[2763] The Last Necromancer - Chapters One and Two

First Impressions

I really enjoyed this. Your style and worldbuilding are truly enjoyable, especially in your dialogue. I got a strong sense of language, culture, status, and age through the discussions the children had.

Technical notes

Your first paragraph of Chapter 1 is two sentences. The first is 13 words long. The second is a bit longer at 112. Your use of semicolons between descriptions of your many 'deaths' is overdone. They could simply be periods. This point goes for most of your story. Let's look at an example here, though. I've also made a few small adjustments that make it flow sound better:

Where I am from, it is well known that deaths rides in threes. The village smith slips at his anvil, cracks his head on the black metal, and is found by his apprentice some hours later with his skull stoved broken? cracked? in like a broken egg**.** The baker’s wife labours for a day and a half, screaming as she bites down on a leather strap**.** But, when the child emerges caked in muddy viscera, it is not a child at all, but a mewling, half-formed thing, and expires within the hour**.** ... and then for no reason that anyone can fathom**,**

On the note of punctuation, I would also replace most of your dashes with either periods or commas. I've never been a fan of them outside of dialogue. They have their uses, but I don't think they're justified here. Here are a few examples:

A penny wagered against Harpin and his bow was a penny lost*.* Everybody knew that*,* but that it wouldn’t do his ego any favours to admit.

Gerrod scowled*,* but there was a trace of fear in his somber blue eyes.

That’s the trouble with having a town superstition, I suppose*.* Nobody’s quite sure of the rules, and everyone keeps their own count.

I also dislike your use of apostrophes as dialogue markers. You use them quite heavily in your character's informal contractions, so it was a bit tedious to follow.

Style

As I mentioned in my first impressions, the style of writing, especially dialogue, is what I enjoyed the most. It was immediately clear to me that the children were good friends with a rich history. It was clear that they were up to no good, and not exactly careful about covering their tracks. A fire in the woods is a great way to get spotted when you're not supposed to be there.

Worldbuilding & Mystery

I want to know more about how Lissy went from a rambunctious preteen to a feared & reviled figure. It seems like it could lead to a fascinating coming-of-age story about a girl struggling to understand a power she possesses, especially one that people fear.

That being said, while I did enjoy the first chapter, I feel that it may contain too much unnecessary exposition. In the case that a large amount of your novel is structured in such a fashion that Lissy is telling the story to the reader directly, then I think it's fine to leave it in, but perhaps not as the first chapter. I don't yet care very much about what the people of Saltmark believe about three deaths. They could believe in flying demonic pigs, for all I care. I felt FAR more gripped by the narrator describing how the people of Saltmark fear her. It's what seems immediately relevant to the second chapter. I don't understand the link between death and chains, or how they drew her to be a necromancer. This is a topic that is better explored later.

I'm not sure how you would solve this problem. Thankfully, that's your issue, not mine! I just know that there was quite a lot at the beginning that did not interest me, even after the second chapter. It felt overly poetic. I can tell you enjoyed writing it quite a bit, and I believe wholeheartedly that I'll enjoy reading it just as much once I understand how it ties in to Lissy.

Conclusions

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this, and look forward to more :)

Alright, I'm gonna start with my line-by-line, then I'll dive into some more general thoughts I had.

Line-by-line

First thought is that you should indent the first paragraph. In addition, I think opening with such a large block of text can be a lot for a reader. I think that you can break that paragraph down without even changing any of the writing. A separate paragraph for each of the deaths perhaps? This may just be personal preference however, and I can see the logic of keeping it together as a list as well.

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Yes, they fear death in the town of Saltmark. They fear me, too

This is a great way to introduce the narrator!

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three deaths, like a chain forged from links of heavy black iron, grasped by shadowy hands.

This sentence has some really good imagery in it, well done.

At the start of chapter 2 I would indent the first paragraph as well.

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The evening chill had begun to push in at us...

Personally I would start a new paragraph on this sentence or the one before it. This is very nitpicky I know, but the focus is shifting from Harpin to a description of their surroundings. To me it makes sense to break it.

Chapter one is hardly a chapter, hardly even a prologue. It's short. Only 406 words. But I do like it. Quite frankly I think they should be merged into one chapter. There is no break in the story between chapter 1 and 2. You continue your thought from the previous sentence.

I've scoured Chapter 2 but I really can't find any problems that stand out to me . Final line of the chapter is quite funny and strong.

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Prose

Overall very strong prose in my opinion. Your descriptions and imagery are great, I really enjoy some of your word choices like:

The dying fire belched smoke...

A cruel, thin smile was slashed into a face so pale it was practically cadaverous and crowned with a mop of blood-red hair.

It shocked me out of my reverie, like a dream suddenly collapsing in on itself.

Either you have spent a lot of time on writing this chapter, are very talented, or have done a lot of writing in your time (realistically it is some combination of all three). It flows very naturally and reads like something I would find in a published novel.

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Story

You have me hooked. If I picked up the book and read the first chapter (as short as it is), I would read chapter two. And if I read chapter two, I would definitely keep going with the novel. So you hooked your reader successfully.

We don't get a lot of plot in these first chapters. We know our protagonist is a girl (this actually took me a while to realize, since there was no indication until they didn't let her help with skinning) and I don't think her name is even mentioned. Very mysterious. I imagine this is by design, but it may help to at least give us a name. So we have something to attribute to her. Of course, I may be missing something, and maybe you want to keep here identity a secret at the beginning. It works for now. (I went back and found that her name is Lissy and I seem to have missed it on 5 separate occasions lol. It may be because I was confused as there were a lot of people introduced, so I wasn't sure which name was referring to the protagonist. This may be more of a reflection on me than your writing however haha.)

I think you do a good job of setting up the atmosphere with your first words as well. It gives it a very dark vibe when you open up talking about death and the superstition of the town of Saltmark (great name by the way, I really like it). This is great for a book about necromancy.

There is clearly some lore we only scratch the surface of, with creatures of the Fel and the term Light-forsaken suggesting that there is some different religion in this setting than the ones on earth (not surprising for a high fantasy book).

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Characters

We don't see a lot from your characters but I think you managed to fit a lot of characterization into only 2700 words. The son of the lord only has a few lines, but you do a good job of conveying that he is probably a sadistic and spoiled brat, where as the daughter is just spoiled.

The friends Harpin, Gerrod and Tomas are well done too. They seem to be good friends that joke and throw quips at each other. They seem to bring the protagonist along and tolerate her, but also ignore her (not letting her skin the rabbit, ignoring her when she tries show them the bird).

The dialogue between all the characters feels very natural but is also interesting to read. I find it is sometimes difficult to find that balance. I can also feel their accents when I'm reading it, and the accent makes me think that the kids are poor (It certainly isn't a posh accent).

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Overall I really enjoyed these first few chapters. I think you're a very talented writer :)

Can I ask how long you've been writing for and what kind of writing you normally do? I'd love to be able to attain your level of skill in my writing one day.

I gotta say… I found your story immediately engaging, with a nice flow that left me feeling somewhat sad there were only two chapters. And while I absolutely loved the piece, it did hit a few flat notes for me. For better insight, it may be best to break this down on four different levels, and examine these facets individually: ideological, sonic, sensory, and typographic.

So let’s dive in with the ideological level, which you’ve absolutely aced, and I believe is the real key to why your story strikes me as so successful. Your opening gambit takes a tired expression (death comes in threes) and reframes it into a narrative of necromancy, which was clever and surprising. So I was hooked from the start, and in case the hook wasn’t planted firmly enough inside my skull, you end the first chapter by only describing two deaths. Bravo. Your second chapter immediately launches with a very strong image, building off that energy and propelling it forward, giving me the immediate impression that this will be a page-turner.

There are a few images which could sharpened and enhanced, but the biggest improvement you can make vis-a-vis imagery lies in this mysterious voice, which seemingly comes out of nowhere and is poorly described. It’s old and familiar… yes… and? The voice is further complicated because it is italicized, in close proximity to to your POV character’s internal thoughts, similarly italicized.

On the sonic level, the major thing standing out is the change in voice between chapters. The opening felt like magic realism, while the second chapter reada more traditional fantasy. Chapter 2 launches with a very strong image, strong enough that it manages a workmanlike job of carrying the transition, but the ride still felt a bit jarring, leaving me to wonder if your first chapter would be better served as a prologue--which is more an observation than a suggestion, as I have mixed feelings about prologues. Just know that the transition could be smoother, somehow. So let’s talk about that image… and why am I bringing it up here and not earlier. The sound is what fuels it: briefest-bird-bloodstained; hung-sun; moment-pinned it; et al. This is all clever use of sonic devices, and if you wish to strengthen your other images, look to this one as your pole star. Sound is the gasoline, and images are the match.

You do an okay job with the sensory stuff, though I never felt anything resembling an immersion of reading experience taking place. There are no trees, or grass, or much of anything except for the fire, which you lean heavily on instead of making other choices. To be honest, the fire is described too many times; I understand that they are warming their hands, already. I’m also unsure what season it is; a chill permeates the air, but it could as easily be early spring as autumn. This is a weakness to be aware of when revisiting the piece for your next draft. Character descriptions are nearly non-existent, so while this may be a conscious choice (and I firmly believe less is more in this area) a sprinkling of details couldn’t hurt.

On the typographic level, elision is your preferred choice to simulate colloquial dialogue, as you employ it often. And you need to realize this isn’t working. This end result is a visual nightmare when you weave it between single quotation marks. This completely tossed me out of the narrative, in more than one place, particularly when you lopped off the head of words like Besides and Afraid... ‘Fraid this isn’t work as intended.

All that being said, overall I was left feeling that this is a strong and promising piece for its intended genre. You have a great voice, a cool concept, an awesome hook, and a nice opening sequence. So thank you for sharing this. It was a lot of fun to read.

I’m going to write my little review of each chapter separately, then compile my thoughts at the end if there’s anything that needs to be added. I’ll also do line edits on things that I don’t feel warrant a spot in this review.

Chapter One:

I found this to be an effective introduction to the world of your story. The first line (which reminded me, only by merit of “threes,” of Name of the Wind) begs a question of the reader, which I feel is well answered, while at the same time providing more questions, by the next. In short, a good hook. You also provide the reader with key items for understanding the story: the who (necromancer main character), where (Saltmark), why (raising the dead is bad). To use a term I stole from Brandon Sanderson’s lectures, you’re making promises to the reader here that all of these things will be explored in-depth. Just make sure that all of these promises are realized, or you’re setting yourself up for failure.

My one real note is that your voice in chapter one leans toward overly formal, which can get tiring after a while. reminds me of a slightly stilted monologue given by someone who is educated (more so than average, at least) and wants the world to know. This might be your intent. Just bear in mind that most people don’t talk like this, and while it can be enjoyable at times, it can get tiresome quickly. I didn’t get tired of it in chapter one, though I don’t think I would enjoy a whole book written with this kind of prose. Again, I can’t speak for the rest of the story, but be careful not to overuse high-falutin’ diction/syntax or it won’t be as impactful when you want it to be.

Since I’m rereading Joe Abercrombie’s The Heroes, I’ll point it out as a book that does voice incredibly well. Compare Calder to Curden Craw: one is too smart for his own good, and it works against him; the other is very much the common man, respected by all. Both are written distinctly enough that you know who’s talking from a single sentence, and their POV chapters evoke entirely different emotions in the reader. If you use multiple POV characters, use this to your advantage. Question: one paragraph states that three deaths brought the main character to necromancy, but only two are listed (bird, best friend). Is this intentional? (I haven’t yet read chapter two, so I don’t know).

Chapter Two:

The first thing I note is that the scene description and the dialogue do not match up. If the main character is eleven, he would not think so eloquently. Not a major issue as of yet, but it broke my immersion a bit. This also hearkens back to my previous comment about overusing powerful language; if everything is written like “dizzying coronas” and “crippled silhouette,” you lose some of the impact those descriptions would have if planted in the middle of more mundane prose. Something to consider.

As anothergothchick mentioned, you do overuse dash. In a lot of cases, you could replace them with periods or commas. One example is on page three, where there’s fear in Gerrod’s eyes. To me, a comma would have been more effective. A dash is a sudden cut in the description which breaks the readers attention, in a sense, so using them a lot can be exhausting to read. As much as I like dashes (and probably overuse them myself), they are not a one-size-fits-all punctuation. Using the right grammatical tool for the job will increase readability.

These children don’t sound like children to my ears. Harpin in particular sounds more world-weary than I would expect of a kid. There are lines that work (“Tomas is a month younger than me!”) and lines that are so incongruous they break my immersion (“Only if we get caught, friend.”). The latter sounds more like something someone in a back alley would say right before they mugged a passerby. There’s a careful balance to writing children: you have to keep their voice, but not make them so annoying to read that an adult puts the book down. I’m afraid I don’t have great advice on how to do it, though, and I can’t think of many books to recommend. Maybe N.K. Jemisin’s Broken Earth trilogy? One of the POV characters is a child. Mark Lawrence’s Ancestor Trilogy is also decent, though I remember rolling my eyes at some of the kids’ dialogue.

Minor note: on page four you mention barbed arrows; I can’t find any reference to those existing in the real world, and they’d likely be bad for hunting if they did exist because they’d tear up the meat, especially on small game like birds. From my research, broadhead arrows are more often used for hunting. To quote Wikipedia, “Broadheads were used for war and are still used for hunting. Medieval broadheads could be made from steel, sometimes with hardened edges. They usually have two to four sharp blades that cause massive bleeding in the victim. Their function is to deliver a wide cutting edge so as to kill as quickly as possible. They are expensive, damage most targets, and are usually not used for practice” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrowhead).

Most of my qualms with chapter two are repeats of the above: kids sounding too much like adults and descriptions being overwritten. The former bothers me a lot more than the latter, though you should look at both if you do a full edit. For example, Rufus’s speech on page eight is more appropriate for him as a nobleman’s son, and I think G.R.R. Martin did something similar with Joffrey (I haven’t read Song of Ice and Fire for something like ten years, so I can’t remember exactly), but it still feels like something an adult would say; too subtle for a tween/teen, too well-spoken.

Overall:

This was a fun read. The pacing worked well and the characters had a good rapport, even if their dialogue didn’t quite match their age. Your style is consistent and generally enjoyable to read, but I would recommend de-fancying the language a little bit to match the characters and so that when you do use powerful descriptors they’re more impactful. I was interested in where the plot would go next, what would be the consequences for Harpin and Lissy, and how magic works in your world. You hint at Lissy having episodes, and that the voice in her head is old and familiar, but I feel that’s a little too vague. Even a single line about when she’d heard the voice before, if anyone else knows, something that like, would be helpful. It’s a good mystery, but a tad too mysterious for my preference.

[deleted]

First Impressions

This is really well done, and has me wanting more. First off, it is really well written, with enough mystery to in the story to pull somebody in. The characters were a little confusing for me, but I’ll get more into detail with that below. I’m also not the best at mechanics and grammar, so that’s how I’ll split up my review.

Prose

My god this is probably one of the best written pieces I’ve seen on here, not joking. I wish I could write like this. It’s smooth, and when spoken aloud flows off the tongue naturally. Obviously there are little things here and there that could make it better, which others have covered. I’ll give some of my own examples, just for a bit of variety. However, similarly to what somebody else mentioned, the apostrophes as dialogue markers kinda threw me at first, but ultimately didn’t detract from the prose much.

cracks his head on the black metal, is found by his prentice some hours later with his skull stoved in like a broken egg;

Could be changed to:

cracks his head on the black metal, is found by his apprentice some hours later with his skull caved in like a broken egg;

instead they’d left to Tomas hack away at it, and he’d done such an inexpert job that tufts of smouldering fur still clung to the carcass.

Could be changed to:

instead they’d let Tomas hack away at it, and in his inexpertise had butchered the butchering, tufts of smouldering fur still clinging to the carcass.

Setting

Saltmarch is really well introduced in the first chapter: a relatively developed, but incredibly superstitious fishing village. The forest is well described, and I can see all of them standing around the fire. There is obviously references to non-human creatures (the Fel) as well as magic and whatever the Light is. I don’t know what these are, but it helps fill out the world, and add to the supernatural/superstitious feel of the first chapter.

Characters

Okay, so this is where I had the most trouble. There are a lot of characters introduced, and to me the only ones who I could remember in detail by the end were the lord’s son, the lord’s daughter, Lissy, and Harpin. Those four were done really well. Lissy is obviously the pov character, and thus gets the most time and characterization. Harpin came across as almost a redneck type, arrogant, but not needlessly so, given his skill as a hunter. The lord’s son seems to view himself as above everybody else, and is purposefully abrasive and condescending towards others. The lord’s daughter is just a spoiled brat. However, Tomas and Gerrod felt pretty pointless. One was superstitious, the other was bad at butchering. They don’t really serve a point plotwise (at least this early in it), and they kind of felt like filler, just to have a couple of extra characters in there. Harpin, Gerrod, and Tomas all appear to be friends (with Lissy’s presence merely tolerated), but it would definitely help to make the relationship feel a bit more concrete.

I hope that helps, and I wish you the best of luck! Can’t wait to see where this goes