Palurin en' Maranwe (World of Destiny) Sneak Peak

Hello. Here as requested. Sorry for being so late.

First thing I noticed was you have made up your own language for the title. Making up your own languages is fine, but you have to study how languages are made in detail before you actually build it. Languages are very complicated things and it's not so easy as simply coming up with an equivalent for every English word. Seeing as English is a melting pot of a few dozen languages, there are several words in other languages that are simply untranslatable into English unless you use whole sentences.

Languages are also based off the surrounding area. Inuits in Canada's arctic have multiple words for different types of snow, words that people in a tropical country simply wouldn't even think to invent. Language and culture tend to grow synonymously, so if you are going to make a language, put the work into it. Tolkien made up his own languages but he had a degree in them.

Also, you provide a translation for the language every time it is used in the prologue. This is redundant, because we get the translation the first time. Also, when making up a new language, it's better to have a glossary at the back instead of translating in-story, because in-story translations disrupt flow.

Second thing I noticed was your enjoyment of infodumps. As epic as you are trying to make it sound, a noble aspiration, I understand, infodumps actually do the opposite. I don't really care about a war "suddenly" happening, which, by the way, is impossible, but instead I care about the people involved in the struggle. By giving us huge amounts of information that are "required" to understand the story, you give me incentive to skim them and instead jump to where it's interesting: where the character starts being introduced.

Most infodumps are unneeded. My own personal rule of thumb is, "Can readers continue reading the plot without knowing this?" Chances are, the answer is no. I determine if people need the information by asking if the next event absolutely hinges on them knowing.

When it comes to your elf, all we need to know is that he's a city elf living in the capital. We don't really need to know his looks. You can tell us what his house looks like by how you describe the mob coming in (they bust in and are in the middle of the one room house, they look to one side and see him in bed/on a chair, that sorta thing).

Work on giving us the information outside of large chunks and work it into action for the story. The example I gave about describing his house as the mob bursts in is a starting point. Maybe even write with as little description as possible. Purposely hold back information until you absolutely can't take it anymore and need to tell it to us. Cut the story down to bare bones and add what you need later.

Also, kill any words that don't add anything, such as "suddenly". It kills the suspense of something happening suddenly. Instead, simply have the event happen without the "suddenly" foreshadowing. Also, one thing you should know: wars simply do not happen suddenly. They happen after periods of tension that are eventually triggered by a critical event.

Political tensions are a carefully balanced game, and you must have lots of tension for a war to break out. That, or a country that had previously been quite a ways away is knocking on your door wanting to invade you. But unless you live in a bubble, that knock wouldn't have come as a surprise. While that country might not be involved, they are in the way. Therefore, they would've prepared.

These tensions can be made by any number of things, up to and including one side assassinating somebody on the other, but in order for that to constitute full out war at least one side must hate the other. Chances are, there was animosity on both sides that they were willing to ignore until that one faithful event that makes all the tension boil over.

I would highly suggest you take a look at what caused wars in the past. Study the history of warfare extensively to see what tensions you can pull from and what might've started the war. Political landscapes are complicated little things, but they are really cool to write about. I personally write a ton of politics and I find it a ton of fun because you can explore a ton of stuff about how people and nations relate to each other and it honestly is super fun.

Also, I'd work on telling this story from one character's perspective, instead of being an omniscient narrator. An omniscient narrator is one who tells events from far above the characters. While this can give us a large snapshot of, say, a battle, it doesn't work so well for very emotional situations.

For those, I much prefer to feel the story from one character's perspective. See the world through their head. Show us their emotions. Have them leap back from fear. Look over their shoulder from nervousness. Then we can build a connection with one, and determine why we should care. "Why should we care?" is a huge problem to overcome with epics, because epics are by their nature far reaching. But just like a lot of people don't really care about how each and every country in the world interacts with each other, a lot of people won't really care about the state of your whole fantasy world. If you start us off with one person and their situation, it's a lot easier for us to latch onto and find a reason to care.

Overall, you've got the idea for an epic here. It could use a lot of polishing before reaching its full-fledged glory, but it's possible to reach. I'd suggest learning more about politics and working on moving the story forward with one person as our point of view character instead of giving a huge scope and all the information we could ever need about the characters right off the bat. Then, you'll give readers a reason to care right off the bat and have less unneeded information.

PM me if you have any questions/comments. Good luck.

~Rosey

Sushi here!
Your prologue is written differently from what I am used to. Normally authors try to make their character descriptions more subtle, but you just used your prologue to do that. I am not saying that this is bad, I actually like the way that you did things your own way. As for it being a prologue, I think that you need to put more plot into it. Get the reader ready for what's coming and all.

King Laur rode open his black mustang while his white hair blew in the wind. King Laur looked as if he was ready to take a life no matter whose it was.

Annon awoke in a rush of adrenalin

“Annon you might as well stop running,” yelled Heru Laur as he stopped his horse in front of Annon.

He quickly put on the hunting clothing that his father had given him before he passed away the clothing was a:

Annon believes sparkle like a diamond even though he has never seen one…

The prolouge is very quick
It leaves me wanting more of a discription about the fire, it's not everyday your house is set on fire. Plus what a lot of people don't knwo is that even though describing a scene is both annoying for the writer and easy to over do, it really helps quicker readers decipher what is happening. Like if I'm writing about walking into a room and I just say.

I walked into the room but the liquid falling into my lungs was too much for me to bear, so I want as fast as I could to the staircase with Cousin Bob Jimbob.

Where did the staircase and Bob come from and why am I suffoating? Though you may write all the reader needs to decipher the story the reader does not have the story in their head so they need a booster seat to tell them where they are, how they got there and how much pain they're in. Is he resistant to fire and smoke inhalation? Or is he some sort of Jedi-ninja-sorcerer elf?

Second in the next part you start almost every sentence in the first paragraph with "He has," or "He is" or "He" it is very distracting. No offense, but the way it is written is very imortant. Like instead of "he has black stallion hair and soft supple white skin." try "his Dark stallion hair stood put against his silk white skin" or something like that. It helps for the reader to have a difference in words because it flows better than He blah blah blah, he blah blah blah. The way I like to think about it is that the character is an attention hog, he wants to draw the writers attention away from what needs to be written and the chracteristics of him, escpecially in the first part need to be in the spotlight for a while. If that make sense. When you describe a character, his features aren't his they are part of him, so don't treat them like they're his posessions that he cab trade. But don't over describe them either.

The next paragraph I feel like that part about wher he's sleeping could be in the following paragraph. It sort of feels like you were going to describe it and then you got sidtracked talking about the area as a whole.

Then later on, you again say the chracters name to often. It feels like one of those games where you are the character and this is all you are given as information. It's like I'm in one of those old, only-text video games and this is the information I'm given to make an assumption and descision off of.

You need to work on breacking those old writing habits before you get too far. Don't worry we've all gone through the "say the name so you don't forget who's doing the action" and "don't over describe" phase. I'm still working on it. But if you do work on it, you'll be much better at writing trust me!

All for now Peace out!
-Willow C.

The prologue doesn't feel like the prologue. Its feels like the beginning of the story. It doesn't describe the world or the Elven Kingdom.

Is Annon a forest elf? And the king Heru Laur is a city High Elf?

You should name the currency they use. You just call them coin. And the kind of metal it is.

I would try to avoid saying "neighbor, Elaina, Elaina is". It seems weird.


So far I like it. I wonder what will happen to Annon. And why is it such a crime to talk and befriend a dwarf. There must be a serious war or something. I could see myself reading this.

whoops ignore this