Ballad of Blood and Tears(prelude/work in progress)

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The coach that arrived to take Caleb Niite to the school he would be attending was small, just large enough for him and his small amount of luggage to fit. It arrived at 8:30 that morning, but Caleb had been sitting outside the manor since 5:00. He stared pensively out from the porch, sitting on the railing that bordered hit, his icy blue eyes and a matching colored tie the only things visible in the dark. His elder brother Charles had picked out the outfit, wanting to send his usually unstylishly dressed brother off looking cool, for once. Caleb had not argued, merely accepted it, and this early morning he had sat on the porch in a black silk shirt and ice blue tie, and some black pants tight around the waist that poofed out as the reached his feet. His dark skin blended in quite well in the dark, and so did his hair, which he had colored black as to appear more normal.
Caleb Niite, the heir to the Salamander family, was being sent to a special school to hone his chosen skill set as an Assasin. As most of his half brothers had chosen more powerful things, from Berserkers to Combat mages, the fact that Drake Ares Salamander's true son chose something considered weak and cowardly was frowned down upon even more than usual. But then, Caleb had always been an odd one.
Since his birth 15 years ago, it was suspected Caleb would be unique even among his already odd and unique family. With naturally white hair to begin with, that had eventually evolved into a bright blue, and eyes the frosty icey gray/blue color that marked his cold demeanor, quiet Caleb Leon Niite had been an interesting switch up from the hyperactive and boisterous children that usually were sired by his War Herald father. To be able to sit on a porch railing, silent and patient, for hours on end, was unheard of in his family, and that demeanor had marked him for life. Shunned by both his peers out of fear, and his family out of disgust and disapointment, Caleb had withdrawn into the peaceful cold of ice that seemed to represent him. Yet another oddity to mark him, as Salamander's children usually preferred fire and earth, with the occaisonal wind. The older ones had mastered the art of controlling lightning after decades of practice, and would have screamed bloody murder if they learned Caleb had mastered that aspect of it at ten years of age.
Despite his seeming disinterest, Caleb was quite excited to go off to school. To be away from this place, where he had known so much pain as a child for no other reason than his birth, living with a family who was constantly disapointed in him, and where he was constantly prodded unsuccesfully to anger, to fight, to prove himself as Drake's son, to just leave without running away, it was both relieving and refreshing. Especially going to a school where not talking about yourself was the norm, where secrets were not only kept but were expected and endoresed, where being silent and calm and deadly, where being born of ice was an asset, not a liability. For Caleb's world was one of ice and wind, of silent falling snow, of things quickly appearing and just as quickly gone. It was where he belonged, and where he was finally, after 15 years of being misplaced and lost, going.

-End Prelude part 1-

Well, that is the first part of my Prelude. I eagerly await critiscism and opinions.
-Gabriel Ellion Niite-




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Hey, welcome to the site. =)

For an opening to a novel (I assume this is a novel?) this is all a bit too slow for my tastes. Nothing actually happens. The entirety of the Prelude is backstory, character history and world building. That stuff is all well and good, and you'll want to include it in the novel somewhere - you just don't want to include it in the opening.

To care about your character's and world's history, the reader has to first care about the character and the world. And for that to happen, there needs to be story. Stuff has to happen.

In my opinion, I think you should just cut out everything you have here, and just open your novel with stuff happening. It could be Gabriel getting on the coach, or arriving at the school, or anything really. That'll get the reader interested in your story, and then you can start revealing backstory.

But don't reveal it all at once, though, because that's overwhelming, and the reader won't take it in, and it'll be a bit boring to read through: it's like having a few pages of an encyclopaedia dumped unceremoniously in the middle of an adventure story - everything stops and the author starts spouting facts at you, when you don't want facts, you want story. Sprinkle character and world history throughout your novel, in small, easy to chew, bite-sized chunks.

Short version:

-- Start with action, not backstory.
-- Reveal backstory gradually throughout novel.

Hope that helps somewhat. =)


-- Sureal
I wrote the above just for you.




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I think Sureal pretty much covers it all in the above review. It sounds like you have an interesting fantasy world here, but you need to let us in slowly; the reader needs to relate to fantasy, and that's impossible if you offload it all at once and we're buried under all your world's facets. We don't want to be lost in your world before we really see anything happen in it, which is the other problem with this prelude. Nothing happens and we aren't given a chance to relate. There is such a thing as too much detail.

I would think about the necessities of having a prologue/prelude to your piece. Do you really, really need it? Does it add anything? If not, go straight into the plotline, and allow your backstory to develop naturally in the dialogue and narrative. Here's an article all about prologues and whether you need them or not. This writer's against them, so he's a bit biased, but it's still worth reading for another opinion. It does talk about background information, but I think you've already understood that there's nothing here which can't be integrated into the main narrative.

As for what's written here, I'd debate the literal appearance of Caleb (which in itself is quite a clichéd, overused name in fantasy these days) relating to his personality. Clothes can relate to personality, because that's essentially what image is, but nobody is born looking like the person they will become, even in fantasy. The connection here isn't subtle enough. In fact, I'd take away the name Ares from the father, too, because again, it's too obvious. Don't allow your characters to fall into stereotypes so early on, because you're just making it more difficult for yourself to develop them later. They need to be rounded.

Nitpicks: misspelling of assassin. Also, Caleb dies his hair black so he doesn't "stand out" and then wears a black silk shirt. In a world where black silk shirts are considered normal, whatever's wrong with blue hair?

Good luck with edits if you decide to continue, and with the rest of the novel/short.

- Jet.



A non-writing writer is a monster courting insanity.
— Franz Kafka