Chapter 1, thoughts.

So yesterday I wrote out the first chapter of story whose purpose is to be an exploration of the Epic Fantasy Battle, and using that battlefield as the setting for the story. We touched upon The Heroes by Joe Abercrombie as being an example of a story that had used such a setting before, and yesterday was a very raw attempt at bringing out some of those ideas for a story. I wrote the brief chapter with a pacing in mind that allowed very little detailing of scenes. It was an intentional hurrying of the telling, both trying to drag the reading into the story and also raise a feeling of angst for the battle that was being fought around them. While intentional, I felt it could have been done better. I've read that a lack of detail isn't a negative as it allows the reader's mind to fill in the missing details more easily with their own imagination, but except for a few small details and guesses the reader knows almost nothing of the scene that our character, Kanis, is walking through. What do we know?

Well we know we're reading about a male named Kanis, we know that he's with an army and marching towards another army. We'll read about a hill, and some semblance of magic, but that's pretty much it for the setting outside of a battle. His opponents? Well they're both male and female, and Kanis seems to be able to tell them apart whilst killing them. What of Kanis himself? Well later in the chapter we find that he's a Minotaur, so one might extend that realization to the rest of the army around him. He also appears to be a skilled warrior, at least he views himself as being more experienced as those around him and he's capable enough to win a fight against someone he's named an Immortal.

That's almost it, we do learn two additional characters names, a Talbert, and a Kalruz. Talbert was an ally, who Kanis refers to as a greenskin, perhaps an orc, and cares enough to save the lads life whilst in the thick of battle. While Kalruz is Kanis' brother, who he'd already gone through the killing of once before. There doesn't seem to be a great deal of animosity between the two of them, despite them trying to kill each other, again. Outside of this details are sparse and we might want to flip into the next chapter to figure out what's happening/happened, or put the book down for being utterly lost and nonsensical.

The Fantasy in the Epic Battle, the apparent use of Magic, both fire and lightning being thrown at opposing armies, mention of Dawnbreakers and Skycallers. The PoV being a Minotaur, and goring an opponent tends to lend itself to Fantasy. Kalruz's weapon being able to change itself, extending into a spear then shrinking back down to a short sword, before changing all together into a mace. The disintegration into light of Kalruz after being defeated by Kanis. Perhaps they'll be expanded upon or explained, for example why was Kanis able to disintegrate someone he referred to as an Immortal?

Any thoughts or questions after reading Chapter 1 or this afterwards?