“Tut tut tut, Marcella you really have out down yourself this time.” He pauses, waiting for my response, I decide not to give him the satisfaction and begin to eat my steak. “I thought you of all people would understand how important the start of our new laws would be. It gives us more control and in the long run it will prevent anything like that riot happening again. Because of you speaking out, I must take action.” He rises now and walks over to me and leans in, I can feel him breathing down my neck, his beard itches against my cheek. He pushes my plate away from me “you performed an act of defiance against your leader. What is that punishable by Cyrus?”
“Um, I don’t know sir.”
“It’s punishable by death, sir.” Mutters Sam, his head is bowed and will not look up. I can tell that he is disappointed in me, I’m not bothered though, I did what I thought was right and I do not regret it.
“Well done Sam, I will be proud to call you son someday. So yes, death is what should be given to you Marcella, consequently I am not a savage killer. That is why your death punishment shall be shared in your name and go to the people today who started the riot. And I want you to be the one who pulls that trigger. Just like you pulled the trigger for that rampage to start.” I let out a cry. I can’t believe it. He’s a tyrant and is going to cause so much pain. I can feel my blood boiling as he breathes louder. I feel a drop of blood hit my hand, the scar on his head must be bleeding.
He lowers his head down and whispers into my ear “Oh before I forget, Sam told me about your new little friend, Angus is his name? I will be getting a supervisor to see if what he did today was protocol.” I am unable to hold my anger in anymore, how dare Sam betray me to look good in front of my Father just because he feels jealous about Angus, then Father wants me to kill theses innocent people to prove a point. I am surrounded by selfish people, they are plastic, nothing good about them, they don’t care what they do, and I need to escape, I feel all my anger I’ve kept bottled up about the Globe about to explode. Ticking on in my head, these thoughts keep going around. I hear all the things from today haunting me, I go to eat the food on my plate when another drop of blood hits me and without thinking I tighten my grip on the steak knife up and plunge it into the gap between Fathers fingers on the table.
“I would rather die than be the one who is Queen after you!” I spit in his face, I twist my head staring at Sam dead in the eyes “I’d rather be with that street rat than someone who is actually like a rat.”
I storm out of the room, not bothering to look back, I hear my Mother gasping and Father shouting for me to come back. I don’t care anymore I just want today to be done. I can hear someone running after me from behind, it’s probably Sam coming to get me to calm down and apologise, I don’t want to stop, I start to walk faster then it breaks into a run. It’s like I feel that if I can run fast enough I might be able to outrun this problem.
I run into the garden and slip as the rain has made the grass muddy. I don’t know what to do anymore, I just cry, no one will be able to notice in the rain, I sit in the mud, my makeup running down my cheeks, my dress is ruined as well as my life. A hand reaches down to my shoulder, I turn around hoping to see Sam, but it is not him. It’s Angus.
“Do you want to go somewhere to talk?” He asks, I’m grateful his first question isn’t if I’m okay, I hate it when I’m asked that. I nod my head and begin to get up of the muddy puddle of grass. I keep slipping so Angus takes my heels off and sweeps me of my feet, carrying me to shelter under the summer house. I’m soaking wet and so is he. There’s no point bothering about trying to look nice as I ruined the dress. My vision is blurred from the flood of tears streaming down my face. I hear the roaring od the waves, they must be worse now due to the storm.
“That was a pretty crazy thing you did back there Princess.” He’s looking straight at me with a very serious face. I can tell he’s disappointed with my actions, he has no reason not to be.
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139,521 Literary Works • 672,595 Reviews
Hi Ginger!
I really like the visual aspect of positioning to show the power play between the characters, it makes the action of stabbing the knife a lot more powerful. Her father may be the one who appears to be in control but even sitting beneath him she's the one holding the weapon, which makes for a really interesting dynamic.
I think this could do with a bit more inclusion of the surroundings. I assume that at this point in the story you'll have already described the setting, but it would be great to have some input throughout to add to the tension. Things like the smell of the food, the sound of the wood when she smashes a knife into it, maybe the sound of the rain on the windows. You can say a lot just through the atmosphere.
The introspection in this is cool in general, the breathing down the neck, the blood boiling, as well as the thought processes, give Marcella both a personal and physical presence. In these scene in particular it works so well, the way you've done it really emphasises that suffocating influence her father has over her.
Also, give this a title =p Even if it's a snippet of a project you haven't named yet, it's still your work, and it's pretty good work, so it deserves one. Something simple like 'Scene 12, the dinner table' or that kind of thing would fit if you don't want to give it a formal title.
Keep up the good work. There are some interesting character dynamics here so it would be great to see how they play out over the space of a longer project.
Overall I love the tone. Your character is a princess and yet she's being bullied by her own father. I such a short time, you introduce to us so much about the character (she's a Princess, she's defying her father, she's- possibly- in love)
A few suggestions, you have some run-on sentences (I am surrounded by selfish people, they are plastic, nothing good about them, they don’t care what they do, and I need to escape, I feel all my anger I’ve kept bottled up about the Globe about to explode) However, I realize that this might be stylistic way of showing just how fast all these thoughts are racing through her head.
You may want to use her name more than just at the very beginning, otherwise, you'll mention her later and no one will know who Marcella is.
I'm super intrigued about her father's scar(did he get it in the riot Marcella started, for example), but just a quick question: if it's a scar, would it be leaking blood? He might be like that really creepy guy from the James Bond movie who cried blood or something when he was nervous but make sure your reader knows that this is a special scar and you didn't just mean to say an open wound.
Right before Marcella storms out, she says "I’d rather be with that street rat than someone who is actually like a rat." I love her anger and indignation, but her father never actually calls him a street rat, so it just seems like Marcella's insulting him. If you add in the father calling Angus a street rat, it might help to clear things up. Also, the back half "someone who is actually like a rat" you might consider changing to just "someone who is a rat" or "the rats at this table" and I'm sure there are many other ways to do it. From the way you mention her looking at Sam as she says this, I felt like it was a subtle dig at him for telling their father things about her and it made me like Marcella even more. I felt like standing and cheering. All to often, our badass female characters spend too much time avoiding their families and not enough time being badass. Just make sure you don't go over the top and make her larger than life. Make sure she has at least a few weaknesses (You could expound on her fear of killing and make that a weakness or I'm sure you can come up with others)
Overall, I loved it and I definitely want to hear more.