Okay, you told me in IM you wanted me to have at it. I think this is the most negative critique I have ever written. So... here you go? I guess?
This is a sort of stream of consciousness thing I wrote during reading.
You simply cannot make this the first thing we read out of this book, because it's really dull. There's nothing special about a magic school, and there doesn't seem to be anything interesting about Aliese, either. Certainly none of her qualities get me into the story. (You told me in IM you wanted me to have at it, so I'll eviscerate with extreme prejudice
) Just saying, if this was the opening to your book... I would not read your book, because it does not fascinate me in the slightest.
Okay, yeah, I'm not going to hold back at all here, lethalfalcon, simply because you told me to
She seems to just be leaving because she's bored. If so, then the verbs you're using to describe the action aren't exactly equal with the tension I'm feeling--or rather, the lack of it. "Jade cursed under his breath as they both dove off the bench after the rolling dice." Dove? After dice? I don't think I'm really seeing the importance here. More realistically I'd react with, "Well that was kind of annoying", not a "OMG MUST SAVE THE DICE OR I DIE!"
Okay, the dome? That's cool. Coolness must be inserted near the beginning of the chapter, because really, I'm not reading the story, I'm scanning it until something interesting happens. Because the magic school's gardens aren't particularly interesting to me. I'm not buying the tension here.
Definitely have to agree on the stilted dialogue. "We've been friends forever" is not something friends actually say. It's something that is shown on their faces, and the way they act. Cut the line, with extreme prejudice. Ultimately it does not matter, as I should be seeing how their relationship is from the way they act.
Also, let's talk about tom swifties. More specifically, how no one cares about tom swifties. What are tom swifties? Things like "Zellenya remarked". How does the word "remarked" give me any more clear a picture of what she just said than a simple "said"? It doesn't. If Zellenya speaks strangely, as your comment about summoning says, I should probably feel that something is off. As it stands now, your telly section explaining Zellenya is cheating me at real character development. And about tom swifties, "said" and "asked" are perfectly okay to use on a regular basis if nothing more interesting is happening.
So you can leave the dome?
You said "she said simply" twice in the same page. I actually kinda enjoyed the dialogue when you weren't telling me about the dialogue and just let the conversation flowed. You just can't repeat the same description so quickly.
When I said I enjoyed the dialogue there, that doesn't mean it wasn't stilted, it means that your prose is so unbearably bland and uninteresting that a short paragraph is a more pleasurable experience to read.
Annnnd your magic is being powered by the body. You spoke about energy conservation in the first line, and energy conservation is cool. Magic being fueled with your body isn't energy conservation, because honestly, there's not a heck of a lot of excess energy one can utilize magically that isn't important to the body's functioning. (Now that I think about it, someone should really be using that kind of magic as a sort of weight loss plan. That'd be interesting).
"She announced." Grrr, tom swifties
Oh god. "Most of her past seemed fuzzy." Groooooaaaaaan.
Yawn.
</end stream of consciousness>
So, um, let's think about this for a second. It's boring. I did mostly scan the paragraphs. Part of this is because I start to get paranoid about my own paragraph length, so when paragraphs get this long, they better be interesting. They weren't.
Why weren't they interesting? Well, let's see. Nothing intrigues me about the world, nothing intrigues me about the character. There's no hook for me to get into. There's nothing that compelled me forward.
In review! We have a magic school. Judging from this submission, I'm getting that the genre is "Harry Potter" (and I
know how much you hate Potter). This is not especially interesting. I have no sense of wonder, save for the simple matter of the dome, which was about two sentences in the entire submission. We also have magic runes, based off of the five elements. Elemental magics aren't necessarily deal breakers, either, and modifiers are kinda cool. (Kinda) But it's fueled off of the body. It takes a lot out of you. Fatiguing. That's...
Let me put it this way. I didn't like the system in Eragon, and I'm not going to like it here. Magic costing the body's energy doesn't even make sense, and it has been done basically forever. It is not interesting. So from a world standpoint, you've bored me to death.
(Summoning was somewhat interesting)
"Her past seemed fuzzy." That line seems to imply she has a hidden past, or she's an amnesiac. Also has been done to death. I'm sure she's important. I'm sure there's some reason why everyone detests her, and why she's really good at magic. That's, um, nice. These are all worldbuilding reasons for who she is. It's just like everything else. Character, you've also bored me to death.
And where's my plot? Even an individual scene needs to have a beginning, middle, and end. Nothing happened in this scene. Sure, you've introduced a lot, but absolutely nothing happens. She saves a horse. I'm enthralled? She's leaving the tower, judging from your first line, because she's bored. The lecture on magic wasn't interesting enough for her. Why, then, is it such a big deal? You have to give me a reason to care.
Needless to say, the writing takes itself far too seriously, as I noted above with your out of proportion selection of verbs vs. actual tension. You can get away with truly strong action verbs if you're writing an action scene. But like I said, nothing really happens.
The long paragraphs describing what she's doing with the magic were dull, and did not interest me. I'd actually think you need to back off on the magic considerably, because it throws me out of the scene. In the beginning, I want to be inserted
in to the story.
All this scene accomplished was show off your magic. Oh, and I guess she saved a horse. This is not the most promising first submission. I'm prepared for a terribly derivative setting with action scenes that consist almost exclusively of blow by blows, as well as a derivative plot which is not terribly surprising. What the scene lacks is any sort of tension, conflict, or a hook. It's not there. It's just a giant bowl of bland.
None of these elements, like the magic system or a school of magic, are dealbreakers. With Frog's writing, she writes a lot about non-human races, and I'm prepared to be bored to death. You have to prove my apathy is unfounded and your story
is interesting, and there's only one way for you to do that.
You make it interesting.
Ask yourself, why is this scene happening today, and not tomorrow? My acting teacher loves to ask these questions, because what we want to see in theatre is something interesting. People are working on other people, where the outcome is uncertain. The scene must happen in this exact way because it is
important! It's important to characters, it's important to the story. Because if it doesn't have to happen today, the scene can wait until tomorrow or the endless gruel of a boring life. Why does this story happen today? What is happening that's important? Introductions are nice, but you actually don't have to say anything about the concepts you're introducing if the scene is important.
A great answer to "why does this scene happen today" is because there is a tension. There's conflict. "Oops, I blew up the castle," Aliese said as the Headmaster glared at her darkly. That line, while utterly ridiculous, has more conflict in it than the entire scene I just read.
And if there's no conflict, it's not interesting.
