[This message has been edited by First Assistant (edited December 12, 2007).]
"...where he was shot through five times..." Shot through where? After "through" I expected to see "the torso" or something like that. Why not just "...where he was shot five times..." Although again this is not very credible in that the character has not really been established.
"...and seen him do battle many times..." Are they both in battle? One is a spectator? They both lived through all this? Again hard to believe. This is a nit, but "do" sounds a little off to me. Why not just the simple "...and seen him in battle many times."
The guessing that you two did... That is precisely what I want my reader to do when he begins reading so he/she will keep reading to see if they are correct. Of course then you must surprise the reader by making the story grander than his/her predictions.
I shall tell you of Enniorhon. No man has ever been described by more tales than he. Yet all these stories were concocted by those who knew him not. It is time I tell a tale of my own for it is I who knew him and knew him well. Or did I?
It is said that a man who knows no pain or fear is no man at all. If this holds fast then he truly was not one. But I know he greaved for his wife for I have also lost my beloved and I have seen this same look in a mirror.
For such mighty a hero he had sired few children. A single daughter is all that he has left behind. Such a fierce warrioress she has become. Yet not nearly as fierce as he was. In truth, he had no equal. That much the tales are true. He truly was The Seventh Dragon of Sayhan. And I? I am only Eleon
[This message has been edited by First Assistant (edited December 13, 2007).]
You are writing first person, from Eleon Namot's perspective. I would be interested in a beginning that starts when he met Enniorhon, or when Enniorhon came to him to tell him his wife had died, or some other event. Bring these people to life, help me to meet them and look them in the eye, as it were.
IMO THAT is an excellent suggestion. The beginning reads rather prologue-like as it is. Put your MC in a battle situation, or at the least a situation where we are drawn in and get to know him through his experiences and actions and how others relate to him. Right now I feel like an observer, and only an observer with no emotional reaction to what I'm being told.
I think you could put it into a prologue, but I don't think you have to. Too me, this paragraph sets up the how and why of the first person POV, something most authors tend to ignore. I guess to me it would depend on how you choose to go about telling your story, whether you're going to keep the narrative perspective, or switch into third person.
Now, to other subjects...
I believe that a narrator's POV is best in the case of this story. Going straight to the action would be far too sudden and violent for the reader to be able to get in the story. A narrator
gives you comfort and describes everything that needs to be
told with patience for that is his job. Grabbing the reader by the hand and pulling him/her on a speeding train... Not my style.
The whole story of Enniorhon is supposed to be seen through the eyes of various narrators. One of them is Namot, the Eleon or king of Tarium which is a neighbouring country to Enniorhon's home Sayhan. The fact that one of his closest compatriots was a king of a foreign country suggests that in this era rank of nobility was not important.
If I go straight to the action then the reader gets the impression that fighting is the most important thing in my story. It's not. It's about surviving in a hostile world, produced by a meeting of two completely different cultures. One of them is urbane (think ancient Rome), the other barbaric (think Huns). To fight the barbarian they had to become barbaric in some respect. Enniorhon was the supreme urbane barbarian and as a consequence he came to be a legend. How he has managed to do this is what everyone in his life is trying to find out.
[This message has been edited by MartinV (edited December 13, 2007).]
If you move the scroll bar so that the beginning of your 13 lines is at the top of the text box, the end of your 13 lines should be at the bottom of the text box.
When someone posts their 13 lines, I or my assistants do exactly that (click on the edit button and move the scroll bar so that the beginning of the 13 lines is at the top of the text box). If there is anything more than 13 lines, it goes beyond the text box space, and we have to move the scroll bar to see it. That is where we cut the 13 lines so it is really 13 lines, and we do this to every 13 lines that is posted, so it is fair to everyone.
I see from your bio that you are from Slovenia. I have never visited your country so I do not know what happens there, but I do know that in some parts of Eastern Europe censorship has been a common problem in the past, may still be so.
There is no censorship at Hatrack or any Western discussion forum that I know of. I suggest you read the FAQ and other items in the 'Please Read Here First' threads to understand the reasons for the first 13 limits, and maybe lurk for a while to see how things work. (Flames and libels are deleted, but we all agree to allow that when we sign up. Keeps the place civilised. Mostly.)
It's possible I suppose that in Slovenia stories of the long, patient structure you propose are read and enjoyed. But the usual pattern in cultures where English is the first language (This is an international forum and people from the USA, UK, Canada, Australia and other such places are the predominant contributors) is to leap straight into the action, more or less. That means that stories will be critiqued in order to help them sell in English language cultures. It does not mean leaping straight into battle, necessarily, because the reader will probably want to know why they're fighting, and this is part of the art of course: to draw the reader in by making the immediate action interesting and with motive.
As Annepin says, there's no point in arguing with critiquers. They tell you how the story appears to them. If the book were in a bookshop you would not be able to argue back, to tell them how the book works. It must stand by itself. We respond to crits by listening, taking account of the crits that help us to see how our story could be misunderstood or might bore the reader, and discard the rest - politely, without arguing.
Hope this helps,
Pat
TaleSpinner, just for the record, Slovenia is not in Eastern Europe. True, it's former regime was socialism, but there is quite a difference between that and Soviet communism. The word censoring was the only one that came to me because when I'm angry my creativity drops drastically and I couldn't come up with a better word. Perhaps I would use the word 'shearing' now.
I wonder how many times should I post the beginning of this novel for me to get a positive criticism...
I pointed out this to She Who Must Be Obeyed but forgot to mention it to everyone else.
The moment our ship's belly scratched the sand beneath, I heard a man at my shoulder groan. He fell to the floor with an arrow in his eye. A swarm of arrows already screamed among us. We all hit the planks to save our skins: soldiers, marines and mapmakers alike.
My hand found a great tower shield which I held above me to shelter me from the terrible hail of iron. The sound of piercing wood all around paralyzed us all. We were pinned down, helpless to do anything but wait for our own extinction.
A strong hand took hold of my shield and easily wrenched it from my grasp even as I strained to keep it. The sun hit my eyes. I saw a warrior towering above me, a shield in each hand, standing firm in the hellish rain. He uttered not a single sound. It was Enniorhon.
It is about how much text you can fit INTO THE POSTING BOX WHEN YOU POST. You can have comments before and after on the same post, but your story segment should not exceed the dimensions of the text box.
[This message has been edited by skadder (edited December 14, 2007).]
quote:
If you are using FIREFOX for some reason it gives you text box one line bigger than Internet Explorer.
Because editors receive so many stories, some of them only allow a writer the first page (13 lines) to "hook" them. If the first 13 lines don't make the editor want to turn that first page to read more, the editor will just put the story in the SASE and send it back to the writer with a rejection letter.
That, and the protection of electronic rights, are the main reasons for the 13 line rule.
Because we know that people in other places (like Europe) use a different size paper, we programmed the text box to be 13 lines long and 65 characters wide so the rule will be the same for everyone.
If you look at the text box before you put anything in it, you can see that the scroll bar has a space already reserved for it, but it's very faint. So while the box looks wider without the scroll bar, it really isn't.
I want you all to know that it truly warms the cockles of my heart to see such effort made to help another writer. And I really appreciate your support on this forum.
There is a really wonderful group of people here on the Hatrack River Writers Workshop, and I'm very glad to know you all.
But I will say that from what you have written this last time, I think your writing is vivid and strong.
Most important, though, I can say that I, as a reader (and probably as an editor), would turn the page.
[This message has been edited by Kathleen Dalton Woodbury (edited December 14, 2007).]
In the Please Read Here First area of the forum, it says that when you post your fragment, you should say what you want:
3--ask people to do one or more of the following with regard to your 13 lines:
a--just tell you if it made them want to read more
b--give you feedback on just the 13 lines you posted
c--offer to read more (which you will then email to them) and comment on it for you
Do you want feedback? If yes, you'll get lots of opinions; its up to you what is useful. That's what we're all about.
Pat
Thank you everyone for putting up with me and for giving me a chance. I will cherish that.
Martin
We all have rough times, and I'm glad we were able to help you in spite of your rough week.
The only part that bothered me was "the sun hit my eyes." Then in the next sentence, "...standing firm in the hellish rain." This was distracting to me as if the rain is really hellish, the sky must be heavily overcast - and if it is overcast, where is the sun coming from?
Other than that, clear and compelling.
and the sun suddenly came to his vision - it blinded him for a moment. As his vision returned, he saw the figure of the hero standing above him. Phrase 'hellish rain' is refering to the arrows - hence the word 'hellish'. I have already used the word hail so I wanted something else this time.
quote:That's why there's no point arguing with critiques.
It's not enough for a writer to write so that he can be understood; he must write so that he cannot be misunderstood.
That aside, I also think this version is improved over the first two.