20131125 - Mandamon - Physical Magic Ch 1

[Mandamon he/him]

Hi all,
    I sent out the first chapter of something I've started working on (Title pending...I call it "Physical Magic" for now), but can't seem to get into.  I like the concept of the story, but I think something's wrong.  It's up to you to tell me what!

[Mandamon he/him]

Gah...sorry about the triple post. Chrome just freaked out on me.  I can't seem to delete.  Can an Administrator clean up the other two posts?

[jParker]

I guess I get the honors of first response.

 

Things I liked: the realism of the magic system. It seems to be based on yoga/kung fu, which are very physical, but also can create feelings of power when mastered. I'm usually not crazy about...unique magic systems, but I'm very intrigued by this one. 

 

Also, using a real-world outcast. So many heroic fantasies utilize beautiful people who are just barely down on their luck. But the deformed are almost universally spurned, cast out as Untouchable. Add in the fact that her mother's dead and father absent, Silluka becomes someone I'm automatically rooting for. 

 

However, the seeming meta of her sarcasm with the teenagers did not roll with me at all. It was a YA attempt at breaking the fourth wall, which naturally did not work. 

 

All in all, while this is a little traditional fantasy for me, I'm eagerly awaiting the next installment.

[yankorro]

hello there, as always take my comments with a healthy dose of salt...

 

first impressions (story, setting, character): YA fantasy, in a vaguely Asian sort of secondary world with 'physical magic' (i'm kind of imagining something like the crazy old Taoists do in a 80s Tsui Hark kung-fu movie for example).  We also seem to have an orphan who's going to magic school, which as I'm sure you're aware is territory that has been trod upon before and so I'm sure you'll be careful not to Harry-Potter it up too terribly much.

 

more specifically: in the first scene i feel there's a slight imbalance in the proportion to action and exposition. it seems awfully frontloaded with exposition in the first few paragraphs--which may mean it's a simple fix to just move some of that information further back. As a reader I like to ask myself questions about what I'm reading, and then discover the answers as I go on, which keeps me reading. i think i would get more out of a scene like the first one if you gave me more of the scene itself in the present moment--girl getting chased by boys in the alley--which makes me wonder 'why are they chasing her?' Then you come in with the exposition you're answering my questions and as a reader i feel satisfied. don't know if that makes any sense. in any case, it may be just personal preference on my part.

 

looking forward to more...

[Two McMillion he/him]

Good piece. The main character is well-drawn and sympathetic, her situation and problems drawn out well. It reminded me a bit of Elantris. About the only problem I could see is the ending was rather abrupt, but it's really just a matter of a few sentences.

 

I will comment that the protagonist's thoughts were very modern. That is, the way she thought of the poor, the downtrodden, etc- in a lot of ways, those are very modern thoughts and ideas. This could possibly be justified, if the magic of the world has allowed philosophy to advance faster than technology, but in some places it felt a lot like a modern woman injected into a fantasy setting. Some examples:

 

Page 5:

 

No one under sixty read. Their vocabularies were terrible.

 

I'm not sure how believable this is, coming from a girl who's lived on the streets all her life in a society that, as far as I can tell, has yet to reach Enlightenment ideals. Why does she care about reading when apparently nobody else her age does?

 

Page 9 has probably the most glaring example of this:

 

Privilege. That was a nice way of putting it. Of condemning a section of your population to menial work in barter for scraps and castoffs, if they could get it. The unlucky ones just starved. She turned to leave.

 

Again, why is she aware of this when apparently nobody else is? Paring a discussion of societal inequality with the word "privilege" brings to mind modern discussions of the subject. I feel like she'd be more worried about herself rather than society at large- how she's going to starve, how she's doomed to be in the streets. And to be fair, she does do this in many places. It's really just in a few where the modern comments come out.

 

But on the whole, well-written and readable. I would be interested in reading a book of this.

[Mandamon he/him]

Thanks for the responses.  

 

jParker--glad you liked Silluka.  I was a little worried about putting an actual disabled character as the lead in case I caused offense (by not portraying it well), but I think so far it's working.  I'm interested to see what you think in the next few chapters.

 

yankorro--nope, avoiding the HP vibe.  It goes a different direction in the next chapter.

 

Both of you have the response I was hoping for on the magic system.  I'm wondering what you think as it progresses.  There is another cultural basis in the story which becomes more evident later.  Looking forward to the first one to spot it.

 

The big takeaway seems to be the reaction to the teenagers and the exposition.  I'll look at that on the edit.

 

I'm hoping to post at least the first 5 chapters (I have 11 written) as that should be enough to get a feel from the piece and maybe discover what direction I need to go with it. 

[Mandamon he/him]

Two McMillion--also thank to you for the feedback!  I missed yours when replying as the website was being unresponsive.

 

Interesting that you mention Elantris and the philosophy (and much thanks for the comparison!).  Sanderson actually likes to do the modern ethics/thinking in primitive society a lot.  He did it in Elantris with Sarene and in Mistborn with Vin (which, of course, is where I get some of my inspiration for a young, strong female character).  You're on the right track that philosophy is more advanced here than technology.

 

That said, I do get your point that it was a bit blatant in the first chapter.  I'm guessing it's similar to what the others are picking up on with too much exposition.  There are big divides in this society between age, education, and physical handicaps, but it sounds like I need to tone it down a bit and spread out the explanation.

[Two McMillion he/him]

Here's an idea you may or may not want to run with. There's evidence that in societies where there's an oppressed group, the members of the oppressed group often still adopt the values of society at large, unless there's a source telling them differently. In other words, unless someone specifically taught Silluka differently, it's highly likely that she would share the belief of her society with regard to disabled people- in other words, that she would think herself worthless and without hope/purpose. It's not necessary for her to think sweeping statements about the society as a whole- just thinking about it relation to herself should be enough. I think readers can pick up on it. 

[andyk he/him]

There's a lot to like here. The central character is interesting and her central challenge of overcoming her disability brings together the internal emotional conflict of trying to overcome her own limitations with an external conflict of overcoming the limitations of society and the magic system. Really interesting.

 

I also like the magic system, which so far feels like a sort of super-powered Tai Chi.

 

What I thought the story was missing so far was description and detail of the setting. I had no idea what the place or most of the characters looked like, and that made it hard to picture it in my mind. Just a few architectural details or references to what she's wearing early on could really help with this.

[Robinski he/him]

Some good comments by the others, I'm with AndyK on the setting descriptions (lack of). I did not think of HP at all.

 

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I enjoyed prayer(?) or poem at the start, thought provoking. It struck me that it might have resonated more for me if the two parts of the last line were transposed.

 

I didn't understand the phrase 'as if it failed that privilege' in the context of the sentence it's used in.

 

I'm curious as to why no one who can still bodycast would act to progress society, that seems a very extreme side effect of this form of magic, almost as if people are so addicted to its practice that the normal spread of behaviour in a normal society is suppressed.

 

I don't see why Silluka has never tried to complete certain Chayus without leaving a gap, why wouldn't she complete one to understand the limits of her ability? I suppose perhaps it could be that she's afraid to know the answer, but you don't play that up in that moment when she has the thought. I now see that this is brought out once she has failed, but I think it might add more tension to the test if we knew the reason beforehand.

 

Interesting chapter, well written and easy to read, although there were a few minor grammar issues that I was tempted to mention, but restrained myself as they would be easily polished out in an edit.