[1247] Fantasy opening, untitled

You kept me engaged throughout, which is something stereotypical fantasy openings (those goddamn prologues with their ersatz sage quotes) often fail at, so well done.

I liked that you threw me right into the action I liked that you used the action to tell me something about the setting, specifically, about the magic system, which looks like it has potential.

I didn't like that the action came at the cost of developing the characters, Spunky Thief Girl and Smartass Rogue. I didn't feel a connection to the former, and the latter felt cliche, and not a particularly well-executed one either.

One of the issues is that neither of them show any vulnerability or hesitation at all. Or any emotions in general.

If you want to write about hyper-competent badasses that's fine, but there's no reason STF can't at least be pissed off the gaolers roughed up her friend. Maybe he isn't actually a friend of hers, and she could use the opportunity for some light gloating. I'm getting absolutely nothing from her, outside of her initial disgust for her cell.

Seriously, this is the sum of her dialogue:

“You’re welcome,”

“What were they doing?”

“Why?”

I really fucking hope this isn't supposed to be the main character.

To tie into the issue, there's the fake violence and lack of tension.

Neither of them acts like they were ever in danger, and from the looks of it they really weren't.

Listen man, from my reading experience there are basically four ways fantasy novels handle violence, and they generally happen in phases:

First one is actual danger. Usually this is what happens when characters are just starting out. They struggle, and find themselves in real difficulties with the mechanics of the fight. The make missteps, they get winded. Real life shit. It's fun to read about because there's real tension, and it's still relatively relatable.

The second is play. The characters, through their earlier difficulties, have earned the right to steamroll the opponents that have given them pause before. This is fun to read about because it feels earned, because you get to see them live up to their potential, and because you get to see people you're invested in do cool shit. This is where they can mug for the camera and make witty one-liners as they skewer ne'er-do-wells, or throw their spells of ultimate doom. It's really more about showing off than actual conflict.

The third one is mastery. The characters have shown that they're capable of playing with the antagonists they used to struggle with, and now they have to face the bosses. Some high level play shit. It can be tense, but there's rarely a feel of real, immediate danger. This can be fun if the authors have them effectively use the techniques they've mastered before, through struggling and attaining their potential.

The fourth one is work. The characters have shown themselves to be far above the grunts, who for some fucking inexplicable reason the writer keeps making them fight. So there's no tension, and there's no fun. There's work.

That's what you've served up here man, you could've gone with anything and you jumped straight to the workmanlike disposal of two mooks. You were given a blank check and you used it to buy a diet coke.

This is only ever ok if violent conflict is completely incidental to your book.

An easy solution would be to have the second gaoler recover from the surprise faster than she hoped, uh-oh, the character misjudged the situation and suddenly there's tension again! Maybe the tied-up guy can trip him up or something, or maybe she just disposes him like she did in the original draft, except at least now there's a crack in her armor. There's at least a hint of vulnerability.

Another approach would be to have her use her skills somehow, maybe trick them into the hall where they could slip on the freshly smooth floor, or something along those lines.

So to sum it up, I didn't mind reading this piece, but you've given me no reason to continue. Inject some humanity in your characters, and some tension in your conflicts.

I read this piece shortly after it was posted and went over it again just now.

Here's my overall impression:

PROS

• Good pacing.

• Promising magic system.

• Trousers turned into a weapon.

CONS

• The resulting weapon was a letdown.

• Characters are cardboard cutouts.

• Poor attempts to set the tone.

• No conflict or tension.

• Boring dialogue.

I'll try to expand on some of the points that no one else covered as I skim through the story one more time.

Sarina knows she's not in danger.

She seems unconcerned about being caught literally with her pants down at any point before or during her prolonged magical ironing session. Is she overconfident or are there no patrols in this jail? If it's the latter, how does she know that?

Has she been there before? Did she bribe the guards or notice a gap in their shifts? She might as well have read the script, judging by how she's lazily going through the motions in anticipation of her imminent escape.

Speaking of anticipation...

The way things are, there's no way for me to predict why Sarina suddenly decides to strip. Not knowing anything about her reasons or intentions kept me reading just to find the answer. Being given a few hints in advance would've kept me reading and guessing, which would've made things way more fun.

I think it's always better to give your readers a chance to arrive at their own answers, no matter how small or insignificant they seem. That's what creates hope, expectations and surprise. It's the difference between merely observing and being along for the ride.

Plot drives the characters.

Lack of anticipation hurts Sarina as a character. It seems like she's acting on someone's instructions rather than making her own decisions. Communicating her intentions beforehand would make her actions more believable.

What would a real person do? Inspect the exit before preparing for escape. Get in position before kicking a door. Grip her weapon and size up her targets before knocking them out. You get the idea.

Trouser hardening showed promise, but ended up being a dud.

The magic sequence was engaging. The idea of turning clothes into a makeshift weapon seemed fun, until the result turned out to be the most uninspired weapon ever conceived in a fantasy setting.

It wouldn't have been a problem if there was something else to keep me in the story, but there wasn't. After the magic sequence was over, I was left with a weapon I didn't find interesting in the hands of a character I didn't care about.

Inanimate objects have more character than actual characters.

Sarina's "encounter" with the piss bucket is the first and only source of tension or excitement in the story. It's the only thing that causes the main character to feel emotions, going as far as making her long for a bath. It's one of the few things that are mentioned more than once (dead goons don't count), and the only thing that's left intact after spending time in the same room as the main character.

The smell caused by the piss bucket even forces Sarina to break out of her cell ahead of time. It drives the plot in a way that none of the characters do. When the only source of emotion, motivation and discomfort for the main character is a bucket, either something is terribly wrong or you have some great potential for comedy on your hands. Maybe that's what you were going for, in which case you should make it apparent.

Sarina is steamrolling her way out of every situation.

No door or man can stand in her way. The difficulty of her laughable obstacles is measured by how many dispassionate movements it takes for her to deal with them. She never worries or hesitates. In jailers' case, Sarina doesn't even acknowledge their existence before promptly dispatching them.

Any reasonable person would at least make a mental note of whether their foes were armed or not. Not Sarina. They could've had automatic fantasy rifles for all we know, and it wouldn't have mattered. She would still rush in and kill them because that's what the plot demands. Did she even know there were two of them? Did she need to? Sarina, get your thieving hands off the script!

The "fight" makes no sense.

It begins with Sarina hearing voices coming from another cell. The door isn't locked, so her solution is to kick it open like a proper action hero that she is.

Sarina kicked the door open as hard as she could.

Why did she act this way without a moment's hesitation? Is she worried about the guy inside? Is she eager to get this story over with? This is never explained.

It was heavy, but she’d had a lot of practice.

Why is the second sentence even there, and why does it come after the door is already kicked in? It's supposed to be happening right now. A fight is about to break out. Instead, it feels like we're being told a story of 10 years ago.

She ought to have the two jailers on her mind, but instead she takes the time to tell the reader how despite the door being heavy, her "training" had allowed her to not only kick it open, but know she would be able to do so by looking at it once from across the hallway.

She was in the cell before the door had finished creaking.

Welcome to the Matrix.

She smashed one gaoler hard on the back of his head with her club

Even if we assume she had enough time to raise her club above her head and bring it down with enough force to immobilize him (she most certainly didn't), it just doesn't make sense. The jailers are established to be much taller than Unrik or the girl, and yet she slams one of them on the head from above. If her body is that strong, agile and physics-defying, the story should present it as such instead of glossing over her awe-inspiring actions as an everyday thing.

before he’d had a chance to turn.

Here's what happens when you kick a door open as hard as you can. Everyone immediately turns to face the door. Before the door has finished creaking.

The other spun, and the cup he held splashed a thick yellow liquid all over Sarina’s legs.

The first time someone gets the better of our main character, it happens by accident, and she is splashed by piss. Is this going to be a running gag? Then she was right to fear the bucket.

"What" he began, but Sarina slammed the end of her weapon into his gut. He doubled over, and Sarina followed with a solid blow to his ear. She heard the skull crack before he collapsed to the ground.

I can see this happening. Even without comparing it to the crazy stuff that we were treated to before, this sequence could be rooted in reality, albeit a very Sarina-centric one. If only the means by which she got to this point weren't so ridiculous.

Bland violence.

For all the talk about shit and piss, the jailers' deaths were unexpectedly clean. It means Sarina is the kind of character who's more bothered by getting piss on her legs than the death of (I'm assuming) other human beings. Was that what you were going for?

Missed opportunities.

If your main character is a badass, this fight is her only chance to appear weak, since she's carrying a makeshift weapon. No matter how good she is at using the weapons that she regularly trains with, she should be at a disadvantage in this situation. At least that's what if felt like to me.

Also, why not have the first jailer try to stand up after being hit in the head? Seems like a great opportunity for Sarina to quip about their "thick skulls" or something. Then have Unrik kick him in the gut, or piss on him. Have Unrik show at least some emotion once the tables have turned on his sadistic captors.

Sense magic opens a lot of room for creative uses.

You have a cool magic system on your hands with a lot of potential. I imagine it would also have a lot of uses outside of fighting, but be careful not to make it too useful, or you'll push the honest hard-working craftsmen and manual laborers of your world out of business.

You could make both Sarina and your magic system more believable by adding a few simple limitations:

• It wouldn't be unnatural for a power called Sense to dull your natural senses while you're using it. As a reader, I already had a feeling of being cut off from the rest of the world for the 8 paragraphs that Sarina spent performing magic. If this becomes a plot point, she would have a reason to worry about jailers approaching without her knowledge while she's dealing with the lock.

• She could feel tired after using magic, mentally or physically, depending on what makes it tick. It needs at least some sort of obvious short-term consequences.

• The object could lose its magical properties after a short duration. It also wouldn't hurt if the same object became unusable as a host for some time.

• You could also mention that using Sense on your own body is possible, but would be extremely dangerous. A nice bit of foreshadowing for a future situation when Sarina is driven into a corner and has limited options.

There was a lot to feel:­ coldness, brittleness, weight, opaqueness. For now, she needed the stone’s hardness.

I like the idea behind this sentence. You're demonstrating the capabilities of her powers and letting me speculate about their future uses. However, I don't like the properties you chose to represent that. Possible alternatives: mass, heat, color, texture, density, kinetic energy.

To summarize my thoughts...

The story didn't try hard enough to make me feel anything for anyone. I was intrigued when Sarina was using magic. I was annoyed when she negated her obstacles. The rest of the time I was bored.

I didn't find many faults with how the action was laid out before me, but the unrealistic and biased nature of that action made it hard to feel for anyone caught up in it.

I think a bit of uncertainty would go a long way towards making the story more exciting. Just looking at Sarina going through the motions wasn't fun at all. If the main character is bored, why should I feel any different?

Hi. I just read your opening and while the writing in the piece certainly isn't unclear or muddled, I'm wondering if this is the spot in the story that you really want to start on.

There's nothing bad per se of throwing your main character in jail, but I think it is in the top five of standard fantasy openers out there. I say this knowing that the Thief, one of my favourite books in the entire world by Megan Whalen Turner starts with her main character thrown in prison as a means to an end as well.

But having such a common opening means really needing to knock it out of the park to set it apart from all the books with the exact same beginning.

Starting in the middle of things means bringing the reader up to speed while progressing the story is a hard job, and if this story isn't finished yet, I wouldn't even suggest rewriting it. Just keep going with it. I don't normally suggest cutting an entire scene, but if it starts at the end of a battle, with the main character being thrown into jail, an unnamed main character dying at the end of the scene or the main character on the road heading up to the castle, or in a tavern, it really needs to be unique and stand out. You do you, if this is the beginning then the story is what it is, but at what point does the main character decide to do things differently? Without that point that tells the reader that this is a new beginning, what is the triggering incident that causes the book to happen? If a main character doesn't change in any way and it opens with the same old same old, the MC blase nature doesn't really call to the reader. The audience and the first reader is looking for a reason to stop reading as much as they're looking for a reason to continue, and having the main character just doing her job without any personal stakes in the events and without being uncertain or challenged, it makes it more difficult for the average reader to stay interested.

I'm also wondering why the jailers wouldn't just slit the belly and retrieve the gem the direct route. But that's a tiny detail. It's good, and if it got the story going it's done its job, but when you go back to do your edits, think at what point do you think the reader is going to care most, and think about starting it there.

Plot – Throwing the main character in jail, if they are a rogue like a thief, is a pretty standard opening, but it’s been used many times for the simple reason that it works. However, there’s not much struggle for your character in this first scene. She’s in this weird position where it’s not particularly hard for her to get out of the cell, but at the same time she isn’t steamrolling her way out of the situation, either. It’s a good premise, but you need to either put more obstacles in your character’s way, or make her much stronger and show off her mastery. It all depends what kind of character she is in the rest of the book.

Character – We have two characters introduced, but we mostly focus on Sarina. This said, she barely has any dialogue. There is potential for some witty dialogue between her and the jailers, or her and Unrik, to set her personality. It would also help establish the relationship between them – are they co-workers, are they a team? Or is Unrik just a chore that she needs to take care of for this job? Is Sarina a team player or does she ultimately fly solo? As it is, she's pretty boring and vague. This focuses entirely on her, but she's vague and kinda boring right now.

World building – I like the idea behind your magic system, transferring certain properties between objects. Certainly a lot of practical applications if this is something that is common and widespread.

Writing – Your work needs some serious editing. There are a couple of typos, some formatting issues (paragraphs missing, double spaces), and at some point you even call your main character by the wrong name. Generally, you can shorten a lot of your sentences to be more concise. You can also revise the order of some sentences to make them less clunky:

not least because she’d softened an area of the floor that was barely a foot wide

Could be

not least because the area of floor she’d softened was barely a foot wide

See the comments in the googledoc, there is quite a lot there. Overall a good idea with the magic/setting, just focus on developing your character, instead of sacrificing them for the plot.

I like your pacing. It's not too slow, not too fast–I caught all the action in the narrative just right. It's definitely because both your writing style and your content fit the kind of story you are telling.

Since you pointed out that this piece is the opening, I'd like to recommend you not using it as so. This is a good excerpt, but I kind of imagine it more of on the second page rather than the first.

Now, when you're explaining events, don't say that it's "apparently like this" or it "might be this". I encourage you to tell it exactly as it is. Maybe it's the way you want to tell your story that I shouldn't involve myself in as a critic, but it's distracting in my part simply as a reader.

This one's a small detail, but it just really caught my eye:

A good thief adapted, after all.

It was a good sentence to add into that particular paragraph, but I wouldn't like it if you would put out a lot of these proverbs of some sort all around the entire story. Use it once, but don't make it a habit.

I noticed you liked using adjectives to describe objects. In fact, you placed adjectives before objects almost every time. They're not necessarily important to add. Use it only from time to time.

Good stuff nonetheless. I liked the idea of it, it was just that at some few points, elements in the story felt unnecessary. Nothing a tad more writing can't fix :)

I think that this has potential but a couple of things bothered me a little.

In several places you tell too much instead of showing like "It was heavy, but she’d had a lot of practice" You could simply show that she knows how to do it. "Sarina’s increasingly numb legs were out of luck, though." Same here, maybe just show that her legs were numb, and that the clothes didn't fit.

I think you should explain why she needs to get out right away, instead of figuring out her options. is the night coming? Will they be on trial soon?

She should know that he swallowed the emerald, if they are a team. Explaining it like this feels a little lazy.

I want a little more information about the setting, is this the royal castle? The room outside of her cell could be a lot interesting and it seems a little odd for the guards to close the door behind themselves. Maybe one of them hears the noise of her breaking out.

If Sabrina doesn't like Unrik, why is she in such a hurry to save him and show affection for him? Or is she just angry about how he handled the previous scene?