Young Writers Society

Rated 16+ for violence, and later for general underhandedness and illegal trade (including drug trade).

Trigger warning for self harm mentions.

Updated: I am no longer seeking feedback on this work and have since removed it

Updated: 27/04/2014

FIRST DRAFT. It's got some parts that are halfway through editing and some arcs are halfway through being rewritten but I finished this dratted thing so HERE HAVE IT.

Also the first 20k~ or so have been reviewed (see other posts on this thread) so assume I know everything in the reviews about the beginning. Chapter 2 hasn't been reviewed as much but chapter 1 has. (Why I am updating this terribly old post instead of making a new one; so you know what I know.)

Back-cover blurb:

Kerani of Shira is supposed to be a proper noble woman, but an ideal magic combination has made her a bodyguard for her own family. Magically connected to her relatives more deeply than any hired help, she's the last line of defence against the assassinations that run rampant in a family vying for power. When her sister, and most important ward, leaves the family to marry the Crown Prince, she tries to find a new purpose by going through the family connections. In the process, she discovers a plot that undermines the very fabric of trade. And puts her family at risk.

Word count: 102,501





Note- The two documents are NEARLY identical, except for one tiny little pronoun change in the last few pages. Added a pdf for ereaders.

P.S.- Let me know if you have any trouble downloading the file.

Review started: 26/11/11

I believe I've seen the first part/s of this before, so I'm looking forward to seeing some more. I can't promise when I'll finish this, but I'll definitely let you know. You've said you just want to throw me in there, but once I've given my initial thoughts then feel free to give me specific areas to look at in more detail.

Review continued: 27/11/11

Plot

As I said in my last review, I'm not convinced by your opening. On one hand it introduces magic right at the beginning, which is good because clearly you've got a complex system to introduce to the reader, but then again the conflict is so suppressed and internalised that it hardly even feels like character-conflict at all. I think you could either spice this scene up or omit it entirely -- starting from where Cat stalks off to the training ground wouldn't be a bad place to begin things.

I still love the scene with Aryan -- he's a lovely character and balances Cat nicely as an opposite. It is an excellent opportunity to explore the system of magic a bit more, but we'll come on to that later.

The first time the reader meets Rain is touching and well-written. It's a good place for "Chapter One" to end as this scene feels like it finishes nicely. I have no complaints here at all.

I couldn't help but smile at the scene with Jalil, though as nice as it was to see the training ground again I can't help but feel like there must be other parts of the palace that Cat could be using. She's the bodyguard for the family, and is renowned for foiling assassination attempts, so shouldn't she have some sort of duties or patrols? It's not a big thing, but it caught my eye.

The outing to the mountains did seem a *little* contrived as it didn't seem like any of the characters had a burning desire to go out there into the open to be attacked by bandits. Something feels a little off about the motivation there, perhaps because Cat can be so sensible and dependable but then suggests this dangerous jaunt out to a clearing. It can still work, but I think it requires a bit more of either Rain or Jalil -- or even Cat -- to *want* it badly rather than just settle on it as "well what else are we gonna do?".

The fight scene was fantastic. *Brilliant* action writing and, although it was a horrendously inevitable attack, the scene unfolded with suspense and excitement as the reader gets to see Cat in action for the first time. Great, great, great writing -- this makes the bizarre choice to go out there worth it!

In fact it was entirely worth the injury to see some real sisterly emotion during the healing scene. I love the character interactions between Cat and Rain (and I lol'd at your joke with their names!), especially those of them that include the frustrated healers. Spot on stuff here.

And then comes the part that really has me hooked. The climatic scene where the Tijals arrive was exquisitely done -- the gifts intrigued me no end, and the sense of formality is achieved effortlessly. When you introduced Lias I couldn't stop grinning -- it genuinely felt so right! And the scene with the guards in training and his pride, well what can I say? I hope you're as proud of it as Lias is of his guards.

The goodbye scene is just right, and leaves me wondering about Cat and Jalil's future as Rain leaves them "for good". It also leaves me wondering a lot about the continued plot because it seems so very finished -- in fact the cadence is so beautiful that I think it might be the idea time to move the story to another perspective if that is part of your plan. Very touching, and all the more so because of the build up it's had.

Characters

• Kerani (Cat)
  -- Can be rather angsty at time, as is always the way with central protagonists, but is still a well-formed character. I like the range of emotions she displays across this section of the novel. Her interactions with everyone but her parents are wonderful, especially with Jalil when she considers "staging more assassination attempts" to get him used to the shock! That's a side of Cat that I *really* like to see because it's frustration with a nice side-order of humour! If it appeals to you then write more of her like that -- it appealed to me at least.
  
• Aryan
  -- Interesting character, though I think he could do with more differentiation from Jalil to make him memorable. He doesn't seem to feature much in the later part of the excerpt. Has he got a greater role to play in the novel as a whole? Heh -- that rhymed!
  
• Ranya (Rain)
  -- I noticed that her name is an anagram of Aryan! How cool is that?! She's a lovely character with barely a flaw in sight (although that could just be from Cat's point of view). She seems the right sort of person to do her duty and marry, and balances nicely with Cat's headstrong approach to things. I like how you added her natural laugh as well and not just her court-mask one. That was a lovely touch.
  
• Jalil
  -- One of the more convincing characters because of his strengths but also imperfections. I like how he's more suited to matters of state / intrigue than battle and I especially like his slight incompetence with magic. It's always good to have these sort of comparisons so the reader can see how powerful Cat is in contrast. As I said with Aryan, you could probably do more to differentiate the two, but that's your call really.
  
• Lias
  -- He's already attained legendary status for me! I really like him as a character -- possibly because I loved Cort (the teacher from Stephen King's "Dark Tower" books) -- but also because his entrance seemed to cinematic I was probably won over by that point. I hope he features more in the rest of the novel. You've made him into quite the legend -- I hope he's put to good use later on.

Magic

Lumi spoke about this, but I'd like to take it further. At points it gets downright confusing because you've got so many branches and subsets and effects. I know it's clear in your mind, because you told me last time that you had a few pages of notes containing the rules and boundaries of the magic. But if you want that same clarity for the reader then you've got to be more careful how you introduce it.

Lumi already spoke about "my magic", although sometimes it's shared and sometimes it's connected to the environment and the lines here become blurry. You introduce "will mages" but it's a bit too much for this first plot arc, and as we have no "on page" example it's hard to remember and a little bit unnecessary.

I think I stressed this in my last review, but if possible try and figure out the barest and most basic bones of your magic system and introduce them carefully and conscientiously in this arc. If it would help I can try and be more specific on this, but I'd have to refer to my original review again and I don't have that immediately to hand now. Perhaps give yourself a couple points to make every ten pages and do that. Reinforcement is helpful, but don't make it too preachy.

I'm aware it's a fine line to tread, but I can only be honest about what I see here. I hope you don't think I'm being too hard on you!

Overall

Rosey, it's interesting, engaging, and so well written that I don't need to talk about any of the mechanics of writing at all. Consider the points I've made, but after all I'm just one opinion here and you need a larger sample than that to make any real decisions. You've done some great writing here and every now and then a real gem of a phrase catches my eye -- you've got talent, there's no doubt about it.

I hope this has helped, and I hope you don't mind my rather long review!


Charlie

Started: 27.11.11

This will slowly be built upon as time goes on, but I wanted to open discussion with you about my first critique of your style.

So I'm just now getting into the momentum of the story, but I wanted to start this post off by conveying a bit of mixed emotions in the beginning of this novel. While you do a fantastic job of stealing the reader into the world you've created, there's one enormous thing that completely annoyed me: my magic. Over and over again. I'm unsure if it was a lack of better phrasing or a want to remind the reader that magic is important in the novel, but it's really an overkill frequency that I don't think anyone can pull off without taking a few punches.

Now, while author's intentions aren't very important in novels--in fact, besides sentimentality, I'd rate them with the lowest importance--I want to get your intentions with your particular phrasings here and there. Your overdose of my magic, the little nuances where you'll explain something just enough to get the reader by (which is fine, by the way), but explain them to an awkward length: almost an info-dump, but not. One of the slips that got me most was

You’ve only had your powers seven years, I told myself. You can’t expect stability until you’re twenty, at least.
I’d heard rumours of twenty-five. Which meant another five to ten years of possible sudden growth spurts in my magic.
I tried not to grumble every time I thought of that.

Thinking did lead me right to the hall in front of Ranya’s rooms. I’d picked up her stress from about thirty feet out— thanks to being connected by blood, I could sense her emotions more easily. It did mean I had more energy to feel. I would have to, this time.

In these two paragraphs, you give an awkward amount of info twice. It's awkward for me to make this comment because both instances imply two important details about her: she's fifteen, and she's related by blood to Ranya. So maybe it's a phrasing issue.

__ __ __ __ __

Now, I do have to commend you on something right off the bat. In the first five pages, your scene transitions are quite fluid. I think your pacing is beautifully marked, and I'm fairly sure you've done this quite intentionally, as you've re-written chapter one...how many times? But you've gotten it to a nice place here.

Depending on how things develop later, I may or may not have an issue with the pacing of the information given about magic/rank/royalty/etc. But I do know that the introduction of her as Lady-vs-Guard was a bit elementary in execution. While I know it was in the middle of a casual conversation, I'm unsure if her thoughts were strewn well or not.

Talk to me, Roseydear. I'll continue reading.

While you do a fantastic job of stealing the reader into the world you've created, there's one enormous thing that completely annoyed me: my magic. Over and over again. I'm unsure if it was a lack of better phrasing or a want to remind the reader that magic is important in the novel, but it's really an overkill frequency that I don't think anyone can pull off without taking a few punches.

Yeahhh. Working around this part of the novel has been a pain. If I don't put enough magic references in, people wonder why my first person reads as third/why she knows all these emotions. If I put in too many, this happens. This draft in particular is bad, because I made it that way on purpose. I wanted to stuff that phrase in as much as humanly possible just to see how much it showed up everywhere. The exercise worked, though! Now it's just parring back... >.> How that will happen, I am not sure.

Now, while author's intentions aren't very important in novels--in fact, besides sentimentality, I'd rate them with the lowest importance--I want to get your intentions with your particular phrasings here and there. Your overdose of my magic, the little nuances where you'll explain something just enough to get the reader by (which is fine, by the way), but explain them to an awkward length: almost an info-dump, but not. One of the slips that got me most was

I think this is me mixing show and tell in a weird way. I've gotten a lot of comments on being telly, so I tried to show what I could then add in the telling later... which results in the weird syntax you mentioned. I show a bit, then tell a bit to explain what I just showed, then try to do both (the last line you bolded being a particularly bad case).

Spreading this information out shouldn't be much of a problem. Later on, I have other places I can fit some of this information. I've pretty much dropped the infodumping by now which should be a bit of a jerk in flow when you get there, but hopefully for the better. I'll try to make the transition smoother, though, for the simple sake of not having everything right at the beginning.

But I do know that the introduction of her as Lady-vs-Guard was a bit elementary in execution. While I know it was in the middle of a casual conversation, I'm unsure if her thoughts were strewn well or not.

I'll probably take a chainsaw to the dialogue scenes, then, and maybe my whole opening scene (with her parents). I've resorted to dialogue because it is, well, basic. I'm not sure what other tricks to use, though. I'm thinking a twist on the dialogue scene to account for her magic might be needed, which I admittedly haven't done quite yet... >.> I'd help if you told me which exact conversation was the worst, or if it is indeed both.

This change'll probably be the hardest to make, to be honest. I've been juggling it since my first beginning and I'm not sure I've ever done it well. I'm thinking of just cutting that conflict from the beginning near completely (just hinting at it for now) and introducing it in full later. It's getting to be a lot crammed in here. It used to be the central conflict to the novel, but now it... is secondary. Should probably get around to reflecting that.

Now with arc 2!

I'm placing this here so I can remind myself to continue this until I actually do it.

Bumping this thread because it now has the complete thing (goodlord two years later how long have I been working on this single draft)

Is this thread also for reviewing the novel? Just curious; I'll replace the contents of this post with a review if that is the case.

Edit: Ah, just read the rules of the thread. I'll have my review up in a day or two.