Topic ID: 30019
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alicat159
Junior Writer
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300 Points
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 Posted: Sat May 10, 2008 6:18 pm Post subject: Southern Sky - Part I |
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A high-pitched squeal sounded as the laces on Suzanna's corset were tighted by her maid, Olivia.
"Olivia! Do you have to pull so hard?!" She screeched.
"Sorry ma'am." the black haired girl made a face at her from behind the teen's back.
Suzanna smoothed her long blonde hair back into its proper position and stared into her own dark hazel eyes. Yet she hated being so pretty. All of the county's terrible men were always bothering her. The last thing she wanted to do was marry some disgusting man in his forties.
Making it worse, her parents were hosting some large party and had invited loads of 'nice men' with a lot of money. Worse yet, almost all of them owned plantations. So she would be removed from her family's plantation and moved into another, unfamiliar plantation. Oh how her life bothered her!
Over her lifetime, her Mother had taught her and her sisters how to spot a good husband. She had to find a man of the appropriate age (20 - 49), a lot of money, and a good crop. This was supposed to ensure a happy life for her, but she wasn't sure. She could get whatever she liked but she wouldn't have love and love was the only thing she had thought was important in a relashionship. That was until her Mother taught her otherwise. But, secretly she intended not to follow the 'crucial' rules established by the vain, high class society. |
Last edited by alicat159 on Mon Jun 23, 2008 10:42 pm; edited 7 times in total |
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scasha
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| Posted: Sat May 10, 2008 6:59 pm Post subject: Re: Southern Sky - Part I |
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| There was a tugging and a grunt as the laces of Suzanna’s corset were tightened. |
Specify who is tugging and who is grunting. And tugging usually isn't a sound so maybe say "x person tugged on the laces of Suzanne's corset, tightening it as the girl grunted in pain.
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| She was the most beautiful 16 year-old in her whole county. Her long blonde hair reached down her pasty white back and her deep hazel eyes sparkled with dignity and self-known importance. Her dainty hands were gentle and strong all at the same time. Her small feet always assured that she would never out grow her fashionable laced slippers. But her most recognizeable feature was her beauty. It seemed fragile, yet it never faded, no matter her mood. Her sqare jaw and pointed chin excetuated her high cheek-bones. |
Take out first sentence. Start describing her and then you get into her most recognizable feature.
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| Her 16 years ad taught her to have a sharp, ravenous eye for men of probable, marrying material, and today was her family’s party and she was ready to look for a man. |
-- run on sentence. split it up into seperate ideas.
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| This day was going to change her life, and she knew it. |
-- take this out. You want the readers to be thinking it's going to change her life, so don't tell them it will change it.
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| Suzanna elegantly made her way down the winding staircase of her ample house, tossing the loose hair out of her face. |
-- ample sounds awkward here.
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| She knew her blue silk dress with the low neck-line made her attractive, but she didn’t want to be at the party. |
-- I got the feeling that she wanted to go to the party. Be more clear about what she wants/doesn't want in the paragraphs before this.
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| Her parents had invited a twenty-eight year old man to the party and ordered her to be ‘nice and lady-like.’ Yeah right! She had no interest in this import, straight from Paris. |
-- i thought she lived for the attention of men. Try to make sure this behavior fits with the character you described in the beginning
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| He owned the biggest art galarries in old Paris and had so much money that he could have bought the entire South. But to her, he sounded just like another foreign stiff. |
-- you said before she had to make sure he was rich. Sounds like he's perfect but i don't understand why she thinks he isn't. Is it just because he's foreign. Specify that in her opening paragraph. Is she looking for a southern man?
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| After an hour, Suzanna got bored with the music, the decorations, the loud men, and the food. Who wanted ice cream anyways? Surely not her. She sighed as she sat on a stone bench under one of the large oaks that lined the backyard of her mansion. Not only had the French man showed up, but he was just dredful! He approached her with his incredibly large nose in the air but when she held her hand out for him to kiss, he swatted it away and demanded to know where the drinks were. Just what would be expected of a French man in 1875! |
-- too much telling. I want to actually have seen this scene unfold. I'm not really into you saying what happened. Show me what happened. Showing makes the piece more dynamic and interesting. 
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| Just then, an idea dawned on her. She didn’t have to there. So she quielty slipped into the woods behind her house. She found an old riding path and followed it for a while, looking behind her every so often to make sure no one had followed her. After a while she came upon a pool made by a small trickling waterfall. It wasn’t more than 7 feet deep and she had learned to swim from the many times she had been pushed into this same pool when walking with her sisters. She knew where every stone was in this body of water. She hung her shawl on a branch to hide her while she slipped off her dress and dove into the cold water. Her body quickly got accustomed to the temperature. She popped her head above the surface of the water and pulled out her hair clips and tossed them beside her white laced slippers. |
-- wow...this sounds so completely different than the person i pictured in the beginning. You have to show more why she makes this decision. Maybe she's so digusted by the men and mad that her evening didn't turn out the way she wanted that she runs off, gets lost and comes onto a pool. It's hot so she gets in. Try to make it so it's not so abrupt.
I loved this! I really did! I'm extremley into the whol victorian story, needs to get married to a rich man type of plot! It was very well-written plot wise. I loved the ending, it makes me want to read more! Just a few suggestions.
1) Decide on who exactly your character is. She seems to change so much from the beginning to the end that it's hard to entirley grasp. Make her spunky and tomboyish from the beginning if she's that type. She may be pretty but maybe you should have her resisting her parents when they tell her to go to the party, snapping at her maid, refusing to be ladylike towards the gentlemen.
2) Show more detail. Show what happens at the party so we can have sympathy for your main character, maybe she's awkward, or outrightly rude to some of the men. Show what she says and does that leads her to go to the pool. Maybe she doesn't feel good and runs off or something or maybe someone offends her so much she runs away.
Other than that, keep at it! Well done! I look forward to reading more. Feel free to PM me when you put up the next installment  |
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Jesse
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| Posted: Sat May 10, 2008 10:18 pm Post subject: |
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I realize that this is only the first draft and it sounds like you have a ton of passion for writing this. With that being said id like to point out a couple flaws. The character seems to shift every once in awhile. For instance in the beginning she seems prissy but not to extremely high on herself (in my opinion) but near the end of the chapter she just jumps right into the pond. Also in the beginning She is looking forward to the party so much but after a a couple seconds she hates it. In my opinion it would be better if you told how she gradually came to have an awful time at the party i think that was to short.
Also in the 7th paragraph (counting the one sentence paragraph) you have a line that say "She didn’t have to there". Just put the "be" in.
I Really liked reading this thought im looking forward to the next parts. Keep it up |
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lyrical_sunshine
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| Posted: Sat May 10, 2008 10:29 pm Post subject: |
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| so yeah...scasha critiqued everything I was going to, so I guess I second what she said lol. Looking forward to more. |
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alicat159
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| Posted: Sun May 11, 2008 12:09 am Post subject: |
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| Thanks, I hadn't noticed that. I just added more to it today, so thanks for reviewing it. I'll fix those right now. |
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casstic
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| Posted: Sun May 11, 2008 4:01 am Post subject: Re: Southern Sky - Part I |
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| Suzanna smoothed her long blonde hair back into its proper position and stared into her own dark hazel eyes. But yet she hated being so pretty. All of the county's terrible men were always bothering her. The last thing she wanted to do was marry some disgusting man in his fourties. |
Nitpicking first: "Fourties" should be forties, and "but yet" is redundant.
It's obvious that you are so far building Suzanna as a strong character, but none of the pieces of her personality are fitting together - that is probably due most to the short length of the piece.
There are a few places where things like sentence structure and punctuation could be improved so that it is less awkward to read (example: "All of the country's terrible men were always bothering her" is kind of a brainful: 'all' and 'always;' and 'terrible' and 'bothering' make the sentence a little too clogged), but for the most part it flows neatly. |
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alicat159
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| Posted: Mon May 12, 2008 1:15 am Post subject: Re: Southern Sky - Part I |
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Ummm... thanks for the review but this story isn't complete and it's my first one.
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| It's obvious that you are so far building Suzanna as a strong character, but none of the pieces of her personality are fitting together - that is probably due most to the short length of the piece. |
This piece is short because it's not complete. So, i really don't want anyone to reveiw it until it IS complete. Thanks anyways, but I want it to be reviewed when it's ready to be reviewed.
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lhighton
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| Posted: Fri May 16, 2008 5:41 pm Post subject: |
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Hi, alicat159!
So, I like what I'm reading, which is always good. It seems that this is reasonably strong foundations for a good story. There's definitely a good character in there, ready to be unveiled. The great thing is that there's a spark to your prose - it's so easy, in time, for your voice to become reserved and rusty. Conclusively, keep that spirited tone!
My only reservation is that you jumped straight in there. But then again, not everyone wants to be held back by prolonged description.
Lauren |
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