February 21, 2011 – Hubay, Lord Domestic Chapter 6 (LSV)

[hubay]

Here's chapter six. not much to say except it's a bit longer and mostly action. tear it apart!

Hubay – Lord Domestic Chapter6 (L, S, V)
3900 words

Summary:
Prefect Gaitu has died of a strange disease, Arilu has taken over, and Jhuz is still coming to terms with his identity as Standard.

Chapter 6:
Jhuz, Zaisha, and Ezlio try to capture a nothroi harpy, we see Zaisha's mejj in action and lexio makes a brief appearance.

[fireflyz]

I'm torn on this one.  On the one hand I really enjoyed finding out more about the barbarians.  Particularly the willow/paper.  That makes a lot more sense than the toiletpaperesque images I had before.  Maybe if you could work that in earlier it would help the reader (or at least me) see the image more clearly.

The dialogue didn't feel as good in this chapter as in previous ones.  It coud just be that it needs some line editing as there were several grammatical errors.  But I think the reason it felt off was that this was mostly an action chapter and there was some passive voice.  There were also a lot of sentences that were two sentences connected by "and".  I think that action scenes are better done in short, concise sentences.  Passive voice can sometimes slip by in exposition or lengthy prose, but in action scenes it really shows up.

For example:
"The plummeted towards the ground. Jhuz had a moment to feel a vicious satisfaction, and then they hit the trees. The harpy had quickly regained her senses, and her wings spread out to brace their fall. Then Jhuz saw the medusi, below them both, reach out and touch one of the branches. As the tree began to move, he realized too late what her familiar must be."

I'd probably write it as:

They plummeted towards the ground.  Vicious satisfaction filled him.  Then they hit the trees.  The harpy quickly regained her senses.  Her wings snapped out and caught the wind, bracing their fall.  Then Jhuz saw the medusi below them reaching out to touch one of the branches.  The tree began swaying.  Her familiar.  Fear bit into his stomach.

The next line you wrote is great.  It was oak.  Set off by itself, in its own paragraph, it packs a punch, no pun intended.  I think this chapter just needs some editing to pare down the prose.  It will spice up the action and make the sentences jump out.

Just my opinion of course, ultimately I did like the information we found out.  I also liked the fact that we saw the good guys weren't invincible and that the protagonist is still naive.  I nearly groaned when he gave the prisoner up.  I'm interested to see what's developing just over the horizon, and at this point in the story, that's a good thing.

[fireflyz]

Also, one minor afterthought.  Jhuz's naivette allows you some leeway to simply explain things...i.e. explaining his treatment by his superior, explaining why giving up the prisoner was stupid.  So far it's been fine, but just be careful not to use it as a crutch.  You haven't, but it's something I could see slipping in if carried too far.

[hubay]

Yeah, I had a little trouble with some of the dialogue because there's so much movement going on. I'm not very good at blocking.

And I'll keep your naivete point in mind. Thanks for the feedback

[akoebel]

I liked the chapter as I did the earlier ones, and have no major complaints here.

One point that worries me a little is the ending, where I find that you do too much explaining for the reader's benefit. I don't think we need that much explaination about why giving up their prisoner was a very bad idea.
On the same part, the fact that nobody objects when he surrenders the prisoner didn't feel right : they only begin thinking about it only after Lexio leaves. Why didn't Jhuz even try to catch up with him and get him at least to wait for them? (Lexio can't be that far ahead).

Now, some specific remarks :

"lightning was wreaking havoc on the bodyguard’s nerves.", and "his mind would feel like he hadn’t slept in days" : these look like POV errors (even if slight ones); JHuz shouldn't know that.

"frightened by the weather. Jhuz asked aloud, “I thought you were..." : Placing the attribution here, just after some character's inner thoughts felt wrong. I would put the attribution at the end of the sentence.

"When he discovered who had convinced the Emperor to disown Gaitu, he would make them pay." : I wonder if Jhuz can really act on that discovery. Seems a little out of character for a person that is this naive.

"No. I smell bad because I’m a soldier. In the wilderness. Without soap.” : that sentence is really good. It's funny, has a good rythm and is very true. You put another sentence in the chapter commenting about the time passed in waiting for soldiers : another real fact. Good job in depicting a soldier's life here.

"They had seen evidence of that at Sanction." : I would rewrite that as "They had seen first hand what the Chell could do at Sanction" or something like that. As it is, I don't feel it connects too well with the preceding sentence.

"a bit later than he normally would have." : you're implying that he has done this before. Maybe using "should" would be better here.

That's all for this week!

[Asmodemon]

Last chapter I found the order to capture one of the enemy flyers, given the trouble the army is in, a little odd. Now it really sinks in that three high ranks have been sent to do something that should have been left to a single, low rank, squad or team. This doesn’t seem tactically sound at all, though perhaps that’s your way of showing that the new commander is a far cry from the old. It’s good though that Jhuz wonders the same thing.

There’s a lot of passive voice in this chapter, slowing down the urgency of the fighting in the descriptions. You’re also explaining why certain things are the way they are – for instance, you don’t need to explain to us that captives don’t want to be taken alive, we can understand that well enough and we already know this through the boarmancer two chapters ago.

I’m also not convinced by the dialogue during the fighting. It’s like I’m watching a shounen anime, like Bleach or Naruto; one of the characters makes a move and then talks incessantly about what the move is, what it does and why it’s going to win the battle. Zaisha does this and Jhuz for example explains to his prisoner how the women in his army do their magic – what? And then the prisoner gives away her army’s techniques – what?!

The Legion’s officers are also fighting each other again, right in front of the prisoner – again, this is just not done in a professional army. All these occurrences should have been nipped in the bud already rather than let things deteriorate this far.

So, it's good you're getting into some action, but the reason for the action seems misplaced.

[Dark_Prophecy]

I'm with Asmo on this a little bit. One sentence that really put me out of the story was "We should get back, quickly now." She said. The camp is almost an hour away..." If she's really the head of her group, she's not going to be spouting the army's location right in front of a prisoner.

All in all, there wasn't much to complain about with this chapter. I'd say tighten up the action a little bit, watch out for the passive, and you're set! Nice work!