6.3 KiB
Please be merciless with my first chapter: [HF] [WIP] Mystery is my enemy, Chapter 1: A thousand days from now
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Author: u/carturo222 *
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URL: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1iIZK8LeypKYC8c2_2lVyJtO-b4jXWO_jlnxsQIHGzLs/edit?usp=sharing
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Score: 9
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Created: 2016-03-22T02:27:15
Post:
Comments:
u/luminarium [+7] (52 minutes later)
The restaurant where border guard Ranaiat was finishing his dinner had been built at the top of the highest mountain in the empire's eastern province of Grola. By imperial decree, it had to be located within nonmagical sight of the actual border, so guards could teleport to the site of any emergency in the span of one single spell. Centuries ago, when Mover magicians sat on the throne, various accommodations like that had been made to facilitate the use of teleportation spells to enforce the emperor's rule. Many felt standards had relaxed, but it was only in appearance. It was a Seers' empire now, and if border guards seemed unworried it was only because incidents were watched one thousand days in advance.
Is the location of the restaurant really the most important thing you could be saying in the first sentence of your first chapter? Like, I can scarcely imagine a situation where that would really matter all that much, especially since it's apparent from the rest of the paragraph that it's almost certainly irrelevant due to newer fortune-telling magic and the end of the old empire.
It does have the strength of indicating that there's teleport spells and fortune telling spells, and of one limitation of magic (requires line of sight), but this could be better done by having him greet a coworker right before the coworker teleports off to the border, instead of just saying the restaurant happens to be built there (unless teleportation is no longer available, unlikely since it seems like magic advances in this setting.)
This leads straight into worldbuilding, and of the historical (and thus not immediately significant) kind, which isn't of much interest to readers. Readers will start reading this and think, 'ok, major character is Ranaiat, now why are we talking about the restaurant instead of about him?'
How old is this restaurant? Most restaurants don't last longer than a few years, but it sounds like this one's been around for centuries.
Who felt the standards had relaxed? Instead of saying 'many', could you have this be revealed (later on) with a discussion between Renaiat and one of his coworkers? Right now it feels abstract, and thus hard to relate to. You could definitely turn it into random conversation material that also helps to flesh out your character as being paranoid, or unworried, or whatever.
'but it was only in appearance' - what is this describing? The standards were actually not relaxed? I as the reader have no idea what you're talking about since we have no idea what the standards either were previously or are now.
'and if border guards seemed unworried' - You didn't actually tell us that the border guards were unworried, so this isn't actually being a foil/excuse for anything. It just feels like a sentence about how border guards were carefree, ought to be right before this sentence.
Also if 'incidents are watched a thousand days in advance', you're going to either have to disprove that statement with a storyline that isn't known ahead of time by the Seer kingdom ("shit we didn't see that coming, so much for thousand days advance notice, haha"), or have a storyline where the characters are idiots for not having taken precautions ("you knew the demon army was coming a thousand days ago and didn't prepare!?"), or have a story with minimal tension ("the rebel army got crushed in two hours, exactly as we predicted"). Either way it's a problem.
u/ArgentStonecutter [+4] Emergency Mustelid Hologram (11 hours later)
I think there's some missing text in here, because as you say having such a restriction on a minor business would seem odd. Perhaps /u/carturo222 meant to say that the border fort or village or monastery or other institution that the restaurant was in had been built within 'nonmagical sight' of the border?
The other thing that bothered me was that the responses to the divinations was "probably" or "probably not", but the guard seems to think that they're certain.
I don't see that this requires stupidity or minimal tension, because there are apparently methods to block divination. The trick then becomes trying to figure out what's hidden by exploring the edge of the block, as the Warlock did to predict Aran the Peacemonger's arrival in What Good is a Glass Dagger by Larry Niven.
u/dorri732 [+5] (10 hours later)
That short chapter had at least four separate instances where someone pointed out that you can't use a spell on another spell.
a spell could not target another spell—it was simply not possible.
That would be casting a divination about a divination, which as you know can't be done.
“A spell cannot target a spell. So, why can I use animation magic on your diagrams?”
Since it's impossible to divine Who is divining about my plans?, because it would be casting a spell to target another spell, it's more practical to cloak an entire portion of the future from all possible Seers
Seems a bit heavy handed.
u/FuguofAnotherWorld [+3] Roll the Dice on Fate (34 minutes later)
Stylistic point: leaving a gap of empty space between paragraphs makes it a lot easier on the eyes and less of a wall of text.
u/carturo222 [+2] (42 minutes later)
Thanks. Done.
u/wendigo_days [+3] (a day later)
Asking endless streams of questions is a really boring form for magic to take...how about a "hot streak" dynamic where getting one right lets you ask another, but if the answer is no there's a cooldown period. So you wanna make your "ask order" most>least certain, modified by the relative importance of the questions. I can see them holding little calculators where they list the questions they want to ask, rank them by 1) importance and 2) probability, and the calculator gives them a recommended MO...
Will read in more detail later, this is just a quick thought from scanning.