Tundra: Rough draft of chapter 1

[Trihan]

Okay, I had a fit of inspiration today and have roughly drafted the first chapter of my novel Tundra. I'm never really sure how long a "chapter" should be, but this seemed to be a fairly decent length. As always, comments, criticism, death threats, marriage proposals and anything else you feel like saying are welcome.

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Tundra: Chapter 1

Imagine if you will a world much like your own, where there are people who look just like you. There is plant and animal life on this world more or less the same as that to which you are accustomed, and the people eat pretty much the same things as you. Unless you were to really dig under the surface, you might not notice any difference between this world and yours at all.

One difference that you might notice when digging under the surface (as is human nature to do) is that the concept of religion doesn't exist in this world. Oh, there are of course theories of how the world came to be - two in fact - but the believers and practitioners of these two theories live in perfect harmony with each other and both acknowledge the possibility that the other one might be right after all.

The first theory, generally known throughout the civilised world as Zodiac, stipulates that 12 beings of immense power created the world and that each of them placed a part of their essence into its core to shape it. They were Aquarius, Capricorn, Sagittarius, Scorpio, Libra, Virgo, Leo, Cancer, Gemini, Taurus, Aries and Pisces.

The second, known as Serpentalis, stipulates that the world is the shed skin of a giant serpent - one of many such worlds, though nobody has ever produced proof that more exist - who watches over the people and ensures that there is balance in all things.

They both have their places in the world, and are united in the fact that neither of them are true. But I digress.

Now that you've imagined this world (which is called Gaia, by the way), imagine that upon its mass lie four continents. All have names, but the only one on which we need currently focus is called Danero.

Imagine that somewhere on this continent is a small, dense forest. Imagine that in the middle of this forest is a wooden hut, with plumes of smoke rising from its chimney. Imagine a large wild boar roasting on a spit next to the door.

Imagine two men outside this hut engaged in heated swordplay.

It is here that our story will begin.

Metal clanged on metal. Swords danced in a fluid display of skill, as did the men wielding them. To the trained eye the elder of the two combatants held a slight upper hand, but the younger was more than holding his own and indeed to the untrained eye they would have appeared equals. They parted briefly, each appraising the other, warily circling with blades at the ready in case of a sudden attack.

"You're improving more every day, boy. Keep this up and you might even best me someday!" the older man chuckled, the laughter in his eyes belying the cautious fighting stance he remained in.

"And on that day, sir, there will be a banquet in my honour!" laughed the youth, relaxing.

In a flash of movement quicker than the boy could register, he was on the ground with the tip of his opponent's sword kissing his throat and a long slash in his plain white tunic.

"Tell me, boy," the old man began as he offered his fallen adversary a hand, "what has just happened here."

"You knocked me down while I was distracted."

"Oh, is that the way of it? Yes, of course that is what occurred here. You were distracted and I, a simple old fool, played a dirty trick upon you." the man's demeanour suddenly changed and his eyes flashed momentary anger as he clipped the boy on the ear. "I thought I had taught you better than that, Giya Vantana, but evidently I was mistaken. What happened, my boy, is that you got cocky in the heat of battle and your dishonourable foe gave you a red smile."

"But you said-"

"NEVER let your guard down! Not for a well-intentioned word, not for the promise of riches or food, not for an instant! Do you understand me? Never."

"I'm sorry sir, it won't happen again." said Giya, wiping a brunette lock of hair out of his eyes.

The time that the boy had spent training with this man had done nothing to dampen the awe he evidently felt at the man's skill with a blade in his hand. After all, he wasn't much to look at: grizzled, unkempt features; tattered brown robes; dirty bare feet. Many were the lithe young men who fancied him an easy target for a few extra gold coins and ended up less an ear for their trouble. Tyrias Magamei was not a man to be taken lightly.

And Tyrias Magamei it was who met his young apprentice once more in a clash of steel - the impact jarring his old bones more than he would ever have admitted - and the training continued.

Wait, perhaps I was getting too far ahead of myself. To truly tell this tale we will have to head back seven years or so, to when Giya Vantana was but a child...and the planet wasn't on the verge of turning to ice.

[F1ak3r]

Not bad, overall, but I do have a few issues with it.

"One difference you might notice..."

There's something I don't like about the way you phrased that. I think it's a bit long winded.

Perhaps you should try something like: "The people farmed like we do, they traded like we do, they feasted like we do, they praised... well, no, they didn't. Religion did not exist in their world."

Just a rough example, there are many other ways you could rephrase.

"<sentence about trained and untrained eyes>"

I felt that sentence was long winded, and not optimally constructed. I feel that something akin to "They appeared equal, but a trained eye could see that the older one was doing slightly better".

Also, your use of the word "imagine" could do with removal. It's a given that people reading a story need to imagine things, there's no need to remind them.

Are you sure about using the name "Gaia"? It's hardly original.

Some of these points are finicky and nitpicking, but take that as a compliment. It shows I can't find much major fault, so you did a good job. Well done.

[Trihan]

All good points that I'll take into consideration.

About using the name "Gaia", yes I'm sure. It's by no means original, but I like it.

About overuse of the word imagine and the religion sentence...it's part of the narrator's personality. He's a bit long-winded, and he tends to go off on tangents. This will be made a lot clearer in later chapters, but if it's too distracting in this one I'll rethink the idea. And I quite like your rewording of the latter, as well as the rewording of the part about trained eyes. That bothered me as well but I couldn't think of a better way to say it. Thanks for that.

[Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens]

A bit of clarification:

There's nothing wrong with flowery writing; the mass appeal of authors like C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien and C.J. Cherryh (and many more) provide ample proof of this.  There are, however, issues with wordy, cluttered writing that offers little to no pay-off at the end, and I think your writing suffers from this particular flaw.

Not to worry!  Many authors have the same problem.  Let's have a look at one section and see what parts of your writing flow and which parts inhibit flow:

There is plant and animal life on this world more or less the same as that to which you are accustomed, and the people eat pretty much the same things as you. Unless you were to really dig under the surface, you might not notice any difference between this world and yours at all.

What you're basically telling the reader here is that, on the surface, these people don't seem very different from us at all.  That's it.  What you've done is taken that concise statement and exploded it into two lines that tell more than show how these people are different, and that is the difference between flowery and wordy writing.  Show us how they are different throughout the early stages of the story, don't tell us; telling us just wastes words.

Let's look at your writing again, but with some reduction:

"There exists life on this world much like your own, with a people identical in outward appearance and manner.  A lazy eye wouldn't notice a single difference between Gaia and the Earth."


What I would do with this paragraph would be to flip it so it begins with the claim that a casual look at the planet and its people could convince anyone that they were on Earth, and that only a closer look would yield any differences, and then show them the differences.  Instead of writing what first comes to mind and sticking with it, go back and re-read your lines to see if they have a natural flow.  If you find your mind stumbling over excess words, get rid of them.  Words can sometimes get in the way of meaning, and that's the last thing you want them to do.

[Trihan]

That's an excellent point, and you're not the first person to tell me that. I guess I tend to get caught up a bit in description and verbosity when I'm writing. This one is made slightly more difficult by the fact that the narrator is a bit like that by design, but I don't want to end up using that as a crutch for truly bad writing. And if people can't tell that the wordy clutter is supposed to be a facet of the narrator's character, then I'm not doing my job right. Thanks for the feedback. ^_^

[F1ak3r]

On the subject of wordy writing, it would do you good to get a copy of The Elements Of Style by Will Strunk Jnr and EB White. That book has a lot of clear rules you can memorize and use to cut down on unnecessary wordage.

[Trihan]

Never heard of it. I shall check it out when I get a chance.

[Dualnames]

Good, didn;t read about the world but instead read the narrative part. Which was excellent, I even had an image of the scene sprited/pixellated as I read. Overall, nice choice of words in that part.

[MoodyBlues]

This is pretty good.  I like the relationship between Giya and Tyrias, and the narrative voice is distinct and intriguing.

A few things:

1)  Tyrias, at least right now, threatens to fall into the "grizzled, gruff old mentor" cliche.  As the story progresses, make sure you develop his personality as much as any of the other characters.

2)  As I mentioned to you earlier, there's too much exposition too soon.  I realize that the narrator is the kind of person who rambles.  However, if he begins with a description of the world and its mythology, the reader might lose interest since so many fantasy novels begin this way.  Ask yourself - if you were sitting around the fire and listening to the narrator, what would you care about?  What would catch your attention - a history lesson or a swordfight?  I'd suggest starting with the fight and sprinkling facts about the world into dialog or descriptions whenever exposition is relevant to the current action.

Other than that, this is good.  Good luck with it!

By the way, is this a fanfiction?

[Trihan]

Trust me, Tyrias is FAR from the grizzled, gruff old mentor cliche. You'll see in time.

I agree with you on the exposition. To be honest that part never really sat right with me, but I couldn't think of anything else to make this part longer (I think I'm going to make this a prologue, which are generally shorter than chapters, and go into a bit more detail with the swordfight with only a minimal introduction to the world and setting, for now)

And no, this is a completely original story.

[Dualnames]

Example: Recall star wars ever having a narrator describing the universe the story is in? I mean with the same amount of details you are of course. No. Not really.

A game example would be monkey island(1). It just describes so few as a narrator, most of it is lived.

[Trihan]

The difference is that in those narratives the narrator wasn't himself a character.

[Dualnames]

Oh, well...remember the Sierra Quest games then..no wait..ok, Discworld Noir. Narrator=Lewton, and well, he describes a small bit of the world.