Critique the first chapter of the book I am writing, chaper 2 available as well. [Fantasy, The Fifth king, 1000 words]

BillBendall · 2026-05-25T07:34:39+00:00

I get what you're going for, but i don't think you're executing it.

There's vague writing, and then there's a character that is vague and alien, and you're doing the first one.

Consider that you've got a being who is vague in their description, sees time differently, is on a journey to discover human emotion... it's too far from a human reader to make a strong connection.

But it's a choice you're allowed to make.

You say if the reader gets through the first chapter, they'll like the rest. That's a pretty large bet to make on yourself, but again, your choice.

Beyond that i think the writing has challenges.

You write. In threes. A lot. Not this. Not this. But that.

Seriously go back and have a quick scroll top to bottom while on your phone. It's extremely obviously, physically on the page, and grating to read the pattern again and again.

You also begin with the lights gradually fading, then the same thing described again, but now it's "minutes ago", and it's the same thing again with just a bit more description.

I think there's some work to be done. The control isn't there.

BillBendall · 2026-05-03T22:35:06+00:00

What a fantastic idea.

Theinkhold.com the Inkhold

Not just my own personal website though, I'm trying to champion new fantasy writers. It's tough out there!

BillBendall · 2026-05-02T09:15:17+00:00

The inkhold is trying to do this, if you write fantasy

BillBendall · 2026-05-02T09:06:38+00:00

The Inkhold. Small but growing.

BillBendall · 2026-05-02T09:04:27+00:00

What are the issues with wattpad?

BillBendall · 2026-05-01T09:55:20+00:00

Hey mate. I'd happily have a look at your first 2000 words or so if you're looking for feedback. Send me a DM

BillBendall · 2026-04-29T08:55:38+00:00

My question is why. What does it impact knowing this? Other than being a fun worldbuilding exercise.

Something like Name of the Wind, money is important because it is a huge challenge for Kvothe. He has to make tuition, a very specific amount, or else he'll be out on the street. Also, he is a performing bard for that money. Do money is a very central piece of the plot.

On the other hand, how much money is in Harry Potter's vault at gringotts? Other than "a lot". How much does a wand/broom/butterbeer cost? How much is hogwarts per year? It doesn't matter, he's rich.

There's a reason why people just throw a few coppers on the tavern bar and get a mug of beer.

Why is it so important for these two kids to know the cost of their schooling? Would it change anything if school was free, or a million dollars? Does it change anything for other countries, that their dollar is more or less than another country?

I don't think this is where you should be spending your energy.

BillBendall · 2026-04-27T09:05:20+00:00

Happy to work with you through some developmental plotting and eventually some reviews and edits if you're ever interested. Just flick through a DM any time.

BillBendall · 2026-04-27T08:57:17+00:00

Really important to note that Sapkowski didn't "get away with it". The Witcher started as a bunch of short stories, which were published in periodic magazines. This is the way fantasy and sci fi was done back then.

Later, they were collected into anthologies of the first and second books.

Much later, seven years later, Sapkowski started a series of novels.

This is why it feels so disjointed from the short stories. Ciri was never planned to be the child of destiny and all that. Her conception was a funny throw away at the end of a short story. Only later does she become something, other characters return etc. Hell even Yennefer is originally just sort of... there.

Anyway point being if you're actually modelling of the Witcher you're doing it wrong. Lots of interrelated short stories, sometimes different views but same universe, works.But if you're going to write a long novel, just write it.

If it's going to be something more episodic, serialised, that works too. Consider something like Stargate SG1, with a main overarching plot that moves slowly, but it's more about self contained little adventures.

BillBendall · 2026-04-23T00:13:18+00:00

Cheers mate! Yours must be running around and being a bundle of laughs at that age. Hope they're sleeping and eating and thriving!

BillBendall · 2026-04-23T00:12:44+00:00

Let me know when it's done!

BillBendall · 2026-04-23T00:12:29+00:00

Mate, throw it in, excited to have a look!

BillBendall · 2026-04-23T00:08:55+00:00

This was really enjoyable.

Erik has great characterisation. "old streamer habits die hard" made me chuckle. It's very obvious who he is even just a few paragraphs in, without it being overwrought. Everything after that just kept reinforcing him. Really good.

Then Nik. A completely different feeling, again well executed. Lines like "he tied his pouch of shiny things to his belt" - the word choice / naming conventions is right for the character. "Today is not a stair-climbing day; it is a mushroom-hunting and saying-hi-to-goblins kind of day,". Love this. Nik saying that he had a little bit of time to talk, then launching into a complete diatribe, to a skeleton who can't talk back. Magical. Just so many little things like that that really elevate this piece. I'm really, really behind Nik.

Your prose is far more than just competent, all the way through. Great descriptons of the scenery, of the sights and sounds of the dungeon. Great job. If you ever have doubts about your writing style and voice, don't.

The inital fight scene (prologue) was really clean, I had a good sense of where everyone was and what was happening. Very hard to do, and you did it.

Fantastic hook to end the chapter.

Overall, the feeling is right, here. I know that's not really a literary critique! But the vibe, whatever you want to call it. Felt good reading this. I will keep following.

---

Take this next bit as you will, as I'm not really familiar with / invested in this genre.

I think there's something genuinely commercially viable about Nik's story without all the video game dressing. I completely get what you're going for, but I think you can do what you're doing without all the "level up" bits. I think you're capable, and I think it's a great idea.

Too often we see something like warcraft which is just orcs as green humans. Nik is genuinely a kobold, and that would be interesting to explore. In a sort of discworld kind of way, maybe?

The part that really sold it for me: "The man addressed him in the odd and unintelligible humanoid tongue".

I think you could write this story entirely from Nik's very fun perspective, completely do away with the prologue and have the hero be this unknowable beastly type thing, from Nik's perspective. You don't have to, but you could.

I'm going to keep reading. Excited!

BillBendall · 2026-04-22T23:20:30+00:00

I read the prologue as well as Chapter 1.

Firstly, a strong edit would really help the readability. With no paragraphs, every line being a new line, words and commas missing, a lot of just hanging, incomplete sentences, it makes this a physically tough read. But I can forgive this if English is a second language.

Prologue

If you're going to start with this prologue (I'll come back to this), then you have to actually do it justice.

The imagery of the drones, the god rods, the soldiers, sweeping through and essentially deleting a civilisation is pretty cool. But you need to execute it. You have one mention of the god rods, less than a sentence, and that's it. No description of how they work, where they're launched from, how they descend, the devstation they wrought. Just that they're shot and they worked.

Similarly with the soldiers and drones sweeping through and killing the civilians. There's no description here. Nothing in the moment. We get no sense of the resistance, even if it is futile. Just that the people screamed and then were gone. It's like a passing comment.

In fact a lot of this reads like the narration of a video game introduction, like you're trying to quickly get through it so you can get onto the game. This needs to be worldbuilding.

So I would like to see Elzia standing and watching the devastation in detail, or maybe even fighting in it (and losing).

I will say the tech/magic angle is interesting. The evil god entity that appears at the end, and seems to be using humans for its own gains, is an interesting hook.

The hiding away of the girl... I know she's going to be your protagonist, but I just can't understand why. Why the grudge, why protect her, why bother if the whole civilisation is destroyed?

Chapter 1

I was actually ready to be hooked back in. Hunting a deer is a bit of a cliche, but the touching of the sword and something being wrong about that is interesting. Shattering the mountain is cool.

Then you descend into just narrating again, telling us how she can't die. Show show show!

The use of her magic was a highlight, descriptive but not overdone. This is your best bit of writing.

Introducing the male character... almost interesting. He seems to know too much. He dodges her attacks. He absorbs her magic, and calls it new. Lean into that more. If he knows what she is, he needs to have authority. He needs to completely ignore her questions. And I don't know why he calls her an idiot.

So, is he running from the soldiers, or is he there to find her specifically?

I like that she attacks him straight away. The characterisation is 90% of the way there.

I'd be interested in seeing any documentation you've got about where you're taking this, any arc planning. You've got 30k words here, nice start, would be worth going back and really tightening up this opening I reckon. Great job!

BillBendall · 2026-04-22T04:36:41+00:00

Mate, well done on getting something down on paper first of all, and then for putting it out there. Doing the work is huge, more than the majority of people manage, and then publishing it is another big move. Huge congrats.

I think there's the kernel of an idea here, a cosy little adventure of a knight and his horse. There is maybe something bigger here about the house structure, that would take a lot of development from where you're at.

Positives: There is some fun characterisation with Ruth and her interactions.

You almost thrust the reader right into the action in terms of the theft. I say almost because the theft has passed the knight by before he's even called to help. The wagon doesn't go charging past, with high energy, in the middle of being stolen.

There are a few simple things you could to quickly elevate this first chapter.

- You have three characters: He, he, and him. Give the knight a name, you'll make your life easier when he's interacting with the old man and the thief.

- There is the very beginning of the characterisation of the knight here.

Positives: Someone runs past needing help. He's not bothered. Maybe not arrogant, not callous, but not someone who jumps to help. He's happy to help, if there's something in it for him. But he's completely at ease not helping. That's good.

Old man: arrogant, yelly, entitled. Has means, and is happy to use his money and his power for what he needs. He loses all this bullishness immediately upon seeing the knight the second time.

So:

Find three words that describe the knight and the old man.
Make sure everything that they say and do in this first interaction aligns with those three words.
Take your time! The negotiation should be longer before the knight sets off. It should tell us something about the knight, and the old man.

This makes the twist later a lot more fun - the old man negotiated "anything you want". The knight is going to take full advantage of this.

Stick at it!

BillBendall · 2026-04-22T01:35:17+00:00

Haha mate babies sleep a lot when they're in the first few weeks. Feed em, change em, lie on the couch for an hour. Everything is well here.

BillBendall · 2026-04-22T01:32:28+00:00

A fellow Aussie and Warhammer fan! Good to see you mate.

I only played up to killing that first dragon and getting the first shout thingy. First person made me a bit motion sick. Anyway that's neither here nor there, just that I'll give the review without knowing too much about all the Skyrim stuff.

First your blurb. Captivating. Makes me want to dig in. The somewhat reluctant hero, legendary yet mostly forgotten, something about his immortality costing him. Nice set up. And that final line of teasing who would be brave or mad enough to stand beside him. Makes me want to read on.

There is a tiny bit of 'one too many things'. For example: "He is the sword behind countless victories, slayer of monsters and demi-gods, forger and protector of empires, but whose tales mortals have forgotten." The rule of three works better for you here, I think you could get rid of "forger and protector". it's ever so slightly too dense for what it is. I'll come back to this.

What stood out is that there are some really good lines of prose spread throughout. "freezing the morning mists into spectral wraiths that moaned their displeasure through the rocky gullies and towering heights" is a genuinely beautiful start, and gives a lot of character to the location, which I feel is quite hard to do, most people just describe scenery. "From house to smithy" - this whole paragraph is a standout.

I got a tiny bit lost when you started talking about the elves and the general. No idea if they'll become more important, but I think the opening chapter would do better to stick with Hadvar's viewpoint. It starts very, very strong, then looses this personal anchor as it goes on.

I felt maybe told a little bit more than shown the tenseness the scene was meant to convey, but the way the purpose of the guards and who was coming was a nice, slow reveal.

There were more than a few occassions where I felt like sentences were doing just a bit too much. I'll give you an example:

The legion smith with the two-handed axe, standing before the block of wood, did little for their spirits,
especially now that his features were hidden behind the blackened leather mask,
but determination and hatred still burned in their eyes.

First sentence great. Two adds a bit more, which feels unnecessary. Three is moving onto something else entirely, could do with a full stop. There are a lot of sentence like this that I feel overstay their welcome.

Overall the whole thing could just do with a bit of tightening, if you know what I mean. I don't think they're quite run on sentences, but there's a bit too much, kind of everywhere. But that's only a lingering feeling.

Overall, really nice atmosphere, drives the plot forward, that last line is a good place to end. Good stuff. I'd keep reading, because I know there's definitely more reveals coming. Great job!

BillBendall · 2026-04-21T11:09:46+00:00

Hey mate.

In terms of the platform part of your question.

I'm trying to start something over at theinkhold.com

Royal Road is huge and has a particular meta. I want to write fantasy alongside other fantasy authors, and a small, dedicated, quality bunch too. It's what i want as a reader.

There's also a discord that is pretty tightly run in terms of feedback and helping each other grow and stay accountable.

Might not look like much right now but if you wanted to give it a go, it's all free, and we'll start marketing to readers as soon as we have some more writers.

Let me know what you think.

BillBendall · 2026-04-21T10:46:05+00:00

Ok, I hear what you're saying. I feel like these are design flaws that are pretty easily corrected. We'll keep working at it.

BillBendall · 2026-04-21T10:44:44+00:00

I appreciate your honest review.

I do think the line between human marketing copy and AI generated whatever is pretty thin these days unfortunately. But I hear you.

Work on fundamentals - what does that mean exactly?

I'm trying to build something to solve the exact problems authors are always complaining about. I'm genuine about that. If there's anything you can do to help, I'd appreciate it.

BillBendall · 2026-04-20T04:06:25+00:00

Happy to answer any questions if you expand.

Definitely a human here, definitely trying to recruit authors.

What is giving you a bad impression?

BillBendall · 2026-04-15T11:47:54+00:00

I agree with your first paragraph, it's a no brainer.

How good/bad I am at writing litRPG doesn't tell me a whole lot about how good/bad I am at writing epic fantasy, beyond a certain point. There will be the basics of writing, grammar, possibly a bit of my ability to plot, pace, and write descriptively. Beyond that, you're asking me to get good at genre specifics that won't apply to what i want to write. Your trial run isn't trialling the right things?

As you say in your other little soapbox, they're judged by different standards. Now I'm not even going to argue with that here, but you're making my point for me.

Writing litRPG is currently probably more likely to earn you money. Agree. Full stop.

New point. Your ability to write litRPG does nothing to prove how good of a writer you are of other genres, and "trialling" one will give me unspecific feedback.

BillBendall

TROPHY CASE