"Flesh & Steel" opening of a fantasy story (1199 words)

[ShotokanXL]

The title of this piece is just a working title. This is my attempt at building a fantasy style story. It is just the beginning part of a much larger story. It's still very early days but I thought I'd put it up for general dismemberment

I would really appreciate any feedback and comments you have to give.

***

Vashek Academy, Neroon City, Vartanian Empire.

Warm, afternoon sunlight streamed in through the large, arched window of the private study, casting the room’s many bookcases and curiosity-filled shelves in an orange glow. Grand Master Ezarra Mordecai, head of the Vashek Academy, sat at his ornate, leather-topped desk and scrutinised the ancient pages of the tome that lay before him. The writing was faded with age but the strange, Cyrillic characters and symbols used by the millennia-dead Arvernian civilisation were still legible. The Academy had entire departments dedicated to unlocking the riddle of the language and discover the secrets of the lost empire, but the Grand Master had a keen interest in the subject and spent much of his own time personally translating and transcribing the more complex artefacts.

Much had already been gleaned from the few intact works that had been salvaged from the ruins of the Arechi Wastes, not least the means to harness the Steklo energy found within the alreeum crystals that were native to that desolate land. Yet, despite all the wonders and mechanised advances that had been achieved through the deciphering of the ancient documents, the Grand Master knew that they had barely begun to unravel the mysteries of the Arvernians.

Mordecai followed the lines of script on the pages of the book before him with his left index finger while he wrote down the translated words into a journal with his right. His hand was steady and sure despite the fact that his eyes never left the Arvernian tome.

A knock at the study door caused a momentary frown of annoyance to crease his age-wrinkled brow.

‘Enter,’ he commanded in a firm tone, his voice carrying a strength that contradicted his wizened appearance.

The wooden door swung open and the Grand Master’s personal attendant entered, the hem of her long, gold-trimmed, dark gray woollen robe trailing behind her. In her hands were a rolled up scroll and an old, battered-looking book. The attractive young blonde paused as she closed the door behind her then approached the Grand Master’s desk.

‘I’m sorry for disturbing you Grand Master,’ she apologised as she bowed deferentially, ‘but the latest expedition has returned from the Arechi Wastes. I have their report here.’ The attendant placed the scroll down on the desk. Mordecai glanced at the rolled sheaf of paper then pointed at the worn book the woman was still holding.

‘And what is that?’

‘The expedition found this along with several other artefacts,’ she explained as she carefully laid the book down on the desk. ‘The others are being examined by our Evaluators and Artificers, but I thought you would want to see this one yourself.’

The Grand Master laced his fingers together and regarded the book with curious eyes. Leaning forward, he carefully lifted open the worn cover with a single bony finger.

‘What have we here?’ he mused to himself as he mentally translated the first few lines of script. Mordecai looked up at his attendant who still stood in front of his desk. Returning his attention back to the newest artefact, he waved a hand in a dismissive gesture. ‘That will be all.’

The woman bowed deeply as she backed away. ‘Yes Grand Master.’ She left Mordecai alone in his study and closed the door behind her.

The head of the Vashek order mentally translated the first couple of pages, a hand idly stroking his trimmed, white beard.

A journal of some kind? he pondered. His gaze then turned to the scroll that held the expedition’s report. A skeletal-like hand reached out and picked it up, quickly breaking the red wax seal and unrolling the paper.

The Grand Master’s gaze flicked between the details of the report and the open book that had accompanied it. As he read further, his white eyebrows raised in intrigue, a contemplative “Hmm…” sounding in his throat.

The scroll was quickly rolled back up and put to one side as Mordecai stood and made his way to the door. Pulling it open, he addressed his attendant.

‘I am not to be disturbed until further notice.’

The young woman had barely turned in her seat to respond with ‘Yes, Grand Master,’ before the door was quickly shut again.

Satisfied that he would have complete privacy, Mordecai returned to his desk and began reading the ancient book, carefully turning each page and making occasional notes as he progressed.

Completely engrossed, the Grand Master only became aware of how much time had passed when the room began to darken and the Glow Globe on his desk automatically illuminated, its light growing to fill the dimming chamber.

Breaking from his study, he took a moment to rub his eyes and stiffening neck.

Evening turned to night and the Grand Master finally closed the journal before leaning back in his high-backed chair. He stared off into the middle distance, an eyebrow twitching as he ruminated on and digested what he had just discovered.

So, he thought, the Ancients that fled the demon incursion created an outpost in the Karnelian Mountains…

Rising from his chair, with no hint of cramp or muscle soreness from hours seated at his desk, he walked over to a wall-sized map of the known world. He examined the large landmass labelled “Vartanian Empire” then reached up to a small cord that hung suspended from a cylinder which ran the full length of the top of the map. Pulling it down produced a huge sheet of semi-transparent material that overlaid the map beneath. Drawn on the material was all the known geographical knowledge that had been pieced together from salvaged Arvernian documents, showing the layout of the lost civilisation.

The Grand Master stepped back from the map and tapped his bearded chin with a finger as his eyes scanned the locations depicted. Minutes passed before he grunted in satisfaction and stepped up to place a finger on a location labelled “Karnelian Mountains”.

A slight jerk on the cord sent the overlay retracting back up to its holder and Mordecai tapped his finger on the region that had been beneath the mountain range he had discovered. The location was in Thorensae, a northern province of the Vartanian Empire, and the miniature peaks illustrated on the map read “Corolan Mountains”.

A satisfied smiled briefly creased his lips before he turned and made his way back to the chamber’s door. Pulling it open, he addressed his attendant once again.

‘Bring me Maximilian Sterling. Immediately.’

The young woman rose from her seat and nodded. ‘At once, Grand Master.’ She then hurried off to do as ordered.

Mordecai paid her no further heed and closed the study door as he made his way over to a three-foot-tall, metallic tripod which stood in a corner of his study. Held within a sconce at the top of the tripod was a blue aleerum crystal the size of a man’s fist. The Grand Master stood before the mystical stone and flicked back the sleeves of his robe as he placed his hands on its surface. Closing his eyes, he began to focus his will. The crystal responded and began to glow; soft, blue light radiating from it in a sparkling halo.

***

 

[Zoe Mackay]

Hi! So, the good bit is that your writing style is nice and clear and transparent, and I never had any concern about what was going on. You need to have a look at your dialogue handling - it's not egregiously awful, but you have someone commanding, musing, and responding. "Said" is your friend.

Where I have rather more serious concerns is about what happens in it. Which is, largely, nothing. Your first paragraph is your chance to hook the reader, give them some reason to read on. Here's the first sentence:

Warm, afternoon sunlight streamed in through the large, arched window of the private study, casting the room’s many bookcases and curiosity-filled shelves in an orange glow.​

It's a study, and there's some sunlight. Uh... so what? Why do I care? In fact, why does the sunlight matter at all? Why does any of this matter in the slightest?

You get the point. There's a quote from someone who's better at writing than I am, that goes something like "People start their stories too early and they finish them too late". It feels like you've started this too early. I'm sure you've got some interesting stuff coming, start with that. If you need something from this, then you can flash back to it - once you've hooked the reader, you can make them read the backstory, and they'll be invested enough, and have enough reason to keep reading, that it won't be a problem.

As I said at the start, you can clearly write really well, and there's hints of a more interesting world out there, but you've kicked this off in the wrong place.

(As a minor addendum, you don't need the "he thought" bit with the italics - it's a sign you've not got your POV sorted out right)

 

[ShotokanXL]

Schooled again

I continue to try and learn the fine art of POV...

 

[scientia]

The title of this piece is just a working title. This is my attempt at building a fantasy style story. It is just the beginning part of a much larger story. It's still very early days but I thought I'd put it up for general dismemberment

I would really appreciate any feedback and comments you have to give.

Okay.

Warm, afternoon sunlight streamed in through the large, arched window of the private study, casting the room’s many bookcases and curiosity-filled shelves in an orange glow.

'in' is implied. 'Large' is nearly a rhyme with arched so I wouldn't put these side by side. This sentence is too long so I would take out 'curiosity-filled' to make it shorter. However, the orange glow doesn't make sense for sunlight at this time of the day; it would have to be late afternoon with the sun low in the sky. So, I would remove the last phrase. Unfortunately, this makes the sentence sound too short so we put 'curiosity-filled' back in. Okay, now 'casting' doesn't make sense. We could change it to 'lighting' but that is too close to 'sunlight' earlier in the same sentence. Maybe if we changed it to 'illuminating'. Let's try that:

Warm, afternoon sunlight streamed through the arched window of the private study, illuminating the room’s many bookcases and curiosity-filled shelves.

Let's try a couple more changes like moving warm later in the sentence.

Beams of afternoon sunlight streamed through the arched window of the private study, warmly illuminating the room’s many bookcases and curiosity-filled shelves.

I generally like the sentence. It's fairly descriptive of the setting. However, it also suggests a pleasant environment. It may have to be changed if we want to project a different tone.

Grand Master Ezarra Mordecai, head of the Vashek Academy, sat at his ornate, leather-topped desk and scrutinised the ancient pages of the tome that lay before him. The writing was faded with age but the strange, Cyrillic characters and symbols used by the millennia-dead Arvernian civilisation were still legible. The Academy had entire departments dedicated to unlocking the riddle of the language and discover the secrets of the lost empire, but the Grand Master had a keen interest in the subject and spent much of his own time personally translating and transcribing the more complex artefacts.

To me, this paragraph is a mess. His title description is too long but that is easily fixed by replacing 'head' with 'Grand Master'. A tome is multiple volumes bound in the same book. However, if these pages are that old, I doubt they would still be well bound. What if the pages are separate and laid on a table? Also, why use a real alphabet with a made-up civilization? To me, there seem to be too many descriptions for something old. 'entire departments' sounds too modern and too precise to me. 'riddle' and 'secrets' sounds somewhat flowery to me, especially with 'lost empire'. 'Grand Master' feels too formal to me the second time; I would just use his name. Let's try another draft:

Ezarra Mordecai, Grand Master of the Vashek Academy, stood at a table next to his ornate desk where the pages of an unbound book were laid out. The pages were fragile and needed to be copied for more study, but first he wanted to examine the pages himself to make certain he missed nothing. The writing was faded with age but the strange characters and symbols used by the Arvernian empire were still legible. There were others at the Academy who also studied the writings but the Ezarra spent much of his own time translating and transcribing the more interesting passages.

Maybe something like that. We still have a rather neutral tone though that might not be appropriate.

Much had already been gleaned from the few intact works that had been salvaged from the ruins of the Arechi Wastes, not least the means to harness the Steklo energy found within the alreeum crystals that were native to that desolate land. Yet, despite all the wonders and mechanised advances that had been achieved through the deciphering of the ancient documents, the Grand Master knew that they had barely begun to unravel the mysteries of the Arvernians.

To be honest, I dislike this entire paragraph because it sounds like a description of Atlantis. This is probably where I would lose interest.

Mordecai followed the lines of script on the pages of the book before him with his left index finger while he wrote down the translated words into a journal with his right. His hand was steady and sure despite the fact that his eyes never left the Arvernian tome.

I would say that was unnecessary detail.

A knock at the study door caused a momentary frown of annoyance to crease his age-wrinkled brow.

‘Enter,’ he commanded in a firm tone, his voice carrying a strength that contradicted his wizened appearance.

'commanded' is redundant with 'firm tone'. The rest seems like unnecessary detail.

The wooden door swung open and the Grand Master’s personal attendant entered, the hem of her long, gold-trimmed, dark gray woollen robe trailing behind her. In her hands were a rolled up scroll and an old, battered-looking book. The attractive young blonde paused as she closed the door behind her then approached the Grand Master’s desk.

I would use his name instead of title. The detail about his assistant's looks is also somewhat insulting to me. Why would I care if she was attractive or blonde?

‘I’m sorry for disturbing you Grand Master,’ she apologised as she bowed deferentially, ‘but the latest expedition has returned from the Arechi Wastes. I have their report here.’ The attendant placed the scroll down on the desk. Mordecai glanced at the rolled sheaf of paper then pointed at the worn book the woman was still holding.

'deferentially' is redundant as is 'apologized'. More like:

‘I’m sorry for disturbing you Grand Master,’ she said, bowing,

Held within a sconce at the top of the tripod was a blue aleerum crystal the size of a man’s fist. The Grand Master stood before the mystical stone and flicked back the sleeves of his robe as he placed his hands on its surface. Closing his eyes, he began to focus his will. The crystal responded and began to glow; soft, blue light radiating from it in a sparkling halo.

I assume this part has some significance although I can't tell what yet. It took too long to get to this point. I also can't tell if the main character is a bad guy or good guy or what. I can't really put the magic in the context of the Academy. I assume that the crystal can't be a secret since it is displayed in the open, but he also seems rather secretive.

 

[tinkerdan]

This is good; but it does feel a bit rough. Needs tightening.

One observation I would make is that you have adequately identified the character in the story in the first paragraph which readers seem to like. I have a problem from there with too many constant reminders where 'he' might do just as well. The annoyance is compounded by the vacillation from one to another. Mordecai one moment, Grand Master another, and then head of Vashek Academy with at least one time don't for get he is also Ezarra. He is all of these yet it seems too confusing to keep hopping from one to another and suggests that you don't trust the reader to remember who he is and that he is all of these and the entire scene becomes a mnemonic for learning his name and station.

One reminder perhaps when his attendant interrupts him because now there are two players in the scene and it might call for a reminder.

Next there is the issue of POV I get a sense it might be Omniscient and objective until we reach the line about the attractive young blond and since it seems to still be some omniscient narrator they now go from an objective narrator to one with some slight prejudiced subjectivity.

Then when he asks this attendant to be certain he is not bothered we should be able to drop the naming conventions unless he is somehow exhibiting separate behavior for when he is Mordecai to when he is Grand Master to when he is the Head of Vedhek Academy. I think that whole portion of the scene could remain with anonymous he's throughout since you have established that he is supposed to be left alone.

 

[ShotokanXL]

This is good; but it does feel a bit rough. Needs tightening.

One observation I would make is that you have adequately identified the character in the story in the first paragraph which readers seem to like. I have a problem from there with too many constant reminders where 'he' might do just as well. The annoyance is compounded by the vacillation from one to another. Mordecai one moment, Grand Master another, and then head of Vashek Academy with at least one time don't for get he is also Ezarra. He is all of these yet it seems too confusing to keep hopping from one to another and suggests that you don't trust the reader to remember who he is and that he is all of these and the entire scene becomes a mnemonic for learning his name and station.

One reminder perhaps when his attendant interrupts him because now there are two players in the scene and it might call for a reminder.

Next there is the issue of POV I get a sense it might be Omniscient and objective until we reach the line about the attractive young blond and since it seems to still be some omniscient narrator they now go from an objective narrator to one with some slight prejudiced subjectivity.

Then when he asks this attendant to be certain he is not bothered we should be able to drop the naming conventions unless he is somehow exhibiting separate behavior for when he is Mordecai to when he is Grand Master to when he is the Head of Vedhek Academy. I think that whole portion of the scene could remain with anonymous he's throughout since you have established that he is supposed to be left alone.

Excellent. Thanks!

 

[Jo Zebedee]

Be warned, I have teeth.

Firstly, I'm wondering why open with this scene? It seems to be to hint st the back story and to intrigue but, really, nothing much happens to engage my interest. That may be me, I'm not mostly a fantasy fan, but it almost seems you're trying so hard to set the tone of fantasy and make it feel like fantasy that the story is secondary.

I agree with the comments above about saidisms - commanding tones etc are all things which are better shown, rather than told and when you add dialogue descriptors like whimpered, or firmly etc you're telling us. Of course, it's a balance, and there are times when we want to up our description of the address but they're more effectively being used sparingly - said is enough most of the time. Indeed, a nice way to do it is to move to an action instead of a dialogue descriptor sometimes.

He laid the paper to the side and raised his head to the door. "Enter!" - seems pretty commanding to me?

I think, as well, trusting your reader a little more - when the girl scurries off we don't need to be told it's to do his bidding. We can already tell. Similarily his smile - we know it's because he's worked out the mystery, we don't need to be told it's satisfied.

 

[ShotokanXL]

Be warned, I have teeth.

Firstly, I'm wondering why open with this scene? It seems to be to hint st the back story and to intrigue but, really, nothing much happens to engage my interest. That may be me, I'm not mostly a fantasy fan, but it almost seems you're trying so hard to set the tone of fantasy and make it feel like fantasy that the story is secondary.

I agree with the comments above about saidisms - commanding tones etc are all things which are better shown, rather than told and when you add dialogue descriptors like whimpered, or firmly etc you're telling us. Of course, it's a balance, and there are times when we want to up our description of the address but they're more effectively being used sparingly - said is enough most of the time. Indeed, a nice way to do it is to move to an action instead of a dialogue descriptor sometimes.

He laid the paper to the side and raised his head to the door. "Enter!" - seems pretty commanding to me?

I think, as well, trusting your reader a little more - when the girl scurries off we don't need to be told it's to do his bidding. We can already tell. Similarily his smile - we know it's because he's worked out the mystery, we don't need to be told it's satisfied.

Teeth are okay. At this stage I've already bern torn to pieces

 

[Dan Jones]

Hey there, this seems like potentially a very good opening, but is very flabby. I think a couple of other posters have already said it, but beware of info dumping, especially right at the start of your novel - I should know, I got called out on the exact same thing only last month in the crit forums!

There is a lot of reference to lands, places, locations all in the first page or two and it's a little overwhelming - I'd concentrate on the feelings of menace, foreboding, and the fact that there is a conflict brewing somewhere - I don't really feel that from this.

But, the writing is descriptive, clear, and Mordecai seems like an engaging chap. Good start, keep going!