The Princess

This is a short "scary story" I wrote for my language arts class.

I climbed through the window and dropped onto the floor of the palace. The only things I could see as I looked down the long hallways were torches and expensive tapestries on the stone walls. I started navigating the corridors, remembering where to go perfectly. My soft footsteps sounded eerie in the silence. They sounded even eerier mixed with the crackling of the torches. The peace was interrupted by a slave emerging from a door up ahead. I quickly took out my bow and an arrow. In the same movement I shot the arrow. It hit her right in the neck and she fell to the floor. I was so silent that the only thing quieter than me was my ghostly shadow. Then I just walked by, leaving the arrow.

Finally I came upon the hallway that contains the king's bedroom. Peeking around the corner, I saw three huge guards in front of the door. I jumped from around the corner, shot an arrow, and killed one of the guards. Before the others could react I got one with a kick and the last with a punch. Again the atmosphere was noiseless. I crept up to the ostentatious door that led to the bedroom of the king. I put my hand around the cold handle and creaked open the door.

The room was very baroque and smelled of incense. This was almost too easy. The king stirred in his bed. He sat up and his eyes widened with surprise when he saw someone in his doorway. He probably didn't recognize me. He just sat there with a bewildered countenance. I took out my knife and did away with him as quickly as possible. Blood covered the bed and I knew it was done. Before I ran away I grabbed a torch from the hall and threw it onto the body of the once great king.

The story had a certain value in it, and considering you wrote it in school, well, it's fairly okay.

But, I got really muddled up. I mean, when I read from the beginning to the end of your story, I didn't feel like I was reading a story, but more like a paragraph in the middle of a book. What I mean by this is that, the story lacks meaning. It doesn't make sense. You just jumped right into a story and a character who was a princess.

The only thing I got was that a faceless women/girl went through her castle, and killed her father, or a king. No description of princess, made me make up a character on my own, and put her face to this character. And also, no emotions, feelings, or whatever was shown anywhere. It made this story extremely dull.

Try to put more meaning into this story, such as who was this character, her background, what intention did she have in killing the king, who was the king, what was his role in the story other than being the king.

Try to fill in those stuff, and it will be much better.

this is like Macbeth. it's pretty good, but put more detail into it. and more of your own emotions and descriptions.

Hey Bookmarker,

This seems like a sketch to work from. I think you should take time to expand this, because as it stands it's not entirely realitic.

> The first murder is too quick. Wouldn't he take a moment to measure out the distance, make sure he won't miss. He doesn't take a moment to make sure that there's no one around or anything.

> It seems like a palace would have much more guards than this. I think it should, and I also think he should encounter a bit more difficulty as he goes about this, you know?

> Feeling? Where is it? The killer feels nothing. Don't you think he'd feel a twinge of sympathy, a bit of pride, or something at all? He's this placid character, totally unreal because he has no emotion.

Make your villains real, Bookmarker, don't make someone a cold blooded killer just for the sake of it. Give us a reason to understand what caused such great hatred to lead him to kill.

> Panic. There's that moment before something happens where a person freezes and tries to act, stumbles or succeeds. The king does neither; he just stares, a twinge of fear, and with no resistance accepts his fate. Is there no queen to shout for help?


Think of this, dear. Pay attention to all the little details as you write.

Best of luck,
June

no offense, but it sounds like you just wanted an excuse to write a murder story. A murder has to have some depth-- this didn't. entwine some more facts and maybe a flashback, and this could start to show promise.

It had to fit on one piece of paper for the assignment so I had to make it really short. I think I'm going to write another story that's a prequel and then another that's from a different point of view.