Critique #11 — Michelle Davis
Kevin Andrew Murphy June 27th, 2006
When Maurwyn wasn’t in trouble, she was getting into trouble.
But here, playing behind the parlor curtains, she became something more than a misbehaving four year old—she became an empress. The drapes were her throne room. Here, she held the power…just a touch of her finger set the fabric shivering from hem to pole. She was as invisible as the cold, silent as a breeze.
The whisper of footsteps threatened her game. Maurwyn froze, lip sucked between her teeth. Even a powerful queen had to be wary of enemies.
“…and now she’s gone missing again, the little brat.”
“Hush! Won’t we get in trouble calling her that?”
Maurwyn knew the voices. Her mother’s maids.
“What about cursed thing? Does that sing any sweeter in your ears?”
A faint gasp. “What’s the matter with you? The poor child can’t help her red hair.”
Red hair? They were discussing her! She bit her lip to keep from crying.
Michelle,
Interesting beginning, but little quibbles:
First, poles are vertical. Rods are generally horizontal. Hence flagpoles and curtainrods. Swap it to “rod.”
“Cursed thing” should be in quotes. Single since it’s inside of double.
Her revelation that they were discussing her at the end rings false, since they’ve already said, “little brat” and “cursed thing” and have specified this person is female. How many other people could it apply to?
Of course, it could be her awful cousin Mabel before that, but you could take care of that by having her strongly suspect it’s her earlier and have the red hair comment remove all doubt. Yes, she’s four, but readers like to identify with clever protagonists.
There’s a bit of trouble, however, with the mother’s maids wandering around “As you know, Bob…”bing, rather than just having one of them just say, “Oh great, she’s gone missing again” and having them jump straight into calling her and looking for her, then speaking frankly only after they’ve decided that she’s not in the room and they debate where to find her next.
Interested to see what’s going on next, but keep an eye to character sympathy and believablity.
Kevin got to my reactions first. The little stuff aside, I really liked this story-line so far, and would definitely turn the page.
That first sentence is very weak as well as arch. In fact, you could probably reduce these 13 lines to 4 or 5, as Kevin’s critique implies, and have a much stronger opening.
Thank you for the helpful comments! I’m sorry it took me so long to get back here and look, but I’m glad I remembered to check. You’re doing a great service to us, the “poor unpublished!”
Back to work….