Here goes my second market challenge as chief slave-driver (I'm not sure how long I'm meant to keep going). Apologies for posting this so close to the 11th.

Please post your first thirteen in this thread by May 11th, using the following format:
Title:
Word count:
Genre:

First thirteen:

Please do not post anything else in this thread. For discussions and questions, and to see how this group works, please use the ‘Open Discussions’ thread.

I’ll post instructions in this thread as and when necessary.
For reference here’s the overall monthly cycle:

By the 11th day of the month everyone is invited to post first 13s. The earlier the better, so that people have more time to choose which stories tickle their fancy for full crits.

This week is not time for writing since the stories should be ready for market, but just recognizing that we can't all get to things immediately.

During the week after entries close, we
- grade first 13s
- request at least one manuscript (via an e-mail to the writer) of the story we'd like to read and grade (probably one whose first 13 we scored highly). The more, the better.

By the last day of the month we
- grade at least one manuscript
- grade more stories if we want to (e.g. those that have great first 13s in addition to our favourites)

The "end of the day" is the end of the day in your local time. There's no need to be more precise than that.

Cheers,

The Golden Age
7,800 words approx.
Fantasy (in a style I don't normally write)

quote:

---

Ben‭ ‬stepped over a drunken orc on the sidewalk before‭ ‬entering Golgoth’s bar.‭ ‬Inside,‭ ‬gaggles of orcs clutched bottles of alcohol and drank hard.‭ ‬Bitter-mouthed waitresses walked between the tables with their gazes always an inch away from true eye contact.‭ He hated the place, but business was business.
The orcs should have been riotous at this time of day,‭ ‬but the place felt as quiet as an abandoned church.‭ ‬He hailed Fardur,‭ ‬the bartender.‭
“One mead.‭ ‬By the gods,‭ ‬you bastards are a depressing lot.‭ ‬What’s happened here‭?”
“Haven’t you heard‭?” ‬Ben shook his head.‭ “‬Someone shot President Kennedy,‭ ‬down‭ ‬Texas way.‭”

---

Peter sighed inwardly. He’d been wandering a long time now, and all he had found were cities filled with factories and warehouses, with only roads, highways and trash dumps between them. It seemed they went on forever.
He’d seen how people, himself included, had become distant from each other and even themselves. Most of them didn’t even know about…the others.
He wanted to learn about the cities, the people in them and those others that seemed born from both. He wanted to understand how they interconnected. Maybe then, he could help them all to exist in harmony.
Peter passed a hamburger stand at an intersection of three trash-blown streets and his stomach began to rumble. He cast a

Mellon bent over to fill his skin with the mountain stream’s cold, sparkling water. He thought his lost sheep would likely stop here to take a drink, just like him.
While he concentrated on his task, he missed the little drama played out further up the valley, where a huge blue demon crept up behind one of his little lambs and flamed it with his hot breath. The breeze brought the smell of burnt wool and seared lamb across the valley floor.
He knew he couldn’t leave his sheep in the valley. But when the scent of the broiled lamb finally reached him, he hefted his staff with a sense of alarm. He was as full of fear as a 14-year-old could be, if I don’t bring home all the sheep, Pop will give me the beating of my life.

Send both yours through. I'm ridiculously busy at the moment, but it's still a shame that we only got three participants this time around.

It's funny, Nick. Both of our stories are ones we've already exchanged. We get the benefit of seeing the revisions.

The problem is I haven't received the level of crit I'd really like for this story. The crits focused on geographic details which is fine, but I haven't had anything that really fixes the story (and I know it's far from perfect). Anyway, it qualifies for the RFMC, but I was hoping to get a more detailed crit...I guess it just doesn't enthuse people...Sigh. I'm not sure if it's that different from the version you've seen.

I have not been active on this BB for about a year, but now I am back from overseas and ready to get back into fiction; finally.

Thanks for the offer, it's greatly appreciated.

This challenge runs every month, so if you have something ready in June, you're free to enter.

Regards,

Story Overall-5

Pretty decent characters and some good ideas but it really needs to be compressed and polished.

Plot-5

You've got several different things going on here, and to me they all meander a little too much. The concepts of the plot are fine they just need to be tightened and focused.

Character Development-6

Pretty good. I have difficulty excepting Bortox's behaviour and spech and motivations within the context of a "demon", and both characters seem a little childish, immature or almost cartoonish at times, but that may be intentional.

Milieu-5

Theres some interesting hints here and there, but its not developed much, and what development there is is in big info-dumpy chunks.

Dialogue-4

I found the dialogue a bit choppy and also somewhat immature/childish especially for the Demon. Some of that may be ok, if this is intended to be purely a whimsical children's story. Also, despite Mellon being an unlettered farm boy he some times uses words in dialogue and thought that it's rather surprising for him to know. There are also some spots of rather modern language that are jarring in relation to the medieveal setting.

Writing Style-4

Pretty much as above. There were good spots, but much of the writing was choppy, theres a lot of added on asides to explain things that could have been handled with only a couple of words and just generally a somewhat stiff feel to it. I'd suggest trying to go for a more natural, more realistic flow.

Action-6

What there is is pretty decent, though I don't understand how Mellon gets trapped during his duel with the wizard.

Disbelief-6

My main issues here are the way the characters talk, and Bortax being a "demon." I realize that last is a bit subjective, however, he is depicted in a manner consisted with the evil monster demon image, and no setting-based context or reason is given for why he's more or less the oposite.

Unique-7

Its a bit of a new twist on some things. I'm not really all that concerned with this area though, as almost everything has been done before.

Understandable-8

No problems here even if it does wander around quite a bit.

Ending-7

The events of the ending are fine, although the actual writing of it is rather abrupt and suffers from the issues I've mentioned above.

Story overall-8

I like this piece a lot, more than any of your others I've read and not only because its more in the area of my favored subject matter. Theres just a few little issues or tweaks I think it could use.

Plot-7

What was going on could maybe have been a bit clearer a bit sooner, but the quality of the world and the characterization more than makes up for it.

Character Development-8

The MC was especially good. His parents and the demons could probably have used a little more depth. I was also never totally clear if Merenwen was in fact half elven or not.

Milieu-7

Very nice job of recasting our world into one featuring magic and magical races. There are just a few things I would have liked more on or to be inserted more smoothly, such as the existence of gods and their "policies" about ressurecting people. Also how or why the rest of everyone are apparently aware of and if not ok with at least don't seem to be doing to much about the earthly existence of Demons. Oh and also the wights...a little more on them might be good. Uusually in modern fantasy "wight" equals undead of some kind but the way you speak of them seems to not fit that. These things however didn't seriously detract.

Dialogue-7

Good for the most part. I feel the exchange between Ben and his mother where she tells him things arent as he remembered needed to be stronger and clearer, and Ben's dialogue with his father could perhaps be improved slightly as well.

Writing Style-6

This could probably be a 7 but 1) there are quite a few typos still in there, some missing words and stuff, and also a few points mostly in the dialogue and a couple of descreptions that could probably be strengthened.

Action-7

Good for the most part. Just a couple little parts that could perhaps be a little better, such as when he first fires the gun. Also his tatto protecting him comes out rather expected and unsurprising, but really thats not a bad thing.

Disbelief-7

Within context there aren't any big issues here except for a couple of minor incongruities I mention above.

Unique-

I'm not going to give this catagory an actual rating. Pretty much everything, including this concept, has been done before. I don't consider that a bad thing. All I would say is there are a couple of places in the story where you seem to be intentionally mimicking/riffing off of LOTR, D&D and other such fantasy icons. Thats not a problem in and of itself, but I'm not sure if it is intentional or not or if it is, wether its meant as hommage or playfully or what. Just something to think about.

Understandable-8

No problems here.

Ending-8

For this type of story seems perfectly ok to me.

Story Overall
6 - It was well written. The climax lost a bit of coherence for me.

Milieu
9 - You have this setting down pat. It came through loud and clear. The lost soul of this world is very strong.

Dialogue
6 - The dialogue was fine. The milieu carries a lot of the communication.

Writing Style
7 - The style was well done. It was ponderous at the end due to the nature of the setting.

Action
7 - The story moved slowly until the MC entered the warehouse, then the action took over the story.

Disbelief
4 - It's probably the man-machine thing and me. I had a hard time with the very existence of the 'god'

Unique
6 - You certainly had some unique things going on, not only the 'god' but the MC's device.

Understandable
5 - I thought everything was understandable except for the end. After the initial struggle things started to muddle up for me and I had a bit of a hard time making it seem logical within its own framework. If this was part of a series with the device, that would help a lot.

Story Overall

5 – I didn't have a strong enough idea of the protagonist’s desires and drives and what stops him from achieving those desires. As a result, the protag is too passive to really engage me in the story.

Milieu

6 – Good sense of industrial desolation, but very little sense of the world beyond the physical description.

Dialogue

6 I’d like more conflict within the dialogue or more surprise. It seemed a little flat to me.

Writing Style

6 – Some tidying needs to be done (a few run-ons at the beginning), but generally pretty good.

Action

4 – As I’ve stated before in these ratings, I primarily view action as being “does the protagonist drive the plot?” In this case, Peter plays a very small part in driving the events of the plot. The story takes a while to take off.

Disbelief

7 – I have no problems here.

Unique

6 – The story didn’t startle me with its background or the nature of the worm, but that may be familiarity with the themes you’re working with at the moment.

Understandable

6 – While the ideas are clear enough, the reason why things happen at the end is vague.

Ending

Story Overall

5 – The main problem I found with this story was that Mellon was a passive protagonist for large sections and there wasn’t enough conflict introduced throughout the story. Once the initial disturbance to the protag’s life is achieved, the stakes and the conflict aren’t redefined and conflict is missing for a large part of the story. The pace really slows, which is a pity as you’ve got a solid idea behind this story. The other big problem was the dialogue, which doesn’t have enough movement in it.

Milieu

6 – While it was obviously high fantasy, there wasn’t much to distinguish it from *other* types of high fantasy. What were the costs of magic? What was unique about the magic system? What was there was done well, but the milieu didn’t particularly stand out to me. Nevertheless, no major problems here.

Dialogue

4 – I’d probably like to see a bit more conflict and sideways answers used in the dialogue. The dialogue lacked a bit of spark and mostly gave information, rather than being a mix of information, conflict and plot advancement.

Writing Style

5 – The early omni reference stood out (which, I have to admit, is my fault due to a badly worded initial critique), but is a minor problem and easy to solve.

Style-wise, nothing really stood out as being a *major* problem depending on perspective (it was still a little bit stiff, but nothing that finding your voice won’t solve), but more could have been left to the reader. There were quite a few observations that were fairly obvious to deduce and that could have trimmed the story further.

Action

5 – Probably the cause of most of the problems in the story. As above, there needed to be more conflict/steps taken to liven up the action. I think the essential story is there, but you probably need to look at the amount of conflict in the story and what Mellon wants (in order to create conflict within that story).

Disbelief

6 – No one really acted out of character, though I thought the demons didn’t really present as intelligent obstacles to anyone’s needs (also, the wizard at the end).

Unique

7 – If you strip away the high fantasy elements, the story has the potential for a good coming-of-age story with some refinement; good, safe ground to tread on, while still being relatively fresh. I’m not a fan of high fantasy generally, but you’re not relying on the tropes as the be-all and end-all of the story.

Understandable

5 –Some of the magic at the end was a bit muddled.

Ending

This challenge is more-or-less finished. If you haven't submitted a critique on stories you've asked for, please do so ASAP. Thanks everyone for participating and I hope everyone got something out of it.

Regards,