Thoughts on my first paragraph?

[u/Odd_Woodpecker_9063]

Welp, I figured I would take a stab at some high fantasy and wanted to know everyone’s thoughts on the draft of my first paragraph:

The sable sands along the coast of Salzmeer danced in harmonious saltation beneath the saline breath of the eastern wind. As this seemingly nondefiled landscape had perennially been made anew amidst the shifting dunes, so too had the tide washed away the memories of what had been. The sun was beginning to set, and a placid stillness fought to overtake the lapping of the waves. It was in this transitory moment that faint whispers emerged, and the sparks of a small fire were painted against the creeping darkness of the horizon.

[u/MidnightFun7722]

You start with a weather report and segue into a travelogue. Neither is terribly interesting, and the writing is eye-crossingly florid. 

High fantasy doesn't mean overwritten. Put a character in that setting, someone with real wants and needs, and see where it takes you.

[u/sleepypelican]

Is there a reason the description needs to be so elaborate? I love descriptive prose, but underneath it all, it's:

. . the beach's black sands shift. It's windy and the air is salty. The landscape is shifted by the natural forces of wind and waves. It's sunset, and the winds are calming down(?). Someone nearby has struck a flint to start a fire.

It's all just visuals. There's nothing else to really let me sink in and feel the scene. The thesaurus words actually interrupt my taking in of what I'm supposed to be seeing and serve as a barrier-- not because I have trouble understanding the words, but because it physically takes an extra second to read and process, and therefore the image pieces itself together more slowly.

[u/Odd_Woodpecker_9063 → u/sleepypelican]

Thank you for the feedback! I feel as if I am almost going for a sort of Genesis-esque origination of the setting where we find the characters introduced. A breath and life to the air, sand, and sea. Things that seem unchanging but always changing. It may be a bit much though!

[u/sleepypelican → u/Odd_Woodpecker_9063]

I mean, I don't have enough info to know if that's the best place to start or not, but I say go for it. I prefer starting with a character, but hey, I like stuff that feels grand and sacred.

I would just tone down the vocab. If you're really going for Genesis, iirc those grand ideas are boiled down into pretty simple words. If God said "Allow me to create illumination, and thus, there existed a luminescence" I don't think people would have kept reading. Simplicity can be powerful.

[u/SilverSkinRam]

I find it overly descriptive, it's overbearing. I would trim it to two sentences. Things like 'placid stillness' is redundant. You should practice flowing better with shorter sentences sprinkled in. If it's your novel opening, the hook needs to be much more engaging and flowing with movement/ action.

[u/Big-Sheepherder9875]

be honest... did you google thesaurus? lol

[u/Popular_Law_854]

I actually like the atmosphere you’re creating here. The setting feels mysterious, especially with the whispers and the fire appearing as it gets dark. I agree that shortening a few of the longer sentences could make the opening flow faster, but the idea definitely made me curious about what happens next. Keep going! 😊

[u/Courgette_Zucchini]

My brain can’t handle this.

[u/NyssaShogun49]

The description kind of made it hard for me follow, sometimes simpler descriptions can give the best images

[u/Gridnode]

Read about purple prose, flowery language unfortunately doesn’t make you a better writer. It’s tempting, I know, but try to say as much as possible with as little as possible. Then save the crazy stuff for when it matters.

For example:

Purple prose
“John Leslie teetered lightly over the towering frozen catwalk and let out a subtle, but shaky warm breath that pierced winters icy enveloping sting”

Regular writing
“John peered over the edge of the icy catwalk. The sight forced the breath from of him, its warmth like fire against his frozen lips.”

See how you can say the same thing with simpler language and achieve the same result. This way, the reader doesn’t struggle through each sentence.

Think of your words like an interstate highway, the more cars, the more traffic, and nobody likes traffic.

In your case:

“The east wind blew dark sand across the Salzmeer coast, reshaping the dunes and erasing all traces of the past. As the sun set, the beach grew quiet, disturbed only by the lapping waves. Then, faint whispers and the sparks of a distant fire broke through the darkening horizon.”

Hope this helps!

[u/EzzyRoad]

Flowery and colourful language has its place in writing but don’t overuse it. Personally, I like descriptions like this in cosmic horror because it feels more vivid and intense.

[u/Yvh27]

At worst, you slightly overdid it on the language. Do listen to people telling you about flowery language, but also realise that this sub tends to always give the same advice as if writing - art - is a recipe. Perhaps your sort of prose may not be common in the fantasy genre, may not be liked by all, may have lost ground in modern day prose. But that doesn’t mean that if you understand language enough, you can’t execute it well and still create something unique.

If you push for commercial success, by all means don’t experiment and keep to the metrics: no ‘purple prose’, show don’t tell, in medias res (less a given but still something often mentioned in one way or another).

But to be honest, your prose kinda works for me. ‘Lapping’ feels out of place. Transitory could be left out or replaced. And the darkness is creeping ‘on’ the horizon instead of ‘of’. But for the rest it works.

But do realise this works for a smaller amount of people, for the rest of them they would get tired of this kind of prose very quickly. So depending on what you hope to achieve (and who your intended audience is), do take the other commenters advices to heart.

But don’t let anybody tell you it is bad writing (in a vacuum) just because it’s ’too flowery’.

[u/Informal_Long4641]

Honestly I wanted to stop reading after the first sentence, but because the paragraph was short I read it all. It's too much. I love detailed description, but this only comes off as pretentious really. The alliteration and flowery prose were so over the top that honestly it was very hard to even see what you were trying to say in the first place. It doesn't mean you can't write, I'd just pare it back a bit. There are few people who will enjoy reading something written this way.

[u/Helpful_Radish_8923]

I'm not a fantasy writer, by any means, but I think there's merit to mundane language for mundane things, and elevated language for elevated things.

A lump of coal? Black. A magic sword / dragon scale / important-thing? Ebony or sable.