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@noah-cochran

I was more saying that they’re overused, and mostly just used to put emphasis on how the main character’s sound different. In other words, the author couldn’t think of any more unique way to describe an accent, so they just said “thick” or “rough” or something like that.

Admittedly, describing accents is hard XD I think the only other thing I can add is to just mess it up and fix it later XD

That makes me feel a lot better. So your series has multiple first person points of view? How many?

The first book only has one first person POV, (Liorah’s) but it has a few other chapters in third person limited for other characters.

The second book has two first-person narrators, (Liorah and Faye) and so will the third. (Liorah and Aydin) Both the latter books also have a few chapters in third person limited for other characters, just because you can’t cover everything.

I initially considered doing one POV in first person and one in third person, but I tried it and it didn’t work, somehow. I’m not sure if this works, but I’ll see later.

I’m torn here. I quite dislike books that have a lot of telling backstory (and by backstory, I’m mainly referring to their ghost) through introspection at the beginning of the book unless there is a very  good reason for them to think about it.

That’s my first point. Backstory that isn’t a ghost exists too and it’s important to lend emotional value to the ghost.

If you don’t have any context for the ghost, it lacks any emotions. It’s telling because the narrator is essentially just telling you it hurt them.

I’ll get back to that later.

My thought of it is “this character has had these memories for years, why would they start going through them thoroughly in their mind again all the sudden?” It doesn’t feel natural to me unless that good reason to spark the thoughts is there, and even if there is  a reason, it often still feels unnatural to me when one considers that people often push away and don’t think on unpleasant memories, and when it comes to characters’ lies and flaw, unpleasant memories are almost always part of their backstory.

The thing is, there is reason to spark the memories, you just aren’t using it. For example, first chapter. Tristan is doing his usual thieving things. He’s done that before, it very probably reminds him of something. It may remind him of how he got there, or how he first started stealing and what that was like.

Also, backstory doesn’t have to be paragraphs at a time. Just a line or two goes a long way.

This is personal taste, I know, but it borders on info dumping in how telling instead of showing it feels to me. I will try to find a way to incorporate more backstory and ghosts earlier though.

What I meant is to add more backstory that isn’t necessarily the ghost. If you don’t have any of that it feels like the character didn’t exist before the story started.

And you don’t always have to do the ghost reveal all at once, especially if you’re doing it in dialogue. Split it up into sections, each one getting deeper and more painful.

For Hugon, that might be that he first mentions that his mother died and his father left. Then he might later mention that he ended up on the streets with some others. Then he can mention that he ended up alone, while leaving vague why. And then you can get into the gritty details.

If you split it up like this it both builds audience anticipation and it feels more natural when you slip out small parts in dialogue.

I hope that made sense, it’s hard to articulate 🙂

I think this is your one tip that I didn’t understand, so feel free to elucidate.

Okay, I can actually explain this one. So, an example I think of was that Joelle mentioned she wore her hair long because her parents liked it. That’s all you say.

You could show it by being more specific, by making the memory a ‘mini-scene’. So, instead of saying that they liked it, you can tell something like:

“She remembered how Mother twisted it up in complicated braids she could never sit still for. She’d frown and smile at the same time, scolding her as she sat on her lap. Father used to gently tug her black pigtails when he was teasing her.”

So, that’s just an example for Joelle, but you can do the same thing with Hugon. Show what it was like working with Bertram. Instead of just saying he trusted him, you can say:

“Those first nights were terrible. The streets were filled with other boys who wanted whatever they’d managed to steal and would do anything to get it. The first times he’d been too scared to sleep, but somehow, when he knew Bertram was nearby, he felt invincible, like they could go up against the entire city population of thieves and win.”

See, that’s what I mean. You can just add a paragraph of it here and there, and that’s what I mean by making their backstory clearer and adding more of it. You essentially need to write the context for the ghost. Even the good memories will hurt even more because of the context.

Feel free to expand on it. Here’s the deal with setting it up early though. I was specifically designing a haters-to-lovers relationship between Joelle and Hugon, and thus I need them to actually hate each other or at least dislike each other for the majority of the book. Thus, I’m not really sure how to change their relationship at all, tips?

Okay, I have a video that explains romance beats really well, I’ll link it down below.

Enemies to lovers is an entire trope by itself and honestly one of my favorites. You can add setup for a romantic relationship even while they hate each other though. I think the video will explain it better.

Close until he found out that Danon was a murderer, but I get what you mean. Any tips for making it better?

Add Tristan considering that Danon might die, and worrying about what to do. Add context about how he’s afraid to become castle lord, and how he’s disgusted at himself for how he might even be relieved if his father died. Just some ideas, basically, set it up as a possiblity before actually making it happen.

You’re essentially doing some of the grieving before he even dies, because Tristan is grieving the loss of who he thought his father was. You did write that aspect well though!

Yeah, I went through the low point rather quickly. We’ll see about expanding it, but sometimes low points that drag out feel unrealistic to me. They were at a pinch for time, and had gone through worse, but yeah, we’ll see.

Okay, something that I was missing were the characters clashing. A low point usually includes at least one argument or clash. Maybe Joelle lashed out at Hugon because she blamed him.

As for time, it might be cool if you have the characters become enemies again or at least be mad at each other, but they still have the same goal so they have to keep working together, or they briefly split up, then realize what they’re doing and get back together.

Considering their backstories, Joelle may blame Hugon for the death, and then she’ll leave/pull away. That in turn will make Hugon feel abandoned and ‘reaffirm’ his lie. Then he has the opportunity to choose how to react. Will he react like he did with Bertram or will he fix it?

They need to make some bad decisions first, then fix it.

Personally, I love writing the low point. It just gives me the opportunity to pull out all the stops and really crush my characters and then make them go through an emotional crisis afterward to boot. Besides that, a good low point has big consequences, which can kick them into the next book in a series, or at least into the climax.

I just find it unrealistic for him to be very sympathetic at all, not with his massive lie and flaw.

Yes and no. This is a “save the cat” instance. Even a character with such massive flaws has some redeeming quality, or maybe their flaw even comes in useful. Maybe they have one character they’re protective of, or something like that.

I’ll give an example. Liorah’s flaw in the first book is hyper-independance, in a really unhealthy way. Basically “I can’t rely on people because they’ll let me down and if I don’t let them close they can’t hurt me.”

The loophole is that she doesn’t expect that from anyone else. She just thinks she’s the only one who shouldn’t need anyone. So if someone needs her, she’s there for them and she’s a genuinely supportive friend (as long as she doesn’t need to be vulnerable.)

So, maybe Hugon starts forming an attatchment to Adrienne (he kind of does already). He might hate himself for it and have conflict about it but maybe he sees her as “different” from the others and he just starts to build something with her.

Or, you can even rely on something more simple. I have a character who is very distrustful of people and is very much a loner. However, he gets extremely attached to animals, even animals who other people don’t like. It’s a way of demonstrating that he does have it in him to love and it’s the only outlet he has for it.

It could be something like that, just some loophole to their lie, an exception that shows that they can improve.

Thanks for all the great answers by the way! All the other ones I’m not mentioning here just means I’m taking them with vigor and will be using them a lot in my next revision.

Awesome, I’m so glad I could help! I’m still working on how to critique well, so I’m glad it was helpful!

Have you planned how you’re going to go about your next revision?

Do you dumb things down or stick with the historically flavorful words?

I’m in the middle ground. I use historical and fantasy words occasionally, but if I think it’s obscure enough, I’ll write it like:

(to borrow your example)

–The bailey, the courtyard inside the walls,–

Just mention that once and then use the historical word.

For example, the actual correct name of the sword Liorah uses is a “shamshir”, but the more common English word woudl be scimitar. I thought about this a while, then decided that the first was more authentic so I just describe it once and then go with it.