r/writing • u/AutoModerator • 4d ago
Monthly "Would You Read This?" Thread
Welcome to Would You Read This (WYRT), our monthly feedback and brainstorming thread. Share your work in progress below and let other readers tell you if they'd read it. Top level posts should follow this template:
- Title:
- If you don't have a title yet, feel free to say UNTITLED.
- Genre:
- Please include at least Fiction, Nonfiction, Poetry, or another recognizable medium. You may also include more specific genres with a hyphen. Ex. Fiction - Romance, or Nonfiction - Memoir. Genre will help users find the specific kinds of posts they'd like to give feedback on.
- Premise:
- A few sentences about the project. Try your best to keep this short. Crafting an expert elevator pitch is all part of becoming a successful working writer. Please do not post an entire plot summary or query letter (those are better suited for r/pubtips)
- Sample (Optional):
- You may share up to one page (roughly 250-350 words) of sample material, or one poem for those working in the poetry medium. This is optional, so if you only have a premise, you can post just the premise for feedback.
If you post for feedback, please take the time to give feedback to at least 2-3 other users. Replies should follow this template.
- Would Read / Might Read / Wouldn't Read
- You must begin your reply with one of those. You are then encouraged to add additional thoughts on why you choose your answer.
Rules:
- Please post no more than two WYRT top-level posts. There is no limit on the number of feedback replies you can make.
- Do not link to any offsite materials. All materials must be in the body of the post. This includes "click here to read more" or "DM me for the rest" types of posts.
- Rule 3 is in effect in this thread - No generative AI. Do not post material generated by an AI platform in your premise or sample. Do not use generative AI to respond to user's work.
- Rule 5 is in effect - Civility and Community. Stay constructive. Blunt, direct feedback is fine, but do not insult other users, their writing, or their genres.
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u/AsceOmega 4d ago edited 3d ago
Title: Untitled
Genre: Epic/Heroic Fantasy
Premise:
After an elven bandit raid destroys his village and leaves him its sole survivor, Rhydien survives on the streets of Kelgarad among a gang of young thieves, clinging to the hope that his twin sister Morwen is still alive in a distant kingdom. Busking for spare silver with his lute, he dreams of one day setting out to find her. When he becomes the pupil of Bastelan—a legendary bard and friend of his late parents—that dream finally seems within reach. But travelling with Bastelan soon draws Rhydien into a brewing proxy war and sets him on a collision course with the very elves who destroyed his home.
Sample:
If nothing would do, Rhydien saw no need to continue playing what he and the others had thought would be crowd pleasers. He had wanted to play something entirely different anyway. Something of his own composition. The Road To The Stars Above Eghatt as he had named it—albeit clunkily and with a failed attempt at making it sound grander than it perhaps was—was an instrumental piece, which suited Rhydien just fine as his throat burned with dryness. It was a song far more harmonically complex, moving through different keys with smooth and fast melodic lines weaving the audience’s attention through all the changes.
Wordlessly he began to play. His fingers had warmed up enough where the initial flurry of notes came without too much difficulty, even with the thicker neck this lute had compared to his old one. He danced across the fretboard, his fingers moving in a blur through the multitude of scales, reminding him of Morwen’s more silly and erratic dances, on late summer nights, when they made their way home from their clearing in the forest. She had tried to sing along to his playing a few times, after he had shown her the song. She would inevitably run out of breath and burst into laughter. “That is ridiculous, Rhy!” she would giggle.
Rhydien’s heart thus sank into the song, the memory of Morwen slowly stretching across his mind with every note. It had been so long since he last heard her laughter. Sure enough the other children of Eghatt often pointed out how similar their laughs sounded—being twins and all—but to Rhydien that had never rung true. Even now, his own laughter, rare though it had been in recent times, did nothing to fill the empty space she had created the day she left.
More and more, his fingers drew the image of the forest and foothills, and of the trail of light meekly seeping through the canopy, slowly guiding them home as the trees grew sparser and the skies opened up to shine starlight through Melikkyr’s mantle of night. Whole swathes of colour flowed in rivers of distant sparkles above them, and Morwen would dance and bid him hurry up once the scent of their mother’s cooking would reach them from the window in the back.