Fantasy Novel

[RandyEllefson]

Hi All,

I was going to post the first three chapters for review but I see that much is frowned upon and can't be removed (kind of strange), I'm hoping some of you will get interested enough from this description to contact me:

The book is about a animal rights loving, non-violent young man mistakenly summoned - along with three friends - to a fantasy world where he's expected to be a sword-swinging, dragon slaying knight on a quest that, if he doesn't succeed, will trap them there forever.

I'm hoping for some readers to review the first 3 chapters (since that's what gets sent to agents) or maybe even the whole book so please email me if interested, and thanks for reading!

Rand

[Locksmith]

Hi Rand - weird, the prologue was there a moment ago, and now it's not. So my comments may only mean anything to you. The work was competently written, but I had two main comments:

First, it seemed a little derivative. I note from your website that the theme is:

"Four friends from Earth are mistakenly summoned to a medieval world that was trying to summon four great champions."

Have you read "The Fionavar Tapestry" by Guy Gavriel Kay? Same deal.

That's not to say it's not a good idea to write your story, but I'm just saying that an editor picking up your script off the slush pile may think "Seen it before, next" before getting past the Prologue, let alone the first three chapters. So, you need to wow them.

Second, and related to the first, there's lots of people with fantasy sounding names, a mystery magic, the promise of some dragons threatening a land, and a quest for some heroes. All good fantasy staples, but there was a lot of exposition of the story in the prologue. It was almost like a summary.

Why not tell the story of the characters, from their POV, rather than giving us so much exposition up front? I don't know what chapter 1 is like, but I reckon you should lose the Prologue and plough straight into the lives of the four characters on earth before they get dragged off into some foreign world. That way, when they find themselves in a foreign land and on a strange quest, we, the reader, discover this along with them, rather than knowing what's going on from the prologue. (If you want to keep a prologue, keep it more vague.)

Only my tuppence worth based on what I like to read (and I'm no editor!). You should canvass other views. I reckon you can stick the prologue back up and you'll get some more comments (it wasn't too long).

[RandyEllefson]

Hey thanks for the reply.

I took it down when I discovered you can't ever remove stuff later, just in case a publisher has an issue with that. I'd post a link (like this: Writing.Com: The Dragon Gate - First 3 Chapters) to it elsewhere but I guess I'm not supposed to do that either - kinda makes getting comments hard!

Speaking of, one problem I've noticed even elsewhere is that when you post only part of something, people don't know context and can't judge how something sits with the rest. The first chapter actually does start on Earth with the characters up through chapter 3, and my approach was to make it clear which person would be which but their character goes very much against who they will be expected to be. This in theory creates a "how are they going to pull it off" curiosity.

For example, the priest is an athiest, so how can she call on gods when she doesn't believe in anything supernatural?

This is a good issue in that agents will only see up through Ch3, plus a summary and query letter, so if you and others react to it certain ways I don't intend, I might have to confront that in the summary/query to make an agent see it the right way.

You do have a good point about exposition. I hadn't thought of it that way. On the other hand, this is the basic premise of the book that would be in any promotional blurb or on the back cover, so it won't be a surprise to the reader anyway.

I think editors are a waste of time and you go straight for agents, though I do know what you mean. I'll take that into account when writing the query letter and summary so they know there's more to it than that. Thanks.

I've never read the book you mention. I did read something else of his on a friend's recommendation and thought it was awful.

Thanks for the comments. Much appreciated! Would you be interested reading any more? I can send you the first 3 chapters via email. I'm still editing the rest.

[Paramour]

It seems, from the small bit of text you've given on your story, that it could be interesting. I haven't read "The Fionavar Tapestry" but I think that if you can do a common thing well, better than what's out there, its worth doing.

I'll take a read, Randy, but I wont line edit it for you (totally not my strong point). I can give my opinion, but its not worth much in the eyes of an agent. PM me if you still want someone to read it.

[Locksmith]

Hi Rand

I probably don't have time to review the whole first bit in detail. I had a quick flick at Chapter 1 and the start if chapter 2. I don't think I'm equipped to break down precisely why, but to me, you're writing falls a little short of what I'd expect to see in a published book.

You seem to have missed my point about editors slightly - which was that it's all very well sending your prologue, first three chapters and covering letter and synopsis to a publisher but the people who read it (i.e. the editor) are not going to read beyond the prologue if they don't like it. So you're not going to get the chance to wow them with chapters 1 through 3 and give them the whole context, because they'll look at the prologue, think, seen it before done better, and move onto the next one in the slush pile (this largely reflects the process many people go through in books shops - scanning the first few pages). I do recommend picking up at least the first of the GGK books, just to see what you're up against. Whilst you might not like his style, many of your putative audience think he's excellent (and you're reading this for work, not pleasure).

I reckon you need someone who's attuned to picking out what's wrong in bits of writing. Many of the aspiring authors on here should be able to help you.

So, my advice would be to take the time to critique the work of some of the others on here and get a bit more involved in the forum. That way you're more likely to be able to persuade others to look at your work. It's human nature that people are more likely to help you out if they're getting something in return (Paramour excepted).

[RandyEllefson]

Are you saying I should do favors for people here before they'll do one for me? There's a problem with that idea in that when people are reviewing each other and know it, they tend to be nice and devalue the reviews. It's also not honest to review someone with the ulterior motive of wanting them to review you. It might be human nature, but I'll do it when I want to review someone with no strings attached. At the moment I am preoccupied.

Editors don't have a "slush pile" from agents. They have those from authors - big difference. Editors have business relationships with agents and get recommendations from these trusted sources. A big selling point of an agent from a publishers viewpoint is to vet the good stuff from the bad. If John Q agent keeps sending bad stuff out, no one answers the phone anymore when he calls. It's possible my agent won't distinguish my book from another with a similar basic premise when talking to an editor, but now that you've raised the point I can raise it to an agent. So thanks

You've probably heard there are only 6 westerns and yet there are hundreds of movies....

If your first "quick flick" leads you or someone else to assume you've seen the entire manuscript before, there's only so much me or any other author can do about that. I can't tell the whole story in the first pages just so someone will read more. I've read descriptions of books that you and another have told me about and they are WILDLY different from mine.

In any case, thanks for the remarks. They've been especially helpful from a marketing standpoint.

[Locksmith]

Hmm. Judging by your responses, I think there's another reason you might struggle to get people to give you feedback. Confidence is one thing... If people have comments, try and take them with a little grace. Listen to them, engage with them and try and improve your novel. It'll stand a better chance of being published.

Look at the critique section of this site. There's loads of sections posted there. Whose work are people going to spend their free time looking at. Someone who they have interacted with across a number of forums and has taken their spare time to review their work or someone who pops along and expects something for nothing. Sorry you're a little preoccupied but maybe other people will find they have better things to do than read your chapters!?

At some stage, someone is going to read your text (there's no magic pipeline where people get books published without their text going past people who see hundreds of scripts a week and need to make quick decisions). They will notice your shortcomings and put your script aside if they don't like it after a few pages. I'm sorry if this is difficult for you accept, but it's a fact of publishing.

Anyhow. Best of luck with it.

[RandyEllefson]

I never complained about people reading or not reading.

I'm sorry you've decided to take offense. Maybe you should ready it again when you're calmer. I thanked you twice. Try not to read into things. It is hard to disagree with people in writing sometimes without someone reading into it.

I think you're very negative, frankly, about people reviewing. Maybe people on this forum are like that, but they haven't been elsewhere. I guess I'm an optimist.

[The Curious Orange]

Have you ever been to Stonehenge?

1. They don't let you anywhere near the stones anymore.

2. If anything, they're considerably smaller than you'd imagine.

Otherwise, I liked it. I'd also agree that the prologue was an unnecessary info-dump, and it did remind me of Fionavar too.

[RandyEllefson]

I haven't actually been there but was in contact with people working there and learned they let people inside as described in the text.

I've been looking into putting that info elsewhere.

Thanks.