Uninvoked

Uninvoked - Andrea M. Bodel

You plunge us very effectively into a fresh and interesting world. I liked the fact that the characters have detailed pasts and seem to arrive fully-formed in front of us, referencing pre-book experiences in their thoughts and dialogue. You have obviously spent a lot of time in this world and the detail shows. The magical and unmagical division also works well as does the plot to kill the Duke and the relationship between Amy and the Invoker, old friends and then some perhaps...

You deliver us the information we need without drowning us in it, an intriguing staging post in chapter 1 to what is to follow next, deserves to be rising up the charts and I will back it later today when I have let the books currently on my shelf have a bit more shelf-time, best wishes and very best of luck - Andrew W.

I like what you have done with this. Suits the age group. Like your hints of different species but the way you make it normal. Snarl, padded cat paws running, etc. You feed in the information about as part of the story rather than as an info dump. This includes the information about indel and Amy. Well done. Readers of other genre tend to forget that fantasy and SF doesn’t have to give all the information up front. We can suspend belief. That’s part of the fascination of SF and fantasy. Discovering the worlds and the differences.
I am going to shelve this. It is easy to read and flows well. A story I would read.
Don’t forget to check for spelling errors as I noticed a couple.

Good start to this – you set up an intriguing story. But I’m not sure you’ve started in the right place as chapter 1 seems to be mostly a conversation. I was interested but there wasn’t enough going on to hold my interest after the first couple of pages. Which is a shame as you have great dialogue and some snappy conversations. But you set up the story with a real or potential murder and then dangle the concept. Maybe I’m just too impatient! Or could you start with some action and drip feed the information in the chapter later on?

Chapter 2 – again there’s a lot of conversation. But something happens at the end – a fire, a piece in italics that I’m not sure what it relates to. A voice in the distance – there’s intrigue here.

Like the chocolate reference in chapter 3, but even though it was great, it did make me jump out of the story. We have Amy and Bernard and chocolate – but we are in another world/on another planet? And as yet, after 3 chapters, I have no clear sense of what this novel is about – what is Amy’s goal?

inor nit-picks: “He would touch something, feel if there was magic in it, and if it did he made it work.” I think would read better as “… and if there was, he made it work.” Great idea though. Very original.

I enjoyed reading this. Like I said, you have a good ear for natural dialogue and your characters are fresh and engaging. You’ve captured Amy beautifully. But I think you need to get to the point a bit quicker or you will lose less patient readers.

Hi Andrea,

"It was meant to look casual for the dice throwers..." Unclear antecedent. That is... what does 'it' refer to? I do this all the time myself, and so does Stephen King, if I recall.

Boy, indelfy sounds like a verb. Hard for me to get over that.

Schreber throws burning oleander at Amy -- poisonous smoke, of course. A nice original way to kill someone.

I got confused by the description of her escape. She puts the fire out, but the place burned down anyway? What's the tunnel? There's a viciously thin line between intriguing the reader and befuddling the reader. (I wish readers were smarter, but they're just not. I confuse them all the time.)

There's a lot of backstory in the first couple of chapters, and it all takes place in the same room. Somehow, I'm having trouble following the names of people and places. While I'm trying to absorb the who and the what, these two characters keep on talking, and there's no motion.

What can help (that is, what I like to do) is to start off with characters facing a simple problem that the reader can understand instinctively and care about. Then, as your characters overcome the simple problem (with wit and compassion, so we love them), you slip in all the exposition you need for the reader to understand the novel's plot.

For example, in my novel Mountain Man (check it out!), I introduce one character who is being chased by a bully, and a second character who is simply hungry. The reader knows nothing about who they are or what the world of the novel is... but by the time the second character clobbers the bully chasing the first character, the reader knows plenty and the novel can really get started.

Your work reminds me of the writing of Terry Brooks. Keep it up...

-- Steve

Andrea,

I went to read this, then realised I read this before, and didn't comment. I wasn't sure why, and went back to define my feelings.
First off, this is really well-written, but I'm not grabbed. Something happens in my reading of the first few paragraphs that makes my eyes glaze over. It's too cryptic. Murder? I don't know what the character is talking about. Real murder or symbolic murder? Where are we? What do all tha concepts mean? OK, I could get over the names, but it just adds to my feeling that these characters are talking over my head, and I'm not understanding what they are talking about.
I would suggest that slowing down might be the way to go. It's not necessary to spoon-feed the reader information, but immerse them in a strange world too fast, and the reader is lost. Give the reader a bit more time to figure out what's going on.

While I wouldn't go as far as saying that the first chapter "isn't interesting," I do agree with VVV that something's missing, which makes it confusing for the reader. I think that "something" is place. I don't have anything to picture. I don't know where we are or what the characters are doing, look like, etc. This absense can be alienating to the reader.
However, your prose is very clear and flows well. You have a good sense of natural dialogue and there's enough question to draw the reader into some promising conflict. I just think more needs to be revealed up front to pull the reader in. If you have questions, you might consult "The First Five Pages." It's very helpful with this sort of thing. Good luck!

The first paragraph of Chapter one must be clear and interesting. Yours isn't. I was confused from the start. What has he done to deserve her anger. Washing undergarments in firesauce is funny, and may fit elsewhere, but not here. In this crucial first para I want to begin to trust the author to repay me for the investment of my time in reading this. I want to know I have a character who is interesting to me and to know something about the situation they are in. I didn't find that.

A few paras later I'm beginning to see these people as possible gamblers. The male one has lost money and she isn't happy. But, as yet I don't care about these people so I'm beginning to skim.

However, I would be interested to enter the story at paragraph one in the midst of a card game or whatever it is they do. I'd like to know how the game works, and especially how their scam works. Then I'd want to know what went wrong this time. I want to be educated in the art of cheating at gambling. I want to be reassured that YOU are taking me on a new experience in this story. I want to feel for the characters. As they are, they are too shallow for my taste. You may fill in the colours later but by then I've fallen asleep, or worse, put down the book and reached for another.

I hope this doesn't sound too negative. You have a very nice story here. By the end of Chap 1 I was beginning to like Amy much more. There are a number of characters mentioned I am struggling to remember them. There are clues that more action is to come. Your dialogue is very good. I will read more when I find time.
Best, Steve

Commenting on Chapter. 1. It reads smoothly, no obvious mistakes. I like the way you've introduced your info via dialogue without any obvious "As you know, Bobs". But I'm wondering if you've tried to do too much in this first chapter. These are the number of names that are introduced: Amy, Bernard, The Duke, Molly, Rat, Queenie, Schreber. They're all distinctive names, but it takes some sorting them all out. Maybe stick to the main pair and introduce the others gradually, perhaps in person as the plot develops?

Then we have places: Inner and Outer Kaluna, Derico, Western Stronghold. I'm reeling!

Similary, these concepts are hitting me one after the other while I'm still working through the names: Indelfy, Invoker, Lokeli and Eberhard Magic.

I sense all of these concepts are sharp in your head, and as I said they're introduced well enough in conversation: I just feel there are too many in this first chapter. Perhaps some can come up later, as the plot progresses?

I will continue reading however.