Another Sunset. Prologue.

Alright, this is the prologue of my new novel that I am currently writing on my computer. So, I couldn't think of a sentence to put in the "Topic Description," because this isn't the main plot quite yet and it would give it away if I wrote something so, enough blabbering. Please read and review so I can improve. All criticism accepted. [b]


The meadow seemed to go on forever as I sat on the old, wooden fence staring outward. The tall grass and wildflowers were blowing in the light wind and the sun was just beginning to set, unleashing a pink, orange color. Franklin, Tennessee wasn't that large of a town and I learned to enjoy that fact.
Lucas and I came to this meadow often, just to sit and talk mostly. He was my best friend, always had been and always would be. If I didn't feel like talking he wouldn't let a word escape his lips, if I wanted him to talk he wouldn't stop. At that point, I didn't care but he still didn't say anything. He just sat on the fence staring into space, his shaggy, sandy blonde hair was blowing in the wind and his big, emerald eyes were focused on the colorful, autumn trees in the distance.
"Deep in thought?" I questioned him, and laughed.
He looked at me and smiled, revealing his nice, white teeth, "Not really," he replied. "Excited for the dance next week?" He asked in order to start some sort of conversation.
"Nah," I said and thought about the dance. Everyone was going to be there, it didn't matter if you had a date, not at my school. People went with friends all the time, it didn't really make a difference. Dances weren't really my thing, I was more of a tomboy.
"Why not?" He asked.
I tugged at some of the strands or red hair the were falling out of my ponytail, "I don't want to tell you, it's embarrassing..." I informed him, I felt my cheeks get warm.
"Come on Dakota! You can tell me anything, I thought you would know that by now, we've been best friends for like...forever," he smiled, I was a sucker for his smile, it was enough to make me happy in the most horrible, degrading moments of my life.
"Fine," I sighed, "I can't dance." It wasn't just that, but that was the only excuse I could think of and I wasn't lying, I couldn't dance.
He laughed, "Yes you can."
"No, I can't," I replied matter-of-factly.
"You think you can't, but really you've never tried," he informed me. He jumped off the fence and walked to the center of the meadow. He waved me over.
I exhaled deeply and approached him slowly, when Lucas tried to prove a point it usually involved me embarrassing myself.
He pulled is IPod out of his pocket and started clicking through the songs. He turned the volume all the way so you could hear it, not well, but you could. He grabbed my slightly freckled arm and placed his hand on my hip. "What are you doing?" I asked in an annoyed voice.
"Proving to you that you can dance," he used his other hand and grabbed mine. "Just follow my lead," he added.
I looked into his eyes, "See you can dance," he said with a chuckle.
"I guess I can, but I could never do this in public."
"I think you could," he assured me. I felt safe in his arms, my heart pumped faster, the place on my hip where his hand was casually placed felt like a fireball had just hit it from his soft touch.
We danced for about ten minutes, it was getting dark and before we knew it the stars started appearing in the sky, he sighed and laid down on the grass.
I laid down next to him, "I wish nights like this would last forever," I whispered.
He tugged at the string on his gray sweatshirt, "Me too," he nodded in agreement, "Me too..." He sat up quickly. "Except we should probably get going."
I sighed, "I guess you're right."
"Don't make it sound like the worst thing in the world, we can do this whenever we want, you know that right?" He questioned with an intent look in his eyes.
"I know that," I responded.
The sky grew cloudy as we walked to our houses which were about a block away from each others, his being the farther one. A raindrop fell, and then another, before we knew it, it started pouring. The leaves still looked beautiful even with the raindrops soaking the colorful leaves and trunk. We lived in a nice neighborhood, it had sidewalks and fenced in yards. There were a few convenience stores nearby where me and Lucas liked to hang out sometimes and get ice cream or candy.
I pulled the hood of my zip-up sweatshirt over my head but kept walking at a normal pace.
"Does the rain still make you smile?" He asked. I smiled at the memory he was referring to. It was the first day of summer vacation last year and of course everyone wanted it to be a perfect day. They wanted to sun to shine, not a single cloud in the sky and for it to be the perfect temperature of seventy degrees.
That wasn't how that day was, I walked to school in the pouring rain, it was only about sixty degrees put with rain and wind it felt like fifty. Lucas met up with me when I was almost to school, "This sucks," he had said.
I shook my head, "I love the rain," I smiled widely and he laughed.
"You're so weird Dakota," he had responded. "But that's why I love you."
I snapped back to reality and saw Lucas still staring at me intently. "Yeah," I replied, "It does."
He laughed and we arrived at my house. It was a yellow color with white door and a white picket fence. It was the traditional American house that you only saw in movies. "Bye Dakota," he called as I jogged up to my front door.
"Bye," I yelled back over the rain.
He smiled and started jogging down the road to his house. Today was perfect, I knew things couldn't get better. However, even the worst days could be better with Lucas by my side.

pretty good!

this is a prologue, so it makes sense on how things aren't exactly clear yet. At first i was thinking, maybe add some more background on the characters and what is happening? But with the prologue thing in mind, it makes more sense.

I think that you've got a good start, even if you're not really sure where you're going with this. I was thinking...hmmm. maybe a little somethin somethin going on between Lucas and Dakota?
=]

I'd keep going! I'd be a definite reader!

aaaaggh! pardon the expression but, aggh! its so cute.lol stories like this always get me so i'll try to give unbiased critique. ok, i don't know what the plot is yet i just want to warn against cliches, because i know they're really fun to ride on. I love the use of description keep that up!

Hiya Colleen! Sorry if you don't like me shortening your name, but it was pretty long.
I know you wanted me to review the another post in the series, but I thought I would go ahead and review this.
Even if it's super late.

Franklin, Tennessee wasn't that large of a town and I learned to enjoy that fact.

First off, to be realistic, Franklin isn't a small town. It's actually a pretty big city and only the very outer edges of Franklin would look like how you described it.
That's, at least, how I've always seen it.

If I didn't feel like talking, he wouldn't let a word escape his lips; if I wanted him to talk, he wouldn't stop.

You missed quite a lot of punctuation in that sentence, hon.

I thought this was really sweet! Dakota and Lucas seem to be very good friends; you potrayed that very well here. Good job!

Awkward sentences: Throughout your whole post, there were a lot of awkward sentences. The best way to fix most of them is to go back and re-read them. After that, you can pick out most of the awkward sentences and then fix them, hon.

Good description here! I can imagine the scenery completely. Good job!

Feel free to PM me if you have any questions.

*Cat

I loved it. It was amazing. While reading it, I felt like Dakota....dancing with Lucas.

However, Lin910 is right. There are alot of akward sentences in here.

For example:

"He turned the volume all the way so you could hear it, not well, but you could. "

This is akward because she says you could hear it but not well, but then she says 'bu you could' again. See what I mean?

Change this to something like:

"He turned the volume all the way up. It was barely audible but who's complaining?"

Just an idea. You don't have to use it.

Example Two:

"I think you could," he assured me. I felt safe in his arms, my heart pumped faster, the place on my hip where his hand was casually placed felt like a fireball had just hit it from his soft touch. "


Re-read this. It's good, but where is your mistake?

You wrote: "My heart pumped faster, the place on my hip where his hand was causually placed felt like a fireball had just hit it from his soft touch."

What about this?

My heart pumped faster, thudding in my ears like a drumroll. The place where his hand rested on my hip felt like a fireball had hit from his soft touch.

Overall, I think this was good. I'm pretty sure Franklin, Tenessee actually isn't that small of a city though.
Even though it is just a prologue, the characters to me were vague and I couldn't really feel like I could understand them.

"He just sat on the fence staring into space, his shaggy, sandy blonde hair was blowing in the wind and his big, emerald eyes were focused on the colorful, autumn trees in the distance."

I think this scentence was a little bit too long and it was very descriptive, but you could kind of cut it down a little or seperate them differently.
In your piece I could easily imagine was was going on because you described the scenes very well.
I can't wait to read more of it!

This is such a sweet story! It had me "awww"-ing throughout the whole thing. But if you don't mind, I do have a few minor critiques:

Lucas and I came to this meadow often, just to sit and talk mostly.

Having "mostly" here is really redundant. You could either write:
"Lucas and I came to this meadow often, just to sit and talk."
Or
"Lucas and i came to this meadow often, to sit and talk mostly."

If I didn't feel like talking he wouldn't let a word escape his lips, if I wanted him to talk he wouldn't stop.

This is a run-on; adding a ";" or "." after lips would correct it. You have a few run-ons throughout the story, but its not a big issue. Just make sure that there is proper punctuation to separate each idea.

Also, make sure when you describe a setting or an emotion your characters are experiencing don't coat them in sugar, and don't be too descriptive. Replace colorful adjectives and adverbs with more appropriate nouns and verbs. For example:

"I exhaled deeply and approached him slowly..." There are too many -ly adverbs used here. "I exhaled" would be good enough; "crept" or "sauntered" would be better than "approached slowly".


But anyways.... you did a great job! I really enjoyed the story; the relationship between Dakota and Lucas is very sweet.

hi colleen nice to meet you!
I really liked this story. It made me gooey eyed during the entire time I was reading it. There were only a few errors. The sentences were a little awkward. But I think it got the point across better.
Your descrilptions are nice, i could almost see the meadow. You should also describe Dakota more though, she seems very vague to me. I can see Lucas better than her and that's not a good thing.
There were also times where i really didn't understand what time period Dakota was in. The writing just went right into the flashback and that was extremely confusing.
I really liked the simile you used when Lucas put his hand on Dakota's hip.

I felt safe in his arms, my heart pumped faster, the place on my hip where his hand was casually placed felt like a fireball had just hit it from his soft touch.

This is only the prologue, but I'm pretty sure I'm going to remember that at the end of the story.
Overall, this is a good start. I can't wait to read whatever you've written.
diaNe

Hey Colleen!
Let's get started!

"Come on Dakota! You can tell me anything, I thought you would know that by now, we've been best friends for like...forever," he smiled, I was a sucker for his smile, it was enough to make me happy in the most horrible, degrading moments of my life.

This is a run on. Instead of the comma, put a period.

"Fine," I sighed, "I can't dance."

I sighed [period]

He turned the volume all the way so you could hear it, not well, but you could.

Try 'so you could barely hear it'?

I looked into his eyes, "See you can dance," he said with a chuckle.

Period where the comma is.

I felt safe in his arms, my heart pumped faster, the place on my hip where his hand was casually placed felt like a fireball had just hit it from his soft touch.

You could probably seperate this. =)

I laid down next to him, "I wish nights like this would last forever," I whispered.

I'm beginning to see you do this a lot. The comma shouldn't be there. The comma connects sentances, and you shouldn't be connecting those two together.

"Don't make it sound like the worst thing in the world, we can do this whenever we want, you know that right?" He questioned with an intent look in his eyes.

Lowercase 'he'

The sky grew cloudy as we walked to our houses which were about a block away from each others, his being the farther one.

Houses [comma] which

The leaves still looked beautiful even with the raindrops soaking the colorful leaves and trunk.

comma between beautiful and even.

There were a few convenience stores nearby where me and Lucas liked to hang out sometimes and get ice cream or candy.

Lucas and I

They wanted to sun to shine, not a single cloud in the sky and for it to be the perfect temperature of seventy degrees.

I think you mean 'the sun' not 'to sun'

That wasn't how that day was, I walked to school in the pouring rain, it was only about sixty degrees put with rain and wind it felt like fifty.

The first comma can be a period. I notice you also doing this: combining sentances that don't really need to be combined and can be their own sentances.

It was a yellow color with white door and a white picket fence. It was the traditional American house that you only saw in movies.

What shade of yellow? There's about a bazillion shades of yellow.

"Bye," I yelled back over the rain.

Over the rain? How can you yell over the rain? Try 'I yelled back over my shoulder.'


Overall, this was really good. The scenery was really nice. Your gammar was kind of iffy though. A quick read through would probably fix that though. =D
Can't wait to make my way to chapter one!

doodle:]

Wow, I love it.really good. I like hhow you pictured an image and wrote it and made the reader see whatt you saw, because this is very clear image you gave us. I really liked it . There are some grammatical mistakes but overall, its perfect.

This is the first one I read and when i have more time I'll read the other ones. Just know I really liked your story.

pudin

Wow, I really like this prologe. It sounds really good, keep going! PM me if you ever post more.

I thought this was really good! Only being a prologue it makes me really want to carry on and read the rest of the story. I think the use of description is just right the prologue, we know the basics about the characters, but there is still a lot for us to discover in the rest of the story. Keep up the good work