I'd appreciate any volunteers to comment on this MS. I've gotten some nice rejection notes on the story, but would prefer to find it a home!

Ok, firstly, I've gotta say something about 'The City' (and all the rest of them - 'the Holy Day', 'The People', 'Over-The-Waters'). Each in itself is a fantasy cliché, but the lack of actual names for them... highlights it, I suppose. It also feels unfinished, like you've written your story, but left gaps for names you'll think of later ('In [insert name of city]'s thousandth year, the...'). I suppose you could get away with 'The City' and 'The People' if you really wanted to, but you still have to give your story something original. Give the holy day a name, or the across-the-waters place a name.

Now let's take your first line. The first line is the hook - the first impression. It is crucial. 'In The City's thousandth year' is like starting with 'Once upon a time' (and 'thousandth year' is a little predictable, if you're going to specify a year). Incidentally, the title of this piece doesn't really grab me, but that's personal preference.

'Day by day The City grew more crowded as entire Over-The-Waters households of knights, ladies, children, and servants arrived from their coastal keeps and valley estates' - this sentence isn't too bad, but it starts with a repetition of the word 'day' ('... the Holy Day fell very late. Day by day...'). I'd rearrange it to avoid this.

'All waited as anxious priests watched the sky. “Not yet.” And Siola waited with them.' - who said 'not yet'? Was it a priest, or Siola? 'And Siola waited with them' is a very awkward sentence, and confuses the issue of who is talking. If it IS Siola who's talking, why not just have 'All waited as anxious priests watched the sky. "Not yet," said Siola, who waited with them.'?

'A country girl of The People in her seventeenth summer' - 'seventeenth summer' is yet another fantasy cliché. It's like saying 'her fourteenth Cycle' or 'his nineteenth Twelvemonth'.

Now, at this point, I get confused. We jump from bustling city, nervously awaiting something in the sky, to 'husband comes home to find young wife crying into her soup'. I'm going to assume that we haven't really jumped into another plotline, and that you just want a description of who Siola is. If that's the case, then there's far too much detail there. We don't need Siola's backstory just yet, and we certainly don't need a flashback to a scene with her husband. It's confusing, and it's an infodump. I'd suggest choosing one of the following sentences - 'A country girl of The People in her seventeenth summer, she’d moved to The City as a bride just after the high solstice' or 'Tall for a woman, Siola had the violet eyes and black hair common among The People' - and deleting the rest (or save it for later). I think your 'Tall for a woman' sentence would work perfectly here - there is nothing unnecessary in it, it gives us a description of both Siola and The People, and is all that's needed.

That said, I'll just comment on this sentence, 'Her young husband, Dónall, came home one evening to find her salting the soup with tears' - I have no idea how to pronounce Dónall (and using accented characters is yet another fantasy cliché), and 'salting the soup with her tears' is a little melodramatic for my taste.

My advice is to scour your whole piece for the things I've talked about above. There are nice little nuggets of prose here and there (the 'Tall for a woman' sentence, 'coastal keeps and valley estates', etc) that make me think there might be an interesting story here. But, as it is, I wouldn't turn the page. If you decide to give this a rewrite, and the revised opening is an improvement, I'd be happy to look at the whole thing (if you want my opinion, that is ). As it stands, though, it was hard enough ploughing through 13 lines, so I won't be volunteering to see the rest of it.

I hope this helped, and that it wasn't too harsh. This is all my opinion, of course - others may disagree .

Daniel.

I'm far from an expert on fantasy literature, so what is and what isn't considered a cliche often surprises me -- which is another reason to workshop!

Thanks again. I'll post a revision soon.

Hatrack is a awful place isnt it? So filled with truth and reality checks. I hate it. It's like actually going to work. Of course that's what we have to do if we want our work to go to market and, heaven forbid, even get paid. It's what we have to do even if we just want to get better.

Again, as with most writers that make their way as far as Hatrack you certainly have writing ability.

Looking forward to see how you sort this out.

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If I understand the gist of your comments, the reader wants to meet the characters and understand their problem before paying too much atention to the setting. That's a very fair observation.

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That's certainly true, but I guess what I was trying to say is that if you focus too completely on one thing in the opening (in this case, your main character and her background), it detracts from the rest of it. You've got the whole of the story to tell us about your characters.

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Again, as with most writers that make their way as far as Hatrack you certainly have writing ability

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I also wanted to agree with what Tracy said - in retrospect, my review was a little more negative than I was going for. There ARE things I liked about your piece, but while it's always nice to hear that certain bits are good, it's more useful to hear about what bits aren't quite working.

In a way, a thorough and extensive critique is a kind of compliment, though it can be hard to take it that way.

I suppose I could give it in the ruling class's language, but since Siola is the POV character, that doesn't seem to fit.

What I have to convey early on is that foreigners conquered Siola's island, built a city, and have tried to imposed their culture. Siola is from the native people.

It feels a lot less rushed and forced than the first version yet still manages to pull me in and want to read more.

My only nit, and this is purely personal preference, is that I think hyphenated names are becoming something of a fantasy cliche and there are two in there with four hyphens in them, on the first read through I just skipped these names.

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A newcomer to the city, Siola could hear the citizens’ backdoor whisperings each day as she swept curling leaves from her doorsill, hung the wash to dry in the ample sunshine, or picked through the diminishing produce piles at the market.
”The holy day is late,” the fishmonger observed.
“Very late,” agreed a broad-backed cook, dressed in the livery of some noble house Siola didn’t recognize.

The priests had been staring at the night sky for weeks, but the twin moons, The Eyes of Heaven, The Power-Himself-Watching-The-Sea, didn’t manifest in the prescribed coordinates.
Each day the crowded city grew more restless; entire Lucht-Trasna-Dul-Na-Muir households had come in from their coastal keeps and valley estates for their Day of Atonement.

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The whole of the intro is about establishing the mood of a city, but it is done in a removed way. It is retrospective, not current. Consequently I am unsure of its effectiveness as an intro. Let me clarify before you boo me. The prose is good, although I don't care for the hyphenated names. Stuff that is actually going draws a reader in far more than a summary of a situation. The conversation is levered in without reference to where it is happening.

I would prefer the intro to start with action, even if that is her hanging out her washing, or going through the market--then she actually hear that conversation in real-time. All the details you have above can be put in the prose as her thoughts or the words of others or her knowledge of the situation. But she is doing nothing during the intro...I am not even certain where she is.

The prose is good as I said, just where you are starting is wrong, IMO.

That's an excellent suggestion, Scadder. I'll be sure to experiment with a more "real-time" opening on my next revision. I think that would be a big improvement.

K---

By way of background, that race name used to be in English, which seemed too -- I don't know, generic -- for some reviewers. I translated into the native language in revision, but . . .

My native people call things what they are -- so my original plan was for the people that invaded by ship to be called "those that came over the waters" shortened to "Over-the-Waters."
thanks for your feedback,
K---

A couple of comments/questions, then. First, how long has it been since the invasion? If it's been long enough, I would think that the name shortening would continue, to something like "Othwat". Then it begins to sound like just a name--which is, after all, exactly where many names come from.

*A newcomer to the city,* Siola could hear the citizens’ backdoor whisperings each day as she swept curling leaves from her doorsill, hung the wash to dry in the ample sunshine, or picked through the diminishing produce piles at the market.

That's just awkward. You can leave that off this sentence and make it it's own. I'd also recommend you leave off "citizens" to keep the first line uncluttered, and drop "ample" or use a word that means more like "spring" or "warm".

Siola could hear the backdoor whisperings each day as she swept curling leaves from her doorsill, hung the wash to dry in the sunshine, or picked through the diminishing produce piles at the market.
”The holy day is late,” the fishmonger observed.
“Very late,” agreed a broad-backed cook, dressed in the livery of some noble house Siola didn’t recognize. [Here you can put in the newcomer information: didn't recognise AS a newcomer to the city.]
The priests had been staring at the night sky for weeks, but the twin moons, The Eyes of Heaven, The Power-Himself-Watching-The-Sea, didn’t manifest in the prescribed coordinates.
Each day the crowded city grew more restless; entire households had come in from their coastal keeps and valley estates for their Day of Atonement.

Getting rid of the Name altogether here makes it seem less prescriptive. The information about specifically where it is might be better brought up when there's something opposed to it, to clarify. Right now, Soila, who is living as one of them, is our primary focus.