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Author Topic: Stolen by the Dragon Kings (Humorous Romance Portal Fantasy)
Sylvia Frost
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A dragon was falling from the sky. It tumbled through the clouds toward the curves of golden dunes and choppy, cold waters of Lake Michigan. Despite the fact that its wings were outstretched like the world’s biggest parachute, it seemed to be gaining speed.

Adriana Strike stared at the dragon a moment and then took a swig from her Nalgene. Todd was right. Hiking the Radke Dunes in the middle of July with her out-of-shape, curvy body was a terrible idea. So terrible that now she was hallucinating. Well, ****.

[ January 28, 2015, 12:25 AM: Message edited by: Sylvia Frost ]

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Grumpy old guy
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For me, a better effect might be switching paragraphs. The second introduces the initial dramatic complication, she doesn't believe what she's seeing, the second reveals the central problem associated with that complication--a dragon falling out of the sky.

Phil.

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Denevius
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To be honest, when I read this, the first thought I had was, "Wouldn't it be more refreshing if a dragon saw a human falling out of the sky and didn't believe its eyes?"

It would require a certain level of world building in which dragons exist but humans are the myth, something from the past (or the imagination) that dragons hear stories of but don't see in real life.

And I thought this because this introduction feels so awfully familiar that I would like to see the idea deconstructed and put back together again in a new way.

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extrinsic
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A dragon falls from the sky.

An adequately refreshing dragon motif, though somewhat on the static side. Visual sensation description could be stronger about the dragon's fall. I imagine Strike would be more curious about interpreting the event and thus more detailed in her description of its fall.

I'm curious what first drew her eye to the dragon, how soon she was sure the falling object was a dragon. I imagine she wouldn't expect to see a dragon fall from the sky. I imagine her interpretation of its fall, the billowing of its wings, and that it "appeared" to accelerate as it closed in would terrify her. No emotion expressed, though. The title signals the dragon is intent on catching Strike. Perhaps the title gives away the immediate action to come too artlessly. Would Strike know the dragon intends to steal her away at the very start of the action?

The language is at times a little too formal and at times a little too informal. Words like "despite," a preposition, are common and appealing in formal composition because they connect ideas, words, phrases, clauses, and sentences. I feel that word and its dependent clause blunt the impact of the main clause. For prose, clause connector-function words -- prepositions and conjunctions -- defuse surprise and disturb flow.

Too informal in that the scene is told in a conversational voice. I expect Strike would think in an emotional voice: frightened. Unless the milieu is one where dragons are commonplace. A contemporary milieu where Naglene water bottles are taken as common and understood implies dragons are exotic to this milieu.

I'm unsure why Strike is out on Lake Michigan's coastal dunes. What does she want there that she's hiking? Sightseeing? A first cause of her misfortunate encounter with a dragon is warranted. This is decidedly a milieu narrative in our host Orson Scott Card's M.I.C.E. criteria: Milieu, Idea, Character, Event. Where the central agonist is taken away from the mundane world into a metaphysical world -- a world of dragons.

The dragon motif could be spiced up by having it refreshingly symbolize a human condition. Reliance upon external dragon motif culture to lend the dragon milieu meaning doesn't innovatively use the motif. Dragon motifs are trite enough already without artful reinvention and reimagination and hence subject to easy rejection.

Dragon lore entails a number of regional idiomatic symbolisms dependent upon time, place, and situation. For example, British dragon myths orient around dragon slaying as representative of an end to pagan beliefs. U.S. dragon myths are as diverse and melded as the ethnic origins of the populace. This is an area where a hint or two from Strike's perceptions of the dragon play. As the description is now, the dragon is associatable with skydiving and military airdrops -- the large parachute-like shape of the dragon's wings. Which kind of parachute? An airfoil wing or static drop canopy? "Telling details" are little details that develop events -- plot -- settings, and characters from their agency, their adversity-driving influence upon those areas.

Strike is not portrayed in a particularly adversarial situation, except for the one clue from the title.

The first sentence ended my interest, the predicate is static. "Was falling" is an unnecessary present participle verb. Fell. Also, the nonfinite nature of a fall from the sky is not as immediate as is a best practice for prose generally, and an opening sentence specifically.

The next sentence starts with an unnecessary pronoun sentence subject. The first two sentences could be combined into one, making a stronger, clearer sentence.

An artful though rough and rushed draft opening, I feel; a little reconsideration of this opening's function is warranted; that is, why Strike is hiking, stronger description overall, stronger emotional attitude, and innovative meaning making of the dragon motif such that hints are cued up of what the narrative is about on the surface and in the subtext, which is what a narrative expresses about a moral human condition. Fantasy's dragon motifs generally symbolize some variety of human vice: wrath, sloth, lust, greed, gluttony, pride, or envy. This opening, if I were permitted to project, seems primed to pose dragons as representative of lust as a vice. Therein lays a potential clue to cue up from Strike's descriptive perception of the dragon and perhaps why she hikes alone to be stolen away by a dragon.

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Sylvia Frost
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For me, a better effect might be switching paragraphs. The second introduces the initial dramatic complication, she doesn't believe what she's seeing, the second reveals the central problem associated with that complication--a dragon falling out of the sky.

Phil.

---
Excellent advice.


To be honest, when I read this, the first thought I had was, "Wouldn't it be more refreshing if a dragon saw a human falling out of the sky and didn't believe its eyes?"

It would require a certain level of world building in which dragons exist but humans are the myth, something from the past (or the imagination) that dragons hear stories of but don't see in real life.

And I thought this because this introduction feels so awfully familiar that I would like to see the idea deconstructed and put back together again in a new way.
--

Alas I operate in a genre, paranormal erotic-romance, where the familiar=the big bucks. Which isn't to say I don't want to be entirely unoriginal, but but it is to say that the sooner I can promise to fufill the contract to my readers "This is going to be a story where an ordinary curvy woman is stolen away by a dragon" can be introduced the better. As my story doesn't involve her falling into his world, but he into hers. (And he is a humanoid shifter), your conceit, while interesting doesn't quite work.

--
Extrinsic:
Some good points. Was falling for me is a diction that feels more in her voice. If we think of the way we speak we wouldn't say " A dragon fell from the sky" but "was falling" feels more conversational to my ear. Also fell implies to me that it has already landing, when she's watching it fall. But I get your point.

I think it's a careful balancing act, between relaying too much and too little information in the first 13, and the opening image of the dragon could indeed be stronger since that's what's carrying it. Great advice about the pronoun.

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Grumpy old guy
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Originally posted by Sylvia Frost:
quote:
Alas I operate in a genre, paranormal erotic-romance, where the familiar=the big bucks. Which isn't to say I don't want to be entirely unoriginal . . .
The burden every genre writer has to bear if the parameters are so narrow. That said, the true test of a writer is to make the predictable unpredictable. My only advice here would be to suggest that while the audience expects X give them a Y that just remains within the restrictive boundaries of the rules of that genre. Aristotle's reversal of the situation springs immediately to mind.

Phil.

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TaleSpinner
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I was intrigued by the falling dragon, yet confused by the "curves of golden dunes and choppy, cold waters of Lake Michigan." Surely a lake can only comprise water, not dunes? I don't mind being puzzled at the start of a story (should I know what Nalgene is? I can wait to find out.) But the dunes reference gave me pause, thinking I was missing something, only being vaguely familiar with Chicago as a visitor for a few short business trips. But the dragon piqued my curiosity, not that paranormal erotic-romance is a genre I normally go for ... but there can always be a first time...
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Sylvia Frost
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Phil:
Excellent points.

TaleSpinner:
I'm always surprised when I find male readers signed up to my newsletter, but they are there! Overall my audience is 99.8% female, but I DO have a plot, even though there are steamy scenes. (Think Anita Blake or Patricia Briggs.) (I'm on Amazon as Sylvia Frost.)

Good points about the confusion of "golden dunes and choppy cold waters of Lake Michigan". Right now she's hiking in the Michigan dunes alone. A Nalgene is a brand of water bottle. Which is clear in the next paragraph, hopefully, when she puts her water bottle away. But since that first thirteen is so crucial, it's something to think of.

I've got the fourth novella in my current series to finish before I can really sit down too much more to play with this series. (I think my readers will crucify me if I don't get it out by the 9th of Feb.) But I'll come back to this.

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TaleSpinner
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Sign me up!

I never trust steam or erotica written by men, seems to me too much like male wish fulfilment in the James Bond style.

I was rather hoping that Nalgene would turn out to be an SF kind of whisky, me not being much of a desert hiker.

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emperorjohn
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The first line sounds so mundane-uninteresting. Start with the character. She's sightseeing when she becomes started. To her surprise, a dragon is falling out of the sky. Illustrate her state of mind. Right now, she sounds too calm and composed
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