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Hello there! Stopping in for a review!

I've caught up on reading from the prologue- I've actually found myself pretty captivated by the work itself-, so I'm going to leave a review here, for both this chapter and the precious ones, before I jump off to the next two parts.

I am thoroughly enjoying the work so far. I was a little cautious at first, I'll admit. Your first scene created a very, very crisp, clear picture and the imagery you used for the surroundings and for the characters was absolutely impeccable. The way you craft everything and choose words does so much to set the atmosphere of the scene at hand, and this is something I've found to be consistent in this novel, and I admire that a lot. However, you started with a cryptic, "child born under specific circumstances does something strange and it's an omen" scene, which is extremely overdone in fantasy and historical works. The execution was good though, so I will, as with everything else, leave this to your better judgement.

The characters do get confused easily, as was previously mentioned, but that's easily remedied with the below suggestions. Introduce them more strongly, if you can but it's still early on, so only worry about those who are key to the story (and remember that key characters don't necessarily need to be mentioned often to be important).

On the other hand, I completely disagree with previous statements made about Sigrid. The "tomboy" trope is definitely a trope, but tropes in and of themselves are not bad so long as they're used as character traits and aren't entirely what the character consists of. Sigrid has a strong, realistic voice, a rounded personality, and doesn't immediately have more strength. She's original and rounded because she doesn't prove herself to be perfect right away. She fails. She has to work on her skills and improves at the same pace that all the others do.

So far, you've got an excellent story. Your setting seems to be incredibly well-researched. Your characters are strong. The writing itself is strong. I really hope you keep going with this work, and that you post a link to my wall when you pUT more up!

Keep writing,
eldEe

Hey there! I'm here for a quick review for you.

So, first off, this is actually quite good. I like your style of narration - you have a pretty good balance of prose, dialogue, and description in general. It also seems like you've got your plot and characters pretty well worked out.

Something in particular I liked were the characters names. They all felt like they were from the same place, and they definitely felt Nordic/Viking-like. But they were also pretty easy for me to pronounce in my head. That's not an easy balance, so good job with that.

I would second what Carlito said about a) this being a bit too long as a chapter and b) all the characters were rather difficult to keep track of. I'd recommend either finding a way to introduce them a little bit slower, or instead of having the characters just say their names, have them say something memorable about them too or include that in the description - for example, "Kyle, the butcher's boy." Just a little something so we know roughly who each character is, or at least their general age.

The other thing I have to say is that your two main characters, Brandr and Sigrid, didn't really grab me. Brandr didn't seem to be anything special, and the number of "tomboy girls" I've seen in fiction that are very similar to what you have here is ever-increasing. The "tomboy" can still be made to work, but Sigrid needs to have something that makes her different from the stereotype to make her more interesting.

And that's all I've got for you! I don't know if you're still working on this, but I wish you the best of luck in all your writing endeavors!

Hi Renn! Wow this chapter has been in the green room for a long time! I haven't read the previous chapters so I'll be looking at this as a part of a greater whole. Also, this chapter is a bit long (you'll typically get more reviews if you keep chapters under 2000 words) so I'll be focusing on larger picture things. If you would like me to go back and talk about anything specific, I'd be happy to do so!

You have a very intricate plot here with a lot going on. That's both a good thing and a bad thing. It's a good thing because stories that have intricate plots with lots of different plot lines are super interesting when it's done well, and I think this story definitely has the potential to do that! You have the main line of the characters training and preparing for what I'm assuming is going to be some sort of war or big battle. That's exciting. I'm sure you gave us a lot more information about what they're training for in previous chapters and I'm sure it's going to end up being epic. You also have a lot of character relationships going on and I love relationships between characters. There is a ton of room for development with all of the different lines you have going here.

A couple of things to watch out for since you do have such an intricate plot with a lot of characters.

1. There are a lot of characters. Having a lot of characters in itself is not a bad thing (look at Harry Potter!). The key to having a lot of characters is making sure they are all fully developed, meaning they all have distinct personalities, histories, and story lines. This does not all need to be established this early in the novel. You have plenty of time for development. In this chapter, I felt a little lost with all of the characters. I had a really hard time keeping them all straight. Part of that may be because I'm coming in late, but I also think there are a lot of characters to keep straight. Focus on the absolutely essential characters for right now and really develop them so the reader really gets a feel for them. Then slowly start to introduce more (I wouldn't do more than a couple per chapter, but everyone is different) so the reader doesn't feel overwhelmed.

2. A lot just happened. This chapter covered a big span of time and I felt a little lost about where and when we were. You should be able to summarize the main point of a chapter or the main event of a chapter in one sentence. If you can't do it in one sentence, you have a problem because either too much is happening or not enough is happening (and here I think too much is happening). You may need to cut some things out of this chapter or break it into multiple chapters. To do this, think about what you want the main event or point of this chapter to be and focus on that. Anything that doesn't accomplish that main point or doesn't relate to the main event should go. Then, when you focus on that main event you can go into more detail about the setting and what the characters are doing and really paint us a cinematic picture of what's going on. I feel like we jumped from event to event too quickly without really stopping to smell the roses and I want to smell the roses

I'll leave things there for now, but please let me know if you have any questions or if anything I said was confusing!