Crosstimbers Review Forum

Item Reviewed: "The Pharaoh of Ayubia "   by Tiberius
Reviewer: Max Griffin 🏳️‍🌈

                                                             
As always, these are just one person's opinions. Always remember Only you know what is best for your story. I've read and commented on your work as I would try to read my own. I hope you find something here useful , and that you will discard the rest with good cheer.

                                                             
What I liked best
I enjoyed this tale, written in the style of Poe or Melville. It has a satisfying twist at the ending, and a tone fitting for plot.

                                                             
Opening
Openings are critical in any work of fiction. Some editors and agents will decide whether or not to read your submission based only on your first sentence.

Your opening is your best opportunity to draw readers into your fictional world, to induce a dream-like state in which your words guide their imaginations. The readers become the author's active partners in imagining the fictional world, in a state of suspended disbelief. In crafting the opening of any story, it's the author's primary task to launch this fictional dream.

Your opening does a fine job of setting the scene. You put us in the head of the narrator fairly quickly with the squawking seagulls and other sensations at the port. It's a bit heavy on background, but doesn't quite slip into the info-dump area. So, overall, good job here--but see below on characters.

                                                             
Plot
Nice plot. I won't give it away.

                                                             
Style and Voice
First person, in Qaza's head. No slips. It has a nice, archaic feel appropriate to the story.

                                                             
Scene/Setting
Good job throughout incorporating Qaza's sensations into the scene.

                                                             
Characters
By the end of the story, we understand thoroughly who Qaza Matli is. Indeed, that's a big part of the twist that makes the story enjoyable.

But...

Qaza is a pretty opaque character, even though the entire story is in his point of view. By the end, we realize he's had a goal all along, but the only hint of a goal earlier is "survival," and that's pretty nebulous. Every character, but especially the protagonist, needs a goal. The goal has to matter--those are the stakes. Finally, there needs to be obstacles to achieving the goal. You've got all three of those, but I think the story would be stronger if we felt those elements from the very start.

Qaza's goal, for example, is tied up to his childhood and those who slighted him. It's also tied to his father and (maybe?) those who betrayed him. It would be simple enough to tweak this to bring out revenge as a goal early on, or at least justice. You might even mention a long-lost brother who was among those who rejected him as a child (as in, "even my own brother forsake me.") His very isolation and powerlessness are obstacles. This all turns with the arrival of Pharoah in the story, something that readers realize by the ending but which you foreshadow nicely by showing the Pharoah's mortal nature (he gets seasick).

So, I'd suggest considering a tweak that gives Qaza a clearer set of goals, stakes, and obstacles that foreshadow but don't give away the twist, which I liked quite a lot.

                                                             
Grammar

Repeated words.
Reusing words or phrases in close proximity runs the risk of making your prose seem monotone. I've highlighted one or two places where you've got repeated words.

Adverbs. You don't overuse adverbs, but they show up enough to be worth a comment. You know what Stephen King says about adverbs . I think he is correct. Adverbs are often a shorthand in which the author falls into "telling" rather than "showing." I try to use zero adverbs, since otherwise I'd sprinkle them all over the place like fairy dust. I've marked one or more places in the line-by-line comments below where I think you might consider a more precise verb or a touch more description rather than an adverb.

                                                             
Just my personal opinion
One way to think of telling a story is that it is a guided dream in which the author leads the readers through the events. In doing this, the author needs to engage the readers as active participants in the story, so that they become the author's partner in imagining the story. Elements of craft that engage the readers and immerse them in the story enhance this fictive dream. On the other hand, authors should avoid things that interrupt the dream and pull readers out of the story.

I enjoyed this story quite a lot. The characters, setting, plot, and literary style come together nicely to produce a satisfying tale with a twist ending. Thank you for sharing and do keep on writing!!!

                                                             
Line-by-line remarks
Your text is in BLUE.
My comments are in GREEN.
If I suggest a re-wording, it's in GRAPE.
                                                             
Amenhotep bowed once more, holding tightly to his staff. That staff was a murky labyrinth of darknessMy Comment: “Staff” repeats...see above.

Amenhotep and the Pharaoh quickly boarded the ship and sat. My Comment: Note the adverb. You might consider a more precise verb, or a more precise description. Their bottoms aching,

I could see the sweat glistening from their robes.My Comment: We have a first person narrator, so arguably everything he reports, like the glistening sweat, is something he has seen. Thus, phrases like “I coujld see” not only are redundant, they are a subtle form of telling. If you want to emphasize he “could see” it, have him react in some manner—which you do a bit later when you say it’s surreal.

A very nasty voice broke my thoughts.My Comment: Mark Twain once said that every time he was tempted to use the word “very,” he’d use a cuss word instead. He knew his editor would delete the profanity and then, he said, his text would look the way it should have in the first place. His point, of course, was to not use the word “very,” which is more or less empty of content and is just a speed bump in your prose.

We passed broken gigantic statures of the gods. My Comment: Typo? Did you mean statues?



                                                             

I only review things I like, and I really liked this story. I'm a professor by day, and find awarding grades the least satisfying part of my job. Since I'm reviewing in part for my own edification, I decided long ago to give a rating of "4" to everything I review, thus avoiding the necessity of "grading" things on WDC. So please don't assign any weight to my "grade" -- but know that I selected this story for review because I liked it and thought I could learn from studying it.

Again, these are just one person's opinions. Only you know what is best for your story! The surest path to success is to keep writing and to be true to your muse!

Max Griffin
Please visit my website and blog at
https://new.MaxGriffin.net

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