forum Excerpts Anyone?

Started April 26, 2023 by @n o s t r a d a m u s location_city

tune

Hi All, I'm taking the slow approach and writing my book in excerpts as they come to me and I'd like some feedback. A little background, I'm writing a fantasy novel aimed at 11-14 year olds that explores the failures of adults and the nature of destiny. MC is named Angus (ordinary kid) and SCs are Sinrith ("great" wizard) and Leni (young soldier). The style I'm aiming for is like Terry Pratchet, that sort of fun whimsical prose with a wise-cracking edge. My ultimate goal style wise is to write something that would be fun to read aloud. On to the excerpts:
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“Exchange your life in this world for a life in another. If you remain you will become the greatest threat humanity will ever know, destruction will take form at your very fingertips. Cities will burn, great floods will descend upon the earth, mothers will grieve their children, and fathers will cry themselves to sleep in what is left of their beds.
You will destroy this place. You will gather immense power and it will be misused here. I know of a place where this power is needed. You will be safe and you will be happy, as will everyone you have ever known and ever loved. For they will no longer know you.”

The animatronic smiled, “All you must do is give me the token.”
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Angus poured over the waymarker, a bizarre mix of signpost and bulletin board, looking at all the places they could travel next. To the west, he noticed, was the town of Holdfast Wood. A poster on their section of the board caught his eye. In amongst the grizzled portraits of axe murders and highwaymen, the wanting of labourers, and the petitions of the lowly.

‘THE SPECTRE OF THE WOOD’. Curiosity peaked, he read on.
“Sighted in the burial ground by one young Mister on the third evening of this month. The spectre was described as tall and grey, and lurked for twenty-and-three minutes. If thee has any wisdom or wishes to join the hunt, gather on the steps of the town hall on the eve of the full moon. A reward of thirty gold pieces will be presented to whomever vanquishes this most unagreeable spirit.”

“Hey Sinrith, I have a quest for us,”
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The wizened woman sat back in her chair and raised her hands to him to show her palms. She turned them over to show the backs, a million bejewelled bangles clinked together as she did. “You see this,” She pointed at the back of her left hand, “Wrinkles.”

“I am very old, child. I have seen much in my time. I have seen kings rise and fall. I have seen the most promising students waste their gifts. I have seen the biggest fools become the brightest of stars. I have seen everything and I am tired,” She sighed.

“My knees are bad and my hair is grey and I do not have the spark I used to. The world has changed.
I remember when Ersatz was laughable. Now it is as common as air. And the kids, they do not care much for the old ways. Ersatz is exciting and easy.
They do not see the damage it can do and the damage it has already done. And they won’t, not until they are too old to do something about it,”

Angus thought of the fortune teller in the box.
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He felt hollow. Stupid and hollow. His heart drawled in his chest and the feeling echoed until it hit the internal wall of his ribs. In and out, in and out. His breath came, mechanically. Everything felt so grey all of a sudden, as if someone had come along and sucked all the colour out of the world. He looked down at his hands, turning them from front to back to front again. It struck him how silly they were. Muscles and veins and bones and skin. Easy to break. Easy to cut. Easy to lose a finger or two.
He didn’t care. All of a sudden. He didn’t care what happened to him at all. He could be screamed at or kicked or punched or left for dead or thrown through a window. It didn’t matter, he didn’t care. He couldn’t care. The capacity to care had left him in that moment and all that was left was the hollow feeling in his chest.
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“Adults lie Angus. They lie about miniscule things, they lie about gargantuan things. They lie about what they can and can’t do. They tell you things are easy when they’re impossible and impossible when they’re easy. They lie to get you to shut up. They lie to get you to go away. They lie to make you stay. Adults lie about everything.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know why. They just do.”

“They must hate us then. They must think we’re foolish to believe them. They must look at me and laugh and say ‘I can’t believe he bought that’ every single time…
How many times do you think I’ve been lied to?”

The words swam in the air, wafting like smoke. Lingering.

“Most likely. All your life,” Leni turned back down the path. And Angus was all alone.
…
He had decided that he did miss home after all.

He missed the winter mornings in late july. When the not-quite mountains loomed indigo in the distance and against them the gumtrees lingered deep peridot green. Their jerking pale limbs reaching up towards the blue-grey storm clouds, weighted down by drooping dagger shaped leaves. He would wake, cold in his bed, as the cockatoos screeched and the magpies chortled from the rooftops.

He missed his mother and her terrible pumpkin scones. Which were never sweet enough or orange enough and always came out lumpy, dry, and irregularly shaped. They were a hassle to make, he knew. All the dishes and the kneading, and pumpkin puree everywhere. They made the house smell awful and burnt. But he was glad that she made them, every time.

He missed his friends. He had had a dream the night before. A memory. Of when he and Casper had gone out to the creek with the dogs without telling their parents. They had spent hours messing about in the mud, picking out bits of broken glass and throwing sticks. Trying to see who could hang upside down the longest from the large tree. The creek had swelled with the recent rains and the brownish water rushed where it normally trickled. Right before they decided they were going to leave he had dared Capser to cross it. One last silly little challenge before they both headed home. So Casper waded into the thick creek water, dodging sticks and pebbles with his fluffy white dog in his arms. And just as he reached the bank on the other side, he lost his shoe.
They had spent almost half an hour trying to track it down as the current swept it further along the stream. Casper hobbling one-shoed and wet-socked, his little dog soaked and shivering. His mother would kill him if he didn’t find it, he said.
They did, eventually. After it had dropped dark and they were over a kilometre away from where they’d started. He and Casper had walked back in silence, past the school playground and the milkbar. Until a car pulled up alongside them. Angus’ mothers’ car. She was so worried, she had said. She was about to call the police thinking he’d been kidnapped by some loon in a white van. How dare he go out without telling her and what on Earth had he been doing out this late anyway, what was he thinking. She went on and on and on.

They all drove to Casper’s house. She dropped him at the front door with his soggy white dog. Angus stayed in the passenger seat and watched. Capser’s parents hadn’t even noticed he was gone, they said nothing to him as he slipped behind them into the dark house. His mother got back in the car and said he and Casper couldn’t be friends anymore and if she ever saw them together again he’d be grounded for a week.
In the silent car ride home, Angus wondered why she didn’t react like this when he actually did something bad. Every other time he’d done something troublesome she had said nothing.Normally, she just sighed and looked off into the distance disappointedly. No reprimand, no punishment, not a word.

He had been lucky, he realised. So so lucky. And now he had none of it, traded away for a stupid token and a stupid lie.
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Anyways let me know what you think. What do I need to tweak? What can you gather from the characters and settings? What elements peak your curiosity? Do you think I've hit the style I was aiming for?

I have more. And I will post more regardless of whether someone actually reads them:
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“Why is the sky so… blue?”

Sinrith said, “They mine Ersatz here. It is a good place for it, they are the closest to the universe of any kingdom,”

Angus was unsure of what to make of this. It struck him as more than a little concerning that there was so much Ersatz in the air that everything looked as if he was looking at the world through blue-tinted sunglasses. “Are we breathing it in?”

Sinrith turned to him and laughed hard and for a long while. “I wish. It would save me a great sum of money. No, it is the byproduct. To make it they must distil it from the universe using many beakers and pipes and a very special kind of wood that burns very hot and very long. It is the steam that makes the sky so very blue,”

“Steam?”

“Yes,” Sinrith said, “To make it a powder,”

Angus nodded but he wasn’t quite able to follow the wizard’s pattern of thought. How would making steam create a powder? Why did Ersatz need to be a powder in the first place?

They passed through a busy market square filled with intriguing little stalls selling who-knows-what from who-knows-where. Angus marvelled at them as they made their way through the crowds of people. There was one selling exotic creatures, an Iguana stared at him through a hanging cage and a brilliantly coloured bird screeched. They passed a carpet merchant who had an array of different patterns and pelts and Angus took a moment to gawk at a full leopard skin rug before Sinrith shoved him forward.
“We are not here for that.”

They continued on to the very corner of the market where a singular stall sat, seemingly devoid of customers. It was heavily guarded. There were fourteen soldiers in brass coloured armour, pure white cloaks slung over one shoulder with a simple golden sun embroidered on each. They all placed their hands on their swords as Angus and Sinrith approached.

“Traveller’s pass.” One said.

Sinrith dug into the pockets of his velvet cloak and pulled out a pocket book, holding it out so the soldier could see. Whatever it was it seemed to be exactly what they needed to see. They all took their hands off their swords and Sinrith was permitted to step up to the stall.

Angus looked up at him puzzled.

“The people who live here are banned from buying Ersatz,” Sinrith said. “But I will need some of it to do what we have been asked,”

The merchant was a large man. Tall and fat, with his shirt sleeves rolled to the elbow. He had a bald head and greying bushy eyebrows. There was next to nothing on the table in front of him, just a deep blue woven cloth and a set of scales. “What can I do for you sir?” He said.

“What do you think? Essence of the universe,”

“A small batch or a big batch?” Asked the merchant.

“Enough for a few rounds of spells,” Sinrith replied.

The bald headed man grunted and raised a bushy brow at Sinrith, then put his meaty arms on his hips. “That’ll be twenty gold pieces,”

Sinrith reached back into his cloak pockets with his blue tipped fingers. After a moment of rummaging, he fished out a leather pouch and the merchant bent down under the table to retrieve something.

“How do they get Ersatz from the universe?” Angus asked absent-mindedly, hoping the man would have more insight than Sinrith.

“If I knew, I wouldn’t be buying it now would I?” Sinrith answered with a chuckle. He handed the man in the stall the money and in return he gave Sinrith a little diamond shaped vial in exchange.

“Where are you gents headed to anyhow?” Said the man as he counted the coins.

Sinrith didn’t answer and Angus thought it best to follow his lead.

“Well?”

“Enough with the chit chat,” Said one of the soldiers. Who gestured for the boy and the wizard to move on. The merchant passed the empty pouch back to Sinrith and the two resumed their journey up to the castle.
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The ballroom was indescribable. The walls were dark rock and embedded into them were thousands of glowing gemstones in every hue the human eye was capable of seeing. They illuminated the space in the same way that lanterns illuminate the night sky. From the towering ceiling hung garlands of pure clear quartz, arranged to resemble sheets of rain. Towards the back of the ballroom was a raised platform where a troupe of musicians weaved a lively waltz on their fiddles and their basses.

The guests, young ladies and lords and up-and-coming merchants, danced in each other's arms. They all spiralled around a central pillar the shape of lightning hitting the ground. It glowed a bright white and had jagged arms that splintered up into the sky. In the midst of the lightning bolt formation was a large round crystal ball, it cut through the middle of the structure, perfect and clear as a starless sky.

Angus stood in the doorway in astonishment, watching the courtiers waltz by in their fancy dress. There was one in particular that stood out to him. The King. Who was very much not in disguise. He was dressed as a magnificent unicorn. His jacket was pure white and exquisitely embroidered with his royal crest. It was the kind that was short in the front but had two long tails in the back, Angus had seen paintings of men wearing jackets like that. His teacher had called them dandys. Around the King’s neck and up over his head he wore a cream coloured mane, with two horse like ears sticking up out of it. But his mask was the real point of awe, white as the rest of his costume, a pure quartz horn protruded above the eye holes. The light from the crystalline walls refracted through it, creating a soft warm beam of rainbow light that hovered over King Lewin’s eyes.
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A sense had begun to creep into him. It flowed through the crevices of his mind like a poisonous liquid, eroding his thoughts. He wasn’t as well liked as he had thought he was. When he asked questions people didn’t answer and when he spoke their eyes glazed over. They weren’t listening to a word he spoke.
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They had been on the road now for several weeks. The wide paths had grown thin and the winds had begun to blow. The mountain trail was harsh. The days were spent climbing and at night they all huddled around the fire, which was always a strange blue colour because Sinrith refused to let Leni light it. He insisted that if the fire was lit with magic it would last longer but doubt has started to creep in. Angus could see it in her face. The more she saw of Sinrith, the less she seemed to believe.

It wasn’t all bad, he supposed. On the trail they took turns telling stories. Leni’s were never very interesting, she seemed to recycle the same places and characters. The names changed every time but they were always about the same three or four people in the same three or four places.

Sinrith claimed his stories were all true but the events were always so extraordinary and the characters so extravagant that they had to have been wildly embellished. In one of his tales a young Prince discovers that his knights have been letting him win all of his sparring matches, so he arranges a tournament where no one will know his identity. Believing he will win regardless of his opponent, the Prince betts the entire Kingdom's riches on himself before the tournament. In his final match he is speared through his helm, both killing him and bankrupting the entire Kingdom, the entire treasury being cleared out to a knight from a rival kingdom who had been the only person to bet against the Prince in disguise.

Angus didn’t tell very many stories at all. He hadn’t been feeling all that much like himself as of recent. He tried, but there was always something missing from them. His imagination wouldn’t fill in the blanks like it normally did. Instead he listened to the others, or let his thoughts ramble into oblivion about whatever topic was available to him. Each night he went to bed with sore legs and an empty stomach.

He had begun to sense a growing disillusionment in himself. The Otherworld had been so magical to him when he had first come, everything had been so endlessly enigmatic. Every flower petal, every blade of grass, every cloud in the sky. All of it has gleamed and glittered in his mind’s eye. Something inside of him was eroding the magic of the place, leeching the colour out of his thoughts and dreams. Everything had become so granular. Life had begun to grey around the edges and he was worried that maybe one day it would overtake everything.
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A singular ancient oak tree stood in the courtyard below. It had grown up in between the pavers, resulting in a network of maze-like rectangular roots that the servants tried their best to avoid tripping over. They weaved in and out in a strange waltz, carrying jugs and plates of food up back and forth from the kitchen to the banquet hall. Twisting around each other in the dim dregs of twilight as the bell tower chimed seven.

There's also a passage I should have included but didn't that explains the magic a bit better. 'Ersatz' is not the only kind of magic, it's just the most readily available. It's effectively synthetic magic that has both negative environmental and physical side effects. There's also an older and much harder to learn form of magic that doesn't have negative effects (it's a very thinly veiled metaphor for capitalism).
I haven't written as much for Leni and most of it is dialogue that isn't included here, she's meant to be the straight man in the trio. Angus is meant to be a bit selfish and egocentric, Sinrith is both a bad caregiver of the two and also nowhere near as good at magic as he claims to be (I don't know if you have or haven't watched gravity falls but he's sort of a Grunkle Stan type character in that he's a bit of a con-man), and Leni is the voice of reason keeping the two of them on track. But here's that passage I forgot to include that clarifies it a bit:
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The stranger turned. He had a great big beard and dark bushy brows, his eyes were lined with kohl. Smack bang in the middle of his face lurched a bumpy hooked nose, the tip of which was a strange shade of blue. He wore a heavy navy velvet cloak, quilted with sweeping spiral patterns like ripples on a lake.

He held out his hand to Angus, reaching with long slender fingers. The tips of which were also blue. “I am The Great Wizard, Sinrith,” He spoke.

“Who are you, child?”

Angus shook his blue tipped fingers reluctantly, “I’m Angus.”. The man’s hand trembled in his grip, his skin was like ice.

The wizard stuffed his hands back into the pockets of his cloak. He wore many layers underneath it. Angus thought that he must really be a very tiny man, but all of the jumpers and scarves and jackets padded him out to look much, much larger. Sinrith’s black, beady eyes gazed through him, “You are not from here, are you?” He said.

FYI I've got a chuck of a later chapter and the entire first chapter on separate threads, and a writing log over in the general writing section of the forum