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Calahir awoke with a vague sense of terror that was the remnant of his nightmares. Like so many of his dreams, it faded from his mind even as he came to conciousness. For a brief moment, the elf almost wanted to go back to his nightmares. Consciousness had not been good to him recently. Especially in prison.
With the expectation of pain, Calahir opened his eyes. The first thing he saw was the sun shining bright in his face. When he closed his eyes all he saw was bright red through the curtains of his eyelids. His hand acted as a second layer of protection that proved more useful. He also felt sand. Everywhere. It seemed to him that he was laying in it.

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Ok, so it's only twelve lines, but the sentence I took out would have pushed it to fourteen. I look forward to your responses.

Overall, I’m intrigued and I enjoyed reading it. Also I like the mood but I am a little unsure about what is happening. Here are the questions I am wondering, and hoping would be answered soon after the first 13: Why does Calahir have nightmares? Why is he in prison? (Now that I think of it, I am not sure if he is in prison now, or if that was a memory of the past. I don’t picture a bright sun in prison.) Why is he lying in the sand? (An elf in the sand seems interesting.) What has been so bad in his life recently?

As for character – I feel bad for him, but I am not sure I like him yet. I would like some hints about his character. Is he noble? Confident? Brave? Lucky? Unlucky? Mean? Give us something that distinguishes him from your average Joe. Is he brilliant? Does he own some magic item, or power?

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Calahir awoke with a vague sense of terror that was the remnant of his nightmares. [<- I don’t think this is a bad sentence, but the word vague takes some bight out of it for me.] Like so many of his dreams, it faded from his mind even as he came to conciousness. For a brief moment, the elf almost wanted to go back to his nightmares. Consciousness had not been good to him recently. [<- I like this line; it increases the intrigue. You score points by suggesting that life has been bad instead of saying it outright.] Especially in prison. [<- I’m not sure if he is in prison now or was in prison in the past.]

With the expectation of pain, Calahir opened his eyes. [<- I’m not sure why he expects pain.] The first thing he saw was the sun shining bright in his face. When he closed his eyes all he saw was bright red through the curtains of his eyelids. [<- Did he see the red before he opened them?] His hand acted as a second layer of protection that proved more useful. He also felt sand. Everywhere. It seemed to him that he was laying in it. [<- The phrase “It seemed that” reduces the power of this sentence for me.]

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Also, I would like to see some action of some type begin, or at least a hint that something will soon happen.

I think you've got a hook here with the elf in prison and possibly mysteriously no longer in prison, but I think most readers will be confused by this opening because of the lack of reaction by Calahir. If he's no longer in prison, shouldn't he sit up and take notice? I'm assuming he's no longer in prison since you make the effort to point out that he's lying on/in sand when he wakes up, and I'd think he'd be waking up inside a prison cell, not out under the sun...but I'm not sure because he's so ho-hum about it all with his closing his eyes and draping a hand over his face.

Small stuff:
I think of terror as an intense sense. A vague sense would be one of fear or less intense apprehension.
Second paragraph first sentence is active, but doesn't start that way. Perhaps it should start with the 'Calahir opened his eyes' part.

quote:

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Calahir awoke with a vague sense of terror [I love the use of remnant here, but I feel as if the 'that was the' seems to take from it.] that was the remnant of his nightmares. Like so many of his dreams, it faded from his mind even as he came to conciousness[SP]. For a brief moment,<--I would take 'for a brief moment' out] the elf almost wanted to go back to his nightmares. Consciousness had not been good to him recently. Especially in prison.<--These may have more effect in it's own paragraph
With the expectation of pain, Calahir opened his eyes. The first thing he saw was the sun shining bright in his face. Why is the sun in his face; is he still in prison? When he closed his eyes all he saw was bright red through the curtains of his eyelids. His hand acted as a second layer of protection that proved more useful. He also felt sand. Everywhere. It seemed to him that he was laying in it.<--States the obvious

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I really liked this passage; I'd be willing to read more. I believe that you picked a good place to start the story, with just enough mystery to keep the reader intrigued. The one thing that I would consider changing is his reaction to finding that he's outside, instead of in prison. As soon as he sees the sun, he should react. Or he should be very disoriented and suddenly realize where he is.

The first thing he saw was the sun shining bright in his face.

You'd simply never think of it that way. The first thing he saw was a blinding glare from the sun shining in his face might be more what you were trying to convey.

But for me it felt rather passive.

Also, although I'm no expert, I thought there was a POV slip. Mostly we're in Calahir's head and that seems important to the hook. So "the elf almost wanted ..." slips outside his head and seems to me like a narrative intrusion to tell us he's an elf. Is that fact material to the hook? Can it be slipped in some-other-how?

Also, there are some redundancies that can be taken out to make it read better, I think. For example, dreams can only be in the mind so they can just fade, and don't need to fade from his mind.

With these thoughts in mind (where else?!) I offer this subedit for you to use, abuse or simply ignore:

--
Calahir awoke with a vague sense of terror, a remnant of his nightmares. Like so many of his dreams, it faded even as he came to conciousness. For a brief moment, he almost wanted to go back to his nightmares. Consciousness had not been good to him recently.
Especially in prison.
Expecting pain, Calahir opened his eyes. The first thing he saw was the sun shining bright in his face. Closing his eyes, he saw bright red through his eyelids which, being elfen, hardly shut much out. He made his hand act as a second layer of protection. He also felt sand. Everywhere. It seemed that he was laying in it.

First off, Welcome to Hatrack.

My take:

quote:

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[Calahir awoke with a vague sense of terror that was the remnant of his nightmares. Like so many of his dreams, it faded from his mind even as he came to conciousness.<--Cliche' opening.] For a brief moment, the elf [almost<--You can't "almost" want something.] wanted to go back to his nightmares. Consciousness had not been good to him[,] recently. Especially in prison.
With the expectation of pain, Calahir opened his eyes. The first thing he saw was [the sun<--This should either be the "end" of the sentence, or the "beginning". If you choose the beginning, change "shining" to "shone". It strengthens the verb.] shining bright in his face. When he closed his eyes all he saw was bright red through the curtains of his eyelids. His hand acted as a second layer of protection[For what?] that proved more useful[Than what?]. He also felt sand. Everywhere. It seemed to him that he was [lying, OSC reminds us that we should use proper grammar, even when in PoV.] in it.

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1) This is a cliche opening, and I'm not hooked.

2) I don't care about Calahir's dreams, I don't know him, yet.

3) The sand may be strange, but its not a hook. In fact, I want to know WHY he's there (in prison), and if something interesting is going to happen to him.

4) Why is he reacting to the sun like that? Is it more than just an AVERAGE dislike of the sun in his eyes? If so, why? Has he been in solitary confinement for the last three years?

5) I have read nothing to set the time-period? Where are we? In the Future? The Past? Another dimension? On another planet? The words sound modern, is this a contemporary fantasy?

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There you go. Hopefully that's a little more explanative than before. I can't put any more in because then it would turn into an info dump.

For me, This would be a better story if you lost the first paragraph all together. Its still slightly cliche because he's waking up but waking up after a shipwreck is more acceptable than just waking up after a scary dream.

Also, Calahir is an elf. Did this have to do with his imprisonment? Were his captors nonelves? Is that why he was beaten with particular cruelty?

Everything is clear though, and there's little doubt in my mind as to the situation: (sole?) survivor of a downed prison ship. Not likely a slaver, but perhaps a transfer ship, or one bound for Australia.

My take:

quote:

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[Calahir awoke with a sense of terror that faded with his dream. For a brief moment, he wanted to be sleeping rather than waking.<--Still cliche'.] Conciousness had not been good to [Calahir] recently. All too often[,] he would be awakened [only to be beaten by the prison staff<--Maybe: to the clubs of angry guards It sounds more period-friendly.] until everything went black again.
With the expectation of pain, Calahir opened his eyes.[<--Much better.]The glaring sun shining down on him was a blinding surprise. He put a hand up to block the glare and attempted to sit up. His body felt stiff and sore. [When Calahir finally managed to sit up<--Two sentences ago, he sat up.] and look around, he saw a beach strewn with burning wreckage. Out in the ocean he saw the source of all the debris. [The mast of his prison<--Huh? There was no foreshadowing of the ocean: smell, taste of salt air. This mrips me out of the story, because I was envisioning a stone-prison.] stuck out of the water bearing the banner of The Merciful Lady...

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I also agree with IB that you're disjointing the story but not mentioning the ocean in a sense other than sight prior to introducing the ship.

Re-reading this again I'd still prefer it if you completely drop the dream from the beginning of the story. Move it to a little bit later if its a must have to the story but please move it from the top.

I'd be willing to give this a full read if you want.

If its integral, introduc the recurring dream within a page or two but not right away.

Dreaming is just dreaming, and like mass pitched battles, epic quests or assassination plots is a device that authors have at their disposal.