Jutt stared into the fire, his harp on his lap, waiting. He could see the people fidgeting, sighing, yawning. The innkeeper stood at the back of the group, idly wiping crumbs from the long wooden tables. Jutt waited, gazing deep into the heart of the coals. The fire bloomed and wreathed, grew and shrank; like rain driven by wind across the flat rocks. And the story came to him.

-I keep wanting to read Jutt as Just, and it's a BIT confusing. I'd change it to Jut, even if it is a verb

-Jutt's dialouge is intended to be poetic, yes? I'd try and keep the syllables in line, like so:

"I have traveled much

And heard many tales

And seen many things

Worthy of a song."

You're starting one and a half paragraphs too early, in my opinion. It seriously only took two sentences, but I was having the same response to your story that the crowd was to Jutt's decision to sit and wait for a while before singing a song. Have him do something. To be honest, a crowd of drunken revellers in a medeival/fantasy bar would not sit quietly and hope that the performer before them would, eventually, start singing. Granted, they might hold their silence for a very well respected singer/troubador, but not in the bored way you're describing. They would loudly and raucously demand to be entertained. Somewhat like I am now.

"The fire bloomed and wreathed, grew and shrank; like rain driven by wind across the flat rocks." This imagery doesn't really work, and is just advanced hand-waving while you attempt to conjure up some atmosphere.

My big suggestion would be to start with "I will sing you a song of dragons," or some variation on that, and work the rest of these details in as he sings the song. Get us involved with the story, don't hold us back at arms length just because your main character is too self-absorbed to bother to entertain us.

That being said, I might read on for another page or two to see if things improve - the writing is technically pretty good, which will usually garner a few more pages out of me.

First, I agree on the name Jutt. Nothing wrong with monosyllabic names--I'm fond of them myself, but I kept seeing Jeff or Just.

Nothing happens through most of the paragraphs. I get that this harpist probably has to "wait for the story", but he should do something. Could he have a little ritual? Or maybe he could be thinking? Waiting is mentioned twice in the first paragraph, and it --I have to say--is a bit of a snooze. Waiting has little tension.

I agree with both lehollis and matt, particularly about the point where you choose to start the story. I got bored as I waited to get sucked into a story that started with people being bored about waiting to be told a story...

Sorry, I would probably not read beyond here....

[This message has been edited by Igwiz (edited December 06, 2007).]

Also, I found the build-up, rather than being disappointing, to be rather interesting. I'm not sure of the analogy used that compares fire to rain - that one caused an abrupt halt to my reading, as I stopped to try to imagine what that meant.

However, I would like to read the rest of the story, if you would allow me to. Very interested. Even the title, as it stands, peaks my interest.

You can contact me at bigdawgpoet@gmail.com