Reminder: My notes will be in italicized red font, and the text from E1 will be in black. E1 refers to edition one, and E2 refers to edition two.
2
Aria sits at her desk in her bedroom pondering all of this one night. Two square windows are set across the wall in front of her. Her desk and chair sit in the space between them. Her bed is to her left with soft white sheets and pillows. The equally comfy bedspread is dark blue with a white edge.
A wardrobe is on her right with her clothes and armor, and on the wall behind her to the right of the door is a full-length mirror attached to the wall. To the left of the door is a medium sized bookcase nearly filled with books. Some of the volumes are for studying. The other books are her own personal collection of fantasy novels.
A large rug lies in the middle of floor with a colorful geometric pattern. Her bow and arrows lean against the right side of the wardrobe, and her sword is against the wall on the right of the bed. This should be the most relaxing and safe place to be in, yet Aria is anything but comfortable.
The room was rearranged a little in E2 and described more elegantly. I really like fantasy books, so I had to give Aria that same passion. I imagine there would be fantasy books within a medieval fantasy world. Of course, the mention of those books is moved to chapter 5 in E2.
She has been playing with her feather quill pen for almost an hour now while staring at a blank page in her leather-bound notebook. The sun has gone down at this point, leaving the room lit only by moonlight and the warm glow of candles. She already changed into her favorite purple nightgown a couple of hours ago. The princess likes to write poetry on occasion. She will never say she is the best at writing rhymes, but the task is enjoyable and used to be stress relieving. However, tonight she has no inspiration. Honestly, she hasn’t had any inspiration for months.
I removed some of the mentions of passages of time in E2 because, given the time period, they might not always be perfect measurements. It was better left as vague in some places. In medieval times, they actually did have devices that told time like water clocks.
Her thoughts turn to darker paths.
[part removed about Aria feeling hopeless]
Aria just wants some peace and a way out from this constant waking nightmare. A whisper in her mind has her glancing to her knife lying close by.
She picks up and unsheathes the blade. No one else is in the room. No one can stop her. The burden of her mental illness will never allow her to be an effective queen or live happily.
Maybe it will be better for everyone if I just ended everything, Aria thinks to herself.
The emotions war with each other inside of her. Anxiety screams for self-preservation while depression yells to take away all of the pain and the torment.
You can’t do this! If you do, you’ll die!
What do you have to live for anyways?
I probably needed to catch this earlier, but if you didn’t know, words like anyways, towards, forwards, backwards, etc. are either informal or have different common spellings depending on whether they are British English or American English. Pick one style, and be consistent. “Anyway” is more formal, and I took the extra “s” off certain words to match American English style in E2.
Tears threaten to surface, and her hands begin to shake.
You don’t actually want to die, do you? You know you’re scared of it! You’re scared something will happen to you before you even get the chance to be queen!
It will be so much easier though! You will no longer have to worry about being queen or dying from something you are unable to prevent! No one in Toranon will miss you as queen anyways!
As all the emotions hit her at once, her chest becomes tight and painful, and her heart beats louder.
You don’t have forever! With each year that passes, you are closer to being queen! You need more time that is impossible to obtain!
You’re going to fail as queen! You don’t have the time to learn! You just keep making mistakes! You can’t stop making mistakes no matter how hard you try not to!
All of the worrying about dying will be for nothing if you actually die! All of the pain will be for nothing!
What other choice do you have? You have nothing to live for anymore!
Once again, the concept of the voices was removed because it didn’t feel right. It is described much better in E2 and is deeper in Aria’s point of view.
Aria slams the knife back down on the desk and quickly stands up, nearly tripping on the chair legs in her haste. She walks to her bed and collapses, covering her wrists with her hands as if trying to protect them from herself.
She holds back the tears. Aria is tired of crying. She’s spent the past year and a half crying more than she ever has before. Smiling and laughing are now rare or forced for the sake of looking like she is fine. Once she can get away from other people, then she will allow herself to be miserable. That’s all she wants to feel anyways. She doesn’t want to keep pretending to be happy just because she thinks others will expect that of her.
Nighttime is always the worst. Aria has nothing but the darkness and the quiet to cry out to. She relishes being alone as much as she hates the solitude. Being by herself means being left to her own thoughts, and those aren’t great company these days.
Aria’s personality was still in development. I can say that she definitely prefers to be around other people most of the time—not be by herself. The mental illness is just easier to deal with when she is alone.
[ending paragraphs removed]
The people will one day look to her to lead them, and she just wants to go to sleep and not wake up. Aria isn’t sure whether to feel selfish or feel sympathy for herself.
Just like with the first chapter, E1 is a mess. Everything about this chapter is dramatically improved in E2. It was cleaned up and slimmed down. A lot of the content was otherwise the same.
Copyright © 2018 Lindsay McCafferty