"Critic sense . . . tingling!" Ah, nothing like
the promise of a go at a fantasy story to really get the
blood flowing. I've probably mentioned this before, but
it's worth going into again, if only because it gives me
a chance to talk about my favorite subject . . . why, myself
of course. I try to be as open-minded as possible with just
about everything, but I am only a man like any other and
as a man I have weaknesses and biases. One of those is Doctor
Who, the other is fantasy. One is a good bias, the other
a not so good one.
Fantasy and I have lately had a bit of a touchy relationship,
though it really didn't start out that way. The first fantasy
books I read were probably the same introduction everyone
else got, JRR Tolkein's big ol' trilogy, whose name at this
point escapes me, alas. This was back in like fifth grade
and my puny little mind devoured the books as much as I
could, so much so that I managed to overlook the flaws (which
my brother nicely condensed into one sentence, after having
tossed the first book across the room in disgust . . . "All
they do is walk around!") and simply just enjoyed the
experience. From there I crept into other fantasy novels,
getting into David Eddings by way of a friend. His Belgariad
and Mallereon series are among my favorite novels of all
time and one of the few series I've read more than once.
Later I would read some of the more commercially oriented
fantasy, i.e. TSR's Dragonlance and Forgotten Realms series,
which weren't exactly works of art, but entertaining enough
on their own terms. I should note that these of course were
all novels in the "epic" or "high fantasy"
subgenre, a category generally recognized by its massive
multi-part structure, good versus evil conflicts and often
populated by a large amount of people who aren't able to
stop themselves from saying things like "Have at thee!".
That said, as time wore on, I was finding less and less
to really excite me in the world of fantasy. I had started
reading Robert Jordan's epic . . . series (I think I started
it as a teenager, it still continues to this very day, sadly
enough) and that was pretty decent but on the whole epic
fantasy was really starting to bore the crap out of me.
The problem with it was, and my friend pointed it out when
we were discussing it the other night, "Everyone just
copied off of Tolkein" and while that's not completely
true, it's also true that authors really haven't deviated
too far from the template he set up almost sixty years ago.
Good fights evil, farmboys become princes, kings lead battles,
armies clash, wizards toss magic around like candy and so
on and so on and so on. If not for stylistic differences,
it might all be interchangeable. My getting back into reading
SF helped hasten my departure from fantasy . . . while there's
a lot of SF that's pure dreck, especially today, it has
a long and rich history of not sitting still, of constantly
experimenting, of trying to tell different stories and finding
new ways to tell them. Even if you take a subgenre, say
space opera (the closest equivalent SF has to epic fantasy)
and compare novels such as Doc Smith's Lensman series to
more recent novels such as Vernor Vinge's A Fire Upon the
Deep or even Peter Hamilton's Reality Dysfunction . . .
they're clearly cut from the same cloth but also wildly
different, reflecting the changes that SF has undergone.
SF has tackled issues of race, sexuality, gender relations,
metaphysics, spirituality, sometimes successfully (Johanna
Russ' The Female Man), sometimes not (Heinlein's I Will
Fear No Evil . . . yikes!). For the most part epic fantasy
remains a mostly conservative subgenre, telling entertaining
stories but really just offering more of the same to a readership
that no doubt is content with just that.
There is hope, of course. While I tend to consider fantasy
a mostly dormant genre, once in a while something breaks
through. George Martin's Song of Ice and Fire has remained
a highlight of contemporary epic fantasy, one I sincerely
recommend. Those wishing to search fantasy outside the "epic"
boundaries will possibly rewards of a different kind. John
Crowley's Little, Big, about a guy who marries into a family
of fairies, is probably the greatest fantasy book of this
century, having all the magic and wonder that fantasy is
supposed to possess, but without fireballs and arrogant
speeches. The "urban" subgenre, mostly showcased
by Tim Powers and James Blaylock, has remained a bright
spot, depicting a more realistic form of fantasy than the
stuff with elves and wizards. But it's epic fantasy that
for most people defines the "face" of fantasy,
most people don't think of John Crowley as representing
what fantasy is all about, and unfortunately I find that
"face" to be rather staid and unimaginative outside
its too well defined boundaries.
Well. Now that I've got our author here either quivering
in the hot seat or paging through a phone book angrily searching
for my address (ha! I'm not listed!), let me just say I
wanted to get that all out in the open, so that any comments
I make can be put into their proper context. I don't hate
fantasy, I'm just not too excited by it anymore, except
in rare instances. To really see me in action, head to the
old Phantom Realms site and look over my critiques on the
chapters there, that's about as brutal as I get, alas. I
don't see much of a reason to insult developing authors
(established authors are a different matter altogether,
go to Amazon and find my reviews on the last few Robert
Jordan books to see me with the critic knives really out),
especially ones who might live in the same state as me.
Jersey ain't that big and I'm not taking any chances.
So we have Gabe Morales visiting us this time out, with
the first chapter of his fantasy story "Torment".
Having only this chapter in front of me I'm probably going
to focus more on formal elements, as opposed to delving
into thematic type things or characterization or plot .
. . those are impossible to judge based on a first chapter
and I'm not even going to try. Hopefully we'll see future
chapters and we can continue this, I may not have the biggest
love for fantasy but some of the most fun I've had critiquing
has been on long fantasy stories, so this should no different.
That said, take these comments with some added salt, since
I may be accidentally commenting on things that will be
explained or worked out in later chapters, which of course
I haven't read. I'll try to judge the chapter on its own,
while keeping in mind it's only one small part of a larger
whole.
The first thing I want to go into is a long dissertation
on the title . . . no, no, just kidding. I think I've bored
enough people with that debate thus far, and I really have
nothing to say about it. It's a title. Please move along.
Are the first two paragraphs supposed to be in italics
or otherwise offset? Because I'm guessing that it's Valdor
talking in the beginning there, but it just seems strange
to shift from first to third person without warning like
that. If you didn't intend to italicize them, I would suggest
that you do something to make it stand apart (I've had trouble
getting stuff italicized on this site, so I know some things
get lost in translation). I do like the beginning though,
like a more poetic Conan and the style is very reminiscent
of modern day fantasy, the plain yet descriptive style of
Robert Jordan (hey, the man might tread water over six hundred
pages, but he writes great descriptions). I took great interest
in the fact that you decided to write the story in the present
tense (not the whole thing though, which might be a bit
of a problem . . . but we'll get into that later) since
changing the tense can really change the tone of the entire
story. Present tense is tricky though, not only do you have
to be on guard to make sure the tense stays consistent (writing
in past tense seems to come naturally for people, although
I think it's just a matter of getting used to it . . . if
I change tenses for a while I find it hard to change back)
but it's not like you just change all the words so you drop
off the "-ed" suffixes. I've found that writing
in present tense requires a different approach to be really
distinctive, it's more immediate stylistically and the intent
is to put the reader "there" with the characters,
experiencing events at the same time everyone else is. It
requires the author to rearrange a lot of his sentences,
to turn the flow of prose into a more stream of consciousness
type of deal. The best present tense book of all time is
probably Thomas Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow and his decision
to use that tense throughout the book really goes a long
way toward setting the novel's atmosphere of mystery and
paranoia. That's what you want to do here . . . not just
write past tense sentences as present tense, but to alter
the very rhythm of the pacing . . . the reader isn't looking
at this from hindsight now, they're in the story, following
along, it's all happening to them. The way the first few
paragraphs are written, in that first person style . . .
if you went with that throughout the entire story I think
it would actually come off fairly well . . . those first
paragraphs have a really gritty, hard-boiled, badass type
feel to them . . . for the third person sections it might
be wiser to vary both the sentence structure and sentence
length a little more. Too many sentences start with the
word "he" and it tends to create a sense of monotonous
pacing . . . with present tense especially, because the
feel is so different, you want to create a more dynamic
sense of pacing . . . I'm not saying have each sentence
be wildly different than the one before, because that just
confuses people, but an assortment of short and longer sentences
would almost string the reader along, forcing them to follow.
I'm not suggesting you rewrite the whole thing, but it's
something to keep in mind for future chapters.
One of the places this sort of thing might come in handy
is in the bits of exposition that pop up here and there
. . . such as the part where Valdor talks about his sword.
Something to watch out for in fantasy is "Backstory
Syndrome" (you'd think it was something important because
I capitalized it, but I just made it up now) where you come
up with all these backstory to justify the existence of
this fantastic world . . . the problem is, how do you introduce
the reader to it. Even Tolkein has this problem, the characters
can't go anywhere or get anything remotely magical without
someone launching into a long story about where it came
from or about some person who came that way or . . . you
get the idea. Deviating from the story to explain some minor
point tends to distract the reader . . . the whole sequence
with Olin and how he ran into Valdor I would do as a more
impressionistic piece, given the present tense narration
. . . it would come across as more immediate . . . you know
the way you see something and it reminds you of something
else and memory returns to you in a rather unbidden fashion.
This way it's not just "Wow, I remember that day with
the dwarf and those guys and the fight we had, boy that
was really tough especially when that baron decided to kill
us . . ." because the reader won't really experience
that . . . it's as good as having it happen off-panel and
showing the characters wiping their brow and going, "Whew,
that was hard . . . didn't think we'd make it out alive
there" . . . that kind of thing done often enough can
give the reader a nasty twitch. If you did that flashback
as a quick series of images, scattered snatches of dialogue,
a rapid sequence of impressions, to sort of wash the reader
in the sounds and smells of the experience, I think it would
have more of an impact and it would help the reader get
into Valdor's head and incorporate it into their impression
of him, as opposed to just have this rather static bit of
exposition sitting there simply to explain where he got
his sword from.
Valdor has all the hallmarks of the classical hero, the
man who does good things purely for the sake of doing good
things . . . I like how you start him already at the "doing
good things for free" stage . . . most characters start
as hardened mercenaries and eventually grow into doing nice
things for people . . . he's already there but not quite
sure how he got to that point, which I think is a realistic
touch because I don't think anyone really starts out going,
"By gosh, I'm going to save some people today."
It's interesting to see him characterize himself as a "liberator
of the damned" and such . . . it reminds me of Samuel
Delany's main character in his Neveryon novels, who started
out as a slave, broke free, and then proceeded to try to
end the practice of slavery in the land, becoming quasi-mythical
in the process. I'm not sure if that's where Valdor is coming
from and I highly doubt you're going to use him to delve
into the psycho-sexual elements that exist as a subtext
in the fantasy genre (feel free to surprise me though) but
it's just an interesting comparison.
I would definitely set off the bardish parts in italics
or something, otherwise it just makes it look like the margins
went awry (granted, you might have used italics the first
time out . . . some stories transition to the web page smoother
than others) though for the record I rarely read any songs
or poems in a fantasy novel, which I guess is my loss. Being
that it seems that a lot of the chapter is devoted to the
bard singing it's just that much less for me to comment
on. Although for some reason everyone likes to use a rhyming
couplet scheme, which I suppose is logical for a bard because
it's easier to come up with and you can speak it in a singsongey
fashion and it's probably easier to remember than some complicated
ACBDADCB type of scheme. Still, I tend to just skim them.
I'm also not a big fan of musicals in general, so that's
probably a bias I forgot to mention. Oh well, I'm sure everyone
will be okay.
I do like the bard's personality, he brings real humor
to the line about his coins being well spent and I think
that's my favorite line in the entire chapter. Valdor is
a little harder to a handle on . . . he talks about visions
but doesn't really elaborate (I presume that will come in
later chapters) and he just seems a little flat . . . the
dialogue with the city guard is a good example. It's supposed
to be rife with menace and tension, as Valdor tries to figure
out the guard's intentions and debates whether he should
wait for the guard to attack him or simply say "screw
it" and attack the guard anyway (which is an odd choice
anyway, aren't there people all over the place . . . how
far would he get if he struck down a guard in the city itself
. . . he'd have people all over him faster than you can
say, "Get 'em!") . . . but it just sort of sits
there. Especially because it's in present tense, I would
really change how that section is presented . . . instead
of telling readers things, let them figure it out for themselves
in the same way that Valdor is trying to figure out what's
going on . . . I assume the guard is wearing a distinctive
uniform, would he really announce his rank to a random stranger
or simply let his appearance speak for itself . . . and
wouldn't that be more dramatic anyway, if this nicely dressed
man comes up and starts talking to Valdor and the mercenary
thinks, "Crap, it's the city guard" and you take
it from there . . . make their conversation a terse, dueling
affair, the two of them tossing around thinly veiled barbs
trying to see who breaks first, I'd definitely go into things
like body language and the like, with Valdor frantically
trying to analyze what the heck is going on to enact some
kind of plan, this way you can ratchet up the tension to
the point where the reader really thinks he's going to attack
the guard (or vice versa) and then cut it off abruptly,
leaving them wanting more.
It's quite clear that Valdor has a high opinion of himself
. . . while the sword might cleave the guard's head off
right away I highly doubt throwing knives are going to do
much to men in armor unless you have really good aim (and
six arms) . . . he'd have better luck using the sword to
keep everyone back (if it's as sharp as he seems to indicate)
and running for cover, not so easy a thing in a crowded
city. Besides that theory only works so long before somebody
smartens up and says "the heck with this" and
calls in the archers. Or the wizard. Let's see that same
hero . . . on fire! Sorry, I have to go off on one of these
tangents every review or so . . . and we were due for one
about now. Terribly sorry, won't happen again.
Around the conversation with the guard your tense shifts
back into past tense . . . it's not that hard to fix but
it's definitely noticeable. I make that goof all the time,
so it's no big deal but keeping the tense consistent (at
least within a section, within a story I always bounce from
one to the other depending on what kind of mood I'm trying
to set). It goes back when the bard enters the bar so it's
only that small section. No big deal.
Two things I would definitely work on in this chapter are
detail and dialogue. The most important thing when writing
a story is to set the scene and at least give the reader
some idea of what the heck the character is walking into.
When Hadrian (wasn't that the Roman emperor who build that
wall in England or whatever?) walks into the bar, we should
have some idea of what kind of bar it is . . . crowded,
tiny, smoky, loud, something to give us a sense of place,
otherwise we have no context. Give a brief description of
what the bartender looks like . . . give us a brief overview
of the type of crowd the bard is trying to impress, even
if he's only going to say, "No matter the town they
all look the same to him", describe the way his voice
fills the room and cuts through the crowd's chatter, the
way he throws his whole body into singing . . . stuff like
that goes a long way into setting the scene for the reader
and making it come alive. I'm a big fan of body language
in a story, as someone who tends to write characters who
stand in one place and have long conversations I learned
quickly that if you don't give them something to do while
they're talking, it gets real boring real fast . . . and
even with simple things like Valdor walking into a bar,
things like that I would add more details to so that it's
not simply, "Valdor walked into the bar" it's
more like, "A burst of sound washes over Valdor as
he lets the stout barroom door swing open. As always, the
bard's singing rams through the noise, reaching his ears
first, to be followed shortly after by the massed laughter
of the bar's patrons. Slipping in amidst the revelry, he
stays near the back, his eyes skimming the room, drinking
it all in.. The habit is as much reflex now as caution,
these days. Purely on a whim he tries to identify whatever
song the bard has chosen to entertain with this time before
realizing that he doesn't care all that much. No matter
the words or the tune, to him it's always the same song."
Yes, it's a little more verbose but the point is you have
to establish a mood with the narrative before you can let
the characters play in it. It's good to let the reader use
their imagination but you have to give them something to
work with. Even the vision itself, I would make it utterly
trippy . . . there's a lot of things in this chapter that
are more "tell" than "show" when it's
the latter you want to focus on . . . don't say, "voices
fade in and out" show it, have Valdor surrounded by
the fragmented dialogue of the bar, alternating with the
confusing an garish imagery of the vision itself, all written
in cascading, just barely comprehensible sentences. If Valdor
can't figure out what's going on, why should the reader?
As long as a payoff is in the works, they'll follow along
with just about any mystery.
The dialogue is something else that I think needs more
"oomph" to really get across the character's personalities.
Like I said before, the bard's line about the coins was
great stuff, and shows how you can encapsulate a character
within a line of dialogue. The thing to remember with dialogue
is a) don't make it substitute for exposition or observation
(e.g. the line "Hi, I'm the captain of the Red Guard"
or whatever . . . let us figure it out) and b) everyone
has their own rhythms. This is the part I probably stress
the most in that dialogue has to "sound" natural
. . . if you're in doubt get a bunch of friends to read
it out loud and take it from there . . . spoken speech has
all kinds of weirdness, it's not simply, "I saw a vision"
"What was that vision?" "It said we have
to rescue someone" "Oh, that is very bad. I do
not like that" . . . people tend to talk with their
own specific rhythm, they tend to incorporate odd pauses,
shift gears (how many times do you start to say one thing
and then halfway through the sentence realize you want to
say something else), leave stuff out, repeat things . .
. all of these work in small ways to make a character come
alive. As it is, your dialogue does the job, but it doesn't
really sparkle . . . the best scene is that brief exchange
right before the Halfling goes to the bar. Also dialogue
is the best time to give character details, the little twitches
and bits that make a character unique, how they use their
hands, facial expressions, stuff like that. That can add
emotion and nuances that only serve to make someone more
lifelike. The best test to see if you've done your job right
is to take away all the helpful narrative hints and see
if you can figure out who is saying what based purely on
their dialogue . . . a fun game for all and not as impossible
as it sounds (I always cite William Gaddis' JR as my primary
learning tool for writing dialogue, since the book is basically
all dialogue).
Overall, I think it's a good start. I think I would have
emphasized the visions more, since in the beginning it's
like the pair is just wandering around aimlessly (which
they might be, but that tends to lack narrative drive) and
very little back story or characterization is done. I would
scale back on the ballads but that's probably a more personal
decision than anything else. It leaves more room for story
at any rate, although the ballads do add local color and
it's quite possible there were hints in them I missed. What
can I say, I ain't perfect. But it's tightly written, a
good solid beginning to a fantasy story and stays the heck
away from heavy-handed pronouncements on gender issues (yay!)
and hopefully if you haven't written chapter two yet, you're
well on your way to writing it.
That's pretty much all I have to say on this one (though
it still might be longer than the story itself . . . someone
out there has to have an epic in them) without starting
(starting?) to sound tedious. Sorry I couldn't give better
examples for dialogue and detail but it's hard to do that
off the top of my head without making it sound like I'm
just trying to turn you into a clone of myself. You seem
like a smart fellow. So why are you listening to me? Ha!
Otherwise, I think this wraps it up.
{insert dramatic conclusion}
Um, or something.
Till next time.
- MB
4.07.04
"There's too much that I keep to myself and I turn
my back on my faith, it's like glass when we break, I wish
no one in my place . . ." - Love Spit Love, "Am
I Wrong?"
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