Application

[svenjaliv]

Judging by the ratio of rejected to accepted applications, I guess I've got bad odds, but here's hoping. I'm not one of those people who considers their work "high art", my main interest being in telling stories and telling them well. I'm looking for feedback and criticism, so please do tell me what you think. At the very least, I'll get some idea

Comments

No.

[bileograph]

I'm also going to say No.

Somerled's comments here are pretty on the mark. The thing about great writing is that it tries to re-create an experience rather than re-tell it. Part of that re-creation is writing sentences that are visceral as opposed to expository.

But there's another problem here.

What's going to make your story worth reading? I know it's just the beginning of a larger work, but based on the opening there's nothing here that sets it apart from other fantasy stories. Your story is competing for the attention of people who'd rather watch a toothpaste commercial than read a newspaper. There's got to be something in this plot, something more than stock action sequences (I can't help but feel like I'm watching an episode of Xena or something) to keep it going.

Which is another way of saying: Watch out for cliches.

Give us something unexpected. Something, to the best of your knowledge, no one has done before with a fantasy setting. Don't let the genre dominate your story-- it's only a staging. A plot needs to rise above the genre, or else it risks being derivative.

Fine. Smuggling. That's kind of interesting. I don't know a lot about fantasy, but I haven't seen that before. What's involved in that? What are the specific details about that that a reader will find interesting?

Re: No.

[svenjaliv]

Yeah, cliches are a major thing I'm trying to avoid. That's why I don't have an orphaned farmboy with a mysterious past, I have a nobleman who's trained as a warrior, but with no speshal magick talents. I want a different hero, the kind of guy who learns that doing the right thing for love or something is going to get him nowhere, rather than the other way around. Hence the smuggling and his subsequent exile. Which I personally haven't come across either, not in fantasy. I want to avoid the whole "special farm boy is told of his special destiny by a wise old man and follows him into the unknown" thing because, honestly, I find it boring as hell.