Chapter 1 - The Vampire Crisis

Seven Years Later... Not on Earth:

The people outside were bustling in enjoyment for the ceremony. Everyone was expected to come to the palace… including the hopeless prince and esteemed general: Draxaal.

"Drax," commanded Prince Dylan, "it is time for your appearance at the ceremony! You just have to be there before Darcine!"

"You don't have to tell me twice," said the younger prince buttoning the top of his black cowl, "or, I don't know, over a hundred times every day!"

"And it would seem that despite all my time doing just that, you are just as hopeless as when I first tried reminding you!"

"Hey, now that was an offensive way to speak to a prince, you know."

"Not when I myself am a prince, your older brother, am speaking to a hopeless prince and a heartless brother, darn it!" Dylan said, agitation strengthening his presence in the room.

"Now you're just being cruel," Drax calmly protested heading towards the door of the room.

"We are continuing this discussion later," Dylan reminded Draxaal as the older prince followed his younger brother to the door and into the hallway.

Rubies, embedded onto the night-black walls, glistened and waited for admirers to praise their beauty. They especially wished for the voices of the vampire princes to praise them. But today, the rubies did not have that chance given the princes were in a hurry.

They had good reason to be. They were already late for their sister's Ceremony of Achieving Queen Hood. Put in simpler terms, a royal celebration to celebrate her sixteenth birthday and her reaching of adulthood, and this was the second such ceremony that would be held for the king's children.

The king’s oldest and first son, Dylan von La ‘Vere, is the firstborn heir to the throne and a bright eighteen-year-old. Being one of the Heirs to the kingdom, he was multitalented in politics, advanced warfare, and self-defense. Prince Dylan was often complimented for his handsome figure. His face was always being blocked by his dark hair, which he always used his hands to comb it back in place. Others would say he had the disposition and casual behavior of an elf, despite his distinct red blood eyes �" a clear indication of being a scion of one of the royal vampire bloodlines. He was always able to lighten up the mood of any situation with his demeanor. The people even bet he could hold a casual conversation with anyone he met.

The second child and first daughter, Darcine von La ‘Vere, was the second heir to the throne. She was about to become sixteen-years-old, the age of which she would become an adult. Many princes, from a variety of kingdoms and races, wished to marry her after this day. However, fearful of her father's and her brothers' wrath, most of them are not confident. This proves that her beauty is desired by men all around the kingdom and beyond. Darcine’s hair was as black as the midnight sky with absent stars, as straight as the grass on a clear morning, and as long as the wheat humans harvested from crops. She, like Prince Dylan, had the royal red-blood eyes and like him, elf-like features. She would constantly explain that her late mother was someone who naturally had the appearance of the elves despite not being one. Darcine is not as good at warfare and self-defense as Prince Dylan, but she is better than him at politics and knows all sorts of support and healing magic. This fact has more than one witness who proves it regularly.

One of those witnesses is the king's third child and second son Draxaal von La ‘Vere. He is, without a doubt, a natural-born genius when it comes to warfare and self-defense for the kingdom, including all varieties of attack and defense magic. Politics are, however, not even in his interests. One of the many reasons: he is better at being a general than a prince. Draxaal, unlike his brother and sister, had inherited his brunette mother's light hair but had his own appearance. A fierce appearance including the royal crimson eyes. His face was more like a lion's impression on its prey. His face was unlike that of an elf's, straight and graceful, but more like a lion and its mane, untidy but dignified.

Nevertheless, he is still one of the Heirs of La ‘Vere kingdom.

No one expects the aged yet ferocious king to die during his reign. Once the king decides to abdicate the throne, his three children will take the throne simultaneously. It was an ancient tradition that all Heirs to the throne take part in governing the kingdom as its rulers. The king was an only child, so he did not have the opportunity to have or give the support of siblings as his children would. A time that would come after Draxaal attained adulthood through his Ceremony of Achieving King Hood. But for now, the time was to celebrate Darcine's.

Draxaal and Dylan followed the path towards the assembly hall, which would have been used for the royal court's planning of the day's politics, financing systems, and other major necessities of Sanguis Regnum if it were not for the special occasion.

Right now the two princes were hastily moving towards the front of the hall. This was where the king would have been, on a normal day as he listened and participated in the daily discussions of the royal court. Draxaal could literally smell the hope of the men outside the palace hoping to have the hand of the Blood-Rose Jewel of La ‘Vere. He stole a glance at his brother. Based on the look of Dylan's crossed eyebrows and of his bared fangs, the two of them together would make them regret the day that the unfortunate princes had first heard of Darcine's existence. And, most likely, their father would be just as ruthless, only unlike the two La ‘Vere princes, he would be making the lives of the foreign princes bad politically (It is much more terrifying than it sounds).

Anyway, in the hall, where the throne fit for a king was being transformed into one fit for a queen. The throne was usually a lavish, shining black, stone seat, with the gleam of a wise and aging ruler. However, for the coronation, the throne was being lavishly decorated with roses on the throne's sides. The thorns were meant to imply the royal family's warning to any lustful visiting princes who wanted to take Darcine away from them. Fortunately, a majority of the male guests were able to surmise the warning.

What the von La ‘Vere family did not know was that there was an uninvited guest who knew of this warning and still decided to attack the family, even after knowing that she would be hunted down...

But, the von La 'Vere family was neither cognizant nor vigilant of this fact and the general was avidly arrogant with his own adroitness to the extent that he did not care to be. And Draxaal von La ‘Vere would pay with his family's pride for his misstep. Why is he being blamed for what is to happen? Because he is the only one on the premises that could, if not stop, then slow down the perpetrator. However, she is obnoxiously calculating and sly. To the point that she is well aware of the general's cockiness... and his devotion to his family.

How she envied the general for having a family to cherish and protect, to worry about, to forgive and console for their mistakes... and how she empathized with him regarding the loss of a mother...

But despite these emotions, she must carry out her plan as perfectly as her mother's smile in her memory. Much depends on her mission and she cannot let her feelings overwhelm her logic and reasoning. For this plan to work, her resolve must remain and her concentration must be replete and firm. And with those remainders stuck in her head, she sneaked in through the front door with the disguise of an old La ‘Vere nobleman, who had to use a cane to walk.

Author's Note

What do you think?

Reviews

[JayG]

Well, you did ask. And since the problems that hit me can be fixed, I thought you'd want to know. Still, it may sting, so take a deep breath. In fact, maybe a glass or two of wine, allowed to mellow in the stomach for a time before going on—perhaps even the bottle. 😆

The first problem you face is that before you read the first word you have context for where we are in time and space, what’s going on, and whose skin we wear. The reader lacks that and so, what you say lacks meaning for the reader.

The second is that you’re writing this with the report-writing skills we’re given in our school days, and so, it reads like a report. In fiction, as E. L. Doctorow puts it, “Good writing is supposed to evoke sensation in the reader. Not the fact that it’s raining, but the feeling of being rained upon.” But since you, the narrator are the only one on stage, and are talking about events in overview and summation, the narrator’s voice, of necessity, is dispassionate. Remember, in the known universe, only you know how you intend the reader to perform as they read

While we write the story from our own chair, it’s critical to edit from that of a reader who has no context but what we supply, is apt to become confused if we don’t prevent that, and who is, perhaps, a bit stupid. Like me.

So let’s look at a few lines as that reader:

• Seven Years Later... Not on Earth:

The line is literally meaningless. The amount of time after an unknown event takes place is irrelevant, unless the reader knows what it was. And in this case, we don't. And, “not on Earth?” The includes the entire universe, so apparently it taking place on a world other than Earth is critical. But in general, based on the writing I see, where they are is irrelevant to the story. In any case, instead of you announcing it, let the name come up in converation, and the reader will know without need of an info-dump from the author.

• The people outside were bustling in enjoyment for the ceremony.

Given that “bustling” means busy, how can people be busy “in enjoyment?” Word meaning matters. A line or two later you have the prince buttoning the top of his cowl But a cowl is a monk's hood. And hoods have no buttons on top. Edit, edit, edit.

And, “The ceremony? We don’t know where we are. We don’t have a protagonist, and we don’t know what’s going on. So “the ceremony” is meaningless, as its read. But...if you provide even one line without context when the reader is deciding if they want to commit to reading is a guaranteed rejection-point.

• Everyone was expected to come to the palace… including the hopeless prince and esteemed general: Draxaal.

You just told the reader that the entire population of the planet will be there. Not what you meant, of course, but it is what you said. See how your own pre-knowledge of the story is causing you to assume the reader knows what you’re talking about, because it’s plain to you?

And, from the reader’s viewpoint: who or what is the “hopeless prince? You know. The general knows. Everyone in the place probably knows. But the one you wrote this for? Not a clue. So the story you’re talking about is NOT the one the reader gets.

Sure, as you read, every line points to images, ideas, and information, stored in your mind. So it works perfectly. But pity the poor reader. They lack pretty much everything. So for them, every line points to images, ideas, and information, stored in *YOUR* mind. But without you there to ask…

The fix? Simple. Add the skills the pros take for granted, then practice them till they’re as intuitive to use as the nonfiction skills you’re using now. Will that be easy—a list of “do this instead of that?” Nope. Any profession takes time, study, and practice to master. But, learning something you want to know more about isn’t hard labor. And in this case, the practice is writing stories that get better and better. So what’s not to like?

The library’s fiction-writing section is a good place to begin. But the best book on the nuts-and-bolts of creating scenes that will sing to the reader is available for download from archive sites, since it came out of copyright. The address of one such is below this paragraph. Copy/paste it to the URL window at the top of any internet page, then hit Return to get there. It’s the book that got me my first contract offer, so maybe it can do that for you. So grab a copy.

https://archive.org/details/TechniquesOfTheSellingWriterCUsersvenkatmGoogleDrive4FilmMakingBsc_ChennaiFilmSchoolPractice_Others

And for what it might be worth, many of the articles in my WordPress writing blog are based on the teaching to be found in that book.

So dig in. And as you do, hang in there, and keep on writing.

Jay Greenstein
https://jaygreenstein.wordpress.com/category/the-craft-of-writing/the-grumpy-old-writing-coach/

[Vianna]

Thank you for the advice! Oh, by the way, I am still in high school, so it's not a good idea to ask me to drink wine.

[Vianna]

I will work on it.

[JayG]

Don't work on it. As Mark Twain put it: “It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.” And because you weren't aware there is another approach to writing that's needed for fiction, you have a whole lot of "just ain't so" to look into.

Spend some time learning how the pros do it. At the moment the only writing techniques you own are nonfiction. And I think you'll find that learning "the tricks of the trade," will feel a lot like going backstage at a professional theater for the first time. And given that the practice is writing better and better stories, what's not to love?

Think about it: Did even one teacher spend a second on the three issues we need to address on entering any scene? Did they discuss the differences between a scene on the stage and one on the page? Did they even explain the elements of a scene, and why they end in disaster for the protagonist? Because if you don’t truly understand what a scene is, and dos, you can’t write one, no matter how hard you may try.

Did they explain the difference between POV as defined by personal pronouns, and viewpoint. If not, and you don’t know how to present viewpoint, you don’t know what point of view truly is, as a fiction-writer uses the term. Our goal isn't to tell the reader a story. It's to make the reader feel as if they're living it, moment-by-moment as-the-protagonist. And how much time did your teachers spend on that?

The purpose of your schooling is to give you a set of general skills your future employers will find useful. In fact, that’s why they established public education a the start of the Industrial revolution. Professions—and Fiction-Writing is a profession—are acquired IN ADDITION to our school-day skills.

They offer four-year majors in Commercial Fiction Writing. Would they do that if the writing skills you now own were adequate?

Since the day you began to read, every book you’ve been selected was published, which means it was written with those professional skills. And while you don’t acquire the “tools” as you read, any more than eating teaches you to be a chef, you see, and appreciate the result of using those skills—and expect them to be used. When you pick up a piece of fiction you can tell, in a paragraph if those skills were used. Of more importance, your reader knows if you used them, and at the moment you own none of them. It’s not your fault. Pretty much everyone, me included, leaves school believing they have the writing skills needed. But in reality, when we leave school we are exactly as qualified to write fiction as to perform an appendectomy. And that’s what you need to work on.

An easy, though incomplete book, is Debra Dixon’s, GMC: Goal Motivation & Conflict. It may be in your local library system. A far better book—the one that got me my first publishing contract, is Dwight Swain’s, Techniques of the Selling Writer. I’ve been involved in writing and teaching fiction-writing for a lot of years, and I’ve found none better. It’s the one I gave a link to, in my post.

So if you’re serious about writing, don’t, for one minute, believe that you can just take the skills you now own and create stories that others will ask to see. The rejection rate in the publishing business is 99.9%. And fully 75% is seen as unreadable because the author is still using the skills your teachers are giving you. Of the remaining 25%, 22% is seen as less than professional. So unless you take the steps needed to get yourself into that magic 3%, you’re not even in the game. But if you do, you’re ahead of 97% of the competition.

[Vianna]

Thank you for the advice!