Author Topic: May 31 - Talyn - It's All Mercenary CH 1  (Read 2930 times)

lethalfalcon

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Re: May 31 - Talyn - It's All Mercenary CH 1
« Reply #15 on: July 15, 2010, 05:23:02 AM »
Okay, time to wade through my backlog of submissions. So here I am.

A lot of the friendly banter (this isn't arguing, right?) in this thread I'll have to agree with. I think I can elaborate on some things, too.

My first image of Conner was that he was someone on a horse. I saw your MC leading a horse by the reins with something like a small child on it. This actually persisted until page 3, when he flipped his tail. Then I thought, "Wait, so some characters have tails in this?" Then I read back and realized that Conner was the horse. Dang. Now, I don't personally care if your horses are as intelligent or moreso than real horses. That's fine. But this one seems to pop up too many human mannerisms. Horses don't gaze up at dragons before running. They bolt, even if they are trained. Or, they stand their ground, because they've been trained to. They have far better hearing than humans, and would have known about the dragon long before your MC did. I grew up around horses; I'd have one now if I had the money to build a barn for it. Horses act like horses, not like people. Yes, they can be trained very well, but yours is inconsistent.

Your character feels like he is narrating the story. It's very telly. Now, that doesn't necessarily need to be a bad thing (it is first person, after all), but descriptions of things just seem thrown in sometimes. It's like he's scatterbrained. If that's your intent, great.

However, the story he's narrating does not exist. You build up this huge tension in the first three lines, and then let it peter out. Nothing of note happens. Then, he walks into a tavern and spots a barbarian (OH NOES!). So, you imply tension, and then the chapter ends. As countless people have harped on in this forum (especially to me), even within a chapter there is generally conflict and some sort of resolution, even if it's not *the* resolution.  You seem to build up a run-of-the-mill adventure of killing dragons (ironic since he just poked fun about that), but the dragon herself seems to be rather... lackluster. It burninates the countryside, but doesn't do anything else? I suppose there could be (and likely are, since you defend it) reasons for her behavior, but it just strikes me as odd, and with no background of any sort to work from, it's a little annoying to see him acknowledge the oddity and then just dismiss it.

As for slipping the name in... well, some people refer to themselves in the third person, especially when talking to themselves. "Well gee, Bob, guess you really did it this time." Or somesuch. I think this is a more trivial matter, though; names don't invoke images. Stuff happening invokes images.

In the end, I really don't know anything about the story after this chapter; the character has apparently been wandering around with nothing happening for several weeks, but he's usually on assignment... from someone. No idea about his organization structure, either. Is he freelance, or hired form a protector guild? He's in the countryside (no clue where, except that it's near Kiljer Port). He's apparently had his share of stupid clients and bad luck.

Now, I don't mean this to be condemning. I'm just telling it like it is, for right now. Perhaps later chapters would give me a better idea of what you're actually trying to accomplish. First chapters kinda suck like that. So, keep writing, and I'll keep reading (eventually).

P.S. This Josh *is* the wizard. Playing healers and tanks just means people depend on you. The only thing you can depend on a wizard for is blowing stuff up and probably dying to arrows (or friendly fire).  Now I put on my robe and my hat...
I don't have good days. I have great days, where I'm a magician ridding the world of all evil, or at least everything I don't like. And then I wake up, and it's back to work for me.