Story - constructive criticism required

[Townsley]

Somil

Manifest

Prologue

“son you are a wizard”

Five devastating words that shattered young Somil world, to be a wizard was to be feared. Stories tell that wizards are terrible people to be feared as tyrants that enslaved lands and murdered thousands jus for fun.

The reality of being gifted though was entirely different, it was a life of solitude where people drive you from their town for fear of the murder they bring when the power manifests it’s self, at times of high emotion or if the wizards are untrained, and their magic can be brought out accidentally.

Somil was fifteen and unconscious the first few times his power manifested itself, while he was sleeping he was at his most relaxed. As being younger than sixteen was to be allowed to play as a child would play no responsibility would be thrust on them as the time for worrying about the world comes once you have seen sixteen summers, fortunately for Somil that was another year away.

On the fateful night Somil was lying in his bed fast asleep dreaming of a lovely warm place when he channelled a single flame. Unfortunately for him the house was made of timber, it is usually best to avoid when living in a timber house having a flame touch the wood for a prolonged period. The resulting fire burned down half the town and killed many of his friends and also to his dismay his mother, the fire spread quicker that would normally happen and many of the towns’ residents did not have a chance, Somil and his father Thomas only escaped as Thomas smelled the fire early and got his now unconscious son out the house and as he returned for his wife the fire suddenly flared up harder that any natural fir would have done.

It took to nearly the next year before the towns residents became suspicious of there being a boy with the gift in their midst, some strange disasters began hitting the town more and more, and eventually the townsfolk grabbed all the boys of age, typically between the ages of thirteen and eighteen were grabbed and checked of the sign that marks a wizard. The sign wizard is unmistakeable the iris of the eye is vivid red with brown flecks giving the eves an orangey tinge, and the pupils become a deep midnight blue, these were the signs of the full trained wizard in children this young the only the midnight blue pupils are visible.

Somil on the other hand was lucky the sign never manifested in him, the creator must have smiled on him that day as it would have meant his death, all young potential wizards were usually slain as soon as there were found, so Somil remained undiscovered for months until one day……….

[Charlie Parker]

It doesn't really catch the interest I'm afraid. Maybe you should start with actual meat of the story and use the flashback a little into it.

[Potatojunkie]

Yeah, it's a good idea to break things up and take a look at them. At the beginning of this, there is a boy who is a wizard. At the end, there is a boy who is a wizard. Nothing actually changes in between—it's all just info-dumping. You might think that this is the main purpose of a prologue, but you really need to have some story to catch people's attention.

Also, you're making some crazy sentences, there, lumping together clauses which really ought to be seperated. Take a look here.

Also also, I'd recommend staying the hell away from "boy wizard" stories for a good few years.

[PapaZeb]

Catchy boy-wizard stories tend to be long and drawn out in their prologues... again I'll refer to Eddings' Belgariad - the reader is actively given a lot of foreshadowing and history concerning this and that - but the Garion isn't exactly aware of the truth for a few books of the series - hell, it takes him a goodly while to twig to his "aunt" Pol and the old sneak Garath.

Everything that PJ says makes sense. I can't write a paragraph to save my life, but the tone and stilting sentence construction does jump me from place to place mentally. Really awesome for creating fanciful dialect for alien characters - not so hot for descriptive text.

Have you fleshed out a world yet? Tech level, what place mages have in it, education levels, population levels and the like? I still tabletop game in a GURPs medieval fantasy setting every weekend, and as a GM and a player, tend to do that sort of thing when creating a brand new world first - get the maps on the go, figure out what sort of land someone is in - forests, plains, cities, villages, castles, etc...The type of world you create just naturally creates characters and situations... a drought in one area leads to fights over natural resources and water sources - an entire land of people where water is suddenly the most sacred and holy resource in life, and now you've got Dune.. That sort of thing.

Man. Fuck. I ramble.

[Potatojunkie]

Originally Posted by PapaZeb

Catchy boy-wizard stories tend to be long and drawn out in their prologues... again I'll refer to Eddings' Belgariad - the reader is actively given a lot of foreshadowing and history concerning this and that - but the Garion isn't exactly aware of the truth for a few books of the series - hell, it takes him a goodly while to twig to his "aunt" Pol and the old sneak Garath.

Everything that PJ says makes sense. I can't write a paragraph to save my life, but the tone and stilting sentence construction does jump me from place to place mentally. Really awesome for creating fanciful dialect for alien characters - not so hot for descriptive text.

Have you fleshed out a world yet? Tech level, what place mages have in it, education levels, population levels and the like? I still tabletop game in a GURPs medieval fantasy setting every weekend, and as a GM and a player, tend to do that sort of thing when creating a brand new world first - get the maps on the go, figure out what sort of land someone is in - forests, plains, cities, villages, castles, etc...The type of world you create just naturally creates characters and situations... a drought in one area leads to fights over natural resources and water sources - an entire land of people where water is suddenly the most sacred and holy resource in life, and now you've got Dune.. That sort of thing.

Man. Fuck. I ramble.

Here I have helpfully emboldened the things in Jeff's post that are bad and wrong.

[PapaZeb]

Indeed - Eddings is classical fantasy trash - however, since they wrote the book that Althalus takes his username from, I tend to use the terms to relate to man behind Althalus there - since I know he's likely read as much fantasy trash as me.

[Potatojunkie]

Oh, so long as everyone knows it's bad and wrong, that's fine.

There was a good panel at Worldcon on how cod-medieval fantasy settings are the suck.

[PapaZeb]

For a good bridge between fantasy trash and decent stuff, I'd certainly recommend breaking out of the Eddings (it's fantasy for 12 year olds, I'll freely admit it - which is around the same age I was when I first read the Mallorean, then the Belgariad, and all the rest of their stuff right up to Althalus the Thief) mold and moving onwards to perhaps Weis and Hickman's non-Dragonlance / D&D stuff (not so much advice for PJ, but just general advice)

The 7 book Death's Gate Cycle series by Weis and Hickman was highly enjoyable, giving a new twist to the post-apocalyptic magic world (Please. God. Anything but that fucking Sword of Truth series thanks) Jack L. Chalker's a litte amateurish around the edges, but his concepts and descriptions of worlds and events is spot on (characterization could do with some work, he tends to be a bit abrupt like most early sci fi writers)

[Townsley]

cheers for the comments i'll put them to good use.

this seriously is my first attempt at writing anything anything more than a page long, i do have most of the world planned out and the 'boy' aint going to be young for long

this all started cos i was bored in work, ive wrote the basic plot of the story, its the fleshing out that gave me the problem

but anyhow ill keep on plugging away and see what it finally turns into