[1096] The Detrant

Hihi, returning the favor because thats ladylike.

First Read

Confusion for sure. You said you wanted to 'hook the reader on character and world' but, I was so confused throughout. I wasn't hooked. There wasn't really anything happening continuously. This felt like three different openings. Each new place Trepont went, I was like woah, how did he get here? What, he's at a river? He's in a city? I think this opening could heavily benefit from picking one of this locations, fully exploring them, using one location to talk about the rules of the world, and then just finding the town. Going to all these different places in 1000 words made it seem like none of them were actually significant, which made me feel like my time was wwwwwaAaAsted.

But let me take another stab at it.

Prose

Super clunky. I like that you are spending time on showing us so many details of the world and sometimes they work. Like this:

A dozen flowering plants sprawled from the once-orderly courtyard, climbing up the arches which blocked their path

And then there are confusing statements like this:

The blossoms stood in defiance of any traffic through the open architecture of the palace, which hadn’t seen inhabitants for a dozen years.

So you say the blossoms (which are famously weak and fragile) are standing in defiance of traffic (of which there is none because you said the palace is empty in the sentence before) through the open architecture (which...sounds weird to me but maybe thats a normal thing people say? Is it?) which hadn't seen inhabitants for 12 years (further confusing the above mention of traffic).

It would be much easier to describe the blossoms like a crowd or an army, versus saying theyw ere blocking traffic which doesn't make sense in the context of an empty palace.

Similarly,

Its bag was almost empty, they had been on the road for a week and hadn’t come across a town their whole journey.

You say they'd been on the road and double down and say, on their whole journey. Simplify. What have you already mentioned?

The whole paragraph about Grassy is 'telling' us about him. What if you described how tired Grassy looked and decribed how Trepont worried about making it to the city? Instead, you just tell us "He was old. He's having trouble getting from place to place" but we don't see it happening.

At 36, he was slowing too, but he had a few more good years than Grassy.

Another telling example. You just say: he was slowing. Why don't you show us? Does he have a bad knee? Does he need more coffee than normal in the morning? Does he get more hungover?

I also want to make a note that a ton of fictional time seems to be passing in only 1000 words. It makes everything feel rushed which goes back to my, pick a location and stick with it comment.

Tension

Zilch. Actually, that isn't fair. You try and hook us with two important world reveals (twelve years empty and the war) and three important plot reveals (That Trepont is avoiding the bureau cuz of trama, Jerod's name drop and then that fact that's he's dead.)

Unfortunately, these don't really seem juicy because they are throw away lines that don't allow the reader to sit with the new information. You don't isolate the reveals in a way that helps us think "woah, this is important".

Let's look at the Jerod's for a second:

Though the hottest part of the day was over, there were few clouds in the sky and the sun scorched the city. After only a few minutes, Trepont started to sweat. He hated the muggy southern climate, Jerod was always the one who liked the heat. Trepont was more comfortable wearing furs in the snow. You can always start a fire, but there’s only so many ways to get cool. If he ever found his way back to Glosfurt, he’d ask for a reassignment.

So first, it's smack dab in the middle of this paragraph and then, you immediately go onto something else that probably isn't anywhere near as important as who Jerod is or his relation to Trepont. I actually didn't put together that Jerod was the dead agent from the other reveal until my third read. Slow it down, draw some attention to it. I might say:

Though the hottest part of the day was over, Trepont remained slick with sweat. He hated the muggy southern climate. Jerod was the one who thrived in the heat. Trepont closed his eyes and tried to imagine the sound of his friends voice.

'Trepont, you cave dweller. If it was up to you, we'd be freezing to death in Glosfurt using our piss as ice cubes!'

But he worked alone now, rode alone, and suffered the incredible heat alone.

With this longer piece, we sit with the knowledge that Jeord was a close friend and a friend for whatever reason, is gone. And now he's dead. Try to emphasis important reveals so our reader knows they are important.

(I actually have to run and can't finish this but I'll be back for a pt 2 tonight ;)

First thing that I noticed was the confusing phrasing of some sentences. For example, “His horse ate loudly from a bag of oats, while the pair were [blablabla].” The reader doesn’t know who “he” is, so it doesn’t make sense to start describing the character’s horse before writing about the character. “They” are likewise unknown characters. It is also a confusing way of phrasing the action. Maybe you could write that a horse was eating from a bag of oats, its enthusiastic munching was loud in the silence of the [place]. Don’t make the sentences unnecessarily busy. Start slow. The entire paragraph needs twice as many sentences as you put there, because the action of the horse and the characters and the description of the palace are all jumbled together. I liked that you started the chapter with a description of flowers, then expanded to more. You could describe the flowers, then the horse, then the characters, then the reason they are there -- from small, seemingly insignificant details to the big picture.

I would rewrite the entire chapter, focusing on breaking up the various actions into concise, clear sentences. Instead of “As a puff of smoke drifted lazily upward curling around the stone archway, Trepont admired the ruins”, write “Tremont watched as smoke rose, curling around the stone archway. The ruins were [character’s feelings, thoughts, etc].” You need to familiarize the reader with the setting, and it is very hard to understand what is going on when it’s unclear who is doing what in the story. It helps to emphasize that the sentences are joined logically. For example, if one sentence ends with the word “archway”, you have an opportunity to describe the location of the archway, it’s ruined shape, it’s surroundings.

I like how you formatted the dialogue. Or monologue. The wording is much better, and the character’s voice is clearly separate from the author’s. The reader immediately knows that Trepont has a cute habit of talking to his favorite horse, that he might be feeling lonely if he resorts to that often, etc. I like that the character’s point of view comes through the text and adds important information, like the fact that Trepont is probably from a place with a colder climate, that there is some organization called Bureau, he has a friend named Jerome, etc.

I enjoyed the pacing. The sentences are still overly verbose in some places and weirdly short in others, and it felt like you were tired towards the end of the chapter, but the plot keeps moving forward. There is much less attention to detail towards the end, so you need to make up for that with action.

Overall:

You need to rewrite the entire chapter. It is a good start, for a first draft, but you need to work on your spelling, syntax, and plot. Is English your second language? It is fine if it is, but you need to find a beta to proofread your story before publishing it. I like Trepont, I want to know more about his adventures. It would help if you inserted a description of the character and made it sound interesting. Because the story is from the point of view of Trepont, it would be strange for him to suddenly think about his physical appearance out of the blue. Maybe you could write that Trepont thinks about a memory of his relative scolding him about his height, eye and hair color. In other words, make it easy for the reader to envision the character. I want to know about the giant lizards and other monsters festering in that land -- the description of Gnartif was an interesting and exciting detail, because it helps with worldbuilding. The story has potential, but you need to work hard to make the reader love it.

General Remarks

I'm sorry to say I'm not hooked. I think the pacing is too slow for me.

As I read I expected something to happen but too much of it came across as an info dump of backstory and I couldn't build an interest or a care for the character. I think it's because the character never shows his emotions, instead we are just told about all of them. His tough back story and what he's meant to be doing.

At the end I still don't really know where the story is. Is he going back to the Bureau? Is he going to find something else? I'm not sure I care yet.

Others have mentioned confusion below but I'll just add that there were a few places where I had to read, re-read, and sometimes re-read a third time to figure out what was going on.

Overall

I'm kinda late to the party here and most of the prose has been picked apart. I would say thought that some of the throw away lines that were mentioned in other comments such as

"He’d been avoiding cities where the Bureau had a stronger presence."

were interesting. I think you could have shown this somehow, maybe considering a direction to go and avoiding a city to avoid the Bureau. This could have left us with time to wonder and grow an interest in why he is avoiding the cities where the Bureau has a strong presense. A few sentences later you tell us it is because one of their own perished. I think this can be slowly dripped out as discoveries to grow the readers interest in what happened.

So I think a re-write might be worth it; I don't think I can really comment on what the story is and whether I would read it because I don't think there's enough shown yet. With that and the current first chapter, not enough happens so I would struggle to read on.

Hope this helps. Maybe?