I live in beautiful Vermont, where you can't throw a rock without hitting a writer or a Subaru. I'm working on a couple things, one of which I'd like to share the first 13 lines with whomever would care to comment.

These first 13 are from the prologue of my WIP, a fantasy trilogy called The Feymark Chronicles. The first part is called The Broken Circle. If it were already published, and you picked it up off the shelf because it had a cool cover (yes, we do indeed judge them by their covers, don't we?), and read the blurb on the back, it might read thus:

Aelion and Haeodor are twins bearing the mysterious Feymark on the backs of their necks. Each is destined to change the course of the world--one for better, one for worse. One becomes a ruthless ruler, the other becomes a powerful bloodmage. The Fey have set a course of human events in motion that pits greed against wisdom, and the unscrupulous against the principled. Might and bloody magic are pitted against each other in a battle not only for the world, but for the hearts and souls of its people.

Then you would open to the first page and read...

Snow fell like ashes in the deepening twilight of the wood behind the farm. Wynae Kardelion tarried in her chores, she so loved how beautiful the twilight made everything in winter. Her mother didn’t want her to go out, but Wynae didn’t know what she was so worried about. There was nothing outside but the farm and the sparkling snow. The snow became blue and violet as Father Sol slept below the horizon, failing once again to catch his little prodigal Daughter. Daughter Moon waited near the horizon. Soon Mother Moon would rise and give chase. In the wood behind the animal pens, black branches of trees were chandeliers of snow and ice that flashed in the Father Sol’s last light of the day.

“She is ten; she is a big girl now,” her father had earlier said, just after supper. He smiled and winked, enjoying his pipe and his cider too much to want to bother himself. “She can feed the animals,” he said. Wynae jutted her little chin out and tilted her head up proudly at her mother, but refrained from saying anything pert.

“Keep your eyes sharp, Wynnie,” her mother said. “Things come out in the twilight you’d best be watching for.”

************

Any and all comments & crits are welcome.

[This message has been edited by Magic Beans (edited September 29, 2004).]

[This message has been edited by Magic Beans (edited September 29, 2004).]

About this thirteen lines:

Sounds great, except for the bit about Daughter/Mother Moon and Father Sol. I mean, it was nice, but it seemed out of context. It took me a bit to figure out that Father Sol wasn't another character in the story. And those lines take us on an unexpected, and somewhat unwelcome, detour from what's happening with Wynae. If, when you're talking about Wynae watching the falling sun and the rising moon, then tell it to me that way. Otherwise those lines teeter on the edge of a POV shift from Wynae to the sun.

Oh, yeah. Welcome to Hatrack!

I seem to recall having an idea exactly like this once...it's filed away in my database of ideas, undeveloped, but basically two twins have a shared destiny, one to save one to destroy. It makes me wonder if someone's writen and published a story like that before. (Not that it matters, as longa s you bring something unique to the concept.)

Anyway...some nitpicks...

"Wynae Kardelion tarried in her chores, she so loved how beautiful the twilight made everything in winte." This sentence does not make sense to me for some reason...it almost seems like it's two different subjects, not meant for the same section at all. First she's tarrying in clothes and then she's talkinga bout the beautiful twilight.

I was a little thrown by your Father Sol/ Mother/Daughter Moon thing too, but for different reasons. When I first read it, I thought maybe you mistyped Daughter and Mother adn they were both daughre moon, but now I'm thinking there might be two moons. If there are, it is entirely unclear to me.

As for the dangers of getting out or POV...I am going to tentatively disagree with that, but give warning. By discussing the sun and the moon the way you have done you need to do one of two thigns: one, continue the poetic prose while in Wynee's POV and show us through her thoughts and actions that she has the type of mind that would see things that awy OR....show us that in this world's culture/religion the anology of father sol/mother/daughter moon is akin to our simply mentioning the rising sun. I am hoping that it's the section way, especially because constant poetics anda nologies becomes warisome for me to read. But if this is a cultural norm then you have already begun to pain us a picture of your world. I give you those warnings because dakota brought it up, but in practice I would give you the benefit of the doubt on this. But I still don't know how many moons there are.

About the twins: yes, there really is nothing new under the sun, is there? We can only recombine things in new and fresh ways, and hope for the best. In comedy, twins have always been used to get laughs by being confused for the same person (accidentally and deliberately) or getting mixed up with each other. In literature, twins are used for the idea of duality, say, two sides to an issue. In my story, Haeodor operates under the idea that the ends justify the means; and Aelion follows the idea that the means justify the ends.

[This message has been edited by Magic Beans (edited September 30, 2004).]

Is there a way for you to develop it separate from the story? Here are a few ways you could do it:

- Have Wynae listening to a story about the celestial family when she is a small child, then jump ahead to when she is older and start the story.

- Write a short intro about Sol and the Moons.

- Have Wynae daydream about or ponder the night sky. If she is ten, she probably has a pretty active imagination.

- Re-arrange what you already have.
i.e.
Snow fell like ashes in the deepening twilight of the wood behind the farm. The snow became blue and violet as Father Sol slept below the horizon, failing once again to catch his little prodigal Daughter. Daughter Moon waited near the horizon. Soon Mother Moon would rise and give chase. In the wood behind the animal pens, black branches of trees were chandeliers of snow and ice that flashed in the Father Sol’s last light of the day.

Wynae Kardelion tarried in her chores, she so loved how beautiful the twilight made everything in winter. Her mother didn’t want her to go out, but Wynae didn’t know what she was so worried about. There was nothing outside but the farm and the sparkling snow.

“She is ten; she is a big girl now,” her father had earlier said, just after supper. He smiled and winked, enjoying his pipe and his cider too much to want to bother himself. “She can feed the animals,” he said. Wynae jutted her little chin out and tilted her head up proudly at her mother, but refrained from saying anything pert.

“Keep your eyes sharp, Wynnie,” her mother said. “Things come out in the twilight you’d best be watching for.”

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

These are just a few thoughts. Something I did notice as I read this, I found myself tripping over the language.

The scene between Wynae's mother and father flows nicely, it feels pretty natural. I would even think you could start with that scene and then take me outside, letting me experience the glistening snow and the mischievious daughter moon directly through Wynae.

The rest of the opening is very flowery, to the point I find it difficult to want to read it. Instead of being fluid and descriptive, I find it awkward and a challenge to read. You could simplify the language and structure, and still maintain the mystique and aura you are trying to create. I think it could help the Sol and Moons theme flow a little better too.

(I hope this doesn't sound too harsh )
R.H.

The language was fine by me, I thought that it beautifully illustrated her action of pausing in her work to appreciate the world around her. On the other hand, we need a reintroduction to the theme of her mother not wanting her to be out past sunset in that last paragraph. Right now it just seems like a rather abrupt change of topic. With a better "downshift" in prose, it could serve to mark the end of Kardelion's reverie as well as being a bit of set up.

The moons were fine as well. One thing that seemed a bit unusual, you specifically mention that Father Sol failed to catch his prodigal Daughter "again". This implies that moon is never "caught" by the sun, which is simply not possible for any normal orbit. It is possible if the other moon is small and close enough that it wouldn't disturb a massive moon in the Lagrange point opposite the planet's primary, but this couldn't happen if there were massive planets in the system, as in our own.

I would agree with Robyn Hood that the first paragraph felt a bit too much like purple prose. I personally prefer not to be distracted by the words I am reading, I want to not even be really aware of them because the picture they paint is so vivid. When they sound too "beautiful" or poetic, sometimes (not always, there are certainly situations where this kind of thing works and I have done it myself) the words themselves distract from what you are trying to say.

I don't have a problem with the concept of moons being anthropomorphised, people do that kind of thing all the time, but I agree that introducing those names so soon is a bit distracting. In the first few pages of a work most of us sci-fi or fantasy readers are attempting to understand your universe. Introducing the names of the moons that quickly implies several things: first, that they are key or important to the plot. If that's the case, fine. If not, maybe hold off a bit. Second, they may be actual characters versus moons and the sun, and if they are not, just names for those things, it may not be worth having your POV not immediately clear. Metaphors can be dangerous when introduced too early into speculative fiction; most readers are very literal at the beginning of a work.

Perhaps a better way would be to inject a little dialogue to introduce the way the people refer to heavenly bodies, i.e. "Wynae's mother looked out the window at the deepening sky, a frown creasing her brow. 'I don't like Wynae being out so late. Daughter Moon has already risen, and Mother Moon is not far behind.'"
Obviously that was just an example, and I'm sure you could do something better, but something like that would be more showing and less telling, in my opinion.