October 4, Hubay, Fathers of Gods – Chapter 5

[hubay]

All right, here's the last POV, Aela. I know a couple of you guys mentioned that I'm putting in too many characters, and I'm hoping that this won't push it over the edge. A lot happens in this chapter, and it's a little bit longer than my normal ones. Rip her to shreds.

Fathers of Gods, chapter five - Aela (L, V, S)

Last chapter ended with cumo fighting a squad of Daltri soldier.

Here, Aela starts her training as an elemental and trys to essent. We get a glimpse of the Little City, and the first Polaesi funeral.

[LongTimeUnderdog]

Reading this piece reminded me of people I knew in High School.  I don't know why but everyone in this piece reminded me of people I knew it High School that I really really hated.  I mean like really hated.  And I can't for the life of me, tell you why.

The characters are well written each having a unique voice.  They're interesting and the who premise of these little godlings running around is hilarious.  And yet I still hate them.  All.  Maybe its the shallowness they exude.  Seriously there's nothing wrong with them.  Critically reading they're well written.  so the dislike must be personal.  But that's for you to deal with as you will.

As to the events of the piece, I was less impressed by the mysticism of things.  I yawn every time elemental anything comes into play (which may have contributed to my lack of interest in the characters, they all breaking one of my three rules).  That all aside, the piece had good pacing and were I not already bias against things I would have found myself really enjoying the story.  Alot.  I don't think plots need to be anything greater then Growing up.  I think growing up is a fantastic plot (See "The Name of the Wind," and "The Warded Man").  Schools for magic might not be the most original but they can still be lots of fun.  Now I've only read this and your first chapter, so I can't say I'm the most reliable reader, so take what I saw as you will.

[fireflyz]

Let me start off by saying that this is the first CH I've read.  With that out of the way, I'll start off with what I liked.  The prose wasn't bad.  Some parts were very well done, but all passable.  I've never been a big fan of elementals either, but you did a good job with it.  Really not a bad chapter at all...definitely reminded me of high school and that is meant as a compliment.

  The real issues I had with it were the description.  There was a real lack of description on every level.  When the CH starts I don't get a strong impression of where the characters are.  Then when they head to the wall you tell us they are walking, but there's no description of what they are passing by.  There's no environment.  It felt like the chapter was all dialogue.  The dialogue is there, the chapter was readable, but it wasn't a story. 

  Also, there are a ton of characters...I realize this is the fifth chapter and it could be that you introduced them slowly and the reader is well acquainted in which case ignore this.  If not, then description is very important to help differentiate the various characters.  Also, short chapters with the character name as title wouldn't be a bad idea, ala George R.R. Martin.  Martin has a steep learning curve as well, but the prose carries it until the reader's mind can wrap around the large cast.  Your prose is intriguing enough to make me want to learn all the names, but I need description to solidify the various characters in my mind. 

  I'd also be careful that with so many characters you keep their dialogue different so they don't all sound alike.  I don't know if you've read Sanderson's Warbreaker.  If you did and had that at all in mind then be careful because a few of your ideas concerning Gods and even Euol reminded me instantly of his work.  If that's not the case then it's a happy coincidence that you can ignore.

  Overall I liked the direction and the dialogue.  I think that you have something here if you add details to help make this a world and not just a conversation between characters.  And while it will be alot more work to keep all the characters and pull this story off, I think you'd be doing a disservice to the story to remove characters just to make it easier on yourself.  As always, all IMHO.

[hubay]

Thanks for the feedback.

You both made it sound like you haven't read my other chapters, do you want me to re-email them to you? I know I haven't been very consistent with my .doc/.docx formatting.

[fireflyz]

I joined a couple of weeks ago so I wouldn't have been able to recieve your earlier chapters.  I have the latest MS Word so .doc or .docx is alright.  If you want to email them to me, feel free.  I won't promise that I"ll be able to read them all if they are long as I'm pretty busy with work, revising, and beginning the query process, but I'll try.

[Justice1337]

The prose is compotent.  The exposition is passable, a bit stretched over maid-and-butler in a few places, but decent considering you're working with a world of elementals that is completely original.

The real problem is with structure.

The scene opens with everyone "assent"-ing (which kind of reminded me of Power Rangers, tbh).  Then, there's some petty bickering.  I'm assuming that by chapter 5, everyone knows what assenting is and knows preliminarily the personal conflicts of who is stronger than who (if they don't, there's a problem).  But given that everyone knows this, the intro doesn't pose any dramatic questions.  I'm not asking myself what the eff is assenting, or what the H they're arguing about.  Furthermore, these dramatic questions are only really suitable to passages where you want to exposit detail, not chapter 5.  Chapter 5 questions are those such as "will X reach her destination?", "what is the nature of this obstacle?", "how will fact X that main character DOES NOT know impact her?", etc.  In sum, this is a bad intro to Chapter 5.

A good example of other structural problems is the scene break where it's announced that some people are attacking the castle/fort, and then the next scene jumps to dialogue about how it's more fun to have relations with the water elemental.  Then, the attack is thrown aside easily because there were only 5 people attacking.  I don't know what dramatic question I can ask myself that hasn't been answered already.

Another one is the death/ascension of Ristem scene at the end.  You've got the prose style of short dramatic sentences down pat.  But I can't put myself into the scene because Ristem's life/current existence/whatever was never at stake at any point.  There's just a few mentionss that the ascention will happen regardles of what the characters want or try to do to prevent/further it.  The mentions of the ascention actually interrupt the characters' dialogue about their day to day.  I actually scrolled up to see if I'd missed some hint that the characters were trying to prevent/further his ascension, but all I found was two people discussing why someone's getting a new servant assigned.  Accordingly, there can be no satisfaction for me.  No question is being resolved according to or against my expectations.

I think it would be helpfult to take a few minutes and outline the major dramatic question of the novel.  What do you want the reader to root for?  Decide, and then place as fearsome of an obstacle as you can to impede the outcome I'm rooting for as a reader.  Show me the rooted for outcome and make me want it too.  Show me the obstacle and made me feel it.  Then surprise me.

That's what structure is all about.