Confusing details can pile up quickly (page critique)

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Now then. Time for the Page Critique. First I’ll present the page without comment, then I’ll offer my thoughts and a redline. If you choose to offer your own thoughts, please be polite. We aim to be positive and helpful.

Random numbers were generated, and thanks to Axolotl, whose page is below.

Title: Discover
Genre: YA Fantasy

Astral was one tail-flick past the boundary, one metre beyond safety. By now most Mers would have drifted into the rooms they were meant to be in, and only rushing servants and nobles too proud to bolt would remain in the Castle’s sprawling corridors. He listened for the sounds of guards: the scrape of weapons against fish-hide and metal, a bored laugh, the swoosh of their assured tail sweeps. It was either sound that could alert him or the invisible, silent messages Mers created when they swam and moved the water. More accurate, but it did not allow him to ‘see’ as far as sound permitted.

Haughty muttering sounded out two passageways behind him, accompanied with aggressive sweeps of a membrane-ridged tail. They must be a Royal; only they could manage to curse through their gills and still retain that precise air of superiority. What are you doing out so late? He swam to one side and pressed himself against the chilled marble surface of the Castle’s halls, shivering when the cold bit into his skin. Even with a layered jacket and floors heated by magma tunnels, the chill of winter still numbed him.

Astral placed one of his two sensors, a long and skinny strand of muscle ending in a leaf-like shape that grew from the side of his tail, on the corner so it could sense the nearly imperceptible movements of the water made by the approaching Mer.

It’s so crucial to remember that when you’re starting off writing Chapter 1 of your novel, you’ve been thinking about the world of your novel for months, if not years, if not decades.

You know the ins and outs. You know what you mean when you read your opening. You can visualize the world of the novel in your head.

Your reader cannot. They only know what you actually put on the page.

It’s a massively crucial skill to be able to put yourself in the shoes of a reader who doesn’t know the first thing about the world of your novel. Are you giving them enough information to make sense of the world you’re creating?

It’s okay to write an otherwise clear opening but leave out a detail or two in the name of creating mystery. But when everything is mysterious and left unexplained, it becomes difficult to make sense of what’s happening entirely. It’s just plain confusing.

In this case, the questions just piled up like a swiftly derailing train in the first paragraph alone: A tail-flick past what? What boundary are we talking about here? Safety from what? What is a Mer? Who is “he?” What “either sound” is he referring to, there were three sounds mentioned? Alert him to what? What did not allow him to see?

It’s a crucial skill to open the novel in a way that eases the reader into the novel and allows them to get their bearings. Give a reader on Earth in 2022 enough context to understand what’s happening. Choose your mysteries judiciously.

Here’s my redline:

Title: Discover
Genre: YA Fantasy

Astral was one tail-flick past the boundary to [whatever boundary is being referred to], one metre beyond safety from [whatever he’s safe from]. By now most Mers, [explain what a Mer is], would have drifted into the rooms they were meant to be in [be more specific. Why do they need to be in a particular room?], and only rushing servants and nobles too proud to bolt [bolt from what?] would remain in the Castle’s sprawling corridors.

¶He Astral listened for the sounds of guards [If he’s listening, it goes without saying that he’s listening to the sounds of whatever you say he’s listening for]: the scrape of weapons against fish-hide and metal, a bored laugh, the swoosh of their assured tail sweeps. It was either sound [I don’t understand what this is referring to] that could alert him [Alert him to what?] or the invisible, silent messages Mers created when they swam and moved the water [How does one swim without moving water?]. More accurate, but it did not allow him to ‘see’ as far as sound permitted. [I don’t understand what this is referring to]

He heard Haughty muttersing sounded out two passageways behind him [Struggling to visualize where we are. Weave in clearer physical description], accompanied with by the aggressive sweeps of a membrane-ridged tail. They must be a Royal [explain what a Royal is]; only they could manage to curse through their gills and still retain that precise air of superiority.

¶What are you doing out so late? [This question feels like a non-sequitur] He swam to one side [one side of what?] and pressed himself against the chilled marble surface [If he’s pressing himself against something it goes without saying it’s a “surface”] of the Castle’s halls, shivering when the cold bit into his skin. Even with a layered jacket and floors heated by magma tunnels, the chill of winter still numbed him.

Astral placed one of his two sensors, a took the long and skinny strand of muscle ending in a leaf-like shape that grew from the side of his tail and ended in a leaf-like shape, and placed it on the corner [on the corner of what?] so it could to sense the nearly imperceptible movements of the water made by the approaching Mer. [Extremely convoluted. Read the original version out loud]

Thanks again to Axolotl!

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Art: Paris, showing Tour St. Jacques and Notre Dame. Evening. – Anton Melbye