TITLE: Impossible Quests
GENRE: Young Adult Fantasy
Many things come to mind at the mention of a princess in a faraway kingdom, riches beyond one’s imagination, high towers to sit and watch over the kingdom, and handmaidens to cater to every whim. Princess Rosalinda knows of none of these. She is the sole heir to the throne of Axington, the poorest kingdom in all the land. The highest tower is a mere two stories tall, and her handmaiden acts as chef, stable girl, and herald leaving little time to tend to the princess.
What Princess Rosalinda has that the other kingdoms does not is stunning good looks, long, flowing auburn hair, the color of the midday sun, milky white skin, and a bosom the size of two newborn babies’ heads, which is the envy of every princess within a thousand miles. She also has every prince from the neighboring five kingdoms sniffing around as a mangy mutt sniffs the refuse bins.
Princess Rosalinda brushes her lush hair while sitting in the tower watching over the royal livestock, a malnourished cow, two goats, and a chicken that would be supper if not for her superior egg laying abilities.
“Let me get that.” Maria, the handmaiden, rushes into the room taking the brush out of the princess’ hand. She strokes the brush through the hair.
“You reek of the stables.” Princess Rosalinda scrunches up her nose.
“Sorry milady. I recently returned from the stables where I prepared the royal steed,” Maria says.
“I would rather stick bamboo shoots under my fingernails until each one pops off my fingertips one at a time, then ride that slow horse.” The royal steed is not slow in terms of speed, he can keep up with fastest horses in the kingdom, however mentally, he is challenged.
I found this entry funny. The contrasting elements work together well even though I would have liked to know where this is because you mention bamboo and castle towers and they do not really fit together. I am thinking Scotland, but far away and bamboo might indicate Asia.
ReplyDeleteI would read more. Good luck.
I like your premise about the poor kingdom. That adds a unique development that could be interesting throughout the story. We don't often see princesses struggle with poverty.
ReplyDeleteThe premise is excellent but you give it to us in one huge info dump. Your first few paragraphs read more like a synopsis or blurb than the beginning of the novel. I would recommend showing us how poor she is and slowly revealing the information as the story develops. For example have her examine her tattered clothing. Have her maid complain about being the only servant. Have those details reveal her financial situation and I think it will work better.
I like the dialogue it is funny and shows their relationship. Again you could reveal info about the horse in how they talk about it. I'm interested though sounds like a good story.
I agree that it seems like too much backstory. I think the premise is interesting but maybe start with how the princess has to deal with the poverty but in a funny way. The dialogue is fun. Good luck!
ReplyDeleteI like the idea of focusing on a princess that isn't the typical fairytale, rich and pampered type. I think it'll make for a fun story, depending on where you go with it.
ReplyDeleteThis opening needs a bit of editing.
The punctuation and syntax seem off in your first sentence. I want to say, "Many things come to mind at the mention of a princess in a faraway kingdom: riches beyond one's imaginations, high towers IN WHICH to sit and watch over the kingdom..." Perhaps you could an em-dash instead of a colon, but I don't think a comma suffices. I'd remove the first "of" in the second sentence... it trips my mental tongue.
"... that the other kingdoms DO not..." and maybe, actually, "that princesses in other kingdoms do not..."
There seem to be some punctuation issues in your list of her attributes—brush up on punctuation rules for items in a list—and unless their sun is reddish-brown, I'm not sure the comparison of her hair to midday sun works.
"...one at a time THAN ride that slow horse."
Something about this piece feels a bit like staging. I can't tell if it's because of the telly back story or if it's that third-person, present POV isn't the best way to tell this story. Try it maybe in past tense or in first. First can be slightly more telly than third (though neither overly so), I think, because it includes a lot of personal observations and internal thoughts.
I would prefer this start with a scene and then work in examples of her poverty and suitors. At this point, I have no connection to Rosalinda because I'm being told about her stiffly instead of experiencing the situation through her.
High towers "in which" to sit, would be much nicer.
ReplyDeleteThere are a lot of sentences that could be tightened up, but the real question is whether this is meant to be funny or campy. The tone doesn't match the usually princess story and the use of bamboo, etc. keeps the reader wondering if she is missing something. Is this an "Ella Enchanted" type of story meant to present a medieval tale to a contemporary reader?
This is funny. I laughed out loud at the line about her bosom, and I like the idea of a poor kingdom. It sounds like this might be a bit of a parody, which is fun. However, you do have some grammatical/punctuation issues, as others mentioned. And since it's more of an omniscient POV, I don't know yet if I'm supposed to sympathize with Rosalinda or laugh at her. But this has potential!
ReplyDeleteI liked the humor, though I didn't particularly like the princess. I'm not sure yet whether the she or Maria is the protagonist. If it's the princess, I'm assuming hers will be a journey of personal growth.
ReplyDeleteI think mixing in a bit more action in the opening section might be useful -- in terms of getting the reader involved with the characters.
I like the fact that this doesn't sound like just another princess story and enjoyed your humorous approach, but the grammar issues are troublesome. (I counted five errors.) I also agree that you need to tighten things. Get rid of "extra" words and vary your sentence length. (You tend to have very long narrative sentences and short sentences when the characters speak.) I like to think of a paragraph as having highs and lows, and I'm doing this in my comment to you. Short sentences make an impact.
ReplyDeleteI like the fact that this doesn't sound like just another princess story and enjoyed your humorous approach, but the grammar issues are troublesome. (I counted five errors.) I also agree that you need to tighten things. Get rid of "extra" words and vary your sentence length. (You tend to have very long narrative sentences and short sentences when the characters speak.) I like to think of a paragraph as having highs and lows, and I'm doing this in my comment to you. Short sentences make an impact.
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed this and am curious to see how it goes from here. I do have one thing to mention.
ReplyDeleteThe first three paragraphs are the narrator speaking. Seems like a personable narrator so this is good, and I assume this voice will be commenting throughout. That’s fine, but see my thought below.
Then the story goes into dialogue. Princess Rosalinda comes off as . . . a princess, scrunchy nose, hyperbole about bamboo shoots. Hopefully she becomes sympathetic at some point.
My comment is about the last line. Here the narrator feels the need to jump back in and explain things. Once I’m into a scene I prefer the narrator to step back. This would better be explained through the characters or left out all together for now. This, as they say, threw me out of the story.
So, off to a good start in my opinion. Rethink that last line.
Best wishes
So, we have a humorous fairy-tale unfolding here. I am guessing, from the inclusion of bamboo, that this is the sort of lighthearted satirical fare that is okay with making references to things that do not exist in the world of the story.
ReplyDelete"Auburn" is not sun-colored.
Try reading your dialogue out loud.
Watch out for repetition of words, such as with "stable."
Thanks for putting up your story for critique.
This was fun, with a nice twist to a typical princess story, but you might, perhaps, reconsider POV here. If you are going to have a narrator that interrupts the story often, third person past tense may be the better way to go. If you use first person, then you will end up with two narrators, (the narrator and your MC, which occurs here) which probably won't work out very well. The whole idea behind first person is a single POV, which usually belongs to the MC.
ReplyDeleteThere are punctuation issues, and it should be = What Princess Rosalinda has that other kingdoms DO not . . .