Okay, got a chance to read Chapter 6. There's a lot more first-person narration than the previous ones, but in a way you still seem stuck in a third-person point of view. Like, take this line for example, Nyte refers to himself and Keiy in the third person:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Nyte
A guard rushed over to the pair, looking slightly distraught.
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A larger problem, though, is that it doesn't really sound like a first person view. The omnipotence of being able to narrate to distant events is only a part of that; what hurts it the most is that Nyte never brings up his own thoughts or views. Everything he talks about, he speaks as though it doesn't pertain to him: "We rode across the sands, through dust storms, blazing sun, and searing heat", "we walked our horses past many merchants", "We sat thinking for a while". Nowhere does he reflect on how these things affect
him, personally. How does blazing heat feel when you're wearing black armor? Did the merchants have anything good? What was his thought process that led to him realizing the graveyard would be the attack point?
There's a principle that comes up in writing a lot called "show, don't tell", and it applies double to first-person narration. Rather than saying it was hot, tell how the heat felt; instead of saying there were many merchants, describe a few; in the place of "we sat thinking", show what's going through Nyte's head, and through what visual cues he is able to tell that his cohorts are thinking as well. Vivid description is what really pulls a reader into the story, making them feel as though they're in the world you describe.
On a lighter note, you misspelled "quiet" again.
I'm not sure I like the necromancer's exclamation of "Time for the dead to start walking!" I admit I'm basing this off common stereotypes, it just doesn't sound... necromancer
esque. Necromancers are usually eccentric people that fill their diction with flourish. Simple sentence structures are more "cowboy" than "necromancer". While a necromancer-cowboy would be incredibly original, I can't really see a cowboy using "wish" like your necro does.
Instead of "Time for the dead to start walking!", consider "The hour has come for the flesh of the departed to rise to my bidding!"
With some practice, you can necromanticize any phrase.
"Please enter through the left door" becomes "You would be wise to limit your entrance to southernmost gateway."
"Go refill my soda for me" becomes "I, as acolyte to my thirst - unquenchable as it may seem - implore that you, now that through my twisted hand no longer flows the strength to do so myself, shall raise my chalice in my stead and into it pour the effervescent nectar from yonder dispenser."
Moving right along, the part where you describe the skeletons seems to more or less say the same thing twice. Namely, the mention of some being skeletons:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Nyte
More hands, some skeletal, others more fresh, started pushing out from the ground. They then pulled out the rest of their bodies. Long dead people were rising up from the ground, and some were even skeletons.
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Also, I had to re-read the "long dead people" part to understand it, as I didn't catch at first that "long dead" was one adjective. I got the mental image of something more like "longzombie is looooooooong". Might want to reword that sentence to make it clearer.
Twilyte... I don't like her much. Partly because she's the third protagonist to have a Y in their name (though first to lack it in her chromosomes), and partly because I have no reason TO like her. In fact, I hardly know anything about her other than her gender and her job. The remedy to this is fairly simple: have Nyte think more. When he first sees Twilyte, he has to notice more than her gender and age. If she's a captain, she has armor and weapons, right? And if one of those weapons is enchanted, it probably looks elaborate or special (foreshadowing that would be good, since her magic sword seemed almost
deus ex machina during the undead fight). And if she almost kills Keiy in a hug, she is probably pretty built, right? She sounds anything but ordinary, yet her description is limited to "a young woman".
Speaking of killing, you didn't kill off the king very well. For one, he only lived for all of two and a half pages. While he
presumably existed years before those unfortunate two-and-a-half, there is no mention of this. After seeing his son for the first time in a while, his reaction is "Ah! My son!", and then he proceeds to show an equal amount of interest to Twilyte, who is at the castle every day. After he gets impaled, Nyte's first reaction is to ignore the king and have a short conversation with his murderer. Overall, the king doesn't seem to matter much.
I'm not saying every death should be an Aeris, of course; it'd be downright out of place if Nyte picked up the king's body and said "The unnamed king is gone... the unnamed king will never laugh, cry, or get angry...". It'd be nice if you'd at least develop him a
little though, before kabobbing him, and have the characters have
some reaction. Remember, this is first person: Nyte's reaction doesn't have to be anything visible. He doesn't even have to be sad, but he should at least acknowledge the ramifications of the king's death.
Furthermore, the king's murder is the first action of what I presume is your primary antagonist (I think; I forget if he appeared in the village attack). When I said "not every death should be an Aeris", I meant they shouldn't all be soppy sad turning points. The Aeris death in Final Fantasy did something else very important, though: made the players hate Sephiroth. Bad guys have to do bad things that make readers dislike them, otherwise they won't care if the protagonists win or not. Killing off nameless minor characters is okay, but only if it's the icing on an evil cake. If killing the king is supposed to be enough to make Dalganoth a villain, it's not successful.
And lastly, two very little things I noticed:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dalganoth
Your time is soon Nyte.
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Without a comma before Nyte, it sounds like he's trying to make a pun with Nyte's name. If it's intended to be a pun, it's not a very good one.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Nyte
Keiy bled from a gash on his arm, caused by a blade that he barely dodged.
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Then he didn't dodge it.
So, yeah, the main things that you need to pay attention to are developing your characters in a way that makes the reader care about them and describing environments from a first-person perspective. The solution to both is to focus on people more, especially Nyte: his thoughts, feelings, ideas, and so on.