The Twilight Blade

[Akavira]

The Twilight Blade

Prologue

He always thought of himself as a leader, not a follower. But he seldom led anyone, and never followed either. He was a lone wolf, a man driven by his own experience in life, his own instinctive behavior. So it is because of this that he lived a solitary life, a life without love, happiness and a life full of confusion. At times he’d feel lonely. Yes, even he felt lonely, but he would just smoke a bit of expensive, brown herb (in which the humans of Amaya called tobacco) using his extravagant gold pipe. Or he would take an elongated hike through the Spiral Mountains of Paladia, or he’d train with his fellow Akaviran brothers, whom were nearly obsidian-like, as was he. However, they all had short, platinum colored hair, with jet black locks. He was a meager apprentice of the Akaviran Clan, a hopeful whose own desires and ambition was to be a grandmaster in the future. But that was many moons down the narrow road. First he would have to prove his worth, gain himself prestige and recognition, and then, after he has the reputation of a legend amongst the Akaviran, he would have to carry out a quest given by the grandmasters.
A rumor spread around Amaya has it the Akaviran Clan is occupied by ruthless or malevolent assassins, but the clan is far from that. The Akaviran Clan is an honorable family who secretly protects the king, serves as his eyes and ears, and close shut the jaws of danger. However, despite their hidden cause, the Akaviran are frowned upon for the false rumors, and shunned for their dark skin. However, he did not care for he was a lone wolf, and thus, was not concerned with the thoughts of the inferior races. Yes, inferior, for the Akaviran race were the most gifted race. An Akaviran could bend light at will and render themselves invisible, a gift from their father, the God of Shadows, Akavir. Not only could they become a vanishing ghost, but they have keen senses, extraordinarily quick reflexes, and remarkable vision.

Chapter One

Zephyr bolted down the street with three imperial guards hot on his trail as his charcoal-colored cloak fluttered with the strong breeze. He turned right, down an alley and spotted a crate. He fluently jumped and launched himself off the crate with his powerful legs. He ran a few feet up the wall and grabbed onto the ledge, and effortlessly climbed up onto the building. He quickly dropped to the prone position, and listened intently.
“Where did he go?” one of the guard’s yelled as he turned into the alley. The other guards shrugged and turned around. They began walking away from the alley. The lone guard glanced at the crate, and broke it.
Zephyr heard the wooden crate get smashed and he silently stood up, and glanced overhead, overlooking the guard. He saw the guard angrily turn and follow the others.
"Fools," he thought to himself. Zephyr spun on his left heel as he left the guards alone. His job wasn't to kill them, so killing them would have proved nothing to him but lack of faith and belief.

[Circ]

There are some things that I saw which could use some correction.

1. You say they're obsidian-lie, and then go on to say their skin and eyes are black. That comes across as redundant.
2. "recognition, and than, after" should be "recognition, and then, after"--than is comparison while then is time. For more on this, visit then vs. than.
3. "is in fact an honorable" should be "is, in fact, an honorable"--granted, I think the sentence would be made stronger by excluding the "in fact" part.
4. "shunned upon" should be "shunned"--no need for upon.
5. "render invisible"--render [noun] invisible would be the correct usage.

Other than those few things, and some misplaced commas, I like it. The story starts off a little personal, and then goes into the broader scope of what is happening. You have your premise, now it is time to pursue the plot.

[Tramp]

Here's a warning about my style of 'creative' criticism. It tends to be harsh as possible without being dead right insulting--or blatantly, dead right insulting at least. Moreover, I speak with the experience of a reader. Between you and me, that's not saying much. So, don't go thinking everything or anything I say is correct. Or read this at all. But if you're still reading, without further ado:

Potential. That single word symbolizes a wealth of criticisms by its own right. It's a word commonly associated with the better stories and also a word that authors never want associated with finished writing. Your prologue, as I've read it so far, shows a whole lot of (you guessed it!) potential. You seem to be starting a lovely world, and whether the richness of your imagination will be capitalized or not... you pretty much know where this is heading. For example, your prologue is a stable beginning as novels go. Stable, as in the roughest definition of the word. It seems to be almost solid, but not quite.

For one thing, the hook that grabs the readers' attention seems to be lacking... too short of a hook perhaps, or maybe a hook not sharpened. Relying on just the technique of dotting the page with "he" isn't a strong enough hook by itself. Don't take me wrong though; withholding the protagonist's name is a good method to emphasize the hooking, however not strong enough by itself. My advice is to try a more action packed approach, of say... R.A. Salvatore’s Drizzt Do’Urden novels. Perhaps you’ve heard of them. Salvatore has interesting openings. One method tends to pit a hero in immediate danger and suddenly dangles a cliffhanger before the first chapter to later return to the action or leave it out completely instead and have the hero return to tell his tale. Another method offers a more doomsday bearing feel, and shows the immense power of an antagonist as well as the villain plotting against the hero. Not regarding Salvatore altogether, the key to prologues in fantasy books seem to be suspense. Think of the whole prologue as the hook. Maybe you’re already thinking along those lines except you might want to show it better so amateur readers like me can see it before we stop reading.

The second thing I would like to point out is the amount of information you’re dumping into the fantasy-styled tale. By ‘tale’, I mean prologue. Between you and me, I often skip prologues. It’s a bad habit I grew into after a lifetime of forced mundane reading assignments—key phrase is “getting to the end”. For typical readers that pick up fantasy books, I would imagine they’re feeding that thirst for engulfing action—think something along the lines of video games, but with good storylines. Nobody reads the Silmarillion (J.R.R. Tolkien’s Bible-like approach on the history of his world) yet everybody has already read The Lord of the Rings trilogy. Moreover, as I have mentioned before, I often skip prologues unless they’re interesting. That means hording the background and the history of the world in the prologue is not such a wonderful idea, save for one example: that the prologue was made especially and only for the purpose to introduce the world. Which takes skill to execute and combines background with some doomsday bearing suspense. Yours, on the other hand, attempts to combine pieces of both approaches (history and action) into a floundering bore of an opening.

I repeat myself regular, as you may have noticed now. Your storyline shows lots of potential, and so does your skill as a writer. I haven’t been meaning to badger your ability to write in my criticisms, even as it could have been translated as so. I mean, look at this mess of a criticism. It’s horrible. I can’t write worth pennies glued to the floor; that’s precisely why I found my way here. But you honestly show much potential, and here are my closing words for an inspiring writer:

Show, not tell. Clichéd, yes, but a valuable lesson to learn that many miss in their pursuit of literature mastery. For clarity’s sake, try to inject characteristics as subtly as possible. Instead of announcing of how the Akaviran Clan is shunned for their dark skin and spoken of in whispers, mention the protagonist seeing a child Akaviran asking her mother why people react so stranger to her and what certain words mean. Cute and heartbreaking at the same time, see?

Base the fantasy on reality. You’ve mentioned about 400 pages of bonding, but don’t just assume a big book keeps a person feeling any connection to the main character. Moreover, secondary characters (or even any wandering merchant) in the tale are not expendable NPCs that only know two phrases. Ground them heavily on humanistic faults. Our personality is based fully on the experience of our life. If a character is born into wealth, handles swords well, he is probably a cocky show-off who never felt the pain of a superior or he is a lonely, angry child who sweated for his rough skills in defiance of his lack of parental love. In fact, people tend to be 80% imperfect and 20% alright-ness, and the sense of perfect comes from the skill an individual has to hide his imperfections.

And that’s basically everything I can think of… good luck with life.

Edit: Wow. Compared with Circ's response, I'm quite an ass. And one that has no life... Sigh.

[Akavira]

Thank you both for the replies. And Tramp, you're not an ass. It's constructive critism. Besides, I can handle it. And thanks for the editing Circ. I knew there would be some mistakes, as it was just a rough draft. I often start the first chapter off with action, but I'll try it in the prologue of perhaps a previous experience the protagonist had.

[Tramp]

I'm still waiting for the next installment of the adventure, buddy.
I'll hold my thoughts this time about too, if you prefer.