Chapter One - An Unexpected Welcome [2,921 Words]

Figure I'll comment here since the problems you do have are structural. I commented some in the google doc, hope you take the comments for bad humor, they weren't meant to sound agressive.

The main problem with the chapter is that nothing actually happened. They arrived in a city and went to sleep. And it took 2921 words for them to do it.

The pacing is REALLY REALLY REALLY slow. Cut on the walks. Just do it. We don't need them. For a person to get from point A to point B all you need is a simple:

"After a short walk through x we arriverd at x" or "The journey was x y and z yet we arrived at X safe and sound." No need to dedicate an entire paragraph to the walk.

The second problem is that we really don't get to know the main character. Your descriptions don't really reveal much of his character. And he doesn't even ACT. He grabs someone by the neck but then let's him go without further word. He protests in the allway but then leaves it at that. My conclusion is that he's someone with a really short attention span. Specially since he went to sleep before asking anyone what the fuck was going on.

I'm not saying every protagonist needs to be strong willed and assert his dominance at all times. I'm saying that we should actually follow more of his thought proccess.

And, back to the first point, please make this chapter about something. Make Kelladen's wish more obvious. Does he want to save his crew? Himself? Why is he putting himself in such a weird city? Did he have no other choice? Why? No need for full answers, just short rumblings that would no doubt be more interesting than the description of the corridors he walks on.

The plot seems to have potential... If we actual figure out what it is about. I think the chapter should contain the mission/job the king will give them, otherwise no one will actually flip the page to the second one. And it better be an interesting one.

/r/fantasywriters Thread