[3000] The Leech - Chapter 1
Okay. Fuck. This is a full first chapter in some language, hopefully English.
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A better hook was attempted.
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I really tried to work on specificity and clarity, partly by taking out stuff I wasn't feeling enough to get more specific with.
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It ends with a stated main goal!
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And hopefully the hint of a flaw!
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Words were agonized over but I've resigned myself to the idea that grammar is not my strong suit so this won't actually matter lol.
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Character appearances were slaved over. I'm very concerned they are badly written.
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Senses other than audio/visual were considered.
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Dialogue was obsessed over.
Feedback:
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Would you keep reading?
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Favorite line? Least favorite line?
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Otherwise, as always, any and all.
Crits:
Posted May 21, 2022, 5:58 AM UTC · edited
1616
Hello,
I think this is a lot better than the first iteration. It feels a lot more whole and complete (which I suppose it should, given it’s a complete chapter compared to an excerpt from a chapter). You’ve cleaned up a lot of issues I had with the first one, though I do think there’s still some room for improvement. I don’t think this chapter needs a whole lot, as you’ve definitely managed to massage it into a good place, but for what it’s worth, here are my thoughts:
#Hook
Not super keen on the hook. It’s better than the original, I’ll certainly agree with that, but it still doesn’t function as well as I’d like it to. I think it succeeds in one part—it sets up a goal (that Ryland fails at) for the beginning of the chapter in the second sentence, but the first sentence isn’t doing much for me. I think that’s because of a couple of reasons: it doesn’t really invoke a concrete image, so you could possibly replace “the day had died” with something more evocative; “the day had died” is kind of confusing to read in a fantasy story where those words can be more literal than figurative and we don’t know yet what it’s supposed to mean; references to things dying in the hook feel a little exhausted to me, though YMMV on that one. I guess I’ve seen it a number of times and it’s starting to become a little cliche.
I think you could combine the first and second sentences together for a better hook, anyway. First half of the sentence could be some sort of imagery, and the second half of the sentence can set the stakes for Ryland. Though, I do have to point out—I’m not entirely feeling the stakes set up from the hook by the end of the chapter. We’ve got the sense that she’s looking to steal something, and there’s a good red herring that she’s thieving actual physical items before it’s revealed that she steals magic abilities through blood, explaining the title, but she does end up coming up empty-handed by the end of the chapter. I think I’d like to feel like the hook has a consequence—that she really does need to find what she’s looking for (or a useful substitute) because time is running out.
Which gives me a pretty good opportunity to segue into the next section about conflict and tension.
#Conflict and Tension
You have a decent amount of conflict set up in this chapter: I especially love the conflict inherent in Ryland’s backstory and her relationship with her mother. We know her mother was Called for service and came back broken and smiling, and we know because of this, seven-year-old Ryland had to fend for herself and take care of her mother at the same time. We know that she’s resentful toward the Queen for causing this, and she has a very clearly stated goal: she wants to steal blood so that she can defeat the queen and end the servitude that caused her mother’s insanity, alongside the insanity of a lot of other people. We also know that she has a history with a boy named Brooks, someone she knew back before she started her “gentle lessons”. The conflict’s all there. I like it; I think it’s set up well and gives us some expectations for what’s going to unravel in Ryland’s life moving forward.
I think my problem lies in the way that tension is built in this chapter—or more specifically, the fact that it isn’t. The tension was low during most of this chapter, all of it, to be honest. I didn’t feel a sense of urgency when reading through it, or like the stakes really had much effect on Ryland aside from a nebulous desire to kill the Queen at some unspecified time in the future. The lack of tension made it a touch difficult to get through this 3,000 piece—not that I had to force myself to read this like I have to do with some pieces posted here—and addressing the lack of tension I think is the most important goal for a revision of this chapter. When you think about it, most of this chapter is Ryland thinking, observing, and engaging in scenes that are relatively low tension: she spends the better part of the chapter thinking about the worldbuilding and exposition for the story’s setting, then gets into a low stakes altercation with the gentle woman and boy, then takes care of her mother. We get a lot of interesting information along the way, but I still feel like I’d rather feel Ryland is risking something in the course of the chapter. Without stakes, without something at risk in the structure of this individual chapter, the tension stays low and the conflict feels very quiet, very distant and far away.
I talked about this before when I reviewed the other version of this chapter: the scene between Ryland and the gentle woman/boy really could use some tension. And frankly, the entire chapter could use tension too. Again, I’d ask you: what does Ryland risk when she interferes with the boy? What if the gentle woman DOES call for the guard, and Ryland has to talk her way out of that altercation—with rising tension—because now she’s at risk of sounding like she’s an accomplice with the boy? Then you have a situation where Ryland’s own stakes become clear; if she doesn’t convince the guard of her story, then she and the boy are both implicated for thievery. We would also learn what the consequence for thievery is in this world, too—given there’s a big population of thieving gangs in the area, one would think there isn’t a very strong consequence for being a street rat, and a scene like that can help set those stakes.
But this is just one particular scene and an idea on how to infuse tension. Take the scene with mom as another example. Ryland mentions that mom shouldn’t be sitting outside of her apartment because it’s dangerous, but what if, instead of saying that and putting Mom to bed in a quiet scene, we saw WHY Ryland says it’s dangerous? What if we saw Mom in an altercation with someone (it doesn’t need to be deadly or serious, just some conflict between Mom and someone else that gets Ryland nervous that something could happen to Mom as a result, or to Ryland herself for interfering and trying to diffuse the situation), and Ryland had to diffuse that bomb, too? You would get some tension infused into the Mom scene as you see how and why Ryland has to parent her own insane mother, and how she feels stressed and upset because her mother really cannot be trusted not to leave the building and cause some sort of issue (which underscores why Ryland would want to enchant the door so it won’t open).
These are all small ways where you can take scenes and add tension to them, keeping the reader’s interest peaking in the climax of those micro scenes. Given the rather flat tension present in this chapter, I think that would really elevate this and balance out some of the exposition. I think the exposition you give in this chapter is important, but I also think if you want the reader to accept that exposition and commit it to memory, you have to offer tension in return. Characters in conflict with each other, characters risking their freedom/lives/safety, tense scenes where you don’t know if shit is about to go down or not, etc. The nice thing is, you already have a pretty strong foundation for these scenes, and you can have Ryland wrap up each instance of tension and have the scene end the same way it does. It just needs more tweaking on the inside so it doesn’t feel like the overall tension in the chapter is a singular flatline. To balance the tension valleys of exposition, we need some tension peaks!
#Worldbuilding
The worldbuilding here is intriguing. I like that you answered my initial question when reading (“why should I care about what the soldiers are doing and why they’re smiling?”) by showing us that Ryland’s own mother is affected by this smiling emptiness. That was a really good expectation-payoff setup and I think was the strongest bit of world building present in the story. My second favorite part was the poster, but that’s because I really like pieces of worldbuilding that showcase characters who have affected the world but don’t show up in the story itself (at least not in the present moment—the guy seems more like a relic of the past).
I think regarding the worldbuilding, I have a couple of questions. They’re not necessarily logic questions, because I don’t have a lot to go from right now to question the logic behind the worldbuilding choices, but these are still things you can think about when crafting the rest of the story, or while revising this chapter, whichever the case.
First: so we know that every year the Queen makes a call and drafts a whole bunch of people of both genders (interesting choice!) to fight against the dry land devils, or something along those lines. When those people come back, they’re suffering from what looks like persistent shell shock, given that empty smile. (Reminds me of that one photo of the WW1 soldier in the trenches with that creepy smile who’s suffering from shell shock.) So my first question is: how long has this been going on, and what percentage of the population is suffering from this? There’s a lot of emphasis put on the fact that the Queen is never aging, and you probably couldn’t tell a big difference in her age between 20-40 if she’s one of those people like me who never seem to look their age, so we know this must have been going on for at least 20 years, but most likely longer. If she’s been doing this every year for 20+ years, wouldn’t that mean that a large portion of the adult population is shell shocked? Can we get an idea of how many people she has effected with her war?
Second, issues of class: it seems like the gentle people are happy to celebrate the queen’s return with Year’s End and the fireworks and so forth. Does this imply that the Queen doesn’t call upon the gentle people to fight in the war, and they haven’t seen any of their sons/daughters/family etc come back shellshocked? Does she only draw soldiers from the under class? I feel like that’s what the story is trying to imply by talking about the celebrations (the whole is celebrating but the parts or not) and I think I would rather the story be clear that the divide is along class lines than be so coy about the actual problem, because I was kind of confused by why that line was in there and what it was trying to accomplish.
Third question: given that I don’t know what percentage of people are shellshocked, and if the shellshocked people are insane like Ryland’s mom, how has this affected their society? Wouldn’t the economics of the society fall to shit if everyone who comes back is helpless like a child and cannot take care of themselves anymore? Do these people just die, normally? Is there a sense of chaos as a result of so many adults going crazy? I think I just want to see the social implications here, especially if the Call pulls from both upper class and lower class society—or, really, if they pull from any single class of society. How does it affect that class? When you talk about the boys on the street but don’t really mention street rat adults, does that mean that the under class is primarily children because their parents have died from shellshock? Maybe it’s babies having babies (young teens and stuff, no parents, seems it would make sense) and the teens hit adulthood and get drafted, etc, making a lower society composed mostly of starving children with no parents. IDK. You tell me. And if the Call also drafts upper class people, I could see the economics of this world falling apart as less and less people come back to keep the economic wheel turning, so to speak. Like if you lose a bunch of doctors, tradesmen, business people etc. you are going to see that ripple effect through the society’s economics and culture.
Anyway, this isn’t necessarily a “believability problems” kind of section, more something for you to think about when fleshing out the world, because it seems problematic in many ways that the Queen has been doing this for decades but society hasn’t broken down and people still celebrate her return during year’s end. You’d think she would have gotten a violent revolution by now if she’s been sucking the life out of her constituents and sending them back crazy, especially if she’s doing that to both the upper and the lower class. Fascism and authoritarianism can really only go so far when the people lose everything they have and no longer have anything left to lose. Losing your mind and your family members to madness seems like one of those rock bottom motivations.
#Description
Description struck me as better in this version. You gave the reader a lot more precision in your imagery, which is something I appreciate. I also noticed your usage of strong verbs in your descriptions, which gave them a good sense of movement and warded off feelings of boredom, at least in my case. I don’t think you have too much to worry about—only a few things come to mind that occurred to me while I was reading. First, I think Mom was lacking in description entirely, so that’s something you could go back and fix. I think she was only described as wearing a thin nightgown and smiling. Thing is, this is Ryland’s mother, so you have a lot of good opportunities to describe both of them through comparing and contrasting, given they’re family and they’re going to have a lot of similar features. Example being stuff like mom’s skin being a dull, lifeless pale color vs Ryland’s as healthy and flushed with pink, stuff like that. Kinda hit two birds with one stone on that one.
Second thought: this is kind of common with authors in general, but I noticed you’re still leaning heavily on hair color for descriptions. We got a tidbit about Ryland’s black hair, we got the boy’s hair, the gentle woman’s hair… I think I’d like to see more variety in the descriptions than focusing so much on hair. It almost feels like a cliche at this point, lol. The same is true for the eyes, I think. Can we think of other ways to describe these people? Like with the boy—what kind of other stuff might she notice? The clothes he wears? Ragged handmedowns? Scars, wounds, or bruises on his face or body? Face shape? Nose shape? And the woman—creases on her face to indicate age? Facial features? Her hands, shit? You know that stereotype where rich hands are soft and perfect and working hands are calloused? Lol. Maybe the hygiene? Stench? Lady smells like strawberries and boy smells like sweat? Any hygiene rituals? How their teeth look? The way the gentle woman does her eyebrows? Makeup? Etc? Lots of opportunities for stuff that isn’t exclusively hair, hahaha.
#Exposition
Exposition straddled the line between acceptable and unacceptable for me. There was a LOT of it, and coupled with the general lack of tension, this was really trying my patience with the amount of exposition I needed to get through. Fortunately it’s well written enough that I didn’t get too bored, but I think if you went through another chapter like this, I would stop reading somewhere in the second chapter if there isn’t a good kick off of tension to go along with all the exposition. Setup is important, of course, but it does need to be balanced.
At the very least, I enjoyed the parts that implied some conflict, like the description of the soldier (even though I was questioning why this was important until I learned how it tied in with Ryland directly). The parts that I found a real struggle to get through were the descriptions of the landscape. I think because I wasn’t entirely clear what was going on or where Ryland was at any general moment. I gathered that the Swing is a river, and there were celebrations going on at the river, but it also seemed like there were celebrations going on at Crossing street, which was where Ryland seemed to be? But then she seemed like she was down by the river at one point? IDK, some of the movement through the scene had me a little confused, but maybe that was a me thing. There was a lot going on and I couldn’t always tell what was third POV exposition and what was actually occurring with Ryland at the time, which—again—could just be a me and reading comprehension thing. Lmao.
Anyway, as a general note about exposition: I’d really question whether every single instance of it is necessary. There’s a lot, and I don’t think the chapter would suffer if you strip out some of it. Really analyze each sentence and ask yourself if that sentence moves the story along at present. If it doesn’t, it might be best to clip that sentence so that you get a tighter narrative. 3,000 words for a first chapter is a good place to sit, but I think that you might be better off using some of that word count to improve the tension during the course of the story, and less on exposition. It makes the pacing really slow, and while you still managed to keep my interest moving along with the slower pacing, I can’t help but want some quicker pacing for this chapter. The exposition really does keep it moving at a crawl.
#Character
You mentioned that you dropped hints for Ryland’s character flaw and I think I completely missed them. I couldn’t pick up what internal issues Ryland was going to be challenging within herself through the course of the story, unless it was meant to be the fact that she didn’t steal that boy’s blood (a sympathy for people, perhaps?). If that was the flaw and she needs to be colder and more calculating to succeed, then okay, that’s fine, though I think I would rather see some more evidence of the internal struggle. If your goal was to make the flaw something else, then yeah, I wasn’t able to pick it up. Ryland seems like a very good person and I’d like to see more flaws, more darkness in her, more negative personality traits that will round out her character and make her feel more believable. Even the nicest people have flaws, things about them that are insufferable. It’d be cool to see more of Ryland’s flaws so I can see what internal journey she is going to go through and what kind of personal demons she has to tame.
Also, regarding Ryland, I found myself wondering how she went from stealing with Brooks and taking care of her mother to going through a decade of gentle lessons and becoming upper class (if that is the implication there). It felt like a hole in her backstory that I’d like to see plugged with a line or two. How did she change her fate? What happened to Mom when she went to her gentle lessons? Does she live with Mom or somewhere else? Why doesn’t she have Mom live with her? If she lives in poverty with mom, how did she afford to go to school for gentle lessons? Wouldn’t that be different than the schools that impoverished kids go to? Given the setting, I can’t get a strong feeling for how class functions in this. It’s mentioned that Ryland does go to school Pre-Mom’s Call, but if she has to take mandatory schooling like kids in modern days, would we really see that issue of boys starving on the streets? Seems weird to have a half measure of a social net there. Education isn’t something that the lower classes of earlier societies would really have access to, so it makes me wonder how the society is set up. It seems more likely she wouldn’t have been educated at all.
#What I Wish Happened
Okay, so I’m going to go into total wish fulfillment mode for this one. Feel free to ignore everything in this section, I just want to share what I would have enjoyed seeing in this chapter, lol. Given that Ryland has to drink blood to get people’s abilities for a short period of time, I would have wanted to see her actually target and get the blood of someone celebrating Year’s End. I wanted to see the whole song and dance required of that: how on earth does she manage to kidnap people and steal a bunch of their blood without getting caught by guards? Without having to kill them in the process? NGL I really just want to see her locate someone who has an art in their blood that she wants, then see her trick the person into a back alley or an old building or something then harvest their blood. It would be a real WHAT THE FUCK of a start and would be full of tension and intrigue as the reader wonders what the hell is going on, why this protagonist is stealing blood from people and what it all means, why she does or does not kill them in the process, etc. Like damn all the pieces for that setup are there and I am thirsting for a hook like that. It would be very juicy, very juicy indeed. Seeing Ryland eyeing the boy’s blood for his masking ability was kind of like a long fart noise to me, because it hinted at the fact that she can sense which art people have and that’s probably how she decides who her… er… unfortunate victims are going to be. So, yeah, I really wish I could see that right in the first chapter. Bump into someone, recognize a useful art, and get to business. Damn, that would have been a really good opening chapter!
#Closing Thoughts
I’m sure someone or another will go over the prose for this, so I’m focusing only on the big picture here. So to recap: introduce more tension as I think that’s the weakest part of this otherwise pretty strong chapter, maybe iron out some of the worldbuilding and backstory for Ryland regarding the questions I posed, and see if you can trim out any of that exposition to improve the pacing. Overall, though, it’s a strong chapter and I think you’ll only make it stronger from here. Well done!
Thank you again! I wasn't expecting a repeat review!
Pretty much all of your guesses are correct. It is a class-based Call, north versus south. Northsiders aren't Called and are therefore more successful adults; they have children who are well cared for and able to go to school and grow to be productive adults themselves. The average age of the south side skews very young because adults who weren't able to mentally deal with extended periods of mind control often succumb to illness, accidents, starvation, etc. Dara would have hoped she could afford to send her daughter to a Northside school after her term was up, but she couldn't stand up to the Call, so Ryland didn't go to the typical school a Northsider would attend. She did receive an education of sorts, obviously, but it was fairly traumatic. This would fit the first chapter more naturally if I took your suggestion for its sequence of events...
Your wish is currently chapter 2, which I'm suffering through now lol. None of this is set in stone so I'll hang onto the idea of switching things around.
Her two flaws: she doesn't discriminate when it comes to whom she steals blood from, because many morally questionable things are acceptable to her in pursuit of her goal. It could've been the boy, if he'd fully manifested. The only reason she didn't is because he wasn't useful. Taking someone's blood against their will (even a small amount) is a bit traumatic for the person so I was hoping those lines would beg some questions about where her line in the sand is. This would also be more obvious if I went your direction with the first chapter...
Second flaw: need for control. Tried to hint at this by having Ry lock her mother in the house for a full day, possibly at the expense of her mother's safety, but at least Ryland would know where she is. I think your conflict suggestion for this scene would also help this come across maybe? I'll work on it.
The whole arc is basically her trying to defeat Queen Sera without becoming Queen Sera, who is a tyrant and has sacrificed everything in pursuit of her goal, which was originally humanity's safety in a world of monsters, but morphed into this really poisonous "crush anything and anyone that threatens my reign because I'm the only one who can do what's required to keep us safe and prosperous" type of rabid hunger for increasing power and influence.