The Blue King - Prologue

"The Blue King" is my latest work -- criticism is EXTREMELY WELCOME. I love this novel, and I hope to make it the best it can be, and I can think of no better way than to have a host of other writers look it over. I hope you enjoy it!

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For more than a millennia, the world had been divided in two, ruled by two separate bloodlines—J’engar and Talon. Once, it was said, the two bloodlines were one, and the world unified under one banner, but Talons especially hate to hear such talk. For in Talon, it is said that they are the one true bloodline, and for many centuries, it appeared to be so. Talon existed as a shining, beautiful country, full of glittering waterfalls and green pastures—its people were rich and happy, rebellions instantly crushed by the royal family’s personal army, the Gaenu.

And J’engar?

J’engar was a wasteland, a landscape of unforgiving rock and sand, a desert world—supposedly uninhabitable. It was for this reason that the bastard prince of Talon—bearing his mother’s name, J’engar—was banished with the rest of Talon’s prisoners to the desert, in the hopes that they would not survive. They survived, and well; they gradually took control of their hellish world until their border pushed up against the first green hills. And for a millennia, they advanced no further, and Talon fell no farther back. For a millennia the people of Talon—for the most part—ignored the people of J’engar, and the people of J’engar told stories of how they would be one day be avenged.

This is an info dump. Keep it, for your own information purposes, but don't use it in your story. Start with chapter one, with your characters and plot, and describe the conflicts of you society in the story later in the narrative. You don't have to tell the reader everything all at once. Writing is sort of like a strip tease -- if I suddenly bared my chest, it wouldn't be nearly as effective as if I slipped off a shoe... and then a sock...

You get the point.

Anyway, happy writing.

I agree with Snoink. Er...hem...the little illustration about the strip tease, if slightly unorthodox, was effective. Pay attention to Snoink!

Your writing style seems to flow smoothly and your grammar, spelling, punctuation, etc are all very good. It's just a huge block of information. It looks like a really good, cool plot, but it'd be better if you just, as Snoink said, start with Chapter 1 and work in all that information as you go.

Pm me when you do and I'd love to run down and take a look at it. I can't wait to see what Chapter 1 really looks like.

Au revoir!

~Madame Kool

P.S. Welcome to the site!

P.P.S. Thanks for critiquing my story, Mercenary Wings! The reason I used real-life names is because I believe that fantasy stories too often have unintelligible names like A'ringhltz, which look cool but are impossible to pronounce. So. But thanks! ~M-K

Ah, telling!

Oh, wow, I love Snoink's previous comparison of writing and stripping... how provocative. She's completely right, although I can explain this in less of an explicate way. When you meet someone, you don't automatically learn everything about them, do you? Of course not, because that would be weird! Same thing with your story, we should slowly learn the information, and for that matter, the information should be so seamlessly placed into the narration that we don't even realize we are being given information. This is just info... and telling. Give us a story, and people, and conflict, and humans that we can relate to, and things we can sense and feel and touch and hear.

All in all, I'm just repeating Snoink with more words. Yay, repetition!

*Rubs hands together* Ooo... I sense the start of a pretty good story. Uh, for some reason I wouldn't do my proluage like this but thats only cause I'm wierd so...

Uh, I thought it was good that you made the good kingdom a name thats easier to remember cause when I was trying to remember the difference between the two, Talon sounds more regal so.

You might want to give just a little bit more detail, like how the two kingdom's got sepereated. I also find it interesting that there's no defined boreder. Shouldn't there be a huge wall or something? To keep out the desert people? Just an idea. Other than that stuff I liked it. Time to go crit the rest!


~Pol~

Ahh...yup...they about covered it all. It's an info dump, but if you could make it less info-dumpish you might pull it off. Don't ask me what that means, just follow the other people's instructions , I'm too tired to give good advice right now. Anyway, off to read chapter 1 .

-The Jay of Green

Well well,

We meet again, second half of my comment earlier.

This peice is the answer to my earlier comment on your work.

What I personally think is if you take this and mix it with the first few chapters of your story, it will create the desired effect.

But, then again, I am a fan of long, long, Long details and lots of information with everything in the story.

Thanks for the good read.

Jadix

hmm...i really like this. it is a little too much information, but you know, it could work. build it up a little slower though; describe everything while you're introducing your characters. everybody loves eavesdropping - maybe let us hear a conversation with the son of Talon, when he is being exiled. it would be more intriguing but still give us a good mental image of the landscape. also:

"They survived, and well;"

any grammar nut will tell you not to use a conjunction at the beginning of a sentence, but i think that it can add emphasis sometimes. so, this sentence would sound cool if you said something like, "But they did survive, and they thived there in the desert." something along those lines.

hope i helped!

~Sunny

p.s. thanks for reviewing "Firebrand"