[1579] The Last Necromancer - first half of Chapter Three
Hey everyone, a few weeks ago I posted the opening two chapters of my fantasy novel in progress. People seemed to enjoy it so here is the start of Chapter Three (which I have split up due to length). Google docs link
I have made some minor changes to the first two chapters since posting: >!I have aged up the children so that Lissy is now thirteen, Harpin, Gerrod and Rufus are fourteen or so, and Tomas and Jenna are twelve. I have also added some wording to try to make clear that, as far as Lissy is concerned, the bird is not one of the three deaths.!<
Again, thanks in advance for your comments!
Previous critique: [2158] Stones Unturned
Posted Feb 17, 2020, 8:16 PM UTC
115
I read chapters 1 + 2, as well as this one. I actually didn't intend to finish the first post, but it's such a nice, smooth read I just found myself at the end, which is a great sign.
OVERALL
Your technical skill is awesome. I can tell you've been writing and reading for a long time. I feel like I get a good sense of each character, there's momentum and tension, the dialogue sounds believable. Your narration has a point of view and snappy, clever moments. I liked your descriptions as well.
You have that leading, storytelling quality to your writing. Stephen King called it "seduction", I'm not sure I totally agree, but whatever that magnetic, take-me-into-your-confidence quality is, you've got it here.
I think you could use your stellar technique to greater effect. The story feels to me like it's lacking ambition, concept-wise. I feel like I've read a million stories like this before. You've got a nice kid with ill-understood powers, medieval Europe, the local Lord and his family all suck, their mysterious priest is (probably) even worse. It feels like what a majority of people would write if you told them, "write me a fantasy book."
It's not bad by any means, it's entertaining, But it skews a very young and a little simplistic, and there's nothing in it that made me go "wow." I think your technique is compensating admirably for an overly predictable concept.
So since this is r/destructivereaders I'm going to go aspect-by-aspect and explain why I got that sense, starting with:
CHARACTERS - SIMPLICITY
I said earlier that you have good, clear characters. This is also the aspect where I think you skew the youngest, and I'm not entirely sure you mean to, since Lissy says "shit" at the end here.
You establish that Harpin is the talker, the braggart, the grown man in the kid's body, and sort of a dick. Lissy is the audience conduit, special, a little defiant (but not super active--more on that later.) Gerrod is a fuckin' narc. Tomas had some personality/story utility in the last chapter when he ruined the rabbit and was the "little kid" of the group, but he didn't do anything in this chapter, and I often forgot he was there. Other than that, I didn't have a problem with any of the "friend" characters.
The "villians" I had problems with. Rufus is every shitty Lordling in every fantasy book. His lines all sounded like I'd heard them before, the "rope necklace" bit, the "I'm letting you live, that's your reward." It's just not super interesting. His sister is just as bad, the female equivalent of that trope, whiny and easily distracted by shiny things. The priest seems bad, too, but I couldn't get a read on him yet besides the staring-daggers line.
This leads to something I, in my weirdo notes on stuff I read, call "good-bad syndrome." I see it in a lot of older fantasy novels, and fantasy novels targeted at young audiences. Your characters are either "bad"-- the Lordling, his spoiled whiny sister, his staring-daggers priest, his thugs, his ugly abortion castle. Or they're "good"--everyone else, the nice village, the innocent kids. I know I said Hairpin's kind of a dick, and Gerrod's decision to tell on Lissy is not a morally great decision, and he snaps at her, but my understanding is that they're still "good guys." Especially because you painted the Lordling, sister, and priest as the "opposing faction" with such a broad, bad-guy stroke.
Good-bad can be useful in establishing tension, and that readability factor I talked about. Good books use it sometimes. But personally, I don't like it, and here I think it's making your already young-seeming story skew really young.
I think you're taking the easy way out, making the Lord, sister, and priest obviously evil instead of giving them a more nuanced reason for opposing Lissy's fledgling necromancy. "They don't like it because they're church-y, and also garbage people anyway" is a more simplistic and less believable motivation than, say "They're wary of it but see possible uses for it" or "Necromancers almost turned everyone into a zombie army 50 years ago, so Lissy faces justified prejudice." Both those choices would lead to more well-rounded antagonists.
CHARACTER PT. 2 - PROTAGONIST
I don't think Lissy is a weak protagonist but I think you could make her a lot more interesting than she currently is.
I don't mind her voice, I find it readable and unintrusive. She doesn't have a strong personality but she's not drywall either. My personal preference is for really strong, in-your-face voices and characters in first person but they're not necessary for me to enjoy a story. Sometimes a more audience-conduit, generic, morally good main character is appropriate for the story.
What I do mind is that she doesn't make any choices in this chapter. Everything that happens, she doesn't have a say in. She doesn't really choose anything in the first two chapters, either, as bringing the bird back to life was an accident. Harpin chooses to ask for the reward, Harpin chooses to shoot the bird, he's the one driving the plot right now. Lissy's personality isn't overly passive but plot-wise, she's pretty passive. I think that's a missed opportunity.
SETTING/WORLDBUILDING
I like your descriptions. I think the way you pan over the village is really pretty, the metaphors are nice, and I like the aural details. "We weren't going that way" is great too, sharp and part of that storyteller's quality that makes this so nice to read.
So when I say I'm underwhelmed by the setting, it's not the descriptions or any of the actual details. Or the fact that it's too "Western" (although the traditional, medieval-western-Europe-fantasy isn't popular right now.) I do find myself wishing for something unique. At the very least I need a setting that feels real.
I would like a sense of this world, of things happening beyond this one scene, this one village, this one Lord. You mention the Grand Templar's throne room, the Skull Road, stuff like that in passing but it doesn't seem relevant or active the way an actual world should be in a high fantasy novel. It's just a bunch of names. Nothing seems to be going on here, save for the plot of the story. It makes your setting seem more like a set for a stage play than a real, living, breathing world.
The comes-in-threes superstitions at the very top of the story were a good start, but they were still from our world. I need something cultural like that, but fantasy.
As an example, the fantasy village Kaladin is from in Stormlight Archive is pretty generic. There are good peasants and an evil Lord. But there are also things going on, aspects that signify an active world. There's a weird war at the edge of the world for some unknown reason (that we know about, because we're reading about it in alternating chapters, but whatever). The stuff they use for currency are actually little beads of magic. There's a caste system, wherein the ruling class all have light-colored eyes, and the best a darkeyes can aspire to is a skilled trade. There's a rumor that if you go to war and win a magic sword, your eyes will turn light. I mean, they're kind of dumb things written out like that, but Sanderson writes it so it's a believable caste system and a believable world. Kaladin's parents are actually from those distant reaches of the world people mumble about, so those reaches seem more real. I get a sense of a world separate from my own, and not just our world with fantasy names.
(continued below)
PLOT
A bunch of kids are fucking around. One of them has secret powers, that she doesn't really know about, and [INCITING INCIDENT] happens where she's forced into accidentally using them. Authorities notice and she begins her life as Magic Outcast.
I don't have a problem with your plot at all. It's paced nicely, it works. Have I seen it a million billion times before? Yeah, but that doesn't mean it's bad. If it ain't broke, etc. I think that the setting and characters, which I've also seen before, combine with the plot to form the overarching feeling that this story could be more ambitious.
ANACHRONISMS/NITPICKS
So, I know there's some wiggle room here because it's a fantasy world. But a few of the phrases you use in here just sound too modern to me.
"Bootlicker"- so I looked this up. Merriam-webster dates it to 1846, with "foot-licker" being the 1600s equivalent. So from a purely pedantic standpoint it shouldn't be in there. But in fantasy, I try not to be pedantic and instead look at how the term works for me in the story. Personally, I hear the term "bootlicker" so much nowadays in current political discourse, it's hard for me to disconnect from that usage and believe a bunch of Medieval kids are throwing it around. I think "foot-licker" sounds a little silly but I'd believe it over bootlicker. A more period-appropriate option might be Harpin and the others comparing Gerrod to one of the Lord's dogs, as a lord with hunting dogs is 100% a Medieval image. "Dog," "cur," etc. was a more common insult in that time period.
"Architectural abortion"- This 100% hit me as a modern joke. Not saying abortions didn't exist in the time period, but referring to something as a "_______ abortion" as an insult isn't something I'd expect from a fantasy novel unless it was being deliberately anachronistic/"edgy." That wasn't at all the tone I got from the rest of the writing, so this was jarring.
"Angelou" - Like, "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings" Maya Angelou? I would buy that someone might name their caged bird "Angelou" ironically, in our world. But not in a medieval fantasy world. The connotation is distracting.
"Jungle-bird" - This isn't an anachronism so much as I found it lazy. I get that your sheltered village girl probably wouldn't know a parrot from a toucan from a bird of paradise, but this bird could have been something cool or evocative or symbolic. "Jungle-bird" just sounds kinda... store brand. It also seems very our-world, when this could be a chance to introduce a tangible fantasy element and build your world.
CONCLUSION
This feels like a well-executed but entry-level fantasy story. The writing is sparkly, but it's compensating for too many generic elements in plot, character, and setting. I would like to see Lissy be more active, especially in this chapter, and I need some kind of cultural aspect to this world that's different from our own. On the whole, though, still an entertaining and very readable beginning.
Good luck, and thanks for sharing
Thanks for your very in-depth and insightful comments, which is probably the most detailed critique I've had so far. I'm going to address some of the points you've raised below - not to try to rebut you or make excuses, but more to organise my own thoughts slightly.
Thanks for your kind words on the prose-level writing. In truth I probably put too much focus on this and not enough on structure, which I am trying to get better at.
I struggle with giving my MCs agency. Giving Lissy a more distinctive voice and making her more present in the story is absolutely something I mean to focus on for the next draft. It's already better in this regard than what I originally wrote but it's clear I still have some work to do.
This is deliberately a fairly low fantasy world (presence of magic aside), at least until near the end when the fantasy levels will ramp up significantly. You're right that I haven't included much so far to differentiate my world, and that's mostly because I've not found anywhere to slot it in yet. I need to think about bringing that more to the forefront.
In terms of good-bad, as you put it, I am fairly relaxed about this for the moment. I intend to let Rufus and Jenna become more sympathetic, and conversely for Lissy to straddle the divide between good and evil more than perhaps the standard MC would. I'm content to let this come out more as the story progresses.
You actually got it bang on when you suggested that my world should have some kind of history with necromancy to explain why everyone is suspicious of it. Again, this is something I haven't worked out how to slot in yet but I will try to work out how to at least mention this near the beginning.
You mention that the story seems "young". I'm not really sure how to fix that, other than to say that there's a big "loss of innocence" moment coming up which hopefully will put that to rest.
Final point, I didn't even register the Maya Angelou connection until you mentioned it! Funny how our brains work sometimes.