Well, I promised, so...

[Daird]

Alright, so I opened my mouth on Luckymoose's writing thread and told you I'd post a prologue to my fantasy novel. Here you go. I'd appreciate any feedback you're willing to give, and don't be afraid to be brutal. I've never done anything this public, so I don't really know if I've got skill or not.

Spoiler :

"You're no match for me, Vittora! I can outfight and outspell you. Honestly, I don't even know why you bothered."

I stiffened, trying to determine where the taunt came from. A windstorm shook the leaves throughout the oak grove, making listening all the more difficult. It's a lot tougher to hide from sight than it is from sound, though, and I caught a flash of a white cape to my right. I grasped my longsword and prepared to take the inevitable charge.

She hit me like a hammer, there's no other way to describe it. I blocked the first slash, and stepped back to try to recover. My opponent raised her right hand, and cast a binding spell. It was sloppily done, and I was able to dispel it quite easily. She scowled, and it was back to slash-and-parry.

After several tense minutes, I thought I saw an opening. She had difficulty guarding her right shoulder, so I pressed that weakness. The third thrust, I would have sworn by the stars that it had found its mark, but she spun away from it. Overextended, there was nothing I could do as she lightly touched her blade to my throat.

"Dead. Or at least you would be, were this not a training ground. I believe you owe me three silver pieces."

Another defeat at the hands of Armelia Tarrescu. I sighed. She could fairly claim to have won a small fortune at my expense during our three years at Crystal Hall, were she not already heiress to an extraordinarily large fortune. Me, I was but the daughter of innkeepers. Still, I was but two months away from becoming a Sentinel, and there was nothing more I desired in all Tarentaria.

So, what do you think?

 

[warpus]

I didn't think outfight was a word! TIL

That sentence still read weird to me though. That and "outspell" makes it sound like they're at a spelling bee maybe

 

[Valka D'Ur]

I've seen "outfight" used in a novel by one of my favorite SF authors, F.M. Busby. As in a certain character thinks he has to "outdrink, outfight, out**** anyone..."

But yeah, "outspell" sounds like a spelling bee.

 

[Synobun]

The two "I was but" segments at the end so close to each other sort of pulls you out of the atmosphere while reading.

 

[Cutlass]

Not bad. A quibble though. While it is commonly used in fantasy writing to say 'gold piece, silver piece, copper', I find it had to believe that anyone in that setting would actually talk that way. Give your coin denominations names. It's sound a little less like Dungeons & Dragons. There's likely to be coins of various sizes and values of each metal in circulation. Plenty of names you can borrow from history. Dinar, marks, florins, quid, pounds.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

^Or abbreviate it to "three silvers." Presumably the in-universe characters would know what's meant.

That said, if you're going to introduce currency to your story, Cutlass is right. Make up names for the different kinds of coins. What are they made of? What do they look like (shape, size, color, do they have some kind of design or portrait engraved on them)? Are they heavy or light? What kind of sound do they make if you have more than one of them coming in contact with each other? These are details that can make the story "come alive" for the reader.

One of the best fantasy authors to include such details is C.J. Cherryh, in her novel Angel With the Sword (first book of her shared-universe series Merovingen Nights). There's a listing of the different types of coins in a glossary in the back of the book, detailing the types, their names (formal and slang) and some attempt to give an idea of what the coin's worth would be in our North American economy.