Fifteen Eternal Candles (Chapter 1, Scene 1)

Author's note: Story-time boys and girls. This is the oldest and most complete work I've ever done, so rather then cramming this 25 page chapter down your throat I've decided to separate it into scenes and let people get eased into my unique style. This first scene is a simple one page long scene, very short and straight to the point. I've complied a 'guide' to go with the chapter and other details from the story if anybody wants I'll upload it as an attachment. (Each piece has its own Worldbuilding FEC folder part with all the references and other goodies related to the creation. Some are in fact very large and they will be request able for any one who wants to see my madness or creative process.) Now onto the scene, enjoy the short piece!

Edit: By popular demand... I've not used cursive and used itallic for words in the native Vek and Sunia languages. It loses some of the 'epic' feel, but I understand some people experienced difficulty in reading the fonts.
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Inside a dark small room decorated lined with armories; two figures moved about slowly and steady. The tall figure of a middle aged man clad in a white tuxedo, with the royal signet of a serpent emblazoned across his back, stooping down on his knees he pulled open a small drawer and called out.

“Hard to believe you're almost are sixteen already.” he said with strong, nurturing tone.

Behind him the smallish figure of a girl in a single piece blue dress rocked back and forth upon her heels with anticipation. A beautiful silken angel in the flesh, with a face as bright as a peach and long brown hair down to the small of her back. Swaying back and forth in place, with a sweet and soft proud voice, she replied to her father, “Two more days! Then I can finally represent Blackfall as a Lady.”

Retrieving a large diamond pendant from the drawer, her father slowly closed the drawer as he stood to face his daughter who stared at the necklace in his hand.

“This was your mother’s necklace. Shining only for a woman of exceptional quality, this is her legacy to you.”

The large diamond was placed into a platinum lock, the reverse bore the royal signet of the serpent with the words inscribed, “Fabis Nabum Sala Sunia”. Slowly her father placed the necklace around the delicate soft neck of his daughter and with a soft smile looked at her with tearful eyes, “Victoria, you look so much like your mother.”

The diamond stared to faintly glow a soft blue hue and truly shined on Victoria. Her father closed his eyes and two tears fell down his cheeks, “My girl is all grown up!”

The two embraced in the dark room, her father bumping the two of them against the cabinets, stirring up a bunch of dust in the process. Victoria rested her head against her father’s strong chest and wrapped her arms around his back in a tight hug, “Thanks, father. Does this mean I can dance at the festival tomorrow?”

Letting her free from the embrace, her father pulled back and scratched his cheek, “Seems only fair, but I don’t like you conversing with the commoners in town! Especially that Kate.”

Victoria grinned widely and gave a quick hug to her father before running out of the room and down the hall as fast as she could, leaving her stunned father in the wake. After a moment he shook his head disdainfully and left the jewelry room, closing and locking the door with a brass key, muttering to himself, “She’ll never change.”

I can sense that the father is slightly antagonistic, thats at least the vibe he gives off in the second part.

Other than that little bit of the confusion about the dad it was good ^.^

I like it.

Inside a dark small room decorated lined with armories; two figures moved about slow and

a semicolon is not the proper punctuation to use. A comma will be fine here. And slow should be slowly.

The tall figure of a middle aged man clad in a white tuxedo. Emblazoned with a royal signet of a serpent stretched across his back, stooping down on his knees he pulled open a small drawer and called out.

“Hard to believe you almost are sixteen already.” he said with strong and nurturing tone.

Look at this. The first sentence is a fragment. Connect it with the second sentence. Ok, this whole paragraph needs work. Let me do it step by step:

The first sentence as I have said is a fragment. Delete the period at the end and connect it with the second sentence. So now the sentence says,

The tall figure of a middle aged man clad in a white tuxedo and emblazoned with a royal signet of a serpent stretched across his back, [s]stooping[/s] stooped down on his knees. He pulled open a small drawer and called out.

The last sentence isn't complete either. Combine it with the next sentence which contains dialog.

“Hard to believe you almost are sixteen already.” he said with strong and nurturing tone.

Instead of a full stop after 'already,' replace it with a comma. You can also delete the 'and' between strong and nurturing. So now it would read:

"Hard to believe you almost are sixteen already," he said with a strong, nurturing tone.

Other than all of that confusion up there, this was rather good. I like the idea so far, and there isn't much to say. Keep posting!



BBB

‘lo there Errant. ^_^

I’m impressed by the amount you’ve written and the amount of work you’ve put into world-building. I wish I was as dedicated.

Having said that, you seem to have some problems with your sentence structures. Let’s have a looky see:

Inside a dark small room decorated lined with armories; two figures moved about slowly and steady.

1) You’ll want a comma after ‘dark’, to separate the two adjectives.

2) ‘decorated lined’ doesn’t make any sense to me.

3) It’s decorated with ‘armories’? Are you sure this is the write word? An armory is a building that holds weaponry and armour.

4) You don’t need a semi-colon here. A semi-colon is used in the same place a period/full-stop could be used. A quick and easy way to work out if a semi-colon can be used or not: try replacing it with a period/full-stop. If it makes still makes sense, then a semi-colon can be used there.

Inside a dark small room decorated lined with armories. Two figures moved about slowly and steady.

The first sentence doesn’t make any sense when written like this, so a semi-colon is incorrect. You want a comma instead.

The tall figure of a middle aged man clad in a white tuxedo, with the royal signet of a serpent emblazoned across his back, stooping down on his knees he pulled open a small drawer and called out.

You have a problem with your sentence structure here too. What you have written is essentially: ‘The tall figure of a middle aged man stopping down on his knees he pulled open a small drawer’. You want to break this one sentence into two.

Example:

The tall figure was of a middle aged man clad in a white tuxedo, with the royal signet of a serpent emblazoned across his back. Stooping down on his knees he pulled open a small drawer and called out.

“Hard to believe you almost are sixteen already.” he said with strong, nurturing tone.

The period/full-stop (bolded) should be a comma here.

Behind him the smallish figure of a girl in a single piece blue dress rocked back and forth upon her heels with anticipation.

Personally, I’d stick a comma after ‘Behind him’.

Retrieving a large diamond pendant from the drawer, her father slowly closed the drawer as he stood to face his daughter who stared at the necklace in his hand.

1) I’d say add a comma after ‘daughter’.

2) The repetition of ‘the drawer’ is redundant. Replace the second one (bolded) with simply ‘it’.

Slowly her father placed the necklace around the delicate soft neck of his daughter and with a soft smile looked at her with tearful eyes, “Victoria, you look so much like your mother.”

The bolded comma should be a full-stop/period.

The diamond stared to faintly glow a soft blue hue and truly shined on Victoria. Her father closed his eyes and two tears fell down his cheeks, “My girl is all grown up!”

1) ‘stared’ = ‘started’

2) The bolded comma should be a full-stop/period.

Victoria rested her head against her father’s strong chest and wrapped her arms around his back in a tight hug, “Thanks, father. Does this mean I can dance at the festival tomorrow?”

The bolded comma should be a full-stop/period.

Letting her free from the embrace, her father pulled back and scratched his cheek, “Seems only fair, but I don’t like you conversing with the commoners in town! Especially that Kate.”

Bolded comma = full-stop/period.

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You appear to have some difficulty with your dialogue punctuation; this is actually an incredibly common problem. Snoink’s website has a nifty little article on the subject - spend a little time studying it and learning the rules.

I also noticed that you are quite fond of adverbs, and of stacking adjectives for a single noun. You might want to watch this, as overdoing this can really weaken prose.


-- Sureal ^_^

Hey Errant.

I think this starts off very good. The whole thing was slightly hard to read just because of some grammar mistakes and whatnot...but I think they've been pointed out. Umm...not sure what to say, I gotta go read the next part now lol

Great job.

Love,
Lindsay

Just picked one thing up that no-one's mentioned.

“Hard to believe you're almost are sixteen already.” he said with strong, nurturing tone.

You're missing the -re from this sentence. Apart from that, a pretty good job. You seem very dedicated to this task, even more than me to mine. And I thought I was pretty dedicated .

the only problem i really noticed right now is that you switch being present and past tense a bit. interesting story, i'll read more

I can't see any problems with the tenses.

Thanks for the help so far, the tenses I don't see any problem, but if he had an example that would help better. As for the periods and commas for talking, not sure yet what the standard is, because I see both in my books. Hope everyone's enjoying it so far. I realize my chapters are a lot to work with for critiquing.

I really don't need this kind of competition lol. Just a quick look...

The two embraced in the dark room, her father bumping the two of them against the cabinets, stirring up a bunch of dust in the process.

I am sorry but it sounds really dirty...

Maybe pushing would be better than bumping... I don't know, other than that, very good! lol

i liked this, not much was bad about it and i would like to here more of this, my only problem was

The two embraced in the dark room, her father bumping the two of them against the cabinets, stirring up a bunch of dust in the process.

i agree with aedomir, this sounds a bit wrong, you know, kind of insest, i think pushed would be better

Its not that bad, but it is a bit of a forceful and tight hug. Perhaps I actually intended it to be the way it was written?

Not to say that it wasn't exactly incestuous kind of hug, it wasn't your generic father-daughter hug at the same time. The entire paragraph is something that shows their relationship is not entirely average. How often does a daughter rest her head against her dad's chest as they hug?

I'll leave it up to age for this one, since the older readers might be able to deduce a hidden nature of Pencharmer and Victoria out of something so casual as this. I tried to be very careful in word choice, using 'embrace' was just another word to show this hug was forceful and tight, but not the usual quick hug. To say it was a lover's hug would be a lie, but its definitely leaning towards that.

TLDR; No offense, but it was intended