the beginning

[Cavernio]

K, so here's what I've got right now. This is likely going to be the beginning. This section was actually written quite some time ago, so I feel more comfortable in taking criticism about it I think. I plan on having my BF edit it (he's loves editing, the weirdo, and he's good at it too), so I'm not looking for nit-picking. I basically want to know if you are engaged whatsoever by this, and if you're not, how I could make it better.

/Her bed shook, waking him up, scaring her. More shaking. This time, it was accompanied by a horrific boom, and the walls moved. Her fear heightened that instant, as she could come to only one conclusion as to what it was. Terrified, she cried and jumped up to run to her parents for protection. She realized the next moment, even in her child’s mind, how desperate this action was, knowing how useless her parents would be to stop it. But she had to get to them, nonetheless. No sooner had she taken a step onto the cold floor that she was tossed forward onto it, just barely throwing her hands out in front of herself to stop her face from smashing onto the hardened mud. She screamed for Mama, but it was drowned out by a deep rumbling, and the ground trembled more. She had to reach her parents’ room, had to see them, had to warn them, had to get to them, had to had to had to had to. She breathed in deeply preparing for another cry but couldn’t. She couldn’t breathe! Then she felt the huge weight on her back, pressing her hard into the floor, squeezing her. They had caught her, caught her! She couldn’t let them get her, no they couldn’t take her. She had to fight! She tried to move her body, but she couldn’t budge it. She flailed her legs, kicking everywhere. She tried to move her arms, but they were pinned under her. She tried to breathe again, to scream for help, but she only managed to get a tease of air. But it was enough to help her fight. Her legs kicked more furiously. Had to fight, had to escape, couldn’t let them get her, couldn’t let them get her parents! Tried to breathe again, but the weight on her back wouldn’t let her. Her ribs were squeezed too hard. Breathe, she had to breathe, get air, must breathe, sweet air. She was suffocating. The world suddenly became calmer. What happened? The ground, it had stopped moving. She couldn’t hear anything. Things stopped. Air, breathe, had to breathe, oh please please please breathe. No breath.

Kata woke up with a corner of her lumpy, drool covered, hay-filled pillow jammed deep in her mouth, itching while at the same time smothering. She yanked it out forcefully and finally got her much needed air. Ah, she knew she should’ve expected to dream about that tonight. Whenever she went to bed excited about something, anything, she always dreamed about that night the city was attacked by demons; the priests would call that an omen, most certainly a bad one. She never seemed to remember the incident as well as her dreams did; it was to the point that she thought that all of her memories of the event were actually memories of her dreams instead. For instance, up until now, she couldn’t recall ever being suffocated while being pinned that night, but she was sure that in a few weeks, she’d always remember not being able to breathe. A few things always stayed the same though. One was the terror she felt, and two, was that she was always sure that demons had caught her. Funny how that was, since she was never actually caught by a demon. In reality, a piece of the ceiling had collapsed onto her, so she had been told, but at the time, she must have thought that she had been captured. Or maybe that’s just the way the dream was.
Her fear from the nightmare was quickly replaced by the excitement that had caused the nightmare in the first place. She wasn’t going to be working in the rice paddies anymore! Finally getting a hold of reality, judging by the amount of light that shone behind the curtained doorway, the sun had probably just begun to creep over the horizon. She was up just a little bit early. Looking around at her fellow field labourers, none looked awake yet. At the same time, she sensed that the other three women in the circular hut, sprawled on their own haymattresses, were all feeling very peaceful. That must have been a first. She often woke up just before the others did, and rarely did anyone ever feel anywhere near peaceful in their dream-filled sleep. Last time that she had woken up early, Charla had felt as scared as she herself had just been moments ago during her own dream, Vera had probably been dreaming about her current 'one and true love', Razul, as she had felt rather, well, ah, aroused, and Bea had felt angry -very angry. As angry as she had been that time that Vera had thrown Bea’s new pair of shoes into the river Estus because Bea had allegedly fooled around the previous night with Razul. Funny thing was, Bea could hardly stand Razul, much less want to sleep with him, and those shoes had cost her a few months work. Bea never did find out who had started the rumor that she and Razul had done anything though, but Kata knew. Kata's best friend, Tayla (who did not sleep in the same hut as Vera, Bea and herself) had spread it around because she was sure that Bea had used weighted dice at a game a few nights before; she said that too many sixes had been rolled, and Talya knew that Vera would react hostilely towards anyone who would steal her loves. Only after the shoes had been drowned did Talya ask Kata to search through Bea’s things for the dice, seeing as they shared a hut. Naturally, she had found only one set of dice, and it turned out they were perfectly normal. Kata also knew who Razul had actually been with the night before; he had been with Tayla, but neither Vera nor Bea learned that either.
Snapping back from her recollection of Talya's mischief, while looking at and feeling her fellow ricies' emotions, she fully thought about the fact that if everything worked out for the best today, she would probably never see them again. Surprisingly, the thought saddened her. She wasn’t really friends with any of these women, and her only real friend was going with her, (rather, Kata was going with her), and she in fact didn’t even particularly like most of the ricies. Well, Vera was alright she supposed, since they would actually talk to each other on occasion, talk that that didn’t involve petty jealousies or guys. But before she had ever thought it possible she would leave this place, whenever she had imagined leaving, she had never cared about giving up her old ties. Now that the time to leave was nigh though, all the moments that seemed unimportant or even negative were suddenly changed to moments that would never ever happen again, with people she would never see again, becoming precious. She didn’t like this newfound feeling at all, and was relieved upon thinking that she didn’t have to say any farewells right now, as long as she was quick.
Standing up on the cold, packed mud floor, she quietly went to her ‘corner’ of the round hut. Earth! She had seen better belongings in a dog’s stash than what she owned. She owned a heap of rags, that's what. She began to rifle through the pile, looking for her matching tea colored shirt and pants. She found them folded neatly at the bottom. Phew, they weren’t wrinkled! Upon grabbing the shirt though, a huge torn hole appeared right in the middle. When she picked up the pants, where the legs met was another huge hole. What the earth? Underneath both of them was a small sheet of parchment with a few words scrawled on it: “Don’t search my stuff again or you be naked!” Kata had only been a snoop once in recent memory. Damn Bea! And damn Tayla! Wildly, but still quietly, she began looking for something else to wear on this momentous day. There were no clean shirts and her one pair of clean pants were more stained than most of her dirty ones, as the beautiful emerald green color of them had run the moment a bead of dew touched them. Since then, she had worn them in the fields like any other pants, and they were a swirl of greens with splotches of brown. She silently cursed the vendor she had bought them from. That was last time she’d let a pretty face scramble her wits. She should’ve known that any nice clothing she could afford wasn’t, in fact, nice, and she hadn’t even heard of whatever plant the vendor had claimed she used to dye them with. Milkweed was it? She sighed. How could he have been so stupid? She had had time yesterday evening to clean at least some of her clothes, why hadn’t she thought about her attire? Albeit she had only ever seen palace workers a handful of times, but they always looked almost as good as the nobles themselves, and the last thing she wanted was for someone to change their mind about whether she was suitable for a position in the palace because of her shabby appearance. Sighing again, she reluctantly decided that theatrical-looking was better than dirty and smelly, and put on the swirly green pants and found the cleanest shirt. It was a loose brown cotton pullover whose cuffs were almost black, but which would’ve looked sharp with the pants originally, especially with the only belt she owned tied around the waist. She sensed a lessening of peacefulness coming from Charla’s corner. She quickly grabbed half the bundle of dirty clothes, tied them in her cloak, shuffled on her woven sandals, and silently scurried outside into the cool morning air. As she passed Charla’s bed, Charla stirred. No goodbyes and no regrets; Kata was ready for a new life./

[who_cares973]

i was so confused for the entire first part. i would keep reading just because im curious as to what this will unfold to

[sakura080789]

a thumping good read my friend. your details are fantastic keep it up

[Cavernio]

Originally Posted by who_cares973

i was so confused for the entire first part. i would keep reading just because im curious as to what this will unfold to

Is it clear that the whole first paragraph is just Kata's dream?

Is it that there are too many names and characters to follow what's going on? Most of what I've written in that section is just fluff, and I was told by my bf that he got cross-eyed trying to figure out the thing with the boots and gambling etc. I'm trying to create Tayla's character there, and to add a bt of lightness.

I have purposefully not started the novel with the setting, because it would get dreadfully boring I think. The other section I'm currently working on, which could also end up being the beginning to the story, would only make you more confused I think.

Would it help if you thought of the story as being fantasy in terms of you understanding it?

I have also tried to introduce some lingo that may also be confusing.

Note that Kata (the main character) has the ability to feel what other people are feeling emotionally, and this could definitely be a little confusing. I definitely get into that concept more in the next few sections, and I'm not too worried if you are confused about that.

And thanks sakura! Especially if you really mean it...:-p (I don't take praise very well, I know that you want me to keep on writing, so the last thing you want to do is say something that will turn me off of writing by saying something in what I've presented isn't very good.)

[Cavernio]

Update:

First draft is done. I'm pretty meh about the whole thing right now; there's still a TON of work that needs to be done to it, and its somehow more daunting now. Small decisions about fairly inconsequential things in the book are hard to make, but I need to make many of them still. Even worse are much more major things that I need to change/elaborate/alter.
I've lost a lot a steam since getting down to the end; only done 1 day of draft 2 so far.
I needs motivation again!

[justin_ator]

[gnr61]

EDIT: just saw your update saying you've got a whole draft, which may mean i'm way late anyhow haha. in case it helps at all, i left my original post intact. either way, i'd love to read whatcha got sometime~

--

this seems like the makings for a thoroughly interesting story, i hope you keep it up (and i sense that you will, even if it takes a while). from what i can tell here and from your 'make yourself write' thread you're in the same sort of spot that i am--beginning a first novel with hopes to publish and a LOT of self-doubt/need for motivation.

i would truly love to give you a thorough readthrough with a million style suggestions, and just might tomorrow or when i have time. as it stands though i'm about to go to bed so for now i'll just give some general impressions:

a) yes, it's clear the first part is a dream sequence. a pretty engaging one at that. my quip here is not to clarify the dream nature of it but to condense it, sentence by sentence, into something with a more breathless pace (if you'll forgive the expression). as it reads, the only weakness is that there's a lot of words describing little (and fast-paced) action. for example:

"Her bed shook, waking him up, scaring her. More shaking. This time, it was accompanied by a horrific boom, and the walls moved. Her fear heightened that instant, as she could come to only one conclusion as to what it was. Terrified, she cried and jumped up to run to her parents for protection. She realized the next moment, even in her child’s mind, how desperate this action was, knowing how useless her parents would be to stop it. But she had to get to them, nonetheless."

might alternately be expressed:

"Her bed shook, waking him up, scaring her. This time a horrific boom. The floor trembled, rocked the bed and shook the walls. Terror struck her in an instant. It could only be one thing. She cried, jumped up from bed and ran for her parents but it was a desperate act, even in her child's mind she knew this. But she had to reach them."

shorter, less conjunction-and-clause-heavy sentences mixed with longer ones create a propulsive sense, especially as the longer ones begin to dominate. active voice is super important here, make sure something is always -doing- something, not having something done to it.

b) this may just be forum-copypasta syndrome but the length and density of the paragraphs throughout can be daunting. there are pretty clear scene/sort-of-scene divisions within them that could use some return-key love to give the reader breathing room once the action's slowed and the real-world setting kicks in.

c) there's not too many names/characters, but possibly too much focus is put into describing each one's typical dream state and interrelationships; it gets a little muddled and forces the reader to try to hard to understand each one as it comes. when you introduce the others in the hut, maybe do so just with their names/position first; then be free to mention their respective goings on as clear-cut past action with little exposition. it'll seem like you're giving the reader less information about them (which is true), but it lets them form beginning impressions without overstraining. idk if that makes a whole lot of sense right now but i'll try to clarify sometime tomorrow with specific quotes haha.

d) overall, great stuff and i'm excited to see what more you've got.

[Cavernio]

Well, don't think I'll be posting more of it anytime too soon. Yeah, I know that section with all the characters is too confusing, but, enh, Imma let my editor fix up stuff like that. I'm sure he'll change nearly every sentence I've written as it is. The challenge was just, well, as people have said, is to get it out there. And I am doing a second draft still just for...story purposes, not necessarily style ones (although obviously the two can coincide.)

I do tend to make long, runon-ish sentences in my writing, and I will use a lot of words to describe something, and I am trying to change that some. But I dunno if that's necessarily bad; if you ever read something from, like, the 1800's, I've got nothing on them. And I've definiely enjoyed some older books I've read.

The paragraphing is totally from an unedited copy and paste, I paragraphed my draft.

As it stands though, if anything, there's too few characters for the rest of the novel. And now that it's written, I'm not even sure the opening is...representative of what the rest of the novel is.

[gnr61]

interesting. props on finishing a draft, that's a milestone i'm nowhere near yet lol.

dont mistake me though, i've got absolutely nothing against the longest, floweriest of sentences (if you ever see something i've written you'll know i do it too). i just feel brevity and scarce punctuation work best for a scene like your first dream sequence here, especially since it's essentially from a child's perspective (again, matter of preference though). good luck on your editing process, i hear that can be awfully frustrating. i can't imagine it being worse than muscling through the first draft though >_<

[Cavernio]

Draft 2 done a few weeks ago. 281 pages, 113k words, just the right length that many publishers say they want. More importantly, bf has now read it and likes it. It had more of an impact on him than I hoped for. Was very worried that the ending just doesn't sit/fit well with it. It either will work well or not at all, and of course I was hoping it would, but I'm still worried some readers would say that it doesn't work. I dunno why I'm still worried about this, too late to change it now. It was too late to change it from the story's conception.
Now just a few more tweaks on my part, then the editing, and then the scary process of submitting it to publishers and/or agents.

I dunno if I should start writing the second, follow-up book to this next, while my bf takes his sweet time editing, or if I should look into one of the other ideas for novels I've been musing over.

[gnr61]