Title: Given To The Wind
Genre: YA Fantasy
“Blood tells, Thea and I pray for the day it tells on you!”
Habibi brushes the dirt my boot left on her bodice. It smears. She raises an agonized gaze to me, big brown eyes spilling tears over flushed cheeks.
“Damn you,Thea! How can our a’Shara consider making you Venari? How can he endure you in his Crèche? Everything about you is dark! Your skin, your hair, your heart! Without your birthmark, Pell never would have taken you in!”
Her venom makes my jaw clench.
It started simply enough. Me on Windsong, my beloved mare, body and mind at ease, off to hunt before the storm broke. Selene, my hunting hound, at our side, heading for the grasslands encircling the Sada’s movable city of felted tents. The three of us coursing the Way, for Venari and riders only, not expecting a gaggle of girls to sashay onto the road. A bunch of near-women come to flaunt their finery and flirt with warriors.
Thankfully, we were trotting. Thankfully, I saw them in time.
Habibi, acclaimed as one of the Tribe’s great beauties, had smiled slyly at me, as if sharing some female secret. I knew her by name. I knew her ribs housed a stunningly shallow heart. In a gown giddy with color, she cast a dismissive gaze over my fawn-colored riding brecca and tall boots. “How did this Nomadi bitch get past our Venari?”
Her triumph—vanquishing me with a curse: Nomadi, the dismissive name A’talans call Daharshan warriors.
Miss Snark's First Victim
This sounds interesting, but I'm a bit lost in all of the different names, groups and titles. You may want to take more time in the first few words for world building. All the best!
ReplyDeleteI feel like for the story as a whole you've invested many details in world building which is wonderful for fantasy. But I agree with Meredith above, it's a little overwhelming to start off without establishing any of it or introducing it all at once. Under all of it I see a journey possibly beginning?
ReplyDeleteThis is intriguing. I got lost at the dialogue in the beginning and it pulled me out of the story. I wasn't sure what half the words meant. I'd start it with the hunting party. That way we can get to know the narrator a bit more before all those new words are thrown around.
ReplyDeleteThis starts with one scene and is left unfinished. We don't learn how Thea's footprint got on Habibi's bodice. You leave that to tell us how it all started. If how it all started is important, then start there. It'll be a stronger scene because we'll see it as it happens. As is, it's being told to us after the fact. If it isn't important, finish the opening scene and go on with the story. As is, what happens on your opening page is - "You dirtied my clothes," Habibi said. Thea clenched her jaw. Give us more..
ReplyDeleteI agree about the names. At this point, I don't know what any of these things are, so none of it means anything to me. There's nothing for me to connect with. You're setting me in a new and strange world. Perhaps ease us into that with a parg of setting, or start at the beginning, since you're going there anyway.
Fantasy is always a hard one to start out because you need to get your reader engrossed in the world you’ve created and get your world building up front to erase confusion. There’s also putting too much world building in a short period of time when so many names and characters and ideas are thrown at the reader all at once and it’s overwhelming and hard to follow.
ReplyDelete