Next Big Recognition Contest

Round 62

Notes:

"Do you really have to do that?" Made me laugh.

"Ooma cleared his throat and almost shouted:" I read this as if he considered or tried to shout. But he did it in 'almost a shout'. Maybe swap "almost shouted" with "declared", "announced", or "called out".

"bowed dramatically." I like this whole paragraph and it functions well to confirm Ooma's flare for the dramatic. I would consider swapping 'dramatically' for 'with a flourish', because the emotional content of the bow is minimal, but I picture him really hamming it up with exaggerated gestures.

I know this review is about you, not me, but I'd really like to know why you chose to use brackets around the aside about (the "Queen") instead of the em-dashes you use so well. Also, hard call on not putting the inverted commas around ("The Queen") instead, hope you got good advice there.

After reading on further, I realised I had misread this paragraph. This is most likely because I'm not familiar with the characters, but it read to me as if 'Alexandra' was 'the princess' and not the 'First Mate'. This was because it can be read that way and I assumed that 'First Mate' was a male. If these names are recently and clearly understood by the reader, no problem here.

"But she had been the one to make it flow this time." Using 'had been' to indicate that blood had already flown at the current point in the narrative, then bringing us to the current point where they were being chased by four men, but not bleeding, didn't work. "would be" might work better there.

"She had stopped between two stairs" I wasn't sure of what you meant here because it is an unusual way to say it. Did you mean "She had stopped mid-staircase" or "stopped on the landing between two staircases" I know 'steps' are the treads of stairs, but you seem to have already recognised that it fails to indicate a staircase at all, so I understand you avoiding that word.

"passed from one hand to another" Great phrase and it really painted a clear scene for me.

Did you mean? "Letting go of the princess' hand to plunge her own into her boot, the ferocious woman withdrew a long knife." Or "Letting go of Alexandra's hand to plunge her own into her boot. The ferocious woman, Alexandra, came back with a long knife." Either way, if Alexandra is the POV character, it feels odd for her to describe herself in third person as well as calling herself a 'ferocious woman'. And I prefer 'withdrew' to 'came back with'.

The paragraph starting with "The tip of the whip..." was exceptionally clear and had a solid POV. Fantastic.

"the racket finally" I had thought that the tavern was very quiet. Was the racket the thump of boots on the table? If so, maybe "Thump, thud, or similar" would be less confusing.

"Gabrielle had vanished upstairs" She came out of the blue here. I would have thought that if they'd been staring at her behind, it would have been mentioned by someone earlier.

"Under his ever frowning" Dune has already been established as the subject of this paragraph. So 'his' will be assumed to refer to him. Even in this sentence, if you had used 'watch' instead of "bushy brow" I would have assumed it was still Dune. I think it is worth swapping the 'his' for the person's name.

"cup of rum before sitting around a table" I think it takes more than two people to sit 'around' a table. In this case I think it should be 'at' instead. Not certain though.

"In his dark secluded..." My favourite paragraph.

Has Cap (POV) met Steve before? If so, then I know how he knows his name, but not why he was not named earlier. If not, then naming him from Cap's perspective is odd until they are introduced. Actually, the same goes for the innkeeper and the bed-maker's names. Knowing any of them felt odd.