prologue

hey its not much but i want to know what you think. i do not have a title yet just my prologue

My life is like a ocean; at the peak of a storm. At first, it was as if everything was going wrong. The waves of my life were crashing around;ready to wipe out what ever was in my way. Like i was mad and wanted more than anything to just get rid of my life, but then it all changed.
It was like the storm was starting to calm down; everything just started to fit into place. I started to fit into place; I started to believe in myself; I knew the reason for my life. I finally knew who I was, and that i did not have to fit in with all of the bad groups and the gangs. I could hang out with people who really cared. People may not know who I am, but I do. My name is Alissa Jewel Lawson, A.J for short. I'm out to make a difference; show what I can be after what I was or what I used to be. I'll show them; I can promise that.

Hello!

Hey Erin, great prologue!

Okay! I thought this was great, and I can't wait to read more about her. However, there are a couple of goofs:

My life is like a ocean;

Change the a to an.

...life were crashing around;ready to wipe out...

Space?

Like i was mad and wanted more than anything...

Need to capitalize the i so it becomes I.

...and that i did not have to fit in...

Again with the I.

I really thought this was interesting, and am waiting for the first chapter! Please don't forget to post it, because I would really like to know what happens!

~*Dreamer*~

Ahoy, Erin! I find your writing very quaint, and I enjoy it, but just as any beginner will find, there are imperfections. New writers tend to sway a bit toward the cliché because they have never done it before. I know I used to, and probably still do from time to time, which is why I have excellent critiquers like Sam to set me straight on the occasion that I regress into clicheity. (no, clicheity is not in fact a word…my best friend uses it constantly though, so it has sadly slipped into my vocab. Hoorah for made-up words!)

In any case, I managed to somehow fall in love with your writing, which is why I want to help you (I had a lot of help when I was getting started, incidentally my original writing mentor was named Erin). I’m going to break down your story piece by piece in its original writing, and then I’m going to pull a Brad and rewrite it myself. This can get *very* annoying, but I promise I won’t do it every time.

My life is like a ocean; at the peak of a storm. At first, it was as if everything was going wrong. The waves of my life were crashing around(comma)ready to wipe out (whatever) was in my way. Like (capitalize the I) was mad and wanted more than anything to just get rid of my life, but then it all changed.

It was like the storm was starting to calm down; everything just started to fit into place. I started to fit into place; I started to believe in myself; I knew the reason for my life.(You have a strange way of putting semi-colons EVERYWHERE, and while I find semi-colons intriguing myself, try to keep it down to one a paragraph? Rather than three a sentence. Just a good rule of thumb). I finally knew who I was, and that (capitalize the I) did not have to fit in with all of the bad groups and the gangs. I could hang out with people who really cared. People may not know who I am, but I do. My name is Alissa Jewel Lawson, A.J for short. I'm out to make a difference; show what I can be after what I was or what I used to be. I'll show them; I can promise that.

All right, that was how you wrote it, and it’s interesting…though potentially tacky. Let me just do a quick rewrite of this, I apologize if it’s imperfect or in fact, not good at all.

My life is like the ocean at the peak of a storm. In the beginning it felt like everything was going wrong, like the waves of my life were crashing around. They felt ready to wipe out whatever was in my way. I felt angry, wanted to be rid of my life. But them something snapped inside me, and that all changed. (Gish! WHAT changed?)

Somehow the storm started to calm down and everything started fitting into place. (WHY was it fitting into place? Sweetheart you have to understand that things don’t just calm down ‘somehow’ [hehe, and I was quoting my own writing and not yours there, but I mean that is the gist of it] you have to understand that people with drinking problems struggle with it for the entirety of their lives, people who do drugs, fight it off forever, it’s not something that can just happen. But then, I am a realist, and it’s your story, so do what you want ) I started to believe in myself (CLICHÉ! AHH! AHH!), I had found meaning in my life. (Who just finds reason for their life out of nowhere? How does it happen? This, I assume, is supposed to intrigue me to read the story, but in fact, it, er, doesn’t. Actually it annoys me. Well, it doesn’t make me annoyed with *you* just with the sentence).

I understood a simple truth that had previously eluded me” I did not have to fit in with the “bad” groups (what makes a group ‘bad?’ I have found that the most interesting reading, *and* writing, comes from studying the alleged ‘bad’ and ‘unbeautiful.’ It’s not a good thing to classify something as bad until you are A). Hemingway, B) William Faulkner, C) Victor Hugo, D) Charles Dickens, or E) Vladimir Nabokov, or even F) Melvin Burgess. These, some of the great writers of mankind, rarely, if *ever,* venture to differentiate between right and wrong. It’s not something I’d suggest for a new writer to do. Perhaps you might say ‘bad influence’ but that’s as far as I would go, personally.)


Meh…I don’t really want to go on with this right now, because I don’t like the rest of it at all. I don’t believe a character should ever introduce himself—or herself. I think that is just smacking someone dead in the face with your character when you want to gently warm them up to said character. An important fact: the reader is much, much smarter than you think. You need not explain everything to him or her. The best way to give the reader your message is to cleverly (ah hah!) make him or her get your message by *thinking* that they came up with it on their own! Teehee! Writers are so clever.

To continue! If I were you I would cut out this prologue altogether. Your opening chapter is far more effective to introduce your MC, AJ. In fact it’s a great introduction. This is not. Get rid of it.

Shafter, a member of YWS, recently wrote on a ‘writing well’ thread which you will find in Writing Tips, “Also, love your characters. Love them so much that you can't possibly NOT write about them. Plot is good, description is good, but really, it's all about the characters.”

Ahh…Shafter is my kind of writer. You see, in reading, I believe you will find two types of books—this goes for movies too—there will be plot-based stories and character-based stories. Myself, I have never written anything but character-based stories. When I initially wrote, of course, before I had character developmental skills, my stories were all about plot. I think you already know that characters are important. I once write a book with scarcely any plot at all, but such characters as to make your head spin. You must love AJ like I loved Luke and Ashlee, my original characters from my First Ever novel. And let me tell you, I loved them. I still love them. I could gush on about them even now. You will find that in giving writing tips, writers will *almost always* use their characters as examples for something good. Writers tend to love characters as premature versions of children. Luke was my baby…so was Ashlee…even their memory is lovely, although I think I killed them both at the end of the story.  (I told you I was a realist/fatalist).

Grand tip, kudos to Shafter.

Snoink wrote a critique guide (it too, is in Writing Tips) so I will finish this by answering a few of her questions.

• What do you think of the characters?

In regards to AJ and Amber, so far, I like them. I appreciate Amber’s sympathy and compassion toward AJ, even from the beginning scene I could tell that they’re close. AJ seems sweet, although it’s hard to say so far. I enjoy them. 

• What do you think of the plot?
I think that the plot is promising, although I’m interested to see how you are going to fold this all together to have a happy ending and I am begging you to research and stick to realism.  That is, my stories rarely have happy endings *strains brain* in fact, I can’t recall a single truly happy ending since my Freshman year, and I am now a Senior.

• If you were writing this story, what would you do?

Avast! It is hard to say! I think I would explain a lot of AJ’s personal life, her home life, what she saw when she looked in the mirror, what was in her closet, why it was in her closet, how old she is, snippets of her past, what is her family life like, is she low, middle, or upper class, does she have a boyfriend? Does she have a potential boyfriend? Does she like somebody? What is it like for her to kiss someone while drunk? Tangy and bittersweet? Sour to taste, but sweet in feeling? Does she enjoy affection? What is her religion? Does she have high or low self-esteem? What color are her fingernails polished? Does she bite them? What pants size is she? (A Tip: Lovely as it is to make your little character a size 0-3 with no hips, unless you are Sam, there is just no way. For years I strove to create the ‘perfect’ character, perfect measurements, etc., but the truth is this type of character is cliché and unlovely, not to mention un-relatable. It’s best to make your characters more average—make her a size 5-7 rather than 0-3, that at least, is more common. You might even go so far as 7-9 [giddygodstrousers!] Hey, I would *love* to be a seven. Skinny emaciated girls however, can be quite enjoyable to write for. Er…hehe). A good way to describe a character is perhaps as having several lovely features…perhaps well-shaped, full lips, but smallish eyes, or large eyes and lips, and an equally large nose, or maybe a broad forehead like Tyra Banks. Maybe she *is* quite thin, and as such has little to no, er…boobs.  And she is self-conscious about this. Maybe she is obsessive in her working out to the point of unhealthiness. What sort of imperfections does she have? Psoriasis, the skin-rash that covers seventy percent of the body? (Hey, don’t frown upon it, CariDee, the girl who just won America’s Next Top Model used to have Psoriasis). If I were writing this story I would develop and develop and develop AJ until she was so well-developed the reader feels like she knows her, and then I would do the same, to a lesser extent, to Amber. And whoever else.

• What do you think is going to happen to the characters and plot? (for novels or long stories)

Oh goodness I don’t know. According to the prologue something horridly cliché, but we can always hold to hope…

OK! Now, for some homework!

1). Go to the Writing Tips pages and read up on some of the more experienced authors tips.
2). PM Sam and milk her for all she’s worth. Sam knows all (basically). Beg Sam for critiques, read her writings in Other Fiction, read her critiques, follow all of her advice. Go to Writing Tips and read what Sam’s written. Sam just knows. Don’t ask me how Sam knows, but she knows.
3). READ THE GREATS! I don’t know if you have access to a library or money to buy them but do WHATEVER IS NECESSARY to get your hands on these fabby little authors and their books:

Hemingway: The Garden of Eden
Vladimir Nabokov: Lolita
Franz Kafka: The Metamorphosis and Other Stories (Read this especially if you are interested in philosophy. Kafka was an amazing German philosopher)
Joyce Carol Oates: Freaky Green Eyes, Sexy (fantastic modern author)
The Last Book in the Universe: Rodman Philbrick (he’ll show you how to introduce without introducing)
Queen’s Own Fool: Jane Yolen & Robert J. Harris (this will teach you how to write historical fiction, develop characters, and dang, it’s just a good book. Maybe my personal favorite).
John Green: Looking for Alaska (A brand new author who wrote maybe the best piece of 2005. Damn amazing. Read him. Emulate him. Study that freaking book like nothing else, you’ll learn, I promise).
Gregory MaGuire: Wicked, The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West. (This novel will give you new perspective on good and evil).
William Faulkner: As I Lay Dying (This man, who wrote somewhere around the 1930s, changed the perspective of literature.)

AND—MY PERSONAL FAVORITE—

Melvin Burgess: SMACK, and Doing It

Melvin Burgess is my personal favorite author who I try to emulate as best I can. I can’t remember who, but it was like, Thomas Paine or Hemingway, or somebody famous who said that new authors should not try to have their own style, but should copy someone famous to learn how to do it right.

Ok, I’ve really only suggested books that are in my own library. They’ve really shaped my writing. They’ll shape yours too!

Hehe, I like your writing Erin. If I am may be so arrogant as to say, you are my new protégé.