Please remember that everything I say is merely my opinion and that you, as the author, are free to use or ignore it as you please!
This is a promising start to your novel, Chase! You waste no time and dive right into the plot, setting up an immediate conflict between Dilis and the young king. In addition, you manage to develop Dilis quite well in such a small space. His unwavering loyalty and honor force your reader to admire him. (I personally love him because his reminds me of Maximus in The Gladiator! )
I enjoyed your description of the dying king, but I wish I could have seen a bit of what Dilis looked like, and maybe a trait or two belonging to the new king. Nothing too major, just a little detail like hair or eye color, height or build. For instance, when you talk about the anger on the new king's face, you could slip in an adjective like handsome, fair, portly, pinched, hideous. It's just one word, but still helps the reader form a mental picture.
You used a TON of complex sentences here--not a bad thing, mind you--but it might be a good idea to incorporate a few simpler sentences, as well. Looking back, the only short sentences I see are dialogue tags! Writing in complex sentences is great, but so is including a variety of sentence structures. Reading complex sentence after complex sentence can be daunting, so try giving your reader an occasional break. Also, using a complex/compound structure with less frequency will create a natural emphasis each time you do.
Using complex sentences also opens up the door to run-ons. You did a pretty good job of avoiding them, but I did notice a few slip-ups. When you're reviewing your work, try mentally breaking up your longer sentences and see which way sounds best. If you think they'll sound better short, then don't be afraid to put a period!
Overall, I only noticed TWO serious problems in this prologue. Yes, two. I commend you on that! The first is that all of your characters speak with differrent levels of formality. It makes perfect sense for the guard to sound less educated than Dilis and the nobles, but I think this will flow best if Dilis, the old king, and the new king all sound the same. I think that if the king was the tiniest bit less formal and the guard sounded a tad bit smarter, the dialogue would be perfect.
The other issue is that you switched tense halfway through this. The beginning is in past tense, using verbs like sat, touched, turned, while the end is in present tense with verbs like stands, moves, slows. You need to make sure that you pick the one tense that is going to work best for this piece and stick to it. Personally, I think past tense worked best, but the choice is all yours!
This is a wonderful opening to your story, and I think that as you both grow this piece is going to mold into a modern epic. I'm looking forward to watching this progress. Best of luck to you and your story, and PLEASE keep up the good work! |
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