Critique #176 — Patrick Smith
Kevin Andrew Murphy September 11th, 2007
Tal lay in his bed listening to the rain, which was falling so hard it sounded like the gods were slinging pebbles at the wood-shingled roof. Except there were no gods; there was only the rain. The Aven had killed the gods long ago, or so the Orphanage Master told them daily, and it was the duty of all to guard against the return of the Aven.
What were the words the Master had used during this morning’s breakfast of water-thin porridge and cheerless tea, Tal wondered. “The Aven never sleep. They are outside the circles of this world, gnawing constantly and hungrily.” I know that feeling all to well, Tal commented. “The gods are dead despite what the other races say. The Aven killed them all. It was only through the strength of the Nine Great Princes that we were saved. Children, we must all guard against the false emotions that would let the Aven back into this world. We can only trust in gold and the value it brings. Trust in commerce. Strive ever to make your ventures profitable, yourself sale-able and your purchases sensible.” Tal sighed, the gods might be dead but mankind’s prayers hadn’t gone with them.
Thirteen lines and nothing has yet happened. While this is generally well written, it’s still just a character alone, thinking.
Having said that, if this story turns out to be about the return of the Aven, then Tal’s thoughts are obviously pertinent to the core of the plot. At the very least, though, the long paragraph of backstory is probably unnecessary at this point. If you must open with a character lying in bed thinking, you get one (interesting) paragraph at most and then you need to get the story moving.
Speaking of paragraphs, that second one (assuming you keep it, though I don’t recommend you do) needs to be sub-divided and the dialogue properly punctuated.
Some tightening could be done here–
Tal lay in bed listening to the rain, which sounded like the gods were slinging pebbles at the wood-shingled roof. Except there were no gods. The Aven had killed them long ago, or so the Orphanage Master told them daily, and it was now the duty of all to guard against the return of the Aven.
The repeat of “Aven” in that last sentence sets up an echo. Maybe something more descriptive could be substituted in the second use.
I am a lone voice howling in the universe: I don’t know that something has to happen in the first 13 lines. I do think that those first 13 lines have to be damned engaging, however: either the character has to be intriguing, or the place, or the situation. Unfortunately, this is all info-dump. Why do I care about the rain, or Tal, or Orphanage Master’s havering on about the Aven.
I suspect you’ve got something interesting in mind. Maybe what we need is to skip the rain and go straight to Tal listening at breakfast–a thin and meagre breakfast at that–to a speech he’s heard a thousand times, with interpolations of his opinons about the speech. That, at least, would give us a sense of who Tal is, and get some of that pesky backstory in.
I’ll ditto Madeleine here about the first 13 lines not having to have all the whiz-bang action and happenstance, but they do need to be engaging.
What’s good here is foreshadowing: Someone killed the gods, and those someones are hungy and out there and so on. What’s bad is that this infodump is fortuitously in the mind of an orphan who’s actually getting a rather rare spot of being quiet and alone in an apparently private room, which tells me (if I believe it) that food is expensive but housing is rather cheap in this world, if orphans can manage private rooms.
If you started with the hungry orphans at the dinner table, things would be a lot more interesting, and you can spice in the business about the gods being dead and commerce being cool from the master’s proverb-dropping.
Madeleine said:
Actually, I agree. I’ve read openings that were pure setting and description that had me hooked because of the writing or because the place they described was so intriguing. But seldom is a character lying in bed (or sitting on a hilltop or driving to the office) while thinking an engaging opening.
Hi,
This didn’t do it for me. He lies in bed conveniently thinks about background stuff for no particular reason. At the ends he sighs. What are the false emotions that will let the Aven come back?
It’s a big info dump. Hide it in conversation and camouflage it in activity. Allude to aspects when you can, and infer whenever possible. Then it disappears.
Adam
I must be the odd one out, because I found that interesting and would be reading on.
That being said though, I agree that it’s info-dumpish. Tal seems to be an introspective person, and that lends to the ‘idling’ feeling I’m getting from him. Problem with that is, there’s no immediate tension to capture the reader’s interest.
I agree with earlier comments that the second paragraph is a bit of an info dump. Recasting it as a discussion remembered between Tal and the Master would work better, and help to break up the large paragraph into more easily consumable lines.
Also, the line “the gods were slinging pebbles at the wood-shingled roof” didn’t quite work for me. If the rain is so loud, perhaps it should be described as “boulders” or at least “rocks”, something that’s larger and could actually cause more physical damage. The image of a pebble, even in large quantities, isn’t very powerful.