At the moment I'm at the 20,000 word mark, which I think is about a quarter of the way through. Maybe less. Anyhoo, the only thing I'll say in my defence at this point is this ends half way through a paragraph.

*

The Edge of the World, thought Jalto, was a lot of fuss over nothing. Still, girls seemed to like it, so he’d brought Sylva there any way. She stood next to him, staring out at the endless sky, with gulls wheeling above her head and the Tarrian river roaring as it spilled its contents into endless space.

“It’s a long time since I came out here,” she said. “I’d forgotten how beautiful it was.”

“Yeah,” he said. “It’s… great. All this sky and-” And what? “-stuff.”

He was very aware of how close their hands were, as close as they could be without touching. The field they were standing in was scrappy-looking from all the feet that had passed over it. It was quiet now though, with the light almost gone.

*

In particular I'm not overly happy with Jalto's line. If you have any suggestions about that, in addition to other crits, then I'd love to hear them.

The "and what? - stuff" bit reminds me a lot of Douglas Adams, and suggests this will be a comedy.

If you were shooting for a more serious tone, I would say a nonverbal reply would be in order. Something along the lines of nodding sagely. Or maybe quoting a line or two from an epic poem.

Hope this is useful.

\/\/ /-\ [)

It is rather an interesting opening. A guy takes a girl to see the Edge of the World, which--this being a fantasy setting, is literally the edge of their world He thinks it's no big deal, she thinks it's wonderful. It does seem to work fairly well as comedy. And Jalto's line seems to fit.

I would keep reading, as the line spoken by the guy reminds me a lot of how I was in high school when dealing with women.

I guess that if you have a handle on the promises you are making to the reader here, (something lighthearted but interesting) and the story bears it out, then I like the start.

The unverbalised dialogue could be italicised. It was the only bit I stumbled over, thinking for a moment that Sylva had said it.

The first line feels like it should read 'he'd brought her here.' But that may just be me.

I thought Jalto was painfully awkward, as evidenced by his line. If that was your intent, you succeeded beautifully. If you were aiming for something else, well.

In the first paragraph you tell me that the river is roaring; in the last you tell me that it's quiet now that it's dark.

So, to give a bit more background on everything...

The book's somewhere between a YA novel and an adult fantasy, I was hoping it would be something that could be enjoyed by both. though maybe that's me being overly hopeful.

Jalto is 17, and desperately awkward around Sylva. While I don't intend the story to be a comedy (sorry) I certainly hope there's a sense that he's an unreliable narrator and that people do smile at his inadequacies.

The Edge of The World, will later turn out to not actually be the edge of the world, but the edge of a flying island (the whole world is made up of flying islands) so it's nothing Jalto hasn't seen before. It's just a site of particular natural beauty. And he's being a bit of an ass about it.

Beth - good point about the roaring/quiet clash. I think the river will have to do something else.

Rahl22 - I think it's the word stuff that's bothering me as well... I'll think about that.

hoptoad - I wanted to avoid the setting sun, because I felt it might be too much for the scene. I have actually been awkwardly avoiding any mention of a light source because in a world that is mostly air I couldn't work out where it would appear to be...

Anyway, hope that clears some things up. Probably doesn't. Thanks again. Love to hear what anyone else has to say.

As for a light source on a world consisting of floating islands... this brings up a couple of points: Day and Night? Summer and Winter?

Pratchett has a complicated sun and moon on his Discworld. And he explicitly points out how complex the orbits are, to add to the humor.

Since you aren't going for humor, let's stick this world into a physical context. Arrange these floating islands in a sphere, orbiting a gas giant. The whole collection of islands (sphere-shaped) can rotate, and sunlight from the central star in the planetary system will give light, just like it does to us. Effectively, this also provides seasons and day-night cycles. And it's plausible, you just need something that holds the islands up in the air - might I suggest something along the lines of magnetism?

Hope this helps.

\/\/ /-\ [)

As I recall, he dealt with it very handily: Never mentioned the problem. Which I thought was odd, given the attention he gave to the orbit of the sun passing through the legs of the turtle, etc.

On the other hand it's not a piece of hard-science SF. It's essentially a light-hearted fantasy about a boy dealing with some big issues and incidentally saving the world (don't they always?).

I really haven't dealt too much with the world-building aspect so far because it didn't seem particularly important to me or to the story. It's really more character and plot driven.

That said, the plot does rely on one piece of geography being something other than it appears to be. At the bottom of the column of air that makes up the known world is an endless field of clouds, called the Void, through which only the dead fall. Somewhat inevitably, the main characters will go through the clouds to discover solid land below. (This pretty much correlates to the action high-point at the middle of Act 2).

As my posting above has revealed my world-building has been pretty minimal. Considering that one piece of geography IS important, do you think I need to add more detail in general, or do you think I can get away with the sketchy details I have, and a slight concentration on the Void itself?