These are the first 13 lines of my first draft of my fantasy novel (dark fantasy, where crummy things happen to good characters - the best kind!). The characters are horses, because there just aren't enough Watership Downs in this world.

I don't have much written beyond the first two chapters, so I'm not looking for a reader at this time (soon, though!). I'm mostly interested in whether this opening hooks you, and whether it just seems totally ridiculous. Honestly.

Thanks!

(This came out to 13 lines double-spaced on my laptop, including the paragraph break, but it looks a little long written here. I hope I didn't exceed....)
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It was said that Aranhim was born under an evil sign. On the night of her birth, the moon hung swollen and red in a too-hot spring sky. The mares gathered around Aranhim's dam to sing the birthing songs, but fear was in their voices. Sanchara, the Herd's roan seer, pleaded with the laboring mare to hold off the birth. "Wait until sunrise," she said. "For your good, and the foal's."

Sila, golden and arrogant even as she sweated through her pains, tossed her head in laughter. She did not believe in signs an portents. Sila was a practical mare, taking her days as they came. Fretting over the course of the future was for the deer and the rabbits - the creatures touched by time. Time's river may carry the little lives of the world ever

[This message has been edited by LibbieMistretta (edited June 23, 2006).]

“It was said that Aranhim was born under an evil sign.” – My only complaint is that this sounds a touch clichéd. I’d maybe start with the seer’s warning here, or at least with a more definite statement, rooted in the scene that this, rather vague statement.

“On the night of her birth, the moon hung swollen and red in a too-hot spring sky.”—Possibly a little heavy on the adjectives but that’s personal choce.

“The mares gathered around Aranhim's dam to sing the birthing songs, but fear was in their voices.”—Why? At the moment we only have the ‘evil sign’ to go on and that feels like its something that comes after this scene. Why are they scared NOW. Again I think this is an argument to put the seer’s warning up front.

“Sanchara, the Herd's roan seer, pleaded with the laboring mare to hold off the birth. "Wait until sunrise," she said. "For your good, and the foal's."”—the only thing that really bothers me here is the word “roan.” It clues us in that we’re talking about horses, but so do the words ‘mare’ and ‘foal.’ It kind of jars to me.

“Sila, golden and arrogant even as she sweated through her pains, tossed her head in laughter. She did not believe in signs an portents. Sila was a practical mare, taking her days as they came.”—All of this is nice.

“Fretting over the course of the future was for the deer and the rabbits - the creatures touched by time. Time's river may carry the little lives of the world ever downstream, but horses were like boulders, islands. Time split where they stood and passed them by, untouched.”—You seem to be descending into vague terms and metaphors when you discuss anything mystical. The opening line is part of the same problem. I assume you’re doing it because you want the mystical to sound, well, mysterious. However, I think the language you use here could stand to be a little less florid. When you’re describing simple actions, like the passage above, your tone is very direct and straight-forward. It makes it easier for me to read and draws me in more.

But then, I worry that if I don't hint at something "mystical" on the first page, I'll make an editor roll his eyes and say, "BLAH, BLAH, talking ponies, big deal. Why should I care?"

Otherwise, I am digging your suggestions, as I hadn't thought to put Sanchara's warning first. The only reason I'm still hesitating over axing the "It was said..." line as the opener is because the whole novel is meant to be a sort of "ancient history" that present-day horses tell each other, their oral history, if you will. That was going to be revealed in the final passages of the book (but not in a deus ex machina moment, don't worry). However, maybe I don't need that aspect at all. It might be a more powerful story if I just leave it in "the past" and don't worry about how it ties to the present.

You guys are the best. BIG GROUP HUG! I'm going to write until my fingers fall off this weekend!

p.s. I'm not a big fan of the florid, either, but I originally planned to make the first chapter a touch on the prosey side, just because of the "story being told" bit. But if I nix that idea, I can be more simple. I like it.

The swollen mood hung red in the sky. A bad sign, but Sila did not believe in omens or portents...

It's your story, play around. I do like the concept, though.

On the "reliability" issue of this opening, you say "It was said", and then proceed to narrate the events without any further mention of the reliability level. That's not wrong, but you should remember it before the end of this scene.

Using your comparison of Watership Down, the reader was given a few bits of rabbit language (especially in the characters' names, which were given in rabbit language and then deliberately translated), some interesting description of how rabbits view evening and sunrise, even a bit of rabbit lore...all of these things lended credibility and brought the reader into the rabbits' world.

Horse-shaped humans?! Oh, no! Not my intent! Can you explain this a bit more for me? I'm not certain that I can fit any more horseness into the first 13, but there is definitely much horseyness in the paragraphs that follow.

"some interesting description of how rabbits view evening and sunrise, even a bit of rabbit lore...all of these things lended credibility and brought the reader into the rabbits' world."

Yes - I have been working a lot on establishing a kind of "alien society" for the horses so they aren't human-like (is that what you were referring to above?). It comes out more, like I said, in the subsequent lines that I can't post here, and I've been working on holding onto that in further chapters, too. It's harder than I thought it would be.

"I've read a lot about how editors don't want anymore "talking animals" stories and books, but I think readers, especially young readers, are eager for more. This has a lot of potential, especially if you can somehow make the transition that will bring your horses to life and still have them be sweaty and enormous and ready to spook at the drop of a hat. "

What? Why? I can only think of a few (relatively) off the top of my head. They must just get tons of mediocre submissions - is that it?

In a couple of weeks, I will probably post looking for readers for a chapter or two, so if you're interested, please keep an eye out.

OSC talked about this. It's OK to have very humanized, or only slightly humanized, animals. Mickey Mouse wears trousers, drives a car, and has a dog; there's nothing mouselike about him but a few physical features. The Watership Down rabbits were rabbit in their society and habits, but they could speak and have government. You just have to be clear about what the reader can expect. (Not necessarily in the 1st 13. I think you've done quite well so far.)

That said, if they're too human, I won't see the point.

Foaling is such a vulnerable time, especially when you look at a wild horse as a pure prey species. In fact, my understanding of feral horse behavior indicates that the mares leave the herd prior to foaling, deliver in isolation, and then return to the herd once their foals are mobile and bonded well enough to stay close.

I'm not saying you should change your scene, but you sacrifice some of your characters' wild behaviors and primitive instincts when you place them in the kind of social structure you have created. I don't think the loss cripples your story, but it makes you have to work harder to keep your horses convincingly un-domesticated.

Yes - you are correct about foaling behavior, and I'm glad that I'm creating a horse society that is obviously "wrong" to somebody who knows horses. Early in the novel, everything about how these horses live together (and about how they react to their environment) is contrary to modern horse behavior, by design. The main plot point in my story is that horses are so loved by the Creator-figure (haven't introduced the idea of him/her/it yet, so no name for it yet) that they are given eternal lives and never fall victim to illness, and never age beyond their prime. As long as they remain in their valley, they are protected from predators, as well. They have a sort of paradise of innocence.

Then a murder is committed out of jealousy, and as punishment from their god, the horses lose all their gifts - even the valley is no longer protected, so they fragment into small herds (like modern wild horse herds), begin to spread out from their original area, and face all kinds of difficulties.

Basically, it's the story of how horses became the prey animals that we know. It's also the story of how and why they left North America (as you know, horse evolved in North America, but migrated for unknown reasons to Asia via the Bering land bridge). It's based heavily on the Garden of Eden idea, as well as some other similar creation myths. My goal is to tell the story as if it's the traditional creation myth of the horses - as if it's an oral history that every horse hears from its mother as a foal.

I'm taking quite a lot of liberties, such as having palomino and roan and pinto horses - and the main character, Aranhim, is a cremello. (As you also probably know, it's most likely that the original horses who evolved in North America were mealy dun, like the Przewalski's horse.) Some other minor things that most horse nuts would question, too, but I'm justifying it by saying that this is the myth of modern horses - they don't have any way of knowing that horses weren't neat colors back in their pre-domestication days. I'll include a note about the horses' appearances in a foreword once the book is done, if it will help.

I've been consulting on horse behavior with a friend who's a trainer/rehab specialist of ex-race horses, so hopefully by the time the big sin happens and they all start to change into "real" horses, their behavior and social structure will be more familiar.

Thanks for your input! It's good to know that there's another horse fan here. I hope you'll be able to read more of it once I have it ready for critique!

Are you sure you aren't mistaking the title of the book? I hope so, because I don't want to have to nit-pick through TWO books to make sure mine is dissimilar enough - it's already hard enough with one! ha ha

Here's the cover of _The Heavenly Horse_. Does it look familiar?

http://www.marystanton.com/ContentManager/uploads/cover-The_Heavenly_Horse_from_the_Outermost_West.jpg

I'm hoping that my story is different enough. My "seer" doesn't do much but act silly and superstitious for a couple of pages, whereas in HH, she has a very large role in the story. The rebellious mare you meet in the opening scene is killed by a big cat a few chapters later, rather than being the "female lead" of the story. Whereas HH is about domesticated horses struggling to save a particular breed of horse from disappearing forever, my story is about horses who existed well before domestication in North America, who have to cope as a whole society with a world that suddenly changes completely for them.

There is a "bad guy" mare who is black, which is the only similarity I can think of at the moment that might tie it too closely to HH. However, she doesn't have the specific role ("Soultaker") that the black mare in HH has: She's just selfish, jealous, and out of control, and makes some very bad choices that impact her entire world negatively.

so, HOPEFULLY, I am not too near HH's plot! Aside from the mean black mare and the "talking horses" idea, hopefully it will stand out enough to be clearly different.

Oh, the sequel to HH, _Piper at the Gates_ is the only one I can think of that Mary Stanton wrote in the HH universe. Again, it has the "talking horses" aspect, of course, but otherwise is as dissimilar from my story as is possible to get. Other than that, Mary Stanton has written a lot of young adult fantasy novels about a girl and a unicorn, but fortunately, there are no girls or unicorns in mine.

Man, this business of keeping my idea away from other talking horse ideas is nasty hard!

Anyway, thanks for your input! If HH is *not* the book you were thinking of, please let me know and I'll continue the search for the one you mentioned.

You might want to look at Call of the Mountain . While it is a different premise, your voice is very simiar.

Don't let the fact that there are similar books discourage you though. It just means there are a lot of us who actually buy them. :)

I can't critique your 13 lines because I read Heavenly Horse a couple of times over the years, and I can't resist comparing and looking for similarities and differences. But if I picked up your book, having never read Heavenly Horse, I'd keep reading, with pleasure. So the question is this: how many people have read Heavenly Horse and remember it so well they can't help comparing? The answer has to be not very many.

Another possibility, if you want people to differentiate immediately between your book and Heavenly Horse, is to research a mythology and incorporate a culture based on that mythology. Something very specific, even if most people won't know where it's from, and something very different from Heavenly Horse.