Since my “lords and ladies” aren’t nearly as above “just folks” as the historical European equivalents, I am not too worried that they’ll come across as cliche.
Laurel is one of the major characters, but if I had to pick a single character and say “This is the who the novel is about,” it would be Stephan.
(I notice you have a tendancy to quote Inklings at me for examples… No offense intended – I read The Chronicles of Narnia and The Hobbit when I was 8 years old, and fell in love with those books instantly – but I’m not out to imitate them. In fact, my first stories set in this world were written specifically to be unlike Tolkien’s stories. Look – no Evil Overlord or anything!)
How can a female deity be passe if a male one isn’t?
Sci Fi & Fantasy / Midsummer (Analysis)
Midsummer Night, and all the world awake..., thought Laurel. The city-wide revelry was winding down somewhat; now came the long wait until morning.
In the great hall of the castle, everyone had pulled benches into a circle for the storytelling and singing. An elderly wizard from the Enclave recited an epic poem about the Coldmetal War, as she did every year. And Raven left the room until she was finished, as he did every year. Now it was Doran’s turn, and he began by telling about the last time he’d gone adventuring, as he called it, slaying dragons and championing the weak and other things that were inevitably made into ballads. Laurel found it hard to imagine Doran championing anyone but himself.
”...the beast melted my shield!” Doran was saying. ”I escaped the worst of it, praise Marrah, and rammed my spear down its maw when it came at me to flame again. The beast was consumed by its own foul fire!” he ended with a flourish.
Awed silence filled the hall.
“Liar.”
All eyes turned, shocked, toward this new speaker.
“Dragons,” said the young man sitting in the shadows of a deep windowsill, “do not breathe fire. Not the way you’re claiming, anyway.” He looked directly at Doran, and torchlight glinted in his eyes.
Doran recovered quickly. ”Well,” he sneered, “if it isn’t the castle’s new pet wizardling… I don’t know what moldy tome you picked up this bit of information from, but if you’d had any experience with -”
“As a matter of fact,” said Stephan, “I have.”
“Stop,” whispered Rodric from nearby, “before you make it worse.” Stephan paid him no heed.
“Oh?” said Doran. He was going to shame this wizardling – and his master – in front of half the nobles in Haefenspoint. ”And I suppose a mighty war-mage such as yourself makes a habit of battling dragons… Just to keep in practice, of course.”
If that wasn’t a challenge, Rodric didn’t know what was. He’d sensed this confrontation approaching for a long time; Doran’s contempt for all wizards was well known, and Stephan seemed to hold some personal grudge against the boastful warrior. Rodric didn’t blame him. Still, the Masterwizard wished his apprentice had chosen a better time and place to settle things.
Stephan said nothing in reply to Doran’s mocking words, only sat there in the shadows looking back at him. Laurel suspected that the apprentice-wizard was correct in part: Doran was lying. Even had Marrah Herselves been there to aid him, Bright goddess to guide his spear and Dark to heal his injuries afterward, Doran could not have fought a dragon and won. No matter what Stephan said, there were too many old warnings against the dangers of dragonfire. On the other hand, Laurel did wish he hadn’t lied himself in order to refute Doran’s claims; it would only cause more trouble for the young wizard later.
Tension in the air hung heavy until Laurel’s father, reminding them that this was after all a festival night, called for someone else to take their turn. A merchant’s son stood then and, with a respectful nod to the king, began a series of humorous songs in hopes of lightening the mood.
Laurel found herself from time to time stealing glances toward Rodric’s apprentice. He listened to the songs, but did not join in with many of the other guests on the refrains, nor did he so much as smile as the singer related the misadventures of a farmer who thinks his goose is enchanted. There at the window, by some trick of the combined light of fire and false dawn, Stephan’s eyes seemed to cast back a glow that was neither golden nor silvery but a wild green.
Some odd little magic, Laurel thought, an illusion he practices to keep himself amused. And that color goes so well with his hair... She hid a yawn; she had gotten little sleep these past several nights, and now keeping vigil at the Midsummer turning was more difficult than usual. Morning can’t be but a couple of hours off, and then I’ll sleep even if Doran’s dragon comes to my door.
Asleep that day, she dreamed a dragon, a terrible, beautiful thing the color of sunset on autumn hills, a dragon that in the way of dreams became the apprentice-wizard Stephan, and stared at her with his eyes that were somehow still the dragon’s eyes, and said to her, Dragons do not breathe fire, as if it were very important that she understand this.
It was so obvious what he meant that she tried to reply, Yes, of course, but she could not speak, and then the dream was gone, and Laurel was awake in the early afternoon of the first day of the year’s slow decent into winter.
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thefierywrath reviewed Version 1 -
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You should further this into a novel. It kept me interested. Once line that I felt rather cliche was ”If that wasn’t a challenge, Rodric didn’t know what was.”, but I do not have any suggestions on what to replace it with. Also I was confused with the line, “Even had Marrah Herselves been there to aid him, Bright goddess to guide his spear and Dark to heal his injuries afterward…” When you use “Herselves” are you refering to the name? I believe that there should be an explanation about this, because it doesn’t make sense to me.
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lostthunder reviewed Version 1 -
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considering the fact that this is only a part, its difficult to say anything about character development or description. something could be described in Stephan, seems like this is a first appearance of the guy. but the tension was nice, i always like to have the feeling of a fight to gain attention. the dream sequence, in my humble opinion, could use a little more detail. good work overall.
JamDive reviewed Version 1 -
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I’ll try to address your concerns in the order you presented them.
1. Setting—Skillfully drawn, effectively executed. On the other hand, Frodo was just a country squire who wanted to wander around the old neighborhood at night and write effete poetry a la Uncle Bilbo. Just folks, I mean to say. I think that the fantasy conceit of castles, lords and ladies is on the cusp of achieving full blown Cliché status. Which isn’t criticism of what you’ve written, just a humble suggestion that we may be falling into certain patterns in the fantasy genre :)
The Characters—You manage to invest your creations with Personality very quickly! Laurel is especially well drawn, and I assume she would be the protag when you decide to turn this into a novel. You have tension within a paragraph or three—very nice! Somewhat in keeping with what I said in point 1, choosing wizards and warriors is becoming somewhat standard; Eustace Scrubb and Jill Pole were just schoolchildren who were jerked into Narnia on an otherwise unremarkable day. This is again not meant as a negative criticism of your work, just as kicking the idea around.
Plot—from what I can see you’ve arranged for any number of developments which could arise from these events. It may be a band of comrades against impossible odds, it may be a woman alone and trapped in a tightening web of intrigue. I don’t know how helpful this is, but I definitely think you have a sound structure to build almost any story upon. As to whether I think it’s worth pursuing, I suppose the preceding is answer enough.:)
This is just my opinion, but I do feel the whole female deity thing has become somewhat passé. It’s practically de rigueur now. Excellent idea to imply multiple awarenessness with ‘Herselves’, though! That was a stroke of real genius. Hope this was helpfull to you!
the_venus_in_isis reviewed Version 1 -
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I think this is good and you’ve started off with two strong characters who will obviously butt heads (to the audiences delight) some time later. I haven’t read any parts of this prior, but I believe I shall after this tasty little morsel. You captured the reader immediately by entering a conflict at the beginning, and the momentum carried me through the rest of the piece. I wonder about the POV, because it seems to flounder a bit when you shift from Laurel to Rodric and back. The second to last paragraph I think would read better without the ‘and’. ’she dreamed a dragon…stared at her’
The ‘color of sunset on autumn hills’, beautiful description! Felt like I know exactly the color you mean. Though you can’t tell too much of the plot, it does promise to be an out-and-out adventure, with wizards, dragons, warriors, etc.
As far as the setting, I think you gave a good rather ‘middle-age/dak ages’ feel to it, though I do think you could take the reader deeper into description. How big is the circle of benches? Where is Laurel sitting in comparison to the apprentice? What do the walls look like? And the floor? Windows? Etc. Overall, nicely done!
IntenseTigerGirl reviewed Version 1 -
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I do think that the same old story of wizards and dragons have played out enough. Very well written; but if you have other projects that are not in this genre, then my opinion is that you work on those.
I also love how you keep the description to a minimum, too many writers over do the descriptive and damper the story. So Kudos for that.
ammahaffey reviewed Version 1 -
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First of all, your talent at writing is obvious. You are not a fledgling storyteller, grappling with words as if they were an enemy that must be defeated.
However, I’m very sorry to admit, but I find the theme to this story very overdone. I cannot tell you how many times I have read a dragon story or book. Frankly, I’m tired of the idea in the same way that I have outgrown vampires. I just don’t believe this is original enough and what are we, as writers, if we can’t invoke a little originality?
My sense is that you haven’t finished this story because of its repetitiveness to so many others before. Sometimes our minds and bodies are trying to tell us something. Anyway, keep working at your writing, I have a feeling that you have better ideas that would be enough to occupy you for a lifetime. I hate being so harsh, but I want to be honest with you, and since you are asking, I cannot lie; I urge you to not waste any more time with this.
PrepPunkWannabe reviewed Version 1 -
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“she dreamed a dragon”<—I think you meant dreamed of.
I definitely think you should continue. This fragment has just enough information and suspense to keep the reader interested. I, for one, would love to read more about these characters. Stephan, in particular, because of his need to get dragon facts straight, and more about Raven, seeing as how he shows up once and is gone.
upfromsumdirt reviewed Version 1 -
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i came of age on comic books/conan novels/dungeons & dragons, and this plays nicely to those genres. dialog is effective, but feels clichéd only because of the subject matter and the action/reaction of the characters. but it has a fast pace and you draw your reader into the story, so any success will be on the strength of your narrative skills and the consistency of the interaction between characters, both of which seem apparent. the genre of fantasy has a built-in audience, so character development and conflict/resolution should be your focus more than scene/setting.
shawner_p reviewed Version 1 -
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I really enjoyed this fragment of your story. The setting was interesting. The plot appears to have many ways it could go and I would enjoy finding out where your charachters take you. So we know there are wizards, who are those who are not identified at wizards? If Doran hates all wizards but is in the company of them…who is he and why is he part of this revelry? I know, those things will come with the whole story. Just something I tried to figure out in this fragment.
I didn’t find anything that I felt was cliche or annoying. Let me know when you add to it.
EvadBelBurgh reviewed Version 1 -
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Hi. :-)
I only have one issue with it: Laurel. You might as well take her out of the piece because she isn’t playing any part. Don’t mean to sound like an a-hole, but that’s my opinion. Who’s story is this piece? Once you know that, you can restructure the story from that person’s POV (or from the complete opposite person’s POV) and it’ll work much better.
Anyway, Doran was well characterized, and I immediatly felt that Stephan was hinding something other than being the only one to take on Doran, very cool.
Also, the surprising duality of the Goddess(s) and the way you used their duality, very cool.
And the elderly wizard from the Enclave also being a woman, nicely done.
:-)
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