Keeper Martin's Tale by Robert Stanek

Blurb

The "Ruin Mist Chronicles" begin when the Elf Queen sends her sworn protector, Seth, on a journey to the lands of Men. Legend says that the races have been divided for hundreds of years and there are few survivors among the brother races. In Keeper Martin's Tale, readers embark on the unfolding of the first path through the histories of Ruin Mist. This is a deep epic fantasy ostensibly chronicled by Keeper Martin, head of lore keepers.

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Original (First 500)

Sunrise loomed across the horizon, pale as jasmine and mostly obscured by dark, feral clouds. The early morning air held an unusual chill and Adrina gathered her light shawl more closely as she stepped out onto the catwalk atop the wall. A breeze blew long strands of hair across her face. The hair, black as the receding night, flowed to her waist and while it was normally braided and folded over her left shoulder, it wasn’t now.

Summer must surely be at an end, Adrina surmised, for the breeze came from the north and not from the West Deep.

Adrina walked to a place where the wall jutted out and cut its way into High King’s Square. Behind her the palace parade grounds were empty and silent, as was the square before her. Many stories below, the city’s residents would soon awake. The square would fill with sounds as merchants began to unpack their wares. Palace guardsmen would muster for breakfast. City and palace would stir to life.

Yet Adrina preferred the empty moment just before all this happened, for the silence echoed the aching of her heart. She pressed her chin into the palm of her hand, her elbow glued to the stone framework of the wall. She sighed mournfully. The palace was truly dead, all real life having long since been gnawed away. 

She could have passed the day dreaming about things beyond the gray stone edifice, the cold palace wall, with its portcullis tucked cleanly out of view. She had sauntered through many a day thus, envisioning magnificent journey to the four corners of the land.

Great Kingdom had many holdings. High Province in the north – the far, far north – where amidst mountains of ice and stone the rivers boiled and filled the air with blankets of fog. South, beyond a forest of great white trees called giant birch, lay South Province with its capital city enveloped by the majestic Quashan’ valley. East through the Kingdom along the East-West road were the Territories, divided east and west. The untamed Eastern Territories were awaiting discovery. The Western Territories held but two Kingdom outposts: Zashchita and Krepost’. Traders claimed the walled city of Zashchita was carved from the very trees of the forest, and its building lifted so far into the heavens that they were lost in the clouds. Beyond Zashchita lay Krepost’ and her ferryman who took travelers across River Krespost’ so they could begin the climb into the mountain city, and where afterward the gatekeeper may or may not chase them over the cliffs into Starter’s Bay and to their deaths.

But today Adrina was frustrated to the point of tears. She wouldn’t pass the day dreaming of things she may never see. She didn’t understand what difference the passing of a year made. Why did it matter so that she was a year older? This year seemed the same as the last.

My Edit

Sunrise loomed across the horizon, pale as jasmine and mostly obscured by dark, feral clouds. The early morning air held an unusual chill and Adrina gathered her light shawl more closely around her as she stepped out onto the catwalk atop the wall of the castle. A breeze blew long strands of hair across her face. The hair, black as the receding night, flowed to her waist, free of its usual braid.

Summer must surely be at an end, Adrina surmised, for the breeze came from the north and not from the West Deep. She walked to where the wall jutted out, overlooking High King’s Square. Silence seemed a shroud over the whole of Imtel, clear to the Braddabaggon foothills. Below, the city’s residents would soon awake. The square would fill with sounds as merchants unpacked their wares. Palace guardsmen would muster for breakfast. City and palace would stir to life.

This aching silence each morning before the city awoke, resonated within her. She leaned her elbow atop the stone framework and pressed her chin into the palm of her hand, staring out across the land.

To the far, far north, amidst mountains of ice and stone, rivers boiled and filled the air with blankets of fog. Adrina longed to see this for herself. She longed to see Zashchita to the west, a city carved from the very trees of the forest; its buildings lifted so far into the sky that they were lost in the clouds. And Krepost’, which could only be reached by ferry, where she'd make the three-day climb into the mountain city. The Gatekeeper would find her worthy and invite her in or find her unworthy and chase her over the cliffs and to her death.

She shivered at thought. She'd prefer to be invited in, but at least being chased off of a cliff would be an adventure. Better than dying of boredom and grief at home. As of midnight, she was officially a year older. But the only way this year would be different than the last was in her dreams.

(Original word count: ~503 → Edited: ~347)

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Critique

The blurb on Amazon is a mess. It mostly talks about how great the author and series are, but almost nothing about the story. I pasted the most coherent description into the "Blurb" section at the top of the page, but it's so generic, it could literally be describing a thousand high fantasy stories. There's nothing specific to this story except for the character names for Seth and Keeper Martin.

I will say that the writing itself (at least of the first chapter) is lovely and evocative. "Sunrise loomed across the horizon, pale as jasmine and mostly obscured by dark, feral clouds." Feral clouds, really? That's beautiful. We also have, "The silence seemed a shroud over the whole of Imtel..." Even the less poetic sentences clearly have a lot of thought put into them.

Setting

The setting is the top of a castle at dawn -- looking over the square and countryside. Maybe not the most unique setting for a fantasy story but still more interesting than real life. I'd definitely rather be there than here. 

Characterization

The characterization is less specific. I think Adrina is supposed to be young, maybe sixteen or so, but the passage makes her read as much older, especially the hints about her grieving. We know that she likes this time of day, before the rest of the city wakes up, we know that she wants to see some of the more spectacular and unique parts of the world, so that hints at an adventurous spirit, and we know that she's melancholic. (The silence echoes the aching of her heart, and she sighs mournfully.) That's pretty much all we get but definitely enough to start a story with. 

Conflict/Tension

Conflict comes from what Adrina wants versus what she's allowed. She wants to travel and have adventures, but she can't. Something about this day being her birthday means that she can't just hang out on the roof, people watching and daydreaming.

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Final Thoughts

Overall, a pretty strong first 500 words for a story. I will say that the longest passage, describing the different territories kind of made my eyes cross a bit. We don't really need a verbal map this early on, but if we have one, for me, the potential adventures in each land are more important not only to me but to Adrina, so this is where I made the most edits.

In the passage below, I've underlined all of the unique descriptions and crossed out all of the generic ones. 

Great Kingdom had many holdings. High Province in the north – the far, far north – where amidst mountains of ice and stone the rivers boiled and filled the air with blankets of fog. South, beyond a forest of great white trees called giant birch, lay South Province with its capital city enveloped by the majestic Quashan’ valley. East through the Kingdom along the East-West road were the Territories, divided east and west. The untamed Eastern Territories were awaiting discovery. The Western Territories held but two Kingdom outposts: Zashchita and Krepost’. Traders claimed the walled city of Zashchita was carved from the very trees of the forest, and its building lifted so far into the heavens that they were lost in the clouds. Beyond Zashchita lay Krepost’ and her ferryman who took travelers across River Krespost’ so they could begin the climb into the mountain city, and where afterward the gatekeeper may or may not chase them over the cliffs into Starter’s Bay and to their deaths.

Sometimes, in fantasy stories, authors are tempted to describe the entire world, but that doesn't feel natural to the scene, the direction of Adrina's thoughts, and it's not interesting. What IS interesting is boiling rivers and cities built into the boughs of trees and potentially being chased off of a cliff. At a moment like this, a snapshot is more effective than an entire map.

So, for my edit, I just kept the interesting parts and cut out all of the generic stuff:

To the far, far north, amidst mountains of ice and stone, rivers boiled and filled the air with blankets of fog. Adrina longed to see this for herself. She longed to see Zashchita to the west, a city carved from the very trees of the forest; its buildings lifted so far into the sky that they were lost in the clouds. And Krepost’, which could only be reached by ferry, where she'd make the three-day climb into the mountain city. The Gatekeeper would find her worthy and invite her in or find her unworthy and chase her over the cliffs and to her death.

There aren't any glaring sins in this excerpt. If anything, some of the writing can be tightened up and focused, but this was obviously crafted very carefully, not thrown together for attention. This is actually way better writing than half of the stuff I run across when I'm looking for excerpts for this blog. 

This is a story I heard about from a YouTube video talking about how the author faked reviews and fan sites to make himself seem like a best-selling author. He was pretty elaborate with it, and I was intrigued to see what his writing was like. Honestly, not bad. 

If you Google this author's name, you'll get a lot of results describing him as the "worst author in the world" and stuff, and that's just because people like to feel superior. Robert Stanek is cringe for creating sock puppets in order to talk about how great his work is, so that means that his writing is automatically bad. Now, I haven't read the entire book, and maybe it's not great, but based on this sample, he knows exactly the story that he wants to write and he has some skill in pulling it off.

I think his biggest sin was wanting to be a successful author more than he wanted to be a good writer. It has actually occurred to me to do exactly what he did -- build up hype, talk to myself about how great I am, all that stuff. There were two main reasons I didn't follow through with that. First, I thought that if I was going to go through all of that trouble to try to seem great, I might as well just work on trying to be great. Second, I thought I would probably be caught and humiliated for it, and that's exactly what happened to him.

I wonder if he partly did all of this for his own amusement, thinking that nobody would ever find it, and getting to play the big important author. The internet isn't as forever as we like to think, and it's so easy to be anonymous on it just because so many people are doing so many things. 

I find it distasteful the way that people like to find someone dogpile on, like they're not an actual human being. I don't know anything about this Stanek guy (unless I AM him, bwahahaha) but -- I don't know -- to do the amount of writing that he has done shows a certain level of commitment. And, frankly, the level of marketing that he's done, shady or not, is also impressive. And I can't help but cringe in empathy with him instead of in superiority toward him. I hope he keeps writing and has a good life outside of the internet.