Hi all,
I've finally gotten around to working on my WiP a little more. I've started with writing an early chapter, though not a first chapter. It's a scene in which two main characters (Saa and Barden), who the reader will have met before, meet for the first time, and tries to do a little bit of world building and character development rather than pushing the plot forward massively (beyond just them meeting). I am very new to fiction writing, and this is really the first thing of this kind i've ever attempted, so am really keen on any general feedback you can offer - does it seem at all interesting? Is it too info dump-ey? Is the writing style OK?
This is the first 1500 words from an approx. 5000 word scene I have written - if anyone would like to read the whole thing to comment on it, I would of course be thrilled to send it to you.
Thanks a lot!
Topher
Barden tugged at the scratchy brown hood of the cloak Syd had given him, bringing it low over his eyes. He’d expected more people, to be able to blend in to the background, yet there were barely a dozen people here, and each one of them had turned to stare when they arrived.
The villagers were arranged in a large circle around a group of saplings. Torches made from a scrubby grass created a flickering light, shadows from the trees dancing around them wildly. The night had been bright on the walk here, a large moon lighting their path. Now, so close to the torches, the night behind them seemed dark and dense, solid. Barden longed to sink back into it.
The villagers each had a hand on one of the small, silver trees, guiding and growing them into the shapes necessary for the house they were together to become. Barden had, of course, seen such houses before, but had never before seen one in the process of being made - never dared intrude on a growing session such as this one. There was an almost religious seriousness to the villagers’ traditions, an air of solemnity that demanded privacy and respect. The weight of what he and Syd were doing pressed on him, his shoulders curling and his head trying to disappear even further into his hood. Was a bit of music really worth this intrusion, this invasion of the villagers’ private time? Or the risk of being caught?
As Barden and Syd had approached, the villagers had been talking and laughing with each other while they worked. Now they were silent, the only sound the near constant chirp of crickets, sounding now more like a screamed warning than the romantic background noise of summer that they usually represented for him.
“Hi there, guys and gals, we heard there might be some music here tonight?” said Syd, hood off, his always impeccable hair coiffed into the stylish scruff that he clearly thought would pass as that of a travelling worker.
“There will be, aye, once Saa arrives,” replied the woman closest to them as she stood to greet them. “Travelling through are you? Can’t say I recognise you.”
“Just stopping on our way through to the capital. The name’s Bilt, and this here is Torl.” Syd gestured at Barden, who tried his best to smile.
“Nice to meet you,” Barden muttered.
“If it’s music you’re after, Saa should be along soon. In the meantime, care to join us with this hut? We’ve all been squeezed dry at work all week, so we’re making scant progress this evening.”
Despite himself, Barden allowed himself to look closer at the house the workers were growing between them. It consisted of two curved lines of five short saplings, each sapling about four foot from its neighbour, together forming an elongated circle. Each tree, despite being only about four foot tall, had already grown remarkably, their branchless trunks growing wide on one axis and thin on the other, such that each stretched towards the next in the line. He had never before reflected properly on the huts, forming as they did part of the dirty, chaotic backdrop to his very few forays into the village. Here, in the light from the villagers’ torches and in their young, half-grown state, they looked somehow both astonishingly strange and perfectly natural: they formed shapes that trees had no right to be; and yet they somehow seemed right, like each had meant to be this shape all along.
Barden was drawn from his reflections sharply by a kick in the shin from Syd. “We’d be happy to help, wouldn’t we Torl? Although to be honest with you, it’s been years since we’ve lived anywhere what had houses like this, let alone live plants to use for much of anything. Brewers we are, back home, so don’t have much use fer growin’. But we’ll try our very best.” Barden cringed at Syd’s affected accent and purposeful misuse of grammar. It made the whole thing worse, added a layer of conceit to the lie that made his skin crawl.
Syd dragged Barden by the sleeve towards the circle, and shook hands with the woman who had greeted them.
“Oh I almost forgot! We brought some of our beer with us, for the group, didn’t we Torl?” Syd held his hand towards Barden expectantly.
“We did, yes, here”, said Barden as he fumbled his bag from his back and withdrew the large glass flagon they had decanted some imported beer into earlier that day. “It’s a dark winter beer, like they drink in the north. We thought you might like to try it.” Barden handed it to the villager, eyeing Syd coldly.
“Well, ‘aint that a treat! Thank you boys, that’s very kind. I’m sure we’ll be able to overlook your slow growing if we’ve beer in our bellies.” She gave Barden a broad smile, and handed the bottle to a young man who had been seated next to her. He produced a number of small cups and began passing round the beer. “The name’s Hanta, and it’s my son’s hut we’re working on this evening.” The man with the cups nodded and smiled at Barden and Syd. “He’s to be married next month, so we’ve got some work ahead of us! We always ask Saa to come play for us while we’re growing if she can - it keeps us from nodding off. You boys are lucky, though, it’s not that often she has the time. Please, sit.”
Barden sat where Hanta had indicated, next to an old, balding woman with the round, rock-solid, protruding belly that was a clear sign of a life in the curl factories. She smiled warmly and nodded her head, before turning back to concentrate on her work. Awkwardly, he placed his hand on the tree, before quickly drawing it back in shock. Did living trees always feel like this? He’d touched few enough in his lifetime to say for sure.
The woman sitting next to him chuckled, removed her hand from the tree and turned to Barden. “I’m sorry, love. I didn’t think, your friend did say you don’t do this much, and there was I messing about with the roots. Awful deep feel growing roots has, if you’re not familiar. Here, we’ll do something more gentle if you’d like?”
Barden turned to look at Syd, who was busy pretending to touch his own tree, his sleeve tucked up under his palm. Typical. All his faux-radical bullsh**--his talk about snobbishness and classism and the hypocrisy of their dependence on a wealth produced by means they found too distasteful to ever do themselves--it was all just bluster: he was as disgusted by the idea of mingling with nature as any of them. Well, Barden wouldn’t be a hypocrite. He had meant it when he’d said he didn’t understand what all the fuss was about, that it seemed they were missing out on something powerful and exciting because of their stupid taboos.
Barden touched the tree again tentatively, despite her words bracing himself for the low, stomach-shaking vibration that he had felt moments ago. This time it was much fainter, lighter and at a higher frequency - he felt a firm buzzing in his forearm, rather than in his guts as before.
“We’ll just keep stretching out the trunk, making it a wall. You ok with that?”
Barden stared at the woman stupidly. “Yes, sure…”
“Been that long, eh?” she asked, winking. “Just remember, you’re not trying to force the tree to do anything it doesn’t want to do. Focus on the tree itself, not what it looks like now but how it is, inside; how it wants to be. Once you know the tree, you’ll see it’s never just one thing. You’ll see all the different things it wants to become, depending on how the world is around it. Have you been in the forest?” Barden nodded, his disguise and story of being from out of town forgotten already. “Then you’ll have seen those old dead trees in all different shapes, right? Thin ones, fat ones, ones grown round other, even older trees? All those shapes were inside the tree from the start, as possibilities, paths it might want to follow if the world was right for it. We just need to find the path that suits us best, and encourage it along that path. You’ll see what I mean.”
Barden focused, trying hard to feel what the old woman was talking about. What the tree wanted to be? Was she pulling his leg? Was this some sort of test? Workers round here learned how to do this pretty much before they learnt to walk - did she really believe Syd’s tale that their lack of skill was just due to being from out of town? The villagers knew that the upper classes disdained all such connections - was she sniffing him out?
I've finally gotten around to working on my WiP a little more. I've started with writing an early chapter, though not a first chapter. It's a scene in which two main characters (Saa and Barden), who the reader will have met before, meet for the first time, and tries to do a little bit of world building and character development rather than pushing the plot forward massively (beyond just them meeting). I am very new to fiction writing, and this is really the first thing of this kind i've ever attempted, so am really keen on any general feedback you can offer - does it seem at all interesting? Is it too info dump-ey? Is the writing style OK?
This is the first 1500 words from an approx. 5000 word scene I have written - if anyone would like to read the whole thing to comment on it, I would of course be thrilled to send it to you.
Thanks a lot!
Topher
Barden tugged at the scratchy brown hood of the cloak Syd had given him, bringing it low over his eyes. He’d expected more people, to be able to blend in to the background, yet there were barely a dozen people here, and each one of them had turned to stare when they arrived.
The villagers were arranged in a large circle around a group of saplings. Torches made from a scrubby grass created a flickering light, shadows from the trees dancing around them wildly. The night had been bright on the walk here, a large moon lighting their path. Now, so close to the torches, the night behind them seemed dark and dense, solid. Barden longed to sink back into it.
The villagers each had a hand on one of the small, silver trees, guiding and growing them into the shapes necessary for the house they were together to become. Barden had, of course, seen such houses before, but had never before seen one in the process of being made - never dared intrude on a growing session such as this one. There was an almost religious seriousness to the villagers’ traditions, an air of solemnity that demanded privacy and respect. The weight of what he and Syd were doing pressed on him, his shoulders curling and his head trying to disappear even further into his hood. Was a bit of music really worth this intrusion, this invasion of the villagers’ private time? Or the risk of being caught?
As Barden and Syd had approached, the villagers had been talking and laughing with each other while they worked. Now they were silent, the only sound the near constant chirp of crickets, sounding now more like a screamed warning than the romantic background noise of summer that they usually represented for him.
“Hi there, guys and gals, we heard there might be some music here tonight?” said Syd, hood off, his always impeccable hair coiffed into the stylish scruff that he clearly thought would pass as that of a travelling worker.
“There will be, aye, once Saa arrives,” replied the woman closest to them as she stood to greet them. “Travelling through are you? Can’t say I recognise you.”
“Just stopping on our way through to the capital. The name’s Bilt, and this here is Torl.” Syd gestured at Barden, who tried his best to smile.
“Nice to meet you,” Barden muttered.
“If it’s music you’re after, Saa should be along soon. In the meantime, care to join us with this hut? We’ve all been squeezed dry at work all week, so we’re making scant progress this evening.”
Despite himself, Barden allowed himself to look closer at the house the workers were growing between them. It consisted of two curved lines of five short saplings, each sapling about four foot from its neighbour, together forming an elongated circle. Each tree, despite being only about four foot tall, had already grown remarkably, their branchless trunks growing wide on one axis and thin on the other, such that each stretched towards the next in the line. He had never before reflected properly on the huts, forming as they did part of the dirty, chaotic backdrop to his very few forays into the village. Here, in the light from the villagers’ torches and in their young, half-grown state, they looked somehow both astonishingly strange and perfectly natural: they formed shapes that trees had no right to be; and yet they somehow seemed right, like each had meant to be this shape all along.
Barden was drawn from his reflections sharply by a kick in the shin from Syd. “We’d be happy to help, wouldn’t we Torl? Although to be honest with you, it’s been years since we’ve lived anywhere what had houses like this, let alone live plants to use for much of anything. Brewers we are, back home, so don’t have much use fer growin’. But we’ll try our very best.” Barden cringed at Syd’s affected accent and purposeful misuse of grammar. It made the whole thing worse, added a layer of conceit to the lie that made his skin crawl.
Syd dragged Barden by the sleeve towards the circle, and shook hands with the woman who had greeted them.
“Oh I almost forgot! We brought some of our beer with us, for the group, didn’t we Torl?” Syd held his hand towards Barden expectantly.
“We did, yes, here”, said Barden as he fumbled his bag from his back and withdrew the large glass flagon they had decanted some imported beer into earlier that day. “It’s a dark winter beer, like they drink in the north. We thought you might like to try it.” Barden handed it to the villager, eyeing Syd coldly.
“Well, ‘aint that a treat! Thank you boys, that’s very kind. I’m sure we’ll be able to overlook your slow growing if we’ve beer in our bellies.” She gave Barden a broad smile, and handed the bottle to a young man who had been seated next to her. He produced a number of small cups and began passing round the beer. “The name’s Hanta, and it’s my son’s hut we’re working on this evening.” The man with the cups nodded and smiled at Barden and Syd. “He’s to be married next month, so we’ve got some work ahead of us! We always ask Saa to come play for us while we’re growing if she can - it keeps us from nodding off. You boys are lucky, though, it’s not that often she has the time. Please, sit.”
Barden sat where Hanta had indicated, next to an old, balding woman with the round, rock-solid, protruding belly that was a clear sign of a life in the curl factories. She smiled warmly and nodded her head, before turning back to concentrate on her work. Awkwardly, he placed his hand on the tree, before quickly drawing it back in shock. Did living trees always feel like this? He’d touched few enough in his lifetime to say for sure.
The woman sitting next to him chuckled, removed her hand from the tree and turned to Barden. “I’m sorry, love. I didn’t think, your friend did say you don’t do this much, and there was I messing about with the roots. Awful deep feel growing roots has, if you’re not familiar. Here, we’ll do something more gentle if you’d like?”
Barden turned to look at Syd, who was busy pretending to touch his own tree, his sleeve tucked up under his palm. Typical. All his faux-radical bullsh**--his talk about snobbishness and classism and the hypocrisy of their dependence on a wealth produced by means they found too distasteful to ever do themselves--it was all just bluster: he was as disgusted by the idea of mingling with nature as any of them. Well, Barden wouldn’t be a hypocrite. He had meant it when he’d said he didn’t understand what all the fuss was about, that it seemed they were missing out on something powerful and exciting because of their stupid taboos.
Barden touched the tree again tentatively, despite her words bracing himself for the low, stomach-shaking vibration that he had felt moments ago. This time it was much fainter, lighter and at a higher frequency - he felt a firm buzzing in his forearm, rather than in his guts as before.
“We’ll just keep stretching out the trunk, making it a wall. You ok with that?”
Barden stared at the woman stupidly. “Yes, sure…”
“Been that long, eh?” she asked, winking. “Just remember, you’re not trying to force the tree to do anything it doesn’t want to do. Focus on the tree itself, not what it looks like now but how it is, inside; how it wants to be. Once you know the tree, you’ll see it’s never just one thing. You’ll see all the different things it wants to become, depending on how the world is around it. Have you been in the forest?” Barden nodded, his disguise and story of being from out of town forgotten already. “Then you’ll have seen those old dead trees in all different shapes, right? Thin ones, fat ones, ones grown round other, even older trees? All those shapes were inside the tree from the start, as possibilities, paths it might want to follow if the world was right for it. We just need to find the path that suits us best, and encourage it along that path. You’ll see what I mean.”
Barden focused, trying hard to feel what the old woman was talking about. What the tree wanted to be? Was she pulling his leg? Was this some sort of test? Workers round here learned how to do this pretty much before they learnt to walk - did she really believe Syd’s tale that their lack of skill was just due to being from out of town? The villagers knew that the upper classes disdained all such connections - was she sniffing him out?
