20140309 - Without Honour - Chapter 7 (L)‏

[Robinski he/him]

Here is Chapter 7 of ‘Without Honour’. I'm going to start giving recap notes like others very sensibly do. I'm also going to include certain corrections that I maybe have not done a great job at showing in the chapters to date, so it’s worth the regulars glancing over this too, I hope. Also, a DP so far, in case you're picking this up part way through. So, here goes, the story so far:

 

Tensions in the region are building towards another Brekian invasion of Svaringen, the last being 5 years ago, while neighbouring powers look on and political manoeuvring continues. The Brekians’ aim is to retake the once-Brekian Yores Valley which lies between the countries. Many Svars regard the Yoresi with suspicion, as they have divided their allegiances in past conflicts.

 

Saffen is a spirited young woman who rails against the subservient role that society has shackled her with, and her divided passions have fractured her marriage and driven her husband away. She is now travelling to enlist and put the skills practiced in secret to use, but two fugitives have captured her.

 

Gillus is fleeing the city of Svarheim, where Brekian spies held him. Marnar is also fleeing the same band. He is a Yoresi, the Bloody Hand of Brekia, a notorious assassin who killed the Svar king 5 years ago, although his identity is not widely known. The Brekian spies need him to play some role in their plans, but Marnar has no desire to aid them, having lost faith with Brekian values and aims.

 

Damiel is a physic, a user of supernatural powers learned from a master in Brekia. He is a Yoresi and key member of the band of Brekian spies that work in Svarheim, plotting to once again kill the King of Svaringen.

[jParker]

Well, I have to say that I find myself in a bit of bind about this chapter. It started out slow and frankly, a little perplexing--Gillus' campiness above all else--and then it started to pick up and now I'm actively excited for this series again.

STRENGTHS

We're actually seeing exposition between our little band of rogues. Some conflict is happening, some tension, and unlike in Dune, I'm not really sure how it's going to pan out.

Similarly, we're seeing some try-fail cycles in Teimen's world. I know he's an antagonist, but I see a lot of Lannister in him and that's pretty neat.

NOT STRENGTHS (formerly WEAKNESSES)

The first bit with the band didn't really work for me. I didn't understand why Gillus was so chipper and June Cleaver about everything; I definitely didn't understand why if Saffen screws up, it's not her who gets killed. (I mean, obviously they have to kill the bystander, but why not her too?) It feels like you're going out of your way to preserve your protagonists.

Also, still not really invested in Celantorn. I'm not sure why I should feel anything towards him one way or the other, beyond being a window on the magic system. More on that later.

Finally, I'm confused why Teimen is able to get away with treating his men like minions instead of soldiers. There seems to be no reaction one way or the other when he abuses the new guy, no frustration in the ranks, just a white wall. And that really costs the story.

PURE CURIOUSITY

Is anybody else envisioning traditional physics when that word comes up? For some reason, I keep imagining Euclid and Newton playing D&D and while that's pretty neat, it probably is not helpful to the story.

On a related note, are physics batteries or conduits? I mean, I can see it going both ways, but if the magic system is as impotent as it seems to be--largely functioning as a long-range communication network rather than an effective combat system--there should be a counterweight. It feels like Celantorn has been building up physics to be these badass sorcerers and they end up being little more than energy money-changers.

It also seems like Yores is a loose parallel with the Crimea. Obviously, this was written beforehand, but a wider audience wouldn't know that. Also, are they an historically independent state or a Sudetenland or a protectorate or what?

Finally, should I just give up on watching a Viking get his skull split open and enjoy the story for what it is?

[andyk he/him]

The way you tell or show stuff is often still too long winded for my taste. I think you can be more confident in your writing and not over-sell things so much. For example:

p.7. 'If the attackers truly had been Brekians, would loyal Svars not have gone to the local barracks or town and reported them? She had no experience of such things, but was not stupid. Whatever the case, she was hardly in a position to challenge them. As she watched Gillus work, she decided that they must be criminals, pure and simple.' - The middle two sentences feel superfluous to me. You've already shown us that Saffen lacks experience of the wider world and is quite smart, she doesn't need to think it. Similarly we know she's not really able to challenge them right now. Cutting straight from the first to the last sentence of these four would shown Saffen as more decisive in thinking about and dealing with her situation and keep things moving along quicker.

 

There were also some instances where your choice of PoV and the information you wanted to get across didn't seem very well matched. For example:

p.5: Marnar's reading a lot into Saffen's mental state. Having this level of detail about her emotions come from his PoV rather than hers feel forced. It's good that you as the author know how she's been at each stage of their journey, but that doesn't mean Marnar should be so insightful.

On p.11 there's a description of the limits of Damiel's powers. Instead of telling us their limits through someone else's thoughts, could you create a scene that shows them through putting Damiel in peril or challenging him in some other way? It would be a better fit PoV-wise and reduce the amount of telling.

 

p.14. 'even a purchased man liked to think that he was doing the right thing in taking the coin' - nice, gives depth to a host of minor characters, and to the character who thought it.

 

p.16. Why doesn't Teimen just tell this guy from the start the same thing he's told his men, that they're hunting criminals? I ended up very confused about what was going on here and why.

 

Overall, you've created a situation with lots of conflicts, but then aren't using them to drive the characters forwards or add tension. We're not seeing the war, we're not seeing a lot of argument between Saffen and her captors, she even thinks about why she shouldn't make a run for it rather than doing that and then failing. Maybe try to think about the high intensity flash-points and focus more on those?

[styn]

Well its always awkward  to start in the middle of a story, so you'll have to take my comments with this in mind. My first impressions were actually really positive. From just the summary I found myself surprised when the fugitives who had captured Saffen ended up being Gillus and Marnar. This might give you an idea of how slow I can be to put together information that isn't handed to me on a silver platter.

The implication in the writing was that this capture was a fairly recent development. Alot of the writing was an overview of recent events, which wouldn't have been necessary if the scenes were actually written out. I enjoyed the dialogue between the three of them and felt like it had a natural flow to it. One of the primary concerns I had was justification for Saffen's continued presence. The keeping of a captive seems very counter intuitive for their situation. By the end of the submission I felt like this was addressed to my satisfaction.

The writing itself is a good balance of description and plot devices. Like many people I don't really care how grey the grey rock is, so this was a relief. The individual viewpoints by themselves had a good flow to them. However, it wasn't but a page or two in where the first storyteller shift happened. If you're giving us a piecemeal story like this to try and get as much feedback as possible on the different plots, then alright. If this is actually the style you intend to use as a published work then I would not have made it through the sample download on my Iphone.

To me, all this jumping around, shows that you don't have enough interesting things happening in the separate plots. So instead you're giving us tiny peaks into your world and trying to keep things fresh by refusing to let the reader settle in. This isn't engaging to me at all. In fact I don't think a starter book should have so many viewpoints to begin with, but as this seems an established style for you, it will be the last time I mention it for any subsequent reviewing.

So as I mentioned, the Saffen Marnar section was well done. The only thing that caught my eye was that I think that someone who would steal someone's money and spend it, wouldn't find that money by happenstance. I'm not really sure why you couldn't just say that Marnar had threatened her for the store of cash, or had patted her down to locate the hidden money. I also thought it was odd that Saffen didn't consider option three in her deductions, that her captors were both criminals AND Brekians.

When I read the summary I felt that Gillus was going to be a redundant unneeded character, but he's probably my favorite from this submission. He's got an understandable motivation, is making the best of a bad situation, and is decently likable. He's also driving the plot in the Marnar, Saffen section in my opinion. I'm mostly neutral toward your other characters other then Teiman.

This seems mostly low magic fantasy to me, which I'm not into, so keep that in mind. I didn't like the description of physics, and not just because it was a whole lot of tell and not so much show. I think that if the magic is going to be this weak it shouldn't even have a combat application. Just make them telepathic and be done with it. Plenty of uses for long distance communication in a low tech society without needed to make them mages to boot.

Ahhh Teiman. The man's stream of consciousness lines up a perfect story for his travel south and the first thing he does is fail to properly tell it to the first person to question him? At best he's a moron, at worse you've created a scene that completely alienated me as a reader and totally destroyed my belief in this guys competence. This of course lowered my faith in the people backing him. Why do they need to engage in such dubious methods anyway if they have numerical and tactical superiority? I really hope you're going somewhere with this aspect and that it will make more sense when I read more.

In short, more Saffen and Marnar please. If we can't see the world view eventually from these character's viewpoints then they shouldn't be in the story at all. There isn't enough story here for me to really care about what's happening with the King of the country or any other potential subplot yet. Although granted, every chapter isn't going to be an action packed blowout.

Edited March 10, 2014 by styn

[Robinski he/him]

Thank you all for very comprehensive comments.

 

JP – I’ll need to read Gillus more carefully if he’s coming across camp. Very pleased with your positives, of course, but I understand that, some bright spots aside, it’s been a long road to get there. I accept your point about preserving characters, there are also instances of fitting characters into situations without sufficient justification – rightly picked up and fixes required. On Celantorn, I can see that you’re right – it’s not enough for him to be there as Svar leader, the reader needs more to invest in. Your point on Teimen’s white wall is also spot on, I will fix that. The word ‘physic’, I think, works okay, but when it’s plural, there is an issue. It’s really become a place holder in my mind, but I need to give more thought to a replacement. I also need to better define the magic system too, by showing its range much earlier. Your Crimea point is interesting. As you say, the current situation there postdates WH. I think it was the West Bank, at a high level, where the basic concept came from, but it’s not especially sophisticated. The current association in my mind is with Scotland’s vote on independence, not the same situation of course, but one that has resonance – don’t get me started though.

___________

 

Andy – Accepted; agree; agreed; will do; thank you – glad that worked; noted*; good point⁺.

 

*   In my mind – but not well conveyed, clearly – was that Teimen panicked a bit when confronted unexpectedly.  He felt that the weapons story was more plausible, and didn’t want to be faced with questions about who he was working for and what the fugitives had done. JP also made a point about the lack of response from Teimen’s men, which was fair, so I’ll address both of those. I added this section with Teimen last week, so it’s only had one pass. I was trying to address the lack of action.

 

⁺   Your point about flash points is well made and has been picked up (in different forms) throughout my submissions. It’s something I will go back and work on throughout. As I noted before, I planning to submit one more chapter (8), which has an action set piece in it – after that I need to go back to square one and re-write – I'm still hoping to do that, then finish offline and put in Alphareaders. Before I do that though, I'm planning an SF short in which I will practice meeting all of the great comments that I’ve had on my style head on to see if I am capable of ‘fixing’ them.

 

Thank you again for sticking with it so far – I’d love to think that Chapter 8 will be a pay-off – I'm eager to get reactions to my version of ‘action’, but also slightly nervous...

___________

 

Hi Styn! Thank you for reading Chapter 7 and giving me a different perspective – very valuable.

 

I'm glad you felt there was some consistency to Saffen’s situation. Others have commented differently from longer experience of the piece, and I think they have a point, it’s something I’ll tighten up, I think. I note your issue with the view points, you’re not the first to pull me up on that, but you raise an interesting rationale for it which I hadn’t considered. Put that together with comments about lack of action and I think you probably have something there – must slap my subconscious about the head and tell it to buck up its ideas.

 

On the Saffen section, there are some clues to motivation that are not flagged in the right way – or picked up on by the Saffen herself – which I need to fix. They should (back at point of capture) pat her down for knives, but wouldn’t ‘steal’ her money, as they are not thieves (per se). To be fair, you would know that if not coming in at Chapter 7, but I accept there’s a disjoint between them becoming aware of the money and them appropriating it to further their cause – which is getting away from Svaringen.

 

As an enemy nation, being Brekian in Svaringen would trump being a criminal – perhaps similar to being a card carrying Russian in Ukraine now. As to the wider story, see my comments above in response to Andy about submitting Chapter 8 then taking a hiatus to overhaul.

 

Again, thank you all for your comments.

[Mandamon he/him]

Once again I got here late (busy week) so most everything has been covered.  I agree with Andyk and jParker on pretty much everything: the pacing was again too slow and you're still winching up the axe far past when we want to see it fall.

 

In the first section, what are their intentions toward Saffen? Why keep her along at all? As jParker said, it seems more like plot pushing the main characters together.

 

Still more set up with Marnar & co, but they still haven't gone anywhere.  The whole first part takes place while breaking camp, getting ready to go south.

 

You start with Celantorn contemplating Damiel, but with no action.  As with jParker, I'm just not invested in Celantorn.  I don't know what he adds to the story.  You tell us about Damiel's abilities (some of which you've already told us about), but don't show why they are useful.  I was also wondering about the physic(s), but jParker but it into words much better.  They seem weak.  Even in your own writing you acknowledge this; "They may not have physics to send messages, but signal fires could be effective too."

 

Here, you break with getting ready for a council, but no action has been taken.

 

Teimen is starting to seem ineffective.  He can't hold on to Marnar, and now he's barely keeping his troops in check.

 

In the last section you say Saffen is a hostage, but hostage against what?

 

Your writing is still keeping me engaged; I think most of this can be corrected in a first edit by taking a liberal cut of the words and putting the action forefront rather than passive thinking about what is to happen.  Andyk's point on POVs is spot on.

[Robinski he/him]

Thank you Mandamon. Given the issues that have been pretty consistent from the start, I'm indebted to you guys for sticking with it - very glad to hear that you are still engaged - if a bit frustrated I dare say.

 

On Monday, demand for slots permitting, you'll get Chapter 8 which, has an extended (by my standards) action scene. You've all been very patient in waiting for it, so I hope it works for you - very interested to hear your comments. Thereafter, I will take a break and regroup.

[manaheim]

First off, my apologies. Somehow I missed this submission, so I'm coming to it late.

 

I'm really interested in the story, but there were some things about it that made it hard for me to read. If I wasn't reading for RE, I would have put this down and walked away within the first couple pages.

 

There is a lot of exposition. It's just too much to wade through. My advice would be to try to give us more of what is happening through the characters. Have them talk more to break things up and that will give us all that you're trying to give us and more.

 

The sentence structure is also a little challenging. There are many sentences that run on for a long time and combine many different elements into one sentence. Example: "It had faded after the first morning and by dusk that day, which they had spent struggling through woodland, crossing two rivers and trudging across fields, resignation had made her more relaxed."  I just think you're trying to cram way too much into one sentence.

 

I'm also confused about Saffen... you made it pretty clear she was captured, and yet she speaks as if she is not a captive, and they oddly talk to her as if she is not a captive. I was forced to go back and read it again to be sure.

 

There were a few other concerns here and there, but for me, these issues are going to be your top ones to deal with. It seems like an interesting story, but these elements makes it challenging to read.

[Robinski he/him]

Thank you Manaheim, much appreciated. The Saffen problem is the main reason I'm stopping submitting chapters, it's too central to the story, but there are other problems and I'm just going to be digging a deeper hole if I don't start back at the beginning a fix the issues that are tripping everyone up.

[manaheim]

Oh boy can I ever understand THAT.   Good luck with it. Looking forward to seeing more when you're ready.