Chapter 1
I looked out of the window next to my seat. I looked out at the trees as we passed by them. The houses on the ground and up, they were floating in the sky. I’ve never been on a train before, but Father uses them all the time. He would leave then come back a few days later, I never knew where he would go or why. Whenever I asked him, he would just smile at me, pad my head, and say, “It’s for our family,” but I never understood what he meant. But then again I also never knew my dad was a prince either.
I was out at the stables, feeding the horses as I usually did every afternoon; we all had different duties on the farm. Mine was to feed the horses, clean the stables and any other thing that was related to horses. My sister Estella, she was fourteen- three years younger than me. Because she was younger, she got to take care of the goats. They were easier to care for. We only have a few of them. Then there was my younger brother, Marcel. The youngest of us all he was only six, and so he took care of the chickens and getting their eggs. The rest were our crops: grapes and strawberries. Our father would tend to them mostly, but we would all help from time to time. And finally our mother: she does the cooking, cleaning and putting the goodies from the products to good use. Like selling them at the market.
When I was done with the horses, I walked back to the house. The stables were quite far; it was on the other side of the farm, but I never minded, I always liked walking. We had good weather here at Lucastia, especially on the countryside, away from all noise and busy at the capitol city. I’ve never been there myself, but that was how father would often describe it. He was from there, but he doesn’t talk much about it, in fact he didn’t say much at all about himself before he met my mother.
When I got to the house, I froze at my steps, there were a four of the king’s guards at our front door, they were all wearing the Kingdom of Lucastia’s symbol, a flying hot air balloon, and their uniforms were brown and green, the color of the royal family, which meant they were the elite guards, and the reason I was able to know that was because my father told me about them, he said they protect the royal family and they were never seen unless it was very important or in some cases dangerous. My mother was holding Estella and Marcel tightly, she looked firmly at the guards, but I could tell that she was scared and confused. Marcel looked like he was about crying, and Estella hung on to my mom like her life depended on it, with a frightened look on her face. The first thought I had was, what did Estella do this time? She always liked playing pranks on the guards. Just last week she switched one of the guard’s helmets with a flying one. He flew into the sky and wasn’t able to get down for two days, until the helmet was out of fuel, and it took another day for the others to figure out where he landed. But what could she possibly have done to get in this much trouble? But it might not have been her at all, it might have been something else, but what was it?
I heard a door open from behind me open, and I saw my father come in. he has been working on fixing some inventions, one of our customer has brought in. He also fixe devices sometimes, he was good with inventions, but he never invented something himself, most of his inventions were a failure, but he was good at fixing what has already been invented.
At first he didn’t notice anything, but when he saw the guards, he had a strange expression. Fear? Shocked? I did not know, but it was there only for a few seconds. Then his face-harden, he walked slowly toward the guards passing all of us without a glance and stood right in front of the guards, straight and tall. I waited for them to arrest us, or something, but instead they did something I never would have dreamt to see. They kneeled on one knee and bowed to my father. My jaw dropped. Why would the king’s guard be bowing to my father? Why are they here? Why didn’t they arrest us? (Not that I want them to) Then one of the guards stood up and said words that changed my life forever, “Prince Nathaniel, we have order from your mother Lady Imogen to take you back to the capital city”.
They took us on the first train to the capital city. I still couldn’t believe that my father was Prince Nathaniel, and if he really were the prince why doesn’t he live in the castle like every other princes would do, why pretend to be a farmer, and most importantly what would happen with our family now? There were too many question muddled in my head, one question after another. I looked away from the window. Even though this was my first time on a train, I was not excited. We didn’t even have time to pack, before they shoved us out of our own house.
Ever since what happened, my mother and father has been silent all the way, gave a knowing glance at each other once in a while with looks I could not perceive, which doesn’t help my uneasiness. Mother sat with Marcel, who was still shaking from earlier. Estella looked uneasy sitting alone with all the guards around us. She stood up and walked towards me. The train was not very big, only one long corridor and one long seat on each side, and there were only three other people on the train, two men and a women, and they sat as far away from the guards as possible. Estella sat down next to me and put her head on my shoulder. “What is going to happened now?” was her first words since we left the house. “I don’t know,” I told her, as I smoothed her hair, “I don’t know”. We stayed that way for the rest of the way.
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139,558 Literary Works • 672,608 Reviews
This story is so imaginative! I love it so far. I can't believe that I could be so intrigued by only about a page or two. Of course there are simple spelling mistakes and grammar issues but besides that it's pretty interesting. You did a great job with making the reader want more. I can't wait for you to come up with the title. Keep up the good work!
Hi! Welcome to YWS!
The words are something you can fix, the story is what really matters (not saying that the words arent't essential) 
To begin with, I found your story concept really compelling. You made me wonder what will happen so I'm looking forward to the next chapters! Good job on that.
Before moving on I want to say that all of the following things are just recommendations. I'm aware that it is hard (even impossible) to nail it perfect the first time - I do many many mistakes when writing a first draft. Almost everyone does, I suppose. Revising and editing are a big part of the writing process.
I just wanted to point out some things (so you can fix them later, if you want, of course):
-you sometimes switch between past and present tense where it is not needed
-sometimes your sentences are a bit too long to comprehend
"When I got to the house, I froze at my steps, there were a four of the king’s guards at our front door, they were all wearing the Kingdom of Lucastia’s symbol, a flying hot air balloon, and their uniforms were brown and green, the color of the royal family, which meant they were the elite guards, and the reason I was able to know that was because my father told me about them, he said they protect the royal family and they were never seen unless it was very important or in some cases dangerous."
"I was going back to the house when I saw them. I froze. There were four of the king's guards at our front door, all wearing the Kingdom of Lucastia's symbol on their chests. Their uniforms were in the colours of the royal family - brown and green. Father had told me that the elite guards were to be seen only on very important occasions or in case of great danger."
I'm not saying the second option is perfect (it doesn't flow very well) but at least it is easier to understand.
-there is no need to use he/she after having already introduced him/her
For example:
"My sister Estella, she was fourteen- three years younger than me."
"My sister Estella was fourteen - three years younger than me."
-beware the repetitions
You used uneasiness and uneasy in two consecutive sentences in the last paragraph.
"I heard a door open from behind me open, and I saw my father come in. he has been working on fixing some inventions, one of our customer has brought in. He also fixe devices sometimes, he was good with inventions, but he never invented something himself, most of his inventions were a failure, but he was good at fixing what has already been invented."
This is kind of confusing, not only because of the long sentences. You used invented/inventions several times and fixed/fixing, too. It would also serve well to get rid of typos and the second "open" in the first sentence.
-mind the way you present your main charachter's thoughts
"The first thought I had was, what did Estella do this time? "
You don't have to explain that this was her first thought, it is quite obvious. Just leave "What did Estella do this time?"
"But what could she possibly have done to get in this much trouble? But it might not have been her at all, it might have been something else, but what was it?"
The first sentence is OK, but the second sounds sort of not in place (maybe due to the ending).
"But what could she possibly have done to get in this much trouble? And there was also the chance that the guards had nothing to do with her.[...]"
So much on the technical part. Just go trough it several more times and I believe everything will fall in place.
I think that expandind the first chapter is a good idea. Make your characters converse a bit more, give information through their actions and words. So far all I know is that the main heroine is seventeen, she was raised in a farm and her father is a prince. I'm hooked but will be even more interested if I get a feeling of what she is like. I know more about her father and Estella than about her (for example, I don't even know her name).
Nevertheless, everything I mentioned above can be done later. Keep writing! Revising comes afterwards and I want to know more about the story
Keep it up!
justdream
Hi Pemi!
First of all, I agree with ClackFlip on the transition to the flashback thing. I could have used work. Maybe you could mention something about the drifting into a daydream or something. Second, I liked your idea, but it is a little cheesy to tell the truth. That does not mean that I don't like this, I just thought I should say. Also, I think you could have added more description to your writing. You went from place to place really quickly, and to make it longer and more detailed you can add some place and person description. One last note, you used the wrong capital in paragraph three. Correct me if I am wrong, but I am pretty sure you should use "capital" instead of "capitol". Anyways, I hope this helped!
Hi Pemi
I'll start with a compliment, your narrative flow is very solid and I don't think I had much trouble following the sequence of events...
...except with my first complaint which is the transition to her flashback. One minute she was on a train sitting in her window, the next she was at a farm. Now I may have just accidentally skipped a line that led to the flashback, but it seems like that was a bit sudden to me.
Now for my second critique: Your characters are all stiff. You see, the point of a good character is to make me relate to a story, make me feel the danger they feel, and the sadness as well. I don't find that in your characters; they don't have any personality traits that really draw me into the story. I found this really useful way of creating fast and strong characters if you'd like to take a look: http://www.writingexcuses.com/2014/03/3 ... velopment/
That helped me a lot, and hopefully it'll help you too!
Anyway, thanks for posting this, it was a very fun read and I enjoyed myself.
Cheers!
This is my first work and I'd like to know what you guys think about it. So please comment.