Transylvania

Just the start of something I'm thinking about continuing, it's pretty short and I'd love any feedback--thanks!

*Rated 12 for some brief language

Transylvania

“My dear,” Lady Basil said, peering over the top of her husband’s paper, “did you see the want ads?”
“No,” he replied shortly, not looking up at her.
“I think you should look at them.”
“Why? Are we in it?”
“No silly. There’s an ad I’d like to apply for.”
He deigned to glance up at her then, faint annoyance evident on his face. “What’s it for? Someone needs a woman who can chatter their ears off?”
“Foreign students!” she said, ignoring her husband’s biting comment. “Wouldn’t that be lovely?”
“No.” Lord Basil resumed his perusal of the paper.
“I think it would.” Lady Basil was quite adept at prattling on whether anyone was listening or not. “It’s been far too long since we've had young blood here.”
“Need I remind you what happened the last time we had young people here?” Lord Basil folded his paper down to peer at her.
Pleased that her husband was now paying more attention to her, Lady Basil merely shrugged.
“Their corpses are currently rotting in the grave,” he continued.
Lady Basil tittered, setting her husband’s teeth on edge. “Oh, posh! We’ve still seen them roaming about sometimes.”
“As rotting corpses.”
“Either way,” Lady Basil said, not to be strayed off course, “you said whatever I’d like to do this winter, I could.”
“I did no such thing,” Lord Basil said, appalled.
“You did so. Need I call Hetty in to affirm it?”
“Bloody hell,” Lord Basil replied.
Satisfied, Lady Basil continued. “You said it last Christmas, when I went through the droll-dumbs.”
“That’s 'doldrums',” her husband corrected her.
“And I was so terribly bored that winter," she continued unheedingly, "and quite down, so you said that next winter, which is this one, whatever I wanted to do for the season, I could.”
Lord Basil tried to think back that far. “I was probably drunk,” he replied. “You should never take anything I say when I'm drunk seriously.”
“But darling,” his wife said, starting to pout. “I would so dearly love to have younglings here.”
“Eleanor, I've put up with a lot of your ideas. The hunts, the balls, the pet rats—”
“Oh yes! They were such dears!”
“—and I've borne them all very well, I'd say. But this is really too much.”
Lady Basil bent down so that her dark eyes were trained intently on his face. “My lord, this is all I want this year. I promise, it won't be a bit of trouble and I'll keep them out of your way the whole time.”
Lord Basil sighed, but his wife knew he was weakening. “How long do they stay?” he finally asked in a philosophical manner.
“Oh, not that long,” she replied cheerily. “Four to six weeks, at most.”
“That's a month and a half!” he cried.
“What's a mere month to someone with all the time of the world left to live?” she said flippantly, trotting out of the room. “They'll be gone before you know it.”
Lord Basil waited until she was completely gone before muttering darkly, “They'd better be, if they know what's good for them.” He gave one more resigned sigh, then resumed his reading.

Rh!

You've read my mind. I was just setting up to send you a PM and ask why you haven't posted Icefire or Warrior lately and I get this new piece. Yessss!

“Foreign students!” she said, ignoring her husband’s biting comment. “Wouldn’t that be lovely?”

I smiled when I read this (because I forgot the title). My parents are host parents for foreign students. They take them into their home and raise them and teach them our language and customs for a whole school year. I thought this was going in that direction and I thought, "Oh cool, I know something about this" hahaha

“I think it would.” Lady Basil was quite adept at prattling on whether anyone was listening or not. “It’s been far too long since we've had young blood here.”

I love the comment about young blood. It can go either way, really. Either the expression...Or the fact that it's titled "transylvania"

Well, RH, this was a different start but one that's got me hooked. Great job! I absolutely love this two, you've portrayed your characters so well. My grand-parents were a bit like that and you couldn't get anything through my grand-dad until he'd finished his paper. Meh! It's so great that I can relate to your characters.

I love the plot so far, will the rest of it be from the 'students' point of views? Will it be some sort of death-race? I'm intrigued and definitely can't wait to read anything else you have.

Hope this helped
Tanya

P.S Did you settle your problems with WOrd?

Hey Hawk!

I really enjoyed reading this! It's a good start to a very interesting idea. I love the subtlety about everything; we all know what they are but you don't ever come right out and say it. That's the best way to do this sort of thing, in my opinion!

Lord Basil tried to think back that far. “I was probably drunk,” he replied. “You should never take anything I say when I'm drunk seriously.”

I feel like "drunk" should be "intoxicated". First, these two seem like pretty high-class wealthy people and would be more likely to use a refined term rather than drunk. Second, I feel like they've been around a while so they probably grew up in a time where "drunk" wasn't such a colloquial term.

Talking Heads
The dialogue in this is fantastic, wonderfully suiting to the characters and the situation. What is lacking is prose. Right now, I don't have a concrete image of either character or their setting. They're only talking heads in my mind. With a little simple description and directional prose (ignore the weird term, I'll explain it better) there would be a great image to go with the great dialogue.

Here's an example of what I mean.

Instead of:
"Hi, Tom," Sally said.
"Hey," Tom greeted.

This lends a much better image:
"Hi, Tom," Sally shouted from across the street. She waved enthusiastically, a big grin on her face.
"Hey," Tom said, throwing is hand up in a small wave. He shoved his hands back in his pockets and kept walking, praying Sally wouldn't pursue him today.

Of course, that's a very extreme case but you get what I'm saying. Giving the reader a concrete image to support this story and dialogue will really help make this fantastic.

Good luck and definitely keep writing this! I'm interested to see where it goes!

-Lauren-

Thank you both for your reviews!

Tanya - I haven't gotten it all figured out yet, but so far I'm thinking it's going to be from the students' POVs and turn into a siege/trap where they have to escape. And Word's still giving me problems, so my writing's been put on hold for a while.

Lauren - thanks for the advice! I like your talking heads example, I definitely see what you mean.

OK. I'm a total vampire freak so I really like this. I think you should write another one, explaining how the exchange students arrive and such. I can't express how vital it is to ADD DETAILS! I swear, it was very well written but DETAILS, details, details! Explain more about the setting to the scenes also, because I couldn't tell where they were at. And you can also expand more on how the previous students died, I didn't quite understand that either. Explain anything and everything you can; the smallest details can make a world of difference to the reader. Otherwise, a very well written converstaion.
Proceed your creatitvity--ASH

I like it. Different indeed, but in a good way . I really like how you didn't exactly say that they were vampires, but instead we had to keep reading to find out. Good job. You kept me reading the whole way through, and had me trapped like a little kid in a corner... Bad example, but you get it. Haha keep writing!! You've got talent!