All Comments on 'The Silver Arrows Ch. 01'

A good start looking forward to the next chapter

I like the story so far and am looking forward to more in the future

Nice start looking forward to more

very good old chap.. windy you know. sqhead

Looking forward to the next bit!

Looks really good so far. Like was the case with Gavin, you use the start of the story to set things up very nicely, and have created a good base from which to expand the story further. And the scene with the wench was hot, despite her small tits ;)

Hey guys, thank you for the kind words!

I'm glad you all enjoyed it, so good news. I've began writing the second chapter of 'the Silver Arrows', and hopefully I'll have it up sometime next week!

Ok so the first thing I notice is that you named your city Triump. That's fine. It's just that Triump kind of looks like a typo of Triumph. Now, I know this is fantasy and we can damn well do whatever the fuck we want with our worlds. It's just that knocking off the last letter to a word isn't very imaginative. Plus, you can pretty much warp the word however you like. Triulmas. Trinvathen. Treititty McBoobs. This is a small complaint but because you've just knocked the 'h' off the end it actually looks more like a typo than what you were going for.

Second hiccup that bothered me was the use of the convenient history lesson. Again, this isn't wrong but it does come off as somewhat lazy writing. I'm referring to the part where Lord Adren defends Teran because of the Yslanders efforts. I don't know who the Yslanders are, I don't really know too much about the noble-peasant relations. It just feels like I'm being offered a random excuse rather than anything else. Now don't get me wrong, world-building is great and you should feel free to flesh out your world as much as you want. Just don't introduce convenient elements of history without laying the groundwork first. You could have used that moment to show Lord Adren's force of personality in a stare-down with the uppity noble or maybe to show that he is a powerful man even amongst his kin. Instead I get a random history lesson about people I don't know much about either before or after it's said.

Finally, as far as criticisms go I'm just going to mention the general flow of the tale. Sometimes your wording becomes unnecessarily simplistic or awkward. I don't normally do this but if your stories aren't much longer than this and you need help with editing then I'm happy to give it a shot for you. If that doesn't sound like a good idea to you then allow me to show you some of the problems.

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"SILENCE!" The old man boomed

And everyone was silent.

--

Ok, that last part there unnecessarily begins with the word "and" which shouldn't start a sentence if you can help it. Furthermore, it's a bit too simplistic.

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The noise was immediately crushed beneath the sound of his command.

In that moment, the only sound in the entire tourney grounds became that of the flags moving in the afternoon breeze.

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Oh, and sometimes Teran does sound overly formal. Now I'm not saying you should make him speak in a god-awful written accent that some authors try to get away with like:

"Ee now guv'nor, blo mi socks off an' sing a jig! I din't kno you wuz a high born."

...what?

No, definitely don't go down that route. That said, here's some of Teran's quotes.

"Hey, how do I participate in the tournament?" could be "So where can I sign up?"

"It hadn't really occured to me before you mentioned it." could be "I hadn't really thought about it all that much."

Again, I'm really nitpicking now and again this isn't really wrong but I just thought a peasant speaking in the queen's english was a bit jarring.

Anyhoo, lets get onto what you do well. The story itself is a good idea based on effective fantasy tropes. The archery contest is fun and shows that the protagonist has talent whilst making the reader root for him against the privileged nobility. I really like your description of women and the sex you write is pretty damn hot. My only complaint is that the sex is almost nameless and seems tacked on in this chapter. Kind of like you thought 'Shit, I forgot the shagging! Quick, I'd better write in a sexy bar-wench.'

I'm not saying remove the bar wench. Just give her a bit more character. Show more of the flirting, reveal that she'd been watching him in the show. Just something that makes the connection of the sex work better. Though, again, the sex itself is scorching so well done there.

Overall I liked this quite a bit but it really just needs some re-reading and self editing to get the flow right. I know you're a new writer on here and for a first crack at a story this is fucking great. I also know how easy it is to get excited that your story is finished and you want to get to posting it right away. Best advice I could give is to just stop, take a breath and give it a re-run a few times. If you can, wait a little while before re-reading. I usually wait at least a week before self-editing.

Anyhoo I hope this was helpful and good luck with the next chapter! I'm cheerfully anticipating what Teran will get up to next.