Overall Notes:
1. I'll be posting a chapter or part of a chapter every single week, usually on Monday (barring any life factors that change my plans)
2. Some of these chapters will be rated 16+ or 18+ for violence, language, and/or mature content (with 95% of that being violence). If you want to read through this novel, keep that in mind.
3. This is probably the only chapter that is small enough to be posted without being separated.
4. This is an unedited first draft; everything up to about Chapter 6 was written for NaNoWriMo in November 2016, and everything afterwards was written for LMS. I will notify the audience any part of the story that I dislike enough to where it will be heavily edited in the future, but don't let that get in the way of any reviews you want to provide.
5. This is going to suck. A lot.
Book One: He Came With the Zephyr
Chapter One: Balancing Act
Author's Notes: I need to find past me so I can slap him in his stupid face for using the passive voice so many times.
On that night, Cassiopeia - a self-proclaimed master of silence and devotion - was doing more than merely contemplating the divine. She was talking to them.
The fairly large lady sat in the middle of the bare stone room, draped in a gray, translucent garb under which was a multi-colored arrangement of clothing that formed an undershirt and pantaloons. Her head was reverentially bowed towards the ground as a guard in a chainmail uniform and pointed helmet waited by the entrance, awaiting one of those telltale signs by which the psychic would indicate that her latest foray into the ethereal had been completed, and their latest decrees ready to be cast upon the world.
Such days were yet rare, but she was patient. Cassiopeia believed in the simplicity of faithfulness, as their messages proved to be blunt and concise. There was no incense to be burned - it distracted her, and was too smelly. The bare accommodations made it seem quaint in comparison to the elegant and elaborate fashions of her peers, but she did not such a high regard for fashion, as her clothing, inherited from her traveling salesman of a mother, indicator. Nevertheless, though she remained as stock-still as she could, eyes strained to capture whatever oncoming message of importance might drift her way, the inner child at heart enigmatically waited for its treat.
That child had to wait for a long time, in the midst of the grand procession of time, but she was used to this. However, such feelings rapidly dissipated in favor of energy as those familiar features began to flicker in front of her. Black hair, blue eyes, dark skin, and a warm smile. Lithe, feminine, and graceful. Cassiopeia knew not if this was an imagined depiction of the man in question, given his powers, but that was for the theologians to discuss. Her heart tripled in beat, and she restrained herself from opening her eyes or shutting them further, lest the image be broken. Sweat began to form on her forehead as this oddly powerful session began, and her reverence captured her spirit. Better yet, the message was more significant than normal.
Though her head was bowed, she felt as though teary eyes were blissfully staring up at Kazuo, the First and Eternal Lord of the Order of Psychics and Child of the Almighty Creator of the World Beyond. Cassiopeia loved her job far too much, but that sentiment never bothered her. Who else could say they listened to a god?
A scratchy voice began to echo through her mind, slightly interfered by their inter-dimensional distance between each other. The silhouettes of figures, surrounded by what seemed to be the edges of a mirror, dashed into her vision. Two were masculine, and one feminine. Two were short, and one was tall. One seemed strangely malicious and dashing, one seemed regal and composed, and the third seemed to be dignified and firm. All were familiar, perhaps a little too much so. They spun around in Cassiopeia's mind for a brief time, before vanishing in favor of a new, much larger image.
"Three people..." called Kazuo, straining and emphasizing each of those words. "Will escape this castle tonight. You...must let them."
The psychic made her best effort not to gasp when she saw the castle projected in her mind, with its towering gray walls, complete with turrets, towers, and holes for the archers; expansive marketplaces and cobblestone streets surrounding it; and the stately mansion within it. Thankfully, this was not an image that she had to devote to memory, nor were the weight of Kazuo's words. The impressions for the former were too biting; for the latter, too strong, and such a sensation didn't need to last long. Her objective, strange as it was, now lay before her, and she had to act quickly, else this cause would be lost.
A loud exhaling of air escaped Cassiopeia as the castle broke apart in her mind, and the shards dissipated into the mist they had come form, as did Kazuo's figure. He waved a final goodbye, though his demeanor seemed far icier and stern than before, with just a hint of concern that matched the psychic's. Eyes fluttered open as the footsteps of the guard rushed over to her. Cassiopeia's fright and sudden weakness did not help.
"Send for the king, sir!" she cried, hands propping her, to the guard with decidedly avian features. He nodded, and then the footsteps of heavy boots echoed out of the room and down the corridor. The lord's private quarters were not that far away, as she was not the only one who understood the importance of these messages. That didn't give her much time, but it would surely do. At least, enough to escape her initial wave of panic and confusion.
And come he did.
"My dear!" cried the light brown-haired man with an imposing mustache, which he twirled in nervousness as the guard rushed over and stood aside for him and his entourage of young assistants and older advisors. He seemed haggard and worn, and his outfit looked hastily put-together, the natural consequence of being awoken in the middle of the night. He had a blue silk jacket emblazoned with the royal Exedor symbol - an eagle soaring into blue skies while clutching a smaller flag with its own insignia, a massive tree. It draped over his white underclothes, loosely bound together around his waist by a thin rope, but did nothing to mask those giant eyes of his as he clasped Cassiopeia's gaunt hands in his own. Kneeling, he said to her, "What news do you bring of me?"
Cassiopeia seemed lost in her own private thoughts for a moment, before her world was snapped into clarity and focus by these words. Mustering her loudest and most dramatic voice, she replied, "My King Renatus, the soldiers of Eimhin and gathered by your border, and are preparing a sneak attack to distract you while they make for Wyandanch on the day of the ball!"
It worked. The distressed King rose in a huff, letting go of Cassiopeia as he turned to his equally-surprised and flustered advisors, and began to issue forth a stream of commands while the guard helped lift Cassiopeia to her feet. As did the blond-haired lady that came to her side, dressed in the same garb as the King. Her gangly features seemed to be even larger, as though her body was trying to flee in all directions with the news. Those sunken, amber eyes looked sympathetically upon the psychic, though the lady herself looked unhealthy and worn. Nevertheless, the Queen Renatus lifted the psychic to her feet, and helped her exit from the room as the advisors and King dashed far ahead, the former's loud voice still emanating off of the walls.
And that was that. The act had concluded, although Cassiopeia's presently frail figure was not a show. As her emotions swirled in her head, she tried to comprehend what had happened. Why had Kazuo been so ambiguous? What was the significance of this event that he could not explain it to her? What had she begun in motion with those people and that setting? This was all too strange, and she was struck with the sense that, no matter what she hoped, she might never be able to figure out what had just happened. That, if she had just crafted an elaborate and dismal game, she might be nothing more than its pawn.
Yet, her job was to remain ever devoted, and what else could she do but that?
End of chapter
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139,638 Literary Works • 672,637 Reviews
I kind of got tired of the green room so I'm here to start this novel from the beginning and possibly catch up to 6.1 before anyone snatches it. That might not be the best plan that I've ever made as far as review strategies go but let's see how far into hell I manage to send this review.
First thing. God dammit fox, have some confidence in yourself. I hate reviewing stuff where the author is all mopey about their ability and saying "don't expect too much from me", from the get go. Obviously you thought this story was good when you were writing it and after you committed more time to finishing it. Intros like that are a dime a dozen and I should known since I've reviewed dozen of them. Yours actually follows through past the 2nd chapter so you're already doing better than half the novels on YWS.
I admit that I'm not particularly sold on the idea presented in this chapter but you've still got enough of my interest that I'm willing to go an review the next part.
Rant over and let's just take this from the top.
As an opening line this is rather meh because it doesn't have a good grip on the reader's attention until the following line. I'll let it roll for now because I don't have the slightest recommendation on how to make it not seem so disconnected. There is some interest in my heart of how you're going to apply this medium like character considering the later chapter I read on espionage. Hopefully what I read there doesn't ruin the lead up for me, too much.
She's fat. Just say it. She's standard medium in a side show carnival. She may even be the stand in for the bearded lady for all I know, anything seems to be possible in this fantasy world that you have created.
I really picked this line to represent all of the description that you've got going on here, which I appreciate rather than you going like "the wall was white. the table was brown. she looked like a seal."
And I should probably comment more on the things that take place after the vision but I'm not really sure it would be good to do that. I haven't read the other reviews for sake of keeping an open mind, but pretty sure I would be repeating any of my issues. I'll just use them as material farther down the line when i don't have anything to say.
Yeah, I'm extremely critical of my own writing, so you're going to see more of that general air of "god why is everything so terrible." The opening line is definitely meh, and that's something I want to focus on, since it should be able to pull the audience in. Otherwise, I'm wary about using "fat" - it's simpler, but much harsher. Anyways, at least the story makes sense, and there are some decent descriptions (even if they're mostly meh). Thanks for the review!
Hello there and happy RevMo (even if I am a bit late to the reviewing party)! I saw one of these chapters in the Green Room earlier, and since I'm short on things to review, I figured I might as well start reviewing from the start.
Since this is an unedited rough draft, I'll be focusing more on general and overarching things like plot, character arcs, and such rather than the smaller things, unless I run out of things to say about things in which case, all is fair in RevMo reviewing!
With all of that said, onto the actual review for the chapter. XD
And first things first, don't be hating on the passive voice. What did the passive voice ever do to you? ;.; I mean, I'm totally biased in that I like the passive voice. A lot. But in all seriousness, it does have its uses, and I got the impression that you were trying to create sort of an air of gravity and mystique, which is what the passive voice is perfect for.
Except you didn't actually use the passive voice much, if at all. Cassiopeia is a pretty active character in all of this, seeing as how she's the subject of a lot of the sentences and doing a lot of the actioning going on, so the passive voice problem strikes me as a non-existent problem arising from the multiple usages of the past continuous tense rather than the more common simple past.
In either case, I don't think your tenses or the use of passive voice are an issue in this part, and any sentence-level structural issues have more to do with idea placement within the sentences than anything else.
This sentence here in particular is a good example of what I'm talking about. My first impression upon reading this sentence was "Whose hands?" followed by "When did the guard start propping her up?"
If we break down the flow of ideas logically, Cassiopeia crying is linked directly to what she says and who she says it to. The propping of hands is not directly related to the crying, yet you've placed it right there, after the verb, implying that it is either directly related or else is the start of a sequence of events following and separate from the crying when it isn't.
A more logical flow of ideas would be what Cassiopeia says > dialogue tag > description of soldier (also answering the Who she is crying to) > description of her physical state (aka the hand propping).
Bam. Suddenly the action becomes easier to follow, and you don't even have to meddle with tenses or majorly different sentence structures. :3
Fffft, every time I use the passive voice, I can hear the voices of all my English teachers going "noooo, don't use that, it's evil". However, I can see how it'd be useful for making the opening more mysterious, and I like your comments on sentence structure. Much of my anger against the opening chapters is their pretentiousness, and I think that shows in erratic sentence orders. So, all in all, thanks for the review!
Hello, TheSilverFox! I'm here to review your work! I'm sorry in advance if my review isn't all that helpful. I'm trying to become a better reviewer, but I'm still not used to reviewing some of the things I'm going to mention in this review.
I had gone into this expecting something wonderful, and I wasn't proven wrong. This first chapter was just as good as I had thought it would be! It sucked me in with the first couple of sentences and continued to keep me engaged throughout the entirety of you. The descriptions added instead of took away from the plot, which is always a great thing to have in a piece of writing.
All of the issues that I had with the grammar were brought up by other reviewers, so I'll talk about other parts of this chapter instead!
In regards to the characters, the reader learns that Cassiopeia is a very devoted person and also very good at quickly creating plans. That's a good amount of information for a first chapter of a novel!
You also did a great job with the setting of the chapter. I was able to imagine the place that the story took place in, and, as I mentioned before, the descriptions you included didn't detract from the rest of the chapter.
My one suggestion is to include why she couldn't inform the king of her vision. Even though the reader can assume that she decided to lie instead of telling the truth because she doubted he would let the three escape, it isn't confirmed.
Also, I hope I'm right with my guess on the who the three are!
I hope this review helped. I really enjoyed reading your work, and I'm sorry if any part of my review seemed harsh! Also, please feel free to PM me if something I said doesn't make sense. I'd be happy to explain it to you. Keep up the great work - which I doubt you'll have trouble with - and good luck on your writing endeavors! I hope you have a wonderful day/night!
Can I review this? No. It couldn't be better. I might have to follow this as it unfolds!
Heyo Fox! As promised, I am here to [s]tear you from limb to limb[s] leave a review! Let's get down to business.
Technical Comments:
1. While Hunter did a wonderful job picking apart your sentences word by word, my honest opinion is that the best way to proofread for grammar and readability is to read aloud. Or at least mouth the words. I'm at the point where I rarely have to do this, but when I manage to get some privacy, I still sit myself down and just read my latest chapter out loud.
This does a number of things for your writing: it tells you where your audience will need to stop to process parts of a sentence, when you've mixed up verb tense, and when your pronouns and plurals are out of agreement. For you, that first point will be especially helpful, because reading aloud helps you figure out where, when, and how to break sentences (not necessarily with full stops; I know you like your long sentences) to make them easier to digest, while still maintaining their complexity.
2. Rhetorical questions are not your friend. They can be effective, but be careful with the concentration.
Plot, Characterization, and Misc. Items:
There are a lot of people mentioned in this chapter. This is something I would personally avoid, but I've also never really read anything in the serious-political-drama area, so maybe this is a normal thing. And while I recognize that the number of people present is not something you can probably change, I do think you could have afforded to spend less time on each individual. Obviously we will meet these people again, so you could just pick out one memorable feature for each person and use that feature again when we get to meet everyone in more intimate settings.
For example, using the word 'avian' to describe someone's appearance (I am assuming you're describing the person as bird-like, not that they're an actual bird, like Hunter thinks) is a pretty strong choice. If this person shows up in the future, I would expect them to be reintroduced with the descriptor, 'avian,' so that I connect the appearances.
And I'm going to cut myself off there. There's a lot of good stuff going on here, but I want to get better acquainted with your serious writing before I break into the deep stuff.
Good job! I'll be back.
-Buggie
Salutations, Fox!
I haven't reviewed consistently since 2015, so I do apologise in advance if my reviews are too technical and focused on grammar than you would like, as that is my default style. I'll try my best to provide a rounded opinion of all the aspects - this being a novel, that shouldn't be too difficult, I hope.
To start off, I find the title intriguing. People often say a title should grab the reader's attention, but titles like those can come off as cliché, so I prefer a title that works. We'll see at the end of this if it's still the best choice, but until then, I'd say it's perfectly fine.
Ah, the first part of the review that directly addresses your writing, yet I'm already using quotes. I'm sorry! Nevertheless, I see what you meant with the passive voice. You are already aware of the issue so I shan't linger on it, but yeah, I prefer to avoid writing consecutive sentences in the passive voice.
Focusing on the opening paragraph itself, I find it somewhat lacking. You didn't start with any generic phrases, which is a relief, but I still feel you could have made it a bit more interesting. Otherwise, it's interesting! I enjoy the "self-proclaimed". Coupled with her name, it very quickly creates an impression of Cassiopeia. (By the way, is the emphasis on "Cassiopeia", or "Cassiopeia"?)
Again, you're entirely aware of this, but this sentence is a bit long. It's entirely correct grammarically speaking, but it would benefit from being split or reorganised. You might also be describing the attires in slightly too much detail, though it isn't too bothersome either.
Passive voice.
Simple mistakes. You can easily figure out what's wrong here.
I question the use of the adjective. Did you perhaps mean "excitedly"?
Goodness, that is a mouthful. Fortunately, I've seen many official titles while reading and playing RPGs, so I know the format. Your mistake here was that you didn't include any commas, which are generally used to separate the titles. An example that comes to mind is "Farrara, Lord of the House of Ballads, Slayer of Enfamaniir, Protector of the Ring of Keozai, Discoverer of the Islands of Meropis". As you can see, it sounds as pretentious as it does important, so similarly, I'd suggest "Kazuo, First and Eternal Lord of the Order of Psychics, Child of the Almighty Creator of the World Beyond". The commas break the titles into sections the reader can more easily handle, but your titles are far too long. Consider condensing them, and rather add more titles.
Remove everything in blue.
Considering this image is fleeting, I feel you spent too much time describing it.
Much too long-winded. This can easily be shortened.
Since you haven't established the races just yet, I'd say describing the guard as anything but human is unnecessary. In a flim, you'd be able see it immediately, but in a novel, you have to decide which details to include and which to leave out.
Here, you could already have split it into two sentences. Try not to make dialogue tags too long.
The preposition is redundant.
A run-on sentence that also contains a typo. (Yes, that is a fragment, but it was deliberate.
That's it for the technicalities! The chapter is vague in conveying its importance, but since this does have a very prologue-like feel to it, that's both intentional and acceptable. I presume Cassiopeia will feature again, just not as the focal character. It will certainly be interesting to note the difference.
Regarding Cassiopeia herself, you adequately conveyed her strong perception of self-importance and obstinate devotion. I say obstinate because it feels more as if she was trying to prove a point and/or acquire a reward than unfailingly serve her divine patron. This information is sufficient for me to run her through potential scenarios and gauge her usefulness in certain situations. It definitely helps having an idea of what a character would do.
That's it for the first chapter, I think! I really hope it's of any use to you, and it's not, oh well. I look forward to seeing what happens next!