angelclaw

I really like it - the imagery, the irony, the bits of dark humor. I'm curious - is this from a creative writing exercise or did you come up with the concept yourself? This one made me laugh. I think every writer has thought that about their own work at least once

Ok, you have a decent writing style, but there are some things you need to avoid, like this sentence: The narrative itself should not ask these kinds of questions. Your imagery needs to be strong enough to evoke this question in the mind of the reader. Is it? This is what I think of as the Aragorn cliche. I'm sure you've read Fellowship of the Ring, so I don't need to spell it out for you, but unless you're going to take the good-guys-who-initially-seem-like-bad-guys thing a whole lot further than the stereotypical "black-robed figures" in an alley, you should just drop the pretense altogether. It's not fooling anyone because it doesn't go anywhere, and it's already been done TO DEATH. Another Tolkien cliche you really should avoid. Elven types in fantasy novels always get this kind of description - all the more reason to find a different way to say she looks young but she's really not, if you must say it at all. Rookie mistake. You shouldn't suddenly switch from the omniscient voice to an individual character's POV without at least a paragraph break. It's one of those little technical things that lets other writers know you're new at this. Sure, some really great writers can break those rules, but you're not there yet so don't do it. Here you've got two sentences where commas don't go. Take them out. The first sentence needs no comma. The second one, well, you really shouldn't have a comma if you want it to flow, but technically if you're going to put "however" in the middle of a sentence you need to have a comma before and after it. But it would sound better without them. This is another one of those expository moments that's just too much. Get rid of this whole sentence. I'm sure you've heard "show, don't tell" before, right? This is a perfect example of too much telling and too little showing. Let the rest of your story show what you mean; don't state the main theme like you're summarizing an essay. Fantasy is a vastly overcrowded genre and very few writers do it with any kind of originality or style. To me anyway you've got to do a lot more than this to stand out in that landscape, but I realize you're just getting started, and you probably haven't been exposed to as much of this kind of thing as a jaded old witch like me You're fairly proficient in your writing itself, but it needs a little more "zip" if you want the fantasy audience to take notice of your work amidst the vast sea of Tolkien imitators and Dragonlance wannabes. Check out a book by James Frey called "How to Write a Damn Good Novel" - it tells you how to give your narrative the kind of energy that will get readers hooked from page one. Also, try link removed. It's a site where you can post your writing for free (they have paid subscription levels, but if you stay below the minimum amount of "items" you post you never have to pay) and other writers will critique it. You'd probably get a lot more good advice if you posted this over there, and you'll be able to read what other aspiring fantasy writers are doing so it's easier to gauge how you stack up. It'll also give you a lot more examples of what NOT to do.

You have good concepts but you need a lot more imagery to keep it from sounding like prose broken into stanzas. Stuff like "the decline is burning crimson flames/love is the sweet cooling water" is good imagery - try to work in more of that type of thing instead of saying things so plainly.