Gaea - Prologue

Author's note: Like it? Hate it? Review it!

Edit: New version up. Did some heavy reworking.
Edit2: Please review my posted chapters! This will be revisited later on when more the story is hammered out. PM for trade reviews okay!
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In a clash of fire and brilliant light, three angels fell from the heavens in winter's night. Ethereal wings of purest light banished the darkness for a brief moment, like the midnight sun. Crimson ribbons flung from the body of a sinner. The ground shattered and the world trembled. The vast untamed and ancient forests vanished instantly, consumed in hellfire of holy judgment. A million souls vanished instantly, the price of salvation from the heavenly host.

Now the world is at peace. Prosperity and hope rule supreme as treachery is ruthlessly stamped out by the all encompassing Church of Lotus Vale, revived by the events of thirty years ago. Ripples of disease and sickness spread by tainted nature. The young Cardinal Wentz and his loyal retainer, Brother Raye, head to the southern outskirts of the kingdom in search of a life-saving remedy. Relics from the bygone era appear on the border of civilization, beckoning the unanswered challenge. Pandora's box is opened once again as the lasting legacy of a living weapon emerges from self-imposed exile and the truth of the Miracle of Marham.



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Old
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In a clash of fire and brilliant light, angels fell from the heavens in winter's night. Ethereal wings of purest light banished the darkness for a brief moment, like the midnight sun. Ribbons of light danced in a captivating aurora of radiant swirls. The light fell to the ground and the world trembled and shattered. The vast untamed and ancient forests vanished instantly, consumed in hellfire.

Lashing out at one another, two glowing white figures charged one another, spear and sword in hand, vanishing into the hellfire of their own fury. The ground broke under their feet, a crater a kilometer wide formed at the point of impact and the sky disappeared under the raining earth. The victor, with spear in hand, became a pillar of light and shot forth into the heavens just as quickly as the two had appeared.

Miraculously, the only speck of civilization, the border town of Retz, survived and bore witness to the power of gods. Even more miraculously, a survivor was found in the wake of the destruction, young girl known by the name of Aphonia.

Well, it was certainly intriguing.

But vague.

vanishing into the hellfire of their own fury

you used hellfire only a line before this, try and think of something else.

Honestly, there wasn't enough here for me. There were very interesting hints, but surface descriptions that only vaguely tell us what is happening is annoying. I think we need more of a sense of the who/what/why - even for mysterious prologues, this is mysterious and not in a good way. I think you should expand it a little more, give us more a sense of how dire and terrible the battle was; I just didn't get enough sense of a dramatic impact.

It was well written though. So, kudos on that.

Cheers

What I was going for and what you read come out pretty different based on your assumptions of time-flow and interpretation of the hints, multi-layered in some spots.

Whenever two gods fight the resulting conflict is a terrific and instantaneous explosion, akin to a meteor strike. No words, no toying, just a single, beautiful moment of form and chaos. Granted, I hate telling in stories, but I guess I really need to do some of that, since showing gives little idea to the time length and in the prologue, its allowable.

This whole moment, flash and burst shows a lot, but I'd hate to spoil the story in the prologue, as half the adventure of reading is the recovery of Aphonia's memory and realizing who she is.

Sadly, I expect my readers to draw the same conclusions and look into it the way I wrote it. Aphonia comes from Greek for aphonic, which is the loss of voice. The character is actually mute and suffers from amnesia, so she is literally and figuratively without a voice to control her life.

Just need to tinker with it and try to clear up the confusing spots!

I read through your comment in response to Jiggity's and I don't really think you can expect people to know this was the clashing of all-powerful forces or the Greek base for the name Aphonia. Her being dumb and having amnesia seem to be awfully convenient for a 'finding yourself' story... a little boring, no?
Don't worry about ruining it with prefaces and things. This snippet is not enough to sustain a reader. You need more information, and you can include the next 'chapter', too. Creating a really solid story foundation, instead of just a big fiery scene, will keep readers checking to see if you've put up the next part. You need to intrigue, which I didn't feel at all here.
Another tip is to show more than tell. Of course, when there are no characters, it's hard.
Hope some of this helped!

Gosh, this piece makes me want to paint. XD

It's beautifully written yet it's missing something, at least in the way prologues go.

I think it would be cool to make the first sentence be more of a quote out of a long lost Epic Poem since this is supposed to be about two gods fighting, so something like this:

"In a clash of fire and brilliant light,
angels fell from the heavens in winter's night."

Also do you mean 'in' or 'on a'? On a winter's night makes more sense to me & doesn't sound so choppy.

Ethereal wings of purest light banished the darkness for a brief moment, like the midnight sun. Ribbons of light danced in a captivating aurora of radiant swirls. The light fell to the ground and the world trembled and shattered. The vast untamed and ancient forests vanished instantly, consumed in hellfire.

- The word light is over used here.
- Comma after vast

Lashing out at one another, two glowing white figures charged one another, spear and sword in hand, vanishing into the hellfire of their own fury. The ground broke under their feet, a crater a kilometer wide formed at the point of impact and the sky disappeared under the raining earth. The victor, with spear in hand, became a pillar of light and shot forth into the heavens just as quickly as the two had appeared.

- one another is overused, and could almost be left out the second time.
- Change comma after the second another to a period.
- 'a kilometer wide' could be taken out, it's really unnessasary.

Miraculously, the only speck of civilization, the border town of Retz, survived and bore witness to the power of gods. Even more miraculously, a survivor was found in the wake of the destruction, young girl known by the name of Aphonia.

- The last sentence needs rewording.


Overall it was interesting, and very visual. I liked the idea but maybe add more detail and action. The last paragraph is off compared to the rest of it, the rest is showing the reader what is going on, but the last sentence is telling.

It certainly was short for a prologue. I liked it but it could have been longer. Now, I'm not much of a reviewer for fantasy fiction but I'm going to try.


As it was, it was really well written. It makes me want to read more if you get around to writing it. However, it was missing something. Like Stevie said...you could make it into an Epic Poem like the Iliad or something. It does sound better.

That's really all I can find seeing as how others got too it. Good job.

Hello *waves*

Hm. Okay, I agree with the other reviewers. Incredibly short - especially for a prologue. I think anything less then 2/3rds of a page is a waste and instead of setting aside as a prologue could be incorporated into a complete chapter as a [very] brief scene. But if you intended for hte battle for be this 'brief' flash, as you stated...couldn't you have built up the prologue with something else to give it more substance.

Even if the battle is short - the description doesn't necessarily have to be. It didn't paint the image, in my eyes, of an epic fight between two ethereal figures. Instead it was more like - Huh? Whooa...Wait...wha?

Also, there are a ton of redundancies - which, in such a short piece, are glaringly and painfully obvious.

I would take a thesaurus, go through this and pick out alternate word choices.

In a clash of fire and brilliant light, angels fell from the heavens in winter's night. Ethereal wings of purest light banished the darkness for a brief moment, like the midnight sun. Ribbons of light danced in a captivating aurora of radiant swirls. The light fell to the ground and the world trembled and shattered. The vast untamed and ancient forests vanished instantly, consumed in hellfire.

Lashing out at one another, two glowing white figures charged one another, spear and sword in hand, vanishing into the hellfire of their own fury. The ground broke under their feet, a crater a kilometer wide formed at the point of impact and the sky disappeared under the raining earth. The victor, with spear in hand, became a pillar of light and shot forth into the heavens just as quickly as the two had appeared.

Miraculously, the only speck of civilization, the border town of Retz, survived and bore witness to the power of gods. Even more miraculously, a survivor was found in the wake of the destruction, young girl known by the name of Aphonia.

Toodles.

Thanks everyone. I'll definitely get around to reworking it. I do have repetition and that's not good. I wasn't going all epic poem style, but it does read rather dramatically and the girl is more then just a plot device.

Should I post the new version above the old or in a post further down the page?

wow, the prologue is poetic especcially in the first sentence. that truly caught me but as for the otehr parts, to be honest, it is a bit confusing for me. you have describe numerous similar events in one part especcially the meteor part.

that was out of random but i really like the first part, that really caught me.

i think you need to work with description and the mood of the prologue. you need to find out what kind of mood must be presented in the story.

Terribly sorry, I forgot to update it! So now I have made a lot of changes, taken out repetitiveness and started the story later then expected. The back story hasn't changed at all, and in actuality grew quite a bit. I am definitely happier with this version of the prologue and I have everyone here to thank for it.

Yo, Sword (what? Excalibur=sword, right? Or am I totally on the wrong myth here...) welcome to YWS! You may call me Stella (or Dorothy, if you prefer, seeing as I'm going through a phase) and I shall critique you today...

I. NITPICKS

In a clash of fire and brilliant light, three angels fell from the heavens in winter's night.

*special once-in-a-lifeteime glance into the inner workings of my genius mind.*

"Ooh, that rhymes!"

Okay, really it does. And then you repeat light. Maybe switching night to darkness or something would make it better.

Okay, that was about it.

II. PROLOGUE... OR BLURB?

The last bit sounded a bit blurby. "Now they set out on a perilous journey" kind of thing, if you know what I mean... I'd get rid of it... leave it and the destruction of the forests etc. and then deal with your characters in the next bit. Or else describe where they were at that moment in time. Otherwise it's too much like a blurb.

III. OVERALL

Hmm... reminds me of the play I used to see every Christmas (I never worked out why it was on at Christmas), called The Good People, I think it was. Anyway, nothing's coming up on Google about it... oh I can't be bothered, you can look it up yourself. Anyway, the deal is is that there's these angels who support Lucifer in his rebellion in heaven. Only while they're doing so, during the battle, the Lord sends something at Lucifer or something... and they fall down. Onto a rock. In the middle of the Atlantic. Called Ireland. Ew. They want to go back to heaven -who would want to stay in that forsaken rainy place, but the Lord says that they must accomplish three good deeds -three purely selfless acts if he's to take them back. And so it goes. I can't remember much, but I do remember there's a girl trapped away until she can spin straw into gold a la Rumplestiltskin, and something to do with a chess game. And at one point, they have to trick Lucifer, which they do by asking him to fill an old boot with gold- only the boot has a hole in the bottom.

It's interesting .

Anyway, I reckon make it less blurby, and you're set to go

Hope I helped, and PM me if you have any questions!

-Stella.

Wow.
The prologue is awfully short, and like Jiggity said, it's pretty vague for a fantasy novel. Other than that, i enjoyed the battle scene. It was terrific!

good, very good

i like this new version.

you got the mood, the description in it.

you might just need a little more edit (i do not knwo what is it?) but all in all, it is well written

As I am continuing to work out the story some more I keep returning to the prologue and keep finding new ways to make it better and improve upon it. It does seem to be more of a summary at this point and I am so torn between keeping the epic prose and adding useful information on the world and its state.

I may wait about a month before popping up a new version of it as the story continues to develop and the amount of background information piles up. With three separate plot lines going now, the next incarnation of this blurb-like prologue will most likely stretch for a page or two.

I really need more reviews on my posted chapters, since I know they are not perfect. The prologue is closed for the moment.

*holds up a cute little sign that reads: Will give hugs for reviews.*
PM for Trade Reviews

I give you props for using so many amazing analogies and such, but the idea of the prolouge confuses me somewhat. I can somewhat understand the idea of it but to catch a readers interest you really need push something at them. something exciting and thrilling. I believe you were trying to do so, but it an attempt at making it wordy and entertaining you took away from the actual story itself. When something becomes so strange and twisted, there has to be a good reason behind it, and to be honest a lot of people wont sit through and read lines that all much mean the same thing. If you were trying to push the idea across that you wanted these gods clashing and such, then maybe you could have written that. Then sort of explained it in a sense. It just got very wordy very quickly and most people would search for a meaning in it and never find that meaning.

I do believe you have something going in there and for the most part it very well written. the beauty in writing much pretains to the amounts of your own vocabulary and thus this did make quite a lovely few paragraghs. just work your way through, tame the words to your imagination instead of letting them loose and wild. you'll lose your reader if not, and the more you think of the story and less the vocabulary, the more the story in the end shall shine through.

Beautiful words, and a very interesting idea, just try to tame it and make it out of this world.