Blood Loss

Well, I'm approaching 2,000 posts, so as tradition dictates, here's something for critique. This is the very start of a fantasy novel. Hopefully the cover and/or blurb will have made it clear that we're somewhere after the middle ages, probably around 1550 in terms of technology (with a few exceptions). The only other thing is that Sepello's injuries aren't as bad as they first seem: he passes out, but is later stitched up.


The three riders left the city of Astrago behind, and the fields began to turn to woodland. Trees grew up along the road, throwing stripes of shade across the riders as they passed. Smallholders laboured in their fields. A windmill turned lazily on the horizon. It was a beautiful day, and as Sepello leaned over to say so to the taller of his guides, the shorter man shot him in the back of the head.

The world flashed white. Sepello’s ears burst with noise and he was flung forward onto his horse’s neck. His head swam, and he was lurching forward, bouncing in the saddle. Sepello felt fur on his cheek, felt his horse shudder and slow down to a skittish trot, then halt. He opened his eyes. Pain drilled into the side of his skull. His ear was hot and wet.

Someone said, "Is he dead?"

Play dead, he thought. Keep still.

"’Course he’s dead. Didn’t you see him?"

Like a spider tied to the end of his arm, Sepello's hand crept into his coat, searching for his pistol. He hardly knew that he was doing it. He was too busy feeling the white-hot poker that seemed to have been laid across the side of his face, a stripe of searing hurt.

"Better check. Get his bridle."

The horse turned again. The movement made Sepello feel nauseous – that and the head wound. His mouth tasted of metal.

Boots thumped on grass as the guide dismounted. The smaller man reached out and grabbed the reins. Sepello’s horse spun out nervously. "Easy, easy," said the man.

Sepello sat up and drew his pistol in one move. A bolt of pain shot through his head, lightning to the thunder of his gun. The pistol kicked against his hand and the short man dropped like a corpse cut down from a gallows. Blood spattered the horse’s shoulder.

Sepello grabbed the reins and barely stopped the horse from rearing up. The dead man’s foot beat time to nothing.

Ten yards away, the other guide drew his sword. Sepello sat still and bolt upright, trying not to topple off. His pistol had been made to kill tougher things than men. It had one barrel left. Strange, he thought, almost dreamily, how an hour ago we were joking about peasant girls. And now –

He held out his arm and fired. The gun banged and farted out a flurry of sparks.

“Misfire!” The guide swung his legs out and gave his horse a tremendous kick. “Yah!”

The guide’s horse burst into life and charged. Hooves pounded the road. The man waved his sword like a brigand.

At the back of his aching brain, Sepello remembered his own sword, wrapped up in his saddlebag. No chance of drawing it now. He did the only thing he could. He took his feet out of the stirrups and let himself drop.

The guide’s blade whipped overhead. Sepello hit the ground, stumbled onto all fours and lurched up like a sprinter driving off from the blocks. He ran to the edge of the road, the pistol huge and useless in his hand.

“Coward!” the would-be murderer yelled, and Sepello plunged into the forest.



He tore through the trees, weaving between trunks and behind fallen logs. Branches tried to snag his coat but he rushed on, hearing wood snap and fabric rip. Sepello wanted to look back, but all that mattered now was gaining ground. Once he had got away he could hide, or reload his pistol or something, anything – but first he had to get away.

The forest was thickening, the trunks growing closer. Sunlight filtered down in shafts. Sepello twisted around a thorn bush, dropped behind it and crawled doubled over into the thicket. Then he stopped.

His heart was a furious animal trying to break out of his ribcage. There was a sharp, singing pain in his ear.

Come on, he thought, you can do this. You’ve fought the army of the living dead. You’ve reinterred a dozen revenants. You can take one jumped-up woodsman with a rusty sword.

He then realised that something was missing from his front. His cartridge bandolier. He couldn’t reload his gun.

He punched the ground. It set his wound ringing as if he’d put his face against a striking bell. Sepello wanted to bellow with rage and hatred, as if somebody else had betrayed him. You fool, you ****ing halfwit imbecile. You’ve got no powder. How could you? How could you do this to yourself?

You’ve got a knife.

Boots crunched on bracken. Sepello held his breath. His hand moved to his side and slowly drew his knife.

Blood crawled down his face. A fly whined above him. He put his hand over his mouth to cover the sound of drawing breath.

“Ah, Hell,” said the guide. Sepello heard him turning round on the spot, and realised that his pursuer had lost the trail.

The guide’s boots crackled in the foliage, and he stepped into view.

Sepello leaped up from the side, his wound shrieking at him to stop, threw out his left arm and as the guide turned to block it, Sepello drove the knife in his right hand into the assassin’s side. Sepello twisted it and yanked the blade free, staggered back, and the guide stumbled. Sepello punched the knife into the woodsman’s neck.

As the man dropped Sepello caught a glimpse of his face, wide-eyed and disbelieving. Then the guide hit the forest floor, and Sepello flopped back against a tree.

Congrats on the nearly 2,000!

The end of the first para was a real shock! If I'm being pernickity (I am, I am...) I might wonder how Sepello knows it's the other man who has shot him since the shot has come from behind. Makes for a good line, though!

It's certainly an exciting beginning, but I have to confess I'm not wholly convinced by the incident. I'm no expert on horses, but I'd have thought a gun going off very close to one, if it isn't trained for the battlefield, is more likely to result in its bolting, not slowing down and halting. If it is a horse he's trained, perhaps a comment to this effect might be helpful. Similarly when he's shooting, I'd expect it to be a good deal more skittish unless trained. I've read that they are also very distressed by the smell of blood, though I've no idea if that's true or not, but if it is, again I'd expect more reaction when the shorter man's blood hits it. NB When Sepello collapses and feels fur on his cheek, is this from what he's wearing, or are these not horses as we know them? If it is his horse's skin he feels, then it would surely be hide, not fur, or hair for its mane.

The extent of his injury is also a bit confusing and in the absence of your comment before the extract I'd have been wondering what had happened and whether he's superhuman/unkillable or something. Shot in the back of the head suggests to me a bullet actually hitting his head, and therefore going into his skull, which rather makes his subsequent feats somewhat unlikely, no matter how much clever imagery you use to speak of the pain. If in fact it's only a flesh wound scouring the side of his head/face, perhaps it might be best to say shot at the back of his head, or make it clear early on that it's really not that bad.

Some things gave me pause: Why does the man dismount to get the bridle of Sepello's horse? How does Sepello control the horse when it would have reacted before he's had time to get the reins, particularly when he's still holding the gun? Why is the dead man's foot beating time -- I thought he'd fallen to the ground? Why hasn't the other man also got a gun -- are they in short supply?

The guide's shouts don't seem altogether realistic -- the "Coward" in particular rings a bit false to me. I don't know that we need them, either -- somehow it would seem more frightening if he said nothing.

Two definite anachronisms and one usage that made me wonder. Taking the latter first: smallholder -- looking quickly, I can't find a first use for this, but it has a modern feel; most land was owned by the wealthy and farmed by tenants, of course, and though on the continent (I'm thinking Italy in particular) people might own a small patch of land and fare for themselves, I'm not sure they'd be called anything but farmers. The others are sprinter, used for someone running a short race it's definitely 19th century, and blocks, which is even later (originally runners would start in an upright posture, and even into the 20th century they dug holes in the track and made piles of the sand to give them something to push against).

Anyhow, as I say certainly exciting, and a gripping start. You don't need me to tell you your writing is very good, which it is, and I love the hints both of his occupation/hobby killing the living dead, and also of his character, and I'd definitely like to read more about him. Very well done.

I assumed the shot was a glancing one, otherwise it would have been fatal or debilitating. Also, another assumption would be that the kind of men these are, their horses would get used to gunshots and the smell of blood. So neither of those points really bothered me.
The surviving man shouting "Coward" does seem odd, I didn't like it as I read it, and then saw The Judge mention it as well. I think if he said something that showed he was mad-"Damn" or something like that-it would fit better.
That seems to me like just some nitpicking, though, for a piece that reads very well. It's exciting, and the hints of supernatural elements are slipped in as well.

First things first - modern fantasy is overwhelmingly written in Third Person Limited POV, or First Person, to keep us close to the characters - what you have here opens with an omniscient POV which you should possibly reconsider.

Toby Frost said:

The three riders left the city of Astrago behind, and the fields began to turn to woodland. Trees grew up along the road, throwing stripes of shade across the riders as they passed. Smallholders laboured in their fields. A windmill turned lazily on the horizon.

This all says to me that it's an early draft, and you're just filling space until you get to the start of the actual story.

It was a beautiful day

This is where close third person really comes into its own. Why was it a beautiful day? Because the harvest would be good? Because the local girls would be swimming naked in the lake?

, and as Sepello leaned over to say so to the taller of his guides, the shorter man shot him in the back of the head.

Rewrite this line so that we're in Sapello's POV, realising the pain, the bang, and that he's been shot - and you've got a Strong Opening Sentence.

The world flashed white. Sepello’s ears burst with noise and he was flung forward onto his horse’s neck. His head swam, and he was lurching forward, bouncing in the saddle. Sepello felt fur on his cheek, felt his horse shudder and slow down to a skittish trot, then halt. He opened his eyes. Pain drilled into the side of his skull. His ear was hot and wet.

Although this is close to Sapello's POV, it still feels somewhat distant so that you can put in objective descriptions of what Sapello might physically feel - but what does he mentally feel? How does his body respond? However, this paragraph is easily a stronger opening than what you have before.

Someone said, "Is he dead?"

This is a bit distant again - granted, Sapello will be disorientated, but might he not recognise the voice?

Play dead, he thought. Keep still.

Thoughts - good. But - again, how does all this feel to him? Calm terror? Cold fear? His natural instinct will be to flee danger, so how does he overcome this? What inner strength, even training, is he relying on?

"’Course he’s dead. Didn’t you see him?"

There's no reason for his attackers to presume that he's dead. Unless they are incredibly sloppy, they should check for signs. Something may prevent them doing so before Sapello can make his move

Like a spider tied to the end of his arm

You're still in an objective voice, away from the character experience

, Sepello's hand crept into his coat, searching for his pistol. He hardly knew that he was doing it. He was too busy feeling the white-hot poker that seemed to have been laid across the side of his face, a stripe of searing hurt.

This seems a little contradictory, and shows nothing of the character's struggle. He's just been shot! He might be about to be killed! How is he going to deal with that? By referring to his hand moving with him being properly aware, it almost sounds like deus ex machina, rather than anything relating to the character's strength - which is something we can sympathise with, relate to, and give a reason to root for him.

You do have a potentially strong opening here - Sapello is immediately an underdog, fighting for his life against potential injustice - this is such a good tactic to use at the start. But it needs to be written from the character experience for it to really pull off, so we can feel something of how unfair and undeserved this is

"Better check. Get his bridle."

The horse turned again. The movement made Sepello feel nauseous – that and the head wound. His mouth tasted of metal.

Boots thumped on grass as the guide dismounted. The smaller man reached out and grabbed the reins. Sepello’s horse spun out nervously. "Easy, easy," said the man.

It's dragging out here because you're still writing objectively. Give us something of Sapello fighting his confusion, trying to gauge where the men might be so he can react to them.

Sepello sat up and drew his pistol in one move. A bolt of pain shot through his head bad choice of words, as we already have this association with him being shot - the flash of a flinklock might burn him a little, blind a little, even deafen a little - but his body is probably in sensory overload at this point, so the chances are that he might not even register any of that so much., lightning to the thunder of his gun.

The pistol kicked against his hand and the short man dropped like a corpse cut down from a gallows.

Blood spattered the horse’s shoulder. Objective again - and blood won't splatter unless an existing wound is being agitated

Sepello grabbed the reins and barely stopped the horse from rearing up. The dead man’s foot beat time to nothing.

It feels like you're trying to throw too much action in now - perhaps because you realise that something's misisng form the scene. What you're doing here simply serves to compound the lack of closeness, because of the lack of close experience

Ten yards away, the other guide drew his sword. Sepello sat still and bolt upright, trying not to topple off. His pistol had been made to kill tougher things than men. It had one barrel left. Strange, he thought, almost dreamily, how an hour ago we were joking about peasant girls. And now –

He held out his arm and fired. The gun banged and farted No out a flurry of sparks.

“Misfire!” For the benefit of the reader, to compensate for the lack of Sapello POV The guide swung his legs out and gave his horse a tremendous kick. “Yah!”

The guide’s horse burst into life and charged. Hooves pounded the road. The man waved his sword like a brigand.

At the back of his aching brain, Sepello remembered his own sword, wrapped up in his saddlebag. No chance of drawing it now. He did the only thing he could. He took his feet out of the stirrups and let himself drop.

Good! Sapello is consciously trying to figure out how to deal with the problem of his situation, and using initiative.

The guide’s blade whipped overhead. Sepello hit the ground, stumbled onto all fours and lurched up like a sprinter driving off from the blocks Modernism. He ran to the edge of the road, the pistol huge and useless not useless - it could serve easily as a club, which is what they could also be used for when spent in his hand.

“Coward!” the would-be murderer yelled, and Sepello plunged into the forest.


He tore through the trees, weaving between trunks and behind fallen logs. Branches tried to snag his coat but he rushed on, hearing wood snap and fabric rip. Sepello wanted to look back, but all that mattered now was gaining ground. Once he had got away he could hide, or reload his pistol or something, anything – but first he had to get away.

We're much closer to the character POV now, and the prose is much better for it.

The forest was thickening, the trunks growing closer. Sunlight filtered down in shafts. Sepello twisted around a thorn bush, dropped behind it and crawled doubled over into the thicket. Then he stopped.

His heart was a furious animal trying to break out of his ribcage. There was a sharp, singing pain in his ear.

Good - you're keeping close the character experience again - though I'm not convinced that the simile works

Come on, he thought, you can do this. You’ve fought the army of the living dead. You’ve reinterred a dozen revenants. You can take one jumped-up woodsman with a rusty sword.

Telling - which you could probably get away with, as it raises questions in the reader's mind. Again, though, you may look to revise this later to make it less straight forward

He then realised that something was missing from his front. His cartridge bandolier. He couldn’t reload his gun.

He punched the ground. It set his wound ringing as if he’d put his face against a striking bell. Sepello wanted to bellow with rage and hatred, as if somebody else had betrayed him. You fool, you ****ing halfwit imbecile. You’ve got no powder. How could you? How could you do this to yourself?

You’ve got a knife. And his gun as a club.

Boots crunched on bracken. Sepello held his breath. His hand moved to his side and slowly drew his knife.

Blood crawled down his face. A fly whined above him. He put his hand over his mouth to cover the sound of drawing breath.

“Ah, Hell,” said the guide. Sepello heard him turning round on the spot, and realised that his pursuer had lost the trail.

The guide’s boots crackled in the foliage, and he stepped into view.

Sepello leaped up from the side, his wound shrieking at him to stop, threw out his left arm and as the guide turned to block it, Sepello drove the knife in his right hand into the assassin’s side. Sepello twisted it and yanked the blade free, staggered back, and the guide stumbled. Sepello punched the knife into the woodsman’s neck.

As the man dropped Sepello caught a glimpse of his face, wide-eyed and disbelieving. Then the guide hit the forest floor, and Sepello flopped back against a tree.

And the last bit - again, you move into a more objective narration instead of the character experience.

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Apologies if I sound harsh - you have a strong start to a story here, but you really need to consider writing in a close third POV so that everything is from the character experience. The closer you get to that, the stronger your story will be.

I found it to be done fairly well.

As far as the shot to the back of the head you might even make further use of his abrupt motion of leaning in to the other man and complete with something like::
, the shorter man meant to shoot him in the back of the head.

Though there might be a smoother way of conveying this to those who can't make the connection that perhaps the bit of a lean may have put the bullet off it's mark.

I enjoyed it but a few veils distanced me a little - maybe have a cull of your felts?

tinkerdan said:

those who can't make the connection that perhaps the bit of a lean may have put the bullet off it's mark.

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Like me! If this is the case, you should probably make it clearer, as I thought the shorter man deliberately chose the moment when Sepello leaned, for some reason, to make his attack.

Personally, this opening, though well-written, isn't to my taste. The surprise end of the first paragraph, while it would have worked very well some distance into a book, for me felt like an over-eager bid for my attention, and then I felt hurried into an action sequence before I'd got a handle on who the characters were or why I should care about them. The openings of your SCS books felt much more natural than this. But I seem to be very much in a minority.

HareBrain said:

Like me! If this is the case, you should probably make it clearer, as I thought the shorter man deliberately chose the moment when Sepello leaned, for some reason, to make his attack.

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Me, too! I think it's the "as Sepello leaned over" which to me suggested not merely something happening at the same moment, but something consequent upon the leaning -- I thought because previously he'd been facing the shorter man, or it was only when Sepello turned that the would-be killer had a target for the shot.

And while I think of it, why is the man aiming for his head anyway? Much better to aim for the back, as it's a larger area, therefore easier to hit, and even if he isn't killed outright, he'd likely be sufficiently incapacitated to be quickly finished off. The rest of the action becomes more plausible then, as we can imagine the shot luckily didn't hit anything vital on its way through, or even that Sepello is wearing some kind of armour under his clothes the men don't know about.

I agree that the head is a harder smaller target to hit and for me that was what keyed me to the thought that the man had been already been aiming at the head before it moved. Why would he pick the hardest target and wait for it to move into his shot? So my natural thought was that he'd already had the target and hadn't expected it to move just then.

But I've been known to think far outside the box sometimes; so it might just be me.

Maybe the trigger clicked as the safety was released, the targeted guy moved his head to look for the source of the out of place sound in the environment, thus skewing the shots trajectory?

Head blows make you nauseated. Even a pin prick cut can bleed all over if its from around your head.
Blood trail would be left.

But first.. The emergency dismount. Hands on mane or withers depending on the way you face. Kick feet back then out and up to clear boot heel from stirrups weight forward on your hands, then drop forward. .. The sword swing would get the horse in the neck. The horse would rear and dance, bolt. Drop to the side while its running, keeping the horse body between you and the assailent.
Then kick the horse spurring it to go faster And drop off. Look for a area that cuts you off from your pursuers direct line of sight..to drop off in.. But remember to spur the horse on.
Because otherwise a horse is trained to stay put when its rider gets off of it.
So if you just left the horse the horse would bookmark your area.
If the other guy is on horseback, get into scrub, thorny bushes, underbrush, where the horse won't go.
Lay doggo until he passes. He will follow the horse first, then backtrack. A rope at chest height on the return trail will take him off the horse. Then scoot from behind the tree and slice his throat.
Take his ammunition and disable his weapons, taking anything usable.
Drag him off trail because a body left in the open is a bookmark for pursuers also.

Anyways, really enjoyed the piece, lovely bits of action and a very strong personality on your protagonist .... Delightful characterizations.

Thanks everyone for your comments – it’s remarkable how much more you see when someone else mentions it.

The opening paragraph was intended to have something of a punchline, although I agree that the shock value might be a bit too obvious. I think I will have to change the wound, too – perhaps the guard could fire at Sepello’s head, rather than into it?

The anachronisms will have to go, as will the guard’s shouting. I agree that it’s much more powerful without. I think the horses, while not warhorses as such, are probably used to loud bangs etc. Actually, this is an interesting problem: surely a horse would run like hell from any magic, heraldic beasts etc? It had completely slipped my mind that the pistol might be used as a club, too. I gather this was fairly common "back then".

Brian: while I don’t disagree that this could be more tightly from within Sepello’s head - and I don't mean this dismissively, but as a serious question - how much does it matter? I remember there being some quite long passages in The Lies of Locke Lamora where Lynch basically explained backstory, from an objective POV. I also don’t think that there’s anything in the passage that Sepello couldn’t have noticed or wouldn’t have picked up on in the circumstances, even the more neutral bits. So my reply would be that there's not anything there that couldn't be from Sepello's POV, even if it's not directly stated to be - but I don't know whether that's enough.


Out of interest: Sepello is a member of a semi-religious order set up years ago by this world's equivalent of Joan of Arc (hence all those questions about female armour!). After this scene, Sepello tries to get back to the road, but passes out. It is hinted that his wound, whilst disorientating and painful, is largely cosmetic. He is rescued, and the rest of his part of the story is about him paying back the debt to his rescuer, whilst trying to escape.

Toby Frost said:

how much does it matter?

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IMO it's the difference between aiming to be good, and aiming to be great.

There are published authors that don't get fully into the character experience - and they do okay - but the ones who get closest arguably write more engaging and more commercially successful fiction. The challenge is to balance where that experience needs to be brought in.

In terms of what you wrote - indeed, Sepello could be aware of the things you mentioned. But IMO there's a level of character experience that's more immediate than that underpinning those reactions and responses that could make your narrative stronger, and draw in the reader more easily.

At the end of the day, it's an issue of personal creative choice. The one caveat I would state is that modern fantasy fiction is overwhelmingly close third (or sometimes first), so the nearer you keep to that POV choice, the easier the work may be to sell.

Of course, all this is personal opinion of an unpublished writer, so take it with a pinch of salt if you will.

However, another big pointer is that if this is a work in progress, then you may necessarily come back and write this section to be more character focused, simply as a natural result of understanding your story and characters much better after completing the first draft.

You mention Scott Lynch specifically, and he's an interesting case, as his writing at times is plainly more inspired by the visual medium of film. One of the best examples of close character experience is actually Suzanne Collin's Hunger Games - the story is not about kids fighting, but all about the lead character's internal conflict.

2c.

Have to disagree with most of the criticism in the thread. I really liked the piece in general and the style in particular. Conventional wisdom states that having "and" every 3 words is a bad idea but all the pretty horses is a great book. If there's any hamstringing idiosyncrasies in your writing they passed below my radar.

I slipped into this as smoothly as anything I've read. Even if it's not immediately appealing to a lot of people (not much reason to suspect that), seeing if you can find a way to hook people well enough for them to get used to it, or adapt your style a little to be more palatable, surely comes before before approaching from a completely different angle.


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I thought "coward" was great. It fits the idea of a sudden, out of the blue betrayal, and the narrowly, by-the-grace-of-god, escaped danger of mundane human evil, even to a slayer of "tougher things than men" like the protagonist. "Coward" isn't a genuine reaction, it's a calculated, or self indulgent and habitual piece of incoherent, aggressive nonsense, hopefully making the other guy go "what!?" (or "holy **&* this guy is crazy/evil) long enough for the plucky villain to stab them in the throat. Known commonly as "sh*t talking", unfortunately it's a common practice in sports, even outside of competition, and really, most anywhere you'd find mundane human evil. There have been books written celebrating the practice, and plenty of seemingly (otherwise) respectable people will openly admire someone for doing it: "He's smart." For a man who'll shoot someone in the back of the head after an hour of pleasant conversation, and immediately start talking casually to his partner, I think it's spot on. "Coward! the would be murderer yelled" is a powerful reflection of human hypocrisy and evil. It could happen and it does happen. Also, I like noble villains but this is a great illustration that this particular guy is a rotten scheming mook.

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"Through" the back of the head might work for showing that the bullet hit, but leave a little more room for an imperfect hit, without implying a miss, as "at" imo strongly does.

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The fur on the side of his head could be the horse's mane or his own beard (fuzz) feeling very different after a bullet to the head. Found this perfectly natural.


As it's written in 3rd person zooming out for a moment is a question of style. What's inherently flawed about fairly close 3rd person, or dipping into it at times?

Would the character be in a state to want to bellow his rage and hatred after being shot in the head? Just thinking about it is giving me a headache. Then again I don't think I would have thought of slipping off the horse either.


By the way, if you don't know, people have been shot or impaled in the brain and survived. I know this from a documentary that I don't really remember, but it's happened a few times, and in at least one case there was a major change in personality (but not noticeably in ability if if I recall correctly). I'm sure all kinds of things can change if you're shot in the brain and survive, which might be an interesting angle.



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Writing: Well overall it's better writing than mine so not too much I can criticise but a couple of things I'll jump on:

Is "Farted" a flurry of sparks the right word? I think that's an unusual tone for his perception to have. Maybe his mind is drawing unusual connections or that's the sound the gun makes, but even if that is how he would see it, it might be more important to represent the total seriousness of the situation, and not potentially take away from the impression of his mind being totally bent to focusing to navigate a way out of this situation- and of the potentially heart rending shock of the gun's failure (whose failure to so much as perturb him strikes me as a great piece of character exposition.)


In "like a sprinter driving off from the blocks", does the "off", by filling out the illustration, anchor the illustration harder to the specifics of the start of a big race? Just my feeling but without the "off" my mind gets the illustration of someone bursting up into a run with less of the specific context of a race coming race.


Would there be a benefit to saying where the hand that crept like a spider into his coat was in relation to what the other men can see?


_

I think your first paragraph captured a languid, lazy conversational style with it's terseness that's totally in tune with what's happening (including how his being shot in the head doesn't quite register)


I think the action was great, and there's no need for us to empathise with him: He's an experienced werewolf wrestler or something, and when he finds himself slumped on the back of the horse after being shot in the back of the head, his mind and he realise it's kill or be killed. There's no inner conflict. He barely even questions it, he just adapts and finds a way to kill the two men. The moment the gun misfires, and he's able to adapt even to that and find a clever and tricky way through, you see what kind of being this man is: He's a hero, a god of war, an incarnation of the platonic idea(l?) of combat. He doesn't question why, he just does and, where possible, doesn't die. He's a headlong, always all in, committed, dedicated, fighter, to the heart and bone. There's no emotional struggle because in his capacity as a soldier (of the order) he's not "only human".

Fantasy Noir! Wow, love it! I'd read fantasy if it were more like this...

I think it's immediate and captivating and I love the chattiness and (as I said) noir-y feel of the voice. I think there are a couple of places where you're holding us at arms length and I have some comments below.

Toby Frost said:

The three riders left the city of Astrago behind, and the fields began to turn to woodland. Trees grew up along the road, throwing stripes of shade across the riders as they passed. Smallholders laboured in their fields. A windmill turned lazily on the horizon. It was a beautiful day, and as Sepello leaned over to say so to the taller of his guides, the shorter man shot him in the back of the head.

This opening had me. I loved the way it's like an establishing pastoral scene with the gut punch in the last sentence.

The world flashed white. Sepello’s ears burst with noise and he was flung forward onto his horse’s neck. His head swam, and he was lurching forward, bouncing in the saddle. Sepello felt fur on his cheek, felt his horse shudder and slow down to a skittish trot, then halt. He opened his eyes. Pain drilled into the side of his skull. His ear was hot and wet.

The 'flung forward on the horse's neck' and 'bouncing in the saddle' are crystal images, but I do think the horse recovers itself too quick. Horses are skittish and the London Met ones are brutally trained to cope with noise. Has Sepello's been trained like that?

Someone said, "Is he dead?"

Play dead, he thought. Keep still. (I'd prefer if you deleted 'he thought' - later when he curses himself for being an idiot he doesn't use the thought tags and I think it's more immediate.)

"’Course he’s dead. Didn’t you see him?"

Like a spider tied to the end of his arm, (not sure if this spider bit was a bit over-Chandleresque!) Sepello's hand crept into his coat, searching for his pistol. He hardly knew that he was doing it. He was too busy feeling the white-hot poker (that seemed to have been - would cut that) laid across the side of his face, a stripe of searing hurt.

"Better check. Get his bridle."

The horse turned again. The movement made Sepello feel nauseous (the feel distances us) – that and the head wound. His mouth tasted of metal.

Boots thumped on grass as the guide dismounted. The smaller man reached out and grabbed the reins. Sepello’s horse spun out nervously. "Easy, easy," said the man.

Sepello sat up and drew his pistol in one move. A bolt of pain shot through his head, lightning to the thunder of his gun (Love this). The pistol kicked against his hand and the short man dropped like a corpse cut down from a gallows (and this). Blood spattered the horse’s shoulder.

Sepello grabbed the reins and barely stopped the horse from rearing up. The dead man’s foot beat time to nothing (And this, too!).

Ten yards away, the other guide drew his sword. Sepello sat still and bolt upright, trying not to topple off. His pistol had been made to kill tougher things than men. It had one barrel left. Strange, (he thought, - see my above point about thought tags) almost dreamily, how an hour ago we were joking about peasant girls. And now –

He held out his arm and fired. The gun banged and farted out a flurry of sparks.

“Misfire!” The guide swung his legs out and gave his horse a tremendous kick. “Yah!” (It's great how a simple choice of word - in this case 'yah' gives such a strong sense of scene and action. Although I would wonder about the horse's resilience to bangs again)

The guide’s horse burst into life and charged. Hooves pounded the road. The man waved his sword like a brigand.

At the back of his aching brain, Sepello remembered his own sword, wrapped up in his saddlebag. No chance of drawing it now. He did the only thing he could. He took his feet out of the stirrups and let himself drop.

The guide’s blade whipped overhead. Sepello hit the ground, stumbled onto all fours and lurched up like a sprinter driving off from the blocks. He ran to the edge of the road, the pistol huge and useless in his hand.

“Coward!” the would-be murderer yelled, and Sepello plunged into the forest.



He tore through the trees, weaving between trunks and behind fallen logs. Branches tried to snag his coat but he rushed on, hearing wood snap and fabric rip. Sepello wanted to look back, but all that mattered now was gaining ground. Once he had got away he could hide, or reload his pistol or something, anything – but first he had to get away.

The forest was thickening, the trunks growing closer. Sunlight filtered down in shafts (nice reference back to the sunlight in the opening line). Sepello twisted around a thorn bush, dropped behind it and crawled doubled over into the thicket. (Then - delete?) h(H)e stopped.

His heart was a furious animal trying to break out of his ribcage. There was a sharp, singing pain in his ear.

Come on, he thought, you can do this. You’ve fought the army of the living dead. You’ve reinterred a dozen revenants. You can take one jumped-up woodsman with a rusty sword.

(He then realised that - I'd start the sentence with 'something' and delete the realised bit) something was missing from his front. His cartridge bandolier. He couldn’t reload his gun.

He punched the ground. It set his wound ringing as if he’d put his face against a striking bell (I want to use this simile). Sepello wanted to bellow with rage and hatred, as if somebody else had betrayed him. You fool, you ****ing halfwit imbecile. You’ve got no powder. How could you? How could you do this to yourself?

You’ve got a knife.

Boots crunched on bracken. Sepello held his breath. His hand moved to his side and slowly drew his knife.

Blood crawled down his face. A fly whined above him (great, simple detail). He put his hand over his mouth to cover the sound of drawing breath.

“Ah, Hell,” said the guide. Sepello heard him turning round on the spot, and realised that his pursuer had lost the trail.

The guide’s boots crackled in the foliage, and he stepped into view.

Sepello leaped up from the side, his wound shrieking at him to stop, threw out his left arm and as the guide turned to block it, Sepello drove the knife in his right hand into the assassin’s side. Sepello twisted it and yanked the blade free, staggered back, and the guide stumbled. Sepello punched the knife into the woodsman’s neck.

As the man dropped Sepello caught a glimpse of his face, wide-eyed and disbelieving. Then the guide hit the forest floor, and Sepello flopped back against a tree.

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What a pacy opening. It really is packed with data and action and I really can see the scene. I love the sense of wit about it, too.

pH

This really drew me straight in, and the shock in the first paragraph worked great.

Toby Frost said:

Sepello felt fur on his cheek, felt his horse shudder and slow down to a skittish trot, then halt.

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Not sure about fur. Maybe the sweating hide of the horse? The rest of that sentence rings true to me, except the hint that they were doing more than a trot to begin with. If travelling any distance at all, they would be more likely to be alternating a trot and a walk to keep the horses fit and healthy.

There are a few cases of repetition, which you'll no doubt pick up on your next read-through, e.g. forward in the second paragraph.

I'm not sure why he felt he had to dismount when the guide rode at him. Wouldn't he be better on horseback? If it was to avoid the painful effect of bumping around with his head wound, then surely he'd have been just as sore running on foot as on horseback?

To summarise, I am jealous. Your writing is action-packed and brilliantly written. I long for the day when I can achieve even a shadow of what you have managed in this short excerpt.

Oh! Fur - I got told off for using that instead of "hair".

I've made a note of the fur! One to look out for in future.

Well, thanks everyone for the comments, which have been helpful and in places really flattering. It's worth pointing out that because this is the opening, I've spent a lot of time brooding over it - which is a bad idea as well as a good idea. Putting up here has been very useful in prodding my brain to look at it in new ways. Thanks very much guys.

Hi,

I liked it. It was quite gripping and well written. But my immediate thought was the whole premise of being shot in the back of the head. To me that equals death and even a glancing blow should leave your MC reeling. So it made it hard to believe the rest. My thought would be that you need something in there about how lucky he was not to be dead - perhaps he realises it as he's hanging on to the horse working out what's happened. Also if he's shot from behind why does the world turn white? Is this not due to the muzzle flash?

I don't have a problem with one of them calling him a coward - I just think it's a weak word to use in a situation like that. I'm sure I'd be swearing.

When the second man charges it seems to me that since he's on horseback only ten yards away the entire next piece of action should take around a second. But it seems to take longer and there's too many actions between him misfiring and finally dropping. Does he really think about drawing his sword, or in that single second as the man is galloping for him does he just intinctively drop. And would the man wave his sword around in the air, or would he just point it in the right direction? Also if the man's going to yell something, given the adrenaline and lack of time, I think he'd be more likely to yell something one syllabled - eg "missed!"

Last, given that your MC is wounded and the guide has lost him, I don't see him leaping on his enemy. It may be less gallant etc, but really if it was me I'd probably creep up behind him and stab him in the back the moment he passed me. Crude but effective as opposed to daring. But he's in a desperate situation.

Cheers, Greg.

The pistol kicked against his hand and the short man dropped like a corpse cut down from a gallows. – In his hand, instead of against. Or take out “against his hand” as he is already holding the pistol and is already implied. Anyway, this pulled me up.

Blood spattered the horse’s shoulder. – While sitting on a horse and watching another character trying to kill him, would Sepello really take note of blood that I think, should be below his line of sight. I think here feeling blood splatter on his own legs, warm and damp (or similar), could be closer to the character.

In this section Toby you have short descriptive lines, especially in the opening and later longer connected descriptive lines all mixed up in the section. Technically nothing wrong with this that I know of, but I did notice the changes. It felt a little inconsistent for me.

If you state your character has been shot in the head, then I will literally take you at that. So shot in the head and then running around, you can see where I’m going here. I would have made this less direct and made the glancing blow clearer for the reader.

I thought the horse made life far too easy for Sepello, especially after the dud shot. If this dud was a musket then there should be smoke, flashes and quite a show that should put the fear of god into a horse. I’ll accept a single shot may not be enough to put the frighteners on a horse. My reader’s disbelief was pushed some, but usually is these days after years of SFF focusing on detail.

Coward, like most everyone else, felt odd to me. He is running for his life after all.

I disagree with Brian, I think the opening sets the scene very well and I see this used a lot in published work. The short lines still niggle me, but otherwise really well done. Direct character experience can’t always give a broad feel for the reader, while well controlled author narration can do – which yours was, even with my niggles.

I’m digging deep here and enjoyed seeing the early stages of a publisher writer like your good self. I enjoyed the post and enjoyed your style also, very crisp and you did draw me in as you went along. I have no doubts you’ll knock your opening into shape. Laters.

I liked it a lot and I have only one tiny point -- you use his name an awful lot, especially towards the end of the segment, and it started to make me twitch. Mainly here:

Sepello leaped up from the side, his wound shrieking at him to stop, threw out his left arm and as the guide turned to block it, Sepello drove the knife in his right hand into the assassin’s side. Sepello twisted it and yanked the blade free, staggered back, and the guide stumbled. Sepello punched the knife into the woodsman’s neck.

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I realise you need to distinguish from the woodsman, so using "he" is tricky, but I think sometimes it would be preferable.