No one expected for me to escape from the castle in the middle of the day. It was impulsive and something I didn’t think about doing, until I finally decided that I needed to occupy myself. I needed to do something for myself and not because someone told me too.
I tug the rough skin of my coat and prepare myself for the cold air. No one guards the back door because it is so seldom used; at least that's what they think. I take that exit and before leaving, tell Gillian that I am going to go outside for some fresh air which is only partially true.
I open the door and slide out, but instead of a chilly breeze sweeping over my skin, sending me to goosebumps, the air is still and thickening. There is no sun, but there are no clouds either. The sky is a blank canvas waiting to be spilled and splattered on. My eyes skirt across the gates of the castle, and further past that into the market’s place.
I check to make sure no one is behind me before breaking out into a awkward jog with the heavy coat on my back.
Wind picks up as I run, and my arms begin to feel sticky and hot against all of the clothes I am in.
I keep my eyes forward and don’t look back, because if I look back, nothing will would have changed. The castle will still be there, and I will still look at it in disgust.
Before I past the thick gray gates that circumferences the castle, I pass the imaginary border that is there. The one that cuts off all magic.
I’m running out of breathe and my legs wobble underneath the land as it begins to dent and bump beneath me.
But when I past the border, I stop, and something free releases out of my chest. My feet come to a halting stop, and so does my whole body. I swallow and look behind me at the hugeness of the dark shaded castle that I must call a home. The sharp points of the roof make me think of pitch forks, and the dark schemes of the color makes me cringe.
There will be guards at the front, but they will have to let me go. I assume it is one of the few things that makes it okay to be a princess at times. No one can hold you back if you’re just doing simple things.
But since I know who will be there, I do not have to worry about my looks or what excuse I will be using this time.
I shake off my jacket and approach him. He’s dressed like how he is everyday. Black uniform. I try to catch him off guard, but that’s impossible considering how the space between the gates and the castle are bare with nothing but fading green grass. He sees me from a far.
I chuck my jacket at him. He catches it of course, not showing the littlest bit of surprise.
“What?” I say once I get closer to him. I am starting to wonder why I didn’t take off any of this clothes before leaving. The thickness of this sleeved shirt bugs me and make my arm feel stiff.
Garyth acknowledges me with a serious face. His guard face. Eyes drawn together, mouth tightly closed and body erect. But when I start to break out into a smile, he mirrors me.
“You don’t seem to surprised to see me.” I say.
His eyes quickly dart around us. Then he answers, “I’m never surprised. You do live here after all.”
I try not to smile, but fail. His voice makes me grin idiotically. I hate myself for it.
“Aren’t you supposed to be inside the castle Tierra? Someone’s going to start looking for you.” But he’s already punching in the code into a control pad on the wall to open the gates for me.
“No they won’t.”
Then I look away and into the distance. Glamour is so easy to do. Most of the time, I wonder why it is that I could do it. But more importantly, I wonder why it’s band from the kingdom.
I blink and I know it’s done.
I know that if I touch my hair, it won’t be orange anymore, but blonde. And that my eyes wont be hazel, but blue. My clothes changes randomly with me. My powers are like a toy to me, something I play with. There is no way for me to harm someone by looking different, so I try to do it as much as I can outside the castle.
I cringe as the heavy steel gates begin to open. The castle was built with these gates, but why? There was already a magic resisting border.
Garyth turns back to me with a smile, holds out his arm to the village.”Enjoy your time princess.”
I roll my eyes before taking off into a sprint, my lighter clothes allowing me to do it much more freely.
I could almost image Garyth smiling at my caped back as I run down-wards into one of the poorest sections in the kingdom. I stop by a market to buy the food I will be giving away for the needy.
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125,020 Literary Works • 672,861 Reviews
Hello.
First things first, your title. Apostrophe s is possessive, and what you're looking for here is plural. The proper spelling would be "princesses".
You start off your novel with a contradiction, which could be an artifact of the first person, but from a reader's perspective it's very confusing. First you say she hadn't thought about leaving, then you mention her needing to do something about... an undetermined situation. This is one of those cases where giving a tiny little bit of background information— only a line or two— about what that thing she's leaving from is.
Tiny little scraps of background information at key points, such as that one, help us understand what's going on and why things are happening. The "why should we care" is such a critical part of writing beginnings, because right now, this character is a total stranger to us. We don't know enough about them to know what their lives are like, and finding out what exactly makes her up and leave gives us a huge window into her personality.
Then you go on to say "Which is not true at all" about what she's doing, which is redundant. We, the reader, already know it's a lie, because we've already been told she's leaving. You don't need to point out lies that have already been proved are lies. That gets boring, and you don't want readers to be bored so early.
The rest of the story is very short and choppy. Choppiness is good to create tension, but you need to establish why that tension exists in the first place for us to really feel that tension. When we don't know why things are happening, as is the case here, then the short paragraphs and sentences just come across as needless.
Give us reason to care. Tell us a little bit for what's going on earlier, so we can get a really strong sense of the context for this sudden departure. Then you'll really get something good, here, and we'll care about the characters far more than we do now. Right now, you have an event, but no reason for us to go "oh, I hope she gets out alright". Give us that, and you'll have something amazing.
Good luck, and let me know if you have any questions or comments.
~Rosey
Hi Rosey!
Thank you so much for reading and reviewing! Your critique is very helpful.
~Cheer
Hey Cheer! Stella here!
So I'm just rampaging through all the princess stories today, because I love princess stories! Yours is interesting, I liked the whole concept, and I liked how you let us dive straight into the story. So good job with that.
There were quite a few grammatical errors in this piece, and I can't overstress the importance of proofreading. There's lots of silly little mistakes here. We all make them! But what's important is giving your readers the most polished version of your work that exists. I'm happy to pick out a few typos but to be honest, this piece is so riddled with errors that I really don't have the energy. Read over it carefully and fix all those niggly little mistakes - and have a read of how to punctuate dialogue properly. Once you have grammar and punctuation down, your story reads so much more smoothly. People think grammar isn't important - but it is. It's what allows us to read and understand your story the way you want - and currently we can't.
Other than that, I liked the concept! I didn't think that there was anything wrong with the magical element of it, that seemed like fun! Don't worry too much about having a really well thought out magic system in your first draft - those are the kind of things you can think of afterwards. Just have fun with it - what's the most creative way you can think of using the magic in your novel? You literally have a world at your fingertips.
A last point that got to me was, though, why would a princess like the poorest part of her kingdom? It strikes me as really ignorant and selfish - because surely as a princess she would be hoping that her family would be doing what they can to help those people out of poverty. Wanting to have fun with common folk, sure? But walking into an area of your city where maybe people are starving, or sick, well, that doesn't seem like a whole barrel of laughs to me, that feels like a heck of a way to make yourself feel really guilty about the opulent lifestyle you lead. So I would just mull that over a bit.
But I hope you continue with this story a bit more!
Hope I helped, drop me a note if you need anything!
-Stella x
Hi Stella!
I'm so sorry for all the errors! I was in a rush to post this because I had errands to do. I will fix them as soon as I can!
Since this is just the first part of the novel, the next chapter goes on explaining what she is doing in the poorest part of the kingdom
Thank you for the advice! I'll have to work on the magic some more before I get it down.
Thank you so much for reading and reviewing!
~Cheer
I like this work its pretty cool. The descriptions you have are vivid and imaginative, the characters are also quite well thought out. The only problem I really had (and it might just have been me) is that your very first sentence uses the word something quite a few times and it seemed a bit distracting.
So all in all it's a cute story though I feel as though it could have more (maybe a sequel) this is mostly due to the way your work just ends leaving a feeling that there is more to say that there is a little adventure about to happen.
Other than that I have nothing really left to comment on so keep up the good work and stay awesome!
-Carmenblue
Hi Carmenblue!
I'll fix that! And yes! I am planning out a novel and this is just the very beginning of the first chapter. Thank you so much for reading and reviewing!
~Cheer
Hello valdez here for a review
The story was good and got me hooked from the start of the of the first chapter and I couldnt stop reading till the end however I fealt that the story lacked description Although you still had some you are in this massive castle with a sprawling village below and I got very little description of the castle and none at all of the village below I liked garthys characters of being stoic when others are around but secretly enjoying the company of the princess
So as I said before great hook and base line for a story but needs a little more description
Keep up the good work and happy writing
Hello Valdez!
Yes, I see what you mean. I will add more description and work on that! Thank you so much for reading!
~Cheer
any time and I look forward to your work in the future your writing is quite enjoyable