(Please note that the following is my opinion, and as such, others may disagree with what I have to say)
Lo  .
Your writing has good flow and pacing - the actions run smoothly along, and your writing style flows easily, making the story a pleasant read.
I do find, however, that you have too much description in this.
First, let’s look at your opening:
It’s well written, gives a detailed explanation of Seth’s back story and describes the world that Seth knows. Unfortunately, this is the wrong place to put this.
A story - especially a novel - has to open in a way that makes the reader want to read on. Usually this is done with action of some sort - such as an interesting conversation taking place.
I don’t know if you want to have this published or not, but it’s an unfortunate truth that most editors will only read the first few opening paragraphs of a novel before rejecting it. If the novel doesn’t grip them from the word go, then they won’t bother with the rest of it.
If we look at your story again, we could cut out all the description (don’t worry, it can be added in again at later point in the chapter/novel), so instead it opens with:
“Bring in the tools, boy!”
“Aye, sir,” came Seth’s reply.
“Oi! Boy! Hurry the hell up! We ‘ave customers waiting, and you need to finish cleanin’!” shouted Clayton.
With a sigh, Seth picked up his saw and trudged through the sand dunes that dotted Clayton’s property, all the way back to the house.
“Put away th’ saw and grab yur mop,” ordered Seth’s master, before turning back to a shady figure in the front of the store. “Now sir, what you requested is…”
This isn’t perfect, as the story wasn’t written with this order in mind, so the pacing is off. If you wanted to move the story around like this, it’d need a bit of rewriting to make it fit better.
At a number of points throughout the story, you stop and describe to us something - be it the world, Seth’s back story, the location or a character. Although description is good - it helps the reader to see the story - too much of it can slow down the story. Your description is all well written, it isn’t always needed.
For example:
The bar was dimly lit, and it was packed. Huge barrels of ale stood behind a counter, and people lined the bar. A haze seemed to obscure Seth’s vision,
This doesn’t add much to the story, at least not in the way it’s currently positioned. We don’t spend a long time in the bar, so don’t really need to know much of this. Instead of placing it all together in a block like this, you could try separating bits of it. For example as Seth walks through the bar, mention he has a bit of trouble navigating, due to the poor lighting, or the haze, or whatever you feel is appropriate.
At the moment, the description breaks the flow of the action.
My final comment on description is to do with your descriptions of the characters. You also have a lot of this. Pretty much every single character that has a line of dialogue in this chapter gets a description. Personally, I’d say much of them didn’t need such a lengthy description, at least not all in one go.
Just a mention, for example, that Cass has lottsa muscles, rather than the full description you give him, would suffice at first. Other bits of information about how he looks could then be spaced out, to allow the action to flow better.
And now we’re off description, I only have one more suggestion to make:
Your main character’s parents are both mysteriously dead, and all he has to show for his past is a scar. This reminds me very much of a certain other young boy who, separated from his dead parents, also goes through a bad time with those he now lives with. Everyone - especially anyone with an interest in reading fantasy - will know the story of Harry Potter, and the similarities immediately sprung to mind. I can’t help but feel that this detracts from the story.
Anyways, that’s the end of my review .
Thanks for leaving a request at
-- Sureal
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. Punctuation is like a set of instructions for the reader - it tells them how to read what you have written. By throwing in some extra commas or dashes, you can tell them where you want them to pause and what exactly it is you’re saying.
