[PeterWilliam]

Hello,

I've loitered about the sffworld forums for some time but have only just begun to examine other elements of the site. I've posted a prologue (http://www.sffworld.com/community/story/3663p0.html) to a story I hope to write. I was hoping that people here would help with some criticism.

Thanks,
Pete

[zachariah]

First, and nothing to do with your work, I would like to urge the people behind the story section to SORT OUT A SYSTEM THAT ALLOWS NORMAL FORMATTING! Why can't we have proper paragraph indentations? Why no italics, bold, underlining? It does nothing for a submission to see it turned into a wall of text. We need more than carriage returns!

A Way to go to a specific page should be a basic option. 'Next page' on its own is a real pain.

/rant

"Sweeping his foot through accumulations of ash..." Come on, 'accumulations of ash'? What are they when they're at home?

Lots of exposition dumped on us in the first few paragraphs, and not a lot happening. There is ample room to show all this throughout the dialogue. I take it 'Arrens' is the name of the main country where the King is? If so, this needs to be made clearer.

It was only on the second reading, after finishing the whole thing, that I understood what was happening on the first page. I think the weight of the back-story gets in the way here.

"the martial and enforcement arm of, the imaginatively named, Braddidge's Province." A clunky end to an already over-long sentence.

The sudden "Ducks?!" is just plain weird. I take it this is a slang term for slaves. It needs a better introduction. And call me a grammar nazi but

DO NOT USE "?!" UNDER PAIN OF DEATH

The Braddidge character is nicely realised. He's the only one who feels authentic. Haron and Dinas are Inspector Morse and Lewis clones from central casting (sorry this won't mean much to anyone outside the UK - substitute your preferred old, grizzled detective/eager young sidekick duo as appropriate).

"...said Haron as he left the conversation, in more ways than one, walking in a fashion that conveyed unyielding authority." How does one's walk convey unyielding authority? Was he waving the imperial seal as he left? Did he perform the Un'gari foot-turn of leadership every second step? Watch out for this sort of phrase in your writing.

The language used by Haron and Dinas is incongruously modern. 'Initial figures', 'nope', 'voice concerns', 'end of story' and the narrator's 'personnel cycle' are all jarring compared to the medieval period setting.

Otherwise, good! The set-up of the nasty murderers (or are they?) is a good way to begin. You just need to tighten everything up.

[kmtolan]

I pretty much got lost by the third page - and was left puzzling as to what exactly went wrong. You understand dialog. You are a bit weak on description and surroundings, but that wasn't really it. You understand that information is best left to dialog when given a chance rather than narration.

Trouble was, you didn't know when to stop the info dump. Be it through dialog or narration, you were hell bent on explaining as much of your world and situation as possible. A long litany of names, places...it just didn't stop. Before long I was wondering what the point of the scene was - then realized you really didn't have much going on. Some trooper in the midst of an unsavory recruitment, yes?

All this is just one opinion, but me, I would first ask why this would even be a prologue. A prologue is best served to present an exciting scene that both grabs the reader (this didn't grab for long) and explain a situation about the story's start from a very valuable perspective - one often as not separated in both time and space from the actual story. This just seemed like a crash course on your world.

My second move would be to boil things down to one very simple scene that does not require more than just enough background information to whet the reader's interest. Both of my novels start this way - with a simple scene that slowly expands outwards once I've figured the reader has had time to breath and enjoy the action a bit. I try and do in two chapters what you seem to want done in a few pages. Neither use prologues - I only started using one with the third book I've written because it met the criteria of being short, separated in time and space sufficiently, and offered a highly informative perspective.

I'm thinking you should reconsider if this really is a prologue, and then look at distilling it down to the most simple and exciting scene possible that still carries the theme of your story. Less introductions. Less back fill.

Kerry

[PeterWilliam]

Excellent. Thank you both for weighing in.

Zachariah - Will get into developing Dinas and Haron. Considering what is planned for them, I do need a better initial presentation for them. The incongruous language was something completely overlooked. Will definitely have to "brush" it all up.

kmtolan - The more I think about it, I know you're right. This could easily be chapter one. Also, I'm partial to the infodump, but had forgotten how much of a chore in assimilation it can be. I want the reader to have as enjoyable and seamless a reading experience as possible. So, I'll have to flesh it out and clarify.

[Tristis]

I wasn't particularly overwhelmed with an information "dump." It was a bit dense, but I guess I would need to read a bit more of your book to decide if this was too much, or too complex.

I agree with the earlier posts that Dinas and Haron characters need to be better defined as your own, rather than borrowed stereotypes.

The three brothers (Larry, Darryl and Darryl ;) ) were entertainingly brutal. The description of their taking of the keep left no doubt in my mind that we were dealing with intense villains (even if it is for the B plot). And that brings us to His Royal Arse: I am intrigued.



Of course you will have to rewrite this. There are typos aplenty (well, enough). And there are some confusing places where, while I understood what you meant, terms for the condition of matters were sometimes too much a mishmash.

Like this:
Haron knew that the king's intelligence had always been underestimated. Even now, society's elite marveled at the two-fold success of His Majesty's policy. A policy signed and sealed, by a dull and dim-witted former general, without ever having to lift His Royal Arse. Freeing the oppressed and cleaning up at home had never been so easy. Haron wasn't certain what he found more nauseating: the king's pathetic ruse at playing the stupid soldier, or the willingness of the king's political opponents to believe it.

In this paragraph, everybody's stupid.
The King's intelligence is underestimated (by society's elite). The general is "dull and dim-witted" (and grammatically speaking is the one who has a royal arse he did not have to lift).
The king's ruse at "playing the stupid soldier" is pathetic (so, one assumes unconvincing), but:
The king's political opponents believed it (along with society's elite, which they themselves may or may not be).

If everybody's stupid, the king does not need to be so smart, I guess, but I think you want him to be an underestimated genius rather than the cleverest buffoon. Perhaps then the general does not need to be dull and dimwitted, but rather a good man hoodwinked. Hasn't there been a certain amount of war up to this point? Wouldn't the surviving generals have a certain reservoir of sharpness and bright-wittedness?

And maybe the king's ruse can be frustrating or irritating to the obviously uber-intelligent Haron :rolleyes:, but if it passes at court or at the negotiation table after a war, it's probably less pathetic than nauseating.

Still, it's the beginning (prologue or Chapter) of what seems to me to be an interesting story.

[PeterWilliam]

The three brothers (Larry, Darryl and Darryl ;) ) were entertainingly brutal.

It's funny you should say so. Seven to eight generations of my mother's family (late 18th-century) are all from Vermont (some Irish, French Canadian and Iroquois). In fact, my notion for the three brothers was based on the characters from the Newhart show. Think Larry, Daryl and Daryl meet "gritty realism."

If I can get some time out of work this week (endless labs), I'm planning an extreme makeover on the story opening. It may have to wait until the weekend, depending upon how the clinical trials I'm stuck with go this week.

Thanks for the feedback, Tristis.

Pete

[Tristis]

It's funny you should say so. Seven to eight generations of my mother's family (late 18th-century) are all from Vermont (some Irish, French Canadian and Iroquois). In fact, my notion for the three brothers was based on the characters from the Newhart show. Think Larry, Daryl and Daryl meet "gritty realism."

Perfect! I don't know about anybody else, but this kind of twisted inspiration works for me.

[PeterWilliam]

I want to thank folks for criticism early on. Between work, an impending baby and family moving in with us, I've finally got it reworked. I would like to kindly ask some folks to take a look to evaluate Three Brothers chapter one.