I like fantasy. I grew up on R.A. Salvatore, C.S. Lewis, Robert Jordan, etc., and I am currently a fan of George RR Martin’s work. So what I am saying is that I like this genre and your story with a little slice of time is interesting and appeals to me as a reader. However, this particular piece lacks authenticity or verisimilitude from my perspective. What would help a lot with this would be strong, active verbs in the present tense with metaphor and sensory elements. For example, in sentence two, the reader is meeting the assassin, Chan, for the first time. He is graceful, he is lithe, and he is quick. You tell us all this by explaining how he moves compared to a dancer. What if you show us how he moves instead?

The assassin whirls, a dancer pirouetting.

Doesn’t seem deadly enough? Make him pull his sword.

The assassin whirls, a dancer pirouetting, cold steel in hand and eye.

There are 101 and more ways to draw the same picture. None of them are incorrect if you stay true to what you see in your mind, but some, as with any form of art, will be better than others.

In the fourth sentence there is an action inconsistent with real life.

He let his hand fall from his belt, rest on a mossy wall.

Grammar aside, I have a picture of a waist belt because you don’t say otherwise. If I drop my hand below my waist, I would find it rather hard, if not impossible, to rest it on anything parallel to me—unless my arm is at shoulder height or above. I could, however, rest it on a table. In another,

the assassin bowed and laughed slowly.

Now I have a picture of our deadly assassin bent over and laughing and suddenly, he’s not so deadly anymore. I know you do not want to spell everything out, but you are in no danger of doing that here. Perhaps you could consider something like,

the assassin inclined his head and chuckled.

Or

the assassin bowed, straightened, and laughed, slow and deep.

Avoid adverbs too. They tell a reader what is or has happened instead of showing them.

I hope I was helpful and not annoying or too tough. If so, please let me know so I do not make that mistake again. I like when people are honest with their criticism of my work. I also understand that many people do not like it. I try to find that balance between honesty and tact. Sometimes I miss.

Ah! Could I sum up your points as follows?

Showing instead of telling, with emphasis on verbs with imagery, rather than verbs with adverbs.

Choosing the right thing to tell, for clarity.

Thanks for the balanced feedback, its fantastic stuff, I’ll work on your points!

I read more of short fiction and fiction (reading Catch-22 now) so my style has a stronger focus on depth of meaning (eg. embankment is ironic here, one last time etc.) sentence structure and dialogue for showing. Hopefully I’ll grow to improve on authentic descriptions as well!

Good summary (I am a bit long winded which is a fault I hope to work on here). I’m not sure I follow your reasoning behind embankment—do you mean embarkment?

Dan: it’s great to see this type of feedback, it even helps those of us that didnt write the story.

DI: this is totally my personal preference, and something I am working on with my writing, but sometime cutting the words down to a minimum helps the story flow better (which is the opposite of something I am working on in building up cumulative sentence structure); e.g.

Has two sets of two-word descriptors (old factory and crumbling foundation) that could be shortend to something like:

The walls of the decrepit factory shuddered as the doors burst open. which would give you more characters to use elsewhere.

Also, I agree with Dan that there are some real-life inconsistencies that pull the reader out of the flow; I had to re-read “hand fall from the knife and rest on the mossy wall” a few times before it registered as being odd.

A knife is held in one hand, so what happens to the knife when his hand drops to the wall? It floats in the air? Plus, I am not sure that the act of nonchalance is consisten with an assassin…I would think he would keep the tip of the knife pointed at the premier, which might actually ramp up the tension a bit because the assassin doesn’t trust anyone, even his boss.

Overall, nice job!

Improved the flow and clarity, as well as the description and imagery. Thanks for the great feedback!
Dan: I titled it embankment because it has dual meanings – the riots started when the floodwater breached the embankment, and now the Premier has no one left to turn to during the city’s collapse, he asks his childhood friend for help (now on the other side of the law), to protect him from the flood of rioters hunting him down. It might have been clearer if I’d wrote this as a sequel though!

Gotcha on the title. You could easily write a prequel to this. I like your changes. The assassin is more menacing now, a death dealer and not a card dealer (scars are nice touch!)

I agree with ipe in his first comment, but with an additional reason. What if the sound of the city burning burst the doors open? Would the imagery be stronger?

I hope you continue to tell this story. I would like to find out what has happen to lead up to this point as well as what will happen next. More, more, more…

Hey I’m used to being the one with the trademark essay-long comments! Now I have to read loads of them to make sure I’m not mentioning something already mentioned.

So, in reference to the above conversation I would say that, as great as all of the wise advice is, it’s important to maintain and develop your own style in the way that you want. You have a brilliant individual perspective and stamp on writing which would be so easy to lose through constant evolution of text.

Another wonderful piece…glad to see a sequel up for me to continue onto. I would suggest a second look at the last line as you repeat ‘time’ and it trips the tongue a little.

Great tone of mystery mainly induced by the lack of information. Personally, when I read ‘assassin’ I think of the past (possibly due to my obsession with Assassin’s creed =S) however, when you mention the factory I think of future or present. Very interesting.

Nice relationship between the characters. You establish quite a bond right from the very start.
I shall continue…
Abby x

Looks like you guys have picked it to pieces already. On a more subjective note, I struggled to follow exactly who was who but still enjoyed the style and tension in the scene.

Thanks for the comments! Will keep working on my style and atmosphere.