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Tell me what you think of my first chapter, please?

So I put this question up last night, but I got a violation since the link went to a blog site. Anyway, I'm persistent about this, so if you would be so kind, I would love to hear your thoughts on my first chapter. Please check my Yahoo! Answers profile page. There, you will find a link to my blog for my fantasy novel. On top of the right hand panel of my blog, you will find a chapter list, please choose "Chapter 1 - Trouble in the Wind." Please be brutally honest! It is the only way I will improve as a writer! I would appreciate it if you went into as much detail as possible with your thoughts on my chapter. Feel free to check out any other chapters I've posted. Thanks in advance.

Public Comments

1. Okay, I found it interesting, and it left me wondering what would happen next. I'm no editor, but... I think you've done a good job.
2. If Alessia is supposed to be a strong female protagonist, then the way she acts is totally out of character. With the first two chapters, I have trouble telling whether this is a romance or a fantasy book. Unless Leo has amazing powers, he shouldn't be able to beat the thugs so easily. He could do it, yes, but not without even being touched. Also, some of your grammar isn't too good. Besides that, it seems to be a great story, and I hope it gets published.
3. I think your storytelling is strong and the writing is pretty good. I especially like your dialog. In the narration, you need to be careful of over writing, telling something and then showing it. There are some word choices I would question. I think you need to remember that adverbs are not your friends. Every time you have an word ending in "ly" you should look at it with suspicion and decide if it's necessary or not needed or if that sentence could be recast so that you didn't use it. An example (but there are a lot of others) of where I think it should be changed is: "A trickle of sweat rolled ticklishly down the side of Alessia’s face." Stronger would be something like, "A drop of sweat tickled down ..." Sometimes you can just dump them, sometimes, as in that example, change them to verbs, and, on rare occasions, you do need them. I also thought that you had three chapters there. I would make the scene change from the inn to the tea shop a chapter break. I'm writing this without the chapter in front of me but I could see that you were trying to eliminate as many attributions as possible (she said, he said). That's good, when you go back to edit, look at the ones you left in and see if there's a better way. As with the "ly" words, they are sometimes needed but more often,not. I think you have definite potential as a writer for two reasons. One is the story as written draws me into it. I already care about the characters. The other reason is your interest in critique. No one ever has learned all they needed to know about this craft so your search for learning is a great sign. If you haven't done it yet I would urge you to get and read The Writer's Journey by Christopher Vogler. It's the best to help with story arc and character creation. The other thing is to try to find a group of people like yourself to meet with in real time. On line critique is always suspect. (Mine of course is always good, --joking, of course,) I'm sure you're not in my area but I will post the link to the writer's workshop I belong to and maybe you can take some ideas from that. I don't know if you are able but we do a weekend writer's conference annually (next in April) but I'll link that, too. A friend of mine says, "Success in writing requires talent, luck, and determination and if you have enough of the latter, you only need one of the former." I say, "The inspiration is in the rough draft but the ART is in the revision." Good luck, keep writing and if you have any questions you are welcome to email me from my profile.