Hatrack River Writers Workshop: As yet untitled

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Posted by Salimasis (Member # 2490) on :

Pollitical/religious fantasy (no magic), 102k+ words, omniscient POV. This is the opening of the fourth book of a series.

Louis Cal Lamar, king of the coastal realm of Calara, was dying. Not quickly nor gently, but in slow, agonizing illness that ravaged his body daily; pulling, twisting, and distorting his muscles and bones. No medications, poultices, or treatments prescribed by his physicians could help him. At fifty-seven years old he was a wasted and pitiful remnant of his former self. His flesh was melting away from his body at an alarming rate, leaving him little more than a skeletal, shadowy form. Fingers that once grasped a weapon or strummed a harp now trembled and jerked with involuntary spasms. His once regal walk was now marked with halts and shuffles. His orator’s voice had fled, leaving a cracked and squeaky squawk in its stead. Had he also begun to lose his sanity as well, this condition might not

[This message has been edited by Kathleen Dalton Woodbury (edited January 17, 2006).]

Posted by Salimasis (Member # 2490) on :

I expect my post will be edited for length. I use 12 pt Times New Roman, which seems to cause my lines to run shorter in original print than Courier would have.

Posted by RedSakana (Member # 3127) on :

This gets me interested in the character, and I'm curious about what is happening to him.

There are a lot of places where you have pairs of adjectives/verbs/adverbs (e.g., quickly nor gently; pulling, twisting, and distorting; cracked and squeaky). I think the paragraph might be stronger if you picked just the most crucial word instead of including so much detail.

The last sentence has a lot of potential, but the wording is a little bit cumbersome for me (my brain is tired today, and had a hard time keeping track of 'they', 'if', and 'had'). But once I processed the sentence I liked that it suggests that there is something odd about the illness, and that it has an ominous note to it.

(Just to avoid confusion for people reading the post later--the last sentence that I was referring to was trimmed out of the original message)

[This message has been edited by RedSakana (edited January 18, 2006).]

Posted by Salimasis (Member # 2490) on :

Yes, the paragraph needs purging of adjectives and adverbs, it's just choosing which to go. I'm afraid I haven't worked on this in quite some time, though I should be able to tackle it soon. The ms. is completed, it now just needs a lot of revision and paring down of heavy narration and dialogue.

Posted by Corky (Member # 2714) on :

Try removing all adjectives and adverbs and then only adding in the ones that really have to be there.

Posted by Spaceman (Member # 9240) on :

I'm interested in why you selected omniscient POV? It's extremely difficult to do well.

Posted by wbriggs (Member # 2267) on :

On a practical note: have you got books 1-3 published? If not, maybe you should put off book 4.

I didn't care for this, but I didn't find it awful. I think what I didn't like is that it's summary, but it's a summary that goes on and on. If you want to summarize, I suggest brevity: "King Whatshis was wasting away." When you're ready to show us something, put us in the moment.

But it wasn't awful. I would keep reading in hopes that we'll get to some in-the-moment action real soon.

Posted by KevinMac (Member # 3145) on :

Personally I felt the imagery was good, I have a clear idea in my head what this poor guy looks like, and you managed to tell me a bit about his character - he used to play the harp and sing, as well as carry a sword. However, all he is doing is sitting there rotting. I do have questions that I want answered, like "so who is going to take over the Kingdom?" and "What is this mysterious disease?", but I'm not sure that would be enough to hook me into reading on if I were an editor. Give me a problem and I will for sure, like "He has no sons so the nation is in uproar over who gets the throne," or "there are whispers that the disease is some malevolent individual's attempt to steal the throne", or even, "the queen has already lost all her family and can't stand to lose her dear hubby, and is willing to do whatever it takes to keep him alive."

Maybe you do this later on in the chapter... I think it would be much more captivating if you could slam it in the first 13 lines. For me anyway...

Posted by raconteuse (Member # 3119) on :

I really liked the blend of fairy tale and narrative voice in your opening.

I did not have a strong emotional response to the opening. I felt as though I should feel very sorry for the king, but I did not. Perhaps it's just me, or perhaps the use of the omniscient POV to describe personal suffering lacked some of the emotion that could be found if we were experiencing the decay through the king's eyes.

I was also a little disappointed that there was no parallel between the king's state and the state of his realm. I would have liked to learn something about his subjects and their reaction to the king's decline, or learn something about the symbols of the Calarian kingship. Does he wear a special Calarian crown that has grown too heavy for his head? Can he no longer climb the steps of the great bell tower? ect.

For style nits, the liberal use of adjectives/adverbs has already been mentioned. If I were revising this section, I would start by eliminating adjs/advs that repeat information already given in descriptive nouns/verbs (ie. "squeaky squawk"- can we assume that most squawks are squeaky and leave out the squeaky?) If there are still too many adjs/advs, then you could replace less descriptive nouns/verbs with more descriptive ones.

One further nit:
"Had he also begun to lose his sanity as well"
"as well" is just a repeat of "also"

I think the idea of an ailing king is a good start for a fantasy. Good luck with it.

Posted by Salimasis (Member # 2490) on :

Thanks for all the feedback. This is why I like this site. Having reader feedback that is honest is the best way to improve one's presentation of the story.

I tend to overload the first drafts of my writing to set the mood and direction of the story line, then pare it down in the revisions.

*edit*

I have to confess I have a little trouble with POV. The lines actually are the POV of Louis' son, Lawrence, as the next paragraph reveals.

[This message has been edited by Salimasis (edited January 18, 2006).]

Posted by The Fae-Ray (Member # 3084) on :

I think if you're going to have the POV from the son, make that obvious from the start. Don't make us figure it out in the next paragraph and say "Oh... I thought it was a differen't POV."
An easy way to do this would be to say
"Louis Cal Lamar, king of the coastal realm of Calara, and my father, was dying." or something along the lines.

Posted by NathanClark (Member # 3149) on :

We don't necessarily need to know that the POV is his son, but it helps to recognize that there is someone else present wherever it is that the king currently is (I'm assuming his bedchamber, because of his condition). What I would do: Reveal right at the beginning the POV character's presence, and perhaps even his name, in a single sentence--"Lawrence tapped his foot." if he's impatient for his father to die so he can take the throne, or "Lawrence fell to his knees and cried" if he's heartbroken. Then go straight into the descriptive paragraph; we know there is someone in the room with some interest in what you are describing, we just don't know why. Then, in the next paragraph, reveal that Lawrence is the king's son. All of a sudden we realize the connection between the characters, and more opportunities present themselves.

Of course, this would make me much more interested in the son, Lawrence, then in the king, and that might not be your intention. If the relationship between the father and son has been fairly well explained in the previous books, you could use that initial sentence to simply restate that--have Lawrence act as he would be expected to, or as he already has frequently when visiting his father. Since nothing new is actually being presented to the reader, the focus doesn't shift from wherever it was in the previous book(s), and the scene simply serves as an excellent establishing shot.

Smack me upside the head, anyone, if what I'm saying is dumb--"New Member" here, and I'm far from a decent writer. I like to think that I'm a decent reader, though. :P

Posted by Salimasis (Member # 2490) on :

Thank you for the suggestions. What I wanted to achieve was a transition from the omniscient POV to Lawrence's POV, but it didn't work. I will have to re-write the first paragraph to reflect Lawrence's POV right away. I already have the revisions worked out in my head. Louis was mentioned in the first two books and made an appearance in the third. He is not a decent or likable character. Lawrence makes his debut in this book.

As a teaser, I'll add that Lawrence and his father have no love loss for each other. Because of his physical imperfections, Louis has rejected Lawrence as both his son and his heir. Add a cousin named as heir, Louis's terminal condition, plus the realm being at war with one of the strongest realms of the known world because of Louis's greed ...