posted
Hi all! I'm new here and I'm looking for an editorial exchange of novel length, preferably in fantasy, sci-fi, or horror (in that order). The thirteen below is from my epic fantasy novel The Master's Call, a 60k word book. If you are interested, please let me know!
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Dayle turned the sword-hilt sized wooden cylinder over in his hands, brows bunched, half scowling. The corner of his mouth turned up in open skepticism. The wood was smooth and cool to the touch, and by the sharp smell of oil he could tell the merchant had recently worked it over. On one side was a series of circular metal indentations, each covered with a lacquered symbol for a tool. The ‘pommel’ was capped with plain steel, unadorned, just rounded off the way a common smith might cap off the handle on a pot. What Dayle guessed to be the ‘business’ end of the tool looked exactly the same; only the cap was three inches long, and felt heavy enough to be solid. Dayle was shaking his head. “I don’t know. I’ve heard about these things, and none of it good. They’re rumored not to last long.” The merchant, a traveler that had come to the Tallis town market for the autumn leg of his annual journey, smiled at Dayle with confidence. He gestured at the rod, the grace of his movement belying the portly girth of him, and spoke in a rich voice that resounded with the exotic south.
posted
I haven't written a book-length sci-fi, fantasy, or horror piece, only a realist one. (Feels sort of out of place here, I'll admit) But I'd still be highly interested in reading what you've written. I don't know if you'll want to send it to me since I have nothing really in the same genre to send to you, but it's your call.
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posted
Wow, a finished work? Sounds promising. I'm too busy in my offline life right now to offer to read the whole thing, but I'm sure others will jump in.
I do have a few comments about your posted stuff though. Here goes.
I find the voice a wee bit passive and distant. "What Dayle guessed to be..." would read better to me as "The business end of the tool...". If you're trying to infer Dayle's lack of familiarity with it, you could do something like "The business end of the tool -- at least it _looked_ like the business end -- was exactly the same..."
Another example: "Dayle was shaking his head." would be more actively voiced as "Dayle shook his head."
I fall into the same trap myself sometimes, so I have a little tool that runs through all my text and highlights passages of the form "was *ing", "started *ing" and so on. It helps me tighten my 'immediacy'.
Your POV seems a bit strained in the last paragraph. How does Dayle know the merchant is not local? How does he know that the guy does an annual journey? Is this a standard practice in this culture? If you're using 3rd person limited voice, you're going to have to show us how Dayle reaches those conclusions.
You also seem to be withholding exactly what it is Dayle is looking at. Surely he knows what he's looking at, since he has knowledge of their rumored fragility. Are you going for some kind of reveal a bit later on? If not, then telling us what he's holding would give you a great mechanism to do some exposition. Tell us what it is and why he's thinking about buying one maybe. That would go a long way to establishing the environment and a bit more about Dayle's character.
I don't mean to sound negative. The things I'm pointing out are simple technique issues that are easy to incorporate into an existing work if you decide to agree.
You don't say whether this is Chap 1, page 1, or from elsewhere. If it's the opening, then I particularly like it. Having your character buying something in a market is a nice way to expose us to your world. And it gives (as I mentioned above) so much opportunity for exposition.
One last question. You mentioned that this is an epic fantasy. You also said 60K words. Those two facts don't jibe. Most novels are over 100K words these days; many are more than 200K. And epic usually means long, as well as grand of scope.
But regardless, having a completed work is a fabulous start. Everything else is incremental tinkering. Congratulations and welcome to Hatrack.
Jefficus
*Edited to fix typos.
[This message has been edited by Jefficus (edited January 26, 2005).]
posted
Pretty much what Jefficus said. The prose here does look good, literate and comprehensible. But you are shooting yourself in the foot a bit by not using the POV effectively.
"Dayle turned the sword-hilt sized wooden cylinder over in his hands," is clumsy, and the reason it is clumsy is because you're not in Dayle's POV all the way. "Dayle turned the [class noun] over in his hands," works much better. You can work in a description of what it's supposed to do and what it looks like as Dayle considers these points while examining it.
posted
Thanks for the feedback! To answer the questions (I can remember); the thirteen lines here--and I might have been a little short--are the opening lines of chapter one of the book. Also, as to the characterization of 'epic,' I don't think a manuscript's mass determines this qualification. I have written a 300k+ book (The Darkside Wanderer) and it was epic not because of its word count but because of the grand scope of the story. The same is true with this one, which weighs in at 61k (which would work out to around 300 pages in paperback) primarily because it was a NaNoWriMo project. Not trying to nitpick, just wanting to explain my adjective.
POV is probably my most annoying Achilles heel as a writer, mainly because I don't even realize when I am transgressing. I tend to shift around at my leisure, and I know that often leaves the reader stranded. In the case of the Southron merchant, the POV had shifted to him, and Dayle only knew that he was a southerner by his style of dress and his accent.
Jefficus and Survivor, your suggestions on passive voice are hitting me where I live! That is exactly the kind of feedback I need, thank you.
One point to clarify. I mistakenly referred to a couple of passages as 'passive' when I should have said 'static'. (Both terms are in contrast to different senses of 'active'.) There is an excellent discussion on the distinctions in this thread.
Thanks to John for raising the question (which I think might have been initially aimed at me :-) and to Christine and Katherine for their helpful clarifications.
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