A Short Preface
In this chapter, the reader encounters King Holskolm and also receives some background information.
Chapter Two
Bad Tidings
King Holskolm, who prided himself on his patience, found himself in a degree of bitter impatience. He had not heard word from the traders who made their way to Iberian for many days…and the sailors at the docks said a large storm was bearing down from the West…carrying death and demise for the unfortunate beings out on the sea with it.
Personally, King Holskolm truthfully hoped it was naught, because then, the traders and their wares might be lost forever. His cousin, Torr, served as a scribe on the ship, and he would never forgive himself if his young cousin lost his life at the hands of a storm, on his own orders.
He had spent the afternoon gathering a patrol that would set out on whatever day the monstrous storm made its last stand…but yet, he still found himself worried. The word was anything within a good hundred mile radius of the storm could not…would not survive…He dared not believe it, but he too had seen the storm brewing in the distance. Meanwhile, the traders in the south refused his bids for their immediate attentions, as they lacked provisions for the soldiers manning the borders between Iberian and Yeturi. Instead, they opted to head straight out to Yeturi, where they were in less need of supplies but able to pay the traders many more gold coins then Iberian. The fact was, Iberian had been slipping severely since the last century’s worth of wars. First, Yeturi had started slowly infiltrating Iberian borders…then Salto and his barbarians, the cowards, once a weak spot was discovered, invaded the lower country lands and murdered the men and children, opting to steal their mothers and wives, selling them into slavery. Soldiers had been sent to stop Salto and his men, but they had already bid way back to their own country.
King Holskolm hadn’t had a good long sleep for weeks, and these days, he thought he might never sleep soundly again.
His wife was ill with a deadly sickness, and thus far his own physicians had been unable to provide her with successful treatment. He asked himself constantly how the best physicians in the country could not treat his wife…he talked to his advisors, he pestered his physicians with long-winded technical questions, yet he could not explain why his wife did not respond to the treatment provided, when it had worked for so many in the past.
Indeed, his future and the future of the kingdom was as unclear as ever. Salto and his men waited anxiously for their next chance to attack and Yeturi was no longer providing the support they had provided for decades previous, after they had revealed their true nature as base traitors. Iberian risked invasion every single day.
So then, sitting on his throne, he no longer felt the confidence he had once lived by. He was unsure of each decision, and to top it off, his advisors were unable to provide him much more than menial advice on that measure, assuring him lightly that he was a worthy king…but how worthy could he be, when he failed to protect his kingdom and its people?
But he hadn’t failed completely…he had kept the borders well-manned for nigh on a decade, until the invaders had successfully infiltrated several parts of the border, causing mass confusion and chaos amongst the poor villages making their ways in the farmlands.
The invaders were retreating, but slowly. The wounds that now marked the farmlands would not heal for years, and those who lost children would not easily forgive the king who let it happen.
To top it off, just that night, he had a meeting with the council advisors and everyone else who had a point to make or an argument to wage. For the first time in years, he did not look forward to this encounter. His judgment had yet to be called into question, but it was a matter of time.
He felt as though it was the kingdom itself that was retreating from him. He was afraid to lose it all. The invaders were tearing him apart, and he could only hope to rely on Sion’s help. It was unlikely he would receive it in time.
His throne was as cold as his heart.
End of chapter
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139,276 Literary Works • 672,524 Reviews
Hi there!
Okay, so I pulled out this small chunk of your piece so I could talk about these ellipses you use. Ellipses can be quite effective (affective? I never know...) if used the right way. You did not use them the right way. Alright, so I don't really want to say that you used it "wrong" as much as I want to say that you don't need them here. I think you'll get the same point across if you just break that into three separate sentences. With the ellipses in there, it seems like the king is giving up hope. Like he's just...hanging around and...waiting... *sigh*. But as I read on, it seems that he's a bit more concerned than that.
Sorry for like, completely rambling on in that paragraph. I get pretty into it when ellipses come into play. Bottom line is that I don't think you should use them there. That is all. Moving on from that point.
More ellipses... So I'm going to show you another way that you can write this same sentence without the ellipses. I know the feeling that you're going for here. You want the readers to get the fact that this storm is a great one that is big and dangerous, that no one could survive it. So instead of using ellipses, why not use a dash instead? It would look like this: "The word was anything within a good hundred mile radius of the storm could not -- would not -- survive". Doesn't that sound more desperate and haunting?
Do we know who Salto is? I don't think we've been introduced to him yet. If not, you'll probably want to add some background about him, maybe mention which kingdom he's from. Just to give us an idea of who he is. If he has a name, he's important.
So we've switched from the traders to the king now. Very interesting how you did that. Now I have a better idea of who the traders are in such a rush to see.
I do feel bad for this king. It seems like his kingdom is falling apart. And I think you did a good job displaying that throughout the chapter. I really felt like as I read along, everything was getting worse. And I really started to feel bad for him.
But then the last line popped up and confused me.
I was under no impression that his heart was cold; that he was a mean guy. Here I was, reading through and feeling sorry for this fellow. And then I reach the end and all this flies out the window. I'm not going to feel bad for a king who has a cold heart. He's just a ruthless king who's mean to everyone. (that's my understanding of someone with a cold heart)
There's a lot of character development in this chapter. We really get to see the king and kind of get an introduction, a look into his life and personality. And we also get to see how he feels about the job he's doing as king. I feel like he feels like he's failing. And from what I've read, that's completely true. Pull yourself together King Holskolm!
Keep writing!
**Noelle**
Thank you for the review. Yes, I've noted the ellipses. I agree with what you had to say about them mostly, but out of personal preference, on the other hand, I still disagree on that matter a little bit.
"His throne was as cold as his heart."
I debated keeping this in. This is referring to the fact that, as things spiral out of control, he himself feels that he is becoming a more removed, cold, and isolated king. The throne part is partial foreshadowing and also referring to the fact that his throne is being thrust out from underneath him.
Thanks again for reviewing!
Well hello! Here as promised! I'm going to skip past technical things such as spelling and grammar because let's face it, I suck at them myself. And the previous reviewer has already pointed out the ellipses.
My general impression on this chapter was not all that great, to be honest. I skimmed read this at first because it just seemed to be the King thinking about things but then I re-read it and yes, it did provide some background information but what I want you to ask yourself is. Can those information be written in some more interesting circumstances? There was also a certain amount of info dump as well as stream-of-consciousness in this chapter, making this seem like a filler than an actual chapter.
Look at this for example:
I wonder, is this information about the wife really necessary? Does it affect the plot in any drastic way? I know that information is probably helpful, but you don't need to say everything about it. Just a brief mention here will be fine, the same as the historical background on Iberian and Yeturi. That whole huge block of text is a bit bordering on info dump, are there any other ways to make this more interesting? Because right now, is a bit like reading off a history textbook. Have you thought of perhaps including the information in a dialogue? Because you can characterize that certain character and slot the information in, bonus!
Sorry to be quoting so much, I feel like cheating. But that whole quoted bit to me, was basically the King reflecting on past things so not much action is really happening. From the previous descriptions, I think the readers can already assume that the throne and his reign if not exactly all sunny and smooth sailing. A bit of stream-of-consciousness is fine because it gives us insight into the character, but here. Is just seems like that the King is reflecting on the past and what has happened and on his past mistakes, so the pace is not moving forward at all and close to no action. Which can be a bit boring.
However, your language itself is actually quite a lovely and archaic way of writing. You're consistent with your use of vocabulary and though this chapter is a bit of a filler. The plot is promising enough, so I'm going to the next chapter!
-Laure
Well, as requested, here's your critique of this piece. And what a piece it is, indeed.
Bad news: ...Perhaps a couple of ill-placed ellipses... maybe a grammar mistake here or there...
Yeah, you didn't exactly leave much for the bad news.
Good news: Excellent word choice, thorough depiction of the struggles of a collapsing empire, the ending metaphor leaves the reader with a ringing impression, and this.
"King Holskolm hadn't had a good long sleep for weeks, and these days, he thought he might never sleep soundly again."
I'm going to be completely honest here: I have no idea why this passage sticks out so much to me. As I was reading, something about it caught my eye... Now that I think about it, it's likely that the word choice, clause arrangement, and the implementation of contrasting ideas to serve as emphasis actually reflect my own writing style to a large degree.
This is an interesting phenomenon. You might be the first person to actually do that... Anyway, I'll dwell on it later.
All in all, your mainly intelligent word choice, as you were telling me before, definitely fit this section of the piece beautifully. The passages themselves are much more fluent and less 'clunky', as I believe I described them, than the previous part. I can honestly say that I can't wait to see where this story will go from here. Keep it up!