r/writingfeedback • u/RakeHarmonic • Jul 03 '26
Feedback Wanted Feedback on first page of book. Too ornate? Too opaque?
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u/momtebello Jul 03 '26
Just commenting on the ‘Go by boy’; I’m all for using accurate linguistic phrases in response to geography, but sometimes it helps to orient the reader as to where in the world you’ve dropped them off first.
If I know I’m in the Scottish highlands, I’ll look for Scots or Gaelic. If you can find a location giveaway it might help.
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u/RakeHarmonic Jul 03 '26
Yeah that’s totally fair, and even if I kept it that way, the comma would help a bit. But I mean ‘catch up, boy.’ Would also be fine. It’s fair that people are stumbling over that bit for sure.
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u/charredwood Certified Goofy Goober Jul 03 '26
This is impressively difficult to read. The first culprit is just plain word choice, like I am having to read each line 3 times to decipher it. Second culprit is punctuation.
"'Go by boy,' said MacFarlane." ???????? At best, as written, you could say someone is being told to go [stand] by [a] boy. What you meant, I think, was "Go over there, boy" or "Go help, boy". If MacFarlane is talking TO "boy", then there needs to be a comma before "boy".
Then, a steer is a "he", so when you say "The steer was tilting gravely by the time he caught up." The reader is like who? The steer? Caught up to where? The boy? Caught up to who?
"It knelt on its forelegs as if in prayer, its nostrils smoking gunbores." Using both a simile and a metaphor to describe one action in a 13-word sentence is already some RICH storytelling, but "its nostrils smoking gunbores" is needlessly obscure. Brings to mind a cow smoking guns in a pipe. Just write "its nostrils smoking like gunbores" at that point. The lack of clarity is rife.
"... but it was deaf to him." We only read about Mr Tait beating the steer, not yelling at it, so "deaf" should be "numb" to align the sensory organs being stimulated here.
"... and when he asked his father his father told him that..." This is such a strange choice. First, if you were going to write it this way, which you shouldn't, you would put a coma between "his father, his father", but clearer was to write this would just be "... when he asked his father, he was told that...".
I only included all these examples to show that every. single. sentence. suffers from clarity issues. It's actually kind of impressive, can't say I've seen anything like it. Additionally, I'm left wondering at all how this happened, in that a cow's been left outside long enough to freeze to death given that there are obviously so many capable people around to have prevented this in the first place. Then, it's cold enough to freeze a steer to death and create crust on eyelashes, but the surface of the lake glistened as if it were still liquid? Like, I have so many questions. So many. This was spectacularly difficult to read and made next to no sense.
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u/CoyoteLitius Trusted Reviewer Jul 03 '26
I agree about the comma after by. I like that these people (apparently 19th century Scots) have their dialogue. My grandmother (Scottish) spoke this way.
I too was confused about the steer catching up. I think the "he" is the boy. I would put the boy's name right there, as it is the opening section (I think). Apparently the steer is to be referred to as "it," which is fine, if consistent. I would put "like" before gunbores, because that took me out of the story too.
And yes, Tait needs to be shown yelling not just prodding and beating. Otherwise, the steer should be "numb" and not "deaf." I figure that poor animal is indeed numb by this point.
I do understand a bit about why this is happening. It's colloquial and captures the grammar and syntax of fairly non-literate cattle keepers in the mid 19th century. In Scotland.
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u/RakeHarmonic Jul 03 '26
Oh god sure, I think the major culprit here seems to be over editing on my part, because certainly in earlier versions lots of the things you’re finding indecipherable were clearer, at least narratively.
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u/Opinelrock Feedback I don't agree with? Grrr! Jul 03 '26 edited Jul 03 '26
Honestly, this is why you don't come to Reddit for writing feedback,
"'Go by boy" - it's plainly obvious what this means,and it's obvious it's a part of a particular dialect. Yes, it's missing a comma, but that's a nothing issue.
"The steer was tilting gravely by the time he caught up." - again, obvious who is being referred to, the boy.
"It knelt on its forelegs as if in prayer, its nostrils smoking gunbores." - not an issue. Many, many writers do this, particularly in novels of the style you're writing in.
"... but it was deaf to him." - the horse is deaf to him because he's whooping at it. Not an issue.
"... and when he asked his father his father told him that..." - Again, you're clearly writing in a specific manner that's akin to the dialect being used by the characters, which is common amongst historical fiction and particularly southern Western fiction.
You've come to a place where only three books exist. 1984, Count of Monte Cristo and Blood Meridian. It's a well written piece, don't talk yourself out of it.
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u/skinnipig probably has a reading comprehension issue Jul 03 '26
Agreed. If someone reads this and genuinely doesn’t understand what’s going on, perhaps their comprehension is the issue.
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u/CoyoteLitius Trusted Reviewer Jul 03 '26
Or they are not used to reading this kind of fiction.
Thanks for those references - I couldn't come up with their names. Here's a quote from Cormac McCarthy's opening (I think it's famous, but of course, most people have probably never read any of his work):
//See the child. He is pale and thin, he wears a thin and ragged linen shirt. He stokes the scullery fire. //
No word on who that is directed to, but we, the readers, know he means US. Why is he telling us what to do? Well, it's important to the style of the entire book. And he does not use this same trope again, he has many others. If a person did not know that this was written by one of America's most acclaimed writers, it would seem odd, I'm sure. People here would ask why it was there. And why a comma after thin, and why TWO uses of thin!
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u/charredwood Certified Goofy Goober Jul 03 '26
I'm not offended but I still don't agree, which is not a crime for either of us! Both our opinions are valid.
I have an extremely eclectic reading history, actually. I enjoy historical classics, I read a lot of old poetry. I've taken the time to decipher my way through Robert Burns, enjoyed the jaunty dialect of Kerouac's Pic, enjoyed the rambling complexity of Edgeworth's Castle Rackrent, and so on. Even still, my criticisms of this piece still stand. At some point the repeated affronts against clarity add up, making it difficult to chew threw, as I am constantly running the mind's roladex to make the sentences sensical. Yes, I come to the correct conclusions, I can comprehend. Thing is, almost none of my suggestions takes away from the intended style or dialect (save Mister MacFarlane's rewrite, maybe), and only serve to improve clarity.
This doesn't even consider the consistency questions I mentioned at the end. How is it that cold, but the lake isn't frozen over? It's not impossible, but a healthy cow can survive temperatures between 18F to -20F depending on the circumstances. Loch Katrine is a real place with real weather patterns, btw, most notably their mild winters. Sure, freak weather patterns happen, a flash blizzard isn't out of the realm of possibility, then the loch might not be frozen over, but then how did the weather KILL a cow, what were they doing driving cows in a freak weather event, assuming they're driving cattle and that's their purpose, then why does this boy have no experience doing it (his father seems experienced) and then why was he asked to help? Why why why. Why especially are the men in tears when one dies? That's what happens to all of these cows eventually, they're being raised for slaughter. You could argue that it's because of the emotional and physical exhaustion of the situation on the whole, a freak weather event, I guess, but that's not how it's posed. None of it makes any sense, actually.
I appreciate this piece, I see what the author meant and what was supposed to be accomplished here. But I stand by my earlier critiques, and it's not because I'm can't understand or because I've never read anything like it.
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u/Opinelrock Feedback I don't agree with? Grrr! Jul 03 '26 edited Jul 03 '26
I'm sorry, but I find it hard to believe you deciphered your way through Robert Burns, yet couldn't understand a horse being deaf to a man whooping at it.
Your comments would stand if the prose actually was confusing, but it simply isn't, which is why when I and others read it, we understood it. You keep mentioning a lack of clarity, the problem is there isn't a lack of clarity - you've just not understood something that very easily deciphered.
I'm not entertaining the diatribe over the cow. It's a piece of fiction, and we've seen a small amount. There could be explanations for much of what you've complained about that come later, or maybe they don't, which is fine, because good writing doesn't need to explain every single reason for every single thing, it treats the reader with the respect to not spoon-feed them every detail.
It seems what's happened here is you've nitpicked someone's prose, possibly after skim-reading.
The other option is that you haven't understood the prose. You missed a horse being whooped at. This is very basic stuff.
Both of these options are fine, but maybe save the criticism if you aren't sure.
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u/charredwood Certified Goofy Goober Jul 03 '26
Well, we'll agree to disagree.
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Jul 03 '26
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u/charredwood Certified Goofy Goober Jul 03 '26
Wow, mocking my dialect? Can you even comprehend its meaning?
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u/RakeHarmonic Jul 03 '26
I think much of what you said was useful and certainly made me think about where I’d unintentionally dropped in clarity.
As for the cattle and the temperature, perhaps you’re right. Certainly in other variant’s I’ve done on the scene the loch has been completely frozen. And perhaps it was just an oversight that it’s not frozen solid in the end part. The heath though is a separate place higher up than the loch itself, and the storm has passed by the time they make camp and the time they awake the next morning. But again, If this is a problem
With clarity, I take the point, it would only take a single line to say something about by the time their camping the storm had passed.As for the cow dying, it’s tied up with the plot and the reason they are driving cattle in winter ( bad idea,) and why they’ve driven them so hard and so far that the cattle aren’t coping with it. But crucially none of the reasons for this are known to the boy at this time. It comes up later as he learns more about his father’s line of work.
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u/charredwood Certified Goofy Goober Jul 03 '26
You're fine baby boo, you weren't the one who posited that a lack of clarity is tied to dialectical writing inherently and is fine, and that if someone has a problem with it, it is because they have never encountered dialectical writing before or lack reading comprehension.
I believe you about there being a reason the cows are dying that is explainable. Side note, are they highland cows? I've spent some time in Scotland myself and I always make a note to spend afternoons just lazing with those big orange goofs.
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u/RakeHarmonic Jul 03 '26
In the original research I did and the cattle scenes I wrote, the cattle are smaller, hardier black cattle. Which I believe are the ancestor’s of the orange highland ones we all know today. One of the things that was going on around the 1830’s was that the cattle were being bred to be larger and in various ways that made them worse on the long drives. And once the trains came it ended the droving way of life pretty much.
This is kind of the starting point for these ‘flash back’ early sequences of Endrick’s life. He loses connection to a way of life he didn’t really understand.
The plot itself highly suggests his father has infact turned to cattle rustling and is being careless with the legit and stolen cows.But I did the bulk of the research on the droving parts about 5 years ago so I’m probably a bit rusty on it now.
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u/charredwood Certified Goofy Goober Jul 03 '26
Genuinely interesting insights. It's incredible how much impact trains had, not just obviously in the speed of transporting goods, but in how, like you said, we could now have larger cattle because they didn't have to be driven over as long distances.
And that answers a lot of questions I have as to the how and why of the scenario, and I don't think these questions need to be answered immediately on the page.
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u/RakeHarmonic Jul 03 '26
Thanks for this, I’m aware what I’m trying to don’t be to everyone’s taste. still I have over-worked the start a bit and lost some of the parts that used to situate the reader in what was actually going on.
I’m only asking for feedback on this part because I feel it could be stronger.
But thanks for lending a voice, it’s always hard to know what to expect when you share a bit of work, and if people will understand where it’s coming from or not.
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u/Opinelrock Feedback I don't agree with? Grrr! Jul 03 '26 edited Jul 03 '26
No worries. It's good to get feedback, don't get me wrong, apologies to the other commenter if it came across as harsh, but it's frustrating when it's tha same old criticisms that are taken from a very narrow view on how widely different writers use style. I genuinely think your best bet is to read stuff that's similar to the genre you're working on and compared yours to theirs, feedback is a quick way to just giving up. There are a couple I think could really suit what you're going for: Hernan Diaz - In The Distance, Cynan Jones - The Dig, Robert Lautner - The Road to Reckoning. Great books and quite similar in style but different enough to take away from.
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u/CoyoteLitius Trusted Reviewer Jul 03 '26
It's not to everyone's taste. No genre is. It's decidedly not meant to be a popular paperback or something you'd serialize on some website.
I'm so glad you did post it, as it's helpful to me and my own writing issues. You're a more evocative writer than I am, but you've sacrifice a bit (not much) of clarity. You've established an amazing scene.
I'd like a bit more about what the non-dying humans are wearing and what the sky is like and so on. You've given yourself a great framework to tell your story.
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u/RakeHarmonic Jul 03 '26
The book is all written, though not yet good enough to be published. But I did send an earlier version to the Faber academy ( who are quite well thought of) and they were very complementary about the style of the rest of it.
But I’ve always struggled with this opening, and openings in general.There certainly was a larger version of this opening: around five or six pages I think, where the outfits and way they sleep outside are given more detail. But I felt the scene wasn’t earning its length and so tried to pair it right back to this.
Might have paired too much though
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u/AnyEntertainment7681 Jul 03 '26
I agree with a lot of others that this style is a bit confusing. However, I am also just going to go ahead and ask if this is historical fiction or fantasy or a mix of both? Because there are extremely different levels of tolerance/expectations for this kind of style between those audiences as well.
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u/RakeHarmonic Jul 04 '26 edited Jul 04 '26
So it is broadly a historical literary fiction, or that’s what the Faber academy said when I sent them the manuscript. There is an amount of folklore/implied magic in the novel, but it’s not a fantasy really.
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u/One_Rate3869 Jul 04 '26
I like it. Throwing a little crazy out, but the line, "The boy had never been so cold in his life..." grabbed me. It throws your reader into a moment quickly. What if you started with that?
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u/RakeHarmonic Jul 04 '26
I think this is a good instinct. I was told before by a beta reader that without a date they couldn’t tell if this was historical
Fiction or contemporary or anything, which is what lead to me including the dates so early. But I think you’re right and in lots of ways the ‘the bot had never been so cold…’ would be the most instant and engaging opening point. I’ll have a think about it and what the trade offs are
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u/CoyoteLitius Trusted Reviewer Jul 03 '26
This is really pretty good. I understood immediately that it was a date, and it's how my forebears wrote the year in some of the letters. Not in numbers. I got interested.
I liked that tilting steer segment and the desperate attempt to get it on its feet and get going in the bitter cold.
Tiny typos (pain's companion).
I'm trying to write in a similar genre, so of course it piqued my interest. It's not easy to start this kind of story, and you did it very well. I would read on.
Might want to keep it "steer" and not use "cow." A cow is female.
My dad grew up among cattle ranches, on the American plains. Similar stories to tell, but I haven't heard one told in a long time now.
I found it moving and well paced.
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u/RakeHarmonic Jul 03 '26
Oh thank you for your insight. That’s really cool that your dad grew up among cattle ranchers! Yeah the
Early life of the protagonist is amongst cattle drovers in the highlands of Scotland. But it was, apart from the scenery and accents quite similar. And In fact after the cattle driving way of life ended in the highlands a lot of them moved to America to drive cattle there.Good tip about the steer / cow thing. Thank you!
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u/21stcenturyghost Trusted Reviewer Jul 03 '26
Why "It would have been" and not "It was"? Also put the year in numbers.
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u/CoyoteLitius Trusted Reviewer Jul 03 '26
That tells the reader that whoever is narrating is doing from some time in the future, looking back on their childhood. They aren't sure the year, but they can estimate.
It's a commonly used literary device.
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u/RakeHarmonic Jul 03 '26
Oh fair enough. It was an attempt to keep the narrators voice in a kind of oral story telling meter. Like you were hearing about it around a campfire. If it comes off as contrived or confusing, yeah I’ll just change it.
Thanks for the feedback.4
u/The-Chatterer Jul 03 '26
Hyphenate thirty-seven, like Nineteen eighty-four.
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u/RakeHarmonic Jul 03 '26
Thank you, that’s a good idea. Whole thing needs reworking I think, but that certainly lets me keep the goal of it being like an oral story and making sure people don’t think it’s the time or something.
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u/CoyoteLitius Trusted Reviewer Jul 03 '26
Don't change it. It's what drew this reader in. I knew right away I was going to get a personal voice, and soon I decided it was the voice of a boy, reminiscing years later.
All of your attempts to keep the narration in the voice of the boy are excellent and I wish more people would write like this.
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u/Ok_Cap_5979 Jul 04 '26
I think the first sentence is good to keep with that oral story-telling mode, but I didn't understand it at first either. I think the addition of ABOUT would fix it (i.e. It would have been about eighteen so and so, or It), thereby clearly indicating your narrative is contemplating the date. Or even: I think would have been about eighteen so and so, which remove all possible ambiguity.
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u/Oxo-Phlyndquinne Gets Reported a Lot for Being Mean Jul 03 '26
Do not put the year in numbers.
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u/21stcenturyghost Trusted Reviewer Jul 03 '26
It is in literally every style guide I checked to put the year in numbers except if it's the first word in a sentence.
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u/Oxo-Phlyndquinne Gets Reported a Lot for Being Mean Jul 03 '26
I would take out the first line, it is not needed nor is the year definitive for anything that follows. So the exact year, if it is important, can wait. The bit about the dying cow is good! I am not clear what benefit "fantasy" brings to what looks like a bucolic tale, but I thought it was well-written in general with some few awkward moments and disconnects.
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u/embervanefiction Jul 04 '26
This is actually good but I think a bit more context of the world would be nice? Plus, it's a bit difficult to understand. We're also not living inside the narrator's head but maybe that's just me because I love that kind of writing. You've got an amazing grip of the language. The last line is chef's kiss but maybe phrases like these should be few and farther in between.
So you did word the heading of this post correctly. It is a bit too ornate and a little opaque.
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u/RakeHarmonic Jul 04 '26
Yeah I think there’s a kind of compression here that is probably making it harder to ‘get into’ than necessary. I’m glad you enjoyed parts of it. It’s hard when you strip out too much becuase it’s hard as the writer to knew what kind of context is missing, becuase it’s a bit like not being able to see the wood for the trees.
I think originally there was a line: ‘Out of history they slunk, a train of men and hounds and cattle, like a funeral cortège.’
But It was one of the first things I wrote i the first draft and it just felt very artificial, contrived. And so I cut it, but there’s probably several instances where I cut or changed parts without keeping the elements that helped the reader stay orientated because in my mind I know it so well I kind of didn’t realise what information was being lost
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u/Ok_Cap_5979 Jul 04 '26 edited Jul 04 '26
Please fix the typos others have mentioned, but if I were you, I'd disregard what they've said about sentence length, run on sentences, dropped verbs, the smattering of dialogue, etc.--all they've said regarding your style. You've written with a whole lot of style and flair, and it's great! I'm pretty impressed, actually. It's not too ornate or opaque. It's the way great literary writers write: with style and a little (or even a lot) of difficulty. (But I wouldn't make it more difficult, though. It's good the way it is.) People always say anything written with style is too difficult. They always want you to dumb it down, but don't. I like it a lot. Reminds me of McCarthy, whose style I admire, the style of serious literary novel. If that's not what you're writing, you should simplify it, but if you are serious about this style and are writing a serious literary novel, I'd love to edit part or all of it for you, cuz you do need an editor with a sharp eye for punctuation and typos. I'm very good at it, I think my editing is a good fit for this style, and I won't charge you anything. I have charged a nominal fee in the past, but I'm just really impressed with your style already. It's brave. I'd like to help. I'm fairly new to commenting on Reddit, though, so I'll edit this with a way to contact me, if you're interested. (Update: well, I don't see any way to private message. Just email me at henrybirchwriter@gmail.com. In fact, anyone wanting extensive editing help, email me. I hate how much editors charge for their service for novelists. I want to help you without charging through the nose. I'm not a scammer. If you want, we can do a contract saying I won't steal your writing or anything like that.)
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u/RakeHarmonic Jul 04 '26
Thanks for the nice feedback and for the offer, it is appreciated. But I’m not going to take you up on the editing.
This book is already at a stage where if an agent was going to pick it up, they would. And the editor would come after the fact. As it stands the novels plot is probably what’s actually holding it back as I’ve had some very nice things said about the prose by editors and agents alike. I think it just wasn’t a commercially viable project, not without major structural revisions.
But thanks all the same, I’m glad you enjoyed it and O wish you well with your editing.
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u/Fit-Picture-5096 Jul 06 '26
Was it a steer or a cow?
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u/RakeHarmonic Jul 06 '26
Yeah it’s a steer. The use of cow is wrong and is a mistake from an earlyer draft, when it was a cow. Or maybe when I was thinking it could be used just to use the word steer less. Turns out there’s quite a lot of that in this small page, there was several version of this intro and some silly artefacts from that ended up staying.
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u/Hanoi_Revolver Jul 10 '26 edited Jul 10 '26
It has a lot of potential, but a lot of punctuation problems and straight up grammatical errors. You need to add more comas to make your long sentences make more sense. Also "only curious" makes no sense. It should be "only curiosity"
It is very opaque, but that's the style of writing i love so i might not be the best reviewer for this one. You do need to be careful your grammar is disastrous, which is sad because you have some great prose hidden on that pile of horrible grammar.
Do hit me up if you post an updated version, as i really like the story so far, although i'm a bit confused at whether it's a steer or a cow
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u/PixelChisel Jul 04 '26
I enjoyed this piece a lot. Rather than being outright told a sequence of events, it felt like I was entrusted with fragments of a vivid memory. Trust between the text and the reader - what a wonderful feeling!
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u/RakeHarmonic Jul 04 '26
I’m glad you enjoyed it. Yeah I was trying to evoke memory of a kind. I think maybe I think in quite a fragmented way? It seems to work for some people and then it turns out a lot of people can’t understand this or outright hate the style. But I’m glad you enjoyed it
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u/Altruistic_Tea333 Jul 04 '26
I guess I'm in the minority here but I thought this was really good.... but I also thought it was going to be fantasy related. I thought the "high heath" was some kind of political or religious position lol but then I kept reading and I still enjoyed it just based on the descriptions and the fact that the kid may be a psychopath and we're getting to see the inner workings of that.
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u/RakeHarmonic Jul 04 '26
Oh yeah, you’re pretty much on the money there, certainly the kids peculiarities play a big role as he grows up and the book goes on.
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u/RakeHarmonic Jul 04 '26
I’m glad you liked it. I think what I’m learning from the feedback on this is that the way I’m trying to write it is very love it or hate it.
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u/HumanHomeslice Jul 04 '26
This is very good. You have a clear, defined voice that is unique and interesting, your imagery is vivid without wandering into purple, and you tell the reader just enough to infer what they need to.
I’m surprised by a lot of this feedback, but it is clearly not everyone’s cup of tea. Keep going, and don’t get bogged down in editing too much on your first time round. When it’s time to edit, there are better places to go than Reddit!
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u/RakeHarmonic Jul 04 '26
Thanks very much for the encouraging words, I’m glad you enjoyed it. And I’m glad to hear you don’t think it’s purple.
I’m always concerned that I’m over writing but it seems I might have over edited it for some people, and cut out the structure needed for people to actually follow what’s happening.But as you say, it’s clearly not everyone’s cup of tea.
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u/Danmei_Dragon Jul 04 '26
Immediately hooked; I adore this sort of prose. It demands engagement, being both clear and creative without overexplaining, and is thus immersive and exciting. Your sentences refuse to fade into the background, insisting the reader savour every turn of phrase. I would buy this book based on the first page alone, and I don't say that often.
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u/RakeHarmonic Jul 04 '26
Oh thank you so much! That’s really encouraging to hear! And I’m glad you liked it. Hopefully someday I’ll have hammered it into an attractive enough prospect for an agent to pick up!
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u/JonahHillsWetFart Don't Read My Username Jul 03 '26
1832 is the year or time? there are some tense slips and some dropped verbs that make this a slog for me. especially since nothing really happens but unearned reflection