Comments | andyaloysia: Capet

andyaloysia

Capet

Oct 03, 2006 22:40

I gazed at the door and willed it to open. The waiting was the worst. Yet its movement, at long last, seemed almost a dream. So quickly, they were here. So quickly, his hands were pinning my shoulders in place. He was not gentle as the knife severed my hair. There was no art to it, no kindness. Only necessity; all that hair would make a ( Read more... )

Comments 3

of_carabas October 10 2006, 20:11:57 UTC

All right, you asked for a critique, so ( ... )

of_carabas October 10 2006, 20:13:27 UTC

Part two!

"Every sight should have been precious to me, for soon I would see no more." - this whole paragraph is a good example of good emotional scenes that I'm distanced from by flowery, formal language. I'm not sure if that's just a personal reaction. I do like the last line - "Death was a distant friend, but he lurked ever closer." Though I'm not sure friend is the word for Death. Unless she is in fact looking forward to it as a release after this imprisonment, in which case, more words to that affect would be nice; but I didn't get that impression from the rest of the piece.

"They had once loved me, I remembered." - I like the rest of this paragraph but show don't tell. You never show us any of these memories of the past, you just tell us about them. Talk of a carriage she remembers in comparison to the cart, or adoring crowds where now they hurl abuse - though I don't think you have any crowds at this point in the story, you get the idea ( ... )

of_carabas October 10 2006, 20:14:15 UTC

Aaaand part three. Done. Man, do I go on too long.

"My love. My friends. I would miss all of you, dearly. My children whose fate was my greatest regret." - This is another one of those parts where you state things too directly or too formally and it feels distant to me. For the first part, she could just as easily be writing a letter as she was going on vacation. For the bit about the children, what fate? Why's she regretting it? What made her think of them at this particular moment? Is she thinking of Louis standing here before her? Is she looking at familiar faces in the crowd, or looking for familiar faces and not finding them?

"The steps were not even, and..." Good paragraph.

"Excusez-moi, Monsieur. I did not do it on purpose.” Might be a pet peeve, but I don't like the French/English combo. She's presumably speaking in French for all of this, so to only translate some of it looks odd ( ... )