The Piccolo Player: Prologue

-- A FEW THINGS I SHOULD MENTION --

1. My name is Death.
2. You will meet me one day.
3. This is not my story.


The first is simple, a fact that lands in your mind like a ball bouncing in an empty room. The second is also a fact, but one that you will fail to comprehend entirely until it happens. The third, however, is an opinion. Mine, in fact. If you wished, you could argue that it is as much my story as anyone else’s, considering the part I play. But, I would not agree.

No-one argues with me, anyway.

Actually, that is an empty threat. I’m not vindictive, or begrudging, or cruel. I’m the man driving within the speed limit that everyone curses. I’m the workman digging up the road at rush-hour. I was created with a purpose, just like you.

Forgive me if I’m good at mine.


-- A SMALL CONFESSION --

I do not enjoy my work.


Think about that when the time comes. Treat me with the gentle respect that I will offer you as I lean over and free your struggling soul. Don’t squirm in my arms as I carry you away from the chaos you will leave. If I’m there then it is already too late. Your time’s up, pal.

Be peaceful.

I’m just doing my job.


-- ONE OF MY WEAK POINTS --

I digress.


And lie too, it seems. I announce that this book is not about me then proceed to tell you my life story. Excuse the irony.

I will not avoid this subject any longer, though if I could escape the memory by doing so I would not hesitate. Carefully burying the words on these pages may ease the pain. I’m counting on it.

But first, I must warn you: these events took place in a world not far from your own, at a time when I was busier than I thought possible. If you are looking for a tale to warm the heart then carry on looking. I will tell this how it is. And it is not pretty.

Before I tell you about the piccolo player, I should remind you of just one thing.


-- ANOTHER WEAK POINT --

I am haunted by humans.

Okay, I'm going to take a wild guess that you've read The Book Theif?? I would be very very surprised if you haven't because this was exactly like the first couple of pages of that book.

Granted, it doesn't have the same characters, and it was very well written, I wont deny, it was just TOO similar. I think it could be a very good story, but it's been done before and it was done exceptionally well before, so you'd have a hard time trying to compete with it.

Dont scrap the whole idea all together, just change it and make it your own.

Sofi.

I'm sorry but I agree.

I've recently read the Book Thief, and this is just far too similar for a proper critque.

Well, I've never read The Book Thief though it is on my list of books to read, and I've heard it's good. Whether your beginning is similar to it's or not, I can't say. What I can say is that your beginning doesn't catch me. Where is the hook? Where is the plot, the conflict, the interest? I have no reason to read any further because I have no idea what the story is about. Several times you directly address the reader which never sounds good, except for the rare instances where it is well written. This just seems annoying and meaningless. What is the story, and what are you talking about? Perhaps you should skip this, and get to your actual beginning, with a hook, and a plot. If you can't capture your reader, they won't read any further. Not only was the second person address a tad annoying, but your verbosity, which may not be the right word, the way you kept talking about death, and it coming for me, and using metaphors for things; it was trying to look fancy and serious, but in the end I got confused, and the mood was not set.

Try not to be so serious with it. Or, rather, try to be creative, but don't overwhelm yourself with trying to write something if you aren't sure how. Take it one piece at a time; the first piece being plot. I can't stress that any further - where is your conflict?

Thank you, all three of you, for your honest (and speedy ) critiques.

I agree with you, the prologue is pretty much my twisted version of the beginning to The Book Thief. I found it on my shelf a while ago and thought to myself today, "I wonder if I could use this style with a story idea I've been playing around with?". I've not got much further than this, but I felt that I couldn't begin straight into the story without at least some warning to how I'd be writing it. That's what led to this imitation of The Book Thief's beginning.

Special apologies for the last line that I snatched directly from the end of the book. I wanted to give it a strong link to Zusak's book to clue in anyone who'd read that one. Perhaps that wasn't such a good idea .

So, should I send this on it's way to the Fanfiction forum? Or maybe try a slightly less "borrowed" style?

I'd really appreciate your opinions on this if you can spare them!

Suzanne>> You're not the first person to tell me that I'm "verbose", so I'm sure it is actually the right word for it . What I still have to receive from anyone is an explaination to exactly what "verbosity" is and how I can correct it! If you've got the time, would you mind just highlighting a few examples of it in this piece (I'm not sure whether that's actually possible If not, don't worry) so I can stop making the same mistake?

Thanks guys for your help! If I can return the favour of the critique then you could post in my "Will Review for Food" thread or PM me. I'll get round to you eventually!

Charlie

I'm going to be terrible a moment and ignore the other critiques I've been asked to do, to talk about this for a moment.

First of all: You wrote! Squee to the max, my dear Hero. It's been too long without reading something of yours. ^^

Second: When Zeus talks about your verbosity, she is referring to the amount of words you use to come to one conclusion. In other words: You can be awfully wordy at times. I don't know if I completely agree that here you are overtly verbose, but I do agree that at times your language feels like it's being plumped up, you're making it sound fancier than it is.

You have an ironic, somewhat dry tone to Death, here, which is always nice to see, and realistic, I think. He feels bitter and sad, pleading for a break - this is interesting and I want you to explore that later on. Really, Death can be vulnerable and is sometimes, but this Death is not pathetic like many vulnerable ones come to be, use it to your advantage.

I've never read The Book Thief, but that hardly matters right now, because I dislike how you've organised this. It feels... overly important. It doesn't match with the tone and the behaviour of your narrator. Your narrator is sophisticated and gentle; the bold capitals ruin that image as well as disrupt the flow of what he's saying. I think you'd do better - if you really wanted to use this style - to use italics and no capitals at all. A lack of punctuation will be more noticed to a reader than all capitals will and italics are softer and when I think of them I think of a level of skill and sophistication, because they are simple but elegant. Of course you can feel free to disagree completely.

Your beginning only sort of hooked me. I felt the narrative get started and that felt nice, to be part of the conception, but it lacked the level of interest I'd need to keep reading at this point. The dot points to begin merely distracted me and I thought they were your own speaking, which is always a bit.. icky. (Not your speaking, but the technique confusion that might just be me being odd.)

I happen to really like the use of second person on readers, but in a novel this will be not only very hard to maintain but very hard to keep interesting. Here your use of first person direct speech is faltering. I like the personable nature of it, and I like feeling close to the narrator... but you lose something there. Death is too big, too important, for us to feel his first person narration right now. I think with some re-wording of this you can fix that right up. You need to give us a reason, an immediate and clear reason for him speaking to us. It doesn't matter if that agenda changes along the way, but we need some reason right now, because we're pushy human beings.

All of that aside... I like this. Honest I do. ^^ I’m looking forward to whatever else you write for it, because you’ve succeeded in interesting me.

Good luck.

*Hearts* Le Penguin.

This is exactly like the Book Thief, like others have said. Have you read it? If you have, ask yourself if you just took the idea from that or not.

-Cobra