SHAMAN - Prologue/Epilogue

"‘Reincarnation, literally 'to be made flesh again', is a doctrine or metaphysical belief that some essential part of a living being (in some variations only human beings) survives death to be reborn in a new body. This essential part is often referred to as the spirit or soul, the 'higher' or 'true' self, 'divine spark', or 'I'. According to such beliefs, a new personality is developed during each life in the physical world, but some part of the self remains constant throughout the successive lives.’" Professor Adams quoted from memory.

"That’s from Wikipedia," he continued. The professor had been standing on the terrace for quite some time, watching the sun slowly emerge behind the pine trees. The lake was smooth like a mirror; reflecting the red sky and thereby doubling the beauty of daybreak.
"And that's all we want the world to know about it." He turned his back on twilight and entered the club house. Marcus quietly followed, knowing that the professor would soon cut to the chase. After sitting down in his favorite chair, he did.
"With your newly acquired skills, I’m sure we can change the world. During this time that I’ve been your teacher, I stopped thinking about you as a student. You are like a brother to me." Marcus halted for a moment, soaking in the words that had been spoken. He had thought many times about how it would feel like to have a brother of his own. He shook the professor's hand, nodding slowly, and answered:

"To me you are still a respected teacher, someone who has given me tools to make a difference. You are wise in ways I can only hope I will eventually understand. You have taken the role of the father I never had and given me a place where I can feel accepted. You are my mentor, and I am honored to be your student."

An awkward silence shattered into an absolute silence. The professor started to giggle, in the same manner as when giving his students a surprise tests in History. It only lasted for a few brief seconds. He suddenly turned very serious, and put his hand heavily on Marcus's shoulder. He was frowning in a typical, teacher-like manner.

"I can smell sarcasm and ass-kissing from three lives away. Are you somehow misled, thinking I might reconsider that B- you're getting in history? After everything we've been through, you still couldn't find the time to study for the exams?" Again, they shared a moment of silence. The professor winked at Marcus.

Their common sense of humor was reflected in the laughter that began to echo through the walls of the clubhouse, spreading across the scarred landscape outside. It took them a while to get back to their senses.

"All the things I said were true - regardless of what you might call them," Marcus was fighting to hold back tears. The professor was smiling:

"I know, son. And you're getting a straight A.”

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"Shaman" is a novel I'm writing, following the adventures of Marcus Lee. During his second year in high school, Marcus finds a book with a peculiar symbol engraved on the cover. As Marcus digs deeper into the mysteries of the book, he learns about controlled reincarnation. The book becomes important to him, so when it is stolen, Marcus is committed to find the thief, no matter what.

I found the plot line very interesting. The conversation seemed a little stiff at first, but as you let us [the readers] glimps into the personallty of the characters I understood it all in a deifferent way, and I started laughing along with it, to be honest. I would have liked more description of the club house. I for one, have no idea what a club house might look like. But that could be the magic of it, you're the judge of that. I liked it very, very much! If you decide to post the rest of the story, please Pm me! ofir

ab5986 wrote:I found the plot line very interesting. The conversation seemed a little stiff at first, but as you let us [the readers] glimps into the personallty of the characters I understood it all in a deifferent way, and I started laughing along with it, to be honest. I would have liked more description of the club house. I for one, have no idea what a club house might look like. But that could be the magic of it, you're the judge of that. I liked it very, very much! If you decide to post the rest of the story, please Pm me! ofir

I'm glad you could laugh along, it was what I hoped to achieve. I'm not sure if I'm going to post the rest of the story here, maybe just the first chapter in that case.

Hey, interesting little bit so far.

General comments:

First things first:
I like the opening. And I hate it. Let me explain:
"That’s from Wikipedia,"..."That’s all we want the world to know about it,"
I think that second part of that exchange is a cool line, with lot's of mysterious connotations behind it. But my God that first paragraph is a snoozefest. I think this exchange can either 1. not be the very first thing the reader sees or 2. be reworked a bit so it's not a crazy infodump right away. Even infodumps with purpose are still... eh.

Two sides of the coin:
For a heavily dialouge driven piece the character's seem to flip between this sort of stilted academic talk and more casual teasing. It's not necessarily unrealistic but it certainly kinda reads weird. The end of the chapter leads to a kind of 'what's so funny' moment for at least me personally. Jokes that reduce characters to tears should usually be more than inside jokes or 'you had to be theres'. Although, it's also plausible other readers find it funnier than I do, in which case ignore that part.

Even if I didn't find it necessarily consistent, I thought the dialouge was written well and the title and the talk of resurrection has me intrigued enough to read more. I'll keep reviewing as long as you keep holding my interest PM me if you have any questions!

-Pattycakes

Hey! You haven't been hit by a nitpicker yet I see, so voila! Here I am, to nitpick. I want to start of by complimenting your work, which I can. It was kind-of slow, and I found the speech a little too formal on the part of the student (since I read in your signature that he's in high school), but since I get the impression that the teacher is someone who's been reincarnated, the formality in his speech works, I think. Maybe consider making the student's words more casual, and using "You've" and "I'm" more often. Other than that, it seems to be an intriguing start. (On another note: prologue and epilogue are two different things - prologue is at the beginning, epilogue at the end. Is this going to be repeated at the end? If not, it's just the prologue! )

OK. Nitpicks:

‘Reincarnation, literally “to be made flesh again", is a doctrine or metaphysical belief that some essential part of a living being (in some variations only human beings) survives death to be reborn in a new body. This essential part is often referred to as the spirit or soul, the "higher" or "true" self, "divine spark", or "I". According to such beliefs, a new personality is developed during each life in the physical world, but some part of the self remains constant throughout the successive lives.’

"That’s from Wikipedia," Professor Adams quoted.

I was about to say I'm not sure what's going on, but then I just got that he's probably reading the student's paper of some sort. Am I right? If so, maybe make this clearer, like describe the teacher as pointing to the paragraph on the page or something.

"That’s all we want the world to know about it," he turned his back on the bright red sky of daybreak and entered the club house.

First of all, since the "he turned his back..." isn't describing the speech, so it should be like this: ""That's all we want the world to know about it." He turned his back..." Secondly, is this still the teacher talking? That's the impression I get, so if that's what you were going for, you don't really need a new paragraph before it - just carry right on after "...behind the pine trees."

"I can smell sarcasm and ass-kissing from three lives away. Are you somehow misled, thinking I might reconsider that B- you're getting in history? After everything we've been through, you still couldn't find the time to study for the exams?"

"ass-kissing"? This seems a little out of character. Possibly reconsider? If you like it do ignore me, it's just a thought I had.

"All the things I said were true. Regardless of what you might call them," Marcus was fighting to not break into tears.

Again, I think this might be better: "All the things I said were true - regardless of what you might call them," said Marcus, fighting to hold back tears.

And then the ending - which I thought was marvellous. A really nice start, that with just a little more spice would be utterly perfect. Just enough intrigue and not-dumped character info. Awesome stuff!
~*cottonrulz*~

Just to jump right into it, your hook was very good, but formatted oddly. I think it would look beter as something like this:

"‘Reincarnation, literally 'to be made flesh again', is a doctrine or metaphysical belief that some essential part of a living being, in some variations, only human beings survives death to be reborn in a new body. This essential part is often referred to as the spirit or soul, the 'higher' or 'true' self, 'divine spark', or 'I'. According to such beliefs, a new personality is developed during each life in the physical world, but some part of the self remains constant throughout the successive lives,’" Professor Adams quoted from memory.

"That’s from Wikipedia," he continued.

Wikipedia is actually known to be an unreliable source, and those in the literary world know this and discourage students from using it (I was told by one of my own professors), so this would not be said.

The Professor giggling bit is actually very strange, and I liked that

You need to watch your sentence structure - it's choppy sometimes. But I do like the descriptions, the bar, the moonlight. All good stuff. Keep writing. Oh, and I loved the last line. You just hit that moment so well.

KJ