Hey there regis, it's outvaders. I'm just gonna come in real quick and review your chapter.
I was planning to marathon this novel (or read all present chapters before reviewing them all one by one), but when I saw this chapter, I decided that I needed to devote one review to this chapter right now.
It was a chore to read for me, the reason being this ridiculous amount of exposition and details squeezed in between on a consistent basis. It doesn't help either that this is also done in scenes that were supposed to be fast-paced.
Portray a messy room in detail. For literature, it would take one to two paragraphs to do this, and even more if you want to go further. That's not even accounting for the time it would take the reader to register and picture all of this.
What I mean is that the more you squeeze in all these details and exposition in a scene, the longer the story would drag out. And the longer the story drags out, the slower it would feel. And slowing it down would affect the pacing of the story. And pacing is important to building tension and making the viewers feel the beef of the story.
All throughout the story, these little bits of details and exposition that I'm talking about appear on a consistent basis. Thus, they consistently slow down the story. There are times where it's alright to have them there (like the part where he admires the dragon). However, there are times where they shouldn't be there (like the action scenes). But they're there. Because of that, there is a lack of dramatic contrast, which in turn creates a lack of tension.
Take the eleventh paragraph for example. Prior to this point we know that the guards have found out that someone's lurking, and these fellas getting closer and closer to our main man. The consequence of being caught was also stated; there's some form of narrative stake. At this point it would make sense that the mood would be more tense and hurried. But the writing is not following suit. It's still slow. It has the same level of detail and exposition put into it, like the rest of the story. Thus, there's no tense feeling in the writing because it's got no dramatic contrast to the rest of the chapter.
These little bits also distract the viewer from what's really important: the plot. This chapter is full of very tense plot moments, and the reader would want to know what happens next. We don't want these fancy, vivid descriptions. Those things are getting in the way. The situation is getting spicier than a million chili peppers, and we want to know what happens, and we want it right now.
Doing away with them is also important for this chapter, because the job of the first chapter is to introduce the reader to the plot so that they continue reading. If the reader stops reading because he can't fully understand the situation due to the the story beating around the bush so much, then what's the point of writing a second chapter?
Another issue I'd like to point out is the constant usage bigger words and similes. YWS people are pretty smart, but wouldn't this usage of a wide vocabulary make the novel unmarketable to people outside this community? It also contributes to the cons above. It would slow down my reading experience if I had to imagine each of the many similes.
So, yeah. It's preferred if you did away with all these unimportant details and exposition in between.
But if you still want to keep them there, I got a solution. Just hide them in details. Let's take the eleventh paragraph again as an example. It's about the key. I quote:
"...fished out the little silver key he'd kept on a string around his neck for five years, since the day his father had gone to work and hadn't returned - the sole reminder of what his father had risked so much for."
We could compress all these info in one line of dialogue.
As he pulled out the key from his pocket: "Father, this is my vengeance for you."
It's powerful. It links the key and the dragon to his father, implies that something nasty happened to his father due to both of these items, and also shows us what kind of person the character is, and what his relationship is to his father. All in one carefully-crafted line of dialogue. Small things can imply many big things.
Obviously, it's hard to squeeze in every single detail you added in this story. But you have to remember the tippity-top priority of a first chapter: persuade the reader to continue reading by showing them the events surrounding the story. Always work with that goal in mind.
Anyways, that's the end of the review. I know this review might seem like a copy-paste of my review on SirLight's Hidden Entity, but I hope I related the same concepts to your story nicely enough for you.
Keep writing.
-outvaders
Points: 1937
Reviews: 91
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