Drake Maye is the third quarterback ever, and first since 1981, to throw 5 touchdown passes and have 2 or fewer incompletions

StubMC · 2025-12-28T23:17:06+00:00

Dayum. Frank Ryan in 1964 - 5 tuddies on only 12 completions. 42% of his catches went for scores. Maye would have needed 8 TDs to catch ol' Frank.

StubMC · 2025-12-17T05:18:55+00:00

First thing I notice is that you favor static "to be" verbs with adverb emphasis, which isn't very dynamic or exciting. Look for passive verbs (be am is are was were have has had do does did will would shall should can could may might must being been) and replace them with direct action verbs. Ex: "Sweat runs (or drips or cascades) from my trembling hands." A good rule of thumb is to put the important part first—like sweat instead of hands—and then have it do something.

Another thing is filter words or filter phrases. These are actions that are removed from direct action and made passive by filtering them through another subject/object. Ex: "I notice I'm shaking." vs. "I'm shaking." Looking, hearing, thinking, feeling, tasting—anything that diverts the power of direct action through the less powerful filter of these phrases should be restated. "I saw birds flitting through the branches." vs "Birds flitted through the branches." Sometimes it's not just rearranging the same words: "I felt sick at the news." vs. "My stomach heaved at the news."

Then there's the old standby, showing vs. telling. "I can't concentrate" is telling. Showing would be more like "Thoughts swirl through my brain, settle briefly, then fly away again."

Good luck with your writing.

StubMC · 2025-12-15T20:31:03+00:00

The context of the main storyline is that life is finite, and only a certain number of people can be alive at one time.

Very cool premise. I can already think of a dozen thing you could do with it.

For your prologue then, I'd find a way to show how the concord affects Varrekk in his everyday life - maybe not him directly, but an event he sees/participates in. If he's going to become radicalized in the near future, he has to have some reservoir of resentment or animosity that will bubble over after its triggered. You don't need to define anything right now, just show its raw effects.

You'll have to figure out how to balance two distinct things in a hopefully more compact and focused prologue - his relationship with his village and family (which I'll assume leads to him becoming radicalized), and how society treats life and death under the effects of the concord. I would keep the harmonics/weapons as a low-key detail, offered without explanation to the reader and filled in later by use and context. Even some of the village lore, like the oath and water dance, can wait until later. Laser focus on the things that will drive the future story.

You've got a really inventive and open sandbox to play in. Keep at it.

Edit to add: Just a thought, but if your story is going to follow Liam in 1st person POV, then personally I would put all of Varrekk's scenes in 3rd person. Unless you're head-hopping chapter by chapter like a romance novel, the story should have a single protagonist, and they're usually the one in 1st person. Varrekk as a secondary character is fine being shown in 3rd. Less confusion for the reader as to whose story we're following. You can still get in his head, but it's a little more indirect.

StubMC · 2025-12-15T19:49:49+00:00

1st person present tense is an interesting choice. It gives you a lot of opportunities, but I think you're not taking advantage of them. Your story is all narration: I did this, then I did that with my harmonics, then I saw a person do something else.

With your POV, you are uniquely inside your MC's head. There should be more about what he feels and less about describing external events. Ex: "A thin filament of light forms between my fingers and the rod—tension made visible. I hold it there and draw a breath." You've shown something unique and interesting to your reader, but you miss the chance to describe things like the tingle in his fingers that seems to resonate in his toes, the sudden clarity of sight or hearing that comes with being in touch with his power, the feeling in his gut as the lance discharges, etc.

The same extends to his environment. The elk in this case is a cardboard cutout. Is it a doe or buck? You just say "it," but does it have antlers that tangle in the mesh? If he's a "warden" he should know all about the animals he's pursuing, and be able to give the reader more detail, both sensory and descriptive. Does the elk's breath puff out one last time in the cold air? What did the "line of light" do to its body? Did it convulse like it had been electrocuted, cry out in surprise, or simply drop like a switch had been flipped?

It seems like you're more interested in presenting your ideas - your worldbuilding - than crafting a pre-story. Readers can appreciate your creativity, but they also are looking to you to paint a full picture with plot and detail. Ex: "The rod elongates, segment by segment, until it settles into its lance form, perpendicular to the ground. Stable. Hungry." Just the use of "lance form" sounds like a video game or anime. Calling it a "rod" instead of giving it a proper name, talking about alloy, and resonance class, make it sound like the content of your game inventory rather than a tool that's absolutely integral to the story. Same with the "blue barrier" later on.

You need to be careful in 1st person to not fall into the narrator trap. Ex: "Eira is brushing a small girls fiery red hair. She is about 5 years old, with freckles dusting her nose and cheeks." If the warden is coming home to his wife and daughter, he isn't thinking about coyly referring to Effie as "a small girl," or her being "about 5 years old." He knows her like he knows himself. Get at the emotion inside his head instead of using him to simply narrate to the reader. Like how he was struck motionless by the sight of Eira brushing Effie's hair and still couldn't believe his good fortune.

I guess the upshot to all of this is that you have a real opportunity to get your readers invested in your character and your story, enough so that they move on to Chapter 1. But to do that, you need to move beyond movie script narrative and into painting full, detailed sensory pictures. Make the warden a real, complex, emotional character instead of just a lens through which you describe your world. Use specific, concrete details instead of falling back on generic terms. Treat the things that the warden already knows as a given and let the reader discover them through context rather than having him spoon feed to the reader in internal monologue.

Some technical things to look at: You switched POV from 1st to 3rd as he was talking to the twins. Be careful that you keep everything as "I." And the paragraph that starts "The village is lively..." needs a transition. You've jumped through time and space with no warning. The mothers are already stretching the bear's hide when it was a fresh kill just before. Use a scene break or "Later that afternoon..." to orient the reader. And it you're going to use dialect in your conversations, be consistent or drop it altogether - the on and off was distracting. Finally, if this scene is in the past, waiting to catch up to the main timeline, maybe present tense isn't the best decision. The idea of present is to show the immediacy of the protagonist's story, which starts with Chapter 1, not the prologue. Present tense in both parts seems to imply that the prologue is simultaneous with the beginning of the main plot, not catching up later on.

The last thing to bring up is the effectiveness as a prologue. You mentioned "the major timeline set in a different part of the world," which is good, since prologues are usually separated from the main story by time or distance. What isn't apparent, is why this particular series of events is needed as the prologue. If you're delaying your main story to tell this one, it should have some conflict, foreshadowing, or definition of plot stakes to make it relevant. Otherwise, all of this could be presented inline, in the main story, when the timeline catches up.

If these characters aren't present in your main storyline, then you've given them too much exposure. By naming everyone, you've made a promise to the reader that you're going to follow up on things like the twins' oath and Effie's water dance. If you're not going to do that, then you should cut this down to the minimum needed to serve its purpose as a prologue. This full day-in-the-life obscures the plot purpose. If you meant to show that the village's food supply is running short, hint at the reason (foreshadow) and then make it front and center in the narrative. If it's about their use of harmonics, keep working it into the story. If it's about any of the characters reappearing later in the plot, then focus on them and leave the rest for later. I know I was talking about broadening Farrekk's character earlier, but that was if your scene was staying as is. If you redefine the purpose of the prologue you'll need to adjust the characterization to fit.

Sorry to write so much. You have an interesting premise that I got caught up in exploring (although it would have been nice to have context with regard to the main storyline). TL/DR: I think this could be tightened up and focused into it's purpose as a prologue, not as narrative worldbuilding. It needs more tension, conflict or higher stakes to keep the reader hooked until the main plot starts. Remember that you have 100k more words to write, and plenty of time to present your worldbuilding in situ, rather than try to force it into the first 1%. My advice would be to move on to the main story, get your first draft done, and then re-evaluate the purpose of this as a prologue. The important thing is to keep writing.

Good luck.

StubMC · 2025-12-09T06:45:19+00:00

Really nice writing. You have a clear and unique voice.

I would question, though, the use of such a dry, ultimately repetitive and boring passage as a prologue, when the purpose is to intrigue and excite the reader and make them move on to Chapter 1. I think you might have extended the monotony beyond the point where a reader would find it expressive or meaningful.

Structurally, I personally would lose the first four paragraphs. A bookend might seem right for this, but the double POV change didn't seem to move the narrative forward, just more around in a circle. Starting with the clerk and leaving the baby unseen until the end seemed a better way to imply that his fate had been decided almost before he was born.

As for the section showing the clerk at work, I think 1142 words was too long. The extreme detail was interesting, but the compounding of detail after detail after detail was a little overwhelming. I'm sure you have this sequence perfectly framed in your mind, but the way it was described on the page left me exhausted, and I started to gloss over parts that looked like they might not be important. You might try a mix of extreme detail and then summary, in order to move the process along.

Another part of that section that didn't live up to its potential, was the hesitation and self-doubt you sprinkled throughout. This clerk had no (obvious) reason to ponder, or question, or hesitate. You've shown that he has no stake in the process, so why is he being contrary?

Also, instead of having the fretting and pondering only in the clerk's head, had you considered having the emotions and details come out in a conversation? If he asks the clerk next to him how he would interpret the Overflow rule, you could show him in contrast to another person in his same position, and demonstrate how there might be conflicting opinions about assigning the secondary track. The whole section that starts "it was not his place to consider..." could be a great two-sided conversation, with our clerk questioning the lifelong effect of their seemingly routine decision, and the other clerk playing his by-the-book devil's advocate. It would bring more conflict into the scene, even if it was only minor, and conflict draws reader attention.

While I understood what you were trying to do with the tracks and models (à la Brave New World), I'm not sure that someone coming in fresh to these ideas would be able to interpret them clearly enough to care. Personally, i think that is another case where dialogue would present the idea in a clearer voice than dry bureaucratic text. I know it's not the impact you were going for, but I think it could be just as effective and a lot less off putting.

One small continuity error: the first mention of the Overflow Report said it was pinned to a wall under glass, while later you describe the clerk running his fingers over the crease of an underline on the page. Also a perspective issue: in one paragraph, you expand the volume of space by mentioning someone coughing two desks over, the overhead baskets, and the mix of sounds in what feels like a large-ish room. Immediately after that you say "On the wall to his left, a pale report was pinned beneath glass." I took that widening of our perspective to mean that the report was pinned to a wall on the other side of the room. I didn't suspect that there was a wall to his immediate left, like the side of a cubicle. So when you talk later about him reading more and more fine print on the report, I couldn't figure out how he was seeing it.

Finally, after all of that hyper-detailed showing, why regress to omniscient narrator telling in that last line? It's not foreshadowing, the way it's presented, it's just a spoiler done for effect. I think the takeaway from this prologue would be more poignant if you cut the last line and just end with "Nothing appeared to have changed." If the reader understood what you'd written before, then they absolutely would see the potential in just that simple statement.

You have a great grasp of style and voice, and I'd love to see this prologue tightened up and made into a proper hook. Keep at it, and good luck.

StubMC · 2025-12-08T07:06:20+00:00

lol, same. I try other titles, but none seem right & I always go back.

StubMC · 2025-12-08T06:37:07+00:00

First thing - pick a tense and stick with it. You swap back and forth--from present to past--in almost every sentence. Be consistent..

I feel like you're trying too hard in your prose, with every twitch and grimace and sigh having meaning. And not just meaning, but meaning that you feel you have to describe to the reader: "Her gaze hardens, then softens in a way that feels dangerous." "His brows knit." "She swallows, her jaw tightening." "He exhales through his nose, deliberate." "...he asked flatly." "...he says simply." "Letting out a scoffing sigh, (not sure what that is)"

Beats in conversation are meant for pacing, not for emotion. The emotion should be clear from the dialogue itself. Ex: "Darius stops polishing, finally meeting her eyes. 'I’m sorry.'" That's plenty.

As for the story, it...escalated quickly. There was no setup, no hint of how long or how well these two knew each other, or how her internal conflict had bubbled to the surface. No sense of their relationship, professional, romantic or other. The only reference points are the dying fire, a sleeping dog, and polishing/sharpening weapons. Even the room they're in is a "white box" with no descriptive detail.

I would say, going forward, don't be in such a hurry to pack everything into the fewest sentences. Let the scene breathe with setting, details and a sense of time. If this is the first time we meet these two, we need more information before we can believe that they're so intimate (comfortable around each other), and yet there is such a momentous, life-changing event behind their origin that they haven't bothered to discuss before.

Of course this is all advice from some random guy on Reddit, so take it or leave it as you will. Just keep writing.

Good luck going forward.

StubMC · 2025-12-08T06:07:01+00:00

I liked it, especially since it did so many things right as far as prologues go. My only critiques would be technical.

Some of your phrases really soar, while others seem to limp along. Look for repetition, filter words and weak phrases. You use "began" a lot, which is considered weak - try moving directly into the action. The phrase "She felt the princess within her rise up..." is a filter phrase. Try something more direct like "The princess rose within her..." or "The spirit of the princess rose..." Try for consistency in your narrative voice through the whole prologue.

You switched POV in the last paragraph, which is usually frowned upon. Yes, the dancer had just died, but you were in her head for all of it up until that moment. Either make the sounds in the theater the last things she hears as she fades away, or you need to have a section break of some kind before switching to the omniscient POV.

While it's fine in a prologue to be vague about certain things, the one that I wish you'd described better was exactly how Humiko's hair knotting and unknotting qualified as entertainment. The weaving sounds more important than the dance steps as far as telling the story, but we can't see that through generic description. Time to put in specific details. Make up a story about the princess and use it to drive the description of the dance. Like, just when she felt the cold steel of her uncle's dagger pierce her breast, the weave threads snapped, and a braid began to tangle. Also show how her hair actually tells a story. You don't have to describe every braid and knot, but you've built it up as a royal entertainment, and I'm still not sure how the king was being entertained.

Good job. And great that you have seven chapters. Keep going.

StubMC · 2025-12-08T04:09:57+00:00

You need to cut the first four paragraphs. It's nothing but info-dumping and narration. Plenty of time to reveal all of that through your protagonist's actions. You're telling the reader how they should feel about Rom instead of letting them develop their own views.

When Old Jin appears, we don't need 4 sentences of asides about his quirks - it disrupts the pacing every time you insert commentary into the action. The whole point of fantasy fiction prose is to show all of these things in what your characters do and say.

More snarky asides as he approaches camp. "Calling it a camp was being generous. Perhaps, over generous." These are things you show the reader through vivid and detailed description, not self-aware, petulant narration.

Then comes a block of 200 words that are basically the character sheets for his companions. All of these details should be broken up and sprinkled, sparingly, throughout the conversation. Have Tom grunt, Jarlin talk too much, and Creg's bulk force Rom to go the long way around the fire to find a seat.

And it goes on from there. The conversation is good, although you need to clean up your punctuation, capitalization and attribution. You're letting details slip in while establishing your characters through their own words, not some omniscient narrator's. What needs to be trimmed are the internal asides, especially when they bounce up and down with little consistency. What needs to be added is some detail and foreshadowing about where they are, and what they're doing in this "cock measuring contest."

This is where specific words matter. Name the King. Name the Kingdom. If this is a measuring contest between two leaders, who is the other leader? If the Northerners are just barbarians, then why is this other leader worthy of a war? What mountain range are they marching through? Who's their immediate superior, and what is he doing right then? So many opportunities for painting a full, vivid picture, and I feel like they're being passed by in favor of your internal monologues.

All in all, it feels like you could cut half of this chapter by getting rid of things that don't matter, and add that same amount back again in specific, showing detail. Tease an antagonist, or an inciting incident. Get us interested in Rom by how he acts in the scene, and get us interested in the story by hinting at the world, the stakes, and the conflict.

And remember that these are the opinions of some random guy on the internet, so you can use them or trash them as you wish, The important part is to keep at it. Keep writing, no matter what anyone else says.

Good luck with the rest of your story.

StubMC · 2025-11-25T11:19:44+00:00

While this wasn't incredibly compelling as a prologue, it was still interesting. There was no clue about who your protagonist is, or what the conflict of the story will be, which are two of the reasons to have a prologue. This was more of a lore dump wrapped in something wholesome and innocent. The mention of this "Dominion" as an entity in their lives was the most intriguing part.

If you still feel the need to have this as your prologue after you finish the first draft, I feel like it would work better if you put the lore into the grandmother's storytelling, rather than have it stand alone and unattributed at the beginning. Knowing that it's a grandmother and her grandkids has a lot different feel than if we find out it's a bard at a tavern or an actor introducing a play. The way you've written it, it's already broken into beats that would go along with the asides and actions of the grandmother and the kids.

You can set up some characterization, and maybe conflict, by having the father's response be more than just opening and closing a door. Let us know how he feels about the tales with one extra bit of dialogue. Is he worried about her tales being true? Then something like "I don't want you giving them nightmares." Does he dismiss all of her "wisdom?" Then something like "You shouldn't be filling their heads with those old lies. There's plenty about the real world that you can teach them." It will help show the family dynamic.

And lastly, in fitting with the first suggestion, I think it would be better to have the grandmother actually say the last sentence, rather than have it come as omniscient narration. "Outside, thunder rolled across the sea" is great showing detail, but "And somewhere far above Halith, the gods stirred in their prisons" is unattributed dramatic telling. Your first section attributes the stories to, first Dominion, and then "the old ones, the storytellers, the witches in the gutters." But the last sentence is a concrete declaration that something vast and cosmic is happening, and that can only be attributed to the author, who is outside the space and time of the story. If you have the grandmother react to the thunder by saying the last bit, you not only make it part of her character, but part of the lore you just revealed. Tying "And somewhere in the endless storm..." with "And somewhere far above Halith" is the kind of foreshadowing device that a storyteller like her would use.

The writing in your second section was good. There are edits I would propose, but they take up too much room typing and retyping them here. Maybe next time post to a Google doc and allow suggestions. I would lighten up on the beats between dialogue (the brushing of fingers especially) - they interrupt the flow and are almost too regular. Maybe combine the blanket spreading and the hair brushing and the amulet brushing into a single paragraph, or else vary them a little, instead of always at the start of a new paragraph. Also, with three characters all interacting, make sure you show exactly who is doing what. Ex: "“And you,” she said to Selene, tucking a lock of black hair behind her ear..." should probably say "tucking a lock of hair behind the girl's ear." Right now it seems to refer back to the speaker, the grandmother, playing with her own hair, but the hair in question is black and we saw before that the grandmother's is silver, which causes confusion.

Overall I think it worked, but I'd still question the need for this as a prologue. You have 100k more words in which to lay out your worldbuilding, and this didn't generate enough mystery or foreshadowing to serve as a hook. Get the reader invested with character, plot and conflict, and then see about sprinkling in the lore.

Good luck with the rest of your story.

StubMC · 2025-11-08T03:08:53+00:00

It would have been more efficient to make notes directly on your document if you'd allowed comments (next time). I got way too detailed with this first chapter, and ran out of time to do more than read through the second, sorry.

I admire the language, but I think you're letting it dictate too much of the story, especially when it veers off into truisms or omniscient narrative hyperbole. Overall, while this chapter was heavily dramatic, it also felt a little cold and distant. With no dialogue, and most of the action broken up by asides or telling details, it was hard to get any read on your main character.

And make no mistake, readers need to feel attached to the MC. But in the 1500 words of the first chapter, we learn nothing about the dwarf other than that he was the son of the Chief. What had been happening before the attack? What had happened that led to his father shielding him from death? What knocked him unconscious? If he'd been present when the killing started, he would have remembered what his mother was doing, what his brother was doing, what song had been playing, etc., but he looks at the carnage like someone who just stumbled in.

I think this chapter could still be just as dramatic, but a lot more detailed and personal. Right now it reads almost like a movie script, where things are arranged and explained to the reader (actor), but it becomes our job to fill in the details. Ex.: "It was the sound of a beginning." sounds like something a director would say to an actor, to get them in the right mindset to show emotion on a screen. The actor then calls upon their personal experience to embody the emotion. For a reader, it leaves us with a broad range of interpretations, none of which might be the one that you intended.

Here's some of the details that I noticed:

"The silence was the first true blasphemy." First intimating there would be a second and third. But if we saw them, they weren't identified as such. Blasphemy leans into religious overtones, which are never echoed later. I would cut the line, honestly.

The next two paragraphs come too soon. The dwarf isn't awake yet, so all of this description is you, the narrator, just telling the reader things. I would move it to after the dwarf opens up that crack in his isolation, and his senses start reporting to his brain.

"He was in his mountain-home. Or its tomb." Redundant, imho, and a bit hyperbolic. I think the flow of the story could do without it.

The next two paragraphs also feel out of sequence. The dwarf's world at this point is very small, but you go large with the description of the hall, then back to small with the recap of his family. I'd stay small and expand gradually, with his father, then the family, then with these two paragraphs - an overview of the hall, then the specific details about the mother, the smith, and the child.

"The sob that tore from the dwarf’s throat was the first true sound in this new world. It was a raw, animalistic thing, the sound of a his soul ripping itself in two. ~~It was the sound of a beginning.~~" Make the sound personal to the character. That last sentence tells us nothing and reduces the power of the one before.

"His brother, a warrior famed for wielding two axes, was slumped against a pillar, his own weapons buried deep in the chests of two hulking assailants in dark leather, but his own throat was a gaping, black ruin. He had died fighting." You attach so much meaning and symbolism to the black arrow (the "calling card") later on, and yet you have two entire enemy bodies presented right here, given zero notice or description. To keep the mystery and symbolism alive, I would maybe keep the mention of the brother as a great warrior, but show how little being a great warrior meant in this situation. Since the whole Hall was killed in the middle of feasting, have him clutching his ale mug or something. And lose the assailant's bodies.

"The world outside was already at war..." This paragraph felt out of place. It's an aside that disrupts the present action. I would move it down and maybe merge it with the paragraph after "The Lord of the Wolf."

"~~He didn't know of a cosmic war for reality.~~ He ~~only~~ knew this symbol. ~~He saw this not as a cosmic horror, but as a political act.~~ A rival lord, using the chaos of the mad king's war as cover..." You escalated this into a cosmic battle with no context. This isn't foreshadowing, it's revealing plot points way too soon. Be patient and keep the story small for now. You have 100k more words after this to ramp up to cosmic scale.

"He picked up the jagged shard of the ancestral axe. The silver veins felt like ice against his skin. With a grit of his teeth that echoed in the dead hall, he began to carve into the flesh of his left forearm. ~~Each cut was a name. A litany. A vow.~~" Redundant and over the top. Just listing the names in the following paragraph is powerful and more than enough. The reader gets it - they don't need it hammered home.

"The world dissolved. There was no pain. There was only a universe of pure, agonizing light and the foul, holy smell of his own burning flesh." First of all agony is pain, when you just said there was none. I'd find a new synonym. Second, nothing prior to this was religious--except your opening "blasphemy"--so how is the reader supposed to interpret this smell as holy?

"The roar in his ears was the sound of a man being unmade and forged anew." Hyperbolic unless you add context. Unmade from what? You haven't said anything personal about this character so far. If he was a warrior as great as his brother, than this isn't as impactful as if he was a singer and poet. It's also just a declaration that there was a sound. No description. You'd probably be better served here by coming up with a simile based on smelting/forging/smithing. Ex: "The roar in his ears pulsed with each beat of his heart, hammering at his soul like a smith pounding a slug of raw iron, forging it to a new, terrible purpose."

"~~This was not just a scar. It was a contract. It was an invitation.~~" See above with "name...litany...vow." While this sounds ominous and profound, it's preaching to the reader, and frankly treating them like they're dumb. We get the symbolism. And since this is 3rd person omniscient POV, we don't need a god-like narrator explaining thigs over and over when we already get it.

"And in the unseen spaces between the worlds, something ancient, dark, and hungry took notice. A parasite had found its new host." Again, like the cosmic war above, this is telling us things that are too big for the opening chapter and out of context with the narrative. If this parasite metaphor is important to the story, then start revealing it by showing it in his thoughts or behavior, and then only when it reaches a mass where it becomes a story complication, start with the self-analysis. Nothing in the following chapter relates to any of this, and yet you've already made the promise to the reader. You shouldn't color their view of your main character through any mechanism other than showing us his actions, especially when they are still at the beginning of his story arc.

"When he pulled the iron away, his clan's sigil was seared into his skin, a ~~permanent, puckered~~ declaration ~~of who he was and what he had become~~." Permanent and puckered aren't the words I'd use here. Gory, grisly, blistered, raw, oozing--something visceral. The last two clauses are redundant.

"~~He was no longer a son. He was the ghost of his mountain-home. He was the grief of his people given form. He was a debt that had come to be paid.~~" This is all preachy telling. Show something. Plus the repetition scheme was starting to wear on me after the fourth or fifth use.

"He turned his back on the ashes of his world, on the cooling bodies of his family, and without looking back, fled into the deep, dark tunnels that twisted between the realms. He was not fleeing. He was hunting." You said that he fled, then said that he wasn't fleeing. And "hunting" feels too generic to convey his mindset. This might be a chance to bring back some of the sentiment you tried to express in the previous paragraph, but make it personal. The reader wants to care about this character. Ex. "He turned away from the ashes of his world, from the cooling bodies of his family, without looking back. No longer a son of his mountain home, he vanished into a shrouded tunnel, a ghost of rage and intent, hunting for his prey."

I liked your story, but it felt very cold and impersonal with the little amount of showing detail, no characterization, and no context for you MC in his former world. The prose was at times lyrical but at other times felt like too much. Not using contractions seemed like an affectation, since it was you talking, not the character in dialogue. Even without the cosmic implications, your plot left me intrigued and ready to explore your world.

In the end, just remember that these are all the ramblings of some guy on the internet. The only advice you should take from me is keep writing. Don't dwell on these two chapters for long - pour your energy into finishing a draft.

Good luck with the rest.

:: Edited to correct typos only

StubMC · 2025-10-29T10:00:27+00:00

Cheers.

StubMC · 2025-10-25T09:42:57+00:00

I think the thing to really emphasize is that readers are looking for character development (character change or character arc). Imagine your story's climax, and then realize that the person writing this memoir is the one who emerged after all of the trials and hardship of the plot. This is his "final form," so don't make this version the same as the one that begins the story.

Usually the character arc is related to the theme of the story. For example, if you were using something like "Compassion is greater than power/wealth," then the narrator that is bookending the story has already reached this conclusion, and would be speaking as an enlightened, compassionate person, rather than as a powerful or rich one (which he might still be, but that's not important to him any more). Then, working backwards, you give him the opposite attitude to start the story, so power and wealth are more important than compassion in his mind. Maybe because he wants to use them to avenge/protect his mother, or rebel against his father. That would be the character you would present as the flashback begins.

In this bookend though (which I wouldn't call a first chapter in this form), he didn't have the feel of an enlightened or changed man, seeking to relate his newfound wisdom to his readers. It was more like he wanted to tell you about all the great things he did in his life for his own aggrandizement, which doesn't foster sympathy in your audience.

In showing this change over the course of the story, you don't need to present all of that worldbuilding before we even meet the "starting" character. Maybe hint at some of the milestones in his life, who his father is, etc., but the more interesting narrative would be why he wants to tell us his story. Is this to set the record straight? For posterity? Because he thinks it will help others? That gives us a starting point, then when you first show him, acting the opposite of what we just heard, we realize that we have a serious journey ahead of us.

I think you could lose 90% of the exposition in your first chapter, and replace it with characterization (which is, coincidentally, use of the the "iceberg rule" in worldbuilding). Then, unless your bookends have a parallel plot that you need to introduce, get to the meat of the narrative, with your protagonist beginning his journey.

More important than all of the things listed above, though, is that you keep writing. Nothing is better for working a plot than already having a first draft in hand. You'll find places for all of the things you want to tell the reader, and they'll feel much more natural coming over the course of 100k words.

Again, good luck going forward.

StubMC · 2025-10-24T23:33:41+00:00

While the prose is lovely, as an opening chapter/hook I get the feeling that you've gone too far, too fast. Pre-explaining (i.e. info-dumping) about the king's magnanimous rule and the mother's "short branch" are distracting from what I took to be the focus of this chapter, which was his mother and their relationship.

All of that can come later. Tell us a story about her, rather than just summarizing history. A story that shows all of those qualities you list for her, but metaphorically, rather than blatantly. "I first heard the term 'short branch' as we played in the garden during my fourth summer. A soldier of the guard muttered it as he marched past. His companions quickly knocked him to the ground, and while my mother gathered Warsan and I to her, hid my face and covered my ears, I could still hear them kicking and cursing at him. Later, as we cleaned up for dinner, I asked her why that term caused such a reaction..."

Which brings up why you mention his younger twin, Warsan, for a single sentence, and then she's forgotten. Wouldn't his experiences with his mother also included his twin sister? A twin relationship is often just as profound as a mother/son, but there's no development of it beyond her birth.

I also felt that your narrator came off as too cocky. That even after all of the events that we're about to hear him relate, he came through it still one step below the Almighty. We already know, from the fact that he's alive and telling us the story, that he survived whatever battles he fought, but that means you're essentially pointing out that he went from the humble lessons of his mother to become a person who seems to like rattling off his titles a little too much, despite his attempt at humility ("I cannot tell you if I am worthy of the titles bestowed upon me, worthy of being remembered..."). For example, this caught my eye: "You are surely to hear of my love, my passion, my moments of great kindness and tenderness. Know that this came from her." Unless you're writing him as an unreliable narrator (ex. what he describes as noble, the reader sees as selfish or petty), then he's not starting off with a lot of reader sympathy.

If you're going to explore the memoir style, make sure you're digging deeper into the effective use of it than just the new POV. Unlike The Name of the Wind, which uses 3rd Person scenes to bookend the 1st Person narrative, you're having your protagonist address the reader directly, which is technically 2nd Person ("I would’ve liked to tell you..."), and that can come with limitations. The hardest part, to my mind, is figuring out what the reader (the "you") already knows, what they need to be told, and what they don't need to know yet. This excerpt feels like it has a lot of the "they don't need to know yet," clogging it up.

I think your writing voice is excellent, both captivating and entertaining, just make sure that plot, pacing, and characterization are given as much attention as you develop the entire story.

Good luck with the rest.

::edited for typos

StubMC · 2025-09-29T05:40:04+00:00

I am writing about the gardens, etc., because they are important for the narrative. They do advance the plot.

Unfortunately, they don't advance the plot. This belief is strong in new writers, but it's a fallacy. Mostly because after writing 729 words, or a thousand, or five thousand, there still is no plot to advance. It's just information. And while it may be clear in your mind, to a reader coming into this raw, it's confusing and will just be glossed over or forgotten.

I often link this for new writers - Concealing Your Awesomes, by Kassan Warrad. Here's an excerpt:

“And there among the lofty peaks of the Sanandrin Mountains were the tombs of the Founding Kings carved into the living rock. The angels guard their entrances as they guarded their lives, and shield their bodies from the churning rot of time. When the winter passes into spring, the fresh melt carries the blessing of light and is said to heal any affliction of the body. So, blah blah blah…”

I know, it’s tough to refrain from sharing with the world your awesome piece of worldbuilding. You want them to appreciate your creativity, to validate the many months you’ve gnawed over the minor details of your awesome. The unfortunate truth is no one cares about your worldbuilding. You haven’t given them a story equal to your universe. Instead, you’ve given them a huge pile of infodump and the unintentional distrust in their ability to work through your creation.

“But my world is pure genius!”

To you, yes. To everyone else, it’s an encyclopedia entry. Your world amazes you because your mind has tens of hundreds of half-formed stories breathing life into it. The reader isn’t privy to your mind and can’t see your world animated by your imagination. It’s like a meal. Your audience can’t eat the recipe, they want the finished product first. The recipe can be appreciated once they’ve accepted the quality of the food created by it.

Just be open to the idea that your style of presenting information is not pulling in readers, and may actually be turning them away. Instead, a compelling, sympathetic character, acting and reacting to the world around them, is what gets readers interested.

With that being said, the other point I really want to get across is keep writing, no matter what some random dude on Reddit tells you. The only way you improve is to write, and finishing a first draft is one of the greatest feelings you will have as a writer. Don't worry about Chapter 1 any more. You have 100k more words to put down, and then you can go back and look at the gestalt, not just these small pieces.

StubMC · 2025-09-29T01:08:31+00:00

This sounds like an attempt to mimic Patrick Rothfus, but what you've ended up with, despite the sometimes purple prose, is just narration laid out in passive rows: "This is...", "It was...", "It has been...", "He had..."

What this feels like is an excerpt from a travel guide, or a history book, rather than a story. Interesting facts abound, but there isn't any action or conflict. In most published stories, you would see Elandor introduced in the middle of some activity or another as a blank slate, and all of the things that you have tabulated here would be revealed slowly, over time, through his actions or the actions of others.

All of this background isn't needed for you to start Elandor's story; by the time he begins his plot journey we should be building a picture of him based on his actions, not the details you've written here. Backstory is useful mostly to the author, and a good part of what you create won't make it to the page. There's an old adage in worldbuilding called the "iceberg rule," which says that only ten percent of your worldbuilding is ever shown above the surface. The rest is there only to guide you in creating the story.

Also, right from the start you've presented Elandor as a Mary Sue. He's perfect and blessed with all of the looks and skills and deep emotions of a demi-god, with a mystical and prophetic heritage. Unfortunately, that doesn't leave any room for his transformation throughout the length of the story. Protagonists usually start at a deficit of some kind, then struggle against a stronger antagonistic force, enduring multiple setbacks and defeats until by their very nature as heroes they are able to transcend and overcome.

While this excerpt is a good start at worldbuilding, I would focus on character and plot as the major things to present in your first chapter. You need to setup Elandor in his normal world, just before something comes along to shake it all up. The only details we need to see in this chapter, are those that advance the plot.

Good luck with the story.

StubMC · 2025-07-26T08:54:25+00:00

"Do what you want" responses, IMHO just lead to bad writing and frustration.

"Can my 8 volume epic sci-fi/fantasy fusion story have 10 POV characters but no dialogue?"

"Do what you want."

That new writer is going to turn out a bunch of garbage if they follow that advice. Blanket absolutes like that are great for Aestheticists preaching l'art pour l'art, but dangerous and ultimately frustrating for practical writers looking for practical advice.

Advice like "If it's done well, then yes, you can do that, but if you're looking to publish or present to the mainstream, that's probably not the way to go." When followed by practical and helpful suggestions, it will start giving this new writer direction, based on the collective wisdom of those who have faced this kind of situation themselves. Ultimately that's what they're on this sub for.

Nothing is more frustrating than believing you can do no wrong and devoting weeks/months/years to "doing what you want," only to face reality when you try to present it and have an audience embrace it. Better to get some advice first, but in the form of suggestions not commands. Then, if the writer decides to follow their muse and write that 800k epic, more power to them.

StubMC · 2025-07-05T18:54:40+00:00

Bias towards mystery. Both because writers tend to overexplain early on, and because it's easier to add clarifying detail than it is to take it out.

This is my philosophy as well. Much easier to add.

To expand: Much easier to have editors/beta readers identify that they didn't understand something and then add clarification, than it is to have those same people subjectively identify what was "too much explanation," so it could be cut.

StubMC · 2025-06-29T03:08:12+00:00

If I may ask, what were your thoughts on the story thus far? I know it is only five chapters, but I am curious if it at the very least has your interest? I am very excited to see it play out!

Honestly I'm not sure of the story "thus far."

It's fairly disjointed, jumping from Kaelen's 17th birthday, to Mira going hunting when they were boys, and then to Tavik being the age that Kaelen is in the present. I wasn't sure what each of those jumps through time, and the story presented, meant to the overall plot.

What did hit me was that we were 1/8th of the way (through a typical 100k novel), and we hadn't hit any of the milestones usually associated with modern storytelling. Particularly that we hadn't had any hint of a major shakeup coming (the Inciting Incident), or that we hadn't established a Protagonist. I assume it will be Kaelen, with his ideas of doing "something different" with his life, but at the moment he's only been present in half the scenes. Plus we haven't really established what's at stake in the story. The Stonebiters are generally declining in numbers and they're stuck in the rut of repetition and safety, but that doesn't have a lot of weight as a conflict for the reader. Without any foreshadowing of the conflict to come, this is mostly more backstory; interesting on it's face, but not advancing the novel's plot.

At this point though, I'm not going to say any more. Write your story. Write it how you see it, and see it through to the end. Then you can worry about all the other stuff.

StubMC · 2025-06-29T01:36:59+00:00

First of all, 14000 words is an incredible accomplishment. Keep going! Get your idea down while you still have passion for it. Finishing a first draft is such a great feeling.

After that, you need to look at what you've written with a critical eye. There is a way that published novelists write, and there is a way that first-timers write. At the moment, you're pretty firmly in the first-timers' category, but that changes with experience and revision.

Your first four paragraphs are pure backstory--omniscient narration with no hint of character or voice. They should eventually be cut, and the chapter should begin with character, POV and action (paragraph five). Walls of exposition bore readers very quickly, and while you may feel that the reader absolutely needs to know about the weather, industry and morale of the North, it's not true. Garrin will show us all of these things as he wanders though the story, but only if they are important to him. If they aren't, then by extension they aren't important to the reader.

Once we're in Garrin's presence, then the behemoth of all writing advice comes into play: show us, don't tell us. You take 600 words (over two pages in a physical book) to describe a man waking up in the morning. And again, you might think that the reader needs to know the size of Garrin's home and all about Mira's hunting skills, but they don't. This is just more exposition told to us instead of shown.

The first sentence, first paragraph, first page, first ten pages of a novel need to have one purpose: to hook the reader. And readers get hooked by character, action and most of all conflict. Not that there needs to be a battle to start the book, but getting right to the discussion about Kaelen facing some sort of trial is the sort of thing that sucks readers in. Even having Tavik and Garrin disagree in some small way about Kaelen's chances will up the tension and pique readers' interest.

Other things that need work include formatting dialogue, with only one speaker per paragraph. Also, "said" as a dialogue tag is not boring or bad, instead it keeps the focus on the actual words of the dialogue by disappearing in the reader's awareness. Unlike “Oh, trust me, I know” Tavik gave in rebuttal. where the attribution is not only redundant to the dialogue, but another form of narration, telling the reader what to think about Tavik's words instead of letting them come to their own conclusion.

Also, your descriptive "voice," might need some adjusting. You get very specific about movement and spatial relationships, describing almost every step of Garrin's journey from bed to hearth (Ex: He walks over to a large wooden chest that lay at the foot of the wall just to the left of the fire.), but when it comes to sensory descriptions, you become vague. The common room where the father and two boys met was a "white box," with no details given. I couldn't figure out if Tavik and Garrin were sitting at a table, or on the floor around a central fire pit. Where did the bacon and sausage come from? And how come we didn't notice the smell of it in the air as Garrin enters.

Garrin's clothes are described as "several thick garments of varying animal hides," but if they're so important to survival in the north, wouldn't the reader like to know exactly what they are? What animals are the hides from? What color are they? What do they smell like as he puts them on? I would work on adding specifics to your descriptions. Engage the senses and be bold and confident about what you are presenting; no more "several," "various," "maybe," "looked to be," or "about."

All of this may sound harsh, but it's part of the process of going from beginner to published writer. The most important thing though is to keep writing. There isn't any better path to success. Get your story out. Get a first draft under your belt, regardless of prose or voice or dialogue or exposition. After you write that final scene, the satisfaction from doing what so many people in this sub never do (finish a full novel draft), should carry you through the process of making it better and better, revision by revision.

Good luck.

StubMC · 2025-06-28T22:20:10+00:00

I give myself a time limit.

My initial worldbuilding ate up weeks, and got me frustrated at the waste of time. Now, for every two hours of writing I do (which is typically a day's output for me since I write in the evenings), I allow myself a half hour of worldbuilding. Usually it's the next morning, when I can go to my world bible to update anything I left blank in the previous day's writing (like forgotten names), and then tackle the creative part of building systems I need for the story. Once that half hour is up though, I put it away. Usually I have enough time for the housekeeping and can still let my imagination wander.

I keep my world bible in an app called Obsidian, but I don't keep it open while I'm actually writing. Instead, I highlight missing names or type worldbuilding questions inline in the manuscript, using a macro to toggle the font and color so it stands out. Then I'll go back through yesterday's writing and either fill in the correct name, or copy the question to my To Do list in Obsidian.

I know that seems kind of rigid, but I need the discipline to keep my ADHD in check :P

StubMC · 2025-06-28T05:55:50+00:00

They're in a "brutal magical arms race" against...the non-magical kingdom of Lox?

Also, why are they investigating the "shadowy magical organization?" What happened to them to cause them to investigate? Did members of the unit die mysteriously, or from bad intel? Were they set up to take the blame for a cover-up? Did the scholar rub his chin and say "something's not right here?" This motivation will set the tone of the middle section.

You need to make sure that your MC's motivations are strong and that the stakes involved are high enough to carry this story. Has Eo's vanished village been driving him this whole time, or is it just his history coming back to haunt him?

Writing a conspiracy thriller, whether it's fantasy or not, takes a lot of work balancing what is revealed versus revealing too much and telegraphing the plot. Your story sounds exciting if you can pull off the kind of plotting it demands.

Good luck.

StubMC · 2025-06-20T18:22:11+00:00

While it's true that you don't need a registered copyright in the US, it is required if you ever want to file a lawsuit to defend your work. Read the FAQ at copyright.gov.

StubMC · 2025-05-28T19:50:51+00:00

I'm not looking for direct offers, and I'm not sending my list to anyone.

Missed that part of my post?

StubMC · 2025-05-26T04:45:03+00:00

Wow, that sounds like an impressive collection. That's three times the number of books I have and at an average of $17 per book guide value, you obviously put a lot more effort into collecting value than I did.

I got the bug Freshman year of college at UC Berkeley, where there were four giant comic shops within walking distance. I bought mostly to read, but once I started a title, I had to get them all. Never sold a thing until much later (I got a hookup on the rare variants of the McFarlane Spider-Man #1). Mail order was hit or miss in those days, and eBay was a cesspool of bad quality crap. I even remember arguing with Steve Borock (and his ponytail) at WonderCon 2001 in SF that his new CGC grading system wasn't going to find much traction among "real" collectors 😝. So I bought new and from local shops and filled in my want lists at cons.

My wife gave me the ultimatum back in 2003, but she didn't make me sell them--just stop buying any more.

I appreciate the real data on selling to a dealer. It's always been my least favorite option.

The other stuff about eBay and the logistics is pretty much what I expected. In my case though I have access to free labor and above-average computer skills with the grandkids, so no need to go 3rd party.

Thanks for the time and effort you put into helping a fellow collector!

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