chapter one

chapter one of my new story, feedback would be awesome

Spring.
The beginning.
The sun rises.
Old is born anew, and new life breathes its first breath.
The sun rises higher.
More life springs from the dust.
The trees blossom.
This is going nowhere.

            I closed my notepad with a defeated snap. I know my sister will be disappointed with my lack of commitment, but I think it’s about time she realizes that I’m not the natural born poet she has disillusioned herself into thinking I am. I am a reader, not a writer. Not that that would fly with her, nothing I did would ever sway her from trying to turn me into the next Emily Dickinson.

My father once told me my sister was born with Shakespeare in one hand, and Homer in the other; and I believed him. My sister breathed classics. Well, she breathed all literature actually. I swear my parents must have had a vision of her in the future when she was born, which was why they named her Imogen, after their favorite female Shakespeare character.

The thing about my sister was, she wasn’t just content to love literature herself, she wanted everyone else to obsess over it the way she did. That certainly wasn’t happening with our fashion-obsessed elder sister, Melina. So as soon as I came along, well, let’s just say my bedtime reading wasn’t The Lost Puppy or Sally Sue Counts to Ten, but rather Pride and Prejudice, The Odyssey, and Hamlet.

I loved it though, this world my sister had shown me. And I know without her, I never would have seen it.

Books are kind of a thing of the past. There aren’t many people besides my family and me that even read them anymore since everyone else goes and sees motiograms.  While I admit it is entertaining to be surrounded by hologramic images of the motion story, it takes away everything that makes fiction so exciting.  It takes away the part that makes you feel alive.

            When I read a book, it’s like I’m transported into the pages. It is my story, the way I see it. Motiograms come from random editors, so you see what they see, and nothing else.  And what they see isn’t a fantastic new land or an epic love saga, but rather piles and piles of empirical credits.

I leaned back and let the wind sweep over me, gently rocking the swing underneath.  This was something else my sister taught me; how to appreciate the calm, the silence.  In a world where people are constantly communicating via portograms or locked in some other media device, this is vital.  I especially needed it today, what with Nathaniel coming over.

I sat up swiftly.  Nathaniel. The Prince.  Coming to visit. Today.  I had been trying not to think about that, but of course it had slipped in anyway.  I groaned--internally--and leaned back on the swing again, as though I could somehow go back to the part where I wasn’t thinking about him.  It didn’t work.

 It was unnerving how many times he crept into my thoughts.  It was like the part of my life that belonged to me was being taken over; consumed by his face, his voice, his smile...

            I ran my hands through my long, brown hair, letting them get tangled as I tried to sort out the mess of my thoughts.  I was slightly disappointed with myself for failing so miserably at my resolve to not think about him, but then again, he did come over three times a week now, so perhaps my constantly thinking about him wasn’t entirely my fault.

I sighed. There had been a time when it hadn’t been like this, when the thought of seeing Nathaniel filled me with excitement rather than anxiety or confusion.

Since my father is The General of Peace, it’s not really surprising that my family and the royals have been in close association my entire life. But we hadn’t just associated; Prince Nathaniel had been my childhood friend.

 He played all the male roles in mine and Immy’s classical reenactments, and had even been part of Melina’s mock fashions shows.  Usually he was a judge, but every now and then he modeled stuff, mostly just to spite us.

We didn’t play fashion show all that often, since the only person who actually liked it was Melina and Imogen wouldn’t even participate at all. But Nathaniel and I managed to have fun anyway.  He would always make weird faces at me when Melina wasn’t looking, or wink at me every time he let Melina win. As we got older our games changed, but we never did.

But then we reached our upper teens, and suddenly it was all different.  We both went to Broderick’s Primary Education Facility for Uppers, which was just a fancy way of saying a school for the teenage children of those who were in the empirical level of government.  That was when Nathaniel began to change from the funny, sensitive boy who played hide and seek in my backyard to the flawless, sexy royal that every single girl in our school-and probably the entire American Empire- drooled over.  I used to think it was this attention that changed Nathaniel, but now I wonder if that part of him had always been there, dormant until the right conditions brought it out.  Until then he hadn’t had much exposure to the almost divine treatment that the people gave the royals, but once he got it, he never forgot it.

Ever since then we had grown farther and farther apart.  We still talked, but now our conversations were short and awkward, or rather my side was awkward, considering he didn’t do awkward anymore.  By the time we graduated I had accepted that we were each going to go our separate ways and that was that. But then things changed, again. Now instead of looking at me like I was some long lost pet that he remembered liking at one point in his life, he looked at me like I was- a girl.  A girl who, if his smoldering expression and seductive smiles that seemed to latch on to me every time I saw was any indication, he wanted to get to know better.

 And then there was the fact that every time I saw him my heart when into triple time,  my skin flamed up, and my cheeks went redder that a sunset...

And then I heard it, the distinct purr of a Blaze Hovercraft, not far from where I was sitting. There was only one reason that particular model would be coming this way. I jerked like I’d been slapped.

 

He’s here.

 

I didn’t have any time to gather myself together, I was already late. I leapt off my swing and raced toward the house, all other thoughts forgotten.

Author's Note

I'm wondering if I added to much detail. Let me know if its too boring, and if you think i explain to much at the beginning, really want some hard-core constructive critism on this. This is after edit, number one, hopes this improves things.

Reviews

[A. L. Allen]

I really like this. The voice of the narrator is very thoughtful and lovable, and your descriptions are perfect; not too long-winded but not too cryptic at the same time.

I like where the plot is going so far, and I'll definitely be reading more. :)

Keep up the great job!

[Aarea]

No, there wasn't too much detail. At the very end, I skipped a few sentences because I wanted to see what happened, but other that that it was good. I wish you would have explained more about the American Empire and how it ran. But, great writing! It kept me reading which most stories on here don't. :)

[Jacques]

the detail is a good dosage because if you give too much - it can cause confusion or complication but if you don't deliver a fair amount - the story has nothing to fall back on but i really very truly loved your style , detail and the story basically . it is very good for the first chapter . i like the description and detial of Nathaniel and how the character describes how her heart goes intro triple time when he's there which is a nice little touch to a fantastic start also in the conversations - it's basic [ A GOOD THING ] say it's easier to know who's speaking and an easier to picture it in your mind also - i'm not going to knit -pick the repitive repeating of words because i liked that because the main lead is contradicting herself which is very delightful . very nice write

[Montykoolaid]

Good stuff, great writing aside from grammatical errors and repeated words and the like.

[Hiroko]

Nice! Your writing style is lovely. Your words flow like a ribbon rippling in the breeze, or like the littlest of waves in the sea... I don't think you added too much detail, although I would say it needs a little editing, you repeated words and made some grammatical errors but apart from that, pretty much perfect!

[TJ]

I liked this! The royalty aspect caught me by surprise! Very good.

As far as critiques:
There are some sections that could be edited to be a little shorter, 10 weak words = 1 strong one. And I'm far from a grammar nazi (my own is terrible) but there are some mistakes that throw the reader off: Capitalization, quotation marks on dialogue.

Besides that this is a good and compelling piece