Can I get some feedback on this prologue?

[Writer]

I tried to better the spacing, to no avail. I am interested in any and all feedback, if it is constructive. Thank you.

* Prologue *

Ni-bishicratza, the twentieth day of the month of Dex, in the year 217

Virasha Di'uhmar, the Sah'lara of Ni-bishia, fidgeted with her gem buckle, fastening tight the vestigus that hugged her thin frame. The long narrow weave of winding burlap warmed her bones and granted her a much needed sense of security.
Darkness lingered longer at this time of the year, so for these many days, Virasha's only source of natural light shone from the starred, moonless sky above. Winter shadows crept through an open round window, dancing in the cold like lonely star spirits. Starlight sparkled between the bare tree branches outside and the dried mud homes in the distance, making shadow puppets against the clay walls of the citadel.
Virasha pressed her upper lip into its lower half and gazed with glassy eyes into the black and gray and dusty blue. Her arms folded about her. She stood for many hours peering out the window during the dark months. Yet deceit crept into the cold air on this particular day, and she wished instead to leave the land and join the many stars above.
A trickle of wind nestled in her black hair and lovingly reassured her. She always felt akin to the wind, and for what she would soon witness, she welcomed its kind touch while shutting her eyes, trying desperately to hold on to the rare feeling of comfort. Her white skin was wet with tears.
A door creaked open behind her, and another thin woman entered, her back bent with age, holding a lantern that colored the walls with dusky yellow shadows. In her right arm the woman held a black furred robe with traces of gold lining, folded neatly. Virasha did not turn to greet the woman. She refused to let the woman see her cry.
A white hand touched her shoulder.
"Sah'lara," she said. "It's time to get ready."
The woman unfolded the robe as it unbundled in ripples to the floor, her old knotted hands shaking to hold it to Virasha's shoulders.
Virasha reached behind her and hoisted the robe about her neck. By now her tears had dried and she turned her back to the wind outside and faced the woman.
"Mariska, you can go."
The woman bowed her head then turned, the dim yellow light of the lantern following her as she shuffled out the door. Virasha waited for the door to close, because she needed to be alone in the dark one more time, to spend a final moment with her suffering conscious and the wind outside.
She looked out the window once more toward the mist and considered her immediate fate. She thought about the time when she reached seven years of age and began to study about Dumar and the Ni-bishicrat way. One of the first lessons she learned was how to strengthen the mind to overcome even the most difficult circumstances. She wondered if she had the strength to face the execution of the man she had committed to death because of her weakness.
A bit more time passed before Virasha felt ready to leave for the council chamber. She slipped into the long hallway connecting the royal bedrooms to the long stairway down, passing through darkness dimly lit by a row of glowing sconces interlaced between pictures.
She walked slowly and with meaning, taking a moment to consider the elaborate portraits of emperors and empresses of her past. Within the ornate golden frames, some were standing, while others were seated within thrones covered with the royal hues of black and gold. Ten generations lined the walls, the men on the left and the women on the right. All had white skin and dark hair and the look of stoic piety characteristic of a Ni-bishicrat.
She reached her parents' portraits. Underneath them, metal placards bore the embossed names of "UHMAR NAL'DREZENT" and "DIONYSA DE'ANDEUS." In Ni-bishia, no family names existed. Each parent gave their child a blend of the mother's shortened name and the father's full name, completing the child's individuality.
Virasha Di'Uhmar would one day continue the tradition, and for many childhood days, she dreamed of the moment when she could peer down at her baby, with her husband the new Emperor at her side, and anoint the child as "Sahli or Sah'lara Vi'…"
And here she always stopped, wondering who the man would be that would fill that empty space.
She reached the tall stairs that led her to the first floor of the citadel, descending down past walls that bore uninspiring mosaics of blocks and triangles, again in shades of black and gold.
Dramatic chandeliers bearing many candles provided ample light for the first floor. She turned to the right down another hallway past the dark meditation chamber. More banal mosaics surrounded the doorway to the chamber, wherein lay a hundred soft pillows for kneeling. Virasha had yet to see the inside of it in her nineteen years. Long before her birth, her Grandfather Drezent had ceased the weekly ceremonies for fear the A-bisinians would use them as moments to cause strife within the citadel walls.
She reached the end of the hallway at which two doors of enormous stature stood before her, with a guard at each side. As much of the citadel lay plain, these doors were ornate carvings of onyx and gold, bearing the relief of a man in black slaying another in gold. Clouds bloomed above the pair from which many tiny hands reached toward the ground below. The entire scene always struck Virasha as eery and despondent, as she always found it strange that death would be glorified in this way.
Virasha nodded at the guards and one reached around and opened the door to reveal the chattering of many voices, and as she stepped inside, she found herself on the right side of a tall platform overlooking a half-circle of nine chairs, surrounding one smaller platform the size of a vegetable box.
Uhmar and Dionysa sat in their thrones, and she took her seat beside them, receiving cold, acknowledging looks from her parents.
She felt her mother lean toward her. "Rin'ahl ya'lar'lee," Dionysa scolded in Ni-bishicrat. "You are late."
Virasha bared little reaction and looked straight ahead. "I had to stay longer for my lessons today," she lied. "Vesutious had me perform extra number problems."
Dionysa released what sounded like a subtle snake hiss, and the Empress settled once more in her throne. Like Virasha, Dionysa wore a simple silk dress around which wrapped a burlap vestigus – traditional Ni-bishicrat clothing. She also wore a black fur robe aligned with gold piping, and a tiara on which a long inverted triangle descended from its center, down between her eyes, ending at a point at the top of her nose.
The triangle bore a red stone, that as Virasha learned, was supposed to grant the Ni-bishicrats the right of rule over the Empire of Falconay. Exactly how the stone gave them this right, Virasha did not know. Her father also bore this stone in his crown, and it seemed to grant him a unique confidence. Virasha sometimes wondered if the power of the stones were only a result of imagination.
A group of men milled about near the seats beneath them. Three of the men were Ni-bishicrats, dressed in burlap and silk, their tall builds appearing much like a tree covered in frost, their long arms as frozen branches, and their fingers as long twigs caked with snow.
Three other men stood within the group, and Virasha recognized them as the A-bisinian elders. They were as fair and golden as daylight, their statures smaller, and their bellies rotund with many great meals, as was their custom. Brilliant hues of violet and blue and red and gold covered their clothing, and they stood proud before the Ni-bishicrat elders, standing upright as if they were the taller peoples, almost challenging them.
To the right of the large group stood three others. They were of average stature, wearing dusted cotton clothing in muted hues. Their eyes and hair and skin were all shades of brown. They stood aloof, quietly engaging one another as if meaning to avoid the others. None of this surprised Virasha, for these men were Si-bisinians. They were neutral in most affairs, and as long as Virasha could remember, never have had a quarrel with either the Ni-bishicrats or with the A-bisinians. Virasha admired their prudence.
Emperor Uhmar stood and addressed the delegation. He spoke in a common language that Virasha had studied since five. They called it Diplomat's Speak, and only rulers and council elders learned the tongue. Otherwise, Virasha spoke in her native Ni-bishicrat as the commonfolk of her province, and as the peoples of A-bisinia and Si-bisinia spoke in their native tongues.
"Gentlemen, we will soon be ready," he said. "Take your seats."
The elders seated themselves in the arc of chairs, the Ni-bishicrats and A-bisinians swatting their hands at one another after leaving what Virasha surmised as a petty spat.
She looked toward the back of the council chamber at another large set of doors that were also onyx, but the chandeliers of the chamber cast golden hues upon it. Virasha's face sank and once more she wished she could be back before her window, feeling the wind touch her face. Instead she prepared herself for the inevitable. She relaxed her countenance into an emotionless mask as was proper for a Ni-bishicrat ruler. It was the only thing she knew to do.
"Gentlemen we gather here, this eight hundred and sixty-eighth meeting of the Council of Elders, under discouraging circumstances," Uhmar said. "We meet here to determine the fate of a treasonist. If you will, Sobi'vee Prostivus, ask the guards to bring the accused into the chamber."
One of the guards at the back of the chamber nodded, then rapped on the great doors. Virasha felt tears approach. She caught herself. She badly wanted to close her eyes, so badly wanted to run and never again face the scrutiny of her parents, or the horrid things they were prepared to do.
Uhmar and Dionysa had ordered her to sit through the embarrassment, claiming that facing an emotional challenge as great as this strengthened Ni-bishi'as, as her people called the inner sanctum of the human mind. Virasha would have denied her engendered claim to the throne, cast aside her lineage, in order to spare herself the torture of this moment. She considered that her parents, in a twisted way, were forcing her to sit here as a means to punish her for her role in all of this.
And as the doors opened, every muscle of her face fought against a whimper and a scream. She watched as two guards appeared ushering a man with a black hood covering his head. His hands were bound behind his back in leather cuffs and his baggy burlap clothes were dirtied with dungeon stink. He was tall, withered, and as Virasha knew, Ni-bishicrat. The guards walked him to the small platform before them, then stopped.
"Sobi'vee," Uhmar said, "remove his hood."
One of the guards pulled off the cloth, and Virasha swallowed her reaction as one would swallow a punch to the stomach. For a Ni-bishicrat, his sallow countenance was very handsome, with two blazing silver eyes that bore insolence into Uhmar's. He stood upright, showing little fear or deference. His confidence was overpowering, and one month ago, he almost overpowered her. She stared at him with callousness although her heart raced.
"Sobi'von Nifaras Ka'Decet," Uhmar said. "You understand that as a servant of my house your fealty to my throne is of the highest importance. You betrayed that fealty by your advances toward my daughter."
His words had lain on her ears as flat as freshly kneaded bread, unbaked, with no more care than common ordinance. A rumble of voices awoke from the elders, and Virasha squeezed her fist as she felt the weight of their stares. Their looks stripped her of her dignity, and she no longer sat on the throne as the Sah'lara, but as a lower woman.
Uhmar continued. "No servant of mine is permitted to pursue a member of the imperial house, even you who lead the Falconayan forces that maintain peace in our land. What say you to this charge?"
Virasha watched the smug faces of the A-bisinians. She considered their inner-glee at witnessing a failing of their Ni-bishicrat rulers. Her stomach churned as one rubbed his chin, thinly masking a smirk. She saw that a couple of them carried a copy of The Mentus – their worship book, as she was told, filled with the teachings and stories related to their faith. She had always wondered how faith could be so simple as to be confined within the pages of a book.
She peered once more at the man named Nifaras, whose face remained unwavering. Mariska taught Virasha long ago that the only way to tell a man's true nature was to stare deep into his eyes, and only there one could discover his true intent. Virasha peered deeply into Nifaras' eyes and saw assured deceit.

She recalled that day beside the lake after her clawstaff lesson, his arm propped on the ground very close to hers, his mesmerizing eyes capturing her, his lips all too close, whispering compliments. She felt like prey trapped within a cage, her blood racing to her extremities - that rushing, wettened feeling that slowly crept her legs apart as he moved toward her, her choked breathing, her breasts begging for the lightest touch…

"You know that you should be standing here beside me, my Sah'lara…"
The voice drifted into Virasha's conscious, filling her with shock. Her eyes rounded and she gasped, audibly catching her throat. She did not dare look toward her mother, whose eyes fixed on her.
How can this be, she thought. That is his voice in my mind!
"How is it that you weren't scolded and pushed into the dungeons along with me, prided daughter of Dumar? You ached for me just as much."
She breathed deeply, letting the air trickle into every recess of her chest, then released it.
"Dumar, lulit'la ya'lee eh'redya yahm'itwah. Dumar, calm my soul," her mind whispered.
The Ni-bishi'as rose from the bottom of her back to her skull, a prickling feeling that soothed her. As it traveled it touched her like a million tiny winds, and she felt whole again.
Uhmar's voice reawakened her. "I have known many obscenities in my years on this throne, and betraying my trust is one of the greater ones. How can I trust my Sobi'von with the security of Falconay if he does not show respect for the integrity of his house?"
The Emperor spoke as if for an audience, and she realized at once that he spoke in the general direction of the A-bisinian elders. She understood, then, the true purpose of holding this trial in as grand a forum as before the Council of Elders. Mariska had told her once that truth did not always come in the same shade of color. At times, one could transform the color – a little darker or a little lighter – until its shade matched what one wanted others to see. Uhmar was presenting his shade of the color red.
Uhmar's voice heightened. "You have betrayed me, Nifaras. And it is my duty to rebuke you before this austere council."
That silence again. Nifaras spoke. "My Emperor, there is something about this proceeding that seems rather… obscene, don't you agree?"
His insolence astounded Virasha, and yet her father did not utter a word, but stared at Nifaras, their glances melding together into something quite abnormal. She glanced at her mother and witnessed a similar spectacle.
Was he talking to them in the same way? she thought. She wanted to say something to break the spell. She wanted to speak, but her tongue felt taut.
"I - I will banish you. You no longer will be able to walk within the confines of your homeland. May Dumar's blessing be with you."
Virasha turned to her father, amazed. He had announced the sentence so swiftly and with such flatness that Virasha thought he had read it from a parchment.
A confused murmur arose from the elders, and Virasha considered that some had traveled a hundred miles or more to hear nothing more than an exile. Traditionally the council is called to witness the sentencing of a servant of the Emperor who will be executed. A banishment felt water-thin and purposeless. Perhaps her father was actually presenting his shade of the color yellow instead. This she did not understand.
Then it hit her again. His voice.
"Why do you sit there so plainly, my dear? You wear a stoic face, but I know that within those stiff walls you quake…"
His words repeated, vibrating into every corner of her conscious – "you quake… you quake…" She began to breathe once more, yet she did not feel Ni-bishi'as. She was empty of self-control.
"Virasha you know what is going on, don't you? Poor dear, so helpless to all you see."
What is he doing? she thought desperately. Her heart pumped, and she could not bear this scene for much longer. Squeezing her fists, she stood upright and yelled.
"Release my father, Nifaras!" Her teeth clenched and sweat drizzled down her forehead, the pain in her skull almost unbearable.
"Foolish child."
She watched as a smile crept across his face. Her parents looked onward, passive.
"Mother, Father, do you not hear him?" she said, now crying. By now, the elders were loudly conversing, but within a wink, they stood and began to leave the council chamber. The A-bisinians and Ni-bishicrats clucked spitefully at one another, arguing over provincial tithing and other trivialities. The guards untied Nifaras' bind then left him standing alone.
"Turn around!" Virasha yelled. "You must turn around!"
It was as if the sound had also left the chamber, a dead hum of silence filling the black and gold walls. Virasha stood next to her parents who were both transfixed by Nifaras. The Sobi'von stared at Uhmar and Dionysa, his brows straightened and his lips thinly shut. What he spoke to them in his strange, unearthly way, she did not know.
After a few moments, he released his hold. She remained standing, motionless, frightened to her very bones at the eeriness of this sight.
"Why are you doing this?" she finally spoke. "Please, please do not tell me that this is because you could not have me."
He turned to her, and his eyes penetrated hers.
"Think nothing of this at all, daughter of Dumar. You will be right in the morning. Return to your chambers, now, and sleep…"

"… sleep… sleep…"

[hfojvt]

1. a minor point or two

"dark one more time, to spend a final moment with her suffering conscious and the wind outside."

should be "conscience" I think

"execution of the man she had committed to death because of her weakness."

should that be 'committed' or 'condemned'?

"Virasha bared little reaction and looked straight ahead. "I had to stay longer for my lessons today," "

'bared' does not seem right there. Perhaps 'displayed' or 'gave'


On a plot note my first reaction is a lack of sympathy. I do not like the society, nor do I really like the heroine or the hero - an arrogant, studly military man, and a spoiled member of a royal family. Bleagh. Unless it is historical, I am not interested. What about imagining a better world? What about working class heroes?

Another point is that the following makes the character seem older than she turns out to be.

"Virasha pressed her upper lip into its lower half and gazed with glassy eyes into the black and gray and dusty blue. Her arms folded about her. She stood for many hours peering out the window during the dark months. Yet deceit crept into the cold air on this particular day, and she wished instead to leave the land and join the many stars above.
A trickle of wind nestled in her black hair and lovingly reassured her. She always felt akin to the wind,"

Do young people really have the patience to 'stand for many hours peering out the windows' and the line 'she always ...' makes her sound older and nostalgic.

I hope this helps. I suppose a bodice ripping romance might be a seller. In most of those I have read though, the heroine has more spunk, fiestiness, is unusually talented, or compassionate (such as to the old servant), and has overcome some hardships. If she was playing a mournful dirge on a harp or writing a poem, imo, she would be a more sympathetic character instead of passively staring out a window.

[Writer]

2. Thanks for all of this!

Virasha's role as the heroine of the story is up to question at the moment. I'm not sure how much farther her story line will (or should) progress, as there are many more layers to this tale than Virasha and Nifaras.

I'd like to know, however, where you got the impression that she is "spoiled?" I was hoping to portray her as a young woman raised (and trapped) within a callous, calculating society.

Oh... LOL you most certainly will NOT like the Ni-bishian society, especially as more mystery is revealed down the road.

I really appreciate all of your points above. Thank you for reading this!

[hfojvt]

3. spoiled by virtue of the fact that she has servants and is a future empress

A callous and calculating society, yes, but doubtless even more so for the peasants.

[Writer]

4. You're take is very very interesting...

why do you assume there are starving peasants?

[hfojvt]

7. I said nothing about starving

but in that type of feudal society you have emperors, nobility, warriors, merchants, servants, and peasants. Inevitably somebody has to work the fields and grow the food and shovel the excrement and otherwise do all of the real work while the Royals worry about their 'honor' and various games of local and regional intrigue.

[Orrex]

5. A first impression, with more to follow

Ni-bishicratza, the twentieth day of the month of Dex, in the year 217

Virasha Di'uhmar, the Sah'lara of Ni-bishia, fidgeted with her gem buckle, fastening tight the vestigus that hugged her thin frame. The long narrow weave of winding burlap warmed her bones and granted her a much needed sense of security.
Darkness lingered longer at this time of the year, so for these many days, Virasha's only source of natural light shone from the starred, moonless sky above.

I'm about to make a minor that can have a significant impact on the story that follows. Feel free to embrace or discard any suggestions I have to offer.

To be honest, a story that opens with a big unintelligible word is going to be off-putting to a lot of people. It's not too bad for the header that's just giving the time and place, but the first words of the first paragraph of the first page of the book are a phonetic nightmare! Since they have no context, there's no easy way to get one's brain around any of it except for "the" and "of." We don't know the meaning or pronunciation of Virasha, Di'uhmar, Sah'lara, or Ni-bishia, so we're immediately thrown for a loop. The reader doesn't know what's a name and what's a title and what's a place, and the net effect is that the reader just breezes right through those words without absorbing them. There's nothing wrong with having complicated, polysyllabic names in your work, but when you open the story with them, you put yourself at an immediate disadvantage. Give the reader a sentence or two to get grounded, and then you can tell us all about Virasha.

Here's a minor quibble: this passage seems a little long for a prologue and in some places is dangerously close to an infodump. Might you hold onto some of the detail and work it in elsewhere within the story proper?

And here's a really minor quibble: "lingered longer" comes across like a cutesy lyric and may be contrary to the overall tone that you want to convey.

I'll post further feedback when I have the chance and if you're interested.

[Writer]

6. That's very helpful.

I'm interested in all feedback you have to offer.

Very good points about the confusing words at the beginning. Unless the reader has my notes with him or her, that person will not be able to understand the meanings of those words. Also - I HATE that faux date I put at the beginning and will quickly remove it upon the rewrite. I wrote this three years ago and am "revisiting" it, sort of speak.

BTW: Do you think there's enough here for a full chapter?

[Orrex]

11. A few more thoughts

The action of this excerpt is definitely more like a chapter than a prologue. Generally speaking, I'd remove some of the reminiscences, which seem somewhat out of place and tend to stall the sequence of action. Is there any real need for your story to have a prologue at all? If this excerpt represented Page One, I think it would work at least as well as an prologue.

Throughout the text, there are a couple of things that strike me as somewhat odd. For example, you write that the shadows creep in the window, dancing like lonely star spirits. Well, I don't know what a star spirit is, but if I had to guess, I'd suppose that it's bright like a star; even if it isn't, the ambiguity causes your image to stumble here, since you're describing shadows in terms of things that (the reader thinks) are bright and twinkly, especially when starlight sparkles in the very next sentence! Also, you repeatedly mention the cold, but then the wind nestles in her hair and reassures her. I can't imagine that a cold breeze on one's nape would be reassuring on a chilly night! However, "trickle of wind" is a nice construction, and I'd hang onto it for use elsewhere.
Additionally, she notes the starlight in the bare tree branches, but my sense is that she's in a room on an upper floor; either these are very tall trees, or something weird is going on here!

The sequence in which the old woman enters and helps with the cloak is very nice. I'd balk at Virasha's tears drying so quickly, because it seems conspicuously contrived. Let her blot her eyes or wipe away the tears in some other way, if you feel the need to mention them at all. I mean, a wet tear on a cheek can linger for quite a while, especially in cold air. But when you say that "By now her tears had dried," you imply the passage of at least several minutes, which doesn't fit with the pace of the scene.

I'd caution also against veering too near to themes common in sci-fi. For instance, you write:

She thought about the time when she reached seven years of age and began to study about Dumar and the Ni-bishicrat way. One of the first lessons she learned was how to strengthen the mind to overcome even the most difficult circumstances. She wondered if she had the strength to face the execution of the man she had committed to death because of her weakness.

This is highly reminiscent of either Herbert's Bene Gesserit (especially given the made-up names you're using) or else Zimmer Bradley's Priestesses of Avalon; the notion of esoteric knowledge in the hands of secretive women comes dangerously close to cliche. Further, the lesson that Virasha recalls is pretty pedestrian--the old "steeling the mind against difficulty," which she could have learned from Spock, Yoda, Chun, Mr. Miyagi, or a bunch of others! If you intend to portray a mysterious school of knowledge, you'd better make sure that it really seems convincingly mysterious, and not something gleaned from a fortune cookie.

Consider a reexamination of your sentence structure in various places. For example:

She wondered if she had the strength to face the execution of the man she had committed to death because of her weakness.

might become

Did she have the strength to face the execution of a man condemned by her weakness?

I think that changes the immediacy of her introspection (but please don't feel obligated to use my phrasing). Incidentally, that's a great concept--seeking the strength to endure what one's weakness has wrought. I'd say that's a worthy theme for a story, to be sure!

In the next sentence, you mention that she's leaving the council chamber, but this is the first time we see it called that; until now, she's been in some anonymous room with a window. Since it seems to be relevant, why not mention it earlier? As it stands, it sounds as though she's leaving a room other than the one she's in already.

I'm concerned that the Emperor's speech seems to be primarily for the readers' benefit, so it doesn't seem as though he's really speaking to the assembled crowd. While his precise invocation of the date and tradition may be ceremonial, it reads somewhat like an infodump.

And as the doors opened, every muscle of her face fought against a whimper and a scream. She watched as two guards appeared ushering a man with a black hood covering his head. His hands were bound behind his back in leather cuffs and his baggy burlap clothes were dirtied with dungeon stink.

The first sentence is a bit heavy-handed and melodramatic; can you scale it back a bit? Also, is Virasha really close enough to catch all these details so quickly? We're seeing through her eyes, so it's conspicuous that she notes the material of his cuffs and the stink of his clothes. If she's imagining these, that's fine, but it otherwise reads as a little false. (This is very much a value judgment, and others may not mind or may like this kind of detail).

Virasha seems always to be on the verge of breaking down into a big emotional display. If she's any heir to a lineage of stoics, then it strikes me as odd that she'd be even more emotional than the average person. Is there a reason for this?

On a minor note, be careful about repitition of words and images. You have a punch-in-the-stomach followed closely by a churning stomach; in the opening paragraphs, several different things "crept." There's nothing wrong with reusing words and images, but you need to be very conscious of how you dispense them. If they seem too close together, then the flow of the text will tend to be disrupted.


I mentioned Herbert above, and I'll mention him again--there's no way to read this without feeling a very strong resonance with the settings and imagery of Dune. Watch this, or you'll seem derivative. Also, though you already commented on it, I'd say that you really need to rethink all of the artificial words you're using. They come too close together and force the reader either to mentally tune out the sentence/paragraph/scene or else the reader will simply get confused and thereby detached from the story.

A lot of the writing is pretty good, with effective imagery that reads easily enough. I think that you have a good start to work with so far!

[petgoat]

8. If you haven't finished the first draft, this is a good start.

You've done a lot to build a world and a character and some conflicts, so it's a good
start for plunging on to THE END.

By the time you've finished the draft, this opening may need some major remodeling, and
you may have other ideas for openings, so there's not much point in putting energy into
perfecting this now.

At 3200 words it's long enough for a chapter. 20 chapters this length would make a
64,000 word 250-page script.

[Writer]

9. All right. Thanks for that input.

I am definitely putting this into a rewrite, but my story forms organically with only a thumbnail outline. I have yet to finish a first draft.

:hi:

[LisaM]

10. I think you should try to cut out some of the passive voice

Here's an example:

"Yet deceit crept into the cold air". I would change this to something more active, more interesting, and shorter, such as "The air was cold with deceit".

Or, " She relaxed her countenance into an emotionless mask as was proper for a Ni-bishicrat ruler." You might change it to something along the lines of, "As was proper for a Ni-bishicrat ruler, her expression became an emotionless mask".

You have a very interesting and different world, so sometimes using plainer language makes that other world more real and immediate.

I would cut a few of the descriptive terms also. Anything that you've modified with two or more descriptve terms, see if you can cut one or more out.