Published May 18, 2010
This was a task my english teacher set for her grade 12 class and I thought I'd give it a try. The instructions were as follows: write a short story of no more than 250 words that contains an insane prince, the skeleton of a childhood friend, a king marrying his brother's wife and a murder commited by pouring poison in the victim's ear. So, here it is.
Once upon a time in a land called Arb a king left his castle and travelled deep into the woods that surrounded his kingdom. He allowed no one to follow him to his secret place.
“My father was a great ruler. I always knew that one day I’d be just like him, but others weren’t so sure. They said that Andrew, my cousin and playmate, was to be king. They said I wasn’t fit, that there was something wrong with me, and Andrew was the only suitable heir. He was weak, too weak to ever be king. Even my spineless snail of a younger brother, Oliver, would have done better. I couldn’t let Andrew take my birthright to rule. So, when we were 15, I took Andrew hunting. As he slept I poured vial of the land’s most potent poison into his ear. When I returned home with a scrap of his clothing I told them he’d been dragged away by a wild animal... No one questioned me. 3 years later, my father died and I took the throne. And now, one year after Oliver’s unfortunate demise, his widow has finished her period of mourning. Her sorrow has become my joy; we will be married tomorrow.”
“And that, my dear Andrew,” said the king, turning to address the small pile of sun-bleached bones that lay partially buried in the dirt at his feet, “Is why you should have believed me when I said that I always get what I want.
The End
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Final thoughts:
You were given a great prompt. I won't lie, though - I think this piece is far from the best.
Notice that I said my eyes glazed over. That paragraph was not easy to read through - it was a giant infodump. Sure you've only got 250 words, but that doesn't mean you can dump everything at once. There are other ways to do this. This actually seems a little lazy on your part - it's as if you didn't give much thought to how you're going to present the piece.
The challenge of this prompt is the absurd limit - think about how else you can present this story without dumping it all.
Also, your story is flawed. Andrew could NEVER be king unless he actually staged a rebellion. Even if half the kingdom supported Andrew, he still couldn't have claimed the throne as his own. He had no legal basis to do so, and the king probably wouldn't be happy that his nephew was going to take the crown from his own son. That would steal the line from his descendants.
What king wants that?
Next - the king doesn't really have to wait a year before marrying his brother's widow. He's the king and he can do what he wants. From what I've seen, this king is brutal. He's aggressive - he knows what he wants and he knows exactly how to get it. Why is he waiting for the widow if she's actually willing to marry him?
Your characters were flat but that's understandable given how short this was.
Right now your biggest concern is how to tell this without infodumping. If ever you choose to take my advice and revise this, I suggest you cut out adjectives and adverbs. Also, minimal imagery would help keep your word count under control. Normally I would encourage sensory descriptions, but not here. You don't have enough words for it.
Anyway, that was my two cents. Hope this review helped. PM me if you have any questions.
Sincerely,
Kara
Hello.
So your English teacher had a very clever idea. I think you have done a very good job in the story, although you could divide the whole second paragraph into smaller pieces, to make it look more perfect.
Keep it up!
So your teacher wanted you to write Hamlet in short form? XD Here are my suggestions:
It's not necessary to say where he lives, you can remove this.
I feel like the speechmarks and first-person narration following the first paragraph are a bit confusing, I understand why you've done it as the twist is very good, but try to make it a bit clearer? For example:
All the links of brother's is really confusing. I got lost as to who was related to who. Are they the brothers of the King of Arb? Maybe you could have just removed Oliver, as he doesn't really seem relevant. Andrew could have just gotten to be King for a while, or have been married and the unnamed King could just marry his widow after murdering him? Just a suggestion, as it's a bit unclear to me at the moment and took me a lot of read-throughs to gather what had happened.
I like the fact you've linked the skeleton of the childhood friend into being the brother he murdered with the poison, and the description, 'the small pile of sun-bleached bones' is fantastic!
Obviously, these are just my opinions. It's a great plot and parts are really well-written. Good work!
EDIT:
One more thing, the title, Avarice. Did your teacher set the title? Because I didn't see avarice anywhere in your story, in fact that's why I clicked on it because not many people have heard of that deadly sin and I wanted to see what you'd done with it, but it didn't seem to be anywhere in your story. If you're confused as to what it means or you have any questions, pm me.
Hi!
Just a thought.
This was really cool. I don't think I would be able to do that sort of challenge. The only thing that I would suggest doing is making it more clear that it is the king talking in the middle. It kind of confused me when there were quotation marks around the paragraph and I didn't know who was speaking.
Keep writing!
~Earthfire