Prologue
It is in mankind’s most common of knowledge that one young lady plus one rich man is equal to a women’s life doomed to eternal slavery.
I for one, and I’m not sure about you, don’t find that very appealing whatsoever.
Now this might just be me, but as a young woman in a society of scholars I would much rather remain the innocent child I used to be, frolicking round in naivete and all that. But as being of age creeps upon us and your commanding father’s expectation for a grandchild grows inevitably, you can only hope that your older siblings will suck it up and get busy. And no, I’m not even kidding, I don’t remember anyone else having a college dean for a father and two idiots for brothers.
I mean honestly, these people don’t get it, sure I eat rich foods (and heaps of it) for tea and sure my father runs the biggest university in the country but not everything is fine and dandy when you aren’t allowed to leave your room after 8.30pm due to, and I quote “Rowdy scholars, bastards of which rampage the grounds after dark.”
I guess I don’t listen to that either way but still, a seventeen-year-old girl who during the day is entrapped in the etiquette room should be allowed to go for a midnight stroll, well according to father (and backed by the bastards I call my brothers) and yet again I quote, “It is too risky to let a young woman outside when the sun hasn’t risen.” Philosophical I know, that’s my family for you.
Talking about rowdy scholars have I mentioned that I live in a college, due to father being a dean, I of course have to live in the college, a rather small room in the western wing’s spire is the room I call mine. Its cosy, has got enough room to fit my bed (Oh glorious item) wardrobe, a small bathroom, desk and a sofa with an adorable light over it to cater to my reading addiction.
Now you may be thinking, who are you and why the hell am I reading this? Well first of all, hello I am Bethany Blackman, but if you call me Bethany I will whack you with a book. Please call me Beth, much more charming if my opinion counts. Oh, and about the second question, I have no goddamn Idea, I am a 17-year-old , book obsessed girl in the year 1878, according to the social construct I don’t know anything.
Not that those issues matter too much to anyone in this day and age, well not that anyone knows of. Instead of voicing the issues that are very obviously present in this patriarchy, the ladies sit and drink tea while swooning over their darling husbands and children who better be male or the small amount of respect their husbands has for them gets even lower.
Yeah.
We have a lot of problems.
Excellent start! Beth's character really shines. She is full of spunk and sarcasm, making it easy for the reader to get invested in her story early on. Her personality is well suited to 1st person POV. There are a few grammatical/punctuation errors peppered here and there, very easy to fix and totally expected in a work that isn't completed. The one thing I would say you'll want to get a handle on early is the language. The way Beth speaks (writes) isn't consistent throughout. Sometimes it sounds completely appropriate for the 19th century, other times it sounds like how someone would speak today. There are two approaches, and either could work: 1. Modify her speech to all sound appropriate for the time she's living in OR 2. Modify her speech to sound contemporary all of the time or almost all the time (maybe switch her speech back to 19th century floweriness whenever she's speaking with her father, for example) and REALLY lean into the humor of the story. You can make it enjoyable and funny either way, it just needs to make sense/be consistent. I hope that's helpful and I hope you'll continue this story.
Great beginning! You have successfully given life to Beth's character, unlike the one dimensional personality of MCs in several different books. So a great job! I guess this was a first draft as a few edits are missing, but nothing that cannot be corrected! Good work author!