Icy Paths Chapter 1

Hiya everyone! Please be brutally honest with this.

Chapter 1
Surprise, surprise




Liam lay back in his wooden seat, observing all the members of the Honorable Sword and the scrolls that littered the long table. Marcus will be chosen, definitely.
The opponent who had already won was sitting erect as a poker in his seat, garbed in gray robes, looking alert. His dark eyes shown with determination.

Liam ran his hands through his short night black hair as the leader of the Honorable Sword seated himself. William scratched his eyebrow with his thumb, looking harried. "Liam will be taking Rhen."
Liam felt sure he hadn't heard correctly. There were a few murmurs of approval, and then Marcus banged his fist on the table, looking furious.
"WHAT do you mean Liam?" he asked loudly, glaring at William.
"Liam has qualities you don't, that make him the perfect companion for Rhen," said William nervously.
Marcus stood up, knocking his chair to the ground, and stormed out of the room.
There were exasperated sighs. The corner of Liam's mouth turned up in a smile. William was in for a gigantic explosion with Marcus afterwards.
"Now we will proceed to the priests of Morion..." said William, looking like he would rather be dead.
Liam zoned out. This was for the religious among them, him absent. He looked around the high-ceilinged, oak-paneled room. The walls were lined with paintings of battle scenes and large maps. One painting depicted a crowd of men in gray robes sitting at a long rectangular table, poring over scrolls and maps with one man standing at the head of the table, looking majestic.
It was identical to the scene Liam was in, except the faces was different and William looked anything but majestic. He looked like a mouse who had been given power over a pride of lions.
Liam took to studying the faces of each of the members of the Honorable Sword. The discussion continued for a while longer, then William declared the meeting adjourned, and called Liam to him.
"I am flattered you have chosen me," said Liam, smiling playfully as he approached his leader.
"As well you should be," answered William, looking distracted. He rubbed the back of his blond hair. "Marcus is going to kill me."
"You'd better not go anywhere alone," said Liam.
"I know. Anyway, here is the map to the Elves of the Moon, I marked all the quickest routes for you. Try to hurry. And here is a letter for her grandparents," said William, handing the articles to Liam as he spoke.
"The poor girl will get a great shock," said Liam as he put the items in a satchel he had brought, and exited the meeting room.

It's unclear what's going on and what they're being chosen for exactly.
[quote="flytodreams"
Liam lay back in his wooden seat, observing all the members of the Honorable Sword and the scrolls that littered the long table. Marcus will be chosen, definitely.
The opponent who had already won was sitting erect as a poker in his seat, garbed in gray robes, looking alert. His dark eyes shown with determination.there should be more detail with this sentence about who he is and such

Liam ran his hands through his short night black hair as the leader of the Honorable SwordThe honorable sword is what? you never did tell us seated himself. William scratched his eyebrow with his thumb, looking harried. "Liam will be taking Rhen."
Liam felt sure he hadn't heard correctly. There were a few murmurs of approval, and then Marcus banged his fist on the table, looking furious.
"WHAT do you mean Liam?" he asked loudly, glaring at William.
"Liam has qualities you don't, that make him the perfect companion for Rhen," said William nervously.
Marcus stood up, knocking his chair to the ground, and stormed out of the room.
There were exasperated sighs. The corner of Liam's mouth turned up in a smile. William was in for a gigantic explosion with Marcus afterwards.
"Now we will proceed to the priests of Morion..." said William, looking like he would rather be dead.
Liam zoned out. This was for the religious among them, him absent. He looked around the high-ceilinged, oak-paneled room. The walls were lined with paintings of battle scenes and large maps. One painting depicted a crowd of men in gray robes sitting at a long rectangular table, poring over scrolls and maps with one man standing at the head of the table, looking majestic.
It was identical to the scene Liam was in, except the faces was different and William looked anything but majestic. He looked like a mouse who had been given power over a pride of lions.Nice description
Liam took to studying the faces of each of the members of the Honorable Sword. would you describe these faces/or peopleThe discussion continued for a while longer, then William declared the meeting adjourned, and called Liam to him.
"I am flattered you have chosen me," said Liam, smiling playfully as he approached his leader.
"As well you should be," answered William, looking distracted. He rubbed the back of his blond hair. "Marcus is going to kill me."
"You'd better not go anywhere alone," said Liam.
"I know. Anyway, here is the map to the Elves of the Moon, I marked all the quickest routes for you. Try to hurry. And here is a letter for her grandparents," said William, handing the articles to Liam as he spoke.
"The poor girl will get a great shock," said Liam as he put the items in a satchel he had brought, and exited the meeting room.[/quote]

Hi flytodreams,

This piece was too thin for me to follow. I'm not getting a clear sense of the characters. It's not intuitively obvious how many characters there are in this scene - who is the "opponent who had already won"? Is he one of the named characters, or another? Who is the girl mentioned at the end? (Also, having a character called William and a character called a common nickname for William in the same story is confusing. It's like having a Robert and a Bob, or a James and a Jamie.)

The character motivations weren't coherent to me either.

* At first Liam seems pretty uncaring about the fact that the Marcus character will be chosen for some unspecified task.
* Then when Liam is told that Liam will be doing another unspecified task, which may or may not be the same as the first, he "felt sure he hadn't heard correctly", but I can't tell why - is this a task for which Liam is unqualified, so he's surprised he's being sent instead of a more experienced person? Is it dangerous, and he's angry about being sent into danger? What's going on?
* Then he zones out into daydreaming without appearing to think any more about the unspecified task. So I assume the task isn't actually important?
* And then the meeting wraps up without any real emotion on Liam's part.

I don't understand what this task is, why Marcus was supposed to be chosen, why Liam was chosen instead, what anyone thinks or feels about any of this, or why the reader should care.

I did enjoy the dialogue, although I found the dialogue tags too obtrusive - they were also quite repetitive, with 90% of them being in this format: "[Dialogue]," said [character], doing [action].

Ultimately, I think this needs to be expanded to make it comprehensible to the reader.

Karsten

Hiya Fly, here as I said I would be!

Okay, I'm going to skip nitpicks. :]

Hmm... this seemed kind of short, and I have no clue what's going on. It seems more like a preface or a prologue or something.

Okay, it could use description about what's going on, what everything means, what people look like. Smells, what things feel like, look like. =)

Another thing I want to point out it that you are telling, not showing in some spots. Showing = good.
Example:

"Liam has qualities you don't, that make him the perfect companion for Rhen," said William nervously.

Okay, so William's nervous. You say he's nervous, but you don't show us. Show us that he's sweating, playing with his fingers, glancing around the room. Something. You know how you make actions and stuff? You're characters should do the same. Remember, humans communicate more through actions than actual dialogue.

Marcus stood up, knocking his chair to the ground, and stormed out of the room.

Here, you can add more emotion: He sood up, his eyes blazing or something. Just a sugestion.
This ties in with needing to add more emotion. Again actions, or you can say he was happy/sad/angry or something. Just don't forget those actions! :]

Sorry for the bad review.

Becca

To be honest, I enjoyed the STORY. But that's the problem with this piece. A lot of story, and you simply skim over the descriptions and details. Things that you perhaps take for granted that they will be understood by others should be clarified. Example: Who is the girl mentioned at the end. Who is the opponent that has already won? If the opponent that has already won is Marcus, how come that Liam comes out victorious? So many things that the reader WANTS to know; you give the reader the thirst needed to hook him into the story; yet that thirst is not quenched, therefore he simply loses interest in the story. However, I really liked the way you described William's position of power(a mouse over a pride of lions). Work on this please, if you want to publish a full book, this is too short and undescriptive to be placed as first chapter. The story as a whole is intriguing, so don't leave it in this unfinishedway! I promise it'll be much better after editing. Cheers

Thanks so much for the reviews!

By having Marcus being mentioned and then referring to him as "the opponent who had already won", I was under the impression it would make it clear that the opponent was Marcus. I guess not.

flytodreams wrote:By having Marcus being mentioned and then referring to him as "the opponent who had already won", I was under the impression it would make it clear that the opponent was Marcus. I guess not.

The disconnect, for me, is that Liam says Marcus will be chosen (in the future), but the opponent has already won (in the past). So I figured those were two different people.

It's a similar disconnect as to whether the whole scene is referring to the same task all the way through. Because at first the task is "taking" and "being a companion" to "Rhen" - Rhen could be a person or a thing or anything, really. And then at the end they talking about having to hurry to go to the Elves of the Moon and taking a letter from somebody's grandparents and an unnamed girl will get a shock. So it's possible to infer that Rhen is the girl, but then I'm asking myself, if it's the same person and/or the girl is important, why isn't the girl named?

This is easy to smooth out by just consistently using names.