The small blade fell from Rahim's hand with a metallic clatter, though he barely noticed the sound. Adonia's hands still gripped his shoulders as her face contorted in pain. Rahim's eyes moved slowly down her body to the wound he had just inflicted in her left side. He'd never meant to hurt her; it had started only as a thought. They had been sitting together in their bedroom, his arm wrapped lovingly around her shoulder and her cheek pressed to his chest. Then, she had began to speak to him of politics, what it was like being the Sovereign, and a wave of jealousy coursed through him. It should have been me, he had thought. The council council chose wrong. Now all I am is the Sovereign's husband. What honor is there in that? All that work for nothing. I should have been Sovereign.
"I'm so sorry," he choked on his words as he tried to embrace her, but she pushed him away with a sharp breath. he released her, backing away in horror. Adonia's jade eyes bored into his, twisting his stomach into a knot. He knew she could not forgive his betrayal.
"I-I thought-" her words fell short as she grimaced in pain and her vision became blurred with tears. "Get out!" she shouted.
Rahim's voice was wracked with misery. "I'm sorry!" he said again as he turned and ran from the room.
The halls of the palace were silent aside from Rahim's footsteps. He forced himself to tread more softly as he became fearful of waking the guards. But at the palace doors, one guard still stood vigil. "Master Rahim? What has happened?" he asked, his eyes alert.
Breathlessly, Rahim answered, "I need fresh air," and passed through the doors with all the calmness he could muster and slipped into the night.
"Rhea!" From her bedroom, Adonia called her bodyguard, who appeared within moments.
"Are you alright? Who did this?" she demanded, her blue eyes bright with alarm. Her hand took Adonia's, trying to calm her has her eyes assessed the wound in her side.
Adonia's face was wet with tears. "Rhaim," she answered.
Rhea quickly ran to the doorway and stuck her head out into the hallway. "Guards, to me! The Sovereign is wounded!" He booming voice stirred the sleeping gaurds who rose quickly, the sleep still in their eyes as they rushed to Rhea. "Fetch Adonia's physician," she said to one who hurried to comply. To the others she ordered, "Find Rahim." But Rahim had already made his escape.
Adonia's physician treated the wound, judging it as not severe so long as infection did not take hold, but Rhea worried that even after the wound had healed, Adonia would not be recovered. A week passed, and Adonia settled into a state of depression. She ate little, slept little, and spoke little. Her once caramel-colored skin paled, her once toned body became weak, and the fire in her eyes was lost.
Rhea began to spend all of her time in Adonia's room, trying to coax her from her depressed state. Even Rhea's nights were spent there, and Adonia found that she could sleep more soundly knowing that her bodyguard and closest friend was there to protect her. Gradually, Adonia got better through Rhea's encouragements. "Your people are sick with worry," Rhea told her one morning as she ran a brush through Adonia's waist-length hair.
Adonia stared thoughtfully at her reflection in the mirror. "They are patient enough. But I am not. I worry about what has occured within the council in my absence."
Rhea leaned to the side, so that she could meet Adonia's eyes through the mirror. Her red-tinged hair almost seemed to glow like fire in the morning light. "I have worried of that as well, but I sent Haemon to take one of the guard's shifts at the council. He should have a report for us soon."
Adonia perked up. She knew she could always count on Rhea when it came to these things. "You don't think they will recognize him?" she asked, a faint smile appearing on her lips.
"They don't know one soldier from another, even if he is the damned general. They wouldn't expect him there anyway." Rhea's smile was deviant, and seeing the faint smile on Adonis's red lips boosted her spirits. "Come," she said, taking Adonia's arm, "we should get some fresh air. Do you feel well enough to take a stroll through the garden?"
Adonia rose with Rhea. There was still pain in her side from the wound, but it was only a small ember. "Yes, that sounds like a great idea."
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125,007 Literary Works • 672,817 Reviews
Hello and Happy Review Day! I haven't read the Prologue so I'll be looking for typos and errors rather than reviewing the actual story.
I think your hands were just typing fast and got ahead of you
Your tenses are a little wrong here. Moves should be moved.
A couple of nitpicks here: he'd needs to start with a capital H and though should be thought.
Her*
Those are all the nitpicks I can find! Good luck with your future chapters.
Honestly, the prologue isn't at all necessary; I really just wrote it for fun. xD
But I appreciate your review, I'll be sure to go back and fix those typos.
Thanks again!
Well this is short XD
I had read this before you had actually begun to change it, so yay, I can compare! LOL
Overall, I think what you're doing now is much better than what you had done previous. Considering you only did this part in ten minutes is impressive, and I must say I want to read more. The prologue set up a great foundation which you could go many ways. You could make this an action story, filled with fights scenes and duels, or something more mental and psychological, diving into the maddening mind of Rahim, and maybe some of the other characters.
I do have one issue so far, a major one in fact.
Adonia
Adonia is boring. She hasn't had an actual character given to us yet, and being the main character, that's a major problem. She's our base, the one we will look upon for how we are to react or perceive a situation or person, she needs to be interesting! Give her an independent voice that's separated from the stereotypical persona of gentle royalty. Give her a quirk that can be displayed instantly, whether you put in dialogue or add in some description, I don't care. But, even so, a personality has to be there.
Also, this is just a personal opinion; you may want to do this in 1/3 person.
Ok, you probably have no idea what that means, so let me explain. 1/3 person is basically when you transition between first person and third person within one story. It's a bit complicated, but since I know you personally, I'm telling you that I feel you have the ability to pull this off. It allows the reader to see from almost every angle of a story and lets them see how everyone thinks. Adonia would probably be who you use for first person, or in some cases, I could see you put in Rhea, especially when she's thinking over difficult situations.
Now, I'm not saying that this would have to be in one chapter. You could make a pattern or you could just flip flop depending on what the situation calls for.
Bottom line; keep everything interesting.
Can't wait to see more.
Love ya!
~Maddie
Yeah, it's kind of hard to show her personality at this point seeing as she is grieving. I'm mainly aiming the focus at Rahim and Rhea's relationships with Adonia before showing more of Adonia herself. So, patience lol.
Anywho thanks for the review
Discussion
I'll go through bit by bit talking about it.
One of the first things I noticed is the spaces, which detracted from my ability to fully absorb your writing. I also noticed you placed emphasis on dialogue, which writers tend to enjoy doing as it gives them more flexibility with their characters' personalities, but I would suggest also focusing on descriptive imagery to draw the reader to the essential bits of the story, rather than throwing line after line of dialogue to digest.
I did fine this descriptive bit to be very beautiful, and if you could implement it more, it would truly make this story unique.
Noting your bit about writer's block, I find it sometimes helps to write out an outline and/or somehow plot the story ahead of time. Not necessarily in an organized way, but rather like throwing out random ideas on a piece of note paper. Writer's block, as most know, only gets worse the more you think you have it. If you tell yourself you can do it, your mind may stop restricting your creative abilities.
Other than that, I hope you keep developing this story. It has potential.
Thanks for reading my review,
Jared T.
Thank you very much for your help
I'll keep smoothing it out till it gets better.
Hello there!
Le Brunnera is here to review on your work. It's registered under the "General" genres, and considering this is the first chapter, I do not blame you xD
What I noticed about this draft is that it focused a lot on conversation. Imagery was almost completely cut out from the draft, so besides some very slight descriptions, everything else was vague.
For instance, what does Adonia look like? Are her eyes blue, is her skin dark, is her hair auburn? General Rhea also lacks description. Is she tall, important-looking, fit in shape? Where does the first half of this chapter take place? Yes, it is an entrance hall, but the walls? Pillars? Any décor?
Without these paragraphs of imagery, the reader is basically reading a simple telling of a story without actually being pulled into the actual situation. Getting the reader into your story is one of the most important things an author should do. Details-- without exaggerating or belittling them-- is what you should focus on.
There was one error I found in one of the conversations:
" "It went well. [The] have decided that I am well enough to remain on the throne." "
"The"? I'm sure you meant "They" xD
Besides that, I should confess that I was very pleased to know Rhea is a General. That gave me some sort of satisfactory explanation as to her authority and power in the first half of the chapter. It is also amusing because, as a woman, she has a soft side behind her peremptory manner with the men.
There were some stunning descriptions, like at the beginning of the second half your wrote about Adonia and Rhea walking down the palace gardens. That is the kind of imagery a reader would like, because I could imagine and feel myself walking down the gardens with the two characters.
Your plot is also interesting. It has a kind of medieval touch to it. You should know I enjoyed this a great deal, even if the imagery was less. You don't mind telling me the true genre of your story? Is it supposed to be romantic, or action/adventure, or fantasy?
Keep writing! Thanks for a great read,
~Brunnera
Thank you so much for your reveiw
The garden part was going to be the original starting place, but at the last minute I added in the scene with Ajaxx and Haemon. I think the problem is that before I had really started writing this novel down, I made it into a play (I had to write a drama for class), so then rewriting it didn't go as well as I had hoped
As for genre, I always have trouble labling my works. I'll figure it out eventually.
Thanks for your help!
Hello! I did definitely get the feeling that you were struggling with this while I was reading.
I think the main problem with this chapter is that it's... not really an introduction. There's almost zero exposition, and you sort of just... thrust us into the middle of things with no explanation whatsoever, which is sort of the opposite of the problem I see most frequently around here.
First chapters are tricky because you want to hit the right mix of exposition (so readers know what's going on) and action (so it's not boring). Right now you've got way too much action in comparison to exposition, so it's confusing. What you can do to fix this is simply telling us more—or by showing it to us. A great way to start would be with Rahim actually attempting to murder Adonia; you could give us their station and relationship quite naturally by showing them interacting together after a long day ruling the country or whatever, and then suddenly he pulls out a weapon and stabs her, or whatever he actually did, and runs off.
Then cut to what you've already written, with everything in chaos and Rahim skipping town, etc.
I'd also recommend writing an actual transition between the assassination attempt and Adonia asking after him months later; if this were a film or a TV show, you could get away with just captioning it with "x amount of time later," but that doesn't work so well in written media. It doesn't have to be much; a few sentences saying "that was X months ago; [stuff that has been going on in the interim]. [Something about Adonia probably]." would suffice.
Generally, your ratio of dialogue to description is skewed pretty heavily to dialogue, which is a related problem to the exposition-action ratio being off. Especially in the beginning, you've got talking head syndrome going on—where characters are talking, but the reader has NO idea where they are, what they're doing, what the characters are like, or what the setting is like. Give us some more detail! Describe the characters moving around the setting as they talk!
Think of it like this: Right now you've got a pretty good skeleton for a first chapter, and you just need to add the meat to fill in between the bones.
Thank you so much, that helps a lot
It's pretty frustrating because I have lots of later scenes already written out with great description. Then I went write the first chapter and it ended up rather forced.