I’m about to go back and rewrite before I sub to the publisher. Yes - I want him to be cool, distant and unaffected.

Thanks for the extra opinion - I think I share your pov the most. But I’ll tweak the opening and see how I feel about it before I sub.

Re happy endings - er - sorry - it’s starts dark, gets darker, and then turns black. I like miserable endings for all concerned. Though I leave the ending open so that if someone wants to come along and write a happy ending - so be it. It won’t be me, because I have too much fun making my character’s lives miserable.

I wasn’t concerned by the “fat” and “poverty-stricken” dichtomy. I gathered that the “poverty-stricken” aspect was reflected by his coarse clothing. I’ve known plenty of fat people who are poverty-stricken. That being said, perhaps “poor” is a better description. “Fallen on hard times” is unwieldy. Fat, jolly and poor…. wiley Friar Tuck comes to mind. Also, it’s probably the use of the word “but” — as in “fat, amiable but poverty-stricken” — that trips people up because it implies a contrast. “And” might be better.

I don’t mind a beginning of rotting corpses nailed to trees or with villians. I don’t assume that Areme is a villian, even after discovering that he’s Gierdor’s henchman. Sure, he managed to “ignore” the horrific scene, but I thought that implied a certain coolness in his nature that I would expect from either a well-written hero or a well-written villian. I’m intrigued because I don’t know which way it’s going to go.

Also, I will opin against the notion that stories have to begin a la Indiana Jones in order to compel interest. I thought the description was intriguing and I immediately wanted to know how the fellow got there and what he’d done to warrant such after-life abuse. To find that it was only a whim of Gierdor’s was chilling.

One of the most successful books of all times begins with: “Mr. and Mrs. XX, of number four, XX Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much. They were the last people you’d expect to be involved in anything strange or mysterious, because they just didn’t hold with such nonsense.” Hardly “action” oriented and it gets a lot more passive in the next paragraph as the author describes a bitter, middle-aged fat man who has a tendency to abuse a certain 11-year old.

To be sure, “action” hooks some readers, but not all. For me (a reader), the best hooks are one that make me want to know about the character(s) and that can be accomplished any number of ways.

The fact that Areme ignores the scent is an important element — it speaks volumes in a single idea about the nature of the character. If you are to change it the way it has been suggested, you will considerably alter the character. Of course, it all boils down to what you intend. Do you intend him to be cool, distant and unafffected? Or do you intend for him to be someone whose nose is offended and who is ordered about by Gierdor?

Okay — “blue-green spread on spoiled butter” I did have to read twice to get. Usually, spoiled butter doesn’t take on mold, so you might want to change that to spoiled cheese or bread or something that obviously molds.

And, yes, be careful about the lifecycle of flies. As I read others’ comments and reread the paragraph, it’s not clear to me if the corpse is newly nailed or has been there a while. “Rotting,” “sun-jerked,” and ripped by ravens suggests that it’s been there a while. “Raw” and the flies suggests that it might be something that Areme and Gierdor have only just done. With the two of them stopped there, I assume that it’s only just happened, but your description belies that.

I like your rather forthright introduction and set-up. I like the fact that there aren’t affected mysteries to be solved or stilted language to overcome. I like the fact that it begins darkly (but please, give me a happy ending - lol!).

Thanks for sharing!

Humbly and respectfully,
Kit

I’ve changed to him not being stricken by poverty but ‘fallen on hard times’ - basically - he isn’t poor, just pretending to be an amiable beggar willing to tell a tale for coin. His fatness is not shorthand for evil, it’s just a distinguishing character trait - so how do I get that across without readers automatically defaulting to fat guy must be evil mode?

So what’s the best way to get that across? He only has two other scenes in the whole book, but his role as a zingar has wide-reaching effects and Areme’s subservience must be clear from the get go.

I based him on a historical figure who was obese and fallen on very hard times - BC - so I’m not sure how low-tech it was back then.

That was not the case in low-tech societies, where only the rich were fat, and fatness in fact was prized as a sign of affluence. The modern tendency to see Fat People as a good shorthand for Evil People dates to the 1980s at the earliest, though Greed as a terrible sin does go back to the Puritans. It’s a cliche, in short, and I suggest we all find better ways to signal “bad guys.”

The description of the flies didn’t work for me, mostly because I was trying to figure out how you spread anything, much less blue-green, onto spoiled butter. Besides which, if the corpse had been there that long, there would be maggots dripping from it, not flies feasting. They tend to lay their eggs and let the maggots chow down on the meat, whereas the flies would be sipping the blood and leaking fluids.

Anyway, a slightly quicker description of the ghastly scene would get us on to the evil master, though again the trouble with him being extremely fat and convincingly poor.

Best on revisions.

Sun-jerked skin stretched over every jutting rib, cracks forming trenches of raw meat along which flies crawled like blue-green spread on spoiled butter. Torn by ravens, black tatters of cloth merged with naked flesh. Brown hair straggled over an eyeless stare.

I’d question whether or not to start the story with such a passive description. Can you make this more active? Something more like, “Areme’s nose twitched at the sickly-sweet smell of the rotting corpse next to him. Ordered by his master not to move, he stared at the trees doign his best to not watch the ravens plucking at the rib cage and eyes, though he couldn’t avoid hearing the sound of the beak puncturing the flesh or clacking against a bone.”

I also agree with Sherwood re the fat & poverty. A poor person might be bloated from malnutrition, but that’s a very different body than a fat body. Could it be that the master is doing a poor job of

One question, how can a fat person be evidence of extreme poverty? Usually extreme poverty means little or nothing to eat, not merely poor clothes and filthy skin and hair, lice, etc.