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Very long ago, in a faraway land, there was a princess. She was beautiful in every sense of the word; her large eyes were a pale aqua green, and her permission hair, which fell in waves, was cut at her shoulders. Her skin was flawless and smooth, her figure toned and perfect.
One of the knights in the castle soon became interested in her beauty. He fell in love with the princess, and as it turned out, she was in love with him too. The knight wanted to marry her, but the King and Queen did not allow it. He was a lowborn, the son of a blacksmith, and thus not fit to marry the princess.
After this rejection, a clever idea began to form in the knight’s head.
“They say I am not rich enough,” he thought, “but that will change. Tomorrow I shall murder the king and queen. Then there will be no opposition to our marriage!”
And so it just turned out that there would be a banquet the following evening. The knight took this opportunity to buy some deadly poison. Before the banquet began, he snuck into the dining hall and put the poison in the glasses of the King and Queen.
And so the banquet came. The knight could not be in attendance, but he waited in the princess’ bedchamber, ready to tell her the news when she arrived.
It had all happened as planned. The King and Queen were dead, and the young princess was devastated. She went to her bedchamber, tears welling up in her eyes, so she could be alone. However, she was shocked to see the knight smiling and sitting on her bed.
“My dear child,” said the Knight, thinking it best to remain undercover for the moment, “what is wrong?”
“My parents have been poisoned,” she sobbed.
The Knight smiled and told her the whole story. “Don’t you see?” He concluded. “Now we can be together at last.” He tried the pull the princess close to kiss her, but she pushed him away.
“I shall never marry you,” she exclaimed. “Not when I know you have murdered two people very dear to me. You should have thought of how I would feel.”
It was then that the princess noticed the bottle of poison in the Knight’s hand. There was just enough. She took the bottle and forced the Knight to drink every last drop.
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140,265 Literary Works • 673,077 Reviews
Hi there Elinor
1. What did i like the most in the story Elinor Very long ago, in a faraway land, there was a princess. She was beautiful in every sense of the word; her large eyes were a pale aqua green, and her permission hair, which fell in waves, was cut at her shoulders. Her skin was flawless and smooth, her figure toned and perfect.
One of the knights in the castle soon became interested in her beauty. He fell in love with the princess, and as it turned out, she was in love with him too. The knight wanted to marry her, but the King and Queen did not allow it. He was a lowborn, the son of a blacksmith, and thus not fit to marry the princess.
2. What do i think needs to be improved this should had been a fantasy short story because you the princess and the king and it's also just about them mostly in the story this is just my opinion about it
3. what you i think the story will continue the story will continue with more fantasy stories about a princess and the prince it's kinda giving me like sleeping beauty when i was reading this nice piece
Have fun writing!
Jay"
well this showed up in the literary spotlight and i was drawn in by the title (and i stayed for the plot). you took a typical story and twisted it into a grim tale. honestly, i loved it!
this whole thing was a roller coaster. for example this section.
she really said, "you killed my parents? well i shall kill you with the same poison you killed them with."
anyways i loved this! keep on the good work! ^w^
~laynie <3
I know this is an old post, but wow...that is not at all how I was expecting that story to go. I love that the Knight's logic is, "Her parents say I'm not rich enough? Then I'll just murder them and everything will be fine!" when typically he would go out and seek his fortune to become rich and overcome the parents' prejudice.
It actually reminds me of this test to find out if someone is a psychopath, which one of my friends told me about:
The scenario is that a girl's mother dies and she meets a hot guy at the funeral. However, they depart without exchanging numbers and the girl has no idea how to see the guy again. Soon after, the girl murders her sister. Why?
If you're not a psychopath, your answer is most likely "Wtf??? How should I know??? That is sick!!!" But if you're a psychopath or have strong psychopathic tendencies, your answer is "She killed her sister hoping the guy would show up at the sister's funeral like he showed up at the mom's."
So I'm gonna say that, with logic like this, the Knight is psychopath.
But it was actually an enjoyable read, I just thought you should know. Also: GO, PRINCESS, for being like, "NO, we're not going to live happily ever after now, wtf is wrong with you?"
Blue
Lol Blue, I had forgotten about this, I wrote it so long ago! Thanks for your insight :3
Hi Scarlett.
Thanks for this critique. However, this is from November and I've already moved on from this story. While I value your advice, this is really old, so I'm going to go ahead and lock it. Enjoy your day. ^_^
*locked*
Hey Elinor!
I really like this, though I do agree with Jabbs. I wouldn't mind if it was a little bit longer. Maybe you could develop the princess and knight's character a bit more?
Besides that, it was delightful. I loved the appearance of a classic fairy tale at first and then the surprising climax.
Write on!
Lette
Wow, delightfully random!
I think it was good, nothing wrong with the writing so-to-speak, but the story itself... well, it really wasn't much of a story. Even your ordinary fairytale for children wouldn't be this short. Ha, but I guess you knew that!
Overall, it was enjoyable.
~Ash~
I enjoyed this a lot
I love how short is it, but it gets to the point. Everyone else has picked up on the grammar errors, so I can't really point you in the right direction there.
This is the type of story where telling and not showing can work. It's very much like a fairytale to begin with.
Well done
The one thing that bugged me though is the fact that you've called this a fable. A fable is a short story with talking animals as the characters, and it teaches a life lesson. So, technically, I don't think this can be called a fable. But other than that, it was great
~^~Xirenia~^~
Oh no tragedy. Well actually my book is the most tragic kind of tragedy, it can be quite depressing. Even for me as the writer.
Hi Elinor Brynn,
First of all, the picture doesn't make sense. Who is that blended into the trees? A nymph? A witch? Whatever she is, she doesn't appear at all in the story which makes the image seem unrelated. On another note, putting up pictures before a story is generally amateurish and takes away from the reader's experience rather than adding to it. Take it out.
You need to refine the "her figure toned and perfect". You've already described her skin and hair and whatnot, and then zooming out and concentrating (vaguely) on the body itself throws the reader off. Isn't it implied that her beauty has more or less attained perfection? Why do you need to spell it out by claiming that it is "perfect"? Either specify what you mean or remove that part.
"As it turned out" is a cheap and ineffective way to describe a turn of events. You skip over the exposition too rapidly. It's important to make this at least a little realistic, even though it is fantasy, and so saying that "something happened and then they were both in love" doesn't cut it. The reader needs information. Provide it.
The only reason that this dry cut-and-paste imagery works is because this is supposed to be set in a "fable" context; that is, concise and meant to be told to a large amount of people, and thus memorized by the ones who tell the story, as is the case with all old fables. Otherwise, for any other type of story, this kind of description (or lack thereof) would not have sufficed. Keep that in mind.
And why would the knight want to tell the princess that he murdered the parents? Would it not be better simply to stay quiet and frame someone else?
"My dear child" sounds like a strange way to address a lover. I'm assuming you've done your research on how people spoke in the time period that you describe, so I am going to let this one go because of this faith. However, be aware that in general, you should know the dialect and mode of speaking that the people in your story should employ.
No. This is too easy a solution to be plausible.
First of all, it is amazing that a princess, in the conventional fairytale sense, could overpower a military commander (for that is what knights are) and force a drink down his throat. You should at least find a way to do this that makes sense; for example, the princess could pretend to kiss him and then force, with lightning speed, the poison into his mouth when his defense is down.
Secondly, it's a boring ending. What you are saying is "He confessed his crime and she killed him. The end". This doesn't work on many counts. Most importantly, it doesn't encite the reader to feel the climax that he should upon reading what he perceives is going to be the most interesting part of the story - finding out how the princess takes revenge. This is never qualified, and instead we get a bland scene that is cartoonish in its execution. Remove the entire conclusion and try again; find a way of vengeance that will keep the reader interested - perhaps a poetic revenge or a mistake on the part of the prince that everyone overlooked until the very end.
Hope that helped,
Galerius
Thorn! Hai there. ^^
So, this was really cool. A good read. Unlike Jabs, I like short, snappy stories without too much meat. xD
Normally I would pounce on you and bite you in half for purple-prose use, but I think that in a fairy tale you can get away with it. But while we're still on this paragraph, what does "permission hair" mean? I don't think "permission" is an adjective. =P
I don't think the son of a blacksmith could become a knight. Knights were usually the children of nobility. You can have another reason for the king and queen not wanting the princess to marry him, though - maybe they want her to marry a prince instead.
This sentence seems out of place. Something about "it just turned out" seems way out of flow to me. I would revise it as "And so it happened that there would be a banquet the following evening." It fits the fairy-tale voice better in my opinion.
I love this, but like Jabs said, isn't it kind of unlikely? How about she takes the bottle and smashes it in his face before he can react? He'd probably swallow some, and it'd be awesome too. xD
Good work, and keep writing,
-Hawks-
Hi, Teddy!
I found this a really cute story. xD It reminded me of the old-fashioned fairy tales and fables. I found a couple points though that are a bit confusing however, and I wonder if you either meant them or if they were overlooked.
First off, didn't the knights always win the girl at the end? Maybe my memory's just fuzzy. I didn't think it mattered that they were a blacksmith or a nobleman. The fact that they were knights meant they were some kind of nobility. Though maybe... I dunno. Maybe the knight always did something epic and the king would marry off his daughter to him. Not sure how that all works out.
How does a knight sneak into the dining hall? Wouldn't he be on duty?
Is the knight in her bed or just dawdling around? XD I got kind of lost there.
I'm not sure a small princess could force a burly knight to drink some poison. Not sure how she did it if you stick with it, but I think a revamp is in order at the end.
So I found the story very cute! I was upset that it was so short and lacking description, but that could just be me and my love for meaty stories. I like meat on mah bones. D: So yeah. xD If it's possible to fill it up with descriptions/explanations. I thought your description of the princes in the intro was very good! Do something like that with the rest of the piece and explain maybe a couple of the questions I had above.
Keep writing!
Jabber, the One and Only!