May 17 - LongTimeUnderdog - Six Stones Chapter 1

[LongTimeUnderdog]

And the first chapter of Six Stones.  Since it's chapter 1, I really don't have much to say.

[Justice1337]

I'm new to the group, so bear with me   I'm eager to start contributing, and I'm especially excited to read this sort of dark fantasy.  That said, I only read the first viewpoint section.  This is what I think.

The first paragraph's description is strange because it says what hell ISN’T, not what it is.  I'm eager to hear from the horse's mouth, so to speak, what hell is, not find out about how hell in this story may be contrary to some common expectation.

The second paragraph had its problems too.  It starts out with a little of what the viewpoint character looks like, which is ok, but it ends with a thought about how no one wants to put up more money for streets.  At the end, all I know is that the character has wings, and I was much more interested to know what she looks like rather than the road's state of repair.

The rest of the first viewpoint section seems to continue in these problems.  By the end of it, I’ve got some scattered ideas about who this character is, what she does, but the rest is unclear.  She seems to be looking forward to getting money, but later she only seems to want it to buy bread.  This is confusing because wealth and survival are very different motives.  A rumbling in her stomach that leads her to the next mark would be more clear, I think.

There are also scattered references to the world in which the character lives, but it all comes piecemeal.  It may not make sense that the character could actually do what she did without seeing all these different sights on the road, but the reader can’t be exposed to it all at once.  Exposition comes later, on its own.


I think three things needed in a first chapter are immersion, empathy and statement of motive, in that order.

As for immersion in the setting, I’d recommend focusing on one, specific, solitary detail and expanding it as much as possible.  Find the one thing most unique about the setting and make the reader feel it.

Empathy comes next.  The empathy doesn’t need to be with the viewpoint character, but it it’s not, it must be strongly against her.  All that’s needed is some sort of empathy.  Do this by showing some sort of emotion, loneliness, fatigue, sadism, etc.  Focus on one and drive it home. 

Finally, the viewpoint character’s motive needs to be stated.  And the advice for focusing on one thing holds well here too.  Find the one thing that the character would want above all others, and focus on it.  Food, shelter, wealth, etc.  The reader will make his own judgments about how noble the character’s pursuit is, and after that, all the character’s other motivations can come into play.

[ryos]

Well, LTU, I'll say this for you: worldbuilding seems to be your strength. Your world is more unique than suggested by your prologue. I like the variety of races you have, and the racial dynamics in your city's politics.

Prose and dialog are the weakest parts of this story. It's hard to describe why I don't like the prose without a good line edit, but I'm afraid I'm not a good enough person to put that kind of time in. I may do a section of the piece when I'm not so tired.

In absence of a line edit, I notice that you tend to use words that sound like the word you needed, but are not. For example, in one place you used barrings (not actually a word) instead of bearings. During the entire Elidor section, you used roves instead of roofs. Perhaps most egregious and consistent, you always say "passed" when you should say "past". When you refer to something being beyond something else, use past. For example:

She whistled a short tune, slipping passed another unsuspecting man in a hurry.

You see, outside of the city, passed the desert out there, is freedom.

Those should both use past instead of passed.

As they passed, she slipped her hand along his belt.

As the whole of the mass passed, both sides of the street pressed together again, like two sides of a coat being brought together with a hook.

Those use passed correctly.

Moving on. I'm confused about what is desirable for citizenship. Parts of the chapter imply that one should be small, others tall. Parts imply one should be as inhuman as possible, and others imply that being mostly human is where it's at. That needs clarifying.

In the first scene, Tasia is described as wearing a skirt and a halter top. Then, she has on a sleeveless shirt. Then, she has on a jacket. This is confusing. Unless she's wearing Schroedinger's Clothes, of course.

I was also confused as to why she was worried about people finding out she had a fat purse when she gets smashed against the side of the street, since she wasn't exactly being secretive about it, what with all the rifling and counting right in the open.

As for the Elidor scene, I was wondering until the very end why you had chosen to put this entirely unrelated section in the middle of chapter 1. I suppose at the end it's clear that Elidor is going to go after Tasia (possibly mistakenly; I see no evidence that Tasia could be the woman he's after), but even still, I would have preferred if Elidor's section were not in the middle of Tasia's. I think it would flow better to move it to chapter 2.

If I think of anything else I'll let you know. This was a good start overall. And...I should write a better conclusion, but I really am quite tired. I go sleepy now.

[ErikHolmes]

So it took me a while to put how I felt about this chapter into words. The opening line really caught me. I read it and was like: hell yeah, a story about a demon chick living in hell.

But then you failed to deliver.

Let me say right now though that I did enjoy reading the chapter, if I had just picked up this book and started reading it, I would have kept on reading. But I think your first chapter can be a lot stronger.

I've decided what ruined the chapter for me was Tasia picking pockets. You start off the chapter by getting me excited, thinking that this is going to be about a demoness living in hell but the character then goes on to pick someones pocket for bread money in typical overdone fantasy first chapter fashion.

I guess when you mentioned hell in the first paragraph I was expecting hell! Someplace nasty. A place that really sucks to live in. Something a lot worse then just a place where a girl with wings has to steal to eat.

Right now I really don't know what you are going for with the novel. Is this really supposed to be a horrible hell-like city of demons? Or just someplace called hell that really is just a standard fantasy city?

This is just a suggestion, but if it was me and I was going with the whole hell thing, I'd start the chapter off not with Tasia picking someones pocket, I'd start her off a few days earlier, when they hung the skins of the last two that tried to rob the Cult of Lunus . . . or maybe with her standing in the crowd as she watches them peel her friends skin off, etc.

I guess my biggest thing is, if you're going to tell me she's in hell at least make it... unpleasant?

[LongTimeUnderdog]

I apologize for the weakness of some of the parts.  I'm working with deadlines and I'm not giving the piece enough attention to make it worth your time to read (that is where you can give truely great critisism).  That said, so far I have to agree with whatever everyone has said.  Despite the low quality of the piece as far as critiquability, you all have managed to be incredibly helpful.

Justice, I'd quote you and say thanks, but it would just be a repost of your post.  So thank you.

Ryos:

As for the Elidor scene, I was wondering until the very end why you had chosen to put this entirely unrelated section in the middle of chapter 1. I suppose at the end it's clear that Elidor is going to go after Tasia (possibly mistakenly; I see no evidence that Tasia could be the woman he's after), but even still, I would have preferred if Elidor's section were not in the middle of Tasia's. I think it would flow better to move it to chapter 2.

Aaaaaand . . .okay.  It was experimental anyway.  I guess chapter 2 will be This part of the story rewritten and made bigger.

Erik:

So it took me a while to put how I felt about this chapter into words. The opening line really caught me. I read it and was like: hell yeah, a story about a demon chick living in hell.

But then you failed to deliver.

For real?  That's so awesome.  I was actually worried have people travel between Hell, Heaven, and two other places would sound too much like D&D Planescape.  So I just kind of went half-way.  If you've got any suggestions on actual world building to avoid that, I would love to hear it.

My original idea was that the world itself actually cracked open and is now is several floating chunks in space.  Two of those chunks became what we would refer to as Heaven, and Hell.  They were then sort of colonized.  It's why Humans are so low on the totem pole.  The other "planes," I haven't come up with yet.  People actually have flying ships that go between the planetary chunks, that are now essentially the afterlife quite visible and ready to be explored.  I hate staple fantasy stories, so if you think more "Hell," and less "Buckingham" is what the story needs, then I'll have to agree.  It's the way I wanted to go anyway.

The reason I pulled back from going nuts with the setting is that "The Name of God," had such a rich setting, and it was really confusing to people.  So I thought I would try something less wild and pull back.  But then maybe I should have just gone wilder.

[ryos]

Deadlines? Are these...self imposed deadlines? If so...pssh. Give yourself enough time to write to the best of your abilities.

Well. I knew I should have slept on it before writing out my critique. The single most important thing I noticed was also the thing I left out. Fortunately, Erik hit it just perfectly. The pickpocketing is meh, and the payoff from the "hell" stuff could be bigger.

As for your original idea, it sounds freaking awesome. BUT, I don't know if I could believe it. All of the rocky planets we know about are not solid all the way through - they're molten in the middle. If you fracture one of these planets, each fragment's molten center would form into a sphere (and take the crust with it). The oceans would boil, saturating the atmosphere with water vapor, and the whole thing would cool off on a geologic timescale.

We're talking total cataclysm here. No life would survive at all. Perhaps not even bacteria.

We have precedent for this. Our moon is believed to be a fragment of the earth that broke off during a massive collision some billions of years ago. You will note that both Earth and Moon are spherical today.

So, yeah. Nice concept, but it needs a lot of work to make it plausible.

[LongTimeUnderdog]

Deadlines as a freelance artist.  Sadly I'm a day late as it is.  computer error (yes this time it really was a compy error) killed my work and I've had to start over.

[ryos]

Oh. Um, I'm confused. What do your deadlines at work have to do with your hobby writing? I mean, so what if you don't submit every week? You're the only one in the group that does.

[ErikHolmes]

When I first started reading the chapter, Tasia mentioned that hell was different then what she'd been taught at church on Kemper st. When I read that I was drawn in, because I thought you were telling us a story about a girl who'd died and gone to hell!

Then I realize that Kemper St. was a street in the city she was in and the whole thing didn't make much sense. Why would a church be telling her that the place she's living in is different then it is?

Anyway, damn I thought that was a cool idea. Can you imagine a story where instead of a D&D like fantasy world, its about what happens to some of those player characters AFTER they die!

LMAO. I can only imagine. Surely a lot of the characters I've game mastered or played over the years have deserved to go to hell when they die.

Maybe hell isn't a place of torture, its just a place that's not heaven. Make sort of sense if you think about in. In the afterlife all of the orderly, law abiding people have built a perfect city, where they work together and live in peace.

But spirits of the dead who didn't live orderly, law abiding lives aren't allowed inside and have to make due in the spiritual wastelands outside of these paradises, hell.

[Recovering_Cynic]

So far this chapter is completely unrelated to the prologue.  There was one mention of a judge and as far as I recall, that was the only connection in the chapter to the prologue.

As everyone has stated, the world is fantastic and interesting.  The idea is solid.  What you are doing with the idea has me wondering though.   Right now, I'm not thrilled by either of your characters.  Neither is particularly likable, and while a girl with wings is interesting conceptually, all she really is is a pickpocket at the moment.  She does not possess any particularly endearing qualities.  Elidor is some sort of creature who can kick butt, but again, that's all we know about him, that and the fact that he wants to kill a girl with wings.  This doesn't make him particularly likeable and we have no idea whether he is the protagonist or not.  The same goes with Tasia.

Essentially, everything is interesting, but nothing has hooked me.  I have not invested myself in the book at all, and that needs to happen soon.  The heist almost makes a hook, but doesn't do it for me because I don't as yet care about the characters performing it.  Elidor wanting to kill Tasia again almost gets there, but I don't really care if he succeeds or fails at the moment.  I am interested.  I would keep reading a polished version of this, but my attention needs to be hooked soon.

[Asmodemon]

The first thing I thought, reading the first sentence, is that Dariel’s sword really packed a punch and destroyed the world – sending everything to Hell. But then you back off and it’s not actually hell but a part of the ravaged world the church calls Hell. I like the former idea more.

A number of things seem to have survived whatever happened, such as the church, though no human has – for generations. Which means most, if not all, of the world building in the prologue was a wasted effort and that also makes me wonder about your questions concerning the prologue: Dariel is dead so we don’t need to like him anymore and as the last Fren magic user the magic system is also dead, which seems a waste to me. I also started to get to know this world in those thirty pages and get certain expectations – but then it is all gone.

Now I do like the hell imagery you invoked in this chapter; only you back off too fast from Hell to simply a city in a land with non-human looking people. Then you slip further with a typical fantasy style rogue pick pocketing in the streets, thinking confusing thoughts about a confusing citizenship. When you get to Elidor’s section it’s even more confusing because he’s trying to reference things he doesn’t understand to things we don’t understand.

What I’m getting in this chapter is mostly world-building stuff, and that stuff is good – you got me on the first sentence, but I also suggest making it more like Hell and not some land the church doesn’t like. The actual characters are weaker than the setting, because it’s basically a rogue and a mysterious killer.

and two other places would sound too much like D&D Planescape

I wouldn’t worry too much about Planescape. I like that D&D setting and wouldn’t mind reading a setting in which the characters travel different planes. I mean it’s not like travelling between planes is the sole prerogative of Planescape and as long as you’re not actually recreating Sigil, the City of Doors, I don’t think anyone would mind.

The reason I pulled back from going nuts with the setting is that "The Name of God," had such a rich setting, and it was really confusing to people.  So I thought I would try something less wild and pull back.  But then maybe I should have just gone wilder.

As for what you perceive of The Name of God, I don’t think the rich culture and world building was the biggest problem there, it was in how you showed it to us.

Problem one: disjointed telling by giving us chapters in a random order. Some of the world information we needed was chronologically given at the right time in the story, but not in the right order in which we read it.
Problem two: Interesting things happen off screen. Case in point here, something happened to the world between the prologue and the first chapter. We don’t see it. Something gruesome (and truly hell-like) happened to two other thieves, we don’t see it, only the characters talking about it afterward.
Problem three: Key things happen to characters that don’t seem to be the purported main characters. With only one chapter in this new setting (as least in so far as I’ve read up to writing this) this isn’t a problem here.
Problem four: Starting the story too early. With TNoG we’ve been reading about the characters’ youths, but the actual story and problem resolution isn’t going to occur until they are well in their teens. That’s not what you’re doing here and that’s good.
Problem five: Too much at once. When you do expositions or descriptions you often give us so much information we don’t know what to do with it. It is okay to spread things around or just not mention everything – by strategic absences of information we also get the feeling the world is much larger. Now I know this is your first draft and I’ve done this too in order to better flesh out the world for myself. But I always cut those things out when I’m editing.

I think that these issues really worked against TNoG, so as long as you avoid them here you can make the Six Stones a far stronger story.

[RavenstarRHJF]

Ok, you've got a good beginning here- it just needs a little more order.  It feels like you've been world-building all this and it's so cool, and you want to show us everything at once.. with the result that it's a mishmash of a lot of neat stuff that properly described would be awesome but all together in bits and pieces is confusing.  That goes for character descriptions, motivation, and scenery.

That said- don't trash it!  On your next draft, simply go through and take the time to expand on all the little bits, maybe see if you can move some around so there's not quite so much exposition (in the expanded draft- there's not too much exposition here).

I'm not quite clear on exactly how many variations there are on "human" form and how they got that way (and exactly what is required for citizenship).  Maybe take a bit of time to explain the radioactive disaster or whatever that made it possible for humans to breed with other things and how humans basically bred themselves out of existence.  Or something.