Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?

the snippet of all snippets, oo

There had been Marybeth Swan from Dublin, with her fair blonde hair and eyes a fulgent shade of green, the quiet and privately intellectual Hannah from Germany, and the long legged, copper skinned Amunet from Egypt. He had spent a fraction of his years with several beautiful and beguiling females and had outlived them all. With some he had compassed the pleasure of slitting their gently pulsing throats.

 

 

Not once in his life had he been persecuted by a judge or hunted down by a priest. The human race became increasingly dull as time moved on. They never imagined that an upper class citizen of London could have committed crimes on such a despicable level. He moved on from each lover with a new identity to avoid rousing further suspicion, and with the aid of his servant, his true nature remained hidden.  

 

 

Tonight, on the eve of December the 8^th, William would greet his new queen for the first time. He stood in the bedroom chamber of his home and prepared for the evening. Stuart, his longtime friend and faithful attendant had presented him with a newly tailored suit. It was black taffeta, as preferred, with an exquisite white lace lined at the cuffs.    

 

“How do I look?” he inquired. He straightened his tie with the utmost care, standing in front of a grand mirror, although he retained only a faded reflection.

 

“Striking and debonair?”    

 

“You look magnificent, sir,” came the blithe reply. Even Stuart, hunched over and balding while his friend remained young and jubilant, had a bit of a gleam in his eyes.  

 

 “Yes, I know.”  

 

William finalized his attire with a pair of his favorite gloves (they were the color of his passion, while they accentuated his pale skin tone) and a long black overcoat. He neglected to wear a hat, as the cold did not affect him, and he rather enjoyed the attention he received for not doing so.  

 

He was a man of innovation and high taste; just the type of husband the Ashbury’s wanted for their young and pristine daughter. Elizabeth’s purity excited him and it hinted in the shine of his dark, expansive pupils.  

 

The ride to the Ashbury residence was a pleasant one. He had missed the beauty of the English country side; yet he knew he would grow bored of it before long. The Ashbury estate, he had decided after leaving the carriage, was a charming little nook. The courtyard was covered in fresh snow and the garden was lit with dancing frost. William wiped a snowflake from his brow. He stood on the porch, poised like a tiger awaiting its prey, and rang for service immediately. He smiled grimly, knowingly, and he waited without so much as a heartbeat.   

 

 

Author's Note

{ quick *cliche* vampire passage }

Reviews

[Anthony Beal]

Greetings, Koufos,

Your usage of language created atmosphere that drew me into it. You did a good job of lending William a chilly, aristocratic demeanor. You make it evident early, and especially with his response to his servant's compliment that he thinks highly of himself, and is accustomed to being in a position of power.

As for the grammar, I do have an alternative or three that you might find useful. Please feel free to ignore these if they don't work for you, since in the end, it's your piece which means that you have final say. They are just some thoughts I had...

You could probably do away without the parentheses around "such as himself," and have it read something like "an upper class citizen of London, such as himself," or "an upper class citizen of London such as he," or "...citizen of London like him"...

In the sentences, "The human being became increasingly dull as time moved on. They never imagined..." I was thinking that pluralizing "The human being" to read "Human beings..." agrees a bit more with the sentence that follows, because it begins with "They." Even though I perfectly understood the relationship between the sentences, and even though it's being used to refer to the entire species, the phrase "The human being" sounds singular, and is followed by "They" which is plural. Saying "Human beings became ____. They never imagined..." seems more consistent in flow.

I was thinking that where you use the word "apparatus" to indicate his clothing (the second-to-last paragraph), you might consider using the word "attire," since "apparatus" can to refer to many things, but "attire" almost always refers to clothing or some form of dress.

All in all, you've written a nice homage to Twilight that I'm sure would make S. Meyer smile. Very nice!

[RHEA CROSLEY]

Your a talented writer. However I felt sorry for the girls. I did like the way you built your charcter, William. He seems real in a menacing sort of way. Stuart does a great roll in makeing William more believable especially when he is "hunched over".
Thanks for sharing your skills.

[s]

LOVE the opening of this story. The way it just saunters on in as though it were William himself is brilliant. Some people like to start out with a scene, painting an illuminating canvas with whatever words they could harshly carve out of a dictionary, but you said it simply, and directly, and it was still able to be charming! I'm also appreciative of the amount of research you put into the piece, the age and candor was spot on.
However, i wish there could have been some reflection of the character, as in something (maybe a bit more than the small part with Stuart) that would bring us into the character rather than sitting outside and watching. (Yet another reason why i don't care to watch movies after reading a book since all the internal dialog and feeling is gone... do i know how the star actress felt when her co-star kissed her for the first time? i think not... we just have to guess how by all the clues that their acting provides.) Maybe it was your intent to have it limited in such a way. Maybe you wanted him to have a cool and distanced style that gave him more mystery to his character. I know not. All in all i was thrilled to read the piece. It was easy to get into, enjoyable to have my eyes devour, and left me wishing for a chapter two! Good stuff there Missy!

-Senirra

[abejoyal]

This is wonderfully well written and shows a massive amount of prowess in the building of a scene, the rapid yet effective development of a character and an embracing of the upper class victorian era voice. That being said, my only real problem with the story is the timing. In todays day and age of twilight fandom, and the current contemporary misrepresentation of what good literature is (particularly in the horror and romance genres) I wouldn't suggest that anyone write about a vampires romantic encounters, even if they can do it as well as you have in this short scene here. Plus, the fact of the matter is, zombies are 17.4 times cooler.

[Jennifer]

Nicely written. I'm not a fan of horror, gore or vampires, and I rarely read through a piece once I've discovered it's characters are of the "fang" type ;) Yours was nice, you painted a great scene in my mind.

[Indigo Blue Skies]

The atmosphere you created with your writing was great. I was really drawn in from the first sentence - so your introduction started off in a good place.

Some of your sentence structures are awkward and some words sound out of place (thesaurus-y) but most of it does not disturb the flow of your piece.

I would also avoid using parenthesis, because they do tend to distract from the piece itself.

Your descriptions and details are great, so no worries there [:

[Julio Angel Ortiz]

Very short, but with a twist on the now-classic title that works. Your style is very straightforward, nice descriptions, and I liked the conclusion. I would like to have seen his past expanded on a bit, get more inside of his head than the high-level descriptions we are privy to, just to flesh the character out further. Overall, an enjoyable read.