Weekend Writing Warriors is a weekly blog hop where participants post eight to ten sentences of their writing. You can find out more about it by clicking on the image.
Continuing a chapter from Ghosts of Innocence, Shayla has stolen the identity of a new high-ranking Imperial appointee, Brynwyn bin Covin. She’s been met by a soldier (Kurt) from the Imperial Palace Guard, who’s escorting her to the Palace. Outside in the square Kurt spotted a row of coin-operated punishment stalls. Shayla stopped in front of a young woman prisoner with two young children, and had no choice but to live up to expectations of her position by inflicting some pain on the woman.
=====
A few people cheered. One man stepped forward with a coin in his hand, but stopped short when Shayla whirled round. "Shame on you!" she spat. "All of you!"
It took Shayla a fraction of a second to realize her error. Wouldn't Brynwyn have approved of further punishment? Yes, but Shayla couldn't let this continue.
The crowd fell silent once more, faces showing anger and confusion.
=====
Oops! Seems like her character has slipped! It’s not over for Shayla yet.
“Across the finish line” in the post title refers to the fact that I’ve finally finished the first draft of The Long Dark. Just a fraction over seven months’ work but there’s still a long road ahead. I expect to be revising and editing for the rest of this year and I will soon be looking for beta readers to provide feedback on high level story flow, plot and character development etc.
Posts
15 comments:
Congratulations on the first draft.
Eager to see how she gets out that situation.
Congrats on finishing your first draft!
Uh oh! How will Shayla fix this outburt? Very intriguing!
Hi Ian - well done on getting across the first finishing line ... and now Shayla has caught herself out ... interesting to see how she overcomes the situation and good overcomes evil. Good luck now with the rest ... fun to read - cheers Hilary
Interested to see what happens next, however good for her for speaking out!
I love how fast her mind works - she'll find a way out of it - intrigued to learn how!
I'm sure she'll figure out how to turn her reprimand into Brynwyn's attitude. Congrats on finishing your first draft. Now comes the fun part.
I'm glad she put a stop to the continued torture but what will the crowd do to her?
Alex, Jessica, she's going to have to think fast to dig herself out of this hole.
Hilary, it's a huge relief to cross that finishing line - even though it's really only the base camp.
Siren, she had to say something, even at the risk of her cover.
Nancy, Diane, luckily she does think fast on her feet.
Karen, that's a good question. The crowd probably wouldn't do anything, she's too high-ranking for that, but with Kurt watching she risks blowing her cover away.
A culture isn't a monolithic thing. Is it possible that empathy has been known to crop up even among these people?
This is a good moment! Even though it was a bit of a screw-up. :-)
Yay! The finish line behind you, editing ahead. Count me in as a Beta reader. :-)
That was a big oops, but I'm sure she'll figure out how to get around it.
Ed, empathy maybe, but it takes a lot to go against strong cultural norms.
Teresa, thanks! I'll be in touch.
Elaine, she will :)
All the best with revising and editing!
Oop... Hope Shayla can think fast or I feel that she's going to, at the very least, wind up like that poor woman.
Thanks Chrys!
Aldrea, for what she's doing, the consequences are far worse!
Post a Comment