Poison Among Shadows

By ZianDutt

ZianDutt

Zehreen is a dangerous assassin who has the ability to poison her victims before she kills them with her blade. She lives in a high-fantasy world controlled by crime syndicates with a corrupt monarchy ruling over all of it, so think Cowboy Bebop but in a Game of Thrones setting. Actually, I've noticed a huge Cowboy Bebop influence on the Wattpad books I've been reading lately along with other retro-anime comps. I've also noticed that many Wattpad authors are tackling soft and hard fantasy. I'm excited to see these trends taking off.

I do really like the concept of this story, I think that it's creative and that it sets the stage for some really good conflict. Factions and syndicates are at war with each other, different magical races are set against one another, and social classes battle one another over dwindling resources; there's a fight brewing at every single turn. It's a "join or die" situation where characters must find whatever group can protect them best. When Zehreen loses her syndicate, it leaves her isolated and factionless in a world that's far more dangerous when you are on your own. This plot design is great for Zehreen's character development because the reader will always wonder if she will be able to hold onto her moral values as her situation becomes more and more desperate. What will she do to survive, and at what cost?

I feel as if you are at a point in your writing journey where you are exploring your prose, vocabulary, and writing style. I struggle to critique your writing when you're in this phase because I don't want to say anything that would hinder your creativity. I want you to continue experimenting and finding out what works best for you. However, if you don't mind me being honest, your writing is a bit purple in places and very crowded. This is okay for an early draft, but when you return during your revisions, you may want to consider focusing on the words and descriptions that are absolutely necessary and taking out everything that isn't. At times the story seemed to focus more on the descriptions rather than anything else, making the plot and the active scenes unclear.

Take this paragraph for example:

Yet from the corner of the eye she'd catch a glimpse: sprawling havelis hewn out of the perfect sandstone found in the Ronchada mines of Hirpunjya: gates welded out of the metals extracted from the expensive ores found in the northern provinces of Mangida and Ruchimar.

I like that you are throwing your reader into this fantasy world without stopping to explain every location, title, name, faction, syndicate, etc. Your characters live in this world, so why would they pause the story, turn to the camera, and explain to the audience what a "havelis" is? The problem with this style, however, is that the reader is completely in the dark. There are small exposition techniques that can help you explain to the reader what these places are without pausing the story to data dump. What does the havelis mean to Zehreen? Why is it so important? What is it used for? Can Zehreen answer these questions while observing the havelis and still draw conclusions about it that are specific to her character? Answering these questions in your prose will help clarify your world-building for the reader without making your story read like it's from the Silmarillion.

This same example could be improved by taking out the words that overcrowd the sentences. You use a lot of words here to say that "she looked at the havelis..." You succeed in telling us what the havelis looks like, but you fail to communicate what it is or why it is significant. This same issue carried through your prose throughout. I found myself lost in the purple prose and confused about what this story is about and what any of these fantasy terms mean. It's okay to make decisions for the sake of the story itself, but you have to draw the line when you begin to leave the reader behind completely. When you go back to revise, I would focus solely on your nouns and verbs in your prose, then take another look at your exposition and ask yourself "does this help communicate the world I've built to the reader, or am I just throwing out terms that the reader doesn't understand?" I hate pandering to my readers and I wouldn't recommend writing for them solely, but clarifying your world-building will benefit the project in itself. For more on this concept, I would recommend On Writing and World Building Volumes I and II by Tim Hickson. He talks about this problem in depth: how fantasy stories can hurt themselves by using too much purple prose, and how without proper exposition design, science fiction and fantasy stories can read their readers confused rather than intrigued. There are some really useful techniques in those books that you may find useful, particularly the chapters on environmental exposition and using character backstory to relay information about your world-building elements without pausing the story to data dump. Brandon Sanderson and Robert E. Jordan are obviously masters of this as well, so visiting their works might benefit you, too, if you haven't checked them out already. Sanderson addresses the issue of purple prose and exposition in his lecture series on YouTube as well.

Because your prose was so dense at times, I had a hard time understanding the fundamental elements of your storytelling. At the end of chapter one, I wasn't sure what Zehreen's objective was. I didn't have a clear understanding of the conflict surrounding the Servernians. I didn't understand your antagonist, Vamika, and I wasn't sure what she wanted either. Defining the motivations of your characters should be a primary goal for your first chapter. I felt as if you were more concerned with the descriptions than your storytelling beats like establishing a hook that encompasses the main thematic principle or conflict, defining the motivations of your main character, and then defining the motivations of your antagonist. Because these elements weren't clear, I struggled to understand what your inciting event even was. I came to know Zehreen as a character and a few side characters like Bala. I understood that she assassinated another woman because she had to for her syndicate. But I don't know why she had to kill that woman. I don't know what that woman did to deserve it. In the second chapter, I wasn't clear on the hero/villain relationship between Zehreen and Vamika. I didn't understand the role of Zehreen's syndicate in the world or what the syndicate was after. When the syndicate fell, I wasn't sure why. I wasn't sure of the forces against it and why they wanted the syndicate to fall. I felt like I was in a room with lots of characters who knew one another very well, but I didn't know them, and I simply wasn't a part of their conversation. When action-packed plot events happened like in chapter four, I was swept up in the action, but confused about what was going on and why. I was confused because none of the character's motivations were clear to me. I think a lot of this is an issue because you tend to focus more on your descriptions than you focus on the story as I said before. I noticed that many of your readers in the comments observed the same thing.

I don't want you to come away from this feeling discouraged or that you have to start over. Truly, all of these "issues" are simply a part of a first draft. For an early draft, this work is so strong. I have high expectations for the drafts you create in the future when you go to revise. I don't want you to go and take out all of your descriptions–I love their creativity and they define your writing style–but I would encourage you to consider the necessity of each one, and to ask yourself if they are adding to the clarity of the story or if they are distracting the reader from the plot.

I shouldn't judge this draft so harshly because, in most respects, it's really impressive. This draft is written by a young author and it exhibits many advanced writing techniques. This draft gives the reader a unique world with complex factions and conflicts. This draft gives the reader a strong female main character who's headstrong, determined, and likable with the potential for a fantastic arc. This project is in a really good place right now. You have the groundwork for a very unique story here that will only strengthen as you begin to rewrite. I hope that you find my notes and resources helpful when you do go back to revise, and if you don't, feel free to disregard them. Overall I thought that this story was unique and that it has a lot of potential. I wish you well on your writing journey.

-Rowan