Forums » RP Discussion » Thoughts on this excerpt?

I have been writing quite a lot in my free time and would be open to thoughts, criticism and overall feedback to it so far. I do apologize for its length, I tried to only take part of it xD

Panic ensued around the palace as soldiers marched through the halls. Magnus sat upon his throne, head propped on one hand as he slouched to the side, his eyes dully glazed over as the masses of troops began preparations for their last stand. The floor beside the Great Mage King glowed faintly, a scout appearing with fearful eyes. "Milord, I retain dreadful news about Eutr.", his voice faded slightly as he hesitated. "The Tower of Eutr has fallen, and no word has been received from Lady Pheros." Magnus rose up immediately, standing from his great throne as the cape swayed behind him. "Lady Pheros.. She has yet to report?" The scout nodded simply to him. "The tower was entirely decimated with her inside...I am sorry Milord.." Magnus snarled faintly, turning as he peeered upwards towards the grand ceiling before nodding quietly. "Prepare to fight head on..", spoke the sage before he ascended the stairs behind the throne. Once he entered his chambers, he took a long breath and gazed over the desk, than to the closet containing the ceremonial war armor. The doors opened slowly, the middle of the room contained a stand to which the gold armor plated robes hung. Magnus lifted and dressed in the robes slowly, the long cloak concealed his body in a catching royal blue, gold trim with ancient draconic lettering lined the gold plate trim. He took a slow breath, turning as he faced the golden helmet, the helmet worn during the great settling of nations. He lifted the helmet and set it upon his head slowly, the brace lining with the ridge of his nose while the guards to each side surrounded his cheeks. Above the helmet stood a large crest of Atso.

Outside the great fortress the King resided in, the city walls wrapped their protective embrace around the homes of the capital's citizens. Battle-mages stood in lines upon the tops of the walls, their eyes shining as they gazed out and onto the farmland stretching out from the perimeter of the walls. The main road swirled its way through the land before the keep before disappearing in a parting of the trees. The entire city was surrounded by trees in all directions, shrouding it from being seen outside. The clouds slowly formed over the once bustling city, darkening the sky and diminishing the sight of the mages who stood anxiously at the waiting of the incoming attack.

The King emerged onto the balcony atop the tower that extended upwards from the palace. His elderly hands slowly clasped the rails of the guard that surrounded the stone balcony. His pale eyes gazed over the sight before him, seeing the circular wall that outstretched and hugged his people closely in protection. The streets were empty, all the citizens having either fled, or taking cover within the warmth of their homes. Along the tops of the walls, soldiers stood shoulder to shoulder along the perimeter, even more waited at the base of the palace. The force was only modest for the reports of the size of the invasion at hand, yet the King had faith in his people to uphold protection of the holy ground. The sky moved towards its darkest tint, among which drops began to fell. The slowly sprinkle of rain soon took to a downpour, and moving beyond that as time progressed. The water splashed upon the metal of the helmets and shoulder pauldrons lining the soldiers figures. Their eyes stayed ever forward, always glancing in every direction their head's allowed as screeches of war beasts were heard in the distance.

Magnus was soon joined by three soldiers on his balcony, all elite bodyguards as motioned by their similarly designed gold armor, which contrasted deeply to the silver armor used by the soldiers lining the walls. Magnus squinted, having swore to see motion in the deep and dark skies. Suddenly, the solder to his left stumbled, hand gripping his chest that an arrow protruded from. His eyes soon rolled upwards, his body falling to his knees as he collapsed beside the King. Magnus had only time to re-center his eyes upon the horizon in front of the castle before he saw the volley of arrows aimed directly at him. The younger and more reflex oriented guard to his left leapt up onto the balcony, his hand extended in front of him as a white shield extended him his fingers. The sharpened arrow tips bounced helplessly against the summoned surface as the third guard soon took Magnus's arm, pulling him into the tower. As he was moving through the door, the King saw the horde of winged war beasts that soared towards the capital.

The guards lining the wool soon took center stage to the battle on their doorstep. In synchronized volleys the soldiers lifted their arms straight up, taking a battle stance, and than directing both hands towards the sky before them. Large streams of fire blasted towards the sky, creating beams of light that illuminated the raining cloud's darkening effect. Screeches echoed into the dull of rain, large beasts falling from the sky like injured birds, their flying soldier companions gripping the beasts for dear life as they crashed into the forests. The soldiers ended their volley, peering up to assess the damage. The sky appeared clear, until a lightning flash revealed what the darkness concealed.

Hundreds of riders soared highly, already over the castle and out of sight when darkness provided cover. The soldiers all peered upwards in shock, and than began to cast their flaming countermeasures upwards. The loss of synchronization began obvious to the wyvern commander, who sensed a surge of panic in the mages below. With a raise of his sword, the entire horde of beasts descended rapidly. Their large and scaled wings tucked around their bodies, allowing them to free fall towards the ground. The rides leaned forward, gripping the reigns of the saddles tightly and intently, their eyes narrowed on the targets below. Once within each, the winged breasts flew against the walls, letting their riders come into striking distances of the battle mages. Men groaned in pain, and beasts screeched in rage as the two combatted each other. The wyverns landed upon houses, destroying them beneath their immense weight as their riders slipped off the saddles, moving onto the ground to begin their invasion. Within moments, hundreds of the dragon riders fled their beasts, storming towards the palace capital. The wyverns took back into the air, without the control of their riders they were free to combat in the way that was most natural to them, flying in circles about the castles, breathing their own beams of fire against the soldiers below.

I'm going to try to pick apart your first paragraph here. This is going to be a very critical review, so don't it personally. You've done a lot of things right here but, as is the case with any writer, there's room to improve. When giving critique, the critic's goal is to teach, not mock, and the artist's goal is to learn, not lash out. (I doubt you're the kind of person who needs this sort of disclaimer, though.) Also keep in mind that this is purely my opinion, and although you should take all critique as an opportunity to learn, that doesn't mean you have to agree with every point I make. I contradict myself a lot, except when I don't, which is never because I do. Ha. Irony.

Anyway, the biggest problem is your opening paragraph, because that needs to be the one of the best parts of your story, and instead I found it difficult to get through it to the next chunk of text (Not going to formatting here, but find some help on when to use a new paragraph line) So I'll focus on that, because that's some of the more severe examples of the things I'm critiquing.

The biggest and most severe criticism I have to offer you is; Detail. You lack detail in places where it is badly needed. I understand that you're trying to keep the story fast-paced, at least initially, but this pacing is incompatible with the sheer amount you're trying to get across. Many times I felt lost or simply don't have much of a basis to build a mental picture.

The key to writing well is not having lots of details, it's knowing where, when, and how many to use. Practice and you'll get better. Read over your own writing and try to work out a style, and from that you can figure out how much detail you'd like to include.

A second criticism is a lack of power or drama. You don't have to be melodramatic, because that often comes across as laughable, but I don't feel invested in any of this because in the first paragraph, all I have are events. This gives me no connection to our character, Magnus. I don't see his thoughts, I don't know what he looks like, who he is, or - for that matter - who any of these people are. Make them people, not objects. Show me their motives, their likes and dislikes, their thoughts as well as their deeds.

Without further adieu, here is a (possibly unnecessarily long) critique of your opening paragraph.
This opening statement lacks impact and clarity. All I know is that there are soldiers and people are panicked. Some description would be helpful here. For example, my first thought when I read this was that the soldiers were intruding, as if making their way to the keep having just captured a castle. The panic in my mind's eye was a crowd running everywhere to try to escape from the soldiers. This turns out to not be the case, and the mental shift from the moment before a disaster to the sick anticipation before a major political decision was jarring. Panic is not the right word here. An uneasy, nervous atmosphere would be more suiting than a frightened, panicked one.

It's also not a very dramatic opener. "Panic ensued." Using a "happen" verb like occurred or ensured is weak. Try to open with a strong or evocative verb, or a statement that immediately desires context, which you provide shortly thereafter.
Here are some examples, The opening sentence to some chapters in my favorite book: Notice how each of these uses action verbs rather than being verbs, and each leaves us desiring context, but not simply by being vauge. Context logically follows, in contrast to your opening, in which we're not told anything more about this in the following sentences.

On to the next thingy! There are far too many ways for this to be interpreted. Is the king worn down after a long day of hard decisions? Disinterested in the display of arms before him? (Tangent: Unless the throne room is really big or his force is really small, you wouldn't mobilize the army inside of it. If the troops are not in the throne room, this needs to be clarified.) From the "dully glazed over" description, one might even think he's in a coma.

There's a fine line between saying a lot with very little, and saying very little. In this case, devoid of context, we don't know what kind of room we're in, what our character looks like, or how he's feeling. It's not evocative or interesting. This action seems sudden, considering that our first impression of Magnus is that he's bored, tired, or broken. It's an extremely strong action that contradicts an extremely passive one. "She has yet to report" is extremely different from "she is dead." Use animalistic words like "snarled" or "growled" with extreme care. They are powerful, and counteracting them with a diminishing adverb like "faintly" often ruins them. Also, immediately going from animal fury to quiet nodding is abrupt.
Here is an example of detail used well, but I have a few pet peeves here. First of all, using "spoke" instead of "said," always makes me wince. As a general rule, you should leave out dialogue tags wherever possible, use said wherever possible, and only use a unique dialogue tag like "shouted," "spoke," or -god forbid - "enunciated" when absolutely necessary. That's not just my opinion; a lot of good publishers and editors agree that too many "said-bookisms" can ruin the flow of a good story.

Another subject matter: I'm trying not to concentrate on conventions, because though I disagree, many consider grammar unimportant. However, there was one thing I couldn't overlook. Commas and semicolons. Let me show you what I mean.
"The doors opened slowly," is a separate thought. "The middle of the room contained a stand" is a separate thought. Complete sentences are not linked by commas, they are separated by periods.
"Magnus dressed slowly," is a separate thought. "The cloak concealed his body," is a separate thought. In this case, if you really want these two sentences to stay joined together,the solution is a semicolon, not a comma. Semicolons join two complete sentences in situations where using a comma would be awkward, but the sentences flow together.

However, in this case, teh sentences flow together well enough that you may as well make them one. Change it to, The distinction is subtle, but it works better.

And then we have "gold trim with ancient draconic lettering lined the gold plate trim." This should be a separate sentence, but I also think you did that thing where you stopped writing this sentence halfway though and when you came back you forgot what the subject was.

I hope this was helpful. Keep working; your writing shows a lot of potential.