TITLE: The Princess Wars
GENRE: NA - Science Fiction
Princess Belle wants to be an inventor, not a queen. When a cave-in swallows her brother, Belle descends into the city’s underground labyrinth to find him. But the longer she stays in this underworld, the more time her fiancé, the head of the royal council, has to incite war.
The queen was murdered, and Belle needed to find proof – fast, before they burned the body. But she couldn’t search the rooms quickly enough, not when the dress slowed her down so immensely. A royal funeral required a corset, a petticoat, layers of tulle, black lace everywhere, and a wig so tall and heavy her neck might snap backwards. Today was her mother’s funeral, so she had to look presentable. She put her hands on the mountain of skirts where her hips ought to be.
The queen’s room was packed with roses, stuffed in glass jars and tucked into every corner and crevice of her boudoir.
Of course, they weren’t truly roses. These were flowers a woman would kill for.
Or die for.
The little, scarlet flowers were a drug, hallucinogenic and intensely addictive. The people called it Delusion, and Delusion had killed her mother.
The bedroom was still steeped in her mother’s scent — musk and rosewater. A canopy hung heavy across the bedposts like candle wax caught mid-weep. The blankets were lumpy as if she still rested beneath them. Belle gathered her skirts as best she could, hopped onto the bed, and yanked the canopy down. It fell to the ground like a dollop of heavy cream.
This is so evocative! I love the image of a canopy falling like a dollop of cream. I would definitely keep reading.
ReplyDeleteMore, please! :D
My main thought throughout was "Cool."
ReplyDeleteLove the feminist themes, the title, the logline, and the writing is pretty great.
One nitpick. This line could be stronger:
"But she couldn’t search the rooms quickly enough, not when the dress slowed her down so immensely"
I would just stop it and say "not with the dress slowing her down." The word immensely takes the edge off the action of the sentence before it for me. That's it.
Seriously cool concept!
There's a real potential for urgency in this scene, but it's a bit bogged down in places.
ReplyDeleteTo start, I was confused by the first sentence. It had more of a summary feel, like it was part of a logline or belonged in the query letter. Maybe if you re-worded it to be more connected to Belle's feelings in this moment, it would be more powerful. Show her rushing to her to her mother's room, flinging open cupboards and trying to reach something under the bed but not being able to because her skirts are too ridiculously big.
Also, be careful with the metaphors. For example, in this sentence, "A canopy hung heavy across the bedposts like candle wax caught mid-weep," you have two different metaphors in one. Comparing the sagging canopy to a dripping candle could work, but you're also comparing the candle to a weeping face. Pick one and stick with it. And comparing the falling canopy to a dollop of whipped cream is a good image, but I'm not sure it fits Belle's mood. If she were hungry and thinking about the banquet she's missing downstairs, it would work. Here it might be better to choose an image that reflects her pain, like a falling teardrop or similar.
I think you have an intriguing concept, and a bit of rewriting would bring out the intensity of it.
Good luck.
There's a real potential for urgency in this scene, but it's a bit bogged down in places.
ReplyDeleteTo start, I was confused by the first sentence. It had more of a summary feel, like it was part of a logline or belonged in the query letter. Maybe if you re-worded it to be more connected to Belle's feelings in this moment, it would be more powerful. Show her rushing to her to her mother's room, flinging open cupboards and trying to reach something under the bed but not being able to because her skirts are too ridiculously big.
Also, be careful with the metaphors. For example, in this sentence, "A canopy hung heavy across the bedposts like candle wax caught mid-weep," you have two different metaphors in one. Comparing the sagging canopy to a dripping candle could work, but you're also comparing the candle to a weeping face. Pick one and stick with it. And comparing the falling canopy to a dollop of whipped cream is a good image, but I'm not sure it fits Belle's mood. If she were hungry and thinking about the banquet she's missing downstairs, it would work. Here it might be better to choose an image that reflects her pain, like a falling teardrop or similar.
I think you have an intriguing concept, and a bit of rewriting would bring out the intensity of it.
Good luck.
I think you have a very interesting topic, but I was a little confused by what was going on. She needs to find proof, fast, but is standing in the middle of the room describing flowers. The queen was murdered, and yet I don't feel any pain, any despair or sadness by the fact. And starting out with a punch of a line of the queen's murder, and then spending the rest of the paragraph discussing her current clothing, negates some of the urgency I think you're striving for. Rearranging things in the intro--perhaps even starting with the flowers someone would kill for, which was really where I felt hooked to keep reading!--would be a larger incentive for people to keep reading.
ReplyDelete