Shoalmain's Princess {II}

Spoiler

Just in time for Review day!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

II:
Amira stood, wearing the pale blue traveling gown, looking up at the palace of Nomain.
"Awe-inspiring isn't it?" Alvar said, walking up behind her, and nodding up at the lit palace windows.

Amira nodded, unable to speak.

"Come." Alvar led her up to the steps leading to the formable door.

A young girl rushed up to them her red curls not hidden by the house cleaners’ cap she wore.
"Milady," she said curtsying to Amira, then Alvar. "Follow me."

The two followed her, and as they walked up the stairs, she chattered away. "I'm Felicity, but everyone calls me Lassie. I hope you like it here." turning to Amira, she grinned a cat's grin. "Your room will be next to mine. We'll have great fun!"

As they entered the inner courtyard, Amira looked up in amazement at the gilt ceilings. "Wait till you see the balls they have. About a month from now, their having a masked ball and we're allowed to attend!" she squealed in excitement, and continued leading them through the castle, till they reached the great hall. "You," she said, pointing at Alvar, "need to go and report in the court room." she turned on Amira and led her up the spiral staircase, still chattering...
~
"We're here Queen Kie." Lassie said, knocking on the door outside the Queen's solar.
"Oh great fun!" a voice bubbled out the crack in the door. "Kenda, be a doll and get that."

The door scraped against the floor, then swung open, reveling a cozy room, lit by lamplight.

"Oh! Is this Amira?"
A young woman, dressed in a sapphire blue dress, her blond hair adorned by jewels, sat in the corner, stitching on a piece of cotton.
"Yes Queen Kie." Lassie said, coming in behind Amira and shutting the door.
"Coilin, fetch some tea."
"Yes Queen Kie."

The Queen patted the stool beside her, and then waved Amira over. "Come here dear. I want to get to know you."

The atmosphere, so calm, friendly, stunned Amira as though the Queen was not really the Queen, but merely a friend to her ladies in waiting. She hurried to sit on the stool, but first curtsied to the Queen.
"Oh, don't bother with that." Kie said, shaking her head. "I don't mess with such things in my private solar. Just sit down, there’s a good Dear, and tell me about yourself."

Amira blushed and nodded, sitting awkwardly down on the stool. "I'm not adept at talking about myself," she admitted, looking at Kie with hesitant eyes.

"Well then, I'll ask you questions, and you answer them."

Amira nodded in consent, and leaned forward, awaiting the first question.

"Where are you from?"
"Delain."
"Oh! I went their once. Vasiliy and I have a castle there. We went to review some knights or something. Do you live near the sea?"
Amira nodded, and started talking about their seaside manor. "And at night, the sea lulls you to sleep, and you feel so peaceful." she said finishing.
"Can you read and write?"
The question took Amira by surprise. Should I lie and say no? She thought, her heart thumping loudly in her ears. Slowly she nodded. "Yes, I can read and write. And do a little arithmetic as well."

The Queen clapped her hands happily. "Good! I always like to have smart Ladies in my court. No stupid people. They anger me."

Amira opened her mouth to say more, but Coilin had returned carrying a tray heaped with cakes and tea.
~
The Dinner was held in the Great Room, which was off the smaller dining room.
All the people, knights, Dukes, Ladies and Royalty, jumbled together laughing and talking like old friends.

Amira sat beside Alvar, scanning the faces of the people near her, trying to seek out a friendly face.

The only person who looked as uncomfortable as she felt. A young man, his curly hair splayed across his forehead, was bending over his chicken, his cheeks ruddy.
"What are you looking at?" Alvar whispered in Amira's ear, leaning towards her.
"Oh.. Nothing."
Alvar shot her a knowing look and whispered, "His name is Sofer. He is the Royal scribe."


What a nice name, Amira thought, so noble. She leaned forward and said, "What fascinating chicken you have there."

Sofer jerked up and looked at her, his striking green eyes piercing her heart.
"Indeed," he said, his red face growing white, when he caught sight of who was talking to him. "I don't believe we've met. I'm Sofer."
"Amira."

Knowing it would be bad manners to extend her hand over the table, she contented herself with a polite nod.

"What are you here for?" he asked, nodding back.
"I'm here to serve in Queen Kie's court."
"I'm her scribe." he said, smiling.
"That’s nice. I enjoy reading. Maybe you can show me to the Royal Library one day."
"I would enjoy that Milady."
"Oh, call me Amira please. I'm not a lady, and I don't want to be."

He blushed and nodded, and began telling her about the surrounding grounds and city. "Nomain is charming, I think you would enjoy the library of Shoalmain on the edge."
She nodded, truly interested.
"Tis time to go," Alvar whispered in her ear, taking her by the elbow. "Come, you can speak with your new friend tomorrow."

Amira waved to Sofer and followed Alvar out of the Great room.
~
"What was that?" Alvar burst out, as soon as they were half way up the staircase.
"Me being bored and talking to the scribe. He's very kind."
Alvar shook his head in disgust. "Don't you know ladies do not speak while a meal is going on?"
Amira blushed, and then became angry. "Every other girl was!"
"I don't care. You will not speak during meals."

Amira gave him a withering look. "I do not need you, Alvar to look after me. I can take care of myself. So I would thank you to stay out of my personal life."

Turning on her heel, she stomped up the stairs, her face set in anger.

Hi My name is shadow and I had the pleasure of reading your piece!

I must say right off the bat you have a lovely interchange between all your characters. just by the way they talked I could tell who they were. Good job on that one, I read many stories where everyone sounds the same. you do not have that problem!

Unfortunately you have a lack of description, even good dialogue like yours, cannot hold up a story by itself. Think of a cake, the description is the cake part and the dialogue is the frosting. Frosting enhances the cake, it doesn't make it. Even if you have excellent frosting/dialogue if the cake/description is lacking it makes for a shallow story. They way you write is made for sticking in delicious bits of description. It would be easy to slip it in and not hamper the pace of it at all. you don't need a lot of description, just enough to add some detail to your story. It is a problem many writers (including myself) have, We are dialogue writers. We need to work especially hard not to fall into writing shallow baseless stories, it will cripple us in the end if we can't write good description.

The bit of description you had in there was very nice, just add more and you'd be golden!

as I said before your character interplay was lovely and I can't wait to read more!

happy writing,

~Shadow~

Hi, DramaLlamallamallama! The funny thing is, when you linked me up, I'd already had this in my to-review pile. Fate? Maybe.

First, I have to say that I disagree with Shadow. I wasn't bothered by the lack of description. Could you add more? Sure you could, if you wanted. But there was also something refreshing about the minimal amount of it. Usually fantasy books are stuffed like suitcases with descriptions of things so the reader can ooo and aww over the author's imagination.

That said, though, Amira is new to the palace, right? That might be cause for her to do some oooing and awwing on her own right. So, if you want to add more description, go for it. But it's not necessary.

I do agree with Shadow on the dialogue, though. It was nice to hear the individual voices. More than nice. Kind of awesome.

My main comment of critique is on the social hierarchy here. I skimmed the first chapter well enough to learn that she's supposed to become a lady of the court. But Felicity talks to her as if they were equals. Which originally made me think Amira was coming to be a servant (I read this before skimming the first chapter). And at first I thought it was maybe just the culture of society, but then you/Narrator mentioned how it's not ladylike to talk at the table. So the culture does have its customs.

"You," she said, pointing at Alvar, "need to go and report in the court room."

Something like that is cute but would be way out of bounds, especially since she's just a house cleaner, not a steward or page. Everything I know says servants don't give orders. And even if the culture is different in terms of social class, I don't know of a single culture where the young can order the old.

Otherwise...the entire piece had a sort of Alice in Wonderland feel that I enjoyed, especially with the Queen being as she was. I don't know if there's anything else I can say from a short section like this, especially without having read the first chapter thoroughly, so... I'll just leave it at this. If you have any questions, let me know!

Rach

Stella here for Part 2!

I. NITPICKS

Amira stood, wearing the pale blue traveling gown, looking up at the palace of Nomain.

She does a lot of standing, doesn't she?

"Come." Alvar led her up to the steps leading to the formable door.

formable? Formidable.

"I'm Felicity, but everyone calls me Lassie. I hope you like it here."

I just want to say, I love the name Felicity, because of all the nicknames you can give it. And it's a brilliant name. Nice choice.

"Oh! I went their once.

there.

II. DESCRIPTION

I agree with the others that your description is a little lacking. I can tell immediately from your style that you're up to it- in fact, it feels a little like you're holding back. Don't. Fill us up with details. She's in a freaking palace. Think of all those amazing colours and textures and smells. It's a dream to write about. So write about it, be wild! Don't rely just on dialogue and action. Set the scene for us- I know that you're very well able to. It will make the story better and your writing more eloquent. It's a win-win situation really.

I know Rachael's disagreeing with this opinion, and maybe you're deliberately holding back. But I do think more hints of her surroundings definitely wouldn't go amiss.

III. OVERALL

I also think you can afford to stretch out the conversation with the scribe. She makes a funny quip about his chicken, I felt like he should return in kind but he doesn't seem to. The conversation could just be longer and maybe a little more entertaining. As well as that, the conflict with Alvar was unexpected compared to the last chapter. How does Amira herself feel about it? I feel like you should definitely let us more into her head- and especially at this point. They're twins. Do they fight a lot? Amira's emotions aren't shown enough at that point.

But apart from that, this was pretty good!

Hope I helped, drop me a note if you need anything!

-Stella x

Hello again, Spark!

I enjoyed this part just as much as the first chapter, so good job!

The other reviewers seem to have done a pretty good job of pointing out nit-piks and the main things that I wanted to say. I do think that, although it's not necessary, a little more description would be nice. I'm not a fan of big flowery paragraphs, describing the grass and the sky and the way someone's dressed, but Rachel made a good point. Seeing as this is Amira's first trip to the castle, I would have expected her to have described what she saw in a little more depth.

I must say that I am having a little trouble working out when this is set. I mean, some of the things that are being said, like the fact that Amira wasn't supposed to talk at the meal because she was a lady, immediately makes me think that this is set quite a few years ago. But then sometimes, mostly in the dialogue, I find myself imagining it being set in the 21st century.

This line, for example.

We went to review some knights or something

'or something' isn't something that I can imagine a queen of years back saying. Although you've done a great job of making the queen seem like a really friendly, nice person, so it could just be the way she speaks. It still strikes me as modern though.

I'd like to be able to see a few more of Amira's thoughts throughout the chapter. I want to know what she thought of the queen, and the building. Lassie, even. At the moment, we don't know too much about what she thinks about things. We know that she thinks the squire is cute, and that she's angry with her brother at the end, but that's about it. Is she nervous when she arrives at the castle? Excited? A little more emotion will help to make her seem more human, that's all.

I did notice that there were a few mistakes where the formatting of the dialogue was concerned. Like you having full stops where you should have had commas and vise versa. I'm not the best at explaining things though, but I'm sure there are some great resources on YWS that'll be of help to you. EDIT - Demeter's written an awesome post that should help you - topic44898.html

Overall though, I'm still enjoying this:)

xDudettex