Hatrack River Writers Workshop: New Modern Fantasy, Plz come and take a look

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Posted by Schatzy540 (Member # 2866) on :

Okay, you'll probably need a bit of explanation. These 13 lines come from the prolouge, which is also the first half of the last chapter. It covers four seperate people who have nothing to do with each other but the trial. It all comes together at the end(hopefully). Well, here it goes;

Prologue: The Verdict

Alicia Jones sat silently in her chair, awaiting a group of nine people she had never met to come and tell her whether she could live or not. I’ve done all I could, she told herself. I’ve told them everything. Well, almost everything. It should all work out for the better. The truth shall set me free, she mused.
But how was anyone to know the truth? The prosecuting attorney had spun the story so much that even she didn’t know which way was up. Plus, she was only a commoner, while that bustard attorney was of noble, magic blood. How was the Supreme Court of the Magi to side against one of their own? There was no way, absolutely no way. I’m gonna die.
She looked up at her lawyer, George Donald.

---------------------------------------------

Plz let me know if you would read on.

[This message has been edited by Kathleen Dalton Woodbury (edited September 22, 2005).]

Posted by WilliamHenryHarrison (Member # 2874) on :

The opening doesn't really get my attention. I was intrigued when I saw the part about the nine people who were going to decide if she was going to live. But then the tension slipped. It suddenly got uninteresting. Maybe you could throw in some more pizzaz. Make it more interesting. Perhaps describe why she is there anyway. Why one might decide to have her killed.

Posted by wbriggs (Member # 2267) on :

I was initially thinking, what's going on, and why won't the author tell us? But then you did. You should then go on to tell us if she's guilty and what the charges are, but I imagine you were just about to. Anyway, although I'm not a big fan of modern fantasy, this did hook me. I want to know more about the system, how magic works in with the courts, why they picked her to pick on, and of course whether she beats the rap! Good job!

Posted by Survivor (Member # 213) on :

quote:
the prolouge...is also the first half of the last chapter.

What?

You've got an interesting mixture of nomially exotic elements with aggressively prosaic names and language. But it fails to work in your favor, the text comes off as an unimaginative presentation rather than working to highlight the contrast between ordinary and extraordinary.

I think that you're trying to be a little too edgy, and it's somehow gone all the way round to dull. But that could just be your statement of this prologue being the first half of the last chapter. I suppose that you mean the events here take place immediately before those at the conclusion of the story, but that they are narrated in a prologue.

I'll take a look at the prologue, and you can let me know what particular things your trying to accomplish with the diction.

Without having that answer already, I'm going to suggest that you describe the setting a little. The chair, the courtroom (or whatever), the bench (if there is one). Is it one of those old fashioned English courtrooms or a hyper modern job, and all that. And tell us what it all means to Alicia. That gives you a chance to introduce a solid sense of the ordinary while leaving your prose free.

Posted by thexmedic (Member # 2844) on :

I definitely agree with the others that this opening isn’t doing everything it could (or should) be doing. You have the potential for a very big opening here—a woman waiting to here if she’ll live or die. And you’ve taken the right approach to making us care about this by getting the reader inside Alicia’s head. But these lines just aren’t doing the heavy-lifting required.

The shift between two certain opinions in two paragraphs doesn’t quite get across the feeling of urgent uncertainty that I think you’re aiming at. I would try to integrate the two halves more evenly – she’s told the truth but the opposing attorney’s twisted her words. Maybe make the shifts between hope and despair more rapid, possibly even sentence to sentence.

At a more nit-picky level:

“that bastard attorney was of noble, magic blood” seems a little awkward to me. I’d stick with just ‘noble blood’ and cut the word magic. In the next line you establish this is a magi’s court.

Don’t use the word ‘mused’ either. The word 'thought' is fine, and practically invisible. Mused stood out too much and threw me out of the story a little. Plus it seemed like a very mild word for a woman contemplating her potential death at the state’s hands.

Still the story seems like a good idea, and I think you’re on the right track. Good luck.

[This message has been edited by thexmedic (edited September 23, 2005).]

Posted by Schatzy540 (Member # 2866) on :

Thanks for ur help guys. Due to my own opinion of the finished plot-line, and a big gap in the plot, i have moved back to another plot idea. Thanks for your help thouhg!