Main character, love interest, villain, anything! Give me the quote, whether it's a sentence or five paragraphs!
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The way this woman carried herself was almost like royalty, even though she was only the nanny, something about her commanded respect, but not imposing or dictated.
From her tanned skin, to her inky black wig, the bangles adorning her wrists, and her plump, yet firm, body, something about this servent of the general made anyone, slave, poor, or rich, stop in their tracks and think
'What a woman!'
I guess I’ll introduce both the setting and main character:
It was a beautiful spring morning when I went out to the store to get what a a asked. Sunny and slightly warm with a gentle, cool sea breeze. Not at all like summer, when the moisture in the air would hang like suffocating sheets of thick fabric. I felt the wind flow through my long, dark curls, which I’d grown out to shoulder length much to Ma’s dismay.
“Keep your hair short,” she’d say, “it’ll bring your beautiful brown eyes out.” But me being me, I decided that I wanted to look the way I wanted to look. Plus, I think the girls liked seeing a 6’ tall fairly athletic guy with an olive complexion with long hair, such as myself.
I wandered through the streets I’d known since childhood. We lived in the Western District of the city Ezlered, capital of Yautsheria. This district in particular was designed to look vintage, drawing inspiration from the years the Anglotarian Empire ruled the entire island. Shops and small coffeehouses lined the streets, with homes on top of the shops. Providing shade along these streets were clothes hanging to dry here and there. And the streets were made of stone bricks, providing small jolts to anyone traveling by bike or car. To outsiders visiting, the place felt like stepping back in time.
Ezlered, which translated as “prosperous” from Yautsheri, was itself built near the middle of Yautsheria. After the island had been partitioned, the First Yautsheri Congress felt the need to build a more geographically central capital, and chose to name it Ezlered as a wish for the new country’s future. The result was a city not quite near sea level nor on top of a mountain, but the hilliness of the area made all the streets narrow, winding, and inclined. Oh, and the whole “prosperous” thing came true, too. I wouldn’t have wanted to grow up anywhere else in the world.
I heard a voice coming from behind me as I stood on the roof of the old school, the voice cried out in a powerful “Hey!” I turned around and almost pulled the trigger, before me stood a tall and muscular man, maybe 10-15 years older than me, with a small beard, the man had a big backpack on his back and an assault rifle in his right hand.
Fuuuuck the title got misspelled haha
Anyways,
'...the one with the hood has pulled it down and their face is unexpected, to say the least. They look about my age, with sharp, defined features and light brown eyes. They have a strong jawline and dark, almost shaved hair.
Altogether, they’re a sharp sort of beautiful, the kind that i feel i could cut myself on.'
- Aspen, about Ajax.
First draft so constructive criticism is appreciated!
I will say that I have a fairly decent idea of what Ajax looks like from this description, and a bit on how Aspen feels about it. However, the thing that sticks out for me the most is that your style seems kind of repetitive? You use the same "they [verb] [description a] [description b]" format three times in a row with minor changes, which makes the flow a little monotonous, maybe even clunky over time. You also used 'sharp' twice in close proximity, which, coupled with the cutting metaphor, seemed to overall remove some of the impact from the description. (Which is a shame, because the choice to attribute the cutting to the beauty rather than the individual facial features is otherwise just different enough to feel quite fresh.) In addition (although it may well be lack of context in this case), you noted that Ajax's face is unexpected but didn't really elaborate why, which made that phrase seem a bit out of place (especially with the more casual 'to say the least' emphasising it).
"...The girl, he noticed, was apparently entirely disinterested in whatever the cheer squad was supposed to be doing, and had elected to scale the gymnasium walls like a spider instead. Considering the several people pointing at, gesturing to, or otherwise observing her, it was likely that she was doing more for the whole 'friendly' welcome thing than any sort of coach-sanctioned activity ever could have.
Nevertheless, Gabriel feared considerably for the sanctity of her future lunch breaks.
She'd made it onto the steel beams crossing the base of the roof (and with a dramatic somersault and flip of her curly blonde ponytail, too) by the time Abigail showed up, hair-ties sticking out of her mouth and arms full of decorating supplies. He took the hair-ties, and half the decorations, and Abigail made a noise of minor relief, proceeding to fix her cheer uniform.
'You've lost one of your team to the rafters,' Gabriel told her, and Abigail squinted upwards for a moment before shrugging.
'That's Pocket Rocket for you. She'll be down when she gets bored, no biggie.'
'That's Pocket Rocket? You mean Avery's Pipsqueak kid?'
Abigail gave him a sidelong look. 'I thought you'd recognise her. I've told you about her plenty of times, haven't I?'
Gabriel hummed. The girl was fiddling with some sort of lighting cable and a distinctly metal fork, now. 'I just thought the two of you had saner taste in protégées, is all...'"
- In which Lily does only the second-most-dangerous thing that week.
This is super cool! I'm worried about what the most dangerous thing is now
Honestly, I might just do all of my characters here
"The girl on her own has dark skin and clear grey eyes. Her hair ends a bit above her shoulders, but she’s wearing some of it in a bun, so that might affect the length. I don’t know much about hair- mine has always been shaved because of military regulations"
- Ajax, about Roen
"One has messy, shimmering black hair and vividly bright blue eyes that would seem unnatural or ugly in any other face, but serve to only accentuate the perfection of theirs. "
- Roen, about Eris
"I glance at the kid- i probably shouldn’t call them that, given that they only look a year or two younger than i am- and within a second they look back at me with their one hazel eye. The other is covered by a leather eyepatch."
- Ajax about Cal. I wasn't able to find a good first description of cal so you get this
"One of them looks like she’s in her mid-thirties, with rust-coloured hair and an orange scarf over most of her face, but the others are all around my age or younger."
-Ajax, about Candle
"There’s a stunning boy with dark brown eyes and messy hair that partially covers owl feather earrings. I’m fixated on their face for a second- it feels like i’ve seen them before, but i would remember someone like them."
- Ajax, about Aspen
I've already put Ajax's introduction here, and Fen hasn't been introduced yet. I couldn't tell you why most of the introductions are efrom Ajax, I guess he's just cool. Constructive criticism welcomed, this is a first draft so I haven't edited yet
