Prologue
He had seen many shades of red but this was by far the darkest. The color was almost black, bordered by splashes of bright scarlet in the places where it touched the snow. It pained him to see the stain desecrate the mark of beautiful winter.
It also pained him to see the one he loved standing in the clearing, holding a dripping blade to her palm, her eyes wiped with moonlight as she searched the sky above the trees almost imploringly. The man was aware that she had good reason to do it, yet the sight of the white-haired boy at her side, shivering and confused, made his chest tense like a vise.
The boy’s soft whine of Geujinese could be heard as he wrapped his small hands around himself, the motion accentuated by another shiver. “Can’t we just go home, please . . .”
“Hush, Aeyghos.” Her tone was compact and strained; desperate, with no trace of the harshness her words might assume to passersby. But save the three of them, there was no one in the Forest of Arrowheads.
He stepped around the tendrils of stray blood, so as not to stain his boots, and leaned against a fir tree. “You should listen to him.”
His deep voice was quiet, but nevertheless carried across the silence. The woman startled—so briefly that only one watching closely could have seen it—then turned and let her weapon fly in a flash of steel. Her son shouted, “Mother, no!” but the man, anticipating the attack, raised his hand, and the blade stopped midair. Instead of apologizing, the woman sighed, speaking his name as she exhaled. “Is that you, Vrin?”
“It is I,” he confirmed, the sharp syllables of Geujinese scraping his lips.
Vrin rocked away from the tree, and its shadow unveiled him: pulled-back sable hair shot through with silver, snow-white skin, and clear, piercing eyes like arrows.
He was striking in the way many Mizogan men were, but Vrindaris Nagrikov was only half Mizogan—his mother had been from Kandien, one of the neighboring Six Nations. He had not been there in twenty-eight years, however, so he could hardly call it home.
Assured of his identity, the woman threw back her hood. She had a wintry beauty to her looks, with blue-tinted lips, pale hair and skin, and snow-laced lashes, with a trace of warmth that showed in the auburn eyes her son shared. Her expression of worry only became more pronounced as the silk revealed her sculpted features.
Some of Vrin’s austerity dissipated at the sight; his voice was softer but nevertheless firm as he asked, “What are you doing away from the palace so late?”
He already knew the answer to the question, and it was clear that she knew he knew, but he wanted her to confess and, in doing so, realize the foolishness of what she was doing. She said, in a voice that sounded as if it wanted to be steady, “I’m leaving.”
“Leaving to go where?”
The woman lifted her eyes to his and switched to English, which Aeyghos did not understand. “Anywhere but here.”
Realization dawned on Vrin, but he kept his expression blank and matched her change of tongue. “I’m not sure I understand.”
“How could you? My daughter is dead! Poisoned by her own handmaiden! What will I tell them all?” At those words, she threw herself at him, fell at his feet, and took the hem of his hunting gear in her hands. A smear of red appeared on Vrin’s weapon belt, birthed by the open wound on Nutanva’s palm.
“An empress,” Vrin said sternly, looking down at her, “should not grovel at the feet of an Iron Trainer.”
“Don’t you see, Vrindaris? I am tired of being empress. I’m tired of it all.” She spat the word empress vehemently as if it was the mark of a curse she had to bear.
“You cannot leave your people because of Idreia.”
“Yes I can, and I will!”
Impatience colored his tone. “If all rulers were to pack up and leave when someone they love perishes, do you think Sora would have any left?”
His argument was vehement, but knew that it was not getting through to his mistress, and for good reason: he himself could see it. The truth was that Nutanva was growing weaker and more paranoid with each day she continued to live; she had always been withdrawn as a young princess. If not for her older brother’s public disgrace, she would not have been pushed to the front seat of ruling with little to no real experience of how to rule, but that was how it worked—as there were no other boys in the family, the throne went to Nutanva. Her husband Ivan’s death had nearly broken her, too, but though both situations were tainted with the sour taste of grief, this was different. Vrin had scarce seen her this wild—this desperate—before. It sickened him to say it, but this empire needed someone better.
Someone worthy.
Slowly, Vrin pried Nutanva’s hands from his belt and held her wrists an inch apart so he could look down at her face. He said quietly, without looking away from her, “Hand me your blade.”
Nutanva went wide-eyed at the realization of what he was going to do; she groped around for the weapon she had thrown at him only a few minutes previous, and once she found it, pressed it into his hands. Vrin flipped it onto its sharp end, then dragged the steel across his scarred palm. Blood welled in a dark bubbling stream and stained his sleeve as he turned his hand over, letting a drop fall onto the snow.
“Endaehl jien saeig, eun vicshir,” he recited, deepening the wound with the blade’s blunt side, “arotak vosik ieln kkogeun rukkend saraeng spectregeoukk.”
Come to me, tempest, blood and bone of my soul.
He had barely looked past the trees before it happened. Lightning split the sky in two and clouds rolled over them; his hair came loose from its knot as hot wind whipped at their faces. A roar shook the trees, preceding the large beast that dove through an opening in the branches and landed between them, curling itself to face its master. Vrin smiled the slightest fraction, striding forward with his hands outstretched to rest between the storm tempest’s eyes on its silver scales.
“Evavaen, Tathrukkiena,” he said fondly. Good girl, Tathrukkiena.
Nutanva took a step back, but her son seemed intrigued. He stepped around the beast’s tail and reached out to touch its widespread wings: Tathrukkiena snarled, but only defensively, her muscles coiling as a sign to stay away.
“At ease,” Vrin commanded, and the tempest calmed. He turned to the duo. “If you mount her now, you could be there by sunrise.”
There was a brief silence. Then Nutanva asked, “Mount her?”
“How else do you expect to reach Avairis?”
Nutanva’s eyes widened as he spoke, registering not just his words but also the meaning behind them. He could practically hear thoughts flitting in and out of her head: thoughts that he was willing to help them, he was willing to let this—whatever this was—go. Some part of her seemed to harden inside: her voice was clear and determined when she said, “Let’s go, Aeyghos.”
Vrin helped them mount Tathrukkiena, murmuring words of reassurance to the wary tempest all the while. When they were situated on her back, he instructed Kiena, “Take them straight to the Rift. Do not let yourself be seen. Watch over them until they have gone safely through it, then come straight back to me.”
The tempest lowered her great head as an indication that she had heard. Then he looked straight up at Nutanva—at his empress, at the woman he loved. At the woman who would be leaving him in mere seconds.
“Do not look back,” he said. “Take on a new name, start a new life. Find a new home.”
The light in her eyes seemed to flicker when she looked at him, but she replied, “You are my home, Vrin.” Not anymore, he wanted to say, but she wasn’t done. “You will be my home, no matter what Realm I may be in. You have always been.” A pause. “What will happen after this?”
“I will find your lookalikes, if I can, and have them live in your and your children’s stead. If not, the blame for your escape will be on me.” He contemplated for a moment. “If all goes well, I will return.”
“To me?”
“To my birthplace.”
Nutanva seemed to understand. She looked to the sky for the briefest of moments, as if she hoped to find the answer to their problems hidden in the stars, then back at Vrin. “I hope you find them,” she said softly. “The new empress. And the children.”
He lifted her hand to his lips and kissed it.
“So do I.”
Vrin whistled to catch his tempest’s attention, uttering an ancient command that only the best of riders knew. Tathrukkiena lifted her head, snapped her wings open, and, with a flourish, took off into the air. He watched them go with the slightest smile perched on his lips, his head tilted to catch the wind, moonlight filtering through the trees and illuminating his face.
And he did find them. He found Eden and Madeline—a boy and a girl, two winters apart just like Idreia and Aeyghos had been. He found their mother, Audrey, an Avairisian woman Nutanva’s age. All three of them bore the same appearance as the royal family, save a few stray features here and there, though he knew it would be no cause for trouble.
For what were details, but the things people chose not to see?
feedback and critique would be much appreciated !! ^^
End of chapter
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142,219 Literary Works • 677,034 Reviews
Hello!
I saw the Chapter 2 of Ikara in the Green Room, so I came here to read the Prologue first ^^!
Ngl, I really loved this (chapter? Is it a chapter if it's a prologue? Hmmmm) firstly because it hooked me in from the start:
When I read this, I was wondering if it meant some object, or blood; it turned out to be blood. It's mysterious in a way that you don't know if it's actually normal, or if it's actually a bit eerie: is it just something dark red or is it blood? Anyways, I found that part very good and reader-catching =D
For this part, I first thought that "Geujinese" was some word I didn't know, because my vocabulary is terrible - then I thought it was someone, and I was really confused; then I thought it was an object, and I was even more confused! It's only later, when you used "Geujinese" again, that I think I understood it's an invented language. This is the only recommendation I have for the start of the text, everything else is absolutely great! Just maybe you could make that part a little clearer? Or it's just me, and I was a bit tired - in which case please ignore this! (Hm. You can't know if it's my brain's fault. Just trust your instinct to tell you if that piece is good, then I guess! Author instincts are usually good to relly on, and you do seem like a talented author)
I really like this quote, I can't tell why. I guess I just like the sound of it or something? "Carried across the silence" - great use of litterary techniques there! There's also a general great use of litterary techniques throughout the whole text, so good job! It makes the read nice and gives a flow to everything. Keep rocking!
Hmmm for this part I think there might be a lot of information. I mean, there's actually the right amount of information; but all the unknown words (Mizogan, Vrindaris Nagrikov, Kandien, Six Nations) add up with the more normal information (half, mother, neighboring, twenty-eight years, home) and made it kind of hard to process for me. I can process new names, countries, invented stuff, but there there was a bit too much in one paragraph if you know what I mean? It was still well understandable and 'process-able' for my brain, though, so if you want to keep it like this I would support that decision!
Oooooooooh revelation! Why is the daughter dead? What happened? Why did the handmaiden poison her? When? Where? How? I want to know! You really dropped the question bomb with that sentence - before the story was entertaining, now it became interesting! Good job with that.
Aaaaand I just realised something! I thought, when Vrin called down the tempest, that Iron Trainers were special people who could call down tempests, and no one else could. I wasn't sure, but this was my assumption. But, looking back, I remembered how, at the start, the empress had cut her hand and was looking imploringly at the sky! And Vrin cut his hand to call his tempest down, and his tempest came from the sky! So maybe the empress had been trying to call down her tempest! There are a few possibilities here: maybe I was dumb for not realising this sooner, and it's actually obvious - maybe I'm smart for realising it (which I do like better ; ) ) Maybe I'm totally wrong, so I'm even dumber... maybe I just helped you with an idea, so I'm even smarter! I'd like to beleive that the last option is true, but I know it's nearing impossible so... I'll hope for the second!
(Good job with that too by the way)
I like that name. If it were a human name, I'd find it extremely annoying to remember, but it's fitting for a giant muscly beast-something that comes out of the sky when you draw blood and say weird stuff in another language. It also sound really good when you say it: Tathrukkiena. Tathrukkiena. It has it's own kind of vibe and the word itself is so satisfying.
The first part is another question bomb: what are lookalikes? People who look the same? Does everyone have a lookalike in that world? Isn't it really weird to know that someone out there looks just like you? Couldn't people use it to overthrow the government? Is it cool to know that you look exactly like the empress? How is it possible that lookalikes exist? Etc., etc., I'll spare you my billion questions.
Yaaaaay this makes me really happy!!! It took enormous amounts of self-restraint to stop myself from pressing the 'next chapter' button immediatly and instead make this (strange) review. I hope it was at least 0.0000000001% helpful, and I'm sorry for all the negative stuff - I really found this Prologue cool so I hope you won't stop and continue writing!
Have a wonderful day
- HMMHhehe the potato =D
hi HMMHhehe !! first off lemme say that this review warmed my heart, and it’s true of your reviews of Chap. 1 and 2 as well, so thank you so much for shining your potato-ey light on my novel <3
“ revelation! Why is the daughter dead? What happened? Why did the handmaiden poison her? When? Where? How? I want to know! You really dropped the question bomb with that sentence - before the story was entertaining, now it became interesting! Good job with that.“
haha I’m glad that hooked you right into the story ! yes, the daughter *Andraeya* is dead but her name appears later in the book, and not just concerning her lookalike. The dead sister and her possibly-dead brother (the boy you see in the prologue, who is now either alive or dead) drive a significant part of the plot itself. i wanted to draw the reader into their story, push them back out with a lack of elaboration (i.e., a ‘this-isn’t-important-teehee’ demeanor), only to draw them back in after they’ve already forgotten who they are and moved on to other characters.
“The first part is another question bomb: what are lookalikes? People who look the same? Does everyone have a lookalike in that world? Isn't it really weird to know that someone out there looks just like you? Couldn't people use it to overthrow the government? Is it cool to know that you look exactly like the empress? How is it possible that lookalikes exist? Etc., etc., I'll spare you my billion questions.“
gahhh i know i know i was very vague and rushy with that ending TnT I’ve improved upon it in the edited version by sort of mentioning the said lookalikes earlier on in the text :3
“Aaaaand I just realised something! I thought, when Vrin called down the tempest, that Iron Trainers were special people who could call down tempests, and no one else could. I wasn't sure, but this was my assumption. But, looking back, I remembered how, at the start, the empress had cut her hand and was looking imploringly at the sky! And Vrin cut his hand to call his tempest down, and his tempest came from the sky! So maybe the empress had been trying to call down her tempest! There are a few possibilities here: maybe I was dumb for not realising this sooner, and it's actually obvious - maybe I'm smart for realising it (which I do like better ; ) ) Maybe I'm totally wrong, so I'm even dumber... maybe I just helped you with an idea, so I'm even smarter! I'd like to beleive that the last option is true, but I know it's nearing impossible so... I'll hope for the second“
oh my goodness I can’t believe you noticed that!! the unnamed blood ritual thing is how riders bonded to their tempests (i.e., dragons) summon them upon a whim, and it’s something that appears later on in the book, specifically in Alexei’s chapters. i was hoping one of my readers would catch onto that early on, tysmm this made me so happyyy 😭
“I'm sorry for all the negative stuff“
negative stuff? *checks review again* WHAT NEGATIVE STUFF ???? this was such a joy to read and your constructive criticism about certain stuff is really helpful !!
thank you so much for the review!! I’m gonna go and reply to your other ones now :3
Wow this is like a review of my review =DDDD Tysm for taking so much time to reply!!!
Nonono I did not mean it like that! Don't worry I think it's very good, I was just saying that I was really hooked ^^
Awww wow thank you!!!! =D
Have a wonderful day again!
(Hehe and this was a review of your review of my review of your work)
Had this on my list for a while :3 So finally, here I come.
The gold threads on the cover look v pretty, how did you make it?
I rly like this beginning paragraph. It reads v well, v immersive. I would suggest tweaking the wording here a bit since the double “the” kinda had me pause the first time around:
Ohh that makes me think something magical is going on; that idk her eyes are MOONLIGHT now, like a dark ritual!
I assume this is here to show that he’s speaking a different language? I feel like you could work this in more smoothly elsewhere. Also ‘could be heard’ is a passive phrasing when I feel like an active phrasing would work so much better for you here right now. Mb something start with him wrapping his smalls hands around himself, the soft whine carrying through the night or smthing?
Ok by this point I thought this was the little boy speaking, at first. So, you might want to roll out names or other distinguishing descriptors here. A paragraph abt our narrator and why he’s here and what his deal is would do wonders before this (and it won’t drag down the pacing if done well, trust!)
While I think this paragraph flows rly well, I still think you might want to be a bit more liberal with the enter key to make more paragraphs out of it. When paragraphs are smaller, less words etc, they convey a sense of urgency, of things happening really fast. In addition to ofc the fact that you have multiple different subjects in this that from the guidelines of paragraphing alone also would have warranted several new paragraphs XD
Love the description!!
*blinks at “sable hair”* *looks it up in dictionary* *realizes that it is used as a colour in heraldry* Uhhhh is this really correct here? I’m asking to be educated =D
Ok so we are in Vrin’s perspective which means he is describing himself that way. Which. Well, I dig it. You go king, calling yourself striking. We should all take inspiration, realizing we can call ourselves beautiful :3
(If you were going for an omniscient narrator… then you were clinging too close to Vrin’s perspective for me to notice ☹)
I feel like this dialogue is doing too much, feels overloaded.
I feel like you could sprinkle in some exposition abt her station in life sooner than this sentence. Rather than have it all in the paragraph starting with “His argument was vehement” THAT paragraph is very long and unwieldy the way it is so if you have the important info from it already semi-established earlier would really help you, I believe :3
Uhm the last time we have heard of this weapon, Mr Vrin caught it in midair (telekinesis, probably) so uhhh where exactly is she looking for it. I need to know. Especially since he had it last… I am confused abt this sequence.
I feel like when the weather changes you could do a bit more to convey the shift. It feels… TOO sudden and also not. Like “clouds rolling in” is a rather slow process, at least that’s what it sounds like to me, but then the lightning is immediate…
Ah you have such a nice rhythm going etc and then comes a sentence part like this that doesn’t really fit in XD Sounds a bit cumbersome in comparison to there rest of the paragraph.
I would also, on a different note, like a description of Mrs Tempest. I find it adorable that the edgy Vrin calls her good girl, truly a boy and his pet, but… what does she look like? Since she’s a tempest, I kept imagining like a being made out of wind… but then there is a tail one can step over and you can touch her between the eyes?
Uhmmm I feel like the last sentence is kinda redundant? For me, it doesn’t have the impact you wanted to convey with it.
AWWWWWWWWW <3
That said, you spend a lot of time building up the scene itself then the “resolution” to the problem is very rushed. Like… LOOK-A-LIKES? That’s the ingenious plan? Does he at least have mindaltering powers to make them believe they have always been the royal family? How can he guarantee that the new empress is gonna do the best for the country when the old empress, who already had basically no training, already failed?
WHAT?
You completely lost me with that ending ^^°
hey Tikaya ! my worst nightmare =D (jk i loved reading this review) …so let’s get straight into it!
“The gold threads on the cover look v pretty, how did you make it?”
thank you! i used a glow effect on ibisPaintx, they’re supposed to be konovir threads (threads made of fire) that appear later in the book.
“While I think this paragraph flows rly well, I still think you might want to be a bit more liberal with the enter key to make more paragraphs out of it. When paragraphs are smaller, less words etc, they convey a sense of urgency, of things happening really fast. In addition to ofc the fact that you have multiple different subjects in this that from the guidelines of paragraphing alone also would have warranted several new paragraphs XD”
THIS. i think generally i am a good writer, but i constantly struggle with keeping the reader interested in the action because i just love to include so many unnecessary FACTS , there’s also the change of tone i grapple with. anytime i write a mildly interesting scene i sort of water it down with my style. i’m working on that tho :’)
“*blinks at “sable hair”* *looks it up in dictionary* *realizes that it is used as a colour in heraldry* Uhhhh is this really correct here? I’m asking to be educated =D”
“sable” can also mean the color black, which is the description i was going for, but i had absolutely no idea it also meant that 😭 technically I’m pretty sure I’m correct, but if that’s the main entry that pops up when you research “sable” i think i might change it to avoid confusion.
“Uhm the last time we have heard of this weapon, Mr Vrin caught it in midair (telekinesis, probably) so uhhh where exactly is she looking for it. I need to know. Especially since he had it last… I am confused abt this sequence.”
GAHHH NOOO I’m so embarrassed you noticed that *retreats to mental hide hole* … i wrote this whole thing very early on into the actual manuscript (when i reached like chap. 14) and when i finished it I didn’t bother to go back and edit those mistakes…thank you for catching that!
“If you were going for an omniscient narrator”
phew good thing I wasn’t
“I would also, on a different note, like a description of Mrs Tempest. I find it adorable that the edgy Vrin calls her good girl, truly a boy and his pet, but… what does she look like? Since she’s a tempest, I kept imagining like a being made out of wind… but then there is a tail one can step over and you can touch her between the eyes?”
I use the word ‘tempest’ in like every single chapter, but in this case it’s just another term for a Soran dragon (since a lot of them are born from natural disasters, thus: “tempest”). since that caused you confusion I’m obliged to think it’ll confuse my other readers; do you have any suggestions as to how I could …. like … hint to the reader early on that that’s what it means? or would a description be enough for them to be like “oh okay so a tempest is just a dragon”?
“That said, you spend a lot of time building up the scene itself then the “resolution” to the problem is very rushed. Like… LOOK-A-LIKES? That’s the ingenious plan? Does he at least have mindaltering powers to make them believe they have always been the royal family? How can he guarantee that the new empress is gonna do the best for the country when the old empress, who already had basically no training, already failed?“
my one honest answer to this is … idk. this whole book is a net and I’m trying to untangle it thread by thread, but i guess the fake empress would be a stronger candidate for reasons I haven’t yet decided upon? I was thinking I could make her an old friend of Vrin’s or something and he just happened to hear that she was still alive, so … like I said I’m still trying to figure it out.
“Ok so we are in Vrin’s perspective which means he is describing himself that way. Which. Well, I dig it. You go king, calling yourself striking“
yes yes Vrin is an egotistical lil’ gremlin
“I assume this is here to show that he’s speaking a different language? I feel like you could work this in more smoothly elsewhere. Also ‘could be heard’ is a passive phrasing when I feel like an active phrasing would work so much better for you here right now. Mb something start with him wrapping his smalls hands around himself, the soft whine carrying through the night or smthing?“
yeah i kinda hated that line but I was too lazy to want to edit it, since I thought I’d be the only person reading it (at least until I discovered this delicious website) … to answer your question, yes he’s supposed to be speaking Geujinese
“You completely lost me with that ending ^^°”
noooo
thanks for the analysis, Tikaya! i put this review in my critique page <3 (and I’m about to go and reply to your review on chap. 1 lol)
Okay, so I have found time!
Well this is what reviews are there for: to catch this and tell you “no!” =DHi!
Sable is the heraldry name for “black” I wasn’t sure if you could use it away from flags tho…
“thank you for catching that!”
Glad I could help :3
“it’s just another term for a Soran dragon”
Lol you say that as if there were five chapters before this where the existence of dragons was well-established XD When this is the first time we even know that dragons are a thing in this world, let alone that there are different species of it ^^
And yes, a description of a dragon etc maybe with one distinguishing feature (Vrin could gush abt his dragon since he seems v attached to her!) to show uniqueness, and you’d be good with her :3
“ i guess the fake empress would be a stronger candidate for reasons I haven’t yet decided upon? “
Wellll in that case, maybe just have Vrin go to his lover: “dw abt it, I will deal with it” and then leave it open how he deals with it? Bc you yourself don’t know yet. So maybe once you do, you can come back to it.
f.e. I know that the prologue for WoS is not fully done yet (mainly bc I need to learn how to do poetry or bribe someone who does poetry with rhymes) bc there are some stuff I haven’t fully settled on yet. And I know once I have that missing piece, I will come back and edit the prologue 😊 But for now, the prologue CAN be read without the missing piece… Just a little work-a-round.
So here, in order for the prologue to make sense in the here and now, it is probably better to leave things vague.
Hello there, human! I'm reviewing using the YWS S'more Method today!
Shalt we commence with the spooky S’more?
Top Graham Cracker - Nutanva runs away with her son, Aeyghos, because her daughter was murdered by her handmaiden. Vrin tries to persuade her to stay but knows he cannot, so he lets them go and puts another family in their place. But will the family be okay?
Slightly Burnt Marshmallow - I have no recommendations to make as of right now, but if you would like to edit this, you may.
Chocolate Bar - I like the beginning description of the blood on the snow and how it’s all winter, it feels dark and secretive. I also like the way you describe Vrin’s love for Nutanva, because even though he knows that he will never see her again, he still wants her to make the choice that’s right for her and her son.
Closing Graham Cracker - Overall, a lovely prologue to this story! I have enjoyed reading this and I will be certain to read the first chapter tomorrow. I wonder what will happen with the replacement family? But now…
I wish you an amazing day/night! ^v^
thank you so much for the S’mores review !!! i’m glad you enjoyed reading this
yw!!
Hi, JukeboxHeart!
This is a nice prologue! There is a looming sense of danger that I can feel, which definitely gives it that "something huge happened before chapter one" vibe that good fantasy prologues should have. I can tell you’re aiming for something dramatic, and I think a lot of imagery supports that really well!
Aww <3
This sentence is so simple, but it works well! It gives their relationship a lot of history without needing to spell all of it out. I think the strongest parts of the prologue are when you let the characters’ actions and dialogue show the tragedy instead of explaining the political situation outright. That gets boring! It's much harder to parse through political/bureaucratic content without the narrative revealing it over the course of the story.
On that note, I think my main suggestion would be to watch how much information you introduce at once. In this prologue, I get to know about Geujinese, Mizogan, Kandien, the Six Nations, Sora, the Forest of Arrowheads, the palace, an empress, an Iron Trainer, Idreia, Aeyghos, Ivan, Avairis, the Rift, Realms, tempests, Tathrukkiena, Eden, Madeline, and Audrey. None of those are bad individually! A lot of them are intriguing. But because so many names and worldbuilding terms appear in a short space, I felt like I was trying to memorize the world instead of fully understanding what was happening.
For example, I don’t necessarily need to know Vrin’s exact heritage in this scene:
That is interesting information, but it pauses the moment between him and Nutanva. I think some of the background details could maybe be saved for later! The more immediate question is, what is Vrin feeling as he sees the woman he loves about to abandon an empire? The heritage details might matter eventually, but in this exact moment they pull me away from that!
Pacing-wise, I think this begins strongly and ends with an interesting hook, but the middle gets a little rushed. You should let everything breathe! The argument between Vrin and Nutanva escalates quickly, then the storm creature arrives, then the escape happens, then the lookalike twist is introduced. I am not sure you need all of that happening at once, or if each idea is equally important. I especially think the moment where Nutanva leaves Vrin could be slowed down, since that seems like the emotional climax of the prologue. I would think about cutting out some of the unimportant details and slowing everything down!
I'll be sure to keep my eye out for more of this story! I really do love the sense of a much larger political/magical world waiting beyond the scene. My main suggestion would be to simplify some of the early worldbuilding though -- there's so much here that might not belong in a prologue! Let me know if you have any questions about that.
I hope this review is helpful, and please keep writing ^-^
Aislynn
hey, Aislynn !!! thanks so much for the review !
“On that note, I think my main suggestion would be to watch how much information you introduce at once. In this prologue, I get to know about Geujinese, Mizogan, Kandien, the Six Nations, Sora, the Forest of Arrowheads, the palace, an empress, an Iron Trainer, Idreia, Aeyghos, Ivan, Avairis, the Rift, Realms, tempests, Tathrukkiena, Eden, Madeline, and Audrey. None of those are bad individually! A lot of them are intriguing. But because so many names and worldbuilding terms appear in a short space, I felt like I was trying to memorize the world instead of fully understanding what was happening.“
omigosh that is a LOT of mentions. I believe I said this in response to Tikaya’s review, but i love adding facts to my paragraphs and sometimes (all the time really) i end up overdoing it … this is something I’ll keep in mind though!
“That is interesting information, but it pauses the moment between him and Nutanva. I think some of the background details could maybe be saved for later! The more immediate question is, what is Vrin feeling as he sees the woman he loves about to abandon an empire? The heritage details might matter eventually, but in this exact moment they pull me away from that!”
yeah i was thinking of deleting that line and moving it to a later interlude. Like i said, i love dealing in facts and i often avoid describing emotions outright because they seem sappy to me (i’m not an apathetic person i swear-) but I’m working on weaving that kind of stuff into the draft
“Pacing-wise, I think this begins strongly and ends with an interesting hook, but the middle gets a little rushed. You should let everything breathe!”
i wrote the beginning of this prologue a while back and it took me months to return to it and finish it up, so I kind of rushed the middle in an attempt to get to the ending quicker since the idea had been stuck in my head.
again, thank you for the review! as with all the reviews i get, this is going in my critique page <3
Oh, hello!
This seems like a fantasy based more heavily on Slavic stuff, which is pretty cool... the snow, the way the people are described, the empress, and just... the coldness and blood of everything. All in all, pretty neat!
So some quick thoughts...
I would probably introduce Vrin at the very beginning... so instead of saying...
You would write "Vrin had seen..."
And the reason for that is that it makes it easier for us to connect to a character with a name than without one! We want to know who he is and why we should cheer for him. I know you're going for the mysterious vibes for the main character, but also there's a VERY fine line between mysterious vibes and the reader being lost... especially in the beginning, when we're still finding our way through the world building!
Besides, there's too many fantasy stories that start off with a brooding mysterious man character... set yours apart by giving us an anchor.
Similarly speaking...
I think it would be actually better if you had Vrin give us her good reason... that way we can see what he thinks is a good reason in the context of the worldbuilding so we get another anchor. Also, we can determine if this character has good intentions... or not. Like, the more clues you can give us in the context of the story, the better it's going to feel to us readers! For instance, if he looks at her and thinks, "Oh... she's going to sacrifice him to the gods. Understandable, but ouch." Then that gives me a sense of his character. Or, if he looks at her and thinks, "Oh, she's trying to summon blood magic to save them both" then that gives me a sense of character too. So show us the reason! It'll help connect us to your character better!
One more thing... I think this story would actually be better if we knew that Vrin/Nutanva knew each other prior a lot sooner. I know.... you want to go with the more mysterious feeling at the very onset, but again! The interesting bit of your story is that they have this odd, almost intimate relationship where they are clearly at odds with each other, and yet their affection is there. It's one of the best parts of your story! So let us see that in the very beginning. It'll distinguish your story better... in a good way!... by moving past the mysterious stranger trope and get us interested in the story more.
ANYWAY! Those are my thoughts! If you have any questions, let me know and I'll be happy to answer them.
thank you so much for your review! i’ve looked over your critiques and jotted them down and i’ll keep them in mind for the next chapter i post.
as for introducing Vrin right away as a sort of hook for the reader, i completely agree haha! it was something i debated over internally during the earliest drafts of the manuscript. i was like, “Okay, are they gonna understand the vibe im going for.. or should i just screw it and include his name?”
with the reasoning thing, i thought of that but I wasn’t sure how to squeeze it in between
and
to me it felt a bit too informative in a paragraph where i was trying to keep the ambience somewhat arcane … any suggestions as to how i could go about that?
also, i’m so glad you caught the Slavic elements in there! Geujinese culture is a mix of Russian (concerning geography and dialect) and Korean (concerning cuisine and some char. names) culture, so it’s nice to have someone notice that early on!