***

Why yes, it is an enormous run-on sentence.

I was going for a lot here. I wanted to start the story on a humorous note and do a lot of scene setting. If it worked, you have in your mind the image of some useless privileged snob, heir to a bloated overwrought multi-planet monarchy at war with a technologically superior enemy. A battle has just transpired at the unwise prince's urging and over the objection of his officers. He's not dead yet, but his death is imminent.

Did it work?

No. At least not for me. Three lines of title was too much. If you took half a line with his title and then got to the princess's which you omitted for "brevity's sake" I might have made it to the next semicolon because of the touch of humor. As it is, my eyes glossed over and I forced myself to re-read three times to see if there was anything other than his title in the 13 lines.

While the Prince is a useless privileged snob, whoever is telling me the story probably isn't. Who is your POV? The POV character can describe the Prince's desire to have all his titles used and convey the humor by his reaction. The POV can paint the picture of the Prince's personality by showing me that while HE must be addressed with a full five minutes of linegy and titles, his betrothed only gets her name. If the POV for the rest of the story is one of those "social inferiors" start me in his head.

This is a short story. Although I doubt that given your first sentance takes more than 13 lines. Generally, DON'T shift POVs in a short. There's not enough time.

I don't know how to relate that to your list of titles, exactly, other than finding the point in your list at which the reader starts glancing downwards to see how much more is left in the list. I think you've gone past that, IMHO. But I think you've got the core of an amusing opening, though.

While I accept that it’s a challenging start—and maybe I’ll just have to chuck it—there’s a lot more than 13 lines of title. There’s an entire short story in those 13 lines. At any rate, here is how I had thought it would be read:

His Penultimate Imperial Hectmundarchial Eminence, Prince Mars Paulus Ultrans Monteforte De’Fuelyn Arkaz-Huisten Tziowoisch
[That was a mouthful and a half. O.k., so there’s a Prince with a buffoon-ishly long title and a buffoon-ishly long list of names. The author is probably setting him up as something of a buffoon. (Bonus points: (i) “Penultimate” means that he’s second in rank over the whole show. (ii) A “hectmundarchy” means that the “show” consists of 100 worlds.)],

late of the Imperial Summer Palace, Planet Arkaz; [He was until very recently living in a palace somewhere on a planet called Arkaz.],

late betrothed to Princess Eyselia of Junstar’s World (titles, honorifics and full name omitted for brevity’s sake), [He got betrothed to a Princess with a ridiculously long name of her own who lives on a planet called Junstar]

late styled Commandrus-Pax, Royal Tziowoisch Wedding Fleet; [He was put in charge of a “wedding fleet.” I have no idea what a wedding fleet is, but it seems reasonable to assume it has something to do with the fact that the Prince and his betrothed live on different worlds.],

late (self-)styled Commandrus-Bellum, Royal Tziowoisch Wedding and Attack Fleet; [He just gave himself a new title and the “wedding fleet” is now a “wedding and attack fleet,” which sounds a little ridiculous. (Bonus points: He changed his pseudo-Latin title from “Commander-in-Peace” to “Commander-in-War.”) I wonder why?]

late to understand the difference between honorifics and honors, [For some reason the author is drawing a contrast between the Prince, with all his ‘birth-given’ honors, and people who have actually earned theirs.]

late to adhere to the advice of social inferiors that the Tziowoisch Wedding Fleet, no matter how styled, was not up to the task of dispatching the several Jakkadian Cruisers encountered on the space lanes between Arkaz and Junstar; [Now it make sense. On the way from Arkaz to Junstar, the Wedding Fleet ran across someone named the Jakkadians. Apparently the Prince is no fan of the Jakkadians and decided to attack them. It looks like he was advised by people who knew what they were doing that this was a bad idea, but pulled rank and plunged ahead.]

and, as a result, soon to be simply “late,” [And whatever happened, it’s about to cost him his life.]

sprawled languorously on a delicately brocaded day bed....

Here’s the next 13 lines. Any other thoughts?

NOTE FROM KATHLEEN: Sorry, no posting of the "next 13 lines." And I am ready to delete the rest of this post because the above is certainly more than 13 lines anyway.

[This message has been edited by ereitman (edited October 23, 2008).]

Remember that the limit on 1st 13 is also to preserve your electronic publishing rights.

To be frank, I didn't have any of the thought process you've outlined in your notes on your first 13 and I'd like to think that I belong firmly in the middle of the bellcurve of the great unwashed science fiction reading masses. I'll read all kinds of stuff and I'm eager to be won over.

I found myself switching off pretty quickly and I have the joy of not having to wade through 10 000 submitted pieces per day like a slush reader would. One of the keys to the first 13 is hooking a reader and I'm very easy to hook; I wasn't hooked.

For me, the names make it unnecessarily hard to read and it would have to be an absolutely fantastic hook to win me after struggling through them. I can't remember whether it was skadder or snapper (sorry) who posted how to hook a reader thread in the writing forum, but I don't have any of their listed types of hooks to make me read on. In my opinion, it's tougher to read than it needs to be. There are stories that need to be tough to read, but I don't think this is one of them.

Regards,

Nick

While I know what you were hoping I'd think as I read the original, what I was actually thinking was "when the heck is this going to end?" A ten word title will get the point across. Him whining that the social inferiors don't want to listen to him and it's his wedding fleet after all gives you the important information from the rest of the 13.

Well, I suppose there IS a lot of information in there, now that you've pointed it out, but it was just so difficult to read that I didn't see any of it. I get to 'omitted for brevity's sake' ish, and then can't keep my eyes from skimming over the rest of it, looking for a full-stop.

Personally, aside from a couple of bits of punctuation, I think all you need to do here is delete stuff. LOTS of stuff:

quote:

---

His Penultimate Imperial Hectmundarchial Eminence, Prince Mars Paulus Monteforte De’Fuelyn: late betrothed to Princess Eyselia of Junstar (full name omitted for brevity’s sake); late in understanding the difference between honorifics and honors; late to adhere to the advice of social inferiors that the Tziowoisch Wedding Fleet, no matter how styled, was not up to the task of dispatching several Jakkadian Cruisers; and, as a result, soon to be simply “late.”

---

With the above example, what do we now have? Something that is readable, for one. We have the big preposterous name for humour (complete with silly word 'Hectmundarchial'). We still have the 'for brevity's sake' touch. We have the basic story: idiot prince sends woefully undergunned 'wedding fleet' into battle with superior enimies, with predictable results. You don't really need anything else for a first 13, do you?

It's not perfect, sure - it took me 30 seconds of highlight-deleting to produce - but hopefully it gets across my point. Oh, those punctuation bits: I've changed a semi-colon to a colon, and a comma or two to a semi-colon. With the exception of 'to understand' to 'in understanding', I haven't re-written any of the prose itself.

On a completely different note, where are you going with this story? I rather hope that the prince isn't really dead, because if he is, what was the point in spending so much time and effort describing him? Who is your main character, here?

As it is, I really couldn't have read on any further without going cross-eyed. Or indeed blind. That said, there is still a story in there - I always like reading about pompous idiot characters getting thrown into situations they can't handle.

Hope this helped .
Daniel.