This is a novel I have just started, set in the Victorian Times. It was previously set in 1920 but it was far too hard for me to write as I barely knew anything about that time period and started this novel on a whim. I've rethought it, and planned and rewritten the whole plot and now it is in the Victorian Times, and Anne is no longer blind, due to the changed storyline. I know this is a very short first chapter; I will presently be elongating it.It's lacking something so I'd be grateful for harsh reviews.
Anne read. Seated in the creaking armchair, thin legs crossed. Her slippered feet hung off the ankles at odd slants. The flimsy sleeve of her blue muslin frock loosely hung off her white shoulder. One thin white arm draped carelessly over the edge of the chair, the other clenching the book tightly at its spine. Engrossed, she stared at the pages through her strange dark eyes, starred with bristly black lashes.
Outside, dawn was breaking. Streaks of light flowed in streams, checkering the room. Anne could feel the warmth shocking her face. Her eyes crinkled. They looked like smouldering tea, pools of light flitting inside the liquid brown. Clumsily, she ran bony fingers through her hair. The light-coloured feathers stuck up awkwardly, a golden coronet raised around her head.
Anne heard the familiar bark resound through the room and, startled, dropped her book. It landed face down on the floor, its pages spread out like crushed wings.
She dropped to her knees and groped around on the periwinkle carpet, her fingers closing protectively around her book. She stood up on wobbly legs and nursed it in her frail arms, like a child. She stroked the emerald cover lovingly, running her fingertips along the engraved title, feeling each crease and indent worn into the leather.
The bark echoed again, the sound grating in Anne’s ears. Then the creature responsible bounded into the room excitedly, an endearing mess of tangled brown fur, scrabbling paws and dewy eyes. It pressed its damp muzzle firmly but gently into her palm. She gave in and abandoned the book on the floor.
“Oh, you,” Anne murmured fondly. She cradled the head in her lap, feeling the dog’s velvety ears prick up every time a breath evaded her lips.
Her mother hobbled inside presently, sighing grievously with each creak of the floorboards, as if they pained her. She eased herself down on a rocking chair facing her daughter and placed her gnarled hands in her lap. The wrinkles etched into her face were like a confused map; roads, boulevards and streets intersecting in strange patterns.
Anne stretched out her hand and intertwined it with her mother’s, tracing each vein, bulge, every soft indentation in the withered skin.
“Anne,” started her mother. She grabbed her daughter’s hand and squeezed it tightly, her breath quickening. “Anne, we have not sufficient money to pay."
The young woman broke away from her mother’s grip, curling up in the armchair and wrapping her arms around herself. “Surely there must be some means of paying,” she said, her voice cracking through her effort to restrain the tears. Anne never cried in front of anybody. Never. “Though firm, the landlord is a fair man. We will explain matters to him and..."
“No, my dear. The lodgings at this dastardly boarding-house have risen in price, inexplicably. I do not know what we can do to prevent it.”
“But Mother!” Anne interjected, her tealight eyes brimming. “Who knows what will become of us if we are thrown out now? A workhouse? The factories?"
Her mother flinched and avoided Anne's imploring gaze. At sixty years old, Ethel Lincombe still had no knowledge of how to deal with family quarrels. She preferred to keep quiet and listen.
“This cannot happen, Mother," Anne continued, lowering her voice. "It simply cannot."
“It will.” Anne's mother drew a letter out of her apron pocket and unfolded it with trembling fingers. “'Tis all in here, Anne."
Anne refused to cry like a spoilt infant, in front of her mother, so she retreated to her bedroom. She sat on the bed, trying to ignore the dust she could feel sticking to the fabric of her dress, and the broken slat cracking even more underneath her weight. She choked back angry tears till they formed a painful lump in her throat. The dog scratched at the door, but Anne ignored it.
Outside, Anne's book lay crumpled on the floor, abandoned.
I didn't think it was boring at all actually. I do agree, sometimes the adjective load was a little heavy but it wasn't that bad. It made the reader want to know what was really going on with Anne so you kept on reading. The only thing is the tenses. Basically, whenever you have a verb that ends with a "s" change it to a "ed". (ie. breaks, hears).
Any help specifically on that, using examples, will be very much appreciated.
