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“Sire.” The voice was soft and very close to Jarom’s ear. “Your father, the king, as well as all your brothers and your sister have been killed.” He was awake now.
As Jarom started to sit up he felt his wife stir in the bed beside him. She too had been awakened by a whisper in her ear. He turned to look at Hedle his servant.
“How?” was all he could manage to say.
“Your uncle Madtis, ordered the deaths, they and all their children. You are next so we must hurry.”
His wife had started to wrap a cloak around her. She moved slowly, her pregnant belly making it difficult to hurry. The baby was due within the next moon. As his mind grasped hold of what he had been told, his right hand started to shake. The shaking moved up his arm then enveloped his entire frame. He quickly turned his head and retched, Hedle held him until it had passed.
“Sire, we must leave, please hurry.” Jarom gathered the robe he was handed, then turned to help his wife.
My first impression was that this guy is being really calm here. Since we're in his head I think you could show more of an emotional reaction--shock, fear, horror--something to effect the reader like the news should. When it says "He was awake now." I think it kind of thwarted whatever mood that I was trying to sink into from the prior sentence containing the news.
But then you caught me better with the last two paragraphs. This was much more quick to get me to see his pain and horror. So maybe just move it up a bit. You'll have to jar the reader in the first few sentences to keep them interested.
Also I think you could drop the "very" in the first line. And maybe just have the guy say: "Sire, your family has been killed." This will make it feel more personal. Then you could explain how the guy's father is the king. Just a thought.
Otherwise it looks good. Your action feels smooth. And I liked that the wife turns out to be "large with child". This helps the sympathy aspect as well.
I agree with the comment about how calm he is. Yeah, he's shaking but...I want more.
The 'they and all their children' part is slightly awkward. I also don't like the choice of the word 'enveloped' to descibe his shaking. Why should he throw up? That would make more sense if there were some description of the deaths...otherwise drop it.
Edited for e-mail.
I'd like to read more...send it to 98024101@hart.k12.ca.us
[This message has been edited by Moonshine (edited July 07, 2005).]
posted
Is this a novel, novella, short story? That makes a difference in how to interpret the first few lines. At the moment, it feels very hurried. It's setting up the scene - Jarom's need to escape - but the announcements are so brisk and bare that it's difficult, from the reader's point of view, to pick up any real emotion. Others have commented that Jaropm seems calm, but for me, it's Hedle who seems calm. Here he is, waking his master to tell him that all the rest of his family has been killed, the throne usurped, and he might as well be telling him that the rain has got in through a cracked roof-tile and ruined a nice carpet. It seems to me that Hedle, as well as Jarom, should be racked with emotion. He should find it hard to tell Jarom these things - it's clear he has an empathy with his master, from the way he holds him.
I'm guessing that Jarom, in fact, is not to be the main character (it's rare for married characters with children to be the protaganist in fantasy, for a variety of reasons), but his unborn child, so this may be part of a prologue.
A couple of other comments; you use "his" a little too often, particularly when switching back to Jarom after having mentioned someone else. Don't be afraid to use the name to cue people back to who you're talking about. Secondly, the way you mention Jarom's wife waking up is a bit odd - it almost implies that someone else, besides Hedle, is whispering to her. I think you need to clarify that a little.
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But you won't need much text to show the emotion, I think. This opening didn't make me think I absolutely have to read the rest, but it did hook me. I like the hurriedness of it. They should be hurried. But I'll agree, a hint of the MC's emotion will help.
Posts: 2830 | Registered: Dec 2004
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posted
Thanks for the feedback...The calmness will blow up in the next section but I will have to think about it. This is set to be a novel with the baby as the main character but this 'Background" is needed to set the story. thanks and keep the comments coming.
Posts: 40 | Registered: Jul 2005
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posted
Hmm . . . as I have mentioned in other areas, I am more nit-picky with fantasy than other genres, so I hope you will mind a slew of little critiques.
First, does the character being awoken really need to be told that his father is the king? That seems like the kind of information he would be aware of.
There are also a few spots where I would put a comma, but given that the English language is what it is, commas are essentially a matter of opinion and personal taste.
Also, we discover the name of the main character, the servant, and the evil uncle . . . but not the wife's name. Maybe its a cultural thing, to be revealed later in the story, where wives are just baby luggage, but otherwise, it strikes me as odd.
Over all, I am pretty neutral about the story. It doesn't really grip me at any point, and the entire scene seems to have a kind of cottony, laid back atmosphere, like no one is really worried or rushing. I mean, except for the retching, I get the feeling they could be waking up for a normal day.
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It is common for kings to be referred to as "the King", even when talking to the king's son, in which case it is also appropriate to acknowledge that this is a person to whom the king is a father. I would tend to regard "the King your father" as being a bit more characteristic than "your father, the King", but that's neither here nor there.
I didn't think that he was overly calm. He just woke up, after all. He's sleepy. When my brother woke me up on Sept. 11th to tell me that terrorists had crashed planes into the World Trade center and the Pentagon, I was like "yeah, okay". Of course, I wasn't exactly surprised by the news, nor was I required to do anything in direct response at the time. But still, the fact that I had barely woken up had a lot to do with the emotional tenor of my response.
Not only do we not get his wife's name, we get no information whatsoever about the person who woke her, or anyone else in the room. I'm thinking that there must be at least six people there (not including the baby for now), but only three of them are even mentioned.
Overall I'm a bit on the fence about this opening. It doesn't have a lot of glaring errors that I can see (things like commas and apparently invisible servants aside), but it also doesn't have anything special going for it. The POV character isn't a main character, and we don't get any information in this scene that won't be made available to the protagonist of the story. So it is something that you could ditch with no loss. But I don't have any firm grounds for saying that you have to trash this.
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