Kertington Castle

It is split into nine distinct "chapters" - this is the first.

Kertington Castle

Contents:
1: Death after Ten –

The bed in the brightening room stirred as plump old Anna awoke as the sunshine shone through the tatty curtains. Years of hard work had made her disciplined. She quickly rose from her bed and proceeded to prepare herself for the day ahead. Dashing about the bleak and pokey room, she pulled her working clothes out of the wardrobe. These consisted of a bleak grey dress, a white and tatty apron, and a black under shirt. She then stood adjacent to her window, where she could barely see her reflection, and carefully adjusted her hair. She was now ready to wake up the Master.
The Master demanded that he should be woken up each day before ten o’clock without fail. Old Anna made haste as she did everyday to the east wing of the castle.
The corridors echoed with the clattering of her buffed shoes as she hurried along, glancing at the landmark of the grandfather clock as she went, reassuring herself of her perfect timekeeping.
She continued through the castle as the corridors became more lavish with wonderful tapestries which hung gracefully from the walls, depicting gallant knights, and luxurious rugs made with skill and unparalleled intricacy; to seem as if one were seeing exotic and far-away palaces.
Finally, Old Anna reached the end of the corridor and stood in front of the engraved and elaborate doorway to the Master’s bedroom. She knocked rapidly. No answer. The Master was a heavy sleeper and had insisted he was to be risen from his deep. Anna rapped her knuckles on the door again, contemplating the plan for the rest of her day. There was no sound from inside. She decided to go to his besides and wake him up, for he would be annoyed if he was woken up late. Opening the door quietly, she quickly observed the room.
All along the walls were marvellous tapestries, pictures and trophies which the Master insisted on collecting. Bright and impractical urns gleamed from atop their shelves around the room, and the heads and remains of many once-fearsome beasts stared down through their bleak, remorseful eyes. Hand crafted chests and armouries formed aisles up and down the huge room, containing the rich clothes of the Master, the dusty relics of ancestors and trinkets which had caught his gluttonous eye. Central to the cavernous room was a huge four-poster bed, gilded and beautiful, with its contents of billowing and luxurious bed clothes and furs, and the mound which was the Master at its centre.
Navigating her way, Anna reached the side of the Master’s bed. He was completely covered with bed sheets.
“Master! Master!”, She tittered with her obnoxious, nasally voice.
“Wake-up call, sir!”, She touched the mound, and pressed it.
“Is that you….Deirdre?” the old man questioned.
“Its Anna Thomas, Sir – the morning is nigh and your breakfast is to be prepared”, she replied as the mound reverberated.
“Water. I need water, Deirdre. Ask the servant to fetch water”. The mound moved and turned. His face became revealed, and immediately she noticed those eyes, those bloody-shot red and drooping eyes. Amid a sea of deep burrows, an expression revealed itself; confusion and anxiety.
“Sir, right away sir!”
The old man covered his face with his bony hand and the mound rocked as he coughed. “Quickly Deirdre, I fear I have caught an awful chill during the bleak night”. The grave mouth bobbed lethargically.
Anna quickly turned away and hurried out of the room. Before even she knew it she had clottered down several corridors and flights of stairs, and had reached the kitchen. She retrieved a bucket and a goblet and proceeded to take her haulage back to the East Wing. Heaving the bucket of water and goblet, she barged the door with her hip and walked into the room. Lord Kertington had risen and was standing before his bed in his now bedraggled robe, which hung from his withered bones.
“Water! I need Water!” he blared weakly as he slowly edged towards her, the goblet of water offered up to him.
Greedily he snatched the goblet and pulled in onto his face, gulping heavily. He quickly finished it.
“More,” he gasped and she filled the goblet and gave it back to him.
“More!” he repeated as he forced the goblet into Anna’s hands, ignoring the worried expression on her face.
“MORE!” he bellowed with his raspy breath as he lunged at the bucket, and with an unnatural exertion, lifted it up to his face, emptying it onto himself and into his gawping mouth. “Arrgghhh!” he cried as he threw the empty wooden bucket in the way of Anna, gripping his hair and walking back towards his bed, turning his face away from her.
“Kertington! You are unwell! Make haste to bed and I shall call the physician my poor dear!”, Anna cried as she heard a retching sound, as the floor surrounding the Master become a pool of thick, red blood. He turned around to face her, his eyes maddened, his crevasses blaring for all of their glory. “Why?” he screamed as he jumped at Anna, and groped her clothes as she cried out in alarm. He leaned over her and came up to her face, his gaunt face against her podgy cheeks, bloody dripping onto her apron and smothering her eyes. “Why do you do this to me!? DEIRDRE!” he cried. As he bellowed forth torrents of blood, her dull clothes became a dark, vile mess and as she screamed continuously in horror. With incomprehendable force he threw her towards the doorway, and with a bang her skull knocked against the door. As she went numb she felt a cold liquid running along the back of her head and neck. She peered up to take one last look at her assaulter, and viewed a horrible skeletal figure, drenched in blood, finally viewing his writhing, terrible eyes as she toppled into oblivion.
****
“Stomach split open? What implement was used for this vile crime?”
“One of your father’s trophies”.
“Ironic that something he deemed so precious was used as an implement in his demise”.
“You should show more remorse, your Father was a good man, in his youth”
“Do not speak of that which you know nothing of. He shall be burnt”.

Wow! Long post! Before I go into the critique, here's a quote:

Suzanne wrote:...the most you should post at one time is something around the length of 1,500 words, which is about two pages Times New Roman 12pt, though using a word counter to make sure is best.

That there is from the "Before you post..." topic at the very top of this forum. Might want to flip through it real quick, even if you only glance. Suz, the member who I quoted ^^ also provides a link to a word counter if you processor doesn't have one, as well as a few other goodies, so go check it out!

One more idea, and then I'll go on to the rest of the story. You gave some story info, which is fine, but you don't really need to put that. We'll find out what the story is about soon enough, and if you have a good hook at the beginning, you won't need to give that juicy tidbit there at the beginning to catch our attention.

As for your table of contents, it's a really neat idea, but it could be improved, and in a way to suit the shorter-post suggestion. You can look Here to see what WD did with her story. See how she has all the chapters there, and they each link to the chapter they're meant to go to? This way you can post chapter 1, and then in another post post chapter 2. Then just link to chapter 2 from chapter 1, and so on.

Actually, Chapter 1 is 1,049 words long, so it's the perfect length! I don't have too much time to spend here, so I'll look at the first chapter and see how it goes from there.

Onward!

Nitpick:

“Master! Master!”,

You don't need the comma there. In fact, you could check out Snoink's KB entry Here on commas and dialogue. Look close at the punctuation, don't just read the words. You'll see the pattern.


Observation:

The dialogue is very frilly, which is alright, but it seems forced in parts. For example, she sees her master cough and vomiting up blood and bile all over the place, and she says, "Kertington! You are unwell! Make haste to bed and I shall call the physician my poor dear!"

"Make haste to bed and I shall call the physician, my poor dear" sounds really, really out of place. Taken out of context, that line of dialogue might fit a mother calling in a child who is ill, and yet plays outside against his mother's wishes. Or a mom or a nanny tittering over a kid who just vomited their lunch. But she's not talking to a kid, she's talking to a grown man, one who isn't even her equal, but her master. He's an authority figure, and he's coughing up blood everywhere. Put yourself in your character's shoes for a moment and imagine the situation. What would you say? Maybe instead of 'master' put 'parent'. Granted, it's a different time period, but even so, can you picture yourself speaking in a very proper and polite/frilly manner in such a situation?

Even crisis situation aside, Kertington uses it too when he first wakes up.

"I fear I have caught an awful chill during the bleak night”

When you add 'bleak' in there, it's too much. Some descriptive words are good, but they're like seasoning. some is good, but a dash more than needed and the food is awful. 'I fear I have caught and awful chill during the night' would be good, but add 'bleak' in there, another adjective, and it's one dash too many and the whole line feels forced. Need to find a balance.

While we're on the topic, you use the word 'bleak' and awful lot in the first chapter. Perhaps switch it up a bit, or get rid of a couple of them entirely. Chances are, they don't need to be there.

Ack, gotta go now. Re-read the first chapter and keep in mind, the over-description isn't limited to the dialogue. It's all throughout the chapter, too. Like when she enters the Master's room, everything gets described to the detail. It's a little overwhelming. Just go through and look for that.

Hello Belzer! I'm WD, nice to meet you. You have some interesting characters that you introduce in this bit and I'm quite fond of the initial impressions I have gathered from Anna and her master. First, I'm just going to comment on your first chapter. Hopefully, I can get around to the other chapters later.

All right, so you seem to have a good feeling for your characters, and the actions you have here are very telling about the positions of your characters and how they interact with each other. A very informing first chapter you have here. I'm not going to line-by-line this, mainly because there are just a few overarching things I'd like to address that I think can help you improve this piece.

1. Description

I believe Dreamer has touched on this, but you have a lot of description here and this is not necessarily a bad thing, but I feel like there are a few things you can do to improve it. Description is good for setting a scene, good for describing characters and really immersing the reader in your world, but too much of it can really weight down a story and overwhelm the reader, especially if you begin the piece heavy with description. So first I'm going to talk about selection of detail.

Detail is an extremely important part of developing this setting and story; however, as writers, we have to be very aware of what is essential to the story, what is significant and intriguing for the story and what is just the background noise in our minds as he we imagine what is happening. While it is nice to have extremely detailed and vivid images of something, readers need wiggle room to form their own interpretations and images. Detail is extremely important and makes a story engaging, but too much robs of the reader of the creative process of filling in the gaps you leave. So, selection of detail. As writers, we must select very carefully what we describe and what we don't. I feel like in this first chapter, you have a lot engaging images, but they are all over the place. Go back through your chapter and look at all of things you describe and ask yourself a few questions: Is this necessary? Is this significant in the future or present of the story? Does this image really need to be painted? How intriguing is this image? What does this do besides paint an image? (I am a firm believer that good paragraphs and sentences do multiple things for a story) Could a reader gather this from my other descriptions? Does this motivate or inhibit hte flow of the story and why? I know this is a lot to consider, but ,as you write, your details need to be chosen. Eventually, you'll get to a point where you make these decisions and ask these questions without realizing it, but I would really suggest going back through here and really paying attention to why you are choosing the details you do.

Now, regarding adjectives. Adjectives are great for description. I love them. But, as heartbreaking as it is, verbs are better. I'm going to get more into this when I talk about characterization, but, in general, cut down on the adjectives and really think about your verbs. Specific verbs are the first mode of powerful images; adjectives are there to fill in the gaps.

Lastly, I want to talk about the sentence structure of your description. As I've said, description is not bad, but organization is key to making it work. And key to not overwhelming the reader. So, I'm going to take a paragraph I thought demonstrated my point best:

The bed in the brightening room stirred as plump old Anna awoke as the sunshine shone through the tatty curtains. Years of hard work had made her disciplined. She quickly rose from her bed and proceeded to prepare herself for the day ahead. Dashing about the bleak and pokey room, she pulled her working clothes out of the wardrobe. These consisted of a bleak grey dress, a white and tatty apron, and a black under shirt. She then stood adjacent to her window, where she could barely see her reflection, and carefully adjusted her hair. She was now ready to wake up the Master.

Okay, the thing with the way you are describing is that your sentences are coming across as wandering and unfocused. Sentence complexity and variation are great, but the sentences need to be managable and they need to communicate a clear point. First, let's look at your first sentence. First of all, you have two phrases beginning with 'as'. This double 'as' phrase quickly overwhelms the reader as we are forced to pay attention to two things she is doing while performing her initial action in the first sentence. The trick here is not deciding that she can not do one of the phrase. It is phrasing it in such a way that you trick the reader into not being overwhelmed. Meaning, it's time to split up sentences. Phrases and clauses are great, but sentences need to be manageable.

So, some sentence rearranging. How about this:

Anna awoke as the sunshine shone through the tatty curtains of the brightened room, stirring the sheets of her bed.

I'm still not a fan of all the adjectives used here, but that sounds more manageable to me, don't you think?

The next red sentence. Now I'm going to tell you to make this sentence more complicated. Coming out and saying 'these consist' at the beginning of the sentence sets the reader up thinking you're going to describe something. In general, don't do that, at least for now. It's better to incorporate description into significant thoughts than to set it apart and tell the reader that you are about to describe something. So instead of beginning a new sentence let's just say she pulled her bleak gray dress etc. out of the wardrobe, ready to go off for work, integrating that thought into an active sentence.

All right, I know that was a massive rundown of description, and I do not mean to overwhelm you, but these are things I think will really help you improve if you think about them. Now onto the other points. I promise they will not be as long.

2. Character Developement and Mannerisms

As I have said, your characters have a strong feel about them. It is obvious that you know them very well, which is why I'm going to challenge you with your adjectives and detail. Right now you are using a lot of adjectives to describe Anna. Use verbs. Verbs are more powerful characterization tools than adjectives. The specific word used for how Anna does something is going to speak ten times louder than a slew of adjectives and adverbs. The sentence 'the dog scampered' is more telling than the sentence 'the desperate, scared dog ran'. So go back through this and take a look at your verbs, gauge how you can make them more specific and cut down on some adjectives as not to clutter things.

Now, mannerisms. Your most effective tool in development. You are describing a lot of Anna's actions here, so the problem is not that you are not using action to give us a clear picture of her. The problem is that the things she does are extremely plot-driven. They are things that anyone does. She gets dressed. She gets ready for work. But now, we need mannerisms. Mannerisms can take either the form of specific verbs (aforementioned) or strange habits and odd actions your character takes. Does she get dressed or does she throw on her clothes? Does she sing while she gets dressed? Does she stomp on the floor whie she walks? Details, basically. Mannerisms are small details that make your character more distinct, and adding these will greatly improve your character development and also help you cut down on unnecessary adjectives.

3. Dialogue

Last point, I promise!

Dreamer has already mentioned this, but your dialogue seems a little unnatural at times. I believe this is due to description, which is why I'm not going to go on and on about this, because I have already talked to you about adjectives. Too many adjectives in the dialogue for me to believe the characters. So I am going to suggest the most helpful thing for dialogue. Read it aloud. I know, it might be embarrassing. But stand up and adopt your character's posture and read it. No, don't just read it. Read it in your character's voice and if you start stumbling or grimace or think it sounds odd, then it is. So change it. Do this and you're going to avoid a whole slew of problems, including unnatural dialogue.

Over all, this is a nice start. As I have said, your characters are clearly very vivid in your head and your images are interesting, but I think you just need to harness your talent and really select what is important what is not out of this. Go through each adjective and sentence and ask yourself what it's doing. Eventually, this will come naturally, but right now grill yourself on what each sentence is doing. It will help you loads in the long run. You have a lot of talent; I think you just need to harness it some.

Very nice work and keep on writing! I can't wait to read more of your writing, and hopefully I can get around to your next chapters. Have fun writing and if you have any questions or want any further help or elaboration, please do feel free to PM me.

Happy writing!