Missing Magic (600ish Words)

[Coast]

Hi Folks. So I wrote this and I thought I'd throw it up and get some feedback in order to find out what I need to work on.
Thanks in advance.

****************************************************

Eric sits cross-legged on the grass and closes his eyes. His master hovers over him, impatient and agitated. The young student is unsettled by the attention.

“Just do it as normal, boy,” his master coaches. “Same as every other morning.”
Eric swallows nervously. "I’ve had trouble the last few days sir, I was going to say so but I-” The master waves him to silence.
“Yes yes, but there was still power there?” he crouches down next to him, too close. His eyes are wide, frantic. “You could still feel the edges of it, yes?”
Eric nods, closed-lipped.
“Then try,” the master urges.

Eric gathers himself for the undertaking, straightens his back and lifts his chest. Master Helios has been more temperamental of late, his turns have heightened Eric’s fear of disappointing him. He takes three deep breaths, filling his lungs right down to his belly and tries to calm himself. When his heart rate slows, he starts reciting the verse. Four lines of seven sacred words, over and over in his head until it becomes a perfect loop, with no beginning or end. Finally, when it no longer makes any sense to him, when it has no more meaning to his mind than the babbling of a stream, he looks for the magic. He should feel it building, the sting of pins and needles through every inch of him, but there’s nothing there. It should rise, through vein or sinew or some unknown mechanism, welling up and building through him until it saturates everything and the looping, infinite verse is floating inside it. But today there is nothing, not even the faint trickle he’d felt yesterday. The verse starts to break up and Eric is struggling to maintain the flow. He tries to concentrate harder on the words, but they’re losing cohesion. They stutter and fall over each other. Finally the loss compounds, and the chain breaks. His lips stop moving and he slouches forward, exhaling heavily. The master is waiting, still crouched in front of him, expectant.

“Well?” he asks.
“Nothing Master. I’m sorry, I thought-”
“Nothing?”
He shakes his head, still squinting against the bright morning.
“Aha!” Helios stands quickly. “Nothing! Not a damn thing. Get up Eric. We leave tomorrow, pack what you’ll need.”
“Tomorrow? What are… Master I don’t know what we are-”
“Of course not boy,” Helios turns on him. “You never know, do you?”
Eric says nothing and looks down at his knees. He has learned that well.
“Today you can’t summon a single drop of the magic, where yesterday you could. They sent you to me because they said you were good with the books. You tell me boy, how quickly do the verse’s change? When was the last time a verse died in a single week?”
The boy blinks at the question.
“They, ah, it would take years, if we didn’t change them.”
“Exactly boy. Decades. We don’t change more than a word a year to keep up with magic’s course. I know a couple hundred verses, I’ll warrant not one of them will draw current. The magic has never drifted this fast.”
Eric uncoils stiff legs and rises.
“Then we’ll go to the capital? To the Association?”
His understanding of the problem blossoms, the implications falling to him, one after another.
“Indeed. Go pack your gear.”
Eric brushes the dry grass from his pants and turns to go as bidden.
“Yes Master,” but then he pauses. “The Brotherhood also?”
“Yes Eric,” Helios says with a grimace. “I think we’ll visit my brothers again.”

 

[Jo Zebedee]

Ok, be warned I have teeth and I'm editing at the moment.... Comments in bold.

Hi Folks. So I wrote this and I thought I'd throw it up and get some feedback in order to find out what I need to work on.
Thanks in advance.

****************************************************

Eric sits cross-legged on the grass and closes his eyes. His master hovers over him, impatient and agitated. The young student is unsettled by the attention. The problem for me with this opening, is that it's all tell and no show, and that the pov isn't quite disciplined enough.

impatient and agitated - how does that look? Can you show me?
The young student is unsettled - is this Eric? If so, why does he refer to himself as the young student? Would anyone think of themselves as that. And, also what does unsettled mean? Again, it's a tell - try to show us.

“Just do it as normal, boy,” his master coaches. “Same as every other morning.”
Eric swallows nervously. "I’ve had trouble the last few days sir, I was going to say so but I-” new paragraph here.The master waves him to silence.
“Yes yes, but there was still power there?” He - you're going to an action, so the ? is a full stop here. he crouches down next to him, too close. His eyes are wide, frantic. “You could still feel the edges of it, yes?”
Eric nods, closed-lippedagain your pov - would we ever think that we nodded, close-lipped? What are his thoughts - remember this is a book so we have room for thoughts and feelings. .
“Then try,” the master urges.

Eric gathers himself for the undertaking, straightens his back and lifts his chest. better Master Helios has been more temperamental of late, his turns have heightened Eric’s fear of disappointing him. He takes three deep breaths, filling his lungs right down to his belly and tries to calm himself. When his heart rate slows, he starts reciting the verse. Four lines of seven sacred words, over and over in his head until it becomes a perfect loop, with no beginning or end. Finally, when it no longer makes any sense to him, when it has no more meaning to his mind than the babbling of a stream, he looks for the magic. this is nice He should feel it building, the sting of pins and needles through every inch of him, but there’s nothing there. It should rise, through vein or sinew or some unknown mechanism, welling up and building through him until it saturates everything and the looping, infinite verse is floating inside it. But today there is nothing, not even the faint trickle he’d felt yesterday. The verse starts to break up and Eric is struggling to maintain the flow. He tries to concentrate harder on the words, but they’re losing cohesion. They stutter and fall over each other. Finally the loss compounds, and the chain breaks. His lips stop moving and he slouches forward, exhaling heavily. The master is waiting, still crouched in front of him, expectant.

“Well?” he asks.
“Nothing Master. I’m sorry, I thought-”
“Nothing?”
He shakes his head, still squinting against the bright morning.
“Aha!” Helios stands quickly. “Nothing! Not a damn thing. Get up Eric. We leave tomorrow, pack what you’ll need.”
“Tomorrow? What are… Master I don’t know what we are-”
“Of course not boy,full stop - it's only a comma it you're using a version of he said ” Helios turns on him. “You never know, do you?”
Eric says nothing and looks down at his knees. He has learned that well.
“Today you can’t summon a single drop of the magic, where yesterday you could. They sent you to me because they said you were good with the books. You tell me boy, how quickly do the verse’s change? When was the last time a verse died in a single week?”
The boy blinks at the question.
“They, ah, it would take years, if we didn’t change them.”
“Exactly boy. Decades. We don’t change more than a word a year to keep up with magic’s course. I know a couple hundred verses, I’ll warrant not one of them will draw current. The magic has never drifted this fast.”
Eric uncoils stiff legs and rises.
“Then we’ll go to the capital? To the Association?”
His understanding of the problem blossoms, the implications falling to him, one after another.
“Indeed. Go pack your gear.”
Eric brushes the dry grass from his pants and turns to go as bidden.
“Yes Master,full stop” but then he pauses. “The Brotherhood also?”
“Yes Eric,” Helios says with a grimace. “I think we’ll visit my brothers again.”

Okay, I think it could be closer and we could see more of Eric's thoughts. I'd also struggle to know what the hook is. Looking for the magic, yes - bt what happens if it can't be found? Is it dangerous to do this? Add a bit more of a clear danger/conflict and I think that would be good. Also, work on your showing.

"Don't tell me the moon is shining, show me the glint of light on broken glass." Chekov.

 

[HareBrain]

I agree with Jo, it's not clear what the stakes are here. At first it seems to be a personal thing -- has he lost his own magical ability? -- then it seems magic as a whole might be vanishing. But there's no hint yet of what the consequence of that might be, or even that anyone thinks the consequences might be severe. (After all, we live in a world without magic, and it's not that bad, or so I keep telling myself.)

I would think about starting maybe a bit earlier, having him go about his normal work (which is usually a good bet as an opening gambit) and notice by himself that the magic is drifting, or that something is happening, and then going to his teacher for advice. That has two advantages. 1, he'd feel more active, and 2, it would probably be more alarming for him to feel his own powers were fading without the immediate benefit of a mentor to help explain it, and that might make us empathise with him more.

 

[Coast]

Thanks Jo and HB, very helpful already.

When it comes to POV, I'll admit to only having a basic understanding, so I'm going to try to focus on that. I also find myself swapping tenses a lot, which I think might be related?
And 'show don't tell' I think I need tattooed on my hand. Or, maybe just a post it note above my screen.
As for stakes, now that I read your comments I think I was trying to use Eric as a way of showing whats going on around him rather than focusing on him. (If that makes sense?)

Thanks again guys, gives me something concrete to work on.

 

[ThomasG]

Although I liked the twist, that the issue was with the magic rather than the boy, I was not really hooked. I felt no emotion, no excitement or wonder. Some additional thoughts might resolve this. And sorry to be picky, but ideally jump a line for paragraphs.

 

[pambaddeley]

Agree with the comments above.

A small typo thing - "how quickly do the verse’s change?" Verses is a plural; no grocer's apostrophe needed

 

[Ejc0528]

I agree wth above. To add suspense I would perhaps instead of having Eric say something like Helios has been acting different have him observe Helios pacing nervously muttering about the magic disappearing.

 

[Brian G Turner]

I think this is a good standard of writing. It would be better if we could see just a little more of Eric's internal conflict, but this may be personal taste - I do think you've conveyed his sense of obedience and submission really well.

That big paragraph could do with breaking up! Also, if you show a character action then follow with the same character speaking, put them together on the same line rather than new line for each.

I think the only other thing you're missing is the hook, as already mentioned - but I think this is just a sentence missing at the end - a kind of cliffhanger moment where the consequences of magic drifting are underlined.

Overall, though, I think this is good, and you've done a good job of keeping focused on the characters and cutting out the infodumping you had in the previous version.

 

[Coast]

Here's my efforts at rewriting. It's only the first third of the original post, finishing where he sits down to try to perform magic.

Hopefully it's a closer POV and I've tried more show vs tell. I struggled to work out how to fit more of a hook into this small section, without exposition.

******************************************************
Eric sat cross-legged in a courtyard smeared grey by early morning. Only the crunch of Master Helios’ boots cut through the muffling fog as he wore down a track in the freshly raked gravel.

The master had said nothing.

“Shall I begin the ritual sir?” asked Eric, too quickly.

Helios waved the question away, shaking his head. He started another lap of the circuit he’d closed around Eric.

A knot had grown in Eric’s stomach. For three days the master had locked himself away from the household, only to chose this morning ritual to reappear. There were few coincidences in Eric’s life, and he cursed his decision to not report the weakness he’d felt in his rituals this last week. Weakness was not tolerated in this place.

Eric exhaled and closed his eyes. Start with what you can control. He inhaled deeply, air rushed through his nose, filled his lungs right down to his belly like water into a jug. The world stopped, a single moment frozen, then slowly he let the breath escape. His body relaxed, his thoughts cleared, a quiet had come over the courtyard. He opened his eyes and jerked back violently, Helios was hovering over him, hood thrown back, bloodshot eyes wide.

“No ritual today boy, I need to see your power,” his master demanded.

What calm Eric had gained now fled, his heart started accelerating. It was not the ritual? Uncertainty was running wild in his mind, it tore into what he’d considered fact, and left only confusion in it’s wake. A single thought is uncovered that Eric can’t push away, The tales are full of deranged Masters of Magic. He forced himself to blink.

“Master I-”

“Quiet,” Helios produced a dead stem from one of the courtyards elms and held it reverently in front of Eric.

“Restoration.”

The stem was dried up, capped with three shriveled leaves. Eric’s trembling fingers turned it over, one papery leaf was ready to fall. If there WAS any life left in it, the verse was simple, and would take so little energy. His uncertainty was leaving now, it left him alone with Helios.

There was nothing else to do. He closed his eyes…

 

[pambaddeley]

Good close POV but watch the grammatical typos, e.g. in its wake. And there's a jarring tense shift 'A single thought... ' to present tense.
courtyard's elms
Needs a full stop I think after turned it over. There are one or two more little things like this, e.g. you've joined two sentences together in 'Uncertainty ...wake' with a comma which shouldn't be done, so that first comma needs to be a semicolon.

 

[Andrew Lambert]

I like it Coast.
Certainly not the mauling I got the first time around.
Well done!

 

[Stuart Suffel]

Ok. There a few things here.

Tense. You have the present tense throughout - very tricky to maintain, and a challenging choice. Using simple past will not reduce the immediacy, and will be easier to write, and clearer to read. You might get away with the green high-lighted bit, but otherwise, I don't recommend it.

Telling. I'm not sure you grasp what telling is exactly. If you can imagine an actor reading this to an audience. The pink parts (as I've highlighted below) are when he cups his hand and speaks in an aside to the audience, kind of like a panto, as in "little does he (the baddie/ goodie) know Ms Smith has fallen for another". It takes us out of the play, here it takes us out of the story that we, the readers, are creating in our minds. It should really only be used in emergency situations, and rarely. It's a form of 'cheating' in a way. [some of the pink parts are just unnecessary extra dialogue or adverbs etc. Showing is tricky, but The stem was dried up, capped with three shriveled leaves. Eric’s trembling fingers turned it over, one papery leaf was ready to fall is a good example of it. An action is described, but it shows a range of emotional and plot possibilities, as opposed to making an aside to the audience, or 'clarifying' what's happening.

You mention POV. If you revised piece, you gone from a level of immediacy in the original to more exposition/ telling. POV is not telling. POV is the position of the story-teller. For example, if it is first person POV, it means, firstly, that the story is told in the first person, i.e, I, as in I was at the circus the other day and a crazy looking clown approached me, or 'I am in the circus and a crazy looking clown is approaching me' (I don't recommend the second present tense approach). You have written in the third person, so the position of the story telling is all-knowing (often called omniscient or omnipresent) and from a distance. It's the best approach for most works, starting off at least.

Overall: Overall, I like the piece, I like the sense of immediacy. The problem is too much writing. Less is almost always more in this type of story. Allow your reader - trust you reader, to fill in the blanks. As long as there is a sense of pace or event, or action, or character, your reader will engage. But if you slow it down with exposition (backstory/explanation), inappropriate internal dialogue, excessive adverbs (nervously, impatiently, etc), excessive description of character physical movements, positioning, then you risk losing the reader.

Also, the concept, of what's happening magic wise is unclear, as others have stated.


Eric sits cross-legged on the grass and closes his eyes. His master hovers over him, impatient and agitated. The young student is unsettled by the attention.

“Just do it as normal, boy,” Master Helios said. his master coaches. “Same as every other morning.”
Eric swallowed nervously. "I’ve had trouble the last few days sir, I was going to say so but I-” The master waves him to silence.
“Yes yes, but there was still power there?” he crouched down next to him, too close. His eyes are wide, frantic. “You could still feel the edges of it, yes?”
Eric nodded, closed-lipped.
“Then try.”

Eric gathered himself for the undertaking, straightened his back and lifted his chest. Master Helios has been more temperamental of late, his turns have heightened Eric’s fear of disappointing him. He took three deep breaths, filled his lungs right down to his belly and tries to calm himself. When his heart rate slowed, he started reciting the verse. Four lines of seven sacred words, over and over in his head until it becomes a perfect loop, with no beginning or end. Finally, when it no longer makes any sense to him, when it has no more meaning to his mind than the babbling of a stream, he looked for the magic.

He should have felt it building, the sting of pins and needles through every inch of him, but there was nothing there. It should have risen, through vein or sinew or some unknown mechanism, welling up and building through him until it saturates everything and the looping, infinite verse is floating inside it.

But today there is nothing, not even the faint trickle he’d felt yesterday. The verse starts to break up and Eric is struggling struggles to maintain the flow. He tried to concentrate harder on the words, but they’re losing cohesion. They stutter and fall over each other. Finally the loss compounds, and the chain breaks. His lips stop moving and he slouches forward, exhaling heavily.

Master Helios, still crouched in front of him, expectant. “Well?” he asks.
“Nothing Master. I’m sorry, I thought-”
“Nothing?”
Eric shook his head, still squinting against the bright morning.
“Aha!” Helios stood quickly. “Nothing! Not a damn thing. Get up Eric. We leave tomorrow, pack what you’ll need.”
“Tomorrow? What are… Master I don’t know what we are-”
“Of course not boy, you never know, do you?”
Eric says nothing and looks down at his knees. He has learned that well.
“Today you can’t summon a single drop of the magic, where yesterday you could. They sent you to me because they said you were good with the books. You tell me boy, how quickly do the verse’s change? When was the last time a verse died in a single week?” [Difficult to understand]
The boy blinks at the question.
“They, ah, it would take years, if we didn’t change them.” {ditto}
“Exactly boy. Decades. We don’t change more than a word a year to keep up with magic’s course. I know a couple hundred verses, I’ll warrant not one of them will draw current. The magic has never drifted this fast.” {ditto}
Eric uncoils stiff legs and rises.“Then we’ll go to the capital? To the Association?”
His understanding of the problem blossoms, the implications falling to him, one after another.
“Indeed. Go pack your gear.” (knapsack/ satchel)
Eric brushes the dry grass from his pants and turns to go as bidden.
“Yes Master,” but then he pauses. “The Brotherhood also?”
“Yes Eric,” Helios says with a grimace. “I think we’ll visit my brothers again.”


Revised Version
A knot had grown in Eric’s stomach. For three days the master had locked himself away from the household, only to chose this morning ritual to reappear. There were few coincidences in Eric’s life, and he cursed his decision to not report the weakness he’d felt in his rituals this last week. Weakness was not tolerated in this place.

Eric exhaled and closed his eyes. Start with what you can control. He inhaled deeply, air rushed through his nose, filled his lungs right down to his belly like water into a jug. The world stopped, a single moment frozen, then slowly he let the breath escape. His body relaxed, his thoughts cleared, a quiet had come over the courtyard. He opened his eyes and jerked back violently, Helios was hovering over him, hood thrown back, bloodshot eyes wide.


What calm Eric had gained now fled, his heart started accelerating. It was not the ritual? Uncertainty was running wild in his mind, it tore into what he’d considered fact, and left only confusion in it’s wake. A single thought is uncovered that Eric can’t push away, The tales are full of deranged Masters of Magic. He forced himself to blink.

“Master I-”

“Quiet,” Helios produced a dead stem from one of the courtyards elms and held it reverently in front of Eric.

“Restoration.”

The stem was dried up, capped with three shriveled leaves. Eric’s trembling fingers turned it over, one papery leaf was ready to fall. If there WAS any life left in it, the verse was simple, and would take so little energy. His uncertainty was leaving now, it left him alone with Helios.

 

[VinceK]

Just a few comments for consideration:

and he cursed his decision to not report the weakness

Purely semantics, but you might consider removing the split infinitive.

The world stopped, a single moment frozen, then slowly he let the breath escape. His body relaxed, his thoughts cleared, a quiet had come over the courtyard.

Sometimes adding a full-stop helps increase the potency of a sentence. "The world stopped, a single moment frozen. Slowly he let the breath escape...

The stem was dried up, capped with three shriveled leaves. Eric’s trembling fingers turned it over,

Again, changing from the passive to active voice increases sentence potency. "Three shriveled leaves capped the dried stem."

 

[Stuart Suffel]

Plus what Vince Said.

 

[pambaddeley]

I would just say Stuart re your comment above "You have written in the third person, so the position of the story telling is all-knowing (often called omniscient or omnipresent) and from a distance. It's the best approach for most works, starting off at least." that these days 3rd person is usually done in what's known as 'close' so it is from the POV of one character per scene. Omniscient tends to be viewed as old fashioned though I know there are trad. published writers who use it.

 

[Coast]

Thanks all, for your time.

Good points on sentence structure, especially the commas / splitting sentences. I catch that a bit myself but clearly some is still getting through, so I'll work on that. And the active voice.

As Pam said, the POV is supposed to be 3rd Close, so that's where the thoughts/feelings comes from. But I hear what you're saying about telling, I'll keep working on that.

A bit for me to chew on there, thanks again.