posted
First, I'd like to apologize for smashing this into a new thread, but it makes more sense to me than tacking it onto the end of my last thread, despite the fact that I'm still working with the same story here. After all, it is a complete rewrite of the introduction, with several key concepts rather drastically changed (father is a hunter of dangerous beasts rather than a farmer, ill-conceived near-death experience is gone, etc.).
With that said, here's the new intro:
----
Damien Vennik watched as his father and brother vanished into the trees, armed with bow and arrows. He had caught nothing for nearly two weeks, and was getting impatient; hopefully, he would find something today, and come home happy. Turning his back on the forest, Damien walked through the streets, enjoying the silence of Kyrian Village in the pre-dawn twilight. His father and brother wouldn’t return until sunset, at the earliest, and his mother would be busy weaving – winter was coming, and more people came daily, asking for something to be made. Damien, meanwhile, would be at the house of the village healer, Akano Syris, running errands. When Damien reached the healer’s house, the windows were glowing; Damien hesitated for a moment before knocking on the ----
Thoughts?
[This message has been edited by Kathleen Dalton Woodbury (edited December 20, 2007).]
"He" at the beginning of the second sentence sounds like it refers to Damien.
Since his father and brother are both archers (presumably), it should probably be "bows and arrows." Also, "armed" doesn't quite work, since they're not going into combat. "Carrying bows and arrows" would be better.
Em-dashes--at least for standard manuscript format--should be as in this sentence: two hyphens with no surrounding spaces.
A number of people object to using "hopefully" to mean "I hope" or, in this case, "he hoped." I'm indifferent, but I can see their point (as an adverb, it should be modifying the verb, which in this case would have to mean that his father would, in a hopeful manner, find something today).
"Kyrian Village", with both words capitalized, sounds almost pretentious. Maybe just "walked through the streets of Kyrian, enjoying the silence of the village. . . ."
My main question is, why was Damien watching his brother and father go off hunting? Why wasn't he already at the healer's, or at least on the way there? This is still pretty trivial, but the image of him standing there doing nothing as they head into the woods bothered me.
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posted
Hehe, thanks for the feedback. *celebrates* I think that this is the first time that I haven't received feedback that highlights a major flaw in the storyline. *continues to celebrate*
Anywho, here it is again, with your suggestions in mind:
----
Damien Vennik watched as his father and brother vanished into the trees, carrying bows and arrows. They had caught nothing for nearly two weeks, and was getting impatient; Damien hoped that they would find something today, and come home happy. Turning his back on the forest, Damien walked through the streets of Kyrian, enjoying the pre-dawn silence of the small village. His father and brother wouldn’t return until sunset, at the earliest, and his mother would be busy weaving--winter was coming, and more people came daily, asking for something to be made. Damien, meanwhile, would be at the house of the village healer, Akano Syris, running errands. When Damien reached the healer’s house, the windows were glowing; Damien hesitated for a moment before knocking on the ----
More like thirteen and one half lines with the paragraph breaks, but it's thirteen lines without them; I hope that's okay.
[This message has been edited by Kathleen Dalton Woodbury (edited December 20, 2007).]
posted
I like it MUCH better, but I do miss the intergalactic farm possibilities.
Damien seems more real and fleshed out this time.
Nit-y-ness: I agree, what's he doing standing there as his bro and Pop go hunting? Was he running their lunch out to them? Was he passing them on his way, and just happened to cross their path? Did they head out together and then split up, two to the forest, and one to the healer's place?
"They had caught nothing for nearly two weeks, and was getting impatient"
Probably meant to change "was getting" to "were getting" but missed it.
Okay, and since you changed the first bit, ARE they hunting? Because now they're going into the forest to 'find' and 'catch' something with bows and arrows. Fairies? Dragons? Very large chickens?
And maybe not so much with always writing "Damien", throw a few "he"s in there, and it'll maybe lighten up a bit. (IMO)
posted
Damien Vennik watched as (cut)his father and brother vanish(ed--cut) into the trees, armed with bow and arrows. He(who? Brother or father?--suggest--they) had caught nothing for nearly two weeks, and was getting impatient; hopefully, he would find something today, and come home happy. Turning (his back on the forest--cut--we know where he was looking..I want to know where he is looking now), Damien walked through the streets, enjoying the silence of Kyrian Village in the pre-dawn twilight. His father and brother wouldn’t return until sunset, at the earliest, and his mother would be busy weaving – winter was coming, and more people came daily, asking for something(anything--I find it is better to be specific--winter clothes, jackets etc.) to be made. Damien, meanwhile, would be at the house of the village healer, Akano Syris, running errands. When Damien reached the healer’s house, the windows were glowing(because they were red hot?! Too much IMO--you can see through windows, so you see the light inside, Try another way to say that a lamp was lit.; Damien hesitated for a moment before knocking on the
I can't say I am hooked by anything. No food? Father and brother gone hunting? No. The description of the village doesn't pull me in, sounds fairly generic. A light in the healers window? Is that unusual? Not to me.
The writing is pretty good, but seems a little passive. Have him shatter a last log with an axe, as he watches his brother and father disappear hunting. Have him pick up his bag and run through the village. This are just ideas of how to turn static events into something a little more...
It's all my opinion, of course..
[This message has been edited by skadder (edited December 20, 2007).]
posted
Booger, it got cut short. >.< Ah well, I suppose that paragraph breaks wouldn't be ignored on a manuscript, so they wouldn't be ignored here.
Bree/SireneLitteraire (which one should I call you, BTW?) - thanks for the suggestions; I had actually come back online today to edit the was/were error. I had missed it when I was editing, just as you thought :P. As for the lack of clarity about what was going on, I re-wrote some parts to (hopefully) clear that up.
Skadder - I'm happy for your suggestions, and I worked them into the intro, but I can't help but wonder why you made those suggestions based off of the initial intro, rather than the revision posted two posts below it. Also, I'm guessing you noticed the notes saying that Kathleen had edited my posts - the 'hook,' a question raised by Damien's knowledge of the healer's habits, was more in the last line there, and it got cut.
Anyway, here's the latest revision:
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Damien Vennik watched from the front step of his family's cottage as his father and brother vanished into the trees, carrying bows and arrows. They had caught nothing for nearly two weeks, and were getting concerned; the family depended on the income from hunting amarok, whether it be their fur or their meat that was sold. Turning north, into Kyrian, he jogged through the streets of the village, enjoying the pre-dawn silence. His father and brother wouldn’t return until after sunset, and his mother would be busy weaving--winter was coming, and most of the villagers needed things patched or woven. Damien, meanwhile, would be at the house of the village healer, Akano Syris, running errands. ----
I checked to make sure it's 13 lines this time, so Kathleen wouldn't have to cut the end off, though I used Firefox again, so it's too long (again). It's a better intro when the entire thing is there, so I tried to make it all fit. I use firefox, so I messed up again. Booger.
Uhm, ignore the '13' lines in this post. I'll repost it when it actually fits.
Geh.
[This message has been edited by Kirona (edited December 21, 2007).]
Note from Kathleen: Sorry. If it had only been one line longer than the reply box, I might have left it, but it was two lines. I don't enjoy cutting people's posts, but it's the only way I can think of to be the same for everyone.
[This message has been edited by Kathleen Dalton Woodbury (edited December 21, 2007).]
Your new sample exceeds the box anyway and is more than 13 lines. If you are using Mozilla Firefox the box for some reason is a line bigger. If you post I would suggest using Internet Explorer as it gives the correct size box.
THe hook is meant, if you go with the whole 13 lines business, to be in the first 13, not shortly after!
...and most of the villagers needed things patched or woven.
Still seems indefinite. Be definite.
e.g.
and his mother would be busy weaving cloth for the thick jackets needed by the villagers for the approaching winter..just an example.
Not really hooked because the healer wasn't usually up this early. Not a major hook IMO.
[This message has been edited by skadder (edited December 21, 2007).]
posted
Aw booger. It seems that Firefox adds an extra line and makes the lines wider. Gah, I'm so sorry. *sigh* From now on, I will use the MSWord template that I found somewhere on the forums to check the size first - it finds 13 lines at the same point that IE does, and since I hate IE, that's how I'll check it.
Of course, the Firefox issue may have something to do with the general setup of the program. All of the text on my screen is larger in IE than in Firefox. ....I'll mess with that later.
The indefinite nature of the line about Damien's mother was kind of intentional - she gets requests for dozens of things, and if I were to try to list even a small sample, it would eat half of my 13 lines - hats, scarves, coats, shirts, pants, blankets (some for people and some for livestock [I've seen horses with blankets]), just about any cloth-based item that a villager in a medieval fantasy setting might need for winter. I should probably change 'weaver' to 'seamstress' though, since that might make more sense. Of course, with my new revision of the intro, I'm not mentioning the impending winter (which isn't really that close), so the increased workload will likely be cut entirely. That fixes that, I think! :P
As for the hook, I'm going to cut the part about Damien watching his father and brother leaving - I can make that into a short one-sentence bit about where they are rather than an entire paragraph about Damien watching them leave. I can use the space to make the hook more hook-like; maybe make it sound more unusual or something, or change it entirely.
Thanks for pointing all that out.
*goes off to poke at the intro to make it work*
[This message has been edited by Kirona (edited December 21, 2007).]
posted
I am not saying she doesn't do all sorts of stuff, but readers, according to Strunk and WHite, like an author to offer definites rather than indefinites. They will be happy with an example of what she does, rather than a long list or some indefinite statement. Most readers won't assume that that is all she does, and later, if she repairs a patch, they won't feel cheated.
Presumably the father and son will hunt whatever they find not just amarok...if you had listed all the things they would kill if they crossed their path it would be a big list. It is better to be specific than indefinite, in the their case you were. In the mother's case you weren't.
Obviously you can be indefinite where it is required for the plot, e.g. where the POV doesn't know or is unsure.
[This message has been edited by skadder (edited December 21, 2007).]
posted
I don't know who Strunk and White are, but I'm going to assume they know what they're talking about, so thanks for the info. hehe, I hope that doesn't sound rude - it's not meant that way.
As for the hook, it's rather changed; you'll see what I mean in my new revision at the bottom of this post.
I'm posting in IE (despite my loathing of the program) to be sure it all fits, so no more '13'-that's-actually-14 for me.
As always, thanks for the feedback and suggestions.
----
Damien Vennik strolled through Kyrian, enjoying the pre-dawn silence of the small village that he called home. His father and brother were gone already, off into the forest to hunt amarok, and his mother, the village seamstress, was praying to Drebenak while it was still too dark to sew. Damien was on his way to run errands for Akano Syris, the village healer. Reaching Healer Syris’s home, Damien saw that the curtained windows were glowing brightly. That in itself was odd, but he ignored it; maybe the old healer had a patient. He froze at the door, stunned by what he saw; the ground was gouged, as though by large claws, and blood spattered the area. The door itself was damaged, its center cracked as though struck by a boulder, and it was smeared with yet more blood.
----
Okay, that all fits in the dialog box, so yay.
Thoughts on this revision?
[This message has been edited by Kirona (edited December 21, 2007).]
posted
The first paragraph now sounds like (and is, for that matter) narrative exposition. What's more, it's becoming clear that nothing in it is necessary for the reader to know right now.
So don't tell us now. Save it for when it's necessary.
quote:Reaching Healer Syris’s home, Damien saw that the curtained windows were glowing brightly. That [in itself][cut "in itself"; he doesn't, at this point, see anything else that was odd. Actually, you could shorten everything in this sentence up to the comma to a single word: "Odd" or better yet up through the semicolon to two words: "Odd, but". On the other hand, if you drop the first paragraph, this would be a good place to tell us that it's early morning rather than late evening: "Odd; the healer rarely rose before dawn," or something] was odd, but he ignored it; maybe the old healer had a patient. He froze at the door[He'd already reached the healer's home; one would think that he approached from the direction of the door, and thus would reach the door and the house at about the same time. The darkness could account for seeing the windows first, though--as long as he sees them before "Reaching Healer Syris’s home. . . ."], stunned by what he saw; the ground was gouged, as though by large claws, and blood spattered the area. The door itself was damaged, its center cracked as though struck by a boulder, and it was smeared with yet more blood.[On the other hand, if it's still dark, is it light enough to see blood on the door? let alone in the dirt. Maybe the crack goes right through the door? That would let light through that he could see, though in that case he ought to see it about when he sees the windows. Maybe he should smell the blood, instead of seeing it, but not realize how much there is until puts his hand on the door, and it feels sticky. . . .
[This message has been edited by rickfisher (edited December 21, 2007).]
posted
I prefer to use whip on obstinate intros--I don't think poking will cut it. If you don't feel like using a whip on your intro at least consider poking it with a big sharp stick. You have to really dominate them--show them who's boss.
Regarding you intro, why not try and re-write using some dialog? Perhaps talking to himself or someone else. It would break up the exposition.
Perhaps think about starting with him grasping the door handle and finding it covered in blood. You can still get all the other details in later as you need them.
posted
When I poke an intro, I poke it with a red-hot, razor-sharp steel spike. I think maybe I'm being too hard on it, though. maybe if I was nice to it, it would behave rather than running in fear every time it sees me. :P
As for starting the intro right at the bloody door and such, I don't know how well that would work for a fantasy novel. In all truth, every fantasy novel that I've read has at least two pages of exposition or not-so-exciting introductory stuff. My original plans for my original storyline actually didn't have much exciting happening until the second chapter!
I'm so glad I scrapped that idea, though, that is *way* too long.
As for dialog, starting a story with multiple characters talking never seems to work for me, and I have trouble having a character talk to himself - either he speeches on stuff that no normal person would think about in the same situation, making it an expository info-dump with a bad presentation setup, or he sounds crazy.
Gah, I'm going to have to take another break from this whole thing. Just when I thought I was doing so well - I'd made so much progress - but I'm rather distracted right now - I can't type more than a sentence without screaming.
Why can't I have a life without drama that I can't fix and that I can't really ignore?
Okay, I'm cutting that short before I go all emo on you.
*sigh* I guess this is getting shelved for a bit. Again. Thanks for your help, though.
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It's a better intro when the entire thing is there, so I tried to make it all fit. I use firefox, so I messed up again. Booger.
