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Moderator Post[MODPOST] 4 Million Subscriber First Chapter Voting! (Round 1 of 2)(self.WritingPrompts)
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/u/Brrrfish in group I for 'Trial of Passage'.
Nice job! I quite enjoyed your first chapter. If I may, a couple things to watch out for are tone & diction, and active structures. While your chapter is engaging, it was a little difficult to be fully engaged into the world you have created in part because we are only shown so much of it, but mostly because some of your diction seemed a little out of place for the tone you seem to be aiming for. Following that vein, it was difficult to tell exactly how old the boy is, and who was speaking during the dialogue sections because there was no shift in tone throughout. If the boy is meant to be a child, his speeches might not be as long, and may use a different set of vocabulary than during Beren's speech and expositions; if he is meant to be older perhaps allude to it by calling him something other than simply a boy, which, on its own, implies a certain simplicity of manner, and speech, &c.. With regards to active structures, you do have a fair few but they seem to be concentrated in particular paragraphs. I understand how hard it is to get away from them, I myself struggle with it constantly, and especially during action sequences. Still it might be something to consider tweaking when you come back to this chapter again. Notwithstanding I did thoroughly enjoy your work, and would definitely be interested in reading the next.
Very close seconds were 'Africa' by /u/--shortround-- and 'Cold Iron' by /u/LovableCoward. Both equally compelling reads for their own reasons. Good work all!
Yes, I meant active sentence structures, writing in the active voice, &c.. I am getting fairly nit-picky though, especially since these are all first drafts, and there are many other sections within your chapter that handle the action well.
The paragraph that struck me in particular was the one in the second half that began "The vrell locked onto the boy and charged forward…" I think there are something like six sentences in a row that starts with "the (noun) (verb-ed)" — though the second sentence following that one is passive I believe — which does generate a sort of forward momentum, however when they are so frequent it is distracting to read amongst the rich tone of that most fantasies, high fantasies, like yours generally expects.
Ahh, I see. Hmm that is a tricky one… props for taking a good crack at it though! Thank you, best of luck to you as well, both in the contest and in your revisions!
Thank you! I'm glad that you enjoyed mine; I know I really liked getting to write a twist on fantasy elves. I am curious what you found compelling with mine. What exactly caught your attention?
For yours it was what appeared to be clear, unified vision on part of the writer, and enough general attention to tone to deceive, both of which I feel are particularly important to fantasies to a point. All in all well structured and well composed enough to whet the appetite — I would love to see how you will carry your plot forward into the second chapter!
Why that's good to hear; thank you. It can be often very difficult to view one's own work with an objective lens so I'm doubly glad for your words.