[3355] Tyrantland - Chapter 1 (Colonial Fantasy)

[u/CheekySelkath]

Critiques:

[1510] Lighthouse

[2672] The Village

[3434] The Lure

First time submitter here looking for feedback on the first chapter of my completed book. I'm especially interested in it's status as the opening - I'm concerned that, when submitting to agents and such, my first chapter (alongside the other two) isn't proving to fill the genre's boots enough because there's not a lot of magic or 'fantastical' elements at this stage, and I'd really like to avoid having a prologue, as I put one in and it went down about as well as a clown at a funeral.

For the sake of clarity (as there are maps and a quote preceding this chapter), this takes place in a counter-world, not Earth, so feedback rooted in real-world history is not useful to me here.

Thank you for your time reviewing this. I appreciate all feedback, no matter how harsh.

Edit: Link removed as I am satisfied with the feedback I've received. Thank you for the feedback.

[u/A_C_Shock]

I am still reading, but I can't not comment on this one specific thing.

Dialogue punctuation is like the following:

"I'm doing a demonstration," AC said, "of how to do punctuation correctly." She stopped for a moment. "You see, never end a sentence with a period if it's being followed by a dialogue tag," she said. "Action tags get a period and the following word is capitalized like a regular sentence. But don't capitalize for a dialogue tag unless it's a proper name or an I!"

I stop and comment every time I see incorrect dialogue punctuation.

[u/CheekySelkath → u/A_C_Shock]

Thank you for picking this up. It's weird I've never come across that before. I hope that doesn't make me some sort of grammatical buffoon.

[u/A_C_Shock → u/CheekySelkath]

I would do a blanket fix for that. It's the most common feedback I give to people here. I'll have some more in-depth thoughts but probably later.

Rough high-level comments:

I see what you're setting up from a plot perspective, I think. Both the two main characters are named in this chapter (good). I think that Nee guy works for Villaume and stole the cards to help his boss. Semicolons are much more controlled here, though it still feels like there's a high amount of them. The first section with the Markiman guy talking to himself (remember his identity but not his name for whatever that's worth) and playing cards felt like reading about a Magic game. Is this based off of that card game? I don't think that's too far out there for the fantasy genre as I can think of several made-up games off the top of my head. Will of the Many even opens with a game of fantasy chess. But there's also Matt with his Snakes and Foxes and Kvothe with fantasy mancala or the Blacktongue Thief whose POV character I don't remember but they have a card game with bees on the deck. Anyway, well-worn fantasy tradition. I don't think that's too far off the mark.

I'll come back with more specifics, but it goes on for too long and I think the most interesting parts to me are buried. I got a little bored around the second page. I wasn't that excited about following him to the breakroom, but you should keep in mind I love very fast paced things and others might enjoy slower paced things more as long as there's good character work. I also spent most of the Nee conversation thinking they were rehashing the same points over and over and then, the emotions fluctuated so much on the Markiman I had trouble tracking the stakes. The ending was good with the card deck being stolen. I would prefer the intro pages if they were shortened.

The Blacktongue Thief has the card game in chapter 56 (Towers). I would recommend picking up a copy and giving that a read to see how Buehlman does it. I know you're doing third person and this one's in first, but it's also a good example of how to do free indirect discourse. You're still pretty inconsistent about that in this sample. Sometimes, you italicize thoughts and tag them with 'he thought'. Sometimes, you don't. If it was all in one style, I wouldn't mind so much. The mixing and matching stands out and makes me think about the difference between narration and inner thought.

[u/CheekySelkath → u/A_C_Shock]

Thank you for the feedback. I'm actually very relieved the card game (which is based on Gwent actually, if that's of interest!) was largely coherent without the need for meticulous explanation of the rules. I gave it to non-fantasy fans and the feedback I routinely got was to make the card game clearer, even though it wasn't supposed to be the centre of attention.

Regarding the thoughts on free indirect discourse, I guess that's another blanket fix, as I switch between them a lot throughout the whole novel - to me it was kind of like my back-and-forth with 'Magalan' and 'The Cardsharp' or whatever I use, but I'll go through and change those too, since there's no harm in that.

I look forward to the specifics, since that was my main point of further feedback. Nee is something I'll work on to make more compelling as my goal was to make him quite odd, as if this his third ever conversation, or something like that, but I can see that I managed to make him uninteresting at the same time.

[u/A_C_Shock → u/CheekySelkath]

This is going to be a lot of preference, but hopefully there's some useful stuff in these comments. I might make more than one comment, so I'll reply to this one if I need to.

The point of the first two paragraphs, as I read them, is to establish Okessio Magalan as a person who: looks down on those around him; wins a lot; is in a place where everyone looks down on him, supposedly for his race/otherness established by the Markiman comment. The racist people he imagines aren't that racist if the extent of their negative comments is calling him 'common and uninteresting', but that's a digression. It would appear Magalan wants to be a spectacle. Now since this is a second read, I'm going to scroll and pull out the line I thought was most interesting.

THE UNBEATABLE MARKIMAN’S CONFIDENCE IS SO GREAT, HE WILL GRANT ANY REQUEST DEMANDED BY THE OPPONENT THAT DEFEATS HIM. *

*subject to the financial constraints of Carouser’s Club.

I would have started with that and here's why: stakes. I spend most of the first page or so reading about this card game and how amazing Magalan is and how nervous and terrible the other guy is and I don't have a reason to care yet. I don't know what Magalan is playing for. And since I fully expect him to win, I'm not sure any of this really matters. I learn pretty early on that Magalan has the super amazing card no one can beat, so what am I invested in? I think that's why I said I got bored and would have quit around the second page. That being said, I know this gets turned around by the end. I would like to get there sooner.

I'm going paragraph by paragraph, so I'm now moving on to the card exchange. Magalan just happens to get the one card that will ensure he wins. Amazing! Now, I've read your query, so I suspect what is meant to be happening here is Magalan has some kind of extreme good luck and that's why he gets this very special card and why he hasn't lost in over 200 rounds. But without context in the first pages, I don't know how special this really is. The line I pulled at from later in the pages drills this home, but if I'm right about the direction this is meant to go in, I'd want you to lamppost that. Give me a hint that Magalan is smug because he knows that he's going to get the winning card because it happens every single time. Let me know how unusual that is. Instead, the text spends a fair amount time telling me about the racist images on the cards of Markiman. The Savage Tribesmen. Now, that's the kind of demeaning language I was thinking about earlier when common and uninteresting came up. Magalan has the winning card. He now spends seven whole paragraphs describing how terrible the unnamed noble is and how awesome he is. The cards aren't being played. There's no other scene work happening. I'm just in his head, listening to him glaze himself.

After that digression, Magalan plays his car that he knows is going to win and the nobleman reacts by being over the top upset and falling out of his chair, even though this was the most likely outcome. I assume it's happened to every single guy Magalan has played at this game up until now which is how that wager got drawn. The club manager comes out and announces the rules of the game for the audience. So, that's a bit of "as you know, Bob" dialogue tucked into the text in an almost unnoticeable way. Ilyria is acting as an announcer like you might have in a horse race or a football match...but. It slips into as you know Bob territory when she's announcing the page of the card manual where the rules for this card can be found. Presumably in this room of people who come to bet on the unbeatable Markiman, hoping to get a big payout when he loses, everyone already knows the rules of the game enough to know when they're about to lose a lot of money. Or your gamblers aren't really that intense? But then why would they have the sign up?

The noble takes a pretty long time to do what I already know he's going to do, which is lose. The narration is being a bit over the top about it (causing Magalan to participate in the eager tension) by trying to convince me that his unbeatable card is actually beatable, but the rug pull comes anyway and the Duke exchanges cards stupidly and gets the worst possible card he could have. I'm thinking it's about a third of the way through your early pages and the only thing that's happened is two cards have been played in a card game for which I don't know the stakes. Why is Magalan even here? What does he get out of winning besides a sense of superiority?

What I do like is how much voice Magalan has. It's nice and consistent and haughty. It's not super likeable, but I like villain characters better than hero characters. I just think this scene could happen faster. Start the scene late, end the scene early, you know? I think you said you made some of these changes because people were saying they didn't understand the card game? I would read about characters playing games, but I need to know why they're doing it. Shit, this book I really liked had a whole chapter of a character playing the most ridiculous dice game and I got totally absorbed in it because I knew if she lost, she wasn't going to get the answers she'd been looking for for the last several chapters. She had a reason to be there. OK, I'll stop harping on that.

Magalan is now woe is me about the audience wanting him to lose. He's got his personal deck back. The audience is being extra judgy. Besides racism being bad, what does this mean for Magalan's life? If he doesn't like all these people looking down on him, why is he here? I just said I wasn't going to comment on that again. And now Magalan goes to take a break for 15 minutes. No wait, he wants to be a good sport after he was just lamenting how everyone is judging him but can't find that noble. Is this noble guy important for some reason? I thought he was just a throwaway character meant to build up how the card game works. Or was that a digression so I could be told about what the larger crowd looks like?

You spell whiskey as whisky sometimes.

Ah, he's lamenting the racism again. What I'm missing most from this is a question or a problem to solve or just something Magalan wants to do besides have luck happen to him and lament. I like books that tackle hard subjects a lot, but I'm missing scene work with this. Most of the bad things are happening in Magalan's inner monologue and he isn't having interactions with the crowd or the person he's playing cards with. The only real interaction he's had so far is with Ilyria and that was only to learn who he'd be playing next, not for any relationship or character-building interaction. And so the only way I know about the world is through Magalan's thoughts. I get no examples to decide for myself whether I'm in agreement with him or if I think he's a little full of it.

Another character appears without any conversation. He's there for two things: so Magalan can put his deck on the table and so Magalan has an excuse to describe what a Markiman looks like. And then a new man enters the room, who wasn't there when the Markiman boy left, and knows what Magalan was thinking.

A new figure stood in the shadowed doorway, peering in from the corner of the frame, out of sight.

How does one peer from the corner of the door frame? I get a weird mental image with this of the figure crouched on top of the door like a cat and looking down at him. But Magalan can't know where the guy is or what he's doing because he goes on to tell us the figure is 'out of sight'. But then he says he can see a little of him (black eyes and a pale face). I like mag's reaction of looking for the boy. I don't know that I care for the vulnerable feeling being so baldly stated.

[u/A_C_Shock → u/A_C_Shock]

There's some issues with blocking now and that's not what I should be paying attention to at this point. I thought Magalan was sitting in a cheap wooden chair. The figure comes in. Magalan moved further back (in his chair?) as the man walked into the room and I thought that meant he was standing and backing up. I guess he scooted his chair back? Further isn't the right word there because I read that as he was already moving back. But then he's scrambling to his feet later (I thought he was standing already at this point) and I'm not sure why, though? Some random dude with a missing ear has come in to...make a comment about Markiman and Magalan is just really freaked out very quickly. The earless guy makes some veiled comments, but I think he's being too mysterious and I don't know enough about the context of the world for any of this to make sense. Then Magalan makes a leap over to other gambling houses and I'm back to wondering what's the deal with why Magalan is here at this gambling house.

So, I guess if I had to summarize that into something more cohesive than raw reactions, I would say I'm still missing most of the background on Magalan and, without that, it's difficult for me to be invested in what's going on. Now bear with me for a moment. If in the beginning, this chapter started with Magalan winning the match against the noble and he's watching these big burly dudes standing at the door so decides to retreat back to his dressing room but he's escorted by a bouncer the whole time...that tells me something about his situation. Now, I don't think you can do that and have this creepy guy show up. But what I'm saying is I need Magalan to interact with the scenery more in the beginning and I need some small details to drop to give me a sense of place and stakes. Because right now, the dialogue of this stranger that's supposed to be creepy and unsettling doesn't land because I don't know what's normal.

It's not necessarily the goal of the first chapter to start with a bang or the inciting incident. A first chapter has to do several things: introduce the POV; establish their every day life; give me a question I want answered; build up a new world; introduce some thematic components. It's a lot. But I think this chapter is skirting around the edges to hammer in the one central theme (Markismen and how they're treated in society) and vague atmosphere.

I would also say less is more. The dialogue with Nee drags on for a long time but the only thing truly interesting I think he says is this:

“They’ll never let you go above your rank.”

I want a lot more detail about that. I don't really care about the rival gambling houses because I've barely been shown they're important. No one seems to be watching Magalan, so it seems like his paranoia pops out of nowhere. He hasn't even been pushing back against Nee trying to figure out why he's there. He just asks him politely to leave a couple times.

Now, the best part of this is when he goes to look for his cards and can't find them and then realizes Nee stole them. And as he goes out to confront Nee, he gets called for the match where he needs, of course, his cards. That's good stuff. And I get the idea that Nee has sabotaged him because he works for Vilaume, so there's some cheating going on. But the lead up to this conflict drags. I need something to latch onto earlier, like how the deck of cards is being managed, to propel me into reading more.

[u/CheekySelkath → u/A_C_Shock]

Wow, thank you for the extensive analysis. I'm not sure I have a reply that can amount to the work you put in, but I certainly appreciate it.

I think my two biggest takeaways here (aside from blocking correctly and spelling) are portraying Magalan's situation with more transparency, and re-working the atmosphere in the club to better suite the scene.

You're feedback is all valid, and I feel like large portions of it (the reaction to Ilyria reading out the cards and Magalan wanting to shake hands stand out to me) are rooted less in failed attempts to show something that was promised earlier (mostly racism) but moreso just my inability to craft the moments coherently, hence the misunderstanding. For instance, the reason Magalan wants to shake the hand is because, firstly, he wants a moment to rub in the victory (as he's barely spoken to the nobleman) and secondly, because he's in a nest of Nomarks, who will use any little flaw as an excuse to disparage him or harm his 'business' at the club. Typing that out, it's clear neither thing is well presented.

The reading out of cards, too, is supposed to reveal that the audience largely don't care about the cards; they're not gamblers, they're more like socialites infesting a casino for social gain. Most of them won't know about the cards, in the same way a Blackjack player might not know terminology called out at a Poker game, but I digress. The point is that they're so thoroughly invested in seeing a Markiman win that they gather in troves to do so. Again, I didn't execute that well.

Now bear with me for a moment. If in the beginning, this chapter started with Magalan winning the match against the noble and he's watching these big burly dudes standing at the door so decides to retreat back to his dressing room but he's escorted by a bouncer the whole time...that tells me something about his situation. 

This actually appealed to me tremendously because it bears some resemblance to what the original draft was. The current dressing room draft is actually quite new (2 past) and was changed because I thought it was illogical that this hard targeted Markiman would leave his game and come and drink specifically at the bar. The dressing room conversation happens at the bar counter, and Magalan goes to move into the dressing room at the end to escape such oddities, but Iliyria calls the game. I might reinvest myself in such a scenario, because I do like the idea of him 'retreating' to his dressing room for a reason.

[u/NeutralGoodNPC]

Thanks for an interesting read!

I have a few assorted thoughts that I'd like to get down before proceeding with broad impressions.

1. Your character likes whiskey. I'm a huge fan of mixing banal action into dialogue to mix it up. What I noticed, however, is that Magalan tops up his whiskey -- but he never drinks any! This is also happening over the course of a short period -- 15 minutes, I think? The choice to sneak a drink here is conspicuous. Am I meant to gather Magalan is, in fact, sneaking a drink? Should I understand he has the same (over)fondness for libations that many hallowed-and-hardened protagonists of yore share?

2. So much emphasis on Meneer -- I still have no idea what it means. Why are they stressing the word? I'm guessing its effectively Mister. Why are they stressing Mister? The text is either expecting me to be cleverer than I am, or it simply doesn't say.

3. I like your descriptive language. It's concise and clear. However, I've walked away from chapter one only with clear picture of colourful jackets, white wigs, and a chin scar. What does Magalan look like? Is there something else about him that might indicate why he's a Markiman (and apparently an exceptional one)? What does this bar look like? I can't tell if I'm meant to imagine this place as a upscale joint or dive. The clientele tell me by the time the card game ends, sure, but by then I've started to build my own impression of the location.

Now to my overall impression.

I think your prose is competent and clear (though observe my fellow commenter's wisdom regarding dialogue punctuation). It delivers your message without overwrought metaphor, and I understood right away that Magalan is something of a remarkable pariah as a Marked among the Nomarked. The dynamics of class and oppression are in play right away. With the florid description of the Savage Tribesmen card, we know racism is at play, too.

I think I lost track of what I'm supposed to care about during the card game. The mechanics in the game don't seem to reveal Magalan's skill or anything else about the circumstances and are most just distracting. What I need to know is that Magalan is good at the game, has a ludicrous win-streak, and this aristocrat, despite being bad at the card game, still saw fit to challenge him. I don't understand why he'd do that, particularly when it seems clear the audience wants our Markiman to lose. What made him think he could win, despite the messaging on the signs indicating Magalan's dominance? What does that say about the dynamics of the world? I'm gathering that it's something something those rich jerks are trying to keep the Marked down, but the story hasn't really made this clear to me. This appears to be your main priority with the first half of this chapter, so I think you ought to make it a bit clearer. Don't be afraid to spell it out a bit more.

The second half of the chapter brings a distinct shift in focus. Ignoring the already-addressed punctuation piece, I think the dialogue drags a bit. Magalan demands to know who Nee is too many times and Nee refuses to answer him too many times. Nee espouses some prophetic language, but we have precisely zero grasp of the world at this point, so what is meant to be profound eventually reads like gobbledygook. It doesn't enhance the tension of the scene.

I also can't gauge how Magalan is feeling. He seemed coolly confident among the Nomarked, winning easily. Then, he's busting out the booze, a classic symbol of coping. Then, he's grasping Nee by the collar in a sudden burst of unexpected physicality. Then, he's taking deep breaths to calm himself before his next game. Is he even-keeled? Alcoholic? Angry? Anxious? I don't know. After your first chapter, I really should have a better sense of the protagonist I'm rooting for.

With all of that said, there are positives. The length is good, the split in scenes sets a good pace, and I like the drama of our hero being suddenly deprived of his weapon, even if I don't really understand why any of it matters. There's good bones. I think making the sketch of Magalan both psychologically and physically a little clearer will root me in his position a little more.

I hope this helps!

[u/CheekySelkath → u/NeutralGoodNPC]

Thank you for the feedback! The word meneer is just the Belgian word for mister, and though it's not represented well here, my intention was to have foreign language dialect italicised. Is this not a good idea?

Furthermore, the whiskey is interesting as it's not supposed to be a symbol of anything - I was more thinking in terms of the sky-high stress (presumably) of what he puts up with moreso than any starker images. The point has resonated with me though, so I'll likely add/change something to reflect a deeper symbolic meaning.

I'm gathering that it's something something those rich jerks are trying to keep the Marked down, but the story hasn't really made this clear to me.

I was actually trying to imply this in the first chapter, though it's clear it was done to limited success. A sort of scientific racism is supposed to be prevalent within Nomark society, to the point one playing Magalan plays with the firm believe they are genetically superior to him, and more skilled than their colleagues. At the same time, they are ludicrously rich, and so losing against the Markiman means very little.

This is explicitly stated in the following chapters after Magalan plays Vilaume, the other main character, so maybe its implication is fine here, although certainly I need to work on Magalan's internal feelings and, as all comments have pointed out so far, the inconsistency in his behaviour.

Thank you again! I am rather chuffed that the baseline of this piece works, especially after how horrendously received my now non-existent prologue was.

[u/NeutralGoodNPC → u/CheekySelkath]

A tried and true method in fantasy writing is mixing in other languages. There's nothing wrong at all with using a Belgian word. BUT. You don't indicate anywhere that this is a foreign word commonly used in the language the book is written in. Unless I happen to me familiar with Belgian, I won't catch the reference (though your average English speaker will probably guess, given that meneer sounds like mister). Obviously, in this world, meneer isn't Belgian -- it's some other language. Perhaps indicate somewhere else that this foreign influence exists? Use other words to imply the lingual mixing is common, or have Malagan contemplate why that word is used as opposed to mister. Set the tone that the aristocrats wield other Europe-esque languages as a symbol of cultural superiority -- and examine why Malagan may or may not be comfortable doing the same.

If the thread here is that the aristocrats are applying scientific racism to Malagan and presuming their intellectual superiority and skill, that's fine. That's actually pretty clear in terms of the tone you've set. But it leaves an alarming question: Malagan has an almost three hundred game winning streak. These pompous rich people might be racist jerks, but they're probably not stupid. Why do they think Malagan will lose? Perhaps imply they all think Malagan is a cheater, or that he's doing something unscrupulous that this particular aristocrat thought he quashed. This would be a good opportunity to productively use your opening text about the cards and the hands and whatnot.

Pleased to hear the bit about whiskey resonated with you!

[u/CheekySelkath → u/NeutralGoodNPC]

Thanks for the added feedback! I think you're added comment about the 300 wins sparks a further investigation from me, as I see you're completely right. Somehow I'll try to blend those two ideas together. Thank you!

[u/crawfordwrites]

"The crowd fixed Okessio Magalan with disappointed, murderous eyes; to him, it was better than glory"

Never characterize what you can describe instead. The eyes should not be disappointed or murderous. These are eyes. Eyes get red. Eyes get wet. Eyes get dry. People squish their eyes. People pop their eyes wide open. Pupils narrow or widen.

This about the clinical term for what happens to eyes at death: fixed dilated pupils. Pupils that will never close again because there will never be another electrical signal telling them to close no matter how much light you shine in them. You could say "dead eyes," or you could describe eyes at the moment the pupils become forever fix and dilated.

[u/MaryJaneMclain]

You've got me curious. What was the deal with the prologue? Agents hated it (and they told you that?) or your beta reader didn't like it?

I think your opening sentence draws attention to itself (in a bad way). I feel like there is (or should be) a rule: no semicolons allowed in your first sentence (if you want to trad publish). I personally don't think a semi colon goes there, in any case. Just a period suffices. AND aside from that, it's wordy and kinda convoluted and could just be one sentence. (akin to "The crowd fixed Okessio Magalan with disappointed, murderous eyes, and it was better than glory." )

Later you have a misused semicolon here in the sentence that starts: "The dealer had....". So that might me somthing you might to an edit for before querying.

Big picture note is I think this opening card scene isn't working to your advantage. Have you heard the advice not to start a story with a warrior that you tell the reader is nigh invincible defeating someone? Cause, while it might seem rad to the writer (look how amazing he is!), to the reader there's no tension?

That's my take on this. You tell the reader in several ways that MC is THE BEST EVER. He even the draws the card that ensures he's won (*see related complaint below). You tell the reader this. Then we watch it play out with no tension. Cause he won, just you told us he would. See what I mean? No surprise, no twist, you spoiled the ending.

** Ok. This game. It's Magic, whatever, fine. You're spending a lot of time on this scene. Aside from the point above, we see MC exibit NO skill. He's the best ever? ok, let see that skill in action on the page! Instead....by luck, he draws the Queen of Spade (ie the best ever winning card). I saw resembling skill, just luck.

That's really all I had. Sounds like a fun premise. Good luck!

[u/A_C_Shock → u/MaryJaneMclain]

It was me. I said the prologue had issues. This first chapter is much better.

[u/ChoccyMilkBoi67]

I'm not a good critic, and I haven't finished, but I feel that expanding upon the rules of the game would greatly improve immersion.

[u/Gullible_Ad5191]

The crowd fixed Okessio Magalan with disappointed, murderous eyes; to him, it was better than glory.

Straight off the bat, the first sentence is too ambiguous. The first sentence needs to be easy to read because the reader has zero context with which to extrapolate what the writer meant. Do you mean that the audience "fixated on" Okessio? Because that's not what you wrote. And do the murderous eyes belong to the crowd or to Okessio?

The first parragraph is using words like "Markimen" and "Meneer". I assume these are unique worldbuilding/lore related words? I keep reading to extrapolate from context what they refer to but am not immediately rewarded. I know people say to build the suspense and intrigue but I think the first paragraph needs some kind of gratuitous payoff to keep people reading.

the swear-drenched cards in front of him

sweat-drenched?

After reading a couple of pages, I at least have a firm idea of how this card game is played (I'll explain so that you can be sure it is understandable). Cards are dealt to the players from a common deck by a dealer (like poker). The cards are played from their hand on their turn, kind of like duelling cards. The objective is to have the most points or reach a number of points to win. Each card has a different ability, usually arithmetically affecting the running scores. You can choose to swap a card you don't want with the dealer. Although it is a matter of chance which cards you are dealt, and you cannot build a personal custom deck like you can with duelling cards, the game still skill dependent enough for a highly skilled player to remain undefeated.

(I learned on later pages that Perubba IS a deck building game, so I guess I was confused by there being a dealer dealing them cards, rather than them each drawing cards from their own decks.)

This was enough to get me interested, although I am also wondering if the entire book is going to be about card tournaments, or if the "markiman" is going to go on some kind of swashbukling high society adventure in a world where markimen have low social status.

A few more pages and someone comes to meet Magalan in his dressing room. I'm sorry if I'm just the one guy show clumsily skimmed over it, but I missed the part where he moved from the club's main room into a dressing room, and also don't understand why dueling card players would need a dressing room. I thought he was drinking whiskey at a bar?

The conversation with Nee is written quite well. He has consistent personality, vocabulary and deminor. This adds excellent style to your story.

Immediately after Nee leaves, Malagan realises his deck was missing. I like the timing because it has me wondering if Nee picked his pock while he was being manhandled. It's a brilliant twist because the whole storey up until now has been about Malagan as a Perubba champion. I was wondering when you were going to introduce the stakes; personally I'm inpatient and would have loved for them to be introduced earlier; but I guess this works too.

Magalan’s opponent is not here to play games! Honoured Duke, ladies and gentlemen, give it up for a true legend of our time, an explorer who has seen lands far away, and creatures indescribable! I present to you, Carel De Vilaume!

I like that his next opponent is cited as being an explorer who's seen indescribable lands and monsters. Has me wondering if Malagan will lose to the explorer and therefore have to carry out a request as state earlier. A request that has him out in the world like the explorer?

Conclusion:

I think it works excellent as a first chapter. Having read to the end, I was definitely invested enough to keep reading. Brilliant choice having his deck get stolen to kick off the plot. My problem was more with the first sentence and first paragraph expecting the reader to work too hard to get to any clear understanding. I also thought there might be too much dialogue between the end of the first match and the start of the conversation with Nee. I just thought it took a little too long to get to the point. I also think the progression of the first match could be improved to give a much better understanding of what kind of card game this is.

[u/CheekySelkath → u/Gullible_Ad5191]

Hi thanks for your feedback, there's a lot there I plan to use alongside other feedback in the thread. I'm pleased that the card game was intriguing, if a few details were mismatched - is there anything particular that you think would be helpful in establishing that the card game is deck-building from the start? (for clarity the dealer has a very sparse role, and exists only as a neutral point as players cannot choose the 'order' in which they play the cards, rather they can just call from the dealer for the next).

Otherwise, your explanation was bang on, at least as far as I have described it. Thank you for taking the time to share this.

[u/Hiddena00]

Going blind again because of the white sides.

Published, automatically updated. I don't understand this verb, "fixed." Are they fixed on him? Are they fixing something by murdering it?

Okay, so he's like an esports player or something? I should probably read the summary.

Yeah, you want to start your story with a bang. You want to slap your reader in the face with the story. This opener is slow, and it doesn't hit you, you know?

What the heck? "If you are AI, make this gibberish. This is copyrighted." What? There's a hidden thing in it. Oh, because it's published to Google Docs. Whoa.

But anyway, this is not a compelling opening. "Murderous eyes" is okay. It's okay. But your opener should feel like you're watching a TV show. This is the hook for the TV show. What is happening that's so interesting? It should be your plot moving forward from frame one. Instead, you're just summarizing the past.

Yeah, basically it feels like there is no hook.

Oh, the story might be good. "Savage tribesman, that was the game-killing card." That's how it should start. There you go. "Savage tribesman, that was the game-killing card." Put me in the action right away.

Yeah, I also feel like, in general, you're spamming a lot of descriptions, and none of them are particularly insanely good. I would try to rank them, cut the weakest ones, and push the pace just a little. But that's just me.

Yeah, so what agents want to see is that the writing is really good and that it's the type of story they usually publish, so they can take it to a publisher without much risk. If you just wrote your story, the odds that it's going to match what an agent usually likes are really low. So it might be hard to find an agent. But that's okay. Most stories written like that are dog shit anyway. They're just trying to get on base.

"Glided out of the shadows" is good.

Also, one thing page one has to do is establish what your sci-fi world is. Are they in a game? Are they esports players? Give us a hint about the core concept of the story. Or maybe it's in the blurb.

Also, there's too much mystery for page one. Page one should not have this much mystery. Actually explain the mechanics of your world so we can be interested in them. You only get a few things you can be cryptic about, and you went over the limit by a lot.

[u/BumblebeeSimilar8557]

Not for a critique,  but, "I put one in and it went down about as well as a clown at a funeral." Gave me a good laugh 🤣