age, and that she has grown a lot older recently.  It seems like, from your pitch above, that Juliet isn't the main character--the detective is.  So of course I'm wondering why he isn't in the first chapter.

 

I don't have a lot of critique, mainly because I didn't see a lot wrong with this.  I'm interested to see what the next chapters look like.

 

Found a few typos here and there.  Everything else looked pretty polished.

pg 2: two places: "hide" instead of "hid"

pg 5: "steady rain" instead of "steady raid"

"brother" instead of "brothers" later on, I didn't mark the page.

[Lord Juugatsu]

As a response to Mandamon on the protagonist comment,  I've seen stories lead in with character who are more appropriate with setting up the plot rather than with the protagonist before, but I do feel like it's unusual to do so without it being a prologue. In A Devil's Playground (Thanks for providing feedback on chapter 1, by the way), it's kind of the same way. Gin is the central pin that the plot effectively revolves around, but over the next few chapters, when I get them here for review, Alex (guy at the end of chapter 1) is more the real protagonist.

I also wanted to echo the interest in Juliet's aging situation, since I failed to mention it. I was definitely curious as to the details regarding that. I was wonder if she was someone who had lived a long time. She's definitely a character who has a good amount of mystery about her without sacrificing personality. It makes me want to know more about her.

 

Edited December 3, 2014 by Lord Juugatsu

[Kartys he/him]

Thank you both for the comments.  Extremely helpful.  In retrospect this definitely could be considered more of a prologue.

 

Lord Juugastu, I definitely understand what you mean by the "cheap" hook.  At one point I had the scene continue a little further, but I really wanted to get some heavy mystery notes to flush out the detective feel of the book.  But again I do agree it comes across as the a cheap hook.  Definitely something to look into.

 

Mandamon, I am really happy you picked up on the bits about her age because that is a big plot thread that ties up in the climax.

 

Again thank you both for such great comments.

[RawToast225 he/him]

I didn't look at the other posts, so forgive me if something I say has been mentioned before. Firstly, I loved the idea of the Weavers. That was fantastic! It reminded me of a part of another book that had a similar power briefly, but wasn't explored well enough, so I can't wait to hear more about them.

 

Second, I really liked how you built the anticipation for the box. I was afraid you were going to end the chapter before you explained it and I felt very frustrated. Thanks for clearing it up.

 

I didn't like how the chapter ended. I was left with a confused feeling at the end, and rereading it didn't really help. Maybe that's what you were going for, but I didn't understand it.

 

I liked the hint that the person who hired the ship's captain was the same person that collected the three pieces of armor. That was cool. I just don't understand it and want to.

 

All in all, I like it so far.

[Robinski he/him]

Apologies for the delay in this critique, I blame Write About Dragons; Start Write Now; NaNoWriMo and Christmas.

 

Welcome to Reading Excuses. Generally, I enjoyed the flow and the style, as usual, scope for polishing. I like a reasonable amound of setting, but my first reaction is, be wary of starting with detailed description of objects. I am looking for the character(s) and the story to hook me in, for some action or challenging thought / surprise to engage my in the first couple of lines. To be fair, you have set the scene and character motivation in the first couple of paragraphs, but I'm not feeling the ‘wow’ yet.

 

For example, a page in, we learn that there is something that “must be done.” That’s intriguing, that pulls me forward to find out what it is.

 

We don’t really learn that Juliet is old until the end of page 2, although you do mention her hip up front, it’s not in specific reference to her age.

 

Lot of typos, which are distracting for the reader. I would strongly suggest switching on spell and grammar checker, even if it’s just to do a pass before you submit. I keep them switched on, I have a constant and ongoing battle with Passive Voice that drives me to distraction, but it helps to avoid typos like:

 

Page 1, Line 1 – hasn’t > hadn’t

Page 2, Para 2, Line 5 – dark buildings passed as shadows

Page 3, Line 1 – hide > hid

 

I like the atmosphere that you’ve created. We certainly know it’s cold and frosty, dark and unwelcoming. I like that, sets a scene for dastardly deeds.

 

There are some punctuation issues (sorry, super quibble, but...). “The chill so intense...” is a continuation of the phrase in the previous sentence, so should be “...noticeable, the chill so intense...” I think.

 

Whoa, where did all these people arrive from? I can see she would have a driver and maybe a guard or two on the coach, but now she has a platoon of guards!

 

It seems very dark, I’d tend to question the wisdom of and/or ability to dock a ship in those conditions.

 

Page 5, Para 4 – “...thin clouds were...”

Page 5, Para 5 – “...a strong steady rain started...”

 

That’s a nice touch with the warm rain, prearranged, really draws me into the setting and the world. As a civil engineer, I hope they have a well designed drainage system, as precipitating a big melt with warm rain is going to generate a lot of water on the land.

 

Nice exchange about bossiness running in the blood – amusing.

 

I wonder if the straps securing the woollen bundle wouldn’t have buckles instead of latches, otherwise you have two sets of latches.

 

I'm struggling a bit with the size of this box and the bundle it was in, I pictured them smaller, my impression was reinforced, I think, by the size of the key, which sounded very small.

 

Nice conclusion, a real cliff-hanger, which I know Brandon has some issues with in some situations, but I think this works. There was tension building throughout the chapter, I was definitely waiting for something bad to happen, and sure enough! I suppose I was expecting it, but it still came as something of a surprise because of how suddenly it happened.

 

I'm interested to read more. Juliet is intriguing because it seems that she might be the person who put the cargo on the ship in the first place? I thought it was maybe her daughter, but you indicate that she travelled a road from the start point of the artefacts’ journey.

 

Interesting...