“Mr. Benedict, are you up here?”
Oh, Hell. I’d known they’d find me soon enough. But damn, so soon.
I gave Adriana an apologetic glance, and took a step back. We’d been standing close, there, for a minute. Another, and we might’ve been kissing.
“Mr. Benedict?”
Good Lord, he’d come himself: I recognized his voice. Captain or no, I was willing to bet that three years ago, it wasn’t even broken.
Hadn’t the kid better things to do? A whole boat full of souls at his hands and he chose to harass me, his lowly cook. Perhaps I count as two souls, seeing as I do twice as much work as anyone should have to.
I patted Adriana once on the arm, before calling back, somewhat wearily. “Yes, Captain. I’m up here.”
His light footsteps sounded on the stairs before he came into view, with one hand on the stone wall. His face was lightly sunburned, and the ribbon holding back his blonde curls was coming loose. As always, I looked for his scar: now, on his reddened chin, it barely showed. He joined me at the window ledge, giving Adriana a slight bow.
“I hope I’m not interrupting anything?” Captain Kendrew said, his eyebrows shooting up his forehead.
“Oh no. Certainly not. Captain, this is Adriana.”
The Spanish woman at my side nodded to him shyly. She was wearing white again today. Her lips were full, and red. We’d only met the week before, when we’d landed on her shore, but I was falling for her entirely.
“Encantada,” he said, speaking Adiana’s native language. “It is a pleasure to meet you.”
He brought her hand to his lips. She smiled, a flush of pink staining her cheeks, and I felt the vaguely familiar urge to damage my superior officer’s face. I ground my teeth, and held my tongue.
“It’s a beautiful view, isn’t it?” he said, gesturing out at the glimmering sea, beyond the window. A warm breeze blew through the cracks in the walls, carrying with it the smell of salt: a nagging reminder of what I would soon have to go back to. Sun shown down on us from above, through the ruined roof, and Adriana’s hair glistened like the water, reflecting thousands of colors. Her amber skin was radiant.
“Yes,” I sighed.
The captain squared his hat. “ Ah well. We’re leaving, Mr. Benedict. I suggest you not be late back on board.”
“No Sir. Thank you, Sir.”
With another bow to the lady, he skipped back down the spiral steps, and through the window I watched him pace down the grass, toward the shore. I looked awkwardly around the broken fort before turning back to Adriana. She was adjusting one of the scarlet threads that adorned her white dress, not meeting my gaze. I took her hands.
“Adriana…”
“I know. You have to go.” She stood on tiptoes to kiss me softly. I leaned down, our lips curling together with growing intensity. My hands tangled in her gorgeous locks.
A bell sounded in the distance. Unwillingly, I drew away.
“Be safe,” she whispered. She left, then, down the stairs, throwing me a dark-eyed, backwards glance on her way out.
I remained in the destroyed bell tower for just long enough to repeat every swear word I was aware of—after just months at sea, this took me approximately six times longer than it would have before my voyage. Then I followed after her and the captain, to where the ship and my duty; my infernal, perpetual, unrelenting duty, awaited me.
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This is a character sketch for a story I'm working on. I haven't written in quite a while, and I'm a bit out of practice. Be harsh! ^_^
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140,565 Literary Works • 673,441 Reviews
Jenna, you slay me. Age of Sail stuff makes me swoon. So sorry that it took me so long to say anything about this.
CURSING
I am pretty sure that hell and damn are authentic for the time period. I could probably pull out a passage from one of my Hornblower books where Horatio says pretty much the same thing, except probably not because of a girl.
INTENSITY
I almost want to say I like it where it stands, but if you were to expand this, I'd expect more for sure.
DR. FEELGOOD
One of the things that makes me so happy is that this feels like the genuine thing. I really does.
*hugs Benedict*
I kind of want to adopt him and his Cap'n now.
Ta,
Cal.
Hello 'Fina! Major apologies for the tardiness of this review. Real life seems to be taking up more and more time these days; it's terribly pesky.
Since it looks like you've gotten quite a few line-by-line critiques from some of YWS's finest, I'll just stick to generalities to reduce the risk of annoying redundancy.
I agree with Snoink about passion/intensity. I am curious about the relationship between the cook and the captain, the captain and the Spanish lay-day, the cook and his pretty lay-day, but only mildly so. With more intensity in the piece in general, my interest level would increase exponentially. I'm not saying lay the whole messy story out there in the beginning, and while a little mystery is spiffy, but I think a dash more description and explanation, with a smattering of raw emotion, would make this piece just lurvely.
It works as a character sketch, but as a stand-alone piece, it's lacking. Are you planning to do any more work on this?
'Lo Jenna. ^_^
...ah, I'll run it through, line by line at first--a few things in noticed that felt repetitions or awkward.
Double-curse there. Likely, striking 'oh well' would make the entire two sentences flow more smoothly. As it is, ' oh hell' takes away from the 'soon' to 'so soon' comparison, and neither curse has as much weight as it ought.
Extraneous verbs, and a bit passive, yes? ^_^ It'll be more direct, and more immediate to the reader, sans the second 'been' and perhaps with 'standing' struck.
The above, as an example: You've changed up sentence structure rather neatly. But you haven't much changed up length. And with the length similar to the same, something in the character's voice lets it all run together--same length paragraphs, similar length sentence. Perhaps try adding more to a paragraph? Or combining, yes?
(Oy, and I like the fellow's interjections of curses and such. But I think they might fit more naturally if you scatter them inside the sentence, rather than nearly always at the front.)
Not dead necessary in the least. But somehow, it seems there could be a pause in the captain's speech, between 'interrupting' and 'anything'. Like so--
or...
Oy, a suggestion. It would give more emphasis to Kendrew's character, and his remark; and would immediately make Benedict's response more awkward and rushed.
[Apologies--interrupted. -_- Er, I'll be back soon to finish, but if I don't post this I doubt I'll be back soon as I'd like. ^_^]
IMP
I think you should replace "Spanish woman" with Adriana. You've all ready introduced her by this time, so you can't go back and re-introduce her background. Include this when you first introduce her.
Also, the last sentence is a run on sentence and should be shortened. I think you should put the Spanish woman stuff in a separate sentence or two when you describe how they met on her shore, or something romantic like that.
I quite enjoyed the story, the edited version is quite nice.
Finally reviewing this, love.
Might be hard for me to be very harsh as I am completely obsessed with Hornblower at the moment and Hornblower-esque things make me squee.
So, positives:
-I love Mr. Benedict's thoughts! I giggled several times. Engaging character=very good.
-As someone said, awesome description.
Suggestions:
-While I love the description, the detail is primarily of Adriana. This would make sense as that's what's on the character's mind, but perhaps you could give us a more vivid picture of the ship, the sea, the docks, the uniforms, etc? And (somone has said this already) you have good visual description; sensual description would take it up a notch.
-I know this is just a sketch, but so far the character of Adriana seems rather bland... it's really to early for me to say that, but hopefully she is either a minor character or will become more interesting?
- Some phrases were a little too romance novel. "My hands tangled in her gorgeous locks," etc.
-At some point, you have to make him say, "Aye aye, sir!" and tip his hat. For no other reason than to amuse me. You did give him my last name, after all. XD
That wasn't very in depth, but this is an intriguing tidbit. Write more and I will crit more.
Edited!
Thanks for the review!
Chocoholic, Mr. Benedict is a cook on the captain's ship, so he is a servant. Thanks a lot for the great review: I tried to fix all the parts you found unclear.
Wolf, you were speedy! Thanks so much for the in-depth review. I fixed the annoying comma thing, and tried to add some more non-visual description. I'm working on a continuance of this, about their time at sea.
Snoink, I love your reviews. Thank you! I made a lot of changes, but kept the ending because I have no idea what swearwords they used in the 1700's. Hopefully it's less boring now? I'm awful with romance scenes.
Jackie, I fixed the Spanish thing.
Hmmm... most of what I had to say has been said already. I liked reading it, but I agree with Wolf - almost all the description was visual, and it made it feel sort of flat.
I don't think you necessarily need to explain the "encantada" - I got the gist of it (I'm supposedly learning Spanish, but not, you know, well) - but I wasn't sure about the "her native tongue" part. At first, I assumed that it was a mistake, and you were referring to the Captain, but was is Adriana?
"Over there" sounds more natural.
Any reason for the curses besides just because? "Hell" seems very out of place. I would also split this paragraph up and start the next paragraph as its own paragraph.
This sentence sounds like they are having sex while they are standing up. Just so you know! ^_^
This sentence is bleeding cheesiness and so vague and unspecific that I want to stand it.
Describe the voice, just to make it distinct to us and make us know it's a kid BEFORE the next sentence.
Jack would inform you that it's not "boat"--it's "ship."
I thought they were on a boat? Why are there stones?
Ribbon?
Then why mention it?
Awww...
I think this would be a cool place to describe Adriana. I imagine her as a prostitute but... she may be somebody else?
I would specify it either as Spanish or Portuguese.
I hate the last sentence.
“It’s a beautiful view, isn’t it?” he said, gesturing out at the glimmering sea, beyond the window. Sun shown down on us from above, through the ruined roof. Adriana’s hair glistened like the water, reflecting thousands of colors. Her amber skin was radiant.[/quote]
Ugh. Without knowing the connection between Adriana and the narrator, the description is pointless.
This is the most boring snogging scene I have ever read. Can you possibly make it more boring?
Snog somebody in real life if you have to... just... ugh. With more passion? XD You could at least talk about how her lips are curling around his bottom lip. Just make it interesting!
Exited is a sucky word. XD
Psh, make him swear. This would be a fitting place. And it would be a more interesting ending than the boring narrative you have.
Anyway! Continue writing.
Hey Jenna! =)
Sorry it's taken me so long to get around to this.
This is probably just personal preference, but the comma after 'stairs' kinda bugs me. You might try: His light footsteps sounded on the stairs before he came into view with one hand on the stone wall.
Beautiful description there!
I know what you mean in this sentence, but I think it could be better worded. Maybe something like this: He skipped back down the spiral steps, and I watched him from out of the window as he paced down the grass, toward the shore.
Once again, it's just personal preference, but I'm annoyed by the comma after 'fort'.
I think 'dark eyed' should be hyphenated.
I don't think the 'was' is necessary?
Maybe put a 'my' before 'infernal'?
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Negatives and positives:
+ beautiful descriptions
-- could do with more sensual description, though
+ thorough characters
-- too short! I want more.
+ good, believable dialogue
To build off what I said about sensual description:
Your imagery now is mostly visual. I could picture it all in my head, but it lacks description of the other four senses. You could describe the soft breeze, how it felt on his skin; the heat of the sun on his back; the annoyance prickling down his spine as he watched the Benedict with Adriana -- you know, that kind of stuff. What did he smell, hear, taste, feel?
But that's about all the criticism I have! Overall, this is really good. I love it!
Are you planning to continue this? If so, please PM me so I can read & review!
Cheers,
Camille xx
Shouldn't you seperate the two parts? They seem to belong to two different paragraphs.
I like the description here. It's not info-dumping, and it strikes an image in my mind. The only thing is, you mention a ribbon. That seems a bit... iffy. And I would assume (please see note at the end) that he would bow to Adriana upon entering.
I was confused when I first read this. Firstly, I have no idea what the language is or what it means, but that's just me, but you said, in her natibe tongue. The first time I read it, I thought it was an inconsistency and you accidently reffered to the captain as her.
Well at first I thought that Benedict was above the Captain, but this line seems a little servant-ish.
Skipped? There's probably a better word that you could use here.
I like it. Is this the end? I'm not really sure what's going on, but there was an American president called Benedict Arnold, I think. Living in Australia, the migority of my American History knowledge is what I've learnt from the Simpsons. So really, I have no idea who these people are or when this is set.
But as to your writing, I like it a lot. It seems simple, but it has a feeling of complexity. Your descriptions are good and your characters are interesting. The dialogue seems to fit the time period, if I'm thinking about the same time that it's actually set in.
Thanks a lot for the critiques! (It would be cool if you could be more specific, though.
) What I was going for here was not a full plotline, more a peice of flash fiction to introduce a character.
Hair can reflect thousands of colors?
This was relatively short and I wasn't sure what this was about until about a fourth of the way through. And I was surprised. Like the other guy said, this didn't have too much to critique but I did my best. Overall your writing is pretty good and I can't give too much advice. Keep it up.
Edit: I agree with Chocoholic. I have Spanish class, so I know that 'encantada' means something like 'nice to meet you'. But not everyone here does. You may want to somehow work what it means or at least what language it is somewhere.
I don't think that I was given enough to really have an opinion on this. Your plot, what we've seen of it, has really only just begun.
But what I read was decently-written and interesting.