Ok, so, I'd started doing a paragraph by paragraph thing, but there's too many to really do that to. I think I can express the couple big things I don't like using the first three paragraphs and the examples I cooked up there. I'm gonna re-read a bit, but I had a dumb busy day at work, and kids running around screaming since I got home (until about ten minutes ago), as well as trying to get the RP threads updated with my character and get a little bit of DF play in so that I don't ironically kill the fort. I don't have the focus to put on re-reading that the story likely deserves, and honestly, that formatting just kills me, so a good skim reading is all you get right this second.
Formatting is a big thing to me, personally. If you'd like, I'll go through and re-format everything as I read it. If you like it, you can run with it. If you don't, then you can leave it.
As a bit of a preface to this, I don't honestly read alot of fantasy - quite a bit of it is rehashing the same few stories over and over again. One thing I really like about what you've got going on here is that you aren't doing that. There's some tropes that are just unavoidable in any writing, so that happens once and a while, but I think you've done a good job of keeping things pretty unique. So yeah, I do like that. One other thing to mention is that alot of what I'm going to talk about here is stuff I do too. If you've read my shit on Cata (likely the only public writing I've ever done), you'll see that I hypocritically make the same mistakes I'm talking about pretty often. This is how I know they're mistakes, so please ignore the hypocrisy.
Ok, so
1. PLOT
- In terms of the plot itself - it's good, but it needs to be longer to get a little more in depth as to why what's happening is happening, or needs a prequel/sequel in my mind. You saying this started as a lore thing makes alot of sense. It seems like there is some well thought out background in it that isn't touched on in the story itself. The ending is where this suffers the worst - it's honestly not tremendous relative to the rest. It does set up decently for a sequel reasonably well, as does the rest of the story, and I personally would be interested in reading more if you want to write another one. We'll get to the other issue with the ending in a minute.
- Besides the little plothole I pointed out above, there's a few more things that kinda bug me, the other big one being the elf. She doesn't kill the elf. Is it because she's vengeful, even though the rest of the story sets her up as a curious, kind being? Or is it because she's merciful, even though it's stated right in there that killing him would have been a mercy? Something about that doesn't jive well.
- Lydia's story also could use either more or less detail. More being ideal, since you're most of the way there. It's vague about quite a few things - if this is supposed to be mostly about Norma/Ferret, then that works fine, but if you were going for multiple main characters (which seems important, given that Lydia is kind of a part of Ferret now), there either needs to be more detail in this story, or a prequel-sequel (kinda like starwars has) that tells her tale a bit more. Right now, you're in between having her story in there and not having it in there, which doesn't feel right to me. This doesn't apply to the fellow in the tower - he's obviously supposed to be vague, or to Stam, who seems to obviously be an important secondary character.
- There is maybe more to talk about here, but I need to reread everything before I get into that. The basic plot is interesting and sound, as I've said.
2. WRITING
Ok, so. A few things to say about this.
- The first time I read the two opening paragraphs, I was fairly impressed by the way the style changed. You go from narrative-esque styling to an almost train of thought type writing when the demon's section comes up. This, when executed well, is a very powerful story telling device, and I thought "hey, that was well done". Now, in the shift back to the third paragraph, you seemed to have some trouble going back to the narrative style writing. Knowing now that you wrote this as separate RP lore bits and tied it all together, this now makes alot of sense. You spend the rest of the story shifting styles, and it seems like going back to narrative from train of thought is much harder for you than vise-versa.
Neither style is bad, but if you decide you want to make a conscious effort to separate them, I'd suggest spending an evening revising the demon's parts, then a separate evening or at least taking a break before revising the other parts. One place where having both together does work well is during the fight scenes. The choppy style of train of thought blended with the more flow-y narrative makes for a good "action" type writing. In most other places, it's functional enough but not "great".
I think the problem I have with the blend elsewhere is that it gives a sense of urgency or action to parts where you don't seem to want it. I suspect that the narrative style is maybe a bit tougher for you to get back into simply because the train of thought is more your "natural" style, which is why I suggest the above. Getting into a specific mindset before writing those parts will maybe help that.
You do also shift from the choppy line of thought to the narrative in a couple places that it feels like it shouldn't happen - mostly in regards to the demon's section.
The third style you have happening here, the flashback/dreams are pretty good, but there's an issue I'll touch on in the next section there unrelated to all this.
The fourth style going on is junk. Your narrative style is good on it's own. Your train of thought style seems good and natural to you. Your dream sequences are good. The random ass dude who breaks into the story once or twice and also ends it is just awful, to be frank. It doesn't fit with the rest of the story. So, we're following this girl through her adventures, and her memories, and we're also following the beast as it moves through the city, when suddenly this guy comes from absolutely nowhere and says "HEY, SO THIS IS A BOOK I'M READING TO YOU. LOOK AT THE CHARACTERS. NOW IT'S DONE". That might sound a little harsh, but it's honestly the thought I had at those parts. I can see why you did it in the middle of the story - the main character is passed out, and you need to describe things somehow, but it just doesn't fit at the end at all, which I'm pretty sure you know.
There's a few ways to fix this. I'm lazy, so I'd just cut the bits out that have the narrator talking directly to the reader, BUT, and it's a big but (what with capitals and everything), there's no reason you couldn't make it more obvious that the narrator is telling the story to someone, say to his kids (or her kids) around the fireplace, or from the Great Tome of Gulgatha. Honestly, the whole story does have that campfire tale vibe to it, and I think you could pull it off pretty well. It also has a bit of an RP vibe to it, which is an effect of swapping styles inconsistently here and there, and makes sense given it's origins. I'd suggest not fixing it all to align with that vibe - there's nothing wrong with it, but you're obviously capable of more interesting and difficult writing.
- Wording. Stories get written. Good stories will get re-written. Great stories get re-written multiple times until everything is perfect. This is not easy shit - that's why my stories never really feel done. There's more than a few times in this that it's obvious what you want to convey, but you seem to have been unable to figure out how you wanted to do it. Here's a big example from the first paragraph:
"They had been written by her father, her great grandfather, and another traveler to this region. A deceptively young appearing man by the name of Stam Dalenson. A friend to Ferrets family and tutor to a great many of Bright Points young people. The sword at her hip had been a gift to her on her 16th birthday. "
There is a very awkward bit of phrasing there. I'd re-write it as
"They had been written by her father, her great grandfather, and another traveler to this region (here either ; or - depending on if you want to be "literary correct" or use a - like I do often) a man of deceptively and perpetually youthful appearance by the name of Stam Dalenson. A friend to Ferret's family, and a tutor to a great many of Bright Point's young people, the sword at her hip had been a gift from him on her 16th birthday."
While the exact wording is just how I like to write stuff, the idea I'm getting at is that "deceptively young appearing" does not role off the tongue easily. After I write something, I'll usually read it back to myself outloud. I'm terrible for awkward phrasing (insert archer joke), and that helps me catch things like this.
There's also a time or two where the punctuation creates a similar issue. This is a good example:
"She put the notes away and looked back down towards the sunken city and noted that the light in the tower had gone out and that the morning sun, just cresting the hills in the west, had burned off a bit of the fog."
I'm personally terrible for run on sentences (which people need to be less anal about in writing), but I find they flow better when you break them up, like:
"She put the notes away, and looked back down towards the sunken city, noting that the light in the tower had gone out, and that the morning sun, just cresting the hills in the west, had burned off the fog."
Cutting one "and" and putting more commas in reads nicer to me, personally.
There's about a sentence per paragraph like this - nothing serious, just something to fix up during editing.
3. FORMATTING
So, because like me, you're stuck with wordpad that has no spell check, I know there isn't much point mentioning spelling or punctuation. That shit will get fixed up later and you know it's there.
- I've mentioned formatting above. I stick to that. It's tough to read right now because the paragraphs are true paragraphs. I've suggested a fix up there too.
- So, the other thing I'll mention is paradigm shifts. This is what I was talking about with the dream sequences before, and also applies to Lydia's sections, the demon's sections, etc.
The shifts as they exist, even when well marked by your change in style, are a bit abrupt. This isn't a bad thing per-se, but if I was reading this in a book, or all as one post on a professional author's blog, I'd usually expect that they'd be denoted somehow. Three common ways of doing this would be to
1. Use different fonts.
2. Use <hr> (or the BBC/SM equivalent, which uses [ instead of <)
3. Use italics.
Different fonts is the worst in my opinion. Changes fonts or colors works good in an RP because it makes different speakers obvious. It's TOO jarring in a story IMO, since you don't want to break the flow. HRs work reasonably well, but most people seem to like italics. I'd suggest a combination - a line when she's passed out, italics when the beast is thinking, etc.
Alright, so, I think that covers the thoughts I can assemble at the moment. I do rather like the story itself, as well as your ideas, so please don't be discouraged by what I've said here. Keep writing and re-writing, and I'll happily keep reading and re-reading. I would also really like to see a sequel to this.
As a heads up, I edit all of my forum posts incessantly, often after they've been read by anyone who's going to read them, so I'll likely re-edit this shortly to change some stuff around. Might be worth keeping an eye on.
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