Chapter 16
~856 words
It was a rainy morning in Roma, so when Shep, Marc, and Jay entered the library, the librarian commanded them to wait half an hour for their clothes to dry. She was afraid they’d drip on the books, ruining them. So they chatted idly in the receiving hall of the library. Shep was asking about Marc’s new job as a city guardsman. Marc watched and protected the city whenever there was a public event or crisis going on. The job paid handsomely, but was not without its dangers. Protests tended to get violent in Roma, the capital of Trevon, and even parades had their own sort of violent fanatics. Marc struck Jay as a brutally honest person who could beat you up as easily as compliment your choice in hat. Not that he was more prone to violence than others, on the contrary, Jay found him quite affable.
When the rain had dried enough that the she didn’t fear for her books, the librarian led them inside. Jay was surprised at how small the library was. There were only about a thousand books on the shelves. Jay had been used to visiting his public library with over a hundred thousand books available to check out. This library seemed miniscule in comparison.
The librarian seemed very proud of the collection, however: while Jay stood astounded at the tiny size, she must have thought he was amazed at its grand size.
“It’s the biggest one in Trevon,” she said, looking as pleased as if she had written them all herself.
“Er… it’s very nice,” Jay responded.
“Have you gotten anything new since I was last here?” Shep asked, peering around.
“Assuming you don’t care about the fiction still? No.”
“That’s a shame. Well, I wanted to see that one book again. The one with the maps.”
The librarian looked uncomfortable. “Yes. Of course. And when would you like to see it? Next week? Great I’ll pencil you in…”
“Whoa, next week? There never used to be any waiting. Where’s the book?” Shep demanded.
“It is unavailable at this time,” she said in a strained voice.
“Where is it?” Shep’s voice was like cold steel.
The librarian sighed. “Some man came to see it. He didn’t give it back. He was downright rude about it too. I figure the city guards might find it within the week…”
“Are you mad? The city guard couldn’t find a missing king!” Shep threw a guilty look at Marc who waved his hand dismissively. “It could be half way across Trevon by now!”
The librarian crossed her arms defensively. “We’ll I’m sorry if we all can’t run out on a white steed and save the day.”
Shep rested his head on his hand. “Are there any other maps of Trevon?”
“There’s plenty! We have half a shelf full.” The librarian, eager to please, led them through the book cases to a shelf on the back wall. She gestured to a group of about five books. “Take a peek!” Then the Librarian left them to peruse the scant collection.
After only a few minutes, it became aparant to all of them that these maps weren’t to be trusted in even the most dire of circumstances. Instead of a compass-rose or grid lines, there were unicorns and sea monsters splashing in the corners. As Shep flipped through the books, all bound with a curious binding, Jay realized that they were handwritten. That was why there weren’t many books in the library.
“Come on,” Shep said, turning away in disgust. “We have to find that map.”
“Didn’t you say it could be half-way across Trevon by now? Why do we need it anyway?” Jay asked.
“Yes, I did, didn’t I?” Shep growled. “I remember seeing something on that map that seemed to be a great place to hide a sheep. Unfortunately there were about seventeen other such places, and I cannot remember where exactly those places are. That book was the only accurate map of Trevon that I’ve seen. We need to find it.” Shep walked back to the front of the library, where the librarian watched him from behind her desk. “This man, who took the book, what is his name? What did he look like?”
“His name… I can’t remember it. I got so angry when he took it! But his looks… He wasn’t unattractive.” She blushed.
“But tell me what he looked like!” Shep was growing impatient.
“He had the brightest smile,” she started dreamily, “tanned skin, dark hair… but then he was so rude. And he stole a book!”
“I can’t very well round up everyone who has tan skin and dark hair,” Shep said clearly, as if he was speaking to someone rather daft. “Is there any distinguishing features? Scars? Accents? Anything we can use to find him?”
“Well, now that you say it… He did have an accent. I don’t know where from, but it wasn’t from around here.” Then she brightened, gasping a little, “oh and he wore this cloak. It was a brilliant red. Like a sunset.”
“Cabot,” Jay growled.
“That’s it!” the librarian exclaimed. “That’s his name!”
Points:
Time spent:
Canary word: Present
Possible AI signals:
Original Text:
Are you sure you want to delete this comment? This cannot be undone.
Mark this comment as a review? Points will be awarded to the poster.
Your comment was posted, but it wasn’t long enough to count as a review. Reviews need about four complete sentences (at least 250 characters). Try writing another review that explains your thoughts in more detail — the author will appreciate it, and you’ll earn points for it.
125,015 Literary Works • 672,850 Reviews
Unfortunately, this might be the only Wool of the Prince chapter I'll be reviewing today. It turns out that I don't have that much time this weekend!
I think that it would make more sense if that first comma could be changed to a semicolon.
Ah, Cabot is back! His name always reminds me of a carrot. Anyway, I'm happy that you're about to pull the mighty, red-cloaked antagonist back into the book. He seemed to be absent for too long.
The librarian was so proud of her books. That was adorable.
Again, I must remind you to describe the sheep, or at least keep track of them as you write. For instance, while Shep, Jay, and the others were in the library, where were our little wooly friends?
Nice chapter! It was short, but I think that it was also a perfect transition to the next chapter. Your writing is very good; keep it up!
I promise to review the other chapters soon, but it probably won't be today!
Hi there! Noelle here for a Review Day review!
Quick nitpick:
At the beginning of the second sentence here, you should probably say something like "Marc explain how he...". Describing the actual job that Marc did makes it seem like Jay knew this already, since this novel is basically written in his POV (third person limited, am I right?). Having him actually listen to Marc's answer instead of just announcing what Marc does would make it more believable.
First it was mentioned that the librarian made the group stand there to let the water dry off their clothes. Now it's mentioned that the rain dried off. It's something really small, but it plays into the whole consistency in your writing. Also, it's not explained here that their clothes had dried off. It sounds as if the rain outside had stopped, instead of the rain water drying off of their clothes.
Oh dear, we're getting back into the thick of things aren't we?? I don't know what's wrong with me, but I always love it when the villain comes into play in the story. And now you've brought back the villain from all those chapters ago. I like how the librarian had to describe him. It actually works very well seeing as it's been a bit of time since we last saw Cabot and people like me are going to forget what he's like since we only saw him once :3 It was like a little refresher, but at the same time completely necessary to the character and the scene.
You do like to leave us hanging, don't you? It's a simple cliffhanger here at the end, but boy is it one heck of a cliffhanger. Here they are, looking for a map that leads to the one thing that they're trying to get: the sheep. Then it turns out that their enemy is the one who has that map. I hope that they'll be able to track him down and retrieve the map. But of course that won't happen without a lot of fighting and intense scenes me thinks. I'm looking forward to where this leads!
You really don't leave me with much to comment on, really. Your writing style is quite consistent throughout this novel and you continue to move the plot forward. Your characters are nice and I truly feel like I know them. There aren't many books, or any book really, that I would read where the characters weren't strong, believable, and relatable. The characters in this novel are all three of those.
If there was one thing I'd have to say though, it's that I feel like Jay's voice is disappearing a bit in the story; especially in these last two chapters. What I mean by that is, it's becoming less of his story and more of a story about the entire group. Now, this is always a tricky thing to perfect since you want to have that balance between all of the characters. However, Jay is the main character. This novel is written in his POV. So we should see more of him in these chapters than of anyone else, right? But here we see his astonishment in the small size of the library and his sudden realization that the librarian is talking about Cabot, but that's about it. We read about Shep and the librarian bantering about this book of maps. How does Jay feel about all of this? What is he doing while this is going on? Is he watching intently, hesitating to jump in and defend Shep, looking around the room while the conversation passes by his ears? These are things that are missing. I want to see more of Jay, more of how all of this is affecting him.
Overall, another great chapter here. Like I said, you do a good job of advancing the plot. It seems like they're only ever in one place for a few chapters and then they're gone. There never is any time for your characters to remain complacent and in the same place so to stretch out the story. Keep that up!
Good thing I still have a lot to read so I won't have to suffer from this cliffhanger for much longer
Keep writing!
**Noelle**
Timmy here!
Wow, a library. I thought it was awfully funny when Jay walked in and Hullo! This dun look like a library to me! A thousand books is not very many, really. That would only be about one or two good-sized bookshelves. My family has about six-thousand books (don't judge. hehehe) and we have about six(?) bookshelves about four feet by eight, so I think your description of the library is very fitting, and accurate. I suppose I never thought about it before, but it's true. They wouldn't have big, elaborate libraries back then. Everything would be small, even in the big towns, because every book had to be hand-written. I just remember the stories of like the writing of the Bible in long-hand. Monks used to do that. Talk of a chore! But... off topic.
This entire section seemed, to me, to be one big info dump. My apologies for being so rude and blunt, but that is what it seems like to me. It's almost like you just had a handful of information and threw it into a paragraph and then force-fed it to me. I promptly forgot all of it after I read the paragraph, and I don't really like that. I think its a pretty important thing, Marc's new job and everything. It seems to be something that could be of some importance later on in the book, so I think you could bring it up to light a little bit more. Like, perhaps in your next draft(if you do two or more. I dunno. most do) you could do a conversation or something with Marc actually explaining to Shep and Jay what job he has and if he enjoys it, and what he does, etc... etc... Especially with the last little part, where Jays says he finds Marc very affable, I think it would be better to show his affability to him rather than Jay just telling the reader that this guy is pretty cool. Showing it via conversation or action may be your better bet there.
O_o That is a lot of library. I know you used two different forms of library--the other being a person that works in one rather than the building itself--but it still seemed like that word was wayyyy overused there. Seemed rather redundant to me, and I think that would be something you may want to avoid. I dunno if there are synonyms for library, but if there are--use them. And if not, then just try to limit your use of the word so that when you need it, you don't have to sound redundant. I usually have a song for redundancy, but I will spare you this time.
Reading this, I couldn't help but think that the still should have belonged over by the you and don't.
One final note on librarian: I think you should 1) name her, so that we don't have this redundant feeling of "libarian" running amok all over the place. You can even have a silly name tag on her shirt or something, even though that kinda sounds modern dayish--anything to omit the usage of library so often. And 2) I think some description of her is necessary. She isn't a main character or anything, so I can see why you wouldn't go around and give us a long description of her, but I think something is needed. Little things are nice. Like, perhaps she wears horn-rimmed glasses (if those were around back then), which would make me think of an older woman, because a girl probably wouldn't want to be caught dead wearing something as hideous as those. But... I don't think an older woman would have acted that way towards Cabot, no matter how good looking he may have been. So I think just a teensy bit of description, even if you could even merely insert it into her action, would be super nice and help the visual side of things in this chapter.
He definitely seems the villain in this book so far. I am so glad he isn't like the Eragon villain, where you hear about all of this baddd stuff he does, but never actually see him and the bad dude is never there. In this book, I am really seeing all the characters fleshing out, especially Jay. I really enjoyed all the references to his home in this chapter. It was good to have a reminder that he truly doesn't belong in this place--still. I wonder when he will.
Catching up! Slowly, but surely.
~Darth Timmyjake
Heya Fortis!
Your novel should feel loved :3 Not like a mistress at all xD It's always a pleasure to read and there is something new and interesting for us in each chapter. In this case, we got to see a bit more of the setting. Not like you went on describing it, but now we get to see that all the books are handwritten, which much mean they don't have many or perhaps no printing going on yet. It also explains why the librarian was so keen for them to stay outside. At first it seemed a little over the top, but then having a reason helped all the more
Don't forget to give all of the characters a bit of equal spotlight. This is a problem I have with my own novel so I can understand how hard it is. But Marc only just joined the picture, and apart from the description of him at the beginning of the chapter, we barely see him at all. I feel like he wasn't even there. Just add him into the conversations with Jay, or the one between Shep and the Librarian and I think it will be okay
This made me keen to know what they could possibly want to protest about here. This world is different from hours, so would their problems be different too? It might be a nice little thing to think about, and maybe Jay could question Marc about it seeing as he is not from this world. You'd also include Marc in the chapter more, so it would be two birds with one stone
I suggest you say when their clothes had dried enough, because they weren't necessarily waiting for the weather to change were they? Just for themselves to be dry enough to touch books and ruin them.
I found this a little bit funny. I know you went on to say in Jay's library there were hundreds of thousands which made this one seem smaller. But you went on to say it was such a small library, then use the word 'thousand' which implies a bigger number than it really is (because it's referring to books.) Instead, to make the number seem smaller, how about you tell us how many bookshelves there are instead of books? It would match the previous statement more.
Here's an easier way to avoid saying size twice: Jay stood astounded at the tiny room, she ... etc
Comma needed after the word great.
I think it would've been nice to have a bit of a description of the librarian, to add a bit more to her character, even though it is going to be a fleeting meeting. All part of an adventure I guess. You meet many people, but few of them stick. Is she an old person or young? Small and plump, bustling about, or tall and with her head buried in a book before she arrived? It could alter her personality a bit and get us to know her better, even if it's just in this chapter. I think I liked her, as a character ^.^
Suggestion to make it flow better and erase the repetition of the word places: and I cannot remember where they are anymore.
As usual Fortis, this was a great chapter. We're meeting new people along the way and encountering even more problems. We've gotten to see that Cabot is intent on getting to where they need to be before they can, and make them following as hard as he can for them. I hope they will find that book, whatever he has done with it!
I am going on to the next chapter
Deanie x
These are all such great ideas. ;-;
Thank you very much!
Hey. Here to review.
And Cabot returns! Duhn duhn dah! I was wondering when we'd see him again:)
I love your description in this chapter. It's not too heavy but not too light either.
The only real problem I have with this chapter is more an overall plot thing. Have you ever played RPGs or MMOs? They're a type of video game, if you haven't. Sometimes in these games, they have fetch quests-where you're supposed to go get something from someone. These are fine in moderation, but there's something gamers call an infinite fetch quest, which is when you reach that someone you need to get something from and need to get something else before they'll give you what you came from. Often, they'll send you to get that something else from someone else, and then that person will need something...
What I'm saying is that your plot is starting to read like an infinite fetch quest. It doesn't really feel like anyone is making any progress. Perhaps you should add more gravitum? I mean, it seems like the kingdom has been running just fine without it's king, and yet you're trying to have this super urgent atmosphere. It really doesn't match up. Jay and company might be saving the world, but they're taking their time doing it, and it doesn't seem to have any consequences.
Oh have I not made it clear that there are multiple kingdoms run by multiple kings in Trevon? The king and queen that are missing are a part of this run-down state that we haven't visited yet. The rest of the country is getting along fine without them. I guess I should go back and explain that somewhere.
Yeah, it looks as if they'll be running all over the place all the time. I'll try to vary it up in the future.
Oh:) Yeah, I never really got the bit about multiple kingdoms. Not sure if I missed it or if you didn't put it in, though.
Hi, Sillia here.
So this is a pretty decent chapter so far. But, in all honesty, it could use some work. I like your word choice and it seems like a pretty good story line. I just jumped into this story, so its a lil confusing for me. But anyway, confusion aside.
The first sentence is a run-on sentence. Try to shorten it up or split it into two sentences. So maybe: It was a rainy morning in Roma when Shep, Marc and Jay entered the library. Their entrance to the library was denied due to their sopping clothing.
Just...like your sentences don't seem very....interesting. Sorry if that sounds rude but I kinda got bored reading this. I don't know if its just because I don't know whats going on all to well or what. Butttt i do like the face that the librarian is marveling at the size of the library and they are just like...."are you kidding me?" that part made me laugh. So overall, its pretty good. I'm just focusing on the minor aspects of things. You need more detail. What does the room look like? Smell? Books, believe it or not, carry a very distinctive smell. What about the librarian? what does she look like? the books. do they look old or new. their hand written? well that adds a whole new area to work on.
Is the hand writing small and cramped? is it big? neat? messy? there are just allot of details that are left out that makes it appear in-complete and unrealistic. Also, its a bit dialogue heavy. Adding some description will help not only lengthen the chapter, but even it out. It will also get the reader more interested in the story itself.
Over all though, as a whole, I did enjoy the story line, and the cliff hanger ending.
I don't know who Cabot is, but I'm guessing he's a bad guy or something of the sort. If i could add another suggestion, try taking
that part out and just leaving it with
Just a friendly suggestion. also focus on how the characters look. Their tone, the way they are dressed. Their facial expressions. Little details that will make it seem more real. It was pretty good so far though and with some editing has the potential to be really good. Happy writing!
< Sillia >