1st Chapter Critique by Robert L. Bacon
December 2, 2010
Hello Rosane,
Overall, the writing of this opening chapter is quite good. Your story has delightful characters in Camilla and Cael, and the concept for the storyline is rock solid. And while the lead characters and storyline are elements that are crucial for a novel to work, here are the issues I noticed that you might want to take a look at:
1) I realize that due to the constant revisions all writing goes through that it's easy for material to become out of sequence, and there are a few sections in this first chapter that I think could benefit if they were collated differently. You'll notice the way I moved around the material on the first page, and you can decide if this improves the fluency of the narrative. If you agree that it does, then you might want to go though your entire draft and see if you can smooth it out accordingly.
2) You've got a very long opening chapter (more on this later), and it appears that it might be even more expansive (since you followed my 5000-word guideline but the narrative still hadn't ended). Long chapters are very hard on the reader, especially at the ages of those who read YA material, since generally it seems that the younger the reader the shorter the attention span. I strongly recommend breaking up this chapter and trying to keep it and all of your chapters in the 1500 to 2500-word range. And if I had to make a choice between the two, I'd lean more toward the 1500-word level.
3) For the most part the punctuation is fine, but there is a tendency to overuse commas. Please look at the syntax in which I deleted commas in my line edit. Also, be on the alert to repeated words and their derivatives that are too close to one another ("reveal" twice in the second paragraph, for example).
4) The pacing seemed to really lag at the point of the dream being questioned by Cael, and in some other areas too. I think this first chapter could be trimmed substantially without diminishing the integrity of the plot elements. There's a lot of dialogue and byplay that doesn’t move the story along. To quantify this point, one-fourth to one-third of the narrative could be cut, regardless of how you broke up the chapter, should you take my earlier advice and do this. You can get some ideas of where to trim material as you parse what I deleted. If you work through the text in the same manner, the chapter would likely be in the 3500-word range, and much tighter all the way around. And the entire chapter could still be broken into at least two segments.
5) This line--A long time ago, two siblings were entrusted with a secret capable of changing the world’s fate--tells the reader too much of what is about to occur. It's sort of like a one-sentence prologue, and for this reason I would drop it.
Here are your first three pages for which I provided a cursory line-edit, followed by the same three pages without the annotations but that also include--in addition to the collating of material on the first page--some developmental ideas to enhance the rhythm of the narrative:
______________________________________________________________
CHAPTER ONE: THE REQUEST
The Sun, King of the Day, and the Moon, his companion of Light, noticed that the wicked Night was trying to transform the bright, happy, warm world into something dark, lifeless and cold. To try to stop this evil plan, they resorted to one last resource. In a desperate attempt, They decided to reveal the First to the world the secret of First, the very first of all gods, their mentor. This secret should have remained kept away hidden from the curious and fickle eyes of men, but driven by circumstance, and despite all the changes its disclosure could bring, they needed to reveal divulge its existence.
Worlds away from the realm of the Gods, in a humble house, beside a river, and hidden among the trees, lived the mystical siblings, Camilla and Cael Bexk. They were two very different dissimilar people, who loved each other deeply, learning and had learned how to live quite well together despite their differences.
That night, tired and cold after a long day in the forest, the Bexk siblings retired to their small house. After living in that place so long, they had already gotten used to the harsh winter. After dinner, they rested beside the warm fire and prepared for another night of bone-chilling cold, but then when they noticed something strange. As soon as the moon had appeared in the sky, the cold yielded to lovely warmth, as if the cold that night had lost its strength or had decided to spare them. From her bed, the older of the two, Camilla, looked around. The night continued outside with no noise to denote anything unordinary. Even the horses were quiet in the small stable behind the house. However, the strange warmth remained intense as if the whole forest was burning. She became worried, and called to her brother.
“It seems the house is burning, Cael. Get up and check what’s happening outside. Why is it so hot?”
“I won’t. You go!” He turned over in the bed.
“Cael!”
“Okay! Yikes! Why always me?”
“Hey, brother. Don’t complain. Go! After all, aren’t you the man of the house?”
“Cael.”
He looked around, searching for the person who said it. He saw nothing no one, and knowing that knew only he and Camilla lived there, so he believed it must have been her, trying to scare him.
He didn’t like the joke, and yelled, “Stop it, Camilla!” He became more nervous when only silence answered. He listened for a few minutes. Not hearing anything else and being satisfied that all was well, he turned back for the house.
Cael!” called the voice again.
“I have already told you to stop it,” he said when he saw Camilla standing in the front door.
“But I didn’t do anything,” she answered, finding this strange. Noticing her brother lingered outside, She walked farther outside and joined him in the dark.
“So, calling people at night, in the dark, to scare them, is nothing?”
She looked at her brother oddly. “But I haven’t called you! What’s up? Are you hearing voices?”
Breaking In the silence that followed, when not even the call of a night bird was heard, he heard the voice again calling his name. “Cael!
_________________________________________________________
CHAPTER ONE: THE REQUEST
These were the dark times when the Night tried to dominate the earth in the figure of the hideous Ingeborg. The few rays of the sun that still appeared were viewed as rebels by this creature that wanted to become the absolute ruler.
The Sun, King of the Day, and the Moon, his companion of Light, noticed that the wicked Night was trying to transform the bright, happy, warm world into something dark, lifeless, and cold. But the only one with any influence on the Night was the Moon, who, despite fighting for freedom, was imprisoned and condemned to live mainly in the dark.
To try to stop the Night's evil plan, the Sun and the Moon resorted to one last resource. They decided to reveal the First to the world, the very first of all gods, their mentor. This secret should have remained hidden from the curious and fickle eyes of men, but they were tired of fighting alone to maintain the balance of power. So, driven by circumstance, and despite all the changes the First's disclosure could bring, they needed to divulge its existence.
For a long time, they had tried to become heard by one special person who lived in a small house in the middle of a distant forest. Unfortunately, this person didn’t listen to their requests for help. Many frustrated attempts were made before the gods became weary of this person’s deaf ear and decided to take drastic measures.
Worlds away from the realm of the gods, in a humble house beside a river and hidden among the trees, lived the mystical siblings, Camilla and Cael Bexk. They were two very dissimilar people, but who loved each other deeply and had learned to live quite well together despite their differences.
Late one afternoon, tired and cold after a long day in the forest, the Bexk siblings retired to their small house. After dinner, they prepared for another night of bone-chilling cold, when they noticed something strange. As soon as the moon had appeared in the sky, the cold yielded to lovely warmth, as if the cold had lost its strength or decided to spare them. From her bed, the older of the two, Camilla, looked around. The night continued outside with no noise to denote anything unordinary. Even the horses were quiet in the small stable behind the house. However, the strange warmth remained. She became worried, and called to her brother.
“It seems the house is burning, Cael. Get up and check what’s happening outside. Why is it so hot?”
“I won’t. You go!” He turned over in the bed.
“Cael!”
“Okay! Yikes! Why always me?”
“Hey, brother. Don’t complain. Go! After all, aren’t you the man of the house?”
After leaving his warm bed, and shaking from fear because of having to go outside by himself after dark, he looked around. Everything seemed normal. Trying not to make any noise, he walked up to the border of the forest. His heart beat fast, but he saw nothing. Ready to go back, he heard a voice, barely louder than a whisper.
“Cael,” the voice then clearly called out to him.
He looked around, searching for the person who'd said it. He saw no one, and knowing that only he and Camilla lived in the area, he believed it was she who was trying to scare him.
He didn’t like the joke, and yelled, “Stop it, Camilla!” He became more nervous when only silence answered. He listened for a few minutes. Not hearing anything else and being satisfied that all was well, he turned back for the house.
He hadn't gotten far when the voice called out again, "Cael!”
He shrieked and covered his mouth to muffle the sound and rushed back to the house.
“I told you to stop it,” he said when he reached Camilla standing at the front door.
“But I didn’t do anything,” she answered, finding his remark strange. She walked farther outside and joined him in the dark.
“So calling people at night in the dark to scare them is nothing?”
She gave her brother an odd look. “But I haven’t called you! What’s up? Are you hearing voices?”
Breaking the silence that followed, he heard the voice again calling his name.
Frightened, he jumped, screamed, and—poof—transformed himself into a mouse that ran toward Camilla’s feet.
______________________________________________________Robert L. Bacon
theperfectwrite.com
For authors, The Perfect Write® is now providing
FREE QUERY LETTER REVIEW AND ANALYSIS.
Post your query to mailto:theperfectwrite@aol.com(no attachments) and visit the Sample Letters Page for examples of successful query letters.
The Perfect Write® offers comprehensive editing services, from manuscript critiques to complete revisions, including line-editing, along with query letter design and composition. For pricing, send your project requirements to mailto:theperfectwrite@aol.com
For business applications, The Perfect Write® also offers advanced services, from designing sophisticated sell sheets to crafting investor-appealing business plans for start-up enterprises. For a customized quote, please send your detailed project requirements to mailto:theperfectwrite@aol.com
No comments:
Post a Comment