TITLE: The Day the Sky Fell
GENRE: Fantasy
The blow pitched Kylah into blackness.
He awoke, face pressed into the long grass, the scent of earth and old rain in his nostrils. A dull, throbbing pain radiated at the back of his head—the lump of skull just behind his left ear. Pushing himself up, he reached back and felt the tender swelling of his skin. Blood, but not enough for alarm.
“Vala,” he murmured, wincing. His fingers wove through the knots of braids at his crown, feeling for severed strands. He found none, breathed his relief.
He stood, blinking away vertigo. A headache crept along his skull. Wiping dirt from his forehead, he scanned his surroundings, searching for the thing that had knocked him down, half expecting to see Toras or his lackeys.
But he was alone. Sun-rich wind blew across the way, rustled the grass, wove through the hair that hung down the center of his back and coiled about his waist. Kylah spied a glimmer of cyan amid the green, not ten paces from where he had fallen.
He approached the object, pushed back grass with the toe of his moccasin. It was roughly the size of a loaf of bread, smooth as Laean glass. Its blue surface emanated soft light. A smear of white shifted across one of its corners, much the way a cloud crawls across the sky.
Kylah crouched, touched it, surprised at how cold it felt, like the large blocks of ice Laean traders brought to port.
You've made me curious, and I would read on. However, I have one niggling problem: your refusal to use the word 'and'!
ReplyDeleteHe found none, AND breathed his relief.
...rustled the grass, AND wove through the hair...
He approached the object AND pushed back grass with the toe of his moccasin.
Kylah crouched AND touched it...
Perhaps it's part of the character's voice that they don't use the word and. But for me, it tripped me up in the reading.
I'm not sure how I feel about this -- there's great description but I feel like it's maybe taking too long to get to the next thing. The immediacy of the blog knocking him into blackness is kind of lost by the fact that when he wakes up, we just get an internal evaluation of his injury and a gem type stone winking nearby. I wanted to get through this faster, and I was driven kind of to distraction by the one word he does say "Vala" because I have no idea what it means at all. I WANT to think it involves some kind of Norse myth influence :) but there isn't any context to encourage me.
ReplyDeleteThe pacing of this is throwing me off. It's a bit too slow. I know this is only the first 250 lines, but I think this could move quicker and have a better hook.
ReplyDeleteAnd I don't necessarily like him being hit and then waking.
I agree the urgency is thrown off with the overly descriptive parts, although they are well-written. I'm just not sure they're well-placed. I don't mind him waking up, adds to the intrigue. I was also hoping for an explanation for the one word he chose. Is it somene's name or a curse word in whatever language he speaks? It would be nice to know, and it can also help with character development.
ReplyDeleteI'd cut your first line. Start with him waking up--because as it, it's jarring for the first thing to happen is our MC gets knocked out.
ReplyDeleteAnd I agree with the lack of urgency. It's slow, and not at all concerned with the fact that he's been knocked out recently.
I would back this way up. Starting with your MC waking up is cliche. We don't know the character well enough to care that he is in pain. You have to introduce him to us and let us fall in love before you bash his head in.
ReplyDeleteKylah sounds like a girl name.
Your descriptions are good. I think I would like this scene if I knew what was going on.
The descriptions are nicely done and the narrative flows pretty well, but I think some of the descriptions are irrelevant and slow down the pace. Example: "Sun-rich wind blew across the way, rustled the grass, wove through the hair that hung down the center of his back and coiled about his waist." Is the wind so important that we need it to do four different things?
ReplyDeleteThe injury list is also a bit long and repetitive. He's got a dull throbbing in his head already, but you also tell us two pargraphs down that a headache crept along hsi skull. It might be smoother to cut some of the injury description from the first three paragraphs and pepper it into the remaining paragraphs so that 1) we get to the conflict faster and 2) the injury doesn't just happen and then end.
All in all, though, getting knocked out and finding a blue rock doesn't really intrigue me. Is there a better place to start this story? Or can some stakes/conflict be added to the this page?
A few parts are a little awkward, such as searching for the "thing" that knocked him out when he's really expecting to see people.
I agree with Chro in regards to the use of "and". I also think there is a little too much description which slows the pace.
ReplyDeleteThat having been said, I'm interested in what hit Kylah and I want to know what kind of world he lives in. I like the braids and the moccasins mixed with the knowledge of traders and an otherworldly object. Very intriguing!
I agree with Janice about starting this a little earlier. I struggle with the desire to start the story with the most dramatic moment, but the moment will have more power if we get to know your character, see him in action, and then be startled and worried when he gets hit in the head.
ReplyDeleteSeems like there are people he's afraid of, Toras and his lackeys. If he's doing whatever he's doing outside, worrying about those guys and whether they might attack, then we'll be scared that the blow to his head means they have attacked. And if that's a fact, then when he wakes up, while he's struggling with the injury and its effects, he should also be braced to defend himself. It might take only a few extra paragraphs to set it up, but I think it would give the opening more power, increase the conflict, allow you to work in a bit of backstory, and maybe even let us know what the stakes are.
This reminded me of Eragon when that MC finds the dragon egg. I thought you could cut the entire third parg because it doesn’t tell us anything new, which would give you a bit more room to perhaps create more of a mystery around the found object, or to perhaps say what it is.
ReplyDeleteThere's no urgency or conflict here, nothing that speaks of danger--the danger is already past. The bullies left him alone and he's still alive. With a blue rock that apparently the bullies didn't see.
ReplyDeleteThe genre doesn't say YA, but I got the sense that the character was very young, hence my using the term "bullies."